by Ray Daley
*English Minute - The amount of time it takes to realise your situation hasn't improved at all.
We kept the head though and it came in useful during the seventh month, when we stuck it on a spike and put a helmet on it. We kept on putting it over the top of the trench at night to check whether the enemy were still awake or not.
Damn, these guys never slept either; they must have gone to the same classes as the Sarge, since they always took shots at it. We took great delight in pissing them off by shouting out things like "Damn, that hit me, and it really hurt bad.". We reckon that it worked since they always shot at our heads when we put them over the top of the trench.
For three whole days after the last bunch of attacks by bombing there was a strange kind of agreed cease-fire, since it went really quiet. Most of us; the new Sarge included; thought it was a trick and that the enemy were trying a surprise attack, but the Sarge was so pissed off that he hadn't thought of it first that he sent twenty random guys from the south end of the trench and made them crawl over the top through no-mans land.
I guess they made it quite far as the Sarge said that he had seen them engage an advance enemy gun position and move forward to the enemy lines before they all got blown up. It was just like those sneaky stinking bastards to place mines in front of their own trench. That also really pissed the Sarge off too; as he figured he should have thought of that one first too.
After that they stopped shooting at the CO's head, so we guessed our guys must have killed an advance sniper party before they bought it. Later that night, Anderson, one of the real quiet guys; caught the Sarge asleep and stabbed him twenty or thirty times before I shot him through the neck. I think he either choked or just plain bled to death. There were only ten of us then including me, and that was only two months ago.
A couple of guys who were real gung-ho types decided that it was their duty to die, so they both went over the top and ran towards the enemy trench.
They headed for the same place as the last attack; figuring that all the mines would have been activated. They figured right, but it didn't really do them any good since the enemy must have been watching them advance, because they shot rocket bombs from behind their trench and blew the two of them into little pieces.
What seemed like a week of silence passed and Phillips (who everyone thought was a crazy anyway) threw off his gun and strolled over the field with his hands in the air, trying to surrender. Evidently; these guys didn't understand, or didn't care since they just cut him to bits with machine gun fire.
He started to scream when they opened fire, but he didn't scream for very long, but the echoes of his screaming haunted me every night for weeks afterwards. No-one was in charge any more but we still had someone posted on guard every night. We didn't know why we were still there fighting, or if we even were still fighting.
Mostly I think we were just trying to stay alive. Towards the end of last month we stockpiled all our spare gear, weapons, ammo, food, pretty much everything we could get. Drew went over to the officers trench and brought back solid food, not rations.
The food wasn't the only thing he brought back with him either, not only did he tell us that all of the officers were dead; he died five and a half days later from some fever that he had picked up over there.
We left everything he had brought back and moved down the trench for a couple of weeks, living in our pressure suits until the med scan declared the area safe. Lomax went over to the officers trench in his suit and ran some tests.
Turns out that all of their food and water had been infected with some chemical agent that we'd never recorded before, so we had to destroy everything that was there, except the ammo, which we used up while we were still in our suits; and eventually we took Drew's body over there and torched it.
The enemy saw the smoke and started bombing the compound again. I was just about back in our trench in time to take cover, Lomax was only coming out of the compound. He never knew what happened, since they had fired a mini-nuke and he got vaporised along with about half a square klick of the compound.
Riggs and Hawk went at the same time, since both of them had been on the ridge behind the trench, they were hit by the force of the blast (which must have killed them) and blown into the enemy minefield. When they hit, they must have hit a mine, so either way, they were both dead men.
Page had eaten some the food that Drew brought back before I could get to him, so he was still pretty warm when I found his body, still holding the cheese which had killed him in his hand. I was still suited up so I threw his body over the front, I didn't care if the enemy wasted their ammo on another corpse.
Until about a week ago there was just me and Sigmarsen left.
He really knew how to stay alive, and he had some history. This here was a guy who had some real ancient ancestors from Earth. He decided that none of the enemy was gonna make him a slave, so he goes to his pack and takes out a dirty great big axe. The last thing he did, was to say to me "Just you wait here little Alex. I'll come back real soon, then we can go home" then he grinned this gross cheesy grin and went over the top.
I could hear him singing at the top of his lungs, singing for all he was worth over his helmet radio. Singing his crazy foreign song. A couple of figures ran up to him firing their guns, but he just chopped them down with his axe, just like they was trees or something; and this singing. Man, he wouldn't stop singing.
I watched him wading through a whole group of twenty figures, chopping and hacking and that singing. I lost count of how many guys he killed and how many times they shot at him but he just carried on walking over the field until he disappeared into the fog, and this singing gradually faded away into the radio ether.
That was it then, he never came back. Who knows; maybe he's still walking and singing and killing. I just watched him go, and for days after that there was much shooting and loads of explosions, but none of them were aimed at my position. Yesterday it all went quiet for the final time. I have slept on and off but still no sound.
I decided to de-suit so I could save what air I had. Today I took a long hard look over the top of the trench, I could still see the corpses of the men that Sigmarsen had slain. No shots were fired. I decided to wait until night. Finally, after an eternity had passed, the darkness came and lay around me like a comfortable cloak. I picked up some night vision goggles and my gun.
With my new night vision and a full clip of ammo and several spare, I went over the top. It didn't take more than a few minutes to reach the first gun position where our guys had taken down the snipers. The bodies of two humanoids lay in the trench. Making sure, I put one round in each head from a comfortable distance.
You can't be too careful.
These two had been dead for months, but the sound of my weapon vaguely reassured me of my safety. Twenty or thirty more paces brought me up to bodies of the men that Sigmarsen had slaughtered in his own unique style. I continued walking for about three minutes before I found myself in front of their main trench.
I paused for a few short moments, praying to some God that I no longer believed in, before I stepped down into the trench of the creatures that I had sworn to kill, in a time so long before. I found it as I had not expected, there were no corpses decaying, no hordes of aliens; Just plain empty.
I spent at least a day and a half wandering, aimlessly through the empty miles of their trench.
I found nothing.
No food, no weapons, no ammo, no bodies, nothing.
I did not feel safe even then, so I returned to my own trench and found out my pack. The med scan said I was healthy and that the air was breathable. I tested all of the water cans I found and surprisingly they were all ok.
With the supplies of several thousand men to keep me going I knew that I could live here and most likely die of old age in this trench. I left one of our Laser Cannons on Auto-Aim so that I could sleep safely without being attacked.
My time unit told me that I had been out
for two days. I checked the Cannon and it had not fired a single shot. Once more I trekked across the field to the enemy trench, this time moving towards the southern-most end. I had been moving for about half the day before I realised that I was following a moving object of unknown description at an unknown distance in front of me.
None of the instruments I had could get a proper fix on whatever it was. The readings were far too vague but I was sure I would find out sooner rather than later who or what it was that I was following.
Within the perimeter of the enemy trenches I found an underground bunker. It was empty but I was able to secure it from inside as it still had a thick metal door with a locking mechanism that did both lock and unlock, I had no desire to entomb myself but wanted to feel safe during my next sleep cycle.
The morning brought fog and what I eventually realised was some kind of static interference over my suit radio. Using triangulation I was able to track its source and headed towards it armed but nervous.
As a fairly new trooper my morning was an early one so I'd clearly woken long before my unknown source. I hoped whoever it was stayed sleeping long enough for me to get the drop on them.
Sooner you than me, whoever you are.
An hours force march brought me to the source, another underground bunker, very similar to where I had spent my own night.
However my static source had made one fatal mistake, I found the metal door slightly ajar. Clearly whoever was inside had not tried the locking mechanism like I had done, or had not had the faith in it to not seal themselves inside.
I wasn't able to scan the interior so I raised my weapon and crawled inside. I'd been well enough trained in combat methodology, no way was I going to be stupid enough to just walk in and offer my torso as a big bullseye to aim at.
The room inside was on night lighting and I could see the humanoid figure in one of the bunks. And that humanoids second mistake, their weapon propped against a wall well out of reach. This enemy was either badly trained or extremely complacent.
I managed to crawl my way to the weapon and there was the realisation. It wasn't just familiar, it was identical to the one I had in my own hands. I assumed this humanoid had stolen it from one my dead compatriots. I unloaded the weapon and tossed it across the room onto some sacking, it made no sound.
Making my way to my feet I stood over the bunk. The suit this humanoid wore was also identical to the one I was wearing, had it also stolen this from another of my dead compatriots? Possibly the same one whose weapon it had liberated?
I set my helmet visor to clear. I wanted to make sure this scum saw my face, I wanted it to know I was of the same species as the friends it had killed and stolen both the suit and weapon from. I gave the bunk a kick.
No response. A second harder kick that gave also no response. My next kick was clearly aimed at the humanoids midsection. It sat up, reaching for the weapon I had tossed away.
"Gone, I'm afraid. As will you be very shortly" I said to it. The static I had been getting in my suit helmet stopped. The humanoid frantically punched at the helmet controls but was obviously unable to clear the visor to reveal its face. It reached up to pop its helmet.
"Nice and slow now, ok?" I said, making sure it understood any idiotic move would be its last with the gesture of my own weapon.
The helmet dropped to the bunk. The wearer wasn't just humanoid.
She was human. Like me.
I couldn't understand.
"Where did you steal that suit and weapon from?" she asked me.
"Steal? I was issued this! Fourth Imperial Foot Trooper Division. I was about to ask you the same question" I replied.
"Fourth eh? First Imperial Shock Troop Division here, so exactly why were you attacking us?" she enquired.
"Us attacking you? You attacked us first!" I said.
Over the course of the next few minutes and hours the whole tale unfolded.
The Imperial Forces had rousted every known alien world in the sector. Yet they needed to justify their continued existence and expenses. So they established a planet for what they said would be war games training.
Only the troops sent to it were told any other troops they encountered would be alien troops who were to be killed on sight. We had run out of enemies and were now fighting ourselves.
Military mentality had imploded.
As a great man once said "We have met the enemy and he is us"
THE END.
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Authors Notes:- About 7 days after putting "In The Mist" online, a very long search discovered this at silly O'clock in the morning. Obviously I celebrated (quietly as to not wake up the neighbours, not that they ever reciprocate) then tried to see how much of the story I had.
It turned out I had everything I'd done and it was all typed, I don't think a hand written version of this ever existed. I was clearly getting as much mileage as possible out of the electronic typewriter I bought in year 3 at High Wycombe.
The date on this isn't exact, the typed up version had no date on it so the one on this finished version is my best guess. My personal guess would be I wrote this whilst I was working for CRE (Airfields) which is probably why the lead character is an Army sounding rank.
PFC is actually a US Marine rank though, so I have to wonder if I'd seen Full Metal Jacket recently when I wrote this. I'm guessing I probably bought or hired it on VHS close to when I created this story.
From the descriptions of Basic Training (partially based on watching Full Metal Jacket, partially nicked from Harry Harrison's "Bill" series) it sounds like I was still bitter about my own basic at Swinderby and trade training at Hereford.
As far as I am aware I am the inventor of the term "English Minute".
Character names
Riggs was clearly from Lethal Weapon and Hawk was my favourite member of WWF tag-team The Legion Of Doom. I'm not sure where Alex came from (Most likely from A Clockwork Orange hence Sigmarsen calling him "Little Alex") but Ford was from Ford Prefect. No clue what inspired Drew, Phillips, Anderson or Lomax. I guess they were just good names for potential cannon-fodder. Page I don't need to explain to anyone who knows me well.
Sigmarsen was based on Jon Pall Sigmarsson - a former worlds strongest man. I couldn't remember how to spell it properly (no Internet back in 1994 to look it up on!) but I had him in mind when I wrote the character. The bit where he chops enemies down like trees is borrowed from the lyrics of an 80's song called "Camouflage" where the protagonist is also a PFC.
When Alex says there are only 10 of them left I actually counted and that’s exactly how many there are. I am guessing I wrote down there were 10 then invented 9 names, making sure I cross each one off as I killed their character off. Apart from Sigmarsen none of them were really important, I just needed some people to die to show Alex was alone on his own side of the war.
When I found this it didn't have an ending. It was left unfinished at the section where Alex realises someone else is there with him.
I don't think it was ever supposed to have an ending but it always concluded the way I've finished it here.