Beginning of a Short Story..."Homecoming"

Ulysses Gaze

Let me know what you all think!

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Once again James is back there...

...standing in liquid mud, the bitter October air slicing right through his uniform, chilling him to the marrow. The sky was the colour of gun-metal, and the rain sheeted from the heavens bouncing off the steel pots affixed to several hundred heads.

It didn't matter how many layers you wore, he thought, in this place, at this time of the year it was never enough to keep you warm. The rain and mud only added to the misery he was feeling. That they all were feeling. He looked around for confirmation of this and was greeted by the gaunt, miserable faces of those other poor sods whom were in the same dishevelled state as he. You just couldn't keep anything dry or clean in this weather, he thought. Yet you were expected to be presentable for inspection every morning and every evening.

Madness!

He shook his head and extinguished his rolled cigarette, placing the remaining butt-end into an ornate metal cigarette holder; a trophy taken from the pockets of a German soldier many months ago. Officially you were meant to surrender this type of contraband to the Army. Few did however, and in this case James was one of them. The men were so poorly paid that they felt the least they deserved was some form of compensation for their efforts. After all they were only giving their lives for King and Country weren’t they? At least in the Post Office, they would get some sort of bonus; the couple of shillings extra at Christmas, a bottle of port or some mince pies. Always gratefully received.

Not out here though. Not as part of Kitchener’s ‘Mob’. An extra portion of chocolate and rum? After risking your life?

So it had been with little guilt that he had fished the sumptuously engraved cigarette case out of the pocket of the dead German Sergeant who had forfeited his life in the fierce hand-to-hand combat that had broken out after a successful Allied counter-attack. It looked like he had met his end by a bayonet through the throat as it, and the whole front of his uniform, was drenched in thick, drying blood. Still warm too judging from the steam rising off of the corpse. The German had lain slumped on his side, his head resting on his right shoulder, eyes closed, his whole face a mask of peace despite his gruesome end.

As James had inspected the cigarette holder he had noticed words in German engraved on the inside:

Für mein liebster Heinrich. Ich werde dich immer lieben. Ihr Liebling Martha.
It was then than an overwhelming feeling of sadness had engulfed him. He didn’t need to speak German to get the gist of what the words meant, although he learned later what it did mean – My dearest Henry. I will love you forever. Your dearest Martha.

He had debated putting the case back in the German’s pocket and decided to keep it. If he didn’t take it someone else would. He had looked again at the engraved words and then again at the corpse before him. All around him, his comrades were busy rifling through the pockets of the dead. Trench knives, pistols, money, diaries and pictures of families were all fair game. He remembered thinking at the time;

Christ, is this what we’ve become? Scavengers of the dead? We’re no better than the f******* rats.

What time was it now? Roll call had been at 5am. It was always the same whether they were going on the offensive or not. Morning Hate. There were no better words to describe it. Up at dawn, man your posts and keep an eye out in case the Hun decided to test your mettle. Not easy after a night of such fitful sleep.

The bombardment that had pulverised the Hun lines for almost two days had been, as McLintock had described it, like the wrath of God. The ground where they had now stood had shaken all night as the mighty guns had poured forth their rage across no-man's land.

He had lain on his cot watching the muddy soil crumble off the walls as the reverberations from the explosion of shells over a mile away dislodged it in larger and larger clumps. He'd been half listening to the others converse in low voices, but had mainly been lost in his own thoughts. Thoughts of family. Thoughts of friends. Thoughts of home.

There had been Wilkins, McLintock, Hatch and himself in the bunker that night. The bunker was tiny, just enough room for bunked beds, a small desk, a place to stow your gear and yourselves. A single paraffin lamp illuminated the gloom, throwing off eerie shadows as it swayed back and forth courtesy of the vibrations emanating from the German lines.

cobsie

It's competently written, but you are a little distant from the action, the narrative voice is quite stiff, not really fully located in James' consciousness. You should commit to his point of view and bring the action into his world - the shelling is described in words rather than feelings - through an intellectual process rather than the gut reaction of one surviving the conditions. Try to chose words that are more physical and avoid cliches like 'the wrath of god'. The story is strongest at the points of minor detail, they are what makes it (and any story) feel real.

Hope that's helpful. Would be interested in seeing more!

Ulysses Gaze

cobsie wrote: »

It's competently written, but you are a little distant from the action, the narrative voice is quite stiff, not really fully located in James' consciousness. You should commit to his point of view and bring the action into his world - the shelling is described in words rather than feelings - through an intellectual process rather than the gut reaction of one surviving the conditions. Try to chose words that are more physical and avoid cliches like 'the wrath of god'. The story is strongest at the points of minor detail, they are what makes it (and any story) feel real.

Hope that's helpful. Would be interested in seeing more!

Cheers for the feedback. Appreciate it.

I think you've pretty much nailed what I suspected was the problem with this story. The narrative has been a pain in the ass - trying to almost write it in two voices which was getting me tied up in knots.

Will have to look at this again.

pickarooney

I really liked this and wasn't particularly thrown by the detached voice. If anything I thought it leant something to the narrative to have the narrator describe the horror of war in cold detail.

There is, though, a bit of a problem with voice and tense, as you recognise. You start in the present "James is back there" and a line later "the sky was the colour of gun-metal". This tends to change the focus from one of immersion to one of reflection so this might be a good starting point in trying to resolve the voice issue - pick a tense and stick with it, and adapt the level of involvement in the descriptions accordingly.