Counterattack (2)

No birds sang on the Western Front.

Even the common battlefield visitor, the carrion crow, was hard to find.

Because flesh that had rotted without dying could not be pecked at.

And even if they did, under nature's stern law of selection, those birds would soon become prey for the corpses.

In a place like this, there were only two sounds to hear.

The roar of shellfire and bombardment that shook the land.

And the scraping of rusted metal against loose metal, filling the gaps in between.

That sound, like wrenching a rusted hinge by force, was in fact the sound of corpses scraping against the iron fences in front of the trenches.

"Left flank! Trench 3 on the left is breached!"

"How many? How many got in!"...