Days of downpours dampened determination across the Somme. On the 1st of July, however, it would be more than rain trickling between the crevices and filling the craters caused by intense artillery fire. Under the beaming sun, the British and French were to rise from their trenches and mop up what their shells hadn’t cleared.
Cigarette smoke plumed out from our cheerful faces. The advance was dawning. A suppressed excitement was apparent from glinting eyes. Lee Enfield rifles in hand and helmets donned, our push would be powerful. Two days of heavy rains had postponed the assault, but that only gave the artillery more time to strike the enemy down.
This morning, another round of bombardment struck the enemy, terrific in its intensity. As if we didn’t have good enough odds.
Another swig of my water bottle to occupy my hands, mouth, tongue, and throat. Hardship, injury, and death were doubtless possibilities; however, our spirit roared high. I employed a smile as I took in my peers. Our inexperience and frank lack of training wouldn’t be a barrier, thanks to the shells and explosions that cast a light mist over the enemy trenches.
We had been waiting a long while for what would be the first action most of us would experience. Admittedly, the quality of life in the trenches was not expected or foretold, but the might and power of the British Expeditionary Force pushed us through. It would be our combined efforts that would carry us over No Man’s Land and deliver us to our target.
One reservation remained, however. Barbed wire stretched itself before the enemy trenches, barring our advance. Gaps were few and far between. Aircraft reconnaissance reassured us that the artillery had split the wire and blasted it to smithereens. Quick glances with our binoculars proved otherwise. At the very least, there would be scarcely a soul to fight back, so it shouldn’t promote the difficulty of our march.
Serene and cheerful, our lieutenant walked into our trench as everyone made way for him. Rifle strapped to his person, without saying a word, he clambered up the scaling ladder and out of the trench. Mud fell from his boots as he climbed. Exposed and facing us all, he took another drag of his cigarette. Eyes scanning, he thought for a moment.
“Advance.”
Limbs moving automatically, we took one step after another toward the ladders. Mutely, excitement surged in that moment as adrenaline trickled into our arms and legs. My turn to take the ladder. I didn’t mind the mud as I heaved myself up.
No Man’s Land spread out for me as I fully extended myself. I had to recall the plan. Line up and walk forward, slowly and collected, as if a football were in front of us. My heartbeat quickened as I looked at our target so far away. Our path was littered with holes and craters and mud.
The sun cast upon me; I had never felt so exposed. The lieutenant was already walking, soldiers in tow. With each step, my stomach fell a little lower. I was waiting for it.
And it quickly came.
Intense machine gun fire lit up their trench as the ground in front of us was torn apart. Bodies fell, cries snapped. Dozens of bullets hit something every second; I had no choice but to drop to the floor, my lungs already bursting with effort.
“Down!”
Deafening, the din of gunfire was a bombardment of itself. The only thoughts that penetrated it were of hardship, injury, and death. No longer ideas to be entertained, but stark company. Expecting to be blown to pieces or shot, I curled into a tight ball, my head only elevated to see. Not that it helped.
Dust and dirt veiled my vision. The groans and cries of my friends were my sole indicator of direction.
Plucking the courage to crawl forward, lest I be torn asunder, I found the ground falling from beneath my heaving chest. Tumbling into a crater, the shock and terror paralyzed me. Had I been shot, cut, or hurt? I couldn’t tell.
My intense thirst couldn’t be satiated. Upon lifting my water bottle, I found a bullet had drained it.
It was a ghastly failure already.
Bullets made looking up impossible. Sounds of suffering signaled where others were. In front, behind, to the side.
Shallow breaths pummeled in and out of my chest as I plastered myself to the floor, hoping the mud would consume me. There was no way out of the coffin that confined me. Memories of home haunted, flashes of faces. Death’s icicle hands plunged into my spine and flushed my body cold. I thought I would surely die.
Soldiers, rifles in hand, charged over and around the crater that shielded me. Incredulous, I flipped around and peeked to see them surge ahead. Watching in awe, their bravery incinerated the ice in my veins. Their fire and spirit carrying me, I dragged myself from the open grave and struck the floor with my legs, meaning to charge.
A yell of fury, fueled by panic and desperation, kickstarted my legs into running. Getting closer, the barbed wire became apparent as soldiers were funneled into tight gaps, as if sheep to the slaughter.
A German shell tossed me to the ground; its heat punching out the fire that raged in my core. Beaten, I propped myself against a log caked in mud and blood. Bodies littered around me, some twitching, some staring. Some breathing.
With horror as my lens, I witnessed as ranks of green walked forth, hampered by crawling wounded, open craters, spanning wire, and rattling machine guns.
They said all we had to do was walk forth and kill anyone still standing. They said they had all been destroyed. They said we’d be fine. No need to worry.
Readying my gun, I tried to steady my aim as I targeted the muzzle flash of a machine gun. An impossible shot. I had in my hands something capable of destroying anything I wanted it to. Yet it was useless in my hands as I loosened shot after shot into mud and dirt.
I dropped the futile task. I would have to get close if I wanted the nightmare to end. In such close quarters, I could use my bayonet, or even my revolver that swung by my side, once gleaming. With a new hope, I looked up. The same scene met me.
Soldiers struggling forth, before getting smacked down by relentless streams of bullets. Parched, I could taste the awful paste my mouth was pitifully producing. Metal laced the air and was there on my tongue.
Breathing fastened. Hands tightened.
I charged, the pent anxiety cracking like lightning in my legs. Thunderous claps sounded from each bullet let off by a machine gun – storming our bodies like hail and drenching the ground like rain. Each step pounded my mind, isolating my other senses.
Before I knew it, I was on the floor again. With each step that carried me closer to those guns, the more I could feel the phantom wounds spilling my blood. A slight look up, and as far as my eyes could see, soldiers still saddled onwards, slowly. Agonizingly.
Clockwork machinations, most walked as bullets ran through them. Not even explosions spurred them into dashing. Further ahead, those who tried to cut the wire to create more gaps ended up tangled in it in bloody messes, like discarded playthings. The worst part was that I knew it was happening across the front, much, much further than I could see.
Hopeless, I lay there. My only option was either to line up at one of the gaps and walk through, or swim through waves of barbed wire, rendering me to ribbons.
I was a soldier, after all, and had to make a choice.
The moment I rose to make my next push, a bullet tore through my chest, shattering my vision and dropping me to my knees. Blinded, I could do nothing as my rifle dropped from my useless hands.
Indeed, it was a ghastly failure.
All I did see as I slumped to the floor, was ranks and ranks of red.

On that fateful day, over 57,000 British and French soldiers would fall through with their footsteps as machine gun fire riddled the walking lines. Some German trenches were overrun, only to be retaken. What was supposed to be the first and final attack of the Battle of the Somme ended up being merely the start of five months of intense warfare.

Ranks of Green, turned to Red is an installment in my currently WIP Campaigns of Sacrifice: Somme series. It’s the second short story that covers the first time the soldiers went over the top during the Battle of the Somme in 1916.

I shared it to Reddit when looking for beta readers, so here is the post-beta-reader-critique edition. When I revisit the series, I may tweak it some more, but I’m pretty happy with it.