Realm of the Beast.

I barely had time to duck my head down before the German shell exploded into the top of the trench above me. A cascade of dirt and dead matter rained down over the dozen or so men around me.
The nearest turned to me and declared, “Jesus Christ, that was a close call!”

“Aye!” I agreed, my gaze reaching upward in to the night sky.

Every four or five seconds, the darkness was chased away by the explosion of another mortar shell close by.
The British soldier next to me turned again and remarked; “Only three days to Halloween you know Acker”.

My name is Edward Accrington, but every body just calls me ‘Acker’ for short.
I looked back at Billy Young. He was an infantry soldier just like me but that was where the similarities ended.
Whilst I was called up to serve my country in its darkest hour, Billy had volunteered as soon as the news of war had spread.
I came from a working class family in Hexham, in the north east of England.
He hailed from a semi-aristocratic family in Kent, in the south.
My mind was on the German guns pounding our troops incessantly, his was on the fancy dress party at home in Maidstone.

“Halloween? Like I give a shit, stuck out here.” I retorted.

Just at that, a fist sized shard of shrapnel zinged through the air inches from my face.
Young grinned back at me, his eyes shining with reflections of the night fires.

Just when I thought the night couldn’t get much worse, a German soldier dropped into our trench about twenty feet away.
I’d heard of these suicidal Gerry’s before – and hoped I’d never meet one.
Up until that moment, I’d believed them to be just the stuff of campfire stories.
Yet, now there was an honest to god - Nazi death dealer not more than a spit away!
The mud-clad soldier levelled his sub-machine gun along the trench towards us.
I heard him pull back on the cocking bolt almost as if in slow motion. Then the unmistakable chatter of his Schmiesser.
A deadly stream of bullets ripped into the trench wall where my head had been seconds earlier.

I threw myself backwards; as much in fright as in defence. As I raised my service revolver and squeezed off a shot, at least three of my troop fired in unison.
The bullets slammed the German invader backwards but the machine gun kept on firing as he fell.
Another five shots, my own among them, ripped into him again.

Then an entrenching shovel came soaring over our heads and landed in front of the dying enemy soldier.

A final shot caught him in the forehead, just below the helmet and sent him spinning to the mud filled floor of the trench.

“Nice one!” someone called out.

“Aye, good shot!” someone else agreed.

“Which dip-shit threw the shovel?” I asked, glad to be alive.

“That would be Capstan’s new war skills”.

All faces turned to Capstan. As always the unlit cigarette was dangling from his lips.

He shrugged and retorted; “Ran out of friggin’ bullets didn’t I!” As if to demonstrate, he waved his revolver in the air and pulled the trigger, which fell with a click on an empty chamber.

Billy stooped and picked up a brick, “Hey Capstan, here!” as he tossed the mud-covered rock to his friend “Just in case you see any tanks”.