Archie

"Let me at 'em!" Was all I could think while marching along through the small French village. I'd been waiting for this moment for a long time now, a chance to shoot at some Jerry's and serve my country like all men should be doing! I felt proud of myself, a warm feeling flooding my chest as I marched along: although I was tired and weary from all the marching that we had been made to do along the winding roads I was still enthusiastic about my destination.

"Be careful darling"

My mother had warned me this before I had stepped out of the door on my last time at being home before I was sent to France to serve my country. The surrounding area was some what familiar, just like England. It was pretty like the country side that I had spent my childhood running around in. Rows and rows of hedgerows, flat fields and picturesque scenes like a painting that you'd see hanging on a wall in a house.

The weary faces around me were saying a completely different message to what I was thinking. The young guys like me had the eager look on their face, ignorance I soon later learned. But the other guys who'd been serving already had that broken look on their face, like there was nothing left in them to do anything anymore. At the time, this had puzzled me. The government kept telling us the soldiers were happy? Why aren't they? I questioned myself over and over again during that march. But it was a question that could only be answered when one had experienced the war for himself...