Free Isle Royale by John Hamilton

day we were relieved and sent to a support trench farther back. But later, we discovered that the Germans had retaken their trench at Hill 56, so that night we went over the top again. This time, it was like a scene from hell, as flames and explosions lit up the black night. The rains began, and of course this made it all the more difficult. Finally, we took back our precious trench. Of the fifty men I knew from training camp, only three were left alive.
    The artillery quieted momentarily. All around us, through the pitter-patter of the rain, we could hear the sounds of the wounded on the battlefield. Voices cried out to us in the darkness. “I can’t swim!” one man kept shouting. With a chill running up my spine, I realized the wounded men had crawled into fresh bomb craters, which were now filling with rainwater. There was nothing we could do, except listen, as our comrades slowly drowned.
    But there were more horrors to bear. The trench we occupied was filled with bloody carnage, the bodies of Canadian and German soldiers stacked one on top of another. We set off to bury them immediately, shoving them to one side of the trench and shoveling dirt over the corpses. Now, as we walk down the lines, the earth is mushy and soft from the bodies buried just underneath. Limbs often get uncovered and stick out of the mud. Hands always unnerve me the most. There was one hand that each soldier shook, saying a hearty “Morning,” as he passed by. Even I did this. Gallows humor is one way we keep from going mad here. That, and the whiskey.
    The stench is truly overpowering. We tie cloths over our mouths, but it does no good. The rats and mice are terrible, but the flies are the pests I hate the worst. They come into the trenches in multitudes. Sometimes, their buzzing drowns out even the artillery. At night they settle on the walls of the trenches. When the moon shines, the trench walls look like a living mass of black carpet. We go through the trenches with shovels, smashing the flies dead by the millions. But by the next morning, they’re back in full force.
    The lice make it impossible for me to sleep; I feel as if I’m slowly being eaten alive. None of us can stop shitting because of the dysentery. I’m tired and weak. My thoughts are filled with impending doom. There is a rumor that we will go over the top again soon. I hope we are relieved before then. Let some other poor bastard go over the top. What more does my country want from me?
    Is there a God? I no longer think so.
    JL

    April 22, 1918, Dunkirk, France
    Collene,
    I write this from an army hospital. I think I will be shipped home soon, if I don’t die first.
    Do you remember my last letter, when I told you my fears of going over the top yet again? The rumor proved untrue. Instead, I volunteered for something far worse: night patrol. Why I put myself in harm’s way, I do not know. Perhaps insanity had finally gripped my mind. I know one part of me wanted to strike back at the unseen enemy that was inflicting so much pain. Night patrol was my chance to sneak out in inky blackness and make my mark upon the war. A vision kept dancing in my head, that of the German on Hill 56, holding his guts in his hands. The vision was not altogether unpleasant. My courage bolstered by a bottle of whiskey, I leapt at the chance to show Fritz what we Canadians are made of.
    There were two of us that night, myself and Private Campion, from Montreal. Campion was a rough sort of fellow, with blazing eyes that I swear burned yellow. He was the kind of man who would stab quick and hard even if he met the devil in no-man’s land. I was happy to have him by my side. We stood there preparing ourselves in the trench that night, blackening each other’s faces with burnt cork, putting socks over our bayonets so the gleaming steel would not give us away to enemy snipers. We equipped ourselves with knives and clubs, and a few grenades, in case of emergency. (The noise that grenades produce