Free The Ephemera by Hal Duncan, Neil Williamson

General and the rest of us stared back at him.
    "One of your men, Sergeant?" Atkinson asked.
    "Private Willis, Sir. Currently on sentry duty," the little Geordie sergeant replied sourly.
    "Better get a replacement up there, then. We can't drop our vigilance for a moment, now can we?" Atkinson said this without taking his eyes off the lad. The boy looked as if he might faint.
    "Yes, Sir," the sergeant said, and with jilt of his head spurred one of the others into motion up the stairs. Willis had to come fully into the dug-out to let him pass.
    "That's a clumsy wound you have there, boy." The way Atkinson said clumsy was as if to say that he found difficulty in imagining that anyone could be so ham fisted. "How'd you come by it?" he asked.
    "A piece of shell casing, Sir," Willis whimpered. "It was hidden in the mud."
    The General mused for a moment. Then he said, "Still," and there was a sharpness in that word like the unsheathing of his regimental sword. It sliced the air between them with military unequivocation. "Still," he repeated himself, "a trip to the field hospital's probably in order, don't you think? A short rest up there and you'll be as right as rain. I expect, eh?"
    Willis nodded uncertainly, puzzled by the officer's tone but exhibiting too obvious relief at his words. The sergeant reacted quickly. "Lambert," he addressed another of his men, "Make sure Willis gets to the field hospital..."
    "No need, Sergeant," Atkinson cut in. "Hawthorne here has all the necessary skills." I swear that was the first time during that entire trip he had as much as acknowledged my presence—and now it was to make me complicit in his tormenting of this young soldier.
    Nevertheless, I deferred to his rank with a muted, "Sir," and looked at the wound.
    Having had his fun, Atkinson decided that the tour was at an end. "Finish up quickly and join us back at the car," he said to me.
    Suturing the boy's hand took longer than I'd first anticipated. The wound was not only deep but he had torn the webbing between the second and third fingers. To his credit, he made not a sound the whole time, except to say, "I never did it on purpose, Sir."
    "Of course you didn't," I reassured, quietly noncommittal, although I couldn't blame him if he had. By the looks of him he was pretty well scared enough to do something that drastic. As I finished off the stitches I wondered privately how long it would be before he turned up at the field hospital with a bullet in the foot.
    What do I remember of those moments immediately after leaving that dug-out? I remember pausing for a second, trying to recall which direction to go. I remember a stickling of fine rain on my brow, a sudden and out of place, fresh meadowy smell, and a far away sound—a sound that did not become louder as such, but rather became increasingly present in my world. Then the detonation: a chaos of sound and a heavy rain of stinking wet earth that thudded down on top of my suddenly prone body. My first thought was of Willis and his comrades and, shamefully, how fortunate I had been to escape their fate of interment in the caved-in dug-out. Perhaps, however, there might be some hope if I could locate the spot where the entrance had been and dig quickly, but even as I regained my footing, a second shell exploded and sent me scurrying in the opposite direction, all thoughts of Willis and his comrades blasted away.
    I zigzagged haphazardly along the supply trenches between the lines as the earth flew into the sky and choking smoke billowed around me. I searched desperately for shelter, but nothing made sense to my eyes. Then I was almost tumbling down a set of dug-out stairs before I was aware that the entrance was there.
    I stumbled down the stairs, confused and sickened, but what stopped me was the warm murmur of conversation—the intimate sounds of fireside company. So normal and welcoming a thing here amid the mud and smoke with the artillery pounding iron fists into the earth.
    I descended