The Rusting Jungle. "A Taste of Reality." 17th. August 1917.

ROBERT JONES, 3RD BATTALION Royal Welsh Fusiliers, sprinted through the trenches, filled with an absolute, mind-destroying terror. Ahead, the route lay deserted. Behind, around a corner in the moonlit-painted trench like some scene from a ghastly, sick painting, he could hear heavy, lumbering boots pounding the duckboards. They were coming for him. Coming fast ...

Rain fell, cooling skin, drenching his coat and hair and face. His boots thudded on uneven boards as he powered on, fingers flexing uselessly as if in some unbidden awareness that he had no weapon. No weapon.

He stopped suddenly, sliding on treacherous, mud-slick timber. His hand steadied himself against the damp earth wall, fingers leaving tiny indentations. Above him, thick streamers of twisted barbed wire rattled in the wind.

He listened.

There ... again ... they were following. He could hear boots raking the boards, clattering as they pounded down a parallel communications trench to his left. Jones ducked down, kneeling, cowering against the damp mud wall which stained his coat, trying to hide from them ... whatever they were.

Water soaked through his trousers and his toes went numb with the cold.

I wish I had my — — ing SMLE, he thought, mouth dry, eyes tired, mind firing like a tank's massive, roaring engine. He patted his pockets, looking for a blade or pistol. He remembered Bainbridge's Beholla, of which the man had been so proud. Jones could have done with that gun now ...

Suddenly, he realised the sounds of charging boots had stopped.

His head came up, looking around. Where were they?

Damn. Damn!

Move! his instincts screamed at him, and he heard the scrabbling of stones and soil, glancing up as a huge black shadow loomed above him. It was big, wearing a heavy German overcoat, but within this shell, its body was slick and black, thick twisted coils like oiled tree roots. The face was narrow and pointed, and merged with a Hun helmet, flesh and metal fused, grey eyes narrowed, long yellow fangs curling up from a disjointed jaw that looked more like machinery, cogs in clockwork.

It screeched and leapt at him from the top of the trench, but Jones was already kicking backwards, slipping and sliding, and the creature hit the duckboards, slipping itself, pitching forward, and Jones saw his opportunity. He leapt, boot lashing out, connecting with the creature's jaw. It howled, stumbling back, and Jones waded in, fists flying, right straight, left uppercut, all the while fear and disgust rioting through him. What is it? his mind screeched. What the — — ing hell is it? He planted his fist in its face, snapping a long yellow fang, but then something heavy landed on his back, crushing him to the ground.

Ah. There were more ...

His head lashed backwards, and he felt something break, but then something appeared before his eyes. It was a long curved bayonet, etched with runes and rust. Slowly, it turned before his eyes, as if he were being offered the chance to survey this murder weapon before it did its dirty work.

"No," he managed, as he watched the creature in front of him stand and touch its broken fangs tentatively. Steam came in snorts from its nostrils, and those grey eyes fixed on him with total evil.

The bayonet pressed against his throat.

"What are you?" he managed.

The face loomed close, and it stank like a corpse. Jones realised it was grinning. "We walriders. We eat you now." The face seemed to twist and grow in his vision, and he struggled violently, trying to break free as all that time, the terrible stink invaded him, raped him, forced itself down into his very core ...

The shell blast rocked the trench, shrapnel screamed, fire roared, and the very world seemed to fall down to Hell. Jones felt the weight from his back lifted and blasted back down the trench, bouncing from walls like a broken doll. The walrider before him was slammed against him, grunting, and he felt its body being pounded by the blast of shrapnel, wave after wave until Jones could take no more, thought he'd be crushed to death by sheer pressure ...

And then, peace.

He opened his eyes, to stare into the dead walrider's face. Its tongue was poking out to the side like a purple slug. Jones saw the one remaining yellow fang and noted it was hollow.

With all his strength, he heaved the heavy corpse from himself, watched it topple back, overcoat smoking. Above, stones trickled down into the trench. Jones frowned. He was sure he heard ... a scrabbling sound. Like thorns clacking on stone.

This is a nightmare, he thought.

He blinked. The world, the trenches, the walrider corpses, all faded to black, leaving shocking bright afterimages in his brain.

The war was gone.

Jones's eyes flared open, breathing sharp and fast in his ears, fingers clutching the blankets tight; and he was afraid.

His breathing slowed.

His eyes narrowed.

And reaching across, he plucked a thorn splinter from his flesh, leaving a tiny bead of blood.

Ypres Salient (3rd. Battle of). "Dugout Dreams." 18th. August 1917.

ROBERT JONES SAT IN the stale dugout, breathing the scent of mud, a plate of gypo steaming on his lap. But he had no appetite. He kept hearing voices; he could hear Bainbridge moaning about water in his rifle; he could hear Webb complaining about Bainbridge's bullying. Their voices gradually faded in Jones's mind, to be replaced by a low-level rumble of distant gunfire and a sporadic trembling of the earth.

He stretched his neck, easing tension. He felt so low. So down. The depression had settled in his abdomen, and he felt physically sick.

Slowly, Jones reached out, picked up his fork, and put a lump of meat in his mouth. It was cold.

Had he been seated for so long?

Jones chewed the meat (horse? dog? who knew?) slowly and swallowed. Then he pushed the bowl to one side, watched as it fell from the bunk and scattered contents across the bare earth floor.

He lay back on his bed and closed his eyes. He could feel the meat inside him, cold, greasy, crying to get out, crying to be released ... His eyes rolled backwards and images of violence flooded his mind, blood, death, a chest exploded with a bayonet thrust, blood spraying outwards, the man screaming, cutting his hands as he grabbed the sharp steel ... another, charging through a shell hole, then hit by a crump. Bam. Body parts exploding outwards in a hot hail rush of smoke and shrapnel and tattered strings of bloody flesh.

"Pull yourself out of it, lad; you're being a — — ing girl!" It was Bainbridge. Charlie Bainbridge!

Jones sat bolt upright, eyes wide, mouth open, panting, hands clawing the cheap rough blankets.

But he was alone. So terribly alone.

I wish I was back in Dolwyddelan, he thought.

I wish I were back home.

He sat there for a minute, then for an hour, cradling his diary. But no words came. He could not write. He was alone — he was — — ing alone, and he knew it. They were dead, both dead, and who could he turn to now?

Jones kicked his bowl across the dugout and threw his diary onto Bainbridge's empty bunk. The world felt grey, and he wondered when the war would ever end. How could the bastards force men through all the shit? How could the brass hats...