This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
"A true soldier does not fight because he hates what is in front of him, but rather because he loves what is behind him. "
Gilbert K. Chesterton
Chapter One
War is hell.
Darius had heard that saying a thousand times. But he found that saying wasn't true. You have to be dead to be in hell. What is hell on earth? That's the Great War.
It was the Fall of 1916. The Allied Armies devised an offensive in Northern France against the German Army to hasten the end of the Great War. The offensive instead devolved into an epic stalemate of trench warfare. In what became known as the Battle of the Somme, over one million men were lost during that five month struggle, deemed one of the bloodiest battles in human history. Darius Betain was a French foot soldier who had enlisted in 1914, leaving the comfort of his Parisian home for the front lines. Darius was billeted to the French Sixth Army, which was tasked with capturing and holding the village of Maurepas during that offensive.
During that offensive the French were repeatedly repelled by withering German machine gun fire. Darius had just gone to retrieve another fallen comrade from a shell crater. Or at least what was left of his fallen comrade. What was five minutes ago his drinking buddy and bunkmate was now an unrecognizable mass of bloody flesh. Ignoring the bullets whistling through the air, Darius dragged his comrade through the muddy expanse of no man's land to the French fortifications fifty yards distant. Darius called for a stretcher bearer to take his comrade away, and then did the best he could to brush off the mixture of mud and blood that had crusted on his uniform.
Darius knew that the sergeant of his unit would soon blow his whistle to signal yet another fruitless charge against the German lines. The half mile or so that separated the French and German lines had already claimed the lives of three hundred thousand soldiers. What was once a glorious collection of farms and vineyards had been reduced to a treeless muddy killing field. Darius now lived his life in five minute increments. He had no expectation of living beyond the next five minutes. That mindset wears on a man's soul. Darius swore that if he somehow survived this carnage he would use his next pass to sprint to Paris to be with his beloved girlfriend Louise.
The sergeant did blow the whistle and Darius left the relative safety of his trench to advance towards the German lines. Darius's five minute clocked kicked in. It was unlikely he would live beyond the next five minutes. Almost immediately shells started bursting around him and he could hear the staccato firing of German machine guns raking the advancing unit of soldiers. Darius advanced over bits of broken barbed wire, around shell craters, and through ankle deep mud towards the flashes from the German fortified trenches. Men were falling all around him as he advanced, and he fully expected he would be the next to fall. Not more than five minutes after the charge came the call for retreat, and another five hundred of his comrades lay wounded or dead on the battlefield. Darius quickly retraced his steps, now stepping over the bodies of his dead mates, and plunged headfirst back into his waterlogged trench to await the inevitable German counterattack.
In less than an hour a pounding artillery barrage was unleashed on Darius's position. Darius was huddled with the remaining members of his unit in a reinforced wooden dugout to weather the barrage. Another five minutes of hell. Darius felt the earth rumbling as pieces of wood and bodies and clods of earth rained down on him. The barrage seemed as if it would never end; and then there was silence. Darius could hear the whistle blown at the German lines and left his dugout for his position in the trench. He shoveled away the dirt covering the sandbags at his post and positioned his gun to fire into no man's land. Though the smoke and haze Darius could make out the outline of advancing German soldiers. He knew to hold his fire until they were within range and resisted the urge to squeeze the trigger of his rifle. He could hear the sergeant barking out those same orders to his unit. Within minutes the French line erupted with machine gun and rifle fire and supporting artillery. Darius fired his Meunier rifle in the direction of the onrushing enemy but the haze in no man's land made it impossible to aim at a particular target. Round and round from his semi-automatic weapon was discharged into an undifferentiated mass of humanity. Another five minute countdown to death began.
Each time before the French Army was able to repel the German counterattack. This time however the fusillade was ineffective. The Germans continued to pour towards the French lines. Darius heard the order to retreat and knew that with the line had broken and it would only be a matter of moments before he would feel the tip of a German bayonet pierce his heart. He jumped out of his trench with nothing more than his backpack and his gun and sprinted full speed away with a herd of men from the advancing Germans. With the thick smoke and large debris field to navigate Darius didn't know exactly where he was running but he continued his headlong rush to the rear with explosions going off all around him and bits of debris pelting his exposed face and hands. As he ran he inhaled the acrid smoke from gunpowder and the burning corpses of men and horses. His lungs felt as if they were on fire, and after sprinting until he could hear no more gunfire behind him, he stumbled and collapsed in a heap on the edge of a vineyard.
As he caught his breath he took stock in where he had ended up. He was next to a large bramble bush that concealed a door in the hillside behind it. He pushed the branches of the bush aside and opened the door. He could see that there was a stairway straight down into complete darkness. He surmised it was a cellar for either wine or champagne. He closed the door behind him and felt around until he found a stub of a candle and matches on the first stair. He lit the candle stub and made the long descent into the cave.