This is a short story based on the poem by Wilfred Owen called 'Dulce Et Decorum Est'

This is my first short story so please feel free to tell me what you think and what I can do to improve it

Thanks :)

How Sweet and Fitting it is to Die for One's Country

They had gone days without sleep, walked for several miles without any source of comfort, looking out on the once green fields, made uniformly brown where all the earth had been turned by shells. Yet they still trudged on. The weight of their bags holding them down, down in that godforsaken place. The once young, youthful, strong fighters, made prematurely aged and knock-kneed as the war had broken t hem down bit by bit, more and more as each day passed.

Walking back to the trenches with the feeling of lice crawling in their clothes and on their skin, David could think of nothing but the men they had left behind, the friends they had lost, not even noticing the haunting flares trailing the shells as they are shot through the air behind him. Each one of the men filled with feelings of disgust for what they had to do, for what they hadn't been able to do. The same three questions circling through David's head; what were they there for? Who were they helping? Where was the glory that they were promised?

David's thoughts were suddenly cut short by the sound of an explosion as someone yelled, "Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!"

He quickly grabbed his helmet and tried and put it on in time. It was a matter of life and death. There was no time to think, only to act, to fight for his country, like he had been told to do.

Suddenly the gas came. Everyone grabbed their masks; it was every man for himself. The sheer terror, made David fumble around looking desperately for his helmet, praying that he would put it on in time. He didn't want to die, not like that. Once he had got his helmet on and knew that he was safe, David looked around to check on the others. Looking through the misty panes of his mask and among the thick green light of the gas he could see that a few men had not been able to get their masks on in time. Even the soldiers with their masks on could feel the thickness of the smoke. Everywhere David would turn, he could hear the sounds of the other soldiers shrieking as they fell to the ground, choking, drowning, in the green sea. He ran over to see if he could get to them in time. These men needed to be saved. David tried to help by putting their masks on, but for most it was already too late.

"Help me, someone please help me! My eyes, I can't see!" was all that filled David's ears as he heard the men screaming.

Most of the other soldiers just stood by helplessly, frozen in fear. There was nothing that they could do. David could feel their hearts beating with an elevated pulse; he could see the white eyes writhing in their faces as they squirmed in pain, he could hear the desperation in their screams. They clutched on to him, trying to clutch on to what little life they had left, suffocating and choking, their froth-corrupted lungs making a gargling sound. Most couldn't stand to watch but David just couldn't stand by helplessly. He had to do something. David seized them and tried to take them to a place where the air was clean, where they might have been able to survive. They had to survive; they were only young, some were only seventeen, kids who had lied to get enlisted so that they could fight gloriously for their country and make their family and the people they knew back home proud. They didn't ask for this. Some of the boys tried to say something, but all they could do was cough up deep red blood.

"Don't try to speak, just try to fight it, do anything you can" David cried out to them, hoping, praying that they would survive.

Some were finally taken to where it was safe. But this wasn't enough to help them and they started to choke on their own sick and shake uncontrollably.

"Come on, you can survive this! Just try to fight it please. I can't lose you!"

Yet they remained hysterically fitting and there was nothing David could do to stop the shaking, he could only stand by helplessly. Suddenly they stopped. Stopped moving, stopped breathing, stopped living.

There was nothing David could do but stare at the dead man he had been trying to save. Shells exploded all around him, bullets flew past his head. He froze. They killed them. They did this. These men died right in front of him. That could have been David. He could have been the one who hadn't put his mask on in time. Why did he just stand there? He could have saved him, if he had been a bit quicker, if he had just pulled them out of there a few moments earlier, they could still be here, living, breathing.

At dusk the rain fell and everything was calm once again. Stretcher-bearers pushed past, reminding David of those last few moments, the only moments the he could seem to think about, slowly losing all grip on reality. When he closed his eyes and tried to sleep at night all he could see were the men he fought by and the men he saw die. David would never forget that day, the constant feeling of guilt that they died and he didn't. How dare people consider the war to be fun? It was not a game, it was real life, with real lives lost and it could not just end when someone decided it should. Who believed that watching men, your friends die to be fun? They didn't have a clue. They brainwashed people to make them believe that it was their duty, to send men, boys, off to die. The memories emblazoned into David's mind, the atrocities replayed over and over again as he remembered his friends, human beings, killed right in front of him. These men had a whole life ahead of them; they should have gotten a job, had a wife and had children. They never even got a chance to live properly. They should have never fallen for the lie that it is sweet and glorious to die for your country. There was no glory about it. There was only poverty, fatigue, killing, dying and the trauma David received from experiencing a person die slowly in front of him. Was it glorious to die as the gas frothed in their lungs making them cough up blood, whilst tears of blood trickled down their face, to choke on their own sick? Once healthy soldiers, friends, turned into just another rotting corpse on the ground, reminding David of his own awaiting death. No one understands what he went through. What did he do to live in that existence? Why did they never tell him of the cries, the vicious screams and the sordid lies?