Beta'd by D. Fender and Gladsome
The guns stopped firing.
At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the guns of both side of the Western front fell silent.
The silence was eerie and yet, so beautiful, nobody dared to be the first to break the silence. Never before has the phrase "the silence is deafening" been more apt.
If one was to take a look out to No-Man's land, one would see the beautiful sight of fields of red poppies growing out of the muddy pockmarked French countryside.
A collective mental sigh of relief went through the many minds for surviving the meat grinder that was the Great War, yet was accompanied by a sadness for those who did not make it to see the end.
It was finally ov-
A great bright light which outshone the sun in the sky suddenly appeared all across the Western Front and became visible all over Europe. Sounds of startled cries and orders to receive enemy attack broke the silence of the Western Front.
The light disappeared just as sudden as it appeared, leaving many to wonder what just happened.
Runners on both sides carried messages back and fro to senior officers and command centres demanding explanations to what just happened and with orders to not to break the ceasefire.
A few men on both sides were disciplined for opening fire when the bright light appeared for risking breaking the peace, although miraculously no one was killed or injured during the short period of chaos.
It took hours later amid the chaos and confusion before anyone noticed that there were soldiers mysteriously missing from along the British sides of the Western front.
Ammunitions, weapons, fuel and food rations from British supply stores were later reported missing. The missing supplies were however later claimed by military officials to be the fault of clerical errors and were not that uncommon at all.
British military Top Brass hushed up the anomalies, uncharacteristically dismissed concerns over the missing soldiers by simply adding them to the list of the dead and sent letters to their next of kin of their passing.
Many years later, many people are still arguing about the Great Light Event. Scientists believed it to be a rare phenomenon called St Elmo's fire on a massive unprecedented scale whereas religious institutions all over the world claimed the Light was a sign of God sending his approval for mankind ending the War to End All Wars.
Whatever the reason, the Event would continue to linger in public consciousness for many years to come.
Men and women who last saw the missing persons were all interviewed in secret and they all told the same story. In all cases the soldiers were there one second and gone the next, apparently all happening at the same time as the Great Light event, leading to some uncomfortable conclusions made by the British Top Brass. Any documents written during the investigation were afterwards promptly locked away in some corner of some dusty government archives or shredded to pieces.
Those that were interviewed were afterwards convinced that it was in their best interest for their "continued well-being" to stay quiet on the matter when they were released back home, and any letter written back home about the missing soldiers were already picked up and destroyed.
To this day the case remains unsolved and hidden from public eyes.
If this is death, it really isn't that bad, Lieutenant Price decided.
A Lieutenant Thomas Price was floating in a timeless void of darkness and silence, both comforting in their own way, questioning his current situation.
He was never particularly religious, considering he only went to church because everyone else did, and the things he did and saw during the war? He was never going to be a devout Christian after that.
Is this death? Or am I dreaming?
How did I even die? Is this the end?
This can't possibly mean the end for me, right? So much to live for, and so much left to see.
Dark, angry thoughts raged in his mind against the damned Hun, the blasted politicians who got Britain in the mess in the first place and, most of all himself.
Who dies after winning the war?!
Seconds, minutes, and possibly hours of languishing in this timeless limbo, he started to calm down at last.
Bittersweet resignation to his fate of never seeing home again took over the Lieutenant. He did make it after all to the end.
And if this was death, it wasn't so bad, he decided, after all it could have been worse, it could have been hell.
No sooner he finished his thought, his whole world jerked, and he was plunged into a world of pain and noise.
"Sir, wake up!"
That voice sounded awfully familiar.
"Wake up!"
That voice also sounded urgent, and it was getting so peaceful as we-
"The Hun is here, sir!"
Wait...what?! Damn all the Hun to hell, even in the afterlife they were still causing trouble for him!
With a herculean effort, he groaned and opened his eyes to the sight of a vaguely familiar face, screwed up in worry as it hovered above him.
Private Harry Cooper nervously knelt over his superior officer, waiting for him to wake up.
Everything had gone to hell after that bright light.
He awoke to the sounds of breaking waves, finding himself lying down next to his rifle on a large sandy beach, looking up to the sight of a forget-me-not blue sky with the sun blazing as if it was a warm British summer afternoon.
Warm, sandy beaches, that was strange, wasn't he supposed to be in the middle of a muddy french countryside, in the middle of November no less?
Struggling, he pushed himself up and saw the beautiful clear watered sea to his left, tropical trees lining the seaside to his right, a scene that would not look out of place in a Robinson Crusoe novel if it were not for the many soldiers, lying unconscious on the miles long beach with their equipment and weapons strewn about.
Many wore the distinctive khaki colours of the British army uniform, with variations popping up here and there, several of which perhaps signified Commonwealth origins.
With groggy eyes and a still hazy mind, he picked up his rifle in a ready position and started to trudge whilst looking for a familiar face from his platoon or even his regiment.
His steps were slow and heavy, ever so mindful not to step on a soldier, Private Cooper doggedly walked forwards in the blistering sun and after what seemed like an age and a half, he found the familiar face of his platoon leader, his peaceful and serene visage looking upwards towards the cloudless sky.
Private Cooper felt a twinge of guilt for what he was about to do to his senior officer, but as the sounds of groans of waking men began, he knelt beside Lieutenant Price and shouted the best he could.
"WAKE UP SIR!"
After shouting at the Lieutenant several times without any results, unthinking and out of desperation, he slapped his superior officer in the face.
THAT got a response out of the formerly comatose Lieutenant. Callously ignoring the sleepy mumbles of fairness and peace, he shouted out thrice more at him to wake up, until finally Lieutenant Price was back among the living.
The superior officer groaned as he held his part of the face where he got slapped.
"Copper?"
Harry sighed, he couldn't expect him to remember his name out of fifty other faces. He was, after all, just a lowly private.
"It's Cooper, sir, Harry Cooper, I'm in your platoon, sir"
"Right, right, Cooper...didn't you drink that gin when I specifically ordered the whole platoon not to before the final push?"
"Err..."
"...and weren't you that man who I gave to the Provost Sergeant for sloppiness in kit inspection three times in a row?"
Oh god. Well, at least he remembers him.
"And did you just slap a superior officer?"
"...course not, sir. I mean, no sir!"
"And there are no Hun around is there?"
"...no sir."
"...Remind me to punish you later with latrine duty Private, in fact, remember to punish yourself later for hitting and lying to a superior officer, now help me up for God's sakes."
"*sigh*...yes, sir."
Even when transported to a strange, foreign land in most mysterious circumstances, some people never change.
"Private… where the bloody hell are we?"
In the ensuing chaos, where all of the soldiers had finally woken up after what many would simply refer to as the Event in the future. Officers junior and senior struggled to keep track of the men as they started to walk around in the hopes of finding friends from the regiments that may have been affected by the event while others tried to calm down those who were not taking the sudden transition to the beach well.
Sudden, bright lights tends to make soldiers a bit skittish, more so, when afterwards they wake up in an unfamiliar place.
One Lieutenant Colonel Jack MacCraw looked on, bemused by the sight of the shouting and screaming mob of men that surrounded him, jostling about the beach looking for a friendly face and more than one man here appeared to be having a minor bit of shell shock. The scene a bunch of scared and confused men running about on the sand reminded him awfully of the Gallipoli campaign
He was afraid, truly he was, for what sane man wouldn't be in that situation. But as a senior officer and a gentleman of impeccable breeding, he could simply not afford to behave like a common lout whenever the fancy takes him as it wouldn't be gentlemanly, you see. Well that, and that bit of training of keeping a stiff upper lip from Sandhurst, and that pot of strong tea he had before the final engagement in France were all that kept him from assuming a foetal position and bawling his eyes out.
Having tolerated enough of this nonsense, Colonel MacCraw took a deep breath and in one swift movement, grabbed his Webley revolver, pointed it into the air and fired until all the chambers were emptied.
His service revolver's discharge was heard over the din, and halted the movements of the men around him, and gradually, one by one soldiers started to recognize that they were in the presence of a senior officer. One Sergeant suddenly snapped to attention and saluted, after which everyone suddenly remembered their manners and followed suit.
Silence.
Having everyone's attention on oneself can be quite nerve racking.
Ah well, bugger those nerves for now, it was time to take command of this riff raff of a rabble. He saluted the men around him and stood at ease.
"Alright. Listen here, chaps, I know you are afraid about this whole malarkey, and I'm afraid I don't have any more answers to how we got here than you do...But there is one thing I can do; as the most senior officer in the vicinity, I am assuming command. I am Lieutenant Colonel MacCraw, and I promise you, we will find our way home. Is that understood!"
Cries of "Sir!" echoed around the beach. Goodness gracious that turned out better than he expected.
If the Lieutenant Colonel had known of the many years of headaches that were about to spawn out of this speech, he would have happily kept his mouth shut and callously allowed another to take command.
"Very well then."
He then picked up a particularly long piece of seawood, planted it on the ground and tied a small chequered handkerchief that he carried around in his tunic pockets.
"Officers are to collect all the other men and start digging a line of trenches and fortified positions alongside the treeline. They are also to collect all the weapons lying here on the ground and set them up appropriately. Any questions? No? Dismissed then."
When the sea of men moved again, this time with purpose, Jack MacCraw sighed as he felt around for his special flask of liquid courage. He really should have taken up retirement in Rhodesia or some other tropical British colony when he had the chance way before the War had really started.
This would be the beginning of a long and trying day. Little would this British expeditionary force know, the night that would follow would be equally long and trying.
Paul Miller idly thought about life as he lay on the ground, looking at the alien night sky above and recognizing none of the constellations above. The lack of recognisable constellations had certainly caused a feeling of unease, though that was nothing compared to the reactions to the moon.
Men fainted, cried, and prayed; for the Moon was shattered in pieces. He heard that some men had simply fled into the unknown jungle, unable to cope with the situation, and it may have been his imagination, but he thought he had heard some gunshots firing in the distance.
He pondered how he came to be here on this tropical paradise, as he last remembered lying in a foxhole with a bullet to the gut and half his face torn off by shrapnel as he was about to storm a German trench in Flanders. Then the Light came, and he awoke to find himself whole and hale. Fortunately, he did not come alone, as only other person that came with him that he recognised was an impressively moustachioed giant of a man by the name of Sergeant Bourne.
His thoughts eventually turned to his family, bringing a pang to his heart as he stared at the broken moon above as it nearly reached its zenith in the sky. What would the army tell his family back home? How would his family cope? His Da and Ma would be sad, sure, but at least they still had another son in the navy to cope with, his little sister would be devastated though, as he was the only one to play with her before he joined the army.
Funny, how loyalty to the King and the country meant so little to him now, stuck in an alien land, when he would give it all up just to see his family and his home in the countryside again.
Wherever this place was, it clearly is no where near France or Europe or bloody Timbuktu. No place on Earth has the privilege of ever having a shattered moon above at night.
He whistled a song that got stuck in his head from a long time ago, which seemed to fit the situation perfectly here, to himself at least.
It's a long way, to Tipperary,
It's a long way to go,
It's a long way, to Tipperary,
To the sweetest girl I know,
Goodbye, Piccadilly,
Farewell, Leicester Square!
It's a long long way to Tipperary,
But my heart's right there!
Suddenly, he cried out and clutched his head as it felt like it exploded in agonising pain. Through the haze of pain, he could dimly make out Sergeant Bourne's deep soothing voice among the sounds of other people's screaming. The pain seemed to increase in intensity as it felt as though someone was slowly driving a cork through his head.
After what seemed like an hour, the pain finally abated and disappeared, but he remained in a curled up position, his breath heaving and irregular as he tried to come to terms with the agony.
"There, there now." Paul opened his eyes to see the face of one Sergeant Bourne looking straight above his head.
"Blimey Sarge, it felt like someone was taking a pickaxe to me head"
Sergeant Bourne didn't answer, and continued staring at the space above his head.
"Sarge?" Confusion and worry began to well up in his gut as the seconds ticked by.
Sergeant Bourne raised his great big hand which slowly reached up to the top of his head.
"Sarge? Sergeant Bourne? What are you doin-AH!" Paul cried out loud as the Sergeant's hand pulled at SOMETHING to his head. The familiar feeling of impending bad news began to build up again in his gut.
"Sarge? What's happening to me? What's going on Sarge?" he pleaded as he grasped the top of his in panic with both of his hands, immediately coming in contact with something soft and hairy and something that definitely didn't belong there.
Mirror! He needed a mirror! He scrambled for his bag, throwing everything out in the trench as he tried to find his shaving kit.
There!
He fumbled about the kit box, trying to open the lid with the mirror in it. With a click, the kit box lid opened up and Paul squinted hard into the lid where a small mirror should be., angling it as to use as much moonlight as possible.
What he saw turned his blood into ice.
The top part of his silhouette in the mirror, where there should be only flat hair and a round head, showed two pointy mounds.
He heard someone screaming, before realising it was himself.
SMACK!
Paul stumbled as he tried to recover from a backhanded slap from Sergeant Bourne.
"I need you stay calm now Private. I know this must be quite upsetting for yo-"
"Upset? Upset?! I-"
"Don't interrupt me Private." warned the Sergeant. "And mind your language" He added on absentmindedly. Paul resisted the urge to flip him the bird. Sergeant always had a weird obsession and vendetta against what he considered to be foul language.
"As I was saying, I need you and everybody here to stay calm. In the morning, I'll have you lot sent off to see the medic and see if we can't...put you lot back normal again."
Eh? You lot?
Paul looked around the trench illuminated by the pale moonlight, and with great shock, found at least half the men sharing the trench with him had at least one animal feature and their faces still grimacing in pain from the recent transformation.
What on Ear-
AAWWOOOO!
Everyone froze.
AAWWOOOO!
Oh for the love of God, what now?
Suddenly, everyone could hear gunshots firing from the other side of the trenches.
"To battle stations! Fix bayonets! Eyes forward! Prepare to receive enemy attack! You know the drill lads!"
Curses and swearing flew around the tight trench as the soldiers went into a mad dash to get themselves into firing positions.
Paul fumbled his fingers around his sword bayonet as he tried to attach it to his rifle as quickly as possible before levelling it to his shoulders, aiming it into the dark night. Dark shapes and masses moved about in the moonlight, and what terrified Paul were the shining, red eyes that glinted menacingly in the dark shadows. Childhood stories of man eating monsters prowling the English countryside suddenly flashed into his mind, before he suppressed that thought in favour of zeroing in on his target.
So it turned out that while the place might look like a Polynesian paradise, it was also filled to the brim with glowing, red eyed monsters with a particular taste for Englishmen.
When packs of the largest wolves Paul had ever seen came into view, a few soldiers opened fire at them hoping to scare the beasts off.
Rather, instead of being intimidated by loud noises and dying comrades, the wolves simply charged en masse.
Machine guns and rifle fire destroyed much of the first wave. But then it seemed when one wolf died, two more would take its place.
"Damn it Sergeant! How many wolves can there bloody be in this forest?!"
"You keep firing Private Miller, keep firing, and don't you waste a shot. Make every shot count!" Boomed Sergeant Bourne. "And mind your language!" He added before he shattered the skull of a particularly large and sneaky wolf with a powerful buttstroke.
Grumbling and rolling his eyes at the eternally unruffled Sergeant, Paul cycled through another round.
Aim.
Fire.
Hit.
Cycle.
Aim.
Fire.
Hit.
These wolves, big though they may be, seemed to go down in one shot to the upper torso or head. But they were fast, so much so that a few would slip through the veil of bullets and reach the trenches, and those claws were really not for show as a few unfortunate souls found out.
Cycle.
Aim.
Wait, bollocks, THRUST! TWIST! PULL!
Phew, what a time for them sword bayonets to become useful again.
Paul refocused on the task at hand, reloading and firing, again and again.
This cycle continued on until the first rays of dawn broke over the battlefield, illuminating the last of the dead wolf carcasses, which were ominously fading slowly into the air.
Not one thought about his recent transformation entered his tired and scared mind.
※—※—※—※—※—※—※—※—※—※—※—※—※—※
As chaos of the battle reigned, no one noticed the moon flashing red for a second, nor did they notice a set of dark eyes looking down at the British positions in dark amusement and curiosity.
※—※—※—※—※—※—※—※—※—※—※—※—※—※
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
So what do you guys think of it so far?
