So I am not dead, I thought a fitting return to the fandom would be taking part in this years Spyfest, Spyfest2017! Honestly, I have missed writing, it's too difficult trying to adult! This week's task was a poem-fic, this one is based on Dolce et Decorum est by Wilfred Owen, it all goes to him, and Anthony Horowitz apart from the obvious bits which are mine!
I hope you like it!
Oh the Sweet Honour
English had never been his favourite subject, as soon as everyone had learnt to spell and could converse easily then it becomes redundant. However still battered and bruised from the latest 'illness' with his hood up, hiding from the world he trudged into the classroom, his shoes squeaking as he went, Tom on his tale.
"Eugh, I literally have no clue why we need an anthology, or what one is." Tom muttered glumly as the tattered book were haphazardly thrown out onto the desks.
Alex barely battered and eyelid as he lifted his head off the desk, it had been some attempt to get some sleep, before lowering his hood, and grabbing a pen out his pocket, tapping in on the desk. Without even realising it he was playing the role of druggy, but if it was a good cover don't fix whats not broken.
"Morning class…Ryan and James if you don't stop that then so help me you will be in detention so long you will forget what a football looks like." She paused as they lowered the football that was being tossed between them. "Right today we are starting the module on war poetry if you turn to page 137."
The whole class seemed to remember they had books in-front of them, with a groan and rather excessive flipping they turned to the page, reluctantly. Alex's heart sunk as he saw the poem and the topic, his bruises had barley faded to a purply colour, he could almost feel kick up of the dirt covering him as he dodged the bullets.
The last thing he needed was a reminder from a poor sod who had lived through similar and they were all obsessing over the emotive language, tone and flow in the poem.
"Bent double, like old beggars under sacks" as Mrs Fraser read, he began to feel the crushing weight on his back, with the rain soaking the through the already saturated canvas and ground, making them bend and stomp, work harder and harder to grit their teeth and make it over the ridge.
"Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge" They single file coughing to clear their lungs from the chest infections they had most certainly got from the awful conditions they had endured so far. He could hear Wolf swearing as he cut through more bracken, Eagle and Snake barely getting their footing on the sludge as the descended.
"Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs" He could feel the heat radiating from the burnt out compound, turning he saw the flames lick higher and higher, stark again the dark black night, turning he made a run for it. The flames haunted him, knowing the cost.
"And towards our distant rest began to trudge" He could see the distant flickering lights marking the small rural village that was the extraction point, he felt the flames from the compound, which was long gone. Bitting his lip he began to fix his boot to be tighter around his swollen ankle and began to half hobble half trudge to the extraction point, hoping and praying he would make it in time.
"Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots." He could feel the sleep in his eyes, and his head nodded trying to keep him awake, his body still moving as his brain tried it's best to shut down to recharge. He had lost everything apart from the tracker that had been embedded in his right shoe, that he had the fortune to be swallowed so they could find him or at least have half a chance too.
"But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;" Still he continued hobbling on, barefoot over the rocks as fast as he could, feeling the cut sluggishly oozing. Ignoring the battered condition of his feet, his shoulder was still awkwardly hanging limply by his side as his sight slowly faded as he hit the deck.
"Drunk with fatigue; deaf to even to the hoots." He was so tied they had been on patrol for days, no sign of a rest or a stop, his mind completely blanked out of what the others where saying, her just needed a rest, whether it was them reaching the base, taking camp or collapsing in the dessert, right now he didn't care, he just needed a break. From the tiredness and the confines of his own mind.
"Of tired, outstripped, five-nines that dropped behind." This fight had gone on too long, far too long it was time Scorpia went down, he could almost sense the planes coming from the east as he ran, him communicator long gone, they didn't know if he was out or not. Not that it mattered as the soft whining proceeded the large bang of the explosion. The force sending him flying forward as his arms flayed before him to prevent even further injury, before he scrambled up sprinting away.
"Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! - an ecstasy of fumbling." He could barley hear Eagles cries as they all fumbled for their masks, the choking began, filling his lungs, his airways closing slower and slower, as he gasped for breath.
"Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time." He felt rough hands force the gas mask over his face, it barely fitted being a too big, but he began to slowly take longer calming breaths. The oxygen calming his ragging lungs, before taking another step, they had to get away. As soon as he could bare to move again he did his feet fumbling forward.
"Someone still was yelling out and stumbling," He knew someone had failed to get their mask on in time, and was writhing in pain, screaming and stumbling as the others did their best to get away. They had to leave him, he would only slow them down, sadly he knew that too as he twisted round firing his gun, one he had some how managed to hold on, firing into the oncoming enemy allowing them enough time to get away.
"And floundering like a man in fire or lime." He was still twitching and floundering, in agony, as they tried to pin him down. The pain he had never felt anything like it ripple burning all over him from the inside out. He was unable to escape unable to breath, the pains stretched on and on, waiting just waiting for the antidote that they were fumbling for. Half caring and half not caring if they found it.
"Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light." The fog had settled over the city, it was dim and misty, there was no clear line to the drop sight but it didn't bother him. They had to do it anyway, and the green light to signal they all flickered to life. He felt them beside him as they all plugged into he dark fog, into he night.
"As under a green sea, I saw him drowning." The murky dark green water showed just how clean the British coastline was, the thick salty water was vile as he chocked it up, the agent he was with wasn't as lucky. His unconscious body hitting the water at the same time, but he was unable to expel the water, he was drowning with no one even knowing it.
"In all my dreams, before my helpless sight," His dreams the one's that tormented him every night, tossing and turning, trying to escape the horrors that he had narrowly escaped before that this time, were that much more difficult to disappear.
"He plunges at me, guttering, chocking, drowning." The water was everywhere, he couldn't get a breath, he had to tell hem who he was. His brain was telling him that he just needed to calm down and stop failing. The other half of his brain was in sheer panic, unable to comprehend how anyone could remain calm or think they weren't drowning.
"If in some smothering dreams you too could pace." The dreams no matter how far he ran or how much medication he took, the dreams smothered him in sleep and awake. Never leaving him alone. Pacing each thought that came to his head.
"Behind the waggon that we flung him in." His body reverberated hard as he was flung onto the make-shift stretcher, his groans echoed as he clutched his side. His contents spilling out, he had been guttered like a fish, dutiful Alex grabbed one side, as the other members of his team did, jogging along as quickly and delicately as they could. They could all feel the mans pain, as they worked as hard as they could.
"And watch the white eye within in his face," His face had gone pale before they even got half-way, horrific against the stark darkness of the night. The whites of his eye stretched out in pain, the agony he had died in before they could reach help. The following sinking feeling that wrapped around his heart as they realised they had to leave him here, in order to make it away. His family would never get his body back.
"His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;" Looking in the mirror the malnutrition was evident in his hollow face, barely hanging off his bone, he was too pale and thin. He was sick of it - the devil's luck and the sin he was sick of it all.
"If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood" The jolt as they jogged along, the moans of pain hit nerves as they ducked and scrambled to get away, his screamed echoing with every jolt. The blood dripping down the side of the make shift stretcher. They had to keep moving.
"Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lung," He was struggling to breath, the blood was dripping from his mouth, splattering blood everywhere, Snake yelled in alarm for them to stop. But they didn't have time as he gargled, chocking on his own blood. They didn't have a choice, but to keep going or risk them all getting killed.
"Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud" It was awful the battle, the fight, the death. As bitter and evil and twisted and gruesome. The blood, the guts, the gore, the pain, the suffering, the injury, the screams, the death, the destruction and the draining feeling of exhaustion.
"Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues," The innocents all the innocents that had been lost, everyone along the way who tried to do the right thing, tried to help and got mowed down for their troubles.
"My friend, you would not tell with such high zest" No one else understood the feeling the rush of the adrenaline pumping through every inch of his body as he pushed it further and further, trying to escape no matter the odds, the trouble and the cost. It was an addiction, there was nothing like it. He was a drug addict, just not in the way everyone thought.
"To children ardent for some desperate glory." All these children sat here, desperate to glory, the glory of the fight, the glory of the battle, the glory of wining. The glory of death and the glory of killing, they all thought it was glory. There was no glory in it at all.
"The old lie." The lies all the lies, every one he had told and those told to him. Them all swirling together in one big black cauldron.
"Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori."
"How sweet and honourable it is to die for one's country." Alex's voice was barely above a whisper as he lifted his steal gaze, a catch in his throat was evident as he took a deep breath and calmed his raging thoughts and flashbacks.
Knowing the price people had paid. The sweet honour, to die for one's country. A price people had paid and would continue paying.
One he knew he was even up paying no doubt too soon. No one would ever really know the price he had paid.
Oh the honour to die for one's country…
I hope you liked that one! It was so much fun to write, if you did like it then please take a minute to vote for it on the poll in the SpyFest Revival forum! Please check out all the other stories, a lot of works goes into these!
As ever please review and have a wonderful day!
Until Next Time…
Pageturner123