Sherby: Welcome to my new Naruto fic - yes, another war fic. World War One this time. Non-yaoi, huzzah, and decent to boot.

I hope you enjoy it – updates will be as regular as I can make them. I wrote chapter one and two together, and they cover about ten thousand words between them, so do be patient. I try to update as fast as I can, and I'm meticulously planning and researching this thing (aah, Wikipedia) to try and be accurate. So, in appreciation of this, please leave me some love!

Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

Sherby xxx

Disclaimer: Don't own Naruto. You all know who does. He is a god amongst men for these latest chapters. Also don't own WW1. Shucks.

EDIT: Have replaced footnotes with brief bracketed explanations within the text of the chapter itself. I can't imagine how off-putting it could have been to have to scroll down and look stuff up before trying to re-find your place in the chapter. Author's notes or explanations, then, appear as follows:

(I am an author's note and I explain things pretty well... yes)... EXTRA EDIT I have PUT BRACKETS in but FF is being a bit poor and not showing them. I'm hoping that'll fix itself soon. Silly website.

Easy peasy.


One

Chapter one – the beginnings of a mission

15.20, 6th June, 1917, Messines, Southeast Ypres, Belgium

He thought the Yanks were supposed to be here.

Stubbing out his cigarette with a heavy laced boot and allowing his gaze to trail along a weary grey sky, Sasuke heaved a labouring breath, savouring momentarily the chalky taste of the smoke before the stench of the world around him could replace it. It was summer. The sky was supposed to be blue, and clear, and peaceful. A storm, ragged and raging and violent as bullets in the night would be better than this. An acrid lifeless skyline clung to the days and the nights, polluted by smoke and foul smells, as though the day itself had died and left behind this empty shell shadow, mouldy and colourless and miserable.

With a smirk, the Captain ceased his cigarette stubbing and began to walk the short distance back to the dugout, his mud-soaked SMLE.(303 Short Magazine Lee Enfield; the standard issue British rifle throughout WW1) rifle clattering against his back as he did so. The heavy brow of his helmet pushed his thick black hair into his eyes and irritated him, but, when he had weighed up the consequences of removing his helmet and heading to the front trench metal-bald, the irritation seemed a lot less severe to him. Steel-capped boots clunked along sodden duck-boards (wooden planks laid down on the floor of trenches to stop soldier's feet getting too wet or muddy, as this could lead to gangrene in the feet) as Sasuke moved from the rear end of the back communication trench and into the dugout, affectionately termed 'Skinny' by the men. The Belgian summer was hot and sweaty, and trails of dirty perspiration clung to his pale skin.

Upon arriving at the entrance to Skinny, Sasuke coughed up a little of the crap he'd just smoked in, spat it gracelessly into a mound of mud near the edge of a duckboard, and was about to clamber into the dugout when a gentle slap to his lower right arm stopped him in his tracks. Nurse Haruno (Sakura to those who knew her well; not that Sasuke had decided whether knowing her well was a good thing) was scowling down at him with eyes that refused to dim despite the world falling down around them.

'I have got enough disease to deal with, Captain, in these dugouts. I'd appreciate it if you could refrain from sharing the filth in your lungs with the rest of the battalion'.

Sasuke offered the young nurse a smile. 'Better out than in, my mother always said'.

'Your mother's not here, Captain. Right now, I'm the closest thing you've got to a mother, so do as I say. If you don't mind your manners, the next time you hobble in here with shrapnel in your foot I might not be so kind as to remove it'.

With a reluctant sigh, Sasuke offered Nurse Haruno the closest thing she would get to an agreement; a bored looking nod that shifted the hair back down into his eyes again. He growled, and she chuckled at him.

'I would have thought you have better things to worry about than your hair, Captain'.

His scowl darkened, eyes shadowed by the bangs of hair poking out from beneath his helmet. 'I'd have a lot less worries altogether if those damned Yanks would get themselves in here.'

Nurse Haruno's pretty eyes crinkled in an appreciative manner, and she patted Sasuke on the shoulder almost patronisingly. He didn't mind; she was a good nurse and it paid to keep her sweet.

'I can always cut off those locks, Sir. I'm surprised you aren't carrying a family of lice around in that mop'.

His grin returned. 'Must be too dirty for them. Can't remember my last bath.'

Satisfied by the faux look of disgust on the nurse's face, Sasuke took his leave, stooping below the rotting wooden board nailed across the entrance of Skinny in order to enter. Kindly somebody had taken a faded pink lipstick and marked the name of the dugout across the board. Everybody needed something to do while they waited to be sent up to the front. Hands raking across the poorly constructed walls, Sasuke soon made his way to the bunkers at the rear only to find a small number of troops gathered in there already. They had pushed aside the rickety wooden beds to make a space in the centre of the small room, and were playing a game of poker with a muddy, dog-eared pack of cards.

'Afternoon, Captain,' greeted two of the five young men without looking up from their cards. Sasuke offered them a nod, remembering to stay stooped unless he wanted his head (albeit appropriately protected) to bang into the soil ceiling. The newest member of the group, a noisy blond only a year younger than himself, piped up.

'Wanna team up with me, Captain? I need some luck. Swear that Nara's cheatin' though.'

Taking a moment to process through the kid's drawl, Sasuke yawned and took a place on the floor beside Naruto, the noisy blond. 'Where's your helmet, Uzumaki?'

His tanned face fell a little, and he looked sheepish. 'This is strip poker, Sir. I lost my helmet, my boots, one of my jackets, and one sock so far.'

'You're about to lose the other,' chimed in Shikamaru Nara, Lieutenant, fully clothed. 'My flush beats your pair.'

'Tough love, Uzumaki,' cackled Kiba, playfully smacking the younger soldier on the back. 'You're gonna be pretty cold if you don't start playing with your head!'

'Pity you guys can't get Haruno to join in,' Sasuke added with a chuckle as Naruto struggled to remove his damp sock. 'Some body on her.'

'Don't you be taking a fancy to her, Captain,' smirked Nara, collecting the cards in and shuffling the deck with ease, 'We could do without you diving on a Milly just to make a visit to pretty Green Eyes out there'. (In 1915 the British army introduced the 'Mills Bomb', a hand grenade issued to all levels of infantry and used with recorded levels of success.)

'Trust me,' said Sasuke as Nara began to deal out the cards, including the Captain this time, 'You don't have to worry about that.' The cards were difficult to see in the dull light of the dugout, and all six soldiers had to squint to make out the patterns of the suits.

'One trip to the infirmary enough for ya, Sasuke?'

Senior Major Hatake picked up his hand and scrutinised it with his one exposed eye (a patch covered the other), not lifting his gaze to address Sasuke. After a brief moment of silence in which the final member of the group, Junior Major Hyuga, made the blind (two cigarettes, no mud, one half smoked), Sasuke answered clearly.

'Nobody likes it in there, Sir. I won't be going back if I can help it.'


S.M Hatake (unknowingly referred to as 'Copycat' behind his back by the lower-downs, due to his ability to quickly analyse the German offensive technique and utilise it successfully within his own battalion) decided to give the mission briefing over dinner. Dinner itself lasted roughly an hour, but there was no way the entire battalion could all fit into one dugout, and thus J.M Hyuga and Copycat spent their dinner trolling from one dugout to another, barking out the five minute briefing appropriate to various different areas of the squad. Of course Naruto, furious that an entire five minutes of his lunch was, in his own words, 'wasted' having to listen to a briefing, listed the Copycat's faults right through the rest of the hour, almost forgetting to eat his stew (nettle based, they all swore) and bully beef.

'Give it up, Naruto,' drawled Nara, attempting to separate his custard from his beef, which had been pooled together in the usual fashion on the one plate and had begun to meld together in an unattractive mush. 'It was only five minutes. Eat your stew and quit complaining.'

The blond scowled at him over his spoon. 'That's ok for you, Nara. You're not stuck up there with Lewis all night. I'm a dead man!' (By 1917 every company in the British Army was equipped with four Lewis light machine guns; these guns were fixed to the ground by a heavy stand and were not designed to be carried about with one soldier. They were usually positioned at the forward face of the trench, but on a higher level than the rest of the trench; soldiers stepped up to the gun using a firestep, a platform to allow them to see over the top of the trenchfront.)

'Copycat's no idiot, Naruto,' Sasuke spoke quietly, his pale face the picture of concentration as he attempted to scrape custard from a small piece of bread at the side of his plate. 'Remember, no sweat with an old sweat. He won't send you on a suicide mission. At least you're not on cover.' ('old sweat'; slang term for an experienced soldier.)

'Cover?'

Kiba, tearing off a chunk of bread with his sharp fanged incisors, shot Naruto a confused look. 'Never been on cover, kid?'

'Nope.'

'To advance the trench forward into enemy territory,' Shikamaru interrupted, his dry voice drawing Naruto's attention, 'we must continue to extend the trenches forward. I'm surprised you haven't noticed teams leaving in the night on dig duty.'

'I'm a heavy sleeper.'

'Regardless,' Nara continued, looking almost bored by his own explanation, 'for the teams to dig, they need cover; a team of men on lookout duty to alert them if the Huns gain scent of the expansion. It's a tough job.' ( 'Huns'; British slang for a German soldier.)

Naruto was silent for a moment, processing this new information while he dipped his bread into his soup and munched it thoughtfully. Shikamaru pulled out a box of cigarettes and offered them around. Naruto refused; he couldn't stand those things and couldn't really comprehend why so many of the soldiers smoked.

'So there'll be a team tonight digging further into the enemy's territory?' he asked finally, swallowing his bread. Sasuke nodded curtly.

'I'm heading up cover tonight. Shino from next door is with me, as well as Shikamaru and Kiba here.'

The blonde's eyes widened as he pushed his plate away. 'You're all on cover duty?'

'Correct. Didn't you listen to Copycat?'

Kiba gave a sigh. Someone as inexperienced as Naruto could be a real burden at a crucial time like this. Copycat had explained that the sappers (soldiers responsible for digging a 'sap' – a communication line between trenches) and engineers were near the end of digging a so far unspotted communication trench about one-thousand metres forward into No Man's Land (territory resting between enemy trenches unclaimed by either side – this is where most of the fighting would take place). Within another fortnight, if all went to plan, a newly constructed trench would be ready for use and the squad could launch a minor surprise attack on the enemy. A year-long veteran, Kiba knew the score, knew the gravity of their situation. One idiot who didn't understand the way the game was played could ruin everything and set the force back a couple of hundred metres – maybe even thousands. They couldn't afford to let their engineers be discovered; until the Yanks showed up, they had to maintain some degree of control on the front.

'Naruto,' he said quickly, eager to dispel any thoughts of confusion in the young man's head, 'Your job is to simply watch and wait. When we get out there, you'll see that beside the main sap that is being dug, there are two shorter trenches running alongside it. That's where we'll be; the covering party, out in the listening post. The covering party's job is to look for enemy attack over the top, and alert the sappers of any dangerous developments. If the situation gets too dangerous, both the sappers and the covering party will retreat, back towards you and Lewis. Only then are you required to act. If we're retreating, it means the attacking party are heading towards the main trench, to the front line. Your job then is to act as you normally would on front line duty and take them down before they reach our trenches. You're our backup in order to maintain the safety of both the sappers and the covering party. Do you understand?'

After a short silence, Naruto nodded in affirmation. 'How will I know you're retreating, though?' he asked. 'I won't be able to see you in the darkness.'

'There'll be a sign,' Sasuke answered him, cleaning his plate and pulling out a cigarette of his own. 'Kiba's our runner; I'll probably send him back if there's an emergency. Otherwise, I'll light a match; throw it up over the top. It's not the best method of communication, but I can't think of anything else you'll see without the daylight. My radio won't stretch all the way back to you.'

Again, Naruto nodded. 'I got it, Captain. Either Kiba alerts me, or I see a match. And then I shoot.'

'Correct, soldier'.

Shikamaru yawned, showing off his pearly teeth. 'Kids these days. They're dropped onto the front line without a hint of experience. No wonder this war is taking so damn long.'

He dragged on his cigarette, closing his eyes as his lungs burned pleasantly. 'What a pain.'




When the dying sky slipped into inky darkness once again the covering party was well prepared, helmet straps fastened, rifles slung to their backs, hand grenades in pocket. Naruto had, ten minutes earlier, made his way up to his pillbox (reinforced concrete machine gun post) and was manning his post silently, bright eyes scouring the area ahead with distaste. Even in the cover of night the rising fumes and ugly clouds lifting from the explosion of a well-tossed hand grenade could be seen quite clearly. The darkness of the air around them combined with the musky swirls of rubble created a sort of mist, difficult to see through and frightening. If he squinted very hard he could just about make out the silhouette of Captain Sasuke briefing the rest of the men before the engineers and sappers moved down into the deep tunnels below. Sasuke was smoking a cigarette, and a thin, hardly noticeable trail of smoke frittered up from its glowing edge and into the black air around them.

Tonight was important, he was told after dinner by Shikamaru. Very important. Plans laid down years before were coming together and if everything went off as it should then the Allied forces would gain a 'real advantage'. Just as he had clambered to his post, Naruto had also been stopped by Captain Sasuke, who, after studying him for a quick moment, told him to expect a 'lot of noise' and handed him two crudely put together ear plugs. Apparently most of the cover party had been given them, but he didn't like to wear them in case they dulled his hearing. 'Like I said,' he had commented almost monotonously, eyeing up Lewis in a familiar manner, 'consider yourself lucky you're not on cover. Your job is easy enough. Protect this line, and keep your head down. If it all works out, you shouldn't need to fire a single round'.

And so there Naruto sat, blue eyes trained upon the horizon as far as he could manage, fingers curled tightly around the handle of the machine gun, prepared and yet not nervous, waiting quietly for the action that should not happen. The air around him was hot and heavy, and he had removed his outer jacket, leaving only a think khaki vest and his tags dangling about his neck. Beneath him, below the top edge of the parapet, two soldiers he did not know stood waiting with ammunition at the ready in their hands. They looked younger than he himself was.

Meanwhile, Cover Party Seven (out of twenty-one, so Sasuke had heard) was being briefed yet again. Copycat was kindly enough, but his experience made him sharp and unforgiving when it came to error. The eye patch was intimidating to newcomers and his ability to pierce through situations with cutting words often left the troops in frightened awe of him. Sasuke threw his cigarette to the ground and stubbed it conscientiously, half listening in. He didn't mind the old man too much.

'It is absolutely imperative,' spoke Kakashi, and Sasuke got the impression that he'd missed something important in the previous sentence, 'that these engineers are not found out. Tonight has been two years in the making and I am not prepared to let it go because you lot get a little edgy and decide to start up a game of poker in the sap. You will be on form and alert at all times. Is that clear?'

Cover Seven nodded, Kiba looking unusually enthusiastic while the quiet Shino, hidden as always behind a pair of spectacles, moved his head so little that Kakashi glared at him a little before continuing.

'Kiba and Shikamaru, you're in the left sap. I want you listening for digger Huns that may intercept the engineers. No hand to hand down there tonight if you can help it, and absolutely no blind fire. Captain, Aburame, you're in the right sap. It runs closer to the surface, with the occasional look out posts for you to clamber up and have a look around. No smoking, Captain. You have no idea how bright those coffin nails glow in this mist. No unwanted attention, you with me?'

Sasuke, caught in the motion of pulling out another cigarette from his breast pocket, reluctantly replaced it in its box and handed the entire packet over to the Major. 'I know how many are in there, Copycat. I want them back in the morning. All of them.'

Kakashi seemed not to hear him as he placed the small packet in his back pocket. The three tunnel engineers and three sappers had gathered at the entrance to the deep mine shaft and were looking at him expectantly. Feeling a little naked without his helmet, Copycat ran a hand through his silvering hair.

'It's an important mission, soldiers, but I'm quite sure you can pull this off. I know we've had a tough time of it lately, but if—' he stopped himself, analysing his own words, '—when we complete this mission, we'll have made significant ground and taken out more than a few Alleymen to boot.' ('Alleyman'; British slang term for a German soldier)

The engineers and sappers seemed satisfied with his vote of confidence in their abilities, and Cover Seven looked mildly appeased. Shikamaru stubbed out the dirty cigarette he had been smoking and spoke, smoke churning out of his mouth as he did so. 'Target time for completion, Major?'

Kakashi checked his watch, his one exposed eye dark in the night air. 'Final orders stand at zero-three-hundred hours and ten. It is now twenty-one-hundred hours and thirty. Just short of six hours for you to not make a mistake, Nara. Can you manage?'

Shikamaru scowled at the Major and nodded. Kakashi continued.

'While you're making your way out there the bombardment of the German lines will continue as it has done for the past two weeks. This should make life easier for those in the right hand sap, as unfortunately the Huns aren't stupid enough to run out into the face of a mortar attack. However, we've become aware of active counter mining from the Germans for the past month or so, and our sappers have run into significant difficulty down there. Kiba and Nara, I want you listening out at all – and I mean all – times. You have your radio, and the sappers have theirs. Keep in close, quiet contact. Captain, the bombardment is due to cease at zero-two-fifty. At this point I want you retreating, all of you, fast. You don't want to stick around there to see the fun. I want you back on front lines by zero-three-twenty at the latest so I can brief you with your next orders. Do I make myself absolutely clear?'

A more resounding nod from the men this time left Major Kakashi in no doubt that his instructions were understood. He gave them a smile.

'We may not make history tomorrow, gentlemen,' his voice lacked the barking authority it held as he lashed out orders, 'but we will certainly change the geography. To your posts.'

A sharp salute later and the soldiers had disappeared into their relative saps. Glancing up at the black sky, infiltrated here and there with purplish clouds, Copycat pulled out one of the cigarettes from his back pocket and lit up. With any luck, the Captain wouldn't notice.


Sherby: And that's that. Come on guys, drop me a little love!