My first proper Doctor Who story. Enjoy, and please review!
1916
The guns ground on, and spat.
From miles behind the long, trailing lines of trenches, the stinking, muddy ditches where the soldiers had made their homes for the past year, the guns thundered and roared. On the horizon, if one had binoculars or good, young eyes, or had the misfortune of being in a salient far nearer to the foe, one could see the detonations. Great, red gouts of hellfire and smoke and shrapnel, shattering the brief calm of the night air, already shuddering from the last volley. The guns had been firing for five days now; five solid days of carnage on the ridge, and, as Captain Brenton was often pointing out, five solid days with no sleep.
"War's bad enough when you actually get six hours of shut eye," he complained. "But without it? Damnable gunners."
"They say that we're getting some chicken next week, sir," Lieutenant Grears said, ruffling his newspaper for the hundredth time.
Brenton snorted. "A reward for living through the next big attack, then."
"A damned good one, though, so we must be thankful for these small mercies." Grears raised a stub of a pencil, and looked at the crossword through a set of pince nez. "Four across, carnivorous animal, grey." He snorted. "Wolf, obviously. Who writes these things, anyway?"
Brenton's response was drowned out by the crash of shell fire.
A rat squeaked, before scuttling right into the trap that had been set for it in the dugout corner. With a snap, and an agonised squeal, its life ended. There was a generally satisfied grunt from both men.
"I sent young Lethbridge out as duty officer," Brenton went on, clambering to his feet and striding over to the corner. He grabbed the rat and, with a cricketer's flourish, threw it out into the open air. "Knows his onions, that one."
"Thin, brown hair, speaks with a stutter?" Grears asked, laying the paper aside.
"The very same."
"Indeed he does, 'pon my soul he does! Took to it like a duck to water. Oxford man, am I right?"
"Magdalene's. Only just out."
Grears, a Cambridge man himself, made his traditional scowl at the twin university. "Beat 'em in the boat race in my day," he said. "All those long years ago."
"When things were made of wood, when fields were green-"
"-and I saw things through my rose tinted spectacles," Grears finished. They both laughed, even as the guns continued to pound on.
Tea was poured, and the men sat in contented silence. Outside, the soldiers of the Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry, D Company, made their way through yet another long, monotonous day on the line. Stoves were lit, rations turned into whatever meals could be made, and tales were told. A corporal found, to his disgust, that a dismembered rat had ended up in his tea. He swore bitterly, and flung the offending creature into No Man's Land, before returning to his evening brew. Leaves were rare, now that convoys were getting sunk by the bloody week.
"How's ammunition?" Brenton asked, for want of anything else to say.
"Well enough, last time I checked."
"Rifle grenades?"
"Each man has twenty. Sergeant Major Bywaters made sure of it."
"Bayonets?"
"All razor sharp," Grears said. For all the good they'll do, he thought.
"Lewis guns?"
"Both in readiness," Grears said. "But I'm sure Lethbridge could tell you more about that, sir. He's coming just about now, I should think."
True to form, Second Lieutenant Lethbridge peered into the dugout, before hastily giving his salute. He was much as Grears had described him: thin, brown hair, with the beginnings of a moustache on his upper lip.
"Report, if you please," Brenton said, once more clambering to his feet. This time he banged his head on the ceiling, which perhaps managed to spoil his desired image of dignified authority.
"W-well, sir," Lethbridge said, now as close as he could get to filling the small doorway into the dugout, allowing much of the light of the explosions past, "we're good on ammunition. Hundred r-rounds per man and the Lewis Guns are in working order."
"How are the men feeling out there? Nervous? Excited?"
"They- they seem quite normal, sir," Lethbridge said, with an appropriately non committal shrug. His coat seemed to hang off him, Grears thought. They'd all lost a few pounds in this affair, and be lucky if all they lost was a few more. "Sergeant Frederick mentioned that they were feeling quite t-tired."
"The bombardment," Brenton said, finishing his tea in a decisive gulp. "Anything else?"
"N-nothing more, sir," Lethbridge said. He started towards a chair.
"Help yourself," Brenton said, now suddenly more cheerful. "Well, sit down then." Lethbridge did so, gratefully accepting the last of the tea, and accidentally elbowing Grears.
"Not your fault, not your fault," Grears said, as Lethbridge started to apologise. "Cigarette?"
"No thanks. I'm saving mine."
Grears nodded, before lighting up himself. "A cold night?" he asked.
"Rather." Lethbridge tried to speak in a manly, warlike fashion, which the other two men noticed. "But a damn site warmer for those rogues on the ridge!"
"I would prefer this dugout, quite frankly," Grears said. "Rather than all those five-nines banging about."
"Mmm."
"They're probably getting even less rest than we are," Brenton said, resuming his former argument. "Damnable gunners."
"One of my fellows, at the Lancet," Grears said, after another silence, "once told me that some doctor fellow had decided that sleep was bad for the mind, or some business like that. Drove a chap to senility if he got too much."
"D'y-D'you know that doctor's name?" Lethbridge piped up again. "If you do, we could go into b-business together! Doctor Whoever he is and Lethbridge, working to provide greater tranquillity of mind! Premises, fifty miles west of London, number six trench section."
"Pay one shilling a day to get shot at, and have the cereberal tubes cleared, or some such nonsense," Brenton finished. "The rubbish they put on recruiting posters these days. Still trying to pretend that they aren't conscripting everyone over fourteen, or whatever it is now."
"It's a necessary evil," Grears said, placatingly.
He got no further in his explanation, for at that moment a bugle began to ring loud and clear above the bombardment.
Lethbridge jumped, spilling tea all over the duckboard floor. Grears slowly removed his pince nex, and reached for his holstered revolver.
"Time for war, then," Brenton said, rising to his feet and donning his cap. The others did the same, slowly rising and drawing their weapons. "Good luck, everyone."
"And to you, sir," Grears said. Lethbridge, pale faced, just nodded.
Brenton could hear his men opening fire; the boxy bangs of their rifles, and the clatter of machine gun fire, now melding into one overwhelming crescendo. "Place your fire!" he called encouragingly, striding out of the dugout. He turned to Lethbridge. "My compliments to Stokes of the trench mortars, and ask him if he would be so good as to give us some light to see by?" The boy nodded, and hurried off down the trench, shouting encouragement on the way.
Brenton turned back to the battle. Despite the dark, he could just about make out the figure of the enemy, lit up in the eerie light from muzzle flashes and shell bursts. Charging the lines, as usual. And, as usual, they were simply ignoring the guns of his company. Brave men, he thought. Or whatever they were.
He counted down from ten. They always said it, by the time he had reached three. Always in the same, grating, horrid tones.
"EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!"