Anonymous Martian

1918

The invasion has begun. The natives of this planet are struggling to keep up. It has been a short while since our invasion has begun, and we have taken casualties much more than data has led us to expect. The locals are seemingly incapable of the natural fear of extinction and death that other animals feel. They charge recklessly at our war machines with their feeble firearms, knowing and ignoring our obvious superior fighting capacities.

That is how most of our comrades have died. Trying to kill off the rushing hordes of the pests from both sides of their war, who formed an non-negotiated armistice, while suddenly being hit by canisters of explosive heat.

But no matter how reckless the enemy may be, they know just as much as we do.

We are supreme.

Northern France

1918, February…

Both me and the German were sitting in our little ditch, petrified by what we had seen. It was only later that I had found out there was an armistice, and that many others were in situations like ours. But I still found it quite peculiar.

When the tripods finished off the last of our suicide charges, they began striding South in a casual manner, overlooking the ditch we sat in.

The war against the Martians was going far from well. It was said that over two hundred cylinders had, or were expected to land in Europe, with three tripods each. Another twenty or so landed in the United States, a dozen had landed in Imperial Japan, and couple landed in China.

Most of the people had been shocked by the Martian appearance so much that many ignored their superior officers commands of attack. In some situations the officers themselves were in shock and abandoned their posts. In others some officers were shot in panic.

We had succeeded in destroying a few of their tripods via the same method; have infantry distract the tripods in hordes while artillery bombards them.

I was sitting in the ditch. A bit shell shocked, thinking about my situation, and even starting to doze of when I felt a light tap on my shoulder.

I jerked in fear (as I had forgotten that the German was alive), and looked at the Jerry, who held a finger to his mouth in an international signal of 'shut the heck up!' followed by him beckoning me to look outside of our little crater.

I slowly peep my head over the top of the crater, and look in the direction the Hun was pointing to. It was the Martian tripod that the artillery had damaged. But now, the head of the fighting machine had opened, and there was what seemed like a giant, bear sized, brown and oily octopus trying to fix the machine with some of the most peculiar tools I had ever seen. The creature (I had concluded that this was probably the pilot of the machine) was acting quite erratically and jerky, like it was afraid of something. It took me a while to realise the vulnerability of this monstrosity.

I aimed my Lee Enfield rifle at the hideous creature. But before I could fire, I heard a loud Bang! from beside me, and the Martian jerked once more before it stopped moving. The shot was unmistakeably a mauser shot.

I turned to look at the Hun. He looked as nervous as I felt. He had sweat all over his face, and was breathing heavily. Then I noticed that I was as well.

After a few seconds of silence (except for our panting), I finally broke into a nervous laughter, and patted the Boche on the back. He then started to relax a bit and laughed with me. Eventually our laughter became made cheering and hooting, completely oblivious to the world around us.

But otherwise, considering where I was at the time, I had lost hope. I was sitting in a muddy hole, in the middle of a wasteland, next to who I would have called an arch enemy an hour ago, both of us about to pee ourselves from paranoia and shock.

At noon, the Jerry got out a couple of field biscuits (which didn't look too much more appetizing than our field biscuits) and offered me one. I turned him down, because I liked my teeth quite the way they were.

For most of the time we spent together we were both somehow getting on the way you expect two war veterans to do in a bar. Playing cards (with different rules), smoking (each others smokes) and yelling at each other whenever we suspected the opposition was cheating, or had a whore for a mother (in different languages).

When it was around night time, and the night started to set, the German peeped out of the ditch again, and looked around.

Satisfied, he started to climb out, turning around only to say the "adieu" before he disappeared towards his side of no mans land.

Not long after that, I crawled back to my trench as well. The details of the rest of that night are hazy, but I had madly concluded that I had just had an amazing dream and would wake up if I sleep in my trench.

I must sadly report that I was quite disappointed in the following morning.