I haven't updated in a while, I know I know. Life happened.
Nick yawns, trying not to let his eyes close, wobbling slightly on his feet as he stands next to Jeffy, picking half-heartedly at his bread.
"You better eat that. Best we've 'ad in ages for breakfast, that is. Supplies keep gettin' shelled..."
Nick smiles at him weakly, smothering another yawn. He'd barely slept, the constant drone of the guns at the Somme a few miles away keeping him awake. Jeffy grins at him, before yawning widely too.
"How do you cope, being this tired all the time?" Nick asks.
"You get used to it," Felix says from his other side, making him jump. "Or... you learn to keep going through it anyway."
Nick finishes his bread, wrapping his hands gratefully around the warm mug of tea Blaine hands him. There's movement at the other end of the trench, two tall figures walking toward them, stark against the mist that hangs low over the mud.
"Oi, oi! It's the Brit and the Bosch!" Jeffy yells, grinning.
"Line up, lads. At attention, come on, come on." Smythe says, striding toward them, a slightly shorter man following behind him.
The men line up down the trench, standing to attention as the officers march down alongside them. Somehow, Nick's ended up at the end of the line, and he steals the opportunity to glance at the men. Jeffy's a couple of men down from him, staring straight ahead. He looks completely different, much older than he is, hand gripping the butt of his gun tightly. Felix, next to Jeffy, looks the same, eyes shining through the mud on his face.
"Privates Anderson and Slater, neatest uniforms I've seen, well done." Felix straightens slightly at this, the corners of his mouth twitching. "The rest of you, step up. Keep them clean. Keep your feet clean, and dry."
Next to him, Blaine rolls his eyes.
"I saw that, Anderson." Smythe calls, grinning.
Blaine grins back and Nick shifts his feet uncomfortably. Something about the way they're looking at each other makes him feel uneasy, his heart pounding slightly in his chest.
"On watch tonight: Anderson; seventeen hundred to nineteen hundred hours, Slater; nineteen hundred to twenty-one hundred hours, Adams; twenty-one hundred to twenty-three hundred hours, Duval; twenty-three hundred to oh-one hundred hours, Sterling; oh-one hundred to oh-three hundred hours, Henson; oh-three hundred to oh-five hundred hours." Smythe barks, "You know your watch times for the day, for the rest of the time, clean the trenches – get rid of cigarette butts and rubbish, check your packs, write letters home. Keep busy. Dismissed."
Nick turns, immediately trying to find Jeffy, but Smythe stops him.
"A word, Duval."
Nick turns expectantly, glancing between Smythe and the man next to him.
"Private Duval, Captain Hummel." Smythe introduces them quickly, disappearing off to talk to the men, the Captain watching him, obviously disapproving.
"Duval, nice to meet you." Hummel holds out his hand. "I know your brothers, how are they?"
"They're fine, Sir." Nick says, shaking his hand and smiling.
He can't quite place Hummel's accent, which doesn't usually happen to him. Kent, maybe... It's almost the same as his, but there's a lilt at the end that doesn't match. Nick thinks for a moment that he might get away with actually asking, but Hummel's already nodding and walking over to Smythe where he's laughing with Felix and Blaine. Nick watches him go and realises with a start that Jeff's gazing at him steadily.
Nick walks over, joining the group just as the officers stride away. Jeffy raises an eyebrow at him.
"'ow'd the Bosch like you then?" He asks.
"The... who?"
"Captain 'ummel. We call 'im the Bosch cos 'e's got a german name. Smyfe said 'e lived there for a while too."
"He... seems like a nice enough chap..." Nick mumbles.
German, he thinks. That's the lilt on Hummel's accent he hadn't been able to place.
Jeffy nudges him and then grins, clapping his hands together.
"Right then lads. Let's get cleaning!"
Felix laughs, and the four of them split up, making their way down the trench, picking up what little rubbish there is that hasn't been carried off by rats or sucked into the mud. There's a man he doesn't know working next to him, and he thinks about introducing himself, but the way the man's hands are shaking and the look in his eyes, scare Nick, and to his shame he stays quiet.
"Doin' alright there, Nic'las?" Jeffy calls, ducking between the legs of the man on watch to pick up a cigarette end.
Nick nods, grinning. He turns back to the patch of trench he'd been looking at and freezes. For a second, his vision seems clearer, ice crystals in the mud practically glittering, his blood roaring in his ears. There's a hand sticking out from the trench wall, jutting from between two sandbags. The skin is blue, black under the nails, half covered in mud but entire and intact, and Nick can't stop looking at it.
"...Jeffy." He croaks, seeing Jeffy look up and start to walk over out of the corner of his eye.
"Nic'las?"
"Hand." Is all Nick can manage before he's scrambling away, trying not to fall backwards.
Jeffy's by him in an instant, pressing a cup of tea into his hand and pulling him away.
"Sit down, drink this." Jeffy tells him, pushing him toward the dug out.
Nick takes a couple of shaky steps, heading inside just as Felix runs up to Jeffy.
"Smythe's coming." Nick catches, before he's inside and sitting down heavily on the bed.
He stares down into his mug, watching a few flecks of cigarette ash swirl through the liquid. His head's still pounding, every time he closes his eyes the image of that hand swims in front of him. Nick takes a mouthful of lukewarm tea, trying to distract his mind with the taste.
"It's war, Nick..." He says to himself, "You can't let yourself... react like this to every little thing..."
Jeffy coughs from the doorway, smiling kindly at him.
"Y'alright?" He asks, glancing back as two men bustle past him.
Nick nods, draining his mug and putting it down on the table. He smiles, standing up as Jeffy turns and heads out of the dug out. Nick follows close behind him, blinking in the sunlight after being in the dark. There're two stretcher bearers standing next to the trench wall, and Felix is wielding a shovel. Nick looks away.
Jeffy nudges him and snaps to attention, saluting as Smythe marches up.
"I hear you've found a hand."
That night Nick stands looking out across No Man's Land, hands tight on the gun resting on the top of the trench. He can hear shouting from a few trenches away, and the orange glow of a fire lights up the sky. Nick sighs softly, eyes scanning the horizon, shifting on his feet. There's a mist low across the wire in front of him, and in his imagination hundreds of Germans hide within it. A noise from behind him startles him and he almost jumps into the air.
"Sorry..." Jeffy says softly, stepping up to lean on the trench wall next to him, looking up at him.
Nick nods, not trusting his voice not to squeak if he tried to talk. Jeffy puts a cigarette into his mouth, ducking down to light it, covering it with his hand. He offers his box up to Nick who shakes his head.
"Don't smoke?" Jeffy asks, surprised. "You're a rare one..."
Nick turns his gaze back to the trenches opposite theirs, shivering slightly as wind blows across, harsh and cold. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Jeffy move, tugging his letter from his pocket and unfolding it.
"Are you excited to see them again?" Nick says, voice low.
"Who?"
"Your sisters... your family. Surely you'll be excited to see them again, when you go home..."
Jeffy looks at him for a second, taking a deep drag from his cig before blowing a cloud of smoke into the air between them.
"Go 'ome? The only way we'll be goin' 'ome is in a box, mate." He takes another drag, "That or we'll be in such little pieces as they'll never find us."