Fall of The Dove

© 1990 Stephen Hunt (UK)

Print this one out? Approx 4 pages of A4 text

"Shelly," the voice said. "Shelly, there's an officer in the trench. An officer!"

 Waking up, Shelly saw it was Louise the Limper, her brown uniform glutinous from crawling through the No-M. Shelly had been thirteen the last time he saw an officer. How old was he now? Twenty maybe.

 "This had better not be another game"

 "No, really!" Louise sounded offended. She must have been coming up to thirteen herself, and she resented the accusation of immaturity implicit in Shelly's words. She had long since abandoned her talent for practical jokes, surprising everyone by becoming a resourceful sniper.

 Shelly growled and picked up his Enfield, automatically checking the breech. Six shells: full capacity.

 They both went over to the ladder pinned to his room's mud walls, sounds of excitement coming from the chambers below. News spread fast in the seven level dug-out. There had been another two levels below the seventh, but those had been abandoned when one of the children disappeared and the rumours starting circulating, of another new weapon - the ghost digger.

 "How do you know he's an officer?"

 Louise was excited now. She adjusted her helmet, the steel one with an iron spike pluming out - that had come off the metal figurehead on the unmanned Krupp LK-II that had attacked their position Tuesday before. Its twin drums had been weeks-empty of shells, and wielding old pipes the Company had sprinted through the Krupp's cloud of coal smoke and smashed the thing into a drown-hole, laughing at its harsh foreign threats and the grating mechanical voice.

"He's old, Shelly, as old as can be. And he's got the braid, just like Corporal Corsham said an officer should. But he's been hurt."

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