LIEUTENANT!

 LIEUTENANT!!!

“Lieutenant! Lieutenant!”

I twisted my head round to see who was calling.

“Help me Lieutenant, you have to help me!”

A dowdy man with greasy  black hair sank to his knees before me.

“What is it?’I asked, concerned.

“It is my friend, he is dying”, the man whispered.

“Who are you?”

“I am Alec Campbell”.

“Take me to the patient”,I said.

I was lead through a damp tunnel teeming with rats and into a dark hole in the side of the trench.It smelt horrible and musty, like caked mud and gunpowder.The hole was pitch black so I could see no-one.*

“Hello?”I whispered urgently.”Look I’m really sorry but I can’t stay long, I have duties to carry out”.

I was answered only by a wheezy grunt.As my eyes became accustomed to the darkness, I was able to make out a  heap of blankets on the ground and a thin body lay twisted in between them.

“Hello?”I asked again.

There was no answer. Campbell sank to his knees beside the man.

“Please don’t go Josh, please don’t go”.

A siren sounded loud and clear. We all knew what that meant.

“I’m sorry Campbell, We have to go. Drill”.

He nodded but stayed put. Unsure of what to do, I headed outside for roll call.

“Lieutenant!”

It was the General Hutchinson.*

“You are late,”he barked.

“I am sorry General.”

“I don’t have time for your apologies, go!”

I knew I was in trouble.  I walked to the firing range where everyone was grouped, waiting for the the dismissal signal. As I joined the line registry line, the rest of the lieutenants sniggered at me.

“Fancy being late for roll call’, someone jeered at me.

I bit my lip. Suddenly, something exploded.

Gunfire.

“Evacuate the premises!”General Hutchinson yelled.*

No one heard him. Soldiers ran in every direction, hectically trying to escape the Turkish gunfire.

I knew what to do.I had been trained to take charge in battles, long hours I had spent practising for an event like this.

“Everybody, take to the trenches immediately. Hurry!”

I blew my whistle and rounded up the soldiers who were all acting like terrified sheep.  They followed me. I led them through the burning Flanders Field and down into the only entrance to the trenches.

After that, the panic receded and everyone calmed down a bit.*

                                                                ****

Everything was aflame.

Dying men screamed.

I had only one purpose, and that was to find Campbell and Josh. I meandered through the mud covered trenches and eventually found what I was looking for.

Campbell was exactly where I had left him, but the atmosphere in his trench-hole was different. Brighter, livelier somehow.

Then I noticed why.

The soldier, Josh, who had been so affected by profound sickness, was sitting up and talking.

“Hello Lieutenant, I am grateful for the time you devoted to me,”he said without hesitation.

I was amazed. It was a miracle. How could a man so ill become so much better in such a short amount of time?

                                                               ****

While the battle raged on outside, a young Lieutenant and two soldiers sat together and celebrated the recovery of a soldier who had been doomed to die from plague, but had recovered, and till this day, no one knows how.