Heaven and Hell in 1916

Suddenly, another whistle, and we saw Germans reinforcements heading towards us.

"Pull back!" the sergeant yelled, and just as quickly as we had jumped into the German trenches, we were retreating out of them and running for our lives across the desolate expanse of no-man's land, back to our own lines. We were all out of ammunition. It was a massacre. The landscape was littered with dead and injured British soldiers.

The German machine-guns opened fire again and John and I jumped into the nearest crater together as the bullets whizzed above our heads. And that's where we stayed for the next few hours as the Germans fought back, hoping above hope that we were far enough from their lines to be over-run.

We held each other tightly, absorbed in our own thoughts. I'd murdered a boy, no older than myself. I could still see the shock in his eyes. I was inconsolable. John took my face in his hand gently, understanding my pain, and wiped away the tears, dirt and blood with his handkerchief. I lifted my face to his, and suddenly we were kissing, our lips locked together, our tongues exploring each other's mouth. We held each other to forget the horrors of the last few hours; to block out the faces of the young boys we had killed; and because we realised that we were in love. We looked at each other in despair: there appeared to be no hope for us, no future for our relationship.

But there is always hope....

I hope you like this story. The battle -- the Battle of Boar's Head - is true. Almost 400 men were killed and 1000 wounded or captured. The characters are fictional.