lost in the snow
The silence hung low over the countryside like an accomplice to the laden sky.  The final echoes from the guns had faded, absorbed by the remaining fir trees, swallowed by the swirling snow.  As if war could be so easily erased. 
 
The girl's breath rasped in her burning throat and expelled mockingly always just ahead of her, just ahead.  The cold knifed through her thin shift, apposite to warm French bedrooms, not the cold reality of a midwinter's night.  She was young, too young to be so alone, running like a pale ghost through the indifferent night.
 
Her numb feet slipped on the icy road but she kept her balance and ran.  And ran. 
 
Through the gloom a building slowly materialised, a dilapidated barn, sanctuary, life.  She ran. 
 
Inside the barn it was dark, darker than the pale snow outside and the girl paused in the doorway.  Her eyes adjusted and she could see that sallow light entered the barn from a jagged hole in the roof, illuminating the shattered remains of a field gun.  Standing in the centre of the barn, a darker shadow against the ebony night, was a soldier.   His eyes lifted from the remains of his gun and fell upon her.
 
‘Please', she whispered, ‘who will help me?'
 
I heard the words from the child before me, could feel her eyes beseeching me but I could do nothing.  Nothing.  Could she not see that I was dead?
 
I knew I was dead; the vision of my end had been visited upon me before the searing reality had come to pass.   I had seen that we would all be killed in the early hours of the night, removed from the world of man by one of the last shells of the German barrage. 
 
There were four of us manning our field gun.  We had been together for six months, six months through the mud, the disease and the death of Flanders.  Our officer, Marlott, had chosen the deserted French barn as the ideal site for us to conceal our gun.  He was wrong; the barn would be only our crypt. 
 
I had drawn the late watch that night, our last night.  So I had slept first, slept and dreamt of the fate that was to befall us. 
 
In my dream I was awoken by the sound of gunfire, of shells ripping the air as they sped overhead, borne by the swiftness of hatred. 
 
We manned our gun; Marlott encouraging me to load the heavy shells faster, faster.  Our gun spitting our own fear and hate back at those who meant to harm us. Those just like us.  The world shook as a shell exploded nearby.  The enemy knew us  now and our mortal time was nearly over.  Still I loaded our gun with a desperate haste, as if by speed alone I could prevent our fate.  
 
We all heard it. The One.  We had heard enough shells to know the siren song of the one that would not pass us by.  We were frozen, unable to do more than stare upwards as death swept toward us on whistling wings.  A spanner that had been lying on the leg of our gun slipped.  Slipped and fell onto the shell casings below with a metallic tinkle.  The sound drove a thought like a spike into my brain ‘NOW, if I am to live I must move NOW'.  But I was frozen, by the cold, by my fear, and all I could move were my eyes to meet those of Marlott, staring at each other in wordless horror until the shell took our lives from us. 
 
I awoke from my dream to the sound of gunfire.
 
‘Please' the girl repeated ‘who will help me?'
 
In the distance I could hear the rumble of approaching troops.  They would take her and she would be lost.  Just a child, and lost.  I could do nothing.  Could she not see that I was dead?
 
‘Please' the girl repeated ‘who will help me?
 
Something.  Something was.  Wrong.  Was I still dreaming?. I stood in the barn, alone but for the scattered remains of my comrades.  No sound disturbed the snows gentle fall.
 
I awoke from my dream to the sound of gunfire...
 
We all heard it. The One.  We had heard enough shells to know the siren song of the one that would not pass us by.  We were frozen, unable to do more than stare upwards as death swept toward us on whistling wings.  A spanner that had been lying on the leg of the gun slipped. Slipped and fell onto the shell casings below with a metallic tinkle.  The sound drove a thought like a spike into my brain ‘NOW, if I am to live I must move NOW'.  My eyes met those of Marlott, staring at each other in wordless horror.
 
But something.  Something was.  Different. 
 
Marlott was moving, receding.  My comrades were drawing away from me, leaving me. 
 
No.
 
It was I that was moving, leaving them.  The sound of the falling spanner compelling my body to motion.  Struggling against the thick treacle of fear and despair, but moving, moving.  Shifting unbidden until the protective wall of the barn came between my comrades and I and they were lost to my eyes and moments later, lost to everything, enveloped in fire from above.  And I too was lost in darkness.
 
I returned to myself.  Confused and dazed I re-entered the barn.  My friends lay dead.  Dead, as I should have been dead. 
 
I stood in the barn, alone but for the scattered remains of my comrades.  No sound disturbed the snows gentle fall. 
 
But I could hear the ghost sound of footsteps running toward me in the snow and the whisper of a plea on the wind.
 
‘Please, who will help me?'
 
I.