The firing line did not sleep.
Jack learned that quickly.
Even when the artillery guns fell silent for a few stolen minutes, the war breathed, wet, ragged, and endless. The trench walls oozed, sagging inward as if they were slowly trying to swallow the men inside them. The mud clung to everything: boots, coats, rifles, skin. It crept into the folds of fabrics and stayed there, cold and heavy, as if it wanted to become part of them.
Jack sat hunched against the trench wall, knees drawn up slightly, helmet tipped low to keep rain from his eyes. His squad was scattered nearby, some standing watch, others crouched low, faces slack with exhaustion. No one spoke much. Words felt wasted here.
Time blurred...
Jack's body moved on instinct more than thought. When a rifle needed cleaning, his hands did it. When a sentry was relieved, he nodded and stepped forward without hesitation. It frightened him how natural it felt, how easily his body accepted the rhythm of this place.
He watched the men.
Otto Weiss, barely twenty, fingers trembling whenever he lit a cigarette, his eyes always darting upward at the sound of distant guns.
Friedrich Bauer, thick-necked and broad-shouldered, was the same man who had grabbed Jack on the battlefield. He moved with the weary competence of someone who had been here too long.
Karl Neumann, thin and quiet, was writing something in a small notebook whenever he thought no one was watching.
They were soldiers. Not heroes. Not monsters. Just men pressed into something vast and indifferent to their own lives.
When night fell properly, it was the sky darkening a shade deeper that could even be called night; the squad gathered around a small fire dug carefully into a recess of the trench wall. It was barely more than embers, shielded to keep the light from drawing attention. Someone had managed to scavenge a dented pot.
Stew.
Jack didn't know what had gone into it. Water, mostly. A few chunks of meat of questionable origin. Root vegetables so soft they fell apart at the touch of a spoon. The smell was weak, but it was food, and that mattered more than taste.
The men sat close, shoulders brushing, steel helmets knocked aside for a moment of false normalcy.
Otto broke the silence. "My mother used to make something like this," he said softly, staring into the pot. "With cabbage. And some chunks from a dear."
Friedrich snorted. "Then your mother was a liar."
A few tired chuckles rippled through the group.
Jack held the tin bowl in both hands, warmth seeping into his palms. He felt strange sitting there, an impostor wearing borrowed skin, yet no one questioned his presence. To them, he was simply Leutnant Miller, another officer cursed by fate.
He lifted the spoon.
The shell hit before it could even reach his mouth.
The explosion tore the night open.
Not close enough to kill them outright, but close enough.
The ground convulsed. A wall of sound smashed into Jack's skull, flattening him against the trench wall as fire and debris erupted somewhere beyond the lip of earth. Screams followed instantly, high and sharp, cutting through the ringing in his ears.
Mud rained down like a filthy storm.
So did blood.
Jack felt something warm splash across his face. Another hit his neck. Thick and Sticky.
The stew bowl was knocked from his hands, tumbling into the mud, but not before filth splattered into it. Earth, fragments of wood, something dark and stringy, Jack refused to identify.
A hundred metres away, where another group of soldiers had been eating, there was nothing left but a crater and pieces of men.
Jack scrambled to his feet, heart slamming, breath coming in short, panicked gasps. He looked toward the blast site, eyes wide.
Bodies, no, 'parts,' were scattered across the ground, some flung into the open, others hanging from shattered timbers. One man staggered out of the smoke with no lower jaw, hands clawing uselessly at his throat before he collapsed.
The screaming didn't stop.
Friedrich grabbed Jack's arm. "Down!" he shouted.
They crouched, helmets back on, waiting for the follow-up barrage that never came. When the world finally settled into a tense, ringing silence, Jack realised his hands were shaking violently.
Slowly, the squad reassembled.
Otto stared at the ground, pale, lips moving soundlessly. Karl retched over the trench edge.
Jack looked down.
The stew pot lay tipped on its side, its contents soaked with mud, blood, and worse.
Friedrich knelt beside it, frowned.
Then, without a word, he scooped some of it back into his bowl.
Jack stared. "Don't..."
Friedrich met his eyes. "It's food."
"But."
"We eat," Friedrich said flatly. "Or we starve."
One by one, the others followed. They scraped what they could from the pot, ignoring the filth, ignoring the smell. Otto hesitated only a moment before forcing himself to swallow, eyes squeezed shut.
Jack's stomach churned.
He didn't eat.
That night, he didn't sleep either.
Morning came grey and cold, the rain unrelenting.
Jack volunteered to lead a short reconnaissance patrol, partly because it was expected, partly because staying still made his thoughts spiral. Friedrich, Karl, Otto, and two others accompanied him, slipping out beyond the trench under the cover of early morning mist.
Polygon Wood loomed ahead.
What remained of it, at least.
The trees were shattered stumps, bark peeled away by shrapnel, branches reduced to jagged spears. The ground was worse than the trenches—pocked with shell holes filled with stagnant water, bodies floating just beneath the surface like pale ghosts.
The smell was unbearable.
Jack moved carefully, rifle held tight, every step deliberate. His senses felt sharpened, tuned to danger. He hated how alert he felt, how much that part of him adapted.
They advanced slowly along the edge of the wood.
That was when Otto froze.
Jack followed his gaze.
Figures moved through the trees.
A platoon of men marching in sync as their rifles hung and were strapped close.
French soldiers.
Blue-grey coats, Adrian helmets dull with mud, rifles slung as they marched cautiously through the ruins. They looked tired. Wary. exhausted.
Jack's heart hammered.
One command. One signal. And everything would explode into violence.
His finger rested near the trigger of his rifle as he aimed for the officer heading the troop.
The system was silent.
Capture Polygon Wood, it had said. But not now. Not like this. Not with six men against a platoon.
Jack lowered his rifle.
"We fall back," he whispered.
Friedrich hesitated. "Sir..."
"We're not here to die today," Jack said quietly. "Mark their position. Remember it."
They retreated the way they'd come, muscles tight, every snapped twig sounding like a gunshot. Only when the trench swallowed them again did Jack allow himself to breathe.
The French platoon remained behind them, unseen and unchallenged.
Waiting.
Jack was summoned by midday.
The front-line command dugout sat deeper than the trenches, reinforced with timber and steel. Maps covered the walls, dotted with pins and lines that meant life or death to men who would never see the decisions made here.
The commander was a broad-faced man with iron-grey hair and eyes like chips of flint. Other officers stood nearby, stiff-backed, watching with thinly veiled curiosity.
"So," the commander said, looking Jack up and down. "The mercenary officer returns."
The word struck, as Jack wondered why the commander had called him that.
Jack reported the patrol, the terrain, and the sighting of the French platoon near Polygon Wood. He spoke clearly, precisely, as he had learned to do through the watching of other officers.
The commander laughed.
"A platoon?" he said. "You expect us to divert forces for shadows in the trees?"
"They were real," Jack said. "And positioned dangerously close to,"
"You are not here to think," the commander snapped. "You are here because someone decided your… services… might be useful."
Murmurs of amusement rippled through the officers.
"An officer without allegiance," another said. "A soldier without a nation."
Jack felt heat rise in his face as the scrutiny of the officers and commanders came raining down on him before the commander spoke.
"Polygon Wood matters, I'll admit," he said. "But I do not believe the enemy would decide to position a platoon's worth of force in a fort and forest which had been bombed to hell."
The commander leaned forward. "You presume much for a hired gun."
Silence followed.
Jack realised then that nothing he said would matter here. Pride, arrogance, loyalty to a kaiser who is seated within a castle far from the front lines, it all weighed heavier than truth.
He saluted sharply and turned away before his anger betrayed him.
Back in the trench, the squad looked up as he returned.
Friedrich read his expression instantly. "They didn't listen, did they?"
"No," Jack said quietly.
He looked toward the distant ruin of Polygon Wood, rain blurring the horizon.
The system flickered faintly at the edge of his vision.
The contract remained, hovering as if toying with him.