He sat in his room in Camp Bramshott, his pen poised above the paper

They were sitting ducks, outside the village of Damery in the North of France. Alfred Harding, nineteen and fresh to the war, lay in the dirt, watching a man he didn’t know feed ammo into the Vickers machine gun while his friend Roy made sure it stayed pointed at the Germans. That water-cooled behemoth of a gun, set on a tripod, kept them all stuck in one place – right in the line of fire. It was August 16th, 1918 – just days after the Battle of Amiens. Alfred remembered being woken up in the dead of night on the eve of the battle, and rushing quietly into German territory on a foggy, uncertain morning. He’d even heard stories of allied soldiers who captured German officers still eating breakfast. No one really knew what was going on and it was all very confused.

That battle was the start of the turning of the tide of the war – they were charging madly into German-controlled territory, hoping to make them retreat. Amiens had been a huge blow to German morale and a great victory for the Allies. But today there was no lingering glory, as Alfred Harding and the rest of the machine gun crew were in the dirt again with little protection but a slight dip in the land and their hard, dirt-covered-tan-green helmets.

The six men who made up the crew sat crouched in the ditch, their gun providing cover for the advancing Canadian infantry. The Germans fired out from the fortified village, with buildings and sandbags for cover. Alfred felt extremely insecure, sitting in one place out in the open where any German sniper could pick them off with ease. It was futile, they all knew it. But such was the Great War. He’d just been drafted, but the war had been dragging on for four years with little gain for either side. Maybe the tide had turned with the Battle of Amiens, he thought desperately. Maybe he wouldn’t be there for too much longer.

Suddenly the man holding up the belt of ammunition slumped against the hill, killed by a stray bullet. One of the men cleared his body out of the way while Alfred looked on in shock. He had seen men die before in the few short months he’d been in the war, but never that close up.

“Alf, take over,” shouted Roy over the din of the machine gun. Alf mechanically complied, reaching a shaking hand into a case that was the same ambiguous colour as his helmet. He pulled out a belt of ammunition, the long train of three inch long bullets heavy in his hand, and fed it into the side of the gun.

Roy was a teacher, a good number of years older than Alf, and they were both from the same area around Brantford, Ontario, though they barely knew each other. They met up by chance at Camp Bramshott in Surrey, England, and the two of them joined the Canadian Machine Gun Corps at the same time. Alfred had stayed at Camp Bramshott for a few months after being drafted, taking it easy. He took his first leave in January and visiting London. Taking the underground railway was novel and he had a good time at a friend’s nephew’s place. The country must be nice in peace time, he’d thought. But by then it was scarred by war, its young men sent out to the continent to fight, and not very enjoyable. He could visit it again once the war ended – though none of this was on his mind at the moment.

Alfred wiped the sweat from his brow with one hand and held up the ammunition belt with the other. Damery had changed hands several times earlier in the war, and was mostly destroyed. Squinting towards the village, he saw the men crouched at the sides of crumbling buildings, shooting out at them. The machine gunners were prime targets for them, sitting exposed and immobile, but at least they didn’t have to get too close to the Jerries.

The rattle of the bullets flying from the machine gun shook Alfred to the bone. He moved automatically, staying low to the ground, repeating the motions he’d learned in training over and over. The combination of the great noise and of the horror of his crewmate’s death were a shock to his system, and he zoned out. For a brief moment, he was separated from the roaring of the guns and the corpse lying next to him, and he thought of home. Brantford, Ontario, where he’d moved away from just before being drafted - where could see his brothers - Herb, and Vic, and Reg - and his sister Anne. Though he was inexperienced in the war, he was already thoroughly disgusted by it. He’d heard before he came that none of it was what anyone had expected – they found none of the grandeur that was promised them in sitting in trenches for four years surrounded by rotting corpses. That’s what he’d expected when he’d gone overseas so late in the war to fight, and he’d had no illusions. There was no glory to be had there.

He snapped back to reality for another brief second and was fully aware of the bullets flying through the air, the roaring guns, the blood staining the ground and the men dying all around him before -

“Alf, get me another belt!” Roy shouted. “Alf! ALF!” But Alf was gone too - slumped over against the dirt hill, a bullet through his brain.