A Love Letter from the Front…WWI (Short Fiction)

 

My Dearest,

Between the shouts and bombs, the opportunity to write has arrived through this lucky window of opportunity that could be short-lived.

How I miss you...

Currently crouched in a trench next to a sick friend, his body temperature is growing by the minute, but there is absolutely nothing I can do about it! We have been forced to remain in this hole because the gunfire begins at the slightest movement…we do not dare lift our vulnerable heads above the ground.

Yesterday the sounds of guns and bombs had been unrelenting. My dearest, I honestly thought I would go outraged. This war is not natural. Why do we continue to kill each other…in the name of what…the pride of our country, a dispute over a small slice of land?

Please forgive me, my dearest, ranting again, talking only about myself.

How is your mother? Has this remarkable woman’s condition changed at all, and have you managed to find some spare moments to work on your novel?

Thank you for sending the third chapter; it read like a tale that one would read many years ago, a romantic poetic piece of pure unrequited love.

My darling, this is what I feel for you.

(Sorry, my love, against your request, I let a few of the boys read the chapter, and they absolutely loved it!)

As the bombs pounded through the night, my thoughts were only of you…your beautiful smile, those deep hazel eyes, and that future time when we will meet again. Your image has kept me sane, my love; the notion of meeting you at the train station, your lovely smile, those tender lips, and the thought of kissing them, over and over, has kept me alive through this stupid and evil war.

Please forgive my candor, but there is something I must tell you.

You are the only woman I have made love to…this may shock, considering I am a man of twenty-five, but you are the first…and may I say, the last.

Touching your white skin and merely the act of lying beside you, our toes, (of all things) touching, and feeling that moment would never come again, forcing myself to remain awake. I know this might sound thoroughly childish; however, my love, I adore those beautiful toes.

***

Sorry, but it has been a full day, a long one, since continuing this letter. The bloke who I mentioned before has died, you know, the one with the fever. To be brutally honest, this poor man’s death has disturbed me. I think the sounds he made while dying upset me the most…but the enemy, at that moment, launched another attack… So my fellow dead soldier forgot for fear of my OWN life.

(We are a selfish species!)

We are still trapped like rats in this hole for fear of our own deaths.

We have not moved for weeks.

I miss you so much: the almost hypnotic scent of your beautiful hair in the morning; the delicate and flattering lines around your hazel eyes; the whisper of your voice next to my ear; that unbelievable smile and the utmost feelings ecstasy when we make love through the night. I desperately want to see and feel you again.

It is now late at night, and the bombs have finally stopped.

The sun is setting over the Western Front, and the explosions have started again…please think of me, my darling, and know, we will see each other again…in this life or perhaps, the next…

Remember me.

All my love,

XXX