The Forgotten Battalion

Mud swallowed every step that private Thompson took. The November rain had turned the mooring lands of Hürtgen Forest into a sucking mire, its damp air reeking of decay and rot. He trudged forward, armed with his mud covered rifle, in this eerily silent forest with its trees casting a suffocating gloom over him.

Last night, his regiment had been ambushed by the Germans, forcing them to disperse in the dead of night to avoid being gun down. He remembered losing the company of his comrades, and then his balance as he tripped midflight in this usurping mud land. The next thing he knew; he was in the middle of nowhere in this hellish battle land. Alone and forgotten.

But then he saw them, in a distance, a heart-wrenching march of death. He hid, he crawled through the muddy swampy land till he reached a point where these wavering figurines took the shape of soldiers- slow but fluid and unwavering in their movements. They stood in the mist-shrouded trench ahead. Their uniforms were old—but not too old. Not the olive drab of American GIs, nor the dull gray of the Wehrmacht, but something else. Tattered greatcoats, rusted buttons, boots worn to collapse. Rifles from another time rested in their hands, mud-caked and ancient.

James hesitated. He had seen enough of war to recognize his own. These men were strangers.

Just then their colonel- a man with a gaunt face- called out to him.

“You are lost private”

A shudder went down Thompson’s spine as he emerged from his hiding and under the scrutinizing eyes of the battalion. “I-I got separated from my unit in the bombardment last night”

The man nodded, as if half-expecting his reply and then ordered, his voice barely above a whisper “Come Private, take position. The battle is not lost yet”

Thompson swallowed hard, contemplating his command but couldn’t muster the courage to flout it and so, with his boots sinking into the freezing sludge, he marched towards the trench.

The march was unbelievably silent save the occasional artillery in a distance. The troops marched in quite a mechanical fashion, none uttering anything above a rare murmur. A strong scent of decay filled his nostrils, causing him to occasionally belch and inviting a glare of rebuke. He trudged along the ankle deep swamps as thick fog engulfed the forests of Hürtgen Forest until the trenches fell into his sight.

The trench was ancient, its wooden supports half-rotted, its walls lined with bones—rib cages tangled in barbed wire, skulls half-buried in the mud. His breath came in short gasps as he looked at the figures around him. He retched as the overwhelming stench of rotten flesh filled his nostrils, the scene of death around him weakened his spirits and quickened his heart.

But then he saw the bodies, slumped against the trench walls, collapsed amidst a grotesque stillness. Their protruding bones and putrid flesh clung to their uniforms. However much unlike the living members of the battalion, their uniform bore their insignia of the Imperial German Army- a force from the great war!

Thompson’s heart sank as the realization set upon him and then everything fell into place like the pieces of a puzzle- the mechanical movements, the rotten stench, the unrecognizable uniforms- these men belonged to a bygone era, cursed to fight their dreaded nightmare till the end of time.

A shriek, split the air, loud and inhuman, letting a shiver rip down Thompson’s spine. Beyond trenches, he peered through the mist, something moved. Just then, taking que, the battalion raised their weapons in eerie unison, their motions heart wrenching.

And soon came the enemy… not germans or men of any ranks but things that crawled, their faces contorted into human agony, their twisted limbs ending at hands more akin to claws. Thompson had no choice but to join the ranks of the battalion and fired at the horrid mass of creatures but it barely made any difference.

The Forgotten Battalion fought without fear, their movements swift, unrelenting. James saw one of them take a claw to the chest—but there was no scream, no blood. The soldier staggered but kept fighting, eyes locked on the enemy. They could not die. Because they had already died.

The realization gripped him like an icy pair of hands- he had stumbled into something beyond war and beyond death itself. The Forgotten Battalion did not fight for victory. They fought because they could never stop.

And now, neither could he.

-The End