The Trenches
by Hollie, age 11

It is six o'clock, it is very cold and I am shivering. The rats are awake there at my feet. As I look out over the trench all I can see is a grey, dirty landscape. The smells are always the same; smoky sickening smells, like the ones you find when somebody smokes constantly for a day and then, the smell that first hits you that is the smell we have to cope with all the time. I don't want to go out and fight, knowing this could be my last day, my last time to come to my trench. Everyone is so competitive now, nobody wants to be the one that quits, nobody wants to be the one that dies. I miss my family, my friends, my house. I tell myself everyday that I have to be brave, I have to fight. Everyone must feel like this, as if you're the only weak one and everyone else is stronger than you. were getting ready to come out of our trenches to fight. If I die now. I'm going to die, yes, but I will be proud I died fighting for my country and I hope my friends and family will be proud too. Everyone mutters to themselves. Everyone seems to be a bit mad. I can hear the bullets, see the tanks, my eyes are hurting half with tiredness half with smoke which is from the explosives. My weapons are on, I'm going to fight for another twelve hours. I wonder if I will be able to come back to the trench ALIVE tonight?