Secret Soldiers
Contents (45)
- DULCE ET DECORUM EST
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- EPILOGUE
- AUTHOR’S NOTE
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- CONTENTS
Begin Reading
Table of Contents
About the Author
Copyright Page
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To my secret soldiers,
Greg, Aidan, Colin, and Maximus.
Without your love and support,
I’d have lost many a battle.
Thank you for standing by me
during the setbacks
and celebrating with me
each small victory.
You ignite my imagination,
inspire my words,
and fulfill my dreams.
DULCE ET DECORUM EST
WILFRED OWEN
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
ONE
MACHINE-GUN FIRE TORE across the narrow, lifeless stretch of muddied earth separating the armies of the Allies and the Central Powers. The soldiers called it no-man’s-land, but the battlefield was not barren of men. British and German. Belgian and French. It claimed them all. Without prejudice and without mercy.
A young soldier crouched behind a trench wall. He clutched his rifle to his chest and strained to hear through the din of gunfire, but only the thundering booms of the German howitzer cannons interrupted the rapid pulse of the machine guns. The enemy launched artillery shells high into the sky above no-man’s-land. They screeched like banshees as they plummeted back to earth, exploding on impact—before, behind, and inside the Allies’ trenches—with deafening blasts.