The roofless boats roar as the waves of ANZAC Cove crash over them. Land starts to appear in the distance. The men onboard have their Enfield rifles by their side as they sit on their knees, leaning forward on the person in front of them. I look at the man beside of me, his grenades dangling off his belt and his scruffy hair coming out the side of his helmet. “I have a bad feeling about this!” I say.
“We’ll be fine. Anyway the army are going in first so it will take the heat off for ya,” he continues. “What’s your name, kid?”
“Jason, and yours?”
“Eric.”
“I wish I was meeting you in a better place, instead of this hell hole!“
“You are such a pessimist!” he says with a slight anger in his voice. He lowers his head as land comes closer into view, but something is not right. They said the beach was flat, but they couldn’t have been more wrong.
Gunfire goes off in the distance as the first boats come into the shore. There are no sign of the men on the boat from this distance. The nerves start to set in. I see a man crawling across the ground. No legs! Crawling for his gun. Three shots go off. Makes me gag. I start to pant like a dog and squirm to get off the boat but I feel a comforting hand on my shoulder.
“Calm down, kid, we will be OK. I will stay with you.”
“I don’t think I can do this Eric,” I say.
“Pull yourself together, man!” the man in front says as the boat comes to shore. The hill is lined with men equipped with 50 caliber machine guns with tripods up against a sandbag barrier. The sand is rocky and shell-like. Shots start shooting at us as we grab our guns and get ready for battle. The front of the boat lowers so we can get out, but nobody is ready for this. The men at the front of the boat run and fall almost instantly. I don’t want to die. I am only seventeen. What seventeen year old dies in a war? I want to grow up, have a family. I want to live.
The men on our boat are being killed. They had no chance. Eric turns to me and says,
“We can do this!”
“Wait, wha…” I don’t get to finish my sentence when he tackles me into the water. My boots fill with water and I hope my guns aren’t blocked.
”Come on, Jason! Before they spot us!” he says with a frantic sound in his voice. I stumble to my feet as I watch my allies die right before my eyes. We run on an angle across the beach, trying to get behind enemy forces. They haven’t spotted us running for the hills. Relief is all over our faces. We stop running when we are nowhere to be seen. We sit on a rock and drink out of our canteens.
“Eric,” I say with a tinge of sadness, “What happens if we are the only ones who makes it out alive? Will someone pick us up?”
“I was thinking the same thing.” We stand up and head for the bunker at the top of the hill; crawling up a goat track to get to a steel door.
“I’ll open the door; you shoot them.” Eric says.
“What? I can’t kill someone!” I say with desperation.
“ The Turks will try to kill you, so toughen up.” He stopped talking as we came to the door. He put three fingers up and counted them down. I knew there was no going back. He slammed open the door. The adrenalin rushed through me as I pulled the trigger. Bullets hitting anything that moved. Their uniforms had three blood marks each, all to the upper body. I felt no regret.
The entry to the trench was in front of us heading both left and right.
“Which way should we g………” All I hear is ringing in my ears. I feel sudden a pain that grows worse. I look down at my legs. One of them is gone and blood is spurting out of it. Eric runs over to me, lifts me up and puts me on a table. I drift in and out of consciousness. I wake up to see a man right behind Eric. He pulls out his gun and shoots him in the head.
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