The Trenches Descriptive Writing

The Trenches – WW1
I’m encapsulated in the unending nightmare of fear. The rain continues to bore on infinitely, pounding on the grubby ground and turning it into vast lakes of murky water. The miserable, grey clouds covered the sky, only letting a few rays of sun slip through. The monotonous sound of raindrops beating on the helmets of the soldiers thundered down like bullets. Everything was miserable, grey, and lacklustre. The thick layer of mud squelched beneath my feet as I struggled to walk. The repulsive odour of the trench overpowered my mind, causing the young recruits to spew endlessly on the floors of the thin, muck ridden trenches. The deafening explosions of mortar over No Man's Land pierce my ears and dirt spurts into my mouth as I choke in despair endlessly. Yet I could I still perceive the clamour of hundreds of men,
as they charge in panic. A sense of deep sorrow glints in their bloodshot eyes, as they realise death is unexpectedly upon them. All hope of survival had vanished…
It was cold and dark. The worst time to be in a trench. The days were short, but the nights were long. The dampness drowned into my weary bones. It was pitch-black apart from the canopy of luminous stars that glowed among the ocean of blackness. Our breath rose in visible puffs to join the gloomy night sky. I had lost all sense of touch as the howling winter wind whisked past my pale dry face and laughed as it tore right to my heart. There was a bitter chill in the air that brought crispness to the leaves, adorned with frost that crunched under my feet. My muscles began to ache and grind like the cogs in old machines. The heat from my body is rapidly leaching into the night air and my muscles are stiff from staying still so long. But I dare not move. All hope of survival had vanished…
My weary sore eyes slowly opened.
The few remaining stars flashed out of existence in the sky still hazy and swirled with a light spattering of clouds. The icy wind was torturous, creating a cold shiver to run down my spine. The rain fell in torrents from the sky, peeling the flesh of the powerless. At occasional intervals it was checked by violent gusts of wind which swept into the narrow trenches fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that glowed in the darkness. The deafening silence was broken by the abrupt blaring from soldiers. There was a pillar of scorching smoke and dust, which boiled up from where the bombs had gone off far underground. A series of new sparks broke out, lifting and scattering the incandescent radioactive gasses, and then a great gush of flame rose. The treacherous gas had awoken from its deep slumber of evil and ignited into a fiery ball of yellow flame, billowing outwards and filling the trenches with mustard. The noise had reverberated over the unending stretch of the trenches as quick as a thunder clap the malevolence of the gas started to drown me. I was trapped. All hope of survival had
vanished…
I was suffocating. My stomach was churning in agony. Rapidly, my head seemed to burst from a bellowing crack in my ear. Then my head began to shudder violently and a heavy pressure on the lungs warned me that my helmet was leaking. The plume of fire detonated into the duskiness and the flame progressed outwards like the smoke of a mushroom cloud. The scorching black grey smoke devoured everything in its path and choked clouds of poisonous smoke. Nothing could stop the mad rush and the wailing of soldiers. Men lay sprawled on the muddy ground, as the malicious gas seeped into their body. I was engulfed in the horror. The only way out of the wretchedness was to cross No Man’s Land. All hope of survival had vanished…

I sank onto the fire step; needles seemed to be pricking my flesh, then blackness.