The Soldier's Song by Alan Monaghan — Read

Nightingale slowly let the discs of the binoculars slide down the dreary landscape. Viewed through the glass it looked like a painting – flat, achromatic, unreal. When he could see nothing more than the blurred earth a few yards in front, he put down the glasses and looked up. The sky was low and grey and the ashy clouds seemed almost to brush the earth. It would be dark soon: the day was almost over.

He'd been lying out in this spot so long that he was nearly submerged in the mud. After the others started their attack he had sat in the trench for an hour, listening as the firing grew to a crescendo and then died away altogether. By then he was completely certain that the flares wouldn't go up, but he couldn't just sit there. There was no sign of anybody coming back, no counterattack, no artillery barrage, nothing. When the rain clouds settled on top of the ridge he crawled forward to try and see what was going on, but all he could see was the squat grey hump of the strongpoint. Nothing moved. A half-dozen khaki lumps dotted the grass in front of him, but they were clearly dead. Otherwise the slope was eerily empty. It was as if the rest had vanished into thin air.