Dixon was cleaning his rifle when a stern voice asked “Are you the replacement”?

He looked up to see Sergeant Hartford before him and nodded.

“Good,” Hartford said curtly. “Leave your rifle and come with me”.

When they stepped out of the dugout and made their way through the boggy trenches it was darker than Dixon remembered it being and he found it hard to adjust to the light.

“You know why you’re here?” Hartford asked to break the silence.

“No” Dixon answered. “They didn’t want to give me the specifics. All they said was I should ask you and that I’d be having a long night ahead of me”.

Hartford chuckled softly. “Fuckers.. Alright I’ll make this simple”.

They then stopped at a ladder propped up against the trench line and he pointed at a dead corpse stuck on a string of barbed wire between them and the enemy trenches.

“You see the stiff over there?” Hartford asked.

“Murray”. Dixon corrected him. “I knew him, his name was Murray”.

“It doesn’t matter” Hartford answered. “He’s dead now and command wants us to get him and his friends off that wire and out of sight from our men. They say it damages the morale”.

Dixon stared at Murray’s cold dead eyes that pierced through the darkness and nodded. He had several friends that didn’t make it back from the previous attack and he now understood why his superiors didn’t tell him the details about his assignment.

“Anyways you don’t have to bury them or anything, just take them off the wires so they can’t be seen. We’ll use the moon as our only source of light and divide ourselves. You’ll be going West and I’ll be East and we’ll meet back here in five minutes, understood?”

Dixon nodded and Hartford stuck a pair of wire cutters in his hand and removed his helmet while Dixon did the same before he asked “What do I do if they’re still alive? The attack only happened a few hours ago. I’ve heard stories that men can rot out there for days on that wire.”

Hartford only shook his head. “Don’t make yourself a target. Just take care of the bodies and get back safe. I don’t want to bury another replacement”.

With that Hartford rubbed some mud on his face and crawled out of the trench and Dixon did the same a moment later.

It was hard at first. The stench from the bodies made Dixon gag and the flies were annoyed that someone was interrupting their meal. But the worst part at all was looking at them.

But by the third body, Dixon just shut his nose and nearly ripped them off the wire without so much as even glancing at their faces.

He then came to the last one in his sector and put the wire cutter to the man’s arm when the living man jerked and shouted.

Dixon panicked and hit the ground as the man began to plead in the darkness. “Please! Please help me!”

Dixon slid his hand over the man’s mouth. “It’s okay I’m here.. Listen, I’m going to get you out of here but you have to be quiet.”

The man agreed and did his best to be quiet when Dixon began to cut him from the barbed wire. But the pain of flesh ripping from metal made him nearly scream in anguish and Dixon tried his best to calm him down.

“Hey, do you have a family?” Dixon asked as he finished tearing his leg off the wire.

The man nodded “I have two daughters.. Oh my God, I’ve barely thought about them all this time. Listen, you have to tell them I love them if I don’t make it out of here.”

Dixon stared at the enemy trench line as he held his breath for a moment and then kept cutting “Tell them yourself when you get out of here.”

He then ripped his other leg away and the man screamed in pain again as a sniper’s bullet ripped into the ground beside them.

Dixon dropped the wire cutters and cussed his bad luck before helping the man to his feet but he shook his head. “I can’t walk.. I can’t feel my legs.”

The sniper’s aim got better and a bullet struck the post next to Dixon’s head as he picked the man up and carried him.

Cold blood began leaking all over his back as Dixon ran and more shots rang out in the night.

“You’re going to be okay I promise. Just think about your daughters we’re almost there.” Dixon tried to comfort the man as more blood ran down his back.

The sentry at the trench line began shooting back at the sniper and Dixon nearly collapsed as they fell into the trench where Hartford was there waiting for him.

“What happened?” He asked angrily. “Are you okay?”

Dixon immediately stood up and grabbed the man’s hand to drag him. “Give me a hand, this man needs to see a medic immediately or he’s going to die”.

Hartford flipped over the man’s corpse and shook his head. “You’ve wasted your time. I’m sorry but this man’s already dead.”

Dixon looked down and saw a fresh bullet wound through the man’s neck and his cold dead eyes staring back at him.

“I promised him he’d be okay,” Dixon said staring at his hands that were now caked in blood.

Hartford patted Dixon on the back and knelt beside him. “I can take care of him. Get to a dressing station and clean yourself off”.

Dixon did as he was told and slumped off to the rear trench line as Hartford checked the man’s body and found a set of ID tags and a photograph of two little girls with an address scribbled on the back.

“Great”. He muttered. “One more letter I have to mail out.”

He then slid the photograph in his uniform next to the others.