Diary Entry

Day 9
9 July 1916

Dear Diary,

It's been 9 days since the Battle of the Somme began. The first day already spelt doom for the Allied Forces, with the estimated casualties at that time reaching around 40,000. 9 days seemed like 9 centuries for us soldiers. Everyday was filled with soldiers busily running from trench to trench, stepping in the mud and exposing ourselves to typhoid, malaria, and anything else. Everyday was full of gunfire and airplane bombings. Day by day, our comrades fell in battle, their dead bodies littering the trenches. Every corner we turned, there was a grotesque corpse with twisted emotions on their faces. Whether it was grief, regret or despair, we had no time to pause to think; the enemy was on their way. The trenches were unbelievably horrible; the mud was seemingly filled with every minute abomination. As the soldiers took off their boots everyday after a weary day at war, uncountable creepy-crawlies could be seen residing in their boots. It was a terrifying sight, and the threat that disease posed to us only added to our paranoia that we would soon meet the Reaper. Was this what we had signed up for? Was this the glory that we had been promised prior to joining the army? As the days continue to go by, all I can hope is for this war, this cruelty, to come to a halt. I pray that one day, I would live to go back to my homeland, where there would be no food shortages, no riots, only peace and harmony.