"I'm telling you," the recruit declared, unhazed passion still strong in his throat. "I saw it! One of the buggers peaked an eye over the trench, s'why I popped off a shot at him. Anything but a negligent discharge, sir."
	"Shut it." His superior replied curtly, tired eyes sweeping over the landscape with no desire to be awake before his spare few hours were complete. "And why've we seen nothing of it since? They'd be on us by now, the noise always gets them riled up."
	"I don't know, sir," the recruit noted. His naivety had yet to be beaten out of him. "But I know what I saw. I'll be damned before the whole camp gets on me ass for being a liar, trenches'll sooner take me 'fore then."
	"You from the east?"
	His underling nodded, "Just near Poland."
	"Then I take it you couldn't tell a bugger's ass from his elbow if you tried. Listen, you see a bit of slimey skin -- shoot it. Hide ain't natural, ain't right. Don't belong in this world. But that's 'cause they're attacking. I say -- leave 'em be if they want to keep to themselves.
	"But what about all we've lost?" The recruit interjected with confusion, such that his voice cracked with his youth. " -- Sir. Isn't out fight here on the western front all to take back everything that they stole from us?"
	"Not chance in hell we'll be able to beat them back all the way -- not when the best the brass can offer us for recruits are boys as green as the grass that used to grow here. Not when half a million or more have died this winter alone. So, I say -- defend all we can, and learn from example."
	"You mean to say -- sir," he added the pleasantry as an addendum compared to his last flub. "That you would give it all up? They might have taken France, and we haven't heard from Spain in years, but even so -- we've beaten armies plenty in the past, haven't we? I read about it in the books."
	"Different time, different enemy," the brow-beaten officer spoke softly, this time taking a moment to stare the kid in the eyes, then went on to pop a cig into his mouth. "You got a light?"
	The recruit lit a match quick as a whistle, his officer taking a moment to blow smoke out from between his teeth.
	"We're downwind," the veteran noted quietly, thinking that they might just make it. "Listen, we're not fighting people anymore. These are freaks of nature, they simply shouldn't exist. Don't know where they're from, don't know how they got here, all we do know is that they're the enemy, and they think the same of us."
	"That's self evident, sir," the recruit agreed respectfully. "But defeatism's never been kind on me."
	"You're green, it never sets in until your first battle. Should be gone soon enough."
	Before he could ask what the man had meant by that, his answer drilled its way into his ears. The CO could whistle his way around a canary, and loudly at that. Every man within the trench was at the ready. Above them, the penny of a sun hid behind the drab grey sky. The winter wind burned through them as they charged.