Man at War – Excerpt No. 232

Marc chuckled but did not say anything. Murphy had already given him a general layout, so he walked along the wood planked boardwalk towards the ward.

“We can’t be more than ten miles from the front lines,” Marc said. “This feels like we’re thousands of miles away.”

“I know what you mean, Sir,” Murphy said. “Had this been summer there would have been flowers growing along the sides.”

From an operational standpoint planting trees and flowers was wasteful. From a humanitarian point of view these were everything to the wounded. Soldiers would see a flower blooming and instantly know they were no longer in combat.

a surreal and vibrant cinematic photo of delicate flowers blooming alongside a worn wooden boardwalk, lined with rustic white canvas tents, their edges softly illuminated by the faint moonlight, with figures of 1915 nurses and doctors in uniform, their faces weary, standing together, the nurses wearing long skirts and crisp white aprons, the doctors in stained coats, set against the eerie backdrop of No Man's Land at night, with a dreamlike quality, in a photorealistic style, infused with a textured film grain, capturing the essence of a bygone era, in a palette of deep blues and purples, with touches of warm golden light.

Disclaimer: This novel is an work in progress and readers may encounter grammatical errors and inconsistencies. Please view this a draft and not a published work.