Man at War – Excerpt No. 189

18 March 2026

Marc’s nose crinkled as though he were about to sneeze. In truth he was trying to tie together two disparate thoughts.

“I attend the evening briefings and I can say that your commanders have no such intent,” Marc said. “Some commanders might see it as glorious to waste a thousand men for nothing. Truthfully, they are just trying to find a way out of this stalemate.”

Murphy snapped his tongue as though not quite buying what Marc said. The man of war could certainly understand why.

“So you were the former?”

a surreal and vibrant cinematic photo of British soldiers with weary expressions, hunkered down in a muddy trench with weathered sandbags and twisted barbed wire, as the war rages on in the background with explosions and smoke filling the air, clothing and setting appropriate for the Great War, with soldiers wearing worn and tattered khaki uniforms, surreal photography, photorealistic, film grain, with a warm golden light casting long shadows across the trench, and a sense of chaos and desperation etched on the soldiers' faces, their skin worn and dirty, with a mix of fear and determination in their eyes.

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.