Man at War – Excerpt No. 223

21 April 2026

“Sir,” Murphy said.

“I’ll head back to the entrance,” Marc said. “When Captain Taylor arrives, I’ll escort him in. In the meantime, I’ll coordinate with HOLDFAST to send a small team.

“Sir?” Murphy asked.

That was the codeword used over voice channels to request engineering assets. In this case Marc wanted sappers to assess mine and its viability for later use.

“I strongly believe in planning for the worse and hoping for the best,” Marc said. “I’ll explain once we’re in a more relaxed setting.”

a surreal and vibrant cinematic photo of soldiers wearing worn and tattered uniforms and helmets from 1915, carrying old wooden crates and boxes filled with tons of explosives into a dimly lit underground mine at night, with rugged facial features and soot-covered skin, set in the bleak and barren landscape of No Man's Land, captured in a photorealistic style with a subtle film grain texture, blending realistic details with dreamlike and unsettling ambiance, illuminated only by faint flickers of lantern light, with an atmosphere of tense anticipation and foreboding, in a muted color palette with flashes 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.