The Demons of Amiens (2)
The first thing Private John Miller of the 369th Regiment, 93rd Division, did upon arriving near Amiens was something that had already become second nature to him—
digging.
"Dig faster! Before we all get killed!"
"The Jerries are coming! Every inch you don't dig now is a bullet that'll end up in your head! Move it!"
Damn this entrenching tool. Why the hell is it so tiny?
Sure, it's portable—but trying to dig a trench with this thing was pure misery.
"What are the engineers doing?"
"The engineers are already digging ahead of us."
"Damn it… I know there's a plan, but this is still tight."
Officers and NCOs were saying something, but there was no room in his mind to care.
From the division commander down to the lowest sergeant, they repeated it every day—
this war was a holy crusade tied to the future of Black Americans.
And right now, this miserable digging—
this was that future. That hope.
That alone gave strength to his arms.
The wall of race was impossibly high.
The chains of slavery were gone, but invisible chains still strangled their throats.
Miller had graduated college and even earned a law license, but the protection of the law did not extend to Black people, and the bullets of racists flew right before his eyes.
He had crossed the Atlantic chasing a vague and distant hope, only to fall into despair again when he heard that division and brigade commanders had refused, one after another, to command a Black unit.
Yes—
until that one Asian man became their new commander.
'Don't trust the whites in D.C.! Trust me!'
That man had to be a prophet sent by God for Black people.
Whenever his black Dodge touring car appeared, the faces of the soldiers—including Miller—lit up with energy, and an unexplainable confidence swelled within them.
That endless fighting spirit.
That unshakable confidence, as if nothing in the world could stop him.
And even the future he presented—plain, direct, without a trace of empty sweet talk.
'Bleed to earn recognition from whites? That's like saying a camel goes through the eye of a needle and gets an elephant pregnant. Cut the soft bullshit—make them afraid. Make them think, "If we don't treat these guys like human beings, they'll kill us all!"'
Every soldier in the 93rd Division loved their young commander.
His very existence was proof that opportunity existed even for people of color.
A meteoric rise that seemed impossible in Britain or France.
In that sense, he was the embodiment of the American Dream—
a living Statue of Liberty symbolizing their brightest possible future.
Wheeeeeee—!!
At that moment, a horrific sound tore through the air—and through his thoughts.
His mind lost control instantly. His body moved on its own.
"Stop work! Stop work!"
"Jerry! The Jerries are coming!!"
"Drop the shovels! Grab your weapons! Prepare for combat!!!"
But the trench wasn't even finished yet—
The thought flickered briefly, but there was no time to hesitate. The enemy was coming.
His mind faltered, but his body—trained through endless repetition—was already moving.
He dropped the shovel and grabbed his rifle, like a third arm.
Shouldered it.
Aimed forward.
Minimized exposure.
Kept his finger off the trigger until ordered.
Only then did his mind regain control of his body.
He was trembling.
Fear flooded in, replacing hope.
Can I really survive this?
If I make it back… will I finally taste what it means to be treated like a human being?
BOOM!!
The ground shook.
The sky screamed.
As the earth writhed in pain and vomited dirt into the air, he had already put on his gas mask and completed all safety checks.
"Gas masks! Put on your gas masks!"
"Mask on!!"
At the platoon leader's shout, every soldier nearby responded in unison.
Then came silence—
and bombardment.
Even the platoon leader, pretending to stay calm, was probably drenched in sweat behind his mask, fighting fear just the same.
An endless rain of shells.
Five minutes? Ten?
He didn't know.
No matter how carefully he tried to count the seconds, the bombardment showed no sign of stopping.
"Aaaah! Aaaaahhh!! Mom!!!"
"William! Hold it together! Someone grab him!"
"No! No!! Make it stop! It's too loud!!"
William from the next squad threw down his rifle, clutched his ears, and screamed at the top of his lungs.
Damn it. Shell shock. The concussion of the bombardment had driven him mad.
He had learned about it before—going insane without even being hit by a shell?—he had doubted it.
But now, seeing his comrade like this, the terror of bombardment sank deep into his bones.
Who could have imagined it? The man who proudly said he came here "to become a father his child wouldn't be ashamed of"—
reduced to this.
First, take away the rifle.
The squad approached slowly, carefully, took the weapon from him, and threw it far away.
But before they could restrain him, William suddenly tore off his gas mask with all his strength.
Before anyone could react—
"AAAAAHHH!!"
With a final, desperate scream, he bolted out of the trench, straight toward the incoming barrage.
One second.
Two seconds.
Thud.
William was dead.
Everyone who witnessed it froze in shock, unable to speak.
Is this war?
Is this really a place where people live—where lives vanish in the time it takes to take a drag of a cigarette?
The endless bombardment swallowed everything they had worked on for days.
Sandbags—
Barbed wire—
Some shells even plunged directly into the trench, erasing comrades without a trace.
But this, too, was as they had been taught.
Everything—
was unfolding exactly as described in training.
He was ready to endure.
Gripping his rifle tightly again, he began to wait for the enemy.
The judgment was not his to make.
It was his superior's.
He would breathe, walk, run, and fire as ordered.
He had already forgotten that his superior might be less educated than he was. The man was his superior, of higher rank—and he himself was nothing more than a pair of limbs.
The past few months had been for learning exactly that. The time it took for John Miller the lawyer to be reborn as Private John Miller.
"Looks like our artillery friends are still slacking! Which means more Jerries for us to kill with our own hands! Isn't that great? Isn't it, boys?!"
"It is, sir!!"
"Waaaah!!"
We are the proud men of the 369th Regiment.
Black as coal from the depths of hell.
Yellow Jesus has spoken—
the original sin of not being born white runs deep.
But take heart!
Kill a Jerry, and your sins shall be absolved!
Kill the Jerries!
Behold—your indulgences are walking toward you!
The crusaders found salvation in Jerusalem—
but we find ours in these damned trenches!
As someone began humming the tune, the crude lyrics spread throughout the trench.
Passing through the gas mask filters, the voices twisted into something eerie and distorted.
The fear faded.
The memory of William blurred.
In its place, the spoils of freedom—his share, and William's—stirred their minds.
William hadn't been consumed by fear. Instead of his limbs being torn apart, it was his mind that had been shattered by the shells. The only thing they could do now was tell his son, "Your father was a brave soldier of the 369th."
As he emptied his thoughts and hummed along—
the small black dots in the distance began to grow.
"Aim!"
He steadied his breathing.
He picked one of the growing black shapes and aligned it with his sights.
That—
was his indulgence.
The thing that would make him not a "Negro," but a man.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!!!!
Machine gun nests scattered along the line erupted with the screams of killing.
There weren't even proper bunkers—barely any sandbags. The gunners had almost no protection.
And yet they pulled the triggers without hesitation.
All to force the Germans down.
Men who knew they would be the first to die—
yet fired without fear for their comrades.
"Open fire!!"
His mind made the decision.
He pulled the trigger at once.
The black figure flipped over.
At that very moment, Private John Miller grasped his first ticket to salvation.
A strange sense of calm filled his body.
"Fire at will! Keep shooting!"
BOOM!!
Another shell landed.
This time, the bombardment was cruelly unlucky. The machine gun that had been spewing fire nearby fell silent.
With the firepower gone, all that remained were rifles.
The Germans who had been crawling forward suddenly shouted something and began charging all at once.
"Drop the rifles! Assigned men, grab submachine guns! The rest—fix bayonets!"
The time for long, cumbersome rifles was over.
As soldiers hurriedly fixed bayonets to their rifles, those without submachine guns reached instead for the fuel cans slung on their backs. The familiar warmth of wood was gone—replaced by the cold bite of metal in their hands.
The barbed wire was already gone.
The trench was shallow.
The machine guns were silent.
But everything needed to receive them—
was ready.
"Fire!!"
Rrrrrrrr!!
Watching the shock on the Germans' faces, he felt a surge of exhilaration.
At this moment, he was the Kaiser of this trench.
That is—
until one German raised an unfamiliar weapon.
Rrrrrrr—
As it spat fire, instinctively he ducked down into the trench.
"Th-that—"
"They're using submachine guns!"
In an instant, the balance of firepower evened out.
Now, all that remained—
was a bloody struggle for the trench.
"Aaaaaah!!"
"For freedom!"
"For freedom!!"
At someone's cry, a massive wave of shouts surged together.
Yes.
This was a fight for freedom.
Just as their ancestors had shed blood to escape the chains of slavery, they too had come to this land so their children would not inherit the chains of discrimination.
Fear was visible on the Germans' faces.
Of course—even white men feared bullets.
Had they come all this way just to learn that obvious truth?
One of them tried to throw a grenade—
but the hail of bullets from all directions was faster.
Blood burst from his body, and he collapsed before he could throw it. Seconds later, the grenade exploded, tearing his arm and torso apart.
But there were more Jerries.
Ignoring the explosion, the Germans finally began leaping into the trench one by one.
"Kill them! Jack! Charles! Kill them!!"
"Die!!"
"#@%@!!!"
Grenades, submachine guns, screams, blood, mud, fists, entrenching tools, bayonets—
Everything went dark.
The enemy before him filled his entire vision.
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