The girl looked at the medal pinned to his chest and smiled.
“Mais vous êtes un héros monsieur, I couldn’t possibly take your money! “
Corporal Bill Harman had paid nearly a month’s pay for the exquisite Lalique Angel figurine, a gift for his wife Edith back home. He had just offered to pay for the materials the lovely Parisian shop assistant had used to box the precious item for posting to Blighty.

“Me? A Hero? If only she knew how sullied I feel”.
His thoughts raced back to the trenches and to his unit in Ypres, to the battle and to the events that had led to his receiving the Military Medal. His mind insisted on replaying these unwanted memories at unexpected times, and in a level of detail he would prefer to forget.

He remembered the secretive mission to breach the long, spiral lines of barbed-wire, the thick cloying mud, the sickly stench of rotting flesh and the flocks of crows picking over the bones of the fallen; every muddy rut and hollow strewn with broken corpses in khaki or grey.

And then the day of the battle itself; In vivid and gory detail he recalled the officer’s whistle and hauling himself over the top, the charge, slow at first and then with gathering momentum toward the German trenches. He relived the percussive shock of shells that hammered the earth and drummed the chest, the fizz of bullets that passed him by and the heavy slap as they connected with men either side. Somehow, despite the heavy fire, he managed to reach the German machine gun nest. There, he would never forget the look of surprise on the young German soldiers face as he plunged his bayonet deep into the boy’s chest and gave the prescribed twist before yanking the blade clear; the bright pink frothy blood, the sucking noise that withdrawing the bayonet made, and the slow dulling of the lad’s eyes.

He had looked up just as Sergeant Hall took a German officers sword through the guts. He saw frustration on the officer’s face as the sergeant’s body refused to relinquish his sword, and then a momentary look of horror before Bill smashed his rifle butt into the man’s face, spilling blood and bone into the air. Allowing momentum to carry the rifle around, Bill had brought his bayonet slashing across the officer’s throat putting paid to the ranting Hun forever.

Spinning away from the dying man, he recalled his own horror as the last remaining German raised his pistol, aimed across the trench and pulled the trigger. Bill was convinced his time had come; he could clearly see the bullet drilling through the air towards him. Then abruptly he was thrown to one side as a khaki clad figure hit him from behind, and “his” bullet found an alternative target.

“Monsieur? You are OK?”
Dragged from his reverie, he smiled wearily at the concerned young lady.

“Moi mademoiselle? Yes, I’m fine”.