[Eric]

Well, here's my effort:

Post of Honour



In his hole, scratched pitiful and shallow, propped up on clumps of mud (*) and human offal, he lay, beyond shivering, so cold his body stink froze into a halo. The furthest east of his once proud, now dwindling horde of comrades, he scratched his snot-crud stubble, and fumbled at his crap-caked rifle, fixing his bayonet. The sky, hectic again with snow, bleakly blackened eastwards. Shadows in their thousands thickened into purposeful, inexorable advance. Numb fingers, curling, he squeezed the trigger and welcomed the inevitable searing release of an inferno less hellish than the frozen purgatory of his post.