By Hunter Norton - Year 11, Cromwell College
The ground was thick sludge filled with limbs and shrapnel.
With every step I could feel mud rising up to my knees, grasping, begging me to lie down with my fallen brothers.
Grenades rained down; a never-ending barrage of death and destruction.
A harrowing stench of decay and fear filled the air.
Fear. We all felt it. It was all we ever felt; even the older guys.
Colonel Smith called us over.
He was a tall man. His chest was laden with medals from the Boer war.
We all looked up to him, and not just physically.
We lined up, rifles at the ready.
''For King and Country!'' Col Smith screamed, unable to hide the quiver in his voice.
I saw the remnants of my battalion climb over the barricades and charge towards the enemy trenches.
Time slowed. Images of my wife Annette flashed through my head, with her baby bump, smiling at me the way she always used to when I'd stumble through her bedroom window in the middle of the night.
My mother, in tears as I was boarding the train to go and fight in ''The Great War''.
The promise I gave her as I climbed on rattled through my head: ''I will come back, one way or another''.
I saw myself, standing in a soup of bodies and bullets, surrounded by the asphyxiating stench of decay, terrified at the thought of my impending death.
I saw myself, a lonely 17-year-old who lied about his age to make it here, to escape my boring life back home for a life of excitement and travel.
I was a malnourished, afraid, helpless, haunted, confused, naive teenager.
Should I run into the physical embodiment of hell or make it home for sure, but as a disgrace and a coward?
I couldn't break the promise to my mother, and I couldn't leave Annette alone with a baby. I turned to run.
I stepped into the town square. People I knew lined the streets.
They booed and threw things. I didn't care.
I deserved this. All of it.
My whole battalion was killed, but me. Because I deserted. I ran away.
I was too scared. I thought my life was worth more than the others who gave their own up for the cause.
At the end of the street, I saw my mother standing with Annette and her newborn.
They couldn't bear to look at me.
As I limped past them my mother glanced up. There was an empty look in her eyes that chilled me to the core.
It was as if while I was passing her, her soul was dragged along with me. I deserve this. I deserve this. I deserve thi-.
Col Smith tapped me on the shoulder. ''You all right son?''
I made my decision. I would rather charge headfirst into a hailstorm of bullets, shrapnel and shells than have to see the soul-less look of disappointment and shame in my mother's face.
I may die here, but I would rather have my life taken than take what's left of hers with me.
A hurricane of distorted metal and bullets swirled as I hurdled the parapet.
I made sure to keep my head straight and my eyes up, to avoid seeing my friends sliced in half.
I pushed on as far as I could. As the cold, murderous steel pierced my lungs, I knew. I was shot.
I was going to die. But I didn't care. I saw all the people I loved, a mirage so vivid it seemed real.
I thought about all the good times I'd had.
Running around the streets of West Australia. Wagging class to see Annette. My first kiss. The stale air of Perth on a sunny day by the beach.
''For King and Country,'' I whispered. I was at peace.
Pvt William Hayden Smith, 17, South Australia, K.I.A somewhere in the South of France, March 1917.
