By the time reinforcements came to relive those in the trench, many were dead or dying from a mysterious sickness, men who went to bed healthy awake to find their flesh rotting straight off the bone.Ī sergeant was found engulfed in unusually aggressive rats, who attacked several others before his mostly eaten corpse could be recovered. The next day this soldier was found entangled in barbed wire and with his intestines spread out in a neat pattern.
When some tried to silence Lawrence, all he would do is grin wider.Ī fellow soldier awoke once to find Lawrence hovering over him, eyes wide and glowing white. Gone was the quiet and reserved man, in his place a person who would greet people with a wide smile as he rambled on about destruction, pleasure and the joy of enclosed spaces. Once the group returned to their own trench and the story of what they saw was told, it was here that many began to notice a change in Lawrence. When Lawrence crouched down to investigate, he slipped and fell head first in, moments later crawling back out drenched with the black slime.
Once they arrived, the group was greeted to a horrible sight.Įvery single enemy soldier was dead, each having been savagely mutilated, the walls and corpses covered in a foul smelling black sludge, bodies and body parts all so violently maimed that even the hardiest of the men were soon vomiting.Īmongst all this, Lawrence and a fellow soldier discovered in one room a small hole, filled with the same disgusting slime that covered the dead. All who shared bunks with him suffered trench-foot, and before long rumors began to circulate, many having come to believe Lawrence was cursed.Įventually, after a prolonged period of silence from the enemy trench, Lawrence and the fourteen others were sent across no-mans land to check and see if the trench had been abandoned. Often he would be found staring for longer than what was comfortable at others, he barely if at all slept and in the few times he was seen doing so, others would hear him talk near constantly, one time a fellow bunkmate heard Lawrence mutter his daughter's name, even though he never told him.ĭespite his reserved manner, or because of it, many of Lawrence's fellow soldiers were unnerved by him, for wherever the man went, a sickly-sweet stench, the smell of rot, followed.
While not violent or malicious, Lawrence was not without fault.
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