Echoing Troops

The air was ripe. With many different fragrances. It was that time of year, when the leaves began to fall off the trees, so the smell of rotting foliage was lingering. The grass was at its fullest, before the first frost arrive - smelling full and rich of earth. There were of course the cows, that trotted through the pasture, adding their own pungent aroma to the air - creating a scent that was sweet and light, yet full and dismissing. It was the smell of a European farm.

There was one smell though that was creeping in with all the others - the smell of gun powder and smoke. It was the kind of smell that attacks the back of the nose, the part that can't be flushed. It sticks with you. In you. Warning of what was over the horizon, past the lush green field, beyond the row of trees and behind the hedge rows.

At night the sky would light up with flashes of the approaching platoons and patrols. During the day, the firing back and forth sounded like firecrackers off in the distance. The artillery echoed like an ever present thunderstorm.

Just a few days ago the Allies had stormed the beaches. Now they were trudging through the farmlands.

They were here to free France.