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Oberleutnant Barrett Jaegar grimaced as he pulled the limp form of a soldier down from the lip of the trench. He carefully placed the soldier in a sitting position on the opposite wall, sweeping a hand over the man's face to close his eyes. The deceased man had never made it out of the trench in their most recent charge towards British lines, and had been unfortunate enough in death to have fallen in a position that gave the appearance of a sharpshooter lining up a shot at a glance, and had been shot three times post-humously because of this.

For a while, Barrett had been too preoccupied with other matters to notice, but when it came to his attention he took it as a matter of honor to ensure that the man didn't have any more bullets passing through his body. He needed to look his best when he met Saint Peter, after all, and it would be on the head of anyone who didn't act as soon as they were able to make it so.

He stood as he finished placing the man in a respectable position, one hand laid upon the other over his belly, head tilted downward as though he were resting. That was his way of boosting morale. You didn't tell the new recruits that their fellow soldiers were dead. Those that they didn't see die were just captured, and the ones they did see were just resting.
It helped to ease the passing of many young men when it was their time, the charade that he put up. The more experienced soldiers knew better, but they kept the fact to themselves, and over time a few of them eventually began to believe it, if only a bit.

He sighed, wiping his brow with his forearm, as his sleeves were rolled up past his elbows. The fighting seemed to be the least tiring thing he had to deal with. In battle he got a rush that pushed him forward, beating back fatigue and allowing his to put down many enemies in a skirmish. That was limited, though, to the few times when both sides happened to give the same order to charge at roughly the same time. Nevertheless, it took far less of a toll on him than trying to refrain from shouting his frustrations at the nearest soldier. He did the opposite, in fact. He put on a mask of calm every day, and this was more exhausting than any task on Earth for him, simply because it was him.
He had been told many times that he would be right at home swinging a mace and screaming at the top of his lungs on some Medieval battlefield. He tended to agree, as it was his nature to fight. That was why he joined the military, to fight. He imagined that it wouldn't have mattered whether or not he was British, French, or even American, as long as he was given the chance to fight. He hadn't imagined the dullness of trench warfare, however, and quickly found that his enthusiasm was all but worthless and that he resented his swift rise in rank more than the enemy.

"Tch," He muttered, "Strength of a bear indeed."

He was, of course, referring to his first name, which translated to such in English. He found it ironic that as large and strong as he was; his rise in rank was the result of carefully placed shots from the trench and a sense for when things were futile that saved many soldiers from an untimely demise. Ironic though it was, he was less than amused.

Drawing a cigar from his shirt pocket, he bit off the front cap, spitting it to the ground, and placed the reverse end between his teeth. He then retrieved a matchbox from the same pocket and took two matches from it, igniting them simultaneously on the edge of the patch on his left sleeve, which indicated his rank, and proceeded to light the cigar.

As the sun set, the sense of fear in the trench was palpable. The stories of terrible creatures wandering about in hordes devouring soldiers were dismissed by everyone, and scoffed at by officers such as him. That did not, however, prevent the small bit of doubt that one must hold from just having heard such rumors, from gaining strength. The anxiety of one soldier fed that of another, and so on and so forth, until the air seemed to reek of terror. Barrett did his best to combat this, but he was perplexed by the ability of those under his command to work themselves into a horrified stupor. It also didn't help that at night the wind changed direction, carrying the remaining clouds of dust, smoke, and gas in such a way that it obscured anything and everything beyond ten yards from the trench in all directions.

He shook his head, taking a puff from his cigar. He pondered why it was, exactly, that he could not calm the nerves of his soldiers, as he swirled the smoke around in his mouth a bit. Before exhaling, he turned to look at the artificial fog that surrounded them. He could swear, sometimes, that if he listened, he could hear the sound of distant moaning. He passed it off as the paranoia in the trench getting to him, but he still wondered, occasionally, whether it was really his imagination, or if there was indeed some horror stalking about in search of a victim.

"It's nothing, for the thousandth time," Barrett growled, eyeing Mordecai sternly, "In any case, if it were moaning, it's definitely just a wounded soldier. He'll probably be...resting...any time now."

He paused as he said the last bit, remembering that he didn't say that soldiers died in this trench. He looked at his soldiers, checking that none had heard before stepping closer to Mordecai.

"Don't get them any more anxious than they already are," he whispered, "We don't need them pissing themselves over stories."

He took another puff of his cigar as he listened to the sounds of the trench. He released the sweet-scented smoke to his left as he removed the cigar from his mouth.

"Anyway, if you're so paranoid why don't you take a look about with that rifle of yours? You know what to do if you see anyone."

As Barrett discarded the butt of his cigar, flinging it aside, he savored the last bit of smoke before releasing it into the air. It would be a few days before he decided to light up another, as he didn't want to go through them too quickly.

He stepped on the smoldering remains of his cigar, smothering it with the toe of his boot. Before he had regained his posture, he froze. Listening intently to the sounds outside of the trench, he quickly distinguished the moaning sound from earlier. It was clearly louder, and not like any sort of moan he had ever heard. It was not the wind, and yet he had never heard any person let out that sort of sound.
There were only three reasons that a person would moan: pain, pleasure, or disgust, and this, by his reasoning, was none of those.
It was a lazy, droning sound, like wind simply being released from the lungs, but it continued on longer than any human being could maintain.

Now very alert, he motioned for his machine-gunners to take their positions and wait for further instructions. They did as commanded and manned the guns they were assigned.

"Mordecai," he began, his voice betraying the level of wariness that he felt, "Keep your scope on the origin of the noise. If you see anything, shoot. Remember, center mass. Headshots are for heroes, and we don't need any of those."