The Fear by Jonathan Clements

I recently came across another piece of Jonathan’s early writing that I thought his readers might enjoy.

He wrote “The Fear” when he was just 14 years old. It has nothing to do with money or personal finance, but it offers another glimpse of Jonathan long before he became the writer so many of us came to know.

Here it is, exactly as he wrote it.

THE FEAR

He crouched, his shoulders hunched, waiting for the order. The rifle trembled in his hands, his fingers searching almost desperately for the security of the trigger. A shudder ran down his spine from the cold and the . . . no, no! He shook his head trying, frantically trying, to push that thought away but it stayed ever stronger—the fear of death.

A bullet whistled through the silent night. Like an instinctive animal he found himself scrambling up the steep trench, his nails digging frantically at the earth.

He ran, praying, harder, harder, knowing only half his comrades would make the enemy trench and even himself could, could . . . He shut his eyes forcing the thought away.

He reopened them as the man to the left of him fell, his whole life gone as his smashed face splashed into a pool of murky water.

He felt he must be half way. His tortured mind twisted in agony as he saw the man to the right of him double up in pain. He felt alone and scared. Was he to . . . to die?

Ahead of him he saw the darkness of the trench. A motion. He dived, bayonet aimed. A cry and yet another died.

He crouched and listened for what seemed eternity. A low moon, to the left, grew and with a scream of agony reached its height and died slowly. There a man lay clawing at his eyes, shrapnel covering his face. He raised his bayonet and stopped. Why? Why should this man die? He did not want to, so why should another? Because, because man could not agree, he would not or . . . would he?

A surge of pain swept from his back as it felt cold steel. Then all was peace. In death at least there was peace.

No, he would not.

J. D. H. Clements