The sun shone through the broken grey clouds over the German Rhineland. It's rays glistened off the puddles of water that speckled the country dirt road that cut through the rolling hills and farm fields. Suddenly the smooth surface of the water was broken by the splash of a tire. This was followed by another tire, and then another, and then another.
Gunnery Sergeant Nathan Blackburn sat in the passenger seat of the truck carrying his squad of fellow United States Marines of B company, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines. The rest of the regiment were in the trucks behind him, followed by the trucks that made up the battalions of the 6th marine regiment close behind. Over 4000 men in total. Most of them were recent recruits who had only served about a month before the armistice had been declared. Armistice. Blackburn still couldn't believe he had lived to hear that word be said. He had been certain that he wouldn't make it out of Belleau Wood, much less Chateau-Thierry, Mount Du-Blanc and the Argonne. Most of his original squad had been lost within the first hours of the assault on Belleau Wood. All all except 4 of his 12 man squad were recruits that had arrived afterwards. Most were really new. Sometimes Blackburn hesitated in calling them "men" at all.
A sudden lurch broke Blackburn out of his thoughts. He looked up to see what had caused to abrupt stop to his ride. What he saw was a sight all too common on mudding narrow roads.
In front of the truck was another one identical to his except it had US army markings on it. In front of that truck was another truck, and another, and another, until the line stretched around the bend in the road and behind the trees that lined it.
"Just great." Blackburn groaned. He began moving to dismount the truck. "You wait here Corporal." He said to his driver.
"Aye aye Gunny." The marine replied.
Blackburn opened his door and stepped out onto the muck of the road with a splash. Sighing, he tugged at his collar and straightened his helmet. If he was going to confront the army, he damned sure was going to look presentable.
"What's up Gunny?"
Blackburn paused. He instantly recognized the deep Bayou southern drawl that could only come from someone who had lived their life in the swamps around the Big Easy. Turning back towards the truck, he saw a marine leaning over the side with red corporal stripes on his sleeves, a small black mustache above his lip, and a Browning Automatic Rifle clutched in his right hand.
Blackburn chuckled to himself. "Like you Buckman, I just work here. I'll find out so sit tight."
Corporal Buckman smiled, nodded, and turned back to what appeared to be the tell of a story to a pair of fresh recruits.
Blackburn turned back towards the army trucks and was about to move in their direction, when the distinct sound of a car horn approaching from behind reached his ears. Turning back around he saw a small staff car coming up the side of the road with a familiar face in the passenger seat. The car came to a halt beside Blackburn and as it did, he snapped to attention and saluted.
"Captain Edson, sir." He said.
"At ease gunnery sergeant." Captain Edson replied, returning the salute as he stepped out of the car. Blackburn smiled. If anyone could sort out this mess it was B company's commander, who, like Blackburn, had fought at Belleau Wood.
"Well Nathan," Edson chuckled, "Have you ever seen a traffic jam such as this?"
"I've visited Chicago before sir," Blackburn replied, "And I can honestly say that this is worse."
Edson laughed. "I grew up in New York gunnery sergeant, so I can agree with you there." He paused to adjust his collar. "I was about to go and see who is in charge of this mess. Care to join me?"
"Aye aye sir."
And with that the two fellow marines made their way over to the mess that was the army.
As the duo approached the first truck, Edson made his way towards a Junior Lieutenant that was barking orders at two buck privates who ran off toward the front of the column.
"Excuse me, lieutenant?" Edson said as he reached the truck.
"What now?!?" the young officer snapped as he wheeled around to face this new headache, whatever it was. His anger quickly changed to fear as he found himself face to face with a US marine captain. He then snapped his hand up in a salute so fast that he nearly knocked off his helmet.
'I uh I b-beg your pardon sir!" The lieutenant stammered.
Edson returned the salute quickly. He didn't have time nor did he want to deal with the nonsense of a frightened army officer.
"Who's in charge of this column lieutenant?" He asked.
After composing himself, the young man pointed down the line of trucks. "That would be Captain Bartlett sir." He said, "He went down to sort out the mess."
"What's your name"
"Lieutenant George Freemont sir."
"Unit?"
"12th Field Artillery, Battery B."
"Do you know what the hold up is?"
The officer nodded. "Yes sir. Tankers, sir."
Edson raised an eyebrow. "Tankers?"
The lieutenant nodded. "Yes sir. Two light companies from the 301st tank brigade. Damn beasts got stuck in the muck. Captain Bartlett went down to talk to their commanding officer."
Edson looked down the column then back at the lieutenant. "Well why aren't you with him?" He asked.
"He ordered me to stay back with our supply trucks sir."
Edson sighed, then turned to head back to his own column. "Thank you lieutenant."
The officer promptly saluted Edson then turned towards his trucks. Edson shook his head and started walking back to his car, with Blackburn following close behind.
"I guess we'll be sitting here for a while gunnery sergeant." Edson sighed. "See to your squad."
"Aye aye sir." Blackburn replied as he reached his truck. He then set his trench gun down in the seat reached into his left breast pocket and pulled out his lighter and a pack of Chesterfields. Soon he had lit one up sand was puffing away.
Suddenly a slightly high pitched Boston Irish voice piped up. "You got any to spare Gunny?"
Blackburn was already pulling out another cigarette before he had even turned around. When he did, he came face to face with a young 19 year old boy with a wavy red swath of hair underneath his helmet. The freckles on his cheeks betrayed his youth.
"You doing alright O'Brien?" Blackburn asked as he handed him the cigarette.
O'Brien smiled. "As good as I'll ever be Gunny." He said, grabbing the lent smoke. "Once again I'm being screwed over by the army."
Blackburn laughed. The army did have a way of screwing things up.
He paused from his thoughts to stretch his back. His spine had plagued him ever since a shell blast had blown him onto it in the Argonne. Right now the aches were returning.
"Back giving problems again gunnery sergeant?"
Blackburn once again turned to look in the back of the truck. Facing him now was a young man in his early twenties with red cross armbands on his sleeves and ridiculously large round spectacles on his face that made him look more like a librarian than a corpsman.
"Not too bad Doc." Blackburn replied. "Not too bad. How about you?"
Doc shrugged. "I'm still in good health."
Again Blackburn chuckled to himself. Doc Hawkins always was a glass half full kind of guy.
Looking around, Blackburn couldn't help but admire how beautiful the countryside looked. It reminded him a little of the hills and valleys of the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia where he grew up. As he was staring off towards a hill to the right of the road, he began to see what appeared to be a cloud of fog creeping up over the top of the hill. This puzzled Blackburn, as the today wasn't expected to be foggy. Also, the "fog" was a slight shade of purple in color. To Blackburn that could only mean one thing, and a knot in his stomach formed at the realization of it.
"GAS GAS GAS!!!!"
In a flash, every marine in each truck was scrambling to open their box respirators and pull out their masks. Blackburn had just finished putting his on when the gas reached the convoy and began to swirl around everyones feet. Then to Blackburn's panicked confusion, he began to feel lightheaded and his vision started to blur. He couldn't understand why! He had his mask on before the gas got to them! Any further thoughts on that subject were dashed when his legs gave out and his vision turned to black.
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Slowly, Blackburn began to stir. As he pushed himself up he groaned loudly. His head felt like it had been slammed by a sack of bricks. He reached up to rub at his head. When he did, he paused when he suddenly realized he couldn't feel his fingers. Bringing his arm down, he saw that instead of the hand he had only moments ago, he was now staring at what appeared to be a chestnut brown hoof. Trying to remain calm, Blackburn made his way over to a puddle to look at his reflection.
As he made his way over, it somehow didn't register to him that he was now walking on all fours. That didn't occur to him until he saw his reflection in the water. If Blackburn had been confused before, that was nothing compared to now.
Looking at the reflection, Blackburn saw that he still wore his forest green uniform, helmet and puttees. His webbing still wrapped around his body and his gas mask case still in from his neck. The only difference was the body that it all adorned, and that is had transformed to fit that new body.
The face staring back at Blackburn was much longer than a human face, it had a snout, and was covered in the same chestnut brown fur as the hoof he had seen. The eyes staring at him were quite large with the blue color he knew he had much brighter than before. His hair was still charcoal black, but it was much longer and ran down the back of his elongated neck. Looking behind him, as he had felt a slight twitch on his bum, he saw that he now had a tail of the same color of his hair that was swishing around. It was then that he realized that he had been walking on all fours before, and he now knew why. He had turned into some sort of horse or pony creature.
"Holy-"
"Gunnery Sergeant Blackburn!"
Blackburn's head quickly snapped around as he recognized the familiar voice of Captain Edson. The individual he saw when he turned around however, was not the Captain Edson he remembered.
Standing in front of Blackburn was another pony, except that this one had a white coat and a sand blonde mane that was cut short at the back. The pony also wore the same type of forest green uniform of all other USMC officers except, like Blackburn's, it had apparently changed to fit the pony's body. A M1911 pistol holster was strapped to his right hind leg.
"Captain Edson sir?" Blackburn asked in disbelief.
The pony Captain Edson nodded in reply.
"I don't think we are in Germany anymore gunnery sergeant."