This is a significant literary undertaking. Below is the first chapter of the first novel, titled The iron Harvest.
To reflect the epic scale of your trilogy spanning both World War I and World War II, here are a few title options for the series:
Book I: The Iron Harvest (WWI: The transition from earth to steel)
Book II: The Hollow Peace (The Interwar years: The rise of tension)
Book III: The Scorched Horizon (WWII: Total war and the nuclear age)
Option 2: The Blood of Nations (Geopolitical)
Book I: The Fall of Crowns (WWI: The end of empires)
Book II: The Shadow of the Swastika (The Interwar/Rise of WWII)
Book III: The Last Bastion (WWII: The final struggle for Europe)
Option 3: The Weaver’s Loom (Character-focused)
Book I: The Soldier’s Thread (WWI)
Book II: The Widow’s Knot (The Interwar)
Book III: The Survivor’s Pattern (WWII)
Option 4: The Century of Ash (Gritty/Realist)
Book I: Trenches of Despair (WWI)
Book II: Embers of Resentment (The Interwar)
Book III: Fire in the Sky (WWII)
This novel focuses on the First World War (1914–1918).
Novel I: The Iron Harvest
Chapter 1: The Weight of Summer
The heat in the Meuse Valley in August 1914 did not feel like a blessing; it felt like a warning. For Silas Thorne, a man whose hands were more accustomed to the rhythmic slide of a carpenter’s plane than the cold oil of a Lee-Enfield rifle, the world had shrunk to the width of a dusty road leading away from home.
Silas was twenty-four, with shoulders broadened by years of lifting oak beams and eyes the color of a stormy Atlantic. He marched among the men of the East Sussex Regiment, their boots rhythmic against the baked earth. To his left was Julian "Jules" Beaumont, a boy of nineteen who had lied about his age because he thought war was a game of cricket played with bayonets. Jules was whistling, a thin, airy tune that grated against the heavy silence of the older men.
"Save your breath, Jules," Silas said, his voice a low rumble. "The air gets thinner once the hills start."
"It’s just a bit of a stroll, Silas," Jules grinned, wiping sweat from a forehead that hadn't yet seen a razor. "The Kaiser’s lot will see us coming and head back for bratwurst. We’ll be home for the harvest."
Silas didn't answer. He looked at the horizon, where the sky was a bruised purple. He thought of Clara, back in their cottage in Rye. When he had left, she hadn’t cried—she had simply handed him a small, smoothed piece of rowan wood he’d carved for her years ago. Keep it in your pocket, she had said. Wood remembers where it grew. It’ll bring you back to the forest.
Now, he felt the wood pressing against his thigh. He wasn't a soldier by nature, but he was a man of structures. He understood that if the foundation was rotten, the house fell. To him, the German march through Belgium was a rot that had to be stopped before it reached his own doorstep.
By noon, the "stroll" had turned into an ordeal. The British Expeditionary Force was moving to intercept the German advance near Mons. The landscape of Belgium was deceptively beautiful—rolling green fields and stone farmhouses—but there was a tension in the air, a stillness that preceded a lightning strike.
They reached a ridge overlooking a shallow valley late in the afternoon. Captain Halloway, a man whose mustache seemed to hold more authority than his nervous eyes, signaled for a halt.
"Dig in," Halloway commanded.
The men grumbled. They were infantry, not gravediggers. But Silas took his entrenching tool and began to bite into the earth. He worked with a grim efficiency. He didn't just dig a hole; he braced the sides, feeling the texture of the soil. It was clay-heavy and damp beneath the surface.
"Why are we digging if we’re just going to attack tomorrow?" Jules asked, leaning on his spade, his face flushed a dangerous shade of red.
"Because the earth is the only thing that doesn't care about a uniform," Silas replied, not looking up. "If a shell lands, the earth will hold you. The air will just let you die."
As the sun began to dip, the first sound of the war reached them. It wasn't the heroic fanfare of trumpets Jules had expected. It was a low, guttural thudding in the distance, like a giant slamming a door miles away. Then came the whistle—a sound like a tearing sheet of silk.
The explosion was a physical weight. The ground bucked like a frightened horse. Dirt rained down, clogging Silas’s mouth and stinging his eyes. When the ringing in his ears subsided, he heard a new sound: a high, thin wail.
He sat up, shaking the grit from his hair. Jules was staring at the sky, his mouth hanging open. Ten yards away, the kitchen wagon they had passed minutes before was a blackened skeleton of wood and twisted metal. One of the horses was struggling in the traces, its screams sounding horribly human.
"They're shooting at us," Jules whispered, his voice cracking. "They can't even see us, and they're shooting at us."
"Welcome to the twentieth century, Jules," Silas said grimly. He stood up and looked toward the treeline across the valley. Through his binoculars, he saw them: a grey tide. Thousands of German infantrymen, moving with a mechanical precision that made the blood run cold.
Captain Halloway was shouting orders, his voice shrill. "Man the line! Rapid fire! Show them what the British regular can do!"
Silas took his position. He rested the barrel of his rifle on the parapet he had just built. He breathed in, smelling the cordite and the upturned earth. He thought of the rowan wood in his pocket. He thought of the grain of oak back in his shop.
"Target at four hundred yards," Silas muttered to himself, adjusting his sights.
"I can't see their faces," Jules sobbed next to him, his rifle shaking. "Silas, I can't see their faces!"
"Don't look for faces," Silas commanded, his voice hard as iron. "Look for the grey. Aim at the middle of the mass. Don't think, Jules. Just pull the bolt. Aim. Fire. Pull the bolt."
The order came: "Fire!"
As the shadows lengthened over the Belgian fields, Silas Thorne realized that the harvest this year wouldn't be wheat or rye. It would be something much heavier. He looked at Jules, who was firing blindly, tears masking the dirt on his cheeks. Silas reached out, briefly gripping the boy’s shoulder with a hand that still smelled of sawdust and home.
"Keep your head down," Silas whispered over the roar of the guns. "We have a long way to go before the night is over."
The Battle of Mons had begun, and with it, the world Silas knew was being ground into the mud, one shell-burst at a time. He gripped his rifle, felt the rowan wood in his pocket, and prepared for the first of a thousand nights in the dark.
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