A tale so chilling it could only be true

Hello again fellow traveler, and thank you for joining me in this bizarre land.

Yesterday in my travels I came across a tale so macabre it could easily have been penned by the likes of Poe or Lovecraft, yet the author is not an up and coming genius nor an over looked master. His pen will not present another tale such as this as I suspect he has long passed on, and I truly pray his soul will receive the peace it deserves after the horrors it has endured. For the Author of this piece was a veteran of the Great War, and the tale too terrible is in fact true.

As I am thrilled by classic horrors, they are typically born of the early twentieth century. Naturally I have an affinity for this time period, and one could hardly ignore the most amazing and terrible events that occurred and shaped the world ever after. Naturally I am speaking of the Great War: WWI (1914-1918) and WWII (1939-1945). True to life tales of heroism and suffering. Men living on earthly soil in conditions more resembling a tale of Dante's Inferno than sunny France or perhaps peaceful Russia. And everywhere around them were the dead and dying. Bodies purifying and decaying for days or longer until at some point they could be claimed and placed to rest if at all.

So it is perhaps not so surprising that this macabre terror I am about to bring to you over the next few posts comes from the accounts of an individual who survived such atrocities. Originally published in the LEGION MAGAZINE and later compiled into the book True Canadian War Stories, I bring you William R. Bird's Eyes! Eyes! Eyes!

To their left the staring dead eyes of an enemy's corpse festering in the heat of day. To their right mysterious hateful eyes that could only be in their imagination and to move would mean certain death.