The Trench by Chris Beadnell

In war, it’s important to retain one’s humanity.

Unless that leads to a mistake…

The Somme offensive of 1916 was planned as a swift and incisive battle that would lead to total Allied victory in World War I. Unfortunately, it was anything but: both sides incessantly shelled one another for four months, resulting in over a million fatalities.

In Chris Beadnell’s Trench, we’re taken to the mop-up phase after a successful British advance, aided by said shelling.

Looking for survivors in the German trenches, our two cleaners have one motto:

            EASON
…Remember, no prisoners.

Yet this unwritten rule is challenged when in the last dugout they come across one moribund survivor. His leg deformed by shrapnel, he’s immobilized.

With neither bullet nor bayonet on them, the victors leave it to nature to finish the last German dying off.

With hindsight, there’s only one word needed to describe this decision: mistake.

Partially based on historical truth, a micro-script with a gigantic premise like this one deserves to have a great general directing the action.

So pick this one up and earn your film stripes!

Budget: Minimum. Yes, you’ll need some costumes. But the rest should be easy.

About the writer, Chris Beadnell: With a 30+ year paramedic career, bearing witness to the complete spectrum of human emotion, I would use the creativity of writing as an escape from the reality of such a high pressure occupation. Most of my writing was never seen by anyone except a very select group of family and friends, and sometimes not even them. However, a serious eye injury in 2015 had me off work for months and the boredom of not working gave me the time and desire to learn the craft of script writing, and the stories locked in my mind finally had an avenue to flow. Chris can be reached out Cbeadnell (a) ymail.com or ChrisBeadnell.wordpress.com. Check out his other works.

Read The Trench (1 page in pdf format)

This screenplay may not be used or reproduced for any purpose including educational purposes without the expressed written permission of the author.

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About the reviewer: Hamish Porter is a writer who, if he was granted one wish, would ask for the skill of being able to write dialogue like Tarantino. Or maybe the ability to teleport. Nah, that’s nothing compared to the former. A lover of philosophy, he’s working on several shorts and a sporting comedy that can only be described as “quintessentially British”. If you want to contact him, he can be emailed: hamishdonaldp (a) gmail. If you’d like to contact him and be subjected to incoherent ramblings, follow him on Twitter @HamishP95.