Day Four

OK, this was a long time in coming, but I've been dealing with papers, a new semester shcedule, and what have you. Hopefully I can make up for lost time!

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I have to come to this war hating everyone. The enemy, of course, because they want to kill me. My fellow soldiers because I have to hate them first, before they hate me. It is a simple preemptive strike. Even my parents, offering me up as a sacrifice. “But look!” They can say, when the English round up the German-blood in their borders, “we have a son on the front! We are good Englishmen!”
But hate is exhausting, and my guts could remain knotted for only so long. The enemy is never seen, and the other soldiers aren’t so bad. Most of them hardly even care that I’m German-blood. It’s a mean little existence, and friends are welcome. Here is a good way to make friends. I go up to a soldier, anyone. I say “Hey mate, wanna win some cigarettes?” Usually, he is up for it, so then I explain the rules: “We light a cigarette, and then hold our hands above the trench. Whoever can hold it up longest without getting their hand shot off or losing their nerve, gets two cigarettes.” Obviously, it is not about the cigarettes. There are much easier ways to get cigarettes without risking a hand for one single cigarette! If the other man is up for it, we play the game. Some men like to chat while we do it, and I am usually up for that. Some men are quiet, hands trembling. Sometimes, in the quiet moments, I imagine what the Germans see, looking out into the No Man’s Land. Fireflies. Or the view through the scope. Maybe he thinks it’s one person, with two hands held up. Maybe certain snipers like to shoot left or right hands more. I don’t know. I always hold up my left. Only a few times has someone been shot while doing this with me. It’s not something I like to think about. And it’s doubly dangerous, because getting shot in the hand is terrible, and also they might be accused of fishing for a blighty one. Then they could get court-marshaled. But you can learn a lot about a person during this, even if they are silent. And it’s a good way to make friends.
This man decides to take a few breaths of his cigarette before he lifts it up. I just light it and hold it up, in my left hand.
“So, You ever kill someone?” He asks after a few moments. “It’s John, right?” I’m always up to talk.
“Yes, my name is John. I have killed someone.”
The ground is wet, which feels rotten. It is not a nice place, this war.
The other man grunts.
“Not all they say it is, is it?”
“Killing? I didn’t enjoy it, if that’s what you mean.” I have the urge to bring the cigarette down to my lips, which I resist.
“I didn’t expect to enjoy it,” He says. “I expected… vindication. This was shortly after Louvain. I feel like I’ve aged a lot since then. Anyway, it’s silly to think of now, but I expected that the people, that the town, would just spring back up again, because of this dead man. But, you know…”
“It’s powerless.”
“Yes. It’s a powerless act. A desperate act. So that’s why I’m here. Signed on to avenge a lot of dead people and just got more killed. Why are you here?”
“My last name is Wagner.”
“Ah. Boche name. No offense.”
“None taken. They thought it would prove their loyalty.”
“Hmmm.”
He takes his hand down, idly stares at it, almost surprised.
“Well, you win this one.” He pulls out a couple cigarettes and offers them to me. I retreat my own hand and take them.
“Thanks for the game.” I say. He nods. He turns and walks down the trench, carefully hunched, away to bed or some other night men. I wonder if I want to get shot. It is a lot of risk. Maybe I just hope I want to get shot because then I am in the right place. I was never the imaginative sort in school. I know a lot of men here can manipulate their memory: they forget there’s an enemy, or home, and can just kind of wake up everyday and see the world and think there’s nothing more. But I remember warm baths and I fear the enemy through the fog. It’s a very grim existence here.
But not without its wonders. I hear tell that Peter Wallace is back, in the RAP. Everyone thought he was dead.

Conrad sits by the Regimental Aid Post, waiting for the doctor to let him in to see Peter. But it is Peter himself who comes out, hunched, curled into himself as if he were still out on the front lines. Conrad reaches out to him.
“Good morning, sir. What are you doing out of bed?” He peers into the RAP to find the doctor, but he is tending another patient.
“He let me out. The doctor. Conrad. Your name is Conrad. You shot me!”
“Here, sir, stand up.” Conrad bent to lift him up out of his crouched position, and pulled the other up, who unfolded loosely.
“Yes, sorry about that shot. You seem to have recovered quickly.”
“The doctor says it was kind bullet.”
Conrad stares at him.
“Yes, well, friendly fire and all that.” There is a pause.
“Do you not remember me?” Conrad asks. Peter seems to think a moment.
“Conrad, of course I remember you. You… are a friend of the family. You take care of me.
“Right, then. Close enough. Where have you been? Everyone thought you were dead.”
“I have been trapped. In the no man’s land.”
“Well, sir, I’m glad you’re back with us. And I’m sorry again about the shot.”
“No, it was accident, like you say. I understand. Conrad. You carried me home when I broke my leg when I was ten!”
“Yes, sir.”
“And then you… Oh I see.”
“All coming back, is it? Come on, let’s get you back up there.”
Conrad leads the way, along the communications trench, facing forward and letting his words drift back, like exhaust.
“This is bad, bad, but China was worse! The air was thick with sweat and water, and the sun was roasting! We had to march 120 kilometers in that weather, with the Chinese everywhere… No, if you’re going to fight a war, this is the way to do it, I say, sitting down…” He turns to check on Peter, who seems to be following ably. “Of course, back then we fought with the Germans, side by side, but even then you could smell the Hun within them. After the shooting war was over, they were raping and looting… Horrible, horrible. Should have got them earlier, can’t believe we had to wait for some Serbian to start things of for everyone…”
James watches the two go by, sitting in the lip of a dugout, amazed. Peter escaping death twice now… It scares James, shakes him down to his bones. He lights a cigarette and plants it in the mud, burning tip pointing up, letting time go by, watching it slowly burn down to ashes.

Chapter Two

Sleep is a terrifying surrender, and I am not always ready to give up. As I lie here, I wonder – will it be gas? Maybe some soldier on patrol will carry it in here, on his boots, and our ignorant sleeping mouths will usher it inside. Or maybe a shell, knocking a portion of the trench down, burying us. Would I want to wake for those last few moments as I was crushed and suffocated? Or remain asleep, never to know. There is no antagonism in sleep. Lifting my hand over the trench wall, I can feel in direct contact with the enemy, I can feel powerful, in a way. But lying here to sleep there is no challenge and no combat. Just my consciousness spread thinner and more thin, dissipating…

I find it natural to wonder about this body’s death. How did it happen? When did it happen? Was he aware of his doom, or was it a shock? But the memory is being terribly secretive about the subject. These memories are wrapped up in wards of surprise and shame and guilt and justice. Not something a body wants to think about, I suppose, it’s own ending. And there are endless fascinations here. Sometimes I feel sorry for you, wrapped up in the mean physical process of the body as you are, unable to enjoy the perceptions of the mind. But you seem happy enough, and so we remain in our separate realms. Well, death may be cut off from me, but on the subject of life the mind is quite loquacious. Here is a memory.

From the hill we watched the shelling of the town, anxious, powerless, waiting for the bombardment to stop. One man taught me how to make a whistle out a blade of grass, and we tried to match the sound of the falling shells. All morning we laughed at the inaccuracy of the German’s shots, their shells coming down in front and behind, but never hitting anything important. Imagine how our laughter melted into horror as dragons rose from those craters, scales glinting malevolence, looping high into the air only to circle back, mouths wide, breathing a wilting breath, yellow-grey. From the horizon they flew toward us, their breath carrying upon it a struggling tide of runners, throwing aside clothes, equipment, everything to lighten their feet and outrun the tides of gas. Some rushed past us, and some were swallowed into the cloud, and some fell at our feet, mouths frothing. We stood there, dumbfounded for a moment. Conrad was the first to come to his senses and grabbed my arm, pulling me away from the fallen form, the grass strand I had clutched in my hand swirling as it twirls and floats down to the ground.

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