01

Word from the trenches at lux

It was the spring of 1918. The winter had finally passed, as had the rains. The sun had just begun to rise up out of the rolling hills surrounding the field making them look like the lounging hips of a woman in repose, laying dietada in the violet light of dawn. It had been a very long winter. when I close my eyes now I can still see the open eyed corpses of my frozen companions almost filling the trenches behind us. For every trench we captured, and every trench we dig, there is always another for the Hun to overtake. For the moment, I am grateful for the quiet.

At first this seemed heroic, as if we dough boys were valliantly heading off to slap some sense into the arrogant Prussians, and teach them a lesson which would not soon be forgotten. On the shoulders of our confidence and bravery, the dance halls were decorated with garlands, candles were lit in bundles and hoisted to rafters. We danced in the heavenly glow of Victorian tombs. We stood arm in arm singing songs which reminded us that we were united, fighters, and lovers. We danced with each and every girl we could find, and if we couldn’t find a girl we danced in each other’s arms, twirling, laughing, spinning, swooning, feeling alive with no one among us had ever felt before. We talked about the adventures ahead of us, and the bright pink of the cheeks of the girls we liked best. Pink like a fresh bruise, as if they had just been pinched hard enough to sting a little, bursting with life. It was the time and the place, daring and risk were in the air, on our lips, and dancing from the tips of our tongues. Each and every last one of us was unretrievably intoxicated by the moment.

We trained hard and quickly. Our barracks at night were filled with husky tales of heavy petting, deep set eyes which seemed to fail entirely at containing the cruel separation between love, home and here. However soft our eyes, we ended each night’s whispering with the promise of just what type of beating we were going to give the Hun when we got our hands around his collar.

But the moment for hand to hand combat never quite came. We didn’t meet the Prussians, the Germans, or the Hun in the middle of fields like we’d been trained for. Instead we climbed out of trenches — one by one — up and over the bodies of our brothers until there was nothing but silence. How we ever gained even an inch of ground is beyond me. One moment you are almost warm, sipping at a cup of tea and trying not to fall apart, the next you are springing through a clearing, the crunch of snow below your boots, and even though you are screaming, all you can hear is the crisp flakes of snow landing on your ears, turning to water, and then it is gone.

Now, in the dim light of dawn, I lay beside what is left of the old battalion. I have a half written letter, the stub of a pencil, two squares of chocolate, and a tattered photograph of you in my breast pocket. My rifle is gripped tightly in my fists, the brass bayonet is firmly attached in place. The air smells of flowers and smoke, and all I can hear is the beating of my own heart. Someone coughs from down the line.

We have gained a lot of ground since winter. Some say it’s a retreat, that the Hun knows he is beaten and this war is nearly over. We don’t ask questions. We scramble up and out of our holes to dig hasty trenches, or dive into those of the enemy and overtake them. We tuck in as quickly as possible. And then we are silent again.

A few months ago, staring into the frosted over eyes of a boy about my age I had to wonder about him. Seeing lifeless men in a pile is not an easy sight, but somehow it is far easier than sitting alone, face to face with the corpse of a soldier who surely had a mother, perhaps a sister, a favorite song, and something to look forward to after this was done. Someone just like me. We called them Huns to dehumanize them. We needed the men jeering and shouting, shooting and stabbing at us to become something in the night, something vile and foul, something other than human. We talked as if we were hunting dogs. But to huddle alone in the frozen darkness beside the corpse of a boy my own age I began to wonder.

What was I doing here? Why was I panting breathlessly in this trench, alive and well, while this boy, this mirror of myself was frozen solid with half a bayonet sticking out of his neck? Is this an heroic sacrifice? Or was it the bungling of diplomats and business men? This kind of thinking is how a fellow like me could end up dead, and fast. There is no time for thinking. There is no real progress in this skirmish. We take a trench, we dig a new one, and the Germans take another, and another. We have been chasing these lines in the earth since 1914 and it makes less sense to me now, without food, without water, huddled up beside this dead boy, frozen stiff, than it did when I first slipped my collar disks into my jacket and buttoned them up.

“Gas!” I heard someone whisper in the darkness. “Gas masks at the ready!”

As I slipped the cold rubber over my face, looked up into the morning sky. Yellow smoke was rising above the trench. Rising up in swirling stems like blood dropped into a wide glass of water. I gripped my rifle tighter, and bit my lips. The line began to move, silently we jumped up and over the sand bags of the edge, out into the open, darting through the cover of dense orange and red smoke. Run, don’t look back. The chocolate must be melting in the paper, I am sure it’s going to ruin your photograph. It doesn’t matter, I can’t even remember what color your eyes are anymore, and I am certain I will never finish this letter.