This Is War

Part One: Three Years Later

         We didn’t crawl out of our tents until noon, shielding our eyes from the sun. It was bright though it streamed through an over-hanging, ever-present haze of smoke and dust. Paulmen and Alan hugged roughly, each trying to wrestle the other to the ground. Schreider held their mess tins beneath his arms, a strand of grass between his lips. He waved when he saw me. I raised my hand, thumb up, walked over to him. He struck a match, set the grass to smoldering.
         “Cretins, ain’t they,” he grumbled, kicked Alan in the ribs. The scuffle ended with Paulmen on top, smiling triumphant, blond hair shining, blue eyes flashing. Alan shoved him in the chest, rolled away. He held his ribs, cast a glare at Schreider who offered a shrug.
         “Did you fight like that on the raid?” Paulmen stood him up, brushed the dirt from his shoulders, handed him the mess tin.
         “If I did.”
         “It’s a wonder you ain’t dead. Learn to throw that meat around, could save your life. Burns’ll show you how, right Burns.”
         I picked up my tin, tucked a cigarette behind my ear for later. Schreider smiled, shoved through the men standing in groups. They resisted halfhearted, dreading their turn at the front. We followed Schreider easily enough. He was always first in line for food, always hungry, always chewing on some bit of dried meat or hard crust of bread. He could always find something to eat, even in the towns that had been turned to rubble and ash, where the men had already been twice or three times and found nothing. Alan had remarked, when he first joined our group, that it was a wonder Schreider was so starved. True to character, Schreider was standing next to the cook, feet tapping impatiently, soldiers lined up behind him.
         “Wait for the whole battalion,” Cook whined, cleaning his nails with the tip of a knife. His blond hair was nearly gone, his bald head shining with sweat, brown eyes shaded with suspicion. He recognized Schreider, and they were on odd terms.
         Alan shrugged his elbow into Schreider’s gut, digging deep. Schreider hissed, smile tight on his lips. Paulmen chuckled. I shook my head, joined the line.
         “Didn’t seem too concerned waiting the past few days for the whole battalion,” Alan said. “Since we weren’t here.”
         “They’d still all be waiting for the beans from four nights ago,” Paulmen furthered. “Wouldn’t be too pleasant to eat, but even that’s better than nothing. Give us some then, Cook.” He was flustered, his cheeks going red, puffing up, stammering for words. The soldiers behind us tapped their spoons against their tins, the sound an echo of their constant hunger, growing louder until the cook picked up the ladle and put a glob of beans and slice of bread into Schreider’s mess tin. There was a short cheer, near lifeless, the line shuffled forward.
         We sat in front of our tents, shoveled haricot beans into our mouths, savored the bread. It was dry and no warmer than our hands but it was fresh and sweet. Cook would have extra for the fifty-two men still lying in the field after the raid, fifty-two men who would never stand up again. Schreider knew this and was gone to the line before his plate was finished. Alan soon followed.
         “Coming, Burns.”
         I shook my head. Paulmen shrugged, stood and walked to the line. I wiped the bottom of the plate with the crust, took a swig of water, laid down, lit the cigarette. It was a luxury since I mostly chewed them, too worried a lit butt would betray me. Here, the trenches were far enough I only had to worry about bombers and reconnaissance planes, but they couldn’t see a cigarette. I closed my eyes.
         Alan and Schreider came back, arguing over the best way to eat haricot beans, what the best meal was they’d had that year, hollering about bacon. They quieted, shoveling into the beans. “I don’t get it, Burns.” I opened one eye, stared at Alan upside down. “You eat half the rest of us and yet you’re twice the soldier. You don’t have some secret stash of bread and butter and bacon right. You’d share with us if you did, right Burns.”
         Schreider laughed. “With you, maybe. He’d ne’er tell me for fear of my eating it all.”
         “That’s right!”
         “Did you hear?” Paulmen sat down, licked his fingers. “Reinforcements by the end of the week, maybe sooner. Got to replace those fifty-some that didn’t finish the last raid.”
         “Fifty-two,” I said.
         We sat silent for nearly a whole minute, one second for each lost soul. I closed my eyes, counting, trying to recall the faces of each name. “In the end we’re all the same.” It was fifty-three seconds. “No rank, no title, no name, no face. It doesn’t matter what you were, that was another life. This life ends the same for all of us. Carrion crows, rats, maggots, and ash.”
         “Amen.”
         “What did you say about reinforcements,” Alan muffled around a full mouth.
         Schreider growled. “Most likely they’ll miss us in the trenches, since we go up at week’s end. Doesn’t matter. Unless they’ve got a war belt they’ll join our last group of reinforcements.” They were dead, most still lying with mutilated bodies in the no-man’s land between our line and Rounagh. They’d been too young to die, all eighteen years old, fresh recruits, never seen war. They didn’t know how to survive in a normal battle so they were sent to slaughter in the trenches.
         “Still,” Paulmen mused. “Reinforcements of any sort draw attention. Less men firing at us. And I’m sure the front is tired of gnawing on your old wind bag.” Schreider cackled.
         “Sure enough they are but –”
         “Supposed to be recruits.”
         “I heard something about Senin.” I looked up. Harris stood there, the mail bag bulky, hanging haphazard on one shoulder. He was always a shock to see, hair orange as flames, eyes like grass in spring. He was nineteen now, the mail carrier for our division since last year. He set the bag down, dug through the pockets. “Something about a recruiter named Thomas or some such. I don’t know the details but I heard something about Senin.” He handed out letters. “Thought they were out of the war. Haven’t heard about them before.” He held a small package out. I stared at it. Not once in three years had Harris or his predecessor Adderun had anything for me, now I had a box. I took it, set it between my feet on the stool.
         “Where’d you hear about Senin,” Paulmen inquired.
         “The commanders’. I was just there. I should go, lots of letters for everyone.” He tapped the brim of his hat and was gone.
         They tore into the letters as voracious to hear from home and their old lives as they were to eat or smoke. I watched, half interested in the stories of their children and neighbors. Their faces were animated as they read, the most alive I’d seen them, letting out a chuckle or hiding a wild grin behind their hand. I let out a breath, stared up at the grey sky. Men were always alive when connected to their past, to another life that they longed for, looked forward to with hope. I was the youngest. I had nothing waiting for me at home, couldn’t remember what home looked like or smelt like or how it felt. No wife. No children. I had been too young for that when I left, was maybe still too young to worry about such things.