Silence in the Field

An American soldier sat in the trenches of WW1, not knowing what would happen next. Every day was the same routine, nothing changed and the same things happened as planned. Some days it would rain, and some days the mud would be so slippery that it would be difficult to walk without holding on to something. There were days where he could hear the sound of gunfire, which even though it was scary, at least it was something different to listen to.

For rations, the soldier was lucky that it wasn’t covered in mold as he heard that for many soldiers, it was the case, and only severe hunger could convince people to even attempt to eat it. For water, oftentimes it had a strange smell, but at least it was enough to keep him awake and alive. He would dream that the day he went home, he would be greeted by his family with a warm meal and bed. He dreamed that he would again see his mother and the apple pie she made, which was his favorite.

Other days, he would talk to other soldiers, telling them about what his life at home was. He would tell them that he lived on a farm, and that it was peaceful. Other times, he would tell them that he dreamed of going to college where he hoped to study to become a doctor as he had wanted to study medicine and help the sick in his town. Those were his dreams that he hoped he would accomplish once his time in the service was done.

One day out of nowhere, a new sound had startled him. While he was on guard duty, he heard something that sounded like thunder hit the trenches. He was daydreaming about home, and it awakened him with a stinging pain that caused him to become partially deaf. He would try to hear what his friends were saying, but the more he tried, the less he was able to hear.

Unable to hear what he was being told to do, his commanding officer wrote what he needed to do on a piece of paper, which was to deliver a message to another group of soldiers in a different trench. The soldier would need to cross open territory to do so, putting him in danger of being demolished by enemy firepower. However, because of his courage, the soldier volunteered for the job and quickly climbed the walls of the trench despite that it had been raining for hours prior, turning even the walls into slippery mud.

The soldier ran as fast as he could to the other trench, which he guessed was about one kilometer from where he was previously. He had never been there but had heard about the people there. Some of them he knew, and he had hoped that if he had time, he could visit and speak to his friends that were stationed there, to see if life in that trench was any different than the one where he was stationed at.

As the soldier ran, he could see smoke rising to the sky. What was once a clear and serene blue was now a callous and stinging cloud of darkness that blocked out the sun and the clouds from sight. The soldier used to be able to count the birds that were flying in the sky, but now because of the rising smoke, all he could see was darkness.

The soldier had made it to a tree that had lost almost everything from the leaves to the branches, which he knew would mean that he was at least a third of the way there. He had seen the tree on a map, and all that was left of it was the trunk which barely had any bark left. Bullet holes and other scars marred the trees, which looked more like claw marks. The soldier had thought about how the tree managed to survive when the entire forest that used to be in the area was all but destroyed. The soldier wondered but quickly regained focus on the task at hand.

He then looked up and saw a blue bird flying across the sky. The soldier didn’t know how the bird was able to fly as the sky was saturated with vast clouds of smoke as well as hailstorms of bullets. One would’ve either choked the bird to death within minutes and the other one would’ve convinced most other birds to seek sanctuary in another place, but as the bird flew, the soldier found a brief moment of peace as the bird reminded him of a pet that he used to have on the farm, which he named Bluebeak.

The moment, however, was not to last as the bird, which moments before was calmly and innocently flying across the field, was shot down by a stray bullet. From where the soldier was, it appeared that the bullet had hit the bird in its left wing, which caused it to quickly fall out of the sky. The soldier rushed to try and save it, but he soon realized that it was falling towards an enemy trench. Brokenhearted, the soldier could only continue on his mission to avoid thinking about what happened to the bird.

It wouldn’t be long before the soldier could see the flag of the allied trench and couldn’t be more relieved at the thought that he could finally rest for a few minutes once his task was complete. Unfortunately, as he began to race towards his friends, an enemy shell exploded close to him. It wasn’t enough to kill him, but it left him covered in cuts and bruises.

The soldier, unwilling to give up, told himself to roll back on his feet and continue towards the allied trench. He could feel the taste of blood in his mouth, and he didn’t know whether it was because he bit his lip or because his head was injured from the shell. The soldier didn’t want to think about that however, and once he was back on his feet, began to sprint towards the allied trench.

The soldier told himself he was sprinting, but it was closer to a quick movement on a limp. Regardless, as he dashed towards his destination, he could hear more enemy shells exploding around him, only their deafening and thunderous sounds making it so that he could hear them. When he finally reached the periphery of the trench, he dove towards it and rolled in once he reached the trench walls.

Once the soldier was in the trenches, and for once happy to be caked in mud, the other soldiers quickly recognized though he could tell from their reactions he was covered in scars. He then handed the message to one of his friends in the trench, who knew it was meant for the commanding officer, and the soldier lay content in the mud, knowing that he had finished his task.