Tears in the rain

I vowed to myself that I would never return to this rotten place. To me, it still reeks of death and putrefaction, though today I also discern the smell of pine trees, old grass, and white flowers. I have brought my old sidearm with me, an almost antique officer’s revolver they gave me at the graduation ceremony in the academy; a memento I was never quite able to leave behind. Then, a handshake, a pat on the back, straight into uniform, rifle in hand, voilà, welcome to the front. How long ago was that?

Now, I am back here, walking where the trenches stretched into the endless void. I can still hear the myriad of voices trying to outshout the booming thunder of artillery just behind those treelines over there. I didn’t want to come here. A swarm of doctors and an oubliette’s worth of drugs had tried to convince me that I would be all right someday. I was not.

Even as my comrades’ faces came for me more frequently, when I thought that wounded men were crying for help in my living room, when I was almost hit by a car while running across the street because I took it for a trench. Even then, they said I would be alright someday. Liars!

I should have died here. I feel like I did. My legs can barely carry me forward, and my mind starts showing overlapping images. How much of it is due to old age, I cannot say. What the hell am I doing here?

I remember. The doctors lied to me, but they could not fool my wife. She still recognized a glimmer of the young man who told her funny stories and held her hand every night, right until it was his turn to join the ranks of the glorious damned. She clung to him with all her strength like a drowning person clings to the last piece of driftwood.

“You have to go back”, she said to me one day. “Part of you is still there, I know it. You need to find it, bring it back. Close the wound.” Her voice was trembling. “Please. You need to go.”

I saw the pain in the wrinkles of her face, though she tried to hide it from me. When we got married before the war, both barely of age, she possessed a youthful bluster that made her eyes shine with hope and big dreams for the future. Now, there is only resignation. I wonder how much of it is my fault, but dread the answer.

“You need to go”, she pressured me, every hour of every day. I was terrified at the idea of setting foot in Flanders again, but the sadness in her eyes was killing me. She was the reason I managed to drag my carcass out of that bloody mess in the first place, and no matter how I felt about going back, I could not bring myself to extinguish the last vestiges of light in her eyes. So I went.

Now, I am wandering across the rolling hills and fields of white flowers that hide the nameless ghosts of the past. Over there, I am sure, was the command bunker I spent so much time in as a young Lieutenant. I could see the outline of the main frontline trench over there. We had thirty guns stationed right behind the reserve line, on that hill to my right. I close my eyes, breathe in the memories, let their currents sweep me to a place I have not visited in a long time. When I have finally drowned in this storm, it feels like I am right back in the trenches.

I hear our artillery fire. It sets my teeth on edge, the pressure hammering against my gut. Then, hundreds of men go topside, cheering and shouting until they disintegrate into a red mist when the counterbatteries finally answer. I see the zeal in their eyes transform into terror when the realization of their inevitable fate hits them. Some manage to reach rifle range and are ripped apart by machine gun salvos. Others make it further still, their momentum impaling them on the barbed wire, poses frozen mid-run, giving the impression that they are just resting, ready to continue the fight any minute now.

Days go by. When the order to retreat finally comes, chaos descends upon the trenches, and soldiers mill about like startled vermin. I stay behind in the command bunker with my adjutant, setting booby traps and explosives to greet the enemy when they finally arrive. We want to take as many of them out as we can. When we are done, we run out of there and head straight towards the nearest ladder. We are too late.

Somebody shouts in French. I had classes back in the academy and can make out something akin to “stop right there, or we’ll shoot”, but my friend clearly cannot. I look him in the eye and nod, putting my hands in front of me to signal him to stop.

“Everything will be fine. Trust me.”

The others surround us, pointing their bayoneted rifles in our faces. I hear rifle shots all around. A grenade goes off somewhere behind me, specks of dirt clumping against my boots. My breath is heavy, heat rising through my chest and clogging my throat. One of them shouts at me. I can barely make out the words over the sound of the rain.

“Who is your commanding officer? Where is he?”

Over and over again. I lost my officer’s cap somewhere in the confusion of the day, and I was never happier about having breached regimental protocol. Another soldier strikes me in the stomach with the butt of his rifle, and I go down to my knees. My friend tries to interfere, which earns him a strike to the teeth. He spits one out.

The first soldier gives his rifle to another, pulls out his sidearm, and slowly walks behind both of us. I can see the confusion in my adjudant's face, not understanding what they want. I can feel the cold steel against the back of my head. They will kill us both. Please, God, save me from this. I have to do something. They will kill me!

I turn my head towards the man who is my friend. I raise my arm. I point a finger. I see the confusion in his face when I say in French, “It's him!” I repeat the words until I am shouting them from the top of my lungs, “It’s him! He’s my superior officer!”

I am still shouting when they fire the shot, when his body slumps to the ground, and a red rivulet flows from his brow to mix with the dirt and the mud. His eyes meet mine, and I see the confusion in them, still trusting, still giving me the benefit of the doubt, knowing that I will handle the situation. I cry for what feels like hours until I realize that I am alone. The soldiers are gone - all of them.

I manage to get the deluge of unbidden memories back under control. When I open my eyes, I can see this pathetic officer kneeling right in front of me, down in the mud, angry winds beating the rain against his coat and scraping skin like a swarm of daggers. Betrayer. Coward. He trusted you. You were supposed to keep him safe. You bastard. It's you who should be dead in the mud, not him. Bile rises in my throat. I feel pressure mounting in my head, threatening to burst at any second.

I take a step towards him, shouting curses. For some reason, my revolver is in my hand, I am waving it around, then pointing it towards the traitor. I want to pull the trigger, to kill this filth. How dare you? Did you want to buy yourself some more miserable years on this Earth? Is that what his life was worth to you?

The revolver feels hard against my temple. I feel the pressure mounting, the now familiar embrace of the muzzle promising release, fingers tense with the impulse to act.

The ceaseless barrage of raindrops makes me pause. I take a long look at the young officer, and for the first time in my life, I decide to see him. I see a boy in a man’s clothes. A kid pressed into uniform and shipped to the front just days after the war broke out, scared to death, trembling hands clutching a rifle like it was his mother’s arm. Too young to shoulder the responsibility thrust upon him, old enough to understand the weight of his decisions. There was no fire in his eyes. The light was on, but nobody was holding the torch.

I let the gun fall to the ground and take another step towards him, drop to my knees, and take the boy into my arms. As I hold him, feeling the shivers and sobs reverberating through my body, my own tears start flowing. Together, we are a torrent of empathy, a dam that has finally been breached. I put my hands on both sides of his face and gently put my forehead onto his.

Then, I utter the most difficult words I have ever said.

“I forgive you.”