Fit For War, Not For Peace

Artillery shells fly overhead as Quentin Lake and Tress Miller huddle together in their trench. Sergeant Marshon Mane, the longest serving of the trio in the war against the Centerack army, has become so used to being bombarded that he’s fast asleep.

The capitalistic Bon Ivar’s have been at war with the agrarian Centeracks for three years and are on the verge of overrunning their resourceful but underarmed enemy.

Balancing himself on a board above the trench’s muddy bottom, Quentin puts a small piece of cheese on the end of a bayonet. Separated from his family and thirty-three-year-old physician brother Lothar, Quentin has become melancholy, his once handsome features dissipating. The thick bags under his eyes, pallid skin, yellowing teeth, and dingy, cropped hair make him look older than his twenty-six years.

A fat rat appears, sniffing the air. Ambling through the soupy mud, it nibbles at the cheese. Quentin pulls the trigger of his rifle, blasting the rat to bits.

“That’s five for me,” he says.

Sergeant Mane stirs. “Haven’t you two got anything better to do than to litter our trench with these vermin?”

“You should be thankful we’re killing them,” Tress replies, rubbing his cheek to keep his eye from twitching. “One of his buddies was nibbling on your ear a few minutes ago.”

A shell whistles past the trench. It explodes behind the trio, covering them with mud and filth.

“You sure we’re winning this war?” Tress asks. “I’d hate to see what it would be like if we were losing.”

The burly Sergeant cleans the mud off his watch. “You two wise guys had better get some sleep. We’re charging across Dead Man’s Crossing at dawn.”

Tress rubs his eye. The slightly built infantryman’s body trembles.

Sergeant Mane’s steely grey eyes contract. “You’d better be shaking from the chill in the air, Miller. You’re not going squirrely on me, are you?”

“No, sir.”

“Then stop twitching like a rabbit in a magician’s hat. You should try to be more like Private Lake.”

Tress looks over at Quentin, who is fast asleep.

A shell flies past, exploding behind them.

***

A pair of warm hands shakes Quentin.

“…Yes, Sergeant Mane… I’m ready…”

Quentin opens his eyes, expecting to see the gruff Sergeant standing over him.

The man standing before him is wearing a white, wrinkled cap and a hospital gown splattered with blood.

Quentin recognizes the tall, studious-looking man with round glasses.

“Lothar! What are you doing here? I thought you were behind the lines at the hospital?”

His hazy-looking brother doesn’t answer, staring lifelessly into Quentin’s eyes.

Lothar climbs out of the trench, beckoning Quentin to follow him.

Quentin trails his brother into Dead Man’s Crossing, the neutral ground between Bon Ivar and Centerack. Bombs burst around them, flinging mud into Quentin’s face. Traces of machine gun bullets tear up the ground around the brothers, but neither is hit.

Lothar points to a scraggly, war-torn oak. Quentin sits down underneath its twisted branches.

Before Quentin can say anything to Lothar, his shadowy form disappears.

Staring at the torn, dead bodies, broken equipment, and shell holes scattered around Dead Man’s Crossing, Quentin begins to feel dizzy and falls asleep.

Dawn’s glaring sun wakes him. Zig-zagging across Dead Man’s Crossing, Quentin rushes back to his battalion’s trench.

He’s greeted by thick white smoke and the stench of burning flesh.

Looking into the trench, he sees the dismembered bodies of Tress, Sergeant Mane, and the other twenty-six men of his squad.

***

Removing his monocle, Captain Max Volta gazes into his field glasses, looking across Dead Man’s Crossing. His men anxiously sit in the trench waiting for his order to charge.

“So, you say you had this dream…,” Kyle “Killer” King says to Quentin.

The redheaded Corporal is known for his unorthodox approach to fighting, running into battle clutching a Scottish broadsword, longbow, and a set of bagpipes, which he blows at the Centerack soldiers to unnerve them. Despite his quirks, King is the regiment’s best soldier and has been dubbed “Killer King.”

“He took me away from my old regiment, guiding me to safety. He sat me underneath that old oak in the middle of Dead Man’s Crossing. If I hadn’t followed him, I would have been blown apart with the rest of my regiment.”

“Sounds like it’s about time for you to go on furlough.”

“KING! BRING YOUR LONGBOW!” Captain Volta calls out.

Captain Volta and Killer King glance over the top of the trench. Three Centerack soldiers are crawling across the muck of Dead Man’s Crossing toward them.

Captain Volta places his monocle in his eye, allowing himself a lopsided smirk. His voice is sharp and colorless. “There isn’t much in this god forsaken war to savor, but I enjoy watching your sharpshooting ability, King. Send those three savages a message.”

Killer King draws back his crossbow, fitting an arrow. He waits until one of the men rises from the mud, letting the arrow fly.

It strikes the soldier in the chest. He falls over backward, his body sucked into the mud.

The other two Centerack soldiers turn and run.

Killer King hits one of them between the shoulder blades with an arrow. The remaining soldier screams, tossing his rifle aside as he zig-zags back to the Centerack’s side of Dead Man’s Crossing.

“Why do you suppose they’d send only three men out on a suicide mission in the middle of the day?” Captain Volta wonders aloud.

“Might be a diversion,” Killer King offers. “They draw our fire, and while our backs are turned, they send a platoon to outflank us.”

The men turn, looking behind them.

Quentin is standing next to a man in glasses wearing a white hospital gown splattered with blood.

“Who’s that?” Captain Volta inquires.

“More like what?” Killer King answers. “I can see right through him.”

The apparition points down the trench toward Captain Volta’s room. The Captain’s quarters face the Bon Ivar’s flank and were dug out of the muddy earth, and a desk, bunk, radio, and tables were brought inside. A door was attached to give the cramped space a homey feeling.

“I don’t believe what I’m seeing,” Killer King says.

“It’s a Centerack trick, a mass illusion,” Captain Volta replies. “We must have been gassed. Do you believe in spirits, King?”

“I do now, sir. It’s pointing at your office, sir.”

“I can see that, King. Lake! You and King investigate!”

When Quentin tries to reach out to the apparition, it vanishes.

Quentin and Killer King inspect the captain’s quarters.

“I noticed you were looking at that ghost as if you recognized him.”

“I did. It was my brother, Lothar.”

“The surgeon? He’s the lucky one. He’s out of harm’s way.”

“I’m worried about him. This is the second time he’s appeared to me. He sent me a letter a few weeks ago, saying he would visit when the war was over and that he couldn’t wait to meet his niece. But it's been two weeks since his last letter.”

“Brothers share a special bond,” Killer King replies. “He’s probably worried about you, too. His concern for you manifested itself into something we could see, that’s all. I bet there’s a letter from him in this afternoon’s mail.”

“Do you really believe that a person’s feelings can take form?”

Killer King rummages through the maps and papers on Captain Volta’s desk. “I’m a Gypsy. I’ve spoken with my dead relatives, seen a headless body walk, and I’ve been shown flashes of my previous lives. So, yeah.”

Quentin notices a hole in the earth in the back of the room. Kneeling, he pulls out his flashlight, shining it in the hole.

“You need to see this, King.”

The two men dig around the hole, revealing a small tunnel.

The tunnel is packed with explosives. The bombs are rigged with a timer set to detonate in two hours.

***

Captain Volta salutes Quentin and Killer King.

“So, the Centracks did send men to our flank to tunnel into our position. Those explosives would have killed over forty men and destroyed this trench. If that ghost was a mass hallucination, it was a good one.”

“We can thank my brother, Lothar, sir.”

A soldier passes through the trench bellowing, “MAIL CALL!” He hands Quentin a letter.

Killer King notes the letter's official-looking appearance. “Looks like it’s from the high command. Maybe you’re getting transferred to some cushy job.”

Quentin tears open the envelope and reads the message aloud.

“It is with the deepest regret that we must inform you that your brother, Lothar A. Lake, surgeon for the 39th Bon Ivar Battalion, is listed as missing. At this time, we believe he was among the 45 physicians, nurses, staff members, and wounded soldiers unaccounted for during the attack on a field hospital in Rigear on October 15.”

***

When the war ends two months later, Quentin reunites with his wife, Bonnie, and three-year-old daughter, Crystal. But his transition to civilian life doesn’t go smoothly. His experiences in the war haunt Quentin.

Quentin tosses in his sleep. He sees himself running across Dead Man’s Crossing, dodging machine gun bullets as his fellow soldiers are cut down like stalks of ripe wheat.

A Centerack soldier bursts out of his trench, his bayonet gleaming in the midday sun. He thrusts the bayonet at Quentin, who barely dodges it.

Quentin runs his bayonet through the soldier’s chest. He falls, reaching for his wound. Quentin thrusts his bayonet down at him again and again, turning his chest into chopped meat. Blood issues from the soldier’s mouth as he lets out a hoarse, tortured last gasp. He dies staring at Quentin.

Quentin wakes up in a cold sweat. Bonnie holds him close. Down the hallway in her room, sensing her father’s distress, Crystal quietly cries to herself.

***

Bonnie folds Quentin’s shirts, leaving them at the foot of the bed.

Lounging in bed, Quentin glances over the top of his copy of COINage Magazine, frowning.

“Why don’t you put them away?”

“Me? Why don’t you? I washed two loads of clothes, dried them, carried them back upstairs, all while you were reading about some dirty old money. Speaking of which, when are you going to get a job? We’re barely scraping by on your veteran’s benefits. At this rate, I’ll never finish my studies for my nursing degree. Crystal is about to go to nursery school. I can’t send her there in faded and tattered clothes. And don’t be surprised if you flick a light switch one day and nothing happens.”

Quentin stares sadly at his wife. Before the war, Bonnie was a pretty, pouty-lipped brunette with fetching topaz-colored eyes and a dancer’s figure. Now her puffy lips look as if she’s been stung by a dozen bumble bees. She’s wispy thin, and the joy has drained from her eyes.

“It’s not like I’ve given up trying to find a job, Bonnie.”

Bonnie sighs heavily. “I know. You tried being a bus driver. You kicked a kid off the bus and left him stranded in the woods because he was acting up. Too bad he was the Mayor’s son. And your short stint as a garbage man didn’t work out either.”

“I’m sorry. I lost my cool. That woman wouldn’t stop badgering me, saying she had the right to throw her bottles in the truck with the trash when it wasn’t recycling day…”

“Did you have to end the argument by dumping a full load of garbage on her lawn?”

“It was worth it to see the old biddy’s eyes spin around. I’m sorry, Bonnie. I guess I’m fit for war, but not for peace.”

“Maybe so, judging how things went at the firing range,” Bonnie replies.

“I thought I’d be a good fit there. But all that noise triggered memories of the war. I thought it was the Centeracks firing at me. I didn’t know I’d grabbed a gun and started shooting.”

“If those three guys on the firing line hadn’t hit the floor…”

“I know… But Lothar stopped me.”

Bonnie’s eyes narrow. “Say again?”

“Lothar appeared to me. His presence calmed me down. I know you think I’m crazy…”

“No. I think not knowing how your brother died is haunting you. Lothar didn’t serve in the war alone. He had friends. He knew the other doctors. You need to talk to one of them.”

***

Dr. Cutter Sharpe answers the door. The forty-two-year-old surgeon is rugged-looking, with a full head of jet-black hair and a physique resembling a football player in his prime. The only concession to his torturous years in the operating room on the front lines is the cane he leans on and the scent of whiskey on his breath.

“Shrapnel from when the bomb hit us,” he says, pointing at his knee. “Your brother pushed me aside just before the second shell hit, otherwise…”

“You’d have ended up like him.”

Dr. Sharpe lowers his baby blue eyes. Recovering his composure, he says, “Your brother talked about you all the time. ‘My baby brother, the soldier,’ he’d say... He was proud of you. He talked about how you’d spend hours together collecting rare coins and reading about them. And he couldn’t wait for the war to end to see his niece, Crystal. It’s a shame he never did.”

“I can’t shake the sadness I feel because he never made it home. And it's only part of why I feel like a stranger in my own house.”

“You’re not alone. When I came home, Sasha seemed different. She had the brightest smile, but when I was discharged, she hardly smiled at all. We never had a harsh word for one another. Then it was all we seemed to have. But things have gotten better now that I know the problem. Sasha hasn’t changed. I have.”

“I still see the crushed skulls of my comrades, their severed arms and legs, the blood mixed in with the mud at my feet,” Quentin says.

“…Blood-spattered surgeons lifting the next screaming victim onto the operating table… I could barely keep it together during the war. But your brother Lothar was a rock for all of us... We didn’t just operate on the men. Due to a shortage of orderlies, we had to staff the ambulances and pick up the wounded, or what was left of them. In the wintertime, the bodies were frozen solid. We had to use picks and shovels to separate them from the ice. Wolves had gotten to some of the corpses. Sometimes, the Centeracks would throw our men into mass graves. The rain would come and wash the mud away, exposing the skeletons, the rotting flesh. And the stench, especially in the summer, was brutal… It made manure smell like perfume. But the worst part was when I realized, the party parts we were collecting were once a person, someone’s husband, uncle…”

“…Or brother… What happened to Lothar’s remains?”

“They were collected, just like everyone else. The army is still trying to identify everyone. One day, there’ll be a knock on your door, and you and your brother will be reunited.”

***

Seated on a bench near the playground, Quentin gets lost in CoinsWeekly Magazine while Bonnie studies for her nursing exam.

Crystal climbs to the top of the monkey bars and attempts to stand.

The thud from her head hitting the hard ground petrifies Quentin and Bonnie. Quentin reaches Crystal first, cradling his daughter in his arms.

Bonnie shrieks, “HELP! SOMEBODY HELP US!”

Crystal gasps for air, her airway blocked by her tongue. She goes into a seizure, her body jerking wildly.

Quentin feels a warm hand touch his shoulder. Looking up, he sees Lothar.

Kneeling, Lothar reaches into Crystal’s mouth, freeing her tongue. She coughs hoarsely, her breathing slowly returning to normal.

Crystal’s eyes flutter, opening. Bonnie sinks to the ground, holding her.

Crystal looks up at the watery apparition, rasping, “Thanks, Uncle Lothar.”

Still stunned, Quentin and Bonnie watch Lothar wave goodbye as he disappears.

***

Quentin and Bonnie shuffle through their bills.

“The town tax bill is two months late,” Quentin notes. “I might be able to get an extra month out of the assessor if I plead with him. He’s a vet, too. He understands.”

“We can’t go on like this, Quentin.”

The doorbell rings. A UPS man hands Quentin a box, a form, and a pen.

“Sign at the bottom, please.”

“What is it?”

“Your brother’s remains.”

The deliveryman bends down, picking up a second box.

“And these are his personal effects.”

***

Crystal skips into the room as Quentin puts the urn on the mantlepiece.

“Is that Uncle Lothar?”

“Yes,” Quentin replies, surprised. “How did you know?”

“I had a dream about him. He told me he was coming home.”

Bonnie forages through Lothar’s effects. “A few coin magazines, a few singed pictures of us on our wedding day, the two of you when you were kids, and this…,” she says, holding up a key.

***

The bank manager places Lothar’s safety deposit box in front of Quentin and Bonnie.

Quentin opens the box.

Bonnie sighs. “Coins... I’m not surprised.”

Quentin examines the coins. “This one’s a two-hundred-year-old American silver dollar. You know how much that’s worth? About two hundred thousand Bon Ivar dollars! There are at least five of them here! And this one is from Russia, and this twenty-franc piece is a rare Napoleon coin worth a million francs. It looks like Lothar has saved us again. We’re rich!”