The Quiet Ones

As it does so many times, war had come again. No one knew the "why". Was it this, was it that? In the end, it doesn’t matter. It simply is.

I didn’t expect to be called. Wishful thinking. But not mine alone. All of us had thought it would be settled. Or there would be enough of the regular troops. That was dashed as we heard the news. Lines breached. Massive casualties.

The “odds were not in our favor” as the old story quote said.

My day came. Mary and the kids saw me off as I boarded the transport. The kids, young to teens, had only a little understanding of what was ahead. For right or wrong we kept that part of their life clean.

Mary. My Mary. She knew. But. Promises were made. I would return and until then I would write every day.

Her kiss was sweet. Her wave hopeful. Her eyes. Her eyes knew.

September 3

Dear Mary,

We’re settled now. If a place like this can be called settled. The mud reaches your ankles, and the sky feels low enough to touch, but the men are in good spirits. We joke. We complain. We make plans for when this is over, as if it’s already decided that it will be soon.

I keep your photograph in my breast pocket. It’s bent now, but your smile is still there. That helps.

Don’t worry about me. I’ll be home before you know it.

All my love,

Thomas

October 14

Mary,

The guns haven’t stopped for three days. When they do, the silence feels wrong --like the world is holding its breath.

Something strange happened last night. After the shelling ended, I saw figures standing by the wire. Men, I thought. Lost ones. Deserters maybe. But they didn’t move when flares went up. Didn’t duck. Didn’t run.

No one else reacted. I asked Sgt. Wilson if he saw them and he laughed; said I needed sleep.

They weren’t enemy soldiers. They weren’t ours either. They just stood there, watching.

I won’t mention it again. Probably exhaustion.

Yours

Thomas

November 2

Mary,

I’m writing this by candle stub. We’re rationed now. Everything is rationed. Wilson and I share everything or as much of everything as we get.

The nights are still the eerie calm. We know they are over there. They know we are here, but both sides stop the shelling. Almost like we were all on a factory job. But, and I know I said I wouldn’t mention it again, but that’s when I see them.

They come out after the quiet settles. Always then. When even the rats stop moving.

They walk the trench line without sound. Boots never seem to touch the duckboards, as if the ground itself is afraid of them. Their uniforms are wrong—old but then not. Some wear coats I’ve only seen in photographs, others look like the future. One had a helmet with a spike, like something out of a museum, others had fabric with strange devices on them.

They don’t speak.

They don’t look at us, not directly. But it seems if they catch us looking, they stare like they know us. I ask Sgt. Wilson. He said they are probably just other units with specialized jobs. Not to worry about it.

A few of us have seen them but we don’t talk about it. Seems better not to ask questions that don’t have answers.

Thomas

November 19

Mary,

Sgt. Wilson is gone.

He woke screaming last night, clawing at his blanket. Said he watched the whole thing - his death. Where it happened. How long it took. He was shaking so badly I thought he’d freeze solid.

He said one of the Quiet Ones had been standing over him while he slept. He said it looked like him, but he knew it wasn’t. I know that sounds mad. I know how it reads on paper.

But.

I saw it.

I saw it too. The figure leaned close, like it was listening to his breathing. Like it was memorizing him.

He went back to something we call sleep, but restless.

He got up this morning, at dawn, I watched as he climbed the ladder and walked into no-man’s-land. Stepped out and was gone.

No gunfire. No explosion. Just gone.

Thomas

December 7

Mary,

I saw myself last night.

Not a reflection. Not a trick of the light. Me - older, thinner, eyes hollowed out like burned wood. “I” stood among them as if he belonged there. But it wasn’t me.

I didn’t feel afraid. That’s what frightens me most.

I think I understand now. They aren’t visitors. They aren’t ghosts in the way stories mean ghosts.

They’re what’s left.

Not dead. Gone, but doesn’t leave. Not really. They stay, emptied of everything but the waiting. The land and the time keeps them. Folds them into itself.

They don’t harm us. They just make sure we arrive.

Thomas

January 18, I think

Mary,

I don’t know how long it’s been. Time behaves differently here. Days repeat. Nights stretch.

The Quiet Ones are closer now. They walk through the trenches, through walls, through men. Sometimes I feel one pass through me, like a cold hand through smoke.

I’m not sick. I’m not wounded. But I don’t feel entirely myself anymore.

If I don’t come home—

No. When I don’t come home—

Know that I tried to hold on.

All my love

Thomas

Undated

My son,

You don’t know me. Not really. You were too young when I left, and too old now to remember the sound of my voice. But you have my hands. I see them in yours.

I heard you’ve enlisted.

I won’t tell you not to go. Fathers lie when they do that. Fathers know the heart of their sons.

But.

If you ever see men who walk without sound—

If you ever notice uniforms that don’t belong to this war, or any war—

If you feel watched when everything is quiet—

If you think you see me --

Turn your eyes away.

They’re not coming for you.

They’re waiting for you.

That is how it goes. That is how it has always gone.

I keep writing because someone must remember us as men, not shapes. Because silence wins if no one speaks.

War never ends. It only learns patience.

Your father