Chapter One - 7

III. 1916, The Trenches, The French-German Front

 

7

I looked up at the rainy sky. The rain was coming down without mercy. The drops that hit my skin were freezing cold. The rain had been going for two days now. I was already tired of the darkened sky.

I imagined what Christmas would be like this year. If I could take Christmas off, I would eat turkey and drink fine wine. I'd sit on the couch listening to vinyl records. But my imagination was useless here on the battlefield. First, we'd need biscuits, which would be more satisfying to chew on than turkey, and water, which smelled less rancid than any wine. We had no records, but the constant background sound of exploding shells. We had no couches, but were cushioned by the dead bodies of our comrades.

As I watched the rain with my useless imagination, an explosion suddenly went off right next to me. I heard screaming. The falling rain drops were joined by flying flechettes. I grabbed my helmet as I ducked. Then, I heard the sound of shells landing in the distance. It sounded like German mortars.

I'd been assigned to the trench east of a fort in Verdun. Each trench was dug into the ground to serve as a passageway for soldiers to move without being directly exposed to enemy fire. Each was about two meters deep and a little over one meter wide. All soldiers, living, dead, or in the process of changing over, used the trenches. The battlefield at Verdun was lined with trenches hundreds of meters long. The whole war was one long session of trench warfare. Everyone fought and died in trenches. We kept on digging new holes to hide in, and so did the enemy. Sometimes we ran at each other with bayonets and did damage that way. It was as though we were squeezing in time to kill each other between rounds of digging. The artillerymen, seized by fits of boredom, would fire barrages of shells to try and destroy the trenches we'd built. In the end, though, all they accomplished was filling the land with huge holes from shells that landed off-target. (See figure)

 

I got up and ran through the winding trenches. It seemed like the first line of trenches had been damaged. I heard the voices of German soldiers mingle with the artillery fire. I threw a grenade in the direction of a voice. The grenade exploded, but I don't know if it did any damage to the enemy. The trenches were dug in a zigzag pattern in case of enemy attack, so even if there were an enemy right around the corner, I couldn't see them. Therefore, there was no way to confirm how effective my grenade was. In the trenches, explosives thrown by hand are highly effective because they fly in a parabola right over the enemy defenses. But at the same time, that also makes them difficult to handle. If you weren't careful, you could even hurt your own allies. For all I knew, I could have just wounded several of our own men.

A friendly soldier carrying a Berthier, a French-made rifle, came running from the front. He slipped past me and ran off somewhere, quick as the wind. As he passed me, he whispered that the Germans would be retreating soon. Apparently, he was planning to bury the remaining Germans.

I decided to go back the way I came. The path had been damaged by shells in several places. The soil making up the back wall had collapsed. The rain of explosives was still ongoing. I stopped and briefly poked my head out of the trench to look around. The shelling had shredded the entire landscape. It was like a scene from a science fiction novel I'd read as a child. In the scene, an adventurer from the future landed on the surface of the moon and said “What a sad and lonely world this is. It's completely desolate. There's nothing left.” My feet were soaked in rainwater. Trench warfare is also a battle against flooding. On particularly rainy days, we sometimes found ourselves up to our waists in water. We had to aim our rifles while wet and shivering. Only the most ruthless sniper could hit an enemy in such conditions, the type who could gun down a defenseless enemy without hesitation. I could never have accomplished something like that. I suppose I just have a weak spirit and lack patriotism.

When I arrived at the back of the trench, I saw that the allied infantry's movements had grown somewhat restrained. They were lined up with their guns on the edge of the trench. They were ready to fire if the German army ever showed themselves. Raindrops dripped off their helmets.

“You going for a walk, sub-lieutenant?” a soldier with a gun asked me, his eyes fixed on mine.

“Well,” I said with a wry smile, “the phone lines are down. I'm gonna go call the repairman.”

“Then bring a beautiful woman back with you. I don't even care if she's an Austrian or a German, as long as she's a babe.”

“How about a Russian?”

“That'd be great.”

He said something after that, but I couldn't hear it over the sound of the artillery. I waved goodbye and continued through the trenches.

No two trenches are alike. It depends on the physical properties of the land, but in most cases, the shape of a trench is determined by top secret battlefield strategies. If their structure was known to the enemy, it would definitely place us in an unfortunate position. Many trenches were camouflaged to throw off reconnaissance aircraft. The trenches formed a labyrinth. We were wandering a labyrinth, relying on a map that only existed in our memories.

When I looked into the underground bunker, I saw the soldiers preparing to go into battle were sitting in groups. They were all so young. Dust fell from the ceiling as they napped, played cards, talked about goings on back home, and looked afraid. Even if a fierce battle was raging right outside, the order to stand by was absolute. The floodwater didn't seem to bother them. The lanterns hanging from the ceiling were constantly shaking. I wondered what would happen if a shell fell right here. They'd all die. Or maybe three of them would survive. We'd be lucky if it were that many. Most of the trenches had experience losing many soldiers on standby. Some platoons had been entirely wiped out while on standby.

The communications room was located next to the auxiliary bunker. Inside were communications engineers and repairmen. I called one of the repairmen and told him about the phone lines. He merely replied “Okay,” and slung a rifle over his shoulder. When I asked him what the rifle was for, he replied “Self-defense.” His face was still youthful. Together, we went back the way I'd came.

“It seems the Austrian emperor is dead.”

The repairman said that while we walked. I nodded.

“Everyone dies in war.”

“Do you think this war is Austria's fault?”

“I never thought about it. We just pull our triggers and throw our grenades. The unlucky ones take bullets and die. Assigning blame is reserved for the ones left alive at the end.”

“That's true. Still, I'd at least like to know what it is we're even fighting for here.”

Even as we spoke, shells continued to fall somewhere and shots continued to ring out from somewhere. But it seemed the battle was dying down. The enemy was growing exhausted, and their attacks were thin. The French army's superior seventy-five millimeter field guns were driving them back at every turn. It was said it was only a matter of time before we took back the area around Verdun. Our trenches would soon be out of the combat zone.

By the time we returned to the front line, the fighting seemed to be over. The corpses of enemy and ally alike lay at our flooded feet. They were doubled over in the water like mud dolls. They smelled of gunpowder, blood, and death.

“This is why you don't go to war on a rainy day.” Hale was picking through the clothes of his dead comrades. “You can't even read the letters to their families anymore, they're soaking wet.”

“Where's the enemy?”

“Gone. Thank God, we can take our time repairing the lines. But it still looks like bullets are raining from the sky. Well, they're just worthless German artillery guns, anyway. They can't hit us.”

Hale laughed as he rounded the corner of the trench.

Hale was a survivor of my unit. For a man of his sturdy build, he did have a sensitive side.

The repairman and I went to work on the phone line installed on the wall. The repairman told me he could take care of the rest. I decided to return to the bunker. Looking back, I didn't know anything about telephone lines. There was nothing I could do to help.

The water level on the ground was rising. At this rate, even if the rain stopped, it would still be waist deep by night. We'd have to pump the water out or drain it somewhere else, or else we'd have to learn to fight like fish. The sun was setting. I joined Hale and the other survivors and we congratulated each other.

“What about Raymond?”

“He's dead.”

“Um, what about that guy? The one who had that collection of German poetry hidden away.”

“Leroux? He's dead, too.”

“Who's still alive?”

“We are,” Hale said shortly.

“This war is terrible,” said Jean, kicking some muddy water. “The Somme was bad, but it's even worse out here.”

“I hear that soon the fighting at the Somme will be over. It'll all be over here too, Jean, soon enough.”

“I wonder if we'll be home by Christmas. Sub-lieutenant?”

“Yeah.”

I answered quickly. I always nodded whenever someone asked if they could go home soon.

“I don't have any family back home anyway,” said Hale, looking bored. “The war's already taken away my place to return to. Everyone's gone. Soon I'll be gone, too. Just like the others.”

“I wonder if the dead are laughing at us somewhere. Are they still suffering?”

“You can't laugh when you're dead.”

“I wonder what will happen to me when I die...”

“I'm going to be reborn,” I said.

“Reborn?”

“When we die, we're reborn as a new person. Haven't you ever heard of it? Hinduism and Buddhism both have concepts of being reborn called reincarnation. The Bible also had a description of reincarnation once, but it was removed by a Roman emperor a long time ago. I think it sounds nicer than spending the rest of time with a bearded old man, doesn't it?”

“Oh, reincarnation, huh? Well then, I hope I reincarnate as Claudia Gasper.”

“The Mediterranean diva?”

Hale and I looked at each other, then burst out laughing. Jean clicked his tongue in embarrassment.

“Is that a problem?”

“No, it's not a problem. It just doesn't suit you, is all.”

“Hmph. So, Hale. What about you?”

“I'm gonna be a goat.”

“A... goat.”

“Better that than a human. I'll be a goat and live a quiet life in the mountains. I'll eat grass and drink the water from the stream. At night, I'll sleep on a soft bed of mulch and listen to the babbling brook. Sometimes, wolves will come by, but they'll be distracted chasing rabbits. I'll wake up to the sun filtering through the trees and the smell of morning mist. That's what I'll do every day. It'll be a quiet, peaceful life.”

“Ha. Then the hunter will shoot you dead, and BAM! Thus ends the life of the cheeky poet goat.”

“Beats being blown to pieces.”

“You know what your problem is, Hale? You only hate people, even though all living things are cruel enough to kill,” Jean said sarcastically. “Hey, sub-lieutenant? Someone once said that the most basic instinct of living things is violence. Even goats and rabbits go to war. All living things in this world go to war. It doesn't matter if they're big or small. As long as life exists, we'll all keep killing each other.”

“You're pretty smart, Jean,” I said, impressed. “Maybe the trenches made you into a philosopher.”

“Heh, thanks. So, what do you want to be in your next life?”

“No, I don't want to be reborn again. I'm done.”

“Eh?”

“I've had all I can take of reincarnating.”

 

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