Casualties
By sarahv
- 478 reads
Casualties
History reeks of the wrongs that we have committed. A drawn out,
straggled, line of soldiers trudge wearily towards the distant glow
which signifies shellfire. They choke on the heavy, thick air,
suffocated by the heady stench of warfare. They stare fixedly at the
ground, determined not to look at the barren, charred landscape that
surrounds them. The dull thud of their boots resounds and reverberates,
echoing off crumbling walls and hollow shells, all that is left in this
abandoned, desolate town. The pounding of boots and distant guns mingle
to provide a bleak percussion to a cacophony of silence.
They are deadly quiet as they march. There is nothing left for them to
say. Words cannot express the hell that they have encountered, nor
their fear of what they may yet have to face. They progress slowly,
painfully into the unknown.
The landscape that they pass is their homeland, native soil and yet it
is completely unrecognisable to them. Gaping craters have obliterated
once peaceful, rolling farmland. Buildings that have stood for
centuries are now little more than crumbling skeletons, destroyed in a
single moment, reduced to rubble and dust. Lone bricks lie isolated in
decimated fields, blown clear from their parent structure by the force
of the explosion.
There is nothing left to distinguish this place from any of the other
deserted towns that they have trooped through. Yet to one of their
number this is not simply another war torn town, another unrecognisable
scar left by the conflict. This is his home, a place he left as a
young, idealised soldier, and a thriving community that gave their
children to the 'greater good'. He stares uncomprehendingly at the
scene that surrounds him; he doubts his own memory, his inner
conviction that this could be the town of his childhood.
Both the soldier and the town are almost unrecognisable, dirty, war
ravaged fragments of their former selves. They are both old, decrepit,
haggard shadows of the vitality that was stolen by an invisible enemy.
He continues to march onwards mechanically, herded forward by the wave
of soldiers marching numbly behind him; young men oblivious to the
significance of the blackened rubble that they pass.
The stifling, oppressive heat of the day makes marching almost
unbearable; when water is passed to him he greedily gulps at it but it
is warm and tasteless. His meagre ration fails to refresh him and
serves only to make him desperate for more.
His mouth and lips were chapped and dry. Thirty pairs of eyes were
fixed on the clock on the opposite wall, willing it forward, but time,
like people, moves slower during hot, lazy afternoons. The sun streamed
in the window, highlighted shafts of dust in the still, dry air and
played off her fair hair, slowly tormenting him. The master's shout
shattered the languid silence.
The drained officer barks at the straggling men, splitting the deathly
silence of the march. The young soldier starts, and searches the
landscape for something familiar, some reassuring reference point.
Everything is so different; it has been such a long time. The officer
leads the parched, complaining men off between two burnt out corpses of
once substantial buildings into a rubble filled square and towards a
crumbling well shaft. He bellows in vain for an orderly queue as the
young soldiers break rank and rush to haul water from the cool depths.
Spilt water runs in rivulets over the arid earth turning the soil a
deep red. Hands delve into the sloshing bucket cupping up the fresh
water.
A woman cursed the jostling children as they streamed out of the
schoolhouse and hurtled towards the well. Ink stained hands heaved the
clanking bucket upwards and in their haste they soaked the surrounding
ground. He was bigger than most of the boys there and he forcibly
pushed his way forward. He prised the bucket out of determined fingers
and was the first to dip his cup in the cool, dark liquid. He held his
prize high above the heads of his peers, and to catcalls and jeers
carried the first brimming cup away and clumsily thrust it into her
hands. She smiled shyly and coyly drank, her eyes sparkling at him over
the rim.
The soldier moves away from the raucous crowd by the well, and stands
alone amongst the debris at the edge of the square. He gazes at the
destruction around him, now sure, but still unwilling to admit, that
this is his home. This was once the bustling square of a prospering
town, it is now little more than a watering hole for passing soldiers.
The boys who had once drunk from this well are now lying dead miles
away, never to return to witness the destruction of their home. The
girls have simply disappeared. He feels desperately alone in his own
town. He is for the first time a solitary soldier. In the past he has
always had the promise of 'home' to cling to, memories to dream of,
constant security. He instinctively reaches into his pocket and clasps
the small talisman in his hand. He closes his eyes and presses its cool
smoothness against his burning forehead. Out of the darkness her face
comes swimming. He wrenches his eyes open. Childishly attempting to
banish the image, he flings the trinket away from him, its pettiness
suddenly angering him. He has foolishly clung to it as he has clung to
his ridiculous memories. Now that any hope of returning home has been
shattered he wants no link with the past.
He feels waves of anger towards the crowd of soldiers who laugh and
joke, ignorant of the destruction and despair around them. Ever since
he had left his home he has been desperate to return. Now that he has,
he cannot wait to leave, to escape from the memories that lurk here. He
now simply wants to return to the fighting, to face an enemy whom he
could blame for such destruction. He is no longer afraid of death. If
he dies, he will not have to pick up the fragments of his life.
The officer becomes increasingly agitated by the noise of the men and
is concerned by the time that they have wasted. He roars at his unruly
men and quickly restores order. The company march on, continuing their
trudge towards the distant fighting. It is imperative that they reach
the cathedral before nightfall.
The echoes of the officer's orders die away and silence resumes her
reign in the deserted town. The thud of soldiers' boots can no longer
be heard in the distance and the only perceptible sound is the distant
rumble of shellfire. Yet the deserted town seems to be waiting, holding
its breath. After an expectant eternity, the frightened residents
cautiously emerge from hiding, gasping at the fresh air, desperate for
water after their confinement. History has taught them to be more
afraid of the soldiers than the shellfire.
She silently resumes her interrupted work and collects the bucket that
the soldiers have so carelessly abandoned in the dust. As she kneels,
her keen scavenger's eyes catch site of a glistening shard of familiar
porcelain. She reaches out disbelievingly to touch it, to clean off the
dust that mars it. She painstakingly searches for all the tiny
shattered fragments and carefully pieces them together, oblivious of
the others' cries for water. Her pain is suddenly greater than theirs.
Her cowardice has meant that she has missed him. She had not been there
when her soldier had returned. She runs, tears blinding her flight, to
the cathedral. He was alive and she must pray that he would return.
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