The Retreat

I had not been away very long, and yet my body trembled with a great sense of loss.  The trenches have that effect, or so I am told, and after all that I have observed in a short period of time, so I believe.  Each shell landing with immense power, each whistle that sounds the charge, each bullet whizzing by your helpless frame reminds you exactly how mortal you are.  Death is an ever present shadow; every stone you left unturned before arriving in the battle torn wasteland and every dream you yet hope to fulfill becomes an obsession in the trenches.

This maelstrom of anxiety has prompted me to record my ruminations about the past, the present, and the future.  I hope, perhaps in vain, that words can bring peace to my soul; a peace that is absent in a world of wanton violence and destruction. 

My soul…what is that? I once thought it to be a thing of great importance, central to the progression of all life.   I once believed that God had great things in store for me, that his mighty hands had placed me in this exact place and this exact time for an exact purpose.  But that now seemed the distant past, and eternity even, when the naïve hopes of a boy collided with the stark reality of manhood.  They tell you that more years bring more wisdom…I do not know whether this is true, but they do not bring more optimism.  Any wisdom I have gained has taught me that life is cruel, an illusion without end, a bleak, manipulative, horrifying prospect. 

A slight drizzle brings me away from these incessant and forlorn contemplations.  It seems that rain is invariably connected to the trench…even when moisture does not fall on us from above, the dreariness that precludes and exists within a storm is ever present.  The drizzle bangs against my helmet like a battle drum, constantly reminding my comrades and I of our desperate and gloomy circumstances.

The rain itself is not the worst part of a storm, at least in a soldier’s eyes.  It is the pool of mud it creates.  Mud is one of the most dogged foes of those who dwell in the trench.  It drowns us, consumes us, and leaves its stains to scar us.  When the charge sounds, it is mud that hampers our movement, and with one ill move, brings us to the ground never to escape its grimy confines.  There were no tombs here to inter the noble souls who died doing this woesome work, mud was our only grave, our shroud between this world and the next. 

This was not my hope for a journal, what a pathetic attempt this is? I hoped that by writing down my feelings I could find some source of illumination in the darkness…some enduring kernel of truth.  Instead, I fill these pages with the complaints of a wounded soul…the whining of a weak wanderer.  What use does this have to me or anyone else?

I sit straight up, hoping that by adjusting my position I can also shift my frame of mind.  But sitting straight up is a dismal process in a rain soaked trench, the slosh of the mud quickly brings you back down to your previous position.  Perhaps the most frequent battle a soldier wages is to ever find a comfortable niche in his drab surroundings.

Come to think of it, had I ever been in a comfortable position before.  I remember months ago, it seems like years, waking up in to the cool, crisp morning air in a feathered bed with satin sheets.  Surely that was comfortable? But I remember my psyche during this period and all physical peace seems to be dwarfed by the feelings of anxiety that engulfed me.  I look at the previous morning’s paper, the overbearing headline “WAR FINDS EUROPE” readily visible at its top.  The frantic thoughts that raced across my mind come back to me in a flood, like guilt rushes over its victim before confession.  More than anything, I remember the vague sense of horror this headline produced.  War had found Europe, would it find me?

It should not have come as that great of a shock, world events had pointed to a cataclysmic outbreak of some kind, but that morning’s headline caught me much like the sound of an exploding shell in the trenches, though I knew it was coming I could not prepare for the sonorous sound of its arrival. 

If this dribble is ever in fact perused, please understand one thing from the beginning.  I am a coward.  My response to any uncomfortable thought is to run away from it, to escape, to find solace in some distant fantasy.   Upon reading this headline, a deep wave of patriotism did not fall over me.  I did not take action and run to the nearest enlistment station to declare my unwavering support.  I did not, in fact, do anything except retreat back into the comfort of my satin sheets.  You may wonder how I ended up in a trench, 200 yards from an enemy prepared to bring about my death.  I often wonder that myself.  Like most cowards, running away from what I dreaded brought me right where I didn’t want to be.  I chose not to control events in my life, and by doing so, I let them control me.  Like Jonah, I tried to escape from any sense of duty, but found myself whale deep in it. 

I come from a distinguished family, one that had a propensity to stand up against injustice and fight for what they had believed in over centuries.  My mother often told me the story of one of our distant ancestors of valor who stoically awaited his death on the shores of England at the hands of the Spanish Armada, and as his reward, found salvation in the Provident Wind.   I never really found out about the validity of this story, but the moral my mother sought to leave me with has been ingrained in my mind ever since, my own personal scarlet letter.  “Even in times of hopelessness, God rewards the brave and faithful.”

I adore my parents.  Many of my thoughts are directed towards them during these desperate times.  But perhaps my unbinding love for them is the base of my never ending guilt for being an ugly duckling, the son who could never live up to their well-founded but misguided expectations.  If I did not love or respect them, that means I would not love and respect all that they stood for, which in my mind, was everything beautiful.  If I did not love them, I could say that my not being courageous or penitent in the face of danger was simply a product of a rebellion against two trite figures.  But I do love them, and thus must be confronted with everlasting shame that I did not embrace the values they sought to distill upon me. 

I remember the shouts of my brothers after retreating back under the covers, pulling me back into reality.  I was only 16, my brothers were all older, like the rest of the country, were eager to be consumed by the fire of patriotism.  I loved my country as well, or at least thought I did, but unlike them, I remained unfettered by the passion that had seemingly consumed the nation like a tsunami.  I would like to say it was because I was a pacifist; that my lack of jingoistic joy was principle founded; that I was taking a stand against violence.  My lack of enthusiasm for war, however, was more a product of my lack of enthusiasm for taking a stand in general.  Here was my chance to measure up, to put behind me the adolescent years marked by indifference and apathy, but I responded by not responding. 

Eventually, I muddled my way out of bed and towards the breakfast table.  As with all large families, especially those with a wealth of testosterone, meals seemed to be a battle in themselves—although the use of that term makes me cringe knowing what I do now.  Because I had arrived late, I had lost this battle before it had even started…the prospects for a filling breakfast vanished almost as quickly as my hopes that my entrance would go unnoticed.

“Have you heard the news yet?” My father asked with a pinch of pride and excitement in his voice.

“How could I not?” was my quick response “trying to sleep in this morning was like trying to take a nap at the Exchange.”

“Ah, come off it, sleeping can be done anytime! Now is the time for celebration!” Remarked my eldest brother jubilantly.

“Yes, and I wanted to celebrate with breakfast”

“Well, leave it to you to spoil the excitement with your doom and gloom,” was his matter of fact retort. 

Looking back, these mornings all seemed to pass in the same perfunctory haze.  The only thing that changed was the raucous crowd that welcomed me into the world, or at times, patronized me into participating in it.  One by one, my elder brothers were called off to war crops in a field being picked for harvest.  This once great nation had indeed been harvested, my eldest brother has sense passed performing a duty that he had once entreated me to celebrate.  How many more brothers, sons, husbands had passed during the course of this “great” war.  Yes, the men of this country had been harvested…and for what purpose?

Eight months after I awoke to find the world embroiled in conflict, it was my turn to offer service to my country, an opportunity I sought every opportunity to avoid.  “You will make such a great soldier,” my mother would often remark, “you look like one even now.”  Perhaps I did, but I did not feel like one.  I was a scholar.  My family and friends encouraged me incessantly to volunteer like my friends and brothers had before.  The reality of war may have begun to hit the mainland, but my country was still possessed by a jingoist fever. “Dulce et decorum est.  Tis sweet and meet to die for one’s country.”

There was nothing sweet about these trenches.  I looked around at my compatriots trapped in the tunnels like I.  One was reading in his bible.  I often admired this man.  He was brave in the face of combat, and I had once seen him risk his life to carry a fellow soldier to safety.  He seemed to be able to look death in the eye and mark him as his equal.  The pages of his bible had been folded and refolded to mark what I assumed to be passages of import and its outside was caked in mud like almost all of a soldiers possessions.  He flipped frantically through the pages, I almost asked him what he was searching for, but decided not to disturb his study.  I wonder how he can even read in what had now become a downpour? Maybe he can’t, maybe the mere idea of examining words of solace was enough to calm an anguished soul. 

Other soldiers were engaged in traditional downtime activities.  Often the recruitment posters make a soldiers life out as exciting and glamorous, but what they don’t tell you is that you spend more time combating boredom than the enemy on the other side of the trench.  The important caveat being that boredom could not kill you of course, or at least we all hoped not. 

My life before the war was not an exciting one of incessant activity either.  Preoccupied with my studies, I did not participate in many of the enterprises of my peers.  Honestly, the thought of interacting with a group of unknown people at a social gathering terrified me almost as much as the prospect of death.  I had a few close friends and that was enough.  I wonder where they are now?

Invariably, thoughts of my friends brought my mind exactly to a point I wanted to avoid.  Or did I? I realized I still had her letter in the front pocket of my coat, why hadn’t I thrown it away? Perhaps having this paltry possession from her made me oblivious to the fact that it was over, that I would never embrace her again like I had hoped. 

I met her at a dance; what our French allies would call a soirée.  How I arrived there remains a mystery to me, much like how I have arrived here in the trench.  A hermit lives a complicated life, one much more difficult than most realize.  He constantly avoids attention and interaction, and yet in his deepest part of his soul, these two things are what he craves the most.  It is the inability, or the fear of achieving these comforts that prompt him to retreat from the world. 

I often wonder why they still held dances while men were fighting and dying across the Channel.  It is remarkable to me that the times when humanity tries hardest to pretend that life can continue on its regular pace are the exact points at which it has been irrevocably altered.  Regardless, there I stood, anxiously looking around for an opportunity of escape.  I found it, and quickly retreated from the terrace to a bench just outside.  I sat there for many minutes, perhaps hours, when a figure approached and sat to my right. 

“Well this is a strange place to spend a party? Peaceful though, I’ll give you that!” She exclaimed boldy.

“Ha, peace is the only thing I crave at the moment.”

“You came to the wrong place then”

“I live in the wrong place at the wrong time,” I thought to myself.

Clearly, she expected me to make some attempt at conversation like many of her admirers would have.  She was beautiful to be sure, but that made the prospect of carrying on a conversation with her all the more difficult.  I quickly looked away from her and turned my gaze pensively to the distance.

A few moments passed before—to my horror—she began talking again.  Rather, I should say to my awe, because I soon discovered her words to be of such a crystalline character and her entire persona of such a radiance, that I started to consider myself Adam gazing upon Eve, realizing his full human potential for the first time.  Realizing it but not able to see it fulfilled.  I just listened, I did not say a word—not because I did not want to, but because like Prufrock, I did not dare.  Ironically, perhaps it was this trait of silence that differentiated me from the other fish in the proverbial sea.  Soon we began swimming through life together, and for perhaps the first time, I felt truly at peaceful—truly blissful—truly  hopeful. 

In her I found my constant.  Often unable to confide in those closest to me about the most trivial of matters, I found that I could pour out the entirety of my soul and this most beautiful of vessels would receive it with care.  I could trust her.  I even told her about my fears of serving in the war, to which she often said with a sly smile, “you getting shot, mangled, or gassed does not suit me very well either.”  And so I passed a few months oblivious to the chaos of the outside world.  Too short.

As I previously mentioned in this account, my brother passed in the service of his country.  Rather than feeling disdain towards an event that had taken their firstborn away from them, my parents increased their recruitment efforts tenfold.  There was something to be admired in this.  In the face of such terror and overwhelming grief they responded with hope and courage.  Why was I not more like them?  This guilt, mingled with the misguided idea of avenging my brother’s death, prompted me to enlist shortly thereafter.  Misguided, I say, because I would never confront his true killer.  How can you confront an idea?

I met with my beloved the night before I was to embark.  It remains the greatest night of my life.  Amidst the sorrow, the worry, the sense of the unknown, I gazed into her eyes and saw an immovable beacon, my Ruth, and as I brought her letter out of my pocket, my Guinevere.  It had only been 5 short months from that night, that glorious twilight eve, when made promises that two young souls—destined to be separated—should never solemnize.  Perhaps I always knew that she would not, or could not, wait for me, but words cannot describe the unbearable pain that coursed through my soul to open up a much anticipated letter and find it commencing with the words, “I am to be married.”  I know not what the rest of the post said, perhaps some angelic words entreating my forgiveness.   I had forgiven her—immediately in fact—but I could not forgive myself for being in a place that left me buried in mud rather than in her loving embrace. 

A shell announced its arrival with a shrill shriek, like a Banshee announcing her arrival to its involuntary victim, and I was immediately brought back to my current circumstances.  Usually artillery fire preceded or coincided with an enemy’s charge, was this the case now or was the enemy simply testing our defenses?

My question was answered almost immediately as it was conceived, it was indeed preparation for an attack—one that should be easily repelled.  I say easily with some trepidation because this will, no doubt, engender confidence in our commanders and perhaps prompt them to sound a counter attack.  I only have a few minutes left as the charge was just repelled.  As the enemy began its charge, I moved to my position at our trenches precipice and prepared, like my compatriots, to bring about the work of death.  I began firing frantically at the enemy.  The scene was a cacophonous symphony of fatality.  Gunfire, artillery, bold shouts of those seeking to fend off their end, painful screams of those being carried into death’s arms.  Amidst this chaos, I had a moment of clarity.  I saw my enemy…I saw a man slip in the mud as he charged our position.  Rather than stay down and perhaps wait out the attack, or crawl into a retreat, he fought against the mud and rose to his feet, at which point he was struck and fell limply to the ground.  Why? Why did he continue to fight? What hope did he have? From where did he take courage?

He made a decision.  He decided to keep going.  He refused to become entombed within the mud; it is time I cease to be paralyzed by fear.  When our charge is sounded, I will make a charge of my own.  I will charge home.

****Like an old, wizened man weary of visiting the sins of his youth, I have been fearful of recounting my experiences in the trench again.  Yet years later, here I am, writing an addendum to these words.  As the horn sounded signaling the counter attack, and my fellow soldiers climbed out of the trench and began rushing towards the enemy and their doom, I went to the opposite side of the trench, climbed out, and began charging in the polar direction.  After rushing, or I should say, sloshing a few feet, a bullet struck me in the back and I fell.  I struggled to fight to my feet, to resist being buried in the mud, but my strength failed me and I collapsed.  I know not how long I waited there in the mud, an eternity it seemed, until I sensed, even in my pain and weariness, shadows crouching besides me.

“What is the bloke doing out here?” A voice exclaimed emphatically.

“Isn’t it obvious? The coward was running away!”

“Running away? Where did he think he was going?”

“Away from here? What doesn’t matter, he’s a coward all the same.”

“Do you think he’ll live?”

“His breathing is shallow.  I guess that’s up to God.”

The other soldier, I imagine scanning the desolate field of battle, remarked, “No, it’s up to him.”  He was right.  With the Grace of God, I chose life.