As always, a thanks to my beta.
Dedicated to Remembrance/Veterans day.
A season is one of the major divisions of the year, generally based on yearly periodic changes in weather.
Seasons result from the yearly revolution of the Earth around the Sun and the tilt of the Earth's axis relative to the plane of revolution. In Temperate and Polar regions, the seasons are marked by changes in the intensity of sunlight that reaches the Earth's surface, variations of which may cause animals to go into hibernation or to migrate, and plants to be dormant.
--Wikipedia--
Wikipedia is also the main informant for the History Lesson
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And Spring Will Come Again -Autumn-
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I am a man, Tortallan, I am a human, a father, a husband.
But before these things I am a soldier.
Many people tie together honour and duty, not knowing the hurt they cause the dead that watch from up above. The dead that watch over them from the stars. The brave warriors, the ones who were too scared to run away, the ones died fighting, the ones who died foolishly.
Honour is one thing, duty is another.
And like there is no honour in dying, no honour in killing, even the enemy, and no honour in battle or war, there is no honour in duty.
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I watched them die. All of them, swords clamoring unto the blood-spattered ground. My friends, comrades in arms, my enemies, all falling.
Was there a point to this? I joined to see glory, to die honorably for my country, I never thought it would be like this.
And then, after all of that, after enduring it, watching it, I dragged myself out there with the others to remove the corpses. Yes, we won, but at what cost? Was it even a victory?
Did it count? Life for a life, but we had taken more lives, did that mean that now we owed them?
What was the point?
(1) In Flanders fields the poppies grow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
I heard the heard the impact before I felt it. Does that make sense? I got a quick sense of foreboding, and turned my body towards the loud rumble that was the giant stone as it hurled towards us. A black sense of doom overwhelmed me in the split second I stared at it.
The impact resounded on the stone wall and there was a crack and a rumble, and then everything crumbled. I felt my stomach hit my intestines as I started to fall, my feet finding air where once tiles had been.
And then, I started to drop, seriously drop, I hit stones on my way down but caught the ledge of the part that hadn't crumbled, and held on for dear life, a rock hit my leg and it hurt so much, but I knew it wasn't broken.
When I got down, with the help of an archer, I am not ashamed to say I cried.
More than cried, I wept, sobbed, gut-wrenching gulps as I stared at the mangled body of my closest friend in the company.
There was a leg somewhere, one man was crying in pain. He asked for his mother, sister.
I wanted to stop, to hold his hand and tell him it would be alright, that they'd see him in the Black God's realm, but this was a battle and there was no stopping. I unsheathed my sword and rushed forwards, bile building in my throat as I left them crying out in screams.
We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
(*) I rushed forwards with the rest of the infantry, hundreds, charging, screaming war cries. Full of adrenaline and strength, excitement from the newer recruits. But I had been here for a long time, I knew there would be no glory in this bloody battle.
There was mud everywhere, it never stopped raining, yet on we charged.
I saw them slip at the corners of my eyes, knowing there was no way to change the inevitable. I was on strict orders, if they fell, they drowned, we had to win this one, it was important, there was no stopping to help them up.
And then we smelled it, the smell that was a gas launched by the enemy.
"Take yer shirts off! Piss on 'em and put them o'er yer mouths else ye' die! Do it now!"
Follow orders. The religion us simple soldiers lived by. I wanted to see me children and wife, they were home whilst I was here. And I'd see them again.
I put the nasty smelling rag to my mouth and nose and choked as I smelled the odour of the Corus cesspool: piss.
And then there was a different type of gas.
"Mithros!" Our commander yelled shocked he saw it, I pressed the rag tighter to my mouth, scared of what to expect. Turns out, that that did absolutely nothing.
(2) The gas scorched , burned. The skin, the eyes. My lungs were on fire. We were hacking and coughing so much that most began to spit up blood. Not many survived that attack.
Between mud and gas, between swords and almighty ballistas. We were fit to be tied. I fell to my knees, begging, praying to all the gods I knew. From Mithros to the Goddess, to the Hag, please. let me see my family again... please...
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
Turns out we won that battle, but at what cost? I survived, somehow, though it was neither by skill of sword nor by bravery, I was merely lucky. But at the end, I just wanted the Black God to take me, to make it all stop.
It was harder to live and watch than to die. The dead, the mutilated, the screaming, the crying. The head and the arms. Broken bones and people with no legs. It was sickening. In a desert of a field, the mud more red than brown. We had defeated them, but they were no longer my enemies.
They were men, and suddenly it didn't matter what cause we fought for. I dropped into a crouch beside one of the men, an enemy, but still a human. He was dying, no legs, and blood was seeping out of him at an alarming rate. I shoved off the cap of my water skin and pushed it into his parched lips, he gulped greedily.
"Soldier! What do you think you're doing?"
I looked up, slowly, not caring anymore, he didn't flinch at the dead look in my eyes, he had seen it all before.
"There's nothing to be done."
"But he's in pain!" I yelled.
"Don't you care? Don't you give a damn about them, they are not us, but they are human! And so are we! I'd like to think so! Don't you care? Humans like us, some husbands, some fathers I'm sure. Do their lives not mean the same as ours?" I gave no heed that I was shouting at my superior officer.
He replied in a calm voice. "I know Soldier, I know, but this is war, and this a mere battle. There are too many to help them all. You can't. It's not possible, there aren't enough healers in all the taverns of Tortall lad. He's going to die, but there are others who won't. Not if we help them. You are a soldier, and they are too, they signed up for this, they were not obligated to do it. They wouldn't do it for you." His voice grew softer at the end.
The sad part was that I knew he was right, I squared my shoulders but failed, I sank to my knees and cried. He looked at me, nodded and moved on. I wasn't the first, and I wasn't the last. And I knew he had tears on his cheeks as well. The world was a cruel place. I used my battered sword to push me off the ground, my shield was long gone.
I moved, over-stepping soldiers and helping the injured.
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It had been days, but we had to leave now that the wounded were all packed away. I looked onto the field of rotting corpses and made the sign against evil on my chest.
Not that there was really any point. Evil was everywhere, but not here. This was fate's cruel joke to us all. But Commander had been right.
We were soldiers, it was our duty. Nobody made us fight.
But fight we did. And die we did. I slogged through the mud and looked west-wards, towards the setting sun. We were going home, finally, after months. I would see them again, my family and children.
And even more, I had no major wounds, the minor ones I had, which was inevitable, would be gone by the time I went home.
Not that it mattered, because though I wasn't scarred physically, I would always be scarred, I would always hurt. Because scars were not always skin deep. And my eyes most of all, would never see well again.
I was scarred emotionally forever, I would never, could never, forget this.
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This soldier died three years later of severe lung rot. His wife had another two children before he died. The lung rot was caused by the gas he inhaled in the battle. There was nothing the healers could do.
He did not feel gloried, or a handsome warrior, he found not honour, but luck.
He died a man. A father. A husband. He died a soldier. After doing his duty.
There was no honour in that.
The honour he had was for the grief he felt for others, the honour that was attributed to him, was attributed to him by his commander, because a man is a great man when he views his enemies as equals.
When he sees the dead and regrets them, whether he was fighting for them or not.
Honour comes not from duty.
There is no honour in dying, honour comes from actions and words. From whom you are, not whom you pretend to be.
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His grave was high upon a mound of dirt. His name inscribed upon the granite slab.
Here lies a soldier. A husband. A father.
Here lies a brave fighter.
May his passage to the dark realms be safe and peaceful.
May you always know that you were honoured. That you were loved.
Here lies a man. Here lies a human being.
Rest In Peace.
His wife visits his grave every Sunday, her children, his, right behind her.
And the pages are taken to his grave, surrounded by others like him, to be shown that there are good people in the world. That fighting isn't all about glory.
You can't die with honour.
You can only live with it and take it to the grave.
It is not being killed itself that gives you honour, it's what you did before it.
The trees start to become bare and leaves fall, in all colours. They fall one by one, making their way to rest atop graves like this one. Of a fighter and a warrior, whose fighting cost him his life.
The leaves fall and the weather changes, the bright blue skies grow rare.
Autumn.
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A Lesson In History
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(1.) The poem "In Flanders Fields" was written upon a scrap of paper upon the back of Colonel Lawrence Moore Cosgrave, during a lull in the bombings (as recited to his grandson). Written by: — Lt.-Col. John McCrae
(2.) In July the Germans used mustard gas for the first time. It attacked sensitive parts of the body, caused blistering, damage to the lungs and inflammation of the eyes, causing blindness (sometimes temporary) and great pain.
Also, as a side note, there was so much mud that many of the dead were men who drowned in it.
(*) The last battle depicted was the second Battle of Passchendaele. In remembrance of the Canadian soldiers that went to fight with the British, under the command of an unwise British tactician.
The victory was thanks to Canadian general Sir Arthur William Currie, who led the Canadian Corps in the Second Battle of Passchendaele. Many soldiers died, the reason the Canadians were called at all was because so many British had died.
Sir Arthur William Currie, not 'knighted' yet, so General Currie, went above and beyond what anybody believed possible, and disobeyed orders from the British commanding officer. Many men owe their lives to him and his unusual tactics.
Many women feel a need to owe him as well, followed by the children of the men that survived because of him. He was 'knighted' for his brave actions and came back to Canada alive.
After all was said and done, General Currie's casualty estimations sadly proved to be remarkably accurate. The battle of Passchendaele cost the Canadian Corps 15 654 casualties with over 4 000 dead to take roughly 6.25 square kilometres of German held territory in 16 days of fighting.
Canadian soldiers won a remarkable 9 Victoria Crosses in the fighting at Passchendale.
The first battle of Passchendaele:
In the first battle of Passchendaele, there were more than 2,700 New Zealand casualties, of which 45 officers and 800 men were either dead or lying mortally wounded between the lines. In terms of lives lost in a single day, this remains the blackest day in New Zealand's recorded history.
Against the well-prepared German defenses, the gains were minimal and there were 13,000 Allied this point there had been 100,000 Allied casualties, with only limited gains and no breakthrough.
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"I died in Hell (they called it Passchendaele);
my wound was slight and I was hobbling back;
and then a shell burst slick upon the duck boards;
so I fell into the bottomless mud, and lost the light"
― Siegfried Sassoon
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I stood up and looked over the front of my hole. There was just a dreary waste of mud and water, no relic of civilization, only shell holes… And everywhere were bodies, English and German, in all stages of decomposition. —Lieutenant Edwin Campion Vaughan
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Have a good Remembrance Day. Never forget what they have done for the freedom we have today. Never take for granted what you have because of them. Never take anything for granted.
We bow our heads to remember, of the brave men who fought. Of the brave men who died.
We bow our heads and remember.
Remember.
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Hope you liked it, review!
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Keep Reading,
xxTunstall Chickxx
11/11/08