War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children.
-Jimmy Carter
War is unforgiving. He's seen the bodies scattered around the fields, hastily buried in shallow graves before they begin to fester and rot. He's seen them shot down before him, bodies hitting the ground and sinking into the mud- whether friend or foe, it matters not. They'll all die here in the end. All he can do is wait it out, pray to survive until at least this war is over, and return home to a life of suppressing the memories and forgetting the images of men wiped out and dying, forgotten, in these turgid pits of death.
One lonely Thursday evening, Søren is given one of the tasks he dreads: venturing into no-man's land in search of survivors. He's done it before, once or twice, and the sights have left him speechless and sleepless at the pure horror. There is something much more devastating at the sight of those men still alive, still desperately clinging to life, and of seeing their corpses the next morning despite efforts to save them. That in mind, it's with a heavy heart that he straps his gun to his chest- just in case, he tells himself,just in case there's trouble- and ventures out, steeling himself for the task ahead.
The night air is stale with the scent of blood and decay, and fog hangs over the desolate fields as he creeps along, the other men in his team disappearing to his left and right. His rough boots sink into the ground as he trudges through the filth below, eyes fixed at his feet as he approaches the boundary of their land. From here on, the corpses will be a mixture of his fellow men and those they are fighting, and he tries his best to find his fallen fellows among the tangle of bodies.
Søren has learnt how to differentiate the dead from the living, thanks to completing this task before, and he passes several men without stopping to check if they're still breathing. He knows already that it's been a long time since they last drew breath. Absently, he notes that it's difficult to see exactly who they are- the mud has smeared their uniforms, only adding to the gloom around him, and his eyes are narrowed as he tries to make shapes out through the dark of the night.
He stops suddenly at a faint sound- perhaps he simply imagined it, or made it himself, but still, he tips his chin and stares skywards as he strains his ears. At the second, faint moan, he collapses to his knees beside the soldier to his left, lying on his stomach, and grasps his shoulders to roll him onto his back and help the man still alive.
His eyes run up and down the figure, and his heart seizes at the bloodstains, shining in the weak light, over the grey stains of his uniform. As he gathers the man in his arms, reaching a hand up to tip his head back and examine his face, the hope in his chest plummets like a frail, injured bird. He is no doctor, or medically trained in any way, but he knows already that this man is in a very bad way. He's been lying here for hours, bleeding out, and his chance at survival dropped at every passing minute. Now, cold and barely able to move in Søren's arms, he can almost feel the soldier's life slipping through his fingers.
Desperately, the Dane's eyes search his face, and he swallows heavily at the realisation that this is no man. The soldier, rasping for breath and trembling, can't be older than eighteen, and still a boy. War is no place for children, yet here he is, facing death and staring Søren in the eye, terrified and speechless as he continues to gasp in frantic breaths.
With a sudden thought, Søren realises that he hasn't seen this boy among the troops. Surely he'd remember him, one this young, among the masses. His suspicions are confirmed when his gaze slides to the uniform clinging to the thin body, and sees the clear contrast to his own.
The instructions had been clear. You help the enemy, you get gunned down by one of us, the commander had stated clearly, eyes dead and tone brittle. They're our enemy for a reason. The only good one's a dead one- you try an' help one of them, and he'll shoot you in the first moment he gets.
He had been sent out to retrieve his own men: the others were to be ignored, with a bullet through the head if any thoughts of survival entered their minds upon seeing such a crumpled figure. All of his training and instructions came back to him now- he was supposed to dump this man, this dying foe, and leave him to die alone where he lay.
It was what a soldier was meant to do, a true, dedicated man. Instead, Søren Andersen reaches for the boy's hand, and grasps it tight in his.
"It's okay," he mumbles gently, thumb brushing the back of the soldier's hand as he shifts. He's on his haunches, the other man's back against his thighs, and head in the pillow of his arm as he holds him in a loose embrace. The soldier is watching him, breathing still heavy, and eyes still focused on his. There is fading incredulity in his eyes, and Søren meets it with a weak smile, a twitch of his lips to the best of his ability. "I'm not supposed to be doing this. But look at you. How old are you- eighteen?"
The man doesn't respond. His hand lies loose in Søren's, body limp, and he simply blinks up at him. Søren grimaces, gripping his hand ever more tightly. "You're just a kid. You're not meant to die like this. I'm not going to lie to you- you're going to die. You know that already, don't you?"
Tears spill down the man's face. Almost tenderly, Søren wipes them away with his thumb, and takes in a shuddering breath of his own.
"I'm sorry. I really, truly am," he whispers, pressing his lips tightly together. "I could've been the one to shoot you down. I could be innocent in your death. But I don't care if we're on opposing sides- I can't leave you to die, or kill you myself. There's a detachment in shooting blindly at the other men, and you don't see who you knock down. I don't think I could kill a man after looking him in the eye. It just doesn't seem right. They must think me a terrible soldier."
The man- the boy- the soldier- is still watching him, tears still slowly trickling down his cheeks and pooling in his chin. There is a fluttering of his fingers, and Søren feels him grip his hand limply, probably with all the strength he has left. The Dane lets out a weak laugh, tightening his other arm around the thin, frail, blood-splattered body.
"Maybe in a different life," he says lowly, palm against the other man's neck, "we could have know each other. We could've been friends- best friends, even. Yet here we are, on opposing sides of the war, facing death in our own ways. It's unfair. Neither of us asked for this, and I don't think either of us deserved it. But that's what the commander always says- life isn't fair. Says him from the safety behind the front line, making all the orders. I bet they're like that on your side too, huh?"
A minimal nod confirms his statement. Søren thinks to himself that he hasn't seen eyes like this man's before- not royal blue like his, dark and fathomless, accentuated by white-blond eyelashes as long as any doe's. Distinctly, he registers that the man- Norwegian, he'd guess- is quite beautiful indeed.
"We only find two or three survivors each night. They won't miss me for long- I say it's a good hour or two before they come looking." He speaks in a light, mumbling whisper, hunching further over the man and stroking the skin of his hand once more. His knees are sinking into the ground, the coldness seeping through the thin fabric and searing his flesh, but he pushes it aside. His concentration is on the man in his arms, dying quietly as he holds him, and whose breaths are evening out ever more slowly by the minute. "I can stay, if you want me to. I know I'd like someone with me, but-" Søren cannot quite finish his sentence, and instead presses his chin to the top of the man's head, feeling the silkiness of his hair with his helmet lying yards away. "Two squeezes for yes, one for no?"
There is a long pause. Søren waits, and feels a gentle pressure around his fingers. Moments later, there comes a second one, and the man slowly turns to press his cheek to Søren's chest.
"Okay," he says gently, "okay. I'll stay. It's okay. I'm here."
He offers all he can to his opposition, to the boy in his arms. Søren sits back in the mud and death, eyes turned skywards, and watches each glittering star slowly appear in the cosmos above their heads. Without checking, he knows that the other man is watching them too, lying quiet and calm as he listens to Søren's heartbeat. He hasn't heard a single word pass through his lips, yet he can sense the man's stillness, the vain comfort he grasps and holds from Søren's presence.
He holds him until the daybreak creeps up on the horizon, painting soft blues and purples over their heads. Søren holds his hand until his own fingers go numb from the cold, and watches the break of a new morning in the distance, silent and sombre. The nameless soldier, secure in his hold, does nothing more than lie quiet and still, hand tight in his.
Throughout all the tangled thoughts in his head, Søren simply thanks whatever cruel, unforgiving deity above for giving them such a beautiful dawn.
I thought I should prove that I'm not dead, ha. This is the first activity on my account since August- sorry about that. I mainly use tumblr to host my stories now, but there's no harm in uploading a oneshot here, is there? Even if it's one where I never actually name Norway, and the history is dubious at best. Still, if you want to read anything I've written (and there's a pile of it that I haven't uploaded here), check out sascake on tumblr. Thanks for reading!
-sascake