The Soldiering Life

Notes: THIS STORY IS CROSS-POSTED ON AND ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN. If you see it elsewhere, please note that I am not posting it and do not endorse it.

The basic idea here was, "Hey, what if the Sanzo-ikkou were involved in World War I?" It snowballed from there. No set update schedule, sad to say, but I will do my best not to leave you hanging too long.

Thanks also to LePetitErik, who has given me lots of great information and helped me with a great deal of the history!

Please note that this story takes place during World War I. Set your expectations accordingly.

The original characters of Saiyuki are not mine.

1: We Are All Each Our Own Devil

SEINE-SAINT-DENIS, PARIS, 8 NOVEMBRE, 1916

"Merde." Simon scowled at the envelope tucked in the mailbox outside of the Le Ciel et Terre print shop storefront, then turned the same disdainful attention to the dark windows. It was a dim morning, the sun a sickly yellow gleam behind a pall of clouds that made his blonde hair look burnished where it fell over his brow, but the windows were not meant to be dark even this early. Not a single man had shown up this gloomy morning, save for him, but then, he'd lost count of how many had been spirited away into the ominous fog of the encroaching Western Front. He should have known this would be the day he came to the print shop to find not a single press running, not a man loading the paper rolls, not even the file clerk. The final insult had arrived in the form of this now too-familiar letter. Every man had put one of these on his desk with a somber "Je m'excuse." Now, this misty, dismal, chilly morning, he was opening his own.

He seated himself on the crumbling brick stoop to read, deeply read the text for the first time, until he heard his assistant calling down the narrow lane like a siren, his voice echoing off of the close buildings and drawing the scowling eyes of women on their morning errands and a chuckle from an old priest tottering down the road on his cane. "Simon! Bonjour!" Simon grunted his annoyance as the boy skidded to a halt in front of him, his arms loaded with a baguette and a few parcels. Guillaume was an irresponsible boy, but he was good at getting up and about for the morning market visit as Simon, with his low blood pressure, dragged his feet through their little flat, smoking cigarettes and pulling clean trousers from the line with all the urgency of a sloth on opium. Guillaume just grinned in the face of Simon's ennui, bright-brown eyes sparking with light despite the gray morning. He stood a hand shorter than Simon, though his thick brown hair gave him a little extra height, but he had enough energy to shoot him towards the stars. "I've brought a morning snack, and some coffee beans-"

"And chocolate powder for yourself, I'm sure." Simon couldn't help but roll his eyes at Guillaume's enthusiasm, then tore a chunk of the bread off.

"You know me too well." Guillaume laughed. "I wouldn't have the temptation if either of us could cook worth a damn. You're lucky Phillipine is willing to give me the burned loaves for half price, or we'd be paupers."

"Ehh." Simon's lip curled, and his nostrils flared, but he took a good bite off of the bread. "A damn shame," he muttered through the crumb. It was at this that Guillaume saw past Simon and into the dark shop.

"Today's the day, is it? I thought it might have been." Guillaume put his parcels down, took a bite off of the loaf and plopped down onto the step beside Simon. "At least we don't have many orders, since it's just the two of us now."

"It's not. Guillaume." Simon thrust the letter out towards Guillaume, and he took it without a thought. His eyes first ran over the Source – Le Armee du Terre – then scanned the text.

"Monsieur Constantin St. Simon, il est de mon devoir de vous informer..." Guillaume's face wrought, stricken, and he dropped the letter. "You've been conscripted."

"Are you surprised?" Simon put his bread down on the stone next to him and went into his vest pocket for his tobacco pouch and papers. "Damn near every other man in town has, just the same. If they weren't serving their three years or called back in, they signed up of their own accord. I only got deferment at all because of my father." Guillaume crossed himself, as Simon sighed. "And then, because someone had to keep his legacy alive. With this, though, the press must close."

"Nonsense, Constantin!" Guillaume put his hands on his hips, as Simon ignored his red-faced indignation in favor of the practiced motions of filling and rolling a cigarette. "We can hire some girls, like other places in town have—I'm sure Phillipine knows a few girls looking for jobs!-and I know near as much as you do about running the presses-"

"And not a damn thing about the books. Anyone I could hire for that has likely long since gone to the front or is incontinent, incompetent, mentally deficient, or otherwise unfit. Le Ciel et Terre closes today." He lit his cigarette, dragged, and exhaled into the morning mist. "You, too, will have to move on."

"What? But, Constantin-!"

"Guillaume." Simon shot him a cold glower to deepen the warning, his ice-blue eyes freezing Guillame in place.

"S-Simon." Guillaume fidgeted around his baguette. "Simon, this life is the only one I have known."

"There's nothing I can do about that." Simon dragged on his cigarette again, then blew a smoke ring. "I'll ring my great-aunt Constance. You remember her, the one who lives by the shore." He wrinkled his nose at the thought of her. "She'll put you in school. You can learn to do accounting. With luck, the war will end before you're old enough to serve, the building will stay standing, and perhaps then, you can take over the shop."

"Nonsense!" Guillaume stomped his foot again, face flushing bright red, and worked his fists at his side in a rising fury. "Why, if you go- if you go- if you go-! Then I'll simply go too!" He folded his arms, and Simon huffed and swatted Guillaume's arm.

"No tantrums! You're nearly a man, act like one!" Guillaume's cheeks went from red to purple, vacillating between the bottomless cliffs of crying and screaming, and Simon seized his shoulders. "Guillaume, you knew this could happen!"

"I didn't think—!" Guillaume hiccuped, and Simon groaned and captured his face in his hands.

"Fine! Fine." Guillaume's cheeks cooled under Simon's palms, and he heaved out a few hot breaths and calmed. "If you can get past the inspectors, then you can enlist with me. Hopefully, since we live together, they'll put us in the same regiment. But don't you dare go thinking it's going to be fun!"

"I know it won't be fun, it'll be hard, and the bombs will be so much closer than they were in February, but I'm not scared." Guillaume sagged against Simon, then eased back to fidget again. He slowly crouched to pick up his baguette. "What scares me is not being with you. You're better than a brother to me, Simon. If we're to visit Hell, we'll go together." Guillaume smiled and shrugged. "That's my choice. It's my life, you know?"

"C'est la vie," Simon agreed, then stubbed his cigarette on the stone and picked up his bread and conscription orders. "Come on, then. I've still got to call my aunt and let her know what's to become of her favorite nephew's press." He scrunched his face again and crumpled the notice, then stuffed it in his vest pocket. Guillaume tugged his jacket up his shoulders and tailed Simon's heels back down the row.

Even from their languid suburb, they could faintly hear the hum of planes swooping west of the city, and though neither acknowledged it aloud, they would soon roar louder. They both knew that more men were coming home in coffins or urns than on leave, and even more returned missing limbs. Simon dreaded facing the unimaginable horrors beyond the Seine, but worse, taking Guillaume meant he would have to face the harsh world long before his time. Even so, at least he was all but guaranteed to be at his side when the horrors of war, of this life, were laid plain before him.

Simon had lived twenty years and, over them, had gradually come to the conclusion that other people generally weren't worth his time. Still, life was much harder alone, especially the life of a soldier. Perhaps bringing him was for the best. Nobody, not even he, wanted to face this alone.

FEATHERSTONE, WEST YORKSHIRE, ENGLAND, 9 NOVEMBER 1916

Jim tossed all of his hair back with a roll of his neck, watching it catch the November sun as it fell back in place on his shoulders in his reflection. It was a unique shade of auburn red that stood out like October foliage, straight and pretty where it lay down his neck and back, even though he often had to bind it back at the card table to keep his peripheral vision open on his opponents and on the other players' hands. Still, he'd grown it and groomed it since his teenage years, and he was rather proud of his mane, even if it got him stares and sneers in the street.

He was going to miss it.

Jim spun around and joined the line into the recruitment office, behind a string of young men his age in the familiar dress of working class men donned by nearly every man in his neighborhood. He could see most of them had conscription letters, and wore a mix of emotions. The line stretched out the door and down the row of storefronts, awnings decorated with fading farewell banners and windows of "Now Hiring" signs. Between the snowballing conscription and the massive call to the coal mines, there was a growing shortage of young men, and Jim almost felt a little bad leaving it all behind. If ever he'd wanted to get out of gambling and go for honest work, now would be the time, but that wasn't what he wanted, no. He was happy playing the cards, but what he was doing was more important.

He got to the front of the line, and though the clerk squinted from under his cap and held his hand out for the conscription letter, Jim picked up a blank form. "Got a pen and ink, mate? Call it a birthday present."

The recruitment intake center was crowded with young men moving through on their physical exams, through to uniform fitting, then to receive their assignments. He hadn't worried about the physical exam. He was thin, but tight with muscle from roughhousing with the other lads, and hadn't had so much as a cough since he was still in primary school. As a bonus, Jim knew he had eyes like a hawk's, and he was eager to test his shot with something a little more accurate than a sling. He was eager for the uniform fitting, just because the gals admired a man in uniform and he always loved a compliment, but the room was packed full. Instead, he was shuffled along to get his hair cut.

The barber's office looked bigger thanks to the mirrors on the walls, many of which were decorated with photographs of soldiers and their families, as well as a few letters bearing the Army's emblem on the letterhead with medals hung beside them. There were a few empty seats, with haircutters hard at work trimming men to the army standard. Jim winced at the piles of damp hair on the floor, and gave his head one last shake, then took one of the empty seats at the end of the row in the vain hopes that the barbers would forget he was there and maybe just send him back to get his uniform. There was another man in the seat next to him, a posh-looking young man with a book open in his lap. He glanced up over the rim of his glasses briefly, granted Jim a flash of a smile, then tipped his nose back down into the pages. Jim took him in – he looked like a regular young man of means, with an emerald-green paisley vest over his suspenders, twill tan trousers, and a trendy flatcap that matched both, twill in the brim and body and an ornate jade-dyed silk rose pinned to the left side. Something about it looked familiar to Jim, and he examined the man's sharp profile until it clicked.

"Excuse me, mate, but-" The gentleman looked up with a bit of a flinch, and Jim put on an easygoing smile. "I'm bein' a bit forward, but did you go to primary school in this town?"

"Er..." The other man's jaw fell, eyes wide with curiosity, but he soon smiled to match Jim. "I did, yes. My sister and I both. I believe I remember you, to be completely honest, but not your name."

"It's the hair." Jim tossed it back again, then extended a hand. "James Shankhill. Jim, to friends."

The other took Jim's hand gingerly without releasing his page in his book. "Henry Collins." He slowly withdrew his hands, the smooth pads of his fingers dragging across Jim's palm. "Er, my sister says Hank."

"Oh! Kate Collins, the pretty lass what teaches the little ones at the school. I've seen her about." Jim grinned and tapped his forehead. Now that Jim thought, he could recall the two with ease. He'd see the pair of them in the schoolyard while he was in a bush ditching his ugly knickerbockers for play clothes, standing idle while he was getting ready to vault the fence, there like a pair of porcelain dolls: brown-haired, green eyed, their uniforms impeccable, often if not always holding hands. Henry had that very same rose, or at least a very similar rose, pinned to his hat or vest. "I never forget a pretty face, and, forgive me, but you look a lot alike."

Henry looked strangely pleased with this. "We're twins, it's not surprising." He cleared his throat and went on, "How has life treated you since you left school, then?"

"Eh, it goes as it does. I've been getting by." He scrunched his eyebrows up. "I'm not much of a workaday boy-"

"I don't recall you ever being such, no."

"Hey, I get by on the cards and dice. Nan's nurse gets paid, there's dinner on the table and oil in the lamp; I admit I'm shiftless, but it works out." Jim chuckled, then shrugged his shoulders. "Nah, I suppose I never quite knew what to do with myself, but when I heard about the war, I just got the itch to join up!" Henry looked politely unimpressed, albeit mildly interested.

"Really? What about it interested you?" He crossed one leg over the other, more proper by the second, and running his eyes over Jim slowly. Jim just relaxed into the creaking leather of the chair with a churlish little chuckle, letting Henry take in his shabby, patched pants and hand-me-down shirt. He wasn't sure what Henry was looking for, but it'd be nice if he found it.

"Well, I suppose I want to defend home and country and all, even if it means going elsewhere. And going elsewhere's not so bad, anyway, I've never left town for as long as I can remember, yeah?" Jim fidgeted, almost feeling Henry studying him and wondering what would get a good reaction out of him, if he had a good reaction in his stiff bones. "Plus, my brother joined straightaway, 'cos he thought he could save money to go to school. He wants to be a police detective, y'know?" Jim fished around in his pants pocket and found a crinkled photograph. "He sent me this a few weeks back. He and a load of his schoolmates joined up into a Pals Battalion. Machine Gun Corps in the Second Battalion." Henry looked, to see a grinning man with a face much like Jim's next to the bed of another man, with a pretty nurse checking the man's bandages. Jim let Henry hold onto it and added, "John's the big fellow on the left, and the other fella's one of his buddies, Cameron. John said he took a bullet to the arm, but it was healing up pretty nice. He says the nurse is a sweetie of his, says her name's Laura and they've corresponded as they've both had to move around. He wants to bring her home when the bloody Huns finally give."

"It seems it suits him." Henry handed the photograph back. "A pity you won't be able to join him. I believe we're being sent to the First Battalion."

"Eh." Jim shrugged and tucked the photograph in his shirt pocket. "Fine by me. I'd rather not outshine the big slacker." He rolled his shoulders into the chair, then gestured. "But his stipend is what pays the rent. I figure it'll be easier to take care of Nan with a steadier pay-cheque."

"Nan?"

"My father's mother," Jim explained, and curled a strand of his hair around his index finger. "Mum died in childbed, Dad died in the coal mine. Me and John have lived with Nan since I was in swaddling clothes. She's bed-bound now, but she's a tough old bird!" Jim laughed, though it sounded hollow to his own ears. "She still sits up enough to pull my ears and yank my hair if she hears about me actin' up in town. But she took care of me, so I s'pose I'll take care of her, see?"

"I see. I suppose wanting steady pay from something you think you'll like is entirely understandable." Henry ran his thumb along the outside of his book. "And... have you followed the war at all?"

"I've heard it's rotten in places, tough fighting and all, but I'm a tough man. I can handle it." Jim smirked and set his elbows back, holding himself in the barber's chair like a king on his throne, then cast a glance to Henry. "How 'bout you, mate? You don't look like the type to volunteer, I'm guessing you were conscripted."

Henry laughed, an airy "A-ha-ha," and pulled a letter from his vest. "I'd hoped I'd escaped it." He showed Jim his conscription letter, to an address in Leeds. "I was accepted at Leeds School of Medicine and was settling in for my first semester. I'd just gotten my flat unpacked when I received this."

"You were going to college?" Jim knit his eyebrows up, and Henry nodded.

"I'd hoped to be a doctor. I suppose it'll have to wait now." Henry put the letter away, and his chin dropped. "You'd think they'd rather me complete a year or two of training first, so that they could send another surgeon out rather than..." He hesitated, then gestured to himself. "Me."

"'Ey, now what's that mean?" Jim frowned, and jostled Henry's arm. Henry promptly pulled his arm in and away, and crossed one leg primly over the other.

"Simply put, I'm awfully nearsighted, so if I lose my glasses, I'm useless with a rifle. I'm not what one would call particularly strong, either." He patted the satchel at his side. "It was difficult enough for me to carry the few things I'll be allowed to take with me. I won't lie and say I didn't smuggle-" and here, he dropped his voice to a bare murmur- "a bit of contraband..." He slid the book on his lap into Jim's line of sight, and Jim leaned over to see it and snickered.

"Contraband, eh?" He hadn't actually read about what he should and shouldn't take, and wouldn't have thought books wouldn't be allowed. How many of those d'you have in that bag?"

"Fifteen." Henry's cheeks had turned rosy, and he pulled his book back into his lap, close to his breast like a treasure. "I brought ten of my favorites, and five I've never read before. But you see, this is just my point. I'm a student, and, being frank with myself, a mild little man." He heaved a sigh. "I would kick and scream 'til they let me out of it, but I doubt I'm strong enough for even that. So, forth I march, good little soldier Henry." He slumped, his hair drooping from the part in his bangs. Jim couldn't help but snort.

"Can't even get excited over defending Queen and country?"

"I like Queen and country well enough, thank you kindly, but I would prefer to serve of my own accord and volition. A doctor has ten times the value of a common soldier." Henry turned his gaze away completely and crossed his arms ever tighter. "Besides, we're not even defending our own country. Or do you not know just what you're being sent to fight for?"

Jim caught the edge of irritation Henry was giving off like a gleaming blade, but shrugged it off. "Of course. John told me all about it. That poor lady."

Henry turned in his chair, eyebrows raised. "Lady?"

"Yeah, and the prince." Jim drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair a few times. "Uh, Ferdinand, that was him. He and his wife got shot, and then Germany declared war on Russia, and then because of who our country is friends with, we had to jump in the fray too. But me, I felt so bad for the Prince's wife when I heard the story." He shook his head. "She didn't do nothin' wrong, just out for a drive with her husband, bang bang, she's dead, and there's two kids without a Mum or Dad all 'cos she married a Prince, and that's the saddest damn thing I've ever heard." Jim found himself less than able to meet Henry's face all of a sudden, and instead focused on the little piles of hair shifting in the current from the hall. "When I was younger, I thought we were fighting to avenge her for her kids, because the people who did that to her ought to get punished for it. Then I figure out it's also a good job, and, well, here I am, and wild horses couldn't stop me from taking up arms."

"I see." Henry's tone was unreadable – somewhere between disappointment and a sorrow, himself – and Jim dared to look at him again. His gaze seemed distant, and he tapped his chin. "You realize that if you pitied the Princess Sophie, you'd be fighting for the Germans, correct?"

Jim blinked back surprise, then chuckled. "Not a clue. Ah, well." He kicked his feet out and stretched his arms behind his head. "They'll get what's comin' to 'em, as it goes. Brought it on themselves. Whatever they did to piss us off was likely worth it, and even so, I got my own reasons for fighting. I make money, protect the country, and like I said before, I've never left this town. It might be nice. Still." He apprised Henry, toe to tip. He was thin and pale, with a wide mouth, and really, he looked a bit of a fop for a boy from a middle-class family. He didn't look like a soldier, and if he were even an ounce stronger, he likely would have kicked and screamed his way out of it. Yet here he sat. "It's a damn shame. You'd probably be better off in school."

"Ah, well." Henry laughed, though it was obviously false. "It is what it is."

"Maybe they'll take a second look at you and figure, he's not fighting material, and send you home right quick. You'll be back in school before you know it." Jim winked and jostled Henry's elbow with his a few times. Henry merely drew his elbows closer. "Or, er, maybe, the war will end before we get out of training. Yeah, that's the ticket! We win the war in the next few weeks, the bleedin' Huns drag their sorry arses back to Berlin, and you go back to school, and I... well, that just means John'll be home all the sooner, right?"

Henry considered this, his tongue pressed firmly in his cheek, then granted Jim a smile. "I suppose, but weren't you looking forward to defending Queen and country?"

"I'll still be in the forces, 'less they discharge me." Jim shrugged and sat back against the chair. "I'm sure they'll still have use of me."

Henry took this in, and Jim could nearly see him thinking. Then, he spoke, his tongue wrapping around each word as if it were made of sugar and glass: "You know you might die if you end up on the front lines."

"I ain't afraid." Jim hung his head a little, just as Henry straightened his back and stilled. Only then did Jim notice that the barber had come up behind Henry and was holding his head still. Henry slid the book up against his stomach, completely still, and only moved to snatch his hat off of his head. Jim held a hand out, and Henry glanced at it with a twitch of his eyes, then put his hat into it with a grateful smile. Henry pinned his lips shut in thought, and held still as his bangs were trimmed neat and even, the hang of his hair evened up. He didn't look all that different when the barber was done, but just as Jim made to compliment him, a haircutter seized his head.

"Oh, dear," Henry sighed from his seat. "It's such a shame. Your hair suits you as it is."

Jim didn't dare speak for fear that the scissors would come too close to his ears. He saw them in the mirror, silver and gleaming, in the barber's hands. The barber gathered his hair back, and he squeezed his eyes shut tight. He felt the first big snip, and heard the bulk of his hair hit the floor.

"You'll make quite a soldier like that," Henry muttered. Jim felt a flush of embarrassment, but held still as the rest of his locks were trimmed away.

In minutes, Jim's hair was trim and neat, trimmed above the back of his neck, the front cut close and parted like Henry's had been, but Jim quickly combed it back with his fingers. Henry had remained in his chair, watching Jim with singular focus even as other new recruits moved around them.

"Are you at all concerned you'll die?"

"I guess it could happen." Jim pushed his hair back a few more times, but a few stubborn strands refused to stay in place. He met Henry's eyes long enough to give him a roguish grin and a wink. "But it'll be my own fault, won't it?"

Henry hummed, his gaze tipping down. "We are each our own Devil, and we make this world our hell."

Jim cocked his head. "I beg your pardon?"

"Ah, forgive me. It's a favorite quote of mine, Oscar Wilde said it." Henry touched his own lips. "It means... well, I suppose you understand."

Jim ran it back through his head, then chuckled. "Well, mate, if I start growing horns, I'll think of you." He heard someone clearing his throat behind him, and grimaced. "Suppose we have to move on." He hopped out of the chair, and shook his head to straighten his hair out of habit. The loss of the swing of his hair was palpable in that moment. Henry, too, rose to a stand, dusted the loose hair from his pant leg, and took up his satchel, looped around his thin wrist.

"We must, but it's been a pleasure. James?" Henry extended a hand.

"Jim."

"Jim. I hope the soldiering life suits you."

"Well, then. Hank." Jim smirked, cocking his head forward with a knowing wink. "I hope I never see your scrawny arse again. Get on back to school as soon as you can, yes?" He remembered something, then pressed Hank's hat into his extended hand. Hank took it, and Jim shook his hand through the exchange.

From there, they went their separate ways, Hank on to the medical exam, and Jim to get fitted in his Kitchener's Blues. For once, though, he found himself looking back on his forward-march. He didn't know what was ahead, but Hank had made him think.

Still, for Queen and country, for John, for the money, and for his own pride, he was off and away, set off into the tide of war. It would have been best if it hadn't caught Hank in the current, and he sincerely hoped that both he and Hank turned out to be right, in some way.

That he found the glory he sought, and that Hank saw none of it. That would have best suited both of them.

Notes: Conscription began in Great Britain in March 1916. All single men between the ages of 18 and 41 were liable to be called to join. In June 1916, married men became eligible. In 1918, the maximum age for conscription was raised to 51.

In France, military service was mandatory for most men for a period of three years, with very limited exceptions, in what could be interpreted as saber-rattling against the Kaiser's army. When war was declared, men who had completed their mandatory service were gradually called back, including men up through age 45.

"We are all each our own Devil, etc." – From the lesser known Wilde play "Duchess of Padua." Green roses were also a secret symbol of Wilde and his enthusiasts.

Kitchener's Blues – Because the khaki dye originally used to make British service dress Royal Army uniforms was a German product, and alternative products were difficult to come by, a highly-simplified version of the service dress uniform was produced for use in basic training, dyed blue instead. They were named Kitchener's Blues after the Secretary of State for War, Lord Kitchener, who had led the charge on a massive recruitment drive in late 1914, which made keeping up with the demand for new uniforms impossible in the first place.

The title of the story is a reference back to the song which initially inspired the story, "The Soldiering Life," by The Decemberists. As such, I have made several references to the band itself. For starters: Henry is the name of the lead singer's older son, and he is called Hank for short. Colin Meloy, lead singer and song writer, is referenced by Collins. Shankhill is a reference to a song title, "Shankhill Butchers." I'm sure I'll make a few more references somewhere along the line, and mention them as appropriate.

French translations:

Merde - "Shit."

Le Ciel et Terre - "Heaven and Earth"

Je m'excuse - "I'm sorry."

Le Armee du Terre - The Land Army, or the ground forces.

"il est de mon devoir de vous informer" = "It is my duty to inform you"

If I've missed anything significant, please let me know!

Let me know what you thought!