Into Eternity

The shells dropped a few hundred metres away, too far to do any serious damage, but closer than the last set had been.  Those who had cover ducked beneath it, too late.  It wouldn't have helped them if the aim had been precise.  But there was no arguing with the self-preservation instincts that took over in these situations.

He tried to keep watch for everyone.  He knew them by the shape of their black silhouettes against the lighter darkness of the sky.  Hopefully none would be missing.  Shrapnel was a danger, even at this distance from the landing shells.

Heads started to pop back up, trying to do what they could before the next round of shells came in and forced them to take cover again.  "Keep your heads down!" he yelled, motioning toward the ground.  Nothing would save them from a direct hit, but those weren't the only kind that could kill.

It was doubtful whether they could hear him over the shellfire, but they ducked anyway; it was the natural reaction.  Although they weren't yet in immediate danger from the barrage, the gunners were steadily closing in on their ever more precarious position.  The pause between shells was too long for mere reloading; the gunners were also re-aiming, better fixing the co-ordinates of the exposed position.

He noticed a figure slithering through the mud toward him.  The concussions of shells prevented the exchanging of recognition and covered any other sounds the person may have been making.  And in the darkness, lit only intermittently by the flashes of the explosions, it was nearly impossible to distinguish between friend and foe when they hugged the earth like that.  It was only when people exposed themselves that identifications could be made.  But no one in their right mind would expose themselves unnecessarily.

Nervously, his fingers ran down his side toward his hip, to where a holster would sit.  Although he wasn't wearing a holster and honestly couldn't remember the last time that he had worn one, it was a gesture trained into him.  Even the mere motion was enough to help calm his racing heart beat and slow his frantic breathing.

The shadowy figure froze, as did all of the others, as a bright flare lit the area.  They scarcely dared to breath lest the motion be enough for the gunners to pinpoint them and blow them all into eternity.  The flare sank slowly toward the ground, the light dimming finally.

He opened his eyes when the shelling resumed and he knew that the flare had burned itself out; it was too dangerous to be blinded in the darkness that descended in the aftermath of the brilliant flares, so a good soldier always closed their eyes to guard against it.  He had a companion; the mud-covered stranger had finally reached him.

"Doc," the stranger yelled over the booming guns, putting a hand on his shoulder to make the connection between the two of them.  Touch was really the only sense that could be trusted under shellfire.  Sight was treacherous in the darkness and the flashing lights; it could be negated in a moment with a sudden flare and the accompanying plunge back into darkness from light.  Sound was covered over by the whine of incoming shells and the explosions that followed, and it was said that it was the one that you didn't hear that would get you.

But he heard that one coming in.  He heard the pitch change as the heavy shell raced toward them from the heavens, unstoppable in its deadly trajectory.  He heard the breath catch loudly in his companion's throat as they made the near instantaneous mental calculations that told them this shell was not going to land a safe distance away.  He heard the half-whispered prayer that came to his own lips unbidden.

And he saw the flash of the explosion only a couple of dozen metres in front of them, where he knew men would be.  He saw the brilliant flash of light that meant instant death for the men unlucky enough to be within that lethal range.  He saw the dirt fly up, dark against the blackness of the starless sky.

Then he felt it come down, raining over them.  And he knew that he could trust it because he felt it.  He felt the dampness of the earth landing on his hands and his face and he knew that he was alive.  He knew that so long as he could feel the ground beneath him trembling from the fury of the impact and the soil showering down on him, he was still as safe as one could be under the circumstances.  Because you couldn't be safe if you were dead.

But there were others who felt.  And they did not feel the safety that he felt.  They felt the searing pain of white hot metal being driven through fragile flesh.  They felt their bones shatter and displace under force that human bodies were not meant to withstand.  They felt their lifeblood flowing smoothly from them despite the frantic efforts of anyone who could reach them.

They felt, but they turned from that sense to the others.  They looked at the ripped flesh and the broken bodies.  And they heard the rattling wheezes, the blood curdling screams, and the desperate prayers.  They tasted the salty tang of blood and tears.

And then they yelled, as all men did in those times, for the one man that they thought could help.  It was after that yell that they turned more quietly for other aid.  But first it was always, "Doc!"

*********************************************************************

He felt a hand on his shoulder and he started.  "Doc?" he heard again.

It was a question, not the desperate scream.  "Doc," the voice repeated, "is everything okay?"

A second passed before he had calmed enough to recognise where he was and who he was right now.  He wasn't the scared teenager that he had been during his first experience with shellfire, cowering in a trench and clutching at a rifle that he had taken from a dead man who would no longer need it.  He wasn't the terrified medic that he had been the second time, caught out in the open with the rest of his platoon.  This was the third time and he was sitting in Post-Op, dozing lightly at a patient's bedside.

"Everything's fine," he answered, stretching his arms above his head in a gesture of feigned nonchalance.  "I was just dreaming.  I'm sorry if I woke you; go back to sleep."

The shells were distant.  He was out of practice, but he placed them more than fifty kilometres from the camp, probably up at the front.  But the concussions were more than enough to trigger the memories of the previous times.  And there were far too many of those to remember.

It was easier to deal with if he broke it down.  That way he only had to remember three times.  He didn't need to reflect on every day of his year in Flanders.  He didn't need to recall his tour through the Low Countries and into Germany.  And he needed no help to think about this most recent time; he only had to open his eyes and unplug his ears.

He pushed himself to his feet, steadying himself for a moment on the frame of the bed beside him.  What he wouldn't give for the young body that had answered to his every command.  But he had given that in France, twice if he really wanted to think about it.

Scars criss-crossed his body, much like the scars that would now forever mark the boys that came beneath his scalpel on the operating tables.  They were from many things.  Shrapnel and bullets; barbed wire and broken glass; they were the wounds of an old soldier who had been through too much and had seen too much war.

These boys shouldn't have those scars, he reflected.  No one should have scars that go too deep to heal or to have to wake with their hearts a tempo of machine-gun fire that was only remembered too well.

Thinking of it was enough to make his anger rise.  Some of these boys here in this ward probably had fathers who fought alongside him in Flanders, whether the first or the second time.  It wasn't right that in the space of less than fifty years so much war had to tear at the world, threatening to rip it apart at the seams.

But they weren't calling this a war.  This was a mere police action.  It sure felt like a war to him.  There was the shellfire, the blood, the wounded, and, yes, the dead.  To all but the most careful observer, it was a war.  And even that observer doubtlessly got confused from time to time.

There was a pause in the distant shelling.  "Gunners are re-aiming," he muttered beneath his breath.  "We'll have more casualties soon.  They can't bracket the positions forever."