The fields

When everything has been taken away what is a man to do but to sit down and die? But we cannot do that, for we are soldiers. They have taken everything away from us and turned us into trained animals.

I stared down at the scene before me.

The dead lied everywhere among the poppies and the field of tall weeds and small grass of the Flood plains of France. Where we were I could not say, yet the rolling hillside was accompanied by the boom of thunder and the patter of rain that had been rolling down wave after wave against us, drenching me to the bone and causing me to shiver.

Just like the enemy.

“Hey Private, nice shooting.” Sergeant Ammon sighed almost wearily. He was one of the most feared men among our Corps of the 1st Australian and American Expendables. Rumour was he had stormed through the Landings himself while his squad fell on the beaches, and took out a hundred and fifty Krauts with only a grenade and a bayonet. But this hero of the newly battered together Corps looked beyond tired as he gazed among the fields of the dead in our small trench.

“Yeah a real turkey shoot.” I was lying against one of the boards we plied from the enemy when we dug this trench out. We had moved to this position to hold the German advance on the town of Orleans, where the siege fell, but instead found ourselves face to face with the reserves of the German advance and had to dig in hastily to avoid their heavy artillery they brought.

But despite their Mortar Cannons and siege engines, we held the small trench line against them. Tanks, Artillery and even a makeshift catapult made out of a wreck of a car lied destroyed on the battlefield, blown open by our Weapons specialist and their grenades or our missiles and Mortars.

The dead lied bloated, unmoving in the face of the storm as the Executioners and priests went out in packs to finish the job our bullets and shells couldn’t do. Blood welled and flowed in all directions, stains against the wild green of the small insect forest. Already the mosquitoes were bugging me as I swatted them.

“Hey, you can’t dwell on any of it, you understand? None of it, for then you’ll lose heart.” I nodded as he grabbed my arm and we just held each other in our arms for what seemed forever. Tears seemed to well out of my eyes but I let them flow. The ground had tasted blood and fire, let it taste water and beauty.

I don’t know how, but I walked the battlefield anyway, my rifle slung over my arm. My drenched uniform knelt toward the ground as I grabbed a poppy. I smelled the small flower, and it was the sweetest smell my nose had ever smelled. I just stood there, staring at this rose.

“THE ENEMY ARE COMING!” Came the shout and we ran back to our small dug outs.