Soldiering On

The cold clenched its fist around the blanket covering Sheena. We had become trapped down in this bunker since the first shell had landed, probably nine days ago – I’d lost track of the time, the day, sometimes even the year. Night became day with the constant shelling of the surrounding buildings.

Sheena stirred beneath his shelter. I kept my eyes firmly fixed on the skyline, attempting to discern how safe it would be to move out from our hiding place and into the open air of the battlefield. From my estimations, I believed the hospital to be only a few hundred yards from our present position. If we gave ourselves an outside chance we could be having our wounds tended by a sweet nurse, sympathetic to our cause as soldiers.

The sky rumbled against a background of smoke and flashing, hypnotic explosive light. I sat back, closed my eyes and sucked in a large gulp of harsh air; the acrid atmosphere was all I had breathed, the army did not sequester gas masks to its recruits. A cough from beneath the blanket brought me back to my duty: I had to move Sheena soon or else death was marching onward to claim our souls.

The trench had become a maze of corpses in varying states of decomposition. When the war was over, a bulldozer would simply come and backfill the meandering scars with fresh soil, forever burying a part of history; forever negating the role of the government in this massacre. How well the media was covering the event was unbeknownst to all but a privileged few and they were surely never going to tell us about the goings-on behind the thin veil of bombings and bullet hole parties.

What had become of the rest of the world, one could only guess at; this was the only time that we, the militants, could ever be conservative. I was beginning to wonder if any other country really cared about the atrocities conveyed by the guerrilla forces. There was certainly nobody around now to answer these questions for me, it was only I who could make the decisions about the future of the next generation. Who else might be left was down to guesswork and dreaming. Or nightmares.

Another day has definitely passed. The sun shone through the clouds of whirling, billowing smoke for a second. I had glimpsed a future, a sign even. I decided to read it that way. Flakes of charred snow fell into our trench hideaway. They were burning our city.

I grasped Sheena under my curving arm, my legs testing the stability of the ground underfoot and the weight I was asking it to bear. He had lost weight and felt like a feather in m embrace. I took a step towards the high banks of the trench, the ground remaining sturdy beneath my heavy boots. Heaving Sheena over one shoulder I began the ascent to the top. The breath was wheezing through his lungs with my every step. I felt a slow trickle of his blood down my neck where it mingled with my sweat at the nape. He was dying and I was his only chance.

The ashen snow of the burning buildings intermingled with an acidic shower of rain: urine of the sky. I raised my head to drink, forcing myself to swallow the bitter, burning liquid of life. I kept some in my mouth and transferred it on to Sheena’s blistered lips. He hadn’t taken any fluid since receiving the shrapnel wound in his side. I had kept him alive as best I could, but supplies had become non-existent some time ago. Moving on was our only hope.

I had reached the top of the trench, our stinking pit of death lying below. Peering over the edge of the banked topsoil I could see nothing of the landscape nor provide any information regarding its topography. I moved my head through 180 degrees, left to right, allowing my escaping breath to blow away the ubiquitous smoke surrounding us. Sheena coughed and I remembered he was still over my shoulder. Momentarily I had forgotten the desperate load I carried. Not purposely forgotten; the soldier in me had taken over.

I listened intently for any noise which would give away the position of the enemy soldiers. As I expected, there was nothing. I relieved my burden on to the soft earth banked around my hiding place. I felt as if I were climbing from a grave, freshly dug to intern the helpless soldiers. We were the giblets of war.

Around us was chaos. The road system was inchoate, fallen trucks and tanks blocking the path for anything larger than a bicycle. Or a man. I knew from my training that these were also good places to conceal a sniper. I pressed my palm against the holster attached to my belt and felt much safer. I hoped that I had remembered to load some bullets into my gun.

Fear is the mother of paranoia, one feeding the other until reality is all but a distant memory. I could sense nothing in the immediate vicinity as I dragged myself from the suction of safety and into the open space of the city.

I took Sheena in my arms, his limbs flailing madly through unconsciousness. He was limp and heavy cupped to my chest as I lumbered through the choking mud of the war.

Gritting my teeth I Iaboured towards where I thought the hospital stood. I hoped it would still be standing, efficient doctors and nurses coming to our aid with bandages and brandy. Clouds of dust rose from the destruction that had taken place during the night. Flames still flickered around window frames and doorways; the ash had consumed the earth as the smoke had the sky, leaving no area untouched. I made the precarious journey of hope against a backdrop of burning, smoking ruins that I had once been proud to call my home.

Finally, I found myself and Sheena beside an upturned lorry. To m surprise it had yet to be looted. I thought again about how this was a dangerous situation to be in as I searched feverishly for medical supplies and any source of food that could be considered edible by the human body. My composure was wearing thin when I stumbled across tins of fruit and meat. My joy was overshadowed by the discovery that medical supplies would not be coming to us via some other’s misfortune.

I ate heartily, Sheena even managed a few mouthfuls of food before collapsing through the exhaustion of staying alive. I sang a melody in my head, creating a song in my mind to help block out the horror of right and wrong. Long has it all been forgotten exactly who is right and whether anyone was wrong in the first place.

I decided to press on into the wilderness I had once called home. Nothing looked as I had remembered it and I found my bearings hard to make. Through the briefest of clearings in the smoke I could espy the ruins of the city’s cathedral. Even a building of religious sanctity could not be spared from the bombing. Tears reached my cheeks as I gripped the almost lifeless body to my own, in the hope that I may keep my friend and colleague alive. I lurched toward the cathedral, the hospital had only been one block away and there, like an oasis, the buildings stood proud and forthright.

I blinked my way forward, the tears I had shed before gone, replaced by a blinding cacophony of falling ash. I stood before the House of God mentally crossing myself before resuming my sickeningly slow pace. I had been correct in my assumptions: the hospital stood, a menhir amongst the buildings that had been razed to the ground. They formed a derelict sight, a concoction of death and destruction. My heart was pounding as I swallowed it back. My elation was cascading from my every pore, a smile eclipsing my scarred features. I must have looked radiant.

I felt as if nothing could harm me. The sounds of war disappeared into the distance, a shroud of womb-like air nestled around the form of this soldier, marching with the wounded in hand from the tragicomedy of pride we call war.