My journey has brought me back to this place. My weak bones and tired limbs carried me as far away from here as I could be, yet I came back. I’m getting older now, I couldn’t put this off any longer. These grassy hills were once reduced to mud, these sparse trees felled and broken by the enemy. At the time I was dragged through hell, tossed across the no-man’s land into another wretched trench. The whistling wind through the air recalls the howling artillery, and the pockmarked hills contain the terrible spoils of man’s envy; the graves of countless lost souls. Now my grey hair, tossed by the breeze, remembers when it was caked with blood and mire. My unfocused eyes recollect when they stung with sweat, and when they looked upon the face of my killer.
This early autumn day was heavy, the air was thick with water and the blue sky was censored by rolling clouds. The rainwater gathered at our ankles, and the CO barked at us the virtues of King and Country. The men around me handled their possible demise in many ways, but all their trembling was audible like a babbling river Styx, filled with dead men. The shout was given, and the up and over was commanded. The wet earth squelched beneath our scrambling feet, while the enemy line seemed like automatons manning their guns in their dark helmets. They glared at us as the bullets shrilled past. They knew not the effect terror has on a man. Red flowers of mist bloomed out of comrades to the left and right, wilting back into the mud. Out of all this chaos, I see a single emerald sprout in the charcoal forest behind them. A sprawling oak which has not let even war remove it. Its leaves shook and caught the rain in the midst of all this horror.
My company surged over the line, clearing the trench of those who decided to stay there. It was cleared by the time I got there. That night, as I set up to rest in that muddy hole, I dreamt of that tree. In the middle of the night I carefully raised my head up to see it in more detail. This tree had a wide base and strong roots, and above it a canopy of healthy leaves. In the middle I saw a large hollow. I wrote that night, I poured my heart out to this tree, and I talked about how I didn’t know if I had killed yet, how I fired and didn’t aim. I wrote about how afraid I was. Once morning came I placed the notes in a small tin and went out to patrol the forest with two other men to scout the position of their next line. As we drew closer to the living tree, I heard three shots ring out, and the other two soldiers died. By the time I fired my weapon at the assailant he had shot me in the thigh, sending me tumbling into a pit of barbed wire. The sniper fell from the beautiful tree like a rotten apple.
I spent a day there in agony, screaming to nothing, alone. I spoke to the tree then. I didn’t think it would mind my offering. I passed out until about nightfall when I was rudely awoken. An enemy soldier, a boy, shaking and grappling with the idea of such a personal kill. I pleaded for my life, and knowing none of his foreign tongue I looked at his dog tags and called him by his name of Johann. I was not yet ready to die. During my pleading I saw wire cutters fastened on his belt, and designed to get them from him. He wept, and did not shoot, but instead kneeled towards me. I thought of my father, and his command to kill them all, and I thought of my mother, who asked me to protect her country. I thought of my home and I thought about what I would give to return. Who I would give to return.
As the young Johann leaned deeply in to embrace me I unsheathed my knife and bled him into the earth. His panicked eyes stared at me for many years, and in fact they still do. I freed myself from the wire and wrote something more in my notes. I wrote about my first kill. I wrote about my questions and how, perhaps, young Johann was thinking the same things for his home and family. I stole from them. I placed the tin in the tree, covered it with leaves, and fought for another two years in hell.
Now, here I am again, aged and full of bitter memories. I remember where the tree was, and here I stand before it again. It has grown into a giant, thriving without any competition. I have come for my tin. I want to have them with me before I die. The notes are the closure I need to finally leave this war behind. With a hiking cane in hand I carefully made my way to the tree, climbing up the steep edge of the old barbed-wire pit and standing at the base of the tree. I reached my hands into the hollow and grasped for the tin. As though I had fallen from my bed I jolted, and reached deeper. The tin was gone. I removed leaves and crumpled them, throwing them to the ground. Leaning against the tree, I hear a click. I swing around to see a man carrying a bag and a gun. I put my wallet on the ground and my hands in the air. The stranger kicks my wallet and spits at me. I sweat, asking him what he wants. He doesn’t seem to speak my language very well, but when he produces the old rusty tin from in the bag his dull blue eyes seem to take on a certain terrible familiarity.
After I had been read my confession, he took out those very same dog tags that allowed me to know the name of that young man. Johann, a soldier, brother, son, and a father to the man before me. He found this tin and from then on resolved to lie in wait for me. Perhaps this is what I get for betraying the stranger Johann’s brief trust. The only difference now is that I’m ready to die. When this fatherless man took aim, he caressed the trigger, and he shook like his father did. Those red flowers bloomed forth from my chest now and I, too, wilted back into the dirt. I had made my decision, and he has made his. Can I really blame him?
