We had been relieved. Fresh green units replaced us, their uniforms not shredded, their face caked only in mud and not blood. We had survived. We walked with our heads hunched, me and Felix helping Bruno along in between our shoulders.
The engineers had been busy all night, building communication trenches from our former line to our new one. It was a shallow and rudimentary trench, well not much of a trench but a path that took us from crater to crater.
'The sky was a clear and sharp blue that shone down on us. I did not know the time but I knew it was early morning. We made our way through the line and finally reached our old trench. Now filled with men as the new reserve trench. We made our way through in a slow procession, like a funeral line. The clear faced lads parting as we walked back.
They stared. At my bandaged head, my red arm. Brunos limping body. Marcos bandaged hand. Felix's blood stained hands. Adrian's large bruise and gash on the right side of his face. We were dead men walking. We should not have been standing, alive, yet here we were. We had survived. They looked at us with some awe.
We had survived the first successful trench capture on the Overland front. This would be in the papers, on the radio, even on the pictures back home, yet we did not care. We were exhausted, tired, hurt. We needed rest. We were on the breaking point for the entire night. Some men cracked under the pressure. Screaming out in horror in the night, yelling about the blue devils. We had to knock him out, before the panic spread around the line. We had not cracked, we had come out stronger men than before.
We finally got out of the twisting roads of the trench line and out to the open paths back to camp. We continued to trudge back. Horse drawn carriages were there waiting for the wounded. Bruno refused to get a ride, saying that he survived the night with us, he damn well was going to finish it with us. The carriages slowly rolled by, passing us on the makeshift road. The long line of the damned continues to walk back to the camp. From an aerial we probably looked like a long line of battle worn ants, marching back to their colony, we felt as much.
We finally got back to our camp, and slowly spread out to our sections. The camp was much emptier than before the battle. Not as lively, that was to be expected. We first went to our section's aid station. Bruno was given over to the docs. And the rest of us were looked after by the medics.
My cut on my arm went down a couple of centimeters in my skin. Was told it was a miracle it sealed up by itself and I didnt bleed out. I got a professional bandage and some stitches on the arm. The medic then took a look at the dirty bandage hastily put over my head. He slowly unwrapped the bandage and washed it with some alcohol.
It stung immensely but I did not yelp out in pain. I gripped the armrest of the chair I was sitting on so hard I swear I bended the wood. After cleaning the wound he told me how lucky I was, it was only a glance, that the shrapnel only hit my head at an angle, and if the angle was a little different, the piece of metal would instead be lodged in my brain, instead of some dirt out in dead man's land.
I thanked him for the reassuring thoughts as he rebandaged the wound. I was quickly released for the other long line of injured men. Now it was time to rest. I took off practically all my clothes except my underwear. I moved my cot next to the fire in my tent, sat down, and rested my eyes.
I slept but sleep did not come easy. Most of my dreams were just reliving my day and night. The charge through the snow, the hand to hand combat in the trenches, the darkness at night. I did not dream of a peaceful night, as I did when I fell asleep yesterday, I wish I did.
But the horrors and experiences I saw yesterday echoed throughout the abyss in my head. Seeing every man I was engaged in combat with. Every mistake I made. The most frightening sights were the times I almost died.
Those replayed in my head, over and over. The man who swung the mace. If I had been a second late my life would have been over then and there. My mind moved to before, when his comrade shot and barely missed me. How did he miss me? He was only a couple of meters away. Was he scared, to take a life, to shoot another man. Or was it just an error?
I had not stumbled when I had first taken a life. That man throwing bombs off the parapet into my comrades charging the trench. I had seen him, and shot, without hesitation. Why did I do that? I had never taken a life before. That one time I shot at a light in the trench does not count, I had no idea if I hit him.
But I saw that man crumple back into the trench. I had no feelings at the time. Does that mean I am a bad person, an evil one. That man had a life. A Life. Why would I be worried about that man's life? I shot a man who was pleading for his, while he was showing me a photo of his family. A normal man would not have done that. Why did I do that? It was not necessary.
He did not pose any threat. I told myself that I was not angry at the man. If I was not mad, it would have been worse. I convinced myself I was different then the rest. I was not killing because I was angry; It was just part of my job. I am the biggest hypocrite. I took his life because I was angry. I looked out on the field of dead laying in front of the man, in front of that machine gun.
A quiet rage built up in me, one that I didn't even notice at the time. My finger wrapped around the trigger with no command from my brain. A primal rage, one that I had no control over. I really was a hypocrite. Maybe not an evil person, yet. But I certainly did evil things. I know the priests say that if it is a just war, it is fine to act.
Yet I do not feel justified in my actions. Would The Father let in a soul like mine, if I were to die in this war. A soul who executed a man begging for his life. No he couldn't. It would not be just for my soul to enter. Does that mean I am damned from today's actions? I did not know then, and even today, I still do not know.
This struggle with my actions would last for my entire time in the war. I never got over these ideas. I was raised a religious man, as everyone was at the time. Through the hardship of the war, my faith had been tested, and still stands tested to this day.
My actions from that day on would get harder to explain to The Father as he stands judging my soul. As I had realized my wrongdoings, yet I kept doing them. I did not know the answer then, as I still do not know the answer today, all I can do is hope that the Father could understand the situation that I had been forced in, hell more like a position I wished for.