The Fallen Soldier (Hannigram)

The Fallen Soldier

Bad news spreads fast. In mere minutes, men had already come to the medic's tent to inform Dr. Lecter that there was a soldier shot. It wasn't just any soldier that had been shot, it was his soldier. His brave, cunning boy. Nobody told him how severe the wound was, so Hannibal held on to the belief that it was a simple wound. A shattered bone, maybe? Something Will would recover from. Something that wouldn't take the only thing he had left away. But there was something deep inside of him that was telling him he was wrong. He had never ran so fast. He felt his lungs burning, yelling for the air that he was not granting them the satisfaction of. His boy was in danger. It was only last night that Will had snuck out of his tent to go to Hannibal's where they spent the night talking, laughing, keeping each other warm. No one was to know about them, but they couldn't keep away from each other for long. Will was to scout the next day with a few other men, figure out the lay of the land a little better. God, why couldn't it have been anyone else? Why did it have to be him? As he grew closer, there was no noise to be heard other than the chirps of birds who didn't give a shit about them. Even though it would have broken his heart, to hear the pained screams of his lover would have been more welcoming than nothing. It would mean he was still here. Hannibal saw a lump in the trail and stopped mere feet away. He knew he had been too late, and he dropped to his knees as he saw the state of his boy.

His jaw was in his throat, his upper lip and teeth were gone, his one eye was shut, his other eye was a star-shaped hole. His eyebrows were thin and arched like a woman's, and his nose was undamaged. There was a slight tear at the lobe of one ear, his clean black curls were swept upward into a cowlick at the rear of the skull, his forehead was slightly freckled. His fingernails were clean, the skin at his left cheek was peeled back in three ragged strips, but his right cheek was smooth and hairless. There was a butterfly on his chin. His neck was open to the spinal cord and the blood there was thick and shiny; it was the wound that had killed him. He lay face-up in the center of the trail, a slim, dead, almost dainty young man. He had bony legs, a narrow waist, long shapely fingers. His chest was sunken and poorly muscled, easy for Hannibal to pick him up and spin him around when he came back safely. His wrists were the wrists of a child. He wore a black shirt, black combat trousers, a grey ammunition belt, and a gold ring on the third finger of his right hand. He was a boy who everyone said didn't belong in the army. Too pretty, too dainty. That was why Hannibal had grown so close to him, wanting to protect the boy from the monsters of the world who only saw you as a sac of flesh.

Will had told Hannibal why he had joined the army. Will had lost his father in the war, and his mother had passed from sickness. He was taken in by a Chinese merchant who always gave the little boy food when he saw him passing by. From his earliest boyhood, Will had listened to stories about the heroic Trung Sisters, Tran Hung Dao's famous rout of the Mongols and Le Loi's final victory against the Chinese at Tot Dong. He was taught that to defend the land was a man's highest duty and highest privilege. He had accepted this. It was never open to question. Secretly, though, it also frightened him. He was not a fighter. His health was poor, his body small and frail. He liked books. He wanted someday to be a teacher of literature. At night, lying on his mat, he could not picture himself doing the brave things his father had done, or the heroes of the stories. He hoped in his heart that he would never be tested. He hoped the war would go away. Soon, he hoped. He kept hoping and hoping, always, even when he was asleep.

Hannibal couldn't take his eyes off of his lover for all of the wrong reasons. The trail junction was shaded by a row of trees and tall brush. The slim young man lay with his legs in the shade. His jaw was in his throat. His one eye was shut and the other was a star-shaped hole. The star-shaped hole was red and yellow. The yellow part seemed to be getting wider, spreading out at the center of the star. The upper lip and gum and teeth were gone. The man's head was cocked at a wrong angle, as if loose at the neck, and the neck was wet with blood.

The butterfly was making its way along his forehead, which was spotted with small dark freckles. The nose was undamaged. The skin on the right cheek was smooth and fine-grained and hairless. Frail-looking, delicately boned, the young man had not wanted to be a soldier and in his heart feared performing badly in battle. Even as a boy growing up in the village of My Khe, he had often worried about this. He imagined covering his head and lying in a deep hole and closing his eyes and not moving until the war was over. He had no stomach for violence. He loved books. He loved stories, he loved to watch the sunset, he loved.. Hannibal. He loved to tell Hannibal stories as they fell asleep, watch the sunset with him, loved to listen to the medic tell stories about patients. He loved life. His eyebrows were thin and arched like a woman's, and at school the boys sometimes teased him about how pretty he was, the arched eyebrows and long shapely fingers, and on the playground they mimicked a woman's walk and made fun of his smooth skin and love for literature. Hannibal had felt rage whenever Will told him those stories, but the boy had never been able to make himself fight them. He often wanted to, but he was afraid, and this increased his shame. If he could not fight the other little boys, he thought, how could he ever become a soldier and fight with their airplanes and helicopters and bombs? It did not seem possible. In the presence of his guardian, he pretended to look forward to doing his patriotic duty, which was also a privilege, but at night he prayed to his mother that the war would end soon. Beyond anything else, he was afraid of disgracing himself, and therefore his family. But all he could do, he thought, was wait and pray and try not to grow up too fast.

Along the trail, there were small pink flowers in clusters. Dianthus barbatus. The young man's head was wrenched sideways, not quite facing the flowers, and even in the shade a single blade of sunlight sparkled against the buckle of his ammunition belt.

Hannibal kept scanning over his body over and over again, looking for any sign of life, refusing to believe his darling, his cunning boy, his brave brave boy had been taken away so suddenly. The left cheek was peeled back in three ragged strips. The wound at his neck had not yet clotted, which made him seem animate even in death, the blood still spreading out across his shirt. His shirt. Hannibal's shirt. Will had lost his grey fatigues so Hannibal had let him borrow his black one. God, he looked like a little kid drowning in his shirt but the smile on his face made Hannibal's entire day. Nothing could have taken away the joy Will brought him, except for taking away Will. The young man's fingernails were clean. There was a slight tear at the lobe of one ear, a sprinkling of blood on the forearm. He wore a gold ring on the third finger of his right hand. His chest was sunken and poorly muscled.

For years, despite his family's poverty, the boy had been determined to continue his education in literature. The means for this were arranged, perhaps, through the village liberation cadres, and in 1964 the boy had begun attending classes at the university of Saigon, where he avoided politics and paid attention to the world of books. He devoted himself to his studies. Before he could finish his studies, he had been drafted into the war. When he first got here, he was terrified. He spent his nights alone, wrote romantic poems in his journal, and took pleasure in the grace and beauty of the night sky. The war, he knew, had finally taken him, but for the time being he would not let himself think about it. He had stopped praying; instead, now he waited. And as he waited, one morning in the mess hall with his journal, he realized he had fallen in love with a man. The medic, a decade older than him, who one day told him that his wrists were like the wrists of a child, so small and delicate, who admired his small waist and the cowlick that rose up like a bird's tail at the back of his head. The medic liked his quiet manner, and he laughed and kissed Will's freckles.

One evening, perhaps, they exchanged gold rings.

Now one eye was a star.

The body lay almost entirely in the shade. There were gnats at the mouth, little flecks of pollen drifting above the nose. The butterfly was gone. The bleeding had stopped except for the neck wound. The one eye did a funny twinkling trick, red to yellow. His head was wrenched sideways, as if loose at the neck, and the dead young man seemed to be staring at some distant object beyond the pink flowers along the trail. The blood at the neck had gone to a deep purplish black. Clean fingernails, clean hair. He was a slim, dead, almost dainty young man of about twenty. He lay with one leg bent beneath him, his jaw in his throat, his face neither expressive or inexpressive. One eye was shut. The other was a star-shaped hole. Hannibal placed a poncho over his lover's body, taking the bloodied ring from his finger.