The silent killer

The smell of gunpowder and blood filled the air across the battlefield, the smell getting caught on your tounge and making you gag like you just ate something moldy or rotten. Looking over the battlefield you can see trenches all miles long on both sided of no man’s land some freshly dug while others are nothing more than long lines with craters in the middle unusable. Look closer at these disease-ridden places and you’ll see they are filled to the brim with men, some dying some dead and the rest are waiting for death. However not all men are idle, a group of men are on the march to the front lines ready to serve. Being fresh off the train from their home town they are full of vigor ready and waiting to serve their country. As they march on through the muddy trenches not all are egar, a young lad is struggling to keep up in the back of the group, his eyes blod-shod and his body full of fatigue.

I looked around at the men sitting in the trenches as we walked past, some of them wounded and waiting for medical assistance and others trying to get some sleep while holding themselves in a tight ball their whole bodies shaking violently although I knew their attempts were in vain even back in the base far away from the front lines, I couldn’t sleep the sounds of gunfire wracking his brain knowing that soon I would be on the end of that fire. Sighing I remembered the letter in my pocket that I hadn’t had time to read from my wife back home in England. a smile crosses my lips for a moment thinking of her, she is perfect and best of all just before I was deployed, she and I found out she was pregnant luckily the war would be over in a month and I could be there for the baby’s birth.

That’s when I heard it, the first shouts men and the scramble of men all around me but I was so engrossed in though I didn’t know what was going until the sweet smell hit my nose and invaded my throat. Immediately my mind fogged over as I fell to my knees gasping for clean air not being able to think clearly and my vision blurring with each second and the pain that I raged inside my lungs only intensified with each ragged breath that passed through me. The only sounds I could hear clearly was thud. Thud as men dropped around me sub coming to the poisonous gas. I tried reaching for my gas mask hoping if I could just get out of the area and to fresh air, I would be safe but I couldn’t move my arms or legs.

Rage. This is the only emotion that I felt in my last moments. Rage towards the government who pushed us into feeling that we would be doing are country proud by coming to this place, rage towards the people who told us that this would be an easy war, that we would be home by Christmas and what about all the glory we were promised. I could hear my general shouting for me now but I was too weak to respond I could feel myself slipping into unconsciousness and I didn’t fight it the pain was getting to be too much. The last thing I though as my body became warm and as all the pain and suffering left my body was that I needed to wake up for my wife she would need me more than ever once the baby was born and the baby would need a father.

Opening the door, I saw an older withered looking gentleman who I knew standing on the porch his coat dripping with water; he was the commander who trained up Patrick before he was sent off to France to fight on the western front but it was the middle of the night and in the middle of a storm so I was very confused what he was doing here so late. “Mrs. Mathews” he asked and I nodded “I’m very sorry to be the ones to tell you this but your husband was killed while on his way to the front lines yesterday morning, he was caught by a gas attack”. Fear. Fear shot through me like a bullet to the heart and I had to grip the doorway to stop myself falling over tears began to build up in my eyes as the realization that I would never see my husband again made its way through my system but I knew I had to be strong I looked down at the baby in my arms, she would never meet her father but she would know of the sacrifice he made. As the commander handed me a velvet box containing my husband’s purple heart, I knew that he deserved so much more than this, he deserves to meet his daughter and see her grow up but he had gone to serve his country with the promise that he would be back in a few short months.

The commander continued to speak but I wasn’t listening to him I was using all my energy to contain the rage that was building up inside me, we had been lied to was my only thought. Where was the glory and fame the men were promised, where was the quick and easy war that was advertised in that propaganda, propaganda that I had helped hand out in the town square.

“if you need anything Mrs. Mathews please don’t hesitate to call or reach out to your local support group” I looked back at the commander “I will thank you commander” he nodded before turning and walking away into the darkness of the night the wind calming as he left like the storm followed him around. I closed the door and I turned to take the baby back up to her bed to see if I could get her settled again when I caught myself in the mirror. I stared into it for some time looking between myself and my daughter thinking of what would happen to us from here when I saw it; just for a brief second but I saw it, my husband’s reflection in the mirror standing behind us his hand on my shoulder smiling down at our daughter. A single tear slid down my cheek as I watch him disappear then without thinking I whispered into the emptiness of our hallway “she will never forget you my love”.