The Shed: A Grievous Experience of a Veteran

Part III

Private Geoffrey led the way. I looked again at the sky and saw the first signs of the coming twilight. It was going to become very dark, and very susceptible. The many woods before and around us were never good objects, for they could act as possible covers for yet unseen enemies. We had to assume a heightened state of awareness. This is critical, I thought.

Snow was also a bummer; some Nazi nut-heads smartly thought of ways to conceal their uniforms by merging as one with the whiteness of the snow. The bushes laid ubiquitously around the land provided our enemies with the element of surprise. They could go up a notch too and climb trees with thick foliage and wait there. All of these were precautions for us to keep our eyes peeled, and we also had to keep our ears open to the surroundings. Any sounds of leaves rustling or snow falling from above us are indications of disturbances or hidden tangos somewhere.

Yet how careful we were, how meticulous and vigilant we tried to be, the Germans had the upper hand on their environment.

Before us was a clear, white road, and on either side were trees increasing on our way to Belgium. The afternoon was getting darker and darker and more insecure. The skies were, on the other hand, producing their own fanciful luminosities of colors that seem to float at every glance we set upon them. This phenomenon trapped my two eyes in a whirlwind of amazement. Below the show of Nature's lights, ahead of our way, two mountains of unequal dimensions rose up from the farther portion of the land; at their bases thrived hardy vegetation, and on their summits was snow covering them wholly. Between these edifices of Nature was a gap, and this gap displayed the vestiges of the retreating sun: his ever-might rays bursting outwardly, contending with the fanciness and ardor of the colored skies for prominence. To my own eyes they were both magnificent, and for me witnessing such moment of Nature at work pleasantly subdued the chaotic earthquakes in my mind. Silence accompanied this rare scene, as if painted by the hands of Monet in ghastly fashion; and this calmed my troubled state. However, an unwanted flash suddenly reminded me of war.

Why is the acquisition of peace so elusive? Why is it so short and brief? War has shown me the violent inclination of man to kill. It is a crack in our humanity that breeds us to engage in wars, and a disgrace it is to recruit innocent men. Those who say it is a brave and noble thing, it is better for them to remain innocent and ignorant of the unwanted things that happen during war: I have seen good comrades shot before me—shot through the heart, through the head, speared by bayonets, seized apart by explosions, ran over by tanks, and tortured by the vilest of all creatures. I have seen bloody fingers fly upwards the smoky battlefield, the screaming soldier who crawls upon the dust leglessly, the innocent children crying in their mothers' lap, while cannons bombarded the city and shook the ground. Who could, from anyone of us, sleep as if he was back home with fear in his beating heart, a fear that consumes the weak flesh and spews forth acids of terrible brutality towards our thought; for who could run far away from his pursuing enemies when one cannot help but trip over bodies of the dead, whose skins are black and lifeless, and upon their faces, gaunt and gaping, the horror of the humanity is smeared with dark blood.

Forgive me if I troubled you with the clear descriptions of what I have inevitably seen; however, as a reader, one must be ready to know that he is reading the pure truth. Let us move on.