The Sights of Hell

Chapter 1

The enlisted mans club was loud and smoky, the din of soon to be soldiers was loud and deafening on his ears. 18 was too young for a war. Any age was too young. James buried his head in his arms, trying to ignore the crying, political commentaries and the complaints of not having someone to send a letter to as the group waited anxiously for the deadline. The time when they would leave. They would no longer be boys. They would no longer be children. They would be soldiers, exactly what their country needed right now. But not what it wanted. He would be the scourge of his country for fighting in a war that he didn't want a part in. For being 18. For being eligible for the draft. It wasn't fair. Well there was a reason people said all's fair in love and war. He heard the scrape of a chair being pulled back and lifted his head, expecting to see one of his fellow draftees but jumped slightly at the sight of a man he didn't recognise sitting down. He looked at James expectantly, as if expecting some comment about who he was or a not so polite request for him to kindly leave. He was silent. Silent in a room full of noise. The man rippled a deck of cards and the air seemed to still. The sound of the packed room was suddenly drowned out. All he could see was this man with an unfamiliar face and no uniform, looking at him questioningly, asking him noiselessly if he would play. He sat up, taking the hand he had laid out for him.

"If you could have anything," he asked. "What would it be? What do you feel the world owes you?"

"A chance to live past this war. To survive."

He nodded, and the game began.

The group had only just reached the outskirts of the jungle. They had just arrived. When suddenly, with a blinding flash, the truck had been taken out. Everyone had died. Everyone but him. The men-no, boys- he had trained with and began to see as more of a family than the one who left him to this, were killed before they even reached their base. Everyone but him. Why did he get to survive and the others not? Was it punishment for him not wanting to fight for his country? Was this God telling him to be a real soldier, a real man? Was God even there? Or had he given up long ago, just like man who only seemed determined to kill and burn and destroy. He was pitifully alone now. He was in a makeshift splint and had gauze wrapped around his eyes and he hadn't even shot his gun yet. His senior officer told him everywhere was the frontline, and he'd done well to survive. What a funny word, survive. Just what that man had promised him when he beat him in poker. But that was a long time ago now, or at least it seemed it. He missed his home, his high school sweetheart, the comfort of knowing he would be welcomed home. That was gone now. He would step off the boat and be met with picket lines. This was a losing battle. Both militarily, and publically. The war no longer had the support of the public or its soldiers. They just wanted to go home. For the fighting to be over. And yet, they were the ones thrust into the firing line, forced to see the horrors of agent orange and napalm. To watch their friends be taken out by a bomb.

The bandages were itchy, they seemed to hurt more than the shrapnel did. The doctor told him he would be fine. The lie cut him more than the shrapnel did. It was a recurring theme, everything hurt more than his wounds. Everything. It was as if they thought he was still a child, like he hadn't just been faced with death. Like he wouldn't be again. His legs were weak and he wanted to go home, to be alive. He didn't want to survive this, he didn't want to be alive when the only people he would have had to cope were all rotting in a shallow grave with a makeshift cross and a scorched dog tag. Rolling over, he winced and decided he didn't want to roll over anyway, especially if his arm was going to pitch such a fit about it. He just wanted to go home.

His sight came back slowly, and honestly he wished he had stayed blind. The sights of hell did not in fact, draw its viewers back. It just made them paranoid, delusional even. It just made men blind with rage and a patriotic desire to kill as many of another countries patriots as they could. But not him, not him. He hadn't fired his gun. He refused. He wouldn't give anyone the satisfaction of knowing he had been made into a monster. It was late one morning when he realised this. When he realised that no matter how many of his friends he had seen mowed down like stray pieces of grass in a lawn, no matter how many he watched writhe in pain as they were bitten into by fire, that he would never kill. He made himself a promise that morning, as he heard the trucks rattle by and watched the sun bleed into the trees. He promised himself that he would not kill, even if it killed him.