Sleeper in the Valley

1.

Letter to Mrs. Nora V. Holland

My Love,

Barely a moment passes that I don't think of you. How cliché, but it is true. I think of you all the time, wondering what you are doing and what milestones Nicolas has reached in my absence.

I think of your voice, soft and kind, when the Sergeant is screaming at us to be brave, to fight for King and country. I think of you as the bombs are blasting apart the world, louder than thunder as they shake the earth to its core. When my hands tremble as I try and reload my gun, I think of you.

You are my only comfort through icy days and freezing nights; when the stars glitter in a cloudless night sky and all is still and silent, I think of you and wonder if you're thinking of me too.

I hope Nicolas is well, my handsome boy. I hope he knows how much I love him. I pray that he never has to experience war. I pray that he only ever knows peace, not destruction and death.

When it's quiet, which is rare, and not a soul dares to break the silence, I imagine what Nicky will look like when he is grown. Will he have your smile? My jawline? Your humour? My stubbornness and  determination? Alas, I cannot know until I return. For now, he will forever be preserved in my memory as the gorgeous chubby baby he was when I left.

I hope that you are finding reasons to laugh every day. Remember you promised me you would.

God, I wish I was sleeping by your side, warm in our bed. I wish I could smell you again, breathe you in as you sleep in my arms, safe and protected in our little cocoon.

I wish I could feel your skin beneath my fingers, your fingers tangled in my hair as we make love by the fire, like we did so many times before I left.

I catch myself daydreaming, remembering the things we used to do together before I left. Having breakfast in the kitchen, reading the paper over coffee. Walking through the park on Sunday afternoon, as the birds chirp and Nicky gurgles in his pram. Listening to the radio with Nicky asleep in my arms as you sew, your tongue stuck between your lips as you concentrated on not stabbing yourself with the needle.

And when I feel that I am starting to lose myself in this God forsaken place, I imagine myself playing for you and Nicky. I can even feel the guitar strings taut against my fingers as I close my eyes and see myself playing him to sleep like I used to. His brown eyes softly closing, Teddy clutched tightly in one chubby pink hand.

I wish that this blasted war were over. I wish I'd never left. I would give anything to return home to you and Nicky and make all my wishes come true.

I shall dream of you tonight, my love, as I always do.

Forever yours,

Tom

**

Diary of Thomas S. Holland
Private in His Majesty's British Expeditionary Force

I cannot tell her. I cannot tell her how truly God damn bloody awful it is. I cannot tell her what it's like to hear men scream for mercy, to a God I no longer believe in to save them. How in their final piteous moments even the fiercest will beg for their mothers, bleating like a newborn lamb. How even when they are long gone I can still hear the echo of their pleas, rattling around my skull as I try to sleep. I know that I will never forget their cries, carrying them with me till my own end.

I cannot tell her how the stench of death permeates everything. Even after we have cleared the dead and buried them. Even after we have washed our hands of the blood and soil. It is like a worm, burying itself deep within until it is a part of you, poisoning you slowly until you become a dead man walking, a husk of your former self, an empty shell immune to the horrors around you. But I am not immune, not yet, and I fear that I shall never lose the smell of decaying flesh and rotten blood, no matter how many times I scrub my hands raw.

I cannot tell her just how violently my hands shake when the bombs are blasting apart the earth, or how it feels like you're suffocating when the dirt and rocks fall, threatening to bury you alive in the trench. As I write this now my hands are trembling, making my writing appear as nothing more than a childish scrawl.

The silence is as bad as the bombs, all of us afraid to breathe too deeply for fear of tearing open the sky with sound. At least when the bombs are falling you know you're alive.

But all of this I cannot tell her. I cannot tell Nora how afraid I am, how utterly petrified I am that I may never seeing her or Nicky again.

She is my anchor, and I will cling to my memories of her with every fibre of my being until I am safe in her arms again. I replay them over and over in my head, and have begun to write them down to preserve them perfectly in my memory.

I can see her before me, hair coming loose from its pins, eyes bright and watery as she tries to hold back tears at the train station. We'd said goodbye so many times and yet we couldn't resist kissing through the train window, Nicky pressed tightly between us. As the train began to pull away, we continued to kiss until we couldn't any longer and even then Nora held my hand tightly, running along until the train picked up too much speed. As I write this memory, I can see her as if she is before me now, standing at the end of the platform, smoke billowing around her as she clutches Nicky and lets her sobs flow freely.

I've started to recite my vows to her. With my eyes closed, I can remember the day we were married in perfect detail. The church pews wreathed in silk ribbons with babys breath, the organ humming as she walked down the aisle, radiant, luminous, glowing like an angel from Heaven. How she had smiled at me, her eyes brimming with tears of joy, sneaking a quick peck on my cheek before the minister could begin. How it had been to become one with her that night, our bodies joined in ecstasy as our souls fused together, completing our union.

But the illusion is shattered as the sky is ripped open and it's back to surviving another attack.

I cannot tell her.

I cannot tell her.

I cannot tell her.