the good die young - part 1

(tw: war, mentions of injury/disease, death)

He was tired and hungry, but most of all, Carl was filthy. A few days ago the water supply had run out, and sweat and grime built up fast. He remembered something about being able to make soap from tallow, but his superiors deemed ammunition too valuable to waste on hunting animals. At least until they knew if the next shipment would arrive.

What water they could acquire through spiles or flimsy water-purifying systems was strictly rationed. With so many injured, a healthy soldier got maybe 1000 ml of clean drinking water a day, if he was lucky. There was nothing left over to wash with.

When diseases started to spread, the decision was made to separate the sick or injured and the healthy. The ill stayed behind while the healthy ventured out to dig out a new pit a couple hundred meters away. With some branches and ropes, the new shelter actually turned out decent. Sure, they were sleeping in the dirt, but they were protected from wind and rain. And hey, at least they had an abundance of tarpaulin.

No, what kept Carl up at night wasn’t the small rocks digging into his back or even the snoring of his sergeant, but his friend. Roughly three weeks ago, Frederick got injured when a faulty landmine detonated. The explosion was minimal, but the four soldiers who had been scouting the area were still caught in the blast. Frederick had been the only one to survive, but he didn’t get away unscathed. Shrapnel had torn into his leg. The two field surgeons did what they could, but in conditions like these infection was imminent. On top of that he lost a good part of his hearing on his right.

They didn’t know each other all too well before this, but finding out they’d be drafted had brought them together. They were the only ones from their hamlet. The rigorous training and shared love for vintage American country bonded them quicker than most. And now, Frederick laid clinging to life just on the other side of a grove of oak and a little stream. At least, as far as Carl knew. No one but an occasional medic was allowed to move between the two camps, lest the second one get infected also and it would all be for naught.

Now, staring up at the stars, he thought of how his life had been before. He didn’t remember much. When Carl and Frederick were sent away, there had been protesters lined up outside the train. Pacifists. His mother was in that crowd, and his sister beside her. During the first week he would pull out a little picture of them to help him sleep, but it had been lost to a fire after their first settlement was raided by enemy soldiers. For every passing day their faces grew blurrier in his memory, but the thought of them was enough to keep him standing yet.

The first months were the worst, at the height of summer when the sun would beat down on them. The air was humid and thick. No matter how deep they dug their trenches it was impossible to escape the heat. But now the leaves were turning and the planet was shifting, and autumn was arriving. The lower temperatures would have been a relief, if they hadn’t brought with them the anxiety of winter. It had been just about two months since they had last received any word from their generals. The sergeants were quick to shut down any doubt spoken aloud, but even they felt the gnawing doubt for their future. They would not survive the snow out here if conditions didn’t improve, and soon.

Rolling over on his side, he poked the shoulder of the soldier laying next to him. Private Ryan. Hulk, they called him. On arrival he had been the scrawniest man there, several pounds underweight. He had bright red hair and his face was speckled with freckles, but his eyes were a deep black and his smile was kind. “Hey, Ryan,” Carl poked him again. His eyes fluttered open, though they were hardly distinguishable in the dark. “I need to take a leak.”

The redhead was still for a minute, so much so that Carl was starting to doubt he was actually awake, until he shook his head. “No way. Wait until morning.”

Carl sat up. “I can’t. It’s urgent.” And, with a reluctant sigh, Ryan got up as well. On the way out of the pit they were quiet, careful not to wake anyone. They stepped over limbs and appendages, until they finally reached the edge and climbed up onto the grass. From there, they kept on walking, stumbling over roots and narrowly ducking under branches.

They practically knew this forest by heart in the daylight, but no one was allowed to split from the group at night. Stumbling through the verdure, they finally reached a little clearing lit up by the stars.

“Well, are you gonna do it? Or are we staying out all night?” Ryan remarked, agitation growing the further they got from camp.

“No, I just…” Carl sighed. “I needed to breathe, you know?”

Ryan huffed, but didn’t berate him. The more time passed, the heavier the atmosphere grew in the pit. When the scheduled delivery didn’t arrive, people assumed something had gone wrong. When weeks passed, new suspicions started to arise. They walked a little further, until Carl’s foot hit something that definitely wasn’t a root. It was too soft to be a tree, too solid to be vegetation. Looking down, it took a while to register what they saw.

Had he been alone, Carl would have thought the sleep deprivation had finally gotten to him. That his eyes betrayed him in the dark, or that he was straight up hallucinating. But Ryan saw it too. He drew back with a horrified breath, gaze frozen on the half-buried object.

No matter how long you spend on the battlefield, you never get fully desensitized to the sight of a dead body.