The Necessity of Human Company

As I awoke that morning, fresh snow covering my jacket and every other surface as far as the eye could see, it dawned on me that this was going to be my morning for the foreseeable future. Of all the stupid decisions in my life, this was definitely the worst; these mornings paled in comparison to the other grave consequences of my immense exuberance I’d seen so far. And stupid naïveté, don’t let me forget that. 

I laid against the wall, my nose numb from the cold and upper lip touched with frost, small flakes crackling as my mouth twitched and the fine hairs of the stubble I’d neglected to shave came apart from one another. The longer time went on, the less eager I was to get up, knowing the bitter cold would rush at my neck and hands the moment I stood and go running down the back of my tunic as I shook the glittering powder from my coat.

Thankfully, time waits for no man, no less my lazy backside and so my solution instead came to me in the form of my brother quietly sneaking up the way in my direction.

He was looking over his shoulder shiftily so I waited until he was near me before whispering, “What are you up to?”

“Jesus Christ!” He hissed, jumping and almost spilling the two cups I had now noticed in his hands all down his front, “What did you do that for?!” He crept over and sat at my feet.

I stifled a laugh, lowering my chin under my jacket to put the air in my lungs to good use and exhaled a warm breath in the direction of my stinging fingers. I then answered the man, “What’re you doin’ then?”

“Doing you a favour, that’s what I’m doing,” he held out a cup in my direction.

I leant as far forward as I could bear before icy wind began rudely crawling under my jacket, and peered into the small metal container to have a gander at the liquid inside. Quite frankly, it looked like he’d gone and scooped the water from a hole out there over the wall, steaming and pale brown it was. 

“What is it?” I turned my nose up; it certainly didn’t look like any cup of tea I’d had before.

“Can you just f-in’ take it?” He said in a hushed whisper, his characteristic short-tempered frustration causing a spike in his pitch. 

Reluctantly, I removed my hands from the warmth beneath the coat, wincing as chilling air rushed over them and made them burn bright red. I took the cup and held it to my face, the instant joy from the steam as it flowed noiselessly across my features bringing a gratified smile to my face and allowing my eyelids to fall comfortably closed. 

At last I had a moment to think, my mind calming as much as it could in a place like this and thoughts finally separating themselves from the congealed pile of muck that sat in the center of my head to organised and rational ideas in their own space, allowed to breathe at last. I’m no expert in psychology, and besides this is the 20th century, but I feel certain things I have seen and heard are of such that no living being should ever witness, let alone live with in silence as it wore out their sanity in their remaining days left on this planet. I was glad I had my brothers to share these feelings with, I probably would’ve have gone quite mad otherwise and despite what may come, I always had their compassion to fall back on, I could count on that much and—

“Don’t fall asleep and bloody spill it!” 

And immediately I was snapped back to the land of the living.

“If Captain Cukoo found out I’d nicked these, I’m done for. No more clubbin’ with you lot for at least a month, probably more,” my companion continued to complain as I shuffled upright and took another look at this mystery liquid.

As I watched him take a sip, I felt somewhat confident, well about one percent, that he was not indeed playing a prank as I had first thought, and decided to place the metal to my lips.

The taste, so familiar and yet so far away. I knew what it was straight away of course, it was hot chocolate, but I hadn’t had it for at least ten years or more.

“How the bloody hell have you got ahold of that?” I asked as I dipped the tip of my probably frostbitten nose into the swirling elixir. 

“Don’t tell anyone—“

“—Well, of course I won’t.”

He sat for a second with an unimpressed deadpan before drawing a deep breath, “But, they were handin’ it round for the officers and I thought I’d pinch a couple. Please don’t let the others find out, I only have two pockets and if you’d come with, we might’ve got enough for everyone but I didn’t want to wake you up and they’ve probably finished ‘em all off up there now anyway,” he gestured back with his head the direction he’d come from.

I raised an eyebrow upon hearing how genuinely apologetic he was about our friends, “I won’t. I promise,” I assured, placing my cup down and finally putting my coat on properly, shaking it of its unwanted passenger and running my arms through the dry sleeves I’d turned out the night before. I then sat down up against the man and sighed heavily, sipping the chocolate restrictively to try and savour it for as long as I could as well as the unexpected moment of solace that came with it. 

“When do you think this’ll be over?” I said quietly.

It took a long time for him to answer, which shocked me as he’d usually have a clever comeback prepared in advance for such a question, before he eventually answered me, grimly, “I don’t know. I don’t know if it will end.”

I opened my mouth to say something, holding my tongue upon realising how fatalistic it sounded.

He caught on and looked at my profile as I stared forward at the frozen ground, “Don’t tell me, you were about to say it will end one way or another for us regardless?”

“Oh don’t,” I shook my head, “I don’t want it to be true but I don’t see any other way this is gonna go.”

“Well, we’ll just have to make sure we go out with a bang if that’s the way God intends it,” he nudged my arm before wrapping his around me, pulling me into a tight hug which we shared in silence. 

I never know how long that moment did last after all and I suppose now I never will. It was nice though. I remember the sound of whistling finally breaking that silence, our brothers coming up the trench to mither us about something or other, no doubt. I hope one day to see them again but I pray that day is far away. If you were there with us, you would too.