Rain, Thunder, Faces

Rain, Thunder, Faces

The sun smiled as its summer rays filled the world with light and life. The weather was hot, but not so hot as to prevent you from sitting on the porch with a glass of lemonade while you watched the world with quiet wonder and blissful contentment.

The old man watched intensely, drinking in all the world was bestowing him just as surely as he was drinking the delightfully tart lemonade his sweet wife had made for him. For 40 years he had done this. For 40 years he had drunk in these summers gluttonously, for he knew what it was like to live outside the sun’s grace. Outside it’s warmth. Outside the wonder of absolute and blissful silence. 

“Grandpa?”

The old man turned, his hand putting down the glass of lemonade so gently, one might have thought they were the Crown Jewels.

“What is it, Jack?” he asked the boy of ten sitting a few feet away.

“Is it true that you fought in World War One?”

The one man blinked as the warmth of the Sun suddenly drained away.

“Yes,” he answered, offering no more.

“I only ask because…well…Dad never talks about his time in the army, no matter how much I ask, so…” the boy eyed him with anxious hope,” would you tell me a little about your time in the war?”

The silence faded just as the warmth had, and was soon replaced by a thousand different noises in the old man’s ears. He closed his eyes and slowly reached out with a shaky hand for the lemonade. He grasped it as firmly as he could before he slowly brought it to his lips and took a long, deliberate sip. Slowly, ever so slowly, those haunting noises fell silent again. Except for one.

“Well…firstly, we didn’t call it World War One back then, for obvious reasons,” he began as his eyes opened. “We called it, The Great War or, even more foolishly, the War to End All Wars. If only it was so,” he added to himself quietly as he put the glass back down.

Jack moved closer, his eyes filled with boyish interest and he knew, with great dread, that he was being compelled to say more.

“But if you’re asking what I remember from the Great War…well, the thing I remember most would be the rain… … …”

*

Rain bounced off their helmets in a constant…relentless symphony of ‘plinks’. 

He kept his head held high despite the weariness of his body, not out of some sense of righteous duty or thanks to some inexhaustible heroic engine within him. No, it was simply because he had learned long ago that if he let the exhaustion take hold and slumped over, the rain, instead of bouncing off his steel helmet with that cacophony of ‘plinks’, would fall directly onto his neck. From there, those icy droplets would descend down his back, making him even wetter, colder, and more miserable than he already was. They would soak into his skin, then the muscle, then the very bone until his very soul felt like it was soaking in an ice bath. So he kept his head up as he stood at his post, occasionally taking a view at No Man’s Land through the observation binoculars that permitted him to view the wasteland without getting shot by an enemy sniper. 

“Corporal.”

He turned and found one of the new recruits behind him. The boy couldn’t have been older than 19, not that he himself would be considered an old man. He wasn’t even 30, but this boy looked like a teenager fresh out of the classroom. He’d only arrived a couple days earlier so the rain, mud, rats, artillery, and other miseries of the trenches hadn’t done their work on him yet.

Yet, he thought as his eyes bore into the recruit’s still youthful face. “What is it, private?”

“The lieutenant told me to tell the platoon that we’ll be going over the top within 24 hours,” the boy responded nervously.

At least he’s smart enough not to be excited, he noted before nodding at the young soldier. “Understood.”

The private saluted and ran off, leaving him to his thoughts.

This’ll be my thirteenth time over the top, he realized. Unlucky number thirteen. 

*

He fell silent, though the ‘plink plink plink’ kept resounding in his ears.

“Those days in the rain and the mud were pretty miserable,” he finally muttered. “Those days are the reason why I like sunny summer days like this one so much.”

His grandson nodded and for a moment the two simply looked out onto the sun-drenched world and let the warmth soak into their bones.

The warmth slowly began to burn away the feeling of soaking cold that had crept up from his soul as the old memories were brought forth. Yet, the relief was short lived as his grandson spoke up once more.

“What else do you remember, Grandpa?” Jack asked, though now there was a bit of hesitation mixed in with his previous enthusiasm. 

The ‘plink plink plink’ faded away into silent nothingness, only to be replaced by a new, booming sound.

“I remember…the thunder of artillery… … …”

*

The symphony, once a gentle song, almost melodious in its soft relentlessness, was now a cavalcade of thunderous roars that resounded up to the highest halls of Heaven and shook the Earth down to its darkest, fiery depths. Like a thousand thousand miniature eruptions, the artillery boomed and cracked and thundered, smashing the enemy’s lines, smashing their lines, and turning the desolation of No Man’s Land into an even more miserable quagmire of mud, debris, shrapnel, and destruction.

He kept his head down, as he had a hundred times before, while doing his best to keep himself and his fellow soldiers sane and ready for battle.

BOOM!

His head turned as a geyser of mud and rock flew into the air about 100 feet away, obliterating a part of their line of trenches.

300 millimeter howitzer, he guessed before cursing the enemy guncrew’s accuracy and cursing his own artillery for falling to knock out the monstrous warmachine. They expect us to do our job when they can’t even theirs! He thought bitterly before shaking his head. Thoughts like that didn’t help. Thoughts like that convinced you to retreat. To refuse orders. To munity. Thoughts like that led to a firing squad and a letter home that led to shame-filled tears.

He took a deep breath.

It’s going to be alright. The artillery is doing its job. The guns will be knocked out, the trenches will be damaged, the barbed wire will be cut, and you will make it home.

He let out a breath and tightened his grip on his rifle.

Things will be alright, he assured himself as the artillery continued to thunder around him.

*

Jack swallowed, barely managing to force down the terrible mixture of nervousness and shame he was now feeling.

“T-That must have been scary,” he finally mumbled, his eyes filled with the apology he was too young to articulate and too afraid to speak even if had the maturity and knowledge to find the right words

His grandfather nodded.

“It was. Especially since no one told us what it was going to be like when we volunteered. I suppose they couldn’t. Many of those who did the recruiting didn’t know either and those that did…well…we wouldn’t have gone had they told us the truth.”

Silence fell over the two again, but this time they didn’t stare out at the bright world, nor did they feel the warmth of the summer’s day.

“Y-You don’t have to tell me anymore, Grandpa. I’m…” the boy fell silent, still too ashamed by what his naive interest had summoned forth from his grandfather’s past.

His grandfather was silent for a time, long enough that it appeared that he was going to accept his grandson’s offer, only for him to begin again.

“The last thing I really remember…were the faces. The faces of the enemy…of the fallen…and of those few of us who made it back.”

*

The whistle had blown and they had begun their attack, climbing over the muddy cliffs of their trenches to enter No Man’s Land.

For a blissful moment, it had appeared that the artillery had done its job and battered the enemy into submission. That moment ended when the enemy machine-guns unleashed their fury, sending a scythe of bullets cutting through the field of men arrayed so delicately before them.

He and the others not initially cut down found cover, returned fire, then began to crawl, run, hop, and dive their way towards the enemy trenches. At last, after what seemed to be half a lifetime playing their cruel mix of tag and hide-and-go-seek, they got close enough to the enemy trenches to throw their grenades. A moment later, a series of small explosions and cries of pain signaled that their path into the enemy trenches had been opened and they charged.

He saw the faces of three enemies, all arrayed around a now destroyed machine-gun upon entering the trench. All three of them were wide-eyed with shock and pain, and all three faces were covered in mud and blood. For a brief moment, he felt that normal, human horror at seeing a corpse, but it was quickly squashed when the enemy shouts and cries of alarm reached his ears.

He and his squad charged forward, delving deeper into the enemy trenches. They caught two more foes unaware and shot them before they could do more than recognize that they were about to die. Then a shot rang out and the man next to him fell, his wide-eyes staring up at his comrades while they took cover.

There was an exchange of gunfire and grenades, though he could not remember how long it lasted. It must not have been for that long for he still had ammunition left and a grenade to throw by the end. However long the firefight lasted, eventually the enemy began to retreat and his sergeant ordered them to charge and drive the enemy back. They had done so with a furious warcry that, though a ferocious cocktail or rage and determination, was muffled by the unrelenting rain, the thunder of artillery, and the cries of fallen men.

The enemy had been shocked by their charge and barely managed even a couple of shots before he and his comrades were upon them. Three enemies fell to their bayonets, including his own. However, the enemy recovered enough to shoot his sergeant, who fell a yard away from him. He still remembered how stern his sergeant looked, even in  death.

A bloodthirsty shout brought him back to the battle and he turned to see an enemy soldier, a face full of contempt, rushing towards him with a shovel. He had barely managed to pull out of range before the man swung, aiming to cleave his head from his shoulders. He tried to skewer the man with his bayonet like he had done before, but the maddened foe had batted away the rifle with his shovel before giving off another unearthly howl. That eerie, ungodly sound was the last one the man ever made as, a moment later, he was shot through the chest and fell backwards into the mud, his face still stretched out in that wrathful glare.

He turned and, to his surprise, found the young private behind him, rifled raised. The private turned to him and nodded, all hints of boyishness gone.

He nodded back then ordered his men forward to find more faces.

*

He blinked when he felt small, warm arms wrap around his torso.

“Y-You…you don’t need t-to share a-anymore G-Grandpa. I-I’m…I’m s-s-sorry f-for…a-asking a-a-about…” Jack didn’t finish, but merely buried his head deeper into his grandfather’s chest as his arms tightened around the older man’s body.

“Oh my boy,” he whispered as he hugged the boy, “I should be the one apologizing. I should not have told you such stories, but kept silent like your father or, if I was to speak on them, I should have shared happier tales.”

“T-There were happy tales?” his grandson asked, pulling back from his grandfather’s chest.

“Oh yes. I made some life-long friends in the army, including that private I told you about. Many of them I still write to and visit when I can. It was also thanks to my time in the army that I had the courage to ask your grandmother on a date. I was such a shy boy before the war, but afterwards, well…” he smiled, “talking to a pretty girl didn’t seem so scary.”

That dried Jack’s tears, though it was clear that he was still upset and feeling guilty. Seeing that, he pulled the lad up into his lap.

“War is an awful thing, Jack, which is why I don’t blame your father for not wanting to speak about it. That said, if there is one thing that war is good for, it’s in teaching those who have suffered through it the value of life and of living as well as they can. That’s why,” he held up his glass of lemonade, “I always drink my lemonade nice and slow. That’s why I savor these summer days. That’s why every morning when I wake up and every evening before I sleep, I give your grandmother a big old kiss!”

His grandson laughed.

“Ew Grandpa!”

“And,” his grandfather continued with a warm smile, “it’s why every moment I spend with you is more precious to me than a mountain of gold.”

Jack’s face fell.

“Even though I made you remember something bad?”

“My boy, those memories were always there,” his grandfather told him, “but those dark times allowed me to become who I am. Turned me into the man that could ask out your grandmother, which allowed me to marry her, have your father, and which eventually led to you,” he smiled gently at the boy. “So, as dark as those memories are, I don’t mind them, because I will always remember that, in the end, it all led to you.”