Foxholes

Missing in action.  

That’s what they said. A phrase so indefinite- I can imagine him walking back through the cloud of smoke and snowfall and slinking back into our foxhole to tell me all about it. A phrase which always invites questions in my mind. Is he still walking? Does he know I’m still waiting?  

I’m sure he’d laugh at how I’ve turned out.  

I still see him. In dreams, in drunken stupors, mistaken in strangers. He’s never aged as I have, no joint pain or creases, he isn’t missing any limbs. No scars or thinning hair, no bed wetting or dry heaving. Just as boyish as he was there, in the cold, his long eyelashes glowing against terrific explosions.  

Maybe two years after the war had ended and I had been discharged, I visited his parents. Not for any noble reason– I didn’t go to console them or reassure them. I was curious, confused and rather lonely.  

They lived in Mobile, Alabama in a bleach-white plantation house. All pillars, an open field with well-groomed hedge groves, and big, friendly family dogs napping on the wood like something in a holiday card.  

People look older in person. In the pictures he kept in his breast pocket, they were all smiles, hair in tight curls, hot-dogs in hands at the beach. But his folks were actually quite frail, his mother especially. She reached for a plate of boiled potatoes when we sat for dinner, his father beside her while I sat on the opposite end of the table—like a job interview. I got a whiff of her perfume– nauseously strong, roses and vanilla. Her hands trembled and the potatoes started dancing, until, after what felt like ten minutes, she gave up and the plate resumed its place in between the carrots and mustard. 

His father, a wide man with square glasses, cleared his throat and stared at me. 

‘Our Richard,’ he started—I couldn’t find any way to sit comfortably in my chair without my pelvis jutting out, ‘he’s not held up somewhere? they haven’t told us anything.’ 

I chewed on a mouthful of steak and potatoes methodically. I had practiced my answer so many times, but as I sat there, I was struck by the emptiness— and the still water of thought when I swallowed. They were of course the army. If I hadn’t been where I was then I’m sure I would have agreed quite profusely– it would have been a near impossible feat to contact Richard’s parents had he not told me about them in the boredom of war.  

‘No sir,’ 

‘No to what?’ 

‘What?’ I said, jarred. 

He crossed his arms over his chest and made a gurgling noise. 

‘Son,’ he leaned his body towards me, his stomach pressing against the table, ‘is our Richard dead?’ 

Richard’s mother made an ugly noise, like stepping on a bird, and her fork clattered against the table. I cleared my throat, checked my watch, made a quick glance into the kitchen for a housekeeper to save me and interrupted with pudding but it was startlingly quiet except for our hard breathing. 

‘Mr. Clark,’ I ran a hand through my hair, ‘if anybody knows anything on the whereabouts of Richard, you will be the first to know.’ I knew it was rather a non-answer, something a serviceman says to shut you up, but it was all I could say without my stomach turning up my dinner. 

He nodded anyway, I wasn’t sure what it meant but something in the air calmed and he went back to hacking his steak– the table vibrating slightly.  

Mrs. Clark was recovering herself. I was still adjusting to the courtesies I had abandoned in Europe, and I sat stupidly– fiddling with my fingers until it was impossible to ignore her staring.  

‘Did you see him before he disappeared?’ She asked. I coughed into my fist. 

 In fact, I did. 

 I racked my brain over every detail of it, trying to understand what he was thinking, or what I should have said to stop him. 

‘No ma’am.’  

She nodded sadly, picking at little bits of boiled vegetables. It was dark out; the wind rattled the shutters, and I could hear someone calling for the dogs– and the slight clatter of paws and nails against the patio.  

‘Does he have friends, of course besides yourself?’  

‘Yes ma’am, he is quite the talker.’ They smiled at this. 

‘Yes, he is,’ Mr. Clark said. 

As if someone had pressed a little button on a doll, Mrs. Clark’s eyes lit up– sparkling against the candles– she seemed to decrease in age right in front of me.  

‘How about some cherry cobbler?’  

My stomach full of sugar and starch, I left through a pathed forest into town. I had drunk too much, and everything was very distant– and I felt terribly sleepy.  

The trees sagged– I could see my breath blooming in front of me and gusts of wind slapping it away. The air smelt of dirt and rotten leaves. 

 I unbuttoned my collar, craning my neck when I heard a twig snap some twenty yards from me. I don’t remember how it happened really, in the darkness and the silence–-but I was suddenly struck by how vulnerable I felt and how alone I was.  

I was sprinting as fast as I could. 

I had abandoned the path completely-ducking my body- but I thought of all the men who had gone crazy, the ones thrashing to run away, it didn’t matter where, and I realized who I was in my sprinting.  

I reached to steady my helmet, of course there was nothing there. So many thoughts were racing, and in the flurried, drunken madness I did not see the thick tree branch right ahead of me.  

It smacked hard across my forehead, and I fell flat on my back. I thought I was dying. Everything was spinning and I thought my skull had exploded in my confusion. I tasted blood and I couldn't quite find any ground to plant my hands into. 

I rolled to my side and realized it wasn’t blood at all, but my dog tag in my mouth, regardless, I was there. It wasn’t Alabama anymore, and I was afraid it never would be. I looked through the foliage, into the tall grass and remaining leaves floating down into the thickets, and I could see Richard.  

He was there, as he always was when I started thinking–- always his back turned away from me, his rifle hanging aimlessly on his shoulder, his helmet at a slight tilt– walking away.  

In the explosions, and mortars, I couldn’t hear a thing– it was almost as if I was alone in that field, in the sea of terror, like I had died in the night and awoken in some frozen hell had I not been holding onto Richard. 

Tree branches and big, dense clumps of snow would fall over us. We could hear men shouting, ‘stay in your foxholes!’ So, no matter what happened, that's what we did. I tried to look out into the forest ahead of us, but they were invisible.  

There was a tight whistle and then I couldn’t see anything. Snow erupted from the ground; I could taste dirt in my mouth—something collapsed over our plastic roof. I heard Richard gasping for air and then something soft brush against my skin. It felt almost like flower petals, but they were so quick it was like running through a swarm of butterflies. 

 It was pieces of shrapnel, blowing straight across my face. I hadn’t even felt it gashing my skin. It was the strangest sensation, like I had dipped my face into water, dribbling from my chin, blocking my nose, and filling my ears. I opened my eyes, but I couldn’t see a thing—and then suddenly there was a terrific amount of noise, of movement, of shadows and light coming and going and everything tasted thick, viscous.  

‘Oh God.’ I could hear Richard. His voice far away and muffled. One eyelid finally opened, thick like glue, and I saw him reaching for me. 

He was cleaning my eyes out with big, petting hands, his mouth opening like a fish, he was talking, his eyes darting, looking through the fog for an enemy we would never see. 

‘O Lord,’ I could hear Richard praying, ‘help us restore peace, help us find salvation, guide us towards a life of loving and being loved.’ His heavy hands still clumsily rubbing against my face, pulling my eyelids open for brief moments in time, where I could see him, his face scrunched up, tears dribbling down his neck like a little baby. 

‘O Lord, my God,’ I could hear him saying, his voice further and further away until everything disappeared into a dark, cool water. 

The sun finally rose. I thought I was dreaming— it must have been blood loss, but nothing felt quite real. I wasn’t afraid, even when I investigated Richard’s face, ugly with fear, I didn’t feel a thing.  

‘You think I need stitches?’ I asked, draining the last of my water to wash my face of crust. My eyebrows and cheeks were pretty cut up, everything tasted rancid, of rusty coins and dirt, but I didn’t feel terrible, not enough to fall back— I did not want to leave Richard alone. 

‘No, I don’t think so,’ he said, smiling halfheartedly, ‘try sleep, I’ll wake you up if Doc comes.’  

Sleep would be impossible.  

We were short on everything– my boots were useless, Richard couldn’t feel his toes, we suspected trench foot. We didn’t have anything warm to eat, crackers tasted like bark, and nobody had any morphine. 

      ‘God damnit,’ he said, rubbing his feet over his socks. ‘Where’s Doc, man.’ 

 I didn’t say anything. I sat, slack jawed, staring past the empty field, in between the dark shadows of the trees. I felt Richard’s face close to mine. 

‘You think you're gonna see a fox?’ 

‘What?’ 

‘You think there's any foxes living here?’ He asked. 

‘I’m sure they’re all dead by now.’  

‘I don’t know, I swear I saw one. You got a smoke?’ 

‘No, ran out yesterday,’ I said, annoyed. 

‘Shit, me too.’  

It was hard to imagine only several hours before this the world seemed to have been ending. I shut my eyes so tightly I was almost afraid they’d never open again. We grimaced so hard in the terror that for a long time afterwards, it was impossible to imagine we could ever smile again—as crazy as sprouting wings and flying away.  

I watched a low cloud float down against the backdrop of picturesque winter. Whoever might be out there disappeared under the fog and my white breath.  

Richard was rubbing his hands together, shuffling next to me and talking to himself.  

‘Hey,’ I grabbed his shoulder, ‘You get any letters yesterday?’ 

‘No, nothing’ he paused, ‘you?’  

‘From Patsy.’  

He sat up like a little schoolboy and I laughed.  

‘What she say? Send any pictures?’ 

‘None for you, asshole.’  

‘Cmon what she say?’ 

‘She got into college— English Lit apparently, wants to be a writer,’ I said coolly.  

‘A writer?’ 

‘Yup.’ 

He took his helmet off and ran a hand through his hair—which was stiff with dirt and sweat.  

‘Well, everybody wants to be a writer,’ he said, resting his head against the earth behind us. ‘After all this, I think I’ll go to college—study poetry and kiss a bunch of broads,’ he said, smiling at nothing. 

I laughed.  

It was almost peculiar— we rarely spoke about the future, beyond the next hour and mail days— it was too hard. We communicated in Laters and see you rounds, everything else was too far away, too impossible, and if I could find any tangible future, like everybody else, I was too afraid to hold it, in case I had jinxed it, or cursed myself and in fact it might never happen.   

‘Yeah well, what are you gonna do? Marry Patsy?’ He asked 

We were both facing the forest again, our laughter fizzling out into a slight melancholy, the sobering realization of where we were, and how far away everything else seemed to be.  

I didn’t know what I was going to do after it all, I still do not know entirely. The reward of surviving was the core of my stamina then, as it is now— everything else seems to be less important, perhaps even void of my attention.  

‘I don’t know, I haven’t given it much thought at all,’ I said, and I meant it.  

The sun was starting to set again, we hadn’t moved except for when Richard had to crawl out of our foxhole to take a piss. I could hear him swearing through the cold, and the scuffling of his body against the snow as he climbed back in again.  

Nobody had moved positions, despite the dismay of our company. Of course, I was afraid the enemy had found some routine, or an understanding— it did not seem outlandish; they'd target the same areas again, perhaps it would be Richard tonight, whether he was as lucky as myself was impossible to say.  

I felt my stomach lurching—I was afraid, as I knew Richard was, of our bodies being thrown out of our foxhole, left to thaw in the spring when the ice finally melted— would we even be recognizable by then? Would there be anybody left to care except each other? 

It was getting darker; I could hear quiet murmuring around us—as if creatures of the forest. We seemed to be permanent fixtures of the land, just as any deer or rat might have been. The air was so cold, and dry, I’m sure we smoked as much as we did to avoid it, among other reasons.  

I had my rifle pointed into the forest ahead of me, as was Richard’s. He was craning his neck, his nose outside our dugout, his eyes squinting at something.  

‘What?’ I asked, confused, and slightly disturbed. There wasn’t anything to look at, beyond the shadows and terrific darkness of the trees, the snow had turned a deep blue in the night, as if we were a floating rock in the ocean. It was so dark, but Richard had his rifle limp in his hands, his back bending slowly, his spine a straight bridge reaching for the forest.  

‘Did you see that?’  

‘See what, Dick?’  

He raised his right arm and pointed. I was getting frustrated; I thought maybe he was going mad but that was impossible.  

‘It’s a fox.’  

I leaned my head next to his, our cheeks touching but there was still nothing.  

‘Seriously Richard, I can’t see a thing– really you should hold that thing properly before you shoot my foot.’  

‘You’re not trying hard enough; I can see it— I thought they had all runaway by now.’ His face was brighter— much like his mother's, pointy, like a hawk. ‘Where do you think it’s going,’ he asked, his body rising, his head peeking out of our foxhole.  

‘It doesn’t matter, get back inside, Dick.’ He didn’t seem to hear me. ‘Richard, please.’  

He dropped his rifle, which rocked against his hip. He had lifted his weight and was crawling out of our foxhole— I thought he had gone crazy.  

‘It’s a fucking fox Richard, you’re gonna kill us both.’ Richard looked back at me, lying on the snow. 

 He grabbed my helmet with both of his hands. I thought he was going to shake me, but I felt him pulling me closer. 

 He kissed my helmet, then his breath on my skin.  

‘I just want to see it before I settle, I can’t stand any more waiting.’ Before I could really comprehend what he was saying, he had disappeared— a thick cloud muffling the sound of his shoes in the snow. 

I stood stupidly, even in my shock I thought he would come back, if not for my own piece of mind, for his survival. 

But he never did.  

I looked out as hard as I could, there wasn’t a fox, and I couldn’t see Richard at all, or anything for that matter. It felt like it was just me again, alone as the world had erupted, left with the blank remains, as God had made earth on its first preconception. 

And I waited. 

When I sat up in the forest, dazed— it seemed an eternity ago that I had been chewing stiff steak in the Clarks' home. 

I felt my head had expanded, swelling so tightly that I could sprout horns. The branch I hit was looming over me, like an outstretched arm. 

The trees had a quiet rhythm, it was not terribly dark, and the air was crisp. The path had disappeared, but I was not afraid. I felt the warm sensation of alcohol making its rounds in my body, as if an ember carrying through my veins.  

I dusted my pants of dry, grey dirt when I heard a twig snap again. Instead of running, I stayed as still as I could, my legs so tense I thought I might topple sideways. I craned my neck as far as it could go, my spine curving.  

It was beginning to hurt when I saw it. Some twenty yards from me.  

A great bushy tail, two eyes like glowing moons, fur brushed against the wind in long sweeping waves.  

A red fox, no bigger than a hunting dog, wading through the birch, slinking through the forest.  

I started to follow.