Chapter Text
10 August 1915
It was a mistake to think that I would return home, could embrace my family once again and see my dear little sisters grow up. It was all a mistake. This needless war, all the horrors of which even the most calloused heart cannot bear, this campaign and every battle that does not seem to bring victory even an inch closer.
For a fortnight we have been huddled in this trench, time after time trying to move forward, time after time climbing out with inspired cries and the hope that a new day would dawn for us. Only by some miracle am I still alive and sitting here on the soil soaked with the blood of those less fortunate. From all those men with whom I left home, with whom I sat on the train taking further and further away from homeland to the ocean, with whom we became brothers, shoulder to shoulder in battle, I am the only one left.
It's getting progressively harder to retain sanity in this madness. The rumble of artillery and the crackle of machine guns is so loud that it's hard to hear your own thoughts. But that's quite all right. Much worse in the silence, when every rustle makes you alert, when rats can be heard from above swarming among the corpses, stray bullets whistling now and then, and from all sides comes the vein-chilling whispering of those whose minds have succumbed, those who pray incessantly to the extent that you can hear the cracking of thirst-dried lips.
The only food left is rock-hard bread, two pieces a day. Clean water is worth its weight in gold - it has not rained for a whole two weeks. The scorching sun is merciless.
Everything here is alien and hostile. I'm nibbling on my morning ration and remembering the bread my mother used to bake on Saturdays. Hot and soft. How salted butter melted on it. How we used to sit outside with the whole family at breakfast and the sun was so gentle. Those are the only memories that keep me going.
In a couple of hours we are to attack. I should be thinking of my legs carrying me faster forward, my hands clutching the rifle firm, but I am thinking of homemade bread and of the fact that in my twenty-seven years I have never dared to love. Others carry in their breast pocket photo cards with their sweethearts and wives, kissing them before facing death yet again. And I keep in my heart a modest hope that there will come a time when it can be filled with love. No matter how forbidden. In this damned war, which takes away everything a man has, wipes out everything in its path, and covers the rest with stinking filth, only love remains pure and pristine.
22 August 1915
The last thing I remember from that day is that I had barely made it out of the trench and had only taken a couple of steps before I was thrown back by an explosion of a shell nearby. I hadn't had a chance to feel anything, not a single thought had slipped through my mind, and I was already lying on my back, looking up at the smoke-shrouded sky, feeling the hot, thick blood running down my face, flooding my eyes, soaking my fissured lips. I was sure that the hard, dry ground would become my grave, and plunged into the darkness with a feeling of regret.
Opening my eyes again, I thought I was in heaven. The light seemed so bright. The face of an angel appeared before me. He was saying something to me that I couldn't hear - my ears were ringing unbearably, but his words comforted me. I was no longer terrified. The pain I'd suddenly begun to feel seemed to subside.
I awoke in the infirmary feeling like my head had been blown apart, with only a tight bandage keeping it intact. Someone was moaning sporadically, the air heavy and clammy with the putrid smell of death. I stared upward, fighting back nausea, not wanting to look round. I felt disgusting, but miraculously alive.
After a while, the doctor came to me, and my heart sank in the chest. He was that same angel, with blond, curly hair and a kind face. My vision was doubled, and I couldn't see him properly, no matter how hard I tried. He sat down next to me, put his hand on my shoulder, and inquired about my well-being. I tried to answer, but I couldn't speak, bile rising to my throat, threatening to churn the meagre contents of my stomach.
The doctor reassured me and gave me water. It felt sweeter than honey and as heady as rye. How little, it seemed, I needed for a brief moment of happiness. While I drank greedily, the doctor told me that I had been grazed by shrapnel, but would be all right in a couple of weeks. It is impossible for me to convey the relief I felt in that moment. I know if my wound had been severe, I would have been sent to the hospital and then perhaps even home. And I would never have had to go back to the battlefield again. But I never wanted to become a cripple for that. I am still too young and still hope that when all this is over, I will yet live a full life.
Today is the first day I've been able to pick up a pencil and recount the events of the past few days without experiencing the sickness of trying to concentrate on the lines I've written. Every day, something was happening. Very subtle, but important.
For the first couple of days, I was resting up for all the sleepless nights spent in the trench and all those yet to come. Then, when everything stopped appearing double in my eyes, I began to observe what was going on around me. Many of the things I saw I'd prefer to forget, but there were others too.
The blond doctor would walk between the rows in his spare time, approach those who were conscious and talk to them. For some he would say a prayer, for some he would tell that things were not so bad, for some he would tell a story, some he would just hold by the hand and not say a word. I was observing him in awe. And waited for my turn. But passing by me, he only smiled and walked on. For the reason unknown to myself, I felt resentment. And... jealousy?
He came up to me later and asked me how I was feeling. I wanted to ask him why he had walked past me, but I didn't dare. He smiled at me before he left and touched my hand. Just for a moment, but... It had been so long since I'd had a sense of something so simple and so necessary as one little touch. And it was as if the world stilled for that one moment. Became quiet and peaceful again. Welcoming. As if, for one brief moment, a ray of sunshine cut through the smoky, dirty sky and reminded of what we all shed blood for here, suffering, going mad, and dying. So strange.
I was giving it a lot of thought. I must have been staring too intently into doctor's eyes when he was changing the bandage on my head the other day. He paused and looked back at me. And didn't say a word. I averted my gaze and he went on about his task. Once he finished, he suddenly asked if I wanted to join him for tea. I accepted without a second thought.
In the evening I learnt his odd name. Aziraphale. It rolled over the tongue, evaporating in the exhalation. We drank watery tea and talked like old friends. He smiled and laughed softly as he listened to my stories from the past. After almost a year in hell, few of us could still smile. I thought I myself couldn't anymore, but I looked at him and felt the corner of my mouth involuntarily pull upward in a slanted smile.
No other way than the devil compelled me to ask him if he missed home. His face clouded with a veil of sorrow, and the smile faded. He replied that he missed the hospital where he worked and where, compared to the hastily arranged infirmary, everything was well organised and relatively quiet. He said nothing about his family or, actually, home, and I had the decency not to inquire. I have known people who fled to war from what was waiting at home, who did not write or receive letters, so I understand that the matter is not for everyone a pleasant one.
Every day I can feel my strength slowly returning to me. As soon as I got to my feet for the first time and took a couple of tentative steps, I began to wonder if I wanted to get back in line. The atmosphere in the infirmary has always been depressing, but where is it nowadays different? The smell, it turns out, you can get used to even too quickly, and death is something I accustomed to a long time ago. That doesn't make it any easier, but here it even feels somehow different. More dignified.
Here I found a friend with whom we play chess and drink tea in the evenings. The first game I ever played was here with him, he figured me out after a couple of turns when I blatantly repeated his moves without having the slightest idea what I was doing. I thought that he would give up the idea of playing with a beginner, yet he proceeded to teach me, explaining, telling me that many things in life are like a game of chess. I admittedly cared absolutely nothing for the game itself, and I've never liked tea, but I enjoy his company. And he didn't appear to detest mine.
And what awaits me outside the field hospital? A foreign land, foreign people, suffering and death. Only a sense of duty to my brothers in arms, who are shedding blood in a faraway land, calls me back to fight alongside them.
24 August 1915
Last night was a rough one. Till the wee hours of the morning the wounded were brought to the infirmary. I helped as much as I could. Hands are always in short supply. By dawn I found myself weary. Head was spinning mercilessly. Feeling that I would do more harm than good, I sat down outside, leaning my back against a tree. I closed my eyes for a second, and opened them when the sun was high and blinding even through the lowered eyelids.
I went inside the tent to see if I could be of any help. Aziraphale had just come out of the makeshift operating theatre, which had been closed off by a curtain, and was getting rid of his bloodstained clothes. He didn't sit down for a moment, just sighed heavily, adjusted his shirt, and, throwing on a clean gown, began his rounds. I can't cease to be amazed at this man's willpower. He would remember everyone by name, keep smiling and offering words of comfort to those who seemed absolutely lost. And he did so twice a day, morning and evening, every day. Even after a night of nightmare, under the rumble of shells that made the ground shake, under the screams of the badly wounded, he remained a healing voice of hope cutting through the darkness of despair.
When he finally sat down tiredly at the desk, I hesitantly approached him and handed him a pack of tea from yesterday's rations. He thanked me and smiled softly. As far as I could tell, his own rations were clearly not enough to last long. His smile alone was worth this little sacrifice.
I left him to rest, and went outside for a breath of fresh air. It still had a whiff of smoke in it, slowly dissipating after the battle, but just a touch. In savouring the moments of relative calm, a sudden thought occurred to me.
From the very beginning of the war I learnt that among soldiers money was worth about as much as paper, but tobacco was by far the more stable and valuable currency. I used to trade for it an extra portion of bread or crackers, or swap my shifts on guard duty with someone for a couple of self-rolled cigarettes. I kept in my bag a priceless box full of tobacco, just in case.
Over a cup of tea, Aziraphale once casually mentioned that he missed sweets. I decided to indulge him a little after a debilitatingly awful night. One of many. That morning I traded half of what I had for a whole pack of biscuits, ten sugar cubes and two wedges of chocolate. I wrapped all this goodness in a clean handkerchief and waited for the right moment to give it to him proudly.
I had not waited for something with such anticipation in ages. I sat under a tree, staring off into the distance, clutching the precious pouch in my hands. From time to time I peeked into the infirmary. Aziraphale was asleep, sprawled across the desk cluttered with papers, one arm serving him as a pillow, the other hanging limply at his side. Amidst the dimly lit space of the field hospital, surrounded by the brown greens of wounded soldiers lying everywhere, covered in dried blood and mud, he, in his white robes and wheat-coloured hair, seemed to radiate light. An angel as is.
I looked at him and felt my ossified heart come alive. How I wished that fate would have brought us together at a different time, in a different place. I wondered if he, a learned man, would have spoken then to someone like me.
Towards evening, I took a moment when, after his rounds, Aziraphale was writing at his desk, and gave him the bundle with all the goods I had obtained. My confidence has diminished considerably. I did not know what to say, and stood silent like a chump. The blood drummed in my ears, just as it tended to do before a battle. He unfolded the cloth and gave me a bewildered look. Like he couldn't believe it was actually for him. I nodded, still not knowing what to say, and his tired face brightened a little. He stood up, put his hand on my shoulder and said quietly, "Thank you, my dear...". And even more quietly added "friend". Since that moment, I've been guessing whether or not the pause before the last word appeared to stretch in mysterious ambiguity. I'd like to believe it did. But I'm afraid I'll never know.
I could feel my whole face blazing as if it were on fire. And my heart was pounding furiously. I was afraid I would say something that shouldn't have been said. I nodded instead of answering, and before I could get into an even more embarrassing predicament, I turned on my heels and walked outside without looking back.
I joined a couple of fellow soldiers at dinner, pretending to listen to what they were chatting about, while myself occupied with thinking about the storm suddenly stirring in my soul. In the midst of all the nightmare that would never be forgotten, the pain and despair, a sprout of something truly bright and beautiful had broken through. And I, at a loss as to how to preserve it from all the pernicious cruelty that spread everywhere, promised myself that I would keep it until the day I died.
28 August 1915
Today is my last day at the infirmary, and I am not able to find a place for myself. I have grown accustomed to the peace, to the freedom to go for little walks, to going to sleep at night and waking up in the morning, to chess and tea. I know that as the sun rises, all this will be a thing of the past, like a long serene dream. Of course the infirmary limits are far from ideal, one would not fancy finding oneself here amidst pain and death, little different from the pain and death of the battlefield. But there is still a place for the hope that dies too soon in battle along with those who fall dead beside you. It is difficult to preserve in the perpetually dank, rat-infested trenches, it spoils faster than ration bread.
I thought about saying goodbye to Aziraphale in a proper manner. And I didn't. I avoided him deliberately all day, pretending to be busy, and he didn't persist. I didn't want to feel the bitterness of parting, so I let a bit of space for the illusion that it was only for a while, and therefore there was no need for farewells. I only looked at him from a distance, pondering how it came to be at this particular time that I had got so enthralled that at times my thoughts become unbearable in their impossible fantasy, and everything inside of me tightens into a tangle.
It beckons me to know for sure if I am alone in my unsolicited travails. To ask just one question. But how? And what will I do if I suddenly find out I'm not alone after all? Too sweet a temptation and the disappointment will be too bitter no matter the answer. I have to leave. No need to make things any more difficult than they already are.
7 September 1915
Back in the foxhole. At least in the woods it's a little easier than in the open field. Splinters fly in all directions when a shell bursts somewhere nearby, trees fall with a dreadful crackle now and again. But when one has to run from one hole to another through a hail of bullets, even a scraggly shrub is better than nothing at all.
A couple of days ago, after a successful series of attacks that forced the enemy to flee, abandoning their positions, we moved forward. Walked two long tiring days to join up with the other battalions. The temporary hospital relocated along with us. A couple of miles from the front line lies a small town. There in the building of an old school stationed the infirmary. It looks much more substantial than a tarpaulin tent, almost like a real one. I've been there once.
We walked down dusty roads along the fields. I had never noticed the local beauty before. The past homesickness was blurring my eyes, making me see everything grey and blank. The sky here is so bright blue and completely clear. There may not be a single cloud all day long. The trees bathe their lush green crowns in the dazzling sunlight, spreading a rustle in the wind that not even the distant sounds of war could drown out. The ears of wheat reach for the sky and wriggle in waves as the wind ripples across the fields.
As I walked past a vast field stretching out over the horizon, so similar to the home lands where I had spent every summer since I was a boy, I couldn't resist picking a couple of spikelets. I clutched them in the palm of my hand and remembered how in the late summer we, together with other village boys, used to scythe from early morning till dark. And it was then, being just a young lad, up to my waist in wheat and up to my head in the hot sun burning the skin glistening with sweat, that I learnt myself as I am. After sunset, in a sheaf of soft, still damp hay, I was kissing in secret for the first time.
I looked out over the field, caressed by the sun, and thought of the wavy wheat-coloured hair. The spikelets in my hand were dry and coarse, not at all what the blond curls looked like, soft as down. I grinded the wheat in my palms and chewed the grain slowly, savouring the pleasant musings.
The next day we stopped for a rest near a meadow dotted with cornflowers. A verdant sea with blue flowers scattered across it like specks of the same blue sky. The breathtaking scenery caused an inexplicable sadness spreading over my chest. How many such fields had turned into lifeless valleys, riddled with trenches, where the mud mingled with the blood of those who had found their last refuge there. I thought for a moment that one day all war-torn lands would heal, and poppies and cornflowers like these would guard the eternal sleep of the fallen soldiers.
At the same time, I thought of the blue eyes looking at me with a soul-warming kindness. I longed so much to see them again. My hands, as if of their own free will, plucked flower after flower, gathering them into a bouquet. I picked a small bunch, and my heart thumped violently at the thought of what I was planning to do with it.
Looking around as if I were doing something forbidden, I tucked the bouquet inside my shirt, careful for fear of crumpling the delicate flowers. I looked like a fluffed-up sparrow, I suppose, with my shirt strangely bulging. My cheeks burned with embarrassment and awkwardness, but as soon as we were on our way, I realised that no one cared about me and my look.
We reached our destination at nightfall and settled ourselves disorderly on the street to rest. In the turmoil I took a moment to slip through the crowd of tired soldiers, further down the dark street toward the school where our infirmary was located. I was carried onwards by an inexplicable determination. In a few hours I was to go to the front line once again. Who may know whether I would see another day, whether I would still be able to walk the streets of the old town I had never been to. That's what I thought then, and that's what I think now. That chilly night my feet carried me to the school building, my heart pushed me through the door and through the half-empty rows of beds. I even ventured to ask one of the nurses where I could find the surgeon, and she pointed in the direction of an office. Which was empty. Aziraphale wasn't there, and so I decided to wait, pulling the miraculously survived bouquet out of my shirt and concealing it behind my back.
All my life I have been afraid to give in to love, lest I condemn myself to inevitable torment, to the eternal preservation of a secret that is destined to come to light. I thought it was easier and better this way. I thought the time would come when things would be different and I wouldn't have to be fearful anymore. Being a part of this damn war, I learnt the real fear, omnipresent, destroying everything sensible and human inside. And I learnt how to deal with it. I was convinced that after all I had seen, after the thorns that my wretched heart had travelled through which left non-healing scars, there was nothing left in this life that would cause me an unfamiliar, genuine fear. But I stood there at the entrance of the office, trembling like a hare caught in a trap. I was afraid that some stranger would appear from behind the door; I was even more afraid that it would be Aziraphale, and I would see the disgust in his face, find out that I had been cruelly mistaken. Love clung tightly to what was left of me, while fear smothered me to dizziness.
15 November 1915
When it seemed that the burden of this cruel time could not get heavier, that was exactly how it became. Not without trouble can I recall the quiet moments of the last months. The battles were fierce, rabid. Furious, tired to the point of exhaustion, people on each side rushed into the attack with all the rage and hatred they could muster. So many have died in this one terrible year. How many more will. And will there ever be an end to it?
I do not wish to revisit the horrors that will forever be burned into my memory; every day I try to find something light in the thickening darkness of the present. Sitting in dank trenches, soaked by freezing rain, almost deafened by the incessant explosions, in the expectation that another attempt to advance will lay us forever in the slushy ground, we slowly lose ourselves, forgetting that outside of all this mud, something beautiful still exists in the world.
The only thing I have left is a dim hope that I will be able to see my dear friend just one more time. His smile and soft voice had saved me more than once, pulling me out of the murk of my viscous gloomy thoughts.
I saw him a few weeks ago. We were putting the wounded, the ones whose voices were still ringing, on a truck to be taken to the infirmary. For hours we loaded the poor fellows onto the transport. I joined the last one, where two of the men I knew were lying. By the hospital, along with a couple of other guys, we helped the nurses place the patients in order of priority. The ones who were really bad were lying outside. Those who showed some hope were closest to the operating theatre.
Having finished my task, I decided to check up on the lad with whom we had chatted the previous day, discovering that we came from neighbouring villages. Barely twenty years old. Third month in the army. And there he was, lying on the bunk, clutching with cooling hands at the woollen blanket soaked with his blood. I sat down beside him and took his hand. His eyes widened for a moment, tears rolling from the corners. He tried to say something, but his purple lips only quivered hectically. And then he stilled. The grip on my hand loosened, the quivering stopped, and his gaze became glassy. I ran my palm over his face, shutting his eyes.
So many comrades I've already lost. So many deaths I've seen and still can't get used to that feeling that takes me by the throat and pushes poisonous thorns into my chest. In battle, it's easier somehow. While the blood simmers and the earth rumbles underfoot, there is no time to think much about death, which mows down those who are near, one by one, and sometimes everyone at once. And there, in the hospital, it was quite different... Even though it was more honourable than being trampled in the mud out in the field, yet it was somehow harder.
I was sitting on a half-rotten bench in the backyard and slowly dragged a self-rolled cigarette. Picked up that bad habit, after all. I don't smoke every day. Only sometimes, when the thoughts in my head become too many. The smoke obscures some of them, and it seems to become calmer. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed someone sitting down next to me. Aziraphale.
His blue eyes didn't shine as brightly. He looked haggard and as though older than I'd seen him only a few months before. He said hello to me and smiled just as lightly and good-naturedly. It seemed to me that suddenly the sun had risen next to the moon. So warm and luminous it felt. He must have noticed something in the expression on my face and didn't even ask what was wrong, instead offering to join him for a cup of strong tea. I stared at his face, memorising every wrinkle, every speck in the iris of his blue eyes. And tried to find in them the answer to the question that was still too terrifying for me to ask. I tried to see if there was anything more to his offer than a simple human desire not to be alone in these rough times.
It seemed to me before, and it seems to me now, that it would have been enough for me just to see him, to make sure that he was safe and well. But then, when he was at arm's length, I wanted so much more. I wanted long conversations, I wanted to be of some use to him, to repay an unrepayable debt, to be near, just to carry on feeling that everything happening all around is nothing more than a bad dream, while real life is entirely different and not yet entombed beneath the ruins. I was stalling for an answer and wanted to accept his offer, when suddenly someone called out to me. One of the fellow soldiers told me that we had to go back. Fate was either protecting me from something rash, or once again depriving me of cherished moments of happiness, teasing me with them right in front of my nose.
One way or another, I saw him. Refreshed an image in my mind that keeps me warm on cold nights. I live day after day in the hope that sometimes I will have the courage to defy fate and at least try to be happy.
1 December 1915
Sometimes it appears to me that all those prayers and pleas sent to the Almighty are distorted by the roar of fire and the rattle of cannons, the words come across as an indecipherable mush, and are therefore embodied in a twisted form. Each of us was fed up with the struggle and begged for a quiet time. Quiet time is what we have received. Except now we are going mad with dullness. We can't move forward or backward. We're stuck in these mazes of trenches that keep spreading out further and further. And there's no news and no orders except to "wait".
Even in my diary, I had nothing to write down. The only events were the weather, which drowns with rain, then whips up to the bone with a gusty wind, forcing one to press oneself into the damp earthy walls. Only by some miracle have I not yet come down with sickness like so many others. There were a couple of days when I felt hot tar running through my veins instead of blood. I thought that if I allowed myself a moment's weakness and lay down in a cover somewhere, I would never get up again.
Foolishly, I thought death only came hand in hand with the enemy. But it's always here. Insatiable, it reaps its harvest both in the heat of carnage and in almost peaceful silence.
The deceptive calm is not soothing, it makes you hear things that are not there, makes you react more intensely to every rustle. It pushes you to the limit in anticipation that things are about to go awry. And the longer this lull persists, the harder it is to hold on to the crumbling edge of sanity.
The only thing that is miraculously constant and eases the weight of existence in the agonising wait is the mail. For a soldier, regardless of experience and rank, nothing is dearer to the heart than a letter from home.
I received my first after six months of service. Someone from the neighbours helped my parents to read my letters and write a reply. So many times I have read it over that I memorised every curve of every letter by heart. From then on I tried to write home as often as I could and as soon as I could say something nice. There's no need for them to know about all the nightmares going on here. And I didn't want to relive those things myself in writing. I didn't want to complain. I left it all in my personal diary.
And so, thinking about letters, about how much simpler it is to write about something, omitting the unnecessary, than to talk about it, I thought of writing to Aziraphale. I know he's only a couple of miles away, even if it was only a dozen metres, but I liked the idea. I was giving the first letter a thorough thinking. What to say and how to say it. How to explain the existence of this very letter. The time for thoughts was plenty. The first letter came out as if I were writing to the king himself. After rereading it, I immediately wrote a second one, simpler and a little closer to what I might have said in person. A couple of days later I wrote a short third. And yesterday a fourth.
The postman is due today. The letters are in my travelling satchel. I check from time to time if they are still there, as if they might disappear, and they burn under my fingers. I don't know if I actually want to send them. I haven't spoken too openly, haven't revealed too much, but who knows... maybe I'll bring calamity by them. Well me, not in my position to worry about such things, but for him, the last thing I want is undeserved trouble.
26 December 1915
Last Christmas was something unimaginable, impossible. For two days of Christmas there was a brief truce. Two days in which we met face to face the very enemy with whom, with mutual success, we had tried so fiercely to kill each other. Boys just like ourselves. In a different uniform, speaking a different language, but just as confused about life that they ended up here just like we did.
That Christmas was bizarre. For two days we sang songs together, shared food, played football, and then, as if none of that had happened, we crawled back into our trenches, took up arms again and pointed them at each other.
This year, after all that had happened, after all the casualties and the anger that was simmering more vigorously than ever, there was no truce. The only thing agreed upon was a ten-hour mutual ceasefire. And that left a few units on duty in shifts on the front line.
A festive dinner was scheduled for the evening. Good food always helps to lift the spirits, and together with alcohol... almost a real feast.
I was in a group of fellow soldiers, listening to drunken stories about love affairs, and suddenly I noticed him in the distance. It was the first time I'd seen him in an officer's uniform instead of a surgeon's gown. With a peaked cap and tie. The uniform fit him perfectly, without a single crease, as if it had been tailored for him personally. He was obviously much more comfortable in his regular clothes, though; he would run his finger over his collar, adjust his perfectly straight tie, pull up the hem of his jacket. But he wore his uniform with dignity.
Slightly lifting his upturned nose to the sky, he walked resolutely towards the group of officers and, saluting, shook hands with each of them, smiling politely. I stared without taking my eyes off him. How confident he seemed, how exemplary he was at fitting into any setting and any company, while somehow remaining himself.
A chuckle from the side snapped me out of my musings. The young privates were laughing, looking in the direction of the officers, bashfully covering their mouths with their palms. I inquired as to the reason for their sudden mirth, to which one of them replied, "Look how Lieutenant ‘sweetie pie’ Fell has got himself all dolled up." And the whole bunch immediately burst out laughing again. I barked something about respect for their senior in rank at them, causing them to immediately fall silent, turning pale. It was the first time I'd ever resorted to using my rank to put someone in their place. I stepped aside, not wanting to share their company anymore. I was angry.
As I cooled down a bit, I thought they were just silly boys, like the ones who had called me far worse words in their day. They would be lucky, I thought, never to know what it was like to scream in pain, to call out for their mum in the hope of relieving the agony, and to pray that someone like Aziraphale, whom they were laughing at now, would be there to hold their hand so they wouldn't die alone.
I walked round the camp, kicking stones with my boot, and didn't notice myself how I ended up a little nearer to the group of officers, among whom I could see a light head, freed from its cap. I found a seat on some crate, a little away, but where I could see everything, and watched what was going on as in a theatre. A couple of times I thought Aziraphale spotted me, but it was as if he was avoiding me on purpose. My cheeks burned with shame at how desperate I was to cross his gaze. The thought flashed through my mind that perhaps he was embarrassed of my acquaintance and therefore chose to ignore me. The thought felt too bitter and too real, it lodged itself in my mind, beginning to take root. And then it was yanked out and burnt to a cinder. Aziraphale finally saw me and, squinting to make sure he wasn't mistaken, he waved slightly and turned back to his conversation partners. I waved back and felt the collar digging into my neck, denying me breath.
Jumping up from the crate so abruptly that it toppled over, I took a brisk stride and headed away. At that moment something wild woke up in me that was hard to contain. I was afraid of doing some foolish thing in front of everyone, so I ran off to do another.
I reached the infirmary, made my way inside, slipped past the occupied nurses, and slipped into Aziraphale's personal office. I had no idea what exactly I was doing there or why. I glanced around his paper-cluttered desk, and my gaze stopped on a photo card sticking out of a puffy journal. I carefully pulled it out and realised that I couldn't part with it ever. It was of him, looking slightly off to the side with his beaming smile, which brought an involuntary smile to me. Hearing the noise in the corridor, I shoved the photo card into my pocket in a panic, grabbed a fountain pen from the desk, and walked out, looking around, feeling as if I'd committed the robbery of the century.
I was ashamed and still am that I did it, but I wanted to have something of him, apart from the intangible image in my memories. Something real. Something I could squeeze in my palm, thinking I was holding a piece of himself.
20 February 1916
Winter has been harsh. Its end I was eagerly awaiting. The rains were alternating with short frosts, and an epidemic of Influenza had broken out. I held out until the last, but eventually I became ill. For three days I was in a bad shape, half lying in a feverish delirium, leaning against a soggy trench wall. My consciousness cleared up in those three days just for a moment, enough to believe that the disease would take my life. It didn't.
A month has passed since then, but there is still something lodged in my chest, and sometimes it is so sharp that it makes me twist from violent coughing. But it's no great trouble. Others have it much worse. Especially in the biting cold.
With all this misfortune, I often thought of the hospital. How terrible it must have been there. Though, when was it otherwise?
On particularly frosty days I drank hot tea, which I was saving for an emergency, remembered the summer and the long evenings, and at once I would feel a little lighter and warmer.
And the war does not stop and does not wait. It only quieted down a little, when half of the troops went down with fever, but the machine gun still rumbled away, lone bullets slicing the air with a whistle. The situation on the other side of no man's land was probably no better than ours. And still both sides grasped for a chance to tip the scales in their favour, to catch luck by the tail and crush the enemy by forcing them to flee. At least something to make a difference and get out of the loathsome trenches.
But we had to hold out thus throughout the coldest and slushiest time. Then, towards the end, when it seemed that we would rot alive in these stinking pits, fresh forces came to the rescue and in two days drove the exhausted enemy further away, ending the agony of those whose groans we heard on the other side of the barricades. And our own is still stretching on.
For two months I looked up at the white sky and dreamed of the rays of the sun. Albeit foreign and unfriendly. It never came out.
For two months I thought about the fact that it had been so long since I had slept, not even in a bed, an unimaginable luxury, but at least somewhere dry and without waking up with my teeth chattering to the point of pain. At times I wanted to howl in despair, and then I would remember what I had kept in my breast pocket since Christmas. I'd carefully pull out the photo card with my stiff fingers, cup my hands around it to protect from prying eyes and the wind. Looked at it, it seemed, for hours. It was alive and warm in my hands. A tiny opening into the life I still want to live, that is waiting somewhere not here and not now. To that illusory life I cling much more tenaciously than to the one in which my hands freeze to the rifle and the revolting snake-like corridors padded with planks are 'home'.
I looked at the black-and-white smiling face, and it appeared to me that the colours were coming in. Hair the shade of wheat fields, cornflower eyes, a cream shirt with a bow tie the colour of tea with milk. And the smile would grow seemingly even wider, only the gaze persisted in eluding me. That smile was filling in for sunshine when it was sorely lacking. That image was with me when it was getting impossibly dreary, when loneliness was freezing my heart harder than the piercing, icy wind that forced raindrops through the skin. Thoughts of him were wrapping around my shoulders, warming me.
Words cannot describe the feelings that are evoked by a single piece of thick paper on which a familiar face is imprinted. And no matter what one says about the sinfulness and wrongness of them, no matter what it threatens with, for me there is nothing lighter and purer. In this filth, in the putrid stench, in the all-encompassing anger and hopelessness, how can love be something worthy of condemnation? For its sake I want to live, and for the sake of it I am ready to die.
3 May 1916
I write something in my diary less and less often. The most important things go into letters, and there is hardly any time for the rest. Every letter I carefully inscribe with a fountain pen engraved with another man's name. And in my diary I write in pencil, as a habit. Letters are still something special to me, something even more personal than all the rambling outpourings of thoughts on these pages. All the letters I keep in my satchel, enveloped, signed and bound together with twine.
Every time I promise myself to send at least one. And each time I give up. Before the battle, when the real fear that boils the blood sweeps away the miserable worry that words on paper might cause heartache, or be rejected, or whatever, I am determined to send all the piled-up letters at the earliest opportunity. What, after all, am I risking? What can really frighten a soldier whose life lasts from battle to battle and every day may be his last?
And then, when the fight is over, when the burning in my chest subsides, when I look over myself for the umpteenth time to make sure that I am still alive and whole, that cold, nasty feeling returns. When you believe that you might yet live a bit, every step is taken with special caution and with the thought of where it might lead.
I don't go through the letters I've written, but every now and then I reach into my bag and run my hand over a bundle, as if looking for comfort. Both for myself and for those innermost words tied with twine, for all the feelings that blossom brighter every day and are harder to withhold. There will be a day... I do hope that it will be, and every drop of precious ink will become its true value, seeping through the gaze sliding over the words into someone else's heart.
17 July 1916
At the start of the month, I was wounded in the arm. In the heat of battle, I didn't seem to notice. There was so much going on in there that even if I had suddenly been left without legs, I would still have continued to try to carry forward on the stumps. Still hard to believe that by some miracle I survived. So many people had been killed that the ground was out of sight, just bodies and sticky pools of blood everywhere.
Only later, when I returned to the unit and dropped unconscious while saluting an officer, did I find out that I had been bleeding all that time. If it hadn't been for that faint, I wouldn't have been sent to the infirmary. And I wouldn't have seen Aziraphale again.
He was, as usual, busy beyond endurance, but I was glad to see that he now had two other surgeons assisting him. Much better than being alone. I supposed that I would be enough with the dressing, but the nurse turned concerned when she looked at my arm and said she would tell the doctor about me. That frightened me gravely. I didn't want to lose my arm over this nonsense. At the same time, I was looking forward to seeing the doctor, hoping it would be the right one.
Aziraphale came to me a couple of hours after the nurse's examination. As if on purpose, my arm was burning and hurting like hell by then. But I braced myself, keeping my face straight. Aziraphale smiled at me and jokingly asked if I had learnt to play chess and returned here for a rematch. Then, wrapping up my sleeve, he frowned and became serious. He asked me for how long I had been wounded and, gently touching my arm, asked me whether I felt anything or not. He took me to the operating theatre and reassured me on the way as I tried to plead like a child, saying that everything was fine and my arm wasn't bothering me that much. And then promptly collapsed yet again. I vaguely remember what happened next. I remember the sweet tang of ether on my tongue and the touch of caring skilful hands applying stitches. I came fully awake a few hours later, when it was already deep into the night. It was so quiet that I felt uneasy.
Aziraphale visited me as I struggled with dizziness and weakness, trying to sit up on the bed to look around. He wasn't smiling, helping me sit up and explaining as he went along that I had arrived at the infirmary on time. Another half a day and my arm would have been beyond saving, and my very life could have been in peril. I thanked him and thought not of his words, but of how close he was sitting to me and how his arm still supported me around my waist. He must have thought the same thing and pulled away, leaving a respectful distance between us.
He asked me about my health, my service, and all sorts of trivial things, to which I answered so briefly that I felt uncomfortable with myself. I wanted to talk about other things. About how the milky winter sky in spring was cut by the rays of the still cold sun, and how it had gathered strength by the beginning of summer. About how the trees turned green and the birds that had returned from their wintering were singing louder and louder. About the lush fields and wonderfully fragrant flowers. About how the fruit on the trees sap in the sunlight. About everything that added colour to the murk of cheerless days.
Aziraphale suddenly told me that someone had stolen his fountain pen and photograph back in the winter. He said it as though offhand, and looked at me so attentively that I wanted to confess everything at once. Guilt began to pull at my breast pocket. And he immediately added that he hoped that these things would be more precious to the person who had taken them than to him. He bowed his head and nervously straightened his coat. Something was troubling him, yet I dared not ask. We sat in tense silence, and that was good enough for me. Just not being alone. Just to be close.
And then he said he'd be leaving in two weeks. He is being transferred to an established hospital, where there is a shortage of savvy specialists. At least for the 'time', when more and more wounded need more care than the field hospital can provide, and fewer and fewer are returning to service.
I was happy for him. His hands of gold would finally be put to good use. Not here, where any butcher could do the rough but therefore no less important work, where there was no room for the growth or creative freedom he missed. But my heart was drowning in sadness. Even though we hadn't seen each other for many months, I knew he was somewhere near. And now he would be far away. Always busy with important affairs, he will soon forget all about what was here.
We talked till morning. As if nothing had changed. The pain let go for a moment, allowing me to believe that it was truly so. Sunbeams poured shamelessly through the windows, foretelling our parting. Aziraphale left, promising that we would meet again in the evening. Longing took his place. I fell asleep with it in my arms, feeling the cold that the woollen blanket couldn't keep out.
After a couple of days I could move my arm almost as well as before and had to go back to the front line. Didn't want to do that. I was willing to accept any punishment in exchange for staying another week, until the day Aziraphale left and nothing else would keep me here. But that proved utterly impossible.
The last day, over our last cup of tea together, we barely spoke. He would avert his gaze as his eyes met mine, yet I couldn't tear myself away, not caring how it might appear from the outside. I shuddered at the thought of giving him all the letters. Or secretly leaving them in his office so I wouldn't have to see his reaction. I could do neither. Frankly, I cowarded myself. I was showing, according to command, unprecedented bravery on the battlefield. But there, alone with myself, I was a coward.
Aziraphale looked no less sorrowful than I was. Our gazes met once and interlocked for a moment that stretched like an eternity. Oh, how much eyes alone could tell. I hesitated still, certain that I was surmising rather than seeing what I was seeing. And I was the first to look away, staring into the empty cup. That was the precise moment when I should have said everything I kept in my bag and everything that fermented like sweet young wine in my heart. Never again would I have that forlorn determination that I had felt then, just moments before the farewell.
He wrote down for me the name of the city and the hospital where he will be working. Saying that perhaps fate would bring us together again. And he held out his hand to me, saying, "Goodbye, dear friend." Those words fell heavily on my poor, troubled heart. I shook his soft hand and did not want to let go. He smiled the most woeful smile I had ever seen, and my hand loosened of its own accord. It made me wish to run away. Anywhere, just to be far from everything that tears the world apart, that makes life an agonising survival, and that separates people by many miles, making them strangers. How I longed to find a secluded spot where there would be none of that and where my humble happiness would not be something to be ashamed of.
30 October 1916
How incredibly sick I am of war. Hate it with all my heart. It has spread across the world worse than the plague and is destroying everything in its path. I hate it for what it does to people. I hate that there is no end in sight to it. I hate that it has sucked everything good out of my soul, leaving only loathing and faceless greyness. How it simplified everything to the idea that there is only friend and foe, life and death and nothing in the middle. I hate the thought that I can't anymore imagine any other life than the one I've had for the last two years. In war, you're not supposed to think beyond what your rank entitles you to. And the only things you have of your own are a name and a diary. Yet I am pondering more and more, going more deeply into myself and not bothering with new acquaintances and conversations. Why should I, if it makes every loss all the more hurtful?
Autumn used to be golden. Gorgeous and graceful in its melancholy. Now that all the trees have turned into planks, the grass is trampled hopelessly into the ground and mixed with mud, nothing else is left but that very mud drawing into itself like a swamp. Sun shamefully hides behind leaden clouds, the sky weeps relentlessly, eroding the earth with cold tears. And everything is in black smoke.
It is a wonder how I still retain a tiny bit of hope that one day we will reach through the darkness that has fallen over the world to the light of a new life. I hold on with all my might to the most beautiful yet most tragic feeling in its uncertainty. My petrified heart softens every time I look at the eternally frozen smile imprinted on paper. Sunlight grows brighter every time I remember the wholehearted laughter that the nightmares of current realities couldn't mortify. Even if there will be nothing left in this mangled world but that laughter and the sparkle in the blue eyes, I can be happy in it.
As I fall asleep in the mud and cold, I remember the soft stacks of fresh hay in which I lay under the rays of the welcoming sun, with my lips swollen from forbidden kisses and a boyish love in my soul. I fall asleep with a warm thought that someday I will be lying like that in the middle of the field, passing the spikes through my fingers, watching the clouds floating in the sky, a beloved blond head will be lying on my shoulder, beloved caring hands will shelter me from all hardships, and my loving heart will be beating in unison with the loved one.