An Untold Story

It always got hard to keep the eyes open once the sun fell, but that’s usually when they would show up. The violent crack of gunfire and the occasional sky shattering boom of an artillery cannon would announce that yes, we were not alone.

My post was on the top floor of an abandoned recreation centre in a room that overlooked a vast field. That was where I was to stay from 7PM to 7AM. It was probably for the best, and I didn’t mind too much. With the war trudging along there was not enough room to mind much of anything.

A beat up old couch sat against the eastern side of the room during the day and it was propped up vertically in front of a window at night. The coffee table usually stood in front of the couch but doubled as a sniper stand when it was needed. Everything in my room meant something to me, especially the stove.

Unfortunately, I was posted in one of the smaller rooms. That meant all my ammunition and weapons had to rest on the same table I ate on. Everything had it’s place. The explosives were always beside the canned beans. The bullets always beside the tea and my firearms always where I put the pots and pans. I lived beside reflections of death.

I dreaded the night in that room, but I had my job, and people depended on me. I would lie on the floor, my rifle pushed through a small hole in the wall with sandbags lining the room and windows.

I remember someone saying that “the more the sand bags, the longer you live.” And She wasn’t wrong, but no amount of sandbags could have saved her from her fate. A shame, really, but people pass just as time does. It’s all for the cause. I was lucky enough though, I can count the amount of times they saved my life on both my hands.

There was a flash of light from the forest. I snapped to it and a bullet buried itself in the wall beside me. Chips of concrete peppered my face. I covered my head. Only after its impact did I hear the shot. Some of my comrades returned fire and I dared to lift my eyes again.

I focused down the scope and into the unforgiving darkness of the forest. I pulled the trigger. Pulling back the action, sliding another bullet into place, I wondered why I was even here. A bullet buried itself in the wall beside me and snapped the action forward, remembering survival.

There’s no way to tell what’s going on in the night. You hear gunshots and you shoot back but the only time you know what’s happening is if someone reports it on the radio. If a comrade is hit then everyone is notified. That’s about all we get, no good news.

Everything clears up in the daytime, naturally. The smoke settles and the sun rises, casting a warm light over the battlefield.

The orange rays of sunlight made the clouds seem golden. In that moment of peace I finally had a chance to catch my breath and relax. I noticed my neck was flexed for some time and I massaged out knots only to conclude they would return in a matter of hours. I retracted the bipod on my rifle and pulled the couch away from the window.

My comrade in the room next to mine, Dustin, rapped on the wall and I understood the code. I was to go help him, and I went to him, dragging my feet and rifle through the chipped walls of the community centre. Dustin was clutching his knees to his chest, his back to the wall, peering out into the field.

He looked at me and it pained me to see his eyes. Every single time it pained me. Dustin, stripped of his youth, was a man sentenced for a crime he did not commit: the murder of his girlfriend. He served his time behind a gun, and he was only eighteen years of age. I know he did not do it. I know because I’ve heard him cry out her name in broken sobs through the wall that separates us. Dustin was a good man.

“I saw my high school math teacher in the field today. Someone shot him.” He said.

I shook my head and pulled Dustin up to his feet, brushing the dust off of his coat.

“Dustin, you see things.” I said as I pulled his eyes wide. “Fatigue is terrible for the mind, you must relax. I will get coffee.”

Dustin leaned back against the wall, nodding while fishing for a cigarette in his pocket. He pulled a shaky hand from his pocket and failed to light the smoke several times. I slapped him across the cheek and took it from him. He glared at me and I knew he was awake now. I lit his cigarette and put it to my mouth, knowing it would infuriate him.

“You do not need smoke, you need to wake up.” I said.

Dustin pushed me and we shared a laugh, but there was effort to our voices. I gave him his cigarette back and strained my eyes out into the field. There was movement, medics running out from the trees. They pulled a man onto the stretcher and I set my rifle to my shoulder, took sights and pulled the trigger. The man in the stretcher went limp.

I looked down to Dustin and saw he asked questions without speaking, the cigarette hanging limp in his mouth. He did not understand the severity of our situation.

“It’s their lives or ours, Dustin. As unfortunate as our situation is, this is our reality. I pull the trigger because I want to increase our survivability, your survivability. That man could come back and kill one of us, or two, who knows.” I said.

“He was injured!”

“Death is the only solution.”

Dustin’s hand went to his breast pocket where he kept a picture of his girlfriend and sunk back against the wall. His lips twisted and he hung his head.

“Friend… please leave… me now.” He said through gasps of air.

But just as I was about to return to my post, he called back to me.

“I… I want to leave this place.” He said.

There was a determination within his eyes, a set to his jaw, and I knew that he meant the words that he said. But how was I to promise a boy one of the most improbable things in our lives? There was no leaving, but how was I to tell him such a thing? I felt my heart reach out to him, but my hand was unable to extend.

“I wish you all that I can.” I said, and turned away as I heard a tear hit the floor, a fresh sound amidst the violence.

—

At breakfast, I sat alone. The schoolteacher was filling his coffee, the anesthesiologist was cleaning her rifle, the convict was writing in his journal and the businessman fought sleep at the table. I enjoyed watching people and the battles they fought within. The schoolteacher’s mind was elsewhere as he poured too much into his cup, the anesthesiologist faced utter frustration as she slammed the action into place, and before I could look to the others again, Dustin sat in front of me.

“You’ll help me?” He asked.

And I knew exactly what he was talking about. It was impossible.

“You’ll be killed for leaving. There’s no chance.” I said.

“I see things differently from you, friend. There’s hope beyond us. Have faith and help me, please.”

“You will surely die.”

“I will die either way.”

“They will kill me too if I help.”

“You too will die one way or the other.”

I hated the way he looked right into my eyes, not only listening to my words but searching in me for answers I was not giving him. My coffee was finished and I raised myself, attempting to get away, but Dustin followed as I washed my dishes. He expected me to speak, but I didn’t have the energy to muster an answer.

“I have a plan.” Said he. “The people of our country will surely hunt me in an outrage against my departure, but the volunteer outsiders would be indifferent. Look at them.”

An American walked past and you could tell by the way they walked with their coffee and held their cigarettes between their index and middle finger. The American coughed into their hand and avoided eye contact with everyone he walked past. There were volunteers from other countries as well, even ones from over the seas, and I asked myself every day why they were here.

I turned and slapped my mug against Dustin’s chest, pushing him onto his heels. He dried the cup with a towel.

“They function as the Easter guard during the day, that’s when I’ll make a break for it!” Dustin said.

I shushed him and looked around to see if anyone was looking, and the business man’s head was hung, but I knew he was listening. I pulled Dustin aside.

“And where will you go?” I asked him.

“Home.”

“Home?”

“Where else would I go?”

“How would you possibly get there?”

“I’ll run.”

I pulled away from him, summoning my entire strength to refrain from hitting him again. When I had calmed, I levelled my gaze at him and scoffed at that youthful determination that bore into me.

“What do you want me to do?” I asked.

His eyes lit up.

“Be the man that watches the Eastern point of our camp, the post over the gate. When the time comes, I’ll slip away and you’ll turn a blind eye. You’re the only one I can trust.” Dustin said.

“If you leave under my watch, I would shoot you in the back.”

Dustin’s pupils retreated into his skull, he pulled away from me and I felt compelled to explain myself to the child.

“If I betray my company by allowing one gun to dash off into the woods then I’ve betrayed my family, my country, everything I stand for. I live for my people, and if you plan to jeopardize their safety by leaving their side then I will make you pay the price. I cannot allow such examples to be set.”

“You don’t mean that. You’re joking with me.”

I stepped up to Dustin, matching his glare from before.

“I am not one to joke, Dustin. I will assume the post as you wish, but only to make sure that you don’t escape alive.”

Dustin retreated from me.

“Why?”

“You’ll sabotage us all! We need every set of hands we can get.”

“One gun makes little difference. I am of no importance in this war.”

“How could you understand the magnitude of your worth here? When we need you most, how could you know unless you were there? What would you do if I our spotters were to die because we were down from two snipers to one?”

Dustin lowered his eyes.

“And what do you have to return to, Dustin? Your girl is dead and it has been years since you’ve seen your family. Tell me, what waits for you at ‘home’?” I demanded.

When Dustin lifted his eyes to me, I saw a sadness within them that took the spirit out of my words.

“Life.” Was all he said before he walked away from me.

I sighed, relieved at not having to strain myself to speak and turned to see another young man, same age as Dustin, sitting on the grass. He was writing a letter addressed to his home, I knew because I’ve seen him do it before, and I watched him because I knew he heard my conversation with Dustin.

When he finished writing, he hung the letter from his fingertips and lit it ablaze, watching it crumple into ash. He raised his head to meet me and shrugged, covering his ears.

—

I shot up in my sleep, the face of that wounded man on the field haunting the space under my eyelids. Why had I shot him? Was it spite? Was it reason? Was it mercy? I pulled a cigarette to my mouth and struggled against my lighter, my trusted lighter. A hand reached out from the darkness, taking the lighter from my hands and sparking it with one strike, lighting my cigarette, My hands settled. It was Dustin.

“We’re called to sweep the Eastern flank. Come on.” He said with a solid sureness to his tone.

I gathered myself and followed him down onto the street. There was an odd strangeness that had seized him, and I felt it when he refused to meet my eyes.

Down the road was a news team that was heavily occupied with an interview of our commander. The commander spotted us, nodded, and we returned the courtesy. Those reporters were likely to have just come from the opposite end. They just wanted the stories that gripped the reader, a story that turned pages. They wanted to know about heroes and grief.

Our leader called to us and we were off, stalking through the woods with our eyes trained to every shift in shadows. Such a routine usually bore no fruit. We would scour the forest floor to ceiling and find little but what nature had to offer, beauty, and return to report nothing. But I saw agitation in Dustin’s knees. He saw opportunities where I saw death. He saw this as a chance at life. The faintest grin tugged at his lips. I came up beside him so nobody could hear us.

“You’re not thinking of running, now of all times, are you?” I asked.

Dustin’s eyes lifted to meet mine and he reached out to me. I saw sadness within, but not for himself, for me. He pointed to a family of racoons that darted between the trees.

“Friend, there is life beyond this war. My family may not accept me and my love may be dead, but there is more to life than death. Come with me. I can show you.” He said.

He believed his own words! And there was no changing his mind, that much I could conclude by the finality in his tone. His words tore at me in ways I had not felt or understood since before the war. I grabbed him by the collar, but could not tell if it was I or my duty that was speaking.

“Don’t bring me into this mistake of yours, Dustin. I have nothing to give this world other than my life, and it is here that I will stand.”

Dustin shook his head. He pitied me!

But there was no time for emoting. A branch snapped ahead of us and I was tackled from the side, thrown into a tree. I struggled against my assailant and heard sounds of further struggle behind me. In a flurry of blows I drew my knife and turned the tides, striking down my enemy. I spun and locked eyes with Dustin who was crouched in the leaves.

His eyes said “sorry, friend”, and he meant it. Before I could contest, he bolted off into the depth of the woods. An enemy took after him and I levelled my rifle at their back, pulling the trigger. One more made after him and I provided felled them as well. Finally, my breath uneven, my sights were set on Dustin’s back as his legs carried him as fast as they could, but I couldn’t bring myself to pull the trigger. I squeezed and released, squeezed and released.

Our leader shot forward.

“Deserter! Kill him!” He shouted.

A shot shattered the air, cutting past Dustin. My body betrayed me, and I whirled to set my rifle at my leader’s chest. My company froze under my aim and I glanced over my shoulder to see Dustin looking back one last time before he vanished. I turned again, my people’s guns were on me and I knew my situation was impossible.

I tried desperately to validate my actions with Dustin, but I found no answers no matter how I spun the situation. When the leader pressed me, I let my mind speak for itself.

“Why? Why do you let him run? You know the value of our stand on this front!” He shouted.

I pushed forward.

“The killing must end! There has to be more ways to live than by picking up a gun.” I said to my own surprise.

“You doom us all!”

“Maybe, but in doing so life will sprout elsewhere.”

Now, my fate was sealed, and I was faced to deal with the barrels of my comrades pointed at my chest. All I could do was hope that Dustin would make it, my comrade, my friend. I smiled as his words rang true in my head and I knew that he was my hope.

“There’s more to life than death.”