Unknown Soldier

Polina leaned over the soldier’s body and turned her cheek so that it almost touched his nose. She felt a slight quiver of air. “I don’t think he’s dead!” she shouted back to the others crowded around the man. “He’s breathing. I can feel air moving.”

“Bah! How can you be sure?” grumbled an old man, leaning heavily against the wall of the boxcar near the door. “There’s more than three score of us jammed in here, with no seats, no decent way to hang on in this drafty old car as it sways and shudders more than I do when I climb stairs … and I’m ninety-four.”

“Put your ear on his chest,” suggested a woman sitting on the dirty floor nearby. A small child clutched her tightly about the waist, hiding his eyes in her bosom. “Maybe you can hear a heartbeat.”

“Sure, sure,” sneered the old man. “Detecting a faint thrum amidst the clackety-clackety-clack of the train should be no problem at all.” He waved one hand in apparent disgust. “Bah.”

Still, Polina shifted and pressed her ear against the course fabric of the man’s uniform. She wrinkled her nose at the smell of sweat and the sticky, coppery-sweet residue permeating the course cloth—blood, no doubt. She closed her eyes in concentration. There. Yes, maybe …

Suddenly, the man coughed, startling her. She jerked away from him, opening her eyes wide just as he sat up, hacking and spasming as he struggled upright.

She put a hand on his shoulder. “Stay down,” she said, loudly enough so she could be heard above the sounds of the moving train, but as soothingly as she could manage. “You’ve been hurt. You were unconscious.”

The soldier did not lie back, but he stopped struggling and simply sat up, his left arm thrust down and back, no doubt instinctively bracing himself against the swaying movement of the train. “What? Who? Where am I?”

“You’re on a train,” answered Polina. “We’re all on a train.”

The old man snorted, but Polina ignored him, keeping her focus on the soldier. “What is your name? I’m Polina.”

The soldier half-smiled at her. “I’m … I’m …” His mouth turned downward in a frown and his brow furrowed. “I … I don’t know my name.” His arms moved to pat down his pockets, but he quickly shoved the left one down again as the train car lurched, awkwardly patting at his breast pockets with just one hand.

Polina put her hand on his arm. “You don’t have identification,” she said. “We looked.”

“You don’t have a ticket, either,” sneered the old man. “But, then, none of us do. Maybe, if we did, we wouldn’t be in a boxcar.”

“Why don’t I remember?”

“There was an explosion, just as the train was leaving. You were pushed by the blast against the threshold of the open door. The bottom of the doorway … it hit you in the chest and then your head thumped against the floor of the car as your body buckled. It must have knocked you out, or at least knocked the wind out of you, because you started to slump down.”

Another woman, next to the old man, spoke up. “We thought you’d fall beneath the wheels. We pulled you in and closed the door.”

“But, why don’t I know my name?”

“You were hit in the head!” yelled the old man.

“But, why was I at the train station?” asked the soldier.

The woman with the boy clinging to her spoke again. “Crowd control. Soldiers were helping us board the trains.”

“To where?” The soldier looked around. “Where are we going?”

“To Poland,” said the young woman.

The soldier paled.

“Perhaps you should lay back down. You’re white as fallen snow.” She looked down at the stain of sticky blood on his chest. “You might have internal bleeding.”

The soldier shook his head and coughed out what Polina thought was a coarse chuckle, although there was no laughter in his eyes. “No, it’s not that. It’s just that, being in a boxcar headed for Poland is a shocking thing for a Jew to hear.” He suddenly perked up. “Hey, I’m a Jew.”

“We didn’t check that,” chortled the old man.

“How can I know I’m a Jew, but not know my name?”

“You hit your head. Remember?” Polina sighed. “Of course you don’t remember. You hit your head.”

“But I don’t understand. Why are we headed to Poland … in a boxcar?”

“We were evacuating. Women and children …”

“… and decrepit old men …” spat the man by the door.

“… are evacuating all over Ukraine.” She shrugged. “You know, because of the war.”

“There’s a war?”

Polina sighed. “Russia invaded. And they’ve been firing rockets and missiles at all the big cities for weeks. Some say they don’t care what they hit, but it is clear to most of us they are targeting civilians intentionally. Apartment buildings, markets, schools, libraries …”

“And, now,” added the young woman by the door, “train stations, where they know people … innocents … are gathered in a desperate attempt to flee before their columns of tanks arrive.”

“There weren’t enough passenger cars, so they started loading people into the boxcar that was supposed to carry luggage,” said Polina. “Fleeing people are more important than possessions.”

The soldier sat silent. For a few moments there was no sound except the clacks of the train and the roar of the wind rushing by. Polina noticed that both seemed to be increasing in tempo.

“The Ukrainian military doesn’t run away from a fight, but this train certainly seems to know how to run,” said the old man. “I’ve never been on a train going this fast. And, that’s a fact.”

The train took a slight curve and the car lurched, leaning hard to the left. There were gasps and even a few screams as everyone was thrown off-balance.

“We’re really moving,” murmured the young woman by the door. “It felt like we almost jumped the track.”

“Crack the door,” demanded the soldier, his tone urgent, authoritative.

A group of people by the sliding door shifted and worked on the door mechanism, finally managing to slide it open a few inches. A blast of cold air rushed in. A babushka looked out.

“Mother of God …”

The old man pushed his way through the throng to the open door. “Holy Mother of God …”

This time Polina felt herself go pale, but then the soldier grabbed at her arm.

“Help me up. I must go look.”

She wanted to convince him to stay seated. He was injured, after all. But she could not deny the determination in his eyes or the command in his voice. She helped him up and he struggled to the door. It seemed to her that the difficulty of that effort was more from the increasingly violent swaying of the train than from his injuries, but she had no way of knowing.

She watched … everyone watched … as he peered out the opening of the door, wind blasting at his face.

Finally, he leaned back and turned toward her … toward the rest of the passengers. “The train is going much too fast. It is out of control.”

“Are you sure?” asked Polina. “We are fleeing, after all.”

“I am sure,” replied the soldier. “I used to be a conductor. I used to take tickets.” Suddenly, he chortled roughly. “I am a Jew who used to take tickets from passengers, but now I don’t know my name and am headed to Poland in a boxcar …” He patted his pockets again. “… with no ticket on a runaway train.”

He took a deep breath and looked Polina in the eye. “I must stop the train or at least slow it down.”

Polina’s stomach twisted in concern. “But, won’t the engineer do that?”

The old man spoke up. “We were already moving, probably at full throttle, when the rocket hit. He could be dead.”

“He’s right,” said the nameless soldier. “I know trains.” He looked around. “I’m the only able-bodied man aboard.” He glanced at the old man.

“No offense taken. My wife would agree with you, if she were still here. God rest her soul, she’s not, and thankfully so.”

Fright gripped Polina. Not just for herself, but for the soldier, who had just barely regained consciousness. “But how can you stop the train?”

He tilted his head toward the front of the door, where the opening still screamed with air rushing in. “There are rungs by the door. I’ll climb atop. Hopefully, I can get forward in time, before we derail.” He turned to the others. “You there. Get ready to open the door enough for me to squeeze out, but not more. As soon as I’m on the ladder, shut it.” He paused. “Shut the door all the way and latch it tight. I won’t be coming back. I’m going to the front. That’s my duty as a soldier.”

Despite the desperate pace of the train and the howls and the wind and the violent swaying and clacking of the next few minutes, time dragged as Polina watched the soldier disappear outside the train. Then the door was shoved shut and her eyes struggled to adjust to the now dimmer light inside.

Straining to hear above the cacophony of train sounds, she thought she heard a few thumps—footsteps?—on the roof of the car, then nothing.

Everyone braced themselves for the inevitable crash as minutes dragged by, the car leaning precipitously at even the slightest curve.

But then, there was a sudden lurch as the train braked and a loud hiss could be heard somewhere ahead as the clacking noise of the tracks lessened in tempo and intensity. As the train slowed and then slowed some more, Polina convinced the others to slide open the door. As they did, the train came to a halt.

She took a deep breath, realizing she’d hardly breathed at all in the last few minutes. Passengers scrambled out of the train. Some kissed the ground. Others were just looking to stretch their legs or find a bush to squat behind. But Polina walked urgently toward the front of the train, looking for the soldier who saved them all.

But when she got to the engine, she saw no one inside but the engineer, bloody and lying on the floor of the compartment. A jagged piece of shrapnel protruded from his scalp. She climbed up and checked the man for a pulse. She was not surprised to find none.

Still, no soldier. He couldn’t be on the ground on the side she’d come. She would have seen him.

She looked ahead, but saw nothing but another train, headed toward them on a parallel track to the left. She looked out the left window, back along the length of the train and saw the anonymous soldier on the shoulder beginning to lope away along the outside of the left track. She tried to call out to him, but her voice was lost in the horn of the train approaching from the front. She leaned back in the engine compartment while it passed, planning to call out to their savior when it cleared.

But when the train had passed, she looked again, but the mysterious soldier was gone.

And then it came to her. He had done what needed to be done and had been running along the opposite track so he could jump on the passing train to head back into the city. Back to the fighting. Back to a war he didn’t even remember.

That’s when she remembered the last words he’d said before he faced danger to save them all: “I’m going to the front. That’s my duty as a soldier.”

She sat down on the floor of the compartment and wept. She wept in relief for herself and her fellow refugees, saved from this latest danger. She wept in sadness for the unknown soldier and the trauma and danger he had already known and would face once again.

And she wept in pride for her country and all who would defend it, without question … and sometimes without answers.