Just Another Casualty

Breathe in. Breathe out. Order, from chaos. Sometimes, I needed to take a moment to remember that. I looked out over the battlefield. It was deadly and still. A combination that would make anyone uncomfortable. From my perch in the wreckage of the nearby town, I could see the devastation of this war first-hand. But I was not a soldier. This was not my war. I was here for a different kind of war entirely. One that was doomed to fail but would need to be fought anyways. Pulling out my binoculars, I looked through the smoke. Somewhere in the English line was a man with a large blue signet ring. He’d betrayed us, done more damage to the world than any Prussian artillery could muster. The smoke was too much to see easily. I’d need to get down there. So much for the easy solution, I thought, putting the buffalo rifle I had back in its case. From that case, I took out my pre-fired bullet and put it into my boot. With a smile, I whispered to my old friend, “I’ll be back for you, don’t worry.” Leaving the gun in the tower of the half-destroyed church, I slid my way back down to the ground.

The town was a wreckage, much like the church. Prussians or British, it mattered little which to the buildings they destroyed. But there was a reason for the chaos, I tried to reassure myself. It wasn’t much reassurance to the people of this town, though. I made my way through the ghost town, towards the British lines. The advantage of the offensive now was the chaos could easily hide my encroaching on the lines. The unfortunate thing about having a battle afoot was that the same smoke which would allow me to slip into the trenches was screening a deadly enemy trying to eliminate me. That said, the man was in the trenches behind the lines. I was not going to fail. Not again.

The smoke grew thicker as I got down on all fours and crawled my way towards the trenches. I looked enough like a soldier to pass summary glances, and my accent would let me pass further. There were many Americans who’d left the states to join the fight, even now. Soon enough, we’d get the whole country in too, take care of the Prussian problem. As I went, I saw a dead British soldier. I grabbed his rifle, I needed a regulation one if I wanted to sell this. I crawled my way up to the brim, then stabbed myself in the leg with the large icicle-shaped knife I keep on me. It was specifically designed to look just like a bullet wound, and it would warrant my retreat from the battlefield. Pulling the helpless leg behind me, I rolled into the trench with a quiet yelp of actual pain. Just because a wound was self inflicted didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.

A British soldier nearby came over. “You alright there?” he asked.

I groaned as I stood up, using the rifle I’d picked up as a crutch for my wounded leg. “What do you think?” I exaggerated my wince to get my point across.

“You’ve been shot,” he said, “You best be headed back to the medic. Here.” He offered me himself as a crutch and I gladly accepted. I could walk on the wounded leg, but I hardly knew this trench well enough to get to the medics alone, and it was best to keep everyone underestimating me. He continued to talk. “I’m Private Clarke. Jonny Clarke. Well, Jonathan, but everyone calls me Jonny. You?”

Best not to tell the truth, but I don’t know how good he is at seeing lies. Truth-adjacent, then. “I’m Randy. Randy Wilson.” It was true enough. I just shortened the first and left out the last name. In this war, a surname like Randolf Wagner got you the wrong kind of looks in the Entente’s lines.

“Nice to meet you, Randy,” Clarke said, helping me towards the area designated for the wounded. Eventually, after ten minutes of getting my ear talked off about Clarke’s home just outside of Bath, we made it to the beds, and he dumped me on one of them.

“Get back out there, Jonny,” I said, forcing a smile at my ‘friend’, “Give ‘em hell for me.”

Private Clarke nodded, then gave me a salute. “Will do, Randy,” he said before turning back towards the line and hurrying away.

Looking around for some bandages to wrap the bleeding part of my leg, I sat up. This did nothing but draw the ire of the only nurse present. In French, she complained, telling me to lie back down and wait for them to get to me. I knew French, but she didn’t need to know that, I figured, and so I continued looking for the bandages. This caused her to walk over to me and push my shoulder back towards the bed. As I resisted, she jabbed a finger into the wound, and pain forced me to relent, falling back into my bed. She smiled and in French murmured that dumb Americans only knew how to respond to pain and force.

I waited patiently, not for my turn, but for her to turn her back. I’d spotted the bandages, across the room. I needed fifteen seconds. She turned to treat a mortar wound on one of the Brits here, and I bolted across the infirmary, grabbed a roll of bandages, and was back in my bed before the woman had finished dressing the screaming man’s wound. Carefully, under the rough linens, I began to dress my own wound. It was clean through, seeing as I’d inflicted it myself. I just went about wrapping it in the bandages. The key was, make sure no blood would seep through to my trousers. Five layers of wrapping would be more than sufficient. I looked around from my lying position to find where spare uniforms might be. I’d need that to proceed further without drawing too much attention. The nurse walked past me. I’d just had a leg wound, and there were far worse coming in every couple of minutes. Once I’d left, she’d probably forget all about me.

One of the trenches seemed to lead straight to some kind of bunkhouse. There would be spares in there. The next terribly wounded soldier that the one nurse here attended to was once near where I’d found the bandage, and opposite the room from my exit. So, as she turned to treat him, I slipped down out from the cot and, keeping low, dashed across and out of the infirmary. I kept low all the way into the bunkhouse area, where indeed there were several spare uniforms just lying around. I found one roughly in my size and squeezed into it. That would allow anyone not looking too hard to ignore me as I went. Unfortunately, the details seemed to be from a Welsh regiment. If anyone were to grow suspicious of me, I’d be screwed. Vowing to not draw any attention to myself, I began to walk through the trenches, finding my way towards the communication area. Wherever the radio was, my target wouldn’t be far away.

It only took fifteen minutes for me to make my way to the small building with the even smaller window that housed the radio equipment. Taking a breath, I let the door naturally crack open ever so slightly. Looking inside, the man with the ring was one of two people inside, the other hard at work on the radio, communicating messages back to their officers. Slipping in, I carefully pulled the bullet from my boot and put it on the ground. Then, walking up to the officer, I placed a hand on my target’s shoulder. “Sir,” I said, quietly.

“Who are you?” he asked. With the headphones on, the only person who might’ve heard that reaction was deaf to the goings on of the room.

I smiled. “My name is unimportant. I represent some interests who have been disappointed by your recent inactions.”

The minor comms officer furrowed his brow. “What are you talking about?” he asked, “What recent inactions?”

I gave him a disappointed look. He should know why he was about to die. Suddenly, realization dawned on his face. “That weird message I heard,” he said.

“That very one,” I replied.

The man shook his head. “But it wasn’t coming from anywhere that made sense or going to anywhere sensable. And why would it have been sent through open channels like that?”

I waved him off. “That’s alright, friend,” I said, “We’re routing it through 40 this time. They’ll oblige better.” Smiling, I added, “Honestly, you may have done us a favor. You forced us to convince him to actually send the message. Much more powerful, when he admits it. Unfortunately, you’ve also doomed another year of casualties to happen.”

The officer looked at me confused. “What are you talking about?” he repeated. Really, he seemed a broken record of confusion, I thought to myself.

I sighed and looked up. “In any case, had you reported it as you should have, the States would be in the war already, and we wouldn’t have had to give the east to Lenin. Unfortunate, but necessary.”

He continued to look very confused. I was rambling of course. Best get it over with, I thought. “Anyways. You showed us a flaw in our plan, and we corrected. Unfortunately, that you defied our plans muddies the water a bit, now doesn’t it.”

“What do you mean, muddies the water?” he asked. Finally, his confusion was more focused then a simple ‘huh’.

“Well,” I elaborated, my voice a quiet, calm monotone, “Normally when one is as helpful as you, we reward them. Power, money, stuff of that sort. But normally when someone defies us, we torture them, we discredit them, we make them out as the devil incarnate. So, the question is, what shall we do to you, who are both?”

I could see the fear welling up in him. Feel the quivering throughout his body. “What did you decide?” he asked, his voice shaking almost as much as he was.

“Me?” I said, my voice still calm and quiet, “Nothing. It isn’t my place to decide. I am a hand, not a mind.” Slowly, behind my back, I drew out my knife. “But we did decide your fate. You will not be rewarded, as it would be unfit for a traitor.” His mouth tensed, prepared to scream. I had to stop that from happening. “But you will also not be tortured, not be discredited.”

“Then what?” he asked, furrowing his brow.

I quickly stabbed him with the knife, so the tip was poking through the back, and put the hand that had been on his shoulder over his mouth to stop a scream of pain. Forcing his jaw shut took a lot of effort, but the silence it afforded was worth it. Whispering in his ear, I said, “You will just be another casualty of this battle.” Then, pulling it out from his back, I slipped back out into the trench. At some point, the radio engineer would turn and see his officer with a bullet shaped hole in him. That, combined with the round on the floor, would confirm that there was a good German sniper who got a lucky shot off. He’d report it up the chain, and that would be that. I needed to be far away when that happened.

I walked briskly but casually through the trenches, back towards the spot I’d slid in. Only one person could confirm my being here, and so I’d need to take care of him as well. I got to the post, and saw Jonny boy lying dead, a bullet through his neck. Seemed the Germans had gotten to him before me. I stopped, looking up at the smoke-covered no man’s land. I needed to go through there, back to the town, to get to my equipment and call for extraction.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Nothing I hadn’t done before. With a bit of a running start, I hopped up onto the field of death, and began running, hunched over, towards the town. I could hear the artillery, the machine guns. But nothing was on this area anymore. The town was dead, and the main German push was happening further south. As I slid out of the smoke, I knew I was in the clear. Making my way back to the church, I clambered up the tower to my box, where I’d left my gun. Along side the gun was my radio. Switching it on, I said into the speaker, “Dagger to Light Central, come in Light Central. Over.”

After a moment, a crackle from the radio responded. “Dagger, this is Torch in Light Central. We read you. Is the objective confirmed? Over.”

“Confirmed Torch. Where is pick-up? Over.”

“We will have a boat waiting on the beach rendezvous. Over.”

“I’ll be there by dawn. Over and out.” Sighing, I packed the gear into my box and picked it up. Around fifty-six miles in twenty hours. I had one long march ahead of me. Picking up the box, I slung it over my back and began the long haul back to the sea. Soon enough, I would be back in New York, sipping on bourbon, talking politics with the rest of the idle rich, and enjoying my more private moments with the people I truly care for. I kept that image in my mind while I was dragging myself through the miserable countryside of Northern France.

#history #historicalfiction #story #firstperson