It was loud. Deafening. Everywhere mud was already mixed with the blood of hundreds of men. Perhaps it was less than hundreds. It felt like thousands.936Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡV9Q1iR2ROR
Screams. Lots of screams. Screams of young men - boys, really - in agony, screams of the nurses and aid workers begging for bandages or a stretcher. God forbid, someone get this man to the hospital unit!936Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaNxS7zCPY8
The cold was paralysing. Too cold to move. Too cold for fingers to pull the trigger on the gun. Too cold for feet to run fast enough. Too cold to breathe; his lungs ached with every breath. Every inhale brought the cold, smoky, bloody air rushing into his lungs. It felt like knives. He wanted to be at home. In front of a warm fire, perhaps with a good ole’ roast dinner. His mouth watered at the thought. Warmth and good food.
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He woke up with a start. It was a dream, he told himself. Just a dream. The toes that were frozen and blue in the dream were warm and coated in thick socks. The blankets of mud and dirt in the dream were replaced with blankets of cotton.936Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡixNTWkZJMh
The hands that had held a gun and shot down German soldiers all those years before were now aged and crinkled, with slight arthritis. A wedding band rested on one finger.936Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYSjAlGGZaG
He knew what day it was. Poppy day, as his grandchildren called it. Remembrance Sunday. He had lived through two world wars, and yet the day when he had to put on his old uniform for purely ceremonial purposes and mourn the deaths of his closest friends scared him more than staring down the barrel of a gun all those years ago in 1914.
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“Ay, John. Look what I got ‘ere.”936Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡl7ioHKZtuf
John was young. Only twenty-one. Percy was younger, only twenty. He was from London, but not the wealthy part of London. Percy had grown up in a tiny house on a street full of strictly working class families. His father worked in a factory. His mother was a house wife, having another child every two years or so. Percy had volunteered for the war. Thought it was a way to give his family some form of grandeur. Maybe a bit of extra cash.936Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJfLrWPXD1g
He spoke with a strong accent, so strong that John could barely understand him. Percy tried to teach him cockney rhyming slang, but John could never quite get it.936Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡA5Fnjy3BG2
“What?” John asked, looking curiously at the small brown package in Percy’s hand. Percy grinned and removed the string and paper wrapping. He revealed four small squares of chocolate.936Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡC3I2NnFe2H
“Me mam’s sent it me. Must’ve cost all her rations, it must. It’s me birthday next week.”936Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡf5BweCLMb2
“Lucky you.” John said, turning back to polishing his boots.936Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbRfDFXZbcv
“Here.” Percy said, offering John a piece. John shook his head.936Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlx4UKzqc2E
“It’s a birthday present. I can’t take it.”936Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuWSKfeJ4No
Percy insisted.936Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJpLBEOgYCw
“We all need a little pick-me-up out here.” He said with a small smile. John took the chocolate tentatively.936Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQlDOlAvHU8
“Cheers.”
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He buttoned his shirt with shaking hands. His tie was uneven. His wife adjusted it, smiling comfortingly at him.936Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4lhqd96y5U
The year was 1958. Forty years after the end of the war. Forty years and still… still he could hear the gun shots. Still he was woken in the night from the cold. Still he was haunted by the cries.936Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKAUt9KqYNM
Every year there was a procession in London. Every year he attended, mourning his fallen brothers. Every year he laid a single poppy down on the cenotaph. Every year he wished he could have saved just one of them.
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“You got a lady at home then or what?” Percy asked. It was night. The cold seemed to chill their very bones.936Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyjSia1Vk6O
“Maybe I have.” John said with a coy smile. Percy nudged his arm with his fist.936Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8iNI0nsYx1
“I reckon the girl’s won’t be able to keep away once I get home.”936Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIxRxqkbZxX
John scoffed.936Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡx5m15RkyTc
“What if you get your leg blown off?”936Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡf27IDJLt69
Percy merely laughed.936Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKXaWg6SYeE
“War wounds, innit? Girls love war wounds. Makes me look brave.” He said casually, leaning back on the dirt wall of the trench.936Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEAadYdcljG
John could only laugh at Percy’s optimism. It was seemingly endless, but infectious. He was like the sun, melting away the ice and snow after a particularly cold winter's night, and bringing with him a kind of brightness that only came from the young and the naive.
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“Tell us about the Great War, grandpa.” The child asked him. She was so young - only eight years old - and not nearly old enough to know of all the horrors of war.936Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnyUa9VG63E
“It wasn’t great, love.” He said simply. The child on his knee jutted her lip out.936Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9LwmTm1Yyl
“Mummy said you were very brave.” She said.936Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0qdvdEkWeM
The man laughed.936Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNGbcV79gGt
“I don’t know about that. Many were braver than I.”936Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8i5RVKk0rf
“Were they your friends?”936Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlkDg5SKvTP
“They were my brothers. They were the best friends I've ever known.” He said sadly.
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Anyone would have thought he was sleeping. He was so still.936Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCCO72IrGgU
But his eyes were glassy and his hands were cold. Colder than usual. The blood spread like wildfire across his uniform. John nearly convinced himself that it was just paint. He tried calling for a doctor, or anybody, but his words wouldn’t come out. Instead he sat down next to his friend and held his hand. He was long gone, John knew that. But he couldn’t find it within himself to let go of Percy’s hand. He thought of the family he had in London, the young mother waiting for his return and relying on his soldier’s wages. He thought of all the girls he could have had. He smiled at the image.
‘War wounds mate.’
Those were his last words. He had choked on a small laugh. The sound made his chest heave and he began to cough. With one last feeble smile he was gone, taking all the optimism with him.
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He stood in line. He stood beside soldiers he had never met. Never served with. Never heard of. And yet he felt he knew every single one of them. Each of them bore a weight on their shoulders that made their backs break. Each of them beheld in their eyes a dark horror that scarred their every waking day. And yet through all those horrors, they mourned the ones that had made the war bearable. Brothers in arms.
As the procession wore on, some cried. Some stood in stoic silence. Some bowed their heads in despair. When it was over, and the crowd began to disperse, John approached the cenotaph. The small poppy he put down was lost among the thousands of others. He felt that was apt. One life among millions.936Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAt043KU9tC
He turned to walk away, the smiling face of his ever optimistic comrade burning behind his eyes.936Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRn514nQHTg
As he walked away he thought to himself: Just war wounds, mate.
