The Bitter Wine Memento
The Cloudburst
It was on the fifth of July that our platoon finally reached the battlefront. Since we had started our march from the northwest coast of France, our numbers had decreased rapidly and without mercy. Many had fallen victims to snipers and spies, enemies cloaked as they were our own. The victim’s fates had been horrible, but also expected. There was not a man amongst us that had put one foot on the French mainland without knowing he was going to be killed, to a certain or other degree. With his feet firmly placed on the war zone that was France, he could only pray to his gods that his death would come swiftly.
But what none of us had seen coming was the scorching heat of the French summer sun. The draught slept cruelly around us whichever path we took. With vibrant ghosts of vaporized water quietly licking our foreheads, we had only to walk on and hope for the angels to cry. Without water, and our provisions soon turning into mould and shrivelled carcasses of what it once was, a great amount of bodies failed under the sizzling sun. You could be walking along, dragging you feet step by step, and see the comrade walking next to you crumble to the ground with a sigh. You would know then that he was a lost man. After a while I would stop reaching out my hand to help the fallen to his feet, since the result was always another collapse ten feet ahead. Once I had given up my hand, it was even easy to stop turning around whenever I heard the dry whimper of a dying solider.
The fateful fifth of July could have been the happiest day of my life. I could see clouds of smoke and hear the unmistakable cracks of machine guns and the occasional hand grenade in the candescent dawn our brigade set out in. These were the sounds of home, a slight trembling musical piece that rang out for brotherhood and for England. Though only half of us were still conscious, a soaring hurray welled out of the many chests around me. I felt ashamed then, for no fighting spirit dwelled within me, despite the trials I had gone through to get to where I was. All the strange, thunderous canticle reminded me of was how much I did not belong there. That’s when a cloudburst came down upon us.
But what none of us had seen coming was the scorching heat of the French summer sun. The draught slept cruelly around us whichever path we took. With vibrant ghosts of vaporized water quietly licking our foreheads, we had only to walk on and hope for the angels to cry. Without water, and our provisions soon turning into mould and shrivelled carcasses of what it once was, a great amount of bodies failed under the sizzling sun. You could be walking along, dragging you feet step by step, and see the comrade walking next to you crumble to the ground with a sigh. You would know then that he was a lost man. After a while I would stop reaching out my hand to help the fallen to his feet, since the result was always another collapse ten feet ahead. Once I had given up my hand, it was even easy to stop turning around whenever I heard the dry whimper of a dying solider.
The fateful fifth of July could have been the happiest day of my life. I could see clouds of smoke and hear the unmistakable cracks of machine guns and the occasional hand grenade in the candescent dawn our brigade set out in. These were the sounds of home, a slight trembling musical piece that rang out for brotherhood and for England. Though only half of us were still conscious, a soaring hurray welled out of the many chests around me. I felt ashamed then, for no fighting spirit dwelled within me, despite the trials I had gone through to get to where I was. All the strange, thunderous canticle reminded me of was how much I did not belong there. That’s when a cloudburst came down upon us.