The Bitter Wine Memento
Misfire and Mud
A few days after the Germans had made their ultimate attack, what was left of the brigade had resorted to the fence of wide planks at the farthermost point of the English zone. They stood there so as to shelter us from ambush. They had become our last escape and a few hundred men crouched behind them in the mud. None of us had had any sleep for days, and the losses had been too great to handle. The tents and temporary huts had been destroyed in our withdrawal. But now the adversaries’ weapons were cold and their quick footsteps in the running clay had gone away. The dead silence was only interrupted by the mellow ticks of wet rain on steel. I saw somewhere in the dark a lighter’s flame flickering, its metallic sounds vanishing in the rain. It flickered again, fluttered for a while in the wind, and then went off leaving room for a veil of cigarette smoke in the air. The only thing cutting through the darkness was the small light of burning tobacco, spreading to the filter.
In my arms a grey-haired man lay. His eyelids shivered when the raindrops hit him. I can no longer remember his face, only the ashen grey skin and the gaping mouth. He coughed quietly, hawked for a bit. His head was warm and heavy on my soaked lap. I had wrapped one arm under his neck, the other I pressed hard against a large bleeding wound in his stomach. I talked to him in a soft tone; assured him everything going to be fine, just if the rain would stop. I said that as soon as the sun would come out, he would feel much better. The guilt burned the inner of my skin. My lip trembled. How could it be that I missed my target with such marginal? How could it be I shot this man instead? A sudden something struck me, and a warm, painful feeling spread in the greater of my gut.
The solider next to me passed me the cigarette. In the blink of an eye I caught his expression in the light of the fire. It was pale and resembled the look on a small boys face when he first realizes that a nurse is going to prick him with a needle. The man’s eyes were fixed upon the grey man’s open wound, shining as they were in the light. In that moment it was not a solider that was sitting next to me. It was that little boy. In the pouring rain, death luring behind a wooden fence, we were all children again. But the dark made sure we could see none of that.
"Hold on there, doctor Barley. You’ll see when the sun comes again, how much better it feels. We’ll get you somewhere safe then. Just hang in, doctor."
After inhaling the rough smoke, I placed the last of the fag in the man’s black hole of a mouth. His lips limply closed around it and the old body conjured up strength to inhale. His shivering eyelids shut. When the smouldering ash met the filter he was dead.
In my arms a grey-haired man lay. His eyelids shivered when the raindrops hit him. I can no longer remember his face, only the ashen grey skin and the gaping mouth. He coughed quietly, hawked for a bit. His head was warm and heavy on my soaked lap. I had wrapped one arm under his neck, the other I pressed hard against a large bleeding wound in his stomach. I talked to him in a soft tone; assured him everything going to be fine, just if the rain would stop. I said that as soon as the sun would come out, he would feel much better. The guilt burned the inner of my skin. My lip trembled. How could it be that I missed my target with such marginal? How could it be I shot this man instead? A sudden something struck me, and a warm, painful feeling spread in the greater of my gut.
The solider next to me passed me the cigarette. In the blink of an eye I caught his expression in the light of the fire. It was pale and resembled the look on a small boys face when he first realizes that a nurse is going to prick him with a needle. The man’s eyes were fixed upon the grey man’s open wound, shining as they were in the light. In that moment it was not a solider that was sitting next to me. It was that little boy. In the pouring rain, death luring behind a wooden fence, we were all children again. But the dark made sure we could see none of that.
"Hold on there, doctor Barley. You’ll see when the sun comes again, how much better it feels. We’ll get you somewhere safe then. Just hang in, doctor."
After inhaling the rough smoke, I placed the last of the fag in the man’s black hole of a mouth. His lips limply closed around it and the old body conjured up strength to inhale. His shivering eyelids shut. When the smouldering ash met the filter he was dead.