Remembering the Ghost of You

May 4th, 1944

“Look what I managed to find,” Bob said when he arrived at our tent that evening after his shift. I looked up to see Mikey’s little friend Frankie clinging to Bob’s back like a child.
“What are you doing here?!” I sputtered and he just smiled.
“I got to London a bit ago and was shipped over here to wait. I found Bob when I was folding bandages,” he explained and offered us each a cigarette. “I didn’t think I’d ever actually find you with all the people they are cramming over here.” I started to wonder if his enthusiasm was going to wear out of if it was here to stay. Part of me found it irritating, but it was also nice to not be around another gloomy person. I had enough gloom in me for the entire army.
“I never thought I’d see you either,” I admitted and then he was hugging me.
“That’s from your mother and brother,” he said when I looked at him in shock.
“Oh,” was all I could manage to say.
“Look I gotta go back and drag Ray away before they work him to death. Keep an eye on the little shit. I’ve been attacked by him enough today,” Bob said and stood. Frank chased him down the row of tents before returning to the fire outside of mine. I was surprised he came back and didn’t go to his own tent.
“Is it possible to ever get dry around here?” he asked glumly which surprised me even more.
“No.”
“Didn’t think so. They are planning an invasion I heard. The guys in my tent have all been out here for awhile and say that they’re going to stick all us newbies on the front line. You don’t think they will do you?” he asked and I could see the pleading in his eyes.
“This is a war. We do what they tell us even if they want to put us on the front to be butchered like animals. That’s what it means to be a soldier,” I told him. I took a long drag trying to ignore the nauseating sinking feeling in the pit on my stomach. I wasn’t ever going to see home again. I knew that for a fact. I could feel it.
“It’s slaughter,” he said quietly and I shrugged.
“Slaughter and honor mix when in the army. We are their pawns and nothing more. Perhaps you are too young for all this …” I trailed off and met the sharp glare from Frank.
“I am not too young,” he spoke slowly.
“Either way this experience is going to age us all by fifty years by the time we return home whether it be in a box or in the flesh.”
“Why aren’t you positive?” he asked and I shrugged again.
“I’m mentally preparing myself for death. Only in times of fear can a man be brave and considering I’m probably going to be offered up to the German’s like a fresh pig I better get use to the fact that I’m going to die.”
“Mikey said you were weird like this.”
“I’m like this because I’ve already seen what this war has done to people and families.” He was silent after I said that. He took off his helmet and ran his fingers through his short dark hair.
“Is that why you sang that song at the social?” he eventually asked and I nodded. It was originally a poem I wrote when my father first left. I turned it into a song at Rebecca’s request. She’d told me that even though it was sad it was somehow comforting. “I want to go home in the end.”
“Some won’t,” I reminded him.
“I want to believe that we all will go home, but I know I’d be a fool to think that. I pray for safety for my friends though,” he told me with a sad smile.
“That’s like how I pray Mikey returns safely. If one of us has to die I hope it be me. I don’t want to live in a world without my baby brother and mourning mother.”
“They’d miss you though,” Frank pointed out.
“It’d be different though. I’m the big brother who is supposed to keep the little one safe. I’d sacrifice myself for him any day.”
“Spoken like a true man,” he chuckled and pulled out another cigarette. He lay back on the bench he’d been sitting on and blew smoke into the air. “Feels sorta surreal doesn’t it?” he asked and I looked to the gray sky.
“I can’t decide if I’d call it surreal or some form of hell.” He laughed and I smiled a bit.
“Never change Gerard. I think you’re going to be the only one to keep us all sane out here.”