by A. S. Hames
“You four will be Enemies of the Nation. The rest will hunt you down and kill you.”
I can’t say I care for that idea much.
“What about the Hero of the Nation?” Jay asks.
“I’ll take him,” the Forbearance boy called Taff says. He’s standing beside me, his hand already outstretched to take the leash. He probably thinks he’s being helpful. He isn’t.
“Well, don’t just stand there,” the sergeant says. “Go!”
We set off in silence. Four pretend Enemies of the Nation. I’m not happy to be chosen for such a worthless job, but I’m glad it puts me with Jay. Who knows, maybe I’ll get to save her life – in a pretend way. That kind of thing could lead to her noticing me as something more than some annoying Pinedale boy.
JAY
It’s a depressing situation. Although, it’s only a practice, I’ve been placed in the same position as my mother – an EN on the run.
“That way, up there, over that ridge,” Tai says.
And we’re following him, which doesn’t make sense as he’s bulky and slow. How does that happen? Why didn’t I emerge as leader? I’m a leading trooper… although, I suppose it doesn’t count during this particular exercise. I only wish we’d been given more time, because I might have come up with a better plan. As it is, we soon hear a not-too-distant roar. The pack is after us.
It seems silly but it takes me back to playing war games on the farm with Vee-Elle and Obie. Back then, we took turns at being chased. Now we’re doing the same but Vee-Elle and Obie are with more than fifty other child soldiers chasing us.
“Bam,” Essie yells, pointing his weapon and firing an imaginary bullet toward the pursuing group. “Bam.” He seems to be enjoying himself, which is wrong.
“Up there,” our leader says.
There’s a clump of trees ahead. If we could get there, we’d have some cover while our pursuers would be forced to take a wide detour if they wanted to avoid an approach over open ground.
“Bam,” Essie yells. “Bam.”
“Steady,” I tell him, “you only have two shots left.”
“Three,” he says, incorrectly.
But the hunting pack is still coming straight for us, meaning I have no choice but to turn and take aim.
Steady… steady…
“Bam one. Bam two.”
“Bam, bam,” Essie yells.
“Why have you used up all your ammunition?” I ask him.
“I haven’t,” he says. “Bam, bam, bam.”
The way I see it, Essie is now firing imaginary-imaginary bullets. I wonder if the troopers he’s shooting are keeping count.
“Bang-bang-bang-bang! You’re all dead!”
A young trooper has popped up from behind a big exposed tree root and shot us. He’s caught us in a pincer movement. I’m disappointed because I haven’t killed anyone yet.
“He cheated,” Essie says. “He came up here before we set out.”
“One of the sergeants told me to,” the victorious trooper says. “He’s my uncle.”
I try to think whether it’s cheating or just good planning. It sounds like the kind of thinking you need in a battle situation.
“Essie? Follow me,” I say.
“You’re both dead,” Ben says.
All the same, Essie and me run along the hillside and will make our way down farther along.
“I’ve fired real bullets, you know.” Essie says, like he’s offering to take the leadership from me. I pretend I haven’t heard him.
BEN
I must be nuts, but I chase after Jay and Essie.
“What are you up to?” I yell after them.
They don’t answer. They just continue toward a rocky outcrop by the river. I guess the higher ground would be good for picking off the enemy – although I’m thinking Essie has no allowable imaginary bullets, while Jay and me can only have three or four. It doesn’t seem enough to hold fifty volunteers at bay.
Following them as they climb onto the rocks, I find the rain has made it slippery underfoot. Maybe it’s not such a good place after all.
“How many bullets have you got?” Jay calls to me.
“Whaaaa!” It’s Essie disappearing down a crag before I can answer.
When I get there, Jay is looking shocked and Essie’s lying still in a six-foot crevice. I don’t like the look of it at all. I try to think straight. What happens to a volunteer who breaks all the rules and kills another volunteer?
“Essie?” Jay calls. “Can you hear me?”
Behind us, fifty young soldiers are coming to see what Jay has achieved as a leader. I don’t think they’ll be too impressed.
But Essie groans.
“He’s alive,” Jay says. I think the relief is surging through all three of us – especially when he sits up.
“You could be concussed,” I call. “Don’t try to move yet.”
He groans and gets up.
This is all very good news. Essie is going to be fine and Jay won’t be shot or jailed for killing him. I try to look untroubled by it all, like a professional soldier might.
“You!” It’s Sergeant Seven-Nine pointing at Jay. “Down here, now!”
While Jay slips and scrambles off the rock and presents herself, I help Essie out of the crevice.
“What the hell are you playing at, girl?”
“Sorry, sergeant.”
I feel bad for her. She had the best intentions, I think.
“Did you deliberately ignore orders?”
“Sorry, sergeant. I didn’t mean to.”
He inserts his baton between her legs and lifts it, forcing her onto tiptoes. For some reason he’s smirking as a crowd gathers. I don’t like it.
“I didn’t hear you, leading trooper.”
His baton is pressing ever harder against the underside of her groin. This isn’t right.
“Sorry, sergeant,” she repeats. Any resemblance to a real soldier she’s managed to convey so far has now vanished.
“What? What did you say?”
“I said sorry, sergeant. I’m sorry!” Her voice is shrieking and there’s nothing she can do to control it.
I have to act. I’ll jump off the rock and run at him… and I’ll punch him in the face.
But the sergeant withdraws his baton and gives her a poke in the belly. She winces. My heart is still thumping, but I’m off the hook. I guess I was two seconds away from making a fool of myself.
“Now then,” the sergeant says to the crowd, “seeing as the girl here thinks she’s indy-bloody-structible, let’s use her to demonstrate a few ways to kill the enemy without resorting to gunfire.”
I am immediately worried for this engaging, helpful girl. The sergeant has a broken nose, a deep scar across his eye, and a piece of ear missing. I feel like suggesting a sturdier volunteer.
Before I can do so though, he kicks her in the knee.
“Oww!”
I see the pain in her face, but I don’t know what to do.
“A simple kick like that will slow your opponent. Now you can bring her down.”
Before she can react, she’s flipped and her back slams into the earth.
“Oof!”
Watching Jay gasp for air while the sergeant tosses her rifle aside, I feel powerless.
JAY
Von is with Dub, staring at me. What would a Hero of the Nation do? Then I have it and I bite the sergeant’s leg.
“Oww! What are you doing?”
I let go, feeling foolish.
“It’s a practice, you idiot,” he snarls. “How dare you bite me.”
He grabs me by the hair and drags me into the water, shoving my head under. I try to hold my breath. Now I’m confused. Is this still part of the practice? It doesn’t matter much because within seconds I am drowning and struggling like a wild cat.
He pushes me away and I break the surface coughing and spluttering with water stinging my throat and lungs. At first, I can’t see anything, but as I stagger and then cr
awl onto dry land, there’s Dub holding Von’s leash and struggling to suppress a smirk. It never ceases to amaze me what that fathead can find funny. All I can think is that I’ll show him. I’ll show them all I’m a good soldier.
“Silence for the general!” Colonel Five-Five yells.
“Stay where you are,” a voice booms from just above me. “I won’t interrupt your training for long.”
Oh my God. I’m on my hands and knees at the feet of a general. And he’s said not to move.
“Fellow warriors,” he says, “due to the excellent promise you’ve shown this morning, your combat training is to be shortened. You will leave for the Front tomorrow.”
What? All of us? Including me on all fours, wet and coughing?
“The war is finely balanced,” he says. “Your actions over the coming days will be a vital part of the final glorious push for victory.”
A sergeant applauds and we all join in, me still on my knees, uncertain if I should get up.
The general raises a hand and the applause stops.
“Remember this… it is vital you carry out your orders to the full. Never question those orders, because it’s likely a greater good is being served that you might not know of. Trust your superiors. Trust in the Nation. Soon you will return to your homes as heroes. You will be admired for doing your duty at a momentous time. Year 50 will be recalled as the year you defeated the redcoats and their allies to deliver peace. So, prepare yourselves. The time has come for you to take your place in history!”
A cheer erupts and I just hope the general doesn’t trip over me and fall flat on his face. All I want to do is win the war – and find out the fate of my mother, my brother, and our farm.
“I salute each and every one of you and I salute Von, Hero of the Nation.”
Another cheer goes up and I see Dub patting Von as if he shares the wolf’s status. Still, under the circumstances, it would be unfitting for me to claim any personal link to the four-legged warrior.
“Now, I’m leaving you a new field officer who will keep you on the right path. A man who has faced the dark-hearted enemy up close, slain that devil-monster, torn out its entrails, and stabbed out its eyes. Captain Two-Five.”
Two-Five? That’s the same surname as me. I look up.
Oh my God!
“Stand tall and proud,” the general sings, and we all join in, me rapidly getting up to stand as tall and proud as I can, possibly a little too close to him.
“We are the Spirit,
We are the Way
For the Nation to Grow,
Day by Day…”
As we sing, the general goes off to his waiting car, leaving my long-lost brother – now a captain – behind. I’m so relieved. He’s alive.
But he looks different somehow. Not just older, but more serious – maybe because he’s stabbed and slain and torn out entrails.
And my excitement at seeing him? For some reason, it’s the same kind as when I thought the Leader of the Nation was coming to Forbearance – excitement you could mistake for fear.
11. Close To The Front
JAY
It’s mid-morning and four Forbearance-Pinedale troop trucks full of us volunteers are roaring south-east along a road that leads to God-knows-where.
It’s been a good training camp. Short, maybe, but good. Okay, so I almost got Essie killed and myself drowned for biting a sergeant, but I’m reunited with my brother. Everything’s going to be alright now. Ax is a captain and I’m going to be looked after.
“I miss home,” Taff says as we pass a run-down timber dwelling that looks nothing like where he lives. I suppose it’s the homeliness of it that starts him off.
“Try not to cry on your uniform,” Dub says.
I give Von a cookie and wonder if I even have a home. It could be that Mr Nine-Zero already has the farm while Ma is living among the trees. I think of Ax and me heading back there, both of us officers in the army. We throw Mr Nine-Zero out of our house and take back the farm. The only problem I foresee is me telling Ax how Ma received a death sentence and became an outlaw.
“Your brother’s back then,” Dub says, as if it’s just occurred to him.
“Yes.”
He leans in close for privacy. “The bad ones always do well.”
“That’s Ax you’re talking about.”
“I worked with him for two years, remember?”
“He always worked hard, Dub. In the fields as well as at school.”
“Don’t give me that crap. He thought more of the girls on the next farm than he did of your damned fields.”
“That’s not true.” For some reason I glance at a couple of the older Pinedale girls and wonder what Ax would think of them.
“Be honest, Jay. Do you know the real reason he joined the army?”
I don’t want to talk to Dub anymore, so we continue in silence.
By early afternoon we’ve reached River 17. There’s a small steamboat on the water and, farther along, a bridge across to the south side. We don’t cross though. We pull into the Forbearance-Pinedale Combat Camp. A troop truck that brought in some regulars is already there and various size tents are going up. Alongside the large mess tent, a small open-back truck waits to stock it with food.
“I hope that’s not the only supply truck,” Dub says. “Otherwise, don’t bother coming back from the fighting.”
I wonder how far we are from the Front. I imagine it must be near. I listen for heavy gunfire and explosions on the wind but there’s only the sound of the truck engines and our wheels going through water-filled ruts. In fact, the ruts are getting deeper, forcing us a little off the road.
WRRROOOOOM!
I’m…
I don’t…
Something’s…
“Bomb,” someone says.
“Are we hit?” Taff says.
I try to shake off the confusion. I think I’m okay. I check Von. I check the others. Thank God we’re all okay. Was it a dud?
No. There’s smoke just ahead. And moaning.
A truck!
We go to see what’s what, but it doesn’t look like we can do much. I’ve never seen anything like it. Only four or five of them got out.
“Get them on the grass,” Sergeant Seven-Nine says.
With Taff taking Von, I help lay the injured on the verge. In fact, there are so many helpers, we’re bumping into each other.
The sergeant intervenes. “Okay, just you four there. The rest of you, get your tents up.”
There’s protesting from some about leaving their friends, but they go. I feel sorry for them until I realize I don’t want to spend more time with the blackened, bloodied casualties. Some have shredded clothes. Some have parts missing. Some are dead. I’m overcome with emotion – but only for a moment. Then I haul it back in because a teacher must lead by example, and you can’t do that if you break down and cry over some dead people and all the hope that has died with them.
Finally, a medic arrives. “You four, with me. We’ll get a field hospital up over there.”
We spend some time putting up a large white marquee. It’s hard work because the sun is breaking through the rain clouds and making us damp and hot. Inside the tent, we set up beds and treatment tables, and bring in six injured troopers. That leaves four dead on the grass verge – not as bad as we first feared.
We’re given some bread, cheese, water, and a heavy spade each. Then the sergeant takes us back to the dead and points to a nearby patch of ground.
“When you’ve eaten, you can bury them there.”
We sit on damp earth a few feet from the corpses and eat our food in silence. It feels strange to be chewing on bread and cheese when so much life and promise lies defunct beside me. Such loss is worthy of poetic words and songs of sorrow, not some boy’s tongue smacking against the roof of his mouth like there’s no respect left in the world. That said, it’s a long time since I’ve had cheese and it’s incredibly tasty.
Once we’ve eaten, we di
g. It’s early afternoon and it’s getting really hot, so we stop every so often to take a breather and observe those watching our activities from a distance. I doubt they envy us. By the end of the task, I’m exhausted. The pit isn’t very deep, but the sergeant seems happy enough.
“Right, get them in.”
We place the bodies into the pit and I try to avoid their faces as we shovel dirt over them. Once we’re done, the sergeant stamps down the earth here and there.
“Okay, get some rest,” he says.
“Any words, sergeant?” I ask. It’s normal to have respectful, spiritual words.
“They died heroes,” he says.
I still think we should have some spiritual words.
When I find Taff and Dub, I learn we’ll be sharing with three new young people from our home town. Although I know them a little, I’m too full of thoughts to talk with them. Instead I go with Dub, Taff, and Von to mess around by the river. The sky is clear now and it’s like there’s no war going on anywhere in the whole world.
Morning rescues me from a dream in which I’m shooting Lieutenant Three-Two in the elbow while running to avoid his deadly pincer movement.
Thank God for morning.
While Dub sleeps and Taff deals with Von, I get over to the mess tent and pick up some bread and a plate of bean stew. There’s no cheese left, which is a shame. Must be the enemy disrupting our supply lines. In truth, I’m just hoping to catch the attention of my brother.
As it is, Ax isn’t around, so I take a seat near two regular soldiers who are speaking low. But I have good ears.
“…that’s how it is. Seems the farther north-west you go, the more they…”
He stops. Maybe he’s worked out that I’m listening. I concentrate on my meal. I don’t want regulars thinking I’m trouble.
“You got ID?” one of them asks.
I show him my card but he looks far from convinced.
“What’s going on?” It’s Colonel Five-Five coming to see what’s what.
“Just checking her ID, sir.”
“It’s okay,” the colonel says, “this one isn’t a spy.”