To live and shame the land from which we sprung.
Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose.
But young men think it is, and we were young.
���� ������������������ ���� -A. E. Houseman.
Waiting, waiting, waiting. Always waiting. James repeated this over and over in his head. It was one way that he could block out of his mind just what it was that he was waiting for. He was covered from head to toe in thin, grimy mud, the kind that crept into every crack and crevice, and stank to high heaven. A good shower would have revealed that the young infantryman was quite a handsome boy, with sandy, curly hair, and pale skin that spoke eloquently of his Scandinavian ancestry. His eyes, which he was having to continually wipe clear, were as blue as the sky above him. His eyes and head were in constant motion, scanning back and forth, looking, searching. He took a deep breath to try and steady his nerves, but he failed. He slowly scanned the area, taking in the vast expanse of No Man's Land.
Six hours previously it had not been No Man's Land at all, until a German counterattack, as sudden as it was fierce, had forced the American forces into a headlong retreat. James had been on patrol at the time, with the rest of his platoon. The first artillery shell of the counterattack had landed in the middle of them, and had killed everyone but him. He had not escaped unscathed, though, as a shell fragment had passed through his calf. The wound was causing James a great deal of pain.
He had managed to crawl into the crater left by the shell, just in time to watch the German attack. James had lain, terrified, in the bottom of the crater, holding his rifle ready to shoot anyone who saw him. One German soldier had, in fact, run past the edge of the crater, but had not seen him. James wasn't so lucky the second time, though. An infantryman had come running into the crater, and barely had time to register a look of shock before James, who had had his gun ready, shot him five times at point-blank range. The German's body still had enough momentum, however, to fall sickeningly on top of James, who had crawled out from under him as quickly as his injured leg would let him. The body still lay in the bottom of the crater. The German, who looked no older than himself, had not bled much from the holes torn in his uniform.
He flinched as a fighter flew low overhead. One of ours, he thought with relief - then recoiled in horror as it suddenly exploded. The burning wreckage smashed into the ground a moment later.
James looked at the body for the twentieth time in the last hour, and cursed as he felt his body return to the feeling of tense anticipation that had plagued him since he left the troopship. He was desperately thirsty, since the shell had destroyed his pack. For seven hours now, he had been crouched in the crater, expecting at any moment for a company of Germans to come pouring into his little crater, all bent on killing him.
James fully expected to die.
Unlike his father, he knew the awful horrors of war. He knew, unlike his father, that many of those who were lucky enough to return alive wished they hadn't, that they had died too. He knew that the mental torment was something that no one could ever escape. James did not want to live. The horrors that he had witnessed - and committed - since arriving in Normandy two weeks ago gave him constant nightmares. He was worried, though, about the way he died. Someone had told him as he left the troopship that you never hear the one that gets you. He knew now that this was a lie. He had seen an infantryman, probably younger even than himself, jerkily dancing like a macbre puppet as a machine gun ripped through him. Worse than that, he had seen people disembowelled, legs blown off, faces shredded. James knew that many people died in agony. Since James fully expected to die, the best he could hope for is that his death would be quick and painless. Thinking this, he realised how hopeless his situation was, and he cursed his father, for it was him and his patriotic fervour that had brought him here.
Six months earlier, at the dinner table one night, his father dropped a metaphorical bombshell on him - a prelude to the hundreds of very real ones that were to follow. "Tomorrow, James, you and I are going down to the recruiting office."
James didn't understand. "Why?" he asked.
His father looked at him with equal incomprehension. "To enlist you, of course. You're close enough to eighteen. It's about time you joined up." He swallowed another mouthful of food, thinking the subject closed. James sat with his mouth open, an expression of utter disbelief on his face. "But - but - I - I can't! I can't join until I'm eighteen! I - I'm not allowed!" he stammered. His father looked up at him, disbelievingly, his face slowly turning red. "You - said - WHAT?" said Mr Reynolds, spacing the words out slowly and deliberately. "Do you mean to tell me that you don't want to enlist?"
James had been living in dread of this moment since the war started. At first, it seemed like the war would be over in a couple of years. Everyone thought that "the Japs" would be a pushover, and then they would finish off the Germans, send them packing back to Berlin. It turned out not to be the case, and now, the moment James had feared had come. He had hoped that his father would let him wait until he was eighteen before telling him to sign up, but, knowing his father, he didn't really expect it to happen. "Dad, I - I - I do, but - but - not yet, that - that's all. When I turn eighteen, I - I'll sign up then," he said falteringly. James was seriously afraid. He had seen just how mad his father could get, and what he had just said was certain to enrage him like never before.
His father rose from his chair, shouting at him. "Your country needs you NOW, James! Not when you're eighteen! Do you think the Germans are going to put the war on hold until you're eighteen? Do you think that the Japanese will stop butchering innocent civilians until you're eighteen? DO YOU THINK THE WAR WILL JUST BE PUT ON HOLD UNTIL YOU'RE EIGHTEEN? What kind of a yellow scum are you anyway? Will you let the Japanese to take over the world without you ever risking your sorry little hide? Let me tell you, James, no son of mine is ever going to hide under a rock while his countrymen are fighting and dying for him! You WILL - you hear me, you WILL - go to the recruiting office tomorrow and sign up! If you don't, don't you DARE show your disgusting cowardly face around here again!" With that, he left the room, slamming the door as he went.
James knew it was pointless trying to tell him that whether he went or not would make no difference to the war - it was pointless trying to say anything. His father had left him with no choice. Running and hiding was not an option, as he had no money, nor any way of getting any. He couldn't stay at home - his father was so mad that if he didn't go the Japanese wouldn't have to kill him. He had no choice. James looked at his mother. She had even less power than James to influence her husband - she had always been the obedient, submissive wife, and she could not change that now. James knew that she was thinking what millions of mothers before her had thought - I didn't raise my son for this. Her face was filled with an incredible, indescribable sorrow, but curiously, no tears showed on her face. James knew that he would never see her or his father again. As soon as he signed up, he was just waiting for death.
In the next moment, the waiting was over, as a mortar shell exploded mere feet away. Perforated by shrapnel, and with both his legs blown off, James still lived long enough to scream an agonised curse at his father with his dying breath.