The Price of Living by Adithi Jayashankar

The trenches were within me. Those walls of dirt dug up by young infantry men, the distinctions between French, Russian and English invisible beneath the layers of grime which coated our faces and bodies. Spend months in one place, contemplating the meaning of it all, and that place becomes you, just a little bit. I thought it was about honor. I suppose it was, in a way. Though ‘honor’ is often defined by the dishonorable and we had been stationed between those barriers for longer than we’d bargained for.

The sun grew weak over that winter. As did we. We were only men, afterall. Men who fused themselves to pistols and put their own walls up inside, bonded with our people yet somehow, all alone together. Outsiders could understand but they could not comprehend the magnitude of what existed in those trenches. There was blood on our hands, and tainting our hair, the taste of iron never far from the tips of our tongues. There was blood in the stirring of vocal chords, blood in the melody of war cries. There was blood soaking the dirt that drowned us all.

I don’t know the date which changed everything. I had long since retreated into the confines of my mind, talking through my salute and the pained smiles I allocated to the soldiers who had it worse, those unfortunates who had survived while their limbs had not, shrapnel piercing through tissue and bone: sealing their fates in single bullets. It wasn’t always a bad thing. There were some men, driven to bravery by sheer desperation, forcing their hands to play martyr. When the lead rained like some cursed holy water, they stole a breath and raised their palms proud. I could not tell if it was a worthy sacrifice: losing the hand to save the life. They were shepherded away on stretchers by the RAMC and sent home, triumph clouded by the price they’d paid.

There was a Frenchman who was planning to do it. I could tell by the way his pupils darted to the incoming flood, and his fingers danced from his rifle like a pianist. He was stealing his courage, impatiently awaiting the moment he could return to Marseille, bound by bandages.

But then a package arrived for him. The mail was often slow, he was surprised by the brown paper wrapping. Inside was a note he showed no one but tucked into his breast-pocket, and a packet of biscuits. They were just flour and the tiniest bit of sugar that could be spared, maybe some butter. They’d been a great sacrifice.

I think those biscuits doomed him.

He tore the package open, and handed one to me. I accepted, grateful for his comradery. The sender must have reminded him who he was fighting for. He did not leave. The shells were dropped that night. The walls exploded, the force of it throwing men into the air, and turning them to corpses. It was a raid as we’d never seen before.

I’d been on watch, meant to inspect the movement of the Germans and make sure they didn’t get too close. But it had been too dark, and too late, so we had not seen it coming. Our warning was of little use.

I ran from my post, meaning to get away from the smoldering wreckage of our troops and the advancing enemies. The mud slowed me down, the crumbled remains of the dirt mixing with stagnant water and liquifying at my feet. My boot caught on something, and I turned, shock and horror curling within my insides at the sight of the dead Frenchman who had just hours ago decided to stay. I tugged, pulling with energy I didn't know I possessed. This time, it was my own force that sent me flying. I was sprawled head-first in the dirt, behind what remained of a wall. When I managed to open my eyes, I glimpsed you. Your thick golden hair and clear crystal eyes fit the image they’d told us to picture as target practice in training. Your uniform was a little dirtied, but I could still see the green underneath and the insignia at your chest: I’d heard the Germans managed to have plumbing in their trenches. You seemed to glow with a youth I hadn’t seen in a long time, the resilience of thinking you could go to war and return unchanged.

If I was destined to die, it was not a horrible final view.

However, you didn’t reach for your rifle, instead deliberating for a moment, and placing your index finger against my lips to keep me silent.

Something inside me shifted, and I saw shadows cross your eyes, a wild uncertainty as to why you were so sure about me. You’d been merciful. To an enemy soldier you didn’t know. But that's the thing about uniforms: they define your loyalty until you can no longer see them, until the dirt and gore has rendered us all the same: broken boys, scared of dying, terrified of being the only ones to survive.

For years I told myself the feelings that you had summoned from me had been wrong. Sinful. Unnatural. A moment of panic that had rendered me confused. But then the words of the Frenchman whose name has evaded me through the years returns: In French, we don’t say ‘I miss you’; we say ‘tu me manques’. You are missing from me.

And as I lie beside my wife, all these years later, I find myself longing for someone I didn’t get the chance to know. You saved my life, but I paid a price worse than my hand. The war took a piece of me that I can never get back. I hope you’re guarding it well.