SMILE or THE FIELD OF SORROWS

He was ordered to march with the rest of the men, ill, sick with the epidemic that had decimated his battalion. 150 of them left to fight in the mud and the shell holes that had once seen children playing and laughing in the stream that snaked through the grassland, now brown and stinking and where only the rats multiplied, gnawing away at the carcasses of men who had been boys in the Spring rain. Silver Woods as it was known in those distant days. The Land of Skulls by its other name. Or Sorrow. Now it was August. Fierce heat. Dust. Follow the man in front as he will follow the man if front of him. Left. Right. Trudge. Trudge. The never-ending march to the end of the world. And the sweat ran down his brow, down his face, down his neck and he had to tug at the thick cotton collar of his tunic for the desperate air that was not poisoned with gas and sulphur and smoke and the stench of death. This was his road to hell. Everyday was a blur, a fragment of memory, nothingness. Bullets whipping past his head, the screams of the men, the boom of the big guns, the pain, the suffering. Men with no legs crying for their mothers, others in silence, with blood on their lips, some weeping, waiting for the silence.

"I was in my bed yesterday, all day yesterday, shivering with the sickness, shivering in that filthy flea ridden tent, hallucinating, listening to the inexhaustible line of troops marching to nowhere. Or was it was but a bad dream and I'd wake up in the warm cotton sheets of my mother? It's an impossible question. How far to go? Two miles? Only two miles?"

He had marched for thirty one. He'll die. He'll die for sure. He knew it. Everyone knew it. It was his mark. A bullet in his head. Right between the eyes. A tiny hole that trickles blood down over his cheeks, over his nose, into his open mouth that was breathing warm just a second ago. The line of red that marks your end. So what! This act of life. The black satin curtain will eventually fall. And a butterfly dipped in his sights as he was about to pull the trigger, aiming into the territory of the enemy who were aiming into the territory of the enemy. A butterfly? White. Whiter than white. Then another one. Two butterflies dancing in the field of Sorrow.

"I wipe my brow. Lay the rifle on the mound of red earth and listen. I hear a sparrow call. Yes, a sparrow, for I know its whistle, heard it when the sun shone all day in the garden where I climbed trees with my brothers. The sky was blue then, as now, but a different colour. No, you fool, it's not a sparrow, but a mocking bird, for a man is whimpering next to me, gurgling, sobbing, his chest shot out. His guts showing. But I daren't look into his eyes. Death has ways of saying something that the living cannot fathom. And besides, it's a very private matter."

How long? How long did he lie there with his head resting on that mound of earth, his rifle beside him, the spread of his 18 years aching to be touched with a fatherly word. An hour? A day? Forever? No ugly thoughts. No. No. No. Only the warm wind on his face. And the silence of knowing. He got fed up lying down. Fed up with life's tortuous whisper. That lingering wait for oblivion. Stood on top of the mound and looked across Sorrow. The bullet hit him right between the eyes. He fell backwards. As he knew he would. Smiling.

Learn more about this author, Jack Carr.
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