stephen.w.fahey@gmail.

com

Eyes
Written By

Stephen Fahey

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The second that I opened my eyes a grenade rolled into the room. My quick thinking

guide, the Major, grabbed me by my backpack and pulled behind a brick partition, a split second

later the grenade went off and deafened the pair of us. After we had crawled away on our bellies

and composed ourselves he told me that this happened sometimes, even though they were meant

to deliver us during a lull in the battle. Apparently it “wasn’t an exact science”. A poor choice of

words I thought, especially as we had already arrived.

In short order we made it to a dusty, bombed out sitting room. It stank but it was quiet,

almost too quiet. In the brick dust and stale light my guide motioned for me to wait, crawled up

to a large hole in the outside wall and peered over the edge. A moment later he reached his hand

back without looking away from the hole and motioned for me to move up past him, to the other

side of the hole. I scrambled past as quickly and quietly as I could. I didn’t even look as I passed

to the far side of the wall but the Major was right behind me and dragged me to the ground by

my backpack just as a burst rounds came smashed through the brick wall just above our heads,

followed by the echoing report of a heavy machine gun in the distance. As I fell on my back my

guide fell beside me, smiling. I was shocked. All I could do was nod in thanks. A patted me on

the chest, raising a small cloud of chalky dusk, and we were on our way again. The sitting room

lead to a kitchen and out into a courtyard that was covered in soot. Four charred bodies lay

twisted on the ground, one was eerily sat in a wrought iron patio chair, his gun still in his hand.

They were so badly burned that I couldn’t tell which side they had belonged to. The Major said

they must have been hit by artillery. Looking at the spent bullet casings that littered the ground

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he noted that they were likely defending this position when the strike was called in. In the quiet I

couldn’t help but imagine what this small garden had been like in peacetime. It was likely a

haven for someone in this heaving city.

Two houses over we moved upstairs, passing bedrooms, lounges and studies, some

utterly destroyed and some completely untouched by the war. The contrast was moving, it forced

the mind to reel with thoughts of the families that had been uprooted and obliterated by the

conflict. And there, in the middle of it all, my guide and I moved to find a concealed place to dig

in for the night. Dusk was fast approaching.

As we reached the fourth floor of a six storey apartment block my guide barricaded the

door and took out his notebook. Pulling some hardboiled sweets from his pocket, he threw them

to me and motioned for me sit down as he began to read his notes. He sat on the unburnt end of a

half burnt double bed, the floral pattern covered in soot that cascaded slowly onto the floor as he

sat down. After a few moments he closed his notes and stuffed them back into the thigh pocket of

his combat trousers, buttoning and patting it with assurance. Then he looked up at me, sat there

like a child on the floor, and stood and walked to the window. As he looked out on to the street

he said it would begin soon, and that the buildings across the road from us would be destroyed

but that ours wouldn’t be, so I “needn’t worry”.

He was a short man of few words, not even six foot tall, but he was tough as old nails.

The Major looked like he’d been born on a battlefield and seemed right at home in the horror of

what used to be a bustling city full of people. After a brief check at the window he motioned me

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over. We just stood there looking across the street. It was four lanes with a tram line in the centre.

The trees on either side had been blasted away long before, the pavement and the cobbles of the

road had large sandy hole blown in them, like giant’s footprints. The tram line was twisted,

jutting out of its former pure straight shape. The street was only eight houses long on the

opposite side, but it back on to the short end of a park. We couldn’t see it from this side but my

guide told me it used to be a focal point of the district. It had been targeted on the very first

bombing run, a classic physiological tactic.

Within minutes darkness fell and the air raid began. Hundreds of planes flew overhead,

wave after ceaseless wave of aerial terror dropping their loads. All around the city we could hear

the explosions and see the flashes of light in the distance. It was mesmerising. We both watched

from the silent shadows, awed by the sight. Such destruction. Such hatred. It was awful and

incredible in equal measures. Then, as if with no warning, the three end house on the opposite

side of the street were hit. The top two floors of each were completely obliterated in a massive,

deafening burst of brick and metal that showered onto the broken street below and bounced off

the opposite side of the walls we were the stood behind. At a storey shorter than the building we

occupied, once the cloud of red clanking dust settled, and we had climbed back to our feet, we

could see over the rubble and across the park beyond. We looked at each other with disbelief.

The Major had known our building would be hit but even he was filled with surprise, the blast

had been so unexpected.

The raid continued for hours, but no other bombs fell near our position. I tried to talk to

The Major but, as always, he seemed disinterested in me. I supposed a civilian on a battlefield is

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a liability to a soldier, even though he had volunteered. Eternally focused on the job at hand, I

watched him for a while as he trimmed his bushy moustache as intently as he studied his notes.

His tough, tanned hands as steady as a rock. He was fatherly, but in a stern life and death kind of

way. Tired, I fell asleep sitting up, leading against a tattered wardrobe.

Before dawn we were up and on our way. We had several positions to reach that day and

my guide wanted us on the move before sunlight exposed us. There were soldiers everywhere.

Crawling through the rubble of several streets left us both covered in grime and ash, so

by the time that we arrived at the library we were like two ghosts. Covered head to toe in pale

filth, I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror and shuddered. I wasn’t a soldier. I had never been

in a warzone before. Regardless, I moved on, following in the Major’s footsteps. The library had

escaped relatively unscathed, in the shadow of a warehouse it survived many near misses. Half

buried in rubble itself, the main entrance was blocked by a pile of loose redbrick and

cinderblocks so we climbed up onto a burned out bus and into the library through a small

window. Once we stepped inside the sound of penetrating silence consumed us both. The air was

filled with the educated scent of books and old wooden furniture. Every step echoed, even on the

carpet. With a high ceiling, the main hall seemed endless. Bathed in an orange and blue glow

from stained windows in massive gothic arches that dominated either end of the building. The

Major told it that it had been a cathedral before it was converted, it was beautiful. How it hadn’t

been destroyed was beyond both of us, but we moved quickly to the back of the main hall, to the

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reserved section in a small office. There was something my guide had to get before we moved

on.

The office at the back of the building was small, maybe ten feet by fifteen feet, but there

was a large cage that took up most of that space. Once inside, the Major quickly removed his

pistol, shot the padlock on the chain that held the cage shut and pulled aside the thin metal bars.

Turning to me, he handed me his pistol and told me to stand watch. I turned and could hear him

rifling through the stacks of books shelved inside the cage. I stepped further out of the office and

back into the main hall. There wasn’t a sound. No distance dull thuds of bombs. No snapping

cracks of rifles. Just empty musky air surrounding me. I barely noticed the pistol in my hand

until a loud cackling sound above me startled me into pointing it instinctively into the rafters. At

first I had thought it was machine gun fire but immediately realised it was something else. I

couldn’t see what was making the sound so stepped further forward. After a moment’s silence of

baited breath a magpie flapped clumsily from one rafter to another. Sighing heavily and lowing

the pistol, I laughed to myself just as the Major patted me on the shoulder and passed me by,

startling me again. Evidently he was oblivious to the magpie’s presence and walked straight past

me to the same window we climbed in through, motioning for me to follow with a wave of his

hand. And as usual, without a word said. As I came to the window I gave him his pistol back.

Glancing up one last time at the magpie all I see were rafters.

Two streets over we ran into a crew of engineers trying desperately to fix a tank. My

guide had obviously taken a wrong turn, so as we came to a corner to check around it, before our

usual dash to cover, a crewman in drab grey overalls carrying a wrench walked straight into the

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Major and the pair fell in a heap onto the ground, the engineer on top of my guide. Without

thinking, I jumped forward and kicked the engineer in the side of the head as hard as I could,

knocking him out cold. The engineer went limp and covered the Major with a groan so I leaned

down and pulled him off of him. Standing up, he was fuming. “What the hell do think you’re

doing?!” he seethed. “You could have killed him!” But there wasn’t time, we could hear more

men coming up the road so we turned heel and ran. Overtaking me with ease, he mumbled

“idiot” and waved me into a smashed shop window before diving through it.

We each landed in the dust with the clinking gritty sound of broken glass beneath us and

hunkered down behind the shop front. Listening to the other engineers find their friend the Major

looked at me like he wanted to kill me but after a moment his evil stare shifted, as if realised it

was his misjudgement that got us into a pickle in the first place, a moment later he nodded and

patted my shoulder. All five engineers were huddled around their unconscious comrade as the

Major risked a glance. We moved on through the fallen adjoining wall of the shop into a butchers

and back out onto the street, around the corner and out of sight of the engineers. We still had a lot

of ground to cover before nightfall.

After a quick check of his notebook he brought me to a graveyard with a small

mausoleum in the northwest corner. The buildings that surrounded it seemed relatively

untouched and there were no bodies littered about like in the streets. It seemed different than the

other areas of the city that we had seen so far, almost peaceful, but as he checked his watch he

hurried. There was something about this place that was obviously important. We rushed through

the high tombstones, passing grave after grave, I in constant fear of joining their occupants. As

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soon as we came to the huge cast iron door of the tomb we hurriedly heaved it open, entered and

slammed it shut behind us. Just as we did artillery began to fall. The reverberations inside the

small brick structure concussed our ears a hail of shells thundered down around us. The

unrelenting attack seemed to be landing on all sides, and for miles around. Never before or since

had I heard anything like it. It was as if God himself was visiting his anger upon this graveyard

and us two souls hidden within it. After what felt like hours the attack ceased. Both our ears were

ringing of course, but we opened the huge door once more and leered outside. I could hardly

believe my eyes. Everything, the graveyard, the perimeter wall, the houses the overlooked it on

all side and every building for a mile around had been flattened. It was astonishing. And here, in

the middle of all this destruction, our mausoleum lay untouched. I looked at the Major in awe.

He just looked back at me, then smiled wryly. All I could do was shake my head.

We had to move before troops moved into the area to mop up after the artillery strike, and

still we had one more stop to make before finding somewhere to dig in for the night. Knowing

that there were no prying eyes watching us from the burning surroundings we headed west, away

from the river. Looking back at what had been the graveyard I just couldn’t get my head around

it, I blinked in disbelief and then turned to follow my guide.

He was just ahead of me, some two hundred metre or so from the graveyard, leaning

against a crumbling building, when out of nowhere, as he leaned down to look around the corner

at waist height, a bullet stuck the wall where his head had just been. A burst of redbrick clouded

in our faces and wafted to the ground at our feet. Without hesitation he grabbed me by my shirt

collar with one hand and bolted across the narrow street throwing himself, and me along with

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him, to the ground. As I hit the deck my face slammed into the edge of a rusty warped railing that

had been blasted from a balcony above the street, cutting my cheek open from eye to jaw. Sitting

up, we looked at each other, I nodded in thanks and as the Major grabbed a handful of grit from

the street and slapped me on the face with it. Not realising I had be injured, I was confounded.

But as he retracted his hand it began to sting. Seeing the blood on his hand I nodded once more

in thanks. He looked at me like I was an idiot, then patted me on the chest and motioned me to

stay down.

As we crawled, more shots came in over our heads. Occasionally we’d be momentarily

visible, or at least parts of us must have been, because the shooter fired six more shots in the time

it took us to snake across the road. As we knew he had to be at least hundreds of metres away,

outside the scorched shelled area, we knew that once we were across the street he wouldn’t be

able to see us. Once we were out of sight we sat up. He took out a hipflask and offered me a hit, I

gladly took one and then passed it back to him. Taking a hit and a big calming breath himself, he

tucked it back inside his jacket and winked at me, smiling. With no time to waste we were

straight back up and moving.

The chandeliers in Lord St. John’s Manor were decrepit wrecks, nothing compared to

their former splendour evident in photographs of visiting officials that adorned the walls. We

could hear boots stomping around on floorboards above us and muffled voices shouting orders,

but we couldn’t make out what they were saying. The Major put his forefinger to his lips to

command silence, leaned close to me and whispered that we had to get to the basement. He then

crouched and started towards the back of the building. As we came to doorways he would raise

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his hand and halt me, check the other side and then motion me on when ready. More than once

we came within feet of soldiers as they went about their business inside the Manor but my guide,

the quintessential host, had them figured out. Never once did they even suspect we were there.

We took our time, moving painfully slow, but we made it to the basement with time to spare.

The basement door openly with ease and without a sound, the old wrought iron hinges

ghostly in their silence. We stepped inside and turned on our flashlights, the cool air a warmly

welcomed after the sweaty, nerve wracking traverse of the house above. The Major lead us to the

far end of the earthen floor room and turned down a corridor to the right. The brick walls were

buttressed with thick timbers like in a mine and the low ceilings made it dangerously

claustrophobic. After a minute or so we stopped and my guide knelt down. Swinging his

backpack off and down to the ground he took out a field shovel, unfolded it and began to dig. In

no time there was a small hole of one foot wide, one foot long and two feet deep. Stabbing the

ground with his tool, he produced a large book wrapped in cloth and put it in the hole. Without

looking at me or speaking to me once, he filled the hole back in. Finally, he took the flap of his

backpack and placed it against the brick wall right over the covered in hole. He then took his

field shovel and smashed the brick behind it with several hard strikes. Removing the flap and

checking his work he packing up and motioned for us to leave. I knew exactly what he was doing

but I didn’t dare say anything, even though it was wrong. He was my lifeline and I wasn’t about

to rock the boat.

Leaving the basement was as deadly a venture as entering it. With guards patrolling the

Manor grounds we had to wait for darkness and then moved stealthily to a shack about a mile

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away. As we left we could see engineers attaching aerials to the roof of. They were fortifying it,

obviously readying for battle. In the dark we couldn’t see what side they were on, but that was

irrelevant anyway. We couldn’t engage them. Those were the rules.

The shack had a fireplace but we couldn’t use it, we simply ate our rations and waited out

the night. We could hear the flak and the drone of bombers in the distance, and of course, their

deadly loads being dropped across the city. The Major checked his notes over and over, it was

vital that he got his facts straight. I quietly contemplated the events of the day, still amazed at the

incident in the graveyard. We had both been nearly killed, twice, and I had no idea what the next

day would bring. Whatever came I knew it would be as exhilarating as it would be terrifying.

The early morning was again shrouded by thick smoke and soot as we snuck into the

heart of the city. My guide had done his homework, we didn’t see a soul and had no encounters

whatsoever. Just as dawn broke we were concealed inside the cockpit of a plane that had crashed

and burned in the penultimate floor of a warehouse on the outskirts of the factory district. With a

commanding view of the destroyed city we were as safe and comfortable as we could be, sat in

the pilot and co-pilot’s leather seats, facing north. The Major said that it wouldn’t begin until

after midday, so we took turns to sleep and conserve our energy. After two one hour naps each

we got ready. The field of view was some thousand metres long and three hundred metres wide.

We could see down the length of three long streets, each at least a mile long. The centre street

was blocked by felled buildings at two hundred metres but the other two were clear, bar the usual

charred rubble and soot that littered every inch of the city. Below us and a hundred metres out,

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the three streets adjoined in a circular junction before branching out into the distance. To the east

of the fifty metres wide junction, a row of burnt out cars and trucks, thirteen of them, made a

barricade of sorts that cut off a third of the junction, which itself was ringed by the shells of what

used to be office blocks. Most had been five and six storeys tall but at least half of them were

already reduced to less than half of their original height.

We were both glued to our binoculars when I saw them first. Skulking down the east

street was a contingent of two dozen natives. They were hugging the walls as they moved down

both sides of the street, rifles at the ready. It looked more like a patrol than a mission, my guide

informed me, his invaluable running commentary educating me as events unfolded. We watched

as they moved up towards the junction below us, it was slow going as they checked every corner

before passing intersecting streets. As I watched, the Major nudged me with his elbow. I looked

over at him. He was looking west through his binoculars so I followed suit. Behind the barricade

lay a line occupying soldiers, resting in three groups of six. He had watched them march in as I

was watching the natives make their way toward us. I suddenly realised what was about to

happen. I looked again to the Major with that same look I gave him in the graveyard. He just

smiled at me again. This man really knew his stuff.

The natives were about to enter the junction, the soldiers behind the barricade were still

resting, both forces oblivious to the other’s presence. As if by chance, this meeting was certain to

be explosive. The open two thirds of the junction that the natives were moving towards were sure

to be a killing ground. The soldiers had cover and, as always, better weapons. Everything was set

for a vicious battle, but again my guide nudged me. I looked over at him once more, he was

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pointing to the rooftops just below us. We didn’t even need our binoculars to see them; a pair of

snipers were crawling toward the edge of a roofless top floor office. The office had been on the

third floor but was open to the sky as the rest of the upper floors had been blasted away by

bombing raids. On side facing the away from us and towards junction the blackened façade of

empty windows still loomed precariously. We couldn’t tell which side the snipers were on, but

we knew we’d soon find out.

As the natives walked into the junction the soldiers behind the barricade realised they had

company. They didn’t open fire but they waited, no doubt baiting their prey. The natives were as

cautious entering the junction as they had been coming down the east street, but they had no line

of sight on the soldiers. As each native entered the junction they crouched and began to make

their way south across the open ground. Once the first man made it to the far side, and the others

were all in sight, the soldiers opened fire, killing five of them outright. As soon as the first shot

rang out the pack of natives all dove to the ground and began to crawl, continuing south. The

soldiers all stood up behind the barricade and continued firing as the natives that made it to the

other side of the junction took up positions and returned fire. Just as the soldiers stood up behind

the barricade the snipers sprang into life, their shots raining down with unerring accuracy. Within

minutes the whole junction was alive with fire. Soon half of the natives lay dead in the open

while the soldiers were falling as quickly as the snipers could work the bolts of their rifles. From

behind better cover and with better weapons, the soldier would have slaughtered the natives, but

the snipers made all the difference. It was harrowing. Soon only three soldiers remained, pinned

down, but out of sight from the snipers. Meanwhile, the surviving natives had scrambled into

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ruined offices below us and out of our line of sight. We counted fifteen dead or dying natives so

we knew a maximum of nine were still alive, less than half their unit.

The two snipers had managed to remain undetected by the soldier as no return fire came

their way, but with their view blocked by the barricade they lay patiently, awaiting their chance

to finish off their prey. The Major and I sat silently, I enthralled and he as seemingly disinterested

as ever. It even sounded like the constant battles around the city had ceased, as if to allow the one

we were watching to rage undisturbed. The whole battle had taken only minutes to come to a

standoff, but it had felt like an hour. It was incredible for a person like me to witness such an

event. The Major seemed unconcerned. For a man like him it was obviously nothing new.

As we watched, the snipers began to back away. It seemed strange, they had the soldiers

pinned down. I asked my guide why the remaining natives didn’t just flank the barricade and

finish off the soldiers. He just looked at me with that knowing look and put his binoculars down

on the smashed console in front of us and leaned back folding his arms with a smug grin.

Puzzled, I took another look at the snipers, but they were gone. I checked the area that the

natives had disappeared into, but I couldn’t spot even one of them. Lastly, I looked over at the

barricade. It was horrendous. There was a row of bodies laid out where they fell, with bloody

messes across the rubble behind each. They had all been shot through the head or chest by the

snipers. I didn’t see one soldier killed by the natives, the snipers had literally done all of the

killing for their side. Then it came.

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As I studied the three remaining soldiers, huddled behind the barricade, surrounded by

their fallen comrades’ twisted bodies, a sudden flash of soot and fire filled my view through my

binoculars, half blinding me. Ripping my eyes away from the glass, I suddenly heard the roaring

sound of inbound artillery that I had been oblivious to with my avid observance. A hail of death

came down from the sky. The shock of the first unexpected shell having heightened my senses.

The sound and smell of each explosion seemed volcanic, blasting huge clouds of dirt into the

sky. The barricade was obliterated, sending cars and trucks flying into the air, some

disintegrating into splinters of metal and fire. In all, some thirty shells fell on the fifty metre wide

junction in about one minute, but the adrenaline surging through my veins it again felt like much

longer.

When silence finally fell I sat, jaw agape, staring at the wasteland in front of me. All the

concrete and cobblestones had been crushed and turned over. The office blocks around the

junction had also been hit, but largely escaped further damage. Whoever had launched the

artillery had the junction dialled in tight. The barricade was completely gone. One car was

twisted into the office block at the west end of the junction, beside where the barricade had

stood, but all the others were in pieces spread out across the junction or imbedded in walls. I

looked over at the Major who was still sat smugly with his arms folded, unmoved from his

previous position. Apparently the look on my face said it all, he just chuckled and punched me in

the shoulder.

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That night we holed up in the woods. It was a small strip of land which the Major had

selected overlooking the river. The view was amazing. All night the city burned and we watched

with saddened hearts, knowing the terrible cost that so many were paying all around us. As usual

the Major didn’t say much, but his discomfort was palpable. I almost asked him what was on his

mind, but couldn’t. It didn’t seem right. The smell of burning oil and spent explosives clung to us

as we finished our rations. The Major offered to continue for an extra day but as we couldn’t

hunt or scavenge anything - another rule - we’d have to starve. I thought about it and decided to

stay on. Even with the cold and the hunger I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. I’d never see this

city again, not like it was that night.

The next morning it was cold, very cold. We had decent clothes but they seemed to do

nothing. It wasn’t even windy but with nothing to eat our bodies didn’t hold any heat. We were

on the move before dawn again, skulking through a sewer. It stank of death and excrement, so it

was just as well we had empty stomachs. Even my guide was visibly effected, but never once did

he complained. The rats we enormous, like cats, and they were everywhere. I thought it was as if

every rat in the city was hiding down there until I realised that they probably were. After what

felt like hours we escaped that awful dungeon of filth via a crumbling dried up pond. It lay in the

grounds of a hotel, most of which had been flattened by the bombing raids. As we made our way

through the once grand building we came upon a kitchen stocked with tinned foods. It was

painful to look at as we couldn’t touch any of it. Like a gift from the devil, sent to torture our

weakening souls. The Major scoffed, but I wasn’t as subtle. “Don’t even think about it”, he

warned. I knew I couldn’t take anything, but I had to forcibly stop myself. Regardless, I moved

on filled by the mystery and fear of the city.

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We came onto the roof of the hotel and were met by the screaming engine of a fighter

plane as it passed us by at head height. The shock nearly took both of us off our feet, then it was

gone as quickly as it had come. The smell of its fuel hung in the air, we could taste it, but after a

few minutes that too dissipated. A search quickly brought up a torn tarp buried under some

rubble so we laid down, crawled to the edge of the roof and covered ourselves with the it. The

Major said it wouldn’t be long, so I took our my binoculars and got as comfortable as I could.

Our field of view was dominated by row after row of trenches. Each dug into the frozen

ground in what had been a public park. The shelling and bombing raids had reduced the park to

little more than a killing ground laced with a web of grave-like lines. Both the natives and their

fatal enemies had dug in the year before but neither had managed to “control the park”, I was

told. Each day there was fighting and each day there were deaths but only in no man’s land, a

two football field sized patch of rotten Earth between the trenches. Today was to be different

though. The Major said he wasn’t originally going to bring me there because it was so

dangerous, but I had proved myself in the Manor house and by staving off hunger. I could sense

though, this one was more for the Major than for me.

In the early hours of freezing mist a young man armed with a handgun and a pair of

grenades climbed over the top of the trenches to our east. He couldn’t have been more than

twenty years of age. His thin face and baggy greatcoat made him look like an old beggar. As he

stood, up his head reached over the mist and it was then that the shots began. He threw himself

on the ground, under the mist, but the shots kept coming. The natives were relentless, even

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though they were shooting blind. The occupying soldiers immediately returned fire and in no

time both sides were firing everything they could lay their hands on. Incredibly though, right

before our eyes both sides suddenly ceased fire and poured out of their trenches and into no

man’s land. Both bands of men were armed with handguns, grenades and knives. None of those

left in the trenches fired for apparent fear of hitting their own so the only volleys were by those

who stood knee deep in mist.

At first the lead men lobbed their grenades as they ran, each missile exploding with

furious dread, and then opened up with their handguns. Half of the men on the front line on both

sides fell within the first minute; some thirty of them lay dead or dying just below the mist, their

screams of agony barely audible over the din of battle. The second wave of expendable youths

came pounding through the smoky gloom and met their brothers-in-death head on. The few that

had survived the first wave were already engaging the enemy in hand-to-hand combat which

defied hope. Their comrades’ reinforcement, to my horror and shameful fascination, served only

to bolster the gory ballet. None of the first waves on either side still stood within three minutes,

the second waves were nearly entirely gone, and a third wave on each side was thundering down

on certain death. Some hundred bodies had dropped below the silky fog, leaving the field of

battle seemingly empty to the eye. But like a lake full of bodies, we knew they were there. The

Major never made a shound, but I suddenly sensed that he was drawn into the conflict unfolding

in the park. I didn’t look away from my binoculars, but I heard him shuffle a little, almost

nervously. Within five minutes of the battle beginning it was raging in full tilt. The grenade

explosions and the report of handguns began to die down and, almost simultaneously, a massive

wailing came from the sky. Suddenly, both sides frozen, some men even freezing mid-knife

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thrust, and looked up. I could smell the fear from the hotel rooftop. Turning heel and bolting flat

out toward their respective tranches, every able man ran for his life, bar one. An older man, and

by older I mean in his late twenties, knelt and lifted a wounded comrade and moved as fast as he

could towards to natives’ trenches. He hadn’t made it ten paces when the first shell hit. It landed

in the middle of no man’s land, some fifty metres from him, but the force was enough to take

him off of his feet. Unfazed, he picked himself up, then his comrade and continued staggering.

Behind the time he was back on his feet more shells were landing all over the battlefield, but he

just kept on going. Again and again he fell under the mist, clouds of dirt raining down on him,

but each time he got back up and pushed on. It was harrowing to watch, this lone soul battling in

hell. His faith unbreakable. After a minute or so he out his comrade down and climbed under the

mist himself, just as the shelling ceased.

I rolled over onto my back and sighed a deep, stirring sigh. The Major said nothing.

Having watched that man perform such an act, something had changed inside me. I had seen a

lot since we got to this place, but this was above all other things. Never in my life had I ever seen

someone so brave. I felt like an insect, not a man, knowing that such a person existed. My heart

swelled and broke under the glory that I had witnessed. And still, not a sound or movement from

the Major. I never smoked, but in that moment, I wanted a cigarette. The Major must have read

my mind, as right then he rolled over, tears drawing lines down his blacked sooty face and lit a

cigarette, offering me one from his tin. I refused politely, confounded at the emotion shown by

such a hardened man.

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He never said a word, he just sat up against the short wall that lined the roof and tugged

on his bent, hand rolled cigarette. He didn’t sob, but the tears were clearly running for all they

were worth. I didn’t speak. I just sat up beside him and waited with him. In that silent

communion, a lot passed between us, a humility and understanding that, as a civilian, I was

permitted, and would never otherwise have experienced. The Major had not shown me his

weakness, he had shown me his strength. And I was honoured to sit with him in that moment.

After he finished his cigarette had stubbed it out and out the butt in his pocket, then we were off.

We had a few hours of daylight left, so we headed to the river.

I felt like I was parting from a lover, I knew I would never see her again, this pained

place, but felt blessed that she had taken me into her arms for those few nights. Before we had

even made our way down and out of the hotel the Major was already his stern self again. He lead

me through the streets, through decrepit buildings and scorched playgrounds, through homes and

offices, then out of the city centre and into the suburbs. As we moved we had to lay and wait for

contingents of men to pass us, hiding in holes in walls that those very men had wrought and

crawling past them in the shadows of the flames that they themselves had lit. We paused only for

as long necessary before coming to the water’s edge outside of the city limits. We must have

been two miles from the nearest cannon. We could still see the light of the fires that raged every

hour of every day, but by dusk it was dark enough for us to wade into the river.

The Major led, as always, walking to waste height and waving me in. By the time the water got

up to my knees he was already treading water. I got up to my neck and swam out some twenty

metres from the bank, where my guide was waiting. He asked if I was ready and I nodded, then

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he reached into his shirt and pulled a chain from around his neck up over his head. I knew the

procedure - the most important rule of all – we had rehearsed it over and over before even

coming to Stalingrad. I took hold of the chain. “On three”, he said, and began to count. I sucked

in all the air I could, my heart pounding in my throat, and held my breath on “two”. On “three”

we both submerged. It was freezing cold but I was too excited to notice.

Under the water, the dim light of death incarnate lingering overhead, with both us holding onto

the chain, the Major took hold of the pendant and depressed the button at its centre. Instantly I

could feel the surge of electricity course through the chain and into my body. No doubt my guide

did too. With the air in my lungs burning slowly away, I held on and resisted the urge to tense up,

as instructed. The discomfort built up as the charge pushed itself into every corner of my body.

As it grew a dull light began to emanate from the pendant. In seconds, the light became a vast

swollen beacon, filling the water around us.

In the light the water seemed crystal clear, completely translucent. We two souls hung there,

suspended in empty brilliance, no cold, no time, just us and the light. Soon my lungs felt like

they would collapse. I fought the urge to gasp as the pain of the electrical charge reached an

agonising peak. The light finally grew to a blinding intensity and then, suddenly, extinguished

itself. With that, my face slapped hard against the polished metal floor of the chamber we had

originally departed from. We were back.

I looked up as I gasped for life giving air and blearily saw the Major lying on the floor in front of

me. Both of us were still clinging to the chain - our clothes and hair suddenly bone dry. He was

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shouting through his own controlled gasps “controlled breaths, don’t hyperventilate”. I was half

deafened and half blinded, but I’d never felt so alive. Tensing my stomach muscles to keep a

semblance of control over my air intake, I rolled over onto my back and sat up. With that the

chamber door opened and the assistants came bursting in, medical equipment in hand – standard

procedure. They checked both the Major and I and within minutes gave the all clear. I stood,

shakily, and walked from the chamber smiling with the rush of endorphins. The monitors showed

timers indicating we were only gone for seconds. It was incredible. The Major parted without

saying a word, ushered by the staff to another room..

The manager met me outside the changing room with glass of vitamin enriched orange juice. I

had expected my clothes to be filthy when I came back but he explained that all the dirt and grit

wouldn’t come back with me, just like the water from the river, because “they don’t belonging

this time”. I still couldn’t really wrap my head around it, the technology was like magic, even

now, hundreds of years after the battle I had visited. He thanked me for “my custom” and

handed me my receipt and a pair of commemoratory dog tags which had my name and the dates I

had visited stamped into them.

Walking me out to the lobby, he also handed me a certificate and told me that my complimentary

limousine was waiting to take me anywhere I wanted. I thanked him, wanting to ask about the

Major but left without enquiring.

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The End…

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