Tenth Man Down

Oh, how foolish we are in our youth to want to grow up! I remember all those days my friends and I spent racing each other through the fields of the countryside, the summers swimming in the river that cut through the rolling hills, meadows, and forest. Just the ten of us without a care in the world once we were released from our chores. How desperately I wish I could return to those days now!

I remember our meeting place in a small ravine several yards away from the stone-hemmed road, trodden and traced with the familiar horse hoof prints and wagon tracks. Hills shielded us on either side. We were free from the prying eyes of the adults. From there, we would decide where we would go: Remain among the tree-dappled hills, the meadow at the edge of the vast forest, or head into the forest itself. It was important in those days. It was our location that dictated our activities each day, and with each game we played, we learned a skill. Skills that came in handy when the war came…

Turmoil churned among the people of our country. Unrest over adult things like taxes, jobs, and others I hardly understood. Our meetings became increasingly sparse until I hardly saw any of them: The mousy-haired twins Don and Cole, Aaron with his blue eyes, Tall Thomas, Fredrick our bookworm, Jared (or “Hawk” as we called him for his hooked nose) and his younger brother Barry, Samuel the naturalist, and Richard. Richard, my best friend. The one I saw the most. In time, though, I no longer saw him, either. None of us could even keep in touch – or rather they couldn’t keep in touch with me. My parents would not allow me to do anything but work around our small farm when war seemed eminent.

A rebel army eventually massed, and war broke out. Some would call such a war a “civil war”, but I can no longer see why. There’s nothing civil about war, be it between people and their government, or two or more countries. After a time, I grew tired of remaining at home working, and felt I had enough of an understanding of the adult world. I believed the government was not caring for the people of our country. Against my father’s wishes, and in spite of my mother’s tearful begging for me to remain home, I joined the rebels.

It was odd to me at first to think the rebels were established enough to have any kind of training, but they did what they could to arm, and prepare us to fight. Indoctrinate us to kill, more like. And I was good at it. Good Lord, I was good at it! What a curse that talent has become!

They sent me to the Commander’s haphazard battalion of farm boys, butchers, and bakers. In two extremely short weeks, they got us as fit as they could through grueling exercises specifically designed to increase endurance and strength as well as teach us to shoot and fight. I trained hardest of the boys in my group. Once our training was completed, we were sent out to battle.

In battle, my belief in our cause stood solid, and numbed me to the fact that I was shooting and killing others like myself. I was cold and unfeeling. I felled at least a couple dozen every day we were engaged in battle. Our commander – a former member of the government’s army – praised my apparent skill with a rifle and promoted me. Eventually, he had me on sniper duty. I had no remorse for taking human life. I thought they were all at fault, and deserved it for one reason or another.

Then the final battle of the war came. We had been forced to retreat for the last three altercations due to the ferocity of the federal onslaught, and what remained of our forces had congregated in a ravine in the middle of nowhere. We were a few hundred strong once the last rag-tag battalion merged with the rest of the force. We thought we were safe, but as the light began to fade, shots were fired upon us from somewhere outside the camp. Ten of our number fell, and we knew there was no escape this time. Somewhere in the back of our minds we knew we were defeated, but we fought on. We were not going to give in without a fight! Our commander wouldn’t allow it!

Our resistance was futile. There were simply too many of them. By the time the sun had vanished, and the last of the watercolor of sunset was beginning to fade, there were only fourteen of us left, and our commander’s left leg had been shattered by a bullet.

Just as the last bullet left my gun and struck a final target slightly below the heart, I recognized him. Richard. My best friend. He looked so different. I had seen his mouth move just before I squeezed the trigger, but did not hear what he was trying to say. All I knew was that my gun had fired its last bullet. Desperation and regret crashed over me like the waves of the sea, and I dashed forward. He couldn’t die! Not by my hand! He just couldn’t!

Painful spasms wracked his body as I reached him. “You can’t die!” I pleaded. “I’m so sorry, Richard! Let me help you. We have to stop the bleeding!” Panic clouded my mind as I pressed hard into the bullet wound in a vain attempt to stop his precious lifeblood from spilling onto the crimson-stained grasses, once a dull gold in the fading autumn light.

His eyes found me. The agony in them drove me mad as I sat there, desperate to keep my friend alive. On his lips, only one word was formed: “Why?” Then he was gone.

An overwhelming mix of emotions bombarded me as I pulled his head onto my chest and rocked him as he entered eternal sleep, weeping hysterically while his blood seeped into my makeshift uniform. There was no gunfire. There hadn’t been since I left my post, I suddenly realized in some part of my mind. I was also aware of the innumerable pairs of eyes fixated on me. I staggered to my feet, and glanced wildly around at the last several men I had killed. Once I recognized them I bent double, hands clutching my head like a madman. All nine of them dead! My childhood friends! Dead by my hand! Because of me! It was my bullets that claimed their lives!

Wildly, I spun and faced my commander. I raised a finger and jabbed it accusingly at him. “You never told me I could end up killing anyone who had ever meant anything to me!” I spat angrily.

He met the fires of my rage with a cruel, icy gaze. “I also never drafted you into my service like the army would have. Oh yes! They were draftees, Mister Smith! I never forced you to kill them. You did that yourself.”

All I remember after that was that I bellowed like an infuriated animal backed into a corner, and started after my commander. Next thing I knew, I found myself in a dank prison cell with my ankles chained to the wall. There in the dark, the last of the rebels sat, awaiting judgment.

- - -

It is here in the dark of that cell that I sit now, tormented by my own atrocities. God help me! I have not said a word to any of the others since that evening. Richard’s face haunts me every waking minute, and all nine of them creep into my dreams at night. They are dead because of me! My family is disgraced, and to what end did my foolish adolescent sense of infallibility and rebellion get me? A noose on the gallows!

Eleven of my comrades sit in my company. We are all that is left of the rebel army. Two more died after infection ravaged their bodies, one of them being our commander. His wounds were never treated.

I am glad of it. Lord, am I glad of it! Treason is not so terrible a crime as murdering one’s childhood friends. Any moment now, we will be led to the gallows. I hardly listened when the priest came to read us our last rights. A dead man has no need for rights. All I want is for the dreams to stop and the images dogging my waking hours to cease. Those eyes, by God, how they burn into my soul!

Let the crowd jeer as the executioner states our crimes! Let them spit insults, and throw things at us! None of it matters. All that matters to me are how well the nooses are tied, and how tightly mine will coil around my neck when the door opens beneath my feet. My heart and soul have bled out under the constant torture of my deed. I am all but empty. Only a crazed shell of whom I used to be remains. I ask not for Heaven. What I ask of God is to be merciful enough to make my death quick. Hell will surely be my eternal home. It is all I deserve.

The end is nigh! That is the guard’s footsteps I hear just down the hall, jangling his keys…