In the End, I Shall Not Become a Hero
“So she tells me: ‘Maybe I’ll listen to you... if you were a hero.’ That’s what the damn woman said. And me, being innocent and gullible, I went and enlisted. I thought it’d be a matter of weeks, months at the most. But we’ve been three years in this hell of mud and excrement.”
“That’s women for you, comrade. They sweet-talk you into doing idiocies.”
“It’s not the women; it’s our own fault for letting ourselves be fooled like that.”
“And you, kid? What brought you here?” they asked me.
“Something like that... the same as you.”
“Ha! In the end, it’s always women leading us to ruin, just like in Troy.” The rest of them agreed. I didn’t think so, but I didn't want to contradict him. I’d only been with them a week, and I didn’t think it wise to cross the majority so soon.
One week. Just a week ago, I was finishing my training. And a little before that, I was at peace, at home with Dorothea. The two of us together; legs intertwined, the warmth, the sheets clinging to us. Where my body ended and hers began, I couldn't tell...
The thunder of a shell tore me from my thoughts. A new barrage of gunfire erupted; back to the action. Sergeant Major Reinhardt barked out orders, and we all obeyed instantly. I looked at the soldiers beside me, the ones I’d come to know a little better. To my left was Händel, a Corporal who had been in the army since Leo von Caprivi was Chancellor. Then there was Yankel, a Jew serving as a Lance Corporal; rumors said he got there by doing favors for Lieutenant Schön. Greedy like all his kind, he wouldn't waste a single mark and was always looking for a way to bleed the others of their savings; still, he wasn't a bad sort. For a Jew, he was a good man, and I think he earned his rank on his own merit.
Then there was another who caught my eye, further off, whom I hadn't heard speak until now. He was the sole survivor of another squad and had arrived this morning. I watched him. He wasn’t just silent; he sat in the filth with his eyes closed, concentrated, hands tucked between his thighs, perhaps seeking warmth.
“That’s Andersen,” Händel told me. “He’s Swedish. Hardly speaks a word of German.”
I approached him. I knew a bit of Swedish thanks to my maternal grandmother. I hadn't spoken it in years and was embarrassed I might stumble.
“Hej, jag heter Friedrich. Mår du bra?” He didn't answer. He remained silent. Perhaps it was a joke from my comrade, and this man was as German as I was, not understanding a word. After a while, he opened his eyes and replied. He told me he had been praying, thanking the Lord for letting him live to do His will—that was why he hadn't answered. He apologized if he’d made me feel uneasy. We couldn't talk much, though. Corporal Yankel came over shouting, repeating the orders Reinhardt had given us.
With the rain, the trenches were nearly impassable. Our boots felt like lead from the clinging muck. Worse, there was filth and urine everywhere; the stench was unbearable, nauseating. Is this what it means to be a hero? Is the only way to become one to pass through this misery?
Dorothea... how I wish I could write to her, tell her everything is fine, that this stupid war will be over soon. I wish I could lie to her in every way possible, so she never realizes that, in a way, she sent the man she loved to his death—but not before he walked through hell itself. Hero. A hero. Her father would never have accepted a penniless orphan like me. Hero, being a hero... what a shit concept.
“Come on, comrade! Chin up!” another soldier shouted in my ear. A recruit like me, though older by the look of his face. “What’s your name?”
“Friedrich. Friedrich Wagner.”
“Listen to me, Friedrich. Don't be afraid. Today we become heroes,” he said, as if he’d read my mind. “Tell me, you got someone waiting at home? A girl, maybe?”
“My girlfriend,” I had to scream over the explosions drawing closer, “and a son... due in a few weeks. Damn it, I won't even see him.” Tears threatened to spill.
“A son! That’s grand! What will you call him?” The blasts were deafening now.
“Richard. If it’s a boy, Richard.”
“Richard,” he echoed, then laughed. “So, Richard Wagner. Excellent name! My name is Schubert; I wish my parents had called me Franz.”
“I don't understand.”
“What are you saying, kid? How can you not understand?” He looked at me, bewildered, and seeing my confusion, he explained. “Richard Wagner, Franz Schubert... they don't ring a bell?”
“I think so.”
“What do you mean, ‘I think so’?”
“Maybe... I don't know.”
“They are the greatest composers our fair land ever birthed!” My face must have been a blank slate because he realized I’d never heard of them. “Look, kid, when we get back, I’ll hire an orchestra to play the whole Wagner repertoire. And you, I’ll tie you to a chair so you can hear every note from start to finish, so you can appreciate the greatest composer of all time.”
“Where are you going to get the money for an orchestra?” I asked, my voice lowering during a brief lull.
“I have my secrets, kid.” He smiled.
Then he stood up and began to bellow: “Listen, sons of Germany!” We all looked at him. “Today is the day we beat those filthy Frenchmen! We’ll shove their stupid cross up their backsides, damn Catholics!” Many of us laughed; as good Protestants, we loathed the Catholics. Though there were some among us who didn't take kindly to his words. Then he crouched back down and whispered to me: “Listen well, Friedrich: today you and I become the heroes of Verdun, and our names will be in every history book.”
He stood tall again, his face caked in mud. It was ironic and almost funny to me to hear him so spirited, trying to rally us while covered in such filth. It was funnier still to see him shout and toss his helmet into the air. His hair, like his face, was stained brown; you could hardly tell it was golden. The mud looked like one of those ancient knight’s helmets that shielded the face from arrows. But for all the mud he wore, it was useless against the bullet that tore through him from temple to temple.
He fell, nearly dead, convulsing for a few seconds as blood erupted from his mouth. It was in that instant that I became fully aware of where I was. His speech, his talk, had lulled me, but now I was wide awake. I looked to both sides and saw even more dead comrades; some with holes in their foreheads, others in the mouth or nose. Some had turned their rifles on themselves. Händel lay a few meters away, mortar shrapnel where his eyes used to be, and another piece embedded in his neck. Yankel was further off, firing like a madman while screaming incoherencies in Yiddish. The Swede, Andersen, was nowhere to be seen. After a while, through the din of lead and fire, I thought I heard someone screaming in another language. It wasn't French, nor English. It was Swedish.
“Fader vår, som är i himmelen!” He was praying at the top of his lungs, lying in the middle of the field. He’d barely made it a few meters from our trench when a shot caught him between the neck and the right shoulder. “Helgat varde ditt namn...” His voice broke; you could hear the agony. A compassionate sniper—ours or theirs, I don't know—ended his suffering.
Where is the heroism? I only see a mass of people dying amidst shit and vomit. If this makes us heroes, then we are no more dignified than the vagrants of Paris or Vienna. Heroic soldiers... what rubbish.
I remembered a story from the Eastern Front, near Königsberg. The remnants of a unit had taken refuge in a farmhouse where five Prussian families were hiding. Over forty people crammed into a shack with little food while three Russian units lurked outside. After days of starvation, they used a scrap of sheet to make a white flag. They poked it out the window, and the Russians made them understand they wouldn’t be harmed. A lie. A trick. For days they raped the women; not even the little girls were spared. The men were tortured in a thousand ways. The children were hung by their feet from a tree, naked.
Where is the heroism? We are nothing but a pack of whores killing each other. We are the nation’s whores. We surrender our bodies, servile; she lashes us with sadism, and then we thank her. When it’s over, they’ll give us a pittance of a pension, barely enough for the opium and liquor we’ll need to forget all this shit. And when we kill ourselves, they’ll say: “Good, one less burden.” They send us from battle to battle just as a pimp sends his favorite girl from client to client, with promises like: “Don't worry, a little longer and you'll have enough to send your son to school,” or “With a little more money, you can hire a lawyer to sue the factory where your husband died.” But those promises are never kept.
Heroism... for a moment I must forget that such a thing doesn't exist, least of all in war. I must deceive myself and believe I am doing the right thing—for Dorothea, for Richard, for those to come.
I looked around and saw some beginning to pray, and I wanted to do the same, as my mother had taught me; while everything around me screamed: soldiers, weapons, the deafening rain. I began in whispers, almost afraid others would hear.
“Our Father, who art in heaven...”
“Damn Frenchmen! May the Devil take them to hell!”
“...hallowed be thy name.”
“I shit on God and the believers, damn superstitious fools! God abandoned us to our fate, to hell with Him!”
“For devil’s sake, Johann! Show some respect for your Creator!”
“Thy kingdom come.”
“Chin up, comrades! For Germany, for the Kaiser!”
“Thy will be done, on...” A mountain of earth collapsed on my head from a mortar that exploded too close, leaving me deaf and dizzy for a long time. “...on, on... earth as it is in heaven.” I felt the bullets grazing me, even though I was flat in the trench. The sky began to thunder with force, like God Himself speaking. “Give us this day our daily bread.” My voice began to crack. I felt something warm running down my legs; I had just wet myself. “And forgive us our debts, as we...”
“Sons of bitches! I’ll shove the cross up your asses, you French bastards!”
“...as we also have forgiven our debtors.” My head felt like it was splitting; and I noticed, finally, that I had been trembling for a long while, whether from cold or fear, I didn't know. “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” Deliver us from evil, deliver us from evil. Deliver me from death, Lord. “For...” The deafening roar of the rain, growing louder and louder, wouldn't let me remember how to continue. But a comrade beside me helped, and I repeated after him: “...for thine is the kingdom and the power...”
“For Germany! For the Kaiser! Come on, let us die with honor!...
..."
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