The blinding pain slams me around, flips me over. I land hard on my back. Mechanically, like a clockwork doll, I grab my arm. It's bleeding.
Another explosion, this one further away, and another hail of bullets. I skitter backwards. I look and see my battalion racing forwards, fanning out through the streets. Just as the last one passes me, he takes a bullet in the face. He whirls backward, his arms pinwheeling, and slams to the ground, his face...gone.
Raising myself to a low crouch, I run, still holding my wounded arm. The pain is making me see lights that aren't there. I force open the door to a house, deserted days ago as the peasants fled from the advancing battle lines. I hear a ratatat so close it makes my head whip around; bullets are snapping against the stone walls of the house.
I hear a whistling and then a huge explosion. The sky visible through the door goes dark and smoky, and I see flames. Artillery. I look around frantically. There. There's a hatch. I open it up with my good arm, getting blood all over it. It's a root cellar. There's no time to think. I jump down into it.
I have enough time to vomit, retching my pain and terror up and filling my mouth with the taste of bile. I roll away from the mess, lean up against the wall trying to collect my wits.
Then there's a whistling, obscenely loud, and
......
We have been sent to secure the village we have just captured. Or what's left of the village; skeletons of buildings, pits of cellars with the houses blown off. The church in the centre of town has lost its steeple.
We are checking for any remaining German activity. The rest of the battalion is in the northern arm of the village; I'm examining the southern arm.
I wade into a pile of rubble that used to be a house; piles of smashed crockery and old vegetables are scattered. One wall still stands. A massive hole has been blown in the floor. And through the hole, I see -
A tiny movement, a glimpse of khaki, a faint groan. I catch my breath, pull out my revolver, hold it at arms' length. Warily, I climb down into the hole.
The first thing I see is a pair of wide eyes, and blood. Then a gasp--he sees the gun--and a hand shoots out, palm open--a terrified voice: "nein, bitte, nein!" Then tears.
I keep my gun pointed warily in front of me and get a better look at him in the twilight.
The first thing I notice is that he is at least as young as I am. The second thing was that he is wounded. And the third thing was that he is terrified out of his wits.
I drop to my knees.
......
The dark-haired young soldier holsters his revolver. My eyes fill with tears and I begin to gasp, not having realized how terrified I was. My arm drops back and grabs my other, wounded arm.
"Chht, chht--" he soothes. "T'es bon, t'es bon--" He grabs the sleeve of my uniform and rips it off, then ties it in a rough bandage around my wound. "?a va servir pour le moment."
"Merci!" I whisper. It's the only French word I know.
"Il n'y a pas de quoi. Veux-tu un cigarette?"
......
I pull out my cigarette case and offer it to him. With his good arm, he takes one gratefully. I light it for him and light my own. We smoke for a moment.
"Es tut mir Leid, ich spreche kein Franzoesisch," he says. We're whispering in the shadowy basement. He doesn't speak any French, at least I know what that means.
......
"Puis je ne parle pas allemand, moi non plus, je suis desole," he sighs. Then he brightens. "You speak English?"
A little bit. "Ja," I answer, and I smile weakly.
"Is good. I am Alain, you?"
"Paul."
An uncomfortable silence descends.
I feel I have to say something. I hope I can get it through in my broken English.
"I am sorry."
"Why?"
"The war. Is horrible, ja? It gives me pain. Germans which I know, they do not support the Kaiser," I whisper bitterly. "Most of we do not know even why we are fighting or we know what it helps. I wanted not even to fight but they..."
"Draft?"
"Draft me."
"Me also."
A pause. We sit quietly, smoking. I look at him as the light fades from the sky. His face, though smeared with grime, is not a soldier's face.
"They tell us all French are weak and drunk men, I do not know, I wonder if it is lies. They tell you such things about Germans also?"
"Oh yes. They tell us that Germans are very bad men, that they kill old women and babies. You do not look like a killer, I think."
My eyes begin to fill up.
......
A tear trickles down his face.
"I hate this war so much," he says, crushing his cigarette on the ground. I do too. "I have only eighteen years, you know? A year ago I was studying in the gymnasium, I was a good student, I write poems, I thought I will go to Wittenberg to the university. Now I will die here in this town, far from my home, for no reason, I not know even if we are in Germany or France."
He begins to sob quietly. I reach out and put my hand on his shoulder. Then my arms, seemingly acting of their own accord, reel the poor young man in, pull him against me, comforting and consoling, letting him cry on my shoulder.
"Everyone is far from home," I whisper to him. "Nobody in my regiment loves the war, everybody is afraid. They tell us that we must hate Germans, but I do not hate you."
He looks at me, sniffling. I see him better now. It's true, he's only a boy. Dirt streaks his dark blond hair. He looks impossibly young and out of place in this horrible hole, in that horrible uniform and that horrible helmet and that horrible blood. Anger flashes in my voice.
"It is all so stupid!"
He collapses forward against me again. I can feel his chest heaving, and I hold him, with the impossible, unspoken promise that he will be safe, that the war will end tonight, that we will both go home alive.
I can't.
My eyes fill too.
......
We pull back. I see the suffering in his eyes, feel the suffering in mine. Amid the fog of confusion and fear comes the realization that this beautiful, fine man should not be in as much pain as he is. His eyes flick up and he looks into mine. Breathing heavily, I return his gaze, wondering what's going on. Our faces inch together, and then it just happens. We kiss, softly, the softest thing I have felt since I was drafted. We kiss again, and as we keep on, the kisses grow firmer, more needy, more desperate, and I feel his hot tears run onto my cheeks and mix with mine. And all thoughts of right and wrong are ripped away as I fall down onto him, pressing him into the dirt floor of the cellar.
I break the kiss, tears flowing from my eyes onto his face. "I never kiss anyone before now," I whisper, my voice catching.
He heartens. "I am your first?"
"Ja," I say, and kiss him again. His tongue presses open my mouth and we kiss more. My pain and fear and grief is being poured into the kiss and vanishing.
......
I roll him over onto his back, desperate to please him. Soldiers are forbidden to express any emotions other than hatred and triumph and camaraderie, and everything else I am going to feed into this young man.
He raises his head and looks at me curiously but intensely as I fiddle with the clumsy buttons on his uniform front, exposing his chest. It glistens in the moon--and starlight, as night has fallen. I caress his skinny, frail form, lying on my side beside him and kissing him over the face. When I reach the bottom I undo the buttons of his trousers and the clasp of his belt, then push down his shorts, letting his fine cock emerge, long and thin like the rest of him. He is holding his breath, wondering at what I'm doing. We have thrown all caution to the winds as we share this sweet time, together, before dying.
I lick his cock, long and slow, tasting the sweat and the battlefield on it. But after I've licked and sucked at it for a short time the dirt vanishes and I can taste him, really him. The skin of a young man, the cock of a young man, is in my mouth, against my tongue, and the taste is perfect.
I lick the underside as I suck the long shaft into my mouth, giving him a pleasure he is unused to. I am disappointed--I want to make it long and slow and perfect--but then again I would want it to be in a fine bed or in a peaceful meadow, and making it long and slow is impossible for the same reason.
He's becoming very aroused, responding breathlessly to each swipe of my tongue. As I suck him, I'm looking around. I see what I want--an unbroken jar of olive oil; it must have been stored here in the cellar before the bombardment. I reach across and get it. I pull down Paul's pants to his ankles, and slide my own legs between his. He's straddling my body, his hard cock glistening with my spit. I grab it and begin to stroke his cock. As I do so, I unzip my own uniform trousers, and look up at him.
......
I nod wordlessly. He's given me joy; at least if I die now I won't be a virgin. And of all the sweet girls and lovely young men I left behind when I was drafted, this French soldier--this merciful, gentle man--outclasses them all in my eyes now. I want him to take his pleasure of me. I need it.
He smiles gently at me, uncorks the bottle of oil, and pours a little onto his hard cock. He pours more out onto his hand. I lift my body up so he can get access to my hole.
He spreads some on the entry, rubbing it in, gently like all his other actions, massaging my opening, slipping a finger inside. It's a bizarre sensation, and I grunt softly. He looks up at me in alarm, and I nod hastily. He pushes another one in. I moan, try to relax my muscles. His fingers play into and out of my ass, loosening me up, preparing me to accommodate his organ. I want it in me. Desperately I force myself down on his fingers. A third enters. I feel stretched, expanded, pulled outward - not just my ass, my whole body. But I don't feel he's going to tear me.
He's moving so slowly, so gently, so carefully, showing the utmost attention to me. I smile as another tear courses down my cheek. Finally, I nod. No more waiting. I move forward and lower myself down onto his cock.
Oh, how it presses, how it stretches-- I worry whether I can take it all in, but I hold myself in place, just relaxing, letting my hole dilate until I can take his rod. I keep sliding down his lubed pole, centimetre by centimetre, feeling his heat fill my ass. I feel so warm.
Finally, my cheeks touch his legs. I laugh gaspingly, realizing I've taken his whole cock. I lean forward and kiss him again deeply. "Is good, ja?" I choke.
"Oh, oui--" he whispers, his head reclined, his eyes closed. He begins to move, begins to fuck me, slowly at first, and then faster. I can feel his lubed cock sliding through my ring, burning and stretching it, filling me up, completing me.
......
As I fuck him I grab his cock and begin to stroke him. It's my intention that he should come at the same time as I do. The tightness of his ass is like velvet or silk around my engorged cock, so warm and tight and absorbing. As I jack him I raise my head and play with his nipples with my tongue. A gasp is ripped from his throat as I stimulate his breasts.
......
His hand, slick from the oil, is making my shaft heat up. I can almost feel the cream rising up from within me. I feel the stirrings of orgasm and know he is going to make me come. It's a sensation like struggling in deep water and feeling yourself rise, desperately surging forward to get that first ecstatic breath of air. I go up, up--"Ach, mein Gott!"
......
He shoots all over my chest and his, tears flowing down his face, his breath coming in ragged strips. His ring contracts, bringing my own turgid cock over the edge. I grab him and press him tightly to me as I shoot my seed into him. The warmth of the embrace and the release propel us into one another and we kiss again, frenzied by our lovemaking. Then we drop down like broken puppets and lie on the ground in each others' arms, lying at peace amid the ruin, fading to a pacific rest.
......
In the first light of the morning, a skylark paused on the single remaining wall of the stone cottage. It prepared itself, preparing to let loose its song over the lovers, sleeping calmly underneath.
A shell arced down, whistling through the air. The bird flashed off the wall, circling upward into the morning sky.
The shell's blast was heard in both opposing camps, a low thump, a common sound. The men entombed under the last shattered ruins of the house never heard the weapon's descent. A concussion so direct and so swift kills instantly.
It never disturbed their peaceful slumber.
They still lie there. The battlefield has been ploughed over, returned by the wind and rain to farmland. Grass grows over them, and poppies. And elsewhere in the troubled world there is smoke and slaughter and agony. But here there is only peace, the same peace they found on their first and last night, the peace which they gave each other and which no human hand can sunder again.