The Dawn

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"Sarge, this is insane!"

The sergeant nodded, his shoulders slumped momentarily, then he looked at the corporal.

"What other choice do we have? The main column is nowhere to be seen. We have no word from higher headquarters, for all I know, the war is over. We might be killing, and being killed, for no purpose at all. I want to talk with them. This insanity must end."

"Aren't you afraid of the consequences?"

Shaking his head, the sergeant began to move towards the enemy-held hillock. As soon as he came up out of the gully, he could feel that the wind had shifted. The air felt warmer. In the trees he could see a mist forming. The snow was melting!

"Wait!" the corporal came out of the gully and grabbed the sergeant's arm.

"For what, what should we wait for? Wait for someone to tell us what to do?"

The sergeant swept his arm around, indicating the barren countryside. "Do you see anyone here besides us?"

Releasing the sergeant, the corporal said, "At least let me go with you, you don't speak the language, I know a few words, I can help."

The sergeant nodded, "Let's get this over with."

"Go back and tell the padre to come up, he speaks their language, I do not." The commander lowered his field glasses. The two men coming up the slope were enlisted men, non-commissioned officers if he remembered his briefings correctly.

"I wonder what happened to their officers," he muttered under his breath.

The young soldier in a fighting hole near him looked up, "Sir?"

"Nothing, son. Just wondering what's going on down there."

"I can hit them easily from here, Sir."

"Why would you want to do that, soldier? Can't you see they want to talk?"

"How do you know that, Sir?"

"Where are you from, soldier?"

The man, barely more than a boy, answered with the name of a very small village in the poorest province of the homeland. He probably enlisted to avoid an early death from overwork, or perhaps to keep from starving. Many farms were failing as the youth fled to the cities, or joined the army, like this young fellow.

"The white cloth attached to the sword, an age-old symbol of either surrender or a wish to talk, to parley as is said."

"So don't shoot them?"

"No, son, please do not."

The commander turned as he heard footsteps behind him, it was the priest.

"Good morning, Sir." Then the priest looked down the slope. "What is this?"

"They want to talk, you speak their language, I do not. We shall listen, then decide what to do, based on what they say."

"Why do they have a priest with them?" the corporal asked, his voice indicating his annoyance.

"Not everyone is an unbeliever like you, Corporal."

"You?" the corporal asked in disbelief.

"Sometimes. It's a very on and off thing with me. Lately I tend to think that God no longer listens to us, He no longer cares. But then," the sergeant squinted as a beam of very bright sunlight broke through the morning mist, "something like this happens. Maybe it isn't God who isn't listening. Maybe we have stopped heeding Him."

The corporal shook his head, under his breath he muttered, "Superstition and old wives' tales."

"Perhaps. Now behave, we're in earshot."

The sergeant stopped and stood at attention, he recognized the insignia on the older man. A full colonel, he tried to remember their word for the rank. Ah!

Snapping a salute, his saber held in his left hand, he spoke, "Commander!"

Though the pronunciation was off, the commander stood to attention and returned the man's salute. "Sergeant." He used his country's word for that rank.

The priest spoke, "Good morning, Sergeant. What can we do for you? My commander is very curious as to your mission."

Somewhat startled by the priest's command of his language, the sergeant spoke, "Sir, we wish to end the hostilities here, temporarily. Long enough for us to evacuate our wounded back to our main column. Long enough, perhaps, for you and your people to evacuate this little hill in the middle of nowhere. I see no reason to die for such a miserable piece of land."

The priest turned to the senior officer and spoke, at length. After a moment's contemplation, the older man nodded and spoke a few words.

"Sergeant, the commander is amenable to your suggestion, but he wonders just where are your officers? Are they aware of what you are doing? He would like to speak to whoever is in command over there." The priest gestured at the gully, which was now lined by a large number of faces, curious faces, wondering themselves what was happening.

"I am in command, Padre. My lieutenant died during the night."

The priest said nothing to the sergeant, instead he spoke to the commander, again at length. When he finished speaking, the older man gave the priest an annoyed looked, then gestured as if to say, "Get on with it."

The corporal turned his head and spat into the snow, away from the two enemy soldiers. He said a single word, it was a very nasty word in his dialect for the priesthood.

The commander's eyebrows went up in shock, that was one of the very few words he knew in his enemy's language. He cast a questioning look at the priest, who simply bowed to his commanding officer. He spoke, this time to the corporal.

"My dear Corporal, it is obvious that you are an unbeliever, but to use such an insult, at such a time, is, to my commander, a very dangerous insult. As for myself, I will turn away, strike if you must, I will forgive you. God may not."

The corporal turned beet red, he had made his feelings known, but to be lectured by this, by this bearded crow, was almost too much. He opened his mouth but then his sergeant spoke.

"Not one word, Corporal. Though we have been friends for many years, I will strike you down myself if you speak again."

He had spoken very quickly, in the rough dialect of his home district, which the corporal knew well. The priest had no idea what had been said, he shrugged at the commander when that man had given him a questioning look. There was silence for a few long moments, then the sergeant spoke.

"My apologies padre, my corporal, as well as all of my men, are under a lot of pressure."

Before the priest could speak, the commander began speaking, the priest tried to translate as fast as he could.

"Listen here, Sergeant. I see that my forces outnumber yours significantly, you may believe that or not. But a fight here will serve my Motherland in no way at all. I could command my men to attack you, while we would take many casualties, you would all die in that gully. We would shovel the snow over you and you would be forgotten. But again, a fight here serves no purpose. I agree to your proposal with one condition."

The commander stopped speaking, the priest's translation ended a moment later.

"A condition, Sir?"

"We need your horses. At least some of them. To evacuate our wounded."

The sergeant was speechless for a moment, then he said, "Do you know what it means for a cavalryman to lose his horse? I cannot ..."

The commander spoke, the priest waited this time. Then he spoke, "My commander knows, his own mount lies dead somewhere out there." The priest pointed to the north.

The sergeant looked at the corporal, who was feeling somewhat chagrined by his earlier outburst. If the bearded man had not been a priest, the corporal felt they could have been friends, given different circumstances. The man exuded a calmness and a feeling of patience which the corporal remembered his mother's father had had.

The sergeant was surprised when the corporal nodded, he even spoke. "Please accept my apologies. I had no call to speak to either of you in the fashion I did."

The priest told the commander what had been said, before he could speak again, the commander spoke.

"Yes or no, damn it. I'm freezing my ass off."

When translated, the corporal actually laughed, the sergeant, trying to hide a grin, simply asked, "Will five horses suffice?"

The commander nodded, spoke to the priest, then headed back to his own lines.

The priest waited, then spoke once more, "We have done God's work here today. May you men find your way home, go with God my sons."

The sergeant nodded, then he and the corporal headed back to their own lines. He looked over at his corporal, who looked very thoughtful.

"What's eating you?"

The corporal looked back at the hillock, "Why do you believe, Sarge? We're out here, killing each other, yet you agree to help that man and his wounded."

"Our mission has failed, we no longer have the strength to pursue those men. Do you think our men would go up that hill and die, because I said so?"

The corporal looked down at the ground, "I would."

"I know, but the others? That enemy commander was right, we would probably all die out here, and to what purpose? Honor? Glory? No we live, perhaps to fight again, perhaps to die tomorrow. But not here, not today."

When they reached the lines, they both noticed that a messenger had arrived, no doubt from the main column.

"What news?"

"The war is over. The damned diplomats actually negotiated a settlement. A day late if you ask me, but there it is, the war is over. Looks like your men have suffered badly. Get them together, I'll guide you back to the main column, they moved off of the main road to weather that beastly storm."

"Are you listening Sergeant?"

"Ah, yes sir, yes I am. It's just that the night was pretty rough. Our horses won't make it back, they are too weak."

"Shoot them then." The young officer was startled by the look of hatred the sergeant gave him. He spoke again, quickly.

"Yes, you cavalrymen are attached to your beasts, aren't you? What will you do, leave them?"

The sergeant cleared his throat, "While the diplomats were wrangling, I made a deal with the enemy commander up on that hill."

"A deal, are you insane?"

"Shut up and listen you damned sprig of the nobility." The corporal wasn't exactly aiming his carbine at the young officer, but the threat was obvious.

"I am not insane, Sir. The deal was that the enemy cede me that hillock, Then they evacuate themselves and their wounded. I offered them our horses to evacuate the wounded."

"Oh. Well, we don't need the hillock now, but, well ..."

The lieutenant threw a look at the corporal, then said, "Very well, make it quick, we need to move out."

As some of the men led the remaining horses, all fourteen of them, up the hill, the sky cleared. In the early morning the men could hear birds singing in the trees. The sky was a breathtaking shade of blue. Every man there, in the gully and up on the hillock, welcomed the new dawn. They were alive!

The corporal walked next to his sergeant as they set out for the main column.

"You've been awfully quiet, Corp."

"Been thinking."

"Dangerous for a man who doesn't do it that often," the sergeant offered with a wry grin.

"I know, but last night, this morning, maybe I learned something up there." He looked back to the north, the hillock was out of sight by now.

"Anything you'd like to share?"

The corporal cocked his head, then said, "I don't know how to pray."

"Doesn't hurt."

"We'll see, I still have doubts."

"We all do, Corp, we all do. Don't overthink it."

"Fat chance of that."

Down the road they went, to an uncertain future. But they still had a future.

The sergeant thought briefly of his lieutenant, "Damn it."

The corporal sighed, "We lost too many good ones."

Brushing the sleeve of his greatcoat over his face, all the sergeant could say was, "Yup. Too damned many."

Finis