I wonder what your reaction would be if I told you about the chap opposite me who was given hydrochloric acid instead of water this morning. Or of the person in the bed next to me, who I watched peel back all of his fingernails, one by one, the other day. I wonder if I could even tell you the horror of two nights ago. I could lay out the events as they unfolded. The swishing sound that I awoke too. The noise of a struggle. The lights coming on. But I do not know what words I would use to describe the sight of the patients in the beds opposite mine, who’d had their throats and faces slashed. I do not understand myself, let alone feel able to describe how I felt when I saw the patient from bed three standing in the corner with his razor in hand, foaming at the mouth, and who continued to grin even when the guards and orderlies wrestled him to the floor.
I have come to fear the nights in here as much as I fear the sound of artillery. It is bedlam when the lights go out and nightmares are relived. It always begins in the same way – the names of the fallen are screamed out, and too-late warnings are issued. Silence always follows, and then the sobbing begins. We cry for those we have lost, for the wounds we have endured, and for those we miss. I ask: Is this what it is like to be damned?
The day never seems to bring light and the air is thick with death. There is a brown stream of watery blood and mud which comes in from under the door, but I do not know if this is real or not. I spend my time peeling back the sounds; from the corridor I hear the people coming in and the bodies going out. In another ward I hear a man who is always weeping slowly, and past that the noise of engines as vehicles go back empty and come back full. The distant sound of explosions and gunfire remind me constantly where I am – Hell.
Of the seven I arrived with, three now lie in the morgue and a fourth has contracted tuberculosis. The other two I choose not to remember. I am not sure if they are still men. I am not even sure if I am. My skin feels metallic, my mouth tastes of mud, and my blood feels like acid. I scratch hard at my wounds so I can feel the pain.
The nurses, doctors and orderlies seem to float here, and I lay in my bed and worry that the monster which is grinding its way through the men out in the fields, will soon come for them. At night I hear them weep too, but each day they come back. They are braver than I.
I will not write to you about any of these things. Instead I will start my letter as I always do. I will ask how you and father are doing, how my younger brother is, and has he got in any more fights at school. I will then tell you how I am getting better and how I hope to be out of this place in four weeks. I will tell you how frustrated I am to not be at the front, and the sooner I’m back there fighting the better. I will then conclude on an amusing story or a comment about a pretty nurse, and sign off by saying how one day we will all be together again.
I will write this way, because I want you to be proud of me, to love me and to remember me. Without your loving thoughts in my mind, I would truly be damned.
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Tags: #fridayflash, 1910's, 1918, Europe, France, Haute-Marne, Hospital, Langres, Letters, Soldier, The Great War, Tommy
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by Chance4321: “An Unsent Letter From A Tommy” http://bit.ly/43rDCC #fridayflash #fiction #story…
Powerful letter! I like how you wove between realistic war-hospital horror and imagined/hallucinated fantastic horror. It did not matter when or where this story took place. It could have been any war within the past 100 years and still felt real.
WOW! This is so powerful Chance. There are no other words.
Great rendering of the horrors of war and its aftermath. Especially liked ‘brown stream of watery blood and mud…”. Most chilling – the title, ‘unsent’ letter. A warm-up exercise for the antiseptic letter that was sent, or not sent because our Tommy didn’t make it? Very effective. Peace, Linda
Great portrait of the hell & madness of war. “Peeling back the fingernails” & “peeling back the sounds” were nice associations of pain. How sad, the pretense he must keep up in his own mind to keep from going crazy or giving up. Hope is the one bright light here. Wonderful telling.
Dynamic story.
Fearing the nights as much as fearing the artillery sounds…showing that even though a soldier may have “survived” out in the field, internal peace dies over and over.
Sad and wonderful.
Very powerful story indeed. Going from the thoughts of what should go into the letter home to what actually will is chilling.
Yes, can anyone not in that situation truly understand it? And this is why so many vets are so messed up once they get home.
This kicked ass.!
Amazing and well done. You should be proud.
Astounding. Brilliant execution. Fantastic piece. Bravo, author; bravo.
Nice touch, good visuals. A letter that may or may not preclude another letter, an exercise at dealing with trying to understand the reality of the situation. Last line: powerful and sums it all up.
Wow. Powerful descriptions. The difference between reality and the sugar coated letter that must be sent home is heartbreaking.
scary good.
This was really a powerful piece of writing, Chance. I really cringed at the ‘peeling his fingernails back.’ And the man with the razor… shudder. The horrors of war and the aftermath thereof. Well captured indeed.
~jon
Many thanks for all the comments, very sadly that razor incident is based on a real event. I have added a new page to the DAC called true tales. There is a diary of an orderly in The Great War. This provided myself with the idea for the setting.