Avescope Memento Mori

Sacred Fire. The emperor’s name for the overwhelming
will to win that burns inside his best marshals, but also,
some say, a name for the death and destruction that
spews forth from our artillery. As we march shoulder-toshoulder
across a field outside the Saxon city of Leipzig, I
am struck by the irony of the label. There’s nothing
sacred about the rows of mangled Russian corpses we
march through, stepping on recently alive boys as if they
were nothing more than fallen, rotting trees in the
forest. I can’t look at their eyes. Death himself stares out
from each lifeless face, whispering that he’s coming for
me. Sooner rather than later.
I shouldn’t be here. Sixteen is too young. But the
emperor had more wars to fight after he lost an entire
army in Russia, so they started calling up younger and
younger boys. Boys younger than me, even. Boys who
should be back at home, helping out on the farm or
tending the store.
Some probably haven’t even been with a woman yet. I
don’t fall into that category anymore, but I wish I still did.
Then Sophie’s belly would stay flat and she’d be able to
travel to Paris to visit her cousins. In the unlikely event
that I make it back home there’ll be a little version of me
running around, but I can’t think of that now. Instead, I
try to stay alert in hopes of avoiding Monsieur Death.
Not much hope for that, though.
I wonder whether Father Joubert knew what he was
talking about when he told us that unbelievers would
rot in hell. Being an unbeliever myself, I can sense its
gates swinging open to welcome me.
A huge battery of Russian cannons, at least twenty, have
settled into place and are aimed right at us. A puff of
smoke, followed by a loud crack, billows forth from each
gun every few minutes but they don’t seem to have
found the range yet. Balls fly past well above our heads
or plow up the soggy ground far to our front.
Some of my imbecilic fellows are laughing at them and
calling out, “Is that the best you can do?” I know better
and can see the high balls coming down while the low
balls to our front land closer and closer by the minute.
Soon, the whoosh of the near misses over our heads
becomes loud enough to drown out talking and the
jeers cease.
Boys begin falling. Sounds of battle — screams, yells, the
rattle of musketry, and the loud report of artillery —
drown out the sickening crunch of twelve-pound balls
slamming into my colleagues’ flesh and bones, but they
can’t cover up the horrified exclamations of the
unfortunate. “My leg! I can’t stop the bleeding! Jesus,
Jean’s head is gone!” Officers draw their swords and
threaten to skewer anyone who leaves the battle
line.What do they expect from a bunch of terrified
fifteen- and sixteen-year-olds with only a couple weeks
of training?
Bravery. What a load of manure. This is our third day in
this field, and it’s become abundantly clear that our side
will lose the fight, and after that, the war. Given that all is
lost,why shouldn’t we all just run away? Scatter to the
four corners of the earth like dandelion seeds in a
windstorm.
I, for one, would hightail it for Venice and become a
gondolier. Nobody would find me,and I’d live out the
rest of my long life in peace. As far as I know, the
Venetians don’t seem to go to war much, unlike France,
which has been feeding its boys into Mars’ hungry maw
for the last twenty years. Now, I’m on his plate and he’s
about to wrap me around his fork like a noodle.
“En avant!” Yells the colonel, a bantam cock of a man,
and we resume our advance toward the Russian battery.
As we get closer, the shot will decrease in size while
increasing in number from twelve-pound ball to grape
to cannister, which can take down a whole rank of boys
with one discharge. Being in the front rank, I am more
certain of my impending death than I’ve ever been of
anything, even my mother’s love.
~ Being an unbeliever myself, I
can sense its gates swinging
open to welcome me.~
After only a few more steps forward, one particular puff
of smoke from the battery catches my eye, although I’m
not sure why. Then I see it. The ball. It flies gracefully
upwards from the muzzle, a dirty black dot bisecting a
perfect, billowy white cloud. And I know. It’s my ball.
As my ball traces its deadly arc from the gun’s muzzle to
my head, memories erupt. These will be my last
thoughts on this earth. But why the hell is Jacques as a
puppy the very first one? I didn’t even like that dog. He’d
bite you rather than lick you any day, although he was a
cute and lovable puppy.
And, I suppose, the Russian boy whose match lit the
powder in the cannon that just fired my ball was
probably a cute and lovable toddler too. In fact, if it were
just him and me in this field together the ball he’d send
at me would harmlessly bounce off the top of my head
before I’d kick it back to him, laughing and loving the
cool breeze carrying the quiet chirps of the birds and
crickets.
Instead, he’s sending me a ball that will pulverize my
head, splattering brains and bits of skull all over my
neighbors in the battle line. They will wipe the
disgusting remnants of my memories off their faces.
Later, the foul, gun smoke-infested wind will waft over
my mangled corpse as the Russian boy prepares to put
his match to the vent hole yet again, bringing death to
another French boy.
Avescope | 46