Date: Wed, 06 Jun 2007 09:12:57 +0200 From: A.K. Subject: Malgre tout 04/13 (Historical) ---------------------------- MALGRE TOUT by Andrej Koymasky (C) 2007 written on October 18, 1993 translated by the author English text kindly revised by John ----------------------------- USUAL DISCLAIMER "MALGRE TOUT" is a gay story, with some parts containing graphic scenes of sex between males. So, if in your land, religion, family, opinion and so on this is not good for you, it will be better not to read this story. But if you really want, or because YOU don't care, or because you think you really want to read it, please be my welcomed guest. ----------------------------- CHAPTER 4 - The madness of war Silence. Darkness. Then faint moaning. A feeling of numbness in a leg. Jacques opened his eyes. It was night but the moon, even though veiled, allowed him to indistinctly see dark silhouettes - ground undulations, bodies. Bodies! Jacques at once remembered. The explosion, the flight, the sudden darkness. He moved. He was aching all over but apparently uninjured. He felt himself, verified. And immediately a second memory came. Michel just in front of him. Where was he? He stood up, slightly staggering, with a strong feeling of dizziness. He moved towards the first of the bodies near him. He bent down to turn the body over. It was not Michel. A second body, a third one. He was feeling his heart in his mouth. Motionless, lacerated bodies. And finally he came near to Michel. He was lying on his back, his eyes open almost with an expression of stupefied astonishment. Jacques bent down and called him in a low voice. A huge dark stain had spread on his chest and, exactly at the height of his heart, a frayed hole as big as a fist. And, at its centre, a fragment of twisted metal. Jacques caressed his wan, icy face, and cried. Then bent further and kissed the beautiful inert lips, pressing on them a parting kiss. He caressed his friend's forehead and closed his eyes. "Why did you leave me, Michel? You, so certain you could not die... Why... Why... Why...?" He remained there for a very long time, near his friend, crouching on his heels, feeling in despair. "I loved you, Michel, and could never tell you, was never able to tell you. I loved you, Michel..." he repeated, dejectedly. The air was oppressive, motionless. Jacques gave a last caress to his friend's face, and then stood up. All around was disorder. If he was still living he almost surely owed that to the fact that in front of him there was Michel's body, which had intercepted the bomb fragment. The enemy was not in sight. He ought to have broken through their lines and have gone further on, but in which direction? Possibly towards Epinal? Or even beyond it? Jacques took Michel's chassepot, took from his ammunition-pouches the gunpowder and the bullets and put them in his own. He looked around for his rucksack, but couldn't know which one was. He thus took Michel's. Then, still staggering, he went towards the forest. He would have liked to bury his friend's body, but how could he do so? And he had now to hide, to flee from there, in the hope of reuniting with the French army and anyway, to be in a territory not yet fallen into enemy hands. But first and above all he had to hide. He went up the slope and slipped between the trees and the bushes. He walked penetrating further and further into the forest, stumbling, falling down, getting up again. The movement was making his circulation recover and soon he felt steady on his legs again. The fact he had with him Michel's rifle and rucksack gave him something like an absurd feeling of safety. As if Michel was still with him to protect him... Protect him at the price of his own life! The moonlight was barely seeping into the forest. When he thought he had moved far enough away from the battlefield, he stopped. He looked around and saw a rock with a bush against it. He freed the blanket from the rucksack, slipped between the bush and the rock and spread it out. He settled the rucksack and laid down, keeping the gun on his body, after loading it, but with the hammer lowered on the fuse. He thought it was the first time he was lying on Michel's blanket... Worn out, he fell almost at once into a heavy and restless sleep. He woke up several hours later. The sun was filtering down through the tree branches and the angle of the rays made Jacques realise it had already to be mid-morning. The forest noises didn't betray the presence of human beings. Jacques slipped out from his hiding place. He looked around, stretched yawning, brushed his eyes and tidied up again his hair with his fingers. He took his belongings out from behind the bush, packed them and asked himself in what direction he had to go. Any direction could be good; any direction could be dangerous. He tried to locate the north looking at the moss on the three trunks and at the sun's position, then set out in that direction. He didn't know why he had decided to go north, but didn't even care about it. He walked for hours, until he started to feel the pangs of hunger. He stopped, pulled the rucksack from his shoulders and rummaged in it. He found the food. He pulled everything out to check what was in his friend's rucksack. Besides the food, there was a flick-knife, a little wooden block carved in the shape of a bear - it had to be one of Michel's efforts. Then there was a sheet of paper folded several times so to make a kind of envelope. He cautiously opened it and saw it contained a lock of brown, curled hair - Sylvie's hair. He asked himself what to do with it. He would have liked to spread them on his friend's body, but even if he wanted to do so, he was surely not able to find the place where he had left him. He then raised a stone, put the little packet on the earth and covered it with the stone. He put everything else, including the food, back in the rucksack, leaving out only the little food he intended to eat to assuage the pangs of hunger. He chewed the few morsels he had decided to eat for a long time, mainly because he didn't have water - the canteen was in fact empty. The forest was not so different from the one that was near his village; so he thought he could possibly find some berries or wild fruit, some edible leaves. Then resuming his way, he looked very carefully around to gather something to supplement the food he had with him. He walked until evening. He decided to eat some more of his food, then to look for a sheltered place to spend the night. He discovered a thicket of bushes. He went round it to see it from all sides, then went inside, raising a noise and testing the ground with his bayonet fixed on the barrel, to frighten away any animal possibly hiding there. When he selected a place to lie down, the light was faint. He gathered dried leaves, spread the blanket on them and laid down. Differently from the previous night, he was slow falling asleep, partly because each time he was gliding into sleep he seemed to hear shot noises, guns thundering, his comrades screams and he woke up with a start, his eyes wide open, to realize it was just the beginning of a dream, of a nightmare. But at last his weariness prevailed and he slept. When he woke up, he didn't remember if he had had dreams. It was quite early but he was feeling rather rested. He therefore resumed his walk. The whole day passed practically identically to the previous one. The only agreeable novelty was that he found a brook of clear water, and he profited from that to fill his canteen and to hastily wash himself in the cold stream. In the first moment he felt the impulse to follow the brook downstream, but then decided it was better to go on towards the north; in fact following the brook he would risk going out into fields and he didn't know who or what he might find there. But anyway, he told himself while walking between the trees, he could not stay in the forest forever. Sooner or later he had to emerge and to face what was out there, whatever it might be. He walked for three more days, always in the thick of the forest, at times opening his way in the tangle of the vegetation of the underbrush with the bayonet. He had eaten just one quarter of all his provisions, mainly thanks to the food he managed to gather, as he knew the wild plants. On the sixth day, rain fell almost all the day long and Jacques had to stop because the ground had become slippery and treacherous. His uniform was drenched and gave him a feeling of cold and of an irritating itching. He then thought he had better to undress. He didn't change his mind not even when he felt the cold water directly hitting the skin of his back and of his chest. He bared himself completely and started to vigorously rub all his body. He at once felt an agreeable sensation. It would have been good if he could dry and wrap himself in his still dry blanket, but first of all he had nothing to dry himself with and moreover he didn't want to wet the blanket. If he could at least find somewhere sheltered! He continued to vigorously rub himself all over his skin and, at one point, agreeable feelings seemed to gather on his chest, on his belly, then on his genitals which started to swell. Jacques went on rubbing his body, but now in a way more coloured with lust and, almost without being fully aware, he ended by masturbating under the incessant rain that now seemed sensually to caress him... When he reached his orgasm, he fiercely shot out in front of him and yelled his pleasure aloud, his body stiff and throbbing in the fast and strong spasms of enjoyment, following one another. He stayed still for a moment, erect, panting, his legs slightly parted, his hand still around his member, while the rain was streaming on his skin and he started to feel the cold again like before. When his heart and breath found their normal rhythm again, Jacques took his clothes that he had put on a low branch and put them on again. He couldn't help it; he had to endure the wet coldness of his clothes that were annoyingly adhering to his skin, that weighed on him. That night he could not even spread his blanket. He thought of finding a spot with thick grass or moss, so that he had not to sleep in the mud, although in the rain anyway. He moved and wandered for a while until he thought he had found a good place. He tested the leaves with his rifle butt but as soon as he pushed it down, water surfaced and the rifle sank a little with a squelching noise. He moved away. The sky, grey and loaded with rain, let only a very faint light seep into the forest. He decided to follow the slope, going down and holding himself on to the low branches, in order not to slip too much. After a time that seemed endless to him, he reached a kind of path going down-valley and thought he would cautiously follow it. Eventually he saw a low stonewall enclosing a part of an almost level meadow and, on one side, a low building. It seemed like a sheepfold, but a sheepfold is surely never built in the thick of a forest. He asked himself what could be the purpose of that odd building made of walls of dry stonework. He jumped beyond the low wall and landed in the meadow, soaked with rain. He approached the small building. There was a small, low doorway without a door, opening into a dark space. He tried to peep inside, pricking up his ears. Not a sound, not a movement. He was uncertain if he should enter or not, when he noticed, a carving on the little wooden lintel. It was a cross and there was some barely readable writing, worn away by the inclemency of the weather. Possibly a good luck formula, Jacques thought. Overcoming an indefinite feeling of awe, he slipped inside. He couldn't see anything. There was a good smell of fern and moss. He gropingly explored the space. On one side there was a stone low platform with a rather smooth surface. In front of it a kind of table made by a wide stone slate embedded in the wall. On the table, almost against the wall, two small, empty terracotta jugs. Exploring with his hands he had almost made one of them fall down. A kind of bed, a kind of table, made of stone. Somebody had lived or was living there. But who? In a place with neither door nor windows? He decided anyway to stop there to pass the night. He freed the blanket from the rucksack and spread it on the stone platform. He put the wet rucksack on the ground. He then pulled off his soaking uniform, quickly wringing it out and gropingly put it on the stone table. When he was totally naked, he laid on the blanket, carefully wrapped it around his body, curling himself up in it and trying to warm himself with his breath. He shivered for a long while but gradually the warmth of his body, retained by the wool of the blanket, started to heat him slightly, sufficiently to stop the trembling that was shaking his body. The stones under him were hard but less cold than he had feared. He slipped his hands under his armpits, folding his arms tightly across his chest to warm himself a little more. He felt he was gradually sinking into sleep. While he was falling asleep he recalled his straw mattress in the poor house there in his village and it seemed like a far away luxury. And his mother who had just changed the dried leaves in the mattress, just the day before his departure for the war... The war! He recalled Michel too, lifeless and cold on the earth soaked with blood, pocked by the fusillade of the enemy, of those Prussians who wanted to steal land and women from the French. He too had killed them. He got a weird impression, when he had shot his first bullet, feeling the recoil of his rifle and at once seeing one of the enemy stop abruptly, opening his arms then falling down all of a sudden. The first time. He had killed an enemy... a man. And then, more of them. But the others made a lesser impression on him than that first one. In the end he felt almost as if he was no more killing men but just doing the target-shooting like in the first days, there in Epinal barracks, when they gave him his chassepot and he shot at the little logs placed in a line in the meadow, to make him practice. Yes, in the end the enemy was exactly like those little logs. No longer human beings, but just objects to knock down, as in a game. But that first man had been different. He was a man, and he had killed him. He had felt nausea, almost a feeling of guilt, and of sadness. And horror, nausea and sadness came back violently when he saw Michel, lifeless. Not even killed by an enemy who had looked into his eyes, but by a gun shot, fired at random... Jacques would have preferred being killed by an enemy looking into his eyes... it would be more humane. But, he asked himself, what sense could war have? They took me from a village to kill people I don't know, who did nothing to me, at least to me personally. And also the enemy took one of theirs from a village, to kill us, who they don't even know, who did nothing bad to them. They drew lots on us, they drew lots on them, and sent us to slaughter each other... No, this was not fair. If the kings and marshals and generals wanted to make a war, they had better to have been shut in an enclosure, given rifles and allowed to kill each other... Yes, it would have been fairer. Let those who want the war kill each other. But on the contrary, they put him there in a row with all his comrades, in front of the Prussians, who they also put in a row with their comrades, and they had to shoot at the others because that was the only hope of coming out of it alive. The one who shot first, faster, and straighter, could possibly survive... What an absurd, horrible thing war was. Ignoble. Waves on waves of men who ran towards the others screaming, more to work up courage than to scare those who had been pointed out to them as enemies... wave upon wave that broke over each other and fell down, torn apart... sent to kill and to die by a bugle call, continuing to kill and to die until the next bugle call... A cruel, absurd game. And then, the fields of slaughter were called "fields of honour"! How could there be honour in killing unknown people at random? Jacques was not able to understand it and, while he was falling asleep, he continued, uselessly, to repeat this question. ----------------------------- CONTINUES IN CHAPTER 5 ----------------------------- In my home page I've put some more of my stories. If someone wants to read them, the URL is http://andrejkoymasky.com If you want to send me feed-back, or desire to help revising my English translations, so that I can put on-line more of my stories in English please e-mail at andrej@andrejkoymasky.com ---------------------------