The bodies of soldiers in field hospitals are treated no differently from objects.
They’re carried in, laid down, have their wounds probed unceremoniously, stitched up if needed, and any part deemed unlikely to recover is severed—arm, leg, or otherwise.
We have no dignity as human beings here, either.
Even the sharp smell of antiseptic and the stink of human waste are overpowered by an indescribably horrible, raw, sweet stench that fills the room. It’s an odor that gradually seeps its way into our bodies and lingers deep in the back of our noses.
The hospitals lack more than staff; they also need additional resources and medicine. One look at the doctors and nurses is enough to make that abundantly clear.
Bodies shredded by artillery and machine-gun fire are beyond help. In wartime, hospitals are a different type of battlefield. Doctors and nurses fight valiantly against anything that might rob us of our lives, but it’s a losing battle, so I don’t blame them if their exhaustion makes them treat us harshly. Soldiers scream their lungs out when the pain gets too much, break out into sudden bouts of violence at times, and don’t listen to the medical professionals. Most of the men spend their time in a state of hopelessness when they sense their end is near. When that happens, they tend to die either sometime that day or, at most, a few days later.
One man jumped out of bed against the nurses’ protestations and ran around the room, tearing at his bandages until eventually he fell over dead. The entire time he kept screaming that he wanted to go home and repeatedly cried out a woman’s name. I later learned that his wife had fallen ill and died while he’d been away fighting, which he’d found out about.
Some men beg not to be treated. Recovery means returning to the front lines, so they plead with the doctors and nurses to amputate an arm or a leg so they can go home.
Other men are vehemently opposed to surgery, convinced that being taken to the operating room will spell their doom. Trembling like children, they swear that no man who leaves for surgery ever survives and gets to go home, having believed some horrific story they’d been told.
I’m in a large room, and the man in the bed next to me has remained unconscious ever since I got here. When the nurses come in to check on me and change his bandages, I spy some sort of gray liquid oozing from a wound on his head and immediately avert my eyes. I’ve seen something similar on the battlefield too many times to count, but I can’t stand watching such a young woman being subjected to that horrific scene—even if she is a nurse. She calmly tosses the soiled bandages and gauze into a porcelain washing pan, walks over to another bed, and carefully wipes the face of a patient with a mucus bubble coming out of his nose. She works quickly at each bed before moving onto the next one. I can’t help but feel sorry for this unflappable woman when I imagine her complaining to her colleagues about it later.
Some of the soldiers who have regained their strength call for the nurses at night and flirt openly with them. I’m surprised to see anyone has the strength to fool around in a place like this, but I have to admit it makes sense. There are no other women on the front lines, and we haven’t been anywhere lately where we could meet girls. If I’m being honest about it, I’m no different. I want to feel a woman’s soft body so much it hurts. I don’t want to just lose myself in lust, either, but spend the night talking with her. Not about the war, but about the future. About building a house, getting married, and raising kids. I remember going into town a couple of times when I was on leave and having sex with a cute brothel girl, but I’ve already forgotten when that was.
My wounds heal much slower than last time. I develop a fever, and an uncomfortable, itchy sensation torments every inch of my body. Still, I’m definitely healing faster than a normal person. This is when I’ll need to put on an act so the doctors and nurses don’t notice I’m different.
Fritz should be in the same hospital as me, so I asked a nurse to tell me where he is. She said she’d look into it, but I never heard back, probably because she’s so busy that she simply forgot the request of a single patient.
So instead, I borrow a pair of crutches from someone in my room and go out to find him. I can walk without the crutches, but I don’t want anyone to notice how quickly I’m healing, so I grimace and stagger as I hobble down the hall. Looking through the patient records in the nurses’ office will be faster than blindly walking around peering into each room. No matter how busy the staff are, I can’t imagine they wouldn’t have medical records. If I could just check them, I’d know right away where I can find Fritz.
I make it to the office, where I follow some nurses who give me annoyed looks and finally get what I came for.
Fritz’s room is on a different floor than mine and pretty far away. He still can’t stand, but he’s regained consciousness and responds coherently when I talk to him.
Apparently, he scuffled with some British soldiers who came flooding into the trench and was stabbed in the stomach during the struggle. There wasn’t any major damage to his organs, and he says he should fully recover so long as he doesn’t develop any sort of serious infection. Fritz finds it hard to believe that a single stab wound to the stomach could leave a human immobile. He laughs, but he still looks like he’s in tremendous pain.
I ask if he’s going back to the front once he recovers.
“I don’t know,” he murmurs. “If I’m going to get out of here, I feel like this is my chance.”
“So you thought about that, too, huh?”
“No matter how many lives I had, it wouldn’t be enough to fight something like that.”
I’d heard the British had taken Flers during the battle the other day. The German Army lines had been pushed back considerably compared with July 1, when the fighting at the Somme started.
“Even hand grenades didn’t work against those things,” Fritz says.
“Yeah. But no matter how impressive a weapon is, once it shows up on the battlefield, the other side is sure to make their own. The German Army will capture a vehicle, study it, and build something much stronger than the British version. I’m positive that very soon we’ll see metal boxes fighting against other metal boxes. Think how quickly airplanes went from being used for simple observation to firing machine guns. Either that, or we’ll make something stronger than a stick grenade that can take those things down.”
There are no limits. And no end.
I stay silent as I listen to Fritz talk. “When that British soldier jumped into our trench and our eyes met, he looked like he’d just bumped into someone on the street. He’d resolved himself to attack us, but once he saw his enemy face-to-face, he reacted just like any ordinary person would.”
“I get it. I know that disjointed feeling.”
“He looked so innocent. He was probably just a college kid.”
“And while you were pitying him, he stabbed you?”
“No. He just kept coming straight for me with his knife, even though his expression didn’t change—but it changed when he stabbed me. His eyes glazed over like he had a fever.”
“Did you let him get away?”
“No, I shot him.” Fritz points to the spot right between his eyebrows. He stays silent for a moment, then adds lethargically, “There are no enemies in this war.”
“We have more enemies than we can count.”
“In military terms, maybe…but I can’t think like that anymore.”
“You mean you can’t hate the enemy?”
“Not quite. There are people I want to kill. But I don’t want to kill everyone.”
“I don’t think I understand.”
“Did you hate that steel box? No, you didn’t. You just fought it because you didn’t want to die. There was no emotion, no hatred. We’re not fighting humans anymore. I think now, we’re fighting war itself. War doesn’t have a shape of its own, though, so it can’t be stopped. It’s strange. Humans started it, but we don’t know how to stop it. Everyone just assumes the war will come to an end naturally while we’re all running around left and right.”
“…When you put it like that, I guess I’ll go home, too.”
“You’re sure?”
“The front lines wouldn’t be the same without you. Let’s take Norbert’s sketchbook to his family. We can’t do that if we die, so we better take care of it now, while we’re still alive.”
“Do you think we’ll be able to get discharged?”
“All it takes is a single piece of paper. We’ll manage somehow.”