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Chapter Text

Holding each other tight, there are about twenty soldiers hidden under a bunker. The French have attacked- or they're getting ready to attack, as the younger recruits will soon find out. The veterans and the younger boys are separate from each other. The veterans sit calmly, just waiting to see how long it will take. The younger ones are huddled with each other, calming each other, trying to keep themselves from crying out, although, it doesn't do much of them good. Paul is sitting between Kropp and Behm. Müller is a bit further than them, but he is next to Behm, as well Kropp is trying to keep himself calm, breathing slowly and quietly. He breathes in once, holds it for four seconds, then spends five seconds to exhale. It doesn't do much to calm him. He, like the elders, is just waiting for the end of the barrage while trying not to think much. Müller can't think much. He only looks ahead of him.

None of those things can be said about Paul or Behm. Maybe Paul, but just for a small moment or two. Behm, the boy only a few months older than Paul, thin, almost sickly looking, and frail, sits breathing heavily. He holds his ears shut, trying to shut out the sounds of everyone's breathing, including his own, and the sound of the French creeping closer above them. The heat of the trench is unbearable, but Behm can't tell if he's sweating because of it or because of his nervousness.

"Be careful what you eat," he says. "That's what my mother said." He chuckles to cover the sound of his cries. He moves his hands and grabs Paul, gently pulling them closer to each other. "We'll always be together, won't we?."

"Yeah," Paul says quietly. 

"We'll stick together. We'll always be."

A shell strikes not too far from them, causing dirt and pieces of wood to fall onto the floor of the trench. The soldiers, the young boys, scream. Albert, the oldest of them, only 19, closes his eyes and continues to breathe heavily. 

Behm tries to stand and leave the trench. He isn't thinking correctly, so he thinks it'll be better if he leaves. Paul holds him back, "Don't, Ludwig. Everything will be fine." Müller reaches over to hold Behm's arm back

"I can't do this, Paul, Paul," Behm says. "I can't do this. I need to go home," he cries. Paul shushes him. It doesn't do much. "I need to go home."

For just about two minutes, it sounds like the French have stopped their borderline attack. Everyone was quiet- even Behm. He did nothing to wipe the mess from his face. A combination of mucus, sweat, dirt, and tears made it look like he himself had been attacked. He had quieted his sobs enough, so now there was much more for the others to hear apart from him. Slowly, he began to gain some control over his breathing. Just slightly, however. He leaned his head against the wall of the trench and looked deeply into Paul. Paul had not attempted to make eye contact. He couldn't bring himself to do it. There was no real reason for him to be here. If he had not forged a few papers, he wouldn't be here. And now he was dealt the task of keeping both himself and Behm safe. Not to mention the others. 

"Creeping barrage," one of the older soldiers says. The boys look at him.

"What?"

"Every couple of minutes," the veteran continues. "the artillery barrage makes an advance forward. And directly after that, the infantry moves forward."

Kropp speaks, "What are you saying, exactly?"

Another soldier, the one sitting next to the one who first spoke, speaks to them without bothering to look at them. "That's how they come," he said. The first puts his helmet back on. 

Another shell hits and more dirt falls onto the men and boys. None of them scream, instead, they all breathe heavily. One steps up and tries to go outside before being stopped by the second veteran. He asks him where he is going. The young soldier says he'll be right back. All he needs is some fresh air, but he'll be right back. The veteran tells him in the opposite of a comforting voice that it'll be over soon, so he might as well just sit back down. The younger one tries to push back him but gets pushed onto a beam. He begs to be let out but is pushed again, harder, and slides to the floor. He crawls to the trench entrance, and the veteran yells at him to stop. The boy continues. He is hit by a shell. He explodes, and small bits of him fly around the trench. The first veteran is now stained with his blood, as are the walls and nearly everything around him. He doesn't mind the blood. He hardly flinched when the boy died. It was a quick death, and it surely wasn't the worst he had seen. The second veteran looks back at the young, new recruits. They all scream and panic, holding onto each other as if that will make any difference for them. He screams at them to get out, and they very eagerly follow his instructions.

All except Behm and Paul.

They are still holding onto each other. Mounds of dirt had fallen in front of them and into their eyes, so they can't see much of anything in front of them. Paul tries to stand up, but Behm's grasp on his arm doesn't let him. Behm begins to hit his head against the trench wall. He doesn't know what he is trying to do. He doesn't know if he is trying to make himself pass out or trying to kill himself. 

More dirt and more shells fall into the trench.

~~~

The air smelt like death. It was dry and rough. With each breath anyone took, they felt their lungs dry up. They knew it wasn't anything real. It was mostly psychosomatic. Many of the people in the trench were new recruits or had only been there for a few months. Most people don't last much longer than that. For the two veterans, they would like to say they had gotten used to the feeling, but you can't exactly get used to death- no matter how much of it you experience. Apart from that, the ground was horrifically wet. When people took a step, their boots sunk into the dirt, which was either wet with the previous night's rain or blood. It was likely a combination of the two, but most of the soldiers preferred to think it was rain alone. Paul had awakened somewhere. He wasn't entirely unconscious, and Kropp and Müller had found him quickly after he woke up. Paul was soon after ordered to collect dog tags, a task he hadn't exactly been trained or prepared for, but had expected to do. While walking, he stepped on something and heard a faint crack beneath him. He had thought the worst. The sound was of broken glass, and when he looked down, the glass seemed to have been Behm's glasses. They were stained with blood and mud, but Paul couldn't see Behm anywhere. While collecting dog tags, he made sure to check all around for the sight of the frail boy. He asked Müller and Kropp if they had seen Behm. They both responded by looking down. 

"No," they both said, sounding like little children rather than soldiers.

Some minutes passed, and Paul couldn't tell how long it had been. He must have collected the tags of three dozen men. In this one night alone, he had witnessed more death than an average man would in a lifetime during peace.

~~~

Behm doesn't know how long it has been. He knows that he is no longer next to Paul, and there is a sharp pain in his leg. He can't tell which leg, or where the pain is exactly, but it feels worse than anything he could have expected. He is buried underneath something. That's all he knows. He can hardly hear his own breathing. He can only see light shades of grey. The grey was mixed with red, too. 

The earth around him is still shaking. Behm can feel the vibrations of the people walking around him. None of them have noticed him, so he realizes he was right to think he was beneath something. He moves his hands up, trying to feel what is above him. It is both wood and dirt. He tries desperately to push himself out front of him, but he hardly has any energy to do so. He had been on the front for no more than 24 hours, and he has already found himself injured and practically dead. 

He thinks to himself, "Why did I come here?" He never wanted to be here. He had let his friends convince him this is what they all needed to do. He doesn't hate them for that. part of him feels like he should. If it weren't for them, he wouldn't be in this situation. The same could be said for so many things. he and his friends are not at fault for this. The men he was taught about in his classes were the ones at fault. "If I die," he thinks, "what difference could it make? This one death will not mean more than the millions before me." He stops. 

The air suddenly got a bit louder. He could hear voices now. They were right above him. He thought to scream for someone, but his mouth is much too dry to make any noise. He moves his hands to his face, and he realizes why he hasn't been able to see: he hasn't got his glasses. While he isn't completely sure how he got to where he is, he must have run or something. That would also explain the sharp pain he feels in his leg. He rubs his eyes and discovers a new pain. Behm can't tell which feels worse: his leg or his eye. He was already blind when he came here. He can't be even more blind now. "I need to go home," he thinks. "If I'm this injured, I will be going home." He doesn't smile, he doesn't grin, while thinking that. He still doesn't know where Paul is. Or Müller. Or Kropp. They might as well be dead. What would be good in going home if he has to go alone? What is the good in going home if his friends come with him in wooden boxes?

The death smelt different to Behm. He had been to a funeral once or twice in his youth. He can't remember who it was for. Possibly it was for some distant relative he had never even known existed. At that funeral, it smelt warm. The grass, grass which he could tell had been cut not long before, kept its familiar smell and made the event much calmer than it should have been. People around him had mourned, of course, and they wept, as anyone would. There is the faint memory of seeing the body. Behm did not sob. He did not cry. He did not shed a single tear. While he cannot remember who it was he saw in that casket, he knew it had to happen. The deaths here, Behm that, they didn't need to happen. All the men here should have lived for decades more. Lived their life and then died when it was their time to. "This is not my time."  he thought. It is no one's." His breathing heavied, and it became the only thing he could hear. 

just then, as though it had been on cue, he heard Paul and some stray voices he struggled to identify. They were above him. Behm still could not make any noise, but he could move, so that is what he did. He moved as much as he could, making sure to make some noise with the wood and dirt and anything else around him so the people above him maybe be able to sense there is someone alive beneath them.

"Ludwig?" He hears one of them say. It is Paul. "Kat! Could you help me?"

Planks of wood and rocks were lifted off of Behm. He could hear Paul's voice, but he could hardly see any of them. "Paul?" he asked.

"Yes, Ludwig. I'm here it's alright." Paul helped Behm sit up, and he sat next to him. He reached into his tunic pocket and pulled out Behm's glasses. They were broken, but they were much better than nothing, Paul had decided. He placed them on Behm, looping the straps behind his ears and making sure they sat correctly on the bridge of his nose. 

"Paul."

"It's okay, Ludwig."

"No, Paul."

"How injured are you?" the unfamiliar voice asked him.

"I can feel something by my leg- my left one, I think. I can't exactly see which one it is."

"You can't see?" he said again, kneeling down. 

"I can't," Behm sighed. "What is your name?"

"Katczinsky, Kat," Kat said.

"Where are the others?" Behm asked.

"I'll fetch them," Paul said.

"No," Kat stood. "You stay with your friend, Paul. I'll get the others."

Kat left and walked urgently to find Müller and Kropp. He was sure they were worried about Behm, and they may just be a bit happy to find him alive. 

"How long has it been?"

"Maybe five or six hours."

"That is much too long, Paul."

"I know, Ludwig. But it's okay. We're together now. And you'll be able to go home now, to your mother. You'll have to say hello to her for me."

"I'm not sure how I feel about that. I was here for less than a day. Weeks, months, of training, have gone to nothing, Paul. I can't go home like this. What have I done for the Fatherland?"

"You have done what you can. You can go home now."

"Why are you so sure of that?"

"We can't keep a blind man out here, can we?"

Behm laughed.

Kat came back with Kropp, Müller, two medics, and the other veteran, who Behm learned was Tjaden. They all spoke to each other while the medics examined Behm's leg. There was a piece of shrapnel a few centimeters above his knee, and, from the look of it, they would have to amputate it. As for his eyes, there was not much they could do. They were open, but they were bloodshot. Any damage done was not practically irreversible. There was hardly anything they could do for them. His right eye was the most damaged, and, maybe they thought, they may be able to do something about the left, but it was only a stray idea. They tried to patch him up as much as they could, offering him gauze to use as make-shift eyepatches until they can get him proper ones. Behm refused them, saying he would much rather keep his glasses so he can pretend things are even slightly normal. He was brought onto the stretcher, and then taken to the field hospital. When he was carried off, he heard officers tell the others to continue collecting dog tags and try to fix the trench as best as they can. 

~~~

He spent a week in the field hospital. It was a lonely time. All of his friends were fresh out in the front, so they weren't allowed to even think about going off to visit him. Behm received a few letters from them. All detailing how the trenches have been, but they never mentioned the rats and permanent stench of the macabre that constantly surrounded them. Behm was already guilty enough about leaving them so early; he didn't need anything else to wish his friends would get injured so they could be with him, or wish he could somehow go back with them. As for his leg, it was amputated just above the knee a few short hours after he arrived at the hospital. The amputation was painful. They hadn't chloroformed him when they began to saw it off. For fifteen minutes, he lay on a table with fellow soldiers holding him down while a doctor took a handsaw to his leg. Behm could feel the rusted metal cut through his flesh and his bone as he screamed out for someone and heard the doctor yelling for someone to chloroform him. After a day or two of healing, he was moved to a different hospital, this time to one run by a church. His left eye had gotten somewhat better by this time. He could see out of it, but only slightly. He received a new pair of glasses that helped his eyesight and see much better. His vision is blurry and smeared, so it takes him a long while to focus on something to see it properly. When he would try to read letters or write them, nuns would always stop him. If he needed to read something, they would read it to him. If he needed to write something, they would write it for him. As a result, Behm never sent a letter back to the front. Having the nuns write them made the idea of it impersonal. He let them read to him, however. It was either have them read letters or the bible. Behm wasn't fond of the bible- not anymore, at least. If they did, all he could do is question everything said. He couldn't believe in god anymore. 

Two more weeks passed and Behm was finally released. Riding on a train decorated with red crosses, he sat alone and read the letters his friends had written him during the past month over and over again. Sometimes they would include the details of the war, but they were never anything too violent. He learned of Kat and Tjaden and received letters from them both, but the ones from Kat seemed to have handwriting very similar to Paul's, so he wasn't sure how genuine they were. 

The train was full of other soldiers, many of which were much older than he but had much less serious injuries. Behm spoke to no one during the train ride. It would make stops to pick up and drop off passengers. Behm could tell the new passengers spent a few seconds staring at him. He didn't pay attention to them, instead choosing to keep his eyes on the papers that never seemed to leave his hands. Some, the younger ones, would ask questions about his injuries. Behm never gave them many details, especially when they asked how long he had been at the front. He would always avoid the question. And everyone seemed to partially understand why. 

His mother was the first to greet him, breaking into sobs the second she saw him. Behm wore a uniform, one that was not entirely destroyed or covered in blood, and even kept his glasses, ones very similar to what the military had given him. The right pant leg was folded and pinned up. He walked unsteadily with a cane. When he saw his mother, he smiled and slowly began toward her. She ran to him and held him in her arms, kissing every bit of his face she could and whispering prayers. His father only greeted him with a handshake. His father had tried to ask him questions, but Ludwig's mother shot him down and scolded him for it.

"Don't, Mother," Ludwig said. "People have questioned me everywhere I go."

"You don't need to be pestered with questions, not now. You need to rest."

"I spent a month in hospitals. And days on a train. I've done all my resting."

He walked with his parents home, where they would quietly eat dinner. His father read the paper, reading updates on the war. Behm's father had a visible desire to ask his son everything he can. Behm's mother did not want to remind him of the short time he had spent at the front. After, his mother helped him to his room and let him be. He looked at his desk, as much as he could, and at the school books sitting on it. There wasn't much need for them anymore. He never had much of a dream for university. He considered linguistics for some time, but he enlisted before he graduated, so there wasn't much he could do. Now, it seems the same. It seems unlikely for any university to take him in. He could still speak. The shells didn't do much to damage that aspect of him, but with the burden of his sight and his leg, why would he even bother with an application?

~~~

For a few months, Behm spent his time teaching himself various things. He would read about history and philosophers in his spare time. His father did eventually tell him it was in his best interest to get some kind of job, something small so he could support himself and help support his parents. He became a teacher's assistant at the high school he attended, but he never spent his time doing something other than reading over essays and grading papers. Because of his amputation and his prosthetic leg, he felt uncomfortable having to move around a classroom or a school for a long time, so he was a grader more than he was an assistant. By the end of the school year, the school's oldest male students were all much too excited to enlist. Their professor, the same one that had encouraged Behm and his friends to enlist, began to speak the same speeches he had said months prior. There were fewer students ready to enlist, so the speeches happened in the classroom rather than in the main staircase of the gymnasium. 

Behm always had an uneasy feeling the professor would speak, and it was heightened much more today. He was sitting at a side desk, reading Stirner when the professor walked up to him and asked for him to stand. Behm was hesitant, naturally, and asked why. He was not given an answer, but instead told to stand proudly in front of the class. Grabbing the wooden cane next to him, Behm stood and slowly began to walk to the front of the class. The professor stood next to him, placing his arm over Behm's shoulder, and spoke to the class again. He introduced Behm as a soldier and began to speak of him, portraying him as a hero and someone who surely made his father proud.

"I wasn't at the front for any more than a day, sir," Behm said. 

The professor stopped and looked down, "Your friends are still there, are they not?"

"Yes, sir. Paul, Franz, and Albert."

"Do you exchange letters with them?"

"Of course I do."

"And what do they say in them?"

"What?"

"Your friends, what do they tell you about the front?"

"Nothing pleasant, sir. They write of the sleepless nights and the permanent smell of despair constantly around them. Not too long ago, Albert wrote me, writing about how they typically lose over a hundred men a week. Paul writes about how he regrets enlisting, and Albert, too. Whatever it is you're trying to say to these boys, it isn't true. And you can believe me. I wasn't there for more than a day, and I came home half-blind and without a leg. No use in the war. I don't feel like a hero. I assure you that Paul, Franz, and Albert don't either. No one there does." Without any other words, Behm sits back down and lets the professor stand alone to think about what he'll say after. 

Many people have tried to tell Behm he must feel proud of what he did out in the front. There is no pride in it. Behm never told anyone who asked about the first, and only, day he was there. He was not a hero. He was a coward, at least Behm thinks he was. He was sitting, clutching onto his friend and crying out to his mother. There is absolutely nothing about that night that could be described as heroic or patriotic. He feels guilty about it. He left his friends and their last memory of him is of him sobbing. That doesn't make him a hero. And his friends don't think of themselves as heroes either. In the letters, specifically from Paul's letters, Behm knows that no one there feels that way. For the rest of that class, Behm could only stare at the professor with hatred, trying to get more young boys to go out to their almost certain death for no reason. He said nothing about it. It would do no one any good to try and call him out on it. He stared, listening to the lectures, knowing exactly what he would write in his next letters.

~~~

It was mid-November, and the armistice has officially been signed. Behm could not feel any happier. The rumors about the signing have been going around for weeks, and it is all anyone could think about. Behmm would speak to his parents about how he could not wait until he could see his friends again, and he knew exactly what they would do when they see each other. It has been 18 months since they've all seen each other. 18 months since they've sat down and spoken about their plans for the future. While he knows their plans will be drastically different from what they were months ago. His father told him he shouldn't speak too happy about the situation. Germany has surrendered, and that is nothing to be happy about. Behm has not thought about Germany. All he is thinking about is his friends. 

~~~

The war is officially over, and it has been for over a month now, and yet, Behm still hasn't heard from anyone. Not his friends or their families. For the first two weeks since the end, all he thought was it would take a while for them to get back home. Behm was sure there was a lot they had to go through before being sent off, but he's seen his neighbors and his neighbor's friends and sons, brothers, and husbands come home, but not his friends.

So today he decided he would speak to their families.

He walked to Paul's house, thinking that since they were the closest friends, speaking to him would make the most sense. Dressed in normal civilian clothing, he made his way to the two-story building he would often wait outside of. He knocked on the door.

The person who opened the door was Paul's mother, a sickly woman who didn't seem to be in any better condition now than she was years ago.

"Oh, Ludwig," she said. She stepped aside from the door to let Behm in. "You look well. Do you need something?" She sounded sad and her eyes looked to be permanently sunken into their sockets.

"I came to ask if you had heard from Paul. And the others. It's been a while since I have."

Paul's mother said nothing. She only looked at him. Horrified. Behm didn't say anything. He stood at the door quietly, looking into Mrs. Baümer's dead eyes. Thinking he should say something to get her to speak, Behm smiled kindly and opened his mouth, preparing to say something. Just then, he heard something a few meters to his left. He turned and saw a young girl, one that couldn't have been more than fourteen walking down the steps. The girl, Paul's younger sister, walked to her mother and asked if she was alright.

"Could you please leave?" The older woman said. "Please, before you say anything else."

"I'm sorry?"

"Leave, please," she repeated. 

Behm could not entirely understand why he was asked to leave, but he very quickly put some pieces together. Without saying anything, he turned and walked out of the house, hearing the door quickly close behind him. He paused for a moment outside the house, thinking to himself about the conclusion he came to. 

Next, he would go to Müller's, but the interaction was pretty much the same. It was just a tad bit different. Müller's parents had welcomed him in. They spent some time asking Behm what he has spent his time doing since he returned to the front. They spoke while drinking tea. Behm could not figure out how to bring up Müller, so he simply asked where he was and when he would return home. Müller's mother looked down and reached for her husband's hand. Very calmly, Behm was informed that Müller hadn't come home. About a week after the armistice was signed, they received a letter saying they could not locate him. The likely hood of him being found, and him being found alive, was incredibly low. The letter had said Müller was simply 'Missing In Action,' but his parents knew that was just the government's way of admitting they could not take care of or protect their son. After sharing his sorrows and his regrets, Behm asked if they knew about Paul. He explained he went to his parents but could hardly get more than a few sentences from them. Behm was told just the same. He was likely dead, but the military wasn't sure. Going to find Kropp, Behm couldn't feel anything. He walked through the village's streets on one leg and one crutch. He kept his eyes low, already expecting to hear very similar words. 

And he did. It was a bit better. Kropp was dead, that was something his family knew for sure, so at least they could live knowing their son is at some peace. Unlike the Müllers and the Baümers, who went to bed each night without knowing if their sons were alive or out somewhere in France completely unknown and alone. 

Behm went home and went to his room right away. He didn't leave the room when his mother called him for dinner, he pretended to be asleep when she went to check on him. All Behm had left from his friends was about 18 months' worth of letters, so only about 18 pages for each of them. He hardly has a picture of them to look at. He knows he can't go back to their families. What would he say to them? "I'm sorry your sons are dead. I would have still been with them if I weren't a coward. Maybe things would be different then. Maybe I would be dead with them."

Staring into the pitch black of his room, Behm sat up, thinking of what he could do. What was left for him in the world? He was of no use to his family, and he is of no use to the school that employed him. He is of no use to his country. He never was. All he is now is alone. He hasn't any friends, and he definitely has no one to speak to. What person would be able to understand anything he has to say? What person here would be able to comfort him? Behm could hardly comfort himself. There was no comfort in anything now.