The Soldier With A Thousand Faces

There was cold.

Then, a footstep dragged across the crude concrete floor of the corridor, unsteadily, shuffling at an
irregular gait. A man, garbed in half-torn and striped overalls, paused for a moment, his pupils
dilating with the black of the room. The man’s eyes drifted alongside the passage, wetting his lips as
he mentally noted the interior – a wall, still fractured with bullet holes and protruding rebar on his
right. Protracted steel bars set into the floor beneath formed meagre cells, split by the occasional
support column on his left –

Pain.

The faceless character rearward of the man cracked the stock of the rifle into his back, spitting in a
foreign language. The intent was clear, however, even as the man crouched, his teeth grinding
against each other as the agony swept through. He stumbled forward. A hand clutched at his back,
stopping at a doorframe inlaid into the cell. There was a fumbling of keys, clinking, and then a
muttered curse, before the doorway rasped free. Within, shadows malingered in the corners,
perhaps silhouettes of a bed. A push impelled the man, and then the gate groaned shut.

He lay sprawled onto the floor, its raw chill engulfing his twisted body. The pounding of his forehead
coincided with the echo of the booted steps tracking receding into the distance. Even so, the
absence of a shovel in his hands, and a brief respite from the daily labour of survival was comforting,
if for only a few moments.

A truth was glaring through his mind - those that entered did not leave. Arbeit macht frei, they had
declared. Work will set you free. The man had worked. Toiling road after road, hole after hole to
avoid the inevitable, to avoid becoming a lifeless shell in the piles scattered across the camp. To
escape the nothingness, for a life of servitude was preferable to that. Yet now he lay, awaiting the
end, his long struggle was for naught.

A trail of salt trickled down his cheek, carving a path through the grime. His eyelids shut – he feared
the darkness, yet could not overcome it.

The wail of the raid sirens howled across the industrial block, and shouts of horror and despair
spread amongst the crowd. The man gawked upwards, a figure of disbelief, but the distant drone of
propellers pressed him forward. He reached for the shoulders of the boy, his boy, gripping tightly.

A push and the two began running, running through the cemented road. The masses had scattered,
like ants, as the eerie song of howling inched closer towards them – the payload had been dropped.
The planes whirred past, perhaps one hundred metres, and the man knew it was too late. He hurled
himself and the boy into the gravel by the side, his mouth dry.

They lay shivering and awaiting life or death. Hushed silence, save for him whispering muttered
comforts. Then, an incredible sound, flashes of light, a shockwave of heat.
There was a brief lull in the chaos, and then the whole world descended into panicked shouting. The
man stood quickly, as the falling debris could effortlessly kill them as weapons of war. Holding tightly
onto the boy, he hastened down the littered streets, fires burning in the background. He had to
return home, a squalid grey apartment. Looters and criminals would become prevalent, in the briefly
lawless state.

Left through the alley, and right past the post office, now a burning husk. A rising stench of fumes
became obvious; the shouting of soldiers seemed to become more distinct. Turning the corner, the
man stopped.

Where his family’s home once stood was nothing but splintered rubble. His wife, mother, father and
all the rest, vanished in a moment of conflict.

The man slumped to his knees, breath coming through in short gasps. Incomprehension at first,
shaking his head in small movements. Then he wailed, a cry of pure despair, his fists slamming into
the rough pavement. The boy was beside him, his gaunt face staring into the ashes, and he gripped
his father’s shoulder. The man looked upwards, his rage broken, and he forced himself to remember
that the boy was nearly a man himself.

Their eyes locked, and in a voice of shattered glass, the boy spoke.

“We will see them again. We will see them again. We will see them again.”

A cry shattered his remembrance, and his eyes cracked open from the dark, his eyebrows furrowed.
He peered through his cell, catching sight of a man, dressed like him, struggling and frothing against
two soldiers with rifles slung on their back. He fought, banging on the metal as he was dragged
through the doorway.

Then, it was quiet once more. Warmer, at least, as he considered the boy’s words.

The man turned onto his side, facing the bars. Half-remembered reveries were preferable to the
bleak, stone walls of his cell, and so he welcomed the flooding darkness back.

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Agonised screams rose from the orchestra of gunshots and screeching shells, plumes of muck surging
from the earth as artillery struck their mark. The man, his camouflage burnt and threadbare,
scrambled upward, his eyelashes matted with dirt. Above, another flash of rounds swarmed towards
him.

He ran.

Scampering past other recovering conscripts, he stumbled through the torn grass. It did not matter –
he had one concern, the boy. As he balanced past a barricade, he heard the gurgling in the earth. He
fell onto his knees, sweeping past dispersed soil, finding a standard issue coat beneath the surface. It
shifted, as if trying to turn.

The boy’s face rose from the ground, amidst the layers, and he gasped greedily for air. The man’s
smile transformed to open, as he saw the shrapnel imbedded into the boy’s throat. He knelt, frozen,
helpless to the boy’s plight and he felt consumed by his great fear – the father who must bury his
son.

And then a whisper – the boy’s lips struggling to form words. The man knelt in.

“They’re waiting for me…and you.”

The man jolted forward, as if reinvigorated. He glanced around, and then the door swung open. The
same guards filed inwards, pausing at his cell. They stooped to look at him, and turned to eachother,
grinning to some hidden joke. The man simply closed his eyes again. The darkness was not to be
feared, but embraced, he realised.

His family was waiting for him. For him to free himself of his struggle here, and for him to free
himself of his life’s shackles. To endure here was to last for nothing – the boy, the wife, the parents
were there, and not here.

The door opened. Hands grabbed him roughly, his bare feet dragging across the floor, and then the
fresh air of the outside.

The man did not care. He did not see or hear.

His back was pushed against a board, and then there was a click-clack of a rifle. A shout, perhaps an
order.

The man smiled, for the first time in a long while.

And then –

There was warmth.