SILENCE

The silence was suffocating.  The dark impenetrable.  He wanted to stand up, scream out, and be shot dead.  The aching senseless void was too much. 

     A frustrating mix of decision and circumstance led Gordon Williams to the place he now huddled.  If he could go back in time, he would certainly do things much differently.  But what good is fantasy in a situation like this? 

He quivered and spine-clenching chills ran down his body.  The only discernible sound was that of the rapid thumping of his heart, and he wasn’t even sure if he was hearing that or just feeling it pounding inside his skull.

     He looked down at his hands covered in blood, the Enemy’s blood.  What had he done?  He put his head in his blood-soaked hands and started to cry, gripping his hair in fists. 

Mired in his debilitating fear, and with the silence enveloping him and a vicious tangle of paradoxical emotions assaulting the walls of his mind, Gordon’s subconscious feverishly constructed a curious bulwark to defend against complete shutdown.  In the depths of his internal Hell, his mind suddenly wandered to cheerful thoughts of his younger sister and the pranks she used to play back in Oklahoma. 

It was a rare week that Janey, six years his junior, didn’t get him good.  She was a pistol, always bursting into trouble that she would invariably talk herself out of with a skill that left each involved party speechless.  The people in town would watch her with slightly shameful giggles as she expertly swindled the few remaining tourists who traveled down the old Route 66 cutting through town.  In the 1950s, Davenport, Oklahoma was one of the first towns along the Mother Road to be bypassed by a super-highway, and the town withered.

But the old road still drew a few bright-eyed tourists.  Most of whom would leave Davenport smiling and thanking Janey for one thing or another while she smiled back and bid farewell with the husband’s wallet in the back pocket of her baggy dungarees and the wife’s watch in the hand that wasn’t waving a warm goodbye.  The townsfolk would shake their heads and go back to their business with barely perceptible smiles on their faces.  There was nothing they could do even if they wanted to do something; is what they would rationalize to themselves as they would chuckle. 

The truth was, little Janey Williams was a force of nature that none of them wished to match wits with; and, besides, she was as charming and amiable as she was crafty, the little devil-possessed darling of the town, and they all revered her, despite sometimes being on the receiving end of her prankish and light-fingered ways. 

With his face pressed to the floor of the rotten, silent forest, Gordon Williams smiled slightly as he thought about his sister. 

Sometimes the tourists would come back and the sheriff would begrudgingly have to go out to find Janey in one of her many hidden habitats throughout the town.  After a half a day spent rooting around culverts and barn lofts the Sheriff would drag her down to the station where the bewildered tourists would be waiting impatiently.  And that’s when the real magic would begin.  Like a light bulb, instantly Janey would be on and running.

     “Hello Mister and Missus Haviland, how are you?” Janey would ask with such a charming smile and southern drawl that the Haviland’s conviction would immediately begin visibly melting away.  Their eyes would nervously shift down, unable to maintain eye contact with the intense gaze of this little girl striding at them with her hand outthrust for a firm handshake. 

“The Good Sheriff Mister Pottleman came and got me just now as I was saying my prayers before going back to my chores at the farm.” She would hop up to sit on the table, kicking her feet back and forth and smiling widely, as comfortable as a caterpillar in cocoon.  “Why, the Good Sheriff Mr. Pottleman said that you were in need of talking to me right away so I came just as quick as I could.” 

The Sheriff would roll his eyes at the little maestro at work as he would lean languidly on a desk behind the tourists, knowing that he found her rigging a two-stage trip-wire that would eventually dump water then flour on the head of whichever of the local schoolboys had the misfortune of previously upsetting miss Janey Williams.

     At the Sheriff’s office it wouldn’t take long for Janey to convince the couple that they must have left their things at a rest stop or local lavatory.  There would be plenty of dramatics and very little talking by anyone other than Janey and after a grand performance the couple would be so embarrassed at accusing such a nice innocent little girl of thievery, when in fact, they themselves had misplaced their possessions by sheer stupidity, that they would give her ten or twenty dollars to compensate for taking her away from her prayers/chores before shuffling back to their car in shame.

By the time they got back on the road, again with little Janey Williams waving a sunny cheerio, they would also be missing the valve caps for their tires and the Snickers bar from the wife’s purse. 

Janey would sing an angelic farewell to the Good Sheriff Mr. Pottleman, who would grumble to himself beneath his grey mustache and walk back into the station, powerless against the little terror skipping down the dusty sidewalk chewing happily on a Snickers bar. 

And that’s how it would go in Davenport, Oklahoma.

Awakening from his momentary respite of reverie, the thick silence of the forest seemed to be gagging Gordon, like he was drowning.  He knew the Enemy was out there and he couldn’t get enough oxygen.  In the terrifying quiet, each breath sounded so loud that his fear forced him to breathe shallowly and slowly.  He was drowning.  Gordon wished his little sister were with him right now.  She wouldn’t be scared, she wasn’t scared of anything, and she would be chatting his ear off, not giving a second thought to the dangers surrounding them. 

But Janey wasn’t there; she was in her first week of seventh grade back in Davenport.  Gordon was alone and the silence was a sharp scalpel stabbing his ears and cold fingers wrapping around his throat.

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     “Where’s Williams?” The Lieutenant asked Staff Sergeant Clancy Callahan in a frail and frightened whisper, looking down the line of troops squatting in the forest.  They had gone on a daytime patrol but now they were lost in Enemy territory.  The dark had fully set in.

     Staff Sergeant Clancy Callahan turned from the Lieutenant and quietly worked his way down the line of troops asking if anyone had seen Williams.  He was pissed off.  A week ago the army had saddled him with the greenhorn lieutenant who was just as dumb as Clancy would expect of spit-polished Second John straight out of the ROTC.  

     He knew that the missing soldier, Private First Class Gordon Williams, and all the other men, had heard him yell at the Lieutenant earlier, imploring him to not go down into the valley, that it was a nest of Enemy activity.  But the Lieutenant had just kept looking feebly at his map and compass, muttering to himself about the way back to the base. 

It was then, as Staff Sergeant Callahan had thrown up his hands in frustration, knowing that the Lieutenant was miscalculating their position by a whole mountain range, that he had seen all the men looking at him.  Many of them were barely eighteen, pale-faced and petrified.

     At that moment, behind him, the Lieutenant had ordered the platoon down into the valley, puffing his chest and saying he was sure it was the right way home. 

At this order, the troops had all glanced again at Staff Sergeant Clancy Callahan, standing silhouetted by the sun, low in the sky. They knew him too well for him to be able to fully hide the worry and horror on his face when he heard the order.  He would be knowingly leading his men into Enemy territory behind an oblivious officer trying to make it home for bedtime.

And now it was the dark of night and they were lost on a narrow trail in thick Enemy territory and a soldier was missing in the forest.  Callahan crept down the line of frightened men.

“Martinez, you seen Williams?” 

Martinez shook his head.

“Harvey, you seen Williams?”

Harvey shrugged, wishing he knew.  Callahan placed his hand on his shoulder as he moved down the line, trying to impart a confidence he didn’t feel himself.

At the end of the line, Manewski was silently signaling Staff Sergeant Callahan, worry veiling his face.

“What you got?” Callahan rested on one knee beside his trooper, looking over Manewski’s shoulder at the black forest.  The Enemy is out there somewhere, that much he knew.

“I thought he was right behind me, Sarge,” Manewski muttered quietly.

“When did you last see him?”

“I…I don’t know, a half hour ago maybe.” Manewski was frazzled and wishing he could remember better.  He knew he should have been checking every minute or so. 

“I thought he was right behind me but this fucking dark, I just…I was watching for the goddamn Enemy in the fucking forest.”  He put his helmet in his hands and shook his head.

Staff Sergeant Clancy Callahan silently stared at the dark forest from which they came, motionless.  “It’s all right, soldier.” He shifted around toward the front of the line, still squatting. “Eat a ration, keep alert.” 

The soldiers looked at him like a frightened toddler looks to his father when a loose dog is bearing down.  Fear and need.  He would keep them safe, they prayed.  He must keep them safe.

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Gordon Williams finally gained the courage to move his head.  He shifted slightly.  The man he had just killed, an Enemy machine-gunner, was sprawled on the ground, his lifeless eyes seeming to stare at Gordon.

Gordon looked at the dead Enemy and shook his head in frustration.  Gordon had been taking up the rear, right behind Stan Manewski on the tiny dark trail when he thought he heard something and spun around to look.  When he’d turned back Manewski and the rest of the platoon had been gone. 

His mind had gone wild, knowing that they had been lost in Enemy territory using the Enemy’s own labyrinth of footpaths to try to escape to safety.

The panic had hit Gordon in a violent wave.  He’d spun around, looking at the thick black forest around him.  His heart had started pounding and jumped into his throat and his knees went weak.  It had taken all his mental fortitude to regain some level of composure.  Nearly hyperventilating, he’d rushed off in the direction he thought the platoon had been moving, diving through the thick forest. 

It was then that the tiny trail had suddenly opened up and he’d come face to face with the Enemy in a machine-gun nest.  The single soldier had been shocked stiff and hesitated for just long enough for Gordon to grab his knife in an instinctual flurry and flush his arm out and slice through the throat of the Enemy before he even knew what he was doing.  The Enemy had slumped silently to the ground. 

The explosion of adrenaline and fear inside Gordon had left his knees wobbly and his head spinning and he’d staggered and toppled onto the dying Enemy.  This was the first man Gordon Williams had ever killed.  It was the first time he had even seen the Enemy.  Pressed face to face on the floor of a machine-gun nest, the Enemy had looked pleadingly into Gordon’s eyes in his last moments of his life with blood running through his fingers over the fatal wound.

Now, nearly a half an hour later, Gordon looked into the dead Enemy’s eyes and willed himself to move for the first time since the shocking encounter and slaying.  Trembling, he pulled his torso up and peered over the sandbags lining the nest.  But the moonless night shrouded the forest and he couldn’t see a thing.  He knew the Enemy was out there but he had no idea where, and he had no idea where the rest of the platoon was or which way was base.  Someone would be coming to relief the machine-gunner; he didn’t know when, but it was just a matter of time.  He slumped back to the ground and the dead Enemy stared at him.

Then he prayed.  At first he prayed just to occupy his mind, to get it off the horrors surrounding him, but then he prayed with clenching intensity.  He clutched his rifle with white-knuckled hands and pressed his forehead forcibly against the barrel, as if it were a steel crucifix.  Drawing his knees up to his chest on the forest floor, with his eyes shut tight and tears streaming down his face, Gordon prayed vigorously, madly, desperately.  He prayed for his comrades to find him.  He prayed for the Enemy to be not near.  He prayed for forgiveness for his trespass.  He prayed to be home, away from this God-forgotten Hell, listening to his sister’s stories.  He prayed to be struck dead.  Most of all though, he prayed for an end to this awful silence.

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“Out of the question, Sergeant, it’s too risky, could get us all killed.”

“With all due respect, Sir, I’m not leaving a soldier out here.”

“That was an order, Sergeant.  Do not forget your rank.”

Staff Sergeant Clancy Callahan’s eyes narrowed and he clenched his teeth, trying to hide the anger and disdain he was feeling.  The Lieutenant was speaking straight from the textbook of some suckling ROTC course while one of Callahan’s men was lost in thick Enemy territory.  Clancy Callahan, a fifteen-year veteran with the medals and scars to prove it, rigidly glared into the eyes of the greenhorn lieutenant who shifted his gaze and raised his nose and stared out into the blackened forest.

“Yes sir.” 

Callahan stood-up, fully erect, and looked down at the quivering man below him; a pitiful specimen of a man who glanced nervously from the corner of his eye, not moving his head.

Callahan turned, still standing tall, his bear-sized chest expanding with a great inhalation of air.  It was as if he were drinking in the fierce plasmatic energy of the forest; as if the gods of war were diving into his lungs, making him grow in stature.  The line of men looked up at their Sergeant.  He was invincible.

He strode down the line and signaled for Manewski to stand up.  Stan Manewski nervously got to his feet, still bent at the waist, not wanting to rise above the cover.

“I can’t make you go, and I can’t guarantee you’ll make it back,” was all that Staff Sergeant Callahan said, never taking his eyes off the forest.

Manewski looked down at his feet for a moment then up at the Sergeant.  He was nervous, he didn’t want to go.  He wanted to be back at base.  He didn’t want to die.  But neither did he want to live with himself if he didn’t go. 

He looked up at his Sergeant and nodded his head, his eyes belying any courage he was attempting to present.

At the other end of the line, the greenhorn Lieutenant turned to look just in time to see Staff Sergeant Callahan talking to Manewski.  To his shock, they suddenly walked off toward the forest, Callahan still walking tall and Manewski moving in a crouch.  And then they were gone.

The Lieutenant jumped nearly to his feet before remembering to keep his head below cover.  He started to shout out for them to halt, this instant, but he was petrified that the Enemy would kill him if he made any noise.  So he quietly sat down and angrily looked at the black voided forest into which the two soldiers had been swallowed.

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The silence was driving Gordon insane.  He couldn’t take it any longer.  It was like an enormous serpent coiled around his chest, constricting, constricting, constricting.  He was panicking; he rose to his knees, again feeling like he was drowning.  His mind was falling out of his grasp, he was hearing voices, he was hearing his sister’s voice.

On his knees he whimpered and with his head pressed into his gun he swayed as if he were on a boat, grasping the upright barrel for support.  He needed to take a deep breath so badly, he needed to scream.  But he was paralyzed.  The evil, heartless silence pecked mercilessly at his brain with falcon’s beaks and clawed relentlessly at his mind, ripping gashes in its fabric.  This is unbearable!  He grabbed his hair in his bloody hands.  His body shook.

Then, like a hammer striking a stained-glass window, the silence was shattered by the sharp snap of a stick breaking in the forest beside him.  The noise was loud and clear, and was followed by a rustling in the brush. 

Gordon Williams looked up to see the outline of a soldier of War looming over him out of the black forest.  Gordon jumped to his feet and swung up his rifle and the last thing that Staff Sergeant Clancy Callahan saw on this earth was the muzzle flash of a three shot burst from Gordon Williams’ automatic rifle at point blank range.

The outburst of gunfire reverberated in Gordon’s ears, distorting the world around him and drawing away his balance. He looked down in surreal terror at his Sergeant lying in a heap on the forest floor.  Gordon could see Manewski through the dark, staring in shock.

Gordon dropped the gun and it tumbled to his feet.  The world froze for a moment, a chilling, silent moment.  Then gunfire erupted from all around them, the sounds of a thousand thunderstorms boomed.  Gordon Williams and Stan Manewski were riddled with Enemy bullets and knocked back off their feet onto the forest floor.

Lying on the ground dying, with blood coughing out of gasping breaths, Gordon Williams heard his sister chatting happily, and then he heard a sustained volley of gunfire and screams coming from the black void.  The battle lasted for half a minute, followed by a few final shots a moment later.  Gordon felt the warmth of his own blood running down his side and heard the Enemy yelling all around him.  He heard his sister’s voice.

And then it all went silent.

THE END