Upon This Waste

Chapter 11

They were stationed alongside a river. Its waters flowed by and they could hear it running away down into the countryside. Isaiah had looked into it when they marched past it earlier, their feet nearly getting lapped by the foam of its rushing fury. He had stared deep into its afternoon gray, looking hard for the muddy bottom. He never saw it though. It was either too deep or swimming by too quickly for its depths to be clear. Isaiah thought that he saw many men looking down into the water, those marching behind him and in front of him in long and strung out lines. They all seemed to gaze with dumb looks into the cold rush, their faces lacking vitality or emotion. He saw no anger or joy in their eyes or their cheeks, but only the slight and almost imperceptible twinge of longing, maybe even envy.

Isaiah had seen David staring into the water. He would pick a single coiling ripple in the surge and follow it with his eyes as it snaked and sibilated away through distant hills. The opal current mirrored his gray and wandering eyes and as he walked, Isaiah thought of many similarities between the two, David and the river. Sam, too, had been eyeing the river. He didn't follow the water as it rolled between its banks. He kept his look in a single spot just off of the water's edge where some footprints had stamped their mark in the mud and the reeds. It looked to Isaiah as if two, maybe three, soldiers had waded into the river, trampling through the push and the roar. Sam's gaze held only the faintest interest, far overshadowed by a look of detachment.

Mike had also been looking into the water, but his stare moved from the water to the sky to the bushes growing along the shore. He had smiled every once in a while as they marched twisting the tired lines of his face upward. Mostly, he had been looking far away at the push of clouds that had blown in from the direction of the ocean. He tilted his head anxiously sideways whenever a rustling of men or call of machines burst the monotonous sound of the river. Beside him, Poe's eyes had darted in every direction, curious and invigorated by the march and the water. Isaiah had watched Jack also, but he had only fixed his eyes on the bob and bubble of fish and the line of marching men that pressed on like a rolling string of beads. Lieutenant Locknell led the five of them and never shifted his glance toward the river except to examine the wind in the ripples.

But they had left sight of the river and were now placed in a small line of trees and shrubs and the water was only a noise. Machine gun nests dotted the tree line on either side of them and they sat with their rifles ready.

"I sure hope we'll be able to hear 'em over the noise of the river if they come," Mike said looking at Isaiah. "I ain't fixin' to get snuck up on."

"It's not that loud," Isaiah replied. "I'm sure we will."

David sat back and they could hear him let out a breath or a little laugh. "It sure sounds loud to me," he said, not talking to them, not talking to himself, speaking perhaps to the river. "Very loud."

Isaiah and Mike looked at one another as the others stared in their own directions. "They probably won't come tonight anyway," Mike said shakily, shrugging his shoulders.

"I wouldn't count on it," Isaiah said, sounding just as unsure as Mike had.

Mike yelled over to Sam to try and pry him from his tranced gaze, a near catatonic stupor in which he slouched and didn't even blink. "Hey Preach, what do you think? Are they commin' tonight?"

"Sam?" Isaiah asked after a moment.

"Hey Sam," Mike said. "Sam!" he shouted sharply.

Finally his eyes became unfixed and he straightened his back and pinched his shoulders behind him. He snapped his eyes toward Isaiah and Mike and started to speak, but nothing came out so he tried again. "Wow," Sam said shaking his head, "you really caught me in a daze there."