Good Fellows: Debt & Dishonor

4. Stray Bullets

Monday, 11 November, 1918

Daniel Freitag sat on the backside of a grassy knoll, far enough removed from the trenches that he needn't fear a stray bullet or a surprise shell, but not so far that he was truly free from the fighting. The sound of the raging battle still pierced the air behind him, and the chill of the crisp autumn breeze carried with it the stink of a soldier's death: burning sulfur and rotting flesh. He had glanced back once or twice to the sound of artillery fire, but eventually that, too, became no more than a mere thundering in the distance and his attention was won wholly by his art.

"It isn't quite right," Daniel muttered, inspecting his sketch of the young soldier who sat reading a chemistry book with his back against the trunk of an old spruce tree.

"Funny. I was about to say that," commented a blonde-haired soldier sitting on a log. He held in his hand a stale piece of bread, which he gave a disapproving look and scraped on his knee. "I'm so sick of sausage! I'd kill for a ration of bread without mold."

Daniel sighed. He supposed that his hunger was another enemy worthy of fighting, but he had gotten so caught up in his work that he had nearly forgotten it, just as he had the shells. The pain in his stomach had become a mere triviality, and it annoyed him a little that this man had brought it back to his attention. "There's always something wrong with my people," Daniel complained, ignoring the intrusion to his thought. "Sometimes, I'd like to just be rid of them."

The soldier looked at his bread again. "About right," he muttered with a frown and chucked the bread away. "Some things you can't fix."

The stale chunk of bread flew through the air until it struck against the shoulder of the soldier who was reading and rolled clumsily down his front, scattering crumbs on his book and uniform. The soldier brushed the crumbs from his jacket and his cold blue eyes shown like search lights as they darted back to reprimand his careless comrade. He whipped his head around to face his accidental assailant, ruffling his dark brown hair, which he wore a little longer than most, and a look of extreme disappointment spread over his lips when his eyes met the other man's.

"Schümer! Take better care than that!" he scolded, picking up the bread and waving it at the man who had thrown it. "Don't you know the people back home are starving themselves for us to have this?"

Schümer grabbed the back of his neck, caught somewhere between guilt and amusement, and let out a nervous laugh. "Sorry, Friedrich! Sometimes I forget. I haven't been home as recently as you."

"Yeah, home..." Friedrich grimaced, staring down at the morsel of bread. "Twenty-four hours leave to attend my little brother's funeral, because he thought he could play a soldier and everybody told him it was worth something." He clenched his jaw, and tears formed in his eyes. "But they all lied. All of this death, it isn't worth anything." His hand tightened around the molded ration. "Now we don't even have bread, because of the damn naval blockade; so my grieving mother is starving. What's the point of defending our land if it has so many war scars we can't grow wheat in it, and what's the point of winning the war if all our people starve? Is it really so much better to die of hunger than a gunshot? If King Wassel had an ounce of care for this people, he would have surrendered the moment he saw we had plucked the land clean of its pride, not insisted upon making a mourner of every woman in Garma!"

"Oh, come, Friedrich; it's not all that bad!" Schümer urged him. "Why, I reckon that all we need is just one great offensive. One good run, and we'll have it!"

"'We'll have it...'" Friedrich lifted his eyes slowly and peered skeptically at Schümer. "Have what?"

"L'envie, of course!" Schümer replied, grinning. "What could a man want but the capital of Frankia?"