Only War
The forest was never meant to be a refuge.
I remember the mud more clearly than the gunfire. It had worked its way into everything: our boots, our weapons, the seams of our uniforms. The trench had been filling with it for three days, and by then there was hardly a dry place left to sit. Whenever a shell landed close enough, the walls shed another layer of earth onto our shoulders. We had stopped bothering to brush it off.
The latest explosion had gone off somewhere to my left. My ears were still ringing, and I could barely distinguish the cries of the wounded from the shouting of the men trying to reach them. A boy beside me was struggling to reload his rifle. His fingers kept slipping against the cartridges, and twice he dropped one into the mud before managing to push another into the magazine. He couldn’t have been older than seventeen, though the grime on his face and the hollows beneath his eyes made it difficult to tell.
“Easy,” I told him. “Take your time.”
He looked at me as though I’d said something absurd. Another shell struck beyond the parapet, throwing dirt and splinters across us. The boy ducked, dropping half his ammunition, and I helped him gather what we could. Neither of us said anything while we worked. There wasn’t much point.
There had been thirty-two of us that morning. I knew because I’d counted them before the bombardment began, walking the length of the trench while the men ate their breakfast and checked their equipment. I hadn’t counted again, and I had no intention of doing so until someone made me.
A runner came stumbling along the trench, one hand pressed against his helmet. He leaned close enough for me to hear him over the artillery and shouted that we were to withdraw south immediately. When I asked about the lieutenant, he shook his head. I couldn’t tell whether he hadn’t heard the question or simply didn’t want to answer it. He was already moving toward the next position before I could ask again.
Beyond the broken communication trenches lay a narrow stretch of open ground and the edge of a forest. We’d been told to avoid it, though nobody had explained why. The maps showed little more than an irregular patch of green, with no marked roads and no villages nearby. Under ordinary circumstances I might have questioned the wisdom of leading exhausted men into unfamiliar woodland, but the enemy was pressing from the north and the trench wouldn’t survive another sustained bombardment. There were no good choices left, only those that might keep us alive a little longer.
I called for the men who could still walk. Some hesitated, reluctant to abandon the wounded or whatever remained of their belongings. Others were already pulling themselves out of the mud, desperate for any excuse to move. I told them to leave what they couldn’t carry. One of the wounded begged us to take him, and two soldiers tried, but he screamed when they lifted him. Another shell struck close enough to knock us against the trench wall. I don’t remember who finally told them to put him down. I remember that we did.
We climbed out of the trench and ran.
The open ground was worse than I’d expected. Machine-gun fire swept across it in long, deliberate bursts, and the artillery continued to fall behind us. Men stumbled through shell holes and over the bodies of those who had tried to cross before us. The boy I’d helped with his rifle ran several paces ahead of me, slipping once before catching himself and continuing toward the trees. Someone fell near the tree line. I heard him calling for help, but the others were already disappearing into the woods, and I kept running with them.
By the time I reached the first trees, my lungs felt raw. Branches struck my face and caught at my equipment as I pushed through the undergrowth, following the sound of boots ahead of me. The ground dipped into a shallow hollow where several men had stopped to catch their breath. The boy was there, bent forward with his hands on his knees, trying to steady his breathing. We waited for the others, watching the trees and listening for footsteps until it became clear that nobody else was coming.
Nine men had made it into the hollow.
For several minutes we remained where we were, listening to the artillery beyond the forest. The shells continued to fall, but their reports sounded strangely distant. Even the machine guns had faded into a dull, irregular rattle. A corporal named Mercer removed his helmet and wiped his forehead with the back of his sleeve.
“Christ. I thought we’d never get out of that.”
“Keep your helmet on,” I told him.
He looked around at the trees. “Who’s going to shoot me in here?”
I didn’t answer. I was trying to decide whether we should rest or keep moving, and the longer I listened, the less I liked the quiet. There was something peculiar about the way the sounds of the battlefield seemed to disappear among the trees. We couldn’t have traveled more than a few hundred yards, yet the guns might have been miles away.
We moved deeper into the forest, following the slope of the land away from the fighting. The trees grew close together, their trunks thick and dark beneath a canopy that admitted very little daylight. The ground was soft with fallen leaves, and the air carried a damp, earthy smell that became stronger the farther we walked. Occasionally a distant rumble passed through the forest, accompanied by a faint trembling beneath our boots, but the noise of the guns never seemed to reach us properly.
Mercer noticed it too. He had been walking beside me for some time, glancing back whenever the path allowed him a clear view through the trees.
“How far have we come?”
“Not far enough.”
“Sounds like we’ve walked ten miles.”
He said it casually enough, but I could tell he was waiting for me to offer an explanation. I had none, so I kept walking, and after a while he fell back among the others.
We found the camp shortly afterward.
At first I mistook the pale shapes between the trees for rocks. Then I recognized the canvas of military tents, sagging between broken poles. Several had collapsed entirely, while others stood at odd angles, their ropes torn loose and their entrances hanging open. Enemy uniforms lay scattered across the ground, and there were rifles everywhere, some abandoned beside overturned crates, others half buried in the mud.
I raised my hand and the men stopped. Mercer crouched beside me while the others took cover behind the trees. We watched the camp for a full minute, rifles ready, but nothing moved. There were no sentries, no voices and no smoke rising from the remains of the cooking fire.
“Could be a trap,” Mercer whispered.
“Could be. Stay close.”
We approached carefully, spreading out just enough to examine the tents without losing sight of one another. Spent cartridges littered the clearing, concentrated around the cooking fire and the entrances to several tents. I picked up a handful and examined them. All the same caliber. The enemy had fired a great many rounds here, judging by the quantity scattered across the ground, but I could find no evidence that anyone had fired back.
Mercer was examining a torn uniform hanging from a low branch. The fabric had been ripped almost from collar to waist, its edges stretched and frayed as though someone had seized the coat with both hands and pulled it apart. Dark stains covered the lining.
“Animal?” he asked.
“Possibly.”
He turned the coat over, looking at the damage. “What kind of animal does that?”
I had seen men torn apart by artillery and caught in machinery. I had seen what a bayonet could do when driven into a body with enough force. This looked like none of those things, though I wasn’t prepared to say so. I handed the coat back and told him to keep searching.
The youngest soldier, whose name I learned was Ellis, stood beside an overturned supply wagon. He was staring at something beneath it, and when he called me over, his voice was barely audible.
A pair of boots protruded from beneath the wagon, still attached to the lower half of a uniform. I knelt and reached under the broken axle, expecting to find a body. Instead, the boots were empty. The trousers had been pulled inside out, and the belt was missing. There was blood on the fabric, but none on the ground beneath it.
Ellis stepped backward, looking from the boots to the surrounding trees.
“Where are they?”
I looked around the camp again. The tents were empty, the rifles abandoned, packs lay open and food was scattered across the ground. A pot of something long since spoiled rested beside the cold ashes of the fire. Whatever had happened, the men had left in a hurry, though the condition of their equipment suggested that some hadn’t been given much choice.
There were footprints everywhere. Some led toward the trees, others circled the camp before disappearing into the undergrowth. Several deep grooves crossed the clearing, cutting through the mud and fallen leaves. I followed one to the edge of the camp, where it continued between two trees and disappeared beneath a tangle of roots. It was broad enough to suggest a man being dragged by his heels, but I couldn’t find any corresponding footprints beside it.
Mercer joined me and studied the groove for a while.
“That’s a lot of weight to pull through this muck.”
I nodded. The ground was soft enough to preserve every boot print, and the marks left by the dragging were deep. Whatever had made them must have exerted considerable force, yet there was nothing nearby to suggest how it had been done.
We searched what remained of the camp for food and ammunition. There was little worth taking, and the men were growing restless. Every few moments someone glanced toward the trees, expecting to see movement. Ellis lingered near the wagon when I ordered us onward.
“Sir, shouldn’t we find out what happened to them?”
I looked at the abandoned rifles, the torn canvas and the uniforms lying in the mud. I had no desire to learn what had frightened armed men badly enough to make them abandon their weapons.
“No. We’re leaving.”
He followed without another word.
The forest changed as we went, though at first I noticed only the roots. They rose from the soil in thick, twisted ridges, crossing our path and forcing us to climb over them. Some were as broad as fallen trunks. Others disappeared beneath the earth only to emerge several yards farther on. They made the walking difficult, particularly for the men who had injured their legs during the retreat, and we were forced to slow our pace.
Then we began encountering the stones.
They stood among the trees in irregular clusters, half buried and dark with moisture. Their surfaces were smooth beneath the moss, unlike the broken rock scattered elsewhere in the forest. Several bore shallow markings that might once have been letters, though I couldn’t recognize the language. Some were almost completely enclosed by roots, while others leaned at odd angles, their bases hidden beneath centuries of accumulated soil.
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One had been split almost down the middle. The fracture was recent, its exposed surface pale against the weathered exterior, and fragments lay among the roots. A piece of shell casing rested nearby, darkened with soot and bent sharply inward. I picked it up and turned it over in my hand. We’d seen enough of them in the trenches to recognize the damage.
Mercer stopped beside me and examined the broken stone.
“Artillery?”
“Looks like it.”
“Must have landed short.”
I looked up through the branches. There were gaps in the canopy, and beyond them I could see a patch of gray sky. The shell might have come from either side. There was no way to tell, and under the circumstances it hardly mattered.
I dropped the fragment and felt a faint vibration pass through the ground beneath my boots. It lasted perhaps a second, so slight that I might have dismissed it if Mercer hadn’t looked at me at precisely the same moment.
“Did you feel that?”
“Another shell.”
“Didn’t hear one.”
Neither had I. We stood listening for a few moments, but the forest remained quiet, and eventually I told the men to move on.
The strange calls among the trees had become less frequent. Sometimes a sound would carry from somewhere deeper in the forest, low and drawn out, followed by a series of shorter noises that seemed almost to answer it. I couldn’t tell whether they came from birds or animals, and none of the men recognized them either.
They began speaking quietly among themselves. One insisted that he’d seen something moving between the trees, keeping pace with us. Another claimed the roots were shifting whenever we looked away. I told them to keep their eyes on the path and reminded them that we were tired, hungry and frightened. Men in that condition saw things. I’d watched soldiers mistake shadows for enemy patrols and hear voices in the wind after too many nights without sleep.
I knew how easily the mind could turn against itself, though I found myself looking down more often as we walked.
The earth was uneven, rising into long, rounded mounds beneath the leaves. Some had split open, exposing damp soil and tangled roots. Others were marked by shallow depressions resembling the impressions left by heavy machinery, though there were no tracks leading to them and no reason for any vehicle to have reached this part of the forest.
We found more drag marks crossing the path, running toward the deeper woods. One passed directly beneath a cluster of stones, where the soil had been disturbed recently enough to remain dark and wet. Mercer crouched beside it and ran a finger along the edge.
“Same as the camp,” he said. “Whatever took them came this way.”
“Get up, Mercer.”
He remained crouched, examining the ground.
“There’s something under — “
The soil shifted.
It was slight, no more than the movement of a breath beneath a blanket, but I saw the leaves rise along the length of the groove. The roots beside Mercer’s hand tightened against the earth, drawing a thin line through the mud. He scrambled backward, nearly falling over Ellis, and for several seconds none of us moved.
I watched the disturbed ground, waiting for it to happen again. The leaves had settled back into place, and there was no longer any visible movement. Mercer got to his feet and brushed dirt from his trousers, though his hands were shaking badly enough that he had trouble fastening his equipment.
“Earth settling,” he said.
It was a reasonable explanation. I wanted very much to believe it.
We continued at a faster pace, and I made no effort to stop the men from hurrying. The forest seemed to grow darker, though daylight was still visible through the upper branches. The trees stood closer together, and the ground rose and fell in long, irregular slopes that made it difficult to maintain our direction. I checked my compass twice. The needle trembled but settled where it should, and we were still heading south.
Somewhere beneath us came a deep, muffled sound. It reminded me of artillery heard from inside a cellar, except that it lasted too long. The earth vibrated beneath our feet, and a fine shower of dirt fell from the roots of a nearby tree.
The men stopped. Another rumble followed, farther away, and Ellis looked toward the canopy.
“Was that ours?”
I listened for the familiar whistle of an incoming shell or the sudden concussion of an impact, but there was nothing. Only the slow movement of something too distant, or too deeply buried, to locate.
“I don’t know.”
Nobody asked anything else.
We found the edge of the forest less than an hour later. The change was so abrupt that several men stopped walking, staring at the open ground ahead as though they couldn’t quite believe what they were seeing.
One moment we had been surrounded by the damp silence of the trees. The next, artillery thundered across the landscape, accompanied by rifle fire, shouted orders and the unmistakable mechanical chatter of machine guns. A trench ran along the southern edge of the clearing, where men in our uniforms were moving between firing positions, carrying ammunition and dragging the wounded toward a covered dugout.
Someone spotted us and began waving.
“Friendlies! Over here!”
Mercer laughed. It was an ugly, exhausted sound, but I understood it. The noise of the guns, the shouting, even the smell of smoke carried a familiarity I hadn’t realized I’d missed. Ellis began running toward the trench, and the others followed, some calling out to the men waiting for us.
I remained at the tree line for a moment, looking back.
The forest stood motionless behind us. From here it looked like any other stretch of woodland, dark beneath its canopy, the outer branches stirring gently in the breeze. Nothing suggested the abandoned camp or the strange stones buried among the roots. I could almost convince myself that the things we’d seen were products of exhaustion, memories already beginning to distort themselves.
A shell passed overhead, its familiar whistle drawing my attention toward the open ground. It struck somewhere beyond the trench, sending a column of earth into the air. The concussion reached me a moment later, shaking the soil beneath my boots.
Behind me, something answered.
I felt it before I heard it: a slow tremor rising through the ground, deep enough that the smaller stones near my feet began to shift. It passed beneath the tree line and continued into the forest, where the roots seemed to tighten against the earth. For an instant, I thought I saw one of the dark stones moving between the trunks, but the branches obscured my view before I could be certain.
“Sir!”
Ellis was calling from the trench, waving for me to hurry. Men were shouting orders, and somewhere to the north another battery had begun firing. I crossed the open ground and dropped into the trench beside the others, grateful for the familiar smell of damp earth and gunpowder.
A sergeant demanded to know where we’d come from. I pointed toward the forest and told him we’d withdrawn from the northern position.
He looked past me at the trees.
“Through there?”
“Yes.”
He frowned. “Bloody miracle you made it.”
I almost told him about the camp. About the stones and the things we’d heard beneath the ground. But he was already shouting for someone to bring us water, and a wounded man was crying out from the dugout behind him. There were more immediate concerns, and I had no idea how to explain what we’d encountered without sounding like a man who had finally lost his mind.
There would be time to explain later.
I sat against the trench wall, my rifle across my knees, and watched another salvo pass overhead. The shells fell somewhere beyond the forest, their explosions rolling across the landscape until the echoes faded among the trees.
A few seconds later, the earth trembled beneath me.
Then it trembled again, long after the guns had stopped.
