Day of the Damned Horses (WWI, 1916)

Day of the Damned Horses
((A Day in the battle for Verdun, WWI, 1916) (A Shannon O’Day story))




Chapter One
The War and the Machine Gun Nest

(It is 1964; Shannon O’Day’s daughter Cantina is twelve-years old. She is with him for the weekend. They are out at Como Park, sitting along the banks of Como Lake. He often talks about the Great War with her, the one he was in as a young lad, and she always listens, but it is often a repeat, but nonetheless she listens, and today, Saturday, he is talking to her about it, they have cool-aid and hotdogs, sitting on an Indian type blanket in the grass:)


Says Shannon to his daughter, Cantina, “I came, I saw, I concurred, in the Great War…” then paused to look deep into her eyes, to see if she was really attentive, listening, “I was a man alone, like an island in the middle of the sea, entire of itself, like a continent, or part of one, that is how I felt in the war, especially in this one day of battle I had, and I had two days that were special in that 300-day battle—oh, perhaps more, but two that haunt me, one of victory, one of tragedy, both during the Battle for Verdun, in 1916, let me tell you about the first one, I call it ‘The Day of the ‘Dead Horses.’” (She nods her head yes, up and down slowly, she’s heard it before, each time though she gets something new out of it, something he was fearful before of releasing, so she has learned to not show discontent for him bringing it up for the umpteenth time, she knows when he’d dead, gone, these will be her private stockpile photos, of his trying days in battle, ones he only shared with her, and only her.
Cantina knew ever since he had come back from his war—some forty years ago, as Shannon called it, World War One, there was a since of duty that remained in him. As if he should have died, but survived for some reason.

She knows, but she can’t put it in words, knows: He sees no hope for victory in the long run for mankind, but finds he can live a full life in the hours God has left him. She knows this has told herself this in so many words, just sitting there talking to her father, thinking but not saying, saying only those things that are pleasing to him, she knows, he doesn’t fear death or solitude, never has and he finds love is possible for him in a sense that in that will, his will, he must never hide from death, nor retreat from it, he can live a full life, closely interwoven with it, but remembers the village where he almost lost his life in France, the girl who lost her two boys, and he had to half kill her, she did the other half of the killing. And those horse, those damn dead horses, he remembers them well, and therefore, he feels in life, ever since, he stands alone.
“What are you thinking?” asks Shannon to his daughter.
“The way you might be thinking.” She says back to her father, and it actually makes him smile, what daughter would try to understand a man like him, a good and fine daughter, that is who, he confirms this to his second self. “She doesn’t judge him,” he tells himself. “How funny, everyone else does.”
And so on this day, in 1964, in the park, sitting on the Indian blanket, here is the story he tells Cantina, I shall tell it in my own words, as he tried to tell her in his:


Shannon O’Day was making his stand in a trench. He did not like this trench and when he saw it he thought it had a shape of a woman’s womb. But he had no choice this was the trench, and he selected it as far away from the German artillery shells could reach as possible. But not as far away as the sound of automatic machine guns reached with their bullets banging away night and day, halting and firing, hesitant, uncertain, and then firing again and again, to give him and his platoon of eleven men a nervous case of being shell-shocked.
There still was snow on the ground, frost for the most part, it had ruined the ground, made it muddy, chilled and hardened at night, when the sun sank, and when the horses came pulling wagons of supplies, jerking, and climbing, and staggering their way through the mud, and snow, hauling equipment, men pulling their bridles, the rains coming over their heads and shoulders, holding the horses by the mane, many had to be shot, and many got shot in the line of battle, and there they lay dead, where they feel, for the flies and the worms and the rats.
The horses sometimes were used for barricades, if the battle took place within the timeframe the carcass was still plump, and not gutted by animals, and even Shannon and his men shot over their bodies on occasions, their burnt hides, laying their hot muzzles on their dead flesh and firing at the enemy instead of within the trench, allowing at times for them to advance, knowing all that was behind them were empty trenches, in particular their one empty trench this day of battle, and so they used these dead horses, fifty shot in one day to advance from one point to another, giving Corporal O’Day an idea, one that could take out that nest of machine-gunners.
This day, this one early spring day, one of 300-days in the Battle for Verdun, in France, once the twelve men had reached the perimeter, of the enemy, within pistol distance, there were several more horses laying dead thereabouts, they had succeeded in stealing foot after foot after foot, to get that close to the enemy, and now behind those several horses they waited until night fall, when their first shooting would start, the enemy not knowing how close they really were, and how many had perished in the previous battle, which none had.
Of the twelve men who had reached the outer rim of the boarder where the enemy had their machineguns, two were wounded, Henry Sanchez and Elmer Boswell. Henry was from New Mexico a young lad of eighteen, and Elmer, was a man from Wisconsin, a son of a baker, he also was eighteen.
Henry had a leg wound, shot twice, in two places. And Elmer had an arm wound. All the men were very thirsty, and the wounds of the men were starting to stiffen, yet Corporal Shannon O’Day, was too close to victory to halt the operation, it must go forward, wounds or not. Henry had told Shannon it was very painful. And this brought on a severe annoyance, and he told the soldier, plainly, “You will have to endure the pain, or take death as your way out, or if you have an aspirin, that might help, whatever you chose, make it quick, and if you can’t fight anymore, stay put, and if you can, continue to do as you’ve been doing, but this is not debatable.”
It was no joke, reality, it was the mission first, not the man, and if nausea became deeper and deeper throughout the night for the two soldiers, they were considered no longer usable in battle and therefore, second in priority.
Shannon and his other now capable nine men were spread out likened to the Little Dipper. Using the horses for cover, they simply waited; the horses big like mounds linking the soldiers like baseball bases, from one point to another. Shannon moved on his belly from one horse to the other checking his men to make sure they kept their steel helmets on, a few had bullet holes through them, a few had hammered them out, yet some of the edges were still unsmoothed.
When the shooting started at, 3:00 a.m., and all the helmets had been clapped, you could hear a few of those bullets banging against the helmets, and the heads inside of them swaying, the sounds were death sounds: mouth-draying sounds, spiting sounds, cracking sounds, mechanical sounds, machine-like sounds, desperation sounds, and then a final sound—and throaty voices were no more!
The dryness and fear Shannon had in his mouth, and gut, were on hold, as he looked among the nest for the bodies of the enemy, he had thrown in three grenades, men were laying flat on their faces, arms, torn off, reaching—but reaching unconnected to their bodies, for more machinegun rounds.
Shannon walked among the dead, he wondered said to his second self, “What was their last word inside their head, their last thoughts, or to one another, to the comrade next to him?’
Said Shannon to Henry, as now he had taken the pain, and simply endured it, was still part of the onslaught, standing by his side, “It is better to die on your feet, than on your bellies.”
Another man said in back of them, “Why should they die and not us?”
And of course, in days to come, that voice would die, in a trench, but Shannon had no wisdom, or witty words for the older man, older than he by far, so he said not a word. But Shannon O’Day was thinking: it’s early now, and soon would be first light, and he could take his men back to the General and tell them, if they didn’t already know, the machinegun nest was silenced, and they’d all get a three to seven day pass to Paris or someplace safe, and a good breakfast, and Henry would go home, the war was over for him, and so was it for Elmer. And he’d get two replacements in a week or so.’
He looked around carefully, looked in back of him at the dead horses, in front of him at the machineguns, he looked at the mud where he had crawled, at the bodies he had killed, not one of his men died today, just two wounded, but this was a good day—he felt, he knew there would be worse.


Chapter Two
Rest and Recuperation in Borges


Shannon had went to Paris, for his rest and recuperation, then right onto Burgos, Belgium, for the rest of his seven day leave from the war, it had seemed to him that from now on, after that killing of several men in the machinegun bunker now everyone he passed or talked to, anyone, one and all, he met, or saw, recognized him as the face of the man who killed the seven Germans, that he had a specific face and name, and that each person knew he’d be in Belgium, floating down the cannel in a boat, looking at the old houses, the tower, the square. On second thought—he knew this to be a mental if not physical impossibility, a trick of the mind, a stress from the war, the battle, that war was destroying him, a certain quality in him anyhow, that people like him, had gotten, but even sharper than him, debilitating. He told himself, “When I go home, I’ll have to fix myself, learn how to deal with people again, talk to them,” he meant, not react to them, but act by them.
As he walked along the cannel, and in the square the days he was there, pacing almost unnoticing the people around him as if he was a pigeon in the air, just sailing away, the horses came back to haunt him, the arbitrary shooting, the appearance of the body parts separated from the bodies, he was blank, expressionless, person. Each moment was a new moment a bizarre moment, he was trying to pretend to the people around him he was not involved with the war, that he was someone free of the war, never heard the name, World at War, thinking instead of someone whose destination and goal in life was higher than that, higher than allowing one man one day, start a war between two countries, and pull in the rest of the world, and the rest of the world followed like blind working ants building an anthill, and all these countries miles and miles away, and the spirit of war, having legs, walked and stretched its way down every side street and road in every town and village and city in the world.
He didn’t know these scares would last decade to decade, penetrating his daily life, habits, he didn’t realize then when he got out of the war, he’d be out of the world, out of a life, perhaps his mind betrayed him, the war was fatal to him, he would increase his drinking, it was a healer, and he just couldn’t find anything better.


Chapter Three
The Crossroads Restaurant


Shannon got hungry, and went to a nearby shell of a restaurant, it was in-between two crossroads—shaped like ‘y’ and the restaurant was in-between the ‘y’; inside there was a hearth ablaze, with thick and colorful flames, and the crackling of the dry wood echoed in each ear, it was warm and cozy, he sat close to it.
The guesthouse provided an oilcloth-covered table, with an oil lamp in the middle of it. He ate alone, the guests had vanished, the room looked empty, the plate of food was all eaten, sauerkraut, with a sizzling steak, and corn from a can, and some biscuits, a cup of dark coffee. A few wood embers floated by his table, he spoke casual to the waitress, light conversation, and idly he remained looking out the window.
He spread his legs to warm his inner thighs, the kitchen light went off, he spoke inattentively, “I suppose you’ll be closing for a spell,” he said.
“Just for clean up, we’ll open back up in two hours,” said the waitress.
Shannon asked her to speak a little louder, there was a ringing in his ears, he had become a little deaf from all the gun firing, and artillery; consequently, her having to speak launder, triggered something inside of him, a immobility, a guardedness, he held his breath, looked about as if he was searching for the enemy.
“Are you okay, sir?” asked the waitress.
Shannon’s side was to the fire, something beyond just stillness had overcome him, then he pulled himself back together, his voice had remained the same, “I’ fine, fine,” he reassured her.
“You just sit on where you are mister,” said the waitress, “I’ll cleanup around you, no need to move.”
Shannon nodded his head in thanks, and his mind shifted, as if he was taking a nap with his eyes open, he remembered drinking in the cornfields with his older brother Gus, he’d fall to sleep on the ground, wake up in the mornings, have a feeling the earth itself sucked all the living protean out of his bones, it was as if the ground had arms, and was trying to pull him down into its depths, before his time, but the alcohol would make him pass out and that is where he laid, and that is where he got a full sleep nonetheless—well, not a full sleep, no drunk does, but a dead sleep, not like when he was in the trenches, he could never get a good nights sleep or full sleep, and when he did wakeup from his sporadic sleep in those mud and fly infested trenches, he never knew were he was, thought he was at home, in the cornfields, in his brother’s house, everyplace but where he really was. So that is why he had gotten a hotel room the first day he was in Burgos, and that is why he was thinking about the cornfields, he was thinking about the places he got the best sleep—or at least a full sleep, and now he had learned to appreciate a good full sleep, one of the great gifts of God—is a good night’s sleep, he murmured, and the waitress now sweeping around him, heard him, and knew—right then and there, he was not a tourist, he was a soldier of the Great War.


Chapter Four
Anyplace will do


Shannon O’Day was really not much different in battle than out of the battle in that he never did much hiding or luring about, with his behavior, perhaps unseen and unheard as if he was a space invader, and could be an animal as in their natural habitat like a coyote or a wolf, after his prey, and when he attacked he was not concealed any longer, not crouching behind those dead horses, after hours of discomfort—laying against those smelly decomposing, horses, whose shapes were no longer shapes of horses, infinitesimal insects from the horses crawling from the dead to the living, like crossing over on continuant to another. These were the thoughts going through his head as the waitress mopped the floor, and he stared into the flicker flames of the hearth. A little jealous the waitress never had to face such uncertainties that soldiers had to, but happy for her at the same time. She was pretty, he noticed as she walked by the light shinning through the window, near the corner of the room. He had finished his meal, and was now drinking a beer, with his feet propped on a stool, that was left by the hearth for someone to sit on and feed the fire with dray wood.
He didn’t need to be shot at anymore, he could sense, almost feel the whizzing by of bullets, just daydreaming where he was, he could hear them like a bees shooting and buzzing by his ears, it was all invisible to the eye, soaring sounds of invisibility; beyond the woman sat a man counting the morning’s and noon’s receipts—thinking hurriedly, as if the doors would soon be opened again for the early afternoon rush, to dinner rush. He didn’t need to say anything, he just ordered a third beer, and watched and listened and gazed at the legs of the young and pretty waitress. He hadn’t moved from his chair, not once.

The waitress looked at Shannon, trying to figure out his age, figuring him to be twenty or twenty one, not sixteen or seventeen, she was twenty-three, and she had seen many a soldier come through those doors, and sho enough he was a soldier, and she knew had she been through war, she wouldn’t have much left neither, that what she’d want is just what he was wanting, a warm corner someplace, a quiet someplace for a little while. And she left him to himself.


No: 412 (6-9-2009)..