The endless historical battlefield that began with World War I

O'Connor looked up. "German biscuits?"

"German biscuits," Tom said, pulling the half-packet from his pocket. It was hard as a rock. "I took a bite. They're edible, just a bit salty, but quite fragrant."

O'Connor took the biscuit, broke off a piece, put it in his mouth, chewed it, and said, "Okay, better than our canned beef. I don't know where the cows in that can came from, but it's definitely not any normal cow I've ever seen."

Tom grinned and divided the bag of cookies into three portions, one for each person.

Joseph picked up the biscuit and glanced at it. It was a rye biscuit, a standard ration, and based on the same principle as the British army's hard biscuits: durable, high in calories, and with a texture roughly equivalent to chewing a brick. He took a bite; it was salty and hard, with a slight aroma of grain.

"How's the game going over there?" O'Connor asked Tom. "Is Morgan still winning?"

"He's still winning," Tom said. "That hand was so bad you couldn't even tell the suits, but he's still winning. I think he's just memorizing the cards by looking at the creases on the back of the cards."

"That takes skill too."

"It's skillful, but Colley won't play with him anymore, saying it's not playing cards but chanting spells," Tom paused, "Flynn, on the other hand, lost quite a bit. Yesterday he lost half a month's worth of tobacco rations, and today he looks gloomy, saying he wants to write home and ask his mother to send him a pack of tobacco leaves."

O'Connor shook his head, a hint of melancholy in his voice. "Don't bet your rations on cards; that's your food." He paused. "What kind of cigarettes are they rationed with now?"

"Woodbyne," Tom said, "has always been that one."

"Woodbourne... When I first joined the army, an Irish veteran told me that Woodbourne is a gift from the army, meaning that no matter how gruesome your death out there, at least you'll have a cigarette in your mouth, to maintain some dignity." He reached into his pocket, pulled out a slightly flattened cigarette, and waved it at Joseph. "Want some?"

"I don't smoke."

"You don't smoke," O'Connor said, holding the cigarette between her fingers. "You don't drink, you don't gamble, Joseph. What did you do for entertainment in the trenches?"

"Write a report."

O'Connor lit the cigarette, took a drag, and exhaled a puff of smoke. "...This isn't a pastime, it's self-torture."

Tom laughed, forgetting he still had soup in his mouth, and coughed, choking on it. "Speaking of which, it's surprising it didn't rain today," he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and looking up at the ceiling. A few thin beams of light shone through the cracks in the wooden planks. "It's almost April."

Tom placed the food bowl on his lap and said nothing more.

Joseph knew what he was thinking, or rather, where he was thinking—the apple trees at the Exeter Manor horse farm should be in bloom.

But he didn't say anything; he just picked up the bowl and continued drinking the soup.

"What's the weather like where you are in April?" Joseph asked O'Connor casually. "In Ireland."

“It rains,” O’Connor said. “April in Ireland is green, but it’s always raining. The rain stops, it turns green for a while, then it rains again, and the cycle repeats every day.”

"Isn't that beautiful?"

“It’s beautiful,” O’Connor said. “My mother plants things in the yard every April, saying the soil is good in April and everything grows.” He took a drag of his cigarette. “The potatoes she plants are bigger than anyone else’s. I don’t know why, they’re just big. My two sisters always show them off when they dig them up, like they’re some kind of treasure.” He paused, his lips twitching slightly. “So silly.”

"That's good," Tom said.

"It's pretty good," O'Connor said.

He tapped the remaining cigarette against the trench wall, didn't smoke it again, and put it away. "What about over there?" He glanced at Tom. "What's April like?"

"In April... the apple trees blossomed," Tom said.

O'Connor hummed in agreement and didn't press the matter further.

The three men were there drinking soup and munching on biscuits. The sounds of artillery fire outside the trenches were much farther away, only ringing out intermittently.

McDonald came in later, sat down with his bowl of soup, and began to drink. After finishing his soup, he took a candle stub from his pocket, unfolded a folded piece of paper—his drawing of trench fortifications. He stared at a mark on the drawing in the candlelight for a while, then folded it back up, put it back in his pocket, and seemed lost in thought.

"McDonald," O'Connor asked, "what season is it now at your mine?"

“It’s still quite cold in Scotland in April,” McDonald said. “There’s ice at the mine entrance, and if you go down on the early shift, your hands will be so frozen you can’t open them; you have to rub them for a while.” He paused for a moment. “But it’s warm underground; it’s not cold in the mine.”

O'Connor thought for a moment, "That's true."

"It's different over there," McDonald said. "Here, you drill down into the trenches and it gets colder as you go down. Over there, you go down and it gets hotter as you go down."

Outside the trenches, night fell in Flanders. The sky turned deep blue, then black, dotted with a few scattered stars.

Joseph finished the soup in his bowl and ate the half portion of German biscuits.

*************

The next morning.

Joseph found the address Will left in the company files.

The file was with Captain Wilson. It was a leather-bound booklet, and each page contained basic information about a soldier. It was handwritten in ink, some characters neat and some messy, clearly filled out by different people at different times.

He turned to Will's page, where the address bar read: Salopshire, Shrewsbury, [street name], [number], Family: Susan Irwin (mother).

Joseph copied the address onto a piece of paper and returned the file.

Then he borrowed a blank sheet of paper from McDonald. He didn't want to use military letterhead, which had the army's letterhead printed on it and didn't seem appropriate.

He sat on the edge of the trench, picked up a pencil, and began to write a letter.

As for what to write, he thought for a while.

He didn't know Susan Irwin, and she didn't know him. By the time the letter reached her, she should have already known that her son had died in Flanders—the battalion headquarters would have sent an official notification first, faster than his letter, in a fixed format, saying, "We hereby inform you that your son… died in the line of duty…"—the same wording for every family.

But his letter wasn't a notification; it was about something else entirely.

He gathered his thoughts and began to write a letter:

"Dear Ms. Irving:

I am Joseph Lyndon, and I am the class monitor for your son Will.

I want to tell you that Will is a good soldier. He never complains, never backs down, and always does his best on every mission. We all like him very much during his time here.

When he left, he charged forward; he did not back down.

I'm sending back the notebook he always carried with him. It contains his poems, which he always carried with him and never let go of. I think it should be returned to you, not left here.

Please grief.

Sergeant Joseph Linden

He read the letter twice, and after confirming that there was nothing he needed to change, he folded it up, put it in an envelope, wrote the address on the outside of the envelope, and sealed it.

He wrapped the notebook in a sheet of oiled paper, then put it in a larger envelope with the letter, and tied it with a thin hemp rope.

He held the small package in his hand and squeezed it for a while.

Then he stood up and went to find the postman.

The postman was a veteran in his forties with a long beard. He took the small package and casually put it in his bag. The package would soon be sent to England along with a bag full of other people's letters, other people's packages, and everything else people were sending home.

Joseph stood there for a moment, then turned and left.

Everything that needed to be done has been done.