THE FIRST BOY I bend low over don’t move but a wheezing comes from him. Crouching down, I make believe his chest ain’t all caved in, and that those are something besides ribs glistening in what little light there is. I can’t think of a thing to say and I don’t know if it is right to lay a hand on a boy so hurt as this.
‘Kill me, please,’ his hoarse voice comes.
‘You ain’t dying.’
‘You’ve got to kill me. I can’t stand it!’
‘You’ve got to stand it. There’s stretcher bearers coming,’ I say, but I don’t know a thing about it being true. ‘You’ve got to stand it a bit longer. I’ve got water if you want it.’
‘Want to die!’ He forces the words out. ‘Please!’
There ain’t a thing to do for that boy, not a thing but what he is asking. I look for Jeremiah, but he is back where the line of bodies begins, his rifle raised and pointed at those Rebel fires. I don’t know what words a man ought to say before dying, and Will is swallowed up in the night. My musket is cold in my hands and it is good it is already loaded because my hands go to shaking.
‘You’ve got your soul right with God?’ I ask, but that boy just keeps saying ‘Please!’ over and over.
I see Papa putting his rifle in my hands and saying, ‘It’s loaded. You aim right here,’ and tapping the cow’s broad forehead.
I lower the barrel, right to the boy’s temple, telling myself it’s a mercy and still he begs and moans like he don’t even see what I’ve done. There’s the rattle of shots off in the distance. Answering this boy’s prayers will bring those Rebels’ attention this way, closer to me, to Jeremiah. I can’t do that. I can’t do even this one thing for that boy lying there; all I can do is give him water that won’t help none. I thought my heart had already broken, but now it is gone to pieces.
‘I’ll be back,’ I say, tears running down my face. ‘There’s stretchers coming.’
I’ve got to move on, is what I’m thinking. I’ve got to do something more than standing there and saying no to the only thing that boy wants. The wounded and dead lie all around in rows like they are still in line of battle, making it easy to see how the fighting went across the field. There ain’t one stretcher but there are other shapes down the line, bending over the bodies, and I hope they are helping. I move away, trying not to hear the man behind me go to shrieking, ‘Please please kill me’ over and over, trying not to think what the greater kindness would be.
There’s so many more boys, all of them gone, no rising of a chest or anything telling me there’s still a soul there. Maybe all the boys with lives to be saved are already gone, taken by their Companies or dragged off by themselves. There’s nothing to be done for these boys, not in truth, but a voice calls for water, so I keep moving ’til I find a man old enough to be my Papa. With my hand under his head, I lift him up a bit before fumbling with my canteen and pouring a sip for him.
‘More,’ he says, so I give it to him and then he don’t say anything else. There’s a warm stickiness on my hand and a wetness seeping through the knees of my trousers. He’s bleeding in slow pulses from his side, his breath gasping.
The minutes are long before there ain’t no life left. I sit with him, with his body, waiting for his spirit to go. That is the least I can do for this stranger, the smallest thing he is owed. It takes a long time, watching the last life go, the little tremors and tics, making sure. I think on Papa and if I will ever meet him again.
This man has still got a haversack slung across his chest. It ain’t much inside, a cracker and some salt pork, and I feel like a thief, but with boys hungry behind our lines there’s no use in leaving good rations on the field so I put what’s there into my pockets.
When I straighten up, there’s a shadow bending over a body back from where I came, back where that boy begged for me to take his life. I don’t want to see him again, but Jeremiah must be over there and maybe Will, so I hurry that way.
‘Will!’ I call low as I get close enough. ‘That you?’
The boy don’t answer. He is working at that body’s feet.
‘Jeremiah?’ I try again, but still he don’t turn my way or even move.
This boy is rail thin; his pale bare feet stick out from pants too short. When he stands up straight and spins around fast, his rifle pointed right at me, it’s for sure he ain’t Jeremiah or Will at all.
‘Get back,’ he says.
The whole world stops. Jeremiah is by the edge of the battlefield. I remember those shots off in the distance. I wonder how fast I can run as I reach for the rifle from across my back.
‘Don’t!’ the boy yells. ‘Don’t you think it!’