Twenty-one hours later, the quiet persists. Amazed last night to’ve fallen asleep from silence into silence, amazed to’ve wakened this morning into silence from silence. The wind barely moves, and the softest breezes hardly blow. The dawn’s haze has dispersed, now clouds bunch up and float by. Ruined trees every one, what trees remain. Some kind of industrial odor, burned metal with the scent of a strong solvent, pervades. The landscape is all slimy ruin, pockets of mud and discolored water squat here and there. The ground is littered with things and pieces of things no one’s eager to investigate or study. Dead horses and mules are conspicuous by sight and smell.

          And if you’d never been, if you’d managed never to’ve been,

what then?

#

          Late morning yesterday, I heard cheering come from somewhere. By early afternoon, most fellows were clambering out of their trenches for the last time. They no longer cheered but with their gear gathered began plodding to the rear, not marching, though I saw later some platoons more regular under their sergeants’ gazes. Ambulances and trucks and cars preceded them, officers on their way, cavalrymen. They began yesterday before mid-afternoon, preceded us. We didn’t leave the line until this morning. Faces trying to shake loose their grimness but still etched with anxiety until they return to whatever, to wherever. Sleepy grins here and there but no smiles. We’re all still tired, too tired to smile, not time enough yet to begin to forget. Some of us are frightened by what we’ll remember, some by what we’ll forget; most of us will never forget enough, but we’ll never remember it all, either.

#

          Miles behind the lines: more than just clumps of grass, whole fields of it, though streaked in places with wheel ruts and hoofprints, collections and lines of boot tracks, then fields that look a world away from the gouged and hacked and bloody front. The grass is brown but has kept a fresh smell that begins to clear the nostrils of the burnt metal and the sulphur or the solvents and all the other acrid fumes of fighting, all the death smells, too, which themselves will never be forgot—the stink we hope to wash off and out of us soon or sooner. This worry I’ve carried all day long, that I might not be able to get myself clean of it.

#

          We reached this village after trudging and tramping through fields and around clumps of damaged trees for about two hours, then marching proper for almost an hour once we’d found a pebbly farm road. Before we arrived, someone’s motorized vehicle had spun buckets of mud across the face of the first white-washed house we passed, a stucco front that heavy rain and a little washing and a new application of whitewash might begin to cure. What house had stood behind it down the lane had burned down mostly, just a corner piece of roof atop short uneven walls, empty livestock pens out back demarcating black mire. Large splinters instead of trees here and there, another few trees looked mostly whole, even without their leaves. Few villagers about, they have their own recoveries to begin, no doubt.

#

          In the afternoon after falling out for a short break, the flat turf gave way to gentle slopes and hillocks, little rises and shallow hollows, just enough to justify changes of pace. Trees were not abundant here, but I didn’t spot one with any damage. We were no longer marching down the pebbly road but still in file. Ahead and behind I looked: we’d grown in number since we’d left the line, short columns had latched onto ours, and our number now stretched maybe one hundred yards ahead and three or four hundred behind. Some singing and whistling but not much, the air still too weak to carry much music, fellows smoking at their ease, no one had had more than a short night’s sleep last night. A marvel of sorts to see so many men at once, as if our population might grow into one equal or close to that of all the fellows we knew we’d lost.

#

          We broke once we reached a train line connecting to the coast. By and by, we learned it would take days to assemble the train carriages, and along the coast it would take as long or longer to get boats and ships together to take us back over the Channel. We’re all worn out, but we’ll wait since now it’s only time before we’re carried out and carried back. We’ll sleep better tonight after the morning’s trudging and the afternoon’s less exhausting march. The quiet peace of the air the entire day long was the single greatest marvel, as if it, too, continues to recover from these years of roaring calamity. The quiet’s only competition was our muffled tramping over ground and the muddy muck sucking our boots as we squished through it. I think I looked down at the ground we walked over most of the time, the habit of drooping a thing I’ve learned, but I did raise my eyes every so often.

#

          Just after sundown, I sat on a toppled tree trunk to examine my boots. Most of the afternoon, I’d stared at moving boots left or right, right or left, more than at the slow-moving landscape. Long before we’d stopped, I’d felt the weight of the mud stuck to my boots, and the mud was mostly dried and still half-an-inch thick when I examined them one by one. The mud’s wet is inside each boot: I want fresh dry socks and new dry boots, but I won’t have them today; I wonder whether I’ll have them as soon as tomorrow. I gouged off as much of the mud as I could with my bayonet, and although the boots did not feel much lighter, somehow I felt I’d scraped away something else from somewhere else.