Horsemen Over Europe, Part I - War

They were assembled from all over France. Men who had worked in the factories and in the fields; young men, strong men. Enthusiastic, patriotic, foolish and naïve. They had been swept away by the fervor of late 1914. As summer began to wane and the leaves began to fall, opposing armies would meet on the river Marne in what would be a brutal exchange.

This wasn't something Gabriel Martin could have known, however. He was still unaware of the tragedy that had occurred in Belgium. He was not there for the German victories -- he was fresh to the front. He was eager, ready to defend his country. It was amidst such patriotic thoughts that the first shots rang out, sending several of his comrades-in-arms to early graves. Through the early morning fog, the first of the enemy appeared.

The entire battlefield was drowning in the sounds of gunfire, artillery explosions and the screams of the dead. From his dug-in position, Gabriel raised his rifle, and fired upon the advancing Germans. There was no way to tell if he had hit anything. There was simply too much chaos. He kept on firing, all the while praying to God that his aim be true, and that the Germans be stopped.

God had nothing to do with it.

A shell struck near Gabriel, pitching he and several other soldiers away from their original positions. Gabriel lay facedown, his entire body crying in pain. It protested violently as he pushed himself up. His vision was blurry and his ears rang, making it impossible to hear anything else. He came to his knees, and searched for his weapon -- or the weapon of a fallen comrade, if necessary. He groped at a rifle, and lifted it. It felt heavy as he did so, weighted both by the metal and the wood, and also by the knowledge of what such an instrument was capable of. Gabriel tried to get to his feet, but collapsed against the wall of the poorly dug trench.

His eyes squeezed shut, and the young French soldier tried to get the ringing to stop. Oh God, that ringing. It was driving him mad. He opened his eyes, and stared up at the gray skies. The sounds of dying men and exploding munitions was faint now, even though the Germans were pressing nearer and his own countrymen stood firing not more than five feet away. Gabriel threw out his arm to use his rifle as a support, but he hit something. Someone was sitting next to him. Gabriel turned to look.

There sat a dead soldier, whose features were now completely unrecognizable. The right side of his face had been blown off, and was now a spongy pink mass. His uniform was burned and dirty, his hands blackened. Blood poured from a wound on his left arm, soaking the earth. Gabriel's vision had cleared by now, and he was certain that nothing had ever horrified him so much. He lurched forward onto his hands and knees, expelling from his system everything he had eaten that morning, and probably the night before.

Someone grabbed Gabriel by his shoulder, and pulled him up. Another soldier was looking him in the eye, a panicked look stretched across his dirty face. He was pointing, and shouting something. LET'S GO it sounded like. Gabriel tried to make some sign of recognition, but it was too late. The nameless soldier's head exploded in a mass of blood and flesh and bone. His entire body was sent backwards, slamming into the ground with a terrific thud.

Oh God oh God oh God oh God...

Everything seemed to slow down. Gabriel scrambled to his feet, forgetting completely about his rifle. All around him, French soldiers were abandoning their positions in retreat. He knew he had to follow them, to escape the trench and flee to safety. It was not a chance Gabriel would have. Something pierced into his back, penetrating the fabric and the skin and the muscle and right into the soft, vulnerable organs. Gabriel let out a cry of pain as the bayonet was twisted, and then pulled out of him. He collapsed back to his knees, the pain overtaking him.

That pain was the last sensation Gabriel Martin would ever feel. When the bullet crashed into his brain, all senses, all thoughts, all emotions, all processes ended instantly. Somewhere, a mother joined the ranks of mothers whose sons had been taken from them. A young woman had lost her sweetheart. A child had lost his older brother. A father was now burdened with the knowledge that his son had died for the errors of his generation.

Gabriel Martin's body pitched forward into the mud. Gabriel Martin was now a thing of the past. Although the official notice would describe to his parents that Gabriel was a strong and patriotic young man, his mother would shake her head in sorrow and fight back the tears. Only a boy, only a boy. Only a child. My baby. My baby. Dead.