Short Story: Hero?

Tonight would be our final stand. It would be glorious, surely.

Wanting to cheer on the rest from afar, I grabbed Beau’s cage and dove for the trenches.

The roar of bombers overhead made him flutter inside his cage, cooing desperately.

You’d have thought he’d gotten used to it by now. I gritted my teeth, the side of my face up against the mud. The stench of sweat and loam mingled with the gunpowder, making me cough.

‘We’re being bombarded by our own freaking people, surrounded by Jerrys, and nearly out of ammo! Tell me, boyo, what on God's good green Earth could make our situation any worse?’

I frowned at the Corporal. ‘Isn’t your name Jerry?’

‘Call them Peacocks, for all I care!’ He pulled up his rifle and fired. He’d never been a crack shot at the best of times, and I doubted he’d start being one now. Anything to keep the enemy wary, I suppose.

It felt like it would never end. The screams. The roar of the artillery shells. And the mud. God, I hated that mud with a vengeance. Part of me wanted to leap out of the trenches right now, just to escape all of this. Kill them all, for everything they had done.

My mum would’ve told me that the men on the other side were just like us. But I had to think of them as monsters. I had to believe that… because even here, death on all sides, that idea was what terrified me the most.

Beau fluttered against the wire of the cage. ‘C’mon, now.’ I told him. ‘Just a lil’ longer.’

The last two birds had been blasted into red mist, and I had one more roll of paper beside me.

Third time lucky, I thought.

There was the whistle of a bullet passing over my head.

His feathers were silk against my fingertips. The streaks on his neck glittered green and purple in the light of our lantern. It was doubtless why we called up every shooter in the field, but I hadn’t had much of a choice. We couldn't get much help if all I sent was a scattered scrawl.

I looked down at the pigeon one last time. He was so out of place, here amidst all this pain. The others had died anyway. They would overtake us soon. But maybe the Germans would find a way to use him, if they found Beau here in his cage. Maybe.

There was another crack above our two-man pigeon post, and this finally set Jerry off . ‘Send it!’ He roared, his spit scattering on my face. ‘What in hell are you waiting for?’

My hands fumbled with the paper as I tied it around Beau’s leg. He struggled in my grasp. He was braver than I was, sure enough. I shuddered at the thought of climbing out there.

‘Go,’ I whispered, and released him.

He soared into the sky, the message a white speck on his leg.The gray clouds seemed to welcome his wings, taking him into their embrace. Beau flew through a ray of light, letting each army see each feather shine.

And then a bullet took him.

No. I opened my mouth, but no sound came.

There was a cold silence, that stretched beyond each blast and bullet, that stretched all the way into my soul. Thousands died each day here, and yet I mourned a pigeon.

A flutter of wings, then, as a shadow rose above the smoke. Slow, and clumsy; and any watcher could see each beat of his wings pained him.

No bullet grazed his path as he spread his wings, and flew into the night.

I went to find him later, actually. When more bombers came, and fresh soldiers with ‘em. Beau and I were both speckled in grime. His wing had been bent in the fall, and the medics were too busy to set it back in place. I had a piece of shell gouged into my shoulder. Two of a kind, I thought then.

But that wasn’t true. That wasn’t even close to the truth. Birds don’t sign up for the army. They don’t choose to go where they go, to fight where they fight. This wasn’t their war.

When you put it that way, it’s not easy to judge whether he deserved the medals they put on ‘im later. He certainly deserved better than this, for sure.

But was it right to say that to him? I didn’t have much of a choice either, when the call came. Many of them I fought beside didn’t. Did that make them unworthy?

He was a good friend. I have to remember that, if nothing else. Beau was there for me when Jerry fell, when I ran across the border into enemy lines. His cage was clipped to my belt when the war ended, and the nice people who put us out onto the field let me take him back, as well.

I’m scribbling this cuddled up in my garage. Ink’s nearly frozen in the winter, I’ll have to get a new one. I’m tired, dammit. But it wouldn’t be right to stop now.

Beau’s grave sits under the snow. Today’s fall was thick, so thick it nearly covers the marking stone, but I can see it from here. I put his medals there, too. Sometimes they take the children to visit.

Was he a hero? Maybe. He didn’t much choose to be in the trenches, but neither did Jerry. But Jerry still took a bullet for me. And if saving me made him a hero, then maybe Beau deserved to be called that, too.

They both deserved better. Better than what our world chose to give them. But they made the best of it anyway. Least I can do is give them what they’re owed.

I shut the notebook, capped the pen one last time, and left them to their peace.