Shelter

Abstract

Shelter James Colgan (bio) THWUMP! He looked up at the sound, stared out the window at the darkness. It was an hour before dawn. He waited. Again: thwump! Then again and again. It was distant, but no mistaking the sound. Artillery, he said to himself. He took a deep breath and let it out. He was sitting on the edge of the narrow bed running his bayonet along a whetstone, although its edge was already sharp and bright. He had been expecting artillery this morning but hoped it wouldn’t come. Another day of rest would have been heaven. Not to be, he thought. Conor stood up slowly and began to assemble his gear. He put the whetstone away, slid the bayonet into its scabbard, and hung it on his webbed belt. He pulled on the sleeveless vest, checked the pockets for matches, the flashlight, the small caliber pistol he had taken from an enemy officer, and extra ammunition. He could feel the woman’s eyes on him, watching him, but he avoided looking at her. He moved across the room and took his gloves and wool scarf from the mantel where she had put them. As he turned back, he had to look at her. She stood with her thin arms folded across her chest, a familiar pose by now. He looked into her eyes and saw a mixture of feelings, but not accusation. He was relieved. There would be no guilt laid. Both had known the boundaries. They looked at each other. “So,” she said finally, in a small voice, “ye’ll be goin’, then.” “Aye. It’s time.” He moved past her to the door. He took his heavy coat off a hook and put it on, took the battered helmet off another hook and fit it on his head. He picked up the rifle, slung his pack over his shoulder, put his hand on the latch, and looked at her. [End Page 185] She hesitated. “Will ye be comin’ back?” she asked. “I don’t know,” he answered. He opened the door. “Yer wife at home. Is she pretty?” He looked back at her—poor, thin, tired. “I don’t remember.” And he turned to go out. The army had been in a great battle in the east, not great because of its strategic importance, but because it had been more of the great grinding, the great tearing apart and rending of war, the great loss of life, the great churning and pulverizing of the earth, as if nature itself was the enemy instead of armies and cities and governments. It had gone badly for them, the enemy’s strength too much, its weapons too cruel, and the army’s fine battle plans began to pull apart. The soldiers fell back in the face of the onslaught. Then, as though to salt the wound, a fierce blizzard had fallen on them, with strong winds and stinging snow right in their faces, destroying all visibility and sapping courage and will. The army swayed and tottered like a boxer who was out on his feet and then fell all apart. Conor’s platoon, like others, had become separated from the main body during the wild retreat and struck out blindly in a direction none of them knew, only that it was away from the fighting and that it put the wind and snow at their backs. There were fewer than fifty of them left. They had marched all night and into the next morning in the snow, over steep hills through a forest thick with bare trees, on a road that was hardly more than a cart path. The lieutenant and sergeant led them, moving slowly, stopping frequently to assess what might be ahead and whether the enemy was pursuing, then continuing deep into the forest. Around midday, with a heavy snow still falling, they came upon a village, a tiny place, barely more than a dozen houses surrounded by a dense woods with an unpaved road running through it, a tiny store on one side, and a small church on the other. The lieutenant halted them in what passed as the village square and conferred with the...