ORADOUR-SUR GLANE, THE MARTYRED VILLAGE

 

The Spartan 300 are naturally loathe to go to an accursed village ... especially the war photographer, Andre ... who wants to pick when to be heroic and when not to be.

ORADOUR-SUR GLANE, THE MARTYRED VILLAGE

“An honorable man is fair even to his enemies; a dishonorable man is unfair even to his friends.”

 – Marcus Aurelius

 

At the end of the season of sorrows comes the time of rejoicing. Spring, like a well-oiled clock, noiselessly indicates this time.

But spring had passed us by as life had passed so many thousands on Omaha Beach.

We were in the blistering season of testing.

How much testing I was yet to discover.

André pushed out his bottom lip. “I am not going to this accursed village.”

I sighed, “No one gets to sidestep the season of testing, photographer. Ask Gerta.”

He rushed up to me. “You will never again foul her name by letting it pass your lips.”

I nodded.

 “Low blow on my part. I will never again utter her name. But you will accompany the Spartan 3oo to that village … for you are now one of us.”

“Are you insane?”

“Yes, but that is not the point. Look at your upper left sleeve.”

He did, seeing the Spartan 300 patch, and exclaimed, “Ez őrültség!”

“Madness, no. Sentient, yes. You come with us, or she will bring you to the moment Ger …. Your love steps on that mine and have you repeat seeing it over and over and over again until you relent.”

“Cseszd meg!”

“Damned? Of course, I am. I thought you knew.”

I stepped up to him. “But you are coming with us.”

Rachel, her face paler than I had ever seen it, was looking at me as if sensing that André was right: I was damned.

Sooner or later, everyone ended up looking at me that way. Except for Helen Mayfair … 

and loving me had done something to her. What I did not know. And the not knowing was eating me alive.

‘You know, Sentient?’

‘I am conflicted to which is worse: me knowing or me telling you what I do know. So, I will remain silent.’

The Spartans were looking at me in various stages of Rachel’s and André’s expressions.

I shrugged. Let them all renounce me. I had lived all my life alone. I always knew I would die that way, too … alone.

Cloverfield loped beside me and shook his head. 

“Mate, you may be as daft as the Cheshire Cat and as damned as Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, but I have your back now and always.”

Reese took my other side.

“I never asked why you were in that Calcutta hellhole of a prison. I ain’t asking now. 

All I know is that you didn’t ask me neither. You just waded into those attacking me and saved my bacon. If that damned village of yours leads straight to Hell, I’m marching there with you.”

Porkins took Reese’s other side, turning to the remaining Spartans. 

“You heard Trent ….”

Reese jerked as if not realizing his bullied friend knew his first name as Porkins kept on,

“ … you can all stay here safe until the Jerries find you. But me and true Spartans are going with the Major.”

Cpl. Sam Wilson, tugged on his tight collar showing the rope burns, and walked on Porkins’ other side.

 “Who you calling not a true Spartan? I got picked by the Major his own self. I even got stretched a full inch taller before he did it, too.”

Dee Steven took up beside his black friend. 

“Hey, if we are going to Hell, I might get me some inspiration, become another Gustave Doré.”

Jace Mercer strolled to Dee’s side. “He draws Flash Gordon, right?”

Chuck Dickens took up behind him. “You, Philistine! That Sunday periodical is illustrated by Alex Raymond.”

He patted Dee’s shoulder approvingly.

“Your pick of artists, young man, is quite appropriate for your career desire. Doré in the late 1840s and early 1850s, made several text comics, like Les Travaux d'Hercule, Trois artistes incompris et mécontents, Les Dés-agréments d'un voyage d'agrément , and L'Histoire de la Sainte Russie.

“Oh, them,” snorted Cpl. Wilson.

There was a sharp whistle. We all turned around. Sgt. Theo Savalas pointed to a mound of discarded back packs.

“Aren’t you forgetting something, Spartans?” he smiled drily.

Cloverfield held up his Sig Sauer Spear rifle. “I remembered this.”

Rachel moved in front of me with the grace of a river given life. “How not surprising, agent man.”

She locked those disturbing emerald eyes on me. “Now, in which direction is that accursed village of yours?”

My eyes burning with the tears I dare not shed in front of grown men, I said,

“Second star to the right, and straight on till morning."

And with Helen’s exotic apricot perfume all around me, the Spartans 300 and I marched to Hell.