Dawn Attack

     At first I thought the glitches were my mind playing tricks on me.  They were always little things.  Maybe one morning I would wake up in the bunker knowing I needed to clean my rifle but finding it clean when I checked.  I would just think I really had cleaned it the night before and forgotten.  That sort of thing could be easily chalked up to lack of sleep or stress.  I did not think much of things like that until I met Flanagan. 

     It was a typical grey rainy morning on the front lines.  Our artillery had been bombarding the Brown lines across from us for an hour.  At 7 o’clock sharp the barrage stopped.  Bugles sounded up and down the line.  I climbed up a ladder and led my platoon over the top of the trench into no man’s land as part of the regimental attack. 

     Sporadic machinegun fire came from the Brown lines as hundreds of men sprinted over the cratered ground.  Our walkers returned fire as they lumbered along behind us.  Normally we would have rushed from shell crater to shell crater using them as cover.  I decided to take a chance and led my platoon straight across without stopping.  Some of my men were hit by machinegun fire on the way but most of us made it. 

     We slowed down to prepare grenades as we approached the enemy trench line.  At my signal the grenades were thrown into the trench and we hit the ground.  After the multiple explosions we advanced.  I was the first to drop into the trench, followed closely by the rest of my men.  We fixed bayonets and quickly dispatched any Brown soldiers still alive.

     We moved through the trench, throwing grenades at each turn and intersection.  Our advance slowed as we encountered Brown reinforcements.  We had only encountered a handful of our own Green troops in the trench and had to fall back as we faced larger and larger numbers of enemy troops.  

     One of the Green soldiers who had joined us was acting strangely.  Like me, he was a lieutenant but I did not recognize him.  He was stopping by several dead bodies, both ours and theirs.  He was taking what looked to be wallets from each body and stuffing them into a dispatch bag slung over his shoulder.  I was too busy to talk to him at the moment about robbing the dead but I would when we got back to our lines.  The enemy dead were fair game but it was wrong to steal from our own. 

     I gave the word to withdraw back to our own trench line and climbed back up to no man’s land.  There was heavy machinegun from both sides.  The Brown artillery was raining rounds continuously between the lines.  Several of our walkers were burning wrecks and I could hear the roar of the enemy walkers’ main guns behind us.  It looked like most of the regiment had been stopped before they had reached the Brown lines.  The ground was littered with fresh bodies as we dashed from crater to crater. 

     I had only about half my platoon left when we reached our trench line.  My exhausted men shuffled back to our bunker.  I grabbed the strange lieutenant by his arm.  “We need to talk, Lieutenant…”

     “Flanagan.  And you’re Rudko, right?”  His knees gave out and Flanagan fell back against the trench wall.

     I noticed the dark red stain spreading across his coat.  “You’re wounded, man.  Let’s get you to the infirmary.”

     “Wait, Rudko.  I have to tell you something.  I think you saw me take wallets from the dead bodies.”

     “Yes.  Stealing from our dead is a court-martial offense.  Since you’re an officer, you could be executed for that.”

     “I wasn’t stealing.  I was confirming something I suspected.  Here, take a look at them.”  Flanagan thrust his bag at me.

     “I don’t want your stolen goods.”

     “Hear me out.  Do what you want with them later but you need to listen and look.”

     I took the bag.  I would humor him for now.  “Can you stand?  We’ll get you to the infirmary while you talk.”

     I got Flanagan to his feet and together we moved slowly through the trench.

     “Do you carry a picture of your family or sweetheart with you?” he asked.

     “Of course.”

     “Everyone does.  But have you actually seen anyone else’s personal pictures?”

     “Their pictures are none of my business.”

     “That’s what everyone says.  Don’t you think it’s a little odd that everyone is carrying around personal photographs but no one sees anyone else’s?”

     “Get to the point, Flanagan.”

     “It’s all a lie, Rudko.  Look at the pictures in those wallets.  You wouldn’t believe me if I just told you.  Look at the pictures!”  He coughed violently, spraying bloody spittle.

     “Calm down, man.  We’re here.”  Orderlies in blood stained coveralls emerged from the infirmary entrance and took Flanagan from me.

     “Look at the pictures, Rudko!” he pleaded as the orderlies carried him inside.  That was the last time I saw Flanagan.

     I still had the dispatch bag.  I carried it back to the bunker I shared with the other company officers.  Only Patel was there, sprawled across his cot with his coat unbuttoned.

     “The captain’s dead,” he said flatly.  “The others are either dead or in the infirmary.  It’s just you and me.  I expect you’ll be the new captain after your antics this morning.”

    “What the hell are you talking about?”

    “Only three platoons out of the regiment made it across.  You’re the only platoon leader to get his men back.”

     “How bad were the casualties?”

     “Bad.  Rumor mill says the regiment is getting pulled back from the line to refit.  I sure won’t mind getting some hot food.”  He produced a sardine can and attacked it with a small can opener.

     I went to the captain’s tiny work space in the back of the bunker.  I would have a little privacy here.  I dumped the contents of the bag onto the desk.  There were about two dozen wallets.  I started examining them.

     The first few wallets were as I expected.  Each had a few bills of currency and one or two photographs.  Opening the fifth wallet made me pause.  I went back through the ones I had already looked at and pulled the pictures out.  I plucked one and held it next to the photograph from the fifth wallet.  Both pictures showed a young woman smiling demurely at the camera.  The backgrounds were the same.  The dress was the same.  The only difference was the woman’s hair color, light brown in one and jet black in the other.  I quickly pulled the pictures out of the other wallets. 

     There were twenty six photographs altogether.  Six were of older couples, presumably mothers and fathers.  It was the same couple in each.  Twenty were apparently of girlfriends.  But there were only five different women in various combinations of hair color and style.  I pulled out my wallet and opened it to the photograph of my girl back home, Tanya.  I found two other pictures of her in the collection.  Flanagan had been right.  I would never have believed him without seeing it myself. 

     I shoved everything back into the dispatch bag.  I didn’t know what was going on and I needed time to figure out what to do.  I hid the bag under my cot and to the infirmary.  No one at the infirmary remembered a Lieutenant Flanagan or me bringing a wounded officer by earlier.  I returned to my cot.  The bag was gone.

     “Patel, who went through my stuff?” 

     He looked up from his meal of sardines and crackers.  “What are you talking about, Rudko?  No one’s been in here since you left.”

     I stormed out angrily.  What the hell was going on?

     Patel turned out to be right.  Due to heavy casualties, the regiment was rotated out of the trenches for rest and refit.  The regimental commander pinned a medal on my chest and promoted me to captain.  I was able to keep Patel in my company to help me train the new officers and men we would be getting.

     And I had time to think about what I learned from Flanagan.  Were my memories of Tanya all lies?  Who was behind all this?  And why?