Innocence

The army didn’t let us out of their sight at the last day in the training center. They probably were afraid for desertions if they had let us go back home to see friends and family. One can join enthusiastically, but after a few days, those sane of mind must have had doubts about the whole adventure. Going to war basically meant you were risking your life, and in this war, a gruesome **** was almost a certainty.

I called my friends staying at home in the neighborhood, left them my keys to my small flat, to take care of my aging grumpy cat in exchange for the liquid cash and the huge stockpile stored in my garage. I told them to be wary of its existence and not to blather a lot about it to other people. There was enough for one person, perhaps two to sit it out comfortably for a few months of sudden food distribution hiccups that no doubt would spring up the following weeks. If too many people were aware of it, there was no telling one would do to get their hands on it. In the major cities there was already unreasonably panic at stores not having enough reserve supplies.

I said my goodbyes to my invalid parents by phone and that was it. Many parents were angry they couldn’t even visit their children before the journey to the front lines, let alone have them close by for just one more day. Many tears were shed and moral was faltering fast. We were rushed into the busses, just large enough for one platoon and all the added equipment, ammunition, food etcetera, and were soon off to our next destination.

Everyone had its own way of dealing with the stress of leaving their homes. Peter, Jon and Tom would talk about soccer, while Kate would sit silently, barely uttering a word, next to her brother. Close to him and almost to the point of frantically hugging him whenever a warplane would soar loudly through the clear sky. Dieter and Dave sat together glancing at their smartphones, listening to music or watching movie clips on YouTube, sometimes exchanging the latest breaking news of the war in short sentences. Kemal sat next to Michael, bragging about the women he had encountered briefly in his life, but mostly complaining about the women he didn’t have in his life. Michael barely listened, hummed and sighed at all the wrong times in the one-sided conversation and kept looking out the window.

For some reason Kylie decided to sit next to me, just listening to her trance music through her earbuds, while I was nervously writing in my diary, reading in the pocket books about tactical operations and a survival guide for dummies at war. Every now and then I scanned the bus, looking at my platoon members and worrying about how in earth I would keep them safe. Kylie couldn’t hear it, but sadly I could hear Kemal making lewd remarks about the cute women in the platoon, wondering aloud if they would be up for it to make him happy once or twice, him giving some comfort during this war. I threw a stern look in his direction, hoping it would be enough to let him back off for a while. It didn’t.

Nearing the end of our first destination I asked for silence and gave a small speech about the value of respect and politeness to each other. Respect didn’t cost anything, but could save your life. You don’t want anyone hesitating at the wrong moment just because they hated your guts. It was getting dark when the busses dropped us off in Luxembourg. As a kind of moment for teambuilding and practice they ordered us to go into the forest nearby and set up a camp, each of the five platoons to their own.

I didn’t hesitate and asked my members to do some digging, putting up a canvas tent, some earth walls around us and camouflaging the whole camp. Drawing the shortest sticks, Kylie would take the first three hour shift of the night watch, Kemal would then take over and wake us in six hours. Not that there was any enemy nearby, but setting the routine would be useful I thought. The rest of us crept into their sleeping bags and fell quickly in sleep, exhausted. Though tired as I was I could barely sleep the first three hours. I kept fretting about the upcoming days and how things could fall apart in a million different ways, the one more horrific than the other. I heard Kemal getting up to take over the watch and expected Kylie to soon come back and settle in her comfy sleeping bag.

To my surprise she didn’t come back. Getting nowhere close to sleep, I decided to check up on her at the watch. Barely stumbling in the dark wood for twenty meters I heard Kemal talking about something giving him respect or else he might hesitate to help later. A few silent steps later I saw the back of Kemal, him pinning down Kylie against a tree, groping her petite bosom under her cloths. Kylie was silently squirming under his brutish touch and begging him to stop. I suddenly was seething in anger and before I knew it I had drawn my knife, closed the distance between us and...

Then my platoon was suddenly reduced to nine. Me of all people would be the first guilty for the **** of one of my platoon members. My own team member. All those worries about having the wrong kind of people in my platoon were snuffed once I realized I was the psychopath in the team, murdering one just for groping. His blood was on my hands. And splattered in excess upon Kylie. Kylie didn’t move, didn’t scream. She just stood there shocked at what I had done. I snapped Kylie out of her shock by slapping her cheek not too gently and told her harshly to clean up her face and go to bed.