Invictus

25th September 1915,
Loos-en-Gohelle, France

The year was waning. Gone was the golden summer; in its stead a cold and harsh autumn that tantalised the white tendrils of winter, the year's end.
If only the war mirrored it; if only the war was waning. The rolling hills of old England were sorely missed as well as the German forests and beer halls. Both sides were once certain that they would be home by Christmas. Nine months later they were still trying to wrest control of France from one another.

"You ready Frank....Frank?" My pal Fletcher was beside me, my platoon around me.
We were huddled together in our trench waiting for the signal.
"I don't know Fletch, why do we have to go over the top? What if they're waiting for us with machine guns and every one of us dies? I don't want to die Fletch."
"Come on Frank, be brave, we need to show these damn Germans what happens when they challenge the British."
"Yes, yes okay I'm fine." I tried to steady my hand on my rifle but it shook, my fear was manifesting itself. Fletch noticed.
"Frank, look at me mate, when we go over you stay behind me okay. You stay behind me. It'll be alright."
A murmur swept through our section. The attack was imminent.
Please no. Please no. Please God let it not happen.

The shrill call of the whistle that heralded death was met with a rousing cry of collective courage from everyone around me. Not me.
I breathed deeply, my chest rising and falling, rising like the human wave of soldiers out of the trench, falling like the world around me.
My platoon rose out of the trench, forward, but one looked back at me as I stood frozen on the spot. I'll die. I'll die. I can't do it.
"Frank?" Fletch looked back at me, his expression one I will never forget. He saw me in the trench, cowering from the gunfire, cowering from the danger that thousands around me faced and behind my army uniform, my army haircut, my army rifle he saw a coward and....he smiled.
Then he ran forward and died.
I wonder why he smiled sometimes.
Did he sneer; assert that bravery was beyond me. Or did he offer a smile that reassured me that fear was not ingrained within me, that I would have my day.
I sat in that trench, the orchestra of war reciting it's symphony around me, their instruments imparting a deafening melody to a worldwide audience. In my mind cursing the conductors of this piece, weeping for the souls of the musicians.

I curled up with my arms wrapped around my knees, whimpering, crying, praying for forgiveness. I was a broken, inconsolable, shade of a man.

Thankfully it was still a British trench; however our attack had been a disaster. The artillery prelude hadn't destroyed the German barbed wire and I saw in my mind's eye a flock of British sheep hurtling over an open field, headlong into a shooting gallery consisting of the Kaiser's minions. Target practice.

I watched the sun rise that morning, and found it ironic. There was no hope. No tomorrow.

"Edwards! Edwards you're alive! My God!"
It was Lieutenant Scott and the expression on his face was one of pure incredulity. The Lieutenant had overseen me at basic training and had made a point of using me as the 'what not to do' example at every opportunity.
"You survived my boy!" He shakes my hand. Then his expression hardens.
"How did you make it back? We were gunned down out there."
"I...I was..." I could barely speak.
"No need to explain yourself. You're a hero, to face that German fire with such valour."
"No, no..."
"Make yourself useful and get out there to recover the bodies; we're short of stretcher bearers."
"Sir? I don't think I...."
"You're in no danger Edwards, temporary ceasefire. Just lend a hand. It's okay Frank...you're a hero son."
I struggled up the ladder and out of the trench. What lay in front of me was closer to what I imagined to be hell than anything that I had ever seen or have since seen. Smoke rose from thousands of craters in every direction. Then there were the bodies, which I will not talk about.
In every dead man's face I saw Fletch. In every dead man's face I saw a stronger man than I.
I felt as if I should be lying alongside these brave dead. I was unworthy of life.


I felt pointless. A sportsman must be strong. A servant must be loyal. A soldier must be valiant.

I dragged my feet through the trenches, my head down. I joined this army hoping to prove to myself that I could be part of a cause, to fight for something. I was promised adventure for God's sake! All I have proven is that when it comes down to it, I'm not good enough.

What if I take a rifle right now, right this second, and kill myself. I let down Fletch, and I should pay for that betrayal. I gritted my teeth. It must be done.

I wandered over to a couple of privates muttering something about counter-offensives over lunch. I saw the rifle beside them leaning against the wall of the trench. I picked it up, along with a couple of rounds of ammunition.
"What the hell are you doing? You! Stop!"
I fumbled with the rounds, trying to press them into the rifle. Damn. I dropped one in the mud at my feet.

Wait...

A scrap of paper lay in the mud alongside the bullet, no doubt dropped by one of the soldiers. I reached down, the paper a pure, angelic white against the black and brown of the tainted French soil.
Streaks of red stained the paper.
A page of a diary perhaps, or a letter to a loved one, I daren't look but my curiosity compelled me to.
It was a poem, barely, much of the text was ridden by mud, unrecoverable. However, four lines survived and were mercifully legible:

'It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.'

At the top of the paper a single word was visible through the dirt.

'Invictus'.

Invictus? It may have been blind luck that I happened upon that scrap of muddy paper but I felt different after I read it, the way some people feel after being floored by a vicious twist in a great novel. I am inclined to believe it was not luck. It was not up to anyone else to motivate me.
I dropped the rifle and returned to my station.

"Edwards, you have permission to go back to barracks. You've served your country with valour. Dismissed."
"What about the fight sir? The second assault begins today."
"What's left of your battalion has been replaced. Wait, why are you even questioning me? This is your ticket away from this hell; you should be bowing to me as your Lord and Saviour, not prolonging this."
"I respectfully decline to return, sir."
"...decline to return....what the hell is this Edwards. This is not like you, not at all."
"You're not denying a patriot the chance to fight are you, lieutenant?"
He sighed and appraised me for a moment.
"As you were." We exchanged salutes, he looked at me with an expression that was somewhere between shock and respect.

I stood in that trench, for a second time awaiting the signal. Gone was the pale heart of the man before.
I held my rifle steady, my breathing even, my head high.
Fletch was beside me, his hand on my shoulder.
And the whistles.... "Forward!"
I flew up the ladder, into no man's land, into havoc, into redemption.
Not one soldier of thousands kept pace.
Through a hail of bullets, a storm of unrelenting, unwavering, unyielding fury.
I was unconquered.