The men scrambled to gather up all of their things, stuffing them into their kit bag and doing one final sweep of their bunks and rooms. Kurt swiped his hand under his pillow and gathered up the few letters he had received from home, stuffing them into his kit bag and swinging it onto his back. He jammed his helmet onto his head and followed several of the men from the room and out to the training area where several horse-drawn wagons were waiting.

"Where do you think we're going?" Wilhelm asked, clambering onto the back of the truck and dropping his kitbag onto the ground of the wagon and sliding onto one of the benches.

"No idea. They tell us to pack, we pack." Kurt said. "We've only been in training for two months, it must be serious if they're calling for us a month early."

"Or, they just want us to have our own piece of the action before the British surrender. What if this is the big push and the war will be over?"

"Maybe."

Kurt wasn't too sure about Wilhelm's rather insane theory, but he didn't say it out loud just in case he sounded odd to those who were excited to finally make it to the battlefield. Even after two months of training, he didn't feel as prepared for what was about to happen as he wanted to be. There were still drills he wanted to go over, targets he wanted to make sure he hit and he wanted to be certain the Regiment could move together at night without being killed. He wasn't ready to go to war. Not yet.

Still, they had been given their orders to move out and he could hardly refuse. Instead, Kurt spent the ride going over all the drills and manoeuvres they had learnt since they started training. The other men laughed and joked with one another, Wilhelm had started up a card game and some of the men were rooting around in their kit bag for something they probably left behind. He stared across the wagon and watched the trees roll by, his mind moving from drill to drill.

The wagons moved through the German country with none of the men knowing where they were going or just what would be in store for them when they reached the front. Despite the uncertainty faced by everyone, the excitement took hold and all anyone could talk about was what sort of action they were going to see once they reached the front line.

"I think we're going to France," Paul said, shaking his head towards Wilhelm who held up a deck of cards.

"Why?" Johannes asked.

"I overheard the Hauptmann talking just before we left. We've made advances in Antwerp but we're dug in against the Belgians. A trench system is being created along the front line."

"What does that mean?"

"It means the war might be going on beyond Christmas," Kurt said. "If they're digging in, they're in it for the long haul, not a few months. It'll be one long stalemate until someone can break it."

"Well, let's hope we're the ones to break it then. Imagine, the new recruits are the ones to break the stalemate and bring home victory! We'll be heroes, legends."

Kurt didn't say anything, he didn't want to break the excitement that the men were feeling all because he didn't think it would go the way they planned it. He wanted to be a hero, he wanted that glory just as much as the others, to make something of himself, but he was starting to realise just what he had gotten himself into. The others noted their change in strength, their discipline and the way they carried themselves, but Kurt had noticed a different shift. A shift in the type of person he was becoming.

Every time he lifted that rifle and aimed at the target, or fixed his bayonet and stabbed it at a sack of straw, he knew that when they reached the front line, it wouldn't be a fixed target in front of him. It would be a person. A person with a family, with a Mother, a Father, siblings, someone who felt pain and could think freely. None of the other men appeared to have thought that bit through in their excitement to get to the front and see some action. They all wanted to win the war, but in the end, what would the cost be?

The war had started two months before and Kurt couldn't help but wonder how many people had been killed in those two months. How many lives had been lost because they had been on the other side of someone else's gun or bayonet? Glory and heroism were one thing, victory before Christmas would be another, but the price that came with war was one Kurt didn't think he would be able to bear. He didn't want to think about the person just a short distance away, defending their country the same way he was.

"When do you think Anna will write?" Wilhelm asked, nudging Kurt in the side to try and get his attention.

"I don't know, maybe when we're at the front," Kurt said.

"Right, when we're in the thick of the action and I can tell her all about the battles we've won."

"Isn't Anna the one who slapped you two days before we left?" Johannes asked, peering around Paul to look at Wilhelm.

"Yes, but Marie told Kurt that she'd try to get her to write to me, and she hasn't yet." Wilhelm turned to Kurt. "Maybe you can write to Marie, find out when I'll get that letter."

Kurt laughed. "She'll write when she writes. Who knows, maybe you'll be back before she even gets the chance. Back a hero, that is."

"I suppose you're right."

Kurt shook his head and looked down at his hands, knotting them together in his lap as his mind spun. All Wilhelm could talk about was making it home a hero to finally win over Anna and make her see him the way he sees her. That heroism would come with a price, the price of his humanity and the extent to which he would go in order to claim it. Kurt wanted to impress Marie, to be a hero, but he didn't think he could sacrifice his morals or himself as a person in order to do it.

So many sacrifices came with war and it wasn't until he was on his way to the front that Kurt finally realised what he would be putting on the line.

~~~

First Published - February 22nd, 2021