Theodore

"Four men in uniform, To carry home my little soldier."

Prologue

---

The Farmers Son Go to War

War.

-The sticky blood splatters coating his boots, the pungent coppery odor so strong it made him queasy, the tacky warmth and slow coagulation of the fresh blood pooling on the floor-

In war, nobody lives.

-Mortars screamed overhead, the concussive thunder of their detonations making his teeth rattle. A haze of acrid smoke roiled across the ravaged landscape, stinging his eyes and coating his throat with a thick, choking taste of gunpowder and pulverized earth.

Nobody wins.

-Supersonic cracks split the air mere inches from his head, the unmistakable whine of ricocheting bullets burying themselves in the rubble around him. Muzzle flashes from unseen shooters strobed through the murky pall, disorienting bright stabs in the gloom-

-The discordant screams cut too short, agony abruptly silenced as life slipped away. Soldiers lay strewn about in pieces, mangled remains barely recognizable as human-

Nobody goes home.

---

But that’s ahead of the story. No, this hasn’t happened to him yet. This is what happens when a man with an idyllic life, who has never held a gun, is sitting on the infantry truck headed towards his death. Where men who’ve seen more blood than a butcher share tales of the frontlines. Those who never make it. Because once you’ve stepped foot in the frontlines and see the atrocities, you don’t come back alive in any way that matters.

All because he couldn’t escape the recruitment officers.

---

The creaking wagon rumbled along the dusty road, each bump and jostle jolting Theodore's body as the familiar rolling hills and pastoral landscapes of his childhood home drifted past the window. He pressed his calloused hands against the weathered glass, drinking in every fleeting detail as if committing the scenery to memory one last time. There would be no escape - the recruitment officers would track him down wherever he fled, retribution raining upon his family's farm and lives if he dared defy the draft. Able men were needed, willing or not.

"Hey, you!" A nasal voice shattered Theodore's reverie. He turned to find a wiry youth, fresh out of his teenage years yet brimming with a zeal far exceeding his scrawny frame. The kid jutted out a skinny arm, flexing with exaggerated strain as he grinned up at Theodore. "Nice muscles! You'll tear those enemy grunts apart, just watch!"

Theodore felt his stomach knot as he forced out a pained smile, the expression contorting his face into a grimace. He swallowed hard. "Yeah, I guess I got that going for me at least." The lie burned like acid in his throat.

The young recruit cocked his head inquisitively. "So where'd you get that build anyway? Not that I'll need it - I'm gonna use my smarts out there." He tapped his temple with a smug grin.

Teeth clenched, Theodore rasped out, "Farm work. Hauling hay bales and chasing cattle will do that to you."

The young recruit's eyes danced with eagerness as he nudged Theodore, a broad grin stretching across his face. "I like you already! Mind telling me your name? I'll have to come find you after we make it through this war." Despite the kid's warmth, Theodore could only murmur his name with a tremulous voice as he shrank back from the window. Varying degrees of dread, horror and premature bloodlust played out among their fellow conscripts crammed into the battered truck.

"Theodore," Theodore answers finally.

"Mick's the name! We're going to be great pals, Theodore!" the boy proclaimed, utterly undaunted by the solemn atmosphere.

It would be the last time Theodore ever saw Mick alive. Mere weeks after being processed at the military base, grim rumors spread that the overeager young soldier had caught a bullet square in the chest at the front lines. Though the details were vague, Theodore couldn't shake the mental image of Mick's body crumpling, gasping wheezes escaping his lips as he slowly drowned in his own blood. In those horrific final moments, had Mick screamed out Theodore's name?

Mick hadn't started this war, nor had he any stake in its origins. And yet the cruel reality was that he had made the ultimate sacrifice - forsaking his very life for a cause thrust upon him by the powers that be. Untrained, unequipped, and utterly unprepared men like Mick were being rushed to the frontlines.

And he was one of them.

---

The deafening thunder of artillery fire rumbled in the distance awaiting Theodore at the front lines. His calloused fingers clutched the rifle against his heaving chest, the cold steel offering scant comfort amidst the suffocating dread coiling within him. This was where Mick had fallen - torn asunder by shrapnel and gunfire in the chaos of battle. A cruel premonition whispered that Theodore's own demise.

He squeezed his eyes shut, desperate to block out the macabre visions searing into his mind's eye, but the memory of his best friend's shredded corpse was forever seared into his psyche. A solitary bead of sweat trickled down Theodore's furrowed brow as his breath grew ragged. The rocking motions of the olive-green truck carrying them towards the meat grinder did little to soothe his ragged nerves.

"Oi, kid." A gruff voice sliced through the deafening silence, shattering Theodore's morbid reverie. He startled, slowly cracking open one eye to find the seasoned medic, Michael, leaning in close beside him. The older man's weather-beaten features were set in a hardened expression, corners of his mouth turned down into a slight frown of concern.

"First time in the shit?" Michael's words were curt yet laced with a strange tenderness reserved for greenhorns facing the horrors of combat. He placed a calloused hand on Theodore's shoulder, giving it a firm, reassuring squeeze. "Just keep your fuckin' head down, don't go ramblin' off on your own like a daft cunt, and listen to your squad leader. You made it this far, yeah? Enough piss and vinegar in you to learn from any mistakes out there instead of just buyin' the farm straight away. You did your training right?”

Theodore's throat constricted as he fought to maintain composure, Adam's apple bobbing with the effort of swallowing past the lump of dread. His gaze remained stubbornly averted, not daring to meet Michael's knowing stare. A tremor ran through his wiry frame, the first chinks in his armor of feigned bravado betraying the crippling fear gnawing away at his gut.

Training... like hell he did training. He didn't show much promise except for his strength and endurance.

---

“MOVE IT BOWEN!”

The torrential downpour showed no mercy, the heavy raindrops bombarding Theodore's flesh like icy needles. Each squelching step through the saturated mud sapped more of his waning strength. The waterlogged knapsack hung leaden across his shoulders, its weight a cruel mistress taunting his aching muscles. He grit his teeth, sucking in a ragged breath as he forced himself to press onward.

Sergeant Harding's bark was the only whip Theodore dared not tempt lashing him again. "Move it, Bowen! You're holding up the whole damn platoon!" The words sliced through the relentless patter and gloom like a branding iron.

Theodore quickened his pace, mud suctioning at his boots and threatening to swallow him whole into that slimy morass. His nose already tingled with the inevitability of the vicious head cold taking root. All for the privilege of burrowing into a rain-soaked hole and standing watch, trading off fitful bouts of sleep with...what was his battle buddy's name again? It didn't matter. No one dared utter more than was absolutely required, not with the ever-present threat of Harding's fury descending.

All around him, the other recruits' gaits and dispositions cleaved into two sides- the haunted shuffles of those consumed in their own private purgatories, and the ramrod strides of the overeager brownnosers praying their visible misery would earn them reprieve. Theodore belonged to neither.

His years of labor on his family's farm had hardened him against the elements and taught self-sufficiency, but nothing could have steeled his mind for this fresh hell. The punishing regimen seemed calculated to grind away at his psyche. Exhaustion making him easy to control.

__

At last, he spoke in a tremulous murmur edged with fear. "It didn't...stick." His adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. "I don't...want to be here. I don't want to-"

Theodore's words caught in his throat as Michael shot him a pointed stare, eyes flicking meaningfully toward their fellow privates - some visibly eager, knuckles whitening with zeal around their rifle grips. A wordless reminder that certain sentiments spoken too brazenly could brand Theodore a traitor in their ranks.

Chastened, Theodore met Michael's warning glare with a wary, thankful look before huddling inward. His next words emerged muffled behind a shaking hand pressed to his lips. "I don't want to die." The confession hung in the cramped air, as heavy as the pounding of Theodore's heart thundering with dread in his ears. The flight or fight instinct screamed through every nerve, every sinew tensed as if poised to bolt at any moment. Yet there was no escape from this lurching metal cage born down the road to almost certain violence.

I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. I don’twanttodieIdon’twanttodie-

The deafening boom of mortars shells exploding in the near distance made Theodore's whole body seize up. Dirt and debris rained down on the armored truck sounding like hail striking. His panicked gaze met Michael's and the older soldier gave him the faintest shake of his head, a subtle reminder to stay calm and keep it together.

Despite Michael's reassuring presence, Theodore could feel his throat constricting with fear. His mind raced back to those warm summer days back home before the war, walking through the golden wheat fields, the peaceful lowing of cattle, the sweet smell of fresh-tilled earth. It all felt like a different lifetime now. Another thunderous blast shook the ground beneath them, the acrid stench of smoke and gunpowder filling Theodore's nostrils and causing his eyes to water.

"Easy, private," Michael murmured in that same low, measured tone, putting a steadying hand on Theodore's shoulder as the younger man's hands reflexively gripped his rifle with white knuckles. To Theodore, Michael's expression was utterly inscrutable - a thousand-yard stare concealing any hint of the horrors he'd already witnessed in combat. A look of grim acceptance rather than fear.

Theodore managed a shaky nod, but his heart was pounding in his ears, drowning out all the other noises of the battlefield. Flashes of his parents' proud but pained smiles filled his mind's eye when they waved him off to be conscripted. Their handwritten letters tucked inside his coat burned like a brand against his chest.

'Be brave, Teddy. Make us proud.'

Michael was already turning away to recheck supplies, Theodore sucks in a deep inhale, gaze falling on the soldier on his other side. He didn’t remember their name, and the shadow of the truck concealed their features. Who knows if they would even listen? But Theodore had to talk or else he might go insane, might do something stupid like run the other way the moment this truck stopped and risk getting shot at by his own teammates.

"I just..." The words tumbled out in a trembling rush before Theodore could stop himself. "I never wanted this. Growin' up on the farm, all I dreamed of was raisin' my own herd of cattle, watching over new life instead of takin' it away." His voice cracked as he fought back the sting of tears. "All this violence...it ain't right, ain't natural."

Another deafening blast cut Michael off, a hail of shrapnel and debris making him duck instinctively despite being in the car. Theodore squeezed his eyes shut, his mind a jumbled knot of memories - tilling fields under the blazing sun, his mother's sweet humming from the porch, those proud faces wavering between smiles and anguish as they sent him off to this fresh hell on earth. Just a kid from a tiny farming village, hopelessly out of his depth on these blood-soaked battlegrounds. Michael's words had brought little real comfort, but Theodore would cling to them with everything he had left.

A new wave of nausea washed over Theodore as the reality crashed down on him - he could die here. Torn apart and left as another nameless, faceless casualty in this godforsaken place. He didn't want to be forgotten fighting someone else's war.

Theodore's hands trembled, his whole frame quivering as the cacophony of explosions and gunfire intensified around them.

“I was born and raised on a farm. I wanted to inherit it after the war was over.” After he could go home. But he continued hastily, trying to talk over the gunfire, “Raise some cattle and vegetables in the countryside. Maybe I could use all this soldier experience to be a right mean farmer, you know?”

He leans his head back, feeling some of his anxiety seep away as he closes his eyes. The cacophony of gunfire faded into a distant rumble as the soldier allowed his eyelids to grow heavy, shutting out the chaos surrounding him. A weary exhale escaped his lips as he willed his taut muscles to uncoil, forcing his body to adopt a posture of perceived relaxation despite the tension still thrumming beneath his skin.

His mind began to drift, transporting him far away from this waking nightmare. He found himself immersed in a memory from a simpler time - a sunny day spent meandering through the lush meadows bordering his family's humble farmstead.

---

The rich, earthy scent of damp soil and wildflowers perfumed the air. Blades of emerald grass, still beaded with morning dew, caressed the bare soles of his feet as he wandered, reveling in the gentle warmth of the sun's rays kissing his cheeks. Fluffy white clouds drifted lazily across an endlessly blue sky, their shadows dappling the field in an ever-shifting camouflage pattern.

Newborn lambs gamboling clumsily at their sides. One frisky lamb, emboldened by youthful curiosity, leaving the safety of its mother's flank to venture nearer, snuffling at the young boy's outstretched hand with velvety nose and whiskers. He chuckled at the ticklish sensation, stroking the lamb's downy head.

In the distance, the faint aroma of his mother's renowned lamb stew wafted from the humble cottage's chimney, mingling with the woodsmoke. Soon, his father would be calling him inside from his chores to join the rest of their family for the nightly meal.

---

"She was going to teach me, you know - how to bake her famous breads," he murmured, head lolling against the truck's rattling interior as his gaze drifted towards the reinforced ceiling. "Once this godawful war is over and I take the reins of our family's farm, I'll resurrect all her recipes. Sugar bread, sourdough, you name it."

A wistful chuckle escaped Theodore's lips as one eye cracked open, regarding the unfamiliar soldier's stoic visage through blurred lashes. Whether this comrade-in-arms was truly listening or simply enduring his ramblings mattered little. The words spilled forth, fueled by an overwhelming longing for the simplicity of days past.

The mere thought of sinking his teeth into a pillowy, sugar-dusted confection was enough to set his mouth watering. But the distant scream of falling ordnance cleaved through his reverie, the entire vehicle quaking as if bracing for impact. Theodore's gut twisted in sync with the truck's violent shudders, bile stinging the back of his throat.

Only twenty more minutes until their destination - and with it, the inescapable crucible of combat he had both dreaded and steeled himself for. To falter now, to hesitate before squeezing the trigger, branded one a traitor. And the penalties for such transgressions were whispered only in the darkest corners.

His calloused fingers reflexively tightened around the reassuring weight of his rifle, steadying its muzzle between his knees. Twenty inexorable minutes until he would be forced to take a life or forfeit his own. He can’t desert. He can’t leave. He was stuck.

Theodore shifted uncomfortably, his fingers trembling as he nervously combed them through his disheveled hair. A nervous chuckle escaped his lips, perhaps an attempt to mask his palpable anxiety in this dire situation. Glancing sideways, he turned to face the unnamed soldier beside him - the very one he had been unconsciously unloading his worries upon for the past ten minutes.

"U-Um, sorry about that..." he stammered again, giving another uneasy laugh. The words seemed to catch in his throat as he forced them out. "I was rambling on quite a bit there, wasn't I?" His teeth chattered briefly as he swallowed hard.

For a fleeting moment, Theodore pondered if uttering his name aloud may be his only chance to be remembered, should the unthinkable happen. With that sobering thought, he inhaled deeply.

"I'm Theodore...a private, er, rifleman actually. Theodore Lloyd Bowen. 23 years old." His voice quavered as he stated the details, as if solidifying his identity one final time. Lifting his gaze, he met the eyes of the silent soldier. "What's your name?"