Beirut
01-09-2004, 20:25
In His hands
Battles. Men talk of battles. Days and nights of rattling about battling. Such waste filling the air as their mouths twitch and twirl over endless conversations of battles and glory. What fools. For all the battles and all the glories I would trade now for a stale piece of bread. For I, who give prologue to this tale, have seen battle, it’s birth and death on the field, and now, in solitude, the sole survivor of our glorious battle in a distant land far from what I know, I am starving to death.
The night that surrounds me deserves some description. It is dark as surely as nights are. The moon is elsewhere and the sky is but points of light, bright, but not enough to guide a man on his way lest he know their secrets, which I do not. Under circumstances less adverse, this night would be pleasant. Along with the darkness, there is also the cold. For my battle was a winter’s battle. The snows and the winds being true to their nature have reduced profitable pasture to a portrait of nothingness where crops freeze and sleep away the months. Where the snow has not been coloured by blood and the insides of men, it is white and white and more white. Again, the circumstances of my present being different, it would be the most pleasant of winter evenings.
Alas, there rests a fly in the ointment of my happiness. I have no food. It is the single loss I suffer and the only one needed to end me. I have fire and I have clothing. Warmth is all around me. My skills provide me the knowledge of making fire under any conditions. The forest beside me providing a lifetime of timber for heating. And from the dead on the field I have taken ample goods to preserve my warmth. Capes of leather and fur, warm footings, even gloves from the hands of a dead officer. Indeed I took two sets of each article to gurantee my comfort. By the grace of God, or perhaps his jest, I chanced upon sackets of gold amongst the dead. I am not only warm and clothed, but rich as well. It is simply that I have no food.
I expended great and precious energy looking over the dead for any crumb of bread. For three days in cold winds I scavanged the corpses of nobles and soldiers alike, but in a sea of bodies and weapons, of clothing and gold coins, of blood and tears, I found not a scrap of meat, not a piece of root, nothing but things that cannot be eaten. Oh the lucky man who should chance upon me at this moment who has an apple to sell or a soup to trade. Gold coins, fine weapons, furs and leathers I have taken from the bodies on the field would all be his for the most meager portion of food. I have in my hands as I speak nearly a pound of gold coins. A pound I tell you. Riches by any man’s standards, and it would be happily given for a cold stew of misserable meat and a a cup of stale mead. I must not think too much of food though of course it is the only thought that occupies me.
There is one other thought that visits upon me. It is the same as would visit upon you under such dire existence. It is the thought of my salvation, my unholy salvation that will distance me from my God and my conscience yet keep my life about me - at what point of my hunger do I eat the dead? You think me mad but it is not so. Three days without bread I tell you, and that after a day spent in battle swinging swords and dashing heads to the ground. I killed my share and more. I have not to answer in my defense, for what do those who would judge me know of battles and killing? Do their mouths twist and twirl in leaps of fancy when the wine strikes their head? Do they bed women with lies of battle and the sin of bloodless hands? I do not. Therefore, they may not for shame pass judgement on me. It is simply… I am hungry.
I have given thought to ending my life by my own hand. But this also is a sin as taught by the church. My pain could be ended with a knife’s edge upon my wrist. I would die hungry, but warm by the fire and without my soul shattered by feasting on the dead. But still God would not welcome me. I cannot live and I may not die. At least not quickly. I have comitted sin in my life but was it such that I should be cast into such despair. Should not a soldier’s life be deserving of a soldier’s death. Where have I failed, why cannot my death be in accordance with the laws of God and the needs of man as well? My courage is tested by this slow hunger and weakness that grows upon me like leprosy. No battle has ever softened my metal as this.
What is that sound?
By the grace of God I am saved That sound, that gorgeous intonation of salvation. This is the work of the Almighty. For Grace hath arrived in my ear and now arrives in my sight and behold do I the ending of my suffering and the chance to live again as a soldier. For God has sent the wolves this night, a mighty pack of them. Drawn by the light of my fire they have found me and do intend to make me their meal. This is my exit with honour.
I stand now. My boots are warm, I am cloacked in fine leather and a sword already bloodied in battle fills my hand. Oh yes they will kill me, that is sure, but not before I kill many of them. Oh thankful am I that my death arrives by the teeth of the enemy and not the emptyness of my belly. For I am saved and to God’s Kingdom do I commit myself upon this charge and with this cry.
“God save England
Battles. Men talk of battles. Days and nights of rattling about battling. Such waste filling the air as their mouths twitch and twirl over endless conversations of battles and glory. What fools. For all the battles and all the glories I would trade now for a stale piece of bread. For I, who give prologue to this tale, have seen battle, it’s birth and death on the field, and now, in solitude, the sole survivor of our glorious battle in a distant land far from what I know, I am starving to death.
The night that surrounds me deserves some description. It is dark as surely as nights are. The moon is elsewhere and the sky is but points of light, bright, but not enough to guide a man on his way lest he know their secrets, which I do not. Under circumstances less adverse, this night would be pleasant. Along with the darkness, there is also the cold. For my battle was a winter’s battle. The snows and the winds being true to their nature have reduced profitable pasture to a portrait of nothingness where crops freeze and sleep away the months. Where the snow has not been coloured by blood and the insides of men, it is white and white and more white. Again, the circumstances of my present being different, it would be the most pleasant of winter evenings.
Alas, there rests a fly in the ointment of my happiness. I have no food. It is the single loss I suffer and the only one needed to end me. I have fire and I have clothing. Warmth is all around me. My skills provide me the knowledge of making fire under any conditions. The forest beside me providing a lifetime of timber for heating. And from the dead on the field I have taken ample goods to preserve my warmth. Capes of leather and fur, warm footings, even gloves from the hands of a dead officer. Indeed I took two sets of each article to gurantee my comfort. By the grace of God, or perhaps his jest, I chanced upon sackets of gold amongst the dead. I am not only warm and clothed, but rich as well. It is simply that I have no food.
I expended great and precious energy looking over the dead for any crumb of bread. For three days in cold winds I scavanged the corpses of nobles and soldiers alike, but in a sea of bodies and weapons, of clothing and gold coins, of blood and tears, I found not a scrap of meat, not a piece of root, nothing but things that cannot be eaten. Oh the lucky man who should chance upon me at this moment who has an apple to sell or a soup to trade. Gold coins, fine weapons, furs and leathers I have taken from the bodies on the field would all be his for the most meager portion of food. I have in my hands as I speak nearly a pound of gold coins. A pound I tell you. Riches by any man’s standards, and it would be happily given for a cold stew of misserable meat and a a cup of stale mead. I must not think too much of food though of course it is the only thought that occupies me.
There is one other thought that visits upon me. It is the same as would visit upon you under such dire existence. It is the thought of my salvation, my unholy salvation that will distance me from my God and my conscience yet keep my life about me - at what point of my hunger do I eat the dead? You think me mad but it is not so. Three days without bread I tell you, and that after a day spent in battle swinging swords and dashing heads to the ground. I killed my share and more. I have not to answer in my defense, for what do those who would judge me know of battles and killing? Do their mouths twist and twirl in leaps of fancy when the wine strikes their head? Do they bed women with lies of battle and the sin of bloodless hands? I do not. Therefore, they may not for shame pass judgement on me. It is simply… I am hungry.
I have given thought to ending my life by my own hand. But this also is a sin as taught by the church. My pain could be ended with a knife’s edge upon my wrist. I would die hungry, but warm by the fire and without my soul shattered by feasting on the dead. But still God would not welcome me. I cannot live and I may not die. At least not quickly. I have comitted sin in my life but was it such that I should be cast into such despair. Should not a soldier’s life be deserving of a soldier’s death. Where have I failed, why cannot my death be in accordance with the laws of God and the needs of man as well? My courage is tested by this slow hunger and weakness that grows upon me like leprosy. No battle has ever softened my metal as this.
What is that sound?
By the grace of God I am saved That sound, that gorgeous intonation of salvation. This is the work of the Almighty. For Grace hath arrived in my ear and now arrives in my sight and behold do I the ending of my suffering and the chance to live again as a soldier. For God has sent the wolves this night, a mighty pack of them. Drawn by the light of my fire they have found me and do intend to make me their meal. This is my exit with honour.
I stand now. My boots are warm, I am cloacked in fine leather and a sword already bloodied in battle fills my hand. Oh yes they will kill me, that is sure, but not before I kill many of them. Oh thankful am I that my death arrives by the teeth of the enemy and not the emptyness of my belly. For I am saved and to God’s Kingdom do I commit myself upon this charge and with this cry.
“God save England