Fergus was going crazy. Evan saw it in his staring eyes, his twitching face, even felt it amid the thrum of the guns and the cries of the bloodied that they had come to save. They might all be crazy before the battle was done.
“Fergus,” he said, rubbing his friend’s shoulder, “We’ve got to go.” He tried to put sternness into his voice as their two companions approached. “Come, there are men waiting for us.”
Fergus’ dazed face lifted to look at him, but the gaze went past, even past the crumpled village around them, and Evan’s throat constricted.
“Something wrong?” asked one man as he stopped, his breath short with his haste.
“I think—” Evan began.
The medic twisted Fergus’ head to look at him, then shook his own. “Shell shock. Take him to the Aid Post and see if you can get a replacement.”
“And be quick,” added Dale, the second arrival.
Biting his lip, Evan helped Fergus to his feet and kept hold of his arm. “I’ll try.” Uncertainty tensed inside him, but Fergus followed quietly, his gait a strange, swinging limp. The limp had started a few weeks ago, now that Evan thought about it.
He looked back as they walked. The two were setting off toward the other side of the village again, mere smudges of brown uniform against the toppled stone and blackened wood. The battle thunder quaked in his head, and he pressed his free hand against his aching temple. If only it would end.
If only the whole miserable war would end.
He blinked against the sting of smoke in his eyes as their boots crunched on glass and gravel. He had joined as a stretcher bearer for a purpose—a purpose mostly fulfilled. He had proven that he could help those in need; that he could face the agony of twisted, torn, and mangled men. Like his father had been.
He stopped as Fergus slipped. “Almost there,” he encouraged.
Fergus said nothing.
Back then he had run from it, but he was a man now. He had almost made up for not being there when his father needed him. Almost.
When he got back to Canada, he would finish his schooling and become a doctor, spending the rest of his life helping people.
They skirted a building and came upon the hastily made Aid Post, which was really a giant shell hole turned hospital. Stretchers lay scattered, their occupants in various states of anguish and disrepair.
“This way,” Evan said as Fergus tried walking toward the open field. Fergus resisted at first, then muttered something unintelligible and followed again.
Orderlies scurried among the stretchers, bandaging, giving water, saying a kind word—the last was all they could do sometimes.
“Lieutenant Saunders,” Evan called across the closing distance.
The medical officer straightened and turned from a patient, wiping his bloody hands on his trousers. He gave a hard sigh. “Another one.”
“I’m afraid so.” Evan stopped and saluted, and Saunders wearily returned it. “Is there someone to take his place?”
“C Company is supposed to be coming, and I’ll send whoever I can.” Saunders took Fergus’ arm. His exhausted eyes met Evan’s. “You can go, Whitley.”
“Yes, sir.” Evan saluted once more and turned back toward the village. Beyond it, geysers of mud rose from the falling shells. The hazy evening sky made the darkened village a silhouette, stark and devastated.
He had work to do.
He hastily swallowed some water from his canteen and jogged toward the battered buildings, the burdened bearers, and the battle.
“It’s coming closer,” Dale said when Evan met them in the village centre. “I don’t know if we’ll hold much longer.”
“No help, Evan?” the other medic asked as Evan took one side of the stretcher.
“Not yet. Saunders said he’d try to get someone.”
Quickly and silently they made their way to the Aid Post. Evan licked his dry lips, the sharp taste of gun powder sitting in his mouth.
He lost count of how many trips they made; always the medics close to the Front had more wounded men waiting for transport. And always the staccato gunfire and roaring shells grew closer. His ears rang as they reached the end of the houses again for their next stretcher, and he entertained the idea of sitting down for a moment. Just one moment for his aching muscles to rest …
A scattered line of men came from the twilight. The first arrived, his face spattered with mud. He looked at them with half-crazed eyes, and his words came in gasps. “Line’s retreating. There are too many—”and he hurried past.
Dale looked toward the Front. “Pray God they don’t take the village.”
“You can pray,” Evan said with a feeble grin. “I’m too tired.” He erased the grin when he met Dale’s eyes and saw the strange sadness there. Well, it was true. He could hardly think anymore. And he had failed God, so why bother Him?
Now they collected the wounded as they arrived, some walking, others helped by companions, and the fragmented companies took up positions in the relative safety of the leaning buildings.
When they reached the Post again it was already well on its way to becoming a mere pit again. The fighting was too close for comfort now.
“Hey.”
Evan turned to a man who had limped into the shell hole.
“I saw my brother out there. The Germans shot him but he didn’t die, only lost his cap—”
Evan jumped forward as the speaker toppled over, but he was past help. Anger smoldered in Evan’s chest, hot and painful, and he turned away. What was the meaning of the war, anyway? Men called it the ‘Great War’, and it was great—in a horrifying way. Really, it was just a giant meat grinder sucking in lives.
“Evan, we’ve got to get moving!”
He started at Dale’s shout and hurried to join him. Smoke now drifted over the sagging houses and sat thick in his throat. The smell of death hung with it, and Dale’s face creased.
Evan coughed. A man could only get so used to such things; could never be completely numbed.
Dale briefly put his arm around Evan’s shoulders. “Are you doing okay?”
“Yeah.” Evan wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Are you?”
“I’ll be better when this is over.” A smile flickered on his face. “God is still good though, and He’s with us.”
The crunch of their boots seemed loud even amid the gunfire. Evan pressed his hands against his head to keep himself steady. His hearing was sharpened to a frightening point; every noise was a bombardment on his mind.
Soldiers ran around them, taking up positions among the rubble. Another team of stretcher bearers came with them.
“Don’t go forward,” one of the men said over the chaos. “No use being there now.”
An explosion threw Evan to the ground and sent wood splinters hurtling to the sky. He lay flat, gasping. His cheek stung from its contact with the broken cobblestones, but nothing else seemed wrong. When the blast subsided he got to his knees and quickly looked himself over. Then he scrambled to his feet.
Dale stood up a little way off, brushing dust from his eyes. Evan turned the other way and stiffened at the sight of the obliterated stretcher team. His mind pleaded with him to run from it all before death or insanity could claim him.
The familiar questions assaulted him again. What if he died before he could prove himself? Vaguely he felt Dale’s hand on him, guiding him to the shelter of a wall. Was God pleased with his life?
“Evan?” Dale asked.
“Yeah?” Could he save a few more lives before the end?
“You all right?”
Evan shook himself out of his daze and met Dale’s worried eyes. “I’m fine. Really.” He leaned against the teetering wall. Still their soldiers ran, limped, and stumbled past. “They’re taking the village,” he said, defeat gripping him.
Dale nodded. “Let’s go.” He gave a sigh. “God have mercy on us.”
Another shell descended and rocked the opposite side of the street. A burst of gunfire scattered the retreating soldiers, felling some. Dale leaned forward, straining to see through the battle haze.
Evan followed. Only one soldier moved, and with the help of another passing by he got up and headed for the rear.
Looking around the wall toward the Front, Dale gritted his teeth. “They’re at the edge of the village already; come on.”
But Evan froze. Across the street stood a child—a dusty, dazed boy of five or six, who stood in front of a broken house despite the mayhem around him. What on earth was he doing there?
Dale started off over the rubble towards the rear; he had not noticed. A conflict of possible actions met in Evan’s mind.
Retreat.
Go forward.
Save his own life.
Risk his own life.
Show himself as a coward.
Prove to God that he had done his best to make things right between them.
He gritted his teeth and sprang into the street. Crossfire ripped the air around him as he skirted the remains of the stretcher crew. This would prove him, would finally atone for his weakness in his father’s dying moment. He had promised his mother … and he had failed.
A shell splattered a house like an overripe tomato.
He had promised God, and failed. Would it be enough?
An impact made him stagger and pain tore a tunnel between his ribs. The agony seared him like a flaming arrow. Choking, he regained his balance and kept on, though his nerves screamed at him to fall over in the street and die like the rest.
To save one more life …
He fell on his knees next to the boy, gasping, “I’m here. I’m going to help you.”
The boy looked at him but said nothing. There was no feeling in his eyes, no tears on his face. Just the blank expression of shock. Blood dribbled from a wound on his head, matting his brown hair.
“Here.” Evan held out a hand to draw the boy to him as he reached for his dressing kit with the other. His movements were slow and agonising, and dizziness twisted him as he fought to breathe.
In answer to his gesture, the boy walked forward and wrapped both arms around Evan’s neck.
Evan hugged him tight, tears running from his burning eyes. He heaved air into his lungs, but it would not stay, and the hazy world grew hazier. The boy’s breath blew warm on his neck.
He had to get his kit and bandage them both. Before it was too late. But still he sat, gasping like a landed fish, weeping over the little life still beating in his arms. He closed his eyes against the tilting village; his head throbbed with the pulsing gunfire.
Words of the graveside prayer circled in his mind.
‘I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live …’
Weakness took over his body, shaking him, and though he opened his eyes the world grew darker.
‘… and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die.’
Whoever believed would never die.
Whoever believed.
Evan felt himself falling.
Believe.
The harsh voice of wind filled his ears as his consciousness slowly returned. He struggled to wake up, to conquer the light feeling in his head.
“He’s coming around.” It was Dale’s voice. “Evan. Evan Whitley.”
Evan opened his eyes. A host of stars danced in the night sky. And the wind—there was no wind. He furrowed his brow wearily, then realized it was his own breath rasping in and out of his chest.
“We’ve got to move him further back,” said another voice. “He’ll need surgery from that one.”
Shivering from the cold ground under him, Evan turned his head to his left. The boy lay dead, one arm over his face as if the stars were too bright.
‘Whosoever believeth in Me shall never die.’
He put his left hand against the ground and tried to push himself up.
“Careful!” Dale said, supporting him. “Lie back down and we’ll get you on the stretcher.”
“Dale.” The words came out as mostly breath. “I tried …” Then he lay back down, angry with himself. Why was he even trying to tell about it? No one knew but him and God.
Dale leaned over him, replacing the jacket they had used to cover him. “I know you did,” he said softly.
Through the torturous stretcher ride, the prayer repeated itself. Evan pitted thoughts against it between the excruciating moments of pain. He had failed God. When his father—ill and helpless—had been hit by the car, he had run away.
Even though that morning, before they went into town, he had told his mother, “I’ll take good care of him.”
Why should God give him everlasting life?
“I’ll see you later, friend,” Dale said as they loaded him into the ambulance. “God keep you.”
“Thanks.”
God keep you.
God had kept him thus far, through all the preceding battles, and now this bullet could have punctured his heart instead of just his lung.
The engine whirred to life and the jolting journey began. The man next to him muttered constantly, only half his words coherent.
Evan frowned at the tarpaulin top. He had wanted to help the boy, and yet he knew nothing about him. And the boy had come to him with open arms and empty hands. With nothing to prove his worth.
‘Whosoever believes …’
That was how God wanted him to come—with open arms and empty hands. With utter trust. Belief—not his own worth—gave life. Belief in God’s free forgiveness and salvation.
He closed his eyes.
God, I give You my empty hands. Forgive me for my pride, my works of my own strength. Take me and give me life.
You are the resurrection, and I believe in You.
While writing the first draft of Judah’s Battle, I did a good bit of research on the medical teams that served the Canadian army, particularly the stretcher bearers. They had a difficult and dangerous task. Sometimes they would carry a man through gunfire to the nearest Aid Post or ambulance only to find that he had died on the way. But so many lives were saved by their courageous work.
A stretcher team consisted of four men; near the front, where mud could be knee or waist deep, it often took six. Sometimes German prisoners of war were enlisted to help.
This is a work of fiction, and not based on any specific battle. I hope it gives you a little taste of another time–the war that didn’t end all wars–and of the hope God offers to all who come to Him.
Photos are from www.gwpda.org/photos and https://ww1photos.com/. Used by permission.