Legends of War

To all those who bravely fought and in memory of those who died
for a cause greater than their own both in foreign lands and at home.
You are the true legends of war; may you never be forgotten.

Prologue

Shall we learn from war, no matter how devastating or comic it seems to the gods? Perhaps we are perceived much like the warring sparrows, insignificant creatures as we struggle and strive for supremacy in our lives. We engage in petty arguments or jealously fight in love and relationships. We attempt to conquer our world to mold it to our own image and ideals.
Are we but puppets dancing to fate’s hand? Is there such a thing as luck or fortune if we find it a rarity in our lives? We must only watch zealously as others excel, rising to celestial heroic fame or callously playing Russian roulette with fate.
Some believe that man is but a pawn in fate’s chess game. Yet he struggles to prove himself more.
If a heroic man were to live forever like a god, he would still be but a dust mote in the heavenly creator’s eye. His name and daring feats or victories are fleeting and perhaps recalled as legend by his peers. With all legends and heroes their endeavors and soul must also someday fade, and be washed away clean like sand on a beach.

Chapter 1
Les Cauchemars

Beaumont, Tx
Sunday, May 23, 1943

Laughter echoed off the nearby crypts as beams of flashlights garishly bounced off the headstones. They ran, tripping on planters, leaping over stone markers and grave hillocks, and dodging through hedges and trees as they trampled fresh graves and flowers.
“Hey! Whose idea was this?—‘Let’s get drunk in Magnolia; nobody will kick us out!’—Well this stinks!” Barton bellowed after he fell down on a gravel-lined grave.
“Oh shut up, you big chicken-shit! You scared of little ole ghosts, Barre?” Louis cackled his voice strident in the darkness up ahead.
“We’re not kids anymore! This is stupid!” Barton yelled back.
“What a killjoy!” Garrett’s mocking tone echoed among the crypts.
“I hate this place!” Barton grumbled. He got up; dusting off his knees, and blew on his skinned palms. He leaned for a moment against a headstone to catch his breath. E. Lucas probably didn’t mind him resting here; he’d been dead since 1898. Still, he felt a chilly, ghostly breeze rise from the misty ground and sinuously wind about his neck. He put back the stone angel that had fallen off when he crashed into the headstone and sauntered away, rubbing a sore elbow.
“Come on, guys,” he moaned. “Let’s go somewhere else. I gotta go to the bathroom.”
Far off noises and laughing helped to direct him closer to his friends. He certainly didn’t like wandering through this place alone. He staggered along, hiccupping and taking a few sips of the harsh whiskey, wishing they had more money for better booze. He was disappointed that they had been ejected from the Rusty Spur Cantina. At least it had been warm, and the place had peanuts and pretty girls.
“I thought this was gonna be a party!” Barton complained, hollering into the darkness. “Yeah, Louis says, ‘We gotta cheer you up, little buddy.’… Shit!” He paused to belch. “I ain’t feelin’ cheery yet!”
“Look who we found! Bart! C’mere!” Louis yelled.
Barton trotted on a new trajectory through the cemetery toward his friends. “Who is it?” he called into the murky darkness.
“Old Pew-bert Hubert. Remember him?” Louis giggled drunkenly.
“Hey! Let’s piss on him!” Garrett suggested with a wicked laugh.
Barton met up with his taller, older friends to see brothers Garrett and Louis undoing their pants.
“Don’t do that!” he grumbled. “That’s sickening.”
“Why? He was a sick, old creep! He gave me an F on my term paper. Well here’s your F, you old geezer!” Louis snarled and farted, and then began pissing on the flower planter decorating the grave.
Snickering, Garrett joined in. “Yeah, I hated the old crumbum too. He sent me to the principal’s office once cuz I was lookin’ at Shirlee’s paper.”
Louis retorted with a loud laugh. “It wasn’t just Shirlee’s test you was lookin’ at but down her blouse!”
Barton veered away as the brothers crudely reminisced about their old high school teacher, sending him rude drunken toasts.
“Up yer tail w’ a rusty nail, ya old bastard!” The brothers shouted as they shared their whiskey.
Bart had never minded old Mr. Hubert—the man had given him an A.
He tripped along, feeling muzzy headed. His stomach roiled from supper’s greasy chili con carne and probably too much beer and whiskey. He padded along to a stone bench to sit and then stared out at the dark and dismal cemetery.
He hated the dead and anything to do with them. While he enjoyed scary movies, he preferred monsters because they weren’t real, rather than things about the dead, like Dracula or the Mummy; even Frankenstein was too creepy. The hideous movie creature, Nosferatu, once gave him cauchemars for a week!
Bart slurped the rest of the whiskey down and reluctantly wished there was more. He stood up and threw the pint bottle as far as he could across the way but didn’t hear it break. He peered into the darkness, wondering why, certain that there would have been a loud noise. Disappointed, he then looked around, feeling very alone. He no longer heard his friends or any live sounds other than the rush of the night wind through the trees, a pair of bleeping frogs, and the drip of dew off the nearby stele. He looked about, wondering how to get out of this place. Where did they leave Louis’s car?
All of a sudden, the fog seemed higher, and the place was dark and eerily lit by the swirling vapor and low moon. It felt like a movie scene from The Wolfman, lost out on the foggy moors. He moved on through the darkness with a sense of urgency, wondering if his friends were pulling a prank. Maybe they had left him behind here!
Barton tripped and fell again; this time he quickly popped up only to stumble on a low-set marker some feet away. He ran between the headstones, feeling panic gripping him. “Oh God, don’t leave me!” he mumbled as he drunkenly navigated through the mist. His breaths were coming in sharp gasps, tinged with worry and fatigue.
“Where are you guys?” he hollered, now feeling paranoid by the surrounding tall monuments and the sinister mist.
“Hey, Bart! Over here! Come see …”
He turned to the echoed call and picked up speed again, this time hopeful he would meet up with his friends. His foot hit something and it went ricocheting; there was the tinkling sound of glass. He looked about, thinking the area looked familiar. There was a narrow sign pointing to the cemetery lane, and he sighed with relief.
However, he crept along, feeling his way through the low-lying shrubs and tombstones and found the bottle he’d thrown.
“Oh, that’s weird; it’s not busted.” He picked it up and sipped at it to catch just a drop. Smacking his lips, Bart put the bottle in his jacket, thinking he shouldn’t leave it behind. As he sat down to rest on a stone crypt, he noticed the pale pink granite headstone glittering in the mist.
“Mama.” Barton’s word was as a sigh. He went to the grave, peered at the inscription, and then petted the headstone. He leaned upon it, whispering, “I wish you would come back. I miss you.”
The headstone was the only tangible object he associated with his mother, Charlotte Angelina Barre. His family all said she had died when Barton was just six. One day she was in the hospital smiling at him, and the next day she was gone. Then Thérese Pierrault came to live with them. He had always suspected that someone was lying to him. His mother had just gone away! After that, life was forever changed for him.
Weeping, he began to claw at the damp sod near the headstone; he pulled up handfuls of grass and clover. “Mama, come back!”