Wars to End All Wars: Alternate Tales from the Trenches Read online

  The land is beautiful. As different from my home as a land could be, but still beautiful. No high mountains, no deep forests, no undulating valleys; it stretches to the horizon as smooth and level as an ocean, high lush grass its waves. From time to time islands break the endless green; there, a great, lone tree, heavy branches sweeping the ground like a cloud of leaves; hours later another, surrounded by saplings like a mother with her children; and, as night falls, a cluster of low stone walls, last small remnants of ancient buildings, and we all crowd to one side of the carriage to point and wonder who might have once lived in this vast garden, long forgotten.

  The train hoots a greeting and we wake at our destination, rising from our seats on tingling feet and stiff legs, stretching and curious. A village of strong tents awaits us, the better to vanish without a trace once the work is done, leaving only the grandest memorial in their place. The track forms a teardrop loop, our train curving back on itself as it draws to a halt; it will begin its long return journey this very day.

  I step down from the carriage and direct my men to unload our gear, send a runner on ahead to report our timely arrival to the works director, my old friend. I watch the activity of the camp, the watering of the train as those workers already waiting disgorge from it material for the build.

  There’s no sign yet, this is merely one more part of the Westerly Fields, but one day people will travel here to see what we have done. They will stand in the shadow of a monument to power and unity, crane their necks to admire, and likely never once look down at the ground and consider the essential efforts demanded for it to exist. That is why we are here, when there is nothing else to see.

  We will dig its foundations.

  We grin and laugh on seeing each other, embrace without restraint, as good friends long apart will do. Gerhardt looks well, as he always did: stout and fleshy, pink as a piglet, handsome as a horse.

  “It’s good to see you, Karl,” he says as we break, and he’s right.

  “And you,” I say. Too long. Years since school, since the college of engineers, since he began the climb to his present height, the man most trusted to direct the grand plans of others. Since my choice to descend instead of climb, to work—as I used to joke, and mean to joke some more—for a living, not to play. To be the man, modestly, who builds what those grand planners only dream about, what the directors merely oversee.

  “I’m glad to have you here,” he says, waving me to a chair across his desk as he returns to his own. He finds a bottle from a drawer, two glasses. “This will be a piece of history here. I’m humbled to have been chosen for it, and for my part I want only the best in service.”

  “Humbled, Gerhardt? My my. It must be something indeed.”

  He pours, a coy smile on his lips. “Oh, it is. Beyond spectacular. It has to be seen to be believed, which is why the plans remain so secret even now.”

  He hands me a glass filled with clear, oily Schnapps, wreathed with a fragrant tang. “All the empire is talking about what is happening here,” I say. “The untouched western fields, touched at last. They speculate impossibly.”

  “Even the wildest rumours fall short.” He raises his glass, we toast, we drink, we sigh, and he refills our glasses. “My entourage have set up our tents around a pleasant patch of ground,” he continues, “and we have our own mess. With a staff assigned from the Naval Office, would you believe? Who knows why, but of all the services theirs eat the best.”

  I sip the Schnapps this time. “In defiance of sea-sickness, I suppose.”

  He laughs, a sharp hard bark, efficient with his humour as with all else. “Probably so! You must eat with us, and pitch your tent beside mine.”

  “I remember our college nights. You don’t want me constructing your mystery stumbling and hung-over, do you? Besides, I always bunk with my crew, Gerhardt. But thanks.”

  He frowns, not quite convinced. “Really?”

  “Of course. You want the best? There is a reason why we are.”

  “You always were bloody-minded,” he grumbles, but the half-smile is back nevertheless. “Very well. Join me in dinner tonight at least. I’ll have your crew served from the same spoon. Just this once.”

  Not just the riotous nights, I also remember the futility of refusing Gerhardt’s generosity, so I acquiesce. “Ja voll.”

  “Do you want to see it?” There is a look in his eye, I know it too. A mischievous vein runs through him, one I thought suppressed forever. But then some things are never lost, only buried.

  “If I may.”

  He tosses back his drink and stands. “You may not, and remember when you leave my tent that you haven’t.” He unlocks and opens a heavy chest, and—having eyes only for my friend thus far—I look around the tent properly for the first time. Besides our chairs, the desk and chest, three field boards stand, their tripod legs sunk deep into the turf. All face away from the entrance, preserving them from accidental observation at the cost of good natural light; before each one, a lamp stand is also thrust into the ground, though at present all three are unlit, the three boards bare.

  “You’ve seen the foundation plans, of course,” he says, bent into the chest.

  “Yes. A large building, to judge by the footprint.”

  “Footprint, hah!” He straightens, three lidded tubes of shiny cured leather in his arms. “You’d never guess what was to come, just looking at those. Take,” he says, handing me two of them and uncapping the third. “Prepare yourself.”

  There was always a touch of the showman to him, a skill that served him well petitioning patrons at the beginning of his career. He withdraws a rolled sheet, casually casting the tube aside, and clips it to the top of the first board before hanging the roll over its top to keep it hidden from view. He takes the other tubes from me in turn, until all three sheets wait to fall like curtains at the end of a show, not before one.

  “And now,” he says, flicking the first sheet forward.

  He smooths it down, revealing from beneath his hand a strident figure, noble in form, classic in style: an archetypal warrior, naked but for crested helmet, pleated skirts and sandalled feet, one hand resting on the pommel of the sword sheathed on its hip. With the other arm raised to the sky, it is posed in mid-step upon a plinth. Constructing the foundation for that must be my first charge.

  It is only then I realise, and am unable to credit, the intended scale. “But it must be—”

  “Hundreds of feet, let us say only that.” He unrolls the second sheet, revealing the profile view: a mighty forward pace, the upraised hand with palm to the heavens, as though Atlas now carried them without effort. “The Colossus of Rhodes was as nothing beside this. Beneath, rather.” His smugness is gone, overwhelmed with admiration for the work ahead.

  As he reveals the final sheet, the plan view, I see something else—a hemispherical structure facing the statue, a fraction of its size—and I point. “What is this?

  “A ceremonial platform, Karl, so precisely placed. On the eleventh of November, for those lucky few who sit there, the sun will crest unseen behind the foot—” he traces a smooth arc across the statue’s body, from the ankle upwards “—rise along the line of the trailing leg, behind the torso, up the arm, all unseen, until finally, at eleven a.m., the sun dawns again, balanced on the outstretched palm. It will be . . .” He stares through the sheet, his gaze unfocused. “Magnificent.”

  His reverence is palpable, contagious, but I frown. “Eleven, eleven, eleven. I feel ignorant. What does it celebrate?”

  “The empire, of course,” he says, and pours another drink for us both. And though neither the numbers nor the date itself mean anything to me, what other purpose could there be?

  I wake from Schnapps-scented dreams of the mighty statue to find the morning upon us, my crew stirring from their cots with good-natured grumbles, reminiscing about the evening meal Gerhardt’s cooks provided them and speculating on how well those of the future are likely to compare. They make jokes about their well-connect
ed leader, meaning myself of course, ask with feigned sympathy about my hangover and wonder what happened to the drinks that didn’t accompany their food.

  They had used the previous day well. Our two tents—one for bunking, one for storage—were set up a comfortable distance from the railway’s impromptu terminus, across the camp from Gerhardt’s administrative headquarters. All our equipment had been unloaded, unpacked, checked and found correct, leaving them half the day to unwind between the end of our long trip and the beginning of the longer work to come. While I had reacquainted myself with my old friend, they had lain in the sun, played cards, told jokes and stories, sung songs to the accompaniment of Horst and his guitar. All things well-suited to relaxation and camaraderie, laying our own good foundation for what would be many months of true labour.

  This morning, I lead them out to the dig site where we find stakes and lines marking out our objective. Our first task is to ensure they match the demands of the plan. There is leeway. The placement of the statue demands absolute precision if it is to hold the sun on its palm when required; in the main, the plinth itself need only be level; provided it has the correct orientation to within two degrees either way, the statue will be able to stand as required. I will, of course, not accept less than perfection at this or any other stage, whatever the cost of effort it demands.

  In any case, the foundation markers require minimal adjustment. I knew already that Gerhardt feels a powerful commitment to this task, and it seems my needling him about how long it had been since he had gotten his hands dirty doing real building work was less accurate than his work itself.

  The foundations of any structure are always a most vital part of the undertaking, but here they represent a significant exercise in themselves. They comprise two regular trapezoids, one twice the length of the other, conjoined and over-lapping on their long sides: like an angular “S” bisected along a thick central line. I label the two areas the Small and Large Foundations for convenience. The plinth will take the same form, with the topmost smaller section beneath the standing leg, the longer section behind supporting the trailing one. The scale challenges my thinking again: two hundred and twenty feet, the length of our dig; and in width, total, one hundred, though each trapezoidal section is sixty feet at its maximum.

  Of course, my crew are unaware of this; officially, this is simply to be a building of some kind, but they have their suspicions; how could they not, faced with such an oddity. I rebuff their initial questions and they accept the unspoken command, but no order could silence an inquisitive mind and I will suggest to Gerhardt that something must be said if we are not to repeat the wild speculations of the empire in microcosm.

  With our first objective established to my satisfaction, I order Horst to mark out two lines down the length of the site: we shall begin with a central channel, ten feet deep and twelve across, which we will expand fore and aft until we have excavated the entire footprint. Then we must go further, right to the bedrock, if we are to set a foundation stable enough to bear this uncommon load. The site itself is almost perfectly level, a patch of good, solid ground at the heart of this gently undulating plain.

  First we descend, then we rise again in triumph. When it is done, our work will be visible for many leagues in all directions: a god-like figure striding the landscape.

  I set my men to work.

  We dig, side by side. Deep in the hole, we stand in a line facing a wall of earth, excavating. We are a fine crew, good boys all, backs bent to the task, arms and voices strong.

  Beside me is Horst. I think he is singing, but when I look his lips aren’t moving, so it must be the others. “I like this song,” I tell him as I face the work again.

  “We have been here for a long time,” he says.

  “Yes,” I say.

  “I am tired and will rest now,” he says, but instead of leaving the hole and returning to the tents he sinks his shovel’s blade beside him, lowers himself to one knee, then both. The shovel tilts like a felled tree as he leans forward, hands out to brace himself as he lies down. It falls beside him.

  “You are in the mud, foolish friend,” I crow, turning away to dig and turning back to laugh. “Pick up that shovel!”

  Then another man appears beside me, reaches down for Horst’s shovel, plants his feet and draws it back to work. “Be careful of Horst!” I call in warning, but the man ignores me and thrusts it down with all his strength. I am filled with horror, but when I look I find sleeping Horst is not there after all—there is just another mound of broken earth where he had lain, waiting to be dug.

  As I look along the line I see other men lying down where they work, and each time a new face steps into the gap they leave, takes up the tool left idle and resumes the digging. I turn to look behind us as I work and there are many men there, all waiting to take their turn in line, countless numbers, more faces than any man could dream up, none of them known to me.

  I don’t know any of the faces in the line any more. I alone of my crew remain, digging with strangers, though there is comfort in knowing they are strangers who must share my goal.

  Then my shovel strikes something in the earth, something that resists my repeated blows, and such is the automation of my movement that, as I slowly look away from the line, of their own accord my hands drive my shovel against it three more times before I see what I am digging.

  There is no earth. There are only bodies, corpses with familiar faces, parting with softness of flesh and the splintering of ribcages beneath our blunt, heavy blades. For a long moment, I realise that I am digging Horst, but then I awake, unbreathing, temples aching under the onslaught of my pulse.

  I am embarrassed by my nightmare, embarrassed that I might subconsciously harbour some ill will or weirdness of feeling towards Horst, who has never been a less than capable worker. He is, in fact, as much of a leader within my crew as I am, a man I trust to step into the role without hesitation on either my part or his, who is liked and respected by our fellows. My nightmare is an insult to him that I will not share this side of the grave.

  The task has been going well. Our primary pit is at least five feet deep along the entire two-hundred and twenty yard length, and the full ten feet from the south-most end almost to the centre. While half the men continue to work the higher level, breaking down the earth with picks, I set the others where the pit is deep to collapse the eastern wall into a progressively shallower incline, carving away at the mass of the small foundation while making access the easier. Instead of forcing earth-laden barrows up the one ramp at the centre of the pit, soon they can run side-by-side in pairs, then threes, then almost anywhere along the whole south end. Progress increases apace.

  The train returns twice while we work. The first time it disgorges fresh supplies for the camp. The second, it is a long, labouring chain of low-walled freight carriages filling the lazy arc at the head of the tracks, the engine almost kissing the signal car where the tracks conjoin, only for it to be dragged away at the last, like a lover denied. This time the train remains; the carriages are uncovered from beneath tarpaulins to reveal heavy loads of stone: the foundation itself, destined to fill the hole my crew are still creating. One by one they are unloaded, slowly erecting a second mountain beside the ever-growing mound of cast-off earth we are responsible for.

  The effort of work had suppressed all but the most passing speculation about the project, at least outside whatever private thoughts the men might entertain, but the sight of all this material fuels it again. They are wise regarding our industry, untutored except by the best educator—experience—and to a man they can assess the implications of what they see and jump to informed conclusions. The foundations we build will be vastly more sturdy than are required by any building intended for human occupation or use. There is increasing interest, renewed rumour, and in my conversations with Gerhardt, both official and friendly, I am always reminded that such things concern him.

  “Is there a reason for the secrecy?” I ask him. Smoking, we s
troll in ‘the garden’, that open space within the administrative compound which Gerhardt and his senior staff use for recreation. “There have been great monuments before, if not on this scale, but the spectacle of their construction was as much a matter of pride as the finished work.”

  “This is a special case,” he says, refilling his wide-bowled pipe, but when I push him for a proper explanation he hedges. “In any case, the most important matter is putting an end to idle talk. Back east, the journals continue to put questions to whoever will open their mouths to comment on the costs being funnelled this way. Every time our trains depart and return, scribblers flock to pester us with questions, from the lowliest station labourer to the minister himself. We stop and search them for stowaways and always find one squirrelled away in some corner. And, of course, bribery of staff is impossible to discount. The work must be done by someone, after all. If one of these rail men has his ear filled by one of your insightful diggers, who knows where the information will filter to?”

  “I can’t order my men to discount what they see, not to apply it to what they know. Was there no plan made, no cover story concocted to displace all this interest?”

  “I am open to suggestions,” he says dryly.

  “I have one, as it happens. A few years ago we were way off in the east, building the stellar observatory on the steppes. A large, unconventional structure. Built strong, to house and protect the large, delicate instruments that manoeuvre within it. Isolated, to take best advantage of night skies undisturbed by the lights of civilisation . . .”

  He frowns. “Pretend it is another observatory?”

  “As I recall, the journals also moaned about that project’s cost at the time. However, I don’t recall any attempted invasions of the construction site after the purpose was divined, and the data that flowed from the telescopes have been rather celebrated since.”