I REMEMBER

It was a very different season of my life, I was young, self confident, a little selfish. I hadn’t concrete ideas about real life, about what life could really be. I was going to face a lot of terrible things but, at that time, war was nothing else for me than an adventure, something I certainly would have faced with no worries at all… something to start, to do, and then to remember, something glorious… like soldiers on parade when military band plays frisky marches, with drums and trumpets… war was for me just the right opportunity to gain medals, to show ma bravery… to help my comrades in arms… To make the long story short I was only a twenty years old young man perfectly naïve, a fall guy, filled up with dreams and wishes… I was going to face the war and I was happy… very absurd!
At the beginning war seamed rally not very different from something exciting… I was doing well with my comrades and officers where very allowing and permissive, they probably where aware of what we where going to face. I remember that we where waiting to ship and a colonel just before shipping, asked me something about war. I had to answer and showed all my military background and told him about duty, about glory and so on… he looked at me, then shook his head and told me: “No, boy, war is something terrible you have to face other guys like you, perhaps you’ll have to kill them or to be killed… war is a fearful thing… have a nice trip and take care”. Then I shipped… and the colonel’s words continued to upset me, he was an older man and was talking to me friendly, officers generally used very different words… During the navigation we where told to wear our life jackets and to gather at bow, no one was really in a hurry, it was only a fire drill or a torpedo drill, but the ship continued to go regularly. Not an air attack, not even enemy aircrafts, neither enemy ships, nothing at all… we sailed with all lights turned off, a sailor told us that it was according to the orders to avoid being detected by the enemy crafts, he told us we where sailing slow speed because engines at high speed can be easily detected by the sonar that submarines carry.
After eight days of such distressing, life we got off and went ashore… We where told to present immediately to the harbour’s commandant. We where ordered to dig trenches around the airport and so we did…
It was only in my fifth day that things really changed. I and three other soldiers where ordered to explore the path toward the oasis, they told us to pay attention because enemies where encamped over there. We hesitated but soldiers can’t discuss orders, they have to perform duties, therefore we went riding four desert motorcycles, we had been ordered to go ahead no more than twenty kilometres but our fuel supply allowed us about 400 km. When we got the first oasis we decided to go ahead for another twenty km, just to the next group of little oases… and that was our ruin… we where thirsty and according to our maps in one of the oases there was a little spring. But enemies where nearby… suddenly out of nowhere a bomb bursted, my three comrades where killed and I was shot and passed out. Everything happened so quickly that I can remember just a flesh.
I woke up at a little military camp-hospital, clearly I had been captivated… my chest hurt a lot. I was uncertain whether or not call for aid, but my chest did hurt badly and finally I called for aid. There was a young nurse nearby, she came, unleashed my patches and run to call the doctor. The doctor cleaned up my wound and gestured for me to stay quiet because my wound wasn’t really something to worry about too much… I nodded and smiled in response. The doctor smiled back… then I tried to ask about my comrades, I repeated my question but they clearly wasn’t able to understand… then I tried in French, just my little school-French… and this time they understood, The doctor shook his head and told “no”. I started crying desperately… the doctor held my hand fore some seconds then told me: “Vous avez eu une très bonne chance, on va vous mettre hors de cet hôpital, je crois, en quatre ou cinq jours, vous êtes blessé d’une façon très faible… vous le savez bien, vous allez être interné dans un établissement jusqu’à la fin de la guerre. Elle va se prendre cure de vous. [You had a very good luck, we will put you out of this hospital, I hope, in four or five days, you are wounded in a very weak way… you know well, you’ll be interned in an establishment until the end of the war. She will take care of you.]
She was smiling, we just talked for few minutes… we where enemies, our comrades had been killed by their soldiers… killed. Just yesterday they where alive and after 24 hours they where buried in the desert. I starter crying newly, this time I was aware of what had happened… but my face was tear-strained. Nevertheless the doctor had spent his time speaking to me and she (what was her name?) was here, gently caressing my hand and drying my tears. How absurd is war!