The Dragon on the Chessboard

A big part of war is marching.

Going from one place to another. From one trench to the next.

The fields are like a giant chessboard. 

Expect that you don't see all of the players on it. 

Imagine a chessboard where three-fourths of the players are invisible until they pounce onto your own. Then you can see them. You'll never know if what they did was correct: if their horse only struck the L movement, if the bishop stayed true to his diagonal lines. Maybe he switched colors. 

Franz Weiher marched over the field with the rest of his battalion. They were somewhere on the Western Front but he didn't know where. He hadn't been able to throw a glance at the map as they'd discussed the safest and quickest path to get to their next station. Everyone was tired and hungry. 

He kept thinking about comrade Hirt. He couldn't shake the image of his face, mangled by the bullet.

Both of the young men had enlisted in the war out of their own free will. Franz had just finished school and was unsure of what to study. He hadn't felt drawn to doing proletarian work, especially not in times like these in which he would make even less money than usual. 

He'd always wanted to study. As a child, he'd been drawn to the idea of becoming a lawyer. His father had been very strict, the type of no-nonsense man who teaches his children more manners and rules by the age of six than most people are taught throughout their lifetime. But ever since he'd started to serve in the war medicine had interested Franz much more. Law fails. Morals disappear into thin air after you're handed a gun. 

But the work the doctors and paramedics did stayed constant. They always strove to save lives or to make them easier, and more joyous. A muscle doesn't cease to be a muscle. The heart doesn't start beating in another man's chest, pumping life into someone else. Switching sides. Having seen how the paramedics and doctors had managed to save Hirt first-hand had inspired him. 

It was a foggy and grey morning when he'd decided that he wanted to study medicine instead of law. He laughed out loud but quickly covered his mouth. Funny, how during the hardest time of his life he'd figured out something so important about himself. He wanted to study medicine! He wanted to be a doctor! Had he never enlisted in the army he might have never realized it. He may have just studied law and become a lawyer - or worse, a politician. What did they know about war? About death? 

He hoped that comrade Hirt would go back to school and write his Abitur (A-levels) as he'd planned. Franz was sure his younger friend could do it, even with the injury that was sure to affect him for the rest of his life. The boy was very intelligent. Franz smiled at the thought. Hirt had expressed the desire to study medicine long before he'd even considered it. Maybe their paths would cross again someday.

Franz closed his eyes and let the peaceful sounds of the morning envelope him. He could hear the birds, the wind, the soft snoring of his comrades. He could hear comrade Georg Häffner whistling outside. The man always woke up earlier than everyone else. He'd never said why. 

Franz's mind wandered away from medical practices and old comrades and the reality of war which he'd have to face later. He thought about home. 

About Gilda, one of the girls on his street who'd been absolutely infatuated with him for years. A lazy smile spread across his face as he imagined the things he'd done to her in the months before he'd left for the war. He reached into the breast pocket of his shirt and fished out one of the sketches she'd drawn for him. She was a brilliant young artist - she had the remarkable talent to draw things exactly the way that they looked. She'd doodled him a picture of her naked body before he'd gone but she'd rubbed out her face with her thumb. "I don't want anyone to recognize me." She'd said fiercely. But after he'd pushed her against the door and kissed her neck for several seconds she'd agreed to draw him a picture of her face as well. Franz missed Gilda. But he missed his siblings much more. 

His two older brothers had already died in the war, in the earlier years. One of them had died in 1914 and the other in 1915. In the last letter his sister Josephine had sent him she'd told him that Friedrich, their younger brother, and Heike, the youngest of them all, had fallen sick. Martin had dedicated a little corner of his reply to Heike. He'd drawn a dragon curled around a little princess and written: make sure you're warm enough, Heike. Sleep by the hearth if you must. If the hearth isn't warm enough my love will be. 

Comrade Häffner trudged inside. He saw that Franz was awake and nodded at him. Franz raised his arm in greeting. "Morning, Häffner."

"It's a beautiful morning today, Weiher. Go outside and take a piss before everyone else wakes up. It's fucking peaceful." 

Franz Weiher laughed heartily and Georg Häffner smiled. "Thanks, I'll do just that." And he rose from bed to head outside.

Georg Häffner was right. There was little to no trace of black in sky or in the fields that morning, and the air was crisp. Franz took a deep breath in and smiled. His lungs felt shaky as he continued to breathe the fresh air, trembling like a new-born calfs legs.

The breeze carried hope on it's wings.