Losing Julia by Jonathan Hull Page A

men died and more replacements arrived. And somehow we continued.
    The bravest and the meekest were the first to die. The rest of us tried our best not to look like cowards but sometimes, when asked to charge a German Maxim nestled in a concrete bunker surrounded by three belts of wire, a man would shit in his pants and there was no stopping it. The body goes berserk like an animal being dragged kicking and whining to the slaughterhouse.
    We were all in awe of the stretcher-bearers, who as a matter of principle would risk everything to bring back the wounded and even the dead. I often looked into their eyes as they headed out and wondered why men will risk almost certain death in an attempt to save other men. I decided it was because men will do anything to give their lives some meaning and virtue, especially if it looks like they’ll die anyway.
    “In a way I envy them,” said Daniel, the morning a stretcher-bearer from Minnesota was shot in the groin bringing a man in. We had just moved up in the predawn darkness from the reserve trenches to the front for our ten-day shift on the line and were struggling to repair the duckboards that were half-submerged in the mud at our feet.
    “You’re kidding.”
    “At least they can feel good about what they’re doing.”
    “Until they’re shot,” I said, pulling at a wooden plank. “You’re not a pacifist by any chance? Because as a squad leader that might—”
    “I don’t know.”
    “You don’t know?” I yanked at a long plank until it came free.
    “Yes and no.”
    “I didn’t realize pacifism was a yes-and-no kind of thing.”
    “I should have been. It’s too late now, so I’m not. That’s what I mean.” He picked up his gear and headed for the entrance to a large dugout thirty feet underground. Thick wet blankets hung from the entry to guard against gas. I followed him, pausing to let my eyes adjust to the candlelight before descending the narrow wooden stairs. Down below half a dozen men sat smoking, writing letters, playing cards and cleaning their weapons.
    “So when are you two going to get married?” asked Giles, looking up. “Might as well make it official. We could even have a party.”
    “I’m just waiting for Paddy here to pop the question,” said Daniel, smiling.
    “Courage,” said Lawton, looking at me. I flipped him off.
    The chairs and bunks were taken so we sat on the floor against the wall.
    I watched as Giles methodically cleaned his bayonet, pausing to test the blade with his thumb, which was filthy. His youthful face had grown somewhat slimmer while the sun had made his freckles more pronounced, so that some of the larger ones merged into reddish splotches. I thought he might eventually be considered handsome, except for his overbite and teeth, which went every which way, as though completely estranged from one another. Meanwhile his eyes, which were very round and dark brown, belied a softness he tried to hide by hunching up his shoulders and spitting a lot. Lately they’d looked unusually bloodshot and I thought I detected a slight tremble in his hands.
    “What I need right now is a big fucking steak,” he said, holding his bayonet up to eye level to examine it, then placing it back in its scabbard. I had grown to like Giles immensely, except for his habit of talking about food, which was almost pathological. I think he used food as a metaphor for all that he missed about civilian life, but regardless his descriptions were excruciating. “A great big juicy steak, cut thick, and maybe some—”
    “Would you shut the fuck up,” said Lawton, who was lying on his back on a wooden bunk, hands clasped behind his head. I’d only recently learned that Lawton’s mother had died when he was five and his father had left him and his younger brother to be raised by an aunt, who beat them. He told Daniel all about it one morning, as though it was important for at least one person in France to know. Now when I looked at him, he reminded