For a moment his thoughts turned to his home back in the hills of Pennsylvania. Spring would be arriving soon with buds on the trees, robins hunting for worms. It suddenly struck him that the feeling he had of getting closer to something might be the coming of Spring? It would explain a lot. He anxiously considered this idea. But the more he thought about it, the more he realized it couldn’t be. The coming of Spring was a feeling of relief, like singing the last line of the final hymn at Sunday mass. But the feeling bothering him was more like placing the sharp edge of a knife blade against the skin of his arm and pressing down slowly.

He had tried to ignore the feeling, but a couple of hours earlier when they stopped for a rest, he felt compelled to ask someone about it. He found himself having a smoke with his buddy, Walter Novack, and some of the other guys. While the guys argued about how far they were from the Rhine River, he leaned closer to Walter.

 “Hey Walter, the last couple of days I got this feeling like I’m getting closer to something. I don’t know what it is, but it doesn’t feel right. It’s giving me hell. You know what I’m talking about?”

Walter took a puff on his cigarette, thinking for a moment before he blew out smoke. “Yeah,” he said, “I think I know what you’re talking about, John. I feel like I’m getting closer to something too.”

 “You do?”

 “Well, yeah,” he grinned, “If you’re walking, you’re always getting closer to something.” He laughed, his big, silly grin filling out his face.

 Mike Claiman, another private in the company overheard them. “Hey John, I’ll tell you what you’re getting closer to,“ he said, “You’re getting closer to putting a bullet in old Adolf’s ass.”

 Some of the other guys around them laughed. Private Kaza smiled.

 “Nothing like the guys to take the edge off,” he thought after they resumed their march up the road. But before they had gone more than a mile, he felt the blade again pressing down slowly against his skin. Only this time it was not the skin of his arm, but the skin of his throat. It made him feel like throwing down his rifle, and running off across the field next to the road to get away from it. He wouldn’t stop until his legs gave out under him from exhaustion. Then he would just lie there on the ground, his face in the dirt, until the sky cleared and the sun shone down once more.

He thought about it, but Private Kaza knew he wouldn’t do it. He couldn’t. He remembered what the Sergeant told him the day before. He had been looking for the company chaplain, but instead he found the Sergeant sitting at a makeshift desk alongside the road, a plank of wood laid across two chairs. Several papers lay scattered on the desk in front of him. The Sergeant held a pen in his hand, but he wasn’t writing anything.  

 “What can I do for you, Kaza?” he asked.  

 “Well, I wanted to ask you something, Sarge.”

 “Ask away.”

 Private Kaza looked away for a moment. “How do you know, Sarge?” he asked.

 “How do you know what?”

 “Well, how do you know if….. if you can do it? I mean, I took the training. I shot all the targets. I could shoot this rifle in my sleep, but…..”

The Sergeant looked back at his paperwork. “It’s really easy, Kaza. Just do what you’re told. Do what you’re told, and you’ll be alright.”

             “Do what you’re told,” Private Kaza mumbled to himself, “what fine advice.”

He looked down at his dirty boots and remembered how he used to care about their appearance. Now all he could think about was how many miles he walked in them. During the last several weeks his company marched across Belgium and into Germany. He remembered taking his boots off many times, mostly to change his socks twice a day to keep from getting trench foot. But looking at his boots now, they didn’t seem like they belonged to him. They seemed like they were somebody else’s boots on somebody else’s feet marching down a road in somebody else’s war. He shook his head.

             “Just too damn tired,” he thought.

             He tried to remember the last time he slept well. He couldn’t. Weeks had passed since he arrived in France and was transported up to the front to join his new unit. He was issued a rifle along with all the other new soldiers. After sighting in their new rifles, they began marching. From that point it seemed like all they did was march. They marched every day, some days starting before sunrise, some days not finishing until after sunset. Some of the men claimed they could sleep while walking. Others found a spot along the road every time the advance was stalled. The Sergeant would have to come by and wake them up before they moved out again.

All day they thought about where they were going to stop for the night. Would it be some place warm? Some place dry? Some nights they slept out in the cold. Other times they would find a barn. But many times they just found a house occupied by a family and kicked the family out. At first he felt sorry for the people they kicked out, especially the kids. It was their home after all. But after awhile he didn’t care. The Germans like to booby-trap abandoned houses. It was always safer to “liberate” an occupied house.  

 They lived on k-rations. But sometimes in the middle of the night the Sergeant came by and woke them up to tell them the company chow wagon was serving hot meals. To get to the meal, they had to trudge back a half-mile or more in the darkness, a long line of stumbling, cold and hungry soldiers. Most guys chose the hot meals over a little more sleep. Anything was better than another day of k-rations. But whether he ate a hot meal or not, Private Kaza always found it easier to fall back asleep when there was no shelling in the distance. When the shelling stopped, he could trick himself into thinking he was back home.

              His eyes came into focus. How long had he been walking in a daze? He glanced back at his company. Nobody seemed to have noticed. There was a pond ahead on the left side of the road. Past the pond there was a farmhouse with a barn behind it. It looked abandoned, but he could see plenty of places where a sniper might be hiding. One could be watching them from one of the upstairs rooms in the farm house or poking his rifle out of a crack in the side of the barn. One could even be hiding in the haystack next to the barn. That would also give a good shot at anyone moving up the road. Either way if there was a sniper, he knew he was probably a goner.  

              He imagined the other guys coming up to find him lying in the road. They would say something like, “There’s ol’ John. He was a swell guy.” Then they would take away his rifle. They would take the grenades off his belt. They would pull off his pack and carry his body to a truck heading back from the front. They would lay him to rest with all the other bodies heading home. Then Sarge would have to write a letter. He thought about his mother getting that letter. He saw the look on her face. He heard his little sisters asking, “Ma, what’s wrong? What does it say?”

              He turned his attention back to the road in front of him. The farmhouse was closer now. He could see the paint peeling off the shutters on the windows. He could see the stone missing in the walkway leading up to the front door. The front gate was open. His eyes scanned the windows. They all seemed shut. For all appearances the house looked abandoned. But somebody would have to go in there. The Sarge would shout out somebody’s name, and they would have to bust that front door down. But not him. Not this time. This time he was walking lead.  

              His finger slid up, felt for the safety. It was off. His finger slipped back to the trigger. He noticed it was quiet. Had it been this quiet before? He glanced back at the rest of the company. Some walked with their heads down. Others looked at the house, probably thinking about the beds inside. He turned back. Out of the corner of his eye Private Kaza saw something moving in the farm house yard. He stopped in his tracks. Something white ran across the yard to the gate. He heard its feet on the ground. It was not a man. He could tell by the way its feet padded the ground. It ran out the gate and onto the road. He watched wide-eyed. It started shrieking as it came right at him. He pointed his rifle and squeezed the trigger. POW! It flopped to the ground with a dull thud a few feet in front of him.

              When the other guys ran up, they found him standing over the dead body of a very, large goose.

              “Why’d you shoot it, John?” one of the guys asked.

              “I thought it was going to peck me.”

              “It was probably coming over to give you a peck on the cheek,” one of the guys said.

              “It was big enough to peck you,” the Sergeant said. He bent down and lifted the big bird’s neck. “It’s at least four-feet tall.”

              “Hey, John, did you ask it to surrender?” one of the guys asked.

              “Yeah,” another one ribbed him, “couldn’t you see it was unarmed?”

              The Sargeant was looking at the bullet hole straight through the bird’s breast when a corporal walked up.

              “What do we got here?”

              “Just a big bird,” the Sergeant said. He stood up.

              “Do you think it would be good to eat?” the Corporal asked with a sudden gleam in his eye.

              “Why don’t we find out?” the Sergeant grinned.

              A couple of soldiers bent down and lifted the bird. They carried it off back up the road, trying to keep up with the Corporal. Private Kaza heard the Sergeant order another man up to take lead. The company started moving on, the guys chattering. He clicked on his rifle’s safety and swung it by its strap over his shoulder. He was about to start down the road with his company, when the Sergeant called to him.

  “Hey, Kaza.”

              “Yeah, Sarge.”

              “Nice shot,” he said.

  Private Kaza started down the road. He was just as tired, just as fed up with marching, but he felt some weight had been taken off his shoulders. He shot the goose. He didn’t want to, but it came after him, and he had not hesitated to kill it. He sighed, a long sigh that spoke of concerns that should not be troubling a young man. He knew he could do it again. He didn’t want to, but he knew he could kill again.

The End