Rain fell in frozen sheets over the field of battle, wetting the earth until it roiled into a morass of blood and mud. Across it all stood Corporal Elias Thorne, rifle locked firmly within his rough hands, eyes distant beneath the rim of his helmet.
It was 1944, and the war in Europe had dragged on long enough. Thorne had been a schoolteacher in Ohio, a quiet man with a love of books, coffee, and Anna, his wife, holding out hope with each letter.
Every night, after the firing had ceased and the world had gone dark, Elias would sit in his trench and write. He wrote about the sky, about the lull between battles, and about the fantasies he still held of walking through the apple orchard behind their house. But he never wrote about the screams, or about the boys who never got to their feet again.
His firm had been instructed to take a little French town. Intel was weakly defended. It wasn’t.
Gunfire the moment they moved forward. The line broke apart in confusion, men falling left and right. Elias dragged a wounded comrade to cover, firing wildly, praying to no one in particular. Feet wet, hands trembling, but he kept moving.
Hours passed. He was alone in a crumbling church, the shattered stained-glass windows pouring their color onto the muddy floor, the saints oozing from their wounds. He heard approaching footsteps—enemy soldiers—drawing closer. He drew from his pocket the unfinished letter to Anna.
“My love,
If I’ve learned one thing at this war, it’s how much I’ve taken for granted—
the sound of your laughter in the morning,
the way you hum when you cook,
the scent of you on my pillow.
I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. But if I don’t make it back, remember:
I never fought harder than when I loved you.”
A grenade rolled through the doorway. Elias wasn’t quick enough.
They found him two days later beneath the wreckage, his hand still closed around the letter, the blood and rain running ink on it.
At home in Ohio, Anna opened the envelope weeks later, sealed by the army, postmarked with one word: Deceased.
She read his letter beside the window, where the tears dripped upon the page. Apple blossoms bloomed outside, but spring was chillier than ever before.
And in the quiet of their empty house, Anna spoke softly,
“I waited.”
No reply came.
