Title: Virtute et Armis
Author: unwinding fantasy (formerly Aqua Phoenix1)
Disclaimer: The Great Gatsby belongs to F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Rating: K+ (rated for violence.)
Author's Note: Slightly AU. Soldier!Gatsby abounds.
I know this place reeks of rotting flesh, a fetid feast for the maggots that appear to be all that flourish here. I know the charred meat and spilled innards should make me blanch, retch until my stomach vacates my body entirely. Staring down at the poor greying face of my comrade, I know with all certainty that he'd forgive my apathy. Until a moment ago, he too had been stuck in this field of burning asphodel, the timeless monotony of survival biting into our souls with worn teeth.
"He was a good man," the soldier beside me -- his name is lost in this sea of sorrow -- says. I bob my head in agreement, though I know he won't see. A wall of bleak dirt looming around us commands our attention. Bland as his comment would be at any other time, it is a beautiful epitaph in this dying land.
"Just another life sacrificed," I mutter with feeling.
"In the hopes of saving many," my companion points out, somewhat defensive.
"I doubt they'd think of it that way," I push the body away with one foot and stretch my legs out a little further, my callous actions at war with my sympathetic words. Unkind as the thought may be, any extra room is welcome. I frown at how this conflict has smothered my normally optimistic attitude, burying it beneath blankets of pragmatism.
The soldier snorts contemptuously, "Come now, of course they were fighting for something worthwhile."
It's as if he's floundering for the justification that careless politicians cling to, the one that lets them continuously command, "Forward, march!" I understand his hopelessness, have felt it myself throughout long days where sleep is stolen by the whistle and bang of artillery rounds.
I was skeptical as to whether people pondered the political ramifications in the midst of pulling a trigger.
Shuffling further away from the newest corpse, I tilt my head to regard the breathing one boxed in this trench with me. A face matted with grime, grey-blue eyes set off by a prominent nose -- one that looked as if it had been broken several times -- and hair so ingrained with the filth of war that I couldn't distinguish its colour. I privately laugh to think how ridiculous this man is, spouting honourable claptrap as he dangles at the precipice's extremities.
He catches my glance, deciphering my thoughts, and throws it back at me, saying, "The outside is unimportant, old sport. What matters is in here," he taps at his chest. The sound is muffled by his uniform, hollow-like, but his words remain in my ears. I realise I've been mistaken in my judgement of him, and as beaten as these battles have left me, I can't help but agree with this last sentiment. No matter what the indulgent presidents rolling their Cuban cigars between too-perfect teeth demand you feel, the true conviction to live is formed by something genuinely deeper. Night sees me lying folded in this hole, alone. It is then that I know with unavoidable dread that if the enemy doesn't gun me down first, the oppressive blackness of night will destroy me just as absolutely, devouring me with its infinite dark. My steady heart's secret recollections are all that give me the capacity to gaze skyward, to seek out the brilliance of the moon and her stars. Blazing cold fire, they shine in resonance with my will to carry on, reminding me that somewhere meadows of green await me. It is with gratitude to my heart that come morning, when the sun's rays crack the everlasting darkness, I pick up my rifle and walk on.
"I suppose you're right," I settle on, unwilling to share these thoughts. If I do, my dream might die. War revels in that kind of cruelty.
He smiles at my reticence. "Best to keep those desires locked inside," he nods, "otherwise they might slip away. It's for that reason I decided not to bring photographs. Seems the moment you show someone a picture of a loved one… You know how it is, old sport."
I thought about this "old sport" of his, how the familiarity of it was nothing short of absurd on the battlefield. Despite his dishevelled appearance he looked the type whose days consisted of pink suits and polo matches, of delivering flamboyant compliments and dancing the foxtrot. A gentleman. I tried to imagine myself uttering that phrase, but I couldn't. Only the incongruously wealthy, those who, taken by some wild fancy, planted pennies in their grand gardens and returned days later to see if a money tree had sprouted -- only those kind of eccentric richlings had permission to dub someone "old sport." Thinking of this world of moonbeams and stardust where a crowd would form then dissipate in a flurry of colour, like startled butterflies, I can almost recapture the intoxicating wonderment such old money can purchase.
I was anything but rich.
"I wonder if he let them escape," my eyes indicate the dead man.
For a second, the man considers the corpse and myself, an odd couple if one ever existed. Only a second. He's quick to amend, "Let them escape? More likely they were ripped free of his grasp," and here, he turns those grey-blue eyes on me, grave as a stormy sea. "Don't ever stop holding on," he implores me.
I think of the woman I left behind. The sheer intensity of this man's gaze would have forced me to crawl from Hell's belly to see her again, dragging screaming demons and scorching brimstone all the way.
That was, if an eternity ago I hadn't resolved to do so already.
"Never," I pledge, a vehement whisper that somehow overrides the gunfire that has started up again. Her golden features are vivid in my mind's unforgetting eye.
Again he nods, pleased, before his satisfaction is interrupted by the order to cross no man's land. Our sergeant's bellow cuts through the clamour, commanding us to walk the line between Earth and the Otherworld again. The soldier's eyes lock with mine, the unspoken acknowledgment of, "Thank-you for being with me." There was something endearing in his naïve conviction that the human race was genuinely good. I wonder if it's replicable.
Fixing what I hope is an encouraging smile on my face, I say, "Make sure you're holding on tight."
Knuckles determinedly white against his rifle, he replies, "You too, Jay."
End Notes:
- Surprised? Maybe in Gatsby's darkest hour this anonymous soldier is the one from whom he drew inspiration for that loveably awful pink suit and the "old sport" thing. As for Gatsby's view on politics, I can't imagine he'd be happy with the people that separated him from Daisy. …In any case, I quite like the image of Soldier!Gatsby…
- Title translates as, "By Virtue and Arms."
- Here's hoping the gods of literature don't smote me for dabbling in this category.