‘Distract me from the pain.’
I oblige. I tell him a story. It’s an old one, well worn on the tongues of the old folk back from where I’m from. But he’s a foreigner and he hasn’t heard it. It’s fresh on his ears and it keeps his focus. It’s like watching a child hear the story for the first time.
He’s got my spear wound in his gut while he listens to this. I don’t know his name, or the name of his family, or even the name of his village. His blood soaks the mud of the battlefield, mixing in the dirty crimson pools with the blood of innumerable others. I hold him and tell him the story.
At some point it is clear he can no longer hear me or see the sky he stares at with vacant eyes. I watch the clouds pass over his pupils. Then I lay him down, pick up the spear I could hardly afford, and march on to fight in another man’s war.
Paddy Dobson
18th March 2022