Letters From The Carcass Front, a story inspired by the world of Trench Crusade
Camp Ignatius, Madrid
September 20th, 1914
My beloved Alba,
I am sorry we did not get to say goodbye. The acolytes came for me a day before my conscription notice said they would. I tried to explain that I still had matters to attend to but I barely had time to hug my mother before the blessing was given and I was moved to the street where the other conscripts stood in line. I remember my mother was crying as she watched the procession march down to the station. There were a few dozen of us. Teodoro and Rosa were there too, all of us drawn for service at age sixteen. The crowd that had gathered at the station was as large as All Saints Day, they had come to watch us, the sons and daughters of Benavente be taken for the tithe.
“Did you know that the Type-333 locomotive is made in the Free States of Prussia,” Rosa asked. Theodoro and I shook our heads no before bracing ourselves for another long lecture about the history of the Antioch industrial revolution.
I’m sure you remember how she can get when you get her started on something like that. Do you figure her father taught that? Before he went to the Lord he was an engineer if I recall correctly.
It wasn’t more than an hour before we saw her walls. Oh Alba, I wish you could have seen them. They were larger than anything I have ever seen. The walls of Madrid must have gone up for nearly fifty meters, the color of sand they were, all draped in the coat of the city and emblems of our Lord. The train slowed as we passed through a gate, standing in front were soldiers in their fine grey coats, I wondered if I would join them soon in guarding the jewel of Hispania.
When the train finally stopped inside the walls it was hard to see much else than the station full of other conscripts from other villages. The doors on the train car slid open and a man in dress uniform shouted for us to stand, so we did. His tone was so unlike that of the Padre, all bite and authority. With a baton he waved us out the door in a line, and as I stepped out I saw many other conscripts filling out of the trains. He led us forward to an assembly area in front of a podium that stood high up above us. The soldier barked for us to stand in a line in the middle of a crowd of what must have been hundreds. I stood as still as I could, I watched other soldiers with batons prowl the lines. When someone would turn to the fellow next to him to talk or look around, a quick swing to the stomach set them back in place. Through the corners of my eyes I peered out at Madrid. It was a sprawling place. Full of buildings made from the same stone as the walls, and newer ones of steel. Cables seemed to run above and around everything, carrying electricity all across the city. On top of each building were antennas that stretched out at odd angles, like veins across the sky which was ever so grey inside the city.
It felt like we were standing for a very long time when a man stepped up to the podium. He looked important, covered in medals and gold tassels that hung from his green uniform. He stared out at us before he spoke.
“Madrid welcomes you, aspirants.” His voice boomed from his loudspeakers, it rumbled with deep authority in a tone of broken glass and crushed stone. He continued, “You are now warriors of His army. The bulwark against the Adversary’s evil. We will train you not just to survive what terror our enemies bring, but to cleave their corruption from the world.” He was screaming now, one hand on the podium with the other in a fist. “It is with you, aspirants, that we shall free His earth from the touch of malefic influence.” Without stopping he said a prayer over us and walked away to raucous applause. I learned later that his name was Cardinal Montez.
After the Cardinal was through we were broken apart into separate lines and I lost track of Rosa. She would be training in the women's regiment I was later told when I found her later that week. We were made to walk, each led by a soldier to rows of canvas tents. In front was the man that was to make us ready for the front, Sergeant Ortiz. He was a tall man, at least a head taller than the ten of us assigned to him. He did not speak unless to shout orders and admonishment. He reminded me of Sister Valentina with that scowl she always wore with eyes that were always sharp. Just like her, his tongue was no more dull.
When we stopped in front of him he spent a moment walking up and down the line as if to inspect our worth like he was at the butchers.
He shouted “Forward,” to demand our entrance into the tent. Inside there were ten mats laid out on the floor for ten men, and on each a set of tan fatigues we were to wear at all times. They fit poorly on us, too short for some and too tall for others. Theodoro asked first about shoes, which earned him a strike to his side. Ortiz said we would receive them when he felt we had earned them.
I fear this training may disrupt my ability to write to you often, right now I am jotting these thoughts down during our evening meal. I pray to our Lord that He may, in His mercy, allow me to write to you again soon just as I pray that I will see your face once more.
With my undying love,
Alfonso Olavide y Albarca
Camp Ignatius, Madrid
September 28th, 1914
My Dearest Alba,
Thank you so much for the photo you sent in your last letter. I look at it as much as I can and I hope to return it to you soon.
As for me, I have discovered that life in training can be simple, if not grueling.
“Awaken, scum!” Ortiz shouts every morning as he throws the tent flap open and makes a march down the line of cots. The last man out of bed is sure to get a strike from Ortiz's baton, as I learned the first morning of training.
Before any of us could be truly awake we would begin our run, regardless if we had time to get fully dressed or not. We would run past the seemingly endless rows of tents to the camp fence before beginning our lap.
The running would stop after the sun rose over the walls, next would be combat drilling, which frightened me to death. The sound of gunfire and how it rumbles in my chest never fails to steal my breath away.
The first time we were brought to the range Ortiz walked in front of us with a rifle in hand. “This, scum, is a bolt action rifle produced by our mighty factories. It is designed to kill, just as you were.” Ortiz said in his most powerful voice. “You will learn to shoot this rifle, to care for it, to live by it. It will be your only tool for survival in the heretic lands,” he continued before shoving into Theodoro’s arms.
Each soldier was issued one to carry at all times. Mine felt so heavy and cold when it rattled into my hand. As I looked at it I felt sick.
Every day we would learn to shoot rifles till our shoulders were blue with bruises and our ears rang. We would be instructed on the use of bayonets, grenades, first aid, and infantry tactics until midday.
Lunch would be sparse, just broth and a quarter of bread most days except for Sunday, on which we would be given thin slices of pork. It was also the only time during the day I could talk to Theodoro. Which is why it was imperative to eat quickly as Sergeant Ortiz enjoyed calling lunch early.
One day shortly after arriving at the camp, Theodoro asked me something. I was almost done eating when he looked around before cautiously whispering, “What do you think the heretics are like?”
I looked at him before I too checked no one was listening. I shrugged, “Don’t you remember what the Padre said? The heretics are evil.”
“But why are we still at war with them?”
I wasn’t sure what to say, but it must be for a good reason. Do you remember what they did to Gibraltar before we were born? The Padre said that they razed the whole city. Just as I was about to respond Ortiz slammed his baton on the table and commanded us all to our feet. I hoped he hadn’t heard us.
Ortiz seemed to be staring us down as he marched our squad outside to a spot of sand near the motor pool. It was time for his favorite training method as I was about to learn. He ordered us to form a circle before calling Theodoro and I into the center.
“Fight,” the sergeant said as he walked back into the ring of recruits.
Theodoro and I looked confused but after a second shout we raised our fists and approached each other. Theodoro stood tall above me waiting for me to swing first. I gave a jab to his stomach, he flinched and stepped back. Then at the jeers and cries of our squad he swung hard, his fist connecting to my temple. I felt my head swinging down and collapsing into the dirt where I awoke moments later. When I opened my eyes the first thing I saw was Theodoro’s hand outstretched to help me up. Unsatisfied with the show, Ortiz commanded each other pair of soldiers in the squad to fight. By the end we were all bruised and sore.
That night we were seen by the new recruits of the war nuns of the Order Hospitelier.
In strange habits adorned with armor plates they made nightly processions through the barracks aiding anyone in need of treatment, and on that night two novitiates with their Sargent Superior entered our tent. Even under the habit I recognized as she carried a white box filled with various medical trinkets. The nuns were hushed as they worked, even Rosa did not speak despite our attempts. I was later told they take oaths of silence during their initiation to the order.
Perhaps once our training is complete I may get a chance to ask her how she has been. I do hope she is writing to you as well, I know how close you two became after the death of your mother. As always I will write again soon.
With much love and longing,
Alfonso Olavide y Albarca
Somewhere near the Carcass Front, Turkiy
November 25, 1914
My most loved and cherished Alba,
I would begin this letter with an apology. I know it has been many weeks since last you heard from me, this can be blamed on fate and Sargent Ortiz. He took ire in my writings of training. When he discovered my writing he dragged me from the mess hall and threw me to the ground demanding that I explain why I was so intent on revealing our secrets to the Archenemy. He ranted and raved about my treachery as I tried to explain that I was simply writing to you. It took the showing of your photo to cease the strikes from his baton.
He held it in his palm and shoved it in his pocket before he said, “Do not write about this camp again Pvt. Olavide.” I did not understand his anger but I obeyed, not wanting to feel the wrath of his baton once more for this perceived disobedience.
The next several weeks seemed to flash by. Every day was the same: wake up, run, train, eat, train more, pray, eat once more, then finally sleep.
On the final day Ortiz awoke us with his usual tone, but was accompanied by several aides which laid out fresh uniforms. As we got dressed I noticed that these came with new insignia. On one shoulder the coat of Madrid sat and on the other the marking of a private, a single black chevron. We marched along with the other training groups back to the pavilion in front of the large podium, atop it waited Cardinal Montez looking satisfied. As the neat lines gathered, no one talked to the man next to him or looked out at the city.
When the pavilion was full, the Cardinal spoke. “Aspirants,” he began, his tone strong and rehearsed. “Those among you, through faith and dedication have earned the title of soldier. You, the warriors of Hispania have shown us that you are ready for what awaits you beyond His holy lands. You are ready not only to survive, but to succeed where generations before you have failed. For eight hundred years we have fought His enemies to a standstill, but no longer will we accept their stain on His creation.” Cardinal Montez began the shaking of his fist just as he did before, his inflection and hands unchanging from his previous performance. “Our Lord has seen fit to give you the power to protect yourselves, your families, and all which He has made for us. Go now, soldiers of Madrid to where the fallen angel’s corruption has spread. Reclaim the Levant, and prove yourselves worthy of His redemption.” As he ended he raised a saber out towards us as we chanted litanies of victory.
When Cardinal Montez walked away the officers led us back to the train station from which we arrived. I had asked Sergeant Ortiz where we would be going. I thought for a moment he might strike me, but he just stared at me, in an almost pitying way.
As I write this Alba, the train has been rolling east for several hours now as I arrive at my last sheet of paper. I must admit to you my dear that I am afraid, more now than I have ever been. An hour ago, Theodoro and I overheard two officers we had not met before talking. I did not hear much of their conversation as they walked past us to the officers section but what I did hear was “the Carcass Front”. If that is where we are heading then I fear for my life. I know you must have seen the news Alba, one hundred thousand dead in just a year was reported the last I heard. Theodoro assured me that I am just worrying too much, and that they wouldn’t send us somewhere like that. I hope he is right.
I will send this letter as soon as I can, and more soon after if my post allows. Do check on my mother for me, and read her this letter when you receive it.
With love,
Alfonso Olavide y Albarca
Payas, Turkiy
November 24st, 1914
We were wrong Alba,
I write you this letter because it may be my last, and I wish you to know of my fate. I fear nothing more than you to be held in anguish for months awaiting the arrival of a crucifix in my name. As I write, I sit in the corner of an aid station a mile from the front. I do not know how much time I have left or what will happen to me, but I will try to explain what has happened.
Nearly three days we spent on that train as it rattled through cities, villages, and wasteland as we got closer to the front. The seats were cramped but food and alcohol were abundant, so the time seemed to drift by as the days passed. Most of us were just happy to be off our blistered feet for the first time in two months. On the morning of the third day all I saw outside the train was grey skies and fields of craters for as long as the horizon stretched. It was like the papers say, no man's land.
When the train stopped it was not nearly as ceremonious as Madrid, just a concrete station among the wastes. We slowly made our way out of the train, I was shocked by just how cold it was there. It’s a kind of cold that clings to your bones and bites at your soul, it’s unnatural. Our training group was met by a line of soldiers that waited on the platform who began dividing the groups that poured from the train among them into platoons. The soldier that instructed us to follow him was named Lieutenant Kelly. His skin was pale and scared, his uniform muddy full of patchwork. Atop his head was a buzzed shock of orange hair that seemed correct for a patch on his shoulder belonging to the clans of Eire. He brought us a few steps away from the station to take us in, he introduced himself and asked our names. He looked us over with tired green eyes before leading us to the quartermaster.
Each soldier was given: a belt bag, bolt action rifle, thirty rounds of ammunition, helmet, chestplate, a day's ration of food and water, respirator, a bayonet in sheathe, and a pressed metal pendant of St. Sebastian. Everything given to us was old and well used. Much to my shock as I inspected the helmet I found a hole right in the back of it. It all felt tremendously heavy and yet seemed light compared to what we were told the average combat load would be. Lt. Kelly instructed us to load our weapons now, before we made the journey to the front.Just south of the station was the path forward. As we began the three and a half mile march to the front, Lt. Kelly explained to us the situation ahead of us.
For the last month fighting had been deadlocked around the town of Payas. With neither side able to make progress, forces dug in at the outskirts. Several attempts have been made to take sections of the town, but they were always pushed back by the forces of the Adversary. The cardinal heading this section of the front requisitioned a larger force to take Payas once and for all, which brought the conversation back to us.
While he explained and we walked I heard cannon fire from far away, even at this distance however I could feel them in my chest. The vibrations left me with a feeling of unease. Even now I still hear them, they don’t seem to ever stop.
At about a mile from the front I saw them for the first time, the trenches. From the hill we stood on they looked like the innards of a termite hill. Lines that cut north, south, east, and west all across the valley. Just beyond was the town of Payas, if it could even be called that now. Battle had left it little more than foundations, crumbling walls, and few still standing bunkers in the middle of a valley.
The trenches were a terrible place. Barely wider than a man’s shoulders and not deep enough to walk without crouching low, which Lt. Kelly demanded we do at all times. He said snipers watch the edges of the trenches for any targets they can take. The walls of the trench were a strange thing, sometimes they would be raw earth, then wood, or concrete. I realized we must have been moving through generations of trenches, some old and some new. Beyond the appearance, it was a labyrinth. Turns jutted out suddenly and twisted back to the main path at random at times. Lt. Kelly seemed unfazed by this however, he navigated the trenches like he had always known them. Sometimes the trench walls would open into foxholes where soldiers sat quietly or slept, and sometimes the trenches widened into firesteps or command stations. One feature that remained across the system was the several inches of dark water around my feet. It was looser than mud, and gave the trench a smell that I truly cannot describe.
Walking through the trench crouched like we were takes time, and after nearly half an hour we arrived at our station. It was a widened section of about two meters in width a row behind the forward line. Lt. Kelly said it was where we would wait until tomorrow morning when we would push forward into Payas. Until then, he told us to wait while he spoke to his captain somewhere down the line.
The platoon just stared at each other, despite the fact that I had spent nearly every day of the last two months with these men, I had nothing to say that could begin to explain how I felt. I sat down on an old firestep and felt the weight of the rifle in my hands. The others followed my lead and the closest thing to a comfortable position as we waited. Eventually some of us began to talk quietly amongst ourselves in pairs. Theodoro and I occupied ourselves by keeping track of the patches on the soldiers who walked past us: Eire, Prussia, Abyssinia, even England seemed to have regiments along the front. We had never seen so many different people in one place. It reminded me of that summer those monks from Targoviste stayed in the monastery near your house Alba, how we would go and speak to them just to hear how they talk. I wish I could go back to that summer when we were just thirteen and the war was just something the padre collected alms for.
Later in the day Lt. Kelly rejoined us and took a seat near me. He informed us that we would be in the second charge into Payas. He said it wouldn’t be much trouble as long as the first wave does their job, which he was sure they would. “The boys from Eire make the best shocktroops you could ask for,” is how he put it. He spent the rest of the afternoon showing us a map of the town with notes for where we were meant to go. Lt. Kelly assured us that if we just stuck with him and kept our heads down, we would make it out fine.
I am not sure how but I must have managed to fall asleep in the trench because I was awoken by the sound of screams and gunfire. My eyes shot open and all I saw in the dim night was my platoon getting to their feet. I followed as someone up the line shouted that they were attacking.
Lt. Kelly pushed to the front of the platoon, gun already up before I had even mounted my bayonet. He led us forward as I followed at the back of the line. My heart was pounding but I tried to tell myself that this was just like the drills we had done and that I just needed to breathe. Our platoon twisted through the trenches faster and faster as Lt. Kelly began to run to the forward line. I fell behind, my eyes still bleary from sleep. Just ahead of me I heard more gunfire, shouting, cursing, and the clinking of metal against metal. The platoon had rounded a corner ahead of me to the forward line but just before I could make the turn myself I heard a scream unlike any I had before and the rapid fire of guns all cut short one after another. It was so loud and raw that it made me stop dead in my tracks. I cursed myself for being such a coward and forced myself beyond the corner with my gun raised.
By the soft red light of a brazier I saw the forward line. Bodies were strewn across the floor and walls. I met eyes with Lt. Kelly, dead in the mud with his head still facing towards me. In the center of the widened trench, only four meters away was Theodoro held by his neck in the air by something far too tall to be human. Even hunched over as it was, the thing was at least two meters tall. Its body looked like a man’s stretched beyond its limits, with limbs that nearly reached the ground. Its skin was covered in a dark plate that curved at angles that made it look more like a shark than a man. With one arm it held up a still struggling Theodoro, the dark pits on its steel mask seemed to watch him with glee. As its mouth opened far too wide to reveal lines of needle teeth, it moved his neck closer to that gnashing maw. That’s when I shot.
I didn’t even realize I had pulled the trigger until I saw its gaze shift to me. It threw my dearest friend into the wall of the trench with a crack before it lunged at me. I did not even have the time to pull the bolt of my rifle back for another shot before it reached me, it seemed to move faster than my eyes could track. When it got to me, I heard it before I saw or felt what it did. It jumped belly first onto my bayonet and made a terrible sound as it screamed in pain. Before I could realize what had just happened however I could feel a long cold hand wrap around my left arm. All it took was a pull and a sickening tear for it to begin its work. Somewhere nearby I heard shouting and gunshots. Through my fading vision I could see rounds hit the thing as I fell to the ground with it. The last thing I felt was human hands pulling me away.
When I awoke, all I saw was white. I thought perhaps I must have been in heaven before I realized it was just the fabric of a medical tent. As I tried to push myself up I found that I couldn’t feel my left arm, and upon looking down it was clear why. My arm was gone past the shoulder, what was left was wrapped in bloodsoaked bandages.
Nurses come frequently to give me injections of what I assume to be a sedative, so I write this with borrowed paper as it is becoming harder to focus. I am not sure what will happen to me now Alba, and I am scared. If God is merciful I pray I am able to return home to you. For now though, I hope this letter can bring you comfort.
Pray for me, my love.
Alfonso Olavide y Albarca