Page 8 of No Man’s Territory

“Oui. Bien,” Alistair replied.

The artillery exchange, such as it was, did not escalate. One distant crack, and then silence returned. The war was somewhere else this morning. It was being fought in a place that did not include them, by men who were not them. That realization did not offer comfort. Instead, it heightened the feeling of navigating a world that was both shattered and indifferent.

The path began to narrow. The trees grew stronger as they walked, their branches thickening, their canopies knitting together overhead. Life had endured here, or found its way back, where the battle’s hand had fallen less heavily.

Tomasz's pace slowed as they approached the first of the low branches. The adjustment was necessary. With his height and burden, he was unable to pass through the forest canopy without ducking or crouching down. He had to navigate carefully. He bent slightly, his broad shoulders angling, while stepping in different directions to avoid obstacles on the ground. Alistair could feel every duck, dodge and bounce reverberate through his own body as well.

The light changed as they moved deeper into the shadows of the woodland. What had been gray and weak became filtered, mottled, a diffuse illumination that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere. Alistair's eyes were open, watching the branches above. The forest around them grew thicker. Tomasz navigated with the precision of a man accustomed to moving through tight spaces and difficult terrain. Each step was deliberate. He assessed each branch in their path, and either ducked beneath it or, when possible, avoided it entirely.

They walked further into the forest, and Alistair allowed his eyes to close again. The darkness here was almost peaceful. The sound of birdsong replaced the sound of distant ordnance. The air smelled of growth and decay and the green scent of a landscape that was not actively burning. Behind him, Tomasz's heartbeat continued its steady rhythm. Around them, the forest held them, sheltered them, carried them forward into whatever the day had left.

Then, he saw the tree. It was massive, an oak of such proportions that it seemed to have rooted itself in a different epoch. The canopy was so thick, a man would need several minutes to walk around it. The branches were enormous and ancient, spreading out like the arms of something crucified. And hanging from those branches, as if the tree itself had calmly accepted the burden and waited, were the bodies.

At first, Alistair's mind refused the information. The shapes suspended from the thick branches were context-free, abstract. They were entities that registered visually but held no narrative meaning. It was the boots that provided translation. German boots, the leather still holding its shape, the heels worn, swinging slightly in the breeze that moved through the canopy. Above the boots, the rest became unavoidable.

There were two. No, three. The third was harder to see, tucked back on the branch. The way the rope wrapped around its neck made it hang at an odd angle. It looked like its neck snapped after death. The uniforms were German, their field gray still visible despite the conditions. The buttons had a dull shine, and Alistair saw the shoulder boards. Those insignia would have indicated rank to someone who knew.

The faces were another story. The war marred them. The crows feasted on them. Exposure had done its damage. What was left were mere suggestions of faces. The skulls were exposed where flesh had been eaten away and empty eye sockets stared out, holding a kind of horrible infinity.

The smell hit Alistair even before they reached the tree. It was a smell of decay but not a fresh one. This was something that had been happening for several days, even longer. It was the scent of rotting tissue and dried-up fluids. They had hardened, a clear sign of the earth attempting to push away what lingered above. The smell was sweet, rotten, and chemical. It coated Alistair's throat, filled his sinuses, and seeped into his mind in a way that visual horror could not.

Tomasz quickened his pace. The realization surrounded Alistair with an almost tangible grip. They were approaching the tree. The branches were becoming obstacles that required ducking, that required navigation. Tomasz continued forward, his stride unaltered, his breathing unchanged.

The massive boots of the hanging bodies were now at his eye level. The soles were worn and caked with mud. The leather was cracking with age. One body lost a boot, or maybe it had been taken. The bare foot left behind was something Alistair did not want to examine closely, but he did anyway. The stocking had been dark blue wool, and it was beginning to disintegrate. The foot itself was skeletal, desiccated, the flesh long since consumed.

The crows took off as they passed beneath. The birds circled, disturbed by the two men invading their space, their feeding ground, their home. One crow, larger than the rest, stayed on a branch near the closest body. It watched them with intense scrutiny, its bright eye seeming to express offense.

Alistair's eyes fixed themselves on the hanging figures as they moved past. He was unable to look away, even if he tried. The specific horror of the scene demanded witnessing. The fabric of the uniforms, the specific arrangement of the bodies, the way that rope had been looped and tied. It was a knot Alistair recognized from his military training. It was designed to hold tightly and prevent any movement once secured. Someone had taken time with this. Someone had been deliberate. Someone decided not merely that these men would die, but how they would die, and executed that decision with attention to detail.

They were almost past when the words emerged from Alistair's throat.

"What did they do to deserve this?"

The question was barely audible. It came out as something between a whisper and a gasp. He was not entirely certain he wanted an answer. The moral inquiry contained within was one that Alistair himself was unable to resolve. Did these soldiers deserve to hang? Did all enemy soldiers? Did anyone? The question was unanswerable and yet asking it seemed necessary. It was the only response that a human being could make in the face of such deliberate, organized, methodical cruelty.

Tomasz did not respond. His pace stayed the same. His breathing did not change. But his massive arms, cradling Alistair's small body, tightened slightly. It was a small compression, barely noticeable, but it was a response that acknowledged the question’s darkness. Through muscle, tendon, and bone, Tomasz showed he understood, and that understanding was all he was able to offer.

The great oak receded behind them as Tomasz continued forward. The forest began to thin slightly, the density of the canopy decreasing, allowing more light to filter through. Alistair's eyes stayed open, but his mind started to process what he had seen. He filed it away with all the other bloodcurdling images of this war. The three hanged soldiers became another addition to the constant barrage of death, another data point in the accumulated suffering of the region. And yet it felt distinct. The specificity of their execution, the deliberation with which they had been killed, the way the crows had claimed their faces. It stuck in Alistair’s mind in a way that many of the other deaths had not.

***

THE NEXT FIELD OPENED before them like a morning yawn. Alistair's first impression, as Tomasz positioned him against the rough bark of a tree root, was one of profound density. Another battlefield, but the bodies here were not isolated. They had been here longer, out in the open and more exposed to the elements. They were layered, overlapping, accumulated in a way that revealed this piece of ground changed hands more than once. Men fell here in sufficient numbers to constitute their own kind of terrain.

They were half-buried, their uniforms indistinguishable in places from the mud that received them, caked with earth and with darker material that might have been blood or might have been rust. Their faces had been worked on by weather, birds, and time. But the buttons, the belt buckles and the small metal insignia of rank and unit stood out, bright against the dull ground, as if metal and flesh had struck different arrangements with the sunlight.

Tomasz assessed the field with the eye of a man engaged in a calculation. He moved carefully through the field. He walked over bodies with care. He viewed them not just as obstacles, but as entities worthy of some respect, even while using them. Alistair watched from his position against the tree. The sling held his body in place, stretching his splinted legs before him like the legs of a broken doll. The larger man knelt beside the first of several bodies, his enormous hands moving with intention. He was searching. For what, Alistair could not initially determine. Then he understood: Tomasz was looking for items that were of use, things that might sustain them and would aid in the work of survival.

Three or four corpses gave up their belts and the contents of their pockets. Tomasz replaced the photos and the letters but kept the useful bits: matches, twine, a penknife and a small first aid kit. He moved through the field with a steady focus. He understood the dead could support the living if the right questions were asked.

When Tomasz retrieved a small tin, clearly marked with what had once been a label, Alistair understood the scope of what was being done. Food. Or more likely, tea. Dried tea, sealed in tin, the kind of thing that might be boiled into water and provide warmth and some small measure of comfort. The tin came from a body still in a uniform that looked English. However, the insignia was too worn to read clearly. Tomasz tested the seal, seemed satisfied that it was intact, and added it to his collection.

"I could use a cigarette if you find some!" Alistair tried to call out, his voice thin and strained. It was meant to be a dark bit of humor. The attempt landed between his intention and Tomasz's incomprehension of English. Tomasz did not pause. He kept working, shifting from one body to the next, his huge hands moving deftly. He returned after thirty minutes, his arms full of materials.

In the meantime, Alistair closed his eyes and dozed off for a while. When he opened them, the big man crouched down on one knee and looked at him, with his hand bunched into a fist. At first, the officer startled, having forgotten where he was, his entire field of vision occupied by a giant in a foreign uniform moving towards him.

Tomasz slowly uncurled his fingers to reveal a peculiar item. A string of wooden beads uncoiled from his palm and dangled down towards Alistair.

“Pour toi. Ils portent chance.”