To the Last Man: A Novel of the First World War

by Jeff Shaara

Now he was terrified. As he stepped out into the open air and sunshine he realized he was one small piece of a vast world controlled from behind those very walls. He felt ridiculous thinking he was ever in command of anything. Even his new assignment, the name that still meant nothing to him, JG-1, was simply a speck on a map, a minuscule part of a vast show of power. And for a brief few minutes, he had been in the presence of the man who controlled it all. He had dared to believe that he was indeed a hero, and despite his grumbling to the others at the aerodrome, he had growing accustomed to the photographers. It was a foolish exercise in self-indulgence, and he scolded himself for it now. You are merely a tool, a weapon, an extension of the machine guns on your plane. Your red plane. A good commander knows how to make the best use of his resources. So they have made the best use of you. You are not merely a pilot who kills the enemy, you are a weapon to inspire the people as well. Your memoirs will be a candle in the darkness, distracting the people from what is really happening in this war. He could not avoid his father’s words, a victorious army does not retreat, thought now of Ludendorff’s elaborate description of the withdrawal, strategic retrenchment. Is Ludendorff right, is victory within our grasp? Or

Temple walked out a few steps farther, saw men in gray doing the same. He wasn’t curious, didn’t want to speak to them, didn’t want to know them at all. He turned, looked along the edge of the bluff, saw dozens of men standing as he was, numb, silent. He knew what they shared, that they were the veterans, the men who had seen too much of the horror, who could not just set aside all they had seen and all they had lost. They did not cheer, could not yet feel the joy, could not yet share in any celebration. They carried wounds in some deep place, wounds that might never heal. Like so many nightmares on so many fields, this was just another dream, unreal, a cruel joke. Temple still pointed the bayonet, stared now at the men in gray, the men he was destined to kill, the faceless enemy who had taken so much from him. The cheering behind him became a faint echo now, and he thought, How can this be true? How can this just … end? He felt the taut spring in his mind slowly loosening, the hate and the horror and the images of so much death starting to move inside him. He looked to the side, saw some of the Marines dropping to their knees, and Temple felt it now, the utter exhaustion, was kneeling as well, the rifle falling from his hands, so many nightmares, so much sadness, the numbness starting to wear away. In the soft silence, he lowered his head, and began to cry.

The war ended on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918. It had meant nothing, solved nothing and proved nothing. —LEON WOLFF, historian