The frost had settled on the field before dawn.
It silvered the broken fence, the ditch, the leaves pressed flat into the mud.
I remember thinking how quiet it was.
Not peaceful. Just waiting.
Somewhere beyond the ridge, an engine laboured through the cold.
The men beside me spoke in fragments—names, a question, a joke nobody finished.
A bee circled the torn canvas of my sleeve, stubborn as summer, though summer was gone.
Then came the small sounds first.
A clasp drawn tight.
A bolt worked back.
A cough swallowed into a scarf.
We had been told to hold the line until the signal.
So we held it.
We watched the leaves drag themselves along the ground whenever the wind crossed the open field.
We watched the pale strip of sky grow lighter, and tried not to count the minutes.
When the rifles cracked, the sound seemed to come from everywhere at once.
The engine kept turning somewhere in the distance.
Someone called for his brother.
Someone else answered, though I could not tell who.
I have carried that morning a long way.
Not the shouting. Not even the fear.
The cold on my hands.
The little bee, circling, refusing to understand that the season had changed.
