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Summary
The old Sander Driesen could not imagine war. He could not imagine death. He could not imagine this fight lasting longer than a few months, even as the Germans overwhelmed them, even as he loaded a gun with inexperienced, fumbling hands, even as he shot it over and over again, even as he watched men die around him and his city go up in flames. He could not imagine what would come as he walked through rain and mud with the remains of his division west to the IJzer. He could not imagine what would come even after that first true battle, sunk down in trenches for two weeks straight, peppered by machine gun fire and shrapnel, awake for days at a time and walking over, sitting on, tripping over, shitting on corpses–even then. Even then. The mind cannot wrap itself around such horrors. Sometimes, instead, it simply breaks apart.