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Fingers tracing against the cooling stone, Grantaire realises the irony of the situation. The dawn sky is lightening, and he supposes that he should see some wonder in it, that he should see the beauty of his last sunrise. (This world and its freedoms are ours to savour and to save my friends, are you with me?) But, because he is a cynic, Grantaire turns away from the small barred window and continues to trace the indentations on the stonework.
Scratching’s of names, or dates of those who had been in this position before him.
Of those who had been caught.
Grantaire hadn’t intended to desert. It is the bitterest part of his punishment, while the thought had crossed his mind as he watched his friends stand and shoot and cry and bleed, he had never considered committing to the action. He knew his place, and his place was to remain in the dirt, and the blood and the filth of the living.
And then at the end of a ten hour patrol, spent watching the flickering lights across no-man’s-land and wondering what poor bastard was doing his job with a different uniform on, he’d- in his broken English, learnt in hurried exchanges with his fellow comrades- found that a couple of the English lads from the trench over were desperate for some cigarettes, and that they had something worth trading for. The packet in his pocket had remained unsmoked throughout his patrol, (never do that again Grantaire, never light up a match on patrol, it’ll be the last thing you do out here, and I won’t have you dying out of stupidity) and he’d expected beer.
It had been opium, branded, packaged and neat, complete with needles. They’d smiled at him, no malice in their eyes and called him a soppy French bastard. Grantaire had laughed back with them, there was no need to make enemies in their situation, and they’d been grateful for their cigarettes, unravelling them for the tobacco within as Grantaire had walked away through the mud. Suddenly shaking fingers had picked at the sleeve of his ill-fitting uniform and had applied the needle to the crook of his arm.
And then he’d walked. Remembering Paris and ignoring the mud on his boots and the blood on his hands. He’d walked through Paris in the night and watched as the stars overhead had guided him home. The strangers passing him, full of wine and good living had let him be, and he’d walked. As though if he walked far enough and quickly enough that he’d get back to the Musian. Somewhere deep down he realises that he must have known what he was doing, to have got as far as he had, that he must have taken precautions. But looking back on it, all Grantaire can remember is Paris, and how just around the corner would be their café, if only he could get there.
He doesn’t remember being caught.
The cell is cold, even in the dawn light, and Grantaire can remember the pressure of hands on his upper arms, tossing him into the cell, having been found guilty in his absence. It was still the same night that Grantaire had imagined over Paris. The same moon had shone over Grantaire as it had over the Musian. His uniform had been freezing, although the tremors could not wholly be placed at the feet of cold, terror too ran through Grantaire’s veins.
Grantaire had known hopeless causes since he had first identified himself to be one, and he knew that the end came with the rising of the sun.
One of the guards, standing proud and looking so small in his uniform, had- when walking past Grantaire’s door in the depth of the night- pulled out a flask and offered it to Grantaire. It was whiskey, he’d said, to ease the pain of the following morning; it’s yours if you want it.
Jehan had told them stories. When they’d been off patrol at the same time, scoffing down the least inedible food they could, or before trying to catch a few hours’ sleep between the shelling, he’d tell them stories. Jehan’s stories weren’t always pleasant, but like anything that a poet touched they had the capacity to be beautiful and tragic all at once. When the proffered flask was tucked between the narrows bars of the small grating in the door Grantaire thinks of the story that Jehan had told when cleaning his rifle, greasy cloth between his teeth as he’d dissembled his weapon with deft fingers. He thinks of how Jehan had been called away to the firing squad, to make up the death platoon. Jehan had described the man that had been dragged to his death as haggard, as though he was little more than a drunkard off the street. The condemned man, although Jehan swears he was little more than a boy, had had to be held up until he’d been tied to the post and shot. Jehan had sworn that it was his bullet that ended him, that he could trace the trajectory of the bullet from his gun to the small cloth pinned over the drunkard’s heart.
But Jehan is dead now.
As soon will be Grantaire.
And nothing really matters any more anyway.
(How do you not care Grantaire? Sometimes I do not understand your persistence in our friendship when you do not share in any of our passions or ideals.)
So Grantaire remains sober through the night, although he cannot remember the last time that he had voluntarily done so, and traces the engraved names of the condemned with his fingertips until the light is true and a priest is brought to his door.
Grantaire has had no need of God in his life, and can’t imagine that any God would be pleased to hear from an unbeliever at the final hours, and turns the priest away. The priest has the sad smile of one who has seen this before, and for some reason Grantaire pities him.
But then his hands are being bound behind his back, and all of his pity is directed towards himself. He bows his head, aware that the men beside him could be his platoon or the English boys who had traded with him for the cigarettes, he doesn’t want to look at the soldiers pulling him to his death, and from Jehan’s words, he suspects that they don’t want to look at him.
Grantaire knows that he looks like death, but that is only fitting, and he has no need to tend to his appearance right now. He is not a man, nor a soldier in the eyes of those condemning him. He is a deserter. Expect, he’s not. He’s not a detester, not truly, but this war was always going to kill him. (You needn’t worry about it, dying requires effort and that is one thing that you’ve never suffered yourself with) And at least it’ll be quick. He doesn’t want to die, but he doesn’t want to fight. And isn’t that what it has always been about?
He’d expected his eyes to be bound, that is how it had been described by those who had gone before- Jehan had whispered around the oil stained cloth that he thought he could see the drunk, condemned man’s eyes twitching desperately under the tightly bound cloth around his eyes. But Grantaire can see the soldiers who roughly shoved his arms behind him and tied him at the stake- a terrible Joan of Arc, Grantaire, the unfitting martyr- and he watches with his wide, dead, sober eyes as a spill of red fabric is pinned over his heart.
A target.
Over the place that his heart should be.
Grantaire had said before that he had no heart, but he cannot deny its existence now, as it beats to a rhythm of its own in his chest, pounding in his ears and burning everything but fear out of him.
He can hear the sound of marching, and shuts his eyes. He can envision the men before him, woken and told that they were to form a firing squad. Not knowing who it was that they were to shoot, only that their services were needed, and that they would do their duty to France. The urge to open his eyes and look into the faces of those who will bring him death is great, but Grantaire feels too sober to look eye to eye with the messengers of Hades. He wishes that they’d bound his eyes. He wishes that he’d accepted the guardsman’s offer of a drink. He wishes that he hadn’t heard that the English lads wanted cigarettes. He doesn’t wish that he’d not followed his friends blindly into the battlefield.
(You, you would join us willingly, despite everything that you’ve past said on the matter of patriotism and self-preservation?)
He could never wish that.
Although it leads him to the tied at the wrists, -quivering with fear that he hopes could be constituted as cold- tied to a pole waiting for the words that will lead him to being shot by his own army.
Makes you proud to be French.
Words are spoken, but they are not the words that Grantaire is expecting to hear. His body ceases up and the tension floods his shoulders, as though he was baring the weight of the world upon them. He wishes this to be over, there will be no pardon and no reprieve, and even desertion does not deserve this agony. The words that Grantaire hears are the last words that he wishes to receive.
“Private Enjolras, bind his eyes.”
And Grantaire has to open his eyes, he cannot help himself. He has never been able to help himself.
(Grantaire will you stop staring and contribute)
And of course it would be him. Walking with all of the grace of a dancer, even here, eyes pinned on Grantaire’s. It would be Enjolras, called up to do his duty to his country and to be the one to carry out this deed. He can’t have known that it would be Grantaire whose life he was called upon to end once the sun has risen. It would be Enjolras with a slip of cloth in one hand and a rifle in the other. The last time he had seen Enjolras the other man had been sleeping, as peacefully as one could in the dank trenches they have been calling home for far too long, looking just as he had in Paris. The last words he’d exchanged with Enjolras are so basic that he cannot recall them, not even now, when it matters most, it had been concerning ammunition perhaps or the way in which the nights draw in when approaching the winter months, or the rats (it will be an honour to serve our county in her hour of need) His firing squad contains Enjolras- who is standing before him now, rifle slung over his back and with the material waiting to blind him in both hands- Grantaire’s life has been encompassed by him since he’d met him, but poetic justice does nothing for the sinking feeling in his heart.
Enjolras, who espouses loyalty and diligence believes him a traitor, believes him to have deserted and to have fled the battlefield, leaving his friends to die. There isn’t time to explain the truth, the truth that he can’t explain what was done and why it happened, -not even to himself- but that he would always be willing to die for Enjolras’ causes. He imagines that he looks like a child to Enjolras, young and afraid.
Enjolras hands are steady and soft as they brush against his face, and Grantaire realises that this is the last thing that he will ever see.
He is pleased that it is Enjolras’ face.
Although Enjolras’ face is still from its usual passions.
The fire in his eyes is muted, like a candle seconds before being exhausted by a puff of air. Smouldering, as opposed to flaming. Gentle and fierce all at once, and Grantaire wishes for a hundred more lifetimes to try and understand that look.
And then darkness.
Enjolras’ face is burnt into his retinas and he clings to the afterimage as he attempts to swallow away his fears.
He mouths the words that Enjolras doesn’t need said, words that Enjolras must have known- as they are as much a part of Enjolras as they are a part of Grantaire- but if he is to die then he would like to have them given life, just once.
In the darkness Grantaire can feel the coarse rope around his wrists and the wooden post, with splinters digging into his skin. It hardly matters now.
And then Enjolras fingers are pressing into his, only for a fraction of a second, and as Grantaire goes to clench back, to hold Enjolras to him as he is so afraid, he feels them slacken.
“Prisoner secured, sir.”
And then Grantaire can hear steps pressing away from him.
The silence falls.
“Ready, aim-”
(you’ll be fine, you’re sober, just shoot straight, and remember-)
He thinks of the new world that Enjolras called out to them in the back of the Musian. Intermittent between the blood, and the fear and the pain and the dirt he remembers the hope. The battles that had scarred their number and cleaved their friendships had begun out of hope, out of love, and loyalty. He remembers the words which had called Les Amis into their uniforms, and towards their deaths. Thinks of how it had been said that it would not be such a little thing to die for the love of their country. That Patria had called them, and as Frenchmen they would protect her. Thinks of how Enjolras had led and how Grantaire had followed.
“Fire.”
His body slumps, lifeless, pierced by bullets and held up by the tied wrists at his back.
There is the suggestion of something brave in his expression and in the twist of his cooling lips. Under the blindfold his unseeing eyes are open.
(You do surprise me Grantaire, I never truly expected you to sign up with us, perhaps you are good for something after all.)