There was silence, the most elegant silence as the carriage carrying the lone passenger stopped. John carefully stepped out of the vehicle, an old horse drawn wagon with a covered top, and stretched his cramped legs.

 "This is the place, mister”, said the driver, “though why anyone’d would want to…” and he drove off.

 John stared at the carriage till it was lost in a haze of dust. Now that he had reached here, he was wondering what he was doing in a small town like this. He looked around him. To his left was a small weather-beaten building, that stated TRAVELLER’S HAVEN. “Some haven”, he mused. To his right where a few equally ramshackle buildings of indeterminate age and purpose. With growing dismay, he realised that this was all that the town consisted of. A little further on, the town abruptly ended, and what passed for a road degenerated into a mere track, on either side of which were fields of rolling green, undulating in the breeze.

 He resolutely squashed down an impulse to leave the place at once. He reflected on the claim of events that brought him to this place. John had been a bank accountant during office hours and a fairly athletic type after. He had his small circular of sports buddies, his wife, house and car, which was pretty impressive for a man only twenty-five years of age. Life had been good and there had been no reason why it shouldn’t go on the way in the years to come, the same rather pleasantly monotonous routine of going to office in the morning, coming home in the evening, going with his wife to the tennis court, play a few rounds, back home for dinner, sleep. There was no reason why this pleasant routine should be disturbed from the tranquil rut it was going in.

No reason, till the war. John had been fairly patriotic, in that he believed in the live and let live policy as long as the enemy stayed on their side of the border, and politics didn’t interest him at all. But he got drafted just the same, and before he knew it yet passed through all the preliminary fitness test, and even through gruelling training and found himself facing the enemy in a battle-scarred field less than eight months later.

 He had killed for the first time less a month later. There had been continuous shelling and firing on both sides for almost 2 days and John’s company was sent to relieve the soldiers who were too exhausted or injured to continue. They had barely reached the trenches when fighting broke out from their left flank, where John was stationed. He lay flat on his stomach and sighted through his rifle a pair of shoulders with an enemy helmet above them, and fired. As simple as that. He saw the other soldier spin around and fall. John crawled up to him, and then instantly wished he hadn’t, for the soldier was only a boy about seventeen. He had taken the bullet in his chest, and his face had a dazed, shocked, and most of all, scared expression. But what haunted was the innocence and reproach in the eyes that was staring at him, and slowly closing in the permanent sleep of death.

 John lost count of the battles he had fought later and indeed didn't want to remember. After it was all over, he had returned home to a hero’s welcome in his town, or what was left of it. In the fury of war, his town hadn't been spared by enemy rockets. It was eerie walking through the streets that had been alive and full, a year ago, and now turned into pockmarked cemeteries. The people had hurriedly given him a reception, and then promptly, forgotten him in the rush to rebuild the town, and bring life back to normalcy. His wife and friends had been overjoyed to get him “back in one piece” as one of his friends aptly put it.

 But John had changed. War does things to a man that only he can understand. His friends, even his wife were not privileged enough to peep into to the private, walking hell that was John now. He had tried to explain to his wife the reason for the nightmares that woke him screaming in the middle of the night, the face of young boy coming to him, echoes of guns long stilled, echoes of the past that kept coming back. He had been turned into a wreck, mentally, and physically, and though he had recovered his health, his mind was in bad shape as ever. He had gone to one psychiatrist after another, three in all, in a vain bid to strengthen himself out. But psychiatrist after all, are humans and humans fail. They could not help John.

By now John had retreated into a shell that no one could penetrate. He would sit for hours on end, brooding, staring out of the window, seeing and not seeing. Then came the day when he abruptly packed his bags, left a brief note to his wife, stating that he was temporarily moving out, and would let her know about him by post. He had journeyed for a day by train, then went on by carriage till he reached where he was now.

 Yes, there is silence now, all around after the incessant sound of war, and blare of the streets of his town. The only sound around him now were the whispering of the wind through the fields, and the creaking of a shutter on one of the buildings. But the sounds in his head went on and on.  The explosions, screams, the pounding of blood in the do or die situation he had experienced, soldiers in his company who had entrusted their lives in his hands, and he in theirs, their laughs, conversations, and finally one by one their deaths. Happy go lucky ‘mad dog’ Joe dead, ‘Uncle’ Sam, the eldest and the most beloved dead. And others, all of whom who had become closer to him in a year than he ever had been to his own family in a lifetime, dead.

 “Hey boy!” The sound broke in to his thoughts, and he turned around. An old wizened man stood at the porch of an equally old and wizened house, beckoning him. He had passed by the house without noting it. He turned and went up to the porch.

 “You the fella that came by the coach?” He asked. John nodded.

“Well, where are you off to?”.

“I’ve rented a place out here called… “.

“Valley view? Don’t be surprised. News travels fast around here and besides the owner’s an old crony of mine. Well, I'll tell you what. You stay here tonight, while I send someone to clean up the place.”

“Thanks a lot, but…”

 “No buts young man. Are you a soldier?” John blinked at the sudden question and nodded, then changed the subject.

“Nice place you've got here, Mr….”

“Call me Sykes, and that will do.” 

“Mr. Sykes, then, but don't you get lonely sometimes”?

 Sykes looked at him thoughtfully for a second, then without speaking, beckoned him and went to the rear of his house. Still without speaking, he pointed at what John recognised at once as a couple of graves close together.

 “My wife, and my only son, boy. My wife died long back, and my boy joined army. Got killed in action. Brave lad, they said. Anyway, they keep me company when I sit out here and relive old memories.”

 John sat down next to the Sykes and then on an impulse, put his arm around his shoulder, and sat gazing at the setting sun.

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This is a prize winning short story written by Jaypal during his college days and published in our college magazine “Impressions” in 1988. Jai as he is popularly known to his friends and batchmates passed away in September 2024.  We are happy to reproduce his wonderful short story here as a tribute to his fond memories

 You may not be in our midst, but our hands will always be there on your shoulders