the letter of the story of the maniac we had to kill on cemetery ridge

the letter of the story of the maniac we had to kill on cemetery ridge

…..sirs, july 2, 186_

this letter documents my recollections of the medical services I provided during and after the battle of cemetery ridge and to also answer the question of the “man” whom I had thought to be an assistant sent from medical company_____. I am telling the truth when I state that the amount of men brought into the field hospital was overwhelming, shorthanded as we were, and the extent of the injuries suffered by these men was staggering.

…..my imagination cannot contain or explain all the ways in which a human body can shatter, and it became increasingly clear amongst the screams, groans and anguish of the injured men that we were thrust deep into a hell where only luck and strength would survive. The patients poured in from the battlefield, streaming into our overladen hands like meat from a sausage grinder. All of my staff quickly lost sight of one another in the seething carnage, we all of us were doused with blood, slicked with each individual wounded soldiers viscera. Conditions were horrible. There were too many wounded men to count. Too many died of their wounds before any one of us could examine them. On a personal note, I find these conditions absolutely appalling, that on top of the brutality of war and dysentery, the men who fight them should be so ignored simply for lack of adequate personnel in the field.

…..the first incident or rather the first time I saw the “man” in question was from across a ditch as I looked up from suturing a spluttering gurgling soldier after removing a piece of lead from his chest. I noticed one man who I did not recognize as one of my staff bending over some of the newly arrived wounded. You will have to excuse me sirs for the expressions I am about to use and the language in which I must describe this, the most revolting recollection of my life. I am in such a state of shock to relive it I am barely able to keep my writing hand from shaking. As it is my left hand skitters about and drums its fingertips as if it is 18 bunching spiders...but what am I writing he-

…..i have had a dram or two, sirs. After reading the last bit of writing my mind wandered during it. I trust you will find the rest of this correspondence more in the vein of what is required of me.

…..the first paragraphs I will leave intact with the rest of this missive as proof of how the events of this day has delivered such a blow to my faculties I am quite overcome. I feel it is important for you to have knowledge of what an affect this episode has had upon my person, as the incident is truly without precedent, and never have I even heard of any any any...(inksplotch)

…..the “man” in question raised his head from an injured man and coolly regarded me even as my gaze fell upon his person, as tho I had called to him. His face was calm and wan, as tho he had lost vital fluid, drained and white, and it was his eyes that arrested me, these two glittering orbs regarding me with frank stark “being”, the sight of which enveloped me and for an instant I felt a cold shudder emanate from my spine and run thru my body. This left my body shocked and my mind reeling as my vision and that of this “man” intersected. A feeling of dread bubbled up from my throat and I weakened as my will melted under this creatures stare. It felt that it took several seconds to recover from this onslaught tho it could have been an instantaneous moment, or it could have taken away several minutes. I am uncertain so great were my faculties impaired. When I did recover, it was as tho I was climbing up some great hollow pipe, struggling towards light and fresh air, and I was surprised to find myself standing in the field exchanging looks with such a “man”.

…..it seems that I either asked by what authority this “man” was here, or I was about to, at any rate, my mouth was open as the “man” raised a bloody saw in one hand and a severed leg in the other, and gestured with them as if to say, “i know what to do doctor, this is my field.” I cannot explain how I received this transmission, or if in fact everything that I experienced from that point on was in fact real and did happen.

…..the “man” was covered in blood, which was not unusual in this place, but the visage presented to me was contorted with glee and to my horror, a LUST, if you will excuse me, and such expressions as are never seen, ever. Sirs, it was terrible, and it was the only feature of this man I was able to take in at that time. At this point, with both his arms raised and his hands filled with trophies, it was as if another hand waved and took away the gauze of this sight and a sheet was pulled away and the din of screaming pleading wailing cursing men filled my ears and my sight. It was as tho I had forgotten this “man” and my attention was again turned to dealing with patching up our injured men who were suffering all around me.

…..i did not give the “man” a second thought at that time, and my entire self was again given over to feverishly trying to stem the loss of life which frequents this time and place. Sirs, I need not explain the hell of that. You have been there and have felt those feelings, of holding a cold hand that can no longer feel the comfort you are trying to impart as the eyes flutter, the lips catch and the lungs push out and fail the last breath capable. Men kept bringing broken men, oftentimes flopping down bloody and heaving en masse, tired of supporting one another in their shared duress and injuries. There was only time to react, and hardly none to think as the bodies barely alive and nearly dead piled up, and the SOUNDS! The sounds of these men piled up in the ears, all upon one another. Screams, curses and animal cries tumbled out of these wrecked men and thrust themselves heartily into my head, echoing and reverberating even as in the next second they were replaced and enhanced by fresh bellowings of agony and despair.

…..to plunge into this madness and to once again establish order and well being into one body after another with no end in sight is a folly I willingly immersed myself in, each case, taking me to another realm where I dropped all my self and gave over to the entity of healer. No plea went unanswered, sirs, it seemed as tho I had been there since time began and I could not remember a time when all was not coated with blood, filth and flies. And there was not a time when my hands, my mind or any of my faculties were idle, tho I had never experienced any tragedy in my life as near to this one in regards to sheer hellishness.

…..and I forgot the “man” or rather, dismissed the thought of him, imagining, as I did, that he was another surgeon to whom I had not been introduced, and so relegated him towards the back of my thoughts as a person who at the very least, could take care of himself, a condition that most of my companions at that time after the battle could not entertain, and so howled at me to aid them, and this I did, as the record shows. Oh, the contortions and attitudes of the wounded are gruesome and malodorous, for besides the actual physical shift revolts the sight combined with the smells that assault the nostrils to the core is an emotionally crippling thing and stirs the psyche so. Before I forget, sirs, at this point I would like to tender my admiration for my staff who saved a number of lives today.

….. immediately after my first contact with this “he it”, the concept of a linearly lying plateau of time and action coinciding....what I mean to explain here sirs, directly relates to this “thing” this things presence impacted, infused the air around it as surely as pus soaks into a sponge, and affected everything for I swear from that second I became aware of that thing all meteorological activity appeared to have suspended motion, that is, sirs, the sun just hung in the sky for such a long time...when I could tear away from that dead flat glittering stare, in fact, my heart catches to write it and realize it its as if my attention had been grabbed and flung away as if I had no volition in it when the thing that somehow to me resembled a doctor sir broke its gaze with me and fastened focus unto the very patient I was working on and with such a NASTY face sir as tho this creature meant to own the poor boy- looking thru my records sir, this patient, george cook had survived a head injury and a badly burned leg, he survived the following debacle and we put him in the creek to soothe his burns...sir. The point im trying to make...sir, I was COMPELLED to check and make sure that george cook was under my very hands, and a second after that my attention was as focused on him as on any patient I have ever treated. I treated his head wound, fearsome as it was in a fierce manner. He was conscious sir, and you ll never believe this, he had a piece of wood, one could hardly call it a splinter, lodged in his forehead, and all the while I was regarding him he was drinking from a whiskey bottle, calmly, tho I swear he was a mere babe. I grabbed the end of the splinter jutting from his forehead and pulled it out quickly. George cook said, and I quote, “ uh.” the splinter was nigh on ten inches long and dare I say that a full inch or more I dont want to exaggerate ha ha thats so funny imagine that to exaggerate now as if the rest was not fantastic enough. Not thinking too much about it, I grabbed the whiskey bottle and jammed it into the wound, that being the best treatment I could afford at that time. I then bound george cooks head, bandaging it with a sash I had passed over an open fire close by. I left him there and took the whiskey bottle with me as a precaution, for the boy was exceedingly drunk already. I then tended to other men.

…..sirs, I mustve treated more than a dozen men myself, directed and diagnosed more than a score of others in the abominable heat of a sun that gathered strength as it bore down in one continuous noon that lasted for hours and hours. Sirs, at points I can swear and attest to seeing 2 suns at once, in two different and separate points in the sky, simultaneously hammering down the heat, twas a clamorous dark-veiled searing furnace, sirs. I was literally attending the hopeless suffering of the agonies of the damned, suffocating with them, and sirs, fresh water was hard come by. The cries of thirst issuing from the parched throats of so many sacrificed boys...

….. sirs, the next time I saw this “thing” I scarcely recognized it as the same “ man”. I had just finished helping a soldier with a drink of water when my attention was distracted by some piercing cries of distress as tho some newer threat of atrocities had manifested as a cannon shot amidst the already injured men. Turning to investigate, I found this “thing” already had its attention fastened upon me. I have to report that this second episode startled me more than the previous one. At first, I did not recall that this “man” was present. It was as if this had slipped from my mind amidst all the saving of lives in the hullabaloo perpetrated amongst my brothers. When my sight had adjusted enough to focus upon the spot from which the whinnying screeches were bolting into my skull, I saw this figure rising slowly from attendance at one of the men and it seemed a great bloody shrouded thing. At first in that I could not quite make out and features as a head or shoulders let alone a face it was as tho a crimson tent was being erected in the temple of the newly slaughtered sirs, and as the tent was raised, the shrieks and the ruckus continued roundabout us as again it seemed a great gauzy hand had wiped out a tableau as quaintly set up as the finest ladies tea and luncheon would be, sirs. It was as if each object and person were placed towards this beings satisfaction and luxury sirs. His, its. face had somehow changed, in that where before the face had been wax-like and lined, now it was suffused with color, almost a lividity, if you can imagine a skin glowing red sure as fire. This man seemed a bit swollen, resembling a tick in its way, the whole face had filled out, somehow. I did at once and with a shock know and remember this creature immediately and again, this recognition seemed to dishearten me and it forced my mind and body to now suffer the amount of rigor and sacrifice of my chosen profession.

…..a sort of elan washed over me, and I became dizzy and tired. I could feel my body add weight as it were, and my limbs were heavy. My arms dropped to my sides and my jaw hung down to my elbows sirs. My eyes beheld a sight I wish I could forget and damn my eyes sir but that red bloated creature, the one I allowed to remain with the injured men under my care was standing naked in this hell, naked and in a state of obvious arousal, holding my eyes with its gaze and casually adorning itself with the boys flesh, and OUR boys suffering all around him. I swear sir, it was GLOATING. I put this in the plainest language I can while in this hysterical state. It was dancing sir, mincing around like a goddamned fairy all the while it was picking up and nibbling bits of amputated flesh as tho it were at a BANQUET sir! My gorge rises sir, the impulse cannot be overcome.

…..i come back to continue composing this missive some few minutes later sir, feeling much refreshed if not quite steadily myself.

…..sir, I saw this thing lift a senseless man and drink from his freshly amputated leg as calmly as you or I would suck the remnants from mothers gravy boat, all the while boring into me with those loathsome sticking malevolent eyes sir, with points like stars shining black and hard. I could not move an inch if my life depended on it. It was at this moment, the dread-filled moment when I knew there was a monster loose in my surgical fold, when I could not escape the monstrous spectacle before me, not even to be able to break the spell this “thing” seemed to cast over me, that the sun, a seeming boulder of searing heat setting in the sky, ACCELERATED its pace towards the west at the same instant this creature upended sgt. Daniel grimm and guzzle what was left of his life thru the femoral artery. The creatures mouth was fastened to the sgt.s stump as surely as the creatures powerfully thirsty gaze held mine. The sgt.s head dangled out of sight behind the monsters knees and the creatures arms encircled and gripped the sgt.s torso and it squeezed him sir, as one would a bladder or a sausage the creature squeezed him and alternately sucked and gnashed the end of sgt. Grimms stump. It was one slow squeeze and many swallowings as the creature engorged itself with the sgt.s life force to the drop, I will swear to that sir.

…..this being filled me with its eyes and I am horrified to say bore all the pleasure it received direct into me, I do not know how this happened and the sun fell as swift as a feather. Then it stopped, hazy and orange. The creature dropped sgt. Daniel grimm and exposed its bloated belly, raised its appendages to the sky and sir, this is the most terrible thing sir, for then this “man” SMILED at me, the slowest most filthy leer one can imagine, brown and red and glistening mouth slowly revealing one tooth after another as its lips lacerated up and back with twitches as if this action were indeed the most unnatural it had taken thus far this day. I was fascinated by this smile as it revealed its teeth one by one. These were far too numerous to be housed in the average mans mouth, indeed, there were too many to be housed in a typical alligators mouth, and with each tooth coming to light the sun dropped a half degree or so. Oh my.

…..i estimate the distance between myself and the creature to have been 25 feet at that that that time. This abominable creature hypnotized me and had somehow transferred its malicious state and feelings to certain parts of my mind, and I became aware of... I do not know how to describe it. Somehow I “knew” that, despite all appearances, this creature was not of human origin, I “knew” was feeding upon my patients, I “knew” that this event was beyond the scope of any natural force I was familiar with, and that all of us, soldiers and doctors alike, all humans in fact, were in the grip of a malignant supernatural force cloaked in human skin, and I “knew” that this was the better to be able to prey upon us.

….. sir, I cannot explain how I “know” all of this in a rational manner, except to say that the contortions I saw this being engage in and how easily malleable a 250 pd. Sgt. Was in its hands had provided me with enough evidence to suggest that it was a being both formidable and deliberate in its attentions.

…..as the situation stood I was paralyzed by the terrible pantomimes it engaged in sir, where all things and all bodies were arranged by its force, hunger and delight. I “felt” the satiety of the creature, it sickened the air with this attitude, and it was as the ripples of this touched me and carried me. Lulled by sights and sounds ordinarily designed to horrify and repel us, I felt numbed as this creature stood there amidst the carnage of human wreckage, draped in my patients viscera celebrating such fresh meat! I, in all my horror, could not stir as the creature relished the sun slowly fell, all other scenarios dropped from me, its as if all my vision was compressed into a funnel and all my attention was focused on this bizarre creature man and all other cares and wants and beings needing help and consolation was dropped and taken away, replaced by revulsion and hunger and I knew nothing but this creatures habit. I was helpless and hopeless and, at that point, not even aware of that I was.

…..it was at that moment when this naked bloated beast was showering in the geysers of a bouquet of open arteries in the most smug low dirty shameful possible, when george cook raised up from a near the monster and with a rebel yell drove the very same splinter I had pulled from his forehead straight into the thigh of the creature! This is explained this way; earlier after I had pulled the splinter from his forehead, I recall having placed the splinter in on the ground nearby him. He seemed to be in a sort of mumbling daze trance as id left him, as near as I can recall it. I, too, seemed to be living in a daze, sir, and it was young master cook who saved the day for everyone who survived the battle and this monsters attack.

…..for what a blow did cook lay upon that beast too, sir. I daresay I saw a gleam of exposed bone where that stake struck engorged thigh of the monstrosity before the wound gaped and flowed crimson and blowed out such a vicious gout it near smothered george cook as it was propulsed out of the gash with enough force to knock him back unto his coat. This moment, of course, retains all of its clarity in my memory. It is tho I have a photograph of it inside my head. Looking back, I can testify to the fact that it was at the moment when george cook wounded this entity that I regained the full consciousness of my being and the awareness of this repulsive theatre of gore in front of me, and of my role in it. My limbs returned to life with a galvanizing force, and with more instinct than thought, threw whatever I could reach at the howling creature, who stood clutching at its gushing wound, the splinter of wood having disappeared, young cook perhaps retaining it in his grip for another strike when that torrent of blood had fastened him down on his coat. The creature stood as if pinioned, the crimson sheet it was shrouded was barely hanging off its obscene body. Sir, I swear I saw that creatures leg shrivel in 5 seconds, as the blood streamed from it couldve filled 3 adult human bodies easy and the creature preened and writhed as tho it were the only being suffering in this hell sir, and the screams were a wilting anyone born with ears.

…..my hand closed around the whiskey bottle I had taken from george cook and I flung it direct at the creature, who took it on the chin and it did not have any effect at all save that by some miracle after it caromed off the bellowing creatures head it dropped somewhere near where george cook lay. He was a sight, choking and retching out great streams of blood, the same that had doused him after he had escaped the beings erupting leg. Then from somewhere close by a roar the air exploded and I found myself in the middle of a great cloud of cordite. Abruptly a hole appeared in the staggering monsters chest, and in the same instant, it was if the shot forcefully quieted the din and pain of dozens of wounded men, and every able eye was turned to the monster, stationary and contorting in agony gripping its furiously spouting leg while thrashing about. It regarded the huge hole in its chest with what looked like disdain and ineffectually tried to brush it away. And I saw young george cook find and uncork the bottle of whiskey. His voice broke the sudden stillness in which we all saw the creature start to sag to the ground, “thats done it!” cook pulled a pistol from somewhere and shot the creature again, which did knock it good and flat, whereby master cook drank from his bottle and keeled over in a coughing spasm that ended in a fit of retching and you could hear the pat of the heavy blood vomit as it splashed into the dirt. Amidst the tumult inflicted upon this company of injured men by this creature these are details which I could glean from my admittedly sordid and unstable comprehension than sins we all winned and I saw that every man that could draw hands and cover their ears, for the creature prone upon the floor gave vent to the most piercing shrieks I have ever had the misfortune of hearing. These screams were singular. They would begin with an almost childlike wail, quite distressful in its way, and descend in the register to end in a rumble reminiscent of a rabid cur and each note more piercing and it was most pitiful we all could not stand up to it and shrank away from the loathsome noise. I found my whole body trembling with the weight of these cries bearing on my mind and body. It was as tho I were listening to the laments of the GREAT BEAST himself, sir, as he is being thrown into the lake of fire, the rage and despair and arrogance of these sounds will haunt me for as long as I breathe, sir.

…..not one of us there stretched upon that plain could help but notice sir the creature rising again as the torrent of its screams crescendoed. A shot rang. a flash, a cloud of smoke, maybe as many as 5 shots, a sure 3 were discharged. That being was tore to ribbons sir, and the shroud that covered it, I saw thru the drifting haze, had caught a fire. The boys who could were scrambling out of the way, pulling the men who werent able to move after them, for that horrible beast was suffering its defeat in the most ungentlemanly way possible, it flailed its limbs as it was wrapped total in a sheet of flame burning black as pitch and in fast torrid gusts the fire raged up and extinguished the beasts flesh in no more time than you can say jackrabbit flats, and while it was being incinerated it never stopped jumping and skittering about as if attempting to dislodge the conflagration from its person.

…..finally, sir, after what seemed an eternity of seconds, the fire lost its footing as it were, and dropped to the ground, discharging a smoky mass of I dont know what to call it, sir, no bigger than a childs torso resting benignly smoking on the ground beside an abandoned blanket as the fire snuffed itself out. Then, nothing.

…..the only movement was the noise of distant artillery thru the haze hovering above the dead. Every able man rushed to the spot where the charred bit of the fallen monster lay, and to the carnage it had perpetrated became apparent. The monster had slain and dismembered as many as 3 men sir, george cook being the only man within the vicinity of the monster to remain untouched by the monsters hand, tho he had received a damn baptismal from the gushing blood from the creatures leg. The remains of the creature, when I prodded them open, were disintegrating under the pressure I applied, and I do not doubt they would have done so had I not touched them, for they soon disappeared altogether. Many of the men attest to this. I took charge, sir, as best I could and order of a sort was soon established. If you can believe it sir, these men and I got on with being a field hospital, doctors and wounded soldiers alike, being men. These horrors we face....i am aware of how this story reads sir, and am attempting to refrain from any personal comment.

…..there is a footnote sir. George Cook, who you will remember survived an almost lethal battlefield trauma and who was baptised in the fountain of blood from the creature, and who initiated the final demise of it, we took him to the creek and eased him in to ease the burns he sustained and half-submerged there to soak and bathe. “doc,” he asked me this I could see him picking off a piece of his burnt skin with a gunpowder-stained hand, “I swallered some o that thangs blood, you think that does anything to a body?” I assured him he wouldnt feel any ill effects from that and left him there in that creek, to attend the thousands of other wounded I was sent. Now, I am not so sure that what I told george cook is true, for the two men I sent to tend him have not returned, and another aide de camp has just come to me, bloody as hell and with his coat as muddy ribbons eyes wild and staring...the man says there is the devil to pay hisself with a hole in his head the size of your thumb stationed by the creek I am going to investigate and will continue this report when I return...