One by one his men fell lifeless, the mud giving no reliable foothold, the crumbling brickwork no reliable cover. Bit by bit their lines crumbled, their outer defences bombed to hell by artillery and their vantage point suppressed by snipers. Above, they heard the call of propeller engines like the will of angels beckoning them to heaven.

Ammunition low, morale broken, the still faithful clung to their crosses as they peeked at the enemy, only ever resulting in a bullet through their helmet. Capitaine Matthieu de Laval watched his men fold, their mortified faces looking at him for guidance, only to realise he had none. They did not blame him; they did not have the time. Clutching their useless rifles, they cowered in cover from the streams of bullets whizzing over their heads. The church was lost, the stronghold destroyed, yet their orders stood fast even as they were surrounded.

No one came to help them, the empty words of reassurance a lie, fabricated by the destroyed radio.

As the enemy rounded the corner, shotguns at their hips, Matthieu de Laval took the opportunity—his last opportunity—to curse god then and there. There was no God when he stared down the barrel, no salvation in a world so full of death. Immortality beyond the grave was but a vague promise, preached by those who had never faced it themselves.

And so, God mocked him for his insolence, or else he could only assume so. As he lay there, entrenched in mud as his enemy fell around him, slaughtered by reinforcements arriving much too late, he wondered if God had let him live for a reason.

To give him a second chance at salvation, to live as a phantom, maybe even to deny him the immortality he had delivered Matthieu’s men to.

A holy crusade they had called it.

Body after body, face planted in mud and waiting for a hasty mass burial. As crimson pooled in the dirt’s recesses, the soil already saturated with the blood of untold thousands, the holy crusade continued.

Ultimate servitude and salvation, they had called it.

Knee deep in mud and bone, the untold thousands of men fired their war-torn rifles on empty stomachs, wondering if they truly had to endure hell to reach heaven.

Sanctioned by God and divine in its purpose, they had called it.

The only signs of a God those millions of men heard were the deific thunder of artillery cannons, and the only signs they saw were their comrades' bodies flying from the explosions.

The baker, the carpenter, the potter, all equal under the eye of God and war, cowering behind dead horses and catching their lips in barbed wire. Without food or water for days, without sunlight for weeks, and without compassion for months. It seemed that the great power that had so righteously sanctioned them had wholly abandoned them until their duty was one.

Some thought as much, kept their faith and interpreted it as a trial. Others did nothing of the sort.

Kissing their crosses or writing to their families, whatever they did before they climbed over the top of the trench and made one last fatal charge did not matter. It was eternal damnation if they ran the other way, yet some were more scared of the bullet in the back of the head.

The western front held stagnant for months, and the eastern only racked up casualties by the tens of thousands. Attacks by sea never penetrated the rocky coastline besides the occasional, precarious foothold, and the air for war seemed to make no progress besides the destruction of resources and infrastructure.

The machine ground its men in the name of God, to retake the holy land that—according to the enemy—belonged to some other, unnamed deity. It was all semantics in the end. Those who died with faith died somewhat satisfied, while those who had lost it all died cursing the world.

In that sense, it truly was a test of faith.

And Matthieu de Laval had sorely failed.

“Capitaine de Laval!” a shrill voice called from the hospital tent. An errand boy buttoned up to his neckline and face black with smog pushed open the flaps and stuck his head inside. “Capitaine de Laval!” he repeated insufferably before glancing at the sisters with a look so scant, that de Laval wished nothing more to gouge his eyes out.

A sister approached de Laval’s bedside and tapped on his shoulder. “There’s someone here to see you,” she said in a soft accent. They were familiar with each other, occasionally sparking conversation about their lives growing up near the Alps. Despite her hailing from former Italy, but a few hours' drive from Turin, they had found some common ground to reassure one another over a cold few weeks.

Matthieu groaned. “I know, sister. I’d prefer to feign ignorance.”

“It sounds important. What if it’s an order?”

“An order?”

“You could be going home.”

Matthieu glanced at his surroundings, from bloodstained bed to bandaged soldier, all in different stages of grief and suffering. The bulb hanging precariously by a wire did not inspire any confidence, and if it weren’t for the few flimsy wood planks, the entire place would be knee-deep in mud.

“Home would be nice,” de Laval admitted. The sister smiled, helping him sit up from his bed and place two feet on the ground. He fumbled his shoes with one hand, and the sister bent down to help him.

“No, please. I’m okay,” he insisted, waving her away. The gesture was more dismissive than he had intended, but he did not speak on it further. Even with a level of familiarity, he had never grown the courage to address her more confidently. He pulled on his shoes and stood to his full height, wobbling on his feet after weeks of disuse before looking at the sister from the newfound perspective.

Somehow still bright-eyed, she looked at him with the satisfied smile of a doctor seeing off a patient. Her freckled face was spotted with mud, and her hair was beginning to fray. Despite never holding a gun, she had been worked like a mule as all the other sisters had. Matthieu had watched them work, admiration growing for them day by day. Perhaps the last speck of nobility in an otherwise foolish and meaningless theatre. At least he could say he had found one beautiful thing on his crusade.

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“What was your name?” he asked.

“Moretti. Amadea Moretti,” she answered with a smile. Matthieu returned the gesture and nodded.

“A lovely name. I’m—”

“Matthieu de Laval. It says on the end of your bed.”

Matthieu chuckled, realising this would be the only moment of his crusade he would remember fondly. He clicked his heels together and gave her a salute, his habits as a Capitaine overtaking his sensibilities as a civilian.

He wasn’t sure what people did when parting ways anymore. A handshake? A kiss on the cheek?

“Che Dio vi benedica,” seemed to be Amadea’s obvious answer, one that Matthieu could not reciprocate without mincing his words and disgusting himself, and it had nothing to do with his Italian. He thanked her once more and turned to leave, passing bed after bed of curious onlookers, wondering if his soul had been allowed to

“If they do send you home,” Amadea began, “send me a letter. Tell me of the snow on the mountains this year. Amadea Moretti. Address it to Commune di Bussoleno if I am no longer here.”

It seemed no matter how devout to God a crusader was, the mere mortal always missed home. The same went for Matthieu himself.

He turned one more time and found himself a forlorn smile. He returned the gesture before casting his eyes to the ground and burning the address into his memory, swearing never to forget.

He approached the snivelling errand boy at the tent’s entrance, a cheap grin plastered to his face. “Bit friendly, are we?” he said. British, and a commoner's tongue at that. One of her Majesty’s finest conscripts, no doubt.

“What am I needed for?” de Laval asked, not sparing the boy a moment.

“They’re sending your banged-up arse home by the sounds of it.”

“Thank you for the message, but must I remind you I outrank you. Significantly…by the looks of it.”

“Not anymore,” the boy grinned. “Colonel wants a word with you before you go.”

Matthieu found no enjoyment trudging through the encampment he had begrudgingly called home for the past month. Every rise and fall of the sun so much seemed to happen, yet nothing seemed to change. The autumnal rain fell, but the ground got no muddier. The tents picked up new grime along their skirts, but they could get no more saturated. Ammunition was depleted on the daily but was always restocked by the next morning.

So close to the holy land and so close to the frontline, there seemed to be a constant stream of new rations, ammunition, and, most dishearteningly, new soldiers. A new line of marching faces crossed their path, and both Matthieu and the errand boy waited for the procession to pass. Rifle in hand and free arm swinging, they stomped through the heavy mud and undoubtedly to their doom. Some may be so lucky as to end up as de Laval did.

They kept going once the train passed, skipping from wooden plank to wooden plank like a child playing a game with the stones of a sidewalk.

“Bombers,” the errand boy muttered in awe as the unmistakable whir of propeller engines cruised overhead. Matthieu craned his neck, watching as the iconically boxy silhouettes of the kite-like machines flew past. They watched them as they went, almost everyone in the encampment did, entranced by the newfound gift of flight.

A gift from God perhaps, bestowed upon the righteous to rain death on the heretic. That was at least what they had called it, the priests in the makeshift churches and the chaplains in the barracks.

They watched the black specks rain down on the frontline like pepper on soup. The flashes of light and the quiet explosions: it all seemed so insignificant.

“Blimey,” the errand boy whispered, still transfixed on the horizon.

“Un don de Dieu,” Matthieu whispered, only able to give a dry chuckle.

They kept walking until they came across the first solid building in miles. Nailed together with wooden beams and planks with barely a roof over its head, it amazed Matthieu that having a floor and a solid foundation now seemed to him a miracle.

They entered through the front door, the soles of their boots tapping against something real for once. The errand boy seemed to share the same mind as Matthieu, taking a moment to tap his soles against the floor. “Nice isn’t it?” he said. “Now, this is where I leave you.”

The errand boy, despite his earlier insolence, gave the proper salute expected of his rank. “Enjoy home for all of us, sir,” he said. Matthieu allowed himself to soften, if only slightly.

“Where are you from, soldier?”

“Manchester, born and bred. May God bless you.”

“Thank you, soldier.”

The errand boy turned to leave, and Matthieu let out a sigh. The room’s air was stuffy, but the warmth was a welcome change of pace. His boots clacked as he made his way down the hall, passing several doors with the audacity to adorn their names with engraved gold plates. He could only wonder how well the residents were eating at night.

He finally came to the Colonel’s office, marked by another gold plate. ‘Per Potentiam Dei’ it read. Matthieu’s Latin was waning by the day, but he could at least surmise a rough translation, one he did not bother to dwell on. He knocked on the door, only then realising how sore his knuckles were.

“Enter,” a gruff voice said from the other side. Matthieu pushed the door open and stepped in. The walls were deep and rich in colour, nothing like the decaying brown-grey just beyond the door. The bulbs were screwed into a real ceiling, and the cold grey of the outside world was nothing more than a picture beyond a glass window.

Books for heaven's sake. Books and carpets and antiques.

The Colonel greeted him with a smile disguised under a greying moustache. A navy blue uniform with a kepi to match. Formerly French, by the looks of things.

“Bienvenue. Asseyez-vous,” the Colonel said.

“Merci.”

“D'où venez-vous?”

“Lyon.”

“Ah, Lyon,” the Colonel said, switching from their mother tongue as Matthieu took a seat. “Beautiful city. I must visit again soon. A drink?”

“Yes please,” Matthieu said as the Colonel sat, undoing the glass seal from an elegantly cut whiskey bottle, pouring two glasses. He offered the second to Matthieu, and they raised their glasses to a silent toast. The whiskey fought its way down his parched throat, spreading an almost shocking warmth to the tips of his fingers.

The Colonel let out a grunt, placing his glass on the table. “How is the arm?” he asked.

Or what’s left of it, Matthieu finished the sentence off inside his head. He sat up straight in his seat, his right arm in his lap. “It no longer hurts,” he reported. “The sisters predicted that it’s a matter of growing accustomed to it.”

“That is good to hear,” the Colonel said. “Your feats have rippled across his Holy Father’s Europe, and news has reached as far back as the Vatican. You and what is left of your company are to be rewarded handsomely.”

“I see,” Matthieu muttered.

“Thank me not,” the Colonel said. “You may speak of your gratitude during prayer.”

“Yes sir. How are we to be rewarded?” he asked.

“Positions in the Holy Father’s Inquisitory force.”

Matthieu groaned internally, his heart sinking at the thought. “Thank you, kindly, Colo—I mean…but I don’t believe I am fit for such duties.”

“Oh no, no, no. You misunderstand. We have enough inquisition officers as is. You and your men have been given outposts in small villages. Some have a…reputation for carrying out pagan festivities. You will simply be there as God’s eyes and ears.”

“What about payment, sir?” he said. “I do not want to sound rude, but I must look out for my men.”

“Do not worry about payment,” the Colonel said. “I have been assured a sum of twenty thousand Reichsthaler a month. Sixty thousand Francs is nothing to sneeze at, soldier.”

Matthieu nodded. “I guess not, sir.” The Colonel stood and paced around his desk.

“Everything is cheap, the people are friendly, you’ll never have to work another day.”

Matthieu received a hard pat on the back, only then realizing how sore his shoulders were. Andrea’s touch had been too forgiving for him to notice. “Thank you for informing me, sir. When will my men know?”

“They are being informed of their posts as we speak. From the Iberian Peninsula to the Black Sea. It is a miracle what can be achieved when we’re all united.” the Colonel said. “I thought it best to let you know myself. That is all.” He stepped back, allowing Matthieu to stand from his chair. The Colonel offered a hand as newly found equals, and Matthieu took it.

“It is fortunate you hail from Lyon. I hear your post is not far.”

Matthieu scraped together a forced smile, unable to take the news without a grain of salt.

“Que Dieu vous bénisse.”

“Que votre croisade se termine dans la gloire,” Matthieu managed to utter, a tinge of malice seeping from the edge of his mouth.