He looked to his right and left, making eye contact with the soldiers standing there. He made sure they understood why they were positioned where they were, and then approached the first figure in the long line. It was a man with fairly wide shoulders and an upright posture. He stood with purpose, with dignity. The officer nodded to himself and looked down at the white snow beneath his feet, unblemished and pure.
The officer stopped several feet behind the first man and waited. He could tell the man had heard him approach. He knew the prisoner wasn’t one of the already-broken by the way the man’s hands were balled into fists. The officer’s eyes narrowed and his breathing slowed as the man before him turned his head slightly. The prisoner’s shoulders slumped somewhat and the officer heard him exhale. Good, the officer thought as his hands rested on the black handles at his waist, at least we’re on the same page.
In a clumsy swinging motion, the man at the head of the line turned and lunged at the officer behind him. His gaunt face was drawn tight in a grimace of hate, and the anticipated blow, either from a fist or a bullet. The officer took one step back, and there was a flash of silver in the winter light. The man who had rushed him stopped as if he had hit a wall and straightened, his hands flying suddenly to his throat in a gesture of surprise. The prisoner licked his lips and his eyebrows drew down in a scowl of concentration. He pulled one hand away from his neck, and then the other. He blinked several times, but when he licked his lips again, there was blood on them.
A gash abruptly opened beneath the prisoner’s jaw like a red smile. Skin, esophagus, and muscle had been slit wide, and the gap continued to open, seeming that it would not stop. Blood gushed from the wound and flowed over the man’s hands in front of his eyes. Gallons seemed to escape from his throat in an elegant stream, as if poured from a pitcher. His fingers cut the flow into cascades, and he weakly began to cup the life that surged from within him.
The prisoner blinked one last time and then stumbled backward as his senses tried to maintain balance. He fell in a heap at the base of the trench behind him. His legs twitched twice as his final stores of blood escaped and ran with the grade of the earth through the wet snow.
The officer’s face split in a maniacal grin, his teeth clenched together and his blue eyes open wide to the scene before him. The lush redness of the blood on the stark white of the snow held his gaze, and he realized he could have stared for hours into the almost-black pool near his feet. A long-bladed knife that ended in a thick, chopping point extended from his right hand, and a small line of blood slid off its tip in short drops.
The people in line recoiled reflexively, as if they were made of a solid spring and a shock echoed down through their ranks. Some were screaming, while others began to cry but refused to look at the corpse in the ditch, their eyes squeezed shut, letting only tears escape. The soldiers at either end of the ditch began yelling instructions, telling them to stay where they were. The people fearfully eyed the officer, and then the muzzles of the guns that were trained on them, almost as if they were measuring each up to see which might be a better choice.
The boy’s view of the carnage had been blocked as the adults before him shifted, and thus he hadn’t seen what had transpired. Only now did he see that a man had fallen into the ditch and he seemed to be hurt.
At the far end of the line, the officer slowly came to his senses and became aware of the movement in the line of people. Without a word, he nodded again to the soldiers as he began to stalk to the next man in the line.