Coming Back

The natural beauty of Audenaarde in July, the pearl of the Flemish Ardennes, had belied the miserable experience which awaited us among the gently rolling hills and lush sprawling grasslands along the banks of the wide and serenely flowing Scheldt river basin. The change of scenery had at first been a welcome respite from the characteristically monotonous plains of Flanders, an otherwise unremarkable and shabby rural eastern province of Belgium. The ample curvatures of the Koppenberg lay before us, filling our mind's eye with the same sense of wonder and excitement as might a voluptuous dark eyed courtesan of Saint-Germain-des-Pres awaiting our caress. Our spirits were high as we marched obliviously toward the slaughter which would be visited upon us by the hand of the Duke of Marlborough, whose phantom forces would soon cross the Scheldt, and fall upon us like the Spectre of Death itself; collapsing our right flank, enveloping us, and spreading over us a billowing shroud of smoking fusillade.

I had been mounted atop a magnificent creature; a sumptuous beauty, her bronze body and limbs both resplendent to behold and responsive to the touch, a finely shaped mare well suited for breeding. Her body was amply pleasing being both sleek and smooth; her legs were long and shapely, well defined by muscle and sinew. Soft warm eyes beset with long and curling lashes looked upon the world from beneath a luxurious veil as dark as the gravest of sins; her mane flowed in a loose abundance which fell as it wished along the graceful sweep of her neck and played joyously upon her soft smooth shoulders. She was a most affectionate darling, loving and gentle, yet possessed of fiery spirit with an truly untamed heart; her lips, full, soft, and warm had many a time nuzzled tenderly against the expanse of my broad bare shoulders as I bathed her with my own rough hands. Many pleasing days together had often begun with her soft, yet insistent pleading for my attention even as the misty vapors of a chilly dawn gathered in the fields. The familiar warmth of her faintest exhalations flowing over my ear would become delicate nibbles which progressed tenderly along my jaw to rouse me from slumber; until after once to often for her liking, grunting with refusal I had casually brushed her away, they became an firm and eager bite. No simple plaything to be trifled with for amusement, readily displaying abject submission to my will alone was she; and I loved her all the more dearly for it. Her unbridled spirit, pure and raw and clean, had long ago seduced me to prize her alone, above all other things.

Her gait was confident and steady, her strides long and proud; she moved with her own natural grace; her steps flowed with an unrivaled elegance; often as I brushed her, she would bolt from under my hand, quickly bounding away just beyond my reach to whirl herself playfully with her luxurious dark mane taking flight around her upon the air, only to suddenly stop, turn her head to cast a frisky glance from simmering eyes over her shoulder in my direction, then toss her head and snort haughtily; pausing only a moment to allow my eyes the pleasure of viewing her display before lightly prancing back to me. She was an exotic dancer, she was tall and lean with a proud bearing; and she was my alone. Her name was Ballerine.

I had mounted her eagerly with an abundance of passion filling my heart; overflowing with pride I had ridden her hard on our last morning together, her heated body rocking rhythmically beneath the thrust and sway of my hips, her breathing came heavy and fast as we charged gloriously together, racing toward a climax of staggering proportion. The third thunderous volley of Marlborough's long range guns shattered my heart into fragments finer than flakes of falling snow, spreading them beyond the possibility of recovery where they would remain; foregone, deep within the green grasses of the fields of Audenaarde and the eternal meadow of time; forevermore beyond my reach. 

A blistering cannonball had struck her, my precious Ballerine, just below the ear, directly behind the eye rendering her instantly lifeless and casting her crashing down atop me in a tangle of now useless reins and stirrups, arms and legs. Dazed; I lay helpless beneath her crushing weight, pinned upon my back with hot blood pouring over me from the massive fatal wound. I struggled to see or to breath as I fought to escape; blinking and gasping for air, choking as her blood poured out in steaming torrents over my face; filling my eyes, and nostrils and throat with the remnants of her life. Bracing my right leg against the saddle she wore my lungs emptied in a long and furious wail of anguish as I pushed against the saddle trying to pull my left leg from beneath her. My right hand searched blindly, desperately upon the ground at my side for my sabre; there would not be enough blood in the veins of all the many thousands of Englishmen arrayed against us on the field to quench the burning rage of bitter anguish that now engulfed my heart. 

I would drink a lake of their blood without it filling the cavernous void of my soul. Finding my sabre, and twisting sharply to my left, with great effort I freed my leg. With a furious roar of defiance filled with the rage of anguish, I pushed myself up from the ground, coughing up her blood, wiping it from my eyes upon the left sleeve of my uniform jacket I braced myself to wade into the midst of battle bringing death and despair to all upon whom my eyes next fell.

I found myself standing alone in a puddle of mud and sand, naked, shaking with rage, and holding a tree limb in my hand amongst the tumultuous wreckage of an empty hillside forest. Bitterly I wailed with inescapable fury, my heart savagely broken anew. With a sudden eruption of violence, I thrashed the jumbled boulders around me with the broken limb until finally splintering it to pieces around my feet. Casting it's tattered remains aside, I collapsed upon my knees and wept with my mud slickened face buried within my rough and filthy hands; remorsefully, uselessly, calling her sweet name again and again; "Ballerine, Ballerine, Ballerine." 

Nevermore would she answer.