The Truce

Power up Prompt #16: 11.8.25

A Prompt with Three Levels

Element 1: Setting - A war torn World

Element 2: Character(s) - The Chaplain

Element 2: Character(s) - Seeking a Truce

I used all three

Bradley Ramsey

The railcars, smelling faintly of coal smoke and fear, were sealed boxes carrying the last vestiges of boyhood into the vast, churning maw of Europe. Outside the cracked, grime-coated windows, the world slid past. A final, peaceful blur of home, replaced by the rhythmic clack-clack-clack of the tracks that felt less like a journey and more like a ticking clock.

At dusk, the first chill settled in their bones, a cold that had nothing to do with the outside air, but everything to do with the heavy silence of men trying not to look at the rifles stacked by the doors. The nights were a shared torment. A suffocating, starless black where the only sounds were the scraping of boots, the low, anxious whispers of names and promises, and the desperate, shallow breaths of young men counting down the moments until the clatter of the train dissolved into the terrifying, unknown world at the front.

In that constant, suffocating world at the front, they found her. They called her Sister Tomas, though few remembered her real name.

She had come from the fields. Long before the uniform, before the war, before the blood thickened in her dreams. Her father had taught her to mend fences, tend sheep, not men. Her mother had taught her to pray in silence, not to preach. But the army had no patience for either. They pressed a collar into her hands and told her she was a chaplain now.

At first, she tried to believe she had been called. Later, she learned she had been needed. And there was a difference.

She moved between the dying and the half-living, carrying nothing but a Bible, notebook, and a rag to clean her hands. The soldiers said she had eyes like winter, steady, unflinching, and always watching. When the shells stopped, they found her in the trenches, tending to whoever was left, whispering words that made no promises of heaven but spoke softly of rest. Her mind on her task and not the filthy blood-soaked ground.

The men trusted her in ways that shamed them. She never saluted. She never cursed. But she stayed when others fled. That counted for more than rank. She had a task and she would not turn from it. Her purpose was not a rifle, but a Book of peace.

When the first talk of a truce began, it came from her, not in a speech, but a question.

“What would happen,” she asked, “if we stopped?”

The officers laughed. Some spat.

“Stop?” one barked. “You’d have us sit down and pray with the bastards who butchered our own?”

“They bury their dead too,” she answered. “They have mothers.”

The words landed like stones. She could care less. Her mission - Truce.

Night after night, she walked the line with a lantern, its light muffled in her cloak. She carried messages, names, pleas, half-forgotten hymns. She crossed where no one dared. Some said she was touched by madness; others said by mercy. Her soul purpose was to instil calm in the dark, dank and rotting trenches.

But every step came with cost.

One soldier she had nursed back from the edge cursed her name when she spoke of peace. “You want to shame us,” he said. “You want us to forget.”

“No,” she said. “I want you to live.”

The councils came later. Tense, narrow rooms smelling of tobacco and fear. The generals refused to meet her eyes. She was a woman, and worse, a believer. Yet her voice did not tremble.

“We have prayed for victory,” she said. “Perhaps we should pray for an end.”

Arguments tore the room apart. Men shouted of duty, of vengeance, of pride. One slammed his fist so hard the ink bottle burst. She waited. When the noise quieted, she rose.

“You think peace is cowardice,” she said. “It is harder than war.”

That night, she stood outside, listening to the wind move through the ruined trees. Her hands shook as she struck a match. The flame wavered, small and uncertain, but it stayed lit.

Two mornings later, across the wire, another light appeared. Then another. Then a voice. Singing in a language she did not know. Soldiers climbed from their trenches. No one gave an order. No one raised a gun.

The first truce was not signed. It was seen.

And in that hush between enemies, Sister Tomas stood as if carved from stone. A tall, weathered woman in a mud-stained collar, holding a single truth close to her chest.

Faith was not the absence of fear. It was the courage to speak when silence had become safe.

Thank you for reading. ❤ If this story left a thread of thought flowing, know that your readership is the most valuable currency a writer can have. I am grateful that you came to spend time here. If you would like to officially join this growing community please subscribe. You can invest in this ongoing creative pen by becoming a paid subscriber. Let’s keep building this world together.