This type of relationship is pretty common in war. You and the squad end up “in the shit” and now you have all crossed the boundaries of what civilians call “manliness”. You are free, unimpeachable, the manliest thing, a real warrior, a soldier in battle. The things you do now define manliness, you are writing the rules. They can call you whatever, you will reply with the sort of laughter that silences fools.

People die around you. The sound of another man’s voice becomes poetry to you. How much longer will you hear his voice? Who knows, tell him a shitty joke. Sit on his lap for a gag, do whatever. Drink in his presence, press his flesh against yours, be alive together, try to keep him in your memory, tomorrow we all may die. Has anybody seen those pictures of soldiers from the American Civil War all hanging out and mugging for the camera? Acting all “gay” with each other? That’s what war does to men, sometimes, probably not that often, I fear.

Somebody online with a military background once remarked about the safest he’s ever felt, including in civilian life, was when he was in some tent in a war zone with the rest of the platoon, everyone in their sleeping bags, crammed in the tent together like a litter of kittens in a box. Sure, they were in the death zone, for real, but he was warm and snug, surrounded by armed badasses who would come to his aid at once if anything nasty went down. He said he slept like a baby, that he’s never felt that sense of security since, not even safe in bed as a civilian, later.

It means a lot to me that this book, TLOR, was pretty much written by the Great War. Tolkien went to that war, against his own will, compelled by shame campaigns, not even the law, in spite of his own convictions, and he did not have some safe posting at the base, no, he was at the Somme. He saw the worst of it, probably missed death by inches several times, saw mud and blood, was deafened and battered, only to survive at last, coming home as changed as Frodo.

He watched men charge into machine guns like mice into a blender, watched them die of trench foot and the stupid ways war kills you without even glory or honor to show for it, saw that sometimes courage is just hiding in your little hole and not screaming when the tanks roll over. He saw Mordor in person. No man’s land.

Then he came home, and did he write some edgy darkness? No. He wrote this thing, this fantasy, with its message of hope that evil can be vanquished, and that men can be good, yes, even when they seem utterly lost to goodness. This is somehow the lesson that the War to End All Wars had taught him. He had nothing left to prove, so he made a pretty, frivolous thing, for children, but couldn’t help it, he couldn’t help making something bigger than that. He knew how intimate men become with each other under fire, and it ended up in the book.

That is the only thing he wanted to remember, that unexpected love when suffering and death are right on top of you. I wonder who Legolas was to him? Somebody young and beautiful, who deserved to live a thousand years, but didn’t, probably. They shall not grow old.

We shouldn’t need the machine guns coming at us to hug our friends, that’s probably what he wanted the world to know.