Very lights, phosgene, duckboards and
bully beef; a secret language which only we spoke, words that left a
metallic tang like the water I sipped from his canteen. He said I could
never use I'll be back. Goodbye, see ya, but not that. Because Leslie had said don't worry Gran, I'll be back, only
to be swallowed by the unspeakable mud of Landers. I didn't know where
Landers was, exactly, but I knew that it was somewhere over the sea, and
that nothing ever grew there but the skeletons of trees and barbed
wire. The sun never shone; it rained or it misted or it stormed, with
great rolling booms of thunder and squalls of shrieking metal. Sometimes
the farmers still turn up shells, planted but never blooming, with
their ploughs.
He had a clay pot of poppies on his porch. I wanted to pick one, it was so beautifully, vividly red; but he said no, those are my friends and
I understood it to mean that they were really and truly his friends,
come back to life as flowers, and so I watered them and talked to them,
and to the ones which withered away I gave a decent Christian burial
beside the house. The house itself seemed weary of things, leaning to
one side and sighing to itself on occasion.
He
had to have been old, but sometimes when I walked beside him he seemed
young and vibrant and smelled of soap. I loved the scent of freshly cut
grass in the summer, but he held a hand to his face and went inside. Grass and mayflowers are the smell of death, he would say, more to be feared than the stench of the lines, for the dead cannot do you harm.
On
July 1, every year, we went into the yard and we had a picnic of corned
beef, crackers, and tea. The flower pot from the porch was our
centerpiece, and before we ate we stood, and he lifted his glass and
said solemnly Gentlemen, when the barrage lifts* . It made me feel important to be a part of it all, though I did not understand.
People
must have thought him a strange man, for they never spoke to him or
acknowledged his existence. But then they must have thought me a strange
little girl, for they seldom spoke to me either. One day I was sent
away to boarding school, just like that, with one battered suitcase and a
paper bag lunch. It was a girl's school, and it might just as well have
been another country for I didn't speak the language or know the
customs. I got the occasional letter from home it's just for a few years and how nice it must be for you to finally have friends and finally, after a while, such
dust everywhere, they've torn down the old shack next door, an eyesore
it was, no one's ever lived there that I can remember.
I
came home after a time, and insinuated myself into the life of a small
town. Once a year, on July 1, I go to the local pub and loudly drink my
toast. Someone will ask what it means, and I will tell them. I work two
jobs and, bit by bit, I am paying for the piece of land which lies
beside my childhood home. There is nothing there, not yet, just rutted
mud and the odd brick or stone. The grass is growing, slowly, and I lie
upon a patch in the sun, idly twining the stem of a poppy between my
fingers. They have grown, once again, of their own accord, children of
the ones I buried long ago.
************************************************************
1. *Author's note: traditional In Memoriam newspaper notice: 9th and 10th
BNS., K.O.Y.L.I. - To the undying memory of the Officers and Men of the
above Battalions who fell in the attack on Fricourt (Somme) on July 1,
1916. “Gentlemen, when the barrage lifts.”
2. “Gentlemen, when the barrage lifts.” This was a toast made before the Somme attack of the 9th and 10th
Battalions of the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry. Twenty-four
hours after the attack, 800 men had been reduced to 80 men and 4
officers.
3. The smell of the gas phosgene is often described as that of newly mown grass or hay.
I wrote Remembrance quite some time ago, but thought I would re-post it once again in honour of Veteran's Day.
And here is "In Flanders Field"
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
by John McCrae, May 1915
And here is "In Flanders Field"
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
by John McCrae, May 1915
A fitting day to repost that story, Lisa.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful the first time I read it, and it remains so.
ReplyDeleteThank you Stuart :-)
DeleteI remember this one. Still has the impact, the memory. Lay your ghosts to rest, and drink to their health!
ReplyDeleteBeatiful writing, an excellent piece and I enjoyed the information and poem that followed.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful, not beatiful, of course.
ReplyDelete