The Dust That Falls From Dreams

by Louis de Bernières

  She tried to read, but could not concentrate. She wrote a letter to the Poetry Bookshop to ask when the next collection of Georgian poetry was due out, and then settled down with their anthology for 1911–12. She bypassed the rather overblown contributions of Lascelles Abercrombie and Gordon Bottomley, and turned straight to the five contributed by Rupert Brooke. How very strange to read a long poem written in Germany about nostalgia for one place in England. ‘Grantchester’ was a poem that could no longer be written. You could write something very like it in France, though. Rosie wondered how many of the soldiers were writing poems. It wasn’t something that Ash was likely to do.

  She read ‘Dust’ four times to herself, and then stood up and read it aloud as she paced about the drawing room. That poem was certainly about her and Ash, should one of them die. She liked the phrase ‘The shattering fury of our fire’. That’s what it was, this desperate passion. She read ‘The Fish’, and noticed how clever was that cascade of couplets, connected by so much deft enjambement. Rosie would have loved to write a poem as accomplished as that. ‘Town and Country’ was irrelevant because it was about the seeping away of love, and that was something in which Rosie did not believe. ‘Dining Room Tea’ seemed a little obscure and strange to her, so she went back and read ‘Dust’ again. Then she turned to page 71 and read Walter de la Mare’s ‘The Listeners’. Really, it was by far the best poem in the book, even better than ‘Dust’. Rosie wished again that she could write poetry of such quality. She knew that somewhere inside her there was poetry waiting to come out. She had an obscure instinct that all she needed to do was read enough poetry with her eyes, and one day it would start coming out of her fingers. She went and fetched a paper knife from her father’s desk, and eagerly began to cut the remaining pages.

  In the evening Mrs McCosh, Rosie and Christabel went out to play bridge, and when they were coming back, Mrs McCosh’s umbrella was blown inside out and wrecked.

  On the 28th Rosie could not stand the agony of sitting around worrying, so she went to the YMCA hut to see if there was any way in which she could be useful, but there wasn’t. What was she supposed to do with herself? She went round to see Mr and Mrs Pendennis again. Mrs Pendennis asked Rosie about the Pitt brothers who used to live on the other side of the McCoshes, wanting to know if she knew where they were these days. She said, ‘No, but I expect Mama does,’ and on the way home she remembered what a little scallywag Daniel Pitt had been, expert in all those horrible tricks and tortures that little boys love. He’d fired a rotten plum at her with his catapult, and it had splattered all over her dress. Still, she had been very fond of him. She remembered his brother Archie, who was older, and thought how nice it would be to see them again, after all these years. No doubt they were both caught up in the war too.

  Rosie drifted through the 29th and 30th in a fog of numbness, but on the 31st it was raining violently again, and once more she was desperate with worry on Ash’s behalf. That evening Mr and Mrs Pendennis came round for dinner, and afterwards they all played bridge until 11.30. As everyone does in wartime, they kept themselves distracted with conviviality. It was raw and painful having to sing the new year in with ‘Auld Lang Syne’. Mr McCosh became emotional and stood up to recite Robert Burns. Then he sang ‘The Flowers of the Forest’ and the Pendennises went home feeling bleak.

  The days of the new year dragged by. Rosie kept going down to the YMCA hut, but they never found any use for her. Her mother did the household accounts as usual at this time of year, and became irritable. Rosie went out to tea and people came to tea, she went shopping, she went to see Mrs Pendennis. On 5 January it occurred to her that the one thing she could do was to go and visit the Cottage Hospital, but she found it almost impossible not to get in the way, and felt very awkward with people who did not really want to speak. The sights and particularly the sounds were more dreadful than she could possibly have imagined. She knew that her horror was selfish, because she was never thinking of the victims before her, but only of the possibility that something like this could happen to Ash. Of course, she told herself, she would marry and love him anyway, even if he were blind and missing his legs, and even if he were covered in burns, but what worried her was how Ash himself might take it. Rosie was convinced that he would prefer to die rather than become some of the things that she had seen, whether she were to marry him or not.

  On Friday the 8th of January, Rosie learned that Mrs Crow’s husband had been killed, and so she and her mother went round to take her some black things to wear. She had been too distraught to go and get some for herself. Rosie felt helpless in the face of such abject despair, but she decided to go back every day for a while, if Mrs Crow were agreeable.

  On the 11th it rained cats and dogs again, and Rosie remembered how Ash used to joke that English rain was more like horses and donkeys sometimes. Then on the 14th there was news that Mrs Burman’s son Bill had been wounded and was in Lady Meynell’s Hospital. Mrs McCosh became very excited about this, and immediately wanted to go there just in case she ran into Lady Meynell. They did not see Lady Meynell, but Bill Burman was in good spirits. He had a shattered knee and would always walk stiffly because the surgeons simply fused all the bones together. He was mainly worried about how it might affect his golf. Clearly, he would have to give up tennis. On the 17th Vera Burman came to tea and she told Rosie that Bill found her visits very comforting, and looked forward to them a great deal. Rosie told her that she would quite like to work in a hospital, because it was so awful to feel useless at times like these.

  On Saturday the 23 rd there was snow and fog, and Rosie had to break the ice in her jug in the morning before she could wash. Mrs McCosh announced that it was as heavy as the great snowfall of 1881. Christabel, Ottilie, Sophie and Rosie made a huge snowman in the garden, but had to keep coming back in to warm up in between forays. What if it has been snowing on Ash like this? Ottilie said, ‘Don’t worry, there couldn’t possibly be any battles in weather like this.’

  And then it thawed in the night and the lovely huge snowman melted away completely.

  On the 25th Mrs McCosh went into Holders to ask about getting her violin valued and serviced. She only played it when everybody but the servants was out, and had long ago given up entertaining guests with it. She possessed genuine talent and a very romantic style, and the girls used to love it when they came home and were looking for their keys at the front door, and they would hear her in the morning room. She would prop the music up in front of the Bible on its lectern, and throw herself into pieces by Kreisler. Now that the war had got going, and she was particularly anxious about Ashbridge, she was playing more than ever, but only the servants had the profit of it. They knew every note of ‘Schön Rosmarin’.

  On the 27th Sidney Pendennis came home on leave and he said that Albert and Ash were bearing up well. He brought letters from Ashbridge, and a strange souvenir, which was a German bullet exactly stuck through a British one so that it made a St Andrew’s cross. Everybody thought it a wonderful and strange thing, which indeed it was. Rosie put it in her jewellery box, next to the curtain ring that had been her original token of engagement from Ashbridge.

  Another letter came from Ashbridge, in which he said that he had encountered Daniel Pitt, after how many years? He reported that Daniel was in the Royal Flying Corps now, but just a tyro, and had done a forced landing not far from Ash’s trench, in between the lines. Apparently Daniel had had to hide in a shell hole until darkness fell, and meanwhile the Germans had completely wrecked his aeroplane with shells. Rosie thought about Daniel for a while, remembering how he’d once wrapped himself in a sheet and pretended to be a ghost in broad daylight, which had not been the slightest bit frightening.

  On the 28th Rosie and her mother went to meet a huge convoy of Belgian refugees at Victoria Station, to assist in the general mustering and sorting. They were poor souls, miserable and confused, but also overwhelmed with gratitude for their friendly reception. Upon their return, Mrs McCosh learned
that her violin was worth £90. It seemed an astonishing piece of good news amid all the gloom spread by the casualty lists. Rosie went to supper with Mr and ‘Mamma’ Pendennis. Between them they managed, for a couple of hours, to erect a thin facade of cheerfulness and optimism. Before Ashbridge left he had arranged a code, and from his latest letter they were able to work out that he had been in a place called Sanvic, but was now in Kemmel.

  15

  Daniel Pitt to his Mother (2)

  A mysterious location not permitted to be revealed even to mothers, but you know my squadron number anyway, so do write back to that, somewhere near St Omer.

  4 February 1915

  Ma chère maman, elegante et magnifique!

  You’ll never guess who I’ve run into! I came down in front of the lines – but worry not! It happens all the time and is only to be expected, and I was unharmed, unlike my poor machine, a pretty little Morane-Saulnier whose name was Florence, you may remember, and was immediately shelled to smithereens by Fritz – and I managed to get into one of our trenches, and guess who was in it! I’ll write and tell you tomorrow.

  Tomorrow. Same address.

  It was Ashbridge Pendennis, he of two doors down when I was little and you were even younger, the American boy with the two brothers who was always mooning around Rosie McCosh, and she around him. He and the aforementioned frères are with the HAC, and he was ‘mighty glad’ to see me after all these years. He tells me that he is engaged to Rosie. This information made me feel very forlorn, I have to tell you, because I rather fancied her for myself. What lovely grey eyes! Or were they blue? Such wondrous cascades of chestnut hair! Such touching freckles and an adorable little nose!

  I will tell you of my most recent escapades tomorrow.

  Gee, it’s tomorrow already.

  I took a potshot at a Taube with my carbine and missed. Couldn’t get close enough to take a hack with my sabre.

  We had the most enormous binge in the mess, which was of far greater danger to me than Fritz is ever likely to be. I woke up in a ditch with frost on my beard, if I had had one. We’d been playing Cardinal Puff which is most lethal. Apparently there was a terrific rag after I passed out, and now the mess looks as though a shell has landed in it. Please don’t tell my mother – she would be very shocked. Nay, tell her that I have spent part of my spare time on my knees in church, and the rest reading the work of lady poets!

  But why did we binge and rag? Chère maman, it was because a Rumpler flew over the aerodrome yesterday, and dropped some eggs somewhat inaccurately, so yours truly ran outside with the aforementioned carbine, and took a potshot at him. By some miracle I got the pilot in the calf, and he had to land before he passed out. Ergo (and eheu!) one captured intact machine, and two disgruntled Fritz aviators! We packed the pilot off to the casualty clearing station in the tender, but the observer stayed for the binge and rag, and is now in the guardroom with all his regrets and the mother of all hangovers. So, chère maman, behold the hero of the hour!

  Heroically yours, grandes bises, je t’embrasse!Any news of Archie?

  Ton fils dévoué,

  Daniel P.

  16

  The Red Sweet Wine of Youth (1)

  Rest camp at Sanvic. Have to lie down in ten inches of mud. Spend a lot of time unloading supplies in Rouen. Aching all over. Food was inedible. First fatigues moving hundreds of bales of hay. Second was loading tins of petrol. Empty tins end up as water vessels, so water in the front line always has the tang of petrol. My friend Hutch says he can tell from the flavour whether or not the can has been BP. Fun dropping matches into the cans to burn off the vapour.

  Detailed to go and help in the bacteria lab. The Major extremely nice. Made specimens of bacteria for him taken from wounds. Let me see them under the microscope. Thanked me and asked me to come again. Told him I was really an engineer, and asked him what he thought I should do.

  8th Jan. Pay parade and I got eight francs. Found a Frenchwoman with a tub and paid for a bath. Bought a fur coat made of a piebald goat. Not popular with pals – smells of former owner.

  9th. Was sick, and so allowed to slack. An aeroplane came down between the lines, and after dark the pilot and observer crept up and dropped into the trench. We filled them up with tea, and damn me if one of them didn’t turn out to be Daniel Pitt, an original Pal, who used to live the other side of Rosie’s house! Had a good chinwag about childhood days. Said he’d crashed three times in the last fortnight. Par for the course, apparently. Feel envious of the birdmen, but by God, you have to be darned brave. They get colder than we do. Wouldn’t catch me up there.

  10th. Cookhouse fatigues. Felt very poorly. Probably flu. A lot of us got sick in the cattle truck. Thirty to a car.

  12th. Some sweets arrived from my aunt. Extremely cold. This is a decent place. Lots of food locally. Enemy aeroplane dropped two bombs and didn’t hit anything. Terrific noise, however. One of the men got run over by a lorry (five tonner) from head to foot. Thought he was dead, but just squashed into mud so had to dig him out. Contusions, that’s all. That driver makes a custom of running people over.

  This isn’t the glamorous kind of soldiering we’d volunteered for.

  13th. Marched seven miles in the rain. Glad to arrive. Quartered in a school. Shell burst five hundred yards away. A fine sight, my first real experience of shells. Grenade practice. A serious business. You light the fuse and have five seconds to throw it.

  No idea where to go or what to do when we finally arrived. No plan, nobody came to meet us. Ruined village, heaps of engineers’ supplies, knife rests, barbed wire, shovels, trenching tools, etc. Only intact structure was a grandstand with the paint peeling off.

  Slumped on the green and smoked while officer went off to find someone who knew anything. Ended up distributed between least demolished cottages. With eight others in a tiny room with one shell hole punched neatly through it. Shell still lying there. Decided that it probably wouldn’t explode. Hutch scrawled ‘RIP’ on it. I slept very well.

  Dug latrines. Always the first thing to do. Don’t even wait for officers to detail you. You arrive, unshoulder your weapon and shoulder your spade. Pulled up some leeks, dug a nice latrine. We pray, ‘Dear Lord, please do not let a shell land in the latrines, because I am buggered if I am going to dig another one.’ Ours has a horizontal pole to perch on. Nothing to clean up with. Can’t bear to use Rosie’s letters, so am using letters from anyone else, after memorising and replying. Post is extraordinarily efficient, considering. A lot of the lads forced to use their love letters. I don’t smoke much, makes me feel dizzy, so use my cigarette ration to buy letters, as well as the extra rum. A sad fate for beautiful feminine sentiments.

  14th. Went on fatigues to repair the road. Mud and water! Shovelled mud, sank in mud, breathed in mud. Felt like a fly on flypaper. Saw Albert, and he was the same dear brother, but very tired of it all. Plenty of shells.

  Hutch found out that two old women still living in the village would sell us coffee and bread if we got there first. Like cartoon witches from a book of fairy tales. Found cans of Scotch broth just lying at the side of the road. Hooray! And they had a granddaughter who was prepared to ‘teach French’.

  Hutch says that we are nobody’s children. Don’t know exactly what he means. Must ask. He keeps repeating it. Certainly, nobody seems to be in charge of looking after us, so we do it. Shot a rabbit. Last one in Flanders. Stewed it up with leeks. Bullet went through the ribs so no real meat was spoiled. Thought of how Rosie would have been upset by my shooting a rabbit. Such a big soft spot for animals. Expect she would have cried. Hutch made ripping little stove out of a biscuit tin and set it up in a niche. Call it ‘the Savoy Grill’. The Major said it was just about the best in the battalion. He brought the anti-gas equipment today. Onward Christian soldiers.

  15th. Re-dug a dugout that collapsed because of a shell. Spent all day in it. Stink perfectly horrible. Shells going overhead sound like carts on cobbles. Worked from 8.30 to 4.30 a
nd then detailed to take bundles of wood to the Lancashires. Went in single file and fell in mud over and over. Bullets whizzed above us, and when they fell in the mud, they sizzled. Shell nearby made me jump, but already quite used to them. The Germans have extraordinary sniper. We put three sticks in a row poking up above the trench, and he snapped each in turn. Definitely don’t approve of shrapnel. Fizzes and whizzes about like lethal metal bees. Causes one to execute a tactical narrowing of front, and keep it narrow thereafter. Rifles bunged up with mud and unshootable.

  10 p.m. Hutch and a few others detailed to go and carry a pump from the chateau to the trenches. I was groaning in the latrine in the dark so was let off. Hutch brought back a spent bullet. Said it had been hell. Completely drenched and covered with stinking filth. You throw yourself down in the mud every time a star shell goes up, and Hutch fell straight into the corpse of a horse. Stretcher parties stumbling about in the dark, collecting the dead and wounded, because it can’t be done by day. Continuous muttering of curses in the dark. Like the murmuring of nocturnal animals. Hutch said they finally delivered the pump and got cups of tea, only twenty yards from the Boche.

  Morning. Cut off the bottom of my greatcoat. Did as he said. We look like a tribe of vagabonds. The skin of that rabbit ended up under my helmet. Great joy over the arrival of balaclavas/gum boots. Collected pieces of string to tie faggots and little lumps of wood to my webbing. No fire means no warm food/no warm hands. Woke up covered with snow, clothes so stiff with frost they crackled when I moved. Bearded like the pard, and beard plastered with mudcrust, unlike the pard.