Flanders

by Patricia Anthony

  Travis Lee

  JULY 31, THE FRONT TRENCHES

  Dear Bobby,

  That goddamned Blackhall made me shit wallah. I can’t believe it.

  “Straighten you out, Stanhope,” he said. “Report to Riddell. He’ll be expecting you. You’re to help Nye with the duty. Perhaps you can think about life while you’re hauling muck.”

  We were standing in a traverse when Blackhall gave me the order. Pickering was sitting on a whale oil crate behind me, and when he heard, he broke into that whinny of his.

  “Shut your mouf, Pickering,” Blackhall said.

  “All due respect, sir.” I snorted, too, just to show him I meant it sarcastic-like. “You’re talking here to two originals. You know that, don’t you? We joined this company back when. And we’re a dwindling bunch, sir, seeing as how Foy’s in hospital blues right now. We’re goddamned valuable to this battalion. I’m valuable,” I said. “You don’t have nobody to bring up the company kill totals like I do.”

  He lit his pipe, sucked a few times on the stem, and blew the smoke in my face.

  “Easy on,” Pickering called in warning, for he knew I was about to take Blackhall down, lieutenant or not.

  “You’ve a bad attitude, Stanhope, and I mean to cure it or kill yer.”

  “You run this shit wallah idea of yours by Captain Miller?”

  He laughed. “You’ll still have time to play the sharpshooter. Oh, yes. I’ll see to that. And if you don’t, no matter. You’re not as bleeding important to this company as you think.” Then he walked away.

  I went on down to talk some sense into Riddell, but when I saw the look on his face, I knew I’d have to take my complaint higher.

  “Was that, or field punishment,” he said. “Best take the duty, lad.”

  Nye reminds me of an old coon hound who’s lost his tracking scent and has retired to sentry the yard. He keeps saying I’ll get used to it. “Ain’t so bad,” he told me. “You holds your breath, that’s the trick. And keep your head down when you takes the kerosene tin up the communication trench. Supposed to bury the muck, but I got me a special dumping spot, I does.”

  When I opened my first biscuit box latrine, I nearly threw up in the hole. It’s different going at it ass-first. The rope handles were slimy. The tin was a lot heavier than I thought. I can tell you firsthand, Bobby: This army’s plumb full of shit.

  When I finally wrestled the tin out, I had to bend over so my face was real close to the places asses and peckers had overshot their aim. I had to fish around the hole for the cover. I found it, coated with dried yellow scum.

  “Goddamn!” I spat. “Jesus! Fuck it! Shit!”

  Nye got to laughing at me so hard that he nearly tumped his kerosene tin. “An’ that’s the truf of it, Yank.”

  “Son-of-a-bitching duty,” I said. Shit was all over my hands and just then my nose decided to itch. I rubbed it hard against my shoulder. “I hate this! That ignorant SOB, Blackhall!”

  From down the trench I could hear Pickering’s merry loud laugh, Marrs’s manic cackle.

  I screamed. “You better shut the hell up! I’m coming up there, Pickering! You hear me? I’m coming to dump this crap on you.”

  Nye was laughing so hard that he could hardly walk. We must have awakened the Boche, for a couple of Maxim rounds slapped the dirt mound of the parados behind me. It startled me, and my hand twitched. Piss sloshed in the can, spilled, and soaked my puttees.

  “Christ!” I shouted toward the German gunner, “You shit-for-brains kraut!” More bullets whined over my head.

  I followed Nye from the firebay into a traverse where Pickering, Marrs, and Foy were sitting, convulsed with laughter. When they saw my expression, they got up quick and retreated down the trench. Above me, bullets punched the parados like small hard fists, sent dirt flying.

  I shouted back, “You cock-sucking squarehead! If you know what’s good for you, you bastard, you’ll stop that right now!”

  “Here!” Nye called.

  He wasn’t in front of me anymore. I turned to see him standing in the mouth of a communication trench. He was red-faced and watery-eyed from merriment.

  “Come on, now, Stanhope, an’ let’s do our dump wif our heads and arses down. You’ve called our Fritz bad names, see? And now he’s mad at us, ain’t he.”

  We shouldered our way down the communication trench past a stray dugout, a small one, where two lost-looking men were sleeping. Just before reaching the support trench, Nye climbed the revetment and jumped the sandbags. I stood, holding onto my bucket while way across No Man’s Land a Maxim played a slow and deadly rataplan.

  “Come on,” Nye called.

  Tighter quarters here than the communication trench where I saw LeBlanc’s Boche. This was just a cramped, careless, zigzag gouge in the earth. The sweet-sickly smell of death—either human or rat—was so strong that it drove out the stink of offal.

  Nye peered over a sandbag. “Got to do it, chum. That, or carry the tin three kilos down. Would’ye rather?”

  Holding onto the tin’s handles tightly, I climbed up after him. The land between the front trench and the support was clinging desperately to life. Not far from my splayed hand was one of those yellow flowers I’d seen when I’d gone skinny-dipping with O’Shaughnessy. By that was a tuft of grass, wonderfully, miraculously green.

  “Come on, then, Stanhope. No time for sightseeing. Dump it here.”

  He’d found a shell hole, a big one; and he’d clearly been using it for a while. The crater was half full of sewage. I wormed forward, popped the cover, and let my load of sludge join the rest.

  “Not so bad now, is it? Me, well, they made me shit wallah when I joined the company, an’ I never knew any different. I figure it’s a stinky duty, but better than some. Rather carry shit than carry up the ammo, meself. Something hit one of these kerosene tins, an’ all it needs is a quick bath to set you right. Come on, now. Give us a smile. Don’t know what you did to get the assignment, Yank, but . . .”

  “Nothing, okay? I didn’t do nothing.”

  “All right. No need to get in a bristle. Besides, this is just jankers duty, and not no field punishment or the clink,” Nye said. “Trick is to keep your head down, though. Lost Partridge that way.”

  Lucky Partridge. I carted shit all day, working down the company platoon by platoon, getting to know the men better and more up-close than I’d ever wanted to.

  “There’s a tale to shit,” Nye, the philosopher, said. “Take this lot. One’s family sent him raisins. You can see how they all plumped up. Bad digestion’ll do that: sends things through whole. Corn, mostly.”

  The Maxim had gone quiet. I wished it would start up again.

  “Does worse when men has a scare in them. Plum jam’ll turn you red, organ meats turn you green. All colors to shit, really. You ever notice, Yank?”

  “No.” Shelling. I longed for the clean sound of a whistling william, the low croon of a minnie.

  Nye took a break for a cigarette, a cheap gasper. He didn’t bother to wash his hands. When we ate lunch, he didn’t bother washing them then, either. I don’t know. Shit wallah. Some ends may be worse than death.

  That night I went back to my dugout covered in sour brown sludge. My shoulders ached. Even in the stink of the trench, soldiers stepped out of my way.

  Blackhall was in the door of his dugout, waiting. “Best thing for a mean dog—work him into minding. Think I’ll work you for a bit, Stanhope.”

  Pickering was standing a few feet away, smiling already, waiting for my comeback; but I was too tired to reply.

  I crawled into my cubbyhole and closed my eyes. I must have gone to sleep as soon as they shut. When I woke up the next morning, Pickering and Marrs had moved. I was the only one left in my dugout.

  Exhaustedly yours, Travis Lee

  AUGUST 3, THE REST AREA ONE TO GIVE YOU FACE-TO-FACE

  Dear Bobby,

  They kept us too damned long at the front. Command knew that, I guess, be
cause by the time they ordered us back, they ordered us all the way into the rest area and gave us an extended leave. Some of the boys had been getting pretty twitchy and trench-bound. Before we were even settled into the huts, the boys were running around organizing a football game. I lingered over my first shower in days, gloried in my clean uniform. But I could still smell shit on me.

  Miller would straighten Blackhall out. I hadn’t shot a Boche in weeks. Miller’s totals were probably slumping. To be honest, Bobby, I’ve known for a long time that Miller’s pecker stands at attention when I’m around. Hell, women flirt to get what they want, don’t they? I wasn’t too proud to wiggle my ass for the captain. God, I hate shit wallah duty.

  So I made sure my uniform looked good enough for muster. I combed what hair the army left me into that forehead curl all the girls like. I shaved my face titty-soft; I slapped a little Bay Rum on. I made myself pretty, like I was stepping out with a lady.

  Had to be a clandestine meeting, though. And I thought a powerful lot about how I’d approach him. Get him alone. Real secluded kind of alone. And I’d start slow and subtle, like you do with the girls. Get up close to him—not touching, but near to. I’d look him right in the eye and keep my voice low. Old Martha Jane Van der Hooven says she nearly wets her drawers when I make my voice husky.

  I’d say something ambiguous like, “You know, Captain Miller? I can’t help noticing you.”

  Let me stop right here and give you a lesson in seduction, Bobby. You don’t have to tell a woman you love her. Just say something ambiguous and they’ll ponder it. They’ll turn your words this way and that. They’ll look at them upside down and sideways. They’ll think about those words so much that, with you not doing a thing, they’ll build their own romance.

  Not that I was considering any activity with Miller, you understand. No, sir. I never had nothing like that in mind. Just a flirtation, that’s all. Why, if life throws a pry bar your way, seems that God means for you to use it.

  I caught sight of him leaving the officers’ hut. He was walking by himself. He looked kind of sad, really—just him and the road. I trailed him, keeping out of sight.

  I hoped he wouldn’t up and kiss me. God almighty. I’d have to make awful damned sure that things never got that far. No laying on of hands, nothing like that.

  But the deeper we got into the countryside, the more scared I got. He was easy to track, no turning around to look, no eyeing the scenery. Where the hell was he going?

  He turned, strolling over a fieldstone bridge. I hid in a hedgerow until he was out of sight, then double-timed it after him.

  “Oh, it’s you, Captain Miller!” I’d say, like I was surprised.

  Would he ask me why I wasn’t back at the hut getting ready for that afternoon’s inspection? Maybe not. Not if I gave him the eye first.

  But flirting with him could prove dangerous. I mean, hell, the boy was lonely.

  So I’d treat him gentle, the way I would a starry-eyed piece of jailbait with aspirations. “If things were different,” I’d say. Or “If I ever decided to do it with a man . . .” Something like that.

  Ahead was a woody copse. The canopied, shady lane through it was empty. Damn. Where had Miller gone? I kept close to the roadside weeds and saw signs ahead: broken fern stalks and snapped branches where someone had left the trail. The forest was too quiet. Too dark. Had he figured out that I was behind him? He could be waiting up ahead to ambush me.

  It was an idiot idea in the first place. What was I thinking? I’d gone AWL from the barracks. Miller would have me up on charges. He’d catch me here all alone and force me to, well, you know. Damnation, Bobby. I didn’t know how I could put up with that. I’d knock the fire out of him first. But then it would be my word against his. What was the punishment for striking an officer?

  Voices started up a few yards ahead, and laughter. I hunkered down by a nearby evergreen bush and listened. Two men, keeping their voices low. I crept around the bush to take a peek. Miller and Dunston-Smith. They were just standing there talking, casual as any two fellows, when all of a sudden Dunston-Smith up and kissed Miller. It wasn’t just a peck, either, but one of those sloppy tongue-down-the-throat types. Miller wasn’t exactly backing away.

  Made me want to puke. I mean, I knew he was a light-stepper and all, but still. Dunston-Smith? He let Dunston-Smith poke his tongue in his mouth? Jesus God. Didn’t Miller remember that Dunston-Smith was at the stables that time I rode his big sorrel gelding? Well, if he didn’t remember that peckerwood drinking cheap wine and gossiping about him, why, I do. And I remember real clear what he said as Miller walked away: “. . . right schools, but how could they have taken a sheeny?”

  Dunston-Smith has a prissy laugh, Bobby, and a way of looking down his nose at you. And, well, I may not be any judge, but don’t seem to me that he’s anything to look at. Still, there Miller stood, letting him tongue his tonsils and feel him up. When Miller stepped back, I thought, Boy’s finally come to his senses, but he took Dunston-Smith’s hand and led him away to a tumbledown hut.

  I should have gone back then. I didn’t. I don’t know why I stayed. There was nothing to see but the hut’s blank wall. There was nothing to hear but the birds. I thought about how the two of them had seemed so comfortable with each other, like they’d been loving long enough to clear away the silliness.

  The spot they’d chosen was pathetic. The roof’s thatch had a case of mange. It would leak when it rained. And they must have been there in the rain sometimes. In the heat of an afternoon. In the chill of a twilight. Miller. So familiar with that hand. So sure of where he led him. How Dunston-Smith trustingly followed.

  There’d be a blanket inside to wrap themselves up in. Straw, and an oilskin to keep it fresh. The place would smell of hay and mildew, forest and mushrooms and sweated bodies. I waited. All I saw was the mute wall where moss spread in gentle feathery blooms across rain-stained planks. Late flowers blossomed nearby: pale, secretive, fleshy things. So hushed was that tree-dark that the birds’ cries seemed piercing. Still I sat, breathing in the scent of evergreen, until the sun sank under the horizon and my head had cleared and I figured I could stand.

  I got back late—late for dinner, late for inspection. In the lamp-lit dark, I ran into a pair of red caps. They arrested me, of course. Then they marched me down to Blackhall, who shook his head and told me, “Stanhope, you’re a lazy bastard. Is there nothing you won’t do to shirk duty?” and ordered me clapped in the glasshouse.

  Jail. Better than shoveling shit.

  Travis Lee

  AUGUST 4, THE GLASSHOUSE

  Dear Bobby,

  I can’t sleep here. Something about the place. I toss and turn. I listen to the click of heels as the sentries make their rounds. Nights, I watch crosshatched moonlight climb the wall; and when the moon sets, I get up and pace the three short steps from iron-barred door to meshed window. I stop there sometimes, my palms flat against the wood wall. A damp, grass-scented breeze comes through the mesh, nose-high.

  Funny. I didn’t think being jailed would make me jumpy, but it’s the knowing I can’t leave, Bobby. It’s the having to sit here that drives me crazy. I jiggle my foot to bleed off the nerves. I work my hands together so tight that my nails turn blue.

  When I lie down it seems like spiders are crawling my skin, and I picture the daddy longlegs in the root cellar and how Ma used to hold you tight; how I’d hold you when Ma was too sick and the storms were coming. Do you remember that, Bobby? Do you remember how I used to wrap my arms around you when spiders threatened and the wind howled upstairs? I haven’t been such a bad brother, have I?

  Time travels slow here. Marrs and Pickering came to see me today. Pickering studied me this way and that. “Don’t look half so handsome in clink as you do mucking out latrines.”

  “Hear they gives you bread and water,” Marrs said. “That all?”

  “Otherwise wouldn’t be much of a punishment, Marrs.” Pickering lit up a Woodbine, offered me one
. “We’re going into town to prang whores, Stanhope. Wish you could come.”

  Marrs, shy and nervous as a mouse. “Don’t be telling nobody I’m going to visit a tart, now. Don’t want the folks at home to hear, me dad friends with our parish priest and all.”

  “I say, you all right, Stanhope?” Pickering asked. “You sure? Well, you’re the talk of the company again. Good old Stanhope, the font of bloody conversation. Here. Let me light that gasper for you. You sure you’re all right, now? Why’nt give us a smile, then? A fart?”

  “Something,” Marrs said.

  The cigarette tasted stale, but I kept on smoking. “Do me a favor, Pickering. Prang your whore once for me.”

  He put his hand through the bars. “Be five shillings.”

  Marrs gave out with one of his high, insane cackles. “Pickering’s talking you up to the whole company, about you being a red Indian and all, and how you can come and go without being seen, like. He’s goes on about you forever. Got them all believers.”

  Pickering’s face went serious. He took a pensive drag of his cigarette, let the smoke trail out his nostrils: a droll, horse-faced dragon. “So where were you off to, then? I mean, really?”

  I paced the room, trying to outdistance Pickering’s stare. “I can’t sleep no more. Ain’t that funny? No Maxims, no shells, and I can’t sleep worth shit.”

  “Too bad,” Marrs said.

  Blank gray sky in the window, the smell of rain. “You boys bring me back something from town?”

  “Whores’re too heavy to carry, Stanhope,” Pickering told me. “Especially that fat ox you favor. Besides, you’d have to stick your bird through the bars. Think it would go, Marrs? Think our Stanhope’s that gifted?”

  I turned in time to see bashful Marrs duck his head. “Dunno. Ain’t like I ever looked.”

  “Ain’t you, then?” Pickering can do a dead-on parody of Marrs. He’s a mockingbird like that—mimics everyone. He’s a hurtful kind of funny, Bobby, if you know what I mean.