Anyway, LeBlanc got his decoration. Got a week off from sandbag duty, too. He’s Major Dunn’s fair-haired boy. Not that it makes any difference to LeBlanc, mind. And not that he charged Emma Gee out of bravery, either.
“I knew I wasn’t going to die,” he said.
Around here, everybody’s got a death theory.
“It wasn’t my time, eh? When your time’s up, your time’s up. No use hiding. Death’ll come get you, anyway. So why be scared, Stanhope? See what I mean? Like I keep telling you, you need to look death in the eye and say, ‘Fuck you.’ Then you too can get your nipple pricked by some asshole ranking officer. You too can have majors and colonels kissing your round pink butt. That’s all it takes. So can you do that for me? Huh? Next time we go into No Man’s Land? Can you look over to the Boche trench and say that?”
I laughed. “Sure. Fuck you, LeBlanc.”
My own death theory is that Marrs needs to get to the damned graveyard. I lie at night with my eyes closed and try to push all the distractions out—the clatter of the sentry up the duckboard, the chitters and squeals of the rats—and I go out into No Man’s Land. There are other folks there besides Marrs, and that kind of surprises me—puzzled, dim people. Some are familiar: folks I know by sight if not by name. There are Boche and Frenchies, too. Sometimes I see Scots wandering around in those damned kilts. You wouldn’t think that would happen, would you, Bobby? You wouldn’t think that your waking mind could go strange.
I can’t control my own daydreams. If it was up to me, I’d have the ghosties speak. Lord knows, I fantasize that I’m speaking to them. But most of the time they just wander on, not paying no mind, not to me, not to each other.
I feel and see things, though, and that’s hard—the cool inky shadows of a fir tree woods; the happy noise of beer and pretzel camaraderie—alien impressions as brief and hazy as the ghosties.
It scares me sometimes, and I open my eyes quick. I don’t know if I’ve really traveled No Man’s Land or not, Bobby, but I feel damned guilty when I leave.
It eats on me that Marrs won’t come. And when I dream of the graveyard, Foy’s still down under his glass, asleep. When I talk to Marrs about going to visit Foy, he’s always looking for that damned letter. It got burned up by the flamethrower, Bobby, is what it did.
I told Marrs that. I explain to him that he’s dead, but he just goes on about his business, whatever pointless business that is.
It’s useless. All useless. Ghosties milling around, time and hunger never pushing at them. They act like they got an eternity to waste.
Travis Lee
OCTOBER 1, POSTCARD FROM THE RESERVE TRENCHES
Dear Bobby,
Do me a favor. Kill me that old billy, the crotchety one who can’t get it up no more. Have Ma make me a vest out of him, all that long hair of his still on it. Tell her I appreciate the kindness. This goatskin vest they gave me stinks to holy hell.
Tell her I’m sorry I don’t write more often. Tell her I’ll try to do better.
Travis Lee
OCTOBER 3, THE REST AREA
Dear Bobby,
They finally pulled us back and I found out that there’s still green in the world, here way back of the line. I saw grass and just sat myself down in the middle of it. Blackhall kept telling me to get up and go into the YMCA pavilion and have lemonade like everybody else. But that wasn’t no kind of military order. I spread my arms and let myself go, fell down flat on my back, and looked up at the sky.
Blackhall finally walked away, his steps squishing across the damp meadow. It was misting rain. Water gathered on my face, ran down either side of my forehead. Drops hung like crystal beads on my lashes. Every time I blinked, I blinked prisms. I dug my fingers into the soil. Instead of bones and war trash I felt damp loam, good strong roots, hidden grubs. I felt life, Bobby. I felt of it careful. And it was intimate—like holding the earth gently, so gently, by the snatch.
I could hear them in the pavilion. A gramophone was playing some idiot march by Sousa. Pickering, probably wanting company, called from the door, “Yank music, Stanhope!”
A smile spread slow across my face. Elgar and John Phillip Sousa, music for building empires.
He called a few more times and then Pickering, too, left me alone. I snuck away from the company and started walking. The air smelled of passing summer green and leafy autumn decay. LeBlanc was down by the stables, grooming a horse, a turbaned Indian stablehand standing by. I watched for a while, the slow firm press of the brush, the ripple of the horse’s withers like a breeze across a chestnut pond.
I left before LeBlanc could turn around and see me. The back paddock smelled of strong, earthy horse shit. I took a deep breath, caught sight of Wilson’s gray standing, head down. Miller’s huge sorrel, casual and sprung-hipped, was looking over the meadow as if measuring it for planting.
I left, took an arched bridge across a stagnant canal to the officers’ huts. In a pavilion, the brass had gathered to practice some sort of show. Dunston-Smith was banging away at an out-of-tune piano. Wilson, McCarthy, and to my surprise, Miller, were dancing a chorus line and belting out a song.
He looked so happy, Bobby. The four officers, acting silly as a bunch of girls. Their flat-footed dancing, arms across each other’s shoulders, red-faced with laughter, that asinine little song.
I stood hidden and sheltered by overhanging branches. I watched them until the rain stopped and the sun came out. The officers were drinking beer, but they weren’t drunk on that. They were drunk on silliness. Falling-down drunk with it.
I heard Dunston-Smith’s voice come faint but cheery, “Once more into the breach!”
Major Dunn’s aide stepped forward to strike a pose. “Oh, nurse!” he cried.
That was the chorus line’s cue. Their song was so out of tune, so out of rhythm, that I only caught every two or three words, but it had something to do with a fatal dose of the clap. “Done for, done for,” the three of them sang to the beginning chords of “Rule, Britannia.” Then they sang about some mixup in the nickname for First Aid Nursing Yeomanry and female parts. The chorus was a screaming repetition of “So lend me your FANY!”
Well, their show didn’t have much plot, Bobby. But it made up for it in pecker-talk and pussy-talk and general all around dirt. I guess for the show itself, the chorus line’s going to be wearing dresses, for at intervals they would whirl around, bend over, and point butts at the audience. On that cue, Major Dunn’s aide would give a resounding fart.
That’s the thing about rich people, Bobby. I saw it in Harvard, and I’ve noticed it here. I don’t know whether it’s that they don’t have the time for it, but poor folks never act that stupid.
What saddened me is how Miller fit right in.
I slunk away, walked past parked lorries, past idle field ambulances, down a lane with trees to one side and a marshy canal to the other. There was a castle, Bobby. A small castle, but a real one, with a turret and all. A mile or so later was a town with houses like gingerbread, all spiked roofs and gee-gaws. It was wonderful. The best town yet. They had a square with flower sellers and a bar that made a brandy that tasted like heaven. And there was a bakery shop with a girl shaped like a dumpling. She had flour up to her elbows and a tiny slip of an apron that didn’t begin to fit her. Still, she had soft-looking titties, big as rounds of potato bread. She smelled of cinnamon and yeast, and she had the prettiest smile.
I told her so. ’Course I told her in English. The man in the bar spoke it, but she shook her head. She smiled and blushed. Those plump cheeks of hers went so pink. Oh, hell, Bobby. Girls are girls. She knew what I was saying.
We talked in shrugs and pointing and laughter. We had us a good chat. I picked out a sweet roll shaped something like a cow patty and an almond something or other. I handed her all my money. She plucked out a few coins and gave me back the rest. I was so happy right then, I nearly reached over the counter to kiss her. I could have lifted up that blouse, shoved my face between those dough
y titties, and loved on her till morning. I started wondering what the whores in town were like.
But the sun was slipping down the sky. Free time would be ending, and they’d find out I was gone. I started back.
God, Bobby. I got to see wonderful things. How the afternoon sun gilded the castle. I watched fallen leaves sail the canal like boats. I looked into the dark of that little patch of woods and heard an owl hoot, waking early.
By the time I reached the officers’ quarters, the sun had dropped below the horizon. In the blue twilight of the bridge, in the overhang of a huge willow, in the song of the frogs, I came upon Miller.
He was with Dunston-Smith, not touching, but standing close. When I walked up I startled them. I must have disturbed one of those tender moments.
My thought was to pass by without speaking, but Dunston-Smith stopped me with a happy, “I say, Stanhope! Heard about your bagging the flamethrower chappie. One bullet. Good shooting, what?”
They hadn’t stepped away from each other, but Dunston-Smith had lifted his hand in a salute. There was a beer bottle in it.
Miller, I saw, was drinking, too. “Seems I owe Stanhope here two dinners, one for bringing up my totals.”
“Oh, Richard. Your bloody totals.” Dunston-Smith’s tone was terribly upper class, terribly bored. “I’ll nick him from you, shall I? Arrange him a transfer. Would you like that, Stanhope, old sport? Get you in a white man’s company.”
It was like a slap in the face. I think I might have knocked him down if Miller hadn’t laughed. It was a whore kind of laugh. A suck-up, scared-to-be-left-out kind of laugh.
The air was heavy with silt-smell and malt. “Envious, is it, Colin? I suppose I should have Private LeBlanc for a dinner, too, as he saved the day.”
LeBlanc? But the dinner was with me. Just me. Talking poetry over a white linen-covered table.
Dunston-Smith took a swig of beer. Down the canal a fish splashed. Ripples widened, caught the last blue glimmers of dusk. “Wouldn’t mind having either of the two,” he said.
“Can’t have them,” Miller said brightly. “Besides, Stanhope here is quite an obliging chap.” He dropped the bantering tone. “A dear chap.” His voice went low. His gaze was level and private. “Couldn’t make do without him.”
There. Damn. The admission hung in the twilight.
“Isn’t that right, Stanhope?”
The purr in Miller’s voice. God. It went right through me. I didn’t know whether to bolt or laugh. Then I noticed that Dunston-Smith sure looked bothered.
So I told Miller, “I’d hope so, sir.”
Dunston-Smith upended the bottle, chug-a-lugged the rest of his beer, then hurled the empty into the gathering night. I heard the splash as it came down. The frogs, taken aback, went quiet.
“Mustn’t keep you, Stanhope,” Miller said. “Needn’t be going in late, having Blackhall angry.”
“Sir.” I saluted. “You two have a nice night, now.” I started away, but turned. They were just darker spots in the gloom. I called back, “No orders for me later tonight, sir?”
The dark spots moved, separated a bit. Then Miller’s voice, sparkling with glee. “Shouldn’t think so, Stanhope. Some other evening, perhaps.”
The willow’s overhang and the darkness swallowed them. “Looking forward to it, sir!”
That Miller and his courting games. Sly with it as I am sometimes with the girls. I made sure that I was out of earshot when I burst out laughing.
Travis Lee
OCTOBER 6, THE RESERVE TRENCHES
Dear Bobby,
Toward the end of our time in the rest area, I left the others with their drills and found me a rock-and-earth wall. I put some cans along the foot of it, and set about fine-tuning my sights. I’d shot about fifty practice rounds when Riddell came, looked over my shoulder a while, and asked me if I wanted to take a bit of a tramp.
It was a nice day for it: autumn-crisp air, the sun filtering down through low, amassing clouds, an on-and-off mist falling. I shouldered my rifle and we walked deep into the countryside.
We followed a canal seeping its slow way toward the ocean. We went by manure-rich pastures dotted with milk cows. At the next turn of the road, Riddell waded into the roadside weeds and picked a double armful of stalks out of a hedgerow. Grinning, he brought them back, offered me some.
The weeds stank, but he pushed his nose into his own bouquet. “Wormwood. Put it in your clothes. Nothing like it for the lice. Strew it around your dugout.”
I thought not, but I thanked him kindly, anyway.
“ ’Eard from me sister,” he said when we walked on. “Buying ’erself a cottage with a bit of land, she is. Growing ’er some ’erbs. Thinking to make a business, like. Asked me if I’d care to come along with ’er.”
If after-war stories can have happy endings, that would be Riddell’s. Just a short walk into the country and he was already bursting at the seams. Get him in the green, he grows, Bobby. He gets taller and sturdier, somehow.
“Likes me gardening,” he said, “bringing them seeds along. To me, it’s like raising up crowds of green spindly children. Sounds silly, but there it is. Can’t change. But the medicines? Well, nobody’s better at decoctions and salves than me sister. Her and Mum would go tinkering on recipes. Me, I barely boils water for tea wifout burning meself. Give me spade over pan any day.”
I nodded. “Herb gardening with your sister. I think it’s what you should do.”
“Knew you’d understand, Stanhope. Seen you out and about, looking at nature. Knew you ’ad the ’eart of a gardener.”
“Goat herder,” I said.
“Goat ’erding? That’s what you’ll do when you gets back?”
“I don’t know.” For the first time I really didn’t know, and that scared me, Bobby. It was like I was looking ahead, but not seeing any more road. There was this gray place where the future was supposed to be.
I told him, “Getting late. We better get a move on.”
We turned around and started walking back. “I sees me mum sometimes,” Riddell said. “Feels ’er about.”
So that’s what he’d wanted to say all along. The walk wasn’t about gardening. It was about ghosties.
He avoided my gaze. “Bit of nonsense, actually.”
“Maybe not,” I said.
“Still, it’s as if she’s right there wif me sometimes. And you want to know the truf of it, she was there at that last stunt. Boche was firing right down on top of us, wasn’t they. Could see me plain as day. Wasn’t no shell hole about for me to duck into, but I wasn’t scared. I didn’t see ’er, mind. Ain’t like I’m bonkers. But this calm came over me, Stanhope. It’s like . . . When you was a boy, you ever wake up in the sickbed and your mum was just putting ’er ’and to your face? Well, there you ’ave it. No matter that the Boche was shooting at us. Knew somehow that I’d make it through.”
I remembered cool fingers against my lips, a hushed and private peace; not Ma’s hand, but the calico girl’s.
My road stretched: war, more war, and then the grayness.
“Nice to tell somebody,” he said. “Good to be finally saying it aloud.”
But him. I could see his future so clear: Riddell walking down a shady lane toward a cottage at the turn of the road. There would be a white fence with climbing roses, dizzy with blossoms and bees. His sister would be on the stoop, waving.
I said without much heart, “It’s going to be great for you, getting home.”
I could go back to school, but that didn’t feel right. Home, maybe? God, how I wanted to. If wishes were power, I’d have walked right through that onionskin page of memory, past the corral with the horses gazing over, up the wooden porch to the fieldstone house. I’d knock, and Ma’d answer the door, beaming.
But I couldn’t make it real, Bobby; not like the way it felt walking No Man’s Land, not as real as the graveyard.
When I got back to billets, I found Pickering and Calvert waiting for me. They wanted
to poke some whores.
I thought I’d gotten over missing Marrs, but the walk to town seemed incomplete, and by the time we got there, I was morose.
The three of us went to the estaminet first, ate mussels and hard bread, drank rough red wine, listened to the loud complaints and the louder jokes of the soldiers.
“If you’re going to drink that way, eat bread, Stanhope; else you’ll get up to prang your whore and land on your arse instead, the way you did that time,” Pickering told me.
I told him to shut up.
Calvert said to Pickering, “ ’E’s an old soak, ain’t ’e? ’Iding them canteens, like we don’t know what’s in ’em. ’E knocks down the wine like it’s bloody water.”
I told him to mind his own goddamned business. They thought I was funny.
About that time somebody ran into the back of my chair, pushed me belly-first into the table, and made me spill my wine.
I jumped to my feet and spun.
There was a British private behind me, a kid from our company, 6th Platoon, I think. Dinkens or Blinkens or something. His eyes were wide and startled, and he was trying his best to apologize.
Pickering pulled at my fist, my arm. “Easy on,” he was saying. “Easy on there, Stanhope.”
I coldcocked him, Bobby, sent Pickering stumbling back into another table, sent carafes of cheap wine flying, sent mussels on a last wild ride. When Calvert grabbed me by the shoulders, I knocked him down, too. And when I heard the red caps’ whistles shrieking, I pushed my way through folks who were trying to stay me. I vaulted over the bar and bolted through the kitchen, through a little apartment where surprised kids looked up from their meal. In the next room, I squeezed through a window and landed in an alley that smelled of cat piss.
I must have gone wandering then. There’s a vague impression of throwing up in a canal, of taking a piss against a shed.
The red caps found me just before morning where I was lying passed out in the road. Blackhall marched me in to see Captain Miller, who raised his eyebrows and asked Blackhall what punishment he thought I deserved. The crucifixion this time, field punishment number one, not the glasshouse. Blackhall said they’d be needing me.
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