The Glorious Dead

by Tim Atkinson

  ‘About you!’

  ‘About me? And did she … ?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’ Margreet looks down and smiles to herself. The beers, lined up in mugs on the counter, begin to settle. Jack watches the bubbles pop, one by one, each frothy head deflating slowly like so many tiny balloons bursting.

  ‘Ah, well,’ he says at last. ‘Will she be in later – Katia, I mean?’

  ‘No,’ the woman says.

  ‘No matter then,’ Jack sighs. ‘We’ll not be stopping long tonight anyhow. Not if you hurry up with them beers, anyway.’

  ‘Good.’ The woman starts adding more beer to each of the mugs.

  ‘Aye, well. I can see how busy you are.’ Jack looks round the otherwise empty room.

  ‘Later,’ the woman says, ‘we will be busy later. When they all come back.’

  ‘Come back from where?’

  ‘Come back from the meeting,’ Margreet says. ‘They are all there tonight. Monsieur de Wulf is there.’ She looks at him and smirks. ‘And Katia’s father. Maybe they will, you know …’

  ‘So what’s up?’ Jack says.

  ‘Up?’

  ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘A meeting,’ she tells him. ‘I told you. They are having a big meeting at the Nieuwercke.’

  ‘Oh, aye?’

  ‘They are talking about the rebuilding,’ she goes on. ‘Ieper is rising.’ She raises her arms in the air. ‘Rising like a phoenix from the ashes of war. That is what they are discussing.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘Yes, Jacques, it is so.’

  Jack shakes his head.

  ‘And when it is “so” you will no longer be here, will you? You will soon be gone; you will all be gone. And then we will have the town back to ourselves and one day it will be bigger and better than before.’

  ‘I thought they was leaving t’Lakenhalle as a ruin,’ he says to her.

  ‘What would they do that for?’

  ‘As a monument,’ he says.

  ‘A monument?’ she tuts. ‘A monument to what? To German shells?’

  ‘A monument to t’men who died,’ Jack says. ‘To them who was killed saving the place – them poor buggers we dig up and then rebury every day.’

  ‘How could a broken ruin be a monument to anybody, Jacques?’ The woman throws her head back, laughing. ‘You are stupid. The English are all … stupid. This is our town,’ she says, twisting a curl of hair between her thumb and forefinger. ‘We saw the English off in 1383—’ She pauses, crossing herself and mumbling, ‘Sancta Maria Deo Gracias.’ Then she looks at Jack and smirks. ‘And we will do so again.’

  ‘Aye, but …’

  ‘But?’

  ‘Well, that were a long time ago.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘And, well … There wouldn’t be much of it left no more if it hadn’t been for the likes of us,’ Jack says to her.

  ‘Much of it left?’ she shrieks. ‘There couldn’t be much less than this!’

  ‘Maybe,’ he says. ‘But at least it’s yours – not overrun with Germans.’

  ‘Exactly! It is ours – this is our home. And we are now taking back what is ours.’

  ‘Aye, well …’ Jack shakes his head.

  Margreet finishes topping up the beers. ‘So why do you not go back?’ she asks. ‘Back to your home?’

  ‘What’s to go back for?’ He stares at her, wondering if he has said the words aloud or simply thought them, wondering if they’re true or if he merely dreamt them.

  ‘Is there not a woman waiting for you, Jacques?’ Margreet leans across the bar and runs a finger down his cheek. ‘You need a woman, Jacques – a real woman. Not these, these … jeunes filles. Not Katia. She is just a girl you know. And you—’ She steps back, looking Jack up and down. ‘Vous êtes un bon homme,’ she whispers, leaning over the counter.

  ‘Aye, and you’re a bloody good linguist.’ Jack picks up his beer and turns to join the others. ‘When you want to be.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ she calls after him whilst studying the glasses she is polishing, ‘perhaps there is something there that you do not want to go back to? Perhaps you are hiding, Jacques? What is it that you are hiding from, Jacques? Or who?’

  ‘I’ll tell thee, shall I?’ Jack turns suddenly and is back at the bar. ‘I’ll tell thee why I don’t go home.’ He is leaning close across the counter into Margreet’s face. ‘I don’t go home ’cos there’s nowt to go back home to,’ he says. ‘There’s nowt there no more.’

  ‘Nowt?’ She moves back from him, startled.

  ‘Nothing,’ he says quietly. ‘No one. Nowt!’

  *

  The burgomaster is calling the meeting to order. The Town Hall – like most of the buildings in Ypres – is just a temporary wooden hut on the Minneplein, barely large enough to house the municipal furniture recently returned from the safety of a Poperinghe cellar. The burghers and the townsfolk crowd into the single room for the open meeting that the council has convened to discuss the city’s future.

  ‘Gentlemen.’ Monsieur Colaert calls the room to order. On his left, the city architect, Jules Coomans, is taking several large, rolled-up plans from a long canvas bag and placing them on the table in front of him. At his side, his young assistant, Eugène Dhuicque – who remained in Ypres throughout the war, helping to shore up the little that remained after successive German bombardments – looks down and lights a cigarette. The room falls silent.

  ‘Gentlemen, thank you. Apologies again that we are somewhat cramped this evening.’

  ‘Cramped?’ a rather large man interrupts. ‘There is more room in my wife’s brassiere!’

  Someone laughs. Another burgher tuts his disapproval and others roll their eyes and shake their heads. Monsieur Colaert smiles patiently before turning the interruption to his advantage.

  ‘Quite so,’ he smiles. ‘Quite so. Then maybe this evening, gentlemen, we will see it within us to finally settle the great matters that have been troubling us and come to an agreement on the future of our city. That way we might start rebuilding the Kasselrij and once more have a suitable venue for our deliberations.’

  He waves an arm as if to remind everyone that the small wooden barn of a building they are packed inside is not just impractical, but beneath the dignity of the city council. There are murmurs of approval; nods of heads. Everyone in the room agrees that rebuilding should begin. Everyone, that is, except one man.

  ‘Following our last meeting, I think we can at last be reasonably certain of our future here and of the future of our city. Is that not right, Colonel?’

  Canadian Lt Colonel Beckles Willson – Town Major for the Army in Ypres until his recent demob – is attending the meeting ex officio. He sighs, looks down at the back of his hands on the smooth, dark wood of the heavy table, then presses down his palms as he rises to his feet.

  ‘It is true,’ he begins, allowing his translator to catch up and at the same time giving him more time to choose his words with care. ‘It is true that we now believe it right that the people of Ypres should be allowed to return to their homes and rebuild.’

  ‘None of this nonsense about leaving the entire place as a ruin,’ someone mutters.

  The colonel pauses, turns and glances at the speaker for a moment. ‘It is true that some of us have felt that the ruins of the city should remain as a permanent monument to the dead—’

  ‘… a monument, more like, to the efficiency of German guns!’

  The translator whispers into the colonel’s ear. He smiles, resignedly, then carries on. ‘We nevertheless believe, Monsieur le Maire, that there should be left a zone of silence, to include the sacred sites of the Cloth Hall and the cathedral, and that these ruins should remain untouched.’

  The burgomaster rises to his feet. ‘I will remind you gentlemen that the government in Brussels—’

  Someone in the crowded room makes a loud spitting noise.

  ‘The government in Brussels,’ Colaert continues, ‘has
agreed that the area to which the colonel refers – together with the Meninpoort and the ramparts – should indeed remain untouched for the foreseeable future, at least until such time as the British government decides on what it wishes to build by way of a suitable memorial to its war dead.’

  ‘But we cannot simply leave the Lakenhalle as a ruin,’ shouts someone from the floor. ‘It is the symbol of our city, of its commerce and of our proud history as a centre of the cloth trade.’

  ‘Why, even our very name …’ another voice trails off, the point made to all except the colonel.

  ‘Ieper was the name given to a particularly finely woven cloth, Colonel,’ the burgomaster explains, ‘traded in the Lakenhalle.’

  ‘The city must be restored,’ shouts another burgher, ‘and we should not be obliged to wait on the whims of a foreign government!’

  ‘There are a great many from among our own community who agree that this is the most appropriate course of action,’ Monsieur Colaert argues.

  ‘Then what have we been fighting for these last four years?’ someone else shouts out. ‘If we are not free to rebuild as we choose, then we might as well have just surrendered the town to the Germans.’

  ‘At least then there would be no need for the rebuilding,’ someone laughs. There is a rising murmur in the room as conversations across tables turn neighbouring burghers into friend or foe according to their views. The translator struggles to make himself heard above the noise as he tries to keep Beckles Willson informed about what has been said.

  Slowly, as the words sink in, the colonel’s face reddens, and he suddenly rises to his feet and in the voice of the parade ground bellows: ‘You would not have a city to rebuild if it wasn’t for the dead of the British Empire, gentlemen. Let no one here forget that fact.’ The room instantly falls silent.

  Colaert, afraid that this would happen and now embarrassed, struggles to return to the agenda of the meeting. ‘Please, gentlemen, let us confine ourselves solely to the business we have come here this evening to discuss. I will permit no further interruptions. This is how matters now stand: there is to be a moratorium on rebuilding in the areas I have already mentioned. But I must emphasise’ – he turns to Beckles Willson – ‘that this is at present merely a temporary arrangement, to be reviewed as and when the British decide on where, and in what form, their memorial should be built.’

  Murmurs of approval from the assembled burghers.

  ‘In the meantime, gentlemen, we can be certain that Ieper will rise in triumph from the ruins of destruction. We have faced down the many challenges – both from foreign governments and, I must point out, from some among our own people …’

  ‘Count d’Alviella is a Walloon,’ someone interrupts. There is laughter. Monsieur Colaert looks down and smiles, then holds up a hand for silence.

  ‘Nevertheless,’ he continues, ‘there were many voices, persuasive voices, noble voices, speaking for the idea that the city should remain a ruin and, as such’ – he nods towards Beckles Willson – ‘should serve as a memorial to the men who bravely fought and died.’

  ‘What about the living?’ someone shouts. ‘Our duty is to the living, not the dead.’

  ‘That is correct,’ Monsieur Colaert agrees. ‘But we also have a duty to honour the memory of those without whom there would not be a living population waiting to return to their ruined city.’

  ‘Or a free population!’

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘So the question now before us is one that concerns the nature of the reconstruction – not the principle of whether to rebuild, but what to rebuild, and where, and how.’

  There are loud murmurs of approval.

  ‘Gentlemen, this is a great task and a unique opportunity. We have it in our hands to do great things for our city, to rebuild a municipality worthy of the sacrifice of so many Belgian lives, as well’ – he turns to Beckles Willson – ‘as well, of course, as the lives of those from so many friendly nations.’

  ‘Hear, hear,’ someone calls. Others nod and someone bangs the table in approval.

  ‘I have therefore invited Monsieur Coomans to present to us this evening some provisional drawings, an outline of some of the possibilities that lie before us, so that we may properly consider the way to proceed, for the good of the city of Ieper.’

  The burghers relight pipes and take cigarettes from silver cigarette cases. Matches are struck, lights are shared. Smoke rises and gathers, curling high into the wooden roof of the temporary council chamber.

  ‘Gentlemen.’ Monsieur Coomans rises to his feet, unrolling the first of the architect’s plans. ‘Were it solely my responsibility,’ he begins, ‘I would have no hesitation in recommending to this meeting the wholesale reconstruction, brick by brick, of what was lost. That seems, to me, to be by far the most acceptable, desirable and popular solution.’

  Monsieur Colaert nods his approval, scanning the room as he does so, registering which of the assembled burghers is in agreement, noting possible dissent and mentally preparing specific arguments for future use with individual burghers.

  ‘Nevertheless, as Monsieur le Burgomaster has pointed out, as a nation we are no longer in agreement over certain matters.’

  ‘We never were,’ someone shouts from the back of the room. Others laugh.

  ‘The government-appointed architect, Professor Dhuicque, is keen that we should explore the options now made open to us by modern methods of construction – new materials and even bold and innovative designs. Here’ – he unrolls the first of the plans – ‘is a suggestion for the new Kasselrij, for example.’

  He holds up the architect’s drawings, turning them slowly to give each side of the room a better view. ‘Or this’ – he carries on – ‘for the Gendarmerie.’ Again he carefully shows selected plans to the assembled burghers. But several are now turning away. Others look down as he unrolls government-approved plans for the Fire Station, secondary school and, finally, the Post Office.

  ‘But the Post Office,’ someone shouts as the last plan is unrolled, ‘is one of the only – in fact, the only – building left standing in Ieper.’

  ‘Yes, but not in any habitable state,’ someone else says.

  ‘Nevertheless,’ the man continues, ‘it is the only one of our cherished buildings to have survived, no matter that it has survived in such a state of dereliction. It stands. It can be repaired. It must be repaired and not – not – rebuilt. Especially not in this … this …’ He waves a dismissive hand over the plans and then sits down. ‘It is ironic, no, that a professor of medieval architecture should be so keen to see Ieper rebuilt in the German modernist style?’

  ‘Gentlemen.’ Monsieur Colaert calls the room to order once again, although it seems clear now that further progress will be limited. Cigarettes are being lit and pipes stoked. Soon afterwards, the meeting adjourns once again and the burghers depart into the quiet streets and the shadows of the town whose future they are planning.

  15

  ‘Jeez, I’m sorry, Jacko.’ The men all stare. Mac shakes his head. Ocker reaches out and puts a hand on Jack’s shoulder. There are tears welling in Mac’s eyes, and all of a sudden Skerritt lets out a wail. From outside the hut come bursts of laughter. Snatches of song and other sounds of gaiety intrude as the others return from the evening show by ‘The Sandbags’ in the recreation hut.

  ‘I don’t understand. I just don’t understand.’ Jack sits on the bunk with his head in his hands. On the floor, his haversack is still packed with the cigarettes, chocolate and newspapers he bought in St Omer while on leave.

  ‘Katia came over, Jack.’ Blake hovers over him, trying to pace the remainder of the news. ‘She left a message at the guardroom.’

  ‘But … when?’

  ‘Françoise took ill a couple of weeks ago, just after Christmas. They took her to Poperinghe for her mother to look after her.’

  ‘That must have been …’ Jack looks at Mac.

  ‘Aye, laddie. No wonder they were closed.’<
br />
  ‘I assumed you knew.’

  ‘Of course I knew! Just haven’t seen much of ’em for a couple of weeks, what with Christmas and then me leave.’

  ‘She went downhill rather quickly, Jack. Apparently Doctor Holeurt called the other day and gave her an injection. He said if she was no better next day she’d have to go to hospital at Hazebrouck.’

  ‘They could have brought her here,’ Jack cries. ‘They needn’t have gone to Hazebrouck.’

  ‘They didn’t,’ Blake says.

  ‘They wouldn’t have been able to bring her here anyway, Jack, you know that.’

  ‘Ah, we could’ve wangled it somehow. Someone could’ve bribed Ingham. He’s always ready for a backhander is that bastard …’

  ‘No, Jack. They wouldn’t have brought her here whatever Ingham did or said.’

  ‘Or however much you paid ’im.’

  ‘She’d not even have been sent to Hazebrouck in her condition. You know how damned contagious this disease is.’

  ‘But she were so young,’ Jack is saying, ‘so strong.’

  Mac sits down beside him. ‘That’s how la grippe likes them.’ He shakes his head, slowly. ‘Lord alone knows we’ve lost so many of our own men to it since 1918 – all good, strong, healthy fellows too.’

  ‘Would you like …’ Blake hesitates. ‘Would you like me to say a prayer?’

  ‘Oh God!’ Jack puts his head in his hands. ‘Oh God! Christ Jesus!’

  Next morning Jack rises early, smartens up and goes before the CO, hopeful of being granted at least a few hours’ compassionate leave.

  ‘I’m not exactly family, sir.’

  ‘You aren’t even engaged to the girl’s sister are you, Corporal?’ Major Rennard is asking.

  ‘I know, sir. Not yet, sir. But—’

  ‘With respect, sir,’ Ingham interrupts. He glances sideways at Jack. ‘The men aren’t being used for digging at the moment, what with the snow and ice.’

  ‘No, no. Quite. Twenty-four-hour pass, Corporal.’ The CO pushes back his chair. ‘Dismiss!’ Jack salutes as smartly as he can, turns on his heels and marches straight to the guardroom with the signed chitty.