by Dan Simmons
How things started between us that day, I do not recall precisely, A game. How things proceeded after they started, however, I recall absolutely. Her blouse had fewer buttons than most ladies’ things, but far too many for my patience or fumbling fingers. And then it simply flowed away. She wore thin petticoats which made no sound when they moved. Her chemise was loose except where strings gathered it under the soft curve of her still-budding breasts. The sunlight and shadow seemed part of the texture of her skin there.
I remember how gently we kissed at first, how briefly, and then how urgently. Her drawers reached her thighs but once beyond the initial elastic there, they were loose and offered no resistance to my exploring hand. And somehow, inexplicably, miraculously, neither did Evelyn.
This mystery—so warm, slightly moist, and moistening more as exploration continued, the shocking humanness of the downy hair, this incredible, heart-stopping absence—this mystery is part of what I thought of as I crossed No Man’s Land last month, squinting against the bullets.
The Lady came to me tonight while I slept. While Lieutenants Malcolm and Sudbridge slept not three feet away from me, their snores filling the dugout.
I felt her breasts pressing against me even before I fully awakened, and I admit that I started rather violently, thinking rat. Then I smelled her scent and felt her cheek so close to mine. I opened my eyes and made no sound.
She was standing next to the bunk, leaning forward so that part of her upper body brushed against my arm. Her face was warm against my neck. It was raining hard outside and cool in our dugout, but I could feel her warmth wherever she touched me.
She was no phantom. I could see the faint light from the flickering beyond the half-open burlap curtain playing on her lashes. I could feel the weight of her right breast against my bare forearm. Her breath was sweet.
She kissed me. Her left hand slid between the open buttons of my undershirt. I remembered Evelyn and all the girls since her. Always, except for the few times where professionals were involved, I had been the seducer. It had been I who first slipped fingers between cotton or muslin or wool.
Not this night. I saw her smile as her long, thin fingers slid down my rough undershirt and touched the drawcords of my pyjamas. She must have felt my excitement. She seemed to smile again and she lowered her face to my throat and kissed my pulse.
When she backed away I followed, sliding down off the bunk as quietly as possible. For some reason I slid my hand across my bunk, found this journal where I had tucked it, and brought it with me. It was as if this little notebook held proof of the bond between the Lady and me.
Malcolm snored on in the lower bunk. His face had been scant inches from the Lady’s translucent gown when she had roused me. I was surprised that her scent had not awakened him. Sudbridge slept in the smaller bunk across the dugout, his face turned to the sweating wall. He did not stir.
My Lady parted the burlap and went up the plank steps. She was no ghost. The burlap moved to the touch of her fingers, just as I had. The orange heat lightning of the counterbombardment cast her shadow on the planks. I followed her up and out.
She was a shadow out here in the trench; then less than a shadow. I was busy pulling on my boots, and when I looked up she had blended with the other shadows near where the trench zigs to the right so that a shell there would not send shrapnel here.
“Wait!” I said aloud. At that moment I heard the distant pop of a grenatenwerfer being launched and I threw myself down as several “pineapples” exploded just above the trenches, showering red hot shrapnel up and down the line. A man shouted somewhere as I began moving toward the shadows where the Lady had just passed. I must have looked an absurd sight in my rough cotton pyjama bottoms, undershirt, and boots, my diary clutched to my chest like a talisman. I had forgotten my cane and I limped a bit.
Just then I heard a sound a thousand times more terrifying than a grenatenwerfer pop—the sound of some of our own 18-pounders falling short and dropping shells on our line with that whistle and rush that tells one that the huge piece of metal and explosive is coming here. Once again I threw myself face down in the mud, and this time not a second too soon. The noise deafened me. The ground seemed to reach up and smack my chest so that for a second I thought the Boche had also tunneled under us and detonated a huge mine. With that amazing alacrity of visual image in a moment of crisis, I could imagine the entire section of trench along this part of the line bubbling up a hundred meters into the air the way the explosion did opposite our line on the morning of the 1st.
Mud and timbers dropped all around. Men cursed. I dug myself out and started back to the dugout.
The 9-inch shell from the 18-pounder had been a direct hit on our dugout. Sergeant Mack and several of the others had already rushed to begin digging, but one look at the terrible concaveness of the crater told me everything that I needed to know. The Sergeant and his men continued to dig, however, until they came across the splinters of our bunks and table and a few bits and pieces of Malcolm and Sudbridge. They stopped then, merely shoveling some of the mud back in the pit. It was not a burial, but it would do until morning came.
Captain Brown was very good; he gave me a stiff tot of his own whiskey, loaned me kit, blouse, and trousers until I can get refitted, and insisted that I sleep in his batman’s bed in his own dugout. I was grateful, but I prefer to sit out here until the sun rises.
The air smells slightly of violets.
Friday, 4 August, 11.00 A.M.—
The shelling has become almost intolerable. There is a continued battle for the outskirts of Guillemont—a battle in which our 14th Division has not yet been asked to take part, thank whatever god deserves to be thanked—but the artillery exchange involves us all. It has gone on day and night for four days now, and everyone’s nerves are stretched to the breaking point as we huddle in our dugouts when off duty, clutching the chalky soil and sandbags of the trenches when on duty.
It is interesting how the ear becomes educated to the precise signature of approaching death. Even above the constant cacophony, one can hear the individual German guns fire. Their small field guns have a crack not unlike a golf ball being struck smartly. Their shells arrive with a banshee shriek. The medium guns sound like someone tearing The Times lengthwise while the arrival of their shells sounds rather like heavily loaded farmcarts rumbling downhill, brakes screeching. The firing of their heavy guns can be felt in one’s eardrums and sinuses, it is as if someone has come up from behind and cuffed you on the side of the head, while the shell’s arrival is a slow whistling across the sky, rather like a train heard distantly, until the locomotive rush and rumble of it comes roaring directly into one’s living room.
The trench mortar is child’s play compared to their heavier calibre guns, but I believe we all fear it most. There are so many of the damned things and they fire so quickly. One mortar can lob twenty-two shells a minute at us, eight in the air at any given time, and the explosions—although minor compared to the concussive terror of their 5.9s or larger guns—are so frequent and so well-aimed that they make us feel that a malevolent intelligence is stalking us, unlike the more disinterested malevolence of the heavy artillery.
Yesterday a German mortar shell came whistling down on our position as I sat chatting with three men at an observation post. We all ducked and cowered, knowing from the noise that this was meant for us and that there was no escape. The damned thing makes a woof-woof sound as it falls, and this one sounded like a rabid dog rushing at us from out of the sky.
It was meant for us. The shell struck not five yards from where we crouched, collapsed a sizable section of the parados, and came rolling almost to our feet. The shell was the size of a two-gallon oil drum and was dribbling yellow paste that smelled like marzipan. It was a dud. If it had burst upon impact the way it had been designed to, the concussive force would have been felt a mile away and there would have been nothing left of the three of us except bits of tatters and shoe leather in a smoking crater the si
ze of my mother’s living room in Kent.
The last four days they have been laying down mortar shells every three yards on our position at ten-minute intervals. We can hear their gunnery chief blow his whistle before each shot. And this is in addition to the howitzers that have been blasting swimming pool-sized craters up and down our lines all day and all night. It can grow to be tiresome.
We all retreat into ourselves in some way. I tend to sit and stare at whatever book I am holding in white-clenched fingers: Today it was a new book of verse by the chap Siegfried and I were so excited about—Eliot. I read not a word, turned not a page. Some of the men curse constantly, adding their frightened litany to the incredible onslaught of noise. Others shake, some just noticeably, others almost uncontrollably. No one thinks less of them for it.
Dust and atomized chalk and cordite coat everything during a bombardment like this. When we do move around, it is with white eyes staring from grimy faces. We officers stand around the table stabbing at soiled maps with filthy fingers and dirt-rimmed nails. I am amazed that our lice continue to call us home, as foul as we all are.
I heard a Cockney singing a bit of doggerel as he stood on the firestep last night about dusk during a minute’s lull in explosions. It was rather fine.
The world wasn’t made in a day,
And Eve didn’t ride in a bus,
But most of the world’s in a sandbag,
And the rest of it’s plastered on us.11
I wait each night for the Lady but I haven’t seen her since the night Malcolm and Sudbridge were blown to bits. Captain Brown has been quite nice about sharing his dugout, but tomorrow night I will be moving into less exalted quarters with two new subalterns who have just come up. They look like children.
No word about my transfer to the 13th Battalion. I am beginning to know the men of this Rifle Brigade and to think that my destiny should lie here. However limited or common these chaps may be as individuals, their common effort and good nature under these conditions makes one feel something akin to love toward them. Each death is an affront. I think that they may soon be called upon to go over the top and the wastage appalls me in a most personal way.
For some reason Marvell comes to mind as I watch the lads from my platoon eat their ration of bully beef while the bombardment rages:
My love is of a birth as rare
As ’tis for object strange and high;
It was begotten by Despair
Upon Impossibility.12
Tuesday, 8 August, 4.00 P.M.—
The 55th Division has gone over the top on yet another attempt to capture Guillemont. The word is that the French attacked simultaneously on their right. It is nice to know that the French are still in the war.
Captain Brown came back from Headquarters a while ago with the word that the French were stopped cold by enfilade fire and our lads in the 55th were cut to ribbons by the German counterbombardment. He says that a few of our chaps made it to the enemy trenches, seized a stretch of them, and then were annihilated to a man by machine-gun bullets directed from Waterlot Farm, Guillemont Station, and the trenches in front of the village. All afternoon the shattered remnants of the 55th and supporting groups such as the 5th King’s Liverpools have been straggling through our reserve trenches, trying to find their officers or reach dressing stations. We help when we can.
A heavy mist has been hanging over the hills and fields all day, mixing with the smoke and dust from the terrible bombardment. Brown says that two of our own Battalions ended up slaughtering each other in the mist and confusion this afternoon.
All of us in the 1st Rifle Brigade expected to be thrown into this meat grinder tomorrow, but word now is that the Reserve Battalions have been chosen as sacrifice. It is terrible to feel relief because another man will die.
Wednesday, 9 August, midnight—
She came tonight.
This afternoon I had done foot inspection—our M.O. {Ed. note—Medical Officer} was killed yesterday by a sniper—and the act of going down the line inspecting scores of men’s bare and stinking feet had put me in a somewhat Christlike mood. Since the bombardment had let up a bit, I stayed in the advanced trenches after the 9 P.M. tour of the platoon’s posts. It is a clear, cool night for a change, and the stars above the trench are very bright. I must have fallen asleep on the duckboard where I was smoking a pipe and meditating in one of the shelter niches in the sandbags.
I awoke to the scent of violets and the touch of her hand. We were on the same patio where she had taken me before for tea. It was all purple twilight. The manor house was candlelit behind us, there were candles in hurricane lamps set around the flagstone terrace, and I could hear hounds baying softly from the kennels beyond the barn. The Lady was wearing a pale evening dress with a frilly, flesh-colored chemisette covering a low décolletage, with matching sleeves reaching just to her elbows. Her skirt was tight to the hips and high-waisted, belted with a subtle jeweled corselet. Her head was bare except for small, jeweled combs holding her hair at the back. Her long neck caught the lamplight.
She led the way into a dining room where a table had been set for two. The china and silver reminded me a bit of my aunt’s, but the napkins were a stylish pale blue. The table was set for only two. The main course had already been set out—Cornish hens under glass with a watercress salad. A fire burned in the marble fireplace, but this seemed appropriate since there had been an autumn tang to the air outside.
We joined arms and I escorted her to her seat. Her skirt rustled softly as I set her chair in place. When I sat down, I pinched the loose skin on the top of my hand under the table. I felt the pain of it, but the verisimilitude only made me smile.
“You believe that you are dreaming?” asked the Lady with a slight smile. Her voice was as low as I had imagined, but I could not have imagined the effect it had on me. It was as if her fingertips were on my skin again.
“I forgot you speak,” I said stupidly.
Her smile became more pronounced. “Of course I speak. Would you have me dumb?”
“Not at all,” I stammered. “It is just…”
“Just that you are not sure of the rules,” she said softly, filling our glasses with wine from a bottle that had been set near her place.
“There are rules?” I said.
“No. Only possibilities.” Her voice was just above a whisper. The fire crackled and I could hear a wind coming up in the trees outside. “Are you hungry?” she asked.
I looked at the hen, the candlelight on fine silver, the wine in sparkling crystal, and the perfectly fresh, green salad. I had not had a meal such as this in months. “No, I am not hungry,” I said truthfully.
“Good,” she said, the playfulness apparent in her voice now. The Lady stood, I took her cool fingers, and she led me from the dining room through an ornate drawing room, from the drawing room to the hall, up a wide flight of stairs, down a landing lined with dark portraits, and into a room which I knew at once was her bedroom. A fire had been set here as well, and the flickering light fell on the parted lace of the curtained bed. Broad doors opened to a balcony and the stars were visible above the trees.
She turned to me and raised her face. “Please kiss me.”
Feeling that I should have a script, that there should be footlights rather than firelight, I stepped forward and kissed her. Immediately all thoughts of the theatre disappeared. Her lips were warm and moist, and when they opened slightly under the pressure of mine, I felt a pleasant vertigo, as if the floor were no longer so solid. I could feel her arm and hand move until her perfect fingertips touched the back of my neck just above the collar.
When the kiss finally ended, I could only stand there, caught in a surge of passion such as none I had ever known. At some time during our embrace, my arms had encircled her. I could feel the warmth of her bare back through the lace of her blouse. She lifted her fingers from my neck, put her hand behind her, and loosened her hair.
“Come,” she whispered and stepped toward the
high-canopied bed. Both her small hands surrounded my single large one.
My hesitation was only for the briefest second, but she turned, my hand still in hers. One eyebrow lifted ever so slightly in query.
“Even if you are Death,” I said, my voice husky, “it may well be worth it.”
Her smile was just perceptible in the soft light and shadows. “You think me Death? Why not your Muse? Why not Memnosyne?”
“You could be Death,” I said, “and still be my Muse.”
There was a moment of silence broken only by the crackling of burning logs and the renewed rustle of wind in treetops. She lifted her finger and traced a complicated pattern on the broad back of my hand. “Does it matter?” she said.
I did not reply. When she stepped toward the bed again, I followed. She had stopped to lift her face to mine again when the wind in the trees became a train whistle, the train whistle grew to a locomotive rush, and then I was falling from the duckboard, covering my face with hands as the trench mortar shell exploded not ten yards from where I had been sleeping. The five men I had visited there not twenty minutes earlier were blown to fragments. Hot shrapnel rattled on my helmet and bits of red meat decorated the sandbags of my niche like scraps set out for the kennel dogs.
Saturday, 12 August, 6.30 P.M.—
I was cycling back on the sunken road between Pozieres and Albert this noon, carrying a message from the Colonel to Headquarters, when I stopped to watch what promised to be a bit of comedy.
One of our observation balloons was hanging like the fat sausage it was when an enemy monoplane came buzzing across the lines. I considered finding a convenient shell hole to cower in, but the insect-droning machine seemed uninterested in finding a target to bomb; it made a beeline for the balloon. Usually it is funny to watch our chaps up there when an enemy machine appears. They do not wait for the attack but immediately parachute to safety. I cannot say I blame them—the balloons explode so ferociously that I doubt that I would choose to wait around to see the flicker of enemy machine guns.
