Flanders (31 page)

I told him I wasn’t sure. “You’re basing your theological doctrine on your sandbag cross, right? What sort of foundation is that?”

“Sod all, Stanhope! You talk like a schooled wog. Most useless bit of muck on the planet.” Well, he was a little put out; but that might have been because it was raining and Calvert was sleeping, and me and Calvert and the tea fixings were taking up most of the dugout. Pickering was hunkered in the doorway, half damp, half soaking wet, trying to keep his cigarette dry. “Do you know what I can’t help but think? I saw the flames hit Marrs’s shell hole, you know. Well, it was a bloody inferno is what it was; and it hit them straight on. They thrashed about quite a lot, actually.”

His tone was nonchalant. It most always is. But Marrs’s terrible death was reflected in his eyes, in the knotting of his jaw. God, Bobby. He must have watched every twitch. I wondered if he knew he had been screaming.

“Well, so,” he said. “I’d been with Marrs only seconds before. A bit of rum luck, that. On Marrs’s part, that is. But there you are. Marrs dies; I’m still stuck in the trenches drinking bloody awful tea. I’ve decided that this God thing is a balls. If He doesn’t figure out His cockup, I could bloody live forever.”

Then, just like the old Pickering, he cackled.

Live forever? Not me. The worst thing I can think of, Bobby, the very worst, is living like a ground squirrel in this shithouse, never getting a clean breath of air. Fact is, I know what ground squirrels must feel like now, watching for death from the skies. One red-tailed hawk, one accidental misplaced hoof’ll kill them. It’s not the dying, but the fear that wears you down.

I spent some money, but was able to finagle several more fine canteens of rum. Like the Tommies say, it’s good for what ails you. But I’m not going heavy on it like I did that once.

The time I spent in the glasshouse taught me a lesson. Need’s not worth a damn. I never got the point of loving nothing—not even a woman—so bad that you couldn’t live without. Still, a man should have a little enjoyment once in a while: a willing woman, a good smoke, a sip of whiskey.

I hide the canteens, for I’m worried one of the new boys will be getting into my stash. It’s hard to keep track of things, moving from place to place. I lost that wood horse Pa carved me, and a pair of blue socks. Life drops off you here; you shed it slow: manners and memories. I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to sit with a lady and make polite conversation. After this, I don’t know that you and me will ever truly understand each other again.

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 crochety 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 geegaws. 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 doughy 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 l 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.