Flanders (43 page)

And so I went. Miller was friendly like he usually is. He asked me to sit down and listened patiently to my story. I told him everything, about LeBlanc leaving me in No Man’s Land, about me waking up drunk. I talked about how the mud sparkled, about how the Boche officer glowed like a candle. When I was finished, he frowned and offered me a cup of tea. I took it, saw that my hands were steady. No wonder. There was all that power in me.

“Had you been struck on the head recently, Stanhope? No? A fever perhaps? You certain? Well, best to sleep on it, what? I’m sure everything will seem less formidable to you in the morning.”

“No, sir.” I looked up at his girl. “Don’t think it will.”

“Not to be tiresome about it, but you
did
realize when you were sharpshooting before that the Boche were alive?”

Said that way, it was funny. I laughed.

“Quite. You see my point.”

“Yes, sir. But it was like
Adonais,
sir. You know where he talks about life staining the white radiance of eternity? And how death tramples it to fragments? I know it sounds silly, sir, but that’s the way it was.”

Earl Grey tea. No sugar. It tasted elegant, I thought.

He said, “Shelley would have made an abominable soldier.”

I laughed. He didn’t.

“Can’t win a war without killing people.”

“I understand, sir.”

He sighed, sat back, and studied his fiancée’s picture. I wondered if he loved her; if he put the photo up as reminder or camouflage. “Cushy duty, sharpshooting.”

The vision had faded hours ago, but it had left a deep calm in me, like the calm you feel after exhaustion. Even if they were shelling, I could have put my head down on my arms and gone to sleep.

“I feel I must ask: Have you considered, Stanhope, that you might be insane?”

“Every day since I been here, sir.”

That got a smile out of him, but it was quick to die. “If you will not fight, you do realize that I must assign you to litter carrier duty.”

He looked pained. He was holding his cup in both his hands as if he was cold, and he was watching me over the steam.

“Yes, sir. I know that, sir.”

“Terrible job, that.”

I grinned. “Not as bad as shit wallah.”

“Do not make light of this. You will force the issue.”

“Have to, sir. I’m no use to you out there anymore.”

He put his cup down, picked up his pencil, toyed with it. “Tomorrow we are to pull back to the reserve trenches. I will make this a temporary assignment only, Stanhope. Do you understand? It will not be permanent until you request it for a second time.”

I finished my tea, stood up. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

“Stanhope?” He cleared his throat, contemplated his cup. “My concern is not with my totals.”

“I know that, sir.”

But I saw it in his eyes, Bobby. The resentment. I have forced him to give an order he thinks will kill me.

Travis Lee

* * *

NOVEMBER 19, A POSTCARD FROM THE RESERVE TRENCHES AID POST

Dear Bobby,

I’ve been assigned to noncombatant duty. Notice the new address. I’ll have the same company, but a different platoon.

Do me a favor. Buy me a mess of that pecan brittle Jewel Liddy Washington makes. Wrap it up good in waxed paper. Send me enough for my old chums. I want to leave them something to remember me by.

Travis Lee

* * *

NOVEMBER 19, THE RESERVE TRENCHES AID POST

Dear Bobby,

Two nights ago I sat on a Fray Bentos crate in our dugout while the boys gave me a going-away party. Everyone came. Blackhall said he’d close his eyes to the rum as long as no one got sloppy. The Boche cooperated by not shelling. We had us a grand time.

Pickering and Calvert lit all our candles, so our nook was bright and warm. They put the primus on for tea. Hutchins and Orley and Goodson came by, shook my hand. They told me they wanted Blighties, as if I could order them up one. Riddell stopped for a minute to solemnly wish me luck.

Little Blandish stayed a while, had one drink too many. His smooth-cheeked face was flushed and he was giggling. He was a happy drunk, careless as a puppy. Not like Pa, not like me. He kept hovering. I pushed him away nice as I could.

“Come on. Come on, sir. Drink up.” Blandish shoved a cup at me so hard that rum splattered my coat, my pants. The fumes rose, made me dizzy with wanting.

Then Harold Crumb was shoving him aside. “Sergeant!” he called. Riddell came wading back down the trench. “The boy ’ere might need a walk in the weather.”

Riddell agreed. He snatched Blandish up by the coat collar and led him away.

Harold leaned down, whispered, “Come out, Stanhope. Needs a talk wif you.”

I got up. Outside the overhang of the dugout, the rain had stopped, the air was sodden and stank of piss. I followed Harold down the trench to the traverse, wading through the ankle-deep water. At the corner, in the light of a lamp, Harold stopped. He was shivering a little.

“Talked to Lieutenant about you,” he said.

I was cold, too. I hunched, clapped my gloved hands.

“You’re a bit of a peacock, and a cheeky, insulting blighter. Must be Yank ’abit. Sometimes I wonder if you even knows ’ow brazen you are. Looks people straight in the eye and tells them what you thinks. By the by, don’t appreciate you calling me ’Arold.”

“Sorry.” I felt ashamed, Bobby. He was right. I wouldn’t ever have taken that liberty at home.

“Still, you knows what you’re about out there. While we was working together, you took care not to get me shot. Appreciate it. Lieutenant sent me out wifout any training. Shouldn’t ’ave done that.”

“He just wasn’t thinking.”

“No excuse.”

Right again: no excuse. Not for an officer. Not in war.

“ ’E was thinking like a copper, Stanhope.”

I blew on my cupped hands, caught the clean, devastating scent of liquor, drank the smell in.

“Well, you’re out from under the duty. They put me on revetments, and so I’m out, too. Still, no matter ’oo your new lieutenant is, Blackhall’ll be keeping a watch. No, no. Don’t be glum. Chin up. Just keep your arse clean.”

“But I didn’t rape her.”

“If Blackhall decides you’re guilty, well, that’s all that matters, isn’t it. Seen ’im bludgeon more than one. There’s a pickpocket in London ’oo’ll never ’ave full use of his fingers. A burglar ’oo’ll never be right in the ’ead. ’E’s not a bad sort, but ’e lacks patience. Best mind yourself.” He shoved his hand at me. I shook it. “Did me best, lad. Told ’im you wasn’t drinking no more. Still, best watch that. You’re a soak. One drink and you’ll cock it all up again.”

He put his hands in his pockets, regarded me close. “Wanted to tell you: This is whiskey craving you’re fighting. That’s all it is. Maybe you seen a few strange things. All drunks do. But whatever it was made you lose your nerve out there, want you to know there’s nothing shameful in it. Still, be a while before you’re back to center. You were one man before. Now you’re another.”

He nodded and left.

One man and now another—drunk with revelation, converted by God’s own D.T.’s. I took a deep breath. The air stank and was heavy with damp. I stood, hoping the walls would sparkle. They didn’t, so I waded back to my party.

It’s leaving Pickering that’s the hardest. At lights out, I packed my things; and he tried to give me money for my share of the primus. I refused to take it.

He’d had a couple of drinks too many. He started tossing gear around the dugout until Calvert told him to stop. When the sentry passed, we crawled into our sleeping bags. Calvert blew out the candle. In the silence I heard the patter of rain.

“If you planned to duck duty,” Pickering said, “you might have done it smart.”

“Wasn’t planning for this to happen, Pickering.”

“That’s balls!” he said so loud that Calvert went to shushing him.

Mean-voiced, Pickering went on. “No one in the battalion believes you lost your nerve. They say you wanted out and are simply pretending to be bonkers. Goodson as much as said, ‘Surprised Stanhope didn’t go shouting that he seen the three bloody blue lights, and peace was here, and it was no more use dawdling about in the trenches.’ Me, I think you cocked up for the final time. We go through litter carriers like tea packets. You’re a derby duck now, Stanhope. I hope you realize.”

Maybe I was crazy. I looked around at the darkness. Nothing shone. It made me lonely, that dark. Tomorrow there would be a new dugout. Deadly duty. Unfamiliar faces.

“A derby duck,” Pickering said.

The next day he had a bad head from drinking, but Pickering walked me down the trench to the place where I’d climb the bags. He hugged me, then shoved me arm’s length away. We stood there in the trench, under the glowering sky.

“You do not have my permission to die, Stanhope. I hope you realize.”

Down the traverse I could hear the curses of men, the gritty scrapes of shovels. “Hey. I’m still part of the company. We’ll be seeing each other around.”

“Not on a bloody litter,” he said. “Have no intentions of that.”

I promised. “Not on a bloody litter.” He started to wade away. I grabbed his arm. “Need to ask you something. You won’t be mad?”

He went serious, the way you don’t often see Pickering look.

“Did you ever grab Marrs’s hand?”

That still face. The hurt in him. Then he snorted, pulled my helmet down over my eyes. “Bonkers,” he said.

I guess it’s the last I’ll see of him for a while.

Travis Lee

NOVEMBER 23, THE RESERVE TRENCHES AID POST

Dear Bobby,

Under the barrage of artillery, the barrage of the rain, the earth goes slope-shouldered and surrenders in exhaustion. When shells fall, me and the three other carriers take up the litter and go looking for the wounded. We follow the shrieks and the moans. We find men with arms yanked off them, with bellies erupting intestines. We watch while the buried are exhumed. If the boys come up alive, we take them and slog up the trench, bumping the litter around the narrow bends. We lug them through the gluey mud to the aid post; and we don’t have the strength to be gentle. Broken bones gnash. Stumps spurt. Life spills out of field dressings. The wounded scream every time the litter jolts.

Four litter bearers for two hundred and forty men. A stern taskmaster, that vision. Easier to sharpshoot No Man’s Land. Still, the thought of extinguishing that fire numbs me. It makes me break out in a sweat clammier than the sight of the dying. Strange how murder wasn’t a sin until I knew.

The new boys and me haven’t visited much. While we’re working we’re too busy to talk; we’re too tired for conversation when we’re not. Turnhill. A boy they call Mugs. One they call Uncle Tim. The things we see.

Yesterday we carried one of the corporals up from behind the parados. The field telegraph had gone dis, and he’d been running a message from Command when a daisy-cutter got him. His only luck was that the concussion had knocked him out cold. He’d been hit in the side, too. Not much blood, but his belly had started to swell.