Flanders

by Patricia Anthony

  Lieutenant told me to “Gi’ up, mon. Can ye not gi’ up?” Me grumbling and pretending not to understand. “Up! We ma’ meet w’the battalion,” he says.

  “Let the Boche shoot me. Save them and me both the trouble of marching.”

  Little baby-faced Abner Foy laughed. “Captain’s sent Sergeant ahead to find us billets, hasn’t he. And maybe there’s a barn with warm straw waiting, and a farmer’s daughter for the cuddling. So off yer bum.”

  I got up and we went on. Sergeant had found us an abandoned farmhouse, half its roof caved in from a shell. I dropped my pack in the kitchen and lay down on the tiles. Above me, the ceiling gaped open to twilight. That evening when I closed my eyes, I saw Ma’s face before me as plain as if she had been standing there. I could smell her, too: that mix of camphor and rosewater soap.

  Something punched me in the side.

  Miller’s toe. “Up! Up, damn you! Get those boots off at once, Private! Sergeant Riddell!” The bellow brought Riddell on the double. “See that this soldier washes his feet and dries them thoroughly. Tomorrow, Private Stanhope, make certain that you put on a pair of clean socks, two pair if need be. If that does not solve your problem, speak to Sergeant Riddell here, and he will arrange for another pair of boots.”

  There were quick salutes and “Yes, sir”s all around, and then Miller was gone, leaving Riddell looking at me helplessly.

  There weren’t any goddamn extra boots.

  Still, Riddell helped me get my boots and socks off. He clucked at the bleeding and oozing blisters. “ ’E’s right, the captain is. Ain’t a man in this platoon what ain’t got sores from double timing, but you takes the prize, Yank. ’Ooever requisitioned these boots for you did you no favor.”

  He washed my feet and then salved them. I was too tired to eat. Riddell, who knew his way around weeds, went out and picked me some.

  “Look what I found, Yank!” Riddell held up fistfuls of yard greens, and he was beaming ear to ear. “Ribwort and agrimony. ’Course you can always find ribwort. No luck to that. But the agrimony’s a trick, ain’t it.”

  He wrapped the ribwort around my blisters. For my cold, he made me chew the agrimony stalks. I fell asleep where I was, the bitter taste of that agrimony in my mouth, the night sky above, the murmurs and snores of men all around.

  The next day my cold was better, but I couldn’t put my boots on. Riddell looked worried.

  “Hell,” I told him, “I didn’t know what a shoe was till I was fifteen. I can go barefoot. Let me go barefoot, all right?”

  He stuffed bunches of agrimony into my pack until I ended up looking like a hay wagon. He shook his head. “All right, then. But best you don’t let me see you marching wifout your shoes. Mind the captain and Lieutenant don’t see you, either.”

  I tied my laces together and slung the boots over my shoulder. The bare dirt between my toes was a frolic, something like playing hooky. I’d come out the door and was hiding behind Riddell, keeping my head low, when Major Dunn rode up, his ass bouncing in the saddle and him pulling every which way on the reins and yelling, “Damn him for a nag! Whoa! Whoa!” The horse stopped so quick that he nearly sent Dunn over his head, a sight I would have paid American dollars for. And then he wasn’t yelling at the horse. He was screaming at Miller.

  “Your orders were to meet us at Conty! Did you not understand that? If I give a junior officer some responsibility, I expect in return a bit of self-reliance. Need I wipe your bloody arse for you? Need I? Why, when I arrive at Conty, do I find everyone billeted but you? Colonel Caraway asked, and not very politely, where I had mislaid you. Can you not read a blasted map, Captain?”

  Poor Miller, ramrod-straight astride his sorrel gelding, his face as emotionless as an Indian’s. Dunn shouting him down in front of his own men; the major’s fury accompanied by Miller’s soft “Yes, sir”s and “No, sir”s and “Sorry, sir”s.

  “Sorry will not do, Captain. ‘Sorry’ leaves dead men in the field. ‘Sorry’ leaves battles lost.”

  “Yes, sir. But the wagon broke down again.”

  “Damn you! I will not have excuses. You may well have a problem on the road. Many of us do. But you are expected—no, you are required—to carry on. If your wish is to be a British officer, Miller, then kindly begin to act like one.”

  “Yes, sir. Right you are, sir.”

  Then those glacial eyes swung around the unit, and Dunn pointed right at me. “Captain! What is that man doing barefooted? Barefooted!” he screamed. “Is that the sort of army you will give us?”

  Everybody in the unit was turning. Miller was frowning tight-lipped. And then right quick he was explaining, “An American, sir. From Texas. He was having a spot of trouble with his boots . . .”

  Dunn’s cheeks went brick-red. “Order him to put on his boots at once! You people may put up with such slovenly habits, but I will not have it.”

  Quietly and urgently, Miller was saying to me, “Your boots, Private. Please.”

  “Not please!” Dunn shrieked so loud that his mount flinched. “Not ‘If you would be so kind’! Order him, Captain. If you cannot control your men, I shall see you stripped of your commission.”

  I went to it quick as I could, with Miller calling out, “On the double, Private!” By the time I got my boots on, I was fair panting from the pain.

  Dunn said, “See that it does not happen again.” And then off he rides, one hand on his pommel, the other grasping reins and a handful of horse.

  “What an asshole,” I said under my breath.

  Sergeant Riddell turned, frowning. “None of that,” he said, but his lips were trying to curl up at the corners. “Needs a bit of respect. Well, ’e’s the major, isn’t ’e. Nothing’s to be done about it, Yank. You’ll have to keep the boots on.”

  Riddell helped me up; then he walked beside me, toting my rifle. As we marched, he picked weeds from the roadside.

  “Meadowsweet,” he said, holding up a bunch of white flowers that smelled good as Heaven. “For your grippe, if it comes back. Best thing for fever, meadowsweet. That, or white willow bark. There’s them that swears by white willow, but me? I likes the taste of meadowsweet best. Me mum’s a healer, ain’t she. Got her own medicine garden, like. Got to know me way around plants, I did. Your feet, Yank?”

  I had stopped because I couldn’t make my feet move anymore. A few of the company had halted to look back. My boots were leaking blood out the laces.

  Then LeBlanc was there. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Sit down! Sit for Christ’s sake down! Take the boots off.”

  Riddell’s voice was cautious. “Orders are—”

  “You can shove the goddamned orders up this shitting army’s ass!” LeBlanc jerked the bayonet off his rifle. Riddell and the others stepped back, round-eyed.

  LeBlanc knelt by me and, gentle-gestured as Miller, pulled the blood-soaked boots and socks from my feet. He used his bayonet to cut holes in the sides of the leather, then handed them back. “Think you can you put them on?”

  I managed to lace them. LeBlanc helped me up. My bloody toes stuck out to either side; my torn heels protruded from the backs.

  “Take a few steps,” LeBlanc said.

  The half-boots were as ugly as Aunt Alice, but they felt good. Hearing the slow plod of hoofbeats, I looked up. Captain Miller was contemplating us.

  “Well,” he said, fighting a smile. “Carry on.”

  When Miller had ridden out of earshot, LeBlanc said sourly, “Carry on. Jesus. D’ja hear that? Carry the merde on. That’s the only order they know in this turd of an army.” He shoved his bayonet into its housing and marched down the road, never looking back to see if the rest of us were following.

  TWO

  APRIL 25, THE TRENCHES

  Dear Bobby,

  Three days ago we arrived at the place we’re supposed to get “hardened.” It was late twilight and we were marching in file when Miller and another officer came galloping by, barking, “Off the road. Keep moving.”

  W
hen the horses had passed and it got quiet again, I could hear it: a low, far-off rumble—as full of threat as a coming Texas thunderstorm.

  Riddell raised his head like he was sniffing the wind. “Shelling.”

  Foy turned, his pallid face a glimmer. “Gor.”

  “Keep marching,” Riddell said.

  It was near dark by the time we saw it, the fire through the trees. Lieutenant told us to put our packs down and take a rest. LeBlanc leaned against a tree and took out his smokes. I snuck higher up the hill to watch, and most of the others came up with me. I lay there in the sweet-smelling grass, the earth quivering under me; and every time there was a bright air burst, we made Fourth of July noises.

  It’s beautiful from a distance, war. Artillery glittered and sparked along the horizon. The strikes struck cloud-high blossoms of fire. Green flares sailed the night like drowsy fireflies.

  I heard Abner Foy say, “I wouldn’t be afraid, not me.”

  Then Riddell’s laconic “Shit your britches first time in a shelling. Or piss ’em. No shame to it, man. They all do.”

  Foy again, in his mosquito-thin tenor. “Not me.”

  Riddell’s soft “Well, still. I shit mine, didn’t I.”

  No one spoke after that. From our safe perch, we watched the goings-on. I put my head on my arms and, despite the show, went to sleep. I dreamed you and me were in the house, Bobby. Outside, dark clouds were rolling in and daylight was failing and the afternoon was turning green. The air was hushed, breathless, and as heavy as water. I looked for Ma, running from room to empty room. I couldn’t find her. When I turned around, you weren’t there, either. There was a cyclone coming.

  Love, Travis Lee

  APRIL 27, THE TRENCHES

  Dear Bobby,

  The next day we spent in a real barracks, and that night we marched a long ways across the pockmarked earth—cussing the dark and stumbling—to go down into our first trench.

  I knew we’d arrived when a call rang out, “Green troops coming.”

  The sky was overcast. No starlight from above, no cook-fires nor companionable lights from below. Going down in that trench was like walking into my own grave. “Care with the firestep, boys,” an unfamiliar voice said.

  The trench stank of dead rats and burned charcoal and old cigarettes. I hit bottom and slid in mud. Wet squished into my open shoes. Another step, and I was on the dry plateau of a duckboard. I groped for the nearest wall and found something soft instead.

  “Watch the hands, lad,” a voice chuckled. “Only me wife has permission to grab that.”

  I moved away, sliding in mud again, tripping over someone’s pack.

  “What platoon?” another voice cried out.

  Foy’s whispered “Fourteenth” struck up an answering chorus of laughter.

  “No use being quiet now, is there? And the Boche miles away.”

  Then from the gloom, an educated voice. An officer’s voice. “Fourteenth? You here?”

  “Aye, sir. Lieutenant McPhearson here with the Fourteenth.”

  “Ah. Good, Subaltern. Excellent. Corporal Jeffers will lead you to the front line.”

  I heard Foy say, startled, “Front?”

  Heavy footsteps clattered along the duckboards; and an answer came, too—unexpectedly close. “They gives the posh duty to the new troops, they does. Everyone here, then? Eh? It’s Corporal Jeffers asking, so best speak up.”

  Jeffers was answered by a wary chorus of “Yes, sir”s.

  “Follow me, boys. Instead of traveling the overland way, so to speak, we’ll be going up the communication trench, ’cause I’m of a mind today to be gentle. If you want to keep ’em on you, duck your heads.”

  Jeffers lit a lamp, and we fell in more or less behind, went zigzagging down the main trench, then into a slit that was barely coffin-wide. He called back happily, “Is this the platoon with the sheeny company commander and the cowboy and the Canuck?”

  There wasn’t much sound except for the wet sucking of boots through the mud, no touch except for the cold press of earth. Then I heard Riddell’s “Yes. We’re that platoon” from behind me.

  “Well, best bring your cowboy up. He’s to sharpshoot, but he’s to harden himself first in the forward sap.”

  “Not tonight!” Riddell squeezed my shoulder. He leaned forward and whispered in my ear, “Chin up, Stanhope. When you ’as to go, I’ll go with you.”

  Anxiously yours, Travis Lee

  APRIL 28, THE FRONT LINE

  Dear Bobby,

  Jeffers wasn’t joshing us. Front line is the posh duty. No shells, just the waiting and the rats and the occasional spat of machine-gun fire. They are so close, Bobby; close enough so that you can smell their cookfires. You can hear orders barked in German and smell the stench of their shit.

  The others in the platoon are learning how to mend the barbed wire. Me, I sleep through breakfast and lunch, and as the sun goes down I squeeze myself through a narrow slit in the mud. Ahead is an old shell crater, good enough for listening. All evening Riddell and I sit and listen, Bobby. We speak to each other in whispers. We piss into empty cans.

  The elms and the poppies are gone. What’s left is a barren countryside that might never have been leaf-gentled. The only thing that moves in No Man’s Land are the rats. At night when we stand guard I can hear them skitter and it spooks me. I think they are Boche sneaking up.

  When the moon’s full I can see the rusted briar patch of the German wire and a marker I make as the Boche forward sap: a tree blasted down to its roots. I hear mutters sometimes in that direction.

  The death of the land bothers Riddell. “Me mum says the earth takes care of its own, but see what we done ’ere, Stanhope? And all up and down France the same. I never gave a farthing-sized fart for nothing French, meself. Don’t like their food nor their fags nor their liquor. But this fair makes me want to cry. I know me mum would go all over tears, ’ow she loves the plants and all.”

  “Yeah. They took something pretty and made west Texas out of it,” I said.

  He shushed me. “Voice down, now. Sometimes you ’ears things.”

  “I don’t understand German.”

  He shook his head wearily. “Oh, Stanhope, not me, neither.”

  “I mean I don’t understand what they’re saying. I could overhear them telling the Kaiser’s pecker size, sir, and I wouldn’t know what they were saying for shit.”

  “Oh. Well. That doesn’t matter now, does it. Understanding, I mean. I don’t mean the size and all.” Riddell winked. “Foreign Office might ’ave themselves a cackle. But it’s not the understanding, Stanhope, see? It’s the listening.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  In the dead of night we drink muddy-tasting chlorinated water from our canteens. We listen. Not fifty yards away, Germans chatter, they laugh, they probably cuss as much as we do. And when the moon sets, it takes with it the silver glimmers on the puddles. It leaves behind a brooding dark. It’s then I’m glad that Riddell likes to talk. I’m glad the Boche laugh and fart sometimes. Still, three days listening and all I can tell you is, the Kaiser has a tee-ninsy pecker, Bobby. The size of your little finger. Bank on it. Tell all your friends you heard it straight from the source.

  And speaking of little peckers, hear tell that Major Dunn got throwed and broke his leg. Not enough wounding to pull a Blighty and get him home, but it’ll lay him up and out of our ways for a while all the same.

  Well, the platoon has learned to accept me. I guess I go down like the apple and plum jam and the chlorinated water. Three nights together, I’ve gotten to know Riddell real well. I respect him. I even love him in a way when we’re in the shell hole and dark’s fallen all around us. But hours listening to Riddell’s mum stories, learning more about weeds than I’d ever care to; three nights of hearing Germans grunt as they shit, and belch as they eat. Light-stepper or not, I wish I had Miller to talk poetry to. Hell, I’d let him put his hand on my leg.

  I didn’t mean that.

  Yours
in terrible boredom, Travis Lee

  APRIL 29, THE FRONT LINE

  Dear Bobby,

  Last night Abner Foy woke up screaming. Rats had run over his face. One had bitten him on the cheek and he was bleeding. When I opened my eyes I saw him sitting bolt upright, slapping at himself. Riddell was trying to calm him down.

  “ ’E’s gone now. Look, Foy. Look about, why don’t you? See? Little bugger’s gone. Everything’s fine. I’ll make you a sticking plaster of woad an’ you’ll be right as rain. Have some comfrey in me pack, but best not, seeing as how that’s a filthy bite from a filthy creature, and we don’t want it to go oozing and green.”

  Silver-tongued Sergeant Riddell. He set Foy to whimpering again.

  The rats are all over the trenches, Bobby. They are born and die behind the wattles. They leave their filth and rotting stench behind.

  By the time Foy finally shushed that evening, the rest of us were wide awake. Foy eyed us, one by one. He looked so silly with that steely gaze and that baby face and that weed-mulch plastered on his cheek. “Bullets and shells I can take brave as any. But it’s just them rats.”

  Lieutenant told us, “Settle it doon, now. Gi’ ye tae sleep,” and we buried ourselves under our blankets. In the light of the candle I watched Foy. He was sitting, rifle in hands, his eyes on the wattle wall. He was still sitting his lonely sentry when sleep took me.

  It takes me by surprise now, Bobby. One minute I’m wide-awake, thinking about home, maybe. Reciting Shelley in my head. The next instant I’m sucked into dark. Is this the way dying is to be? Shit. Please don’t tell me this stinking hole is a peek into the grave.

  While the others were snoring, I dreamed of home. I was somewhere near the Perdenales and the hill country’s muscular spring had come. The knolls were a velvet gray-green, the hollows dusty with bluebonnets. Limestone extruded like bones. The dream was so real and the place so damned familiar that it seemed more like a memory.

  I was standing, smelling deep of the cedar, when I noticed someone coming down the hill. They were too far away to recognize, too faint to put a name to, but I knew for certain that I was acquainted with this person, Bobby; had known ’em ever since I was a little kid. And as I watched the figure come down past the pecan trees, through lemony sunlight and mottled shade, I realized in a dream-sure way that the person was coming for me. Emotion came on me so strong that even thinking on it now sets me to shivering.