Flanders

by Patricia Anthony

  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?”r />
  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

  ELEVEN

  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.

  “Won’t make it,” Uncle Tim said. He was all for putting down the litter. It was pouring rain. Mud was to our thighs. Hard enough to get out of that muck without dragging that dying corporal. Daisy-cutters kept dropping on us, too. I didn’t bother turning to look back, but I could hear the sharp cracks as they hit.

  “Put a bung in it,” Turnhill said. “I knows the lad.”

  Mugs said, “Know him or not, he’s done for. Filling up with blood like a flaming balloon.”

  “If he’s going to die,” I said, “somebody grab that message.”

  Mugs pried it out of his rigid fingers, handed it to me. I opened the paper. It was addressed to Miller and was signed by Major Dunn.

  Your field telegraph is out, the message read. Please attend to it. I stuffed the message in my pocket, and we picked up the litter and floundered on.

  It was a long way to the aid station. Once in a while Turn-hill or Mugs or Uncle Tim would call out to “Let up for a tick. Can’t let up?” and we’d put the corporal down. In the thigh-deep embrace of the mud, my eyes would close. Gradually, relentlessly, the wet earth would start dragging me under like a slow current of the sea. Then somebody would call, “Ready!” and we’d cuss, lift the litter, and struggle on.

  By the time we climbed over the sandbags that day, we were so covered in mud that we looked like rough clay statues, and the corporal was dead.

  Turnhill stared down at the litter, his face moronic with exhaustion. The corporal’s belly wasn’t swollen anymore. A crimson trickle ran down his side, had congealed in a black jelly around him.

  “Oh, well,” Turnhill said. “Bugger it.”

  We try the best we can, Bobby, but the battle’s lost. It’s been lost for nearly forever. When the earth falls around us, it vomits out corpses: black-faced Boche, skin loose and scummy with rot, their bright hair falling out in patches, rats nesting in their bellies. At night I roll that spine bone in my hand, round as the world, prickly as danger.

  It’s still sunset in the graveyard. Dunleavy’s gone again, and except for me and the sleepers, the twilight most of the time is empty. But even though it’s lonely, I relish being there. The air’s so sweet for the breathing. I suck it down deep—all cool crystal. It’s the way that I remember air used to be.

  Two nights ago I saw someone skipping beyond the monuments and the trees—the little girl that LeBlanc had murdered. She was laughing. Her white wedding dress swirled. I walked toward her, but she dashed away giggling, grave to grave. Her laughter danced with her up the steps and fell down on me like confetti.

  I’m so tired and the graveyard’s so peaceful that I ache to stretch out on one of the marble slabs. I wonder if I would die there, sleeping. I wonder if I’d dream of Heaven.

  Travis Lee

  NOVEMBER 24, THE RESERVE TRENCHES AID POST

  Dear Bobby,

  Just when I thought I couldn’t take no more, the shelling let up. The nights are quiet now. I go to sleep hearing the fading calls of “Lights out!” down the trench.

  Last night long after lights-out I was curled in my tiny cubbyhole near the aid station. Feet woke me, splashing and thumping up the duckboards.

  “Bloody idiot,” Miller said under his breath.

  For a minute I thought he was talking to me. The footsteps halted. Outside my narrow door a match flared yellow. I caught the smell of cigarette smoke.

  Then I heard a tsk and a “Really” from Dunston-Smith. “Mustn’t let on, Richard. Best not to stir things up.”

  A mutter of “but it’s murder” from Miller, and then the clear bright words, “keep silent any longer.”

  A hissed “Shut up.”

  Somewhere out there in the dark the two were discussing LeBlanc.

  They walked closer. Dunston-Smith spoke again, his tone reasonable. “Look. One does what one is ordered, Richard. Good God. You can’t afford to be awkward about it.”

  Miller said, “Don’t touch me.”

  “Sorry.” Dunston-Smith was breezy-toned.

  My shoulder was cramping. I wanted to turn over, but I was afraid they’d hear me.

  “You’re much too careless with your affections, Colin. Someone might see.”

  “And it’s not careless of you to go carrying tales?”

  “But Dunn refuses to do anything.”

  “You’re bang on, Richard. And you mustn’t speak up either. You haven’t the bloody pull.”

  The two of them smoked for a while, there in the concealing dark. Then Miller said, “You know why he’s chosen me again.”

  Not really a question. There was no answer, either.

  “It’s my success. It irks him. He feels he cannot afford to have me in the army, Colin. He especially cannot have me outperforming his other officers. The bastard will kill half my company simply because I am a Jew.”

  So this wasn’t about one man and a handful of battered girls. It was a bigger and uglier crime than that.

  Another tsk from Dunston-Smith. “You see anti-Semitism under every rock, Richard. It’s becoming tiresome.”

  A cigarette butt hit the water with a hiss. Another match blazed. Miller said, “He speaks of bloody surprise. Does anyone believe we can surprise the Boche in this weather? The colonel should visit the trenches. He should see the state of these men. He should try to walk in this blasted mud.”

  Dunston-Smith let his breath out in a sigh. “Will you lead them?”

  “Otherwise it’s mutiny, isn’t it?”

  “But will you lead them?”

  Miller was quiet for so long that I was sure he wasn’t going to answer. Then a mutter, “Of course I’ll bloody lead them.”

  Pray for us, Bobby. Pray that Turnhill and Uncle Tim and Mugs and me have the strength to carry all the wounded.

  Travis Lee

  NOVEMBER 25, THE RESERVE TRENCHES

  Dear Bobby,

  I thought they’d move us forward, but we stayed. Around us, shells fall thicker. We catch sleep when we can; eat when we have the time. Did Miller win us this reprieve? I’m tired of it, the slow endless shelling. I’m ready to push onward. Sometimes I think that if we go forward far enough, we’ll push through the Boche trenches and on the other side the graveyard will be waiting. I’ll see Dunleavy
again and the calico girl. I can lie down on that marble slab I’ve had my eye on. God, Bobby. I’ll sleep through Judgment Day.

  Today we fought our way down the trench, water to our knees, and saw a soldier brought up from his mud tomb, cussing. Cries for help sent us clawing our way over the bags. There, in the pockmarked waste between the trenches, a threesome had been filling sandbags. The daisy-cutter hit them bang on as the Brits would say. Bang on. There was a kid whose head had exploded: brains dripping down his chin like oatmeal, cherry jam splatters on his lips. Another, his thick-walled heart neatly sliced open and lying atop his chest like a medical illustration. There the aorta. There the ventricles. There the empty chamber that had once held his family. I remembered a spring afternoon and Miller quoting: Mother, whose heart hung humble as a button. We left the dead to rot.

  One boy had been left alive, and he was the worse for it. A piece of shrapnel had struck between his legs. There was only a small rip in his pants. He kept reaching down, reaching down, his palm smeared with blood. His pecker and balls were gone.

  Mugs saw. He went to shaking so bad that he had to drop the litter. Turnhill looked away.

  “I still there?” the boy asked.

  “Yeah,” I told him. Then I told him to stay quiet so we could get him on the stretcher. He kept touching himself, his hands coming away empty. “Can’t feel nothing. I still there?”

  We got him on the litter and started wading toward the trench, when I heard a low thrum. A shell was coming, and it was close. I could feel its vibration in the bones of my forehead, in my teeth. Mud trapped me, kept me from running. I remember looking up.

  The wind pushed and I went flying. There was no pain. No sound either, but my ears would ring for hours after. I hit the mud face-first, struggled to my feet, surprised to be alive, saw Turnhill rising, saw Uncle Tim sitting up. Mugs was standing gape-mouthed, his fingers curled as if he still carried the litter.

  The blast had torn the wounded boy apart. Mugs was painted scarlet with him. The mud for yards around glistened like garnet.