Flanders

by Patricia Anthony

  His grip weakened. I grabbed his hands before he could fall. His fingers were cold. “There once was a man from Texarkana.” We’d dueled limericks from time to time. I waited for the next line, thought it was never coming, then:

  “It’s bloody cold.”

  I tripped over something, slid, nearly fell. Pickering’s whimper tore at me.

  “There once was a man from Texarkana. Come on, Pickering. Think of something.”

  “Kept his pecker in his bandanna.”

  “And when he was wed.”

  Much too soft-voiced. “Chased her from bed.” Abruptly, his head lolled, knocked against my neck. I felt the muscles in his arms, his hands, loosen.

  “Pickering?” I kept going. His helmet bumped me. He would have slid from my shoulders if I hadn’t clung to him tight.

  “Aw, shit, no. Aw, goddamn.” I kept walking across No Man’s Land until I got tangled in our wire. I called down for a sapper to come cut me out.

  Blackhall came running out to meet me. “Stanhope? That you, Stanhope?”

  I couldn’t answer. He cut me free, tried to take Pickering. I shoved him away.

  “I had to bring somebody back,” I told him.

  “All right,” he told me. “All right. Let’s have him in the aid post.”

  I handed him down to Calvert, then jumped down myself. In the light of the lamp I saw how Pickering’s head rolled on his shoulders. His once-droll face was slack and gray and strange.

  “Dead, inn’t ’e,” Blackhall said, and I told him to shut up.

  “Get the med officer, goddamn you,” I said. “Wake up the fucking medical officer.”

  Calvert ran down the trench. I slung Pickering over my shoulder and waded through the half-frozen water. Worthy and Higgens and Dearden saw us coming and stepped out of my way. I’d bury him right, just like I’d promised. Bury him so the rats wouldn’t get his body, so the walls wouldn’t tumble out his bones. I’d make sure he got to the graveyard right enough, and if I didn’t see him there, I’d go back out to No Man’s Land and find him.

  The aid station was full, a fetid place of whimpers and carbolic and vomit. I found a cot, laid Pickering down, heard the groaning sigh of his last air being pushed from his lungs.

  The doctor took my arm, jerked me away. I stumbled back, yelling, “You bastards! Where’s the goddamned justice?” all the while the medical aides were telling me to shut up.

  I saw the doctor cut open Pickering’s coat, slice the uniform away from the wound.

  “You shitass! Hey, limey! You hear me?” I shouted at the doctor while his aides fell on me, tumbled me to the floor. “I’ll kill you, you asshole! You and Dunn, too! You another goddamned public school boy? Huh? Sending poor folks out to die.”

  The doctor straightened. “Get that man out,” he snapped. “The wounded need their rest.”

  They wrestled me to my feet. I was too tired to give them much of a fight. A few feet away, in the quiet glow of the lamp, the doctor was tucking a blanket to Pickering’s chin, and Pickering was blinking sleepily.

  “Let me stay,” I gasped. “Please. Please. Just let me stay with him.”

  The medical officer evidently forgave my outburst on the spot. He told me Pickering had a shattered hip. A Blighty, just like I’d thought. Who knows? Maybe I’d have made a decent doctor, after all.

  They let me sleep on the floor beside him. I held his hand until I heard him snoring, then I went back to No Man’s Land in my dreams.

  The place was full of wandering ghosties, bewildered folks without direction. I didn’t see O’Shaughnessy, but Wren caught up with me. He was beaming.

  “Leaving in a tick,” he said, and he was as chipper as I’d ever seen him. “Won’t be long now.”

  Far away, along the Boche trenches, I saw one solitary and desperate figure running, running; formless and dark as a piece torn out of the night.

  LeBlanc didn’t make it.

  Travis Lee

  DECEMBER 5, THE RESERVE TRENCHES

  Dear Bobby,

  The next day dawned cold and brittle. That morning I said goodbye to Pickering before they carried him to the hospital; and that afternoon, the obstinate, indestructible Fowler finally made it back. I thought of the ones I had left in the field, frozen now, their cries silenced.

  Riddell made it through. And Calvert, who along with Billings, had saved Rupert Littleton. And Harold Crumb, who had brought back George Day. Miller came in two hours before sunrise after the long night of the raid, exhausted and trembling and dragging Swarthout with him.

  I remembered Morgan and wanted to go get him, but Riddell said to wait until nightfall. Sleep dragged me down. It weighted my shoulders, it pushed my body into the blankets. It pressed my eyelids closed. I dreamed of a gravel path in the apricot dusk. Marble angels knelt with their heads bowed, their graceful wings folded. O’Shaughnessy walked beside me, laughing. We passed Wren, happy-faced in his grave, then a comforting surprise: Marrs and Trantham tumbled together like napping children. I stopped to study the sleepers nesting there under the glass, among the flowers.

  “Tired lads. I put them to bed,” O’Shaughnessy told me. “Come to find, Travis, the gathering ’twas intended as my job, not yours.”

  That was all right. Everything was. I saw Morgan sleeping and knew he hadn’t made it. I told O’Shaughnessy how I had come across Morgan where he was wounded, told how he had begged me to save him. I said it was nice to stop worrying.

  He chided, “Ah, but didn’t you know they’d all be cared for?”

  The graveyard was quiet except for the birdsong, except for the breeze coursing through the trees with the sound of a far rushing river. I looked into the indigo shadows, saw pale lights glittering. They outlined a tombstone’s carved rose, a cherub’s calm brow.

  We went to the mausoleum, where the calico girl was waiting. She smiled at me, contented and peaceful. O’Shaughnessy’s merry conversation resounded along the mausoleum’s curved walls, its glass roof. We went out again, following the echoes of our voices. We walked into the long twilight, into the tall blue shadows and the twinkling leaves.

  I saw that he was heading toward the cypress. The dark was close, its blackness solid as a wall. O’Shaughnessy chattered on, never noticing the danger. His hands soared like butterflies, fluttering some sort of story. Oh, Bobby, I can’t remember what he said—I only recall the joy of it, the terror of watching the dark approach. Then we were at the cypress; and O’Shaughnessy had to see it coming. He had to. The dark took up all Here, all Now. I wanted to run, but with the helplessness of dreamers, I trailed O’Shaughnessy inside.

  I don’t remember closing my eyes as we passed through that shadow membrane, but I remember opening them. Around me lay the broken countryside of No Man’s Land. That was all. Nothing frightening, just a place like a thousand others—a spot where ghosties wander, searching for the land of the found.

  O’Shaughnessy stopped, offered his hand in a goodbye, no extraordinary power but that of affection in his touch. “Travis?” he said.

  “Yes?”

  He leaned close to whisper a secret. His breath was warm and smelled of chocolate. “It’s love.”

  Travis Lee

  Winter 1916

  TWELVE

  DECEMBER 10, THE REST AREA

  Dear Bobby,

  They brought Pickering back from surgery yesterday. I stayed by his bed in the dull light of that rainy morning. The clinic’s air was thick with the reek of gas gangrene, the nose-stinging smell of carbolic. Pickering’s eyes were closed. As I patted his hand, as I called his name, his fingers closed over mine. I stood watching him sleep while all around me they served lunch: boiled beef and potatoes and turnips.

  Bound by that lax-handed grip, I waited while the other patients ate, while the Sisters took the trays away. A medical aide, seeing how things stood, brought me a chair. Later, a Sister brought me a cup of tea. She told me I could go on, if I wanted. She promised she’d tell him I’d visit
ed. I thanked her kindly, told her I’d stay awhile.

  Early afternoon, Pickering roused, groaned, asked for a drink of water. I tried to slip my hand from his. He must have still been groggy from the anesthetic, for he didn’t let me go.

  “I’m peckish,” he said.

  I was getting pretty hungry, too. “Can’t eat until tomorrow. That’s what they tell me.”

  He closed his eyes, licked his lips. “Some little bastard is drilling away in my leg.” He drifted away. The nurses served tea. One took pity, gave me a few stale vanilla cookies. While they were clearing the plates, Pickering opened his eyes.

  “Hullo,” he said, surprised.

  I gave him a drink of water. I wasn’t sure that he realized he was still holding onto me. My fingers were hot and cramped and sweaty.

  “Nice of you to visit,” he said.

  “Had to. Long ways out here. You’ll be going home soon. Afraid I wouldn’t get the chance to say goodbye.”

  He looked up at the slat ceiling and smiled in a happy, muddled sort of way. “What’s the date?”

  “The ninth.”

  His brow furrowed, his gaze went distant, as if he was peering through the slats. “Goose.”

  “Goose?”

  “The dinner we always have. And plum pudding. Loads and loads of gifts. For breakfast, my wife’s lovely buttery scones, plump and soft as a girl’s teat, all loaded down with treacle. She’s a Highlander, you know.” I sat silent, and let him relish his Christmas. Then his smile dropped and he said, “Will be strange, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Not only the lack of battle, Stanhope.”

  “I know.”

  His fingers tightened on mine. His lips pressed together and he winced.

  “Pain bad?” I asked.

  His voice was strained. “Do for starters.” Then he gasped out, “Bangers. Christ. Coddled eggs. No one makes coddled eggs like my missus.”

  I matched his grip. It felt like the bones in my hand were breaking. “You can scream,” I told him.

  His breath came in hard fast spasms. “Say I’ll limp. Still. Small payment.”

  I called the nurse, who gave him a shot.

  “Sergeant Riddell could have whipped you up a weed,” I told him.

  He snorted. His fingers gradually relaxed. His breathing eased. His eyelids drooped. I didn’t want him to leave me, so I said, “There once was a boy from Texarkana.”

  “Wrong bloody rhythm.”

  “Tell me about home.”

  I wanted him awake, so I bore the agony of it: his sleepy voice droning on and on about homey corner pubs and rich, dark beer until the longing for it ached. Then great family stories about a comical witch of a mother-in-law and an affectionate doll of a wife. “Should marry,” he told me.

  “Haven’t met the right girl.”

  “Won’t, if you insist on tarts.”

  “You never turned down a whore that I know of.”

  “Gor.” He rolled his eyes. “Don’t tell my missus. You’ll come visit? When it’s over, I mean.”

  “You bet.”

  “There’s talk of America joining. Shouldn’t last long then, what with that famous Yank savagery.”

  “Won’t be a whore in France safe.”

  A bad joke, but Pickering chuckled. I remembered the bakery shop girl, recalled a child in a wedding dress, giggles falling like rain.

  He stopped smiling, too. His fingers tightened. “Listen to me, Stanhope. You shall get out of this and be done. You shall visit.”

  “I need to go now, Pickering.” Outside the windows, dusk was coming on.

  He wouldn’t free me. “I’ll write.”

  “I’d appreciate that.”

  “Need a letter, Stanhope. Bloody angora vest, but your family’s a balls. I stole glances at the rare mail you get. Brother a complaining little prick. Mother only worried about herself. Too blasted good for the lot of them.”

  His take on the family surprised me. “They’re okay, I guess. I’m no prize myself.”

  Eyes closed, he tugged on my hand. “Most kindly soul.” His voice trailed off. “Do make it through.”

  I don’t think I can, Bobby. The mud will hold me back. And England is too exotic. All the polite people, all those safe streets. Imagine sitting in a house, not thinking of it as a bunker.

  Home would be just as foreign. Old friends and cordial questions; answers that aren’t meant for speaking aloud. My words would come out like bullets, no matter how soft I said them.

  Damn him. Pickering made me remember Christmas—the cheerful, clean smell of the cedar tree, and candles all around. Here, holidays are predestined to be dreary. With no one around to remind me, Thanksgiving had come and gone without a thought. The third Thursday of November. I couldn’t remember if there had been shelling, if there had been sleet.

  When Pickering dozed off, I tugged my fingers from his and left him. I hitched a ride on a motorized ambulance, sat on the back, my legs dangling. We rode through the rainy countryside while light faded, while outlines blurred. It wasn’t until I was walking the corduroy road near barracks that it hit me, and my legs went so weak that I had to sit down.

  It isn’t right for a man to have to rebuild his world over and over again, Bobby. It tires you out. Too many friends gone, the mud earth constantly changing. Things should stay put, stay solid, so you can hold on.

  When the sentry passed by he asked what I was doing sitting there, and I told him I’d just visited a friend in the hospital.

  “You was in that last suicide club,” he said.

  Twilight was blue and chill, the far barracks dark silhouettes. “Yeah.”

  “Your sergeant make it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He know where you are?”

  “He knew where I went.”

  The sentry sniffed, wiped his gloved hand under his nose. “All the same to me, but best get back.” He put a hand down, helped me to my feet. “Your chum going to make it?”

  “Got a Blighty.”

  The sentry broke out in a glorious smile. “Good on ’im!”

  “Yeah.” Lord forgive me. Only part of me meant it. “Good on him.”

  Travis Lee

  DECEMBER 11, THE REST AREA

  Dear Bobby,

  I was called to the YMCA pavilion today. Blackhall was waiting, a stained pack beside him on the table. He pushed it across to me.

  “Canucks is asking for ’is things. You knew ’im best. Thought you could go through, see what’s trash and what’s not.”

  I unbuckled the flaps, opened the pack, and set LeBlanc’s impoverished estate along the edge of the table: a grease tin; a worn and discolored towel; his paybook, its cover and page edges gray with mold; one shaving brush, stiff with soap and shedding bristles; a comb; a small Bible. I opened it up, read the inscription: “To Gerald, all my love, Mother.” Then a housewife bag, thread and needles in a tangle. A picture of a soldier in Canadian uniform standing arm in arm with a woman. There were mountains in the background. The woman was beautiful and smiling. The soldier wasn’t LeBlanc. Next, a holdall. One cheap razor, rusting at the handle, and a palm-sized wooden horse.

  I held the horse the way Pa did in my dream, my hands cupped, my head down. Light spread across the tabletop like spilled quicksilver. The toy was tiny. I hadn’t remembered how damned pretty it was, how well-carved. A mare the tender color of doeskin, with a clean white blaze.

  The bench creaked as Blackhall got up. A while later the floorboards boomed as he came back. He set a glass of lemonade by me. “Sisters of Charity,” he said, “Canucks says they ’as themselves a trophy chest right in the entry of the orphanage. Made it into a memorial, like, of their boys who was lost in the war. I already give the Canadians ’is decorations. Man was a rotter, but ’e ’ad decorations a plenty. Should make a nice little show for the nuns. Anyway, officers is leaving tomorrow. Anything else there worth sending with ’em?”

  LeBlanc—a man who h
oarded others’ memories. I thought of him grinning wide, bouncing up and down on that bay mare. Nice and gentle, I set the toy horse on the table, shoved it toward Blackhall.

  “Pretty little thing,” he said.

  I watched it being taken away.

  “The photograph?”

  I shook my head. “He was keeping it for someone.”

  “And the Bible?”

  “Borrowed it. Guy died before he could give it back.”

  He gave me a flat, cop kind of a look. He knew I was lying.

  “Any words you care to pass along? Something ’e told you? Something nice they can remember ’im by?”

  I looked at the moldy paybook, the stiff, shedding shaving brush, and knew there would be no one back home to give the message to. I shook my head.

  Blackhall slipped the toy horse in the pocket of his British Warm. “All over, then, lad. For the best, innit?”

  Inside of me, a stiff wintery worry begin to thaw. I smiled a little. “It’s over.”

  LeBlanc was dead. The guilt we carried was ended. We shook hands.

  “Anything you want, Stanhope? ’Spite of it all, you was friends once. Might care for some bit of memory.”

  I took a sip of my lemonade. Watery. No substance to anything anymore. “Don’t think so.”

  I set LeBlanc’s things back into the pack, buckled the flaps, and handed it over. It was too damned light. My own was twice the weight, loaded down with letters and homemade socks and a fine straight razor, despite a complaining brother. Despite a mother who might have cared more. Blackhall walked away with the last of LeBlanc, the half-empty pack dangling in his hands.

  I was finishing my lemonade when Calvert came, told me that Riddell was asking for me in barracks. When I arrived, I found Riddell inside, waiting. He was standing with an officer and a corporal who were battle-dressed and covered in mud. The three stopped talking when I walked in.

  “This Stanhope?” the captain asked Riddell.

  “Yes, sir.”

  The captain studied me. “Private Stanhope. Where is Private LeBlanc’s pack?”

  “Lieutenant Blackhall already took it.” I noticed Riddell’s expression. “What’s going on?”