War and Turpentine

by Stefan Hertmans

  One morning, a week later, we heard a child crying. A boy of about ten years old was standing on the opposite bank. The commander forbade us to go and fetch him. Carlier said it was a bloody shame, pulled off his uniform, dived into the water, and swam to the other side. Just as he was reaching out his hand, the child walked away. The Germans all opened fire at once; we had no idea where from. Carlier fell backward, rolled down the bank into the river, dived underwater, and did not resurface until he was on our side. We had all watched this spectacle with bated breath. Carlier was pulled out of the water. The commander said he deserved to be punished severely, but considering our outrage at the German trickery, he decided to leave well enough alone.

  We were thunderstruck by the realization that our enemy no longer had any moral scruples whatsoever. This kind of psychological warfare was new to us. We had been taught a strict code of military honor, ethics, and warcraft. We had learned to fence skillfully, to conduct rescue drills, and to think about the honor of our country’s soldiers. What we saw here had nothing to do with all that. It stirred up our thoughts and emotions; we sensed, with fear in our hearts, that we were becoming different men, ready and willing to do all the things we’d once abhorred. A few of our officers were quarreling in French. One of them wanted to order us to cross the river; the other one was roaring that it would be madness.

  A waste of munitions and of human lives! De Meester bellowed.

  But soon afterward, they seemed to have concocted a plan. We were sent down the riverbank in groups of four to ten, to see if from the bends we could observe any maneuvers on the other side. Near the ruined farmhouse, about a hundred soldiers stood in a circle, ready to fire. We had been issued with shovels and started digging our way toward each other; after a few hours, we had a new hundred-yard trench. Now we were told to drop into the trenches immediately and stay there without moving until further orders. Night fell; we slept on a thin layer of straw that we had collected from the demolished barns. Others slept on the muddy ground, half standing, bowed over their rifles, or in a fetal position, their faces turned toward the shallow earthen wall. We wished we could smoke, but the smell of cigarettes could have betrayed our position to enemy scouts.

  I thought of my mother again that night and suddenly, I don’t know why, of the fact that I had never been with a girl—something the other men often teased me about. I thought of the girl in the shallow pool—had that been such a short time ago? I saw her rise to her feet in the warm haze of summer by the harbor, her clothing on the bank, blue and white like the garments of Bernadette Soubirous. Her soft, naked skin burned like a patch of light in the darkness. What miracle permits us to see light and life in our dreams when darkness is all around? Restlessness surged through my body, lust took hold, and the demonic desire for self-gratification caught me in its grasp. Here and there, I heard the rhythmic shifting of fabric in the dark; I knew what that meant. I understood why the others did it, but I could never forgive myself if I gave in. I found myself in the stranglehold of a limitless desire to release my seed, just once, after all this time, out of sight of the Almighty and his priests, out of range of the confessional, here in this hell of death and mud where even the animals had fled their Eden. Would it be all right, just once? Before I could make a move, the thought alone sent a hot, blissful spurt down my army-issue trousers; I flinched, grew dizzy, and started to cry in silence, begging Our Lady to forgive my weakness. I saw the girl; my lust raged on; I turned with a sigh to the dirty straw and, burning with shame, surrendered to my own touch, wept, prayed for forgiveness, and fell asleep.

  When we were shaken awake, I found next to my head a piece of roast pork, still slightly warm, handed out to us just before we had gone to sleep. It must have been less than three hours later. The buglers sounded a muffled call to arms; once we had fallen into formation in the trenches, still stumbling and groggy, we received our orders.

  Soldats, portez-vous en avant! Flemish soldiers, forward, double-quick!

  An immediate cry of panic: Bloody hell, the Huns are in our trenches!

  The clarions blared. Shivering with cold, we surged forward, some of us already leaving the trenches, and charged four abreast at the Germans, who had crossed the river in the night. A grenadier with his black busby under one arm, a chasseur with a green beret, a gunner formerly assigned to the fortification belt, a sapper—each time, the commander shot a couple of bullets past their heads for cover. Running and shooting, we advanced almost a mile.

  Form ranks!

  This way, this way, this way, join the ranks, God damn it!

  Death and disaster hung in the frigid air.

  Martien and Kimpe, first sergeant majors, effective immediately.

  Merci, mon commandant.

  Stand to attention.

  Oui, mon commandant.

  Private Marroi.

  Oui, mon commandant.

  The three of you will stay in a parallel line, one hundred and fifty yards away from each other. Mark any place where we can take cover from the enemy. Try to mark a jumping-off point for our charge on the enemy front.

  Martien: fifty yards ahead, on the right. Kimpe in the middle, Marroi on the left. If you meet resistance, withdraw and rejoin us. Fix your bayonets. Now!

  I was the first to charge, head over heels, out of our position, clumps of grass flying past my head, debris blown out of cellars. I ducked from shell hole to bomb crater, leaped behind tree trunks, expecting to hear the signal that the others would follow. But we heard nothing behind us; over our heads was the shrieking of bullets and bombs, high-explosive shells and shrapnel. To my left, I could no longer see Kimpe. He was supposed to be fifty yards behind me, but the ravaged landscape made it impossible to tell what was going on. Confused, I dropped to the ground and crept forward as fast as I could. All around me were mangled barbed-wire entanglements, dead cows, sections of wall, twisted iron, deep pools and craters, and a dying horse, desperately flailing its head. The foam frothed and burbled around its mouth, and its hooves scraped at the mud. I shot the animal to put it out of its misery, pressing the barrel of my gun against its sensitive, brown-haired head. Blood and ooze spattered through the air. The enemy fire was now so close by that I could make out the machine-gun nests, hellmouths that barked and clattered and rattled till I could no longer hear or see. Then I came to a slope. Ahead of me, about five feet up, was a pasture. This would be a safe spot for our men to gather for the attack. But how could I let them know? The river bend was a treacherous place. Turning back would mean certain death; even my own comrades would shoot at me, not realizing who I was. My only choice was to go over the edge and see what lay beyond it. Suddenly, far to my left, I saw Kimpe climbing the slope. He leaped forward and ducked underneath the shot-up fence. I did the same; one hundred and fifty yards apart, we ran toward the enemy line. This is madness, I found myself thinking. The bullets were flying around me at knee level; I ran and leapt over bodies and more bodies, so thick on the ground that my throat clenched shut; but I knew it had to be there eventually, out ahead of us: the parallèle de départ, the jumping-off point that we had been ordered to mark. I hopped back and forth like a madman, dodging the whistling bullets, dancing like an idiot for my life. Finally I reached the last fence. Now I had to act fast. I jumped, but felt a shock run through my body—I couldn’t tell where—a white flash before my eyes, the feeling that my belly was tearing open. Between the falling bombs, I dived into a dry ditch and lay shivering there, flat on my belly, with my left groin in such pain that I could not breathe for a full minute and thought I would suffocate. I could not cry for help, or cough, or reach my rifle, which was lying right by the edge of the ditch. I could not undo my heavy knapsack, which had fallen on top of me. I was completely paralyzed. I saw the blurred image of the Yser dikes about one hundred yards ahead. Just before losing consciousness, I mumbled, Mission accomplished, mon commandant.

  Then everything went black and silent.

  Much later, I woke up. It wa
s twilight. Drizzle was falling straight down on me; I was drenched. I lay next to the ditch; apparently I had climbed out, but I couldn’t remember a thing about it. I might have been lying for hours in full view of the enemy riflemen. On my throat was the heavy boot of a dead man. I coughed and very slowly turned my head. All around me were my lifeless comrades. Apparently our stunt had ended in death. Pain tore through my body. I lay there motionless until the last light faded and the shooting stopped. I was parched with thirst; the pain in my groin tormented me. In the dark, I probed the crater of soft flesh somewhere in my underbelly, sticky with blood. For a while I lay sobbing, convinced I was going to die there. Frantic with despair, I crawled through the mud on my elbows in the depths of the night, dragging my numb legs behind me. But even that apparently made some noise; bullets came hurtling blindly through the darkness in my direction. With my elbows scraped raw, blood dripping from the cuffs of my jacket and trousers, praying to the Blessed Virgin, I crawled past dead cows, horses with torn bellies gaping open, dead soldiers with shot-off faces, and saw not a living soul, except perhaps for that one boy whimpering somewhere in the darkness. Sometimes I brought my hand down flat on the lacerated body of a dead man; I shuddered and crept far behind the deserted trenches.

  As the first glimmer appeared in the sky, I crawled on through an endless series of trenches, weeping and, so I imagined, dying. As if by some miracle, I saw two Red Cross stretchers. A doctor and two young priests were huddled together beside them. Apparently, I was hundreds of yards behind the front line. I rolled into the pit. They gave me first aid, the medical officer muttering as I lapsed back into unconsciousness. When I awoke, there was a piece of cardboard pinned to my chest; I couldn’t move enough to see what was written on it. Along with other wounded men, I was loaded onto a cart and driven away. We trundled down the broken roads, our destination someplace beyond the deadly Tervaete Loop. That same morning, the rest of our battalion was massacred by the machine guns and shells of the exceptionally well-entrenched German forces. From Nieuwpoort to Diksmuide, one hundred and fifty thousand young soldiers fell in less than a week.

  I spent several days in a kind of barracks, gasping in agony. There I heard what had become of our proud parallèle de départ. Our commander had awaited our signal for two hours; not one of us three had made it. In desperation, they had gone over the top, sabers drawn and bayonets fixed, and, almost without exception, had been mown down. We lost about a thousand officers that week, just on that side of the front. Countless boys were left, unidentified, to die in the mud; others were wounded or taken prisoner, or died in the horse cart on the way to the barracks where I lay. Bumping and thumping over the shattered paving stones, a wagon brought me and the other wounded men to the rear of the front lines. In a ramshackle house, we were examined by another medical officer. The commanders were distrustful and always on the lookout for shirkers; some lads would put on the blood-soaked uniforms of dead comrades and make a show of moaning and groaning, so that they would be taken away with the wounded. The two young chaplains were in shock. They kept crying and crying and eventually had to be carried off themselves. Every time we were taken to a new aid station, still farther away from the front, we underwent yet another medical examination and received first aid again. There were fewer of us left each time; I watched boys die next to me in the open bed of a wagon. The gray sky was void and empty, and the crows that rode the chill wind etched their triumphant cries deep into my broken body. We finally arrived in Calais. In a requisitioned hotel, we were placed in beds for the first time and given soup and bread. After that we were taken to a hospital; I had no idea where. A bullet was removed from my groin. The army doctor was standing by my bed when I awoke. He handed me the bullet as if it were a medal.

  You were lucky, mon ami. One inch closer to the center, and it would have hit your spine. Then you’d have been crippled for life.

  He gave me a pat on the cheek. I couldn’t move. I slept for days without eating. Then we were fed a watery vegetable soup, which gave me immediate diarrhea. I felt as frail as an autumn leaf on the wind. In my nightmares, dead horses rose from the blood-sodden mud and started trampling soldiers. One morning, as I watched the nurses come and go in their gray uniforms, those quiet young women who cared for us with hushed voices and careful hands, to my embarrassment, I burst into sobs. The next day, fifty of us were put on board a ship. Liverpool, we were told, Liverpool was where they were taking us. I slept through the entire crossing.

  4

  When I was thrown back into the fray six months later, what I remembered most about Liverpool was a shock of recognition that would stay with me all my life. But first we were carried through sleet and storm, in an ice-cold wind that howled across the wide, choppy waters of the Mersey, to a hospital right next to the large cathedral under construction on Hope Street. After that I spent the spring in two auxiliary hospitals for recovering soldiers—the first in Wallasey, across the river, and the second back in Liverpool, somewhere near Toxteth. The days drifted by like a vague dream of rest and relief. For the first few weeks, I was in a wheelchair pushed by a taciturn nurse named Maud. I had trouble finding words in those early weeks, and would lie awake at night, ashamed of my awkwardness. After a while, I could hobble up and down the corridor on crutches. I would no longer be able to locate the auxiliary where we stayed; Maud told me it was a ten-minute walk to the banks of the Mersey. I do recall that the hospital was next to a park with a few old oak trees behind low walls. That first weekend, every movement hurt. Every moment of the day, it was painfully clear to me that even moving a single arm activates the muscles in the lower abdomen; it was as if every gesture I made was driven from that tender spot. I had trouble urinating and was embarrassed for the statuesque nurse who had to help me with my catheter, a brown tube through which watery blood kept running into the white enamel basin that she would hold up for me; I cursed under my breath whenever I tripped on a doorstep.

  But after a month and a half I was feeling well enough to start on the first exercises meant to get me back into form. I took short walks, and then progressively longer ones. I sat and sketched under the trees in St. James’ Cemetery, in the shadow of the unfinished cathedral, where construction had stopped for the duration of the war. Soon, a few soldiers were asking me for portraits. I drew them in charcoal, and taciturn Maud leaned in for a look. It was a spring day, mid-March. I caught a whiff of violets, and when I looked up I saw her green eyes fixed on my hands. I gulped and, without thinking, mainly to hide how nervous and tongue-tied I felt, blurted something I’d just figured out that instant: years earlier, toward the end of his short life, my father had stayed somewhere in Liverpool too, sent by the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. After a moment’s reflection, she told me there was a Church of St. Vincent de Paul on St. James Street, and then continued her rounds.

  From that moment, I could not rest. How could I have been so foolish as to forget that my father had spent almost a year of his life here? Had the war shaken me so badly that I had lost my memory? I spent the sleepless nights that followed racking my brains. Where had my father worked? And what had he painted? Soon after he returned home, his health had deteriorated rapidly. We’d barely had time for questions, and he had volunteered little, because he had such difficulty talking. Why hadn’t I drawn him out about his trip?

  Full of self-reproach, I wrote my mother a long letter describing my doings in Liverpool. As soon as my health and the weather permitted, I went out searching. Maud was right: in St. James Street I found the Church of St. Vincent de Paul. My heart was pounding as I entered its damp, sparsely decorated interior. On the dingy walls to the left, there was no sign of any murals my father might have worked on. On the right, I found the Stations of the Cross on panels. There happened to be men at work in the church, whitewashing walls. They couldn’t recall any frescoes under the whitewash. In the days that followed, I visited almost every church in Liverpool, astonished at the number of Catholics living there; Mau
d told me many of them were Irish immigrants. I visited the Sacred Heart Church, the St. Philip Neri Church, still under construction, the Church of St. Luke, later bombed in the Second World War, the Church of St. Thomas of Canterbury, St. Anthony’s Church, and the smaller churches and chapels in outlying districts. Nowhere did I find any trace of the murals my father was supposed to have restored and extended. He had worked in a monastery, or a school, I vaguely recalled. So I walked all the way to Everton Valley to visit Notre Dame College. But I still could not find what I sought, and my guilt and obsession mounted by the day.