I undertake these writings – and the sharing of them – for the sake of my self expression. I am under no particular illusions as to their literary merit, and ask only that any readers do not have any undue expectations. If you consider me wrong, then publish me – with full credit, of course :)
Please also note that I check only occasionally for comments, so if you make any, please be patient.
This is another poem written during the vigil at my (adoptive) mother's passing - one more to come yet.
Kayleen White
Dignity
Tho' body and tongue may loll and drool
There's no dignity lost here,
In this place, tonight
- how could any think such,
When this spirit's light
Outshines body's blight!
© Kayleen White, 2007
14 December 2007
28 October 2007
[Content Warning] The struggle (poem)
Sorry: the formatting has been bloody lost when I added the Content Warning - on several posts, and I don't have the time to fix them all so I won't fix any.
This post is a bit different: it is my reaction to seeing my mother as she lay dying in palliative care, after a 2,000km drive. I had it worded so much more clearly when it came to me, but I couldn't leave her to go and write it down. Maybe the words will came back again, and I'll be able to better it. Kayleen White The struggle What struggle is this I see before me of spirit and form! This spirit I know so well, that nurtured me, cared for me, inspired me - as when a dying bird a pet, held your finger for comfort - much as I do now: hold the hands of your form, the skin of your forearms, mottled with age, against mine, one white, one brown with the sun of the driven days to get here. Your form, so clearly so recognisably still you, though the flesh has shrunk with age and illness, I can still see you and know you - your bones still hold your form. Your bones. Your form's inner strength, that strength which even now, as spirit calls, still holds to worldly life. I can see them here Pop, your father, doughty Scot, your mother, our Nan; they're here for you, - they're here to help you go, for go you must, as must we all. A poet once wrote: "d not go gentle into that good night" Aye, go not gently: - shout, and call out, and dance about -celebrate this life! Rejoice - we'll help with that, your family, both those in spirit, and those not yet, for we're all here for that, for it is time to go, to let this battle of spirit and form come to truce; no more rasping, struggling breaths, just one last rattle in that loved chest, and free from pain you'll be, free with your family, both those in spirit, and those not yet. © Kayleen White, 2007
12 October 2007
Cultural Cringe
I undertake these writings – and the sharing of them – for the sake of my self expression. I am under no particular illusions as to their literary merit, and ask only that any readers do not have any undue expectations. If you consider me wrong, then publish me – with full credit, of course :)
Please also note that I check only occasionally for comments, so if you make any, please be patient.
Kayleen White
Cultural Cringe
The clichés she’d read all described heat as a thing that hit you from the outside, as “a wall of heat”; but this was different - this was an monster that reached inside you and pulled a plug to instantly deny you all energy, almost as if your very life force was being held hostage against you leaving this place.
She was proud of her strength – she liked it, liked being strong, competent, in control of herself and able to move with a lithe energy. But that had left her now, and the only litheness was in the people around, the people who knew this heat, who lived in it and grew up seemingly immune to it’s insidious attentions. Thank God she hadn’t had her period as well on this trip.
She had a job to do, so she still to play a role: the capable foreigner who was here to pass on her knowledge, and show how to work the foreigner’s equipment. She’d been well briefed by her boss, so she’d been polite, she’d waited in queues, she shown respect to the elderly – she’d even been taught a few words of Vietnamese.
Cháo bá, for the women, and cháo ông for the men. Hello.
She supposed it had helped, but it had been her downfall, as well.
Her boss had been very clear about how she was to conduct herself: “Remember, while you’re in Há Nôi, you’re not just representing us, you’ll be the basis by which all Australians are judged. Right or wrong, many of these people won’t see another Australian, another person from Úc, and I’d like to think that they’d have a good impression of us.”
So be polite, and restrained, and conduct yourself well – and here’s a few token words to show that you’re a safe, semi-civilised foreigner. But the words had grown, and the growing had been her downfall. It seemed right, somehow, to get to know people you had to talk to them – although she’d communicated well with the Chinese workers with nothing but a few diagrams and the language of working with machinery in common.
At least there’d been no problems with her being a woman – not like back home. No fights with traditionalist parents or possessive brothers here.
Thuyên probably had parents – and, given what she’d seen of families here, she would have had many brothers and sisters. What had they thought of her coming to the city? Did they known she worked in a hotel, cleaning the rooms of foreigners?
It wasn’t a big hotel. It was a small place, looking much like the other constructions thrown casually up in the thirst for growth and recovery. Occasionally she saw some of the older buildings that had survived without damage, and sometimes the buildings that were basically still just standing ruins of war. Inside, the place was neat and clean, and the paint plain and well enough patched – the rich timber furniture inlaid with mother-of-pearl actually contributed to the sense of elegant decay she felt, but the staff had gone out of their way to make her feel welcome. They’d even started making the noodle soup she had for breakfast for her – the pho bá and pho ga. And it had been Thuyên’s broad, wonderful smile that welcomed her to her first breakfast there.
Thuyên.
She’d wanted to learn more of their language, the language with the tones that were so hellishly difficult for people from Úc, as they called Australia, so she’d started chatting with the young man who was then cleaning her room – work at the site she had come there to attend to was erratic, and she often had many hours to pass as she chose, whether that was wandering the streets buying postcards from the street beggars, hiding from the monster in her air conditioning, or learning – or teaching. The night porter was more assiduous than she at seeking words - English words for him.
They all seemed to want to speak English so desperately. Her boss had said you pick the generations by their second language: the oldest generation spoke French, the next Russian, and now they were choosing English – the key, to them, of being part of the glamorous, prosperous western economy. She wanted to see their culture, like the thousand year old university, with its stone carvings with the names of graduates: they wanted the key to her economy.
Thuyên was a key – a lithe, graceful key in her loose, flowing slacks and blouse, whose cool and effortless movements in this sweat box dripped an unconscious sensuality. The young man had struggled, and then he had brought in Thuyên, and said, in his faltering way, that she was another cleaner, knew more of the English language and could better teach her.
Thuyên had said her English language skills came from her husband, but having met her husband, his skills were, sadly, a bit overrated. She understood his attempts to bluff his way into jobs on the alleged strengths of his English, though: almost everyone here was poor, by her standards, and getting jobs with connections to the west was a way out of that trap. She admired his bravery, and his commitment to his family.
Her boss had said “You won’t get to meet any of the local people in their homes, of course.” Well, she had. She’d made a deal with Thuyên: teach me your language, and I’ll take some photo’s of your kids. It had given her more time with this shy beauty – more time to torment herself.
She didn’t know what the local views on lesbians were, but given their general conservatism, with the insistence on long sleeves and slacks (she’d been warned that bare limbs were considered disrespectful), and the recent years of puritanical communism, she suspected the views were rather dim.
And she was a stranger in a their land. If she got into trouble, who would help her?
She would normally have just shut that part of herself down for this short trip, but there had been something in Thuyên’s manner, something that she read as a hint – or maybe it was just her desperate longing. Sometimes she tried to reason with herself: what would she have been like, if she’d grown up in a culture torn by war, and fanaticism, and poverty? At other times she just called herself a fool.
But there had been yesterday, when Thuyên’s words had failed her – or maybe it was the accent. She hadn’t understood at the time, but later she had thought, was I being asked if I had a boyfriend or a girlfriend in Úc? The thought had left her in an agony of un-satiated lust – and a battle royal with her conscience. She’d never had this much trouble before, being celibate for a week or two – and any girlfriends at home had seemed quite pleased by her fervour when she came home, but now she ached, and was so tempted … She just didn’t know – it was all the doubt and uncertainty of sussing out whether any desirable woman was lesbian, or bi, with all the terrifying uncertainties of a culture where she was told to expect a dossier on her – and she couldn’t even speak properly to her!
Well, the philosophers said to live in the moment; and her moment now was the agony of waiting till tomorrow’s torture, tomorrow’s macabre three headed dance with manners and caution on one hand, desire and Thuyên on the other, and her in the cultural no-woman’s land in the middle.
© Kayleen White, 2007
Please also note that I check only occasionally for comments, so if you make any, please be patient.
Kayleen White
Cultural Cringe
The clichés she’d read all described heat as a thing that hit you from the outside, as “a wall of heat”; but this was different - this was an monster that reached inside you and pulled a plug to instantly deny you all energy, almost as if your very life force was being held hostage against you leaving this place.
She was proud of her strength – she liked it, liked being strong, competent, in control of herself and able to move with a lithe energy. But that had left her now, and the only litheness was in the people around, the people who knew this heat, who lived in it and grew up seemingly immune to it’s insidious attentions. Thank God she hadn’t had her period as well on this trip.
She had a job to do, so she still to play a role: the capable foreigner who was here to pass on her knowledge, and show how to work the foreigner’s equipment. She’d been well briefed by her boss, so she’d been polite, she’d waited in queues, she shown respect to the elderly – she’d even been taught a few words of Vietnamese.
Cháo bá, for the women, and cháo ông for the men. Hello.
She supposed it had helped, but it had been her downfall, as well.
Her boss had been very clear about how she was to conduct herself: “Remember, while you’re in Há Nôi, you’re not just representing us, you’ll be the basis by which all Australians are judged. Right or wrong, many of these people won’t see another Australian, another person from Úc, and I’d like to think that they’d have a good impression of us.”
So be polite, and restrained, and conduct yourself well – and here’s a few token words to show that you’re a safe, semi-civilised foreigner. But the words had grown, and the growing had been her downfall. It seemed right, somehow, to get to know people you had to talk to them – although she’d communicated well with the Chinese workers with nothing but a few diagrams and the language of working with machinery in common.
At least there’d been no problems with her being a woman – not like back home. No fights with traditionalist parents or possessive brothers here.
Thuyên probably had parents – and, given what she’d seen of families here, she would have had many brothers and sisters. What had they thought of her coming to the city? Did they known she worked in a hotel, cleaning the rooms of foreigners?
It wasn’t a big hotel. It was a small place, looking much like the other constructions thrown casually up in the thirst for growth and recovery. Occasionally she saw some of the older buildings that had survived without damage, and sometimes the buildings that were basically still just standing ruins of war. Inside, the place was neat and clean, and the paint plain and well enough patched – the rich timber furniture inlaid with mother-of-pearl actually contributed to the sense of elegant decay she felt, but the staff had gone out of their way to make her feel welcome. They’d even started making the noodle soup she had for breakfast for her – the pho bá and pho ga. And it had been Thuyên’s broad, wonderful smile that welcomed her to her first breakfast there.
Thuyên.
She’d wanted to learn more of their language, the language with the tones that were so hellishly difficult for people from Úc, as they called Australia, so she’d started chatting with the young man who was then cleaning her room – work at the site she had come there to attend to was erratic, and she often had many hours to pass as she chose, whether that was wandering the streets buying postcards from the street beggars, hiding from the monster in her air conditioning, or learning – or teaching. The night porter was more assiduous than she at seeking words - English words for him.
They all seemed to want to speak English so desperately. Her boss had said you pick the generations by their second language: the oldest generation spoke French, the next Russian, and now they were choosing English – the key, to them, of being part of the glamorous, prosperous western economy. She wanted to see their culture, like the thousand year old university, with its stone carvings with the names of graduates: they wanted the key to her economy.
Thuyên was a key – a lithe, graceful key in her loose, flowing slacks and blouse, whose cool and effortless movements in this sweat box dripped an unconscious sensuality. The young man had struggled, and then he had brought in Thuyên, and said, in his faltering way, that she was another cleaner, knew more of the English language and could better teach her.
Thuyên had said her English language skills came from her husband, but having met her husband, his skills were, sadly, a bit overrated. She understood his attempts to bluff his way into jobs on the alleged strengths of his English, though: almost everyone here was poor, by her standards, and getting jobs with connections to the west was a way out of that trap. She admired his bravery, and his commitment to his family.
Her boss had said “You won’t get to meet any of the local people in their homes, of course.” Well, she had. She’d made a deal with Thuyên: teach me your language, and I’ll take some photo’s of your kids. It had given her more time with this shy beauty – more time to torment herself.
She didn’t know what the local views on lesbians were, but given their general conservatism, with the insistence on long sleeves and slacks (she’d been warned that bare limbs were considered disrespectful), and the recent years of puritanical communism, she suspected the views were rather dim.
And she was a stranger in a their land. If she got into trouble, who would help her?
She would normally have just shut that part of herself down for this short trip, but there had been something in Thuyên’s manner, something that she read as a hint – or maybe it was just her desperate longing. Sometimes she tried to reason with herself: what would she have been like, if she’d grown up in a culture torn by war, and fanaticism, and poverty? At other times she just called herself a fool.
But there had been yesterday, when Thuyên’s words had failed her – or maybe it was the accent. She hadn’t understood at the time, but later she had thought, was I being asked if I had a boyfriend or a girlfriend in Úc? The thought had left her in an agony of un-satiated lust – and a battle royal with her conscience. She’d never had this much trouble before, being celibate for a week or two – and any girlfriends at home had seemed quite pleased by her fervour when she came home, but now she ached, and was so tempted … She just didn’t know – it was all the doubt and uncertainty of sussing out whether any desirable woman was lesbian, or bi, with all the terrifying uncertainties of a culture where she was told to expect a dossier on her – and she couldn’t even speak properly to her!
Well, the philosophers said to live in the moment; and her moment now was the agony of waiting till tomorrow’s torture, tomorrow’s macabre three headed dance with manners and caution on one hand, desire and Thuyên on the other, and her in the cultural no-woman’s land in the middle.
© Kayleen White, 2007
Dragon Kind
I undertake these writings – and the sharing of them – for the sake of my self expression. I am under no particular illusions as to their literary merit, and ask only that any readers do not have any undue expectations. If you consider me wrong, then publish me – with full credit, of course :)
Please also note that I check only occasionally for comments, so if you make any, please be patient.
Kayleen White
Dragon kind
She always found it mystifying, why humans thought her kind’s skin was leathery. She thought they’d probably never bothered to really check - but then, her sister-friend thought they were actually feeling their kind’s age, power and strength and, as they associated age with things like wrinkly, old skin, they created an association of leathery, tough skin.
Whatever the explanation, she didn’t have to have much to do with humans, and she was relieved.
She was resting, just now … enjoying the warmth of an unexpectedly sunny day in winter, gazing across the quiet valley, watching the flow of energy - Qi, some humans called it - much as humans watched water playing on a beach or dancing down a river. Much as otters or dolphins played in the water, she could see other entities that humans generally didn’t, fairies, playing in the flowing energy.
Their blindness amazed her - she could remember back to the day, as a youngling, when she first came across a human. The creature had been bending over something, swinging its arm, and she had closed, eager to make friends. But when she had got closer, and found that it was hacking a still feebly living animal, she had backed up in horror.
She’d sent a blast of energy at the creature, which had swung round in alarm, but then returned to its grisly task.
Her mother and an uncle had come to her side and, using the rich but silent imagery of their telepathic species, explained that this was how humans kept themselves alive - by eating other beings, both plant and animal, and that humans lacked their own sophisticated awareness and ability to communicate.
Humans had changed since then: they now no longer wore crudely fashioned animal skins, and almost every part of the planet had been touched by them - most catastrophically. Some had shown themselves to be exemplary - like the legendary George, who some humans had made into a saint for supposedly killing one of her kind, when all that they had been doing was having a farewell game.
She was glad she had so little to do with them, though: most had an unformed mind and vague emotions that were like a sticky, repulsive bog to experience - and their almost universal lack of awareness made them clumsy and rude without them ever knowing it.
She returned her awareness to the valley. The sun was moving further, and the patterns were changing their flow. Creatures, both physical and those beyond, responded to the change. It was now late afternoon, with a dusk approaching and the clear night to enjoy.
Ah, but here was a calling. She repositioned those marvellously expressive, flexible antennae that humans called wings and “listened”. She could feel her sisters, and a couple of brothers, calling for some patching of the world’s web, the flowing pattern of energy. She was closest, so it was her task.
She didn’t need to fly: she just thought herself - or rather, “felt” herself, as she worked with the energy that humans called “emotions” - to where she needed to be. Humans called it teleporting, and then went on clumping slowly round the world.
And she could see it - one of the human’s mechanical beasts was tearing across a small stream of energy. She could see the energy being damned up, like a pool of lava trying to find a way out: the longer it built up, the more explosive it would be when it found a way out. She had been “told” that many humans didn’t think such energy existed, but she could see this pool leading to arguments between the humans milling about the machine - the trapped energy always found a way to vent, and this particular outlet she had seen before in these circumstances.
She looked carefully: yes, there were two other pathways that the energy could take, but one would need help to form the channel. A quick query to the spirits of the land, and they were crying back for her help, to fix the flows that had been so rudely interrupted: they, fairies, pixies, elves and gnomes, would be content for her to try. Hmm … she could do with some help, though. Ah, but that human’s aura looked more alive than the others … was that one perhaps aware? Hmm. Maybe so - she could perceive some sadness, a wordless sense of regret - an apology, without even knowing the feeling was sorrow, that they hadn’t asked the Mother before opening her.
She changed her wings’ position, and sent a query to her sisters and brothers: could she use this human? Moments later, she felt the reply come back - yes, she could, and she was given some guidance on how to approach the task. A mother explained how to use the human to focus energy, much as the humans themselves did in a very crude way with crystals and trinkets. She was wise, and old, that mother - she had known George, and transferred some of the knowledge of humans she had learned from George … including their strange restrictions on who they could call mother, or sister or brother, although some groups applied to titles to roles, as with her own kind.
Sated with knowledge, she moved herself behind the human, and wrapped her wing round the creature. Gently, she applied some pressure, and the human strolled, without really knowing why, away from the others, to a place facing a nearby hill.
Content with the position, and the angle, she slowly unwound her wing, and positioned both wings carefully. She could feel the others tying-in to her, connecting her to every other part of the planet, connecting her to the forces flowing through the universe, in all it’s myriad forms coloured by the multitudes of forms of life … and she could feel the shared power building in her, thrumming, throbbing, building to a crescendo just as she released it down her snout.
It blasted its way through the pooled energy, through the human, now startled by the unexpected image of a “fire breathing dragon”, and carved an unseen pathway to the hill, and then back to where it should be. She would have to do more work here in future weeks and months and seasons: maybe the old ways could be re-established, once the humans had taken their machines away: if not, then the new ways would have to be healed and nurtured, and she would get to see and watch the many layers of life respond to change: some would die away, others would grow and flourish where they had new energy - and her unwitting human helper would return again and again to the hill, puzzled by the growing fascination with glittery things, and power - wondering about the world of nature, and what true power could be.
At least this one had not reacted with fear - the unfamiliar and strange had not conjured twisted tales of “terrors unimaginable”. Perhaps this one she could work with, and get to know, and nurture some growth in, like their little fosterling … maybe she could even find one like old George, who had enough power to appreciate the scale of their work, and to share a part of it. She and her kind had enjoyed working with old George, and had been perplexed that his kind had twisted their closeness and called him a slayer of their kind. Were they really so afraid of her kind?
She settled in front of the human, thought of the flow of energy and power binding and innate to the Mother, and watched the dreams of riding dragons form in her charge’s mind - there was no sign of fear here. She smiled: her kind treasured the light and glow of energy, and in those few humans they touched in some way, the mother she had communed with said she had often seen that show as a desire for glittery trinkets.
One day they would come to understand - at least this one’s mind had tendrils of the questing energy, seeking to be more open. She would help this one now.
© Kayleen White, 2007
Please also note that I check only occasionally for comments, so if you make any, please be patient.
Kayleen White
Dragon kind
She always found it mystifying, why humans thought her kind’s skin was leathery. She thought they’d probably never bothered to really check - but then, her sister-friend thought they were actually feeling their kind’s age, power and strength and, as they associated age with things like wrinkly, old skin, they created an association of leathery, tough skin.
Whatever the explanation, she didn’t have to have much to do with humans, and she was relieved.
She was resting, just now … enjoying the warmth of an unexpectedly sunny day in winter, gazing across the quiet valley, watching the flow of energy - Qi, some humans called it - much as humans watched water playing on a beach or dancing down a river. Much as otters or dolphins played in the water, she could see other entities that humans generally didn’t, fairies, playing in the flowing energy.
Their blindness amazed her - she could remember back to the day, as a youngling, when she first came across a human. The creature had been bending over something, swinging its arm, and she had closed, eager to make friends. But when she had got closer, and found that it was hacking a still feebly living animal, she had backed up in horror.
She’d sent a blast of energy at the creature, which had swung round in alarm, but then returned to its grisly task.
Her mother and an uncle had come to her side and, using the rich but silent imagery of their telepathic species, explained that this was how humans kept themselves alive - by eating other beings, both plant and animal, and that humans lacked their own sophisticated awareness and ability to communicate.
Humans had changed since then: they now no longer wore crudely fashioned animal skins, and almost every part of the planet had been touched by them - most catastrophically. Some had shown themselves to be exemplary - like the legendary George, who some humans had made into a saint for supposedly killing one of her kind, when all that they had been doing was having a farewell game.
She was glad she had so little to do with them, though: most had an unformed mind and vague emotions that were like a sticky, repulsive bog to experience - and their almost universal lack of awareness made them clumsy and rude without them ever knowing it.
She returned her awareness to the valley. The sun was moving further, and the patterns were changing their flow. Creatures, both physical and those beyond, responded to the change. It was now late afternoon, with a dusk approaching and the clear night to enjoy.
Ah, but here was a calling. She repositioned those marvellously expressive, flexible antennae that humans called wings and “listened”. She could feel her sisters, and a couple of brothers, calling for some patching of the world’s web, the flowing pattern of energy. She was closest, so it was her task.
She didn’t need to fly: she just thought herself - or rather, “felt” herself, as she worked with the energy that humans called “emotions” - to where she needed to be. Humans called it teleporting, and then went on clumping slowly round the world.
And she could see it - one of the human’s mechanical beasts was tearing across a small stream of energy. She could see the energy being damned up, like a pool of lava trying to find a way out: the longer it built up, the more explosive it would be when it found a way out. She had been “told” that many humans didn’t think such energy existed, but she could see this pool leading to arguments between the humans milling about the machine - the trapped energy always found a way to vent, and this particular outlet she had seen before in these circumstances.
She looked carefully: yes, there were two other pathways that the energy could take, but one would need help to form the channel. A quick query to the spirits of the land, and they were crying back for her help, to fix the flows that had been so rudely interrupted: they, fairies, pixies, elves and gnomes, would be content for her to try. Hmm … she could do with some help, though. Ah, but that human’s aura looked more alive than the others … was that one perhaps aware? Hmm. Maybe so - she could perceive some sadness, a wordless sense of regret - an apology, without even knowing the feeling was sorrow, that they hadn’t asked the Mother before opening her.
She changed her wings’ position, and sent a query to her sisters and brothers: could she use this human? Moments later, she felt the reply come back - yes, she could, and she was given some guidance on how to approach the task. A mother explained how to use the human to focus energy, much as the humans themselves did in a very crude way with crystals and trinkets. She was wise, and old, that mother - she had known George, and transferred some of the knowledge of humans she had learned from George … including their strange restrictions on who they could call mother, or sister or brother, although some groups applied to titles to roles, as with her own kind.
Sated with knowledge, she moved herself behind the human, and wrapped her wing round the creature. Gently, she applied some pressure, and the human strolled, without really knowing why, away from the others, to a place facing a nearby hill.
Content with the position, and the angle, she slowly unwound her wing, and positioned both wings carefully. She could feel the others tying-in to her, connecting her to every other part of the planet, connecting her to the forces flowing through the universe, in all it’s myriad forms coloured by the multitudes of forms of life … and she could feel the shared power building in her, thrumming, throbbing, building to a crescendo just as she released it down her snout.
It blasted its way through the pooled energy, through the human, now startled by the unexpected image of a “fire breathing dragon”, and carved an unseen pathway to the hill, and then back to where it should be. She would have to do more work here in future weeks and months and seasons: maybe the old ways could be re-established, once the humans had taken their machines away: if not, then the new ways would have to be healed and nurtured, and she would get to see and watch the many layers of life respond to change: some would die away, others would grow and flourish where they had new energy - and her unwitting human helper would return again and again to the hill, puzzled by the growing fascination with glittery things, and power - wondering about the world of nature, and what true power could be.
At least this one had not reacted with fear - the unfamiliar and strange had not conjured twisted tales of “terrors unimaginable”. Perhaps this one she could work with, and get to know, and nurture some growth in, like their little fosterling … maybe she could even find one like old George, who had enough power to appreciate the scale of their work, and to share a part of it. She and her kind had enjoyed working with old George, and had been perplexed that his kind had twisted their closeness and called him a slayer of their kind. Were they really so afraid of her kind?
She settled in front of the human, thought of the flow of energy and power binding and innate to the Mother, and watched the dreams of riding dragons form in her charge’s mind - there was no sign of fear here. She smiled: her kind treasured the light and glow of energy, and in those few humans they touched in some way, the mother she had communed with said she had often seen that show as a desire for glittery trinkets.
One day they would come to understand - at least this one’s mind had tendrils of the questing energy, seeking to be more open. She would help this one now.
© Kayleen White, 2007
10 July 2007
[Content Warning] A War Story (DRAFT)
I undertake these writings – and the sharing of them – for the sake of my self expression. I am under no particular illusions as to their literary merit, and ask only that any readers do not have any undue expectations. If you consider me wrong, then publish me – with full credit, of course :)
Please also note that I check only occasionally for comments, so if you make any, please be patient.
Kayleen White
A War Story (DRAFT)
This story has been written to explore some ideas. I have made no effort to check the historical accuracy of the details – including agricultural techniques and military issues, such as whether any formal trials were made by Australian forces of infiltration tactics. (You can find out more about what really happened, including the near simultaneous development by seveal armies of these techniques, including the French, athe French publication of the original booklet by French Army captain Andre Laffargue, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutier_tactics.) This is a draft only, as there are around 3 passages in this which I am unhappy about and plan on rewriting (I'll also fix up the spacing then - apologies until then for the difficulty reading it).
For my Uncle Clive, one of the Second World War’s New Guinea “choco’s”.
The two boys were brown as the land – tanned by the sun that their forebears had thought harsh, the sun they barely noticed. Their descendants would call them teenagers, but their world didn’t have such niceties: in their world, they would be boys till they became men. As they walked the dirt road, stirring each other with a humour as dry as the land, they blended into the dust in the shade of the occasional scrubby tree they passed, till they reappeared - apparitions of shade, made of the shadows and dust mingling and flowing with the swirling wind from tree to tree.
As they neared the creek, their talk drifted to a more serious turn.
“Ah yer mad, cobber!”
“Why? You tell me what’s wrong with it?”
“No-one’s ever done it – that’s what’s wrong with it!”
“But they had to start somewhere. You ask Mr Fitzgerald – agriculture started when people picked up what they were eating, and started growing it on farms.”
“Bu that’s hundreds of years-“
“Thousands.”
“-whatever – a long time ago. Why do you want to change what we’ve done for hundr-thousands of years?”
“They haven’t here – we’ve only been here a bit over a hundred years. And I saw old McGuire’s back paddock blow away last year”
“Yeah, but that’s just old McGuire - he’s ... odd.”
“He doesn’t farm any different to anyone else – they all tear the soil apart, and grow it all different to what happens in the wild.”
“So … what: you want us to eat wild wheat?”
“Well, that’s how it started – and it can still be grown that way.”
“Yer talkin’ about that scraggy patch of rubbish you grew last year?”
“It wasn’t rubbish!”
“Was too!”
“Was not!”
“Was-was-was!”
Their discussion descended into a short game of throwing stones at each other: someone watching from modern times would have thought it brandy, as played in the bush.
After a few minutes, they picked up the sticks they called fishing rods, and kept scuffing barefoot through the dust down to the creek.
They had a tin with a few worms, which they casually sacrificed to a couple of rusty hooks, tossed in the creek, and settled back under a shady tree. Frank had been going to join them, but was collared for chores by his mother – at least he’d got the worms to them before being caught.
The proto-soil conservationist was Clive; his friend, Gary.
After a few minutes of pretending they knew what they were doing in the muddy, stagnant water, and sagely consulting about casting in different places and changes to rigs, they settled down to celebrate their unexpectedly free afternoon.
“So”, Clive began, “how’s your sister?”
Silence.
Clive nudged his friend.
“Two flamin’ weirdo’s in my life – you and yer save the soil campaign, and Helen and her mad ideas about changing the world even more.”
“Well, you have to admit, the world hasn’t ended since women got the vote” said a smiling Clive.
“Ah you reckon! I’ve got to listen to Helen, me Mum and all their friends talkin’ about who they should vote for, and why – and they try to drag me into it.”
“Well, who do you reckon we should vote for?”
“Well, what’s wrong with Deakin and the Protectionists?”
“Well, Billy-“
“Oh hell – you bin talkin’ to my sister?”
“… might have.”
“Oh no – you can’t do that. Yer me cobber – you can’t go and get all sweet on me SISTER!”
After a few moments, with a façade of “it’s a small thing – doesn’t matter” bravado hiding care about Gary’s friendship and the turmoil of first love, Clive almost whispered “I might, you know.”
They fished in silence for a few moments more, and then Gary had a strike. Excitedly, the two played it to the bank, then landed it in a flurry of elbows, slippery hands and scales, and dust turning to mud on the river’s edge under the steep, tree lined bank.
They laughed at the mess and each other, and smiled.
Then Gary spoke “Yeah, ‘spose you could do worse than be me sister’s sweetheart.”
Clive smiled back: “Yeah, I reckon so.”
That evening, as they ate the fish Clive had solemnly presented to Gary and Helen’s mother, against his will, Gary found himself listening to his mother and her friends talking about the growing clouds of war in Europe, and the aggression of the German Kaiser. After her friends had left, Gary’s mother kept the conversation going with their father.
Brashly, Gary piped up “Good – we’ll be able to go off and fight them Germans and teach them a lesson, eh.”
“Oh don’t you think-” Helen started, but both were silenced by their mother.
“Yes – think! You THINK on it, and think WELL upon the matter. You two don’t know I had a sweetheart before I met your father – oh yes. He was older, a bit of a wild Irish lad – very glamorous to a young, impressionable lass that I once was.”
They were all quiet now, surprised by the revelation. Gary glanced at his father, unsure about this turn in the conversation, and couldn’t read anything from his father’s strange face. He looked back to his mother.
“Oh your father knew him too – he was older than your Da, but they were friends, of a sort.”
Their father smiled, and added “He was our king – all the lads from the town looked up to him, and what he said went. Mind you, knowing what I do now, I don’t endorse what we got up to.”
Gary was stunned by that admission, but then another matter overwhelmed his mind.
“But Da, does that mean you weren’t always a farmer?”
“No, son, I wasn’t. I learned that for the sake of your mother, out of love for the good woman she was – and still is, so she could keep the farm.”
So MUM could keep the farm. As his world – or its value, at any rate - started to cartwheel, Gary spoke. “But Mum, you’re…”, and Gary stopped, unwilling to risk the censure his thoughts were leading to.
“A woman? Yes, I am. How did I come to have farm, that’s what you were going to ask, isn’t it” – and she gestured for silence from her husband, who was about to rebuke their son for his cheek. “It’s alright, Jack, they have to know some time, and better that it come from us.”
He nodded his acquiescence, and she continued.
“Daniel and I married, and he started working this place with his Da. But then came the war against the Boers.”
“They were rotters!” piped up Gary, eager to show his knowledge of world events.
Helen wanted to put her younger brother in his place, but she had a more important question.
“Mum … what happened?” She paused, and flushed with the moral horror of the prospect, whispered “Did you … did you divorce?”
“No, it was worse than that” she answered, then added “Although it did lead to your father and I getting together. Don’t worry Helen, we’ve given you no skeletons to embarrass you with that young Father at church.”
Helen flushed and mumbled.
Impatient with Helen’s girly rubbish, Gary asked “What happened? Those rotters needed a good lesson, didn’t they?”
His mother looked at him, distraught, and answered “Lessons! He went to WAR – they all did, all that were old enough. Your father missed by a year or two, which he rued at the time. I watched them leave, larking about on the train, and thinking it would all be over soon, and being typical, brash young men. Don’t you talk about teaching anyone a lesson through war, young man – don’t you!”
They were silent. This show of emotion by parents in front of children was unheard of in that era, and Helen and Gary didn’t know whether to offer sympathy, or accept it in silence.
Helen took a guess: “Did he not come back, Ma?”
Their mother sobbed, and choked out “He did – he did”, and then she fled to her bedroom.
Their father motioned for silence, and went into the bedroom. After a few minutes he came out.
“Your mother will be fine. As she said, Danny did come back. He’d transferred to a British regiment, and was wounded at Spion Kop. He came back – disfigured, crippled and half mad and full of hate for what he’d lost, and for all the pain.”
“Tell them, Jack – tell them!” They hadn’t noticed their mother standing in the doorway, half hidden by the flickering shadows cast by the hurricane lamps.
“They’re young, Molly.”
“Gary’s old enough to be talking about going off to war as if it’s some thing of glory, and Helen’s older.”
Jack paused, then spoke carefully.
“Daniel had a face injury-“
“His jaw and half his face were blown off!”
Helen gasped, and Gary was almost in tears - at the tension as much as the disclosures.
Jack sighed, and continued “He couldn’t eat. We fed him soup, and gruel, and whatever we could make soft enough to get down.”
Molly sobbed out “They said it was a miracle he hadn’t died of an infection – they said we should pray to God to give thanks he was returned to us!” The last was almost spat out.
Helen was silent at this. She saw the church as an inspiration in her struggle, and had wondered why her mother seemed to attend so grudgingly, and to only tolerate her enthusiasm.
She started, and asked “Who fed him?”
Their parents glanced at each other, and Jack continued “We both did. I was the only cobber left who would have anything to do with him.”
Molly spoke as she returned to the table “Daniel had changed. The boy who was the life of the town was gone, and all that was left was a raging tyrant who would fly off the handle without any reason – and who would cry himself to sleep and scream with the pain and nightmares when he was asleep.”
Helen was still feeling on very shaky moral ground.
“So did you and Da ... become sweethearts while you were looking after him?”
Gary was shocked – were they suggesting being unfaithful? He’d heard of such a thing, and he and some of the lads had thrown stones on the roof of a widow who was supposed to be open to such things.
“No, we were very proper. Nothing happened until a decent time after Daniel had been buried. … He starved to death, they say – we couldn’t get enough of what he needed down his throat.”
She glanced at Jack, and continued “But I think what really killed him was having his heart torn out at Spion Kop. He’d written, of course, and I could sense he was unhappy with how the war was being fought – do you know, Gary, Helen, what the British did to women and children? They locked those innocents up in appalling conditions – and watched, while they starved to death – HUNDREDS of them. Women and children!”
She shook her head, and continued “It’s a horrible death, to die by starvation. It leads to complications – other diseases, and robs the body of every dignity. Six months after Daniel died, his father died – of a broken heart, though the doctors wrote pneumonia on the Death Certificate. Pneumonia – here, in this half desert of a place. Since he had no other family, he left the farm to me.”
Helen thought as her world shattered into pieces, disappearing into the gloom and dark dancing round the walls of the lamp lit room. She didn’t know what to grapple with first, so she chose the last, as it was freshest. Her conscience fidgeting uncomfortable, Helen almost whimpered “Ma, did they really do that?”
Their Da answered “Yes, children, it’s true – and known to most in this town.”
Helen continued “How could they do that … to women, and ... and ... to children – and they’re British?”
Molly shook her head, and Jack answered for her.
“It’s hard to say. Your young father at our church would talk of the struggle with evil, with the temptations of the devil. I’m not so sure. Maybe there are flaws in men, maybe there are weaknesses in some which lead to them doing evil.”
“Hah!” spat Molly.
“Molly, you well know that the young Tommies were out of their depth in that colony.”
“It’s not just them – you heard our son – our son! – saying-“ and she fled to her bedroom.
Jack sighed: “This is hard for your mother. She lost someone she loved to a war, and she hates all violence in consequence. Gary, you talking about teaching people “lessons” through war has upset her. We wound up together as a result, and some in the town looked askance at that. Others aren’t too happy at what they see as your mother’s lack of patriotism. You, young Helen, will be tarred by the same brush in some eyes. You’re young, you’ve the enthusiasm of youth – and the one sightedness. You may not see this yet.”
He looked from one to the other, and adjusted a lamp wick.
“Your young friend Clive … his family isn’t tainted by any of this sort of history. I can see, Helen, how you’ve been influenced by your mother, and I can see why she has the beliefs she does – I even share some of them, and view most of the rest with some favour myself, but where he gets his ideas from … I don’t know.”
Helen held her chin up, and with some pride said, “Maybe he’s just a decent man.”
“Then God forbid he should ever go to war!”
She was silent.
“Da.”
“Yes, Gary.”
“Weren’t the Boers … weren’t they …”
“What?” He continued in a kindly tone “Spit it out boy.”
“Didn’t the Boers fight without honour?”
Jack replied softly “There’s not much honour on either side in war, boy.”
He reflected for a moment, and continued. “Daniel told us about Spion Kop. The way he told it, the Boers fought cleverly – fought, well, like demons defending their land, he said.”
Jack shook his head, and whispered “Said! He had to write everything!”
He continued. “Daniel said the Empire was let down by some of it’s officers. Our soldiers fought bravely, but they went into a situation as bad – or worse – as that of the Light Brigade at Balaclava.”
He looked thoughtfully at each of his children.
“It’s late, and we’ve talked about much.” He smiled, “Time for bed – and I don’t want to hear any nightmares tonight!”
They obeyed without any protest: Helen to her room, until a few years ago shared with her young brother, and Gary to his bed in the corner of the main room. As he settled down, he comforted himself with the thought that he would fare differently – he wouldn’t be caught out by any Boer or any German, he would be too brave.
Some months later, after the harvest had been gathered, he wasn’t so sure of his courage.
He was watching Clive and Helen try to talk to the Shire Chairman. Grudgingly, he had agreed to come along as moral support as the two, now acknowledged as sweethearts, tried to talk to Chairman into either supporting some “agricultural trials” or allowing a woman onto the Shire Council – the two young idealists, in the bloom of first love, cared little which got up first, as long as the Shire became – in their eyes – more modern. As he tried to edge away far enough to get lost in the dust and confusion of the annual show – and prayed that he was invisible if he wasn’t far enough away - the two were trying every high sounding moral argument they knew of to convince the pragmatic but politically skilled man to support trials. So long before distant America’s dustbowl, and against such a wily old fox, they had little chance on the agriculture, and so close after women had gained the vote, they had little chance of gain for the fairer sex.
Helen was trying “Elisabeth was Queen at a time when the Spaniards were trying to invade: if it hadn’t been for her leadership, the Empire would be speaking Spanish.”
“Yes, well that was a long time ago. We’ve now settled into ways that have taken the Empire well beyond the borders of good old England – and are you unhappy with our King and all that he is doing for our glorious Empire?”
“N-no, of course not”, stammered Clive. “We’re loyal citizens of the Empire – of course.”
Helen could see through this argument, and resolved to speak to Clive about irrelevancies later. “But the principle of leadership by women being beneficial for the Empire was established by Queen Elisabeth. That principle still stands today.”
“Ah well, young lady, unfortunately it doesn’t. When you have some more life experience, you’ll see. When you marry – and that could maybe even be to this young man here with you – you’ll find you want to keep a house for your husband, and you’ll see that as the highest duty and honour of any woman.”
She flushed, and in her confusion, the Chairman seized his advantage.
He turned to Clive. “Well, young man, I hear your oldest brother has joined the navy. Off to do his bit for the Empire against the Kaiser when war comes – good on him!”
Clive, who had listened to his brother as he worked through ever more half baked schemes to escape the Shire and what he saw as it’s backwardness, replied “No”, and cut himself off. He and Helen had agreed to try not to get the Shire Chairman off side, and he was in any case reluctant to talk about such personal matters to people who weren’t family.
“Come, come – of course he has! Why, I saw him talking to young Ferguson’s lad just the week he left. We all know how loyal Ferguson is to the Crown – and Ferguson quite clearly told the town he intends to be ready to do his bit when war comes.”
This was true – Clive’s brother had talked to Andrew Ferguson, and then Clive had heard his brother mumbling about half wits who had never had an independent thought and wanted nothing better than go and kill people.
“Now, you young people have had enough of my time. I must attend to my duties as Chairman of this Shire.”
Disheartened, Clive turned from the Chairman’s back to Helen. “Well, that didn’t work.”
“Nonsense – it took the suffragettes years before they won, and some of them had to die first.”
“You want some of us to die?”
“No – of course not.”
Clive smiled at her “We could always sacrifice our most loyal supporter, your younger brother looking at that automobile with what our local Father would say is unseemly desire.”
Against her mood, Helen laughed. She turned back to Clive. “Well proposed, sir. But, in the meantime, I will plan and plot my best to free all women from drudgery while I wash my future sacrifice’s clothes.” Changing to a feigned sweet innocence, she continued “After all, some day I may wish to marry, and such duties shall become my greatest desire.”
At this stage, Gary judged from the laughter that it was safe to rejoin his friend and sister. “Sorry – old Brown wanted me to look at his automobile. Ended well, did it?”
Mr Brown was the car’s owner, a severe, elderly gentleman who believed children should be seen and never heard, who had been 200 feet away from his car, looking at some stock which were for sale, while Gary had been examining his car. If Mr Brown had seen anyone under 30 years old within ten feet of his new pride and joy, he would have stormed over waving his cane and fuming at their impertinence.
Clive looked at him solemnly, and replied “We’ve decided, on the advice of the Shire Chairman, that we should sacrifice a supporter or two.”
While Helen giggled into a handkerchief, Gary said “Er …” and started to edge away, hoping one of the occasional swirls of dust would hide him if he needed to make an escape. What had his mad sister and his equally mad cobber got themselves into now?
Helen saved him “It’s alright, Gary. He didn’t really – but we do have some more to plan on our campaign, and we really must meet to prepare our next steps.”
At this, Clive interjected “But not today. Today, I shall escort you around this great Annual Event, while we allow Gary here to escape into whatever mischief he may find.”
Gary protested that he wouldn’t find any such thing so vehemently that Helen’s protest at wasting time died on her lips, and she agreed.
The day passed pleasantly for the three, despite the dust and heat, and they contentedly went their various ways as dusk claimed the show for yet another year.
A few weeks later, Clive started an iron working apprenticeship, and had little time for planning and plotting with Helen – though they eagerly sought every chance to call on each other. It seemed little would happen for either’s plans for changing the world, until one day in what passed for “winter” in their hot, dry town.
Clive was cleaning the shop when he heard an automobile passing along the street. He paused to watch this strange, fascinating, noisy machine, it’s smoke almost hidden by the dust stirred by it’s wheels from the unsealed street. As he watched, the driver looked in his direction, slowed and then stopped in front of the shop.
“Yer not here to learn ‘ow to stare – get on wi’ yer work” grumbled his master as he stumped out to the car’s driver.
As Clive resumed his sweeping, he contrived a glance or two, and surmised that the car driver wanted some ironwork repaired - for a wrought iron gate, he thought.
“Hey! Boy!”
Clive glanced up at his master.
“The gentleman wants a word with you.”
Clive placed his broom against the wall with the extreme care born of nervousness, and walked out, brushing his hands on his worker’s apron as his perpetually unhappy master steamed back into the shop, carrying the lump of iron as if it were no more than a paperweight.
“Yes, sir?”
The driver had removed his driving goggles, and looked appraisingly at the young apprentice. He nodded at his car, and asked “What do you think of her?”
“Very impressive, sir.”
The driver half smiled, and said “I see your master has schooled you well in manners to your customers.”
“Yes sir.” Then, fired by a sense of wishing to do justice where it was due, Clive added “My parents also taught me manners in a general sense, sir.”
“Our Shire Chairman seems to think you tend towards being a bit of an upstart.”
Clive was silent: he hadn’t thought his and Helen’s approach would come back to haunt him now.
The driver smiled openly, and said “It’s alright, young lad, I’m Patrick Fitzgerald’s uncle – your teacher’s uncle.”
Clive sighed as he relaxed, but he was still puzzled.
“Patrick’s – I suppose I should say Mr Fitzgerald in your presence. Well, Mr Fitzgerald has told me of your plans to try a more natural way of growing crops, of trying to save the soil. Now, it just so happens that I have some land up here – in fact, I was the downwind beneficiary of Mr McGuire’s misfortunes which you’ve used as an example of poor soil management.”
Clive’s ears started burning, and he resolved to leave names out when he was talking in future.
“Now, I’m planning on developing the land I have up here for a new Contract I have secured with the army for wheat. I’ll be back next spring to oversee the sowing.”
Clive nodded, wondering where this was leading.
The driver continued: “The army is interested in modern developments which may be of benefit to it in all matters, including provisioning, so I am proposing to conduct a number of scientific trials into various ways of growing crops to determine what methods are truly of greatest effect.”
The driver stared, intense and stern, at Clive.
“I am a great believer in the benefit of modern science – indeed, my passion for this is what led Patrick into a career as a teacher, so he could pass our mutual passion on to future generations.
“It is my opinion, young man, that you have been somewhat unsuccessful in your efforts to date because you have failed to combine your passion with due regard for scientific method.
“However, despite that being so, I am prepared to include your proposals as one of my trials when I come back in the spring.”
At that, the driver smiled, and Clive joined in when his nervous brain finally realised he had had a win.
“You’ll have to continue your apprenticeship, of course, young man. An honourable trade is a fine way to train and occupy the mind, and young lads of your age are impressionable, but in due course I’d see you being a part of this work – but only after you’ve done your duty here by discharging your apprenticeship.”
He paused, gazing intently at Gary – who felt his soul was being examined from within its innermost recesses by this unnervingly knowing stranger.
“I’ll have my foreman attend your parent’s house from time to time to discuss this matter – if that is agreeable to you, of course?”
“Y-yes, sir – oh most definitely, sir!”
The driver smiled: “Very well. I shall have young Pat-Mr Fitzgerald call on your parents to make the necessary arrangements. Good day to you, young esquire.”
The driver carefully settled his goggles into place, realighted his vehicle, and began the procedure for starting it. After a few moments, Clive gladly and energetically heaved on the crank, and the automobile noisily returned to life.
For the rest of the day, his master found Clive a most unsatisfactory apprentice. Both came close to words, and both were glad when the time came for Clive to be dismissed. Eagerly, he ran through the dusk to find Helen.
“Helen! Helen! Oh – it’s just so wonderful!”
“What is?”
With words tumbling over each, he explained the miracle of philanthropy which had come his way. Helen was pleased for Clive, but he could see there was an element of sadness there as well.
“Helen: you are my sweetheart. It’s right and proper that we share our thoughts. I can see you’re unhappy at something: what is it?”
“Oh Clive, I don’t wish to take away from your happiness today, but I was just wishing some such benefactor might look my way, and have a care for my aims for the world.”
Clive did feel deflated, but he hid it, and sought to comfort Helen as best he could.
“Maybe-“
“No, my sweet, don’t say anything. If by some miracle, some act of philanthropic care comes the way of women, I hope to be alive to see it, but I’ll not hold any hope against that miracle. Let us think for now on your success.”
The rest of their brief time together, marked by behaviour that in a few decades would be considered unbelievably restrained, was a time of pleasure, and dreams, and certainty that this good fortune would come to be.
But it would not.
As spring prepared itself, on the other side of the world, in their autumn, a prince was assassinated, and the guns of August began their feast.
Clive was enthused with eagerness for the coming crop trial, but the pressure to join the army was intense – especially from his master. Ferguson had joined first, but that was only because some of his henchmen had held others back to allow Andrew that honour. Finally, believing the claims that they would beat the Boche and be home by Christmas, Clive consented to join – if his master would consent to release him. That release came even quicker than the foul temper.
Helen cried and refused to be comforted when he told her, and she wouldn’t say why. She could recall the story her parents had told her, but she could see the machinations of Clive’s former master and the Shire Chairman and his allies, and declined to expose Clive to doubts – after all, everyone was so sure this would be over by Christmas.
Clive had no way of contacting Mr Fitzgerald’s uncle: he tried to get to see his former teacher, but the town’s mad desire to be seen to be supporting Britain and “the glorious empire” swept the best of the town’s lad onto a train in an almost indecent haste. It would matter little, though, as even the foreman who was to speak to Clive volunteered, and Mr Fitzgerald’s uncle was forced to hire McGuire, with his ways so wasteful of soil, to fulfil the now urgent contract with the Army.
After the dust from the haste settled, a letter came from Clive’s older brother, urging caution and patience, for the Hun was going to be a fiercer foe than many knew.
Clive didn’t find this out for a time: a broken leg followed by illness meant he missed the horrors of Gallipoli, and it was in a hospital in Egypt that the letter, by now old news, caught up with him. Clive first found himself “in action” on the Western Front. It wasn’t the action he had expected, though – days spent mostly cowering in mud or dugouts trying to live through bombardments. They all got used to everything being dreary – grey sky, grey muck for food, mud, and the occasional bit of blood providing a macabre, mocking relief from the dreariness, as if to say “You’re here for me – for the blood and hue and cry of battle, so I’ll rob you of all other colour so you can see and appreciate me all the more”.
He experienced some patrolling, but was spared major attacks for a while. Their numbers grew thinner, and then the ranks would be filled with new recruits and the cycle would begin.
During this time came a time he thought afterwards of as “The Day”. A pre-dawn patrol was returning in the early light. The last man was shot, and fell into a nearby shell hole covered by a German machine gun: he was alive – they could see him, if they were careful, from the firing step of the trench, but they could not get to him. He had screamed when he was hit, and then fallen silent. They thought him dead, but after a half an hour, they heard moans. A few minutes more, and he was screaming with the pain – that was when they found they could see him.
There was half a company in that section of the trench, and some of them hesitantly started talking about what to do.
“Nothing. You will leaf him there, or throw a grenade and finish heem – the quicker the better.” The speaker was a grizzled French veteran, there partly by accident, partly to “liaise”. That was the official euphemism for having him there, ostensibly to teach them the new French “infiltration” techniques.
He’d left Clive unnerved the night before. A piece of timber had been dislodged by the nightly bombardment as they sheltered in their dugout, and it had struck Clive on the head. When he swore, the French veteran had taken his cigarette out of his mouth, and laid it on his arm, waiting without flinching while it burned to the end. Then the Frenchman had smiled grimly, and said “You think that little steek hurt? You wait till you get shot, boy. You find that little bit of metal – you know how hot your gun gets? The bullet is hotter – you wait till it hits you, and burns its way through your guts.”
At that, the veteran stood, and lifted his coat and shirt to show the scars in his side.
“You think that stick hurts, eh? Maybe you think that cig-a-reet hurts? No? You wait till you get shot, boy! Then you know what hurts.”
Clive glanced at a few men who had returned from wounds, mostly shrapnel, but some shot. Most ignored him, one looked back and nodded in agreement with the veteran’s words.
One spoke: “I wouldn’t have put it quite that way, cobber, but he’s right enough – it hurts like all hell!”
And now Clive was looking at it.
He could see the fallen man – his mates called him Whitey – writhing, trying to get comfortable, trying to ease the pain. As he moved he would sometimes scream, sometimes sob. At times he would scream for them to come and get him.
Around mid-morning, he begged for water. Their lieutenants had come by now; they shook their heads. They all knew he could be wounded in the belly, and that meant no water. One shouted back to him: “Cobber! We can’t get you yet, mate – you’ve got to hang in till nightfall! And we can’t give you any water – you know the drill!”
At that, Whitey had screamed curses on them and called their mothers all sorts of insults.
It made it harder when it was like this, when they couldn’t get to him.
Around midday, the trapped soldier Whitey started to sound like he was going insane. He started to talk to his parents as if they were there, and then he started to bargain with God. He said he wouldn’t go out on that patrol last night, if God would take away the pain. He even promised, at one stage, to go and talk to Kaiser Bill himself, and tell him whatever God wanted, if only God would let him be comfortable for just one damn minute. He screamed with pain and writhed in that slow way he had after that, and then he apologised to God for swearing.
Clive avoided all eye contact – hard to do, in a trench, but he knew they would share the same haunted horror he felt.
Afterwards, he thought if they had made eye contact, maybe they would have seen the horror in the new young recruit in last week’s batch of replacement cannon fodder reach breaking point.
“If you bastards won’t do anything, then I will!”
And he was gone, over the edge, not even bothering to seek cover, straight into a sharp burst from the German gun, and straight into the same shell hole, to join his anguished, frenetic screams to Whitey’s. He just went straight to begging for someone – anyone – to stop it hurting.
And now the French veteran handed a grenade to one of the lieutenants.
“You know what you haf to do.”
Without a word, the officer took the grenade, herded a soldier from the firing trench lookout, sighted, pulled the pin, and threw. Moments later, after the blast, all was silent. It seemed that even the far away guns had fallen silent in horror, but that was just a moment’s deafness brought on by the blast – and the relief. The guns had seen too much horror for this small side show to have any impact.
The next day, Clive experienced making his first attack. They were trying the new French tactics of infiltration in small numbers – new, raw ideas which would later become almost universal, but still full of flaws and misunderstandings at that time. It wasn’t a large attack – two battalions aiming to knock out an observation post used to direct artillery bombardments, and then withdraw before the inevitable counterattack. The aim was to take some of the sting out of the bombardments, while trying out the new tactics.
He thought he’d experienced the limits of fear - until that attack. He didn’t talk to anyone else – they were all too tense to talk much, except for a few of the new replacements who were too nervous to shut up. There was no heroic climb out and advance across no-man’s land: it was strange, like a big, coordinated patrol. To a timetable, their officers directed them to move out, or to provide support, in groups of a platoon or two – scores rather than hundreds, as the barrage thumped the air and earth.
There was no line advance this time: they found gaps in their own wires, and crawled through the shell holes, past the stinking corpses of those who had fallen recently, and the scattered bones of those who had fallen some time ago, to their enemy’s wire, to wait where they found gaps.
It was terrifying to get so close to the exploding shells – no matter that they were their own – without the shelter of even a trench. While sheltering in dugouts they could hear the explosions, and feel the ground shake, but the air didn’t punch at them the way this did. After an eternity of minutes more, the barrage stopped – and they were up and scrambling desperately, praying to avoid getting snagged on any stray wire, or stumbling in any of the glue that passed for mud, hoping against hope to get to the German trenches before the Huns could get out of their dugouts. They didn’t make it quite in time – the close coordination needed for that would come later, and the Huns were back in their trenches, firing and raining grenades as Clive’s unit laboured through the mud and shell holes of the last score of yards.
Clive could hear the bullets, but he could also hear his cobbers – and he wasn’t going to have the humiliation of not being there with them. It could be called a courageous advance; it could also be called sticking to the cloud of fear round you and your mates so you weren’t alone with your own, unshared fear.
At one stage, two men, one on each side of him, fell; heart in mouth, he waited for the punch and burning pain, but it didn’t come. And then he was on the enemy trenches. A man was looking up at him, anger hiding any fear he might have had, and swinging his rifle towards Clive. Clive’s rifle was closer, and – still afraid of that punch and burning pain – he shot first. And then the rage and horror of the previous day took over, and he was killing, shooting and bayoneting, whether they were looking at him or not. The last German he shot had just split open the Frenchman’s head with a trenching shovel. After Clive shot, the German fell silently onto the still screaming Frenchman, and they made a pile of gore, enemies united in horror.
Their officers were shouting now, and they set up a defence while the artillery post’s equipment was destroyed. Five minutes, and they were taking rifle fire; ten, and a machine gun had been moved and was spraying their left flank – on the other side from Clive’s squad. The barrage would be coming soon, and after that the counterattack.
The orders now were to withdraw. According to the officers later, the withdrawal went well: “only” ten men died in that part of the operation, and another twenty had wounds of some sort. Clive was one of those – as he slid into the trench, he felt a burning slice along his calf. It was a relief really – it wasn’t too bad, and he felt like he’d built up a store of bad luck, and it had just been bled out.
He even took little notice of the body which came in behind him as he slid into the trench – actually, the body flew across the trench, raining blood, and slid down into an impossible heap of limbs and twisted torso on the other side.
It was only later that he was told that the last body had stumbled and taken “his” burst of machine gun fire: if it hadn’t been for that chance, he would have taken a dozen bullets in full, not a minor graze.
Later, as he ate some luke warm gruel at the first aid centre, he realised the first man he killed had been the first German he had seen close up, after weeks of bombardments and firing at scurrying shades of grey in the hills and holes of the muck of No-Man’s Land. The man hadn’t looked evil – he’d looked the same as Clive saw himself when shaving: fear and horror, locked up inside something else.
The next day, the artillery post was re-established.
After those two days, his letters to home changed. He’d written once a month to his parents, and another letter to Helen. They’d been optimistic, and reassuring: don’t worry about me, I’m OK, I’m here, and I’ll do my bit for King and Empire.
Now the horror had killed that. Helen felt a chill come over her as she read the letter he’d written after “The Day”. There’d been a long gap between letters then, and they’d all started getting tense – although they’d been tense and stressed with the struggles to survive anyway.
“It was a fair day yesterday – four dead, two wounded, and we got some warm food. The ice is a bit much – and I don’t know if I should wish to still be here to see it melt in the spring. Then again, maybe we’ll all be lucky and there won’t be a spring. It feels like the world’s stuck in a bleak winter that won’t lift.”
The rest – or what hadn’t been blacked out – was similar, and she chilled at the suicidal tinge behind the words. She pulled out his previous letter.
“We had a good hot feed last night – it makes a pleasant change from eating what we can get in the trenches. What you eat back home would probably seem like a feast to us.
The French winter is coming on us now. It’s colder than home by a long shot, so I’ve now been in the heat and dust and flies of Egypt, and soon the snow of Europe. It will be nice to enjoy the weather at home if I do get back – I’ll not complain about anything, even the dust storms.
We lost another six chaps from our company last night. It was amazing: the concussion from a shell got them, but they had not a mark on them. It was quick: I hope if my time should come I will go as easily. I will still do my duty for the Empire, of course.
I won’t end this missive on such a sad note: I hope instead that you are well, and pray that you will pass on my good regards to your parents, and to young Gary.”
No farewells or good wishes this time. He had previously, which was ironic: they were struggling, and life was the worst she could remember. Gary had given up school, and they were working their small patch of land – Gary grudgingly, as he wished to escape from mundane desperation to the “glorious” desperation of war - and any stray job they could find, but McGuire’s sales were going up. He was building a small empire, gobbling up small holdings as they went under – and doing all the damage that Clive had talked to her so eloquently about – even she could see it, and wondered how supposedly intelligent and skilful men could miss it. In the process, almost no-one wanted their produce when McGuire was undercutting them. Today was going to be the critical day for Helen’s family: today the bank manager had called them in to a meeting.
For a moment, she imagined that sitting in the cool, dark house must be a little like Clive and his comrades sharing their last moments of safety in their dugouts before going out into the harsh dangerous reality of warfare. She gave herself that luxury for a moment, and then chastised herself severely: her life was not at stake – she wasn’t going to risk death when she went out the door. It still felt terrible, though, and as she shut the gate she had to force herself to straighten her back and ignore the sniggers from the pack of young boys who made unfeeling fun of seeing a house led by a woman come to grief. She wished she could overcome her anguish and think quickly enough – and be calm enough and strong enough – to chastise the boys and put them in their place, but all she could do was keep her back straight and pretend to not have heard them.
She had to clear her mind, and focus on the task at hand, she told herself. Gary was meeting her at the bank – hopefully with her mother, if she had been able to get some time off from her scullery maid work. Her father wouldn’t be there: they’d talked over the previous nights, and decided that him keeping his job at the smithy’s was more important than trying to create an illusion for the bank that everything was well and the family was united and confident. They had no illusions that they were not going to be kicked out onto the street, and had already found another house, in the town itself, to live in.
At least their small holding had the house close to the public road, so they could gather their few possessions fairly easily, and the humiliating journey would not be too long.
Ah, the bank, with it’s obligatory public institution façade. Gary was leaning sullenly against one of the columns, and their mother was fanning herself in the shade of the verandah.
“Hello.”
“Hello dear. ... Gary!”
Prompted by their mother, Gary grunted something which could have been hello, or equally, could have been the number of dogs he’d passed on the way there. Helen and her mother decided to take it as if it were the former.
“Alright, let’s get this done” declared their mother. At that they strode in, backs straight and heads proud and up – Helen and her mother, with Gary scuffing along in their wake. They sailed serenely to the counter.
“Good morning, young lady, would you please be so kind as to tell Mr Whitehead that the Sutton family is here to see him.”
The “young lady” was not fooled by their bravado – she’d seen that before, and would come to see it even more in the decades to come. She politely, but without any undue friendliness, asked them to wait, and went to tell Mr Whitehead that his next victims were here.
After a few minutes wait – exactly the right length of time to ensure they knew they were not royalty – Mr Whitehead strode to the counter, opened the access door with a thud, and smiled and gestured for them to enter. As they did, and all walked to the Manager’s office, “Thank you most kindly, Mrs Sutton for being so kind as to come in. Er, I see your husband – Jack, I believe? - has not arrived yet?”
“No, Mr Whitehead, Mr Sutton is engaged at work, and unable to spare any time.”
“Hmm. I had rather expected your husband to be present. The matters of this meeting are of considerable importance, and, frankly, may in fact be beyond the constitution of a woman to bear.”
Helen and – to his credit - Gary bristled at the public insult, but they had been well prepared, and held their tongues.
“My husband has every confidence in me, Mr Whitehead, and has vested in me the authority to act on our entire family’s behalf in this meeting.”
“Hm.”
“Do you wish to dispute my husband’s authority within his family?”
“No, no – of course not!” Irritation at being outmanoeuvred flickered across his face. Never mind – the meeting was not yet properly underway.
He paused outside the office, and made a show of conducted them in. There never had been any doubt about whether he would accept the authority of whoever was there – none of them had any authority, and he knew what was going to happen, just as happened to others as McGuire built his empire and squeezed the others out.
After he, Helen and her mother were seated, with Gary standing protectively behind them, he began.
“I’m glad you’ve come in Mrs Sutton, as we have noticed some irregularity in the subject of your payments on your mortgage. Perhaps you would be most kind as to explain the matter of this ah, apparent ... problem to me ... please?”
“Mr Whitehead, I’ll save us all some time. As you know, Mr McGuire has been doing exceptionally well with his recent ventures, and sales of our produce have not been favoured. We cannot compete with his prices, despite having better produce. As a consequence, our income has declined.”
“Mrs Sutton, I am afraid this leaves me in a position of, to not be too indelicate, some difficulty. I am in the situation of being accountable to my superiors, and, being somewhat distracted by the terrible events in Europe, they are somewhat disinclined to pay much more than cursory attention to matters in our little village. I am dealt with somewhat peremptorily, and given not much flexibility in these matters.”
None of Helen’s family believed a word he was saying: his ambition and desire to climb on the image of being hard was legendary. Other towns were blessed with bank managers who saw themselves as agents of help or maybe even change for the better, and fought tenaciously for their customers: the Suttons had had the misfortune to live in a town with a martinet for a manager.
“Mr Whitehead, my husband and I have both taken other employment, as has our daughter and our son.”
“But Mrs Sutton, when do you work your land?”
“In the evenings, and the mornings.”
The manager paused – and Helen’s family vainly hoped they had impressed him with their frugality and thrift and simple genuine hard work. “I am sure that is quite admirable, but it is somewhat arguable as to whether it is in the Bank’s best interests to accept your pleadings and give you yet more leniency. You have been somewhat remiss for some time.”
“Mr Whitehead, we have been no worse than others in other towns, and considerably better than many.”
His eyes narrowed, displeased at having been so directly confronted.
“Mrs Sutton, I can assure you I am in touch with our other branches, and in fact, your situation is amongst some of our worst debts.”
More barefaced lies, they knew.
“I really do feel it was most unfortunate that your husband didn’t accompany you on this trip. I am sure he would have had the understanding of such matters that I have found the fairer sex”, with a poor attempt at an ingratiating smile, “to regrettably lack.”
“Mr Whitehead. I have managed our finances for all the years we have been together. I am not an idiot-“
“Mrs Sutton, I am sure you are a most capable woman in your affairs-“
“Sir! I am indeed quite capable in my family’s financial matters.”
“Madam: please do not bring an element of ill-will to this meeting, which has been, I am sure you would agree has been most civilised and pleasantly conducted to date, by interrupting me.”
“Sir, kindly do not patronise me.”
“Mrs Sutton, I would enjoin you to please be aware of your place in our society - your God-given role is vital, but women are simply incapable of truly understanding such matters no matter how much they feel they do!”
They didn’t know the word psychopath – but they did know the manager was getting considerable pleasure from their pain, and from hiding the threats behind a façade of civility. They were still fighting to survive, however, so held their tongues – Helen and her mother knowing fell well that, like bullies and baiters throughout history and in all societies, he would relish and feed on their pain and fine tune the savagery and subtlety of his attack in response to their reactions.
Gary held his tongue because he had been well briefed – and he wanted to be able to join up without any questionable charges from having indulged in fisticuffs with one of the town’s major officials.
“Mr Whitehead, I suggest you send a message to my husband’s workplace, and have my husband asked for the truth of this matter.”
She had called his bluff. Irritated, he decided to end the matter.
“Mrs Sutton, I am not prepared to send vital resources of this bank on such errands – and it regrettably matters not, as your family is in such a difficult situation on the matter of payments for your farm that I have been instructed to foreclose on the mortgage today – immediately. I am most sorry, but I will have to declare you as defaulters.”
They’d lost – and there was little point fighting the war of words further. If they kept him on side, perhaps they would get some leniency on the time they had to move out.
“Very well, Mr Whitehead, so be it.”
“I have taken the liberty of having the appropriate forms drawn up in case of such an eventuality. Unfortunately, Mrs Sutton, I will have to obtain your husband’s signature on these forms.”
She knew this was true.
“Very well, Mr Whitehead.”
“I have some staff who are in a position to begin the process of taking possession of your farm immediately. I am sure you would not wish to prolong this unpleasant matter any longer than is necessary.”
“Mr Whitehead! Are we to be allowed the decency of obtaining our possessions? You must be aware that you are not entitled to everything – or do you wish women and children to be turned out onto the street without so much as a decent change of clothes?”
This wasn’t quite true: they had moved some of their most treasured possessions already.
“Of course, Mrs Sutton. I will arrange some men to escort you to ensure you are able to recover your possessions, as you may be entitled to, in safety and decency.”
So they were to have a guard to make sure they didn’t sneak off with any implements.
The rest of the day was as unpleasant as they had expected. The escort took them out of the bank, past some of the bank’s “valuable resources” – young boys scratching, yawning and tittering with a pretence of being quiet about it, already apprentices to their master’s underhanded viciousness. As they all marched through their gate the boys were there at the gate, unhindered in their remarks by their guard, until Helen’s mother silenced them and sent them on their with a few well chosen remarks, finished with a comment about calling the police with regard to vagrancy and loitering.
Helen was almost in tears, wondering how a loving God could allow such bullying and abuse of authority – was she really meant to turn the other cheek to this evil manipulation? As she worked, she looked at the vacant expression of their guards, and realised that not all the abuse was deliberate. She had no doubts that Mr Whitehead was as evil as the Kaiser, and started to form a coldly furious determination to right this wrong.
After several hours of labouring in front of their guard, who had shown no inclination to lend a hand, they had moved to their new lodgings. It was late, and their father had helped after he had finished work. They were all exhausted, hungry and thirsty. As Helen and her mother quickly cooked some food, they heard a knock on the door.
Their father picked up a hammer before he went to the door – it had been a bad day, but none of them would put it beyond Mr Whitehead to do some more mischief, even at this late hour. As he opened it, he relaxed and asked, surprised, “Jim! What brings you here at this God-forsaken hour?”
Jim, one of Clive and Gary’s band of friends who had been returned because of his wounds, seemed distressed.
“May I come in?”
“Of course.”
He entered, and stood, head down, hat in hand, fidgeting.
Helen’s mother asked, with a sense of foreboding: “Jim, please tell us: what brings you here at this hour, on this, the most awful day of this most awful war?”
“I’m ... sorry – I’m sorry. The boys all thought I should be the one to tell you, and Miss Helen ...”
Helen paled.
Her father put his hand on Jim’s shoulder.
“It’s alright, lad. We don’t judge the bearer of the message.”
“I’m sorry, but Clive’s missing.”
Helen sobbed, and half fell before Gary caught her.
“But he could be a prisoner, couldn’t he?” asked Gary.
“He could be” Jim replied.
Helen’s father spoke again “Lad, we’d rather know the truth, hard though it may be.”
“I’m sorry. It was a major attack, and we already have the names of the prisoners the Huns have taken. Clive’s not amongst them. With the sort of bombardments that happen in those attacks, there’s not much chance.”
They gave Jim a drink, and shared reminiscences, and then bade him farewell into the night.
Helen had held her feelings in, but they would hear her weep that night. Gary was the bigger worry, though: he continued to say “Clive could still be alive.” Two days later he vanished, and a few days later they received a note saying he had enlisted.
They would get a few more notes as Gary completed his training. Then they heard he had been posted.
Some months later, after a passage on a crowded ship and yet more training, more intensive than they had had in Australia, Gary’s unit was marched to the front. It wasn’t much of a journey – marching through trenches with their view limited to a few yards ahead and behind, the occasional sound of a shell, and the occasional grim faced veteran, or perhaps a group of veterans. There was no laughter, no smiles, no sense of being welcomed – not even a sense of doing one’s duty. Just a grim faced survival that shook Gary’s fervour.
They knew they were at the front because they were told so. As they looked uncertainly at each other and their new temporary home, not even sure where to drop their gear, a couple of shells exploded, one on each side of the trench. None of them heard the shells, but the shrapnel from each blast must have combined to deflect the violently burning, jagged piece of metal.
As the shells had flown in, Frank and Gary had seen each other. Frank now the veteran, once another one of Clive’s and Gary’s little clan, Gary the scared new recruit putting on a brave face, but in a moment they were the mates playing in the dry, dusty creek beds of home. Gary grinned, and slowly, as if he had to remember how to do so, Frank smiled back. And then the smile was gone, a mess of meat and bone where his nose and chin had been, open belly where the burning metal had continued down.
Gary stood, shaking, wanting to reach out to his friend and frozen by the horror of the screaming thing in front of him.
“I don’t want to die! I can’t die – I have to see Margaret, I want to see Margaret. Oh God!” The screams, slurred through the disfigurement, didn’t make much sense for a while. Maybe, if the greenhorns hadn’t been there, some one would have ended it: maybe there was a hope that the doctors would be able to do something, but even if they’d been able to put Frank back together again, contact with the slush of mud and muck would have poisoned his insides beyond all hope of recovery.
Gary found all this out later: for the time being, all he could see was his friend, his mate, dying and being driven insane by the pain while those around seemed to ignore Frank. Gary had not yet developed their protective barriers to horror.
And then Frank’s tormented mind turned to Gary.
“You! You did this to me – if you hadn’t been here, I would have walked on. You robbed me of Margaret – you jealous bastard!”
By then a stretcher bearer had reached Frank, who was on his knees, leaning back as if to by balance and leverage keep his intestines out of the poisonous gruel. The man also shook his head, and looked at a nearby sergeant, who inclined his head towards those of Gary’s company, and shook his head. It didn’t matter, blood loss and shock soon silenced Frank, and he sank back further and died in the mud, no longer colourless.
It was about half an hour later someone noticed the soldier sitting on the firing step was staring a little too fixedly: the same bursts that had killed Frank had killed this soldier, quietly, instantly. No mutilation – just a small hole in the skull.
Gary was to see much of this arbitrary chance of war over the coming months. He found no signs of Clive, nor even any willingness to talk of the missing amongst the few surviving shared friends. Eventually, the desperate struggle to survive pushed aside his vain quest, and he pushed thoughts of his friend to the furthest reaches of his soul.
Helen would have pushed thoughts of Clive there as well, if she had been able. They stayed in their little home town for a few more weeks, but she was being haunted by thoughts of what her Clive could have done to make the town a better place. It was bad enough seeing what the greed of McGuire had done to the land around the town, but Ferguson had also returned – mildly injured, still a pain the backside, and all too willing to cash in on his new-claimed hero status.
She had the misfortune to have a run in with younger Ferguson just before they left for the city, where they were going to try for better work. She was tending the counter in Mrs Jones’ general store when he came in.
“Well, well, if it isn’t young Helen Sutton!”
“If you don’t mind, there’ll be not too much of the young and the familiarity, thank you Master Ferguson.”
“Now, now – don’t get uppity with me young Helen.”
“I’ll thank you, sir, not to treat me with such familiarity!”
“And I’ll thank you to mind your place there, behind the counter!”
“Andrew! Mind your manners, cobber – you’re talking to a woman!”
This last came from a slender figure who had just come in: Helen knew him as one of Ferguson’s pack, and was surprised to hear support from him.
“Ah, no Don, this is-“
“Now a young lady. Speak to her as such. I know who she used to be, and I know who you and I used to be. Hold your tongue if you can’t speak a civil word!”
Ferguson glared at Don, and limped out, stamping his feet as best he could.
“I’m sorry, ma’am.”
“Don ... I would never have picked you as one to stand up to ... Andrew.”
“Well, I’ve changed.”
Helen moved so she could see Don more clearly, and saw the tangle of scars leading across his jaw to where his ear had been.
“Turned my head at the right moment. If I hadn’t ... I heard about Clive. I’m sorry.”
“Yes. Gary went to look for him.”
“Any luck?”
She shook her head.
“I’m sorry to hear that, ma’am.”
She smiled, and said “You can call me Helen, you know – I don’t bite, and well, with the war, somehow some of the old rules seem ... silly.”
“Yes, that’s true. Reckon there’s quite a few things’ll never be the same.”
“And is that a good thing, Don, or bad?”
“Well, in the case of myself, apart from my ear, I’d say good. Seeing what we saw, hearing what we did, well ... it just makes the old ideas seem ... stupid. And I am embarrassed to think how I used to be such a bully.”
“Well, we all survived that, Don.” Although the nightmares of Whitehead and their eviction were still too raw to be even acknowledged, let alone talked about.
He smiled, and then sighed. “I better go and find Andrew. Everyone can see the limp, but there’s a few other things not quite right with him, and he does need a bit of looking after. If it was just the leg, he’d have been back doing something.”
“And what of you, Don. Will you be going back?”
“No, apart from my ear, I’ve got a few other problems and have been declared unfit for duty.”
“You say that without the shame that other young men would.”
“I’ve seen more than those as would be ashamed of saying that.”
“And been blessed enough to learn from it.”
He nodded, “Aye, ma’am-Helen, that I have.”
“I hope Gary learns as well. Do you think that’s possible?” She searched his face for hope.
“I’m sorry, Helen, I can’t say one way or another. I saw men who would be brilliant elsewhere, men who everyone thought would be great leaders, who fell to pieces – a cruel thing to see, when they would have been great anywhere else, while others .... well, I would have called myself mean-spirited before the war, and it changed me for the better. Left me scarred in many ways, but a better human being. I saw others who you would never have thought twice of who saved men, or turned an attack with their daring and courage.”
He looked at her, and added “But ma’am, I’ve seen your family, and I think you could well be surprised by what young Gary does with himself.”
As he turned to leave, Helen said “We’re going to the city soon – to look for work. I might come back from time to time. If I do, I’d care to look you up, Don.”
His face looked pained, and he paused. “Helen, I would be pleased if you would do so. But don’t be surprised if I’m not to be found. Some of the other problems are damage inside, from gas, and my chances of seeing the year out aren’t the best. I’m sorry. I have to go Helen, I can hear Andrew getting into more trouble. It’s been a pleasure.”
“It has.”
That night she cried herself to sleep again – something her family had heard her do often in the last few months, and something they thought she was starting to get over. They hoped the new start in the city would help her to move on, and it seemed to give her new focus, for a while at least.
She found, of all things, work in a munitions factory. She’d fought long and hard to find some other work, and thought of becoming a conscientious objector, but they needed the money, and fairly quickly she had relented.
It was a grey world, living in the city. She’d been there before, and admired the solemn, dignified Victorian architecture from the boom of the 90s. The people, she thought, looked dignified and stately. Now, she felt as if one of the dust storms from home, or the clouds of the moody, unpredictable weather here, had moved into her skull, and all she could see was dreary, dark and sombre.
But the grey cloud of the factory had a silver lining or two in store for her. All her life she had wanted women to have a modicum of independence, self respect and enough respect to be able to take their place in this modern world. In her small, dusty home town, she had few fellow souls to share her dreams with – Clive, of course, but few others. Here, in this noisy, smelly factory, making the instruments of death being used so far away, she found some kindred spirits – women who were asserting themselves, women who wanted the world to grasp the tail of the currents of change and share the world with its fairer half.
Occasionally she laughed at her thoughts – they were so like the pamphlets she, Mary and Clare so earnestly crafted, conjured out of their burgeoning free thinking. She often thought of one of Clare’s phrases, about people being shades on the path that history trod with the choice as to what shadows they would leave on history’s pages: she would occasionally stir Clare about history being more like a dust storm which covered those stuck in its path with its dirt.
Helen was smiling now, thinking of her friends as she curled into herself in the corner of the tram on the way to the factory. They shared their ideas – and Helen, with her determination and her experience, had much to share. Her friends were particularly touched by her awareness of the bullying that those in power could exercise, although Helen took pains to make sure they knew she didn’t know how best to deal with such abominable behaviour.
There it was: grey from head to toe, smoke indiscernible in the city smoke and coastal mist. There was a crowd of women milling round the entrance hall – one of those scenes where one knew movement was happening, but without being able to pick out any details.
As she alighted the tram, a surly man glared at her: for a moment she was taken aback, but then the man’s companion spoke “Never mind him, luv – he’s just sour ‘cos he can’t get a job, and the army’s been slow in takin’ ‘im on.” He winked, and continued “I reckon you’re all doin’ a wonderful job, helpin’ our boys stay over there .” The tram was moving away now, and he yelled back “I’ll be off in a week, too – I’ll think of you, miss!”
She stared at the tram. Which was worse – the hostility of a man seeing them as having taken a job he could have had, or the man who blindly related what they were doing only in terms of what he – and other men - could do. It was enough to bring tears to her eyes, and she was glad to see Mary and Clare waiting for her. They were anxious to know what had upset her, but they had no time to talk until their morning tea break. She relayed the morning’s events, and was saddened when Clare missed the point and thought it was nice the second man had been supportive. Mary saw why Helen was concerned straight away, and helped her to show Clare the subtleties of what was happening.
Mary was clever that way, but as they all left, it was Clare who asked “Any news of your young man, dear? No? Don’t worry – you’ll find him on your doorstep one day, just like my ma found my pa back from fighting the Boers without any news or warning.”
Helen smiled back at her, and let the thought comfort her as she went home. She had a busy evening, for they had arranged a few days off – a miracle in itself – and the family was returning home for a few days for the annual show.
The next morning dawned surprisingly clear and what was almost warm, and the long journey by train was almost pleasant. They were staying in a room at the pub – after bankruptcy, none of their former friends wanted to risk having them stay. Maybe those people feared a financial taint would drift off them – or maybe they just feared the bank knowing what sort of people they drew their friends from.
But the next day, the day of the show itself, was a pleasant day – even the dust was as settled as if Clive had been able to get the district to adopt his strange ideas. In the crowds, people were bolder, and Helen found she was able to chat happily with the people she knew. Don had indeed died, but she’d had some practice at hiding the pain of that sort of loss, and kept the conversations moving along The town had prospered since they’d left – mostly due to McGuire’s growing empire, though he was a tight-fisted as he had ever been. The town muttered about the Irishman with Scottish blood, but they took care to keep their jobs.
They was a stir now, and Helen found herself drawn close to the hub of the activity. A dais had been constructed, and what she though of as the evil trio – the Shire Chairman, and the two Fergusons, elder and younger – were standing on it. The Chairman was puffing himself up, believing that fuller lungs improved the quality of his pompous voice. She hid a smile at his antics, and then listened to a platitude-filled speech about patriotism. It took a few moments past the actual announcement before the crowd realised that a memorial to the fallen and their sacrifice was being proposed. Then the Shire Chairman spied Helen, and cried “And here we have one of our town’s young women, bravely off supporting our nation’s war effort in the city, helping to keep our way of life safe, despite her young sweetheart having so gallantly sacrificed himself to the call of duty.”
Helen was appalled.
“Sir! I ...”
What could she say? It would take an hour just to get an understanding of the concepts, before she could start talking to this fool about how she was hiding from her pain – and how could she say that anyway, in such a public gathering?
The Chairman was continuing. Helen called, as strongly as she could “Sir! SIR!! I wish to speak!”
Annoyed at the interruption to his greatness, but aware that others had heard Helen’s request, the Chairman gracelessly acceded to her request. “Very well young lady, in view of your most unfortunate loss, I will permit you to address this patriotic and loyal gathering.”
No, you idiot, she thought as she climbed the slightly shaky stairs, I’ll not be taking your threat to heart.
She stared at the crowd, some laughing at the upstart girl, well known for her strange ways, others just bored with the whole deal, and – here and there – a face which looked as if it might have an interested soul behind it. She addressed herself to those scattered few.
“Our esteemed Shire Chairman dares to presume too much. My sweetheart is not dead – he is missing, true, but he is not dead. He did not go off to die – he had too much to live for. He had dreams – dreams which some of you knew, and lived for those until he was caught up in your vainglorious lust for Empire, against his better judgement!”
“Now, now, young lady – I didn’t invite you up here to spout your ridiculous gibberish!”
“Sir! I will have my say! and you did not ask me up here of your own free will.”
“No – and I do not have to permit this disruption of a Shire meeting!”
“This is not a council-“
“No, but it is a Sire event! Shall I call that constable?”
“I will not permit Clive’s name to be added to your offering to Death. They are saying we have lost an entire generation – and you want to build a memorial to this savagery, this slaughter?”
By now most of the crowd was clearly baying for her blood – it had gone so much worse than she’d thought it would, and she hated herself for losing this chance – and even more for being stupid enough to get up here. She was jostled as she climbed down and tried to leave, and ended up in the dirt, in tears, and was rescued by the constable the Chairman had threatened to set on her. The constable had even helped her find her family, but he was talking to them when the younger Ferguson, Andrew, red and shaking with anger, found her.
“You filthy strumpet!”
She staggered backwards, wide eyed with shock and fear.
“Come here you slut!” One hand clamped her arm, and he started shaking her as he spoke.
“How dare you spout that evil rubbish, you filthy jezebel! I didn’t go to the Western Front and get wounded and go through campaigns and battles to come back and have you start on your seditious idiotic tripe! I know you and the rubbish you think – you want to change everything, when this is what suits the world best – this is the way things should be!”
She was trying to talk back, to tell him of the poor, and the women in all classes of society, who were deprived and kept virtually in servitude; she tried to tell him of the benefits Clive’s ideas would bring; she even tried to tell him that there hadn’t need to be the war and all it’s suffering. She tried, but all her words were lost in the onslaught of the young Ferguson’s blind rage – he was a nasty piece of work as it was, but now he had a helpless victim he could let all his battle rage and fear onto.
But the constable was there now, yelling at Ferguson, and after a moment using his baton to bring the raging man to his back.
“Unhand me – how dare you! Don’t you know I am a returned soldier!”
“SO AM I!”
At that Andrew was startled into silence.
“Yes, I was repatriated back from Gallipoli – and even if I hadn’t been, I’d still treat you the same way. You have committed an assault upon the person-“
He raised his voice as the younger Ferguson tried to remonstrate.
“YOU HAVE COMMITTED AN ASSAULT UPON THE PERSON OF A YOUNG LADY WITHIN THE WITNESS OF A POLICE OFFICER – SHALL I HAVE YOU CHARGED?!”
Ferguson was quiet. “No sir, I shall leave now.”
“And you shall stay away from this young woman – and her family!”
By this time, the elder Ferguson and the Shire Chairman had arrived. The Chairman was wise enough to stay back, but Ferguson wasn’t.
“What are you doing to-“
“I am cautioning your son –“
“It was all that filthy strumpet’s-“
“DO NOT INTERFERE WITH THE WORK OF A POLICE OFFICER, SIR, OR I SHALL ARREST YOU!”
Stunned, the Fergusons - and the Shire Chairman - listened.
“Sir, I am cautioning your son that I have witnessed him commit a vicious assault on a young woman. SHALL I HAVE HIM CHARGED?”
The father shook his head, and the trio retired to the restive crowd, a crowd who wanted the cheap entertainment to continue.
The constable ushered Helen to her parents, and glared but once at some nearby bystanders, who decided they had more entertaining matters to attend to elsewhere.
“Ma’am”, he addressed Helen, “Are you alright?”
She nodded.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes – though I’ll have some bruises.”
Her father spoke, tense with stress and anger “Why didn’t you charge him?”
He just shook his head, thinking of the closeness of Fergusons to the town’s magistrate, and something of this must have communicated itself to her father, who nodded.
Then the constable turned to Helen.
“You know, ma’am, there’s different sorts of courage, and I’d be proud to have as much as you do.”
“I’m not brave.” She was almost in tears.
“Actually, ma’am, yes you are. As I said, there’s different sorts of courage. It takes courage to get up on that dais and speak from the heart that way – and I heard you trying to talk to Ferguson as he attacked you.”
“I’m almost in tears, I feel a total failure, and you call me brave?”
“Aye, I do. There’s no shame in tears – I’ve seen enough brave men reduced to tears, mostly in hospital, and they were happy to take the care and comfort of the women nursing them. Those nurses had courage – they saw all the wounds, they heard the screams, and they kept the place together. You, you stuck to it against Ferguson’s foul attack. I’ve seen enough courage and fear, and you’ve got courage, ma’am.”
They were all staring at her now and she blushed, and managed a quiet thank you.
He continued “You know, we have lost a generation of young men – and their ideas. Even the survivors like me have as many unseen scars as seen.”
The constable looked directly at Helen: “But maybe we’ve gained a generation of women, and your ideas instead of ours.”
She said “Maybe, but that’s only half a comfort for all we’ve lost.”
“Aye, that’s true, and I’m sorry for it.”
“And change is not easy, no matter how good the ideas.”
He smiled wryly back at her “I think we’ve seen that today.”
Tears flooded Helen’s eyes, and her father put an arm round her shoulders.
“I’ll be alright – the shock’s still a bit of a fresh.”
The constable looked sombrely at her, remembering his own trauma.
“Ma’am, take care – you’ve got the respect of more decent people than you realise.”
His words comforted her over the next few days, but the scars of the day were also fighting for her soul – and they all had the pain of not knowing what had happened to Clive. During this time, she had received another terrible letter from Gary, a toneless missive which didn’t even mention Clive. She knew she shouldn’t, but she raged against Gary for being so thoughtless, for forgetting why he had gone there.
After that, she began to close off to her friends at the factory. Desperately, they both tried to cheer her, but to no avail. She even began to lose interest in their quest for a better society. After a few weeks, Clare found a quiet moment to speak to Helen.
“Dear, you know you’ve got us all concerned.”
“Have I?”
“Yes. What’s wrong – is it Clive?”
She wanted to say no, she wanted to rant and rage, but all she could do was burst into tears.
As she sheltered in Clare’s arms, Clare whispered “You know, we need you – you’re so clever, and so brave.”
At that, her tears dried up.
“No, I’m not brave. Clive’s brave – men like Clive are brave. I think I should leave your struggle.”
With that, her world shrank again, into her pain. She didn’t mind, she didn’t need anything else. She didn’t even mind losing her job, and the painful struggle to find work helped her nurture her pain.
But a day finally came when people danced in the streets – strangers kissed, and no-one cared, for the war, the Great War, the war to end all wars, was over. She shook herself mentally, and started taking notice of what was happening around her. Her parents were talking of moving, not to their home town, but to another where her father could find work, and where living was cheap.
The day came when Gary came home – so stiff and withdrawn that Helen could see and recognise his pain. In that recognition, she knew, at last, that Clive wasn’t going to come home.
She would cry that night, but not now – now, there was work to do. She didn’t have enough hope to dare try to make the world a better place – that would be left for others, people like Mary and Clare, the constable, and those soldiers, angry at the waste of life, who saw themselves as Australians, not members of the British Empire. For Helen, now, she would do what little she could, when and where she could, and survive.
Epilogue
The room was dusty, and plain – Gary could afford no better, in the struggle to survive this evil they called the Depression. He’d survived the war, he’d survived the flu which had killed as many people as the war, but he was struggling to survive this.
His family wanted him to come home. Helen had a collection of returned soldiers there that she mothered, knowing they couldn’t fill the void she had. But looking after them should - had - to be done, so she might as well look after some of the other casualties of war. She even had a German soldier there, brought out by a German family from whom she’d learned of internment within her own country.
His family wanted him to go home and be comfortable with the other cripples – even his enemy (he didn’t think of the man as a former enemy), but he couldn’t stay anywhere for long. When he stopped, the nightmares caught up with him – and if he persisted in staying they would take him even when he was awake.
But for now, the little town he had drifted to was having its annual show, and there would be fireworks tonight. He switched off the electric light – so easy to turn on later, and without the flickering shadows - and went to the window: maybe that joyful, trite display would bring some relief to his scarred soul. He could hear the crowd, and then they hushed – the big finale was coming. He saw the fireworks leap to the night sky, and explode. Then he heard the distant sounds - cheering, and the whizzing sound like one of the German shells he’d dodged for so many months. He vomited as he fell, and scrambled to curl under his bed, shaking and crying. There’d be no rest tonight, and he would stay there till Helen found him, two days later, and coaxed him out, like rescuing a frightened kitten, and took him home – home, to join the other tarnished souls surviving there: scarred souls in an increasingly scarred land.
© Kayleen White, 2007
The blinkers of education (Poem)
I undertake these writings – and the sharing of them – for the sake of my self expression. I am under no particular illusions as to their literary merit, and ask only that any readers do not have any undue expectations. If you consider me wrong, then publish me – with full credit, of course :)
Please also note that I check only occasionally for comments, so if you make any, please be patient.
Kayleen White
The blinkers of education
They do not see,
In those good ol’ blinkers
They who look ahead,
Straight and true,
And see naught but
the glint and gleam
of the gold.
They do not see,
In those good ol’ blinkers,
Though they know not,
they see not,
That their brand new shiny blinkers,
Are but an old toy,
In new guise,
With new name;
- we’ll save the taxpayers’ money,
say the …ists,
and call it something new,
economic rationalism.
They do not see,
In those good ol’ blinkers,
Of the fall of Rome,
The social decay,
the loss of social order,
that comes when promoting the sovereign realm’s coin
above the soul’s richness,
the striving of the down trodden,
to better their lot,
the old and passen by,
to know more
of the world they have seem so much of
for the growth and nourishment
of their soul
ere ‘tis goes back to
the great wherever.
© Kayleen White 2007
Please also note that I check only occasionally for comments, so if you make any, please be patient.
Kayleen White
The blinkers of education
They do not see,
In those good ol’ blinkers
They who look ahead,
Straight and true,
And see naught but
the glint and gleam
of the gold.
They do not see,
In those good ol’ blinkers,
Though they know not,
they see not,
That their brand new shiny blinkers,
Are but an old toy,
In new guise,
With new name;
- we’ll save the taxpayers’ money,
say the …ists,
and call it something new,
economic rationalism.
They do not see,
In those good ol’ blinkers,
Of the fall of Rome,
The social decay,
the loss of social order,
that comes when promoting the sovereign realm’s coin
above the soul’s richness,
the striving of the down trodden,
to better their lot,
the old and passen by,
to know more
of the world they have seem so much of
for the growth and nourishment
of their soul
ere ‘tis goes back to
the great wherever.
© Kayleen White 2007
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