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Wednesday, 30 November 2011
Monday, 28 November 2011
NanoWriMo 2012 - present chapter...
At present, I am 8000 words off completing the NaNoWriMo challenge... I'm reasonably happy with what i have written, but it needs a lot of editing and restructuring. This is a chapter I wrote tonight.
Un-posted letter, France 1917
Mother.
I am well.
It is strange to think how keen we were to reach the front a
few weeks ago. On arrival in Armentieres
(have you ever heard of a place in Britain that is ‘Proud to be poor?’ That is their motto here!), we were in a
small bistro. We drank the local cheap
white wine and met up with officers who had come from the front. they were a good crew, but the alarm bells
should have rang when they were saying things like, “You’ll be looking forward
to leaving,” and “the sane ones are shot for desertion.”
I live with lice. How
horrified would I have been but a few months back to think I would not care
about lice wandering over my body! but
Lice wash off. There are things I have
seen I will never wash away.
One day, I was asked to lead a firing squad. “What is the charge?” I asked.
“Desertion.”
When I first arrived I would have been horrified at British
men leaving their comrades to battle.
But now I am not so horrified.
These men are dying for Britian.
dying for something not quite tangible.
Something they will not benefit from in the way the owners of the
armament factories or other war necessities will benefit. Most of these men are poor men, come to lose
their minds. Or lose their lives for no
profit; only the desperate experience of this hell.
This is one duty we are allowed to refuse. I refused, knowing those who run are the
bravest of souls. the people who are
sensitive and human enough to know this is hell on earth and should not be part
of living. Some; other brave men, place
a part of their body above the line of the trench to be shot. Hand wounds, feet and some who are braver,
legs are raised for the poor german soldier to shoot.
Now, mother, I know you will find it strange that I have an
empathy with the bosche, but these men are as poor as our men. they are men.
they are scared, just like us and they have been sent to fight in a war
they will not profit from. A war they
will be wounded or die in for nothing that will make their material lives any
better.
Father was oh so wrong to make the women of Tullylish
grieve. He was wrong to send these brave
sons of Ulster marching to their deaths or to losing their minds.
I met a man who is from Banbridge. A Silas Gibney. He was a good man. He speaks well of my father and the other men
of the Bann who have been encouraging the young to come sacrifice
themselves. He speaks of Ferguslie as a
man of goodness, a man who implored, through propaganda and Minister, that all
fit men in the factory should go to war.
Although Gibney was too old and could refuse, he is here because his son
died here. He is here to avenge the
death of his only son, sent here by Ferguslie and my father, who died at the
hand of the germans who were sent here by their rich men of the Rhine. Men who place their hands above the trench
line for our brave men to shoot. It is
almost like a game of, “you do this for me, and it will be your turn when you
are brave enough.” He will be happy when
more German men are dead, he say’s to me half-heartedly, more and more healf
heartedly as days procede because he is perhaps coming to the realisation of
just who the enemy of the poor men really are.
Although this war is not how we read about war as boys, we
do come face to face with our enemy at times.
Sending shells and rifle bullets into their trenches is not the height
of it. Sometimes their are pushes
forward through the mud, blood, shit, bones and vermin. a whistle blows and this is the cue for both
the dancing ragdolls to push into the rain of lead sent on cue the other
way. Heads down against the storm, we
push. If we are lucky we stumble into a
crater and wait until a lull and make our way, slowly back, through the mud, on
our faces, as low as we can go. If we
are unlucky we meet our German cousins face to face and gaze into their eyes as
they writhe and scream at the end of our bayonetts. My stomach hurts when I remember the first
young man I killed. He looked as if he
had just walked from the church turn to
the bridge and had been chatting happily to Scott or Wilson and was on his way
for eggs at Dawson’s farm. He was like
any lad from Tullylish, with his life extinguished before it started and he
like the boys from tullylish fell into the mud, mouth foaming, gasping for his
mother...
The men enjoy only one thing when in the trench, and that is
the rum. I make sure they have two
ladles full. I think this ration is
given to them to keep them brave, but I watch as it makes them settle and
sometimes snatch sleep, sitting on the muddy wooden walkway.
Sometimes, believe it or believe it not, we have a sing-song
with the Germans. One German used to
sing English songs and we would join in.
he knew the words by heart, we thought.
We used to send requests over the line, shouting, “Mademoiselle from
Armentières” or “Memories” went the
call, and he knew them all word perfect!
When I was in the hospital and I read the press reports of
the war and when you came to visit me and I couldn’t speak, well, I wanted to
say that what you all believed about this war was rubbish. This wasn’t a game of chase. this wasn’t colourfully dressed soldiers
marching in formation like cockerels, waving flags and tally-hoing. Father and you have no idea of the
strain. the stress of seeing people torn
to pieces by a rain of metal from the sky or from below (the tunnels full of
explosive are the other problem). I
don’t think England nor Germany will win this war. the winners are far away from the war, making
money from every boy torn apart or incapacitated. I needed the break. i needed the time to recuperate and think. I needed the time away from the real world of
death, blasts and whistles. You can’t
imagine as you sat with me, perhaps looking serene, that all I could see was
death and destruction. all I could see
was waste, and the faces of the men who I stabbed in the guts or shot in the
face.
The raiding party that day had been as voluntary as any, I
walked along the ranks and said, “you, you and you.” I had watched nearly fifteen of my men die in
that day, sitting on the toilet or casually lighting a cigarette and ping!
their eyes would cross as the bullet entered their skullor their face would
disintigrate as they spoke. We used our
mirrors to find the sniper’s nest. We
crawled under the wire and slowly, oh so slowly across the darkess of no mans
land and then down into the trench, stabbing as we went. He stood in front of me. “Kamerad!” He said and he put his hands on
his head. His sniper’s rifle beside
him. No-one was in the trench but
us.
Fifteen men.
Kamerad.
I gritted my teeth and ran for him, his face registering
horror, his hands out in front to try to stop my blade cracking his chest. I missed his heart and he writhed and
screamed. I withdrew the bayonett and
stabbed at his open mouth and counted fifteen blows into his crown for every
man who had fallen at his hand that day.
I sat beside him. I
spoke to him. I told him it was over for
him. I told him he was lucky. We were the unlucky ones left in this
hell. His pockets revealed his life. He was from Kiel. He loved to sail with his young son and
wife. She was very beautiful. He was an Officer, but he was a teacher of
young boys. A photo of his school was
folded in a pocket. A teacher of boys
who shot boys through the skull. He had
letters in his pocket, that smelled of perfumes which were tied up in little
pastel coloured ribbons. His mother and
father looked very distinguished. they
would be proud of this boy who was over here to parade up and down on a charger
with white plumes in his hat, chasing the Britisher up and down the green
fields of France. Like every mother in
the world, thinking their son will be careful and their son is having the
experience of a lifetime.
The gas would clear the rats. But the birds would fall from the sky. If we found any struggling for life, we tried
to save them. some would nestle in your
pocket until they were ready to leave, singing.
Beauty in the beast. A break from
reality. One day when we were on R&R
in the barn of a french farm about five miles from the front, the King arrived
and we ordered the men to cheer. I
didn’t cheer, and few of them did.
Perhaps the King’s cousin in Russia should have visited his men more
often. Some of the Russian men who
deserted came to us and asked for directions away from the battle, but wanting
to get back to Moscow. how long after
this hell would the Tommy’s put up with a king in a car, parading past them
expecting some kind of thanks? some kind
of worship? I am firmly of the belief
what is happening in Russia will happen in Germany and then France and then
England. Tullylish will no longer be an
island apart, I feel. the Russian soldiers are doing what our men, I fear, will
do and that is what their new political leader, Lenin says, “Convert the
imperialist war into civil war.”
I grabbed the detris of his life and stuffed it into my
pocket.
I felt oh so guilty sitting in that hospital while men in
the real world were scrambling for life.
I had to return to hell. Back to
reality. For them. And i did, and here i am.
I crawled through the shit and mud and rotting men and mules
and fell into the trench. none of the
raiding party returned. The bullets that
had shot my arm in shreds were many. I
had got a return to blighty. I thought
if that ever happened I would be happy but the guilt was too much. But this was not my biggest injury. My injury in my mind was greater as you must
have sensed in the hospital. I remember
you unclenching my fist and taking the sheets of music from me. We would not hear his voice sing again. Song had been slashed from his gullet and his
smashed jawbone. I remember you cleaning
away my tears as you read the words through yours,
“Round me at twilight come stealing
Shadows of days that are gone
Dreams of the old days revealing
Mem’ries of love’s golden dawn
Memories, memories
Dreams of love so true
O’er the sea of memory
I’m drifting back to you
Childhood days, wild wood days
Among the birds and bees
You left me alone, but still you’re my own
In my beautiful memories
Sunlight may teach me forgetting
Noonlight brings thoughts that are new
Twilight brings sighs and regretting
Moonlight means sweet dreams of you
Memories, memories
Dreams of love so true
O’er the sea of memory
I’m drifting back to you
Childhood days, wild wood days
Among the birds and bees
You left me alone, but still you’re my own
In my beautiful memories”
Wednesday, 23 November 2011
Sunday, 6 November 2011
The Factory - Chapter 1
I've joined in with the NaNoWriMo this year... I have wanted to do it for a few years, but have never had the time (I started last year and had to stop!) So, this is my second attempt. And this is Chapter 1!
Autumn
Autumn
I know I'm dying.
I've had a good, long, interesting life, I suppose. I'll be sad not to see my great grand
children all grown up. I would love to
hear their dreams and politics as young men and women. I hope their struggles bring a fair world
closer.
I'll be sad not to see my ex-President arrested and
imprisoned for what he did to the young people in Afghanistan and Iraq. For what he did to the young poor people he
sent from here to kill their young poor people.
But then the people who sent my family to war were never arrested, and
our victories were few. We did scare
them, though. Our world of scrambling
and scraping to live was allowed to change for a while. But then their greed brought us to ruin
again. Obama gives us hope. The hope she gave us way back then.
When I first let America know my views on war and hatred, I
thought I was old! Way back in the
1960's. I had grown children, and little
grandchildren. And my children were not
surprised I couldn’t stay quiet. When I
got up onto those podiums to speak to those crowds, well, I felt kind of dumb
to begin with. But my writing and my
letters to the newspapers and my going along to those peacenik rallies to hear
those eloquent, angry or serene young men urge peace meant that some of them
pushed me up there. Going on fifth or
sixth after those brilliant young black leaders and those women who knew what
it was like to be second class citizens was, perhaps a bit of a lull in the
proceedings. I couldn't rant, I couldn’t
shout. I just told them to stand
together. I told them that they would be
split from without if they didn’t hold their wit. I told them about Ally. I told them about Davie and my da'. I told them that none of them came back from
war to riches and neither would the boys out in the east. I told them that the rich man’s war only bred
more hate and spawned a second war. I
told them that the people who had stoked this war would never go to jail. The people who profited from it would never
be hurt. And the ties between the two
were many. I told them the people who
had driven me from my country to find liberty in the United States were the
self same people who profited from war, and they were never brought to justice. In fact those who died and the families who
suffered the pain and the hardship were only too glad to send other generations
of young men and women out to die or to be maimed in order for these rich
"patriots" to profit, again and again. And I told them America was smarter than
that. And then I sat down. And I remembered her, because she brought me
to these podiums, even though I hadn’t seen her in many years. But she did.
I stare out of the huge window at the autumn colours. I took some of the American accent over the
years, but some of my Ulster accent is there. And the words.
"Fall." I'm told it was
a word that came from the old country and that my use of Autumn is more recent. But I dont know. We really called it the turn. The time when the spuds were dug, the fields
full of the withered stick like top of the stuff that would sustain us over the
winter. There was nothing like a mound
of spuds after working all day in that factory.
Steaming on the plate; big, oval, steaming balls of flour, my da called
them. As a young man I liked
autumn. Ma would make Black currant or
black berry bread pudding and we had shelves of jam from the summer
fruits. Spuds and tea. And blackberry pudding. That's what I was brought up on. My ma would say, "just be glad you weren’t
reared in our day. When we were glad of
pinead!" I knew the hunger that
made people live on pinead. I had
friends whose houses served it still, and when da was still alive, well, there
were days the whisky bottle or Mollies Bar, or the greyhounds got the spuds and
we got the pinead. Pinead was, in our
better off house, a meal of bread soaked in tea. In the not so fortunate, it was bread soaked
in hot water. A warm meal.
The carpet of golden and brown leaves in the garden before
me brings me back to the autumn day at the Halt.
I remember thinking about Davie on the day I met her
again.
Davie was a wild man.
He'd joined the army, like a lot of men his age in 1914. Him and uncle Ally and my da'. Davie was the only one of the three of them
to come out the other side. Ally was
killed in action. That was the day my
granny became an old woman, when the singing was wrung out of her. She never got official letters so as soon as
it arrived the thoughts were, "which one?" Ally was the youngest. The one who had been at her apron strings
only a few years before. I remember him
going, along with my da and Davie and the others from the factory. The drums and the fifes played at Church Halt
and the red white and blue filled everyone’s hearts full of hate for the
hun. The minister praised the boys for
their patriotism and for standing up for democracy - a democracy most of them
couldnt take part in. Howarth, the
factory owner told the lads to go do their duty. And the minister and Howarth thanked each
other. Hankies waved and the big men
blew kisses to wives and childer'.
Tommy, my da' came home.
So did Davie. Tommy was full of
the drink and he stayed that way until he was found dead in our chair by the
hearth in 1920. My ma' in someway was
relieved, but it was only the goodness of the Howarths in the big house that
meant we could stay in the cold, damp, house.
They gave her a job cleaning the stairs and their fancy bathrooms and
hallways and she paid them the rent from what they gave her. I learned to hide the axe from Tommy when he
hit the bottle, because he was for killing Howarth and the minister for sending
them all to war.
"The aristocracy killed the young men," he would
rant. "We had no business blowing German
teenagers to bits. Our business is spuds
and linen and whisky!" And then he
would go for the axe to kill the top-hatted factory owner who had sent them all
to fight for God, Ireland, democracy and Protestantism.
Davie came back, wilder than before, full of plans to go to
Canada and make a fortune, but his time was spent in "The Bunch
O'Grapes" drinking stout and sitting at "The Welcome" smoking
his pipe and, as my ma would say, "fraternising with the catholics like he
was one of them," until he got one of them in the family way. He told her he would marry her, but she found
out he was going to leave and she went to Banbridge station on the day, but he
left by Portadown.
My granny had letters from "the disgrace" from
Dublin, Southhampton and Toronto, but she never opened them. And Ally became the Virgin Mary I suppose.
As I thought, I heard the train stop at the Halt. I was to wait here for a guest, Howarth had
said, and i was to take it directly to him.
I had no idea the guest was his daughter.
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