No Man's Land - a project

I can understand this, Endy.
A person can take in only so much information about evil, war, corruption & dehumanising stuff .... It can really get to you. I know.

(You know, to take my own focus off the bad news & to get back in touch with what "normal" folk are watching & thinking about, I decided recently to watch Oz Big Brother for a bit. Suddenly the "bad stuff" didn't look quite so bad! )

This latest piece of writing from you was going to be a short story originally, remember? It is turning into so much more! <applause, applause!>

Endy, always reading, and always willing to try to express my feelings about your writing.

thanks for all the support - i confess that i worry about not doing the thing justice - i'm finding it a bit harder to write...sorry if its taking a while to put it down as i want it. Anyway - here's the next bit
thanks for reading
Endy

**
17
**


I'm sorry that we couldn't be together for a few days. I should have written and told you why I didn't get on that train.
But the coward I was then, I am still - that's why I write it all here instead.


*
*


I had a first-class train ticket in my pocket - handed to me during my appointment at the solicitors that morning. There'd been a letter with it, from Father - welcoming me back to England and announcing that you would all be there to meet me off the train at Truro Station that evening.

He also mentioned that there had been a few modifications around the farm and that Michael was keen to get my approval. I'd sensed an undertone of warning in his message. - Things have changed since you've been gone.
I wondered if he had any idea how much.

I did go along to the station at Paddington and I even waited and watched the train pull in.
Then I just turned and walked away.

It's not at all hard to imagine the disappointment and worry that each of you must have felt at my non-appearance. Especially Mother.

I've since learned that following my failure to arrive by midnight, Father telephoned the hotel, the barracks and eventually, Regimental HQ.
Of course, I know how much he dislikes using the telephone - so I have to presume he was desperately worried or exceedingly, bloody angry.
Probably both.


*
*


The recounting of the battle at Langemark was the beginning of a strange digression, one that could have been (belatedly) halted - had I boarded that train and gone home.
But as Sergeant Norris has been known to say more than once, "There's no unstitching time."

Events conspired (as they have a way of doing) against me from the very moment I left my hotel room and went in search of breakfast on that early Tuesday morning.

It had been a grisly night, sitting up for hours, afraid to sleep again. The nightmare I woke shouting and screaming from had comprised of splintered images - black, crumbling buildings; mud and barbed wire; and the risen dead of Ypres.

In an officer's shelter in France, a man shouting out from his bed is nothing to get worked up about. It happens.
In a quiet hotel in London, however, people are likely to think someone is being murdered and the last thing I wanted was strangers knocking on the door with concerned questions.

It's all very well, telling oneself that you're not alone with the dreams - but when you are judged weak because of them, as I had been, by an MO (old sawbones) I saw before leaving France - it grows more and more into a nasty secret you feel compelled to keep from others. The fact that you are not only living the war, but being haunted by it during stints away from the front.

The early hours can become a type of nightmare themselves, when you are alone with your fears and self-doubts. I remember standing at the window, looking out over dark rooftops, drawn by a distant glow of early dawn.

Ypres was a cold shadow slipping slowly away with the night - gradually fading and then gone. Replaced by a strange longing for the front in France. To be back amongst those I trust with my life.


*
*


When I entered the hotel breakfast room I was met by a young waitress who led me through a vast jungle of exotic plants and ferns, to a table by a window.

"Is this all right for you, Sir?"

I glanced at a framed picture on the wall.
A photograph in fact, of a rather smug game hunter in a pith helmet, leaning on his rifle with one boot firmly planted on the neck of a tiger. Needless to say, the beast was dead.

I doubted the waitress knew that big-game 'sportsmen' turn up in the trenches on both sides of the frontline and often stay for a day or two, setting up their chosen weapons with a dispassionate professionalism which cannot hide the excitement in their eyes - as they take a step closer to making the ultimate kill. Some even pay for the opportunity.
They come from all around the world and many have a history of killing men. Black men.
They use this war as an excuse to add the corpse of a white man to their list of trophies.

They pick a side and offer their services….

"Sir…? "

"I'm sorry?"

"Is this alright for you, Sir?"

"Er, yes. Yes of course. Fine. Thank you."

Can't I leave the bloody war behind for even one day?

I pulled back a chair and sat down, while the waitress eyed the photograph briefly.

"Would you like a drink, Sir? While you read the breakfast menu?"

"Thank you - iced water and some tea, please. A small pot will do."

"Iced water and a small pot of tea, Sir… thank you."

I watched her walk away, thin and straight-backed.
I felt rather hung-over - following my excursion the night before - and I wanted water and fresh air, before contemplating food.

Above me, the tiger rolled his tongue into the dust and stared one last time at his world.


*
*


"Justice will not come
until those who
are not injured
are as indignant
as those who
are injured"

~ THUCYDIDES


*
*


"Excuse me, Sir…?"

The woman startles me to such a degree that I almost cry out. I'm glad there's no teacup in my hand to fall smashing to the floor as I swing around. She stands at my shoulder clutching her purse in her hands and has arrived there utterly silently.

She is dressed in a coat and hat and appears so out of place in the quiet, airy breakfast room that I feel a moment of confusion…. even fear.
Her face is drawn, haggard. She looks moderately wealthy, but unkempt.

She takes a few hesitant steps forward, so that I can at least sit comfortable in my chair again to look at her. She holds up a hand for a moment as if to tell me not to bother standing.

"I'm awfully sorry to bother you, Sir… I saw you sitting here alone and thought I might take a moment of your time. You're a captain, aren't you?"

"Er…. lieutenant, actually."

I watch her unclip her purse and feel around inside its dark interior with one black-gloved hand. Something about her posture, the tremble of her mouth as she does this, makes me push back my chair and stand up.

I'm not sure what I expect, but it isn't the envelope she passes me. I look at her face and make the decision to comply.
Inside there is a picture of a lad in uniform. A Private, photographed in a studio somewhere - possibly here in London. There is a tall, potted fern behind his left shoulder - similar to the ones in this room.
His intent stare is that of a happy, inquisitive individual, regarding the camera with boyish interest.

"That's Albert. He's my son. My boy. Do you know him? Have you seen him before, Lieutenant? He's been missing for twelve weeks… Albert, Albert Lanscomb. Have you seen him?"

"I'm sorry…."

"He wrote to me from France. Told me not to worry about him, but mothers do worry, you know…
He's just a boy, Sir…. always afraid of the dark…. "

"I …"

"He's my son. I need to know where he is. His name's Albert Lanscomb. Please, I want to know what's happened to him... I want the truth…"

"Oh God…"

"Do you understand, Sir? I need to know. I need to know about my son. His name's Albert Lanscomb."

The breakfast room has grown intensely quiet around us.
Death is a taboo subject, rarely given private, let alone public airing; and of course, in England, all grief belongs behind closed doors.

"He's my only child, you see. He's such a good boy. Albert, Albert Lanscomb…Missing…they can't find him anywhere. He told me not to worry…."

I pass the envelope with Albert's picture in it back to his mother.

"I'm very sorry."

"Sixteen years old and his next birthday's coming up. What should I do? I always have a cake made for him. Oh God, oh God, he's my son… doesn't anyone understand?"

The waitress is coming back with a tray. She slows down as she approaches my table and for a second, we share a worried glance.

"He's my boy …my boy. I don't know what to do."

Her eyes hang wide and tearless…for months she has screamed out her terrified grief in the dark - I can see every insane moment etched there across her face. I've never in my life before seen such a face of desperation and devastation.

"I'm s... sorry about your son, I truly am. The Red Cross can let you know m…more, perhaps, or… or…"

"Albert his name is….Albert Lanscomb. Missing. Twelve weeks now. They can't find him. He's my son. My only child. My boy."


**
18
**


I heared it coming from far away, like a beast that had tracked me for miles, and was now at last, closing in for the kill. Its roar was heart stopping in its precision - full of lunatic rage and finality.

The blast pulled me into the air.
I was easily taken; blown from the side of the slope and hurled backwards - along with all other loose material.

I hit the opposite bank of the crater with enough force to knock the breath from my lungs and leave me half-buried in the mud.
Blood poured from my face and hands, where small bits of grit and stone had been driven at high speed into my flesh. Soon it would feel like my skin was on fire.

My right arm, thrown up at the last second, had protected my eyes, but some of my clothing hung in shreds, the skin beneath, torn and weeping blood.

At first there was only a vague sense of what had actually happened.
A single thought was all I seemed capable of - that of everything having gone mortifyingly wrong. Anything outside that thought was numbed, like a dream, where shapes and events seem oddly familiar - but actually make no sense.

In some far away consciousness, I recognized that I was struggling to breathe properly. Struggling to understand the mechanisms of my own body.
I could not detect my physical self.
Pain was dulled.
I could see my right hand trembling in front of my face, but could not feel it with my brain.
It was as if my mind had released itself from my body.
In a way, I suppose it had.

My first tangible thought was that I was dying. My chest had seized. I could not get a breath and the more I willed it, the tighter my empty lungs contracted.
The world burst open around me. Dark blooms of unconsciousness began to soak my brain, with cheap whispers of relief.

Something rational within me spoke up then, a voice I hardly recognised as my own - one that cut through all the terror and panic.
I told myself to stop struggling and be calm. If death was here with me now, why fight it? Better to die reconciled and in peace.

Of course, that's more or less when my oesophagus began to relax its shocked grip, allowing oxygen to seep slowly back into my lungs, my blood, my brain.

Soon I fell into a strange sedation, undisturbed by blistering explosions that blew debris high into the air. The raining earth, the whine and thump of dropping shells, were no more than a faint curtain of dust whirling around me. I was deaf to their violence.

Pain remained closed off, sealed outside of my awareness, and although the Germans continued mortaring the vicinity with little respite, I was mostly oblivious to it, as I lay there, suspended in a wall of mud and wrapped in a soft blanket of strange euphoria.


*
*


The scream in my brain was the first sensation to cut through the numbness. It came at me like an unstoppable wave, growing higher as it rolled in.
When its metallic whine had reached an unbearable pitch, and it felt as if my ears would burst with it, I lowered my head against the pain and blood poured from my nose.
Nausea gripped me, as I watched the red stream dribble and pool between the belt and strap of my Sam Brown.
I was mesmerized, or at least, strangely fascinated by the clarity of its detail. Despite my predicament, or the continued shelling, I was absorbed. I hung there staring at that pocket of rich blood and waiting for it to slowly bulge and spill out over the edges of the brown leather.

On sudden impulse, I looked away - up at the world, but I could see nothing, the sky blinded me.

*
*

I lie curled on my side, free of the mud.
A terrible thing is happening. A wrongdoing that I cannot forgive.
Destruction of life and land.
The butchering of minds.
Greed swims in an evil disguise.


**
19
**




In its own perplexing way, London was as disturbing to me as the front.
I saw a city of recruitment, of ignorant bravado and rich hypocrisy.
I saw people worshipping statues of military heroes and ignoring street beggars with missing limbs (moved along because their shell-shocked eyes and less-than-whole bodies offended 'decent' people).

Even Nelson, with his missing arm and lost eye, is cast out from the crowd and stands alone, where his wounds cannot be viewed as a testament to the reality of war.

I saw men lining the streets outside a recruitment office, standing where I had once stood, when I was still a believer and volunteering had seemed like the only thing to do, in a world where men had taken to massacring their neighbours.

Peace was what they told us we'd be fighting for - and what greater glory? If it were true….

Some of those queuing to enlist were blatantly too young to be eligible - but I knew from experience that many of them would pass through anyway and turn up in the trenches.

Pals are encouraged to join up together as a unit - whole classes of boys, groups of musicians, cricket teams, chess clubs. There they were… lined up and ready to fight.



None of them, in even their wildest imaginations could possibly start to comprehend the reality of what they were doing. Only time could teach them, like it had so coldly taught me.

But how many would be granted the time to learn anything at all before death took them?
For most, their journey from here would end in the sights of a German machinegun, a few months up the line.


*
*


London - Tuesday


For me, the horror of war isn't something I can pick up and put down again - to go back to later.
It follows me closely, like a constant shadow, manifesting itself in everything I see around me. It never leaves me.

Hey Endy

I haven't had the chance to read this latest instalment in any real depth & I'd prefer not to comment till I do .....

You sounded earlier as if you were feeling under pressure to continue with the story. And that you were finding the process a bit frustrating. Best advice (which you didn't ask for! :wink: ): If you're feeling a bit stuck or if you need to give it a rest, then put it aside for a bit! It doesn't matter if that takes a while. Or a long time! So long as you're happy with what you end up with. We'll be reading along with interest whenever that time is!

I'll take your advice Olga and slow down.
That last bit - i just wanted to get rid of it

Fell of the wagon 2 days ago

endy-I hope all's well. Im reading this like a summer subject. I print off a few pages and read.

PS, I once took a seminar by John Barth and he always told us to quit writing in the middle of a sentence each day. That way we are compelled to finish the sentence and it gives our writing a kick start in the morning.

Now, if only I could write something with your skill...
Im keeping my personal journal and its helping a lot. Ive taken on another one from a standpoint of a group of runaway slaves who are trying to make the80 or so miles between Baltimore and safety, and avoiding the slave hunters. Im also writing a few tech papers for a mining pub. That kind of writing is easy for me because its all done in the real world. No creating painting word pix. Its like describing how to build a bookcase,(except with more math and technical bullshit jargon)

Warmest regards, Endy. And don't be too hard on yourself.
A number of us here think you're pretty talented & a person of considerable integrity, you know.

And we'll see the next instalment whenever it appears. I think this first part you've posted is so good because you decided to take your time with it.

Hi Farmerman


I like the tip from John Barth - thanks for that.

It sounds like you are writing some interesting stuff right now (and lots of it).
I noticed that I'm actually starting to touch-type these days - for short bursts…
Jesus, I need a life!

Hope I can come back to this a bit later… I've got the jitters with it right now… thanks for asking - yeah, I'm ok, but you know, hit the bottle again..

Some things never change…. and some things do.

Good luck with the writing - let me know how it's going.

Peace
Endy

Hi Olga

thanks for being there

See you on the death diary? :wink:

Endy, didnt know that you are a professional drinker. I was similarly employed up until about 15 years ago(1991 on the evening of my wifes birthday). I found that one of the things that helpedme immensely was to recall the hangovers and sick times resulting from my binges. (that and some really good counseling from another ex-drinker and 28 days in the tank).

I also did a "family tree" heritable traits matrix, (sort of a dispassionate look at my families history in the consumption of alcohol). This lead to a personal search into the genetics of drink .

Abstinance may be our only acceptable alternative to a life that is full of time warps, at least that was what I concluded. I was never good at using AA because my need for full control offset any value that the AA philosophy could provide.
I saw AA as merely exchanging one habit for another, so I struck out on my own and, as a result, have taken a lot of hits from people who have successfully steered in the AA world. Im not saying that AA isnt good, Its just not good for me. Maybe Im not enough of a social being to benefit from a "community " based support system. I like data and evidence , which isnt apparent in a system that starts off with surrendering onesself to "higher powers"

Didnt mean to hijack your thread but I was more caught up reading your work than noticing your "hints" of drinking. Sorry, Im usually more sensitive but, hey, consider this, I was more taken away by your work than your personal problems, so Id consider that a real world demonstration of a good writer.

I'm currently copying it over to a word document in preparation for reading. And I'm getting the pictures.

Hi Wilso

Thanks for going to all the trouble.

Peace,
Endy

*****************
Hi farmerman thanks for reading my stuff.

The drink's no problem - yet
I've only been at it off and on for 3 and something years - not quite a professional!
(It's all part and parcel - don't worry - I'm not) :wink:

Take it easy
peace
Endy