Flanders (16 page)

“She loved you,” O’Shaughnessy said.

“Oh.” A breathy, awestruck sound, a faraway look, as if her love spanned all of Europe. “Not by ’alf. It was ’er taught me everything. Cowslips all over this place, you know, and that was ’er favorite. Plain little flower, it is. Overlook it, if you’re not careful. But she made a tea for nerves, and compresses for the ’eadache. It was ’er taught me never to throw away.”

“And a valuable lesson it was.”

“Was that. Just because something’s common, well, it can still be important, can’t it.”

They talked on, sometimes it seemed at cross purposes, sometimes with such a private meaning that I couldn’t quite catch on. But, simple as the words sounded, immortality stood behind them. I finally sat down on the grass. Sun streaked through a nearby stand of trees, threw lemony light over Riddell and O’Shaughnessy—splashes of grace.

Riddell cried some more, then wiped his eyes. He talked about Scotch broom and dandelion, about colt’s foot and feverfew. I lay down on shaded grass that still smelled warm from the sun and watched white butterflies flirt with a hedgerow while Sergeant Riddell wove a quiet funeral wreath for his mother.

When Riddell was finished, O’Shaughnessy said, “I remember when me own mother passed on. It was hard, and me being a priest. I know that you’re not of the Faith, Sergeant, but all the same, I’ll pray for her when I say the Mass.”

I rolled over on my back. One lone butterfly floated upward, teased through the tree branches, free and on its way.

“ ’Tis important to remember her, I think. To say a few words. For knowing she’s in a better place doesn’t help with the hurting. There. There now. I know. It’s all right. I know.” The ugly sounds of a man’s weeping, and over that O’Shaughnessy’s simple and eloquent comfort. Finally, “Would you be wanting to pray with me now, lad?”

“Thank you, Father.”

High up, where the butterfly drifted, a commotion of branches and birds singing loud. I thought about Ma, and what sort of wreath I’d weave her. Stern heart-ribbons, I guess, plain and strong. Nothing fancy.

I dozed off during the whispered prayer. O’Shaughnessy woke me and helped me to my feet. I woke dazed and bleary-eyed, confused to find myself in a meadow.

“Will you be coming with us?” O’Shaughnessy asked Riddell.

I saw Riddell’s tear-swollen face and remembered.

“In a bit. I’ll splash me face first. Get presentable. You go on, then.” He stuck his hand out at me. “Thank you for coming by, Stanhope,” he said, like we were standing around in his parlor.

I shook his hand, told him again how sorry I was, and got polite murmurs in answer.

Back on the road, O’Shaughnessy said, “I saw me mum after, you know. Me da, too. Wouldn’t doubt that Sergeant will see his. Mothers come back to check, to tuck you in of a night, and see that you’re eating well. Is yours alive?”

“Alive and kicking and ornery as ever.”

“And your da?”

“He’s a son of a bitch.”

The breeze brought with it a faint reminder of the sea. I was hungry all of a sudden. Restless and ready for a drink.

“Would you be wanting to talk about him, lad?”

I told him, “Not ever.”

When I got back to the rest area, I left O’Shaughnessy and found the rest of the platoon. Pickering said he wanted to visit the town whores, so we went to the blue-light tent and then we walked to town together. There were four whores in the whorehouse, all of them ugly; but I fucked the tar out of one all the same, hammered her so hard that she got to complaining. I threw an extra five shillings in the cardboard box and left. Pickering and me picked up Foy, and the three of us went out drinking together. In the bar, a Belgian soldier shoved me and I coldcocked him. Foy, who’s a corporal now, had the balls to give me a dressing-down, and him every bit as drunk as I was. Pickering made us leave before the Belgian came back with his friends.

As soon as my head hit the pillow, I was asleep. Wildflowers were blooming among the marble angels now: yellow flowers in little bouquets and lilac ones with long lacy stems. All around the graveyard the trees—dark and secret with leaves—had fruited. Everywhere you looked there was life, Bobby. It hung heavy and pregnant from the branches. In the sunny spaces, it sprouted high and wild. Life, God, plentiful as the seeds in a woman. And through that fertile graveyard bees circled, their legs thick with golden creation.

As I stood there, I noticed Dunleavy standing beside me, looking out, too, on all that life. Funny. In the dream I didn’t remember that he was dead particularly, but I remembered real clear the angry way we had left each other. It seemed he had forgotten, though, for he was grinning ear to ear.

He shook my hand and said in a loud, boisterous voice, “I’m much better now, thanks. Much, much better.”

There was pink in his cheeks. His grip was strong.

“Much better,” he said. “I’ll be going now.” And then he walked away. You know what, Bobby? I don’t think I’ll ever see him again.

Love,

Travis Lee

* * *

JULY 17, THE RESERVE TRENCHES

Dear Bobby,

I want you to tell Ma something for me, Bobby. Find you a time when the house is quiet and supper’s not waiting and tell her that Travis Lee forgives her. I know she’s been waiting for that a long time.

See, when Pa was home, it was him who took up all her space. He was so big and she used herself up just surviving, so there wasn’t nothing of her left for me. Then came the fancy goats and scrabbling for the next meal. It was a hard time, and she was too busy for mothering. I want her to know I understand that.

Also, tell her I understand why she went to spoiling you. Hell, by the time Ma had a minute to herself, I was already too growed up to be loving on. You were perfect: six years old and a cherub-faced hellion.

I never begrudged you anything; never faulted Ma for not standing between me and the belt. Seemed like growing up, Ma and me were kept as prisoners in the dark. But still, we were together.

Reason I’m thinking on her is that Riddell is still mourning his mum. You can see it in his face, in the way he walks. He doesn’t talk much lately, doesn’t laugh. Some ways, I don’t think he’ll ever get over losing her.

You couldn’t ever call Ma gentle or sweet. She wasn’t made as delicate as a wild marjoram flower; but she raised herself a pair of strong boys. Neither one of us will be giving up on life after she’s gone. I want you to promise me something, Bobby. Before this week is out, you tell her thank you for me.

Travis Lee

JULY 22, THE FORWARD TRENCHES

Dear Bobby,

Yesterday I’d gone to Support to visit the medic. A headache was all it was, remedied easy by an aspirin powder. On the way back I was alone, threading my way up the communications trench, when I turned a corner and came upon a Boche. It took a heartbeat for me to believe what I was seeing. You understand, Bobby? There was a Boche in the trench. A Boche, just standing there.

He was so young and he looked so lost that I never even shouldered my rifle. He was wounded. There were great blossoms of blood all across his belly, and his helmet was off. I wondered how he had got misplaced so bad, and if he wasn’t scared to death. Then he raised his head and looked right at me. He had guileless brown eyes and a baby face and pudgy hands, so new to the front that he hadn’t had time to get worn thin and hard. Lord God, he was a pitiful sight. Young and sorely wounded. His right hand was missing.

I took a step forward and he started fading. When he went, he went misty-like. I could see the dirt wall of the trench through him. I called out for him to stop, but I wasn’t quick enough. He was gone.

I went back to my station at the fire bay. I set up my ammunition and rifle and started looking for targets. I missed two easy shots. That’s when I asked the new lieutenant, Blackhall, to send for O’Shaughnessy.

“Want to pray over your aim, eh, Stanhope?” He laughed.

“Please get him, sir. And permission to take a short rest period.”

Blackhall’s a small man with a face like a suspicious monkey. “You’re shaking. That won’t do for a sharpshooter. ‘As you been drinking? For I ‘ear rumors.”

“Sir.” And I was near tears when I said it. My voice was unsteady. “Sir,” I whispered, “please call him.”

Blackhall started barking orders. I sat down on the firestep.

I could see Marrs out of the corner of my eye. “You sick?” he asked.

If I’d tried to answer, I’d have started boo-hooing.

“Stanhope?” Poor solicitous Marrs. “You all right, then?”

Pickering’s jovial “It’s that bloody dysentery. Don’t shit here, Stanhope. We’ll make you clean the firestep.”

Gatlin, one of the new boys, saying, “What’s the matter with ’im?”

“Dysentery. You want to carry him, Gatlin? I’ll take his top half, you have his bottom.”

Footsteps boomed along the duckboards and everyone got real quiet. A hand clasped my knee. O’Shaughnessy said, “Travis.” He bent down to look into my face. “Will you be needing me?”

When I nodded, he took my arm and helped me up. He asked Marrs to take my rifle, for I couldn’t hold onto it no more.

“Crikey!” Marrs cried out. “What’d the medic say, Stanhope? What’d ’e tell you?”

Pickering asked in a voice stripped of humor. “You really sick? Anything we can do, Father?”

O’Shaughnessy waved their questions away.

We walked, Bobby—walked along the front line and down the trench past where the Boche boy had been. We ended up in Miller’s dugout. It was empty but for the batman. O’Shaughnessy asked him to leave.

I sat down on the ground and bawled—not caring who might be listening. I cried because I knew it had to be ghosts I was seeing. I cried because I was scared of dying, because I felt so damned sorry for that Boche. I cried for everything, I guess.

O’Shaughnessy sat down next to me and slipped his arm around my shoulders. The holding wasn’t as good as Ma’s or as the calico girl’s, but it was holding all the same.

“I hear you can forgive things.”

“Tell me, lad,” he said.

“I hurt a woman.” I don’t know why I told him that part, it was a small thing, really. “She didn’t have nothing to do with why I was mad, and loving someone, even a whore, ought to be a happy thing. But I fucked her so hard, sir. It was fury I seeded her with. I squeezed her arms and titties till I bruised her black and blue and she was begging me to stop. When I didn’t, she started crying. I really hurt her. I don’t know why I did it, sir. I been asking myself that.”

Miller’s dugout smelled strangely empty, no life nor death to it.

I wiped my eyes. “You going to forgive me, or what?”

“Are you contrite, then? For both your sins? For ’twas not only the beating, my son, but fornication, too.”

My shoulders slumped. I was nearly too exhausted to move my mouth. Twenty-three years old and so goddamned tired. “Sorry for hurting her. Yeah.”

“So there is that much heavenly rejoicing, at any rate. And do you sincerely promise not to do it again?”

I nodded. My back ached. My arms felt too weak to lift.

“Well, then! If you were of the Faith, we should have a proper penance.”