PART THREE
Nineteen Men
So much is written about the war nowadays, and in proportion so little of it strikes a right and wholesome note—and yet it is so clear. It is nothing but an intimately personal tragedy to every British (and German) soldier concerned in the fighting part of it.
—Private A. R. Williams, in a letter home,
October 1916. Killed in action at Ypres,
August 1917
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
It is June 1919, and this is the account of my dreams I’ve been asked to write:
At first I am sleeping and it is quiet. But I awaken and I know someone is there. In the corridor, I think. There’s pressure on my chest and I can’t breathe. Smell of smoke in the back of my throat that reminds me of the trenches, how it was there. That thick, smoky smell, rotten, wet.
A prickling feeling comes over me then. All over me. It’s like fear, but of course I’m not afraid, there’s nothing to be afraid of, just the dark and we’ve all spent time in the dark. But I know he’s coming closer. I don’t know who he is but I know he’s coming, and a voice in my head says, “Coward, you are a coward.” I can’t move. It’s horrible. He grabs me with cold hands and I know I’m going to die and I wake.
This dream is almost always the same, I don’t know why.
I’m in bed, and my father comes. He’s not really my father (died in wales when I was four) and yet he is. His footsteps are terrible. He puts a hand on me, it’s icy cold, he leans over me and I feel his breath. Get up, get up, you coward, get up. I try to speak. He’s not my father, I want to tell him so. The man has a heavy mustache, I can’t see him but I know it, and my father was clean shaven. And yet he is my father and I’ve failed him.
But his cold hands keep grabbing me, telling me to get up you coward, and I open my mouth to scream at him but I’ve got blood in my mouth, thick and warm, that taste of it in my throat, and I choke on it, and I wake.
This dream is not the truth, my father was a good man.
I am at the hosp. As I am always (that is portis house) but I am outside the bldg. Standing by isolation room on west side. You know that part of the house. I do not want to be there. Something v. Bad about to happen but cannot move. I am going to die, I feel it. V. Strange because I would not mind being dead normally (no more war in my head) but in the dream I am v. Afraid of it. More afraid than we were at the front. Impossible to explain really.
Then I realize I am not going to die but am going to see something v. Bad and I close my eyes. Never closed my eyes in all the things I saw there but there you go. Then a voice comes. Kneel you coward, it says, but whether to me or to someone else I do not know. I wake v. Confused. There is a bad taste in my throat. It is like how I heard they executed some of those poor fellows but I never saw one (execution) myself so I don’t know why I dream of it.
I hope this helps, sorry confusing but the lights are going out.
I woke once and saw a man at the foot of my bed. He was young and pale and had no shirt on. He stared and stared at me. I told myself it was a nightmare but I didn’t wake. My throat hurt like I’d swallowed smoke. I thought someone was coming but I didn’t know who. I don’t know when I woke. I told the doctors but they said it was a manifestation of my unbalanced mind and I had to have mind over matter. I never said anything again but I know I can tell this to you, jack old chap, because you are one of us and a good fellow. I hope you have not had a similar dream as I would not wish it on anyone.
You coward, you goddamned coward. That’s all I remember and lately I hear it when I’m awake too. Gunshots at night, it’s a rifle, the cracks make me scream and scream like I’m there again.
He was in the mirrors sometimes. When I was awake. His face was there, cloudy, those skinny bare shoulders. I know my privileges will get revoked but I know what I saw. Yes I’m crazy but have you noticed they took out all the mirrors in this place?
. . . I think “he’s coming, he’s coming” and I am going to die. But the worst thing is that I deserve it, because what am I? Who am I? What am I really, what is left of a man? It’s my soul that’s gone. I’m sorry about the screaming . . .
“Kitty.”
“Yes?”
“Are you quite all right?”
“Yes.”
“You look like you’ve been weeping.”
“No, of course not. I’m quite myself.”
“Well, all right, if you’re certain. Put on your long sleeves. Mr. Deighton is arriving, and it’s time for inspection.”
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