swirled among the roots and other things. She breathed its rich essence as she stirred. Turnips, potatoes, the spinning joint-bones made dull taps against the iron pot, the carrots and parsnips swirled. She tasted with her nose. Mmmm.
The cabin air had gone winter. Just that one night. Imagine. Fire warmth, and blessed-God quiet filled the place. Her room was fragrant with chopped wood, spices, and the bite of soup and winter.
Excepting the morning whippoorwill, the woods were quiet. The cries were gone, all gone.
She added the morels last, fried up in the fat. She tasted the tip of the spoon. She sucked a hot spray of broth, her first savor of Winter Soup.
It was good.
After dark she’d maybe take a jar to him in the cellar. A little. She wanted him to last. It was going to be a long, long winter. She felt it in her bones.
WIND SHADOWS
“We owe respect to the living; to the dead we owe nothing but the truth.” —Voltaire
2:50 Ack Emma. Crickets. Finally, morning birds among the crickets’ stillness.
3:10 Ack Emma. General Plumer said, “By damn.”
Bill thought of the shamblers in the dark as he and Welly groped for the tunnel lift.
Then, someone closed the electric gap, a spark gasped. Off went nineteen charges, one voice, a million and more pounds of HE. In friendly trenches up and down the lines, nine and a half miles along, the ground shivered, compressed, shattered. Men fell to earth, the earth quaked, collapsed, ears burst. A half-mile across No Man’s Land, a ridge nine and a half miles long rose slowly—or so it seemed, so vast was it, horizon-to-horizon—and rose and rose and rose.
“The mouf of hell!” someone said.
Beneath the German lines, nine and a half miles of them, nineteen mouths of hell opened wide and the 3 a.m. dawn darkness vaporized in roaring light.
Across the Channel, 130 miles from the Messines Ridge, windows rattled in Maida Vale and Mayfair. In Downing Street, tables set for breakfast quivered, crystal tinkled against crystal. The shiver of silver against silver was deadened by thick white linen. Eyes opened.
3:10 a.m. and some moments. Along nine and a half miles of British lines, whistles blew and the men were over the top advancing through the still shattering dust. Fifteen seconds after zero, the cloud continued to roil upward. Germans, parts of Germans, machines, weapons, and other things began to rain among advancing troops. There were casualties. A blockhouse big as a railcar fell among them. The creeping barrage leading the men toward the blazing craters faltered here and there, shells fell short. There were casualties. It was the beginning of the day. Some men never remembered dying.
The man remained on deck for the Channel crossing, Dover to Calais. He might have been Old Bill of the cartoons, Old Bill himself. He had been, thirteen years before. They all had been Old Bills, all of them decrepit, stinking beyond belief, scratched raw, sucked by louse, dined on by rat. Old Bills by the hundreds of thousands, 1914 to 1918, citizens of those temporary lands: Verdun, “Wipers,” Passchendale, the Argonne and the Somme and others, worlds without end, amen.
Thirteen years on, Old Bill stood on the deck of a Channel ferry. France rose from the morning ahead. He was old, but who could tell? Bill was old at seventeen, he was. He was old from waiting, from seeing too much or burning too brightly. At eighteen, his eyes were craters in his face, sun-creases radiant from them, a walrus mustache curtained a grin going toothless. That was a boy’s grin grown too sure of death and worse. At nineteen his skin was waterlogged and scabbed, hands cracked, feet shocking. But ah, those cheeks, scraped to the skin by razors two-years dull, morning stubble softened by cold water and equal parts mud, old bone, blood, piss and shit, those bright red child’s cheeks put the lie to his age. All their sweet young faces, plucked
The cabin air had gone winter. Just that one night. Imagine. Fire warmth, and blessed-God quiet filled the place. Her room was fragrant with chopped wood, spices, and the bite of soup and winter.
Excepting the morning whippoorwill, the woods were quiet. The cries were gone, all gone.
She added the morels last, fried up in the fat. She tasted the tip of the spoon. She sucked a hot spray of broth, her first savor of Winter Soup.
It was good.
After dark she’d maybe take a jar to him in the cellar. A little. She wanted him to last. It was going to be a long, long winter. She felt it in her bones.
WIND SHADOWS
“We owe respect to the living; to the dead we owe nothing but the truth.” —Voltaire
2:50 Ack Emma. Crickets. Finally, morning birds among the crickets’ stillness.
3:10 Ack Emma. General Plumer said, “By damn.”
Bill thought of the shamblers in the dark as he and Welly groped for the tunnel lift.
Then, someone closed the electric gap, a spark gasped. Off went nineteen charges, one voice, a million and more pounds of HE. In friendly trenches up and down the lines, nine and a half miles along, the ground shivered, compressed, shattered. Men fell to earth, the earth quaked, collapsed, ears burst. A half-mile across No Man’s Land, a ridge nine and a half miles long rose slowly—or so it seemed, so vast was it, horizon-to-horizon—and rose and rose and rose.
“The mouf of hell!” someone said.
Beneath the German lines, nine and a half miles of them, nineteen mouths of hell opened wide and the 3 a.m. dawn darkness vaporized in roaring light.
Across the Channel, 130 miles from the Messines Ridge, windows rattled in Maida Vale and Mayfair. In Downing Street, tables set for breakfast quivered, crystal tinkled against crystal. The shiver of silver against silver was deadened by thick white linen. Eyes opened.
3:10 a.m. and some moments. Along nine and a half miles of British lines, whistles blew and the men were over the top advancing through the still shattering dust. Fifteen seconds after zero, the cloud continued to roil upward. Germans, parts of Germans, machines, weapons, and other things began to rain among advancing troops. There were casualties. A blockhouse big as a railcar fell among them. The creeping barrage leading the men toward the blazing craters faltered here and there, shells fell short. There were casualties. It was the beginning of the day. Some men never remembered dying.
The man remained on deck for the Channel crossing, Dover to Calais. He might have been Old Bill of the cartoons, Old Bill himself. He had been, thirteen years before. They all had been Old Bills, all of them decrepit, stinking beyond belief, scratched raw, sucked by louse, dined on by rat. Old Bills by the hundreds of thousands, 1914 to 1918, citizens of those temporary lands: Verdun, “Wipers,” Passchendale, the Argonne and the Somme and others, worlds without end, amen.
Thirteen years on, Old Bill stood on the deck of a Channel ferry. France rose from the morning ahead. He was old, but who could tell? Bill was old at seventeen, he was. He was old from waiting, from seeing too much or burning too brightly. At eighteen, his eyes were craters in his face, sun-creases radiant from them, a walrus mustache curtained a grin going toothless. That was a boy’s grin grown too sure of death and worse. At nineteen his skin was waterlogged and scabbed, hands cracked, feet shocking. But ah, those cheeks, scraped to the skin by razors two-years dull, morning stubble softened by cold water and equal parts mud, old bone, blood, piss and shit, those bright red child’s cheeks put the lie to his age. All their sweet young faces, plucked
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