In Memoriam

by Alice Winn

“You’re not afraid of dying, Henry. You’re just opposed to killing. That isn’t cowardice.”

The bridge should break in half under the weight of us,

Gaunt did not hesitate before he signed, although he felt as if his name was being ripped from him. He was simmering with a restlessness like that he felt in the boxing ring; a determination to hurt and be hurt, an impulse towards disaster and destruction, and nothing else would have satisfied him. He would not be a pansy German pacifist. He could not help that he was German, and he could not seem to help whatever he felt when Ellwood pressed himself close. But he could jolly well kill people.

Of course Ellwood was proud of Gaunt. He recognised that bravery could only exist where there was fear, and so of all of them, only Gaunt was truly capable of heroism.

It was amazing how much less affectionate “With affection” sounded than “Affectionately.”

I don’t care to be part of any group where you are not welcome.)

What I meant to say is this: You’ll write more poems. They are not lost. You are the poetry.

It sometimes feels as if the only words that still have meaning are place names: Ypres, Mons, Artois. Nothing else expresses.

There’s an empty space in my mind where those memories might have been.

Every time the post comes I break out in hot sweat, certain that his last words are coming to me, like the closing of a chapter. His life can’t simply have stopped—surely it must have ended.

What a waste Sandys’ last days had been, thought Gaunt. Pathetically attempting to overcome a grief that would never have time to heal.

The Hague Convention sought to make war more humane. We had reached a point in history where we believed it was possible to make war humane.

We told those Algerians that their civilisation was no good, that they must have ours instead, we carried our white man’s burden dutifully, enlightening Indians—Indians! They who built the Taj Mahal! And Egyptians! For we knew better than their pyramids! We swarmed through Africa and America because we were better than they, of course we were, we were making war humane, and now it has broken down and they are dragged into hell with us.

Seems a well-tailored uniform and the right accent make me a better candidate than Hayes, despite his years of experience.

I wish to God I could see you again before I die.

Tired. A new word ought to be invented, if this was tired.

“She is coming, my dove, my dear; She is coming, my life, my fate; The red rose cries, ‘She is near, she is near;’ And the white rose weeps, ‘She is late;’ The larkspur listens, ‘I hear, I hear;’ And the lily whispers, ‘I wait.’

Ellwood wanted to punch him. He wanted to make him bleed, and then tend to the wounds.

Anyway, Gaunt already knew that Ellwood loved him. Because of the sonnets.

Oh my sweet summer child…no he doesn’t. Please be direct ffs

The only time he hadn’t was when he enlisted, despite Gaunt’s furious letter telling him not to. Except that had been a form of obedience, too, thought Ellwood—to a pre-existing command. He had been obeying the unwritten instructions in Gaunt’s terrible letter after the Second Battle of Ypres: “I wish to God I could see you again before I die.” Come here, that letter had said. I need you. And Ellwood, obedient as ever, had enlisted instantly.

Gaunt was woven into everything he read, saw, wrote, did, dreamt. Every poem had been written about him, every song composed for him, and Ellwood could not scrape his mind clean of him no matter how he tried.

In the hypermasculine atmosphere of war, they were not overly concerned with manliness.

If Ellwood were a girl, he might have held his hand, kissed his temple. He might have bought a ring and tied their lives together.

Gaunt turned over to face Ellwood and caught his eye. Ellwood smiled, and a sudden, dry bleakness spread over Gaunt’s heart as he thought of Hercules, and Hector, and all the heroes in myth who found happiness briefly, only for it not to be the end of the story.

It was like all the other letters: patriotic and dishonest.

if his heart wasn’t buried with Gaunt’s in the crowded French earth.

“But he never called me Sidney.” He never called him any of it. My, dearest, darling. Sidney.

Gaunt let his eyes soften towards her. It felt strange, how easy, how permissible it was. He had to be so careful when he looked at Ellwood.

It was more than bodies that were blown apart by the shells.

If love was stepping off a cliff in the hope of flying, there was a wall at the precipice that had never been there with Sandys, or Ellwood, or even Devi, whom Gaunt had hopelessly adored at thirteen. He felt no fear around Elisabeth, because there was no chance of falling. He was fond of her, but he would never say to her, “ ‘Withhold no atom’s atom or I die!’

I have no secrets from Archie and Gideon.

Crying with happiness for you my boy

Gaunt found it rather touching that Devi wasn’t suspicious of physical contact with him. But then, if what Devi said was true, he had always known Gaunt was homosexual, and never treated him differently.

To be seen and to be accepted is to be loved

Devi’s mouth stretched into a boyish smile. “It’s the most wonderful freedom in the world. I long for it. Just think: we’re the first people in history who can fly.”

“It seems unfair, doesn’t it? Our parents got to live their whole lives without anything like this.” “Busily building up the world that led to this.” “I suppose they thought they had their own problems,” said Ellwood. “No one ever thinks their life is easy.”

“It didn’t build my character any more than this does. It tore me apart.”

“Can…can you see him, too?”

Ellwood wanted to love him, but his heart seemed to be made up of edges; and instead of affection, a choking anger built beneath his ribs. He didn’t know why, or how to stop it. His hands trembled with how badly he wanted to break something.

Ellwood had to turn away, because it was painful to look at something so lovely without knowing if he would be allowed to keep it.

They were clear-eyed, the Greeks. They did not dress up the world with romance and chivalry, did not lure poetry-hearted fools into evil.

Our bodies were used to stop bullets,

Gaunt had always looked at him like that, as if Ellwood’s flaws were qualities.

Gaunt reflected that it did not feel like loving Ellwood. It felt like loving a brittle impostor, one who had stolen Ellwood and would not return him. And yet, Gaunt was powerless: he loved every part of Ellwood, changed or not. If there was a lonelier feeling, Gaunt could not imagine it.

“Yes,” he said. “I promise.”

“I think,” said Gaunt, watching her set the dollhouse to rights, “that if he gave me the smallest hope—I should wait forever.”

doesn’t feel as if he came home from the War at all.

Let us, like the soldiers of Waterloo, have our century of peace and prosperity, for we have paid for it in blood.