In Memoriam

by Alice Winn

Hayes grabbed Ellwood and enveloped him in a tight hug. Ellwood hugged him back, just as hard. It made him feel, for a minute, as if he had bones.

This must be all of England, he thought. The women will come next, and then the children, and we will kill every last one of them.

There was no comparison. No animal on earth would have suffered it. No creature would walk so knowingly, so hopelessly, into the jaws of death. Weigand’s lips moved in prayer. Tears stained his face.

was amazing, all the different textures fear could have. He thought he would prefer to face machine guns than look at the papers and find Ellwood’s name there, permanent as a tombstone.

In bayonet practice, they attacked sandbags, but sandbags did not have ribs. His blade caught on the boy’s bones. Ellwood had to tug it, like jiggling a key stuck in a lock. The boy watched him, dazed, his mouth opening and closing like that of a fish. Finally, Ellwood fired his rifle into the boy’s stomach, and the force of the recoil ripped his bayonet out of his body. He fell to the ground, clutching his belly.

“Sometimes I think the War is harder on parents than on soldiers,”

Ellwood, Capt. S. L., Royal Kennet Fusiliers.

Roseveare, Sec.-Lieut. C. M., E. Yorks Regt.

He had felt protective of Maud, once. That chivalry appeared to have bled out somewhere in France. He was unable to feel the old affection for her, however much he longed to.

Sometimes Ellwood went to the window and watched women ride by on bicycles. Isn’t that nice, he thought, wishing them crashes and miscarriages.

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.

It was not a comparison Ellwood had made before, and he grieved that his mind had stumbled on it.

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.

He had heard of Edward Carpenter, of course, although he had never dared to read any of his works, books like The Intermediate Sex, which argued that homosexual love was, if anything, purer and more noble than heterosexual romance.

“Yes, it’s an abomination,” he said, lightly, although he knew it wasn’t. Knew it couldn’t be. It was the cleanest, purest part of him.

“I should never have told you, if you hadn’t asked,” he said, finally. “So. Thank you. For asking.” Maud smiled.