In Memoriam

by Alice Winn

It wasn’t as if Gaunt hadn’t thought about sleeping with Sandys. It occurred to him often, when they boxed, in quick flashes of images as they wrestled each other to the ground. He had generally been able to punch the thoughts away, but he sometimes suspected Sandys knew what he was doing. They made too much eye contact in their fights.

I'm struggling to buy that folks were so open with their gay thoughts back in the early 1900s. This feels like make belief to me.

If something dreadful was being done to Gaunt, he wanted it done to him as well.

The machine guns were so loud that Ellwood didn’t really hear them so much as he felt them, vibrating thrillingly through his bones. The explosions tingled in his pelvis, filling him with so much exhilaration it was almost like arousal.

Ellwood fled up the stairs. A rotting hand had popped out of the trench wall that morning, and Ellwood watched as a private stopped and shook it.

It was worse returning to the trenches than it had been arriving for the first time. All novelty had worn off, and only the grim reality remained.

But occasionally, his eyes met Ellwood’s, and something in his face softened. It was reassuring to know that there was some connection still between the two Gaunts. Ellwood worried that if it were ever severed, Gaunt would remain the harsh, blank-eyed man he was in the trenches, long after the War had ended.

“He gives them to me because you are avoiding him.” Ellwood sighed. “Why can’t he just leave me be?” “Because he’s in love with you!” cried Gaunt, stepping away from the altar to face Ellwood. “Of course he’s not,” said Ellwood, unnerved by this sudden display of emotion. “You’re blind,” said Gaunt, staring at him. “He loves you desperately.”

this feels so unrealistic for two young teenagers to talk about so openly

They never spoke of it again, but whenever Ellwood touched the flat spot Gaunt had punched into his nose, he remembered: there was something inside the fortress.

Company. Men sprawled all over each other. 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.

I avoid thinking about Gaunt. I’m trying to pretend he never existed. He’s making it jolly difficult, though. Keeps popping up in the most unexpected places. When I go on patrol, there’s always some corpse who morphs into him and opens his eyes at me. Disconcerting. Then he comes into the dugout and hovers by the stairs, watching me. I wish I knew what he wanted.

“I’ll be nineteen in July,” said Ellwood, after a moment. “Older than Gaunt ever was. All my life I’ve been younger than him. Isn’t it funny?”

He wondered when Europe had last felt such destruction. Waterloo, he thought. The land had lain for a century dead, but now it had awoken, demanding blood.

“I was sorry to hear about Bertie,” said Gaunt, which was a selfish thing to say, Ellwood thought. I’m sorry, people said, and then they had cleared their conscience, and Ellwood was left with the memories.

“Henry,” came Ellwood’s voice. Softer than before. Gaunt opened his eyes, and saw that Ellwood was watching him. “You look—are you all right?” “Fine,” answered Gaunt automatically. “I know you’re fine,” said Ellwood, frowning. “But are you all right?” Gaunt smiled through a long exhale of smoke, hope coursing through him. “Yes,” he said.

“It makes me frightened for you,” said Maud. She broke away and went to stand by the chair. “It isn’t fair, or right.” How empty his limbs felt. He pressed his fingertips against the clothbound edition of Herodotus. “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.”

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.

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