In Memoriam

by Alice Winn

I actually believed that the principles of our civilisation, our civilisation that has developed further than any other in the history of the world, giving us telephones and trains and flying, for God’s sake, we can fly, I thought, surely such a civilisation, that prides itself on conquering the beast in man and seeks only to bend towards beauty and prosperity, surely, surely, surely, it would not shatter in such a vile and disgusting way. 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. And then more Algerians came flooding by. Some were only choking, but others were coughing up scrambled bits of lung, their lungs were melting inside them and drowning them. They scrabbled at their throats—I have tried to keep things from you, Elly, you are so fresh and clean, and I did not want to be the one to open your eyes, but I must write, I must describe, I must tell you about the man I saw trying to claw open his own windpipe without seeming to realise that he was missing a hand and was only succeeding in smearing the blood and tendons of his blasted arm all over his blackening face—I stood as he pressed by, and I thought, Why are you at Ypres? Why are you not sitting in a courtyard in Algiers, eating a ripe orange? We have conquered the world with promises that could not be kept. We told those Algerians that their civilisation was no good, that they must have ours instead, we carried our wh...

“I think we’re all so busy offering that we forget how much we take.”

It seemed ironic that the part of him that would once have been overjoyed at the sight of the medal was precisely what had been blighted in obtaining it.