Voices of Silence (49 page)
Authors: Vivien Noakes
‘As you have marched, misled by Bolshie tricks,
You must have noticed many a crucifix,
Raised that the people never may forget
Those who went out to pay our honor’s debt:
Their glorious courage who would dare deny?
And they, at least, had the good sense to die;
Gass’d, shot, dismember’d, buried, blown to bits,
They don’t come back and cry, where Dives sits,
‘Work! Work! Give us this day our daily bread!’
Why are not you, like them, heroic dead?
‘At the packed meeting in the village hall,
Where we have met for the Memorial,
We choose the Crucifix: not the Risen Lord,
Nor Baby Jesus, life still unexplored;
Not the young Carpenter of Nazareth;
Nor Christ speaking of Love before his Death;
Nor the familiar Friend of Bethany –
But Jesus, dead, on the accursèd tree:
We lie more tranquil in our easy bed
If God be, like our gallant heroes, dead.’
‘Give us this day our daily bread!’ I saw
The long procession trying to get to Law;
And as I looked I wondered – over there
Walked one man with a more familiar air;
Something remember’d in the way he stood
Flashed to my mind —
There is an empty rood!
The dead Christ has come down, even as he said,
And is walking with the men we wish were dead.
Not in the crib, no, nor on Mary’s knee;
Nor at feast or fast; nor on the sacred Tree;
Not with the Saints, nor where the monstrance lifts
Its mystic promise of supernal gifts –
Not there can we find God, until, unless,
We see him in that man whose rags are less
Than the robe he wore when, in the palace-court,
They flogged him at the column for their sport.
The God whom we have imagined safely dead
Is marching down the Strand, shouting for bread.
R. Ellis Roberts
In Memoriam
R
ENNIE
. – In loving memory of my dear son, Lance Corpl. Alex. Rennie, killed at Dardanelles, July 12th, 1915.
Could we only have seen him once again,
If he had only come home to die,
To kiss the face we loved so well,
And whisper, ‘Alex., good-bye.’
– Inserted by his Mother (Mrs Rennie), Brother, and Sister. Backrampart.
B
RUNSKILL
. – In loving remembrance of Pte Arthur Brunskill (15738), 11th East Lancs. Regt. (‘Pals’), who was killed in action on July 1st or 2nd, 1916, aged 22 years.
May the heavenly winds blow softly,
O’er that sweet and hallowed spot;
Though the sea divides his grave from us,
He will never be forgot.
– From Mother and Father, 20 Princess-street, Burnley.
D
UCKWORTH
. In loving memory of my dear son, Sergt. Wilfred Duckworth, 1st East Lancs., who was killed in action in France, July 1st, 1916.
Take the soul that died for duty,
In Thy tender loving hand;
Crown his life with heavenly beauty,
Life laid down for Motherland.
Always in our thoughts.
– From Mother, Brother, Sisters, and Janey, 21 Rumley-road, Burnley.
M
AKIN
. In loving memory of our dear son, Pte. Herbert Makin (1st East Lancashire Regiment), killed in France, July 1st, 1916.
Can a mother ever forget the son she loved so dear!
Oh, no! the voice that now is still keeps ringing in our ears,
Mother cease your weeping, angels round me smile,
We are only parted, just for a little while.
– From his sorrowing Mother, Sister, Mary, Hannah, Harry, and little Tom, and Herbert and Thomas, and Nellie, 6 Marquis-street, Accrington.
L
OMAX
. In loving memory of our dear son, Private George R. Lomax, RMLI, RND, who was presumed dead November 13th, 1916; aged 18 years.
We think of him in silence,
We make no outward show,
For hearts that mourn sincerely,
Mourn silently and low.
– From Father, Mother, Brother Allan, 5 Lang-street, Accrington.
M
C
C
ULLOCH
– In fond remembrance of our dear sons, William and David McCulloch, RN, who died on March 9th, 1917.
Four years ago a message came
From God, who thought it best
To take them from this weary world
And give them peace and rest.
It was God’s will it should be so,
By His command we all must go.
– Inserted by their loving Father and Mother, Sisters and Brothers. Auchneight Dairy, Drummore.
M
URRAY
. – In loving memory of our son and brother, Pte. John Murray, 1st Gordon Highlanders, who was killed at Infantry Hill, France, on 16th June, 1917, aged 19 years.
The fairest flowers are first to fall,
The best are first to fade,
The sweetest, dearest, best of all
Within their graves are laid.
O, Lord, how wondrous are thy ways,
To pass the frail and old
And take the young and beautiful –
The choicest of the fold.
– Inserted by his loving Father and Mother, Sister and Brothers. 48 Fisher St., Stranraer.
H
OWARTH
. In loving memory of Driver William Howarth, who died in France on November 10th, 1918.
Time does not change our thoughts of him;
Love and dear memories linger still;
Sunshine passes, shadows fall;
But true remembrance outlasts all.
– From his dear Mother and Brothers, Milton and Arthur, 88, Made-street, Church.
The Cenotaph: Armistice Day
To house the unburied spirits of our Dead
We built this Tomb, and brought our simple flowers
That they might, lying with Death a few short hours,
Utter our grief: for all our hearts were sad.
Mute and immovable, and with bowed head
We stood: two minutes passed: worlds rose, dreams, fears,
Chaos and quiet, old pain and sudden tears,
But we remembered, and for this, were glad.
Then someone moved; men breathed again: the earth
Flung off her trance, and shuddered wearily.
Traffic and turmoil had a swift rebirth,
And dim confusion shook the morning sky.
But we could not forget. There was no dearth
Of thoughts for Those we loved, as we passed by.
A.L. Boden
The Return to France
Searching for graves, the next war
Early in the war – because of the scale of the casualties and the logistical problems of repatriating thousands of bodies while fighting continued – a decision had been made that the bodies of all the dead would be buried in the countries where they had fallen. Officers and men who had fought together would lie together, side by side in individual graves, without distinction. An organisation – now known as the Commonwealth War Graves Commission – was set up to oversee this burial.
After the war, the battlefields were gradually cleared and the fallen were reinterred in permanent cemeteries built to replace the many wayside burial sites. The land on which these stood was given to Britain in perpetuity. In each cemetery was a Cross of Sacrifice, a Stone of Remembrance inscribed ‘Their name liveth for evermore’, and simple, uniform headstones. On these were engraved the soldier’s name, number, regiment, regimental emblem, age and date of death. If the family wished, they could pay to have an inscription of their choice engraved at the base of the stone: because of the problems this raised with poor families, this payment later became voluntary.
On the headstones of the many unidentified bodies were the words ‘A soldier of the Great War known unto God’. The names of all those with no known grave were carved on stone panels in cemeteries or on the walls of the two great memorials to the fallen – the Menin Gate at Ypres and at Thiepval on the Somme. On the Menin Gate Memorial, which was unveiled on 24 July 1927, are inscribed the names of 54,900 men missing in the Ypres Salient; to this day the Last Post is sounded there every night at eight o’clock. That at Thiepval has the names of the 73,357 British and South African missing of the Somme; the Canadians and ANZACs have their own memorials. It was unveiled on Monday 1 August 1932, and was the last large-scale memorial to be dedicated. On that day the 3.30 a.m. edition of the
Daily Telegraph
reported the result of elections in Germany with the headline: ‘H
ERR
H
ITLER’S
H
OPES
D
ASHED
for Ever.’
Soon after hostilities ceased, relatives and survivors began to make pilgrimages to France, to search for the graves of those who had died and to retread the old battlefields. There were suggestions that parts of the front – in particular the town of Ypres – should remain as they were to form permanent shrines to the fallen and as a reminder of the destruction wrought by war, but local people did not agree. Gradually their towns and villages were rebuilt, and normal life began to return to the devastated countryside.
The Battle-fields
You never saw the Summer dance and sing
And wreathe her steps with laughter, toss her larks,
And strew her crimson poppies, and make rise
Across the meadows in her train a cry
Of happy colors – O, you never knew
How birds can make a business of their singing,
How the golden music can rain down
From sunny heaven like a hail-storm all
Day long – you never saw the naked life
Of Summer, till you saw her in her wrath
And gladness, young-eyed, golden-irised, loud
And wild and lovely-drunken, running, prancing,
Clambering across these fields of death.
Old pits and craters where the solid earth
Rocked up and smoked like water are the beds
Of blowing lilies; huge, dull-yellowing piles
Of steel, the dead-ends of the work of death,
Are choirs for thrushes and gay trellises
For rose and morning-glory; and you see
The tissue petals trailing down the holes
Men huddled in to die like poisoned rats.
You see black, crazy strings of barbed-wire fences
Legging down the hillside like old men
Amuck, tripped up and clambered on and loved
Down into earth by mountains of wild-grape
And ivy. And you see vast obscene tanks,
Gigantic bugs without antennæ, bugs
Named Lottie and named Liesel, cracked and blasted,
Pouring out their iron guts among
The daisies, and you see the daisies laugh;
And long-tailed pies that fly like aeroplanes
Float from their turrets, gentle in the blue.
Whole cities were sown in this earth like seed.
The wealth and eagerness of all mankind
Was here, like mountain thunder, coursing through
These ghostly paths, that hie so privately
Beneath the glossy crowds of bee-loved clover.
They were here for murder, death-determined.
But the shepherd trails his willing sheep
To crop that clover; and the clicking hoe
And sliding shovel talk as surely forth
As crickets when a summer storm is past.
These villages, close-nesting like the hives
Of bees, were crushed to blood and powder by
The speeding hoof of war. Their temples fallen
And their homes a pit for gravel, they,
The many neighbours, are a lonely few
Lost pioneers. But they had pitched their tents
And tacked their paper shanties in the desert,
And the hens are clucking, and the beans
Are blossoming with white and brick-red blossoms,
And the vine, the purple clematis,
Is royal at the door. On holidays
They lay their tools down, and with sunny wine
From the old cellar-pits, and kindling mirth
From depths incredible, they eat their bread
In laughter, they fling jokes at the old war,
And pour soup in the bugle, and sing loud,
And pound the drum, and call out all the girls,
And march, and dance, and fill the darkened streets
With love and music till the moon goes out.
In all death’s garden but one plot is dead,
One cold, bleak acre swept-up for our tears,
The turf, the pebbles, regular and still –
The tired, white little crosses marking time!
But they are feeble, and their watch is brief.
To-day remembering a name, to-morrow
They will mourn the death of memory;
Another morrow they are gone; time’s wind
Has blown the sweet-briar roses over them.
Earth does not mind the madness of her children –
She has room. From one gaunt womb she could
Pour back those cities, and fill all these fields
With men and women aching at their toil,
And droll-faced children trudging with a pail
To greet them. This raw miracle of life
Is ruthless, reckless, sure. Plunge in your hands
To fashion it; be ruthless, reckless, sure.
Fear is the only danger. And the death
Of dreams dreamed weakly is the only death
Of man – the prayers sighed outward from the earth,
The songs that feed the poet with his wish,
Beatitudes tramped under armies, thoughts
Too mother-tender, or too childly wise,
To stand out in the weather of the world,
And deeds untimely kind, and deed-like words
Of Love’s apostles, who would pilgrim down
The black volcanic valley of all time
With hymns and waving palms, their sweet white banners
Lost and perishing, like breath of brooks,
Like strings of thin mist when the mountains burn.
In them man’s spirit in its power dies.
The rest is Nature’s life – and she will live,
And laugh on dancing to the doomless future,
Slave to no thought softer than her own.
Max Eastman