Why Stay We
Here?
III. Sample
Passages *(c)*
(a) how the War affected people
(b) the Germans
(c) casualties of the War
Godwin examines war casualties from
many different angles: military and
civilian, physical and
psychological-spiritual. Below are
three samples.
(i) One hot afternoon Godwin
witnesses on an improvised parade
square a rather ugly encounter
between an officer and an enlisted
man.
"One day, while physical drill was
in progress in the now-familiar
orchard, he watched a clash between
an instructor and a man in the
ranks. Was feeling getting so bad
that it had come to insubordination?
'Put them arms up!' bawled the
instructor.
'Put 'em right up!'
The man raised his arms shoulder
high, but no higher. His broad face
had upon it a look of obstinacy, a
dogged look. The instructor fumed.
'Say, what's the idea? Can't you get
an order?'
Stephen watched. Something
unpleasant brewing? Perhaps. The
order was repeated and now the squad
was an audience watching a duel,
keyed-up, suppressed.
You could feel the intensity.
Authority was challenged. The men
stood, neutral, watching. Once again
the offender raised his arms,
shoulder high, but no higher. The
time had come for action.
'Fall that man out!' bawled Stephen.
A ripple of excitement passed over
the ranks. The climax was at hand.
The man stood at attention before
Stephen and Stephen looked directly
into his eyes. Somberly they
returned his steady gaze. The man
was flushed, his chest heaved; his
emotional stress hurt like the
unhappiness of a small child.
'Now, what's the matter?' Stephen
asked.
'That's the matter, sir,' bitterly.
He had opened his grey shirt and
bared a shoulder that was livid from
the surgeon's knife and laced with
the surgeon's stitches.
'I can't get that arm up,sir', he
protested, his face dark. Yet even
now, with a grievance heavy upon
him, his eyes were those of one who
laughs easily and often.
'Why have you been sent back?'
Stephen asked, shocked.
'Well, sir, there was a call for men
and I was put on the draft at the
reserve, marked G. S.'
So that was how it was, they were
now shovelling the wounded back into
the line; it was enough, it seemed,
if the man could march. Stephen
thought, That does not go out here.
He said: 'Do what you can. I'll
report the matter.'
He made a report and it lacked
somewhat the coldness of official
language; yes, it breathed his
indignation. And presently he
received orders to have his casualty
ready to parade for medical
inspection. A Medical Officer of the
Royal Army Medical Corps, was going
to oblige his Canadian comrades,
since he was the nearest M.O.
available.
He came on a horse and drew up in
the lane outside the orchard.
Stephen had his case ready. He was
paraded, complete with
Non-Commissioned Officer. But there
was no examination. Only a few
indifferent questions. And a moment
later Stephen stepped back to avoid
the restive horse as the rider swung
its head. The Medical Officer had
made his diagnosis, it seemed,
without dismounting. The man was a
lead-swinger. He reported him G. S.
(p. 170)
(ii) Stephen’s commanding officer,
Major MacDonald, was a high school
principal in Vancouver (Kitsilano)
in civilian life. MacDonald has been
through the nightmare of the Somme
battles and seems traumatized by the
experience; in any case, this
experience is something which he
cannot begin to share adequately
with his men:
"Who could have foreseen a war? Who
could have imagined that war would
be like this? Certainly not Malcolm
MacDonald.
And now he talked about the Somme.
His mind always came back to that
battle. He talked about the war
impersonally; but about the Somme he
spoke in a proprietorial way. There
was even affection in his voice. The
battle, in memory, had become dear
to him. He went over, again and
again, every phase of it as he had
lived and suffered it. It was the
morbid affection of the leper for
his sores, of the bereaved for the
afflicting sorrow. The battle was
his, and he would tell you of it
because it was not yours, and you
could share it only vicariously with
him.
His life was broken in two parts.
The Somme divided them. It had
broken his life in two, so that it
was like a bridge that was cleft at
the crowning span. To get to the
past it was necessary to think:
before the Somme; after the Somme.
The battle became an orb, and the
major revolved about it like a
satellite. The battle, the battle
that had got into his bones, into
his flesh, into the whirling
electrons of his brain’s cells. He
was dyed in the battle. Its living
memory coloured his thoughts by day,
his dreams by night.
He would sit at times, the papers of
his routine work untouched before
him, his calm sweet eyes looking out
steadfastly, absorbed in the
invisible. They looked out; yet they
looked in. And he would stir
suddenly and turn, like one
continuing a talk in progress,
continuing aloud his silent musings.
And they would simulate interest,
these subalterns, glance swiftly and
furtively at one another. Humour
him.
For the Somme belonged to the Major.
It was his. He had a right to it. If
he shared it with them freely, they
were yet on sufferance and must
remember it. What he gave of that
experience they must accept, for he
was privy to a mystery sealed to
them.
And as suddenly as he broke into
words, he would lapse back into
abstracted silence, sitting still,
his face clouded by memory,
withdrawn from them."(‘Why Stay We
Here?’, pp. 71-2)
(iii) Stephen and his batman, Pilk,
are sent behind the line to a rest
billet with a French widow and her
daughter. The following passage
tells something about civilian
suffering.
"The coffee, in a great pot, was
fragrant. They drank copiously,
savouring the good taste of it.
Madame, meanwhile, had vanished to
her own domain, a mysterious region
barred by an immense cabinet. But
the child remained, finger in mouth,
wide-eyed and full of childish
curiosity for strange men speaking
words beyond her understanding.
Stephen beckoned the little thing,
and she came, shyly, and sat upon
his knee. He kissed her, fondled her
flaxen hair.
Did he kiss her, or, in her, did he
kiss his absent little son?
The child recognised in him the
father-man and screwed his buttons
round in little hands, flirting with
her eyes, innocently.
A child. Innocence, trust,
affection. Sweet things indeed.
A succession of men, remote and
mysterious. Comings and goings. Some
passed her by, big and creaking,
with loud, alarming voices. But a
few, like this thin man who came to
her with his slow father smile, took
stock of her. But none of them
replaced the one who had gone
without returning, the bearded man,
with black strong hair, who slept
beside her Maman. He man she had
called Papa. No, these foreign
officers, they could not take her
father’s place; not even the
gendarme who came evening after
evening to sit abstractedly while
her Maman bustled about her work;
following her black figure with his
protruding eyes, sitting there
smoking his long, thin cigar, with
his big drooping moustache and nose
that drooped in sympathy. He never
seemed to notice her." ("Why Stay We
Here?", p. 123).
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