The Body Itself Balks Account


30 April 1915

Vlamertinghe, Belgium

Dear Dad,

We have been in our first big fight, but have been pulled back from the line to reorganize. I've come through without a scratch, Dad. Don't know how I or any of us did it. You'll have seen all about it in the papers — I can't write of it. But the Huns haven't got through — they won't get through. Jerry was knocked stiff by a shell one time, but it was only the shock. He was all right in a few days. Grant is safe, too.*

I can't write more now — I have no time and this mess doesn't bear description anyway. Just give everyone at home my love. Tell Mum that I really am unhurt and she shouldn't worry.

Love,

Jem

P.S. Will you phone Faith and tell her I am alright and am writing her, too? It's only that I want to send this right away and you might get it before she hears from me.


4 May 1915

Bailleul, France

Dear Faith,

Well, we have been in our first proper battle and I came through without a scratch (I don't know how, but it is the truth). I wrote a short note to Dad first chance I got since the fighting died down, just so you would all know I am alive and unhurt.

Jerry had a bad scare, though — he was knocked unconscious by a shell and spent the night out in no man's land among the dead. He is alright now, and wasn't really injured, just knocked out by the concussion. Still, my heart about stopped when I heard he had been carried back to the casualty clearing station and it was a couple of days before I could find out that he was alive. He's fine, really, and already back on the line (though I wish he had taken a few more days to rest).

I don't know what to say about that battle, Faith. It was like nothing you ever read about in books. I told Dad that I couldn't write about it, and I don't think I can. I just don't have the words. Men aren't just shot here. They are obliterated. The Huns attacked us with poisonous green gas and I just can't even describe it. My platoon was called up to plug a hole in the line, and when we got there we discovered why it was a hole. There had been a few direct hits from the big guns and the field orderlies hadn't finished clearing the bodies when we arrived and every man in my section was sick, I can tell you.

I feel I shouldn't. I'm sorry, Faith. I shouldn't put any of this in a letter.

My section was lucky, I suppose. I am fine and so is Emile. We lost Tommy Fraser, though, and I don't know what to say about that, either. I feel that I should write to his parents, but if I can't manage to tell you about it, I don't see how I can tell them. I took some of his photos and letters and things, and I guess they should have them. At least we can swear he's dead — most of our casualties here are missing. I suppose some of them may have been captured, but some are just — gone.

All these past few weeks, I kept having the same thought. You know how Dad let me start going on serious rounds last summer? Not just the easy check-ins, but births and deaths, too. I keep thinking about one case in particular. You remember Molly Crawford from school, don't you? (Well, Molly MacAllister now.) Little, timid Molly with her mouse-colored hair and so tiny and thin I always thought she must have hollow bones like a bird. You'll know she had a baby last summer, and Dad let me come along to help with the delivery. I remember thinking that the thing seemed impossible — Molly so frail and small, and her great stomach so gigantic, how was she ever going to manage?

Well, I tell you, Faith, Molly MacAllister was a warrior. You never saw someone so fierce and strong. By the end, she was as beautiful as an angel. When Dad put her baby in her arms (such a big, fine baby for little Molly!) she might have had a halo.

When it was all over and we were on our way home, I asked Dad if it was always like that. He said not always, but often enough. That the human body is wonderful and miraculous, and it is our duty to help people find their strength. I knew the body was a wonder (I didn't spend a year in dissection lab without a proper awe of the complexities of the body) but I felt like I had never really seen it in action before. I'd read about it, of course, like Hamlet (What a piece of work is a man . . .) but then I saw it for myself and that was different.** Ever since, I find myself watching people as they move and sleep and talk, and thinking that every breath they take is such a complex, beautiful, astonishing thing. There's no accounting for it.

And now, everywhere I look, bodies smashed, or blasted, or poisoned. And I keep thinking of Molly MacAllister, and the phenomenon of the human body, and how we defile it here. How every shattered, rotting corpse (thousands beyond number) was born a perfect, glorious miracle. It's not just a horror — it's a sacrilege.

I can't write more.

Jem


29 April 1915

Casualty Clearing Station #5, Poperinghe, Belgium***

Dear Nan,

No doubt you have heard that our battalion is in the big fight near Ypres. I hardly know what to say of the fighting and won't try. The long and short of it is that I am alive, though I had a pretty bad scare. Don't worry, Nan — I am perfectly alright, even though I am writing this from the casualty clearing station.

Here is what happened:

One evening, we were retreating and the Germans began sending artillery fire into our line. Shells started falling in among us, sending up showers of dirt and wreaking havoc on our line. We began to run and I remember slipping and stumbling — in mud or blood I couldn't say — but still moving forward. The last thing I remember is the sensation of flying into the air and tumbling through space and never landing.

I came back to consciousness at dawn. Couldn't tell what had happened to me but thought I was done for. I was all alone and afraid — terribly afraid. Dead men were all around me, lying on the horrible grey, slimy fields. I was woefully thirsty — and I thought of David and the Bethlehem water — and of the old spring in Rainbow Valley under the maples. I seemed to see it just before me — and you standing laughing on the other side of it — and I thought it was all over with me. And I didn't care. Honestly, I didn't care. I just felt a dreadful childish fear of loneliness and of those dead men around me, and a sort of wonder how this had happened to me. Then they found me and carted me off and before long I discovered that there wasn't really anything wrong with me. I'm going back to the trenches tomorrow. Every man is needed there that can be got.****

But it was easy to find my beautiful thing that day, even when I was surrounded by an ugliness I can scarcely describe. When I opened my eyes and saw the dawn breaking over the horizon — Nan, it was as if I had never seen the sun before. It was not an impressive sunrise — no glory of gold or pink, only a weak, struggling spot of light, dim through the smoke and haze of that wrecked field. But it was the sun of another day on this earth. It was beautiful.

Tell the folks at home that I love them and that I am alright. I have been in this hospital a couple of days, but only to rest and sleep off the headaches that seem to be my only souvenir of this incident. I don't think I will have a chance to write them before I go back to the trenches, and I need to sleep while I can.

I love you, Nan. I know now that if I ever am truly killed, the last thing I see will be your laughing face, and that is not so bad. If ever I must go to the "Land o' the Leal," don't grudge me to it — we'll meet and we'll be fain. Strange how Miss Margaret Douglas's female poets of Scotland have come back to me in these days.*****

All my love always,

Jerry


11 May 1915

Casualty Clearing Station #6, Merville, France

Dear Jem,

I have been sent back to the CCS again. I tried to find you before I went, but couldn't, and figured I'd write so you wouldn't worry if someone said I'm back here again. I'm fine — just fainted enough times on duty that Sgt. Pringle sent me here for a week to recover a bit more. There's nothing really wrong with me, though, except headaches and fainting. Don't mention it to the folks at home — they'd worry, but I'm fine.

I'm not quite on leave, though. In fact, I'd quite prefer the trenches at this point. Colonel Watson was looking for someone to help write condolence letters for all the men killed at Ypres — I guess the boys at headquarters are completely slammed with other duties at the moment. Someone knew that I was a college boy and needed some light duty. So lucky me.

Our battalion lost 6 officers and 68 other ranks killed at Ypres. Not as bad as some, I hear, but plenty to be getting on with. More than 150 wounded and more than 300 still missing. Over half our strength. I'm only stuck with the 68 dead ORs, though — I'm supposed to write comforting letters home using their service records and the field notes some of their NCOs sent over describing their deaths.******

I did about three that way, but gave up soon after and even tore up those three. Ever since, I just write the same thing over and over — that Private So-and-So was killed instantly by a single bullet to the heart; a quick and painless death in the midst of a glorious charge. I vary the details sometimes.

But what am I supposed to write? That Pte. Thomas McBride choked on a cloud of green chlorine gas and went running madly out of cover trying to escape it? That Pte. Mitchell Barnes held his guts in his hands for three hours before he died and everyone marveled that someone could live that long in that condition? That's nothing to write home. So I make the Germans excellent marksmen — very efficient, how every man gets one clean shot and he's done for. Colonel Watson signs them without reading them anyway.

I remember Una once came to me asking whether it was terribly wicked to tell a lie in order to save someone pain. I reminded her that Father said we must always tell the truth and never even act a lie. I hope she didn't listen to me; I hope she protected whoever she was trying to protect.

Anyway, I just wanted you to know where I am. I'll be back with my section in a week, and glad of it.

Jerry


*Rilla of Ingleside, chapter 12

**"[Jem] ever took things on faith; he always liked to investigate the truth of a statement for himself." Rainbow Valley, chapter 3

***Wounded soldiers often received emergency care at dressing stations very close to the fighting before being transported to Casualty Clearing Stations. The CCS was a hospital that performed emergency surgery (like amputation), stabilized patients who would need long-term care at one of the general hospitals far behind the lines, and treated soldiers who could be returned to their units. For more on the location of CCSs and an overview of evacuation procedures for wounded men in the British Army and expeditionary forces, see the website "The Long, Long Trail: The British Army in the Great War of 1914-1918" by Chris Baker. Also thanks to kslchen for sharing and clarifying research on this question.

****Rilla of Ingleside, chapter 12

*****Carolina Oliphant, Lady Nairne, "Land o' the Leal"

******The 2nd Battalion fought at Ypres, most heavily engaged from April 23-28, 1915. I have Jerry being wounded the night of the 24th. A censor might black out specific casualty information, but I thought it was important for you to know. The 2nd Battalion suffered 543 casualties at Ypres (out of an initial strength of approximately 1,000). Jerry's letter-writing duty is inspired by an incident related in William March's Company K (1933), my favorite WWI novel (it is a series of 113 short vignettes).