Chapter Thirteen—"God Bring You to a Fairer Place"
"Jane Austen, I think," Una had decided as she rummaged through the box of books she had purchased in London. "Mansfield Park." From her limited understanding of French, she had come to the conclusion that the train ride from Paris, where she was staying, to the little village of Courcelette would be several hours. Sick of trains, Una decided that she needed a good book to keep her occupied on the lengthy trip. While in London, she and Valancy had stopped in a little, out-of-the-way bookstore, where she had bought several books that tickled her fancy, planning to keep some and give the rest as gifts to her family.
Mansfield Park, the story of shy, gentle Fanny Price and her cousin Edmund Bertram, appealed to her. Una had read it at some point—perhaps curled up in the garret of the manse on a rainy afternoon. Settling into her very uncomfortable seat next to an extremely large Frenchwoman who seemed to be excessively fond of talking with her hands, causing Una to continually duck, she opened the book, ready to drift away into the English countryside of more than one hundred years previous. A clipping from some paper fluttered into her lap. Upon her perusal of it, Una found it to be a poem written by someone named Winifred Letts.
As she read the poem, entitled "The Spires of Oxford (as seen from the train)", Una shuddered at the thoughts expressed in the poem, the skill with which the poet showed the disparity between the previous lives of the young men and their fate on the battlefields of France. No—I won't think about the war. I won't. I can't. All I want to do now is go to Courcelette, say goodbye to Walter, and return back to P.E.I. and Shirley. I don't care about this poem, no matter how much it reminds me of those years.
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Courcelette was a typical small French village with about twenty cottages surrounding the church. Today was market day, and the main street was filled with bustling housewives bargaining in their loudest voices for the best deals possible on apples and onions.
"Parlez vous Anglais?" Una asked the owner of the flower stand, a very short white-haired man in a very red coat. He grinned up at her—a strange sensation for Una, who didn't consider herself to be tall by any stretch of the imagination.
"Oui, mademoiselle," the man replied. "My name is Louis. And how can I help 'ou today?"
"I was wondering if you could tell me how to find the Canadian soldiers' cemetery," Una replied.
"Oh, zee cemeteray of zee Canadian boys…oui, everyone knows where it eez. Follow zee main street to the edge of zee village, then turn left for about a kilometer. There eez a little, how you say, park there." He looked at her inquiringly. "Why does mademoiselle wish to visit the cemeteray?"
"A…friend of my family's is buried there," Una told him, hoping that the blush she felt burning her cheeks wasn't visible.
"And you wish to pay your respects? Good, good. One thing only, mademoiselle…do not stay there after dark." This was said in an undertone, as if it was a special truth only to be imparted to her ears.
"Why ever not?" Una asked. She had no intention of staying after dark; as a matter of fact, she had no intention of staying more than a few hours or so. Longer than that, and she wouldn't have any way to return to Paris. The last train left at six o'clock, and Una intended to be on it.
"Why not? Because zee place eez haunted, mademoiselle."
"Haunted?" Una echoed, curious.
"Oui, mademoiselle. Haunted by zee Piper. A ghost, you see. Some say that he was a soldier, killed in the War…others say that he is older than that, that he has made his music as long as there have been wars and fighting," Louis told her, shivering in the autumn sunshine. "For myself, I have nevair seen him—I do not need to see him to believe in his existence. I have heard his song, though. Every now and then, zee Piper plays his flute at night. Such music! One could almost understand why the soldiers followed him."
Una shivered. A mysterious Piper who played music that made soldiers follow him all around the world—this was too familiar, hearkening back to a far-off evening in Rainbow Valley with the Blythes and Mary Vance. One of the most famous poems of the War had come from Walter's presentiment that night, but Una felt no kindred feelings toward pipers of any sort, whether ghosts, specters, or figments of Louis' imagination. She did not want to hear any more.
"Merci beaucoup. Thank you very much," she told Louis coolly. "I really must be going now—I don't want to miss the late train."
"Au revoir, mademoiselle," Louis grinned at her. "Enjoy your visit, and take a bouquet of zee little white flowers I have as a gift from old Louis. I hope I didn't frighten you…we here in Courcelette are quite proud of our ghost, but zee visitors who come don't seem to like him as much."
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There were no ghosts in the small cemetery—at least none except the one in Una's memory. Here, on the other side of the world from Glen St. Mary's, outside of a village of much the same size, a white cross among rows of white crosses marked the final resting place of Private Walter Cuthbert Blythe.
THE CANADIAN CORPS
BORE A
VALIANT PART IN FORCING BACK
THE GERMANS ON THESE SLOPES
DURING THE BATTLES OF THE
SOMME SEPT. 3RD - NOV. 18TH 1916,
read the inscription on the granite memorial at the entrance. Courcelette had been the first major action by the Canadian Corps after they had left Ypres and the first battle where the armored tank had been used, but Una didn't care. All she felt was an ache for what never had the chance to happen.
"I miss you, Walter," she whispered. "You never really noticed me or paid that much attention to me, but I loved you. Your family misses you, too. Jem and Faith even named their first son after you. I don't understand why you had to die so far from home. I don't even know if I understand why war is even necessary." A tear caught in a tendril of black hair that had escaped her hairpins. Una hadn't wanted to cry, but it seemed to be happening anyway. "I'm going to marry Shirley…somehow I'd never thought of him as anything except your brother. But I think we'll be happy." She idly twisted Shirley's ring around and around, subconsciously noting that it was a bit loose.
"I love you, Walter Cuthbert Blythe. I read a poem today that reminded me of you. I didn't like it then, but now it seems a fitting eulogy for you and all the others buried here.
"I saw the spires of Oxford
As I was passing by,
The grey spires of Oxford
Against a pearl-grey sky;
My heart was with the Oxford men
Who went abroad to die.
"The years go fast in Oxford,
The golden years and gay;
The hoary colleges look down
On careless boys at play,
But when the bugles sounded—War!
They put their games away.
"They left the peaceful river,
The cricket field, the quad,
The shaven lawns of Oxford,
To seek a bloody sod.
They gave their merry youth away
For country and for God.
"God rest you, happy gentlemen,
Who laid your good lives down,
Who took the khaki and the gun
Instead of cap and gown.
God bring you to a fairer place
Than even Oxford town."
"God bring you to a fairer place / Than even Oxford town," she repeated softly, laying her bouquet of flowers on Walter's grave. The sun was beginning to set as she left. At the entrance Una turned and looked back. One beam of sunlight hit something on the grass and sparkled as if in impish benediction.
Una smiled faintly. "Goodbye, Walter. Hello, Shirley."
Author's Note: The poem used is, as is mentioned in the chapter, "The Spires of Oxford (as seen from the train)", and it is indeed written by Winifred Letts.