Osgiliath Revisited

Osgiliath was finally being rebuilt, stone on stone.  It was fitting.  The Fortress of the Stars on the Great River, deserted by its inhabitants, yet held tenaciously, besieged and taken finally by the Enemy, could not be left to erode to sand. To do so would be to deny the spirit of hope that accompanied the restoration of the kingdom.

And yet. . .

Grael sighed. There was plenty of work for masons and carpenters among the debris left by war and time, and, by the Tower, he had enough to do, but every now and then he stopped – at a fallen wall, or a corner leading down to the river, or some hidden refuge between the jagged openings.  He found himself stretching out his hand to touch the ancient slabs, rough against his fingers, cold, white as building stone was here, bleached clean again by rain and the passage of years. 

He’d been a boy when he came here first, his uniform stiff with newness, the dye unfaded, the emblem bright upon his chest.  He’d been determined to show that he was old enough, that he was a man, ready and able to fight for his homeland.  In their fear of revealing any weakness, the recruits had laughed louder, boasted more, slept less than all the old soldiers in their mud-stained tunics gone charcoal with age and use.  They’d borne it – tolerant of the youths, knowing that soon enough they’d lose the brashness of inexperience. In other times, other places, they’d have ribbed them mercilessly, but the veterans had known that many of the lads would not have time to lose the gleam from their new leather and, in their fresh faces, lived with the pain of losing sons.

He paused at a tumble of stone sprouting a sapling birch.  Here it was that he had seen his first death.  He couldn’t recall the name – if he had ever known it – but the man himself would never be forgotten while that moment was relived in his nightmares.

This was to become a library.

If only he felt it would house the stories the stones could tell.

Here, his lieutenant had rallied them, with bold words and images of triumph, even as the beast screamed in the sky, ripping out his heart and turning his body to lead. Their leader had died here, too; an arrow slicing down from the wall behind his men had sprouted from his throat and cut off his exhortations, leaving them to scatter.

There, where the water eddied around the remains of the column carved with climbing vines, his brother had fallen.  They had marched together, shared food and tales of home and been reassured by the tension each could sense in the other, even as they spouted their dreams of glory.  In the midst of battle time had frozen for him as the blood swirled, turning the river red.

Here, he had killed.  A man, no giant berserker, no harbinger of evil, but a man like himself – compact, young, frightened, surprised into eternity on the end of a poorly-wielded blade. In the wrong place, at the wrong time, in the wrong company.

Behind him as he stood, hammers rang and saws rasped.  Wagons creaked, wheels rumbling, as horses hauled heavy loads across rough cobbles.  Workmen shouted to each other, their voices raucous and filled with boisterous raillery.  The noise echoed in his head, familiar and amiable, but overshadowed by a different clamour.

And who now would know?  When the white walls gleamed tall in the sun, and the bridge stretched over the river, welcoming arrivals to the markets and taverns, drawing in locals and foreigners alike, who would remember the unnamed dead whose blood had stained the stones?

‘We brought the wounded there,’ a voice said behind him, ‘before we were overrun. Most of them chose to die by their own hand when we withdrew.  My brother was one of them.’

He knew the voice.  It came from an older man, light of hair and grey-eyed, scarred as so many of them were, with wounds that ran deeper than skin.  Grael turned to look at him.

‘I would have killed you then, man of Gondor,’ he said without emotion.

‘And I you, Haradrim,’ the other replied coolly. ‘Without a second thought.’

They stood beside each other, two former soldiers, enemies who had learned to live beside each other, without forgiveness, but with unexpected understanding.

‘My brother, too, died here,’ Grael stated.

On the other side of the square a group of workmen laughed, their voices a loud and somewhat shocking invasion of their memories.

‘Yet in spite of it all, I feel closer to you here than I do to them,’ the soldier of Gondor said.

‘We share a knowledge of this place that they do not – that they cannot. Every stone around us is graven with the name of one who died.’

‘And however fine the city we build, Osgiliath will remain their tomb.’

Silence hung between them for a while.

‘Then this must stand as their memorial.’

A sudden breeze rose and stirred the dust around their feet, whistling through the gaps in the walls. The two old soldiers stared at each other as the voices of the dead echoed in their minds, assuring them that, while Osgiliath stood, their memory would always remain, here, in the heart of Gondor, where they had given their lives for love of home and people. The dead were here and knew, and they would not forget.

This is not, to my mind, one of the best or best-known poems from the many written by the poets of the First World War, but it is one that I find I cannot read aloud with a steady voice.

Beaucourt Revisited

I wandered up to Beaucourt; I took the river track
And saw the lines we lived in before the Boche went back;

But Peace was now in Pottage, the front was far ahead,
The front had journeyed Eastward, and only left the dead.

And I thought, how long we lay there, and watched across the wire,
While guns roared round the valley, and set the skies afire!
But now there are homes in Hamel and tents in the Vale of Hell,
And a camp at suicide corner, where half a regiment fell.

The new troops follow after, and tread the land we won,
To them 'tis so much hill-side re-wrested from the Hun
We only walk with reverence this sullen mile of mud
The shell-holes hold our history, and half of them our blood.

Here, at the head of Peche Street, 'twas death to show your face,
To me it seemed like magic to linger in the place;
For me how many spirits hung around the Kentish Caves,
But the new men see no spirits-they only see the graves.

I found the half-dug ditches we fashioned for the fight,
We lost a score of men there-young James was killed that night,
I saw the star shells staring, I heard the bullets hail,
But the new troops pass unheeding-they never heard the tale.

I crossed the blood red ribbon, that once was no-man's land,
I saw a misty daybreak and a creeping minute-hand;
And here the lads went over, and there was Harmsworth shot,
And here was William lying-but the new men know them not.

And I said, "There is still the river, and still the stiff, stark trees,
To treasure here our story, but there are only these";
But under the white wood crosses the dead men answered low,
" The new men know not Beaucourt, but we are here-we know."

Alan Patrick Herbert