Blood and Blooms Part 2

PART II

10th July, 1913
Brinkley Court, Worcestershire

This journal had been given me by my late father as a 20th birthday present, with the express intent of recording my experiences in the Armed Forces. As is often the case with such well-intentioned gifts, its pages have remained blank for twenty-four solid years. That being said, it would have to number among the world's most well-travelled books, having accompanied me to the Sudan as a nervous Captain of a nervous company, South Africa as an eager Lieutenant Colonel, and as a thoroughly bored and jaded Brigadier to the subcontinent. And through all this carnage and fire and slaughter and strife, it has remained silent. Whatever thoughts and feelings that have passed through my slowly wearying body have remained secret and temporal. Private sensations that glisten brightly for their own brief moments, then fade away, forgotten in the surrounding chaos. Pain. Bloodlust. Anger. Joy. Despair. My public face as a General, solider, bloodthirsty killer and doting older brother are what linger in the light of day. Anthony Melchett the man is an unspeakable secret that hovers between them all.
So perhaps it is only appropriate, in this time of peace, that I should finally start recording my private existence. Perhaps it is appropriate that today was the day which saw a surge of true excitement course through my nerves. Such an experience as I have not felt for a good twenty-four years.
Today it is my forty-fourth birthday. The Travers invited me over to celebrate, together with Dorothy. I was more than glad to get away from London. Earlier in the week I had been forced into a celebratory night of drinking with some of the boys under my command. Not for the first time, I reflected on how the bonds of brotherhood seem to become a total farce in peace-time. I suppose it has something to do with having to relate to one's fellow soldiers on an interpersonal level, rather than as comrades in arms, willing to die for King and Country. There is one scaly little Lieutenant, an Edmund Blackadder, whose distinct lack of graciousness I find particularly loathsome. He has picked the brains of his fellow soldiers, learning how to manipulate them and thus weasel his way into an easy, honourless military career that exploits the talents and work ethic of others. He feels he also has me under his thumb, because I have been wise enough to play the mad, bellowing old militant in his presence. Should the need arise to give him his come-uppance, he won't know what hit him.
This morning, my sister and I found ourselves on the steps of Brinkley Court. We were welcomed cordially by dearest Gertie and old Lawrence, who were excited to tell us about the fantastic spread that had been planned for the evening. I noticed Dorothy's manner was civil but still quite melancholy. I swallowed my guilt, reminding myself that young Tom would have made her a poor match. I would make it up to her by finding a suitable husband, one who complemented her thoughtful temperament. When we were informed that the Woosters would be joining us, Dahlia among the party, my guilt rose further. Dorothy would have to suffer through talk of the wedding plans. I gave my sister's little hand a reassuring squeeze, already planning on how to divert Dahlia's conversation away from her upcoming nuptials to the upcoming hunting season.
It was in this quite typical domestic tableau that my guard was down. My only real concern was for the feelings of my sister, and apart from that, I allowed myself to feel genuinely tired. We sat in large wicker chairs in the garden room, we took elevenses, we chatted in polite, tranquil voices. I felt my age and my lack of ardour. The tedium was almost blissful. Just before noon, we were joined by the Colthurst St. Barleighs, and it was then that my pitiable, weather-beaten being received a freakish bolt of the sublime.
I had read romances to Dorothy since she was a child. I think we both enjoyed the fanciful ideas of earth-shattering moments, when the embattled heroines became primal creatures attatched to their mates by forces more powerful and inexplicable than man-made convention. We had combed over 'The Mysteries of Udolpho' and 'Jane Eyre' together ritually. For me, love was more like the cozy, relaxed feeling of familiarity we cherished for those novels, not the contents within. In younger, less reflective days, there had been many shameful and thrilling rushes of baser passions, indulged in clandestine corners for terrifying and wondrous brief moments, but that had been something quite apart.
All of these conflicting experiences, in an insane and miraculous whirl, awakened and screamed noiselessly through me as George entered the garden room.
George Colthurst St. Barleigh, only son of Rowland and Patricia Colthurst St. Barleigh. Old Etonian. Currently on holiday from his studies at Cambridge. And an unspoiled creation of God almighty that serves to complete some nameless yet aching incompleteness in this poisonous, dismal world.
The last time I had seen him, he had been a clumsy, knobbly-kneed ten year old. I had barely regarded him as existing, only taking the time to tease the little blighter and torment his pet rabbits. (As I ponder my actions now, I wonder if killing a feeling, thinking human being in battle was a prelude to the cruelty of intentionally distressing a young child, or if it was not the other way around.) That shining freckled face, with its frame of confused blonde curls, had dimmed within my psyche like a half-remembered nursery rhyme.
His chin is weak, almost non-existant. The blonde curls have deepened to a light chestnut, yet remain just as thick and unmanageable as they were in his childhood. And he exudes a constant nervous energy. Unable to remain still, he fidgets, his long slender fingers toying absently with various parts of his clothing (a lapel, a cufflink, the seam of his trousers). His face is in a state of perpetual shift, one gleaming expression melting into another. His speech is of the same substance— he puncuates his sentences with skittish particles and idiomatic fragments. The gentle light baritone that springs from his small, prettily shaped mouth is, quite simply, sunshine. He of the mercurial spirit, of the alarming and childish blue eyes. He of the uneasy impasse between boyhood and masculine ripeness. My poor faculties of body and soul have been ambushed by a creature of impossible sweetness.
It is past midnight, and he currently lies in the guest bedroom directly beneath mine. The veins inside me thud with a thrill as anxious as it is delightful. I reside excitingly close and excruciatingly distant to him. Our one brief exchange during the afternoon was almost entirely composed of pleasantries and aforementioned skittish particles. I asked him how he liked Cambridge, he told me very much. He smiled shyly and I dithered into a burning silence. At the piano, Dorothy serenaded us with the gush and shimmer of Debussy's Deux Arabesques.
Just before I had diffidently picked up this journal, I had trekked silently out into the hallway, descended the stairs and stared down into the darkness at the door to his chamber. All of three times. A deranged spirit that won't shut up keeps urging me to knock on that door, and I don't quite know what this exploit would accomplish. There is no reason to believe that he doesn't still hold me in his imagination as the imposing bully who tortured his childhood pets, a frightening old battle-hardened brute to be avoided at all costs. Oh, but if I could charm him!
I must be content with what proximity I have to him now. There should be no lamenting the fact that tomorrow, he shall return to Cambridgeshire, divesting his world of Anthony Melchett completely. There should be satisfaction in knowing I may catch glimpses of him at future social events, observing from afar as he cavorts with colleagues far more worthy than I. The only other consolation I have comes from wallowing in the splendid incantation that has been stringing through the front of my mind ever since I first beheld him:
George. George. George.

ooOOoo

I shifted a bit in my position under the duvet, and a strand of moonlight from yonder window fell upon the last three words from Uncle Anthony's hand. They had been stretched out over the entire length of the page, the flowing handwriting becoming all the more lyrical and intricate. The three capital Gs were lovingly swirled, graphic arpeggios that reminded me very much of Debussy's tinkly Arabesques (many was the painful hour I had been burdened with bashing the damned things out by my music master).
I peeped at the clock, which bared down on me with a threateningly late hour. Unfazed, I eagerly turned the page to the next entry.

ooOOoo

12th October, 1913
Brinkley Court, Worcestershire

So, I find myself again hunched over the same dear notebook, perched upon the same antique bed, imprisoned in the same isolated guest room as before. Little Dahlia Wooster has today become Mrs. Dahlia Travers, and after her honeymoon in Scotland, shooting pheasants, ducks and moorhens, she will return here as the Lady of the House.
God help me, his voice is seraphic. At the reception, he performed a swelling, dulcet setting of a Robert Louis Stevenson poem, accompanied masterfully by Dorothy. A few hours ago, darting between the last lingering wedding guests, I madly scurried into the Travers' library, determined to hunt down the original text. Transcribing it from the obliging anthology I located will be a happy excerise:

Let Beauty awake in the morn from beautiful dreams,
Beauty awake from rest!
Let Beauty awake
For Beauty's sake
In the hour when the birds awake in the brake
And the stars are bright in the west!

Let Beauty awake in the eve from the slumber of day,
Awake in the crimson eve!
In the day's dusk end
When the shades ascend,
Let her wake to the kiss of a tender friend
To render again and receive!

I cannot begin to express the rumblings of jealousy that rendered my sweet rapture tart. George and Dorothy, both young and beautiful, harmonised and merged their musical gifts to create a moment of pure joy. I sat there, passive, only able to marvel at it. Long have I envied my sister's musical talent, and today I would have readily slaughtered all the other listeners in the room just to have partaken.
I hope against hope that Dorothy, who has so gotten over Tom that she spent most of today smiling, has not fallen under the same thrall as I. Reason offers no basis for her not to be compatible with such a tender young man, and to prohibit their union would be an agony and a disgrace. The love of my baby sister and the concrete indifference of my treasured idol would do nothing to sway me. No noble notion of familial piety could override my futile greed for him.
He will probably marry well. A cooler character than mine would scheme to affiance the two people whom I love most, so they would always remain close to me. But, curse my folly, it is something I simply cannot do. As much as I do not like it, nature intended me to be a ruthless ape of a man.

ooOOoo

3rd August, 1914
London

Following their mobilisations against France and Russia, as well as their threats towards Belgium, we have officially declared war on Germany. Last night I farewelled Dorothy at our home in Worcestershire, once again facing the possibility of never seeing her again. I have instructed Mrs. Galsworthy, our housekeeper, to look after her as tenderly as if she were a daughter, and have informed her that we were up to chapter seven of 'Wuthering Heights'.
For obvious reasons I cannot relate details of our plans and manouevers within these pages, but we shall be heading to the continent soon. Flickers of fear are seen in the eyes of everyone I speak to. The original dispute between Austria-Hungary and Serbia so quickly engulfed their respective allies, that the final scale of this conflict is a shock that has not quite sunken in. It may be that the entire world will soon be set on fire. God have mercy on our souls.

ooOOoo

September 1914
Franco-Belgian border

My regiments have staked out their territory, and it is already a sea of mud and refuse scarred with trenches. The commanding officers have been settled in a nearby château, from which we plan and ponder and argue, and sometimes inspect the dank and claustrophobic dens of our troops. I have been equipped with a valuable piece of office equipment in the form of Captain Kevin Darling. He's cowardly, unctuous and pedantic, in short a perfect administrative lackey. Blackadder has, through some form of double-dealing, also been promoted to Captain of his own company, and I am determined to keep one eye fixed closely on him. Our allies down South have already halted Fritz's would-be assault on Paris, losing whole regiments of their boys to do so. Likewise, British blood has cascaded upon the soil of Flanders through our own first offensive campaigns. Further death and glory awaits us. I anticipate the Field Marshal's next order with grim allegiance.
There is now little time to wax poetic like this. But on nights when I cannot sleep, my mind wanders back to Brinkley Court, and to the blithe, coy youth with the voice like sunshine.

ooOOoo

2nd December, 1914

The administerial nightmare of processing Lord Kitchener's swarm of voulenteer recruits is slowly chugging along, as it has struggled to do since the war began. We are now seeing a great influx of young voulenteers, callow faces impatient to butcher Huns and rescue French peasant girls.
This morning, George stood to attention before me in the trenches, a freshly made Lieutenant.
He is under Blackadder's command, another underling added to his web. At least the benefit of having the butterfly in with the spider is that I can supervise the both of them at once. Should he try and craft my little chipmunk into a human shield or a whipping boy, I shall have the little sod courtmartialed.
This afternoon, I surveyed the endless rows of mutilated, dying, shell-shocked and otherwise damaged figures lying on inadequate bedding in the hospital. My only response to the rows and rows of astounding human suffering was to vow to return George to his mother whole and unspoiled. I shall be listening to the tactical deliberations of the Field Marshal and my fellow Generals even more thoroughly than before.

ooOOoo

Christmas Eve night 1914

After reeling at the massacres at Ypres, Aisne and La Bassée, a wonderful, alien calm has settled upon the battlefields tonight. Earlier this evening, when down at the trenches, I caught the off-key crooning of 'O Tannenbaum' wafting across No Man's Land. The tommies have decorated their freezing, disease-ridden dugouts with make-shift decorations. Even now, the tiny pin-pricks of candle light in the murky, muddy darkness are still impressed upon my eyesight.

ooOOoo

15th March, 1915

The mad screaming of our most recent battle at Neuve Chapelle has finally receded. One and a half miles of ground was recaptured by the Allied forces. We do not yet have final numbers of our casualties, but is currently estimated to be at least three thousand dead. Having waded through the masses of injured tommies and disfigured corpses with my Brigadiers, it is clear that the number is set to rise sharply. It seems unlikely that the stench of blood and smoke will ever leave the fields of the Franco-Belgian countryside. It has even permeated the château. I have taken to the daily ordering of fragrant flowers for my bed-chamber— with enough blooms to mask the smell of death, it is not as much of a struggle to sleep.
George is still sitting in his trench, untested. Oddly enough, I have Blackadder's cowardice to thank for this. He claims his platoons did not receive the orders, despite Darling's insistence that he had phoned the company well in advance. As such, no charges of desertion can be laid.
My hope of a clean and decisive victory has now fully evaporated. We never could have anticipated the level of destruction that has already been unleashed by this mechanical and ruthless form of warfare. As we hammer out the same methods and the same commands, sending mothers' trusting sons to their blood-spattered fate, the noblest thing I can hope to achieve is keeping the men's morale as bouyant as possible. The smug grin that I've tacked onto my maw for the tommies has made my facial muscles ache like the dickens.
As of today, I have ordered chocolate rations to be tripled.

ooOOoo

26th October, 1915

The struggle to take the town of Loos was a disaster. Granted, we did capture the territory, for a matter of precious days, until our retreat. For all our fruitless endeavours, the Allied forces have lost at least thirty thousand men. The German machine guns consumed them on the marshy ground like wildfire burning up young saplings. Haig wants to send out another offensive, but the constant bombardment of rain and German shells will probably render such an endeavour utterly pointless.
Blackadder's platoons were amongst the offensive forces. I could not rest until I had found George. I scoured the dead, the injured and the survivors, and after three days of searching, finally looked directly into his face. I needed to be certain that the light of life and youthful bloom had not left his eyes. He was helping a Sergeant to dole out rations, and smiled when he saw me approaching. Though tired and covered in mud, I felt the vigour return to my heart to address my tattered, decimated division with some form of hopefulness.
Later in the day we also recovered Blackadder himself, cowering in a French dugout and feining a broken leg.

ooOOoo

These terse, graphic entries detailing blood, sweat and munitions seemed to carry on for a good chunk of the journal. At the risk of seeming an utter cad who lacks respect for our fallen coutrymen, I confess I began to skim through all the nasty bits, trying to find something that was more marvellous than morbid. For all the mystery novels I'd read in my time, non-fictitious piles of corpses made my skin crawl.
Flicking through the entries, something suddenly fell out of the tome into my lap: a yellowed old envelope. Ah-hah, now the plot would begin to pick up again. Opening it, I extracted a letter that looked to be very well handled, worn out through frequent re-reading. My heart leapt when I recognised the confident, robust hand of my favourite aunt.

ooOOoo

Brinkley Court
Market Snodsbury
—, Worcestershire
England, United Kingdom

24th July, 1916

The Office of General Major Anthony Cecil Hogmanay Melchett
c/o — Battalion, The — Regiment
Château —
Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France

Uncle Anthony, you old egg!
So glad to hear you had a happy birthday this year. I figured a superior scotch was the only present you would truly appreciate. The good old British stiff upper lip sometimes needs a little wetting. Nevertheless, do keep your chin up. I'm sure you'll be home before too long, chasing foxes across the meadows and dales with the Quorn and the Pytchley, and 'Behhhh'ing to me over the country miles. The Prime Minister certainly seems confident that all this mess will be resolved before too long. He seems to have a touch of the daft muttonhead about him, but still I remain cautiously optimistic.
Uncle Rowland and Auntie Pat wanted me to tell you how thankful they are to you for keeping an eye on George. You know as well as I that the boy is a few cards short of a full deck, and even in peace-time I feel better when he is chaperoned by somebody with sense. His letters have been full of vigour and confidence, singing the praises of your brilliance as a commander. I remember the get-togethers at your family's estate, where he'd follow you about like a freckly puppy in his school blazer and knee-socks. No matter how terrible you were to him (or his rabbits), he'd just continue worshipping you as the quintessence of an officer and a gentleman. I think a very large part of his reason for joining the war effort was your own influence. He's been sending some of those marvellous paintings of his along to his parents, mostly of the English countryside that he's obviously missing. I was quite surprised that he's had the time for painting, what with all the gruelling drills, watches and Jerry-slaying you're all in the thick of.
So Speckled Jim is now a member of His Majesty's Armed Forces! All those years of being cooped up in your aviary, and now he's risking life and wing to send messages to the tommies! Your valour must have rubbed off on him— I could imagine most birds just making a break for the Caribbean if pressed into such service. Be sure to give him a chummy scratch on the head from me.
My Angela is continuing to thrive. She got into Tom's silver collection the other day, I don't know how the little bugger found the key to the display cabinets. She's becoming just as sharp as her old lady. Our poor nanny, a good woman by the name of Miss Swynford, has always a lot to cope with.
Dorothy misses you daily. I felt for the poor lass, so I insisted she come and spend a few months with us instead of kicking about a brother-less household. I'm sure she's already elucidated you on some of the goings-on here at Brinkley Court in the great lengthy sagas she pens for you.
Please do drop us a line soon. We all wait eagerly to hear of your latest daring exploits for King and Country.
All my love,
Mrs Dahlia Travers.

ooOOoo

It was almost two a. m., and I could feel my blood sugar drooping rapidly. Not wanting to fall asleep with visions of muddy cadavers dancing in my head, I took a page from Tuppy's previous adventures and snuck down into the pantry for a quick fix of one of Anatole's sugary creations. I padded silently back up to my room with a scrumptious plate of petits fours, scoffed them gleefully down and pressed on. I found an entry, some pages along, that looked to promise more than lamentations of failed battle plans.

ooOOoo

7th March, 1917

Blackadder, that bilious, pigeon-murdering cockroach, gave the order to send George out on a mission in No Man's Land. The moment I was informed of his choice of personnel, I went down to the trenches myself, smacked his evil skull against a splintered wooden wall and stuck the business end of my service revolver in his mouth, fully ready to send him to his demonic maker. The moment I hesistated in pulling the trigger saw George enter the dugout with one of the platoon's smellier privates. The mission had not yet commenced, and I was able to pass the fatal task onto a pair of clumsy corporals from another brigade, neither of whom will be missed.
What is unfolding in Russia is now no secret to either ourselves or the Hun. Bolsheviks have stirred sections of the Allied Forces into tumult. After all the hindrances we've suffered of late, seeing the Ruskies pull out of the Eastern Front is the last thing we need.
As Haig tries to formulate a cunning plan to respond to the inevitable redoubling of the German forces here in Flanders, I have decided to arrange a concert recital for the troops whose bodies will soon be rotting in the same quagmires as their predecessors. If they must die tomorrow, I will see to it that they eat, drink and be merry today.
The show will consist of acts entirely peopled by the tommies. They will entertain their fellow troops at first, after which I shall have the show relocated home to the London Palladium, permanently out of harm's way. I am almost certain that George will leap at the opportunity to share his beautiful voice with the regiments, and thus my oath to return him to Mother Colthurst St. Barleigh, unscathed by the Hun, will be happily fulfilled. I am toying with the possibility of nudging Blackadder into the director's chair through some means, if only because I know he will inevitably make an attempt to join the production anyway. And nobody should have to hear the loathsome little creep sing. Furthermore, I've heard he cowers at the mention of my name since the revolver indicent, and as such he will be easier to manipulate than other troops with more spine.
Nuts to Fritz and his howitzers, the show must go on.

ooOOoo

Another insert was wedged between the pages here, a small printed program on stiff card, complete with decorative edging and black-and-white illustrations. It was quite a spiffingly corkingly pretty little thing, and I suspected Cousin George's dab hand had something to do with its design. It ran something like this:

*

The — Regiment
In association with the fabulous village theatre at —, Nord-Pas-de-Calais
Present:

~**THE TOURING TOMMIES**~
A spectacularly splendid concert party

DIRECTED BY CAPTAIN EDMUND BLACKADDER MC

Theatre De —
3rd, 5th and 7th April 1917, 8pm

~**PROGRAMME**~

Official welcome and introductions by General Sir Anthony Cecil Hogmanay Melchett VC DSO KCB

ACT I

• "We're All Going Calling on the Kaiser" (Caddigan) – Colonel Williver Hendry, accompanying himself on the kazoo
• A soliloquy from "King Richard III" (Shakespeare) – Private Larry Oliver
• Seargeant Hildebrand Pratt and the dazzling feats of his trained troupe of earwigs
• "Whoops, Mrs Miggins, You're Sitting On My Artichokes" (Curtis/Elton) – The boys of the 'Bristol Chums' battalion

20 MINUTE INTERVAL
(Sandwiches and drinks will be served.)

ACT II

• "The Three Silly Twerps" – Corporal Archibald Smith, Corporal Eustace Johnson and ?
• "Charlie Chaplin Comes to Flanders" – Private Sodoff Baldrick featuring Graeme the Slug
• "Gorgeous Georgina" – Lieutenant George Colthurst St. Barleigh, accompanied upon the pianoforte by Seargent Robert Petheridge
Who shall be performing:
• "She Was Only The Ironmonger's Daughter But She Knew A Surprising Amount About Fish
As Well" (Curtis/Elton)
• "The Sun Whose Rays Are All Ablaze" (Gilbert/Sullivan)
• "The Boy I Love Is Up In The Gallery" (Ware)

FINALE & CURTAIN CALL

In loving memory of Speckled Jim (1905-1917)
Pigeon, Messenger, Lunch.

© E. Blackadder productions Inc. 1917. All rights reserved.

*

ooOOoo

4th April, 1917, the early hours of the morning

The boy I love is up in the gallery,
The boy I love is looking now at me,
There he is, can't you see, waving his handkerchief,
As merry as a robin that sings on a tree.

It could just be the glut of port-wine in my system. It could just be a stupid coincidence on which I am founding a foolish hope. I cannot sleep tonight.
The concert consisted of the sort of awkward, half-rehearsed muddling that dogs so many municipal town hall recitals. Little wonder that George's drag act commandered the stage for the better part of half an hour. Even caked in make-up and draped ridiculously in lace, the boy was nothing short of enchanting. His voice rang sweetly throughout the quaint auditorium, rousing the half-asleep audience into fervent applause by the close of the night. And as I sat there basking in his beatific smile, my heart lurching every time that his mascara-ringed, baby blue gaze glimmered my way, a design of pure hope and lunacy bloomed in the back of my mind.
My reputation as a half-sensible, blundering old walrus-face is well established amongst the trenches. Nothing preserves inner sanity during wartime better than a front of violent optimism. Given this apparent lack of sense, not only fastened upon my own mug, but the one that permeates the entire Western Front…
Could it not be entirely plausible that mad old Melchett would be so taken in by a masquerade, that he would mistake a man for a woman? And court him? And take him to the upcoming regimental ball? And declare a blazing, stinging love that has been treasured for four solid years?
It would be walking the razor's edge. It would be a mad, selfish act, manipulating my poor cherished George terribly. The common sense that I prize says that he will only accept my advances out of fear, rather than reciprocation. There is no possible way he could ever return the wild adoration I feel for him. And, if my ruse is discovered, I have four years' worth of maudlin, impassioned memoirs that could, if found, facillitate a swift and dishonorable discharge to prison. Can I possibly risk my safety, and his safety, for the sake of a few stolen moments of romantic artifice?
Perhaps I really have gone insane. I am in love with Gorgeous Georgina.