End of a Campaign There are many dead in the brutish desert, who lie uneasy among the scrub in this landscape of half-wit stunted ill-will. For the dead land is insatiate and necrophilous. The sand is blowing about still. Many who for various reasons, or because of mere unanswerable compulsion, came here and fought among the clutching gravestones, shivered and sweated, cried out, suffered thirst, were stoically silent, cursed the spittering machine-guns, were homesick for Europe and fast embedded in quicksand of Africa agonized and died. And sleep now. Sleep here the sleep of the dust. There were our own, there were the others. Their deaths were like their lives, human and animal. There were no gods and precious few heroes. What they regretted when they died had nothing to do with race and leader, realm indivisible, laboured Augustan speeches or vague imperial heritage. (They saw through that guff before the axe fell.) Their longing turned to the lost world glimpsed in the memory of letters: an evening at the pictures in the friendly dark, two knowing conspirators smiling and whispering secrets; or else a family gathering in the homely kitchen with Mum so proud of her boys in uniform: their thoughts trembled between moments of estrangement, and ecstatic moments of reconciliation: and their desire crucified itself against the unutterable shadow of someone whose photo was in their wallets. Their death made his incision. There were our own, there were the others. Therefore, minding the great word of Glencoe’s son, that we should not disfigure ourselves with villainy of hatred; and seeing that all have gone down like curs into anonymous silence, I will bear witness for I knew the others. Seeing that littoral and interior are alike indifferent and the birds are drawn again to our welcoming north why should I not sing them, the dead, the innocent? Hamish Henderson (1919–2002)
Posted on: Mon, 04 Aug 2014 18:54:49 +0000
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