Dulcene Et Decorum Est

For my English 250 class this past semester, we were tasked with writing a canonical (widely recognized as one of the greatest) literary work in a different genre.  I chose the poem Dulce et Decorum Est, by the English War poet, Wilfred Owen.  Rather than just retell the story of the poem, I decided to retell it within the story of Owen's life.  Not only was this the first fiction I had written in months, but it was also my first attempt at using the stream of consciousness technique.  The idea was to more accurately portray the horror and confusion felt by Owen in and after the events of the poem.  If enough people are interested, I can also post a copy of the analysis paper I wrote to go along with this story.  Finally, I challenge you to look into the story of this incredible man: it will definitely be worth it.

Sincerely,

Jacob Joyce

Dulcene et Decorum Est?

                I drop the freshly washed cup into the rinse sink.  It lands in the water with a soft plop-THUNK.  The spoon that follows it breaks the surface with a quiet “splish.”  Tiny ripples float across the surface of the water, spreading to the edge of the sink.  I stand there, lost in thought, while my tea whistles on the stove.  Something about the ripples in the sink and pathetic little splashing noise takes me back.  The mud, slime and stench of the Western Front, and that one puddle – the last physical impression made by one of the best men I have ever known. Wet, cold, damp, clouds…

                It’s nothing out of the ordinary.  A drop of sweat, fog and rain rolls off the end of my nose, and falls more slowly than my eyelids to the water-filled footprint below.  I blink my eyes back open, shake the fatigue from my head.  For days, my men and I have been trudging back and forth in these trenches, waiting for any kind of advance from the Germans across the No Man’s Land.  I have hardly slept the whole time.  The other men, most of them boys, really, don’t expect that anything will actually happen.  And so far, nothing has.  I wish I could be as carefree as them.

Moments: seconds, minutes? Hours.  Hours dwindled.  Men approaching.  Sergeant.  Corporal.  Papers in their hands.   Orders?  Rest?  Finally…

                “Sergeant Owen,” calls the sergeant.  “Sergeant Owen?”

                Light glints off of the sergeant’s buckle.  In that moment, I’m back at Birkenhead Institute.  The light is glinting, not off the buckle, but the pen on my teacher’s desk.  Poetry, Latin, Horace, patriotism.

“Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori:
mors et fugacem persequitur uirum
     nec parcit inbellis iuuentae
     poplitibus timidoue tergo.               

“Virtus, repulsae nescia sordidae,
intaminatis fulget honoribus
     nec sumit aut ponit securis
     arbitrio popularis aurae.” 

                Mister Erikson is the only person I know who can make the dull Latin sound exciting when he reads it.  I realize he’s speaking now, not just reading Horace.

                “This is why we fight in South Africa.  Not for ourselves, but for England.  Not for our own homes, but the homes of our people.  Mister Owen, I believe you asked a question on this topic on Tuesday.  Does this answer it?”

                “I believe so, sir,” my boyish voice replies.

                “The first line of that stanza, ‘Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori,’ can anyone tell me what that means in English?  Anyone?  Mister  Johnson?”

                “How sweet and right it is to die for one’s country, sir?”

                “Exactly.  But why is that important?  It gives meaning and belonging to life.  You belong to something greater than yourself, and at times we must fight and die for something more important than just our own lives.  Are you satisfied, Mister Owen?”

                “Sergeant Owen?   Sergeant Owen!”

              Mud, slime, stench, voices.  The trenches.  Gray skies.  Sergeant, Corporal.

                “Sergeant Owen,” the sergeant asks again.

                “Yes, Sergeant?” I reply, snapped back to reality.

                “Orders.  Looks like a few days of well-deserved rest.”

                The men leave in groups, led by their corporals.  As they leave, new men from another company come to replace them.  I leave with the last group, after giving the incoming sergeant information on things my men and I have observed for the past few days.  And with that, the last dozen of my men and I leave the front lines, through the narrow communication trenches.

                Wider now, slick mud, still stench.  So much stench.  Everywhere, rotting and decay…

                A whistling noise, then BOOM.  Repetition.  5 more times, six now.  Strange smoke…

                “Gas, boys,” I yell to my men. “Gas!”  They jump around, like excited little squirrels, fumbling, dropping the masks that will save their lives.  They finish fitting the masks, and we are enveloped by the ominous cloud.  But even as the relief sets in over my body, by blood is curdled by an ear-rending scream.  I look, and there he is.  It’s Peterson.  He’s crying, screaming in pain, on the other side of my misty, green lenses.  And he has no mask.

                Lost it? No mask.  Give him mine.  No, men need me.  Fool!  Anger.  Lost it?  How? When?  Why didn’t he say anything?  Foam.  Mouth.  Eyes.  Blistering already.  Silence.  Back of own throat – vomit.  Swallow.  Filter.  Can’t clog it…

                I bend over, resting my hands on my knees.  I run my hand over my mask, where my forehead would be.  My men and I wait it out for a while, then trudge to the nearest shelter.  One of the corporals in the shelter calls for a body cart.  The cart arrives, creaking and slurping through the mud.  It seems that the gas has mostly dissipated.  The cart leads the way down the narrow communications road, back towards the hospital that my men and I will need for the gas burns that cover our bodies.  The body that used to be home to Peterson lies on the back of the cart.  His face is worst of all, cocked at an odd angle, pale and horrifying, like a demon straight out of hell.

                Froth, blood.  Mouth.  Foam.  No eyes, only terrible foam.  Another bump in the road.  Froth, blood, pouring, mouth.  Foam moves.  Hardly eyes, only foam.  Like soap suds, moving on water.

                Suds, water, hot, OUCH!

                My hand rested in the water of the sink for too long, and now I yank it out, shaking it and drying it on the towel.  I must write.  I dry my hands, leaving the dishes unfinished in the sink.  I grab my tea kettle and cup, and take them upstairs to my room.  There they sit, my pencil and notebook, a letter from my aunt, that I know will start with, “Dear Wilf.”  I realize that she doesn’t know I only like being called that when it comes from her mouth.  I should tell her that, some time.  I sit, pouring the tea into my cup.  Rather than trickle, it roars like a waterfall.  I finish pouring, but the roar continues. 

                                Headache.  Temples feel like they’re exploding.  Why still roaring?

                I pick up my pencil, and begin to write.  “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,” the words come to me, flowing through my arm into the pencil and onto the paper. “…coughing like hags…”

                                He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning…

                                Headache.  Breathing.  Breathe!  Why so hard?

                I reach for my tea, grasping the hand of the cup.  It slips silently from my hand, splashing my chest and stomach with hot liquid.  My hand slaps at my stomach, trying to catch the cup, but to no avail; my hand touches the liquid on my stomach, but it feels sticky.  I raise it to eye-level, slumping down in my chair.  My hand is covered in blood.  The cup smashed on the floor with a deafening crash.

                                Smoke, crash, whistle BOOM.  Rattle of rifles, boom, pop-pop…pop, POW.  Gray skies.  Stench, slime, mud, wet, everywhere wet.

                Snapped to reality, the first thing I see is the enemy machine gun I had captured.  The warmth of my blood oozes from my stomach, sticking onto my uniform.  Haze.  Everywhere, haze and smoke and stench and noise.  I cough, and my mouth tastes of iron.  Even now, I feel calm and collected, as if I can analyze my situation more clearly.  There should be glory now.  That’s what they told us, that there should be glory, honor, and pride.  Where is it?  I see Peterson, floating – not quite ghostly, not quite angelic— transposed over my view of the street below me.  I hear him, speaking.  It’s some of the last words he ever said to me.

                “The only easy days are yesterdays, Sergeant,” he says to me.  “Once you’ve gone through it, it doesn’t seem so bad, even if it felt terrible while it was happening.”

                “Is it,” I ask him now.  “Is it easier, after you’ve gone?”  He doesn’t answer.  The look in his eyes says it all, and he doesn’t need to say a thing.  He looks at me, solemn, but not unkindly, and then he is gone.

                Muscles in my abdomen spasm, and I writhe on the ground.  I don’t understand…

                                It IS a lie.  Not sweet, not beautiful, just nasty, horrible and meaningless.  Dulcene et decorum est pro patria mori?  They told us!  They told us, and we believed them!  They told us…

                I lean my head back into the mud.  The sky looks so calm, compared to the streets below.  The gray clouds and white smoke reminds me of my kitchen.

                                It’s not fair.  My dishes weren’t finished yet…

                Darkness.

Dulce Et Decorum Est -- Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.