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Just north of the Danube River, west of Chartres, the earth is scarred with the trenches of the most vile and destructive conflict anyone has ever witnessed, or experienced. The earth, viewed from the heavens, has been disfigured to resemble the surface of the moon, with craters from the persistent onslaught of the German artillery. The shell smoke eclipses the sky and the only light is the man-made stars that light the horizon from the rifles and not the night sky as they have always been for the soldiers. The shrill shriek of enemy bullets are heard without pause. They buzz over the heads of the soldiers or into the corpses of comrades fallen days or weeks ago in No Man's Land.
The odor from the dead, hundreds of yards away, almost overpower the stench of the spent gunpowder or the effects of the soldier's dysentery covering the trench floors. The stench is almost too appalling for the soldier's unceasing messmates: the rats. Just yards behind the south part of the British trenches is Hospital Station 3. "I will take the men as they come. " An overworked Dr. McCrae snapped at his head nurse. "Enlisted men and officers are the same rank here: wounded or seriously wounded, or dead on arrival. That is all. " With a wave of his hand the Canadian physician dismissed the veteran nurse into the crowded hospital station. The command of the British 3 rd army created a large break in the southern German trenches.
They ordered a series of charges, which McCrae knew failed by the expressions on the faces of wounded brought in. He did not even need to hear what happened. The hospital was overcrowded as per usual. McCrae's expression remained solemn and he and his veteran nurses worked as if surgery was polishing a boot.
Blood flowed more than water and the smell of the soldiers lingered on McCrae's hands and tools even with hundred washings. McCrae ordered a stiff looking officer in for a probable amputation: The quickest solution for any wounded extremity. Less chance of infection, quick, and the soldier gets to go home. McCrae's mentality was not insane. Soldiers sometimes would beg him to amputate an injured leg just to go home with disability pay.
McCrae, despite regulations of the British Army, treated officers and NCOs no different than enlisted men. The young officer's trousers were soaked through with blood and sweat, and caked with dirt. He had a calm look on his face, which he had buried in a notebook. McCrae reserved his usual sarcasm and rudeness he had for the officers, as this one made no complaint or fowl words about the wait despite being an officer. "Well, er...
Lt. Owen" McCrae said with pause as he read the medic's injury sheet for the officer before him. "Can you feel me applying pressure to you foot" As he began to examine the young Lieutenant. "Yes, doctor, I can. " The Lieutenant responded with a touch of fear and uneasiness in his voice, despite his calm expression and mannerism. Despite his months of service and all the vile and horrible things, one thing McCrae still could not stand was the silence in the closed examination room and the echoes and stirring on the injured and dying out in the waiting area. McCrae usually spoke in between the occasional exam questions, asking questions along the lines of 'Where you from soldier?' or 'How's our lines holding?' . In this case, McCrae again noticed Owen's notebook, now closed. While cutting the wool of his trousers near the wound, McCrae asked. "Lieutenant, may I ask whom you were writing to before?
Paperwork?"No, doctor, actually I am writing a sonnet. Er, A poem where... "Yes, yes. Lieutenant, I am well aware. O.
A. C. is my alma matter and attended the University of Toronto. " McCrae interrupted the Lieutenant. Slight embarrassed Owen quickly formed an apology. "Oh, my apologies, doctor.
The enlisted men do not tend to be well educated. Even most of our NCOs. " McCrae withdrew from his patient in disgust at the lieutenant's insulting comment. Realizing that McCrae had misunderstood his comment from the open-mouthed frown on his face, Lt. Owen, quickly explained his comment before he could respond verbally. "Doctor, no, excuse my comment.
We have an army where many of the officers show little respect for our men. If there was one officer in this army that showed as much respect for the men as you do and those back home do, that man would be me. The men in my squad are poorly educated and because I am their commander, I am used to explaining a lot of information again and again to them and even some of my commanding officers. I make no generalizations about our men. The only stereotype I give is that for all the men in the trenches and those who treat them and see the horrors of the battlefield first hand is that they all, well, we all suffer. " Relaxing his expression, McCrae, drops into a chair and with it, his head, shadowing it from the lieutenant's view. "I hope you understand all what I meant, doctor. The men are treated like cattle by other officers.
There is no funeral for them. There graves are mostly unmarked... "I understand perfectly, lieutenant, and I assume you respect for these men is simply to tell of their sufferings? You poem, or sonnet, is nothing but this suffering? Nothing but the death and the vile things you " ve seen and experienced?"Well, yes, sir. I assume so, but... " Owen responded, but was cut off by the bitter looking doctor. "The suffering goes beyond the battlefield. Soldiers return to their families missing and arm or leg, or blind.
Most of the time they cannot be sent home. They lie in mud and blood, rotting away. You think people need to hear what happened to their children, there husbands, their friends? No, they know they were killed. That is all. They do not need to know how they suffered. "But, doctor, I write to tell of these things, to tell those who do not know.
Other countries, and even our generals who have never been to the front. How do they know how it is here? How are we to end this? I do not want to be an old man and read of a war like this again. This is the war to end all wars. " McCrae paused in thought.
A nurse whipped through the curtain suddenly, and whispered into the doctor's ear. She left hurriedly and the doctor gave her no response. There was no talking when she left. McCrae still sat in quiet. Owens tried to think of something to tell the doctor. He realized he ruined his chances of getting some drugs for his injury.
Owens could hear a soldier in the waiting area screaming about his arm and tried to block it out. Owen realized that this was just as terrifying and awful as the battlefield and that his doctor deals with this everyday for hours and hours. Looking back at McCrae, Owens saw that he maintained his position from before yet his knee was supporting a notebook and his left hand left his pocket and now held a pencil, dotted with brown blood stains. "What do the soldiers call this field? Did they give it some bloody name yet?" McCrae asked quietly without lifting his shadowed head. "They called it Flander's Fields.
There is no creative name, sir. Why do you ask?"The name is just as it should be. It is just a name. It is not called 'Bloody Lane' or some other awful name.
No gruesome adjectives. A name is enough, and if we leave this field, our memory will be enough. You have all my respect lieutenant, but I must attend to another wounded soldier. Dr. Moore should be here in a minute to finish your examination and surgery. You will keep your leg. " Owen watched the doctor stand up, and knew not what to say to the man.
McCrae finally made eye-contact with Owen. He held out his hand. Owen reached out to grab it, but the doctor only handed him a browned folded paper and turned and pushed his way through the curtain. The doctor had written a poem, "In Flander's Fields." John McCrae and Wilfred Owen are regarded to have written the most effective and emotional poetry about the First World War. Both men exist only through their works as they both died in combat and never returned home.
McCrae became ill with pneumonia and died on January 28 th, 1918. Wilfred Owens was cut down by a German machinegun on November 4 th, 1918. He parents received word of his death only seven days later: Armistice Day.
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