Body: le corps

That’s what I get when I follow the instructions: pick up the first book that comes to hand, go to page 123, find the fifth sentence and…Body: le corps. The book is Collins French phrase book and it was sitting at my right hand just under my cup of wussy tea. Not sure if the experiment worked – an exercise in encouraging me to blog. But it got me to thinking in a James Joycean stream-of-consciousness stylee.

The phrase book was there because I had bought it a few weeks ago just before a planned trip to the Somme area in France, with a biking buddy who is interested in militaria. In order to justify a reason for going I had announced that I would track down the final resting place of a great grandfather (soldier no. 15713) on my wife’s family side. There are over 250 military cemeteries in the Somme area alone and you could be forgiven for thinking that they are scattered randomly. But each location tells a story. In my own search I located the documented grave in a small (580 souls) cemetery called, rather disconcertingly: Knightsbridge. On the day of the battle this was a field hospital site where wounded and dying were brought. 15713, Arthur, was shot and wounded on the first day of the battle of the Somme and died of his wounds the following day, aged 30. The neat rows of stones belie the chaos and mass burials which took place at the time. It was only after the war was over that the Allies swept the battle fields (6 times I am informed) in an effort to recover as many body pieces as possible. Geography and the passage of time has dictated that the Knightsbridge site is now surrounded by maize fields, a walled and isolated lawned patch under a big sky in the middle of nowhere. It’s quiet.

Like many before me I am struck by the sheer numbers involved. Thiepval monument with over 70,000 names scribed on its architecture. Serre Road cemetery with over 7,000 burials. Delville Wood cemetery (South African) 5,500 burials and so on and, horrifically,so on. In a big picture like this the little things stand out :
In a cemetery for german soldiers there, scattered amongst the black iron crosses, stand the slate headstones of the german jews who fought ; star of David carved in white with remembrance pebbles on the top edge of the stone instead of poppies.
The momentary shock of seeing my own surname alongside that of my travelling companion engraved on a sandstone slab.
The bland repetition of the date: 1st July 1916.

I hadn’t expected to make contact with all the WW1 stuff. In the end it wasn’t (only) the numbers that got to me but the resonating repetition of the phrase: ‘known only onto God’ on every other plot. I imagine this phrase either being shouted at God for not doing something about the destruction or perhaps, more appealingly, being whispered along with the words: “and sorry for the mess”. There is a need to believe that God ‘knows’. It is just as well that the bible reinforces not only this but that we are encouraged to know Him.

In 10 years time the Somme will have happened 100 years ago. Bodies are still resurfacing, being ploughed up as the land is tilled. Body…le corps. That’s what you get for turning to page 123

Greentea