Tuesday 2nd March 1943
Denny Search has arrived in this hospital and has sent a message that he'd like to see me. That means I must go across and sit talking about the Regiment... Feel pretty fed-up today, altogether. It has been a grey sort of day.
“I'm a Scotsman, in the Middle East Force. M-E-F M-E-F And nine and twelve makes nineteen. And four and three makes forty three. And this is...” The droning monologue stops abruptly and Jock calls out in a quiet and normal voice, “What's the date, Jock?” “March the second” says someone. “Aye...” and he begins again. It sounds just like hearing a telephone conversation. Every now and then he pauses, presumably while the invisible person at the other end of the wire makes some replies. “It's March the second, 1943. Yes, March. March forward to death. Death for you and death for all.”
“How are you? Hullo! Scotsman! How are you?” cries Hamad gaily.
“Me? I'm alright.” And a few minutes later - “Yes, I saw her in 1942. On Sunday the fifth of June, about 5 o'clock. Or maybe the second of June... And so I'm waitin' for her to come down. The right girl. She's a WAAF so she can fly down here... Rain from heaven, pennies from heaven... One, two , three. And the other four thousand six million times... And then two more... “Yours till the stars lose their glory”... A Saturday night it was... Glasgow Playhouse 5o'clock...”
I wrote the above just to convince myself I could still make a normal observation of others, even when feeling miserable! No poetry though, none worth entering in my book, since the 12th of last month. I could make the rhyme easily enough, but there are no ideas.
“I'm a Scotsman, in the Middle East Force. M-E-F M-E-F And nine and twelve makes nineteen. And four and three makes forty three. And this is...” The droning monologue stops abruptly and Jock calls out in a quiet and normal voice, “What's the date, Jock?” “March the second” says someone. “Aye...” and he begins again. It sounds just like hearing a telephone conversation. Every now and then he pauses, presumably while the invisible person at the other end of the wire makes some replies. “It's March the second, 1943. Yes, March. March forward to death. Death for you and death for all.”
“How are you? Hullo! Scotsman! How are you?” cries Hamad gaily.
“Me? I'm alright.” And a few minutes later - “Yes, I saw her in 1942. On Sunday the fifth of June, about 5 o'clock. Or maybe the second of June... And so I'm waitin' for her to come down. The right girl. She's a WAAF so she can fly down here... Rain from heaven, pennies from heaven... One, two , three. And the other four thousand six million times... And then two more... “Yours till the stars lose their glory”... A Saturday night it was... Glasgow Playhouse 5o'clock...”
I wrote the above just to convince myself I could still make a normal observation of others, even when feeling miserable! No poetry though, none worth entering in my book, since the 12th of last month. I could make the rhyme easily enough, but there are no ideas.
posted by Paul Wilson at 1:05 pm
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