literature

Between Hell and The Moon

Deviation Actions

AEF1918

Published: Aug 22, 2011

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Literature Text

1917

There are nights when I sit and look up at the sky, and think that I know what it is like to be on the Moon. I know that no-one will ever be on the Moon – Billy Murray may be so optimistic, but I am not – there are too many Wars on Earth to be fought for man to do more than consider the Stars. Out of Wars come many things. Vickers, and Maxim, the German Under-Sea boats, the trench-crossing machines the boys call 'Tanks', even the Red Devil's own dreidecker. Perhaps out of War will come inventions for all of us. Some men dream of Tanks standing where draughts once were, or Black-Ball ships untroubled by the breath of Storm. Perhaps I am too wearied, but I see nothing but Death in their futures. Necessity is not the Mother of Invention. War is.

Perhaps God created the Moon; perhaps, in planning it, He thought to make it so barren, so that man could merely look up, and see what reaching too far, what the wage of war, could do. Perhaps it is a warning. Perhaps it is a sign.

It is so lonely, here. You would not think that a man among so many could be so lonely, but I am posted, and my boys are asleep. Even Fritz is asleep, save his own sentries, and out in the dark, wire is unrolled, and howitzers are bored, and tired-eyed generals issue commands over tea-stained maps.

This is the closest to the Moon that man will ever come. We are the lunar-people, the Moon-soldiers, and if man ever seeks the Moon, he would do well to take us along. Perhaps, by then, we will be too wise, too old.

What will we see? I gaze into the sky, and I see my battle-field.

There will be mud, and rock, and craters, where monstrous, explosions rock men in their boots. There will be pools of filthy water, and important men telling us to die in them. But to them, I have this to say: In Passchendaele, it once was green. I will fight for that green, for that memory of Spring. Send me back to Hell – I will die with a poppy in my hand. This war has made us trench-men, Moon-men, but with each breath, I pull through a clotted bag of chemicals, I pray that children will one day dance on my bones, and ask their mothers what a soldier might be. Keep the Sky for your own – I will die with the memory of Spring. There can be no Spring on the Moon.

-- Lt. Alan J. Cameron, August 2011

Many things, have changed, since, these ideas, first ran, through my head. Men, have landed, on the Moon, massive farm equipment, bigger than Tanks, have been invented, people, rountinely, fly around, the world. I know, now, that there, is no atmosphere, on the moon, no gravity, no water, but I didn't, then, and I hope, you'll excuse, the ignorance, of my decade - we weren't taught, such things, then.

I couldn't, give you an exact, date, for these thoughts, I just remember, sitting in mud-hell, thinking the strange, lost thoughts, of lonely soldiers.

Scribbled this down, in the car, today, in between, helping, a friend move house. Let me know, what you think?

Please don't use without my express permission. If you steal, I will drive a Tank, through your house.

Thanks again, to ~senzanima for editing out, my comma-excess.

Over and out.

-- Lt. Alan J. Cameron