Wilfred Owen’s Release, and: Rupert Brooke at Skyros, 1915, and: Edward Thomas Shoves Off for France, and: Edward Thomas at Havre, January 1917, and: Wilfred Owen: Shellshocked at Gailly

Wilfred Owen's Release, and: Rupert Brooke at Skyros, 1915, and: Edward Thomas Shoves Off for France, and: Edward Thomas at Havre, January 1917, and: Wilfred Owen: Shellshocked at Gailly Daniel Weeks (bio) Wilfred Owen's Release His train labored north—away from the frontbut towards the war—a difference between distanceand time rhythmed outin the clack of iron tires, in the squealof steel on steel rubbed raw.Owen detrained at Southportwhere reserves readiedthemselves, billeted inthe damp nostalgia ofa peacetime beach resort. The hotel, blacked out nights,hid itself from Zeppelin crewson the lookout for any telltale lightas they swung beneaththe belly of their dark balloons. Secure in his tower room,Wilfred surveyed the forlorn beachwhere summer revelers oncebathed and thought he might somehowbe saved. So long a paroxysm,he reasoned, must ultimatelyexhaust itself—a sea wave onthe flinty shingle.Or so he mused. But maybethere would be no end,just wave after wavein green or gray successionrolling over the shell-disfiguredsurface of the earth. End Page 56 Still, he knew, one must actas if it would all go on and he with it.So he browsed antiques in the little shopsand read elegies beside his smoky firewhile daytime winds rustled sandover the windowsill. Soonhis threadbare carpets sang a grainy tuneand his teary eyes grew blind. Owen wrote elegies of his ownbut found no consolationfor himself or for the hell-bound dead.Heaven was blank, and the doomedsheer nullities while calamitous waroffered exultation, beauty, and love—a life-born trilogy nurtured in striving. A small, sharp hookbeneath the skin, his commander'sold charge of cowardice,drew him back to suffer with his men,an unsubtle tug toward redemption.And yet, a slight fearrestrained him, so he held out hopeagainst doom. Perhapshis newfound friendsstuck up in high places might ferret outa London posting, a safe spot where hemight live to sing in pararhyme. End Page 57 Rupert Brooke at Skyros, 1915 In London, old Henry James, halfa deserter in his heart from the warthat tested whether liberty could endure,still safe in his plush parlor, readand reread with trance-like voicethe sonnets for the dead that hemight reach Brooke in a telepathicalcommunion of sublunar grief. But the soldier did not grieve.He wondered was it loveor pride that led to this—a love in willing to be shotor not to be or to fall of a feverfrom a thing so small? Did it matteras long as a love layat the root of it? End Page 58 Edward Thomas Shoves Off for France The siege batteries and crews gatheredon the frozen downs, readied for France.As resolute as Hector, Thomas awaited fatewith winter drizzle freezing the grasses whiteand all the farm roads shellacked in opaque ice.The night a-glitter, he watched two vagrantsroast an animal on a slow spit and wanderedby thatched barns and ivied ash trees that, leafless,seemed hung with living string. A rustingthresher wheezed quiet as the frost, andancient milestones were lichened overwith beaten gold and verdigris. New boots chafed deadened anklesas he trudged about the frosty downs,lonely under a newborn moon and stingy stars.He watched a fox play amongsnowy hills and bicycledover hedgeless roads edgedwith silent juniper and thorn. Backin the toasty hut, he rockedwith loud laughter at the imbecile jestsof brother officers—Horton and Smith.Then, in the chill dark, the men marcheddown to the way station singing "PackUp Your Troubles" till a frigid carcarried them off with neither tea noranything to eat. A tear came then—to be leaving England. At Southamptondocks, ice bobbed gray-whitein black water, and gulls flewcrying to the dark forest beyond.The men played Scottish ruggeror danced to concertinas ina big shed between the railwayand water. At seven they sailed End Page 59 in...