The Forum's Scriptorium

[Yastreb]

VALKYRIE

“Look out, Peter!”
He was shouting it again and again, as he had been shouting ever since he was brought in.
I could barely hear it now. The pain had been building for some time now, spreading upwards from the wounds in my legs. There was no morphine left, so the MO said. There wasn’t much of anything left. Six days of fighting around the Arnhem bridgehead had left us short of ammunition, food, and medical supplies.
The Germans had more than enough ammunition. Their mortar bombs, and rockets from their Nebelwerfers, gave us no respite.
They hadn’t attacked our position in two days, since we’d beaten off their last attempt. Their dead were still lying out there, with three wrecked Panthers almost into our trench lines. I should know about those Panthers; two of those kills were mine. One with a PIAT, and the other by that trick that looks good in the war comics; a grenade down the hatch. That was what landed me here. A machine-gun riddled both my legs. That’s the part they leave out of the comics. Heroes don’t get riddled. Maybe a clean wound through the shoulder, if anything.
Corporal Parker had dragged me back, and then he’d been killed. What was that they said about only the best are taken?
“Look out, Peter!” Lieutenant Arthur Woodley, my chum from OTC... a mortar bomb had landed near him in the last attack as he shouted a warning to Captain Rogers, but it was too late.
He was sounding weaker... starting to fade. An orderly was by his side.
“Look... out...”
The orderly sagged, shook his head.
The pain was fading. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. The noise outside was fading too. Relief...

Suddenly I was awake, and on my feet.
I was in a corridor... a passage, with roughly worked stone on each side and underfoot. Everything was quiet.
I was walking down the passage, and there was noise ahead... loud singing. Hundreds of voices.
I’d come to a door of stout timber, metal-bound, and it opened before me.
I was looking into a room so large I couldn’t see where it ended.
There were tables set up, rough wooden one with benches, and every table was full.
There were men sitting there, all of them soldiers, and of all kinds...
I saw redcoats sitting opposite French soldiers in blue, and they were laughing and toasting each other. Redcoats and Zulu warriors. Soldiers in pale blue and others in field grey... from the Great War, I realised, treating each other as drinking-partners. And others, in uniforms and trapping I didn’t know...
Moving among the tables, placing trays of mugs and glasses and bowls before the feasters, were women of such beauty that I had to blink. Tall blonde women in ancient armour, that’s what they were. The soldiers were smiling up at them, as you’d expect, and the women smiled back and moved on.
Suddenly one of them was in front of me.
“Welcome, Peter,” she said, and somehow I could hear her soft voice above the din.
I couldn’t say anything. She was someone an artist would have sold his soul to paint. Flawless skin, perfect features, large blue eyes just sparkling and happy, and a wide mouth open in a welcoming smile that revealed perfect teeth. And more... her armour was made of leather set with rings, but low-cut only slightly, but enough to just hint at full breasts.
She reached out and took my hands.
“Your friends are here, waiting for you.”
Then she turned and led me through the tables, and I realised that there weren’t just soldiers there. No... there were men and women in different clothing, all types and colours, laughing and joking and simply talking to each other as if they were lifelong friends...
Then the woman stopped at another table of soldiers and stepped back as two men stood up and turned to me and shouted, “Peter! Glad you can join us!”
Arthur Woodley and Bill Parker...
Suddenly I was afraid. No, I was terrified.
“No! I can’t be here! I can’t!”
I saw the woman’s face, and her smile had slipped. She was... pouting, as if I’d turned her down.
And I ran from them, towards the door...

I woke up suddenly, and gasped for breath.
The orderly was leaning over me.
“Thank God! I thought we’d lost you, sir.”
 
I was dozing again when someone said, “It’s over. We’ve got no choice...”
Not long after that, maybe an hour, German soldiers came inside. They were in the camouflage kit of the SS. Seeing them, I knew we were dead.
An officer looked us over, and his face was like stone.
Then suddenly he smiled, and said, “For you the war is over! As you English say. You fought well, but in the end...”
What followed surprised us all. The Germans treated us correctly, though not gently or showing any real kindness. They gave over medical supplies and their own medics worked alongside ours. We’d expected to be shot out of hand, or worse. Gradually I pieced together why this was happening from some off-hand comments by those SS who spoke English.
They thought of us as members of an elite, like them. Worthy enemies. I had to hold back my revulsion at that. We weren’t like them. We knew about Le Paradis and Oradour.
Two days later we were taken from Arnhem and into POW camps in Germany.

Six months later

I had healed enough to walk again, although with a limp, so I didn’t have to be carried off the prisoner train when it stopped at a battered marshalling yard somewhere in Germany, near where an equally battered flak train was standing. It had a mixture of quadruple and single twenty-millimetre guns on it, but the damage to the shields and mounts made us wonder which of those still worked. Something that drew our eyes was that there were women among the crew, and we couldn’t help but look at them.
Our guards were an odd mix of young recruits and older men. The younger ones seemed to have taken their Hitler Youth training to heart and enjoyed taking any chance at some act of childish tyranny; the older ones weren’t so bad once you got used to them.
Among the older guards was one called Gerhardt, who spoke fluent English and had been a student before the war. He was an engaging speaker too, and I enjoyed talking with him generally, of course dodging anything about military matters. Among the thing he’d studied was classical mythology, including the old Norse religions; he made some comments about how the Nazis had made use of the symbols and degraded them in so doing.
One day Gerhardt was in a bitter mood, and made a comment about how the Valkyries must have become exhausted choosing the dead from all sides to take them to Valhalla. When I asked him what he meant, he explained about the warrior women of Asgard, serving Odin and Freyja, who roved battlefields choosing worthy warriors to be taken to Valhalla to stay there in the feasting halls until the day of Ragnarok.
Something in his description made me recall that dream, and I told him about it.
He was astonished.
“Well, that is very interesting. It doesn’t sound like Valhalla. It sounds like Sessrumnir. Odin took warriors, yes, but so did Freyja. The goddess of love and war. She also took worthy people into her home. Not just the warriors. Yes, very interesting.”
Soon after he moved off, and I was left wondering.
Some of the flak train crew had come over to talk with our guards, including two women, and one of them caught my eye. She was tall and blonde and made me think of the woman in my dream.
Then a shout went up.
“Jabos! Alarm!”
We knew what that meant. Fighter-bombers. We’d seen them; RAF Typhoons, American Mustangs and Thunderbolts. We scattered to take cover, and it looked as though the flak train crew had had enough. They didn’t want to be targets, not any more.
Except one. The blonde turned and ran nimbly towards the train as three aircraft were circling for their attack run; American Thunderbolts, heavy with bombs. And if they went for the flak train, they might hit us.
The woman leapt up onto the rear wagon and took hold of an Oerlikon, swinging it round to aim towards the Thunderbolts as they came in line astern. I was lying behind a buffer, looking at her transfixed. I’d never in all my days thought I’d see anything like it...
The Oerlikon barked twice, short bursts, and the lead Thunderbolt exploded. One second it was there, and the next it was torn apart in a ball of flame, and scraps of flaming metal plummeted over the tracks.
The other Thunderbolts broke off and climbed away.
We didn’t come out from cover for a long time We all thought the pilots might come back for revenge, but in the end they didn’t.
The flak train crew were gathered around the woman, applauding and cheering, and I think some of us were impressed. Even if she was the enemy, she’d done something brave when everyone else had lost his nerve.
Finally the cheering was over, and the woman walked back to our train as if she was catching up where she’d left off. That brought her near to where I was standing, and she stopped and looked at me, looked me in the eye.
“Hello Peter,” she said, and I knew that voice. And it was her face; the face of the woman who had greeted me in that hall.
“It’s a shame you left. But you’ll come back in good time. And when you do, it will be to stay. And I’ll welcome you, brave warrior.”
Then she winked at me, and walked on, leaving me speechless.

When I got back to England after VE-Day, I commissioned an artist to paint a portrait of that woman, and I made sure he made it as close to my memory as possible. I gave it the title Valkyrie, and it hangs on my wall to this day.
I’m in no hurry to die. But when that time comes, I know I’ll meet her again in the halls of Sessrumnir.

Spoiler: show

This story is based on incidents in the memoirs of a British paratrooper who was taken prisoner at Arnhem. I happened to be telling Róisín about the paratrooper's account of a near-death experience, and went on to where he had witnessed a German women getting behind a flak gun when everyone else had scattered and destroying an attacking Allied aircraft, and I suddenly had the idea to merge the scenes together.

[LooNEY_DAC]

* LooNEY_DAC sighs

So, I guess it's been long enough for me to put up an ad again.

Maybe.

* LooNEY_DAC sighs again

[Róisín]

I must reread that. It was a good tale, LooNEY. And Yastreb, that is well made.

[dmeck7755]

I must reread that. It was a good tale, LooNEY. And Yastreb, that is well made.

Agreed!!!

Thanks

[Athena]

The subject of this short story came up in another conversation on the Forum, and I was reminded of something I wrote for the library writers group back in 2019. I was playing with the theme of dragon and maiden, was reminded of a satirical ballad, and came up with this small piece of nonsense:

HOW THE DRAGON SAVED THE PRINCESS
ASSIGNMENT FOR 27 JUNE 2019

[story]

This was a lot of fun, Róisín! The "storyteller speaking directly to the audience" works great as a narrative voice

[dmeck7755]

yastreb
I forgot how much I liked you story bravo!

[Róisín]

Our assignment for tomorrow’s Library Writers Group was to write a poem in Canzone form about any subject significant to us. The canzone form is difficult but is fun to play with, and of course I chose to write about the Land. Thought you might be interested, so am also posting it here.

A few explanations of possibly unfamiliar terms: songlines, in Australia, are the paths in which magic flows through the landscape, like the leys of Britain or the dragonpaths of Asian magic. Marngits are one of several types of native Australian mages. In Western alchemy, the Primum Materium is the substance with which several alchemical processes are kickstarted. Sounds frightfully mystical and silly, but what is actually meant is a handful of healthy non-polluted living dirt, preferably from a productive garden. The alchemical Magnum Opus or great work is the major test of an alchemist’s skill, so of course it starts with live dirt.

 A CANZONE FOR THE ELEMENTS OF THE LAND

All that is living leans upon the land:
The land that is not solely formed of soil
But flows with force that makes it living Land.
Power of Earth, the magic of the Land
Where songlines guide the flows that shape the Earth.
For magic is a product of the Land:
Shaped by the Will and Word from life of Land.
For life, in living, generates more Life
For shaping into magic, flows of Life
That form the living essence of the Land.
That essence flows across the land like water:
The songlines flow with life, alive like water.

Yet many places songlines flow lack water.
Out on the Nullarbor, across the land
The marngits say the magic flows like water
Where only the deep caves hold living water
Buried so deep beneath the baking soil.
And yet the magic bears itself like water.
From higher ground to low it flows like water,
Following the subtle contours of the earth,
Bearing that energy that shapes all life
And feeds the elements to give them Life.

And it is quite definitive of life
That all life, to exist, has need of water.
Metabolism fuels the flows of life
All the processes that sustain our life,
That keep us living, help to feed the land
So in its turn the land can uphold life
In its creation of persisting life
In pushing plant life upward through the soil
So it breaks down to generate more soil:
Soil in its turn forms seedbeds for new life
Which in its own turn breaks down into earth
Which feeds the processes of Living Earth.

For all life generates from living Earth.
All beings, all organisms that have life
All consciousness that thinks upon the Earth
And all those simple lives sustaining Earth
All things inhabiting air, earth and water
Combine to shape the structure of our Earth.
All lives give life to Gaia, Mother Earth
She who both shapes and animates the Land,
She whose vast consciousness informs the Land
And makes it more than simple mineral earth,
More than the chemical processes of soil.
‘Primum Materium’ is living Soil.


For alchemy begins with living soil.
With a handful of healthy garden earth
From cabbage patch or herb bed, living soil
With which begins the Great Work, simple soil
From a humble garden, rich with teeming life,
With life that thrives in every bit of soil,
Fungi and protozoa of the soil:
Those tiny lives that thrive in earth and water,
(Remember, all that lives depends on water)
All the Earth’s creatures base their lives on soil
And all unite to shape the Living Land.
Never should we forget the Living Land.

For all that lives derives life from the Land.
From tiny lives inhabiting the soil
Turning that dead soil into living Earth
Enabling the flourishing of life:
Of all the life that fills Earth, Air and Water.

[dmeck7755]

Róisín,
Wonderful!! It really is quite lovely

I did not know what a canzone style of poem was.

So I looked it up
They are really quite complicated (Well done on yours!! So many rules)

I also learned they they developed into sonnets (structure a tad different) ,  madrigals and minnesang.  Each with their own rules  (yikes!!)

I learned something cool today !!

Spoiler: show

Apparently "Voi che sapete" from Mozart's Marriage of Figaro,  is supposed to be a form of this.

Dante apparently was fond of them.  I need to relook at inferno now
https://www.webexhibits.org/poetry/explore_obscure_canzone_make.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canzone

[Róisín]

Glad you liked it! The writers did too, which pleased me, because canzone is such a hard form to write.

[Buteo]

Róisín, you made it look easy. It reads like a combination of teaching song and celebratory ode.

[Róisín]

That was what I intended it to be. Glad that came across.

[Keep Looking]

Róisín, this poem is amazing both in form and also in the topic it speaks to. I'm doing a human biology unit at university right now and it's really incredible learning all the different substances that the body needs in order to keep itself going. The cycles and flows of nutrients and matter and energy through the body isn't so different from how it is in the land itself.

[Róisín]

Precisely that! Are you doing a science degree?

My mindset has always been that magic and science are not mutually exclusive. Then, I am coming from the perspective of someone who grew up on subsistence farms in a culture that accepted both science and magic, then went on to study science and work a lifetime in the fields of botany and geology. Everything connects, I suppose.

[Keep Looking]

Precisely that! Are you doing a science degree?

I'm doing a psychology degree, but as a bachelor of science. I actually really enjoy learning about experimental methods and also biology! As you know I am also very interested in botany, although I'm not studying it. I think studying all these things really does open your eyes to all the different connections. I don't know too much about magic myself but the principles of how you talk about it always made sense to me.

And since this is the forum's scriptorium, here's a poem I wrote recently and actually read at a lakeside poetry reading one of my mother's friends organised (we read poetry outside by a lake in the evening, it was really nice. Except for the mosquitos, but deet exists for a reason).

Reed-Warbler

We hear it when we first arrive.
Nothing here is as it should be. And yet -
This lake, her throat bulrush-choked
Collared by constricting asphalt corridors
Still finds in her, miraculous, a voice.
The rustle of paperbarks melds with traffic’s thrum
Yet calling high and melodic over both
As bright and clear as wind over the water
The reed-warbler is singing.

It takes us several minutes to spot.
Nothing here is as it appears. And yet -
Tenaciously insistent, we remain
To stay and scour the choking rushes
Here at the kissing-point of lake and land
Where every sound must have its source.
We finally spot it, perching on dead branches
The larynx of this lake, a plain brown bird
Its throat thrown open in miraculous song.

Here is the true miracle of this place.
Nothing can be as it once was. And yet -
This lake, both wild and caged in urban sprawl
Is not unblemished, yet neither unloved, unvoiced.
Traffic cannot drown this lakesong
Bright and clear, a call like wind over water.
The darter nests in the rustling paperbarks
And we leave to walk the circle of the lake
While the reed-warbler still sings.

[Buteo]

Keep Looking, I've visited places like that. There are some close to where I live, but I haven't been to them recently. Now I think I'll start going back to them. May I take along your poem to read?