Chapter Eight
I am a grim gargoyle looking down upon the courtyard, centuries of students strolling in and out among the ivy covered walls, taking tomes to town and drinking down the barrel dregs of toasts to former times they fly to. I call forth the myth makers! Where are the seedling souls to sow rebellion, sparking, flaming, flying! Waving word swords forward, reaping flames in stone cold halls of self-absorption, setting minds on fire!
Most are scattered into graves by war, or worry living lives of quiet desperation delving down devoid of light, hidden there by bushel-weres, barrow-wights to tame the fevered fear of failure, talents tinder-dry to touch. Know thy gifts, you sleeping Kings and Queens, which heap like coals upon thy heads of wealth and comfort as the kingdom falls to ruin round you.
It is a tree-storm drawing nigh, which yearns to sink its roots into the disappearing past, and stretches for the sun to father futures filled with family.
Eric set down his fountain pen, struggling to find a way to honor the comrades he had lost, wondering how to capture the precious gifts they had to give to the world while they were still alive, and their lives snuffed out in an instant act of courage in the skies. He yearned to return to Oxford to his studies there, and wished the war had never happened, that the skies were not beckoning to him whenever he walked outside.
He looked around the hospital ward, cursing the infection that had taken root in his burns and sent him back to the hospital, and growing ever more irritated as the morphine slowly wore away from his system as they weaned him off of it. He was anxious, bursting for his ride to arrive, so thankful and humbled that his injuries were no deeper than the superficial burns he’d gained. The nurses quietly made their rounds, talking to soldiers and pilots, and the immensity of the price that would be paid for decades to come borne in upon Eric, pressing him down.
In anger, he walked around the grounds, cursing inwardly, cursing Hitler, cursing and blessing his father for being a courageous fool, cursing himself for being a courageous fool, wondering if the loss of so many men and women had made much of a difference.
He sat down on a bench, clutching his bag, no longer feeling the pain that throbbed at his shins where the bandages hung round tenaciously. He noticed a newspaper lying there, and spat on it, and breathed, and then calmed. He looked over, wary, and then took a deep breath, and picked it up. “The Bloody Miracle of Dunkirk” he muttered, and threw the paper down again.
A brightly-painted Austin Healey and a similarly garish MG pulled up to the drive in front of the hospital, and Eric’s heart warmed a bit as he saw his mates from Oxford who had been in the RAF, come to take him for a visit back to the University.
“How do you do sir.” asked Edgar Kain out of the front window, motioning for Eric to come over. “Let’s get to it, shall we?” Richard Hillary, from Australia, was also there.
Eric felt better just being away from the hospital, hopefully for the last time, but he was fretting over his buttons on the clasp on his coat, muttering. Edgar and Richard looked back at Eric and looked at each other, and kept quiet.
“How are things, old boy?” said Edgar after a few minutes. “Ready for a jaunt up to Oxford?”
“Quite.” said Eric, wondering if he really was, wondering if he could ever go back to University after the war. Eric looked at Edgar, and wondered how the war had worn on him.
“Edgar, Richard, I can’t say I really know how things have gone for you, can you fill me in?”
“Well, Richard ended up going to 603 City of Edinburgh Squadron, and a bunch of us flying for the first time together were sent to France.”
“Edgar is being a bit modest” said Richard, looking in the back and jerking his thumb at Edgar. “This here bloke claimed his first Dornier Do17 bomber in November, and took care of another Do17 just fifteen days later.” Richard huffed, and Edgar drove on.
“And he’s chalked up another 17 confirmed victories just prior to our little jaunt up to Oxford” said Richard, and became quiet again. Being among the company of brother pilots on holiday felt a bit surreal to Eric, as if their real life was in the sky, and wondering how real their life on the ground had become. Sometimes it felt like slow motion, and he was still getting used to switching back and forth, from being on duty, to off duty.
As the afternoon wore on, eventually they came to the stretch of the Thames river, Eric’s favorite part of Oxford, between Folly Bridge and Iffley Lock, and Eric felt some of the scars of war ease into place above his wounds, remembering the sense of home he had felt at Oxford, and afraid of returning to a love of the area.
“Knowing as how you like your letters Eric” said Richard, “We’ve cooked up a literary lunch for you – well a rather late lunch.” he said, looking at his watch. “We’re to raise a glass with a few Oxford dons, courtesy of a friend who once studied with them – John Tolkien from Pembroke College and Clive Lewis of Magdalen”. Eric had heard about these dons, and his hope had been to study with one or other of them, before the war drew him away.
“I daresay Tolkien is an expert in Anglo-Saxon literature and languages, yes?” asked Eric, wondering how the myths of Nordic and Saxon cultures had shaped the peoples of Germany and England, even the very soldiers who were now in pitched battles with each other.
“Yes, that’s Tolkien” said Richard. “Lewis is a Tutor in English Literature.”
“And they both survived World War One.” said Edgar, “They were both in the Somme.”
They rode on in silence, thinking about the last war, and the current one, and Eric was glad that some literary minds had survived the war. He hoped they would survive this war too, and teach and write and inspire new generations.
Then Edgar turned to Eric.
“I’m very sorry, Eric, to hear about your dad. It was a tight nip over there, and we’ve all the scars to prove it.” Eric nodded, silent.
“The thing we thought you’d like is that Tolkien contributed to a new edition of Beowulf and he’s to bring it to the pub” and Eric was intrigued in spite of himself at the thought of re-entering the Old English poem Beowulf, threads of his mind long dormant arising from the incessant training and fire and blood and death. He realized that he now had life experience, against which to measure the literature and poetry he loved. It was no longer a boyhood escape, but somehow deeper, recognizing the long arc of history and the swift short precious passing of life, like words on a page.
They parked the cars and the friends went this way and that, seeping out into Oxford, while Eric, Edgar and Richard made their way to the pub. Eric looked at the sign, “The Eagle and the Child”, and saw the fire and light and life within, and realized that he was feeling somewhat alive again. However long or short life is, it’s worth living.
“Ok lads, thank you for your kindness, we won’t need to take long here, I know you’re not so much into Literature, but at least let me buy you a drink.” And the pilots went into the pub.
They came up to a table where several professor-looking types were sitting, and Richard nodded to his friend, and then said, “Mr. Tolkien, let me introduce a couple of my mates from the RAF, who are on leave and wanted to visit back to Oxford – Edgar Kain, and Eric Wallace.” And several gentlemen rose from the table, setting down their ale, and came around to say hello.
Eric looked at Tolkien, who had a friendly face, wearing a comfortable jacket and tie, who cradled a pipe in one hand. He looked at the expressions of the men around him, and the people in the pub, who had grown a shade quieter. And he realized with a shock that the mood in the room was pride. And he stood a little bit straighter, in the company of men who had served in the last war and had stood up in respect of their own sacrifice. There was no light of glory or zeal on their eyes, no retelling what the horrors of the Trenches. There was only silent appreciation.
“Pleased to meet you.” said Eric.
They spent a few pleasant hours talking with the professors, about literature, and Anglo-Saxon tales and language, a
nd when Clive Lewis offered him a pipe, Eric lit it up and enjoyed blowing a few smoke rings, there amidst the deep brown wood, and lively talk, with the scent of leather and even the feel of a sheaf of papers was pleasant, which Tolkien had passed along for him to read, comments he had made for the new edition of the translation of the Old English poem Beowulf, an epic if there ever was one.
At the urging of another professor Charles Williams, Tolkien spoke of a set of stories he was working on, and how Beowulf had influenced them, about a ring of power, and a struggle between good and evil. They talked on into the evening about fairy tales, Norse and general Germanic mythology, and also Celtic, Slavic, Persian, Greek, and even Finnish mythology.
On their way back from Oxford, somewhat light-headed, Eric was thankful for his friends’ kindness, and he realized that he was going through a process of inner healing, finding the person he had left behind when he became a soldier, starting over again, some things the same and some things different.
He felt himself develop a sense of identity, one that could outlive the war, and come back with him if he did make it back from the skies, but also in the legacy of that service.
Liberet et Defendat. He felt a sense of kinship with warriors of long ago, and the myths, but also the paradox of defense – valor not for the sake of glory on a battlefield – but for the sake of rescuing and defending the ones I love dear.
That’s how I will appropriate the myths, he thought.
He had a glimpse of a possible future, where peace might return to the world, but where there was still darkness, and calamity, and where there would be a need for those to face it, whatever form it took.
I dare not become too attached to the vision, he said to himself, as he was brought back into the present by the reality of the skies he would need to face the next day, and the day after that. Too much caution, too much attachment to the earth and I will make mistakes in the air and be unwilling to risk everything.
He carefully wrapped the vision in his heart, and stored it away for safe-keeping.
May I live to see the day when it is realized.
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Several days later, Eric was shocked, and not shocked, to hear that Edgar had been killed in an accident. Edgar “Cobber” Kain was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, and as Eric stood before the gravestone of his fallen comrade on leave from the squadron, against his better judgment, he brought out the vision from hiding.
“Here you go, Edgar” said Eric, and set a small pewter dragonfly on the gravestone to watch over Edgar. “You are hereby inducted into the Order of the Dragonfly, and I raise it up in your honor. I pledge to write poems, and to live a live worth of the motto. Rescue and Defend, brother, and perhaps I will see you on the other side.”
And Eric walked back to the waiting car, willing the councils of war to be wise, in their plans and decisions, and hoping that peace would come again someday.