Letter to an Unknown Soldier,
They, the powerful, still insist it was absolutely essential to go into that war. The nation needed you to take up arms and get the Huns, for King and country.
You did as were told, went into battle, feet deep in fields of blood and mud, with comrades around you sobbing, begging for release. Or stiff and noiseless. Did any of them still believe the spin when reality hit them, cut through their bodies, pulped their parts and laid them low? I hope you cursed the top brass before you lost consciousness. But you were probably decent and a good Christian and very forgiving. Your last thoughts will have been of those you left behind.
My mother Jena, born in 1920, treasured a letter from an old relative, Abdul, who had gone from Karachi to fight with the allies. Dated 25th January, 1916, typed and translated, it was sent from France: ‘Don’t worry about my death. Only Allah decides that. And he is protecting me. Shells fall near me but can’t touch me. This is a Great War I fight. For freedom ’. India was under the Raj then, its people not free. And yet men like Abdul felt they had to support their oppressors and enlist. They, like you, were persuaded to do so by masterful manipulators. Abdul died of septicaemia in some makeshift hospital. And his mother died soon after, followed him to paradise.
When I look at your statue, I like to imagine your young sweetheart wrote you playful letters with rose petals in the folds. And that you blushed when your army buddies saw the red petals and laughed. (Young men do blush) What I can’t imagine is how she felt when she was informed – in that stiff, formal, military way- that you were ‘lost in action’. In your neighbourhood you must have been hailed a local hero who died for a just cause. Such myths are necessary to keep populations on side.
Now, a hundred years on, politicians recycle the same old propaganda while jingoistic historian-warriors play war games on their pages. Worst of all are the authors and poets who romanticise WW1. One novelist told me he feels he’s missed out on a rite of passage because he never had to go and fight, like a man should, as his forbears did.
If only you could come back and put them right, a ghost from wars past. At Versailles they left the Germans seething and totally humiliated. Nazism rose and had to be stopped. World War 2 was unavoidable. Some wars are unavoidable. But our nation seems addicted to military action. 2015 may be the first year since 1914, when British sailors, soldiers and airmen are not engaged in armed conflict. Ex PM Tony Blair called out on St George’s Day for a crusade against Islamicists, for him the biggest threat in the world today. Our people are weary of fighting but we may find ourselves taken into armed conflict, and an unbroken tradition will carry on. ‘Never again’ is the biggest lie.
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Letter To An Unknown Soldier
Short StoryThis story is a collection of short letters that have been submitted to the Unknown Soldier project. The project is inspired by a statue that stands on Platform 1 of Paddington Station in London, representing all the millions of soldiers who died –...
