The Ardennes: Two Vignettes
by David Ackley
In the Ardennes for the first time you saw the damage from trees exploded under barrage when you picked wooden shrapnel out of flesh with a pair of tweezers, like pulling quills out of a puppy's nose-- as if the trees, always friendly in a past which threaded through maples turning red in the fall, had been conscripted against you. It was said the Germans loved their forests. At the start, the cover of the forest had let them outflank the French and their Maginot line; now it was a weapon of desperation. The splinters you picked out were red.
In the Ardennes, two G.I.'s came amiably off a tailgate, both bandaged around the eyes, the ¾ ton otherwise loaded with gut wounds, shredded legs, etc. You sat the two with the eye bandages beside each other, gave them both cigarettes and told them to sit tight until you could get to them.
“ I don't give a shit,” one said to the other. “ I seen enough to last me.”
“ It feels funny when you can't see the smoke when you're smoking,” the other said.
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Author's Note
A small piece of the war, from the assumed experience of my uncle, Philip Ackley, a WW II medic.
Other stories by David Ackley
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Intricate opening, sculpted and clear.
Particularly like "under barrage", and the metaphor of a past "threading through".
"...as if the trees, always friendly in a past...had been enlisted against you..." - my favorite stunning words here. *
Thanks so much, Eamon and Beate.
Chilling. Very effective writing.
Some things about killing fields never change with age.
Wow.
Totally effective.*
thanks all for the generous read
Love these, David *
Excellent, David.
*****
David: I spent much of 2019 reading poets of the earlier war: "Ardennes" acquired and retained much resonance across those decades.
On first read this called passages of David Jones's In Parenthesis to mind.
"quills out of a puppy's nose..." nice work.*
Man I loved these. The Ardennes show up again in WWII, the Battle of the Bulge. Maybe a cursed place now. These are brilliant pieces both.
Thanks, Edward, JLD, James and Steven for the receptive reads and comments--they mean a lot to me during this extended project.
Just a clarification, Steven, the war depicted is WWII, the confusion coming I'm sure because the Ardennes was turf in both World Wars.
The clue, of course, is the Maginot Line. Which, like the "unsinkable" Titanic, did not quite live up to its promise. It was built after WWI.