Roaring Into The Abyss

They call it the Roaring 20s.

Hopeful, in a way. As if all we have to do to banish the lingering spectre of the Great War is to shout loud enough. To party as if the war never happened. As if the legions of dead will be alive again, or the maimed and crippled made whole once more.

I wish that I could believe it.

I want to live as though it never happened, as if I still had two good arms. As if I didn't wake screaming more nights than I slept peacefully, each cough ang gasp for air as I struggled to breathe reminding me of the death rattles of those who would never return home.

How did one go on, after such an experience as that?

Some acted as if the war had never happened. As if it were still the summer of 1913, when we were all immortal. When we had our whole lives ahead of us and the war, if it happened at all, would be over before Christmas.

Others lived as if nothing mattered, after living through the Hell of the Trenches. They dressed, danced and drank as it they were already dead and in the Valhalla of the Vikings that we learned about in school. As if no consequence could be worse than what they had already endured. Perhaps they were right.

And then there were those, like me, who drifted and stumbled through life. We tried to survive each day as it came, just as we had in the Trenches, stuck in the same half-alive, half-not-yet-dead limbo that we'd been in during the war. Unlike the Great War, however, this fog, this grind, appeared unending.

I survived the war, and then survived the Spanish Flu that ravaged those who returned. Surely, there was something beyond this. I wanted to stop waiting for death, to find some way to be alive again.

I just didn't know how.

I share a flat with one of my war-mates, Harrow, a fellow who recieved a discharge for shell-shock around the same time I lost the majority of the use of my arm. He could still work as a laborer, or picking hops as seasonal work, and two men could afford an apartment easier than one alone. We made it work. Harrow self-medicated, and almost nothing could wake him at night, unless it was one of his own Battle Fatigue dreams.

The ideal flatmates, really. We were both very good at knowing things and not talking about them.

Harrow was quieter than usual this evening, quiet enough that I finally gave up on Not Noticing. "Out with it. What's on your mind?"

Harrow glanced up, startled, "Some mates from the Hospital are in town. We're meeting for dinner at a pub. I was wondering whether or not to inviting you would be an imposition."

'The Hospital' was the psychiatric rehabilitation facility that Harrow had been sent to before his discharge. Our original platoon had been all but wiped out during the battle of the Somme. Harrow and I were the only survivors, adrift without our mates, and our fellow patients, equally lost, had filled the void for each other.

My new mates in the RAMC - short enough on experienced NCOs by the end that they were willing to take me for Home Service, even if I couldn't carry a stretcher - had scattered back around the kingdom by 1918, and rarely made it back to London. Harrow's friends didn't gather much more frequently than mine, so we tended to invite each other, as long as the meeting was a situation that wouldn't set one of us off. I wasn't much of one for the parties that were so popular these days - too loud, too crowded, too chaotic, too reminiscent of the Front - but a pub dinner with some Old Mates would be bearable.

It might even be enjoyable.

I nodded to Harrow, "That sounds nice. Thank you."

Harrow smiled, less of the broken shadows behind the expression than usual. "Got to practice being reminded of it, yeah?"

That was advice from one of my mates in the RAMC, a medical student before the war, now studying Shell Shock, according to his last letter. God knows he'll have no shortage of patients. I wasn't very good at following his advice, but perhaps it was time for another try...

Dinner was... nice.

The pub had a jazz band playing, soft and smooth, so as not to drown out conversation, and an open space in front of the stage for anyone inclined for a quick spin around the makeshift dance floor. The best of both worlds.

Harrow and his Hospital mates took a gaggle of former WAC nurses, out for the same sort of meet-up as we were, up on their offer of a whirl, and I eventually asked a young woman eating alone with a book and casting longing glances at the dancefloor to join me. I couldn't do the fancy flourishes that had several patrons cheering Harrow and his mates on, but I fancy that I conducted myself well enough. Miss Mary Smith, as she introduced herself, was smiling when I escorted her back to her chair, at least.

Her cheeks were a light pink, likely from exertion. "I'm not much of a dancer, I'm afraid. Out of practice."

I nodded, relieved that I wasn't the only one. "Me, too. I know the dance halls give lessons, but..."

She nodded, "Too loud, right? They didn't have nurses near the Front until the last months of the war, but it was enough to leave... well, a lasting impression. There was a naval battle near the Base Hospital where I was stationed, and you could hear the guns from the Field Ambulance."

Only the best and brightest of the WAC got posted near the action, and even career nurses were rare, the closer you got to the Trenches. "WAC, or Duty Nurse?"

Miss Smith smiled, "WAC, at first, while I did my final exams and finished the practicum, and you'd better believe that I had to explain it a dozen times, every step of the way until my certificate arrived and I was promoted from Nurse to Sister."

I could well believe that. There was a quiet shadow war, most of the time, between the Sisters, who had studied and become qualified before or during the war, and the WAC Nurses, who had only a few weeks or months of training in basic ward duties. All of them knew better than to air such differences before the Matrons, though, for fear of being sent home.

I expressed as much, and Miss Smith laughed. "Your friends seem like they'll be on the floor for a while; would you like to join me until they return?"

I would, but I didn't want to seem too eager. "I won't be interrupting your grand adventure?"

The book she had been reading was the latest by Mrs Christie. Rather than being offended, Mary lit up. "You've read it too?"

I shook my head, "They were sold out when I went to the bookstore, I had to order and wait for the next print run."

Our conversation about the Christie novels - we both enjoyed the recent Miss Marple over Mr Poirot - lasted the rest of the evening, and I didn't even mind the ribbing from Harrow when he discovered our plans to meet at the same time and place next week.

My "Roaring 20s" might not be the same as most, but perhaps life was looking up, a little.

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