Fast Fiction: War And Peace
One day in the first world war men sang 'Rainin, rainin, rainin, always bloody rainin' to the tune of 'Holy, holy, holy, lord god almighty.' In 14 taut paragraphs Richard Mallinson presents the story of a life.
One day in the first world war the men sang ‘Rainin, rainin, rainin, always bloody rainin’ to the tune of ‘Holy, holy, holy, lord god almighty’.
It was a stupendous sound and Captain Tom Harling felt sheer emotional delight.
He began to think about his wife, Elsie, back in England. She would be in their cottage, with its piano, prints and books.
Perhaps at this very moment he would be re-reading his poems, as he knew she often did.
The light from her lamp would reveal a dark-eyed beauty that no portrait painter could capture - though some had tried.
*
The marriage of Tom and Elsie survived the war but not the peace and now Tom is in London - on a pavement in the rain.
Eyes closed, head on arm, he hears again the resonant voices, hundreds and then thousands of them…
‘Rainin, rainin, rainin, always bloody rainin…’
Nobody pays any attention to him. Passers-by sway in the gusts and clutch their umbrellas. Taxi cabs splash him and roar away.
Tom tries to stand up, then collapses.
*
‘Did he say anything after he ‘ad fallen?’ asks the plump policeman.
‘Yiss,’ says a dripping flower girl, ‘something’ loik, please let me ‘ear them vices agin.’
‘And what d’you think he meant by that, young lady?’
‘I dunno,’ says the flower girl, ‘don’t arsk me.’
