Arkell's Ark: 1916
...I’ve come to France to visit two relatives I never met. My father’s uncles. They both joined up on the same day and wound up in France shortly thereafter. Two young blokes from New South Wales, visiting overseas on the trip of a lifetime. Guess they would have been excited. Max and Eric Arkell, both boys from the bush....
Ian Arkell sheds a graveside tear for two men who lost their lives in the war to end all wars.
(And here's a big welcome to Ian who will be writing regularly for Open Writing. Do watch out for further articles in the series Arkell's Ark - Editor)
It’s a cold grey day and everything is covered in white as I park the car. Although it’s been snowing all night, it’s stopped a little while ago and everything is quiet. There’s a certain sort of stillness after it snows. Over in the village people are going about their business and there’s a dog barking somewhere over the wall of the cemetery.
I’ve come to France to visit two relatives I never met. My father’s uncles. They both joined up on the same day and wound up in France shortly thereafter. Two young blokes from New South Wales, visiting overseas on the trip of a lifetime. Guess they would have been excited. Max and Eric Arkell, both boys from the bush.
They probably got up to most of the things two young guys would do away from home in some exotic place. Max took to army life and pretty soon made Sergeant while Eric probably just poked along and concentrated on staying alive. A thing a lot of his friends couldn’t seem to do. Burying mates day after day, week after week and seeing injuries you could never describe. Forcing yourself to do impossible things each day.
I wonder how long it was before the gloss wore off the big adventure and they longed to be back home in the pub on a Saturday night? Or back with Mum. Probably not long.
No gloss in seeing mates dead and still standing, stuck waist deep in mud. No gloss in seeing a mate when he’s lost a leg and you can’t stop the bleeding. And he dies screaming. And then it was Eric’s turn at Fromelles in July 1916. I don’t know how he died but like thousands of other young boys, there was not enough left to wrap with reverence and bury with a prayer.
Max also had problems and was injured, seriously enough to be repatriated back to England for surgery and rehab. He was luckier that most, recovered his health and fitness and was given the choice of returning to Australia or going back to his mates in France.
For whatever reason he elected to go back to his unit. He fought with them until he too was killed a few weeks before the end of the war. It was a fateful decision to return to his friends and while some people deride mateship, sometimes it’s all you have.
I’m here with a red rose for Max. It’s strange but I never knew the man after whom my father was named and it’s funny to see the headstone of another Max Arkell. I go to the grave and talk to him and his mates for a while and for want of something better, just decide to say thanks.
I don’t tell them about the other war to end all wars as I don’t want them to think their life was wasted. Max is here at Dahour whilst Eric is remembered on a wall in Fromelles.
The two brothers are remembered in war cemeteries many kilometres apart, which is sort of sad really. They spend their first twenty years together, sign up and go to France together and yet are separated in death.
The snow has cast a blanket over all the headstones and just for a few moments until it too is covered, the rose will stand out like a beacon.
I shed a tear for a man I never knew, switch on the engine and get ready to go. Art Garfunkel’s classic, ‘Bright Eyes’ comes on as I slip the car into gear and he asks… ‘How can eyes that burned so brightly suddenly seem so pale?’ I look over at all the headstones and wonder the same thing.
**
It would be nice to think they
didn’t die in vain
that there was purpose to their life
that their efforts were to save the world
that they didn’t scream and bleed to death
in mud because of duty,
that there was purpose in their death
and for the ones for whom it was too much
there was the cowards’ pole
where they were shot, like dogs
so many dogs and horses died, while men
cried out for help, respite
that never came
and for the ones who disappeared and
were simply listed on a wall
I have to tell you this,
it was a waste, a crime to use you thus
and on that afternoon, that night, you died,
in the war to end all wars.
but the lesson’s never learned
and every now and then
we send the young to die, once more,
and reassure those left behind,
that ‘they didn’t die in vain’.
