FOLK-SONG

Philip Morehead, Baylor ‘60

Rays of sunlight filtering through the ominous black curtain of clouds form a spotted pattern on the pasture. It is early morning, and Joe is still sleeping soundly beneath a large tree. His husky snores drift away with the light breeze that sweeps across the land. Less than a hundred paces away Mark drowsily opens his eyes and gazes uncomprehending at the world around him. The sight apparently does not interest him, for he turns over and goes back to sleep again.

Save for these two the field is devoid of living beings. Here and there, rising from the smoldering earth, are traces of the smoke that has all but dissipated in the cold morning air. The field is pockmarked with shallow trenches and countless blackened depressions in which lie heads, arms, legs, and occasionally a complete corpse. Everywhere is death, mangled and twisted into grotesque shapes. A helmet lies here and a rifle lies there, more weapons and bodies here and there. But the only sound heard in this silent chaos of death is the snoring of the two sleeping soldiers.

A drop appears; then two; then three and four and the sky is filled with little droplets falling forcefully to the forbidding earth. The beating raindrops form in the trenches and depressions tiny pools of swirling, muddy water that grow and grow and eventually overflow their ridges, mingling with one another and gradually obliterating the pock-marks with their constant motion. The two soldiers, deep in the sleep of fatigue, are oblivious to the vital activity around them.

The storm is over, and the clouds have gone their way, revealing to the unseeing eyes of Mark and Joe a blue and sunfilled heaven. It is afternoon. Signs of life have already appeared under the tree where Joe has been sleeping soundly. The soldier is seated, with legs spread and back against the trunk, gulping hungrily the contents of a ration tin. He washes down each bite with a swig from the canteen that has dangled recklessly from the lowest bough of the tree. Joe finishes off the tin, tosses it aside, and, with a hearty sigh, settles down more comfortably against the tree.

Suddenly he gasps and gives a cry of alarm and fear. He reaches desperately for his pack and dumps its contents onto the ground before him. When the pack is empty he throws it away violently. He searches frantically through the pile of goods that he has just made. Then the full realization of his hopeless plight overcomes the soldier’s mind and drowns it in a sea of wild despair. He rises clumsily to his feet and rushes forward. In a moment he is on the ground. The bandage loosens, and the rich red blood slowly oozes out through the heavy military uniform.

In a soggy trench not far away the other soldier is also occupied with the eternal problems of life. He has just roused himself from the slumber in which we first found him, and he is now slowly and deliberately preparing his pack for the long walk that lies before him. One corner of the pack has been shot off, and the soldier is trying to repair the damage as best he can. Mark cheerfully whistles the strains of the “Blue Danube” as he works away at the pack, giving no indication that he realizes the seriousness of his situation. The soldier is far away from his platoon. It marched over and past him as he lay in a faint caused by the force of an exploding shell. He must rejoin his army immediately. Mark accepts his problem and, with an air of quiet resignation, rises ready to undertake his long journey. He sets out toward the setting sun in graceful, confident strides that seem to sing like all of Germany marching to an inevitable victory.

Joe’s tormented body tonelessly chants a song of suffering.

The pain

The pain of bleeding heart

The awful pain of bleeding heart and throbbing wound conquers my mind and makes me numb.

The fear

The fear of dreaded death

The gnawing fear of dreaded death and flaming fire conquers my mind and makes me numb.

Numb to a world of pain and fear

This tormented world of sorrow and fear

Numb to it

Dumb to it

Lord! Let me wake from my sleep of the dead and live once again with the wind and the sun and a heart to see and to sense all the beauty around it.

I pray Thee, O Lord!

Send me, send me relief from this horror!

Mark stands silently surveying the figure that lies motionless before him on the muddy earth. He recognizes immediately the American uniform, and can barely overcome a soldier’s instinct to fire. Mark is the victim of indecision; he can readily see that the soldier is alive; he realizes that he is safe in this territory, which has been swept clean by his comrades; time to him is not vital when Death is to be faced. After a moment of inner turmoil he bends down and lifts the shoulders of the prostrate soldier and drags him back to the tree from whence he came, propping the head against the trunk. Then, seating himself opposite the silent figure, Mark loses himself in a trancelike state of deep reflection.

A grown from beneath the tree quickly recalls Mark to the world and to his wounded enemy. He rips the uniform away from the soldier’s wound and hastily judges his condition. He then searches through the pile of minutiae that he made near the tree. Soon he finds the bandage he was seeking, applies it to the wounded soldier, and sits back silently to resume his quiet thought.

Again the rain, a short but driving rain, beating down on the two motionless men. The moment of cleansing — Nature washing her hands — suspends the afternoon’s feverish activity. Again the sunshine, when the clouds have passed over — a portent of things to come. Always the charred field, leveled by the first rain, reminding the pensive Onlooker that the fallen angel is not to be trifled with. Always the tree, with its wide, sheltering branches.

Night slowly claims the field. Mark’s mind roams over the problem that besets him.

“Miles from my home, deserted by my compatriots, I may see myself in an untainted light. The earth about me is strewn with corpses, twisted and torn, a memento of a night of death. Reason? No, Folly. No, kind Sir, Folly compounded. ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ asked an early man. ‘What difference does that make, I ask myself. Do I want to be alive tomorrow? Or the day after tomorrow?’ If not, I and the early man may well ask our question. But if I do want to be alive, I must suppress my query for the sake of Life — not Good, necessarily, but Life. What else do we have to look forward to but Life? Dust, bones, rotten wood, and grass roots? Not much compensation for thirty years of pain and sorry and insanity, is it? Why should I worry about death when the windows of the mind can be shut so easily? ‘Live and let live, die and let die,’ I’ve heard men say; and they were right. It is the only way to survive.”

Sleep, and then the morn with all its worthless splendor. Mark is the first to awake. He yawns and stretches and bravely opens his eyes wide. The scene that confronts him has not changed: Joe lies against the tree as Mark placed him and the field still displays its mute prophecy to the world. After splashing water on his face and eating a bite of ration, Mark settles back again to wait for his foe to awake.

An hour passes, and Joe finally shows signs of life — and of pain. His eyes open slowly and fix themselves on the figure seated opposite him. Recognition and panic strike at once, and he makes a desperate lunge for his weapon. It is not in its usual place, for the German has removed it for his own safety. Joe slumps back with a sigh and waits for his foe to do his will.

“I put your pistol in a safe place, so don’t bother reaching for it. I should have shot you when I saw you, but I didn’t. So you’re safe now — or relatively so — as a German prisoner. I think you’ll long enough to make it as far as the German lines, where we will find doctors and supplies and prison trains in abundance. What’s your name?”

“Joe.”

“Joe, eh? I’m Mark, number 31406517, Lieutenant in Hitler’s invincible army. I was born in Berne, but my parents took me to Germany several years later. My parents themselves are German. For love of Germany they stayed home when the invasions of Poland began — not for love of that madman Hitler. I was drafter, of course, and I’ll fight for my country; but I couldn’t shoot you. When I suddenly came face to face with my enemy alone I couldn’t make myself kill him. At least, I am not a coward. A coward would have shot you. But I could not… But come, here are some rations. Eat them slowly and build your strength — we’ll leave later today. We must catch up with the rear guard.”

When the sun was at its highest the pair set out from their graveyard home. Joe remained at the head, with Mark a few steps behind, hand on pistol. Their progress was slow at best, for Joe’s wound was becoming more and more painful, and the land was rough, dangerous, and unknown to them. The breeze was calm enough, however, and it was not at all cold. Therefore at the end of the day the two had traveled a fair distance together.

Joe’s mind trained itself on the only important thing that he must do — escape! And he knew that he must escape. War is war, said the soldier to himself. An enemy is an enemy and not a friend, and I trust only my friends. Joe was grateful for Mark’s care, of course. But he could not let himself be swayed by momentary kindness with the German Prison Camp constantly a threat to his safety. And what could he expect from a German officer but a German prison camp… and probably death? Joe preferred death on the run to death in the filth and disease of a crowded Stalag. As the two officers prepared to camp for the night, Joe’s mind continued to work feverishly on some possible plan of escape. “I must get away,” was Joe’s only thought.

Mark had learned to speak English at the hands of an expert bilinguist in school in Germany. His lack of accent and his mastery of the unusual English sounds were remarkable for a person who, after all, had never been to an English-speaking country. He and Joe had started a conversation on the trail that lasted through the evening. It had started with a short but sufficient autobiography of Joseph Sypher, Private in the U.S. Army, number 7536609. It had passed over more of the family history of Mark Schuberth, the German soldier. It had brushed the surface of the forces that had formed the new Germany. Finally it rested on America, the Land of the Free.

“What city did you live in?”

“Cleveland.”

“Large?”

“Oh… over a million.”

“How do you live? I mean, what do you do?”

“I’m a tailor’s apprentice… rather, I was, until I was drafted. I’ll be a full-fledged tailor when I get back.”

“Do you… will you make a good living at tailoring?”

“Good enough to raise a family of two or three kids without much inconvenience, I should say. I live in an inexpensive section of Cleveland, I admit, but it’s not a slum section.”

“What! You have slums in America, the ‘Land of the Free’?”

“Of course.” Laughter. “Don’t you Germans have them?”

“Naturally. Slums are universal. I was kidding you.”

“You were kidding? I know. I laughed. I was kidding, too. Our slums are not so bad, really. You cannot know until you see them.”

“Convince me. I am but a German soldier, and a bad one at that… not very faithful… not very patriotic.” A weak smile. “I could easily be brought around to your way of thinking.”

“I will do my damnedest, you can be sure!” Forced laughter and then blessed, prayed-for sleep.

Joe did try to convert Mark to a well-trained citizen. Mark was an intelligent man, a man with great curiosity. Besides, the propagandistic lectures helped to make their journey more bearable. Mark still kept Joe covered with his pistol during the day and tied him up at night, but the mere fact that he permitted Joe to live and to speak freely suggested that Mark might be shaky in his beliefs and allegiances.

Days passed by, as they walked and talked their way closer and closer to the slow-moving German troops. Because of his desire to learn about the New World Mark listened carefully to all of Joe’s stories and descriptions. Outwardly they may have looked upon their talks as a sort of parlor game — a “brain-washing party,” as Mark put it — but inwardly the “game” was a serious matter. Joe was talking for his own life — Mark was listening for a new mind.

But their journey had taken on a dreamlike atmosphere. Reality soon caught up with them. Five days after they set out, the two soldiers approached the German camps. This was the time for important decisions on both sides. Joe had to decide whether or not to try to escape, and whether or not his captor actually planned to turn him over to the German authorities. Mark had to decide whether to be a faithful soldier and bring in his captive or to desert his army for what might be the true “right” — and to desert his parents and loved ones. As they sat and rested before entering the camp their minds desperately pondered the situations that plagued them.

“A camp! My comrades-in-arms — why must they be so close? Why must it be so soon? Four days of an open mind and an open eye — a life worth living in a land worth saving, worth fighting for… Father!… No gold on the streets, he says, but a car and steak once a week, perhaps. A job, a friend, even. And safety. The Jews live as free as we, he says… Mother!… My own fatherland, that I should allow myself to think such treasonous thoughts. Our great leader Hitler will make us a great nation. He has promised! … Who am I fooling with my patriotic drivel? I don’t, I can’t believe that nonsense any more than my friend here could. I have seen them slaughtered like cattle! … Oh, my darling Elsa, I must go… I must leave you and Mother and Father for my own welfare. You’ll understand in time. Good-bye my little love… good-bye.”

“I should have tried some days ago, I know. I had as good a chance of escape then as I have now — better, because now we are too near the German camp. But still I must go. A prison camp for me would be worse than hell — I could not stand it. So I must go, and probably I will die. I am not afraid of death, not I. But my loving Laura at home and little Jimmy are afraid of my death. Well, they must bear up under the burden of sorrow I will force them to carry. I have no choice; my conscience leaves me no room for another decision. Farewell my dear Laura, my sweet one; farewell my little Jimmy, you young devil. I will see you both soon enough, have no fear. Good-bye!”

Joe’s kick catches Mark on the side of his jaw. Joe jumps to his feet and races off the way they came. Mark slowly recovers his balance, finds his rifle, takes careful aim, fires, and hits Joe’s fleeing figure between the shoulder blades. The sound of the rifle shot raises the camp lookouts, who sweep the ground with their lights and spray machinegun bullets through the air. In a moment all is silent again. The German guards carefully come out from behind their barricaded shelters and soon come upon the figure of a German soldier, riddled with bullets. “Too bad,” remarks one of the gunners. They laugh and saunter back to their trenches. Dark night reclaims the bodies.

The poet sings his song of man’s salvation

He does not reckon Fate, the God of chance,

Who, with one word, destroys a mighty nation,

A man, two men, all creatures, with one glance.

‘Tis death, the mighty healer, we must flatter;

He calms our fears, and plots for our release:

Throughout the Earth our bones his breath doth scatter —

In Nothingness we claim our only peace.