Even When We’re Gone
Ao3
A/N: Hellooo! This is my first 1917 fic so. Please be nice lol (Also, the fic title comes from one of my favorite songs, It Goes On by Sir Rosevelt and Zac Brown Band) Anyway, I started writing this fic to deal with the horror Scho must have gone through climbing out of the river and getting stuck briefly in the bodies, and then it spiraled from there. So enjoy :P
Bodies.
Damp and rubbery and rotting beneath his palms, rolling in the water, tangling between his legs. Tripping him as he stumbled desperately through the shallows, splashing and sinking and tumbling over the corpses of men and women and children, their skin swollen from the river. Their eyes stared up at him, empty and black, their faces stretched and gray and sagging, lips pale and torn like paper.
Get out, get out, he had to get out–
The overgrown riverbank seemed miles away, just out of reach of his desperately extending fingers. The bodies clung to his calves and ankles, gripping his skin with decaying flesh, pulling him down, down, down into the cold and crushing deep—
“Lad?”
Sunlight.
Grass. Sharp beneath his splayed fingers.
Blue sky stretching over his head, flecked in wispy clouds.
Cool air on his skin. Fresh, not bloody and rotted. Clean, not tinged with smoke and ash.
He is dimly aware of sucking in rapid breaths that don’t quite fill his lungs.
(In, out. In, out. In, out).
Breathe.
A hand on his shoulder.
He jumps, blinks, jerks backwards all at once, banging his elbow on the tree behind him. (The same tree under which he and Blake’s fate was sealed, less than a week ago).
“Sorry, corporal. Didn’t mean to startle you.”
A face swims into his vision. Schofield coughs, pushing himself out of his slumped position and fumbling with the laces of his boots. “No harm done, Sarge.”
His fingers shake as he knots the cords together. Sergeant Sanders’ hand is cold through the rough fabric of his tunic, a gentle pressure against his shoulder that grounds him to the earth. “Excited to go on leave soon?”
A choking sensation grips Schofield’s throat, constricting his air flow. “Yes, Sarge.” He sits back and picks at the bandage on his left hand, worn gray cloth concealing his injury from view. It’s healing, slowly but surely, even after a bloody carcass and muddy river water and rotting flesh beneath his palms.
(Some other things refuse to heal).
Sergeant Sanders sits cross-legged on the grass beside Schofield, following the corporal’s gaze to the spring-green field beyond. “Pretty, innit?” At Schofield’s belated nod, the sergeant continues, “Hard to think that all that beauty is out there, and then you go back in the trenches only a couple hundred yards away.” He pauses, gaze flicking to Schofield again. His words are stilted, awkward, tripping over each other. “I…know you’ve had a rough go of it. But it doesn’t do to think about it too long, do it? That’s the secret to survival out here.”
Schofield gives him a haggard look, remembering the Captain who had told him the same thing as he was about to depart for Écoust-Saint-Mein a week ago. He had tried not to think about it. That was something he had learned after the Somme, after the bombs and the blood and the decaying limbs plastered against the earth like broken branches.
It was easier to forget when thousands of others had the same experience as himself, when the men who fell screaming beside him were people he didn’t know firsthand.
(But when he knew them personally, and their blood was soaking into his hands with a metallic, heavy scent, and their voices were laced in terror that he could practically taste in the air, it was hard to forget).
(When the bodies were fresh and rotted beneath his palms, when the blood had congealed on the riverbank in a crusty stain, when their skin was loose and sagging from the water, it was hard to forget).
(When his hand plunged into the soft and meaty carcass of a soldier blown open by a bomb, when the intestines squished beneath his torn and bleeding fingers and the dead man’s face was pasty white, it was hard to forget).
(When it was just him, alone and desperate and frightened in a world of smoke and ashes, when the fire singed his skin and the yells dragged against his ears in the dark, it was hard to forget).
“Corporal?”
Schofield pulls himself out of the reverie he had tumbled into like a shell crater and glances at Sanders again. The sergeant is looking at him expectantly. “Did you ask me something, Sarge?” His voice is faint. He digs his fingers into the grass and reminds himself that he is not a corpse.
“You know not to think about it, don’t you, lad?”
Yes, he does. He’s known since the Somme, since the fields washed in blood that made the ground slick beneath his feet, since the bodies strewn across the grass like ash.
He tells himself every hour of the day not to think about it.
(He thought he had gotten used to death. It was just something he had learned to accept, because those who didn’t accept it never got very far).
But minds have a way of playing tricks on people.
So do hours of traveling alone, terrified and carrying the weight of the world on one’s shoulders. Bearing the burden of the dead, and the fate of the living, as he stumbled through the dark.
“Yes, sir. I know.”
Sanders’s lips twitch upwards in a half-smile, and he claps Schofield on the back. “Good lad.” He pauses, looking like he wants to say something else, but then shakes his head and gets to his feet, brushing dirt off his trousers. “Keep pushing forward, corp, one day at a time. That’s how you’ll make it through the war.”
“Yes, sir.”
Footsteps recede through the grass. Schofield rolls his lips together and sinks lower against the tree, eyes dropping to the position a foot or two away where Blake would have been lying had he been here, helmet tilted over his eyes and hands folded across his stomach, probably snoring a little in the afternoon sun.
Tell her I wasn’t scared…
Schofield draws a slow breath through his nose, flicking his gaze to the sky and focusing on the puffy clouds floating there. He lets his fingers lace through blades of grass, exhaling air again from his mouth.
(In, out. In, out. In, out).
Breathe.
He tilts his head back to rest against the tree trunk, eyes glazing over. He has yet to write the letter to Blake’s mother, explaining her son’s final wishes and reassuring her that he was not alone in his final moments. He can’t quite bring himself to compose it yet, to relive Blake’s anguished screams, the blood soaking through his tunic. Ever since he returned to the 8th Battalion, he’s blocked the memory from his mind, focusing instead on making it through each day, second by painful second.
(The other soldiers watch Lance Corporal Schofield with wary expressions, noticing the way he sits alone beneath that same crooked tree, barely deigning a nod or a smile to those who pass by. They think he’s snobbish, stuck-up, too good to fraternize with the other men. They know little about him, save for the fact that he is always quiet, always alone. Always looking out into the wild field beyond with a vacant countenance.
And they know he was one of the few among them who endured the Somme, who managed to make it through the bloody madness with his sanity, though fragile, still intact. They know he was one of the two men sent on the most recent hellbound mission, that he went out as part of a pair, stoic and somber with fear in his eyes, and returned alone, silent and haggard, with something akin to grief permanently etched on his features.
They claim to avoid him because he is haughty and aloof, but deep inside they are afraid of the haunted expression that clings to the corporal who sits eternally alone. They are terrified of the emptiness in his eyes).
Schofield swallows, digs his old blue tobacco tin from his pocket, fumbles with the faded pictures inside. Through all his years as a soldier, through the tears and the mud and the bombs and the barbed wire, these pictures have kept him sane, have kept his traumatized mind from slipping into a pit of insanity.
He brushes calloused fingertips over the faces in the pictures. Someday he’ll get to tell his two little girls about Blake, about cherry trees, about a gentle hand guiding him through tunnels he was unable to see. Someday he’ll get to tell his wife how Blake’s vivacity sometimes reminded him of her, his relentless optimism in the face of death. Someday, when the war is over and he’s with them again, not stuck in these dark and muddy trenches that have become frighteningly like home.
(He’ll see them soon, but not for long. And they’ll watch him go with tears in their eyes, not knowing if they’ll ever see him again).
Schofield tucks the pictures back in the tobacco tin with a reverent lump in his throat and refastens the lid, then sits with the tin’s light weight in his hands and looks out across the field.
The sun is setting, and the sky is pink and gold.
There’s a smell like cherry blossoms in the air. Schofield smiles and closes his eyes.
36 notes
·
View notes
1917 - 2019 Dir. Sam Mendes
Date Watched: May 8, 2023 Platform: BBC iPlayer (until Jun 7th)
TW: War, Gore, Blood, Explosions, Gunfire, Death, Burn Victims, Loud Noises, Jump-scares
Synopsis: Set in the intense trench warfare of the First World War, 1917 follows two British Lance Corporals Blake and Schofield as they are sent to deliver an urgent message to an isolated regiment to prevent 1,600 men from walking into a deadly trap. The mission sees the pair cross no man’s land and through supposedly abandoned enemy trenches to deliver the orders before it’s too late. Shot and edited to create the illusion of being one continuous take. 1917 follows the two courageous men through every step of their dangerous journey.
Rating: 5/5
Review: Again something I have been meaning to get round to watching and I have this on DVD so absolutely no excuse but as someone who isn’t so connected with war strategies and army jargon like the generations before me, purposely watching a period war epic wasn’t really on my immediate to do list. However when I found this film showing on BBC2 I decided to sit tight and make the time and I am so pleased that I did. Following the main characters through trenches and no man’s land in war torn France through one “continuous” shot means you don’t miss anything out, there are next to no gaps in the protagonists story that could leave you confused or distracted. I felt like a video game particularly the way the camera pans around the characters. Following this story in such closed parameters as this allows you as a viewer to experience the gruesome and terrifying atrocities of WW1 close-up but not so much that it can overwhelm. The characters are always moving, they have to be determined to just get to their destination no matter what so we don’t have time to dwell on the rat infested mine shaft or the mass of dead bodies damming the river. There are plenty of jump scares which again reminded me of a video game just a bit. These scares aren’t overused and are a very effective way to have the grim reality of war acknowledged by the characters and the story. The fear of every breath being your last is very real in this film and the story doesn’t shy away from sudden deaths. Even with the characters’ need to keep going desensitising them from the horrors around them, there are some extremely emotional beats in moments where I as a viewer felt like I needed to cry just by the sheer rollercoaster I felt I had gone on with the protagonists. The ending isn’t necessarily a happy one but, with the help of a score by Thomas Newman, the film ends on a hopeful note. Rather than a joyful ending the emotion is more relief as the script could’ve ended on a far gloomier note and you are incredibly thankful it didn’t.
This war epic feels like one of the most accessible I have seen as the no-visible-cuts approach in the edit does wonders for the pacing. It could have ran for an extra hour and I probably would not have noticed. Even one of the major plot points that happened at the half way mark had me questioning if it was too early for that to happen but only because I had felt like it had barely been on ten minutes. I say that as a compliment because with my attention span and tendency to tune out of media even when I am actually interested in it, this film engaged me from start to finish to the point that I didn’t want to leave the room for anything. I wish I’d seen this in the cinema at the time but again gritty war epics aren’t really marketed to me and maybe they should but also maybe I should be more open minded. Also I am like an OG George McKay stan (I voted for him when he was nominated for BAFTA Rising Star and I’m still sad he didn’t win) and I think his performance in this should’ve been more recognised during award season, I don’t really understand how anyone is still sleeping on him after seeing this film but anyway you were still my favourite lost boy George. Now if you are technically minded about the making of films like me you might be desperate to understand how this film appears to be one long take. This is almost exclusively editing trickery like no fortunately they didn’t have to shoot perfectly for two hours like how would that work outside of a play anyway. The effect was created using invisible transitions such as when the characters go into pitch darkness or behind objects and set pieces for example. It doesn’t ruin the immersion but allows for cuts to be made however it does require a lot of precision and rehearsal. It reported took 6 months for the actors to rehearse this film before shooting so they could get every detail precise and accurate. As a result the longest unbroken shot is only 8 ½ minutes and the shortest just shy of 40 seconds. Editor Lee Smith also worked on the Bond film Spectre so if you are at all familiar with the opening of that film than this might give you an idea of the undertaking that was the process of making 1917. This film really affected me in a way I didn’t expect and I think I would choose to watch it again, the level of immersion, emotion and stakes is why I have awarded 5/5. I urge everyone to make time for this movie even if you think you won’t like it.
2 notes
·
View notes