![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
My beta-reader has gotten back to me about David and Robert, and it looks like the book is on course for an October release, so I thought now would be a good time to share the first chapter with you, and also fling myself on your mercy for other title options.
I'd love to use a quotation from World War I poetry. Right now the top contender is The Larks Still Bravely Singing (from John McCrae's "In Flanders Fields"), because I think that quote captures the right image of life going on after/despite tragedy, and the book is more about recovering after the war than about the war itself. But will that title puzzle people who aren't familiar with the poem?
***
Chapter 1
Robert had not been sick with pneumonia for so very long. He had fallen ill in February, and it was only April when his sister Enid wheeled him onto the terrace of Montagu House; but the contrast between the raw winter weather and the fresh bright sunshine of this unusually gentle spring day made it seem like an eon.
“I feel like one of those chaps climbing out of Plato’s cave,” Robert commented to Enid. “Blinking at the bright light of reality after looking at shadows my whole life. I don’t seem to recognize any of these fellows.”
Secretly he thanked God for it. Perhaps all the chaps he’d slept with had moved along while he was ill.
“We got in a whole new crop,” said Enid. For the duration of the war, Montagu House had become a convalescent home, specializing in amputees. After all, they had already installed a lift for Robert in 1915, after he lost his left leg above the knee at the Battle of Loos. It had been a difficult wound, and although Dr. Hartshorn remained optimistic that more surgeries would put it right, so far the stump was no good for a prosthetic.
“Don’t suppose you’d tell me who’s who?” Robert asked. Enid would know all the men’s names. Both Robert and Enid helped out in the wards, but Enid in particular was tireless, uncomplaining, at least on her own behalf; prepared to complain to the death if it might benefit one of the men. Once she and Dr. Hartshorn, the lead physician, had shouted at each other so loudly that it had been audible at a dinner party.
“That fellow walking around the fountain,” she said, with a tip of her head, “that’s Lieutenant Paige. He’s just got his artificial leg and he’s breaking it in, that’s why he’s walking like that, poor duck. And you see the two men playing catch?”
“They’ve got two arms between them?”
“Otis Sackville and Anthony Tarkington. They’ve both got their right arms, which would be lucky, only Tarkington was left-handed before, unfortunately.” Tarkington was rather good-looking, but in the tall weedy way that had never particularly appealed to Robert, so he looked only briefly before his gaze drifted on.
It caught on the oak tree halfway across the lawn—or rather, on the chap who was walking along one of the oak tree’s low-hanging limbs, arms outstretched as if he were balancing atop a fence, so that Robert could see that he had no left hand. Robert could not see his face, yet he felt a shock of recognition as he looked at the intense concentration in the lines of the man’s shoulders and back, and the sunlight picking out glints of gold in his light brown hair.
“Are you cold, dear?” Enid asked.
Robert realized he had shivered. “No; no,” he said, but accepted the blanket that she draped around his shoulders anyway. He lifted his chin to gesture at the oak. “Who is that fellow?”
“That’s David Callahan,” Enid said, and Robert felt another chill. “Do you know him?” Enid asked.
“We went to school together.”
“Do you want me to call him over?”
“No,” said Robert, a little more forcefully than he intended. “Not just yet.”
***
( Read more )
I'd love to use a quotation from World War I poetry. Right now the top contender is The Larks Still Bravely Singing (from John McCrae's "In Flanders Fields"), because I think that quote captures the right image of life going on after/despite tragedy, and the book is more about recovering after the war than about the war itself. But will that title puzzle people who aren't familiar with the poem?
***
Chapter 1
Robert had not been sick with pneumonia for so very long. He had fallen ill in February, and it was only April when his sister Enid wheeled him onto the terrace of Montagu House; but the contrast between the raw winter weather and the fresh bright sunshine of this unusually gentle spring day made it seem like an eon.
“I feel like one of those chaps climbing out of Plato’s cave,” Robert commented to Enid. “Blinking at the bright light of reality after looking at shadows my whole life. I don’t seem to recognize any of these fellows.”
Secretly he thanked God for it. Perhaps all the chaps he’d slept with had moved along while he was ill.
“We got in a whole new crop,” said Enid. For the duration of the war, Montagu House had become a convalescent home, specializing in amputees. After all, they had already installed a lift for Robert in 1915, after he lost his left leg above the knee at the Battle of Loos. It had been a difficult wound, and although Dr. Hartshorn remained optimistic that more surgeries would put it right, so far the stump was no good for a prosthetic.
“Don’t suppose you’d tell me who’s who?” Robert asked. Enid would know all the men’s names. Both Robert and Enid helped out in the wards, but Enid in particular was tireless, uncomplaining, at least on her own behalf; prepared to complain to the death if it might benefit one of the men. Once she and Dr. Hartshorn, the lead physician, had shouted at each other so loudly that it had been audible at a dinner party.
“That fellow walking around the fountain,” she said, with a tip of her head, “that’s Lieutenant Paige. He’s just got his artificial leg and he’s breaking it in, that’s why he’s walking like that, poor duck. And you see the two men playing catch?”
“They’ve got two arms between them?”
“Otis Sackville and Anthony Tarkington. They’ve both got their right arms, which would be lucky, only Tarkington was left-handed before, unfortunately.” Tarkington was rather good-looking, but in the tall weedy way that had never particularly appealed to Robert, so he looked only briefly before his gaze drifted on.
It caught on the oak tree halfway across the lawn—or rather, on the chap who was walking along one of the oak tree’s low-hanging limbs, arms outstretched as if he were balancing atop a fence, so that Robert could see that he had no left hand. Robert could not see his face, yet he felt a shock of recognition as he looked at the intense concentration in the lines of the man’s shoulders and back, and the sunlight picking out glints of gold in his light brown hair.
“Are you cold, dear?” Enid asked.
Robert realized he had shivered. “No; no,” he said, but accepted the blanket that she draped around his shoulders anyway. He lifted his chin to gesture at the oak. “Who is that fellow?”
“That’s David Callahan,” Enid said, and Robert felt another chill. “Do you know him?” Enid asked.
“We went to school together.”
“Do you want me to call him over?”
“No,” said Robert, a little more forcefully than he intended. “Not just yet.”
***
( Read more )
