Till I Come Marching
Home
by Elsan H. Stafford
EXCERPT
PROLOGUE
He sat there at the small table on the sidewalk cafe, a stone's
throw from the blue waters of the sultry Mediterranean. The
strand that lay between was thronged to the inch with the
usual mass of Sunday bathers. The cacophonous infusion of
their myriad voices into the intermittent roar of the waves
that crashed against the crags along the shore, tainted the
summer air. But the young man seemed oblivious to the distraction
of the concomitant tumult.
To a casual observer, the slight upward tilt of his head
suggested the focus of his gaze was directed further out to
sea, where in the distance, gracing the pictorial seascape,
a painted vessel lay quietly at anchor, its white sails furled
and lashed, its highest mast bearing a flag that proudly waved
in the gentle breeze . . .a star spangled banner! Rather,
it was the anticipatory posture of a man in the strained attitude
of listening for some particular sound out of the mysterious
past illusive of its capture.
The extravagance of all the artistic beauty of this scenery
was wasted on the visual senses of the silent erstwhile observer.
The large, dark glasses he wore to protect his eyes from the
bright summer sun, and the red and white cane he couched across
his lap attested to an affliction of extreme visual disability.
Beneath the recent tan of his handsome features, acquired
from the long sea voyage from America, lurked a pallor suggestive
of a protracted and exacerbating illness, both physical and
mental. On his forehead, just above his left eyebrow, he bore
a six-inch livid scar . . . a remnant of his military service
with the Second U.S. Infantry Division on its drive from the
bloody beach at Normandy to Paris and beyond, which a bursting
shell fragment had ended abruptly several months before the
capture of Berlin and the cessation of hostilities in the
European theater of World War Two. His wound had assessed
a double indemnity, for with his sight, imposing fate had
also deprived him of his memory!
At the same table, across from him, sat his constant companion
and manservant, as well as physician; an older man who had
attended him the several years he had been hospitalized, and
subsequently retained by him upon his discharge from the military
hospital in New York. Three more years had elapsed since then
. . .years lost in time, whose ravages were inconsequential
to him, for time has no dimension to a man who lies inert
in darkness and is bereft of the knowledge of identity. A
vegetable has no knowledge of self!
Some time before leaving America on his voyage to France,
his functional memory suddenly began resurrecting itself.
His mind became spasmodically assailed with intermittent and
increasingly vivid flashes of disturbing, nostalgic scenes
and sounds, attended each time by a precursor of intense physical
pain in his head. Finally, as these transient images persisted,
their replication and extended their tenure of existence in
his mind, he gradually began to discriminate their structure.
Then, with seemingly sentient determination, they metamorphosed
finally into some semblance of availability he could relate
to, and realized they must somehow have been a consequential,
if not vital link in the broken chain of his interrupted life!
Yes, he knew he was alive now! He knew he was a man! It was
the eternal darkness he did not understand! But instinctively
he knew these pictorial flashes were a psychic or spiritual
message importuning him to reclaim an essence of great value
that had once belonged to him and, still existing, could be
his again, for the taking.
Progressively with each resurgent experience the accompanying
physical pain diminished, to be superseded by a nostalgic
echo in his empty heart, and an escalating resolve to recapture
his memory and secure the substance of this lost beauty that
seemed so dear to him.
And then one day, as he reclined fretfully in his easy chair
listening as his friend read to him from a book of poetry,
a vital incident of memory flooded back upon him for an instant,
in a great deluge of passion and alarm! And at last he knew
his pain was love, for these two are inseparable. And he knew
that love was stronger than death and that love had given
back his life to him. If only a thread! It was a clue . .
. a beginning! Yes, there had been a girl. And they had been
inconsolably in love!
He held the reins of his life in his grasp once more, and
he knew what he must do. With unrestrained eagerness he interrupted
the reader, almost shouting: "Richards! I remember .
. . I have seen. I must go to her. Come, let us begin at once,
now . . . Prepare to leave for France. It is there I will
find her . . . My beautiful Mignonette." He paused for
a moment, struggling for rationality. "Dear God!"
he groaned, "How long has it been? Years? Oh, my darling.
What must she think of me." Again, "Tell me, how
long has it been?" His voice was distraught with anguish!
His companion, himself shaken by his friend’s exhibition
of unrestrained grief and his revelation of memory, answered
in a tone adopted to soothe the young man's dismay, but his
words were also designed to impart the necessary and inescapable
truth. "More than five years, I'm afraid, Colonel, since
you received your wound . . ." He paused, then continued,
directing his speech to the matter of the moment, "Your
yacht is ready to sail, sir. I have arranged for you to meet
with a number of brain specialists in Europe, who have indicated
optimistic hope your sight and your complete memory can be
restored. We can leave by tomorrow evening, if you wish. It's
early summer, and the weather is calm. I'll alert the crew
at once, to make ready."
"My wound? Yes, of course! There must have been a wound.
That explains much of this." He paused thoughtfully,
"And this darkness . . . I am blind!" And then hopefully,
"But my memory . . . it is returning. I must be patient.
And I must find my Mignonette. I must find her. I will do
whatever I must to accomplish that . . . and as quickly as
possible." He reached out and touched Richards, his voice
tinged with restrained emotion . . ."You have been a
great friend to me, sir. I shall be ever obliged to you."
Back
to Order Page
fiction
writers writing software
|
