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| The British Cemetery, Tilloy. Near Arras, France |
It's Saturday. Our last morning in France. Just on the outskirts of Arras, Steve and I
locate a British cemetery to which our father has given us directions. Front and centre, sort of, we find the grave
of Captain Douglas Stanley Higgins, of the Oxford and Bucks Light
Infantry. He's our great, great uncle
and we doff our motorcycle helmets in respect.
He died 9 April 1917, aged just 37.
I'll be just 37 myself in a few weeks, but
my brief push across France could not be more different to his continental campaign
in WW1. Almost a century separates us,
but there's that thing about family
to bridge the decades.
I'm nervy and curious, instinctively so, as
my brother and I inspect the smart lines.
Medic lies next to artillery man lies next to infantry officer. And so on, and on and on.
All the gravestones are carved from handsome Portland
Stone, sourced from Dorset, England. In
addition to the name and dates of the underlying solider - if known - each
stone bears the title and insignia of the regiment that he honoured. The care and attention taken to slow chisel these
details is touching. It contrasts with the
rushed fate of young men dropped by machine gun fire, or cut from the scene in
an instant by shells and shrapnel.
It's probably natural that I've begun,
however gently, to weigh the sum of my journey: to measure it against
something. That something should
certainly not include the world wars: any incident I can recount is dwarfed by
what happened at the front; my own acts of endurance rendered pathetic when
measured against those suffered by Tommy, by Dick and by Harry.
When we leave the cemetery we're quiet and
pensive.
Low cloud and drizzle are also now making
this a gloomy, wet ride - I think for the first time since I left
Ethiopia. Riding in our waterproofs
across the expanse of French countryside rain soaks through our gloves and is dripping
down our necks. We pass more and still
more war cemeteries and memorials.
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| Grandpa DD fought in WW2. He was Lt. Col in the Royal Artillery - their insignia from WW1 is shown above. By 1958 he'd risen to Major. |
The weather seems to suit the setting. Yet those who slipped or fell in these same
muddy fields endured conditions I can barely imagine, despite the rain. Today a mild misfortune earns professional counselling,
a genuine shock might get diagnosed as PTSD; but what of all those poor sods
who saw, heard, felt and smelt the brutal months of trench warfare? I wonder how anyone who made it home ever led
ordinary lives afterwards - and what would constitute ordinary after such experience?
The weather is a metaphor also for my own
sadness that this motorcycle adventure is nearing the end. I'm feeling melancholy as we ride in the
truck spray, along autoroute A26, bearing north west ever closer to
Calais.
I'm cheered that my brother is with me, as
he has been for many significant chapters in my life. Together, we can focus on the job of
following the toll road, jumping a train and getting home safe. He knows me well enough to give me space,
without filling these strange final hours with troubling questions: what did it
all mean? What'll you do now? Would you do it all again? Some folks say a long journey provides you
with answers - perhaps: but it raises just as many quesitons. Steve understands that.
I know I must evaluate my experiences,
and examine more closely what will make me happy at the end of the next ten or
twenty or thirty years. I need to
resolve the half-thoughts and casual musing that occupy me part of every
day; remind myself to make the most of
the life fate rations me beyond the age of 37.
At 12.30pm the doors hiss shut and we feel
the train strain and then speed us towards England. It's exciting and my earlier melancholy is
lifting - rising like the steam from my gloves, which I've tucked on top of the
bike's hot cylinder heads to dry. Only
twenty minutes to go...
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