The trip home from the airport was slow and lonely. All I could do was worry about if he arrived safely, what if he didn’t? I don’t know what I would do without him. The daunting call came only 7 hours after he had left, it was the call that no one wanted to hear.
I soon wake up to medics standing over me, needles and tubes hanging out of my arms after what felt like days but was only hours. I look around and see that I am back at the base. A numb feeling tingles down one of my legs; pins and needles occupy my foot. I look down and remove the warm, white cotton blanket from my lower body and froze in shock. I was missing my right leg. Blood immediately began rushing through my veins like water rushing down a stream. I can feel myself going faint and about to pass out.
My husband was coming home today. After 4 long stints in the war zone he was coming home for good. There would be no more war, no more fighting. He was going to leave the service and take up a local job in town. He was due at the airport in a couple of hours. I knew I was going to be there at least an hour early, as there was no point waiting anxiously at home when I could be at the airport, meeting some of the other people who were waiting for their loved ones to come home.
Looking around the cargo bay of the C-130, I absorbed the scenes in front of me. Off to the left were other injured troopers like me, sitting in a circle and playing a game of poker, happy to be going home. Beyond them there was a row of stretchers, filled with soldiers too tired or too injured to move. Some moaned in pain but most were silent. Off to the right of the cargo bay lay row after row of caskets with the Australian flag draped over the top of each one. It was a sickening sight. Row after row of caskets stacked on top of each other and tied to the wall with cargo ties. All those lives wasted. Lives that could have...did have...a large impact on the course of history. There were hundreds, thousands even, of casualties on both sides. At least, that was just an estimate. There were hundreds of people who during the war had just vanished. No one knows what had happened to them. They could have been killed and never found, prisoners of war camps, or even defectors. There was just no way to tell.
I almost missed the smoke off to the side of the road. Curious, and with ample time to spare before I was supposed to be at the airport, I pulled over to see what was causing the smoke this far out of town.
“It couldn’t be campers; they wouldn’t be this close to the road”, I thought to myself.
As I drew closer, I noticed tyre tracks leading into the tree line. Suddenly fear gripped me. I knew what had happened even without following the tracks. A car crash. I immediately raced back to the car and grabbed my mobile phone. Running back to the mangled blue Camry, I dialled triple zero. Hurriedly, I explained to the operator what had happened. It was hard to imagine that anyone could have survived a crash like that.
I looked up as the plane started to tilt down as we began our landing approach. I picked up my crutches to support the one leg that I had left and hobbled over to the nearest seat. As I sat down and strapped myself in, an announcement came over the intercom;
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We are beginning our approach into Brisbane airport. Please ensure that your seatbelts are on and your seats and tray tables are in the upright position. We hope you enjoyed your flight and thank you for choosing Australian Airlines.
Typical air force jocks: always trying to make a joke out of everything. Nevertheless, it served to lighten the mood of those on board.
I watched as the plane hit the runway and pulled to a stop outside the terminal. When the people on the plane begin to disembark, I craned my neck, trying to find my husband. The passengers came down in pairs, walking or, in the case of the injured, taking the lift down to the tarmac and making their way into the terminal. I saw soldiers in wheelchairs, on stretchers and a man on crutches who stopped at the top of the stairs and took a deep breath, a relieved look on his face, followed by a look of puzzlement. Slowly but surely the flow of soldiers died down, and then stopped. But there was no sign of my husband. The phone call said that he would be home today, that he had minor injuries but was fine. Maybe he was put on a different plane. Then they started unloading the caskets. My breath ragged, I stared at the large nameplates fixed to the front of each cask. No...No...No... Maybe I was wrong...I couldn’t see his name on any of them. The final casket was unloaded from the plane...
I felt the jolt as the aircraft hit the tarmac at Brisbane airport. We were finally home. After the plane ground to a halt, I struggled to my feet and made my way to the hatch. As I finally stepped out onto the stairs, I stopped and took a deep breath. The war was to protect this country. Perhaps it was worth all the bloodshed. I then looked up to the observation platform where my wife should be. All I could see was anxious husbands and wives searching and waving for their loved ones. One wife was standing on her toes, craning her neck in a desperate attempt to find her husband. But I couldn’t see my wife anywhere. A puzzled look crossed my face. Maybe she had been delayed. Her blue Camry was always breaking down. I will call her when once I have checked in at the terminal.
DULCE ET DECORUM EST
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares(2) we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest(3) began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots(4)
Of tired, outstripped(5) Five-Nines(6) that dropped behind.
Gas!(7) Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets(8) just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime(9) . . .
Dim, through the misty panes(10) and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering,(11) choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud(12)
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest(13)
To children ardent(14) for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.(15)
Wilfred Owen
8 October 1917 - March, 1918
