He sent four men around behind the barn by a route Robert cannot have seen—behind the wall—and told them to set fire to the roof.
That is what they did.
Mickle claims it was only a ploy. He had no intention of destroying the horses. He could not, he said, foresee that Robert would not be able to open the doors in time to let them out.
The fire was set.
Mickle recounts that the dog could be heard at this point giving the alarm.
The roof, being made of thatch—and it not having rained for two days—went up in seconds like a tinder box. Within less than a minute of the fire being set, the rear portion of the roof fell into the barn—and, presumably, onto the backs of the horses.
Nobody knows what happend to prevent Robert from opening the doors. Perhaps he was injured in that moment (his collar bone was broken) by the panic-stricken horses and perhaps he even lost consciousness for those few precious minutes when he might have got them out.
What in fact happened was that Robert began shouting ‘I can’t! I can’t! I can’t!’ and by the time Mickle realized this meant ‘I can’t open the doors,’ it was too late. A man was sent running to pull them open—and he did so. Robert—riding the black mare—was seen trying to bring her under control in the middle of the barn. There were flames all around him and his clothing was on fire. Mickle admits that, at that moment, he said a prayer for Robert Ross—and the prayer was for a quick death.
But just as the walls began to fall in on top of the fifty horses—all of them standing in their places while they burned—Robert turned the mare and she leapt through the flames—already falling—with Robert on her back on fire.
Mickle and several others rushed forward to save him—and they did so by rolling him in the dust.
Mickle has stated that, looking down at Robert after the flames had been extinguished, he was barely able to recognize that Robert had a face—but that nonetheless, Robert was heard to say with great clarity: ‘The dog. The dog.’ And then he lost consciousness.
The dog was never found.
14 Transcript: Marian Turner—3
Language is a strange thing, isn’t it. Bois de Madeleine…Magdalene Wood. Take your pick. Now, I say Mag-daleen Wood if I’m speaking what you might call Canadian; you know, North American. But the English say it’s Maudlin Wood. Maudlin-Mag-daleen-Madeleine. They’re all kind of nice—but I like Madeleine. That is where I say I was, if people ask. I served at Bois de Madeleine from the spring of 1916 to the fall of 1917—roughly eighteen months. A lifetime. Here is a photograph…(IT SHOWS MISS TURNER, IN HER TWENTIES, SEATED ON A GRASSY KNOLL WITH THIRTY OR FORTY OTHER NURSES—ALL IN DRESS UNIFORM WITH CAPES) Girls. You see? Just girls. And I am the sole survivor. That’s Olivia Fischer there. My very best friend. ‘Fish with a C!’ she used to say. (LAUGHTER) Fish with a C. (A PAUSE) She’s lovely…wasn’t she. Yes. (SHE PUTS THE PHOTOGRAPH AWAY. BESSIE TURNER, MARIAN’S SISTER, ENTERS THE ROOM AT THIS POINT AND THERE ARE BRIEF INTRODUCTIONS. BESSIE TURNER SITS NEAR THE WINDOWS, PUSHING AT THE DRAPES TO LET IN MORE SUNLIGHT.) Robert Ross was brought to us the 18th of June, 1916. I can tell you the date because two days before, the hospital was bombed. It had been my first experience of what was meant by ‘under fire.’ We nurses lived in tents, you understand, and these were all destroyed as well as the damage done to the hospital which was in someone’s house. I remember the strangest sight when the raid was over. I’d been hiding under a bed and when I crawled out and stood up I looked down the rows of platforms where the tents had been and there, at the edge of the step, sat a pure white cat we’d had as mascot. It was cleaning its paws! Serenely cleaning its paws. Well…life goes on—and a cat will clean its paws no matter what. We had to go about our business and get the hospital back in working order. Not a pane of glass was left and not a jot of power. The situation then was terrible. The Germans were doing their best to destroy us all—and the whole of the salient sweeping down from Ypres through the St Eloi district to Ploegstreet and Armentières was going up in smoke. And this was a bare two weeks before the Somme Offensive, for which we were all meant to be in top running order, ready to receive its casualties, treat them and send them on to England. And there we were, as the young people say today, in a shambles! It was under these conditions we received Robert Ross. Received. The language again. Like a package. Or a message. Or a gift. We received him. Well—I’ve told you that: the way he was—the burns—the pain and the dreadful, dreadful silence that surrounded him. He was delivered to us in the dark. Sometime very early in the morning. I recall distinctly standing by his stretcher in the dark and saying to him: ‘I am here.’ I was surprised and angered that they kept a guard—a young M.P.—who never left his presence. Even when Robert Ross was taken to surgery, the M.P. stood outside the door. It was because he’d killed a man. I never fathomed that. There, in the midst of battle, a picket was posted to assure us that the killer-Ross would not escape. And where should he escape to? Death? A few brief hours of sleep? The painless tranquillity of morphine? I tell you, it nearly drove me mad—the sight of that spick and span young man with the armband, sitting in his wooden chair by Robert Ross’s bed. (MISS TURNER IS ASKED IF SHE EVER CONVERSED WITH ROBERT ROSS. THERE IS A PAUSE ON THE TAPE—AND THEN BESSIE TURNER IS HEARD SAYING, FROM ACROSS THE ROOM: ‘Why don’t you tell him, Mernie? Why don’t you say it and get it off your chest?’ THIS IS FOLLOWED BY ANOTHER PAUSE AND THE SOUND OF MARIAN TURNER RISING FROM HER CHAIR. THE SOUND OF HER VOICE GROWS FAINT, FOR SHE HAS CROSSED THE ROOM AND STANDS BY THE WINDOWS, LOOKING DOWN AT THE PARK BELOW, WITH HER BACK TO THE MICROPHONE.)
Yes. One conversation only. You see—it was almost impossible for him to speak. I could speak to him—and I often did—but I didn’t expect replies, except this once. I’d given him some morphine. We were running low. This was after the first of July and the Somme had produced its influx of wounded. I kept some aside for Robert Ross—by which I mean I hoarded it: kept it in a secret place. (ANOTHER PAUSE. BESSIE SAYS: ‘Say it.’ THE PAUSE LENGTHENS AND THEN MARIAN SAYS:) I wanted to help him die. (HERE SHE TURNED FROM THE WINDOW—BUT HER FACE COULD STILL NOT BE SEEN: ONLY THE BLAZE OF THE LATE-DYING LIGHT BEHIND HER.) I’m a nurse. I’ve never offered death to anyone. I’ve prayed for it often enough. But I’ve never made the offer. But that night—surrounded by all that dark—and all those men in pain—and the trains kept bringing us more and more and more—and the war was never, never, never going to end—that night, I thought: I am ashamed to be alive. I am ashamed of life. And I wanted to offer some way out of life—I wanted grace for Robert Ross. And, by then, I knew the young M.P. who sat by the bed and I sent him away—some errand—water—the bed pan, I don’t remember what it was…and when he was gone, I sat in his place—in the chair by Ross’s bed—and I looked down through the lamplight and the bars—(there were bars on the bed to keep him from falling out in his sleep. In his sleep, he would dream—and try to rise)—and I said: ‘I will help you, if you want me to.’ And I knew he understood—because he said: ‘Not yet.’ Not yet. Do you see? He might have said ‘No.’ He might’ve said ‘never.’ He might’ve said ‘Yes.’ But he said ‘not yet.’ There, in those two words, in a nutshell—you have the essence of Robert Ross. And perhaps the essence of what it is to be alive. Not yet has been my motto ever since…and here I am. (‘No dear,’ SAYS BESSIE TURNER. ‘Here we all are.’ AND THEN, TO THE INTERVIEWER: ‘Won’t you have another glass of sherry?’)
(LATER, MARIAN TURNER SENT ALONG A PHOTOGRAPH IN WHICH SHE IS SEEN WITH HER FRIEND OLIVIA FISCHER AND THE WHITE CAT. ‘I thought you might like to have this,’ SHE WROTE. ‘At my age, you don’t need pictures any more.’)
15 Robert was held in Bois de Madeleine hospital, under arrest, for two months before he could be moved. Towards the end of August, he was returned to England. In September, he was tried in absentia and—since he could not be kept in prison—he was allowed to go to St Aubyn’s for convalescent treatment. This was allowed on the understanding th
at—according to the medical testimony—there was virtually no hope that he would ever walk or see or be capable of judgement again.
Barbara d’Orsey acknowledged his arrival and paid him one visit. She carried an armful of freesia—and was accompanied by Lieutenant-Colonel Albert Rittenhouse—an Australian who had won much praise and two decorations for valour at Gallipoli.
Juliet d’Orsey has said that she loved Robert Ross. There can be no doubt of this. She rarely left his side as he recovered from his burns. Every day she would take him flowers—summer and winter. In the winter, she cut the flowers in the greenhouse. And there was always an unlit candle beside his bed.
He died in 1922. He was not quite twenty-six years old.
There is a photograph of Robert and Juliet taken about a year before his death. He wears a close-fitting cap rather like a toque—pulled down over his ears. He has no eyebrows—his nose is disfigured and bent and his face is a mass of scar tissue. Juliet is looking up at him—speaking—and Robert is looking directly at the camera. He is holding Juliet’s hand. And he is smiling.
Mister Ross was the only member of his family who came to see him buried. On the gravestone, Juliet had inscribed the following words—
EARTH AND AIR AND FIRE AND WATER
ROBERT R. ROSS
1896 1922
Epilogue
Robert is seated on a keg of water. This is at Lethbridge, in the spring of 1915. Behind him there are tent flaps—bedding—camp cots. Someone is lying down beneath a blanket, diffused by the lack of focus—but a human shoulder can be seen and a human hand that is dangling down against the shadows. You can tell what it is by the unmistakable shape of its thumb. Robert’s legs are wrapped in puttees and his uniform is done up tight. He is hatless. The eyes are staring straight at the camera and the lips are slightly parted. His hair is riffled with the breeze and it must be spring because the grass is short at his feet. He appears to be sitting on his left hand. Perhaps it was a chilly day. His right arm hangs down and the hand is making a shape, as if to hold some object. The object must be delicate. Robert’s fingers are poised in such a way that you think he might be holding something alive or made of glass. But the object—once you have made it out—is nothing of the sort. It is white and slightly larger than his fist. Magnification reveals it is the skull of some small beast—either a rabbit or a badger. Robert’s middle index fingers are crooked through its eyes. You put this picture aside because it seems important. To his left there is a fascio of guns: tall old-fashioned rifles stooked and bound as if for harvest. Then you remember something written long after Robert Ross was dead. It was written during another war—in 1943—by the Irish essayist and critic Nicholas Fagan. This is what he wrote: ‘the spaces between the perceiver and the thing perceived can…be closed with a shout of recognition. One form of a shout is a shot. Nothing so completely verifies our perception of a thing as our killing of it.’
THE ARCHIVIST CLOSES HER BOOK. She stares into time with her hair falling forward either side of her face. Her fingers smooth the cover of the book which is hard and brown and old. She purses her lips. She rises. It is time to tell us all to go. Something prevents her—just for a moment. It is the sound of birds beyond the windows, making commotions in the dark. The archivist moves among the tables—turning out lights and smiling—telling us gently ‘Late. It’s late.’ You begin to arrange your research in bundles—letters—photos—telegrams. This is the last thing you see before you put on your overcoat:
Robert and Rowena with Meg: Rowena seated astride the pony—Robert holding her in place. On the back is written: ‘Look! You can see our breath!’ And you can.
Timothy Findley, The Wars
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