Chapter 13 - Flanders

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Flanders. The battle is over.

There is carnage in the air. There are wisps of smoke, death and wreckage. Nothing is recognisable anymore. The land has been torn asunder and is strewn with twisted metal, bodies and suffering. It is the Outland, and bears no resemblance to the rolling landscapes of the past.

There is an unnatural silence in the air after the years of fighting. Birds do not sing and there is a stillness which is almost frightening.

There is a palpable relief from the survivors. You can almost grasp it, light and fleeting, it is the dancing of a passing cloud. It is all over. But many silver clouds have a leaden lining and they start to realise that this is not the end but the beginning. It is a beginning of reconciliation. A reconciliation with the reality of the years past and the years to come. It is a reconciliation of acceptance and a laying to rest of those past daily spectres. This is not an easy beginning. It is the beginning of unexpected new challenges and confrontations. As the expected peace starts, new battles begin.

Slowly the people try to rebuild their fractured lives and despoiled land. The bodies are buried and the shell holes are filled but they know how superficial these actions are. They watch the ghosts wander the rolling fields, they hear the cries of pain, and the respite of the laughter which used to punctuate and hold the horrors at bay. The land can be cleared and tilled but the ghosts and memories are more difficult to exorcise. They live in the minds of those who were there.

Bulldozers and spades, flowers and graves, these are not the tools that can expunge the pain.

The poppies start to grow and a carpet of red calm spreads across the battlefield. Nature and time take their course and try to cover those indelible scars.

Time passes and children and adults alike are killed and maimed by the unexploded shells which wreak their delayed vengeance.

There are fractures and rifts which never heal. Allegiances and treaties which were never kept, the politics of war, these are remembered long after the peace. There are resentments and unsettled scores.

Together we stand and together we fall, it worked well during the war, but the war is over and nothing matters much any more.

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