2/1/2024 0 Comments A long way home book reviewIt must be some sort of way of hiding the advancing men, he was thinking, some new-fashioned piece of warfare. Christy Moran was absolutely certain now he could see figures moving in the yellow smoke. The cloud didn't look too deep but it was as wide as the eye could see. That was only Christy Moran's impression maybe he hoiked down the mirror a moment and wiped it clean with his cleanish sleeve. The caterpillars foamed on the yellow flowers.Īnd the grass died in the path of the cloud. It was about four o'clock, and all as peaceful as anything. He watched for a few seconds in his mirror, straining to see and straining to understand. But not like a fog really he knew what a flaming fog looked like, for God's sake, being born and bred near the sea in fucking Kingstown. What was remarkable was the strange yellow-tinged cloud that had just appeared from nowhere like a sea fog. So the breeze was more of a wind and was blowing full on against Christy's hat and mirror, but it was nothing remarkable. That little breeze had freshened and it blew now against the ratty hair that dropped out of Christy Moran's hat here and there. looking out across the quiet battlefield. The yellow cloud was noticed first by Christy Moran because he was standing on the fire-step with his less than handy mirror arrangement. Some men wrote a letter as formal as a bishop, some tried to write the inside of their heads, like that young Willie Dunne. God help them, they were funny enough efforts sometimes. They didn't mean to make them sad, which gave their efforts to be manly and cheerful a melancholy tinge. He thought it might break a man's heart to read them sometimes there was something awfully sad about some of the soldiers' letters. Captain Pasley, of course, was obliged to read all the letters the men sent home, and he did, word for blessed word. ![]() Every last thing that came in and every last thing that went out was accounted for. It was a yellow world.Ĭaptain Pasley was in his new dugout writing his forms. There were millions of caterpillars, the same yellow as the flowers. There was a yellow flower everywhere with a hundred tiny blooms on it. It was the essential illusion bestowed on them by full stomachs.Ī breeze had pushed through the tall grasses all day. ![]() As usual after they had eaten, they were beginning to look at each other and think this St Julian wasn't the worst place they'd been in. Everyone had had a lash of tea, and there was a lot of farting going on after the big yellow beans that had come up around twelve. What day oftentimes it was, Willie would forget. The poor human mind played queer tricks, and you could forget even your name betimes, and even the point of being there, aside enduring the unstoppable blather of the guns. ![]() They did all that and then lurked in the perfected trench, getting muggy like old boxers. "That's fucking better now', said the sergeant-major religiously. The trench was soon looking fairly smart. The Algerians sang fine, strange songs most of the day, and at night now he could hear them laughing and talking in a sort of endless excitement. The Algerians were just over to his right. He loves his family, his girl, and his comrades at that tender age when life is all first times. Oh, Willie Dunn, a painfully earnest young man off to the trenches.
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