An Equal Voice
In this 'found poem' for Remembrance Day, Andrew Motion stitches together the 
words of several generations of shellshocked soldiers from the first world war 
to the present
 
Andrew Motion
guardian.co.uk,	 Saturday 7 November 2009
 
Doctors, historians and other experts have documented the effects of shellshock 
– thanks to them, we know that the term covers a multitude of ailments, and is 
the result of far more than just shells going off. But, as Ben Shephard wrote in 
his history of medical psychiatry, the people who have suffered from it have 
often been too ill to speak. They have been left out of the record. I wanted to 
hear from them. This is a "found" poem, a stitching together of the voices of 
shellshocked people. Their words have been taken from a variety of sources, from 
the first world war to the present, and are presented in the poem in roughly 
chronological order. There's a fragment of Siegfried Sassoon in there, but most 
are from unknown soldiers. Together, they give a sense of moving through time to 
establish what is horribly recurrent about this affliction. It is a poem by 
them, orchestrated by me.

An Equal Voice

"We hear more from doctors than patients. However hard he tries, the historian 
cannot even the account, cannot give the patients an equal voice, because most 
of them chose not to recount their experiences."
from A War of Nerves, by Ben Shephard


War from behind the lines is a dizzy jumble.

Revolving chairs, stuffy offices, dry as dust

reports, blueprints one day and the next –

with the help of a broken-down motor car

and a few gallons of petrol – marching men

with sweat-stained faces and shining eyes,

horses straining and plunging at the guns,

little clay-pits opening beneath each step,

and piles of bloody clothes and leggings

outside the canvas door of a field hospital.

At the end of the week there is no telling

whether you spent Tuesday going over

the specifications for a possible laundry

or skirting the edges of hell in an automobile.

*

There were some cases of nervous collapse

as the whistle blew on the first day of battle.

In general, however, it is perfectly astonishing

and terrifying how bravely the men fight.

From my position on rising ground I watched

one entire brigade advancing in line after line,

dressed as smartly as if they were on parade,

and not a single man shirked going through

the barrage, or facing the rapid machine-gun

and rifle-fire that finally wiped them all out.

I saw with my own eyes the lines advancing

in such admirable order quickly melt away.

Yet not a man wavered, or broke the ranks,

or made any attempt to turn back again.

*

A soft siffle, high in the air like a distant lark,

or the note of a penny whistle, faint and falling.

But then, with a spiral, pulsing flutter, it grew

to a hissing whirr, landing with ferocious blasts,

with tremendous thumps and then their echoes,

followed by the whine of fragments which cut

into the trees, driving white scars in their trunks

and filling the air with torn shreds of foliage.

The detonation, the flash, the heat of explosion.

And all the while fear, crawling into my heart.

It literally crawled into me. I had set my teeth

steadying myself, but with no success. I clutched

the earth, pressing against it. There was no one

to help me then. O how one loves mother earth.

*

One or two friends stood like granite rocks

round which the seas raged, but very many

other men broke in pieces. Everyone called it

shell-shock, meaning concussion, but shell-

shock is rare. What 90% get is justifiable funk

due to the collapse of the helm of our self-control.

You understand what you see but you cannot think.

Your head is in agony and you want relief for that.

The more you struggle, the more madness creeps

over you. The brain cannot think of anything at all.

I don't ask you what you feel like but I tell you,

because I have been like you. I have been ill as you

and got better. I will teach you, you will get better.

Try and keep on trying what I tell you and you will.

*

The place was full of men whose slumbers were morbid,

titubating shell-shockers with their bizarre paralyses

and stares, their stammers and tremors, their nightmares

and hallucinations, their unstoppable fits and shakings.

Each was back in his doomed shelter, when the panic

and stampede was re-enacted among long-dead faces,

or still caught in the open and under fire. This officer

was quietly feasting with imaginary knives and forks;

that group roamed around clutching Teddy Bears;

one man stripped to his underclothes and proclaimed

himself to be Mahatma Gandhi; another sat cramped

in a corner clutching a champagne cork; one chanted,

with his hands over an imaginary basket of eggs, Lord

have mercy on us, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy.

*

I could feel the bullets hit my body. I could feel

myself being hit by gun fire and this is what made me

sit up and scream. What I saw round me were others

walking with the bent and contorted spines of old age,

or moving without their lifting their legs, by vibrating limbs

on the ground. All equally unfortunate, filled with sadness.

Dead friends gazed at them. Rats emerged from the cavities

of bodies. Then came trembling and losing control of legs:

you never dreamt of such gaits. One fellow cannot hold

his head still or even stand except with incessant jerking.

Instantly the man across the aisle follows suit. In this way

the infection spreads in widening circles until the whole

ward is jerking and twitching, all in their hospital blues,

their limbs shaking and flapping like the tails of dogs.

*

Naturally it can save a good deal of time if men,

before battle, have pictures from the Hate Room hung

in their minds of things the enemy has already done,

waiting to be remembered. Starving people for instance

and sick people, and dead people in ones and in heaps.

If that proves ineffective, then treatment is post facto.

Compulsory mourning is no longer recommended

whereby the hospital confines a man for three days

alone in a darkened room and orders him to grieve

for dead comrades. But other cures must be attempted,

and in some cases men wish to return to do their duty.

See, your eyes are already heavier. Heavier and heavier.

You are going into a deep, deep sleep. A deep, far sleep.

You are far asleep. You are fast sleep. You have no fear.

*

I am quiet and healthy but cannot bear being away

from England. I have been away too long and seen

too many things. My best friend was killed beside me.

I have a wife and two children and I have done enough.

I thought my nerves were better but they are worse.

The first fight, the fight with my own self, has ended.

I may be ready to fight again but I am not willing.

I am in urgent need of outdoor work and would be glad

to accept a position as a gardener at a nominal salary.

My best friend walked back into my room this morning,

shimmering white and transparent. I saw him clearly.

He stood at the foot of my bed and looked right at me.

I asked him, What do you want? What do you want?

Eventually I woke up and of course I was by myself.




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