Impression Sketch
Rupert Brooke, April 1913 -
By Jamie Mann. An original images can be seen at: http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw00810/Rupert-Brooke
I
With massing preparations for a campaign,
To hit the Dardanelles - ships and troops
Gathered about the Aegean -
among these
Sailed the Grantully Castle, seeking anchor.
Conveying among its force, one man who saw
His destinies in conquer of Constantinople.
In a white room - outside the sky
hung blue:
On a day 23 April 1915 this man,
Lieutenant
Brooke, lay in resting ache on
Aegean Sea.
For some time
before, in the month of March,
Rupert Brooke -
amid his ship's company -
Considered what
might be - unlike others
Who feared that
all might be over before they
Arrived - Brooke
pondered on these matters.
Then it seemed to
Brooke that exchange
Of fighting would
go on for years and years,
About the Turkey
'Troad' - they would be left,
Men, long
forgotten, vanquished, not even
To be told when
war had ended, long before.
Wallowing down a
well of ill feeling, Brooke
Brooded on his
watch stepping about heavy,
Sleeping stokers
on deck - he asked a reader
Of his letter not
to care over his fate, to confess
Frequent
selfishness in his hatred for people.
In a white room - outside the sky
hung blue:
Still lying
still, Rupert held back the ache
As he thought of
days not so long before.
II
March abated then
came April as sickness
Came to bite;
Brooke racked with headache,
Moved his camp
bed from the tent, to stay
Beneath an awning
in stillness - slowly his head
Throbbed in the
dust drifting, sultry, close day.
Sounds of the
green awning - its shadows
Flapping
overhead, as some visitors came
Checked him said
'hello' - then left him alone.
Egyptian light flickered between green blurs -
Brooke laid
brooding, weary and half asleep.
Recovery seemed
to play some preying game,
While another
fellow had recovered easily
Brooke felt heavy
- moving from sick leave when
To feeling
better, enough to write a letter;
Followed by light
duties in arrival at Lemnos.
In a white room - outside the sky
hung blue:
Confined in a poet's drifting
consciousness,
Curtains in warm air twisted over
Rupert Brooke.
At Mudros anchors filled every space; feeble
Looking battle
ships, made of converted Mersey
Tugs and barges
from off the Thames - as men
Took their
Swedish exercise and played about
Deck, with
semaphore and machine gun drills.
III
Without space for
the Hood or Grantully Castle,
Brooke’s assigned
ship, the troops had to make
Their way to
harbour of Trebuki Bay at Skyros -
Brooke feeling
well enough again, joined others
To dine as
conversation turned to Greek history.
Such parallels
with the legends of Agamemnon
Was the stuff of
discussions, between officers
Well conversed in
the classics - with confession
Of one using
Homeric references, to by-pass
Censors, so that
home might know their place.
In a white room - outside the sky
hung blue:
Sideways Rupert saw
the light of sky and sea
His white room
tempered and shuttered.
Mid April saw
spirits raised, as crew took
Took part in a
male fancy dress ball - stokers
Emerged blackened in disguise as Negros -
While one was in
guise of Queen Elizabeth,
to wear curtains
and antiseptic bandage veils.
Brooke watched
and listened to the playing
Piano tunes, soon
retiring to bed. In two days
Came anchorage at
Skyros. Brooke and Lister
Walked the deck,
to detect sage and thyme
Scents, drifting from the
Island in heated sense.
IV
As others went
ashore to explore Brooke
Stayed aboard to
read and write his letters -
Until the others
returned - coming late and
Carried Tortoise,
all laden down with cheeses
Of goats, being rowed
by a Greek fishermen.
The next day
Brooke was to step ashore
Onto Skyros,
ready for Battalion exercises.
The land stood in
clear water, a marble
Rockery; scented
with mint, thyme, sage,
With scattered olive groves
and red poppies.
The next day,
tired after his watch, Brooke
Was again on
shore to join the exercise -
Set about an
impressive setting, in a river
Bed, lying dry beneath Mount Khokilas;
Between Pephko
and Komaro mountains.
An olive grove of
small trees brought some
Afternoon respite,
as Brooke and others
Lay in their
shade - Brooke was accounted
To say he felt
peace there; with beauty
Of the valley's
view in heat of afternoon.
From 4 p.m. the
exercise finished finding
Brooke, Lister
and Freyberg on the beach.
A suggestion made
they should swim back
The mile to their
ship - without the energy
Brooke followed
in a fisherman’s boat.
V
Dining on Hoch, that
Brooke said made
His lips swell - retired from the party to rise
Unwell - with a
swollen upper lip and pain
In back and head
- he rested for the day,
Feeling field
exercise had made exhaustion.
In a white room - outside the sky
hung blue:
Now pain renewed
and cut down his throat
Yet Brooke
resisted, fighting the infection.
Reporting to an
unconcerned McCracken,
Ship,s surgeon,
Brooke’s temperature
Peaked 101, with
the swelling developing
On the right side
of his upper lip - poultices
Were prescribed
as he returned to his cabin.
21 April found
Brooke wearing ill, as visitors
Called on him -
saying little he gave a letter
To be sent onto
the Ranee - by evenings
Failing light,
Browne found him waning;
Lieutenant
Brooke, drowsy lay in darkness.
Still the surgeon
had little concern as he
Referred to
another officer, who had already
Recovered - as
others reported concerns,
The seal was
unknowingly set; A Tahitian
Coral poisoning
had lowered his resistance.
In a white room - outside the sky
hung blue:
Lying alone,
watching the white shades
Of billowing
curtains, a black fly came inside.
VI
22 April 11 a.m.
the surgeon was then
Concerned and
wired for other surgeons.
3 p.m. and they
conferred - there had been
A mosquito bite
to Brooke's lip, perhaps
At Port said -
but what of the treatment?
His infection had
probably been latent -
Had lessened in a
diet for mild sunstroke,
Only to return
with his system rundown.
They found
inflammation on Brooke's right
Face and running
down his length of neck.
A swab showed
presence of Diplococcus
Morphologically -
acute blood poisoning -
Recommendations were
to move him over
To a hospital
ship, despite Brooke's protests,
The nearest being
French, at Trebuki Bay.
In a white room - outside the sky
hung blue:
The fly fuzzed
about his head, dark
Eyes, dark body,
casting a darker shadow.
4.30 p.m. two
stokers lowered Rupert Brooke,
Blanket wrapped,
into a picket boat - Browne
And others
escorted him the mile - after 'hello'
He fell back into
a daze - twelve surgeons
Without any
patients, made Brooke priority.
Conveyed to an
airy cabin on the sun deck,
An English
speaking male nurse attended
Him - to learn this
man was Britain’s best
Poet - the nurse
nodded - 7p.m, Asquith had
Asked if he
needed anything - a word 'water.'
VII
In a white room - outside the sky hung blue:
Other shadows
moved about him, familiar
And unfamiliar
faces, their voices distant.
A frantic time
passed as Asquith requested
An English nurse
and marconigramed
Hamilton and
Churchill, with words 'Condition
Very grave' - Then
came the realization
As the Doctors
said Brooke might not live.
23 April 9 a.m.
Asquith, Browne, McCracken
Found French
Surgeons were soon to operate;
To give free
cauterization on the infected area,
In chance to draw
off bacteria on the neck -
The French being
well practiced in the method.
In a white room - outside the sky
hung blue:
Drifting as if
above himself, Rupert saw others
leaning over with
their curious attentions.
Lying back in his
cabin, Browne and Asquith
Rotated to sit by
Rupert - when at midday
Brooke came round,
but unable to make sound.
Later, to
Schlesinger, he spoke to say how
He was more
comfortable from earlier pains.
VIII
A short time
later, Brooke appeared worsened
A surgeon said 'État
désespéré' -hopelessness -
Asquith had to
prepare for the worse - Browne
Was told by the
surgeon that his friend. with
Temperature of
106, was now starting to sink.
Browne fetched a
priest who knelt to pray.
As he remained by
his bed, for one and half
Hours, until
orderlies tidied him - the Surgeon
Told Browne that
his friend was now dying;
Sitting beside him to
wait by shaded windows.
A cool sea breeze
entered the room - Browne
Watched over
Brooke who had not moved
Since noon - the
time 3.50 p.m. slowly passed
As a stillness
came into the open room
Without
consciousness, he died at 4.46 p.m.
In a white room - outside the sky
hung blue:
Non existent
shrouds of curtains billowed.
About him Rupert
Brooke felt the cooling air,
A presence by his
side in a gentle weight - yet
Others were
there, stepping through the open
Doors - the sea
lay beyond the familiar figures.
Led by burly
stokers, dressed for shore leave,
Came friends
dressed in the whites for summer
Days - Rupert
spied Cathleen, Noel, Virginia,
Violet, Denham,
Taatamata, Edward Marsh,
Ka, Bryn, and the
Ranee - all smiled on him.
Rupert looked
at each face wanting to speak,
But word evaded
his dried, exhausted throat -
The cool breeze
lifted as gauze curtains
Drifted,
billowing about, as friends circled him.
The people he
knew smiled as they spoke,
To tell words
he had written the year before.
Noel, soft hair
about her shoulders, whispered;
'If I should die,
think only this of me,' young
Denham gave
reassurance; 'That there's some
Corner of a foreign
field, that is forever England.'
A suited Eddie
Marsh added 'In that rich earth
A richer dust
concealed' - with her dark eyes
Bryn told him how 'A dust whom England bore,
Shaped, made
aware, Gave, once, her flowers
To love, her ways
to roam' - they circled his bed.
There were others
there too; some too quick
To see with his tired
eyes, as they repeated
His own words; 'A
body of England's, breathing
English air...' Taatamata in Tahitian words
Said 'And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the
eternal mind, no less...'
Ka came close by
and Eddie spoke of
'Laughter, learnt
of friends; and gentleness,'
Then a stranger came
among them to walk
Tall and elegant -
as of an eternal age -
Her bound, gold hair, glinting in bright light.
She handed her
torch aside and knelt
To kiss him - he knew her - Persephone.
Her cold lips were to
take Rupert's breath,
To whisper close to
Brooke's aching ears;
'Hearts at peace,
under an English heaven.'
by Jamie Mann.
Hassall, C.,1996. Rupert
Brooke: A Biography. London. Faber and Faber. Ch XIII.
Source: File: Rupert
Brooke. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. From Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia. [online]
Available at: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Brooke> [Accessed: 23 April
2015].
Mann, J., 2015. 100 years Ago - Poems by Jamie Mann. [letter] (Personal
communication, 23 April 2015).
#WW1 #WW1centenary #GreatWar #WW1poem #GreatWar #WW1centenary
#worldwarone #worldwaroneremembered #WW1RupertBrooke
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