IN MEMORIAM

November is the month of remembrance and if ever there was a time to reflect on the mass impact and pain of war it is now. ‘In Memoriam’ by Alice Winn has been recommended to us by many Den readers and this month is our worthy Missed Opportunity. An illicit love story told through the eyes of two public school teenagers, Henry Gaunt and Sidney Ellwood, who with reckless bravado, enlist with the British army in 1915. These privileged well educated young men, who find solace in poetry, Greek and Latin, find themselves in the unthinkable position of leading soldiers over the trenches into No Man’s Land during WW1. It is a devastating and heart-breaking narrative which captures the helplessness and shocking inevitability of war which is sure to resonate with what is happening in the world today.

The story begins with life at Preshute, a fictional posh public school in the English countryside. Sitting on the roof, smoking cigarettes, Gaunt and Ellwood discuss literature and dissect their fellow pupils. Gaunt is infatuated with Ellwood, who is popular with everyone, beautiful, generous and unashamedly writes poetry. Unbeknown to Gaunt, Ellwood feels the same. It is a playful time, with bullying and camaraderie going hand in hand. However, Gaunt’s mother is German, and Gaunt speaks German. Paranoid they will be regarded as the enemy, she persuades him to enlist with the British army and so this unrequited love judders to a halt.

Alice Winn attended Marlborough College and her knowledge comes from her passion of sourcing first-hand accounts of those fighting in the trenches. She wrote ‘In Memoriam’ after reading their student newspapers published between 1913 -1919 which listed their friends and family killed and wounded. As the school boys left behind scour the “In Memoriam” section (taken from Tennyson’s poem of the same name) of their school publication “The Preshutian” for the names of their friends, so their determination to take the right course of action and sign up, becomes a matter of pride. Little realising the futility of their decision, one by one these immature, privileged teenagers, often lying about their age, leave for the front. It is not long before Ellwood enlists to be with Gaunt. Yet the harsh reality of life on the trenches has changed Gaunt, he is distant and haunted by what he’s seen. But both men recognise they need each other, and begin to express their feelings, knowing the consequences of what will happen if they are caught. When they become separated after a particularly difficult offensive each fears the other is dead, so their determination to try and survive the unending massacre takes hold.

Winn has a unique ability to create the setting and tone of the trenches through her direct simplicity of presenting the facts, whether that be dying in action or dying by mishap, such as lighting a cigarette. It is an unimaginable situation and she vividly conveys brutal images of soldiers going to the slaughter at both Loos and Somme. The officers write their never-ending letters of condolence to stricken families and the list of those killed ‘In Memoriam’, are presented at various points throughout the story, most poignantly at the end. This brings home the wretched reality of war and the price paid by these young men together with the loss felt by those left behind. At times it is not an easy read, and sometimes the back and forth between Ellwood and Guant grates, but it is a beautifully written, vivid narrative which is visceral and heart-wrenching.