Shell Shock
copyright 2005
by Anne Fraser
 

Journal of Captain William Anderson, 4th Army, British Expeditionary Force
August 12, 1916
The Somme

She came again last night.

One would think it impossible to sleep here on the front; the machine gun fire never ceases and
shells explode at all hours.  Yet sometimes we here in the trenches collapse into a state more
like unconsciousness than sleep; and whenever I sleep, I dream.

She came to me through the mud, stepping lightly over the bodies huddled around me in their
own dreams or nightmares, and smiled to see me again.

I was somewhere between three and four when she found me the first time, toddling about in
my nightshirt. How I had gotten out of the house, I never knew.  My father blamed an
inattentive nurse and gave her notice; my mother merely sobbed into my curly hair when I was
rescued and vowed to never let me out of her sight again.

To my infant eyes, she looked beautiful.  I could not say the word  beautiful , so I called her
bloofer  in the way small children have. She offered me chocolate and I went to her willingly.

Chocolate tastes like blood to me now.  It is dearer than gold here on the front, dearer even
than fags, yet if chocolate were offered to me, it would fill my throat with blood.  I cannot eat
it.

She did not offer me chocolate last night, only her sharp smile and sharper kisses. But when
she reached down to touch my throat with her cold lips, a shell landed in the next trench and
the shock woke me.

Journal of Captain William Anderson, 4th Army, British Expeditionary Force
August 25, 1916
The Somme

Bodies.  There are bodies everywhere you look, most not intact, and many rotting or
beginning to rot.  I have seen men go insane in the trenches, trying to escape the stench of
death and the ever-present bombardment from the enemy. Perhaps we are all insane.

There is blood everywhere, too.  Fresh and dried, both.  The trenches stink of it. We all stink
of it.  Only the bloofer lady does not stink of it.

I dreamt of blood last night.  Blood and the bloofer lady, who once more put her lips to my
throat.  So cold.

They found me under a furze bush on Hampstead Heath.  I have no memory of being put
there, or of being found, only of much noise and fuss. They did not put my name in the
Westminster Gazette; only that I had been found and had spoken of the bloofer lady. Other
children were found; on the heath, in a graveyard, all with the same marks.  Marks on the
neck.

I never met any of the others, the children of the bloofer lady.  Somehow, it would not be
right.  She was mine alone.

Journal of Captain William Anderson, 4th Army, British Expeditionary Force
September 5, 1916
The Somme

So many bodies.  So much blood.  I saw another man in my unit being carried out.  He had no face.

There is no time to bury the dead.  We are all dead already.

I can taste the blood in my throat.  It tastes of sharp metal, of gunfire, of the screams of the
wounded and dying.  It tastes of chocolate and cold, sharp kisses.

Journal of Captain William Anderson, 4th Army, British Expeditionary Force
September 20, 1916
The Somme

I have not slept in four days, not even the state of blackness that passes for sleep here.  The
men have told me I scream and cry in my sleep, begging for the bloofer lady to let me go.  Or
begging for one more kiss.

The dreams are worse than waking. Waking, there is only the endless gunfire, endless death,
endless blood.  Dreaming, there is the woman.  The bloofer lady and her kisses.  I see her in
the trenches, beckoning.

Journal of Captain William Anderson, 4th Army, British Expeditionary Force
September 21, 1916
The Somme

My own screams awake me in the middle of the night.  I am not the only one screaming.
Some of the others think it is a great joke, my nightly journey to find my bloofer lady.
Anything is seized on as a joke, a distraction.  They ask me her name. I do not know it.

The attacks on children stopped suddenly, less than a week after they had begun.  I felt it
when they found her, and drove a stake into that lovely bosom.  There was so much blood.

There is so much blood.  The bloofer lady smells of it.  We all smell of it. We all smell of
death, and decay, and blood.

I can taste it in my throat.  It tastes like chocolate.

Tomorrow we  go over the top .  No matter how many thousands have already died, their
bones rotting here in the trenches, their blood staining the earth.  The Germans do not even
have to aim their machine guns.

They drink our blood.


Letter home from Corporal Benjamin Johnson, 4th Army, to his brother
September 28, 1916
The Somme
Dear Charles:
Half our unit is gone.  I don't want to upset you too much with the details, but I have to tell
someone about Capt. Anderson.
He led the charge  over the top  as we say.
There was a German machine gunner waiting for us.
The Cap threw down his own gun and charged the Kraut with his bare hands.
He went right for the Kraut's throat, like some kind of animal.  I swear to God his teeth were
bared, like he was going to take a bite of Jerry. I don't know what would have happened if
that shell hadn't gone off right there, blowing them both to bits. Call it shell shock if you want.  I know what I saw.

I'm recovering in the field hospital.  My right leg's gone, but I'm luckier than most.  I'll be
able to see you when I get home.  There are many only coming home in a pine box.
Your brother,
Benjie


Telegraph from Lieutenant General Sir Henry Rawlinson, Fourth Army, to Mr. George
Anderson, Hampstead

Dear Sir:

It is with deep regrets that I inform you of the death of your son, William Robert Anderson,
killed in the line of duty on September 22, 1916.  I return to you his personal effects, including
his journal.

Yours.