England 1944

Chapter 11

For fifteen years I've wanted to come to this country, to this England.
For months I've wanted to hear music. For days I've wanted to see
shows, eat at tables, and talk to English-speaking men and women.
Now I've come to England. I've heard some music, seen some plays,
been to dances, eaten at tables, conversed in English. In fact I've tried
desperately to have a good time. And I have failed miserably. I have
no heart for it-now that I've got it. I've no mind for it. It isn't the
thing or they are not the things that satisfy my desires-the interest
of my heart and mind. What I want is what I left in the mountains of
Italy-satisfaction of something accomplished, something concrete,
something real, something to eat up this tremendous desire to get on
with the business of exterminating Germans.

Moving from North Ireland through Scotland to Leicester in
the Midlands was like traveling back through one's reading. Little
did I know of North Irish literature, but some I knew of Scotland.
The country I sped through, whether lowlands, highlands, or
moors, suggested those literary landscapes I had read about since
childhood. Conversation in the jeep was certainly negligible, so that
my mind ran off to the songs of Burns, the castles and abbeys of
Scott, the lakes of Wordsworth. We crossed the border into England
seeing road signs (when they were not removed for military security)
pointing to Carlisle, Nottingham, Liverpool; I remembered
Emily Bronte and Thomas Hardy. The deeper we got into England,
with names like Lancaster, Westmoorland, Cumberland, Derby,
Shakespeare, and the Wars, stirred memories of the Henrys and the
Richards. The trip was far more like being on holiday. It was a
dream come true. If only there weren't the army and a war.

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