Through the Woods of Babel

By James Welsh

The year is World War One, a war that has rinsed the culture with blood. Henry Carrington, the son of a British baron, finds that the war is all he can think about. And so he flees his comfortable life to earn his own chivalry, just like in all of the books he has read. He soon finds, though, that he is a relic in a modern world. The knights of yesterday are all forgotten. Instead, he finds himself fighting alongside the common: the stern professor, a seducer of powerful women, and a pickpocket, among others.

As the British army prepares for its fateful charge at the Battle of Somme, Henry strikes up an unlikely friendship with a fellow soldier named Noah. Born a Texan, Noah masquerades as a Canadian so that he can join the British army, all in the name of adventure. As the battle unfolds around them, Noah shows Henry how a little rebellion can be good for his spirit. No longer does he need to take orders from others, whether it is his father, his generals, his books, or even the love of his life. Now, although the shrapnel might try and tear him apart, Henry soon finds himself more whole than he could ever imagine.

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Welsh
• Release date: Jul 6, 2012
• ISBN: 9781311105318

James Welsh

James Welsh is a writer who was born downwind of a chemical plant in Delaware. His poetry has been published in roughly a dozen literary magazines, including New Plains Review and Grasslimb. He can be reached by email if you have any questions or comments about his work: [e-mail]

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Through the Woods of Babel

James Welsh

Copyright James Welsh 2012

Published at Smashwords

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For every name written down in the book at

Memorial Hall, The University of Delaware.

For Alexa.

For family, for friends.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye

who cheer when soldier lads march by,

sneak home and pray you’ll never know

the hell where youth and laughter go.

-Siegfried Sassoon, Suicide in the Trenches

Chapter I

Saturday, June 24, 1916

Somme, France

No one wants to die, but everyone wants to die a hero.

Henry didn’t remember much about his grandfather, but he certainly remembered the old man’s favorite saying. He ended each of his stories with the phrase, as if the saying was a flourish of the pen. Just like a signature, Henry did not understand the meaning of the phrase, though his grandfather rumbled with a grave dignity whenever he said it. So Henry knew that the words must be important, in some way.

Francis Carrington, Earl of Nottingham, was a tremendous man with a thick handlebar mustache. The old man was proud of the mustache, keeping it like a steady brush of white paint. That was the other thing that Henry remembered about his grandfather. As a child, Henry would tug on the elder’s mustache, as if amazed and not sure if the fashion actually existed. Many men would yelp at the pulling of hair, but Francis would only chuckle and say, Be careful there, my boy! All of a man’s power is in his hair. I’m just a modern Samson.

The Earl was certainly a warrior – he had dove into the wick of war for decades, only twice being burned by the heat of gunfire. He had fought in a series of campaigns that blanketed the world, whether fought in southern Africa or Burma. Each time he shipped off for war, he hoped to come home as a death notice for his wife. Each time, though, he showed up on the doorstep of their estate, looking disappointed. He had tried years before to explain this feeling to others, but he had long given up the efforts. His wife was far from grief-stricken to see her husband alive. She always squeaked with delight when she saw through the window his carriage pull up the road. That said, she may have been more excited to see the gifts that Francis always carried underneath one arm. Once, when Francis helped put down the Chinese Rebellion, he returned with two looted, beautiful vases, as blue as the deep Atlantic.

And still, Francis spent the better part of his life marching across continents, being the first to charge into battle, eager to draw blood like a painter with his canvas. Francis never admitted it, but he was not sure if this urge made him a suicide or a martyr. He’d rather see himself as being a hero to someone, although suicidal people still carved their initials on legend. Everyone from Ajax during the Trojan War to Shakespeare’s Ophelia, every death became immortalized, one way or another.

In the end, though, Francis got his wish and died more like Achilles than Ajax. Even with a deaf ear in his later years, Francis still heard the call to war, and so he signed up to fight the Aros on the African continent. In spite of his advanced age, Francis was still let in on the fight, perhaps as a bet by amused commanders. During the assault on Arochukwu, the graying Carrington had been driven through with a spear, killing him in the space of a breath. He was buried later that day with honor in the rusty soil of that country, asleep forever in the battlefield, the only home he had ever truly known. His wife wore black for a year when she heard the news. The only gifts that came home that time were the Earl’s belongings, as well as the old man’s meticulous journal.

When Francis had died, he had passed onto his only son the title of Earl of Nottingham, as well as a beautiful estate deep in the woods, as well as a small fortune for summers in Italy, as well as a seat in the House of Lords, but little else. The new Earl of Nottingham would come to resent this lack of appreciation; however, the bespectacled man never explained why. Perhaps he felt too mature to sit in Parliament, or perhaps he wanted even more money. Perhaps he wanted to make his own future, instead of his father handing him one. It would take a shrewd man, a man too wise to ever be born, to look in the Earl’s eyes and guess at an answer. The truth may have been that the Earl did not want to live like his father did, as a child too busy with his war-games to know that supper was ready. This notion would certainly explain the Earl’s moves after his father’s gruesome death. The Earl began a series of aggressive business deals in ports like Liverpool and Glasgow. For a small fee – well, one that shortchanged the competitors – the Earl would transport imported goods from the ports well into the heartland of England. In a few, short years, the man had become a sort of merchant’s merchant. He expanded his business until he lived on the road, treating each of his ventures as a port of call, sailing to and from each port in his brand-new, steam-powered car, the wheels his sails, the dirt roads his seas.

Still, one looked at the travels made by father and son – they looked at the battles one fought, the arguments the other shouted – and they wondered if the two men were the same spirit, stretched along the generations.

The young Henry could never understand his father’s motives. For the longest time, he thought his father’s business was criminal at worst, immoral at best. Why abandon his family and home and the countryside and the crisp breeze for the musky port air? What colors did his father find in the city grays? Henry never understood the comedy of life until he spent three weeks in Liverpool one summer. The Earl had taken his son with him on his travels, hoping that Henry would finally learn what made the family name so respected. All Henry learned, though, was how far the brothels and pubs were from the hotel. Henry did not learn a single thing about the family business that summer, but he certainly learned what his inheritance was going to be. He was going to gain neither his grandfather’s title nor his father’s business. Instead, he was going to inherit their thrill for oddity. It was this magnetism for novelty that aligned all three generations like planets in orbit, in spite of the younger Earl not wanting to become a soldier like his father, in spite of Henry not wanting to become an entrepreneur like his own.

It could be said that the Earl did not believe in nature. This was not a hope but an expectation, as the man had seen little proof of nature in the shipyards. The years at business had turned the man as black-and-white as the contracts he signed. However, while the Earl’s eyes turned cold, his hands became greedy with money. Finances were the only thing he truly believed in anymore, as he believed that it is far easier to believe in that which you see. He did not go to church anymore for the same reason, much to the clucking of his elderly mother, widow of the late Francis.

That is why when the Earl first heard of war breaking out on the Continent, he feared the worst. He was shaving his face one summer morning, back in 1914, when he heard the news. He immediately thought of his grandfather before he thought of his son. The thoughts rushed at him all at once and he yelped as he cut his cheek.

All it took was the memory of his father reveling in war, one week, some pulled strings, a few fat pockets, and the Earl had put his son in a factory, making munitions. The Earl’s wife immediately cried foul over this decision. She did not do so for her son’s sake, of course. No, she was shuddering at the gossip that she was already imagining in her head: to think, she would be known as the Countess with the commoner for a son. She was even afraid of being near her son, for fear that his dirty skin would be contagious. As well, the munitions worker who lost his job of five years to Henry’s appointment was far from thrilled.

The Earl ignored the outcry, though. He reasoned to himself, saying, They would never draft my son for the war, not if he’s so vital. If he’s not making artillery shells, then who would?

It was true – a factory worker could never fire any of the artillery shells or bullets that he created. This was the logic of Parliament. However, the Earl had other reasons for the maneuvering. What the Earl did not know was that he did pass down some qualities to his son, deceit being one of the many virtues.

That is why, when Private Edward Huxley asked what Henry did before the war, the young lance corporal was able to lie so easily.

Oh, I wasn’t up to much, I’m afraid, Henry said airily. Just doing some odd jobs here and there. Spent some time in London, actually. Didn’t you say that you’re from there?

The dashing private smiled broadly. Yes sir, of course I was born and raised there. Where else can you live?

Michael Brown took a moment to look up from his newspaper. He sneered in the way he always did. Don’t believe a word he says. That’s right, Eddie, I’ve seen the address on the letters you send home. You’re from Twickenham.

Huxley wasn’t sure whether to be indignant or amused. He chose to be amused. It’s as London as St. Paul’s Cathedral. Sure is more London than your Bristol.

In truth, London and Twickenham were the same and different, a city divided by a common river, the Thames. While London’s moon of pollution eclipsed the countryside, Twickenham remained a rustic flare of sunshine. But London always had her fingers in the world, and she introduced industry to the town. Of course, some people protested this, over their pints in the pub, grumbling over cider. Many of them had fled London for Twickenham, in the hopes of finding something more private, more personal. But the city and its grime seemed to follow them everywhere. Huxley cheered the intrusion, though, because it meant steady money at the powder mills around town. London meant money, as it always had. But that wasn’t the only reason why Huxley loved the city. When he wasn’t working shifts at the powder mill, he was busy patrolling the hotspots of London. His father may have had a weakness for the drink, but Huxley’s was women. The blond-haired, lean man made a sport of seducing London’s powerful ladies, the wives of diplomats and MPs. He didn’t like to brag, but he claimed twenty-one affairs before a sense of duty had shoved him with a stiff arm into war. The actual number of ladies, though, was closer to four, five perhaps.

Brown was immune to Huxley’s charm, though, and waved it off. He called out in the train car, Hey, who here is the best with French? Come now, don’t be shy.

Henry pointed towards the back of the car. Although it was dark, he thought he could see the brief outline of Nigel Bishop. I think Nigel is.

Nigel. Hey, Nigel!

Brown’s shout shattered the church silence of the train car. His only response was grumbles from the other sleepy soldiers, desperate to stay in their dreams.

Michael Brown did not care in the slightest for being an interruption, though. The round-faced boy with short hair had gone stale years before, enough to make any pedestrian’s nose wrinkle. Born into an Irish family of twelve in Bristol, his exit late one night from home went unnoticed. His entrance into the police station later that same night, though, was a bit more memorable. You ask any of the Bobbies, and they’d remember Brown as being the screaming young man they brought in, all for fighting over the tab at a pub. See, the world never smiled at Brown, but Brown certainly smiled back, his chapped lips curled,