Above and Below

Above and below

My son is beside me. Though only twelve years-old, he is smart enough to keep his mouth shut and his eyes open when circumstances dictate. Circumstances now do. We sit, my son and I, on a hilltop five-hundred feet above the valley floor below us. I will tell you what we see.

At the north end of the valley stands an army. At the south stands another. Both are set in their dispositions. It is hard to count the number of men in the valley, but the number is immense. Thousands on each side. Perhaps tens of thousands. It matters little for once they meet on the ground that separates them it will be a countless mob. At least countless beyond my reckoning. What is the difference between thousands and tens of thousands, between thousands and millions, if such a number is possible? My son says it is, but I cannot reconcile how there could be a million of anything. Perhaps there are a million men down there right now. I don’t know.

Atop the hill, we watch from between two trees in the tall grass and are unseen by those below. This gives us safety, though I cannot imagine our being here is of any concern to the thousands, or millions, who stand in the fields of the valley below. Just as well they should worry about the birds overhead as have concern over us. We are but silent witness to their event, as silent as them, for neither we nor the armies below have moved in hours. In the valley nothing has changed except for the passage of time which has taken toll upon those poor men. The sun is hot and the air carries the stink of human waste and sweat. Those poor men cannot move from their preparations and are forced to squat where they stand and then stand in their squalor. The sight and the smell of this takes away from the majesty of their formations, but oddly it fills me with respect for these soldiers who face their fears steadfastly while standing in their own filth.

My son observes with fascination. His eyes fall to one army below, then the other. He asks what will happen after the battle. I question why he asks not what led to this battle instead of what will follow. He said that men are men and will do battle regardless, that the before matters not. It is in the after, says this lad of mine, that holds the promise of change. It is good to look ahead, I suppose, a talent of youth. Though I must teach him the before if he is to understand the after as the two are inseparable. My son listens as I explain the before. I tell him the army standing in the north desires land belonging to those who lead the army in the south. The battle that is about to take place will decide who owns that land. My son asks why they can’t share it. A thoughtful boy. Perhaps my son is better suited to the pen than the sword. That would make his mother happy. For my part, though I want him to know the sword, I do not relish the thought that one day he too might be standing in his own filth waiting for another man’s command, at best to kill, at worst to die.

Though more thinker than soldier, my boy grows excited looking at the great armies. He tells me to look north to the sword and armour that stands like boulders in a field, unmoving and unmovable. He then tells me look south, pointing out the greater number of horse than in the north. He said the horse gives mobility and speed, but questions whether the animals will panic in the face of the greater steel of the army to the north. Panic sows disorder and disorder flows like a river in heavy rain, he says, getting larger and faster unless checked forcefully. What a lad is this. His thoughts that cause me to think him of the pen are now turning his pen towards the sword. Do I harbour a general in my house? Is this lad of mine to be a mind for the ages? I am glad he sits here with me watching this battle and is not down amongst the men who might never see the end of it.

There is movement in the army to the North. A moment later there is movement in the army to the South. Men move side to side, to and fro. A complex dance of flesh and steel mused by the desire for advantage. Men at the back of each army swing left and right while horse and pike at the front move right and left. My son points at one movement and describes its meaning. Then his finger moves to the other end of the valley and points at movements there, again describing their intentions. For my part, I listen. I cannot affect the movements of the battle below, nor can I improve upon the intelligence of what my son speaks. I am a spectator to both army and offspring. My part is to watch and listen. I thought that was to be my son’s role this day but careers have changed and I am student to a twelve year-old. If it was any other boy but my own I would feel the fool. But as he is mine I feel pride. My only hope is that the depth of thought he harbours comes more from me than from his mother, but that is unlikely.

My mind moves from the inside of myself back to the battlefield below. In my absence of attention, the distance between the armies has halved, though the width of their stations has increased. My son tells me the south army prepares to flank with horse, while at the north pike and archer hold the center and sides. It is a predictable battle, my son tells me, the rules are set in stone and both sides follow them to their peril. But one, he says, will suffer less peril than the other, and when it is realized by both sides which it is, the day will be won and lost in that moment regardless of what follows. Now my son speaks beyond his years and beyond my knowledge. I do not know where he learned these things but when he speaks there is a knowing in his voice. Even his questions are of a higher order than my answers.

Above we watch and below they fight. We sit and talk while they run and die. In the end it finishes as it was meant to. One side wins, one side loses. There is no surprise in any of it, just a vivid pageant of colour and brutality that led to one of only two possibilities. The end of the battle holds none of the excitement as at the beginning. Now it is slow death for those who lay on the field and execution or captivity for those who lost yet still stand. Now is the play of human horror as true to our nature as what took place during the battle. In clash and action there was bravery and sacrifice; now it is cold and numbered, a list of figures being scratched off a register of debts owed. The voices are stilled, the wounded are dispatched, the debts are paid. It is time to go.

We leave behind the reality of others and take back our own. I have no battles, just work, sleep, and duty to the church. The same as all men. I do not know how the conflict today will affect me, but whoever I serve, my service remains service and my sleep remains sleep. My tomorrow will be the same as my today. But I question whether my son will have different tomorrows. Will he serve as I do, or, one day, will another father and his boy sit on that same hill and look down as my son leads an army in the valley. Though I would be honoured to father a commander, I cannot escape the thought that another ordinary man, like myself, would suffer his feet drenched in the wastes of his own fears waiting for the orders of my son to march and to die. I would not want to be a father to that.