The Two Liberties - in Belgium

Scene I: somewhere in Belgium - Friday, September 5, 2003

A temperate mix of both good and evil, light and darkness, and I shall show my true Jacobin qualities therein.  

And the Lancaster I sought here in Belgium would be able to lend to my soul the strength and willpower, mentally, physically, to claim victory against anyone that evening, despite their evils, their strengths, their ambitions that would drive them too to their extents.

But it would not matter.

France had taught me invaluable lessons - those of hatred, of cruelty, of malice.

Belgium presents itself with something different however - the art of liberty via other means.

Those who await me here in Belgium waged war by different means than those in France: by courage, resiliancy, and devotion to their nations and, each other.  Liberty was won not by treachery but by the utmost dedication and self-sacrifice. These men were true warriors.

The place where I now step foot was once a place that was barren wasteland.  Now a monument to the courage and determination of mankind itself.  

For those qualities and traits I must show, not just mere evil self-indulgence.  

I turn the engine off in my Jaguar and look outside to see the skies a piercing grey.  The clouds roll in off the sea.

A storm threatens to shatter the heavens, the angels above prepared to shed their tears over this area.

I had done my research, and a phone call to and from Simkins later, I was told where I could find the Lancaster I searched for.

I pulled out my map from the glove compartment and double checked my location.  I was indeed in the right place.  A single red rose, symbol of the House of Lancaster, sat next to me on the passenger's seat.  I took it and proceeded outside with my map.

The landscape was beautiful, rolling in some places, flat in others.  Unimaginable were the events that occurred here at one time.  I looked about and for miles around I could see nothing but the same landscape, bearing the same scars.  The green grass grew abundantly, the air was clean, crisp.  The sound of the grass under my feet resonated throughout.  The area was just as my Father told me at one time: perhaps the loneliest in the world.  Yet I knew the Lancaster I was in search of was here.

I had never heard his voice, or seen his face.  I never knew what his loves were, or his fears.  His joys, his passions, his aims, his favourite food, drink, what his lover was like.  All I knew was that he was a relative on my Father's side of the family.  I had never met him and I greatly anticipated this.

Yet I was unsure.

How would he react to me.  Would he disapprove of my tactics, my war plan I had thus far concocted.  I believe he likely would.  But then again what he will educate me in is different than the lessons learned in France.  I accepted this, and I truly hope he would understand.

After several moments more, as I pulled my collar up around my neck to fend off the cold, I found him.  Just as I expected.

Motionless.

I knelt down to find a white limestone marker bearing the name "Lancaster."  The years had taken their toll on the marker, as I brushed away some green moss to reveal the rest of his name, "Philip Edward George."

And there we met.

Philip Edward George Lancaster, killed, a soldier in His Majesty's Army, in the Great War, in the Summer of 1915, after the second battle of Ypres.

In Flanders Field, Belgium.

I looked down sombrely and stood back up, to attention.  This was the price of ultimate freedom of liberty, and the price of war.  It was men like these who made my world free from tyranny, and their courage, self-sacrifice and victory will cry out through the ages.

The heavens then opened, a steady, not heavy, rain, as thunder rumbled in the distance.  

I braced myself against the weather as I knelt forward once again and placed the red rose of the House of Lancaster in front
of the marker.

I closed my eyes and placed one hand against the stone, and spoke, slowly, deliberately:

"In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields."


The torch is now mine to hold high.  And I shall do so.

The lessons of the two liberties were complete.


http://www.geocities.com/culturalexorcist/wessex/lancaster.html

Jacobins


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