Waste Land to a Scream: A Gay Science

Novel 018

18. “You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.” Nietzsche

February 2 1918 in Picardy.

Low drops of rain spattered down all around the hut. The showers came down in drabs and drabs in a huge deluge that made what few weeds pulverized to the ground. There were no flowers anywhere at all. All was mud and blood and effluvia both from below and from above. There were piles of skeletons and bodies strewn around the trenches and ghastly dead horses which were tangled until one could not tell where one began and the other one ended.

But in the hut, there was a man who was working on maps and charts to try and pinpoint the best location for the next strike from the artillery he calculated the exact point where the needles would drop to inflict maximum shrapnel impact. His name was Ford Madox Ford or so he called himself to his military suffragettes. The cool rational brain did not talk to the heart. It only calculated exactly how many people would be obliterated in the next operation. He was a rational machine in the shape of a human body.

His plan was to be as close as possible to where the artillery barrage was taking place so that he could analyze the wind patterns and other equipment to get the most accurate data that he could. his superiors did not like that he was so close to the front, but they could not persuade him that it would be more effective for other to the rear. Ford was too adamant - just like his US cousin only he did not have so warped view of mankind that the car manufacturer did.

Then the door to the outside opened and in it stood his commanding officer. The commanding officer did not like dealing with Ford, because there was an interfering clang to every conversation. However, Ford did not move except to revise the plans and so his commanding officer began:

“Beastly weather we have.”

Ford did not reply but kept checking the numbers to see if more damage could be extracted, so the commanding officer continued:

“Have you finished the calculations?”

Finally, some words came out of Ford: “One can always do better but these numbers should be enough to do the job.” Ford handed back the pile of papers and his commanding officer looked at them but in truth, he would not know if they were correct because of all of the sins and tangents that covered almost all of the space. "But I will tell you that with the soon surrender of the Russians, it will be difficult for our side to hold its own."

"Do you think that we will be defeated or stalemated?"

Ford tilted his head to refer to numbers in the sky. "It is difficult to say because the men and equipment that the German side will muster is imprecise. And with imprecise numbers comes imprecise calculations and therefore be amount of guesswork is to create to overcome."

The officer looked at him and said: "There are very few people who can make even an educated guess with the tools you have."

Ford merely nodded because he knew that this was precisely true: 10 people could do the numbers as rigorously as he could and five of them were dead. There was a cold wind blowing through the window. On the table was a cold cup of tea with a bit of sugar to fortify Ford because there was no food for miles around: tea was all that could be supplied.

Ford looked at his commanding officer with a chilly glance: "This war should not have gone on for anywhere near the length of time that it has."

"That is not my decision."

"Whose was it? I should like to talk to him about the logistics and supply problems that the war has affected so far, and shall affect to its eventual conclusion."

"I do not think that it was thought out completely rather be fighting spirit was engaged before anyone had truly understood what was going to happen."

"That seems to me to be a summary excuse for not planning. If it had been planned precisely they should not have gone involved in the first place."

"I'm sure that you have been told that you are peculiar in your nature."

"I think that men such as myself should have been given a chance to properly deploy equipment. I feel sure that we would have prevailed."

"As you earlier noted there are very few who could do the calculations, and therefore it might have will happened the way it happened."

There was silence until the commanding officer retreated with his papers.