Normally I don't like posting drafts...
Normally I don't like posting drafts...but this one is an odd one, I got the idea for this short script when I was walking home in the early hours from playing guardian angel after two people over indulged at a party. I was listening to a song and out of no where I suddenly mentally visualized conversation between two soldiers somewhere in France during the first world war. I couldn't go to sleep until I had the entire story out in it's roughest draft, and after some polishing, and some research...tell me what you think.
Remembering
By Daniel Anctil
Inspired by “Recruiting Sergeant” in Play, by Great Big Sea
Characters:
James Macgreggor: A private in the First Newfoundland Regiment
Jean DuMontange: A Corporal of the Royal Canadian Regiment #4 From Quebec City
Scene: Some nameless trench in Flanders
Background noises: Artillery strikes and volleys of machine guns
(Voice speaking, casually as in conversation)
“You know, during the second world war, the British used Newfoundlanders and the Quebecois as their Commando groups, maybe because they fought the hardest during the First World War.”
Stage Lights on, focus centre stage, on the fox hole.
Focus: A Foxhole in a trench, fading light, Twilight is approaching
Set: A 6 foot foxhole built to allow actors to crawl into it fairly quickly with just enough room for two men to stand up and walk around in.
We see a young man on stage and the artillery begins as he tries to find somewhere safe to hide. He discovers the foxhole, and dives for the ground to crawl with his rifle for safety
James: Oh God, oh Jesus, oh Mother Mary, Get me to safety!
He makes it to the fox hole and curls up to the fetal position.
James: Please let me go home, I don’t want to be here, I don’t want to die, oh god mom I’m Sorry!
(There is a pause in the Artillery)
James gets control of himself, and checks his rifle, the cartridge is empty.
James: Damn! Okay Jimmy, you’ve got yourself in a fox hole, with a rifle that is empty, you’re out of ammunition because you actually killed some people, and you’re the only one of your charging regiment to make it to safety or so it seems…and you are talking to yourself to keep your bladder from emptying out of panic that some German might come ‘round to shoot you in order to remove you of your dear life. Fuck! I’m nineteen now, I should be married by now! Why didn’t I just keep my hand down? Why did I believe them when they said it would be a short clean war?
Jean is approaching the fox hole.
A movement Stage left, we see Jean slowly approaching the fox hole armed with a trench knife.
James: Stop! Who’s there!?! Friend or Foe?!? I’ll bloody blow yer brains out if you try it!
(James is visibly nervous, holding his rifle more like a spear than a gun, Jean puts away his trench knife as he crouches towards the fox hole)
Jean: Je Suis…I am a Friend, Corporal Jean Dumontange, 4th Royal Canadian Regiment!
James: You’re not French?
Jean: Quebecois, can I come in?
James: Sure come on in, Private James Macgreggor, 1st Newfoundland Regiment
(Jean Settles in the fox hole)
Jean: Newfoundlander? Here?
James: yeah, I’m from your side of the Atlantic.
Jean nods and sits down in the fox hole resting his rifle next to him, he reaches into his breast pocket.
Jean: Cigarette?
James: no thanks
Jean: If you are worried about the smoke and snipers, the last shell is still smoking, we’d be fine, it wouldn’t show up right now.
James: Thank you
Both men smoke their cigarettes in silence.
James: You married?
Jean: never had the chance
James: me too, I was courting this girl from my home town…we were doing pretty well back home, I think I nearly had her hand.
Jean: yeah, I had a girl too, She’s married now. I guess she couldn’t wait.
James: I’m sorry John.
Jean: sorry james, but it’s Jean, it sounds like John, but it’s more a JeAHn.
James: I’m sorry for that too.
Jean: it’s okay, most people out here aside from the Canadians have a hard time believing I’m not French.
James: So, you found the trench by luck?
Jean: Oui, I mean yes, I heard you speaking and I wasn’t sure who you were, so I check it out, and here we are.
James: you didn’t see anyone else did you?
Jean: I saw no one living, friend or foe.
James: I wish I wasn’t nearly as comfortable as I am hearing that, I was sent to charge and I saw men from my home town mixed with other British Citizens cut down around me, and here I am, probably a good distance from my trenches, smoking with a Quebecois.
Jean: Ces’t La Guerre, at least you have decent company, I’m sure you’d rather have a cute girl in a warm hotel somewhere, but I think my conversation suits the moment. So, do you have a trade?
James: well, my father’s a Cooper, and I’ve taken up the trade back home, my brothers are Coopers too. We make barrels for our city, and most of the local towns come to see my father about business, if I survive the war I’ve got something to look forward to.
Jean: Good, I’m a Student myself, I was studying Philosophy and Politics at McGill when the call came. They thought someone smart enough to be in school should be a corporal, *spits* I know I’d be a better officer then some of the idiots they have running this war.
James: So I take it you’re not terribly fond of the war either? Seems like a common complaint out here.
Jean Chuckles: Find me a man who loves war and I will find you a man that has never had to fight it. So, are you a “vrai” volunteer or were you forced into this fight?
James: I volunteered the day I turned eighteen
Jean: the day? You couldn’t wait to celebrate your birthday? Don’t you feel that your enthusiasm was misplaced?
James: Well, we had a recruiting sergeant come by our neighbourhood weekly, looking for men to go fight the Hun. He was always dressed in his best uniform looking for men who could step up to fight, my family wasn’t willing to let me to go until I was eighteen. And well, the girls do seem to love a man in uniform…
Jean: do you have any family that was in the military?
James: my da’ was on a British long ship when he started his apprenticeship, they had royal navy marines on his ship, he always talked about how noble they seemed, they few times they got into a scrap his friends would talk about it like it was a great event, the stories they had to tell always kept me asking for more, it seemed like such an adventure.
Jean: yes, funny how they always leave the fear of death and the dirty parts out, eh mon ami?
James chuckles: what about you? You seem to have about as much fondness for being here as a whore would have being in confessional.
Jean laughs out loud: Oh I volunteered, not willingly, but I volunteered none the less.
James: How do you volunteer unwillingly?
Jean: by volunteering without joy, or a strong drive to do it out of a sense…I don’t know the word in English…Raccordement? Connectedness? I do not feel that the volunteering is a good thing.
James: why do you say that? Aren’t we fighting for king and country for the freedom of these people from the Germans? Aren’t those things worth fighting for?
Jean: Fighting for freedom is good, the rest I’m not completely convinced yet.
James: What makes you say that?
Jean: I’m Quebecois, the history of my people is to be fucked by the English, it makes a habit of being cynical.
James: Fucked by the English?
Jean: the Plains of Abraham, a fight between childish colonies because our parent countries wanted us to fight. We lost, but we were allowed to stay French, for a while, until they decided to change us.
James: Change?
Jean: Make us more English.
James:…like Newfoundlanders? My mother’s of French blood, though my father’s a right Scot.
Jean: No, they and their government wanted us to give up our culture, under the orders of the British king.
James: you sound like you’re not terribly fond of ol’ george.
Jean: I have more than a few words I would like to use to describe him, many of which I would like to use to his face. The man sent us to war happily, and now we die in droves because his prime ministers cannot make a treaty that won't directly lead to war. He’s a most useless king.
James: Well, you’re not willing to fight for King, what about Country?
Jean: Country? Canada? More like an oversized Colony, we are no more a country than the horse in a carriage is the master. I am here in this god forsaken field, trying to survive because some governments don’t realise that threat of war only leads to war, and that is the only way that they could think to do it. Try to hold peace by threat of war…Ces’t Fou! We see how that worked oui? You think there is something noble about killing men? “Thou shalt not kill” is that not a commandment by god! Then why do they ask us to go against god’s commandment? They don’t give us a choice! Kill or they will kill you by the enemy’s bullets or your own. I hate fighting, I hated it when I was a child, and I don’t like that I have to do it now.
James: You don’t like the king, you don’t seem to much like your government, you sure as hell don’t seem to like fighting itself, Why? I volunteered for King and Country, I wanted to fight the Hun away from Flanders and France, I came because it’s my Duty!
Jean: Duty brought me ‘ere too. I don’t like Les Maudite Anglais, I don’t have much respect for my king, and Lester Pearson pe fair foutre! But they were never my reason to fight, I’m Fighting because of my family, my culture, and the people who shouldn’t have to.
James: Who shouldn’t?
Jean: My children god willing, or my nieces and nephews if he isn’t! Do I want my family fighting a battle long after my death? Our Generals use our lives like the fucking pawns that we are, our officers are more willing to kill us than the enemy is, I keep fighting because I want this war to end! Don’t you think I couldn’t desert? I speak French! I’m Educated! I could pick up a job anywhere here and see the end of the war in peace.
James: You make it sound so easy, just to drop your gun and desert, like it’s a game or a newspaper.
Jean: I don’t want some Anglo officer telling me how to die! But die I will, if it means that others won’t, you’re as much a kid as my younger brother, just like that kid from British Colombia I met last week who went into shell shock within a week, Why should we condemn the rest of them to death and madness through our lack of willingness?
James: Why Don’t ya just get out of the fox hole then? Go charge the enemy, you’ve got more ammunition than I do.
Jean: I might be Quebecois, but I’m not crazy. You’d think that the putain of a general would have a son-of-a-bitch colonel that would have told him that charging a machine gun nest is a waste of men. We have to think, I want to walk out of this alive and I think so do you.
James: well, I’ve got shit for ammunition, but I picked up this bag, it’s full of grenades, but I can’t throw them far enough to get to their trenches…Were you paying attention to how they’ve been focusing their machine gun fire?
Jean: how do you mean?
James: See here, they tend to avoid areas where they’ve shelled, they like to fire around the blast area, that way they get the survivors. I think we can get across no man’s land by following their shelling holes.
Jean: Ces’t Fou! Absolutely not! We’d be killed right away! They’re listening for movement, they’re trying to kill off the survivors right now, that’s us!
James: Don’t give up on the idea just yet… they don’t spray an area with machine gun fire unless they are expecting people or artillery and they don’t shell an area for two reasons…one: if its already been shelled, and two: if its in the pathway of their charging men. What if we wait for a night time charge? They’ve been doing it at our trenches lately, I wouldn’t be surprised if they try it down here.
Jean:…True, they haven’t, it’d be insane to try, even with flares…but the distraction!
James, you are both a genius and completely crazy!...we’d have to risk playing dead, but we would have a clean opening to their trenches! If we could take the trench, we could grenade the nests from their backs, all we’d have to fight would be de officers that they decided to leave behind to force their people over.
James: I think you read my mind, I think it’s our best chance, if we stay here we’ll probably be killed by a shell. I think you made a point about our officers, they are crazy, but I just think we need to be crazier, just in a way that doesn’t get us killed.
Jean: I agree (Sound of a man Barking orders in German) Merde! I think they’re getting ready for a charge (looks over the fox hole) mais oui, sa se commence!
(Flare, Sounds of screaming Germans running)
James: Duck! And stay dead!
(Flare drops, Machine gun fire, sounds of people running by, both men are lying spread eagle in the hole.)
Jean: they’re gone!
James: let’s go
Jean Crosses himself and mutters something in French inaudibly
James: Je me Souviens? Doesn’t that mean “I remember?”
Jean: I thought you said that you didn’t know French?
James: well, we were taught some for when we were on Leave, did I get it right?
Jean: you got your French right, but you’re hearing’s off. I said “Que ils se souvienne” “may they remember”.
James: I hate to ask, but which “they”?
Jean: (pause) the people who survive this war and everyone after them.
Jean climbs out of the hole and skulks offstage
James:…Que ils se souvienne…God willing.
James climbs out of the hole and follows Jean.
(Stage Darkens)
Curtain
Remembering
By Daniel Anctil
Inspired by “Recruiting Sergeant” in Play, by Great Big Sea
Characters:
James Macgreggor: A private in the First Newfoundland Regiment
Jean DuMontange: A Corporal of the Royal Canadian Regiment #4 From Quebec City
Scene: Some nameless trench in Flanders
Background noises: Artillery strikes and volleys of machine guns
(Voice speaking, casually as in conversation)
“You know, during the second world war, the British used Newfoundlanders and the Quebecois as their Commando groups, maybe because they fought the hardest during the First World War.”
Stage Lights on, focus centre stage, on the fox hole.
Focus: A Foxhole in a trench, fading light, Twilight is approaching
Set: A 6 foot foxhole built to allow actors to crawl into it fairly quickly with just enough room for two men to stand up and walk around in.
We see a young man on stage and the artillery begins as he tries to find somewhere safe to hide. He discovers the foxhole, and dives for the ground to crawl with his rifle for safety
James: Oh God, oh Jesus, oh Mother Mary, Get me to safety!
He makes it to the fox hole and curls up to the fetal position.
James: Please let me go home, I don’t want to be here, I don’t want to die, oh god mom I’m Sorry!
(There is a pause in the Artillery)
James gets control of himself, and checks his rifle, the cartridge is empty.
James: Damn! Okay Jimmy, you’ve got yourself in a fox hole, with a rifle that is empty, you’re out of ammunition because you actually killed some people, and you’re the only one of your charging regiment to make it to safety or so it seems…and you are talking to yourself to keep your bladder from emptying out of panic that some German might come ‘round to shoot you in order to remove you of your dear life. Fuck! I’m nineteen now, I should be married by now! Why didn’t I just keep my hand down? Why did I believe them when they said it would be a short clean war?
Jean is approaching the fox hole.
A movement Stage left, we see Jean slowly approaching the fox hole armed with a trench knife.
James: Stop! Who’s there!?! Friend or Foe?!? I’ll bloody blow yer brains out if you try it!
(James is visibly nervous, holding his rifle more like a spear than a gun, Jean puts away his trench knife as he crouches towards the fox hole)
Jean: Je Suis…I am a Friend, Corporal Jean Dumontange, 4th Royal Canadian Regiment!
James: You’re not French?
Jean: Quebecois, can I come in?
James: Sure come on in, Private James Macgreggor, 1st Newfoundland Regiment
(Jean Settles in the fox hole)
Jean: Newfoundlander? Here?
James: yeah, I’m from your side of the Atlantic.
Jean nods and sits down in the fox hole resting his rifle next to him, he reaches into his breast pocket.
Jean: Cigarette?
James: no thanks
Jean: If you are worried about the smoke and snipers, the last shell is still smoking, we’d be fine, it wouldn’t show up right now.
James: Thank you
Both men smoke their cigarettes in silence.
James: You married?
Jean: never had the chance
James: me too, I was courting this girl from my home town…we were doing pretty well back home, I think I nearly had her hand.
Jean: yeah, I had a girl too, She’s married now. I guess she couldn’t wait.
James: I’m sorry John.
Jean: sorry james, but it’s Jean, it sounds like John, but it’s more a JeAHn.
James: I’m sorry for that too.
Jean: it’s okay, most people out here aside from the Canadians have a hard time believing I’m not French.
James: So, you found the trench by luck?
Jean: Oui, I mean yes, I heard you speaking and I wasn’t sure who you were, so I check it out, and here we are.
James: you didn’t see anyone else did you?
Jean: I saw no one living, friend or foe.
James: I wish I wasn’t nearly as comfortable as I am hearing that, I was sent to charge and I saw men from my home town mixed with other British Citizens cut down around me, and here I am, probably a good distance from my trenches, smoking with a Quebecois.
Jean: Ces’t La Guerre, at least you have decent company, I’m sure you’d rather have a cute girl in a warm hotel somewhere, but I think my conversation suits the moment. So, do you have a trade?
James: well, my father’s a Cooper, and I’ve taken up the trade back home, my brothers are Coopers too. We make barrels for our city, and most of the local towns come to see my father about business, if I survive the war I’ve got something to look forward to.
Jean: Good, I’m a Student myself, I was studying Philosophy and Politics at McGill when the call came. They thought someone smart enough to be in school should be a corporal, *spits* I know I’d be a better officer then some of the idiots they have running this war.
James: So I take it you’re not terribly fond of the war either? Seems like a common complaint out here.
Jean Chuckles: Find me a man who loves war and I will find you a man that has never had to fight it. So, are you a “vrai” volunteer or were you forced into this fight?
James: I volunteered the day I turned eighteen
Jean: the day? You couldn’t wait to celebrate your birthday? Don’t you feel that your enthusiasm was misplaced?
James: Well, we had a recruiting sergeant come by our neighbourhood weekly, looking for men to go fight the Hun. He was always dressed in his best uniform looking for men who could step up to fight, my family wasn’t willing to let me to go until I was eighteen. And well, the girls do seem to love a man in uniform…
Jean: do you have any family that was in the military?
James: my da’ was on a British long ship when he started his apprenticeship, they had royal navy marines on his ship, he always talked about how noble they seemed, they few times they got into a scrap his friends would talk about it like it was a great event, the stories they had to tell always kept me asking for more, it seemed like such an adventure.
Jean: yes, funny how they always leave the fear of death and the dirty parts out, eh mon ami?
James chuckles: what about you? You seem to have about as much fondness for being here as a whore would have being in confessional.
Jean laughs out loud: Oh I volunteered, not willingly, but I volunteered none the less.
James: How do you volunteer unwillingly?
Jean: by volunteering without joy, or a strong drive to do it out of a sense…I don’t know the word in English…Raccordement? Connectedness? I do not feel that the volunteering is a good thing.
James: why do you say that? Aren’t we fighting for king and country for the freedom of these people from the Germans? Aren’t those things worth fighting for?
Jean: Fighting for freedom is good, the rest I’m not completely convinced yet.
James: What makes you say that?
Jean: I’m Quebecois, the history of my people is to be fucked by the English, it makes a habit of being cynical.
James: Fucked by the English?
Jean: the Plains of Abraham, a fight between childish colonies because our parent countries wanted us to fight. We lost, but we were allowed to stay French, for a while, until they decided to change us.
James: Change?
Jean: Make us more English.
James:…like Newfoundlanders? My mother’s of French blood, though my father’s a right Scot.
Jean: No, they and their government wanted us to give up our culture, under the orders of the British king.
James: you sound like you’re not terribly fond of ol’ george.
Jean: I have more than a few words I would like to use to describe him, many of which I would like to use to his face. The man sent us to war happily, and now we die in droves because his prime ministers cannot make a treaty that won't directly lead to war. He’s a most useless king.
James: Well, you’re not willing to fight for King, what about Country?
Jean: Country? Canada? More like an oversized Colony, we are no more a country than the horse in a carriage is the master. I am here in this god forsaken field, trying to survive because some governments don’t realise that threat of war only leads to war, and that is the only way that they could think to do it. Try to hold peace by threat of war…Ces’t Fou! We see how that worked oui? You think there is something noble about killing men? “Thou shalt not kill” is that not a commandment by god! Then why do they ask us to go against god’s commandment? They don’t give us a choice! Kill or they will kill you by the enemy’s bullets or your own. I hate fighting, I hated it when I was a child, and I don’t like that I have to do it now.
James: You don’t like the king, you don’t seem to much like your government, you sure as hell don’t seem to like fighting itself, Why? I volunteered for King and Country, I wanted to fight the Hun away from Flanders and France, I came because it’s my Duty!
Jean: Duty brought me ‘ere too. I don’t like Les Maudite Anglais, I don’t have much respect for my king, and Lester Pearson pe fair foutre! But they were never my reason to fight, I’m Fighting because of my family, my culture, and the people who shouldn’t have to.
James: Who shouldn’t?
Jean: My children god willing, or my nieces and nephews if he isn’t! Do I want my family fighting a battle long after my death? Our Generals use our lives like the fucking pawns that we are, our officers are more willing to kill us than the enemy is, I keep fighting because I want this war to end! Don’t you think I couldn’t desert? I speak French! I’m Educated! I could pick up a job anywhere here and see the end of the war in peace.
James: You make it sound so easy, just to drop your gun and desert, like it’s a game or a newspaper.
Jean: I don’t want some Anglo officer telling me how to die! But die I will, if it means that others won’t, you’re as much a kid as my younger brother, just like that kid from British Colombia I met last week who went into shell shock within a week, Why should we condemn the rest of them to death and madness through our lack of willingness?
James: Why Don’t ya just get out of the fox hole then? Go charge the enemy, you’ve got more ammunition than I do.
Jean: I might be Quebecois, but I’m not crazy. You’d think that the putain of a general would have a son-of-a-bitch colonel that would have told him that charging a machine gun nest is a waste of men. We have to think, I want to walk out of this alive and I think so do you.
James: well, I’ve got shit for ammunition, but I picked up this bag, it’s full of grenades, but I can’t throw them far enough to get to their trenches…Were you paying attention to how they’ve been focusing their machine gun fire?
Jean: how do you mean?
James: See here, they tend to avoid areas where they’ve shelled, they like to fire around the blast area, that way they get the survivors. I think we can get across no man’s land by following their shelling holes.
Jean: Ces’t Fou! Absolutely not! We’d be killed right away! They’re listening for movement, they’re trying to kill off the survivors right now, that’s us!
James: Don’t give up on the idea just yet… they don’t spray an area with machine gun fire unless they are expecting people or artillery and they don’t shell an area for two reasons…one: if its already been shelled, and two: if its in the pathway of their charging men. What if we wait for a night time charge? They’ve been doing it at our trenches lately, I wouldn’t be surprised if they try it down here.
Jean:…True, they haven’t, it’d be insane to try, even with flares…but the distraction!
James, you are both a genius and completely crazy!...we’d have to risk playing dead, but we would have a clean opening to their trenches! If we could take the trench, we could grenade the nests from their backs, all we’d have to fight would be de officers that they decided to leave behind to force their people over.
James: I think you read my mind, I think it’s our best chance, if we stay here we’ll probably be killed by a shell. I think you made a point about our officers, they are crazy, but I just think we need to be crazier, just in a way that doesn’t get us killed.
Jean: I agree (Sound of a man Barking orders in German) Merde! I think they’re getting ready for a charge (looks over the fox hole) mais oui, sa se commence!
(Flare, Sounds of screaming Germans running)
James: Duck! And stay dead!
(Flare drops, Machine gun fire, sounds of people running by, both men are lying spread eagle in the hole.)
Jean: they’re gone!
James: let’s go
Jean Crosses himself and mutters something in French inaudibly
James: Je me Souviens? Doesn’t that mean “I remember?”
Jean: I thought you said that you didn’t know French?
James: well, we were taught some for when we were on Leave, did I get it right?
Jean: you got your French right, but you’re hearing’s off. I said “Que ils se souvienne” “may they remember”.
James: I hate to ask, but which “they”?
Jean: (pause) the people who survive this war and everyone after them.
Jean climbs out of the hole and skulks offstage
James:…Que ils se souvienne…God willing.
James climbs out of the hole and follows Jean.
(Stage Darkens)
Curtain