In Flanders’
Fields.
By Norman
Jorgensen.
Illustrated by
Brian Harrison-Lever
Published by Sandcastle Books - Fremantle Arts Centre
Press
ISBN 1.86368.369.0
In Flanders’
Fields, set in the
trenches of World War One, tells the story of a young, homesick Anzac soldier
who, on Christmas morning, faces almost certain death in a seemingly hopeless
attempt to rescue a robin caught in the wire of no man’s land. Although the
story takes place in only a few minutes of a long and brutal war, the fighting
has paused and no violence is seen. The whole focus of the book is on the
similarity of the soldiers on both sides of the fence and the absolute futility
of war.
From the author :
The story was
inspired by a single scene in an old black and white silent film I saw many
years ago. It was the first version of Erich Remarque’s All Quiet on the
Western Front made by
Lewis Milestone in 1929 and Remarque’s sympathetic and realistic treatment of
the common soldier, together with the filmmaker’s atmospheric, stark
photography has haunted me ever since.
I wrote the
initial draft and called it A Soldier’s Christmas and I used the device of the robin as a
symbol of simplicity in an overwhelmingly huge and tragic background. I set the
story at Christmas to add emphasis to the homesickness that the soldiers would
all have been feeling.
Visiting Belgium
on holiday a few years later I attempted to locate the graves of three
relations, (to whom the book is dedicated) which was when the enormity of the
tragedy of war hit me. Thousands upon thousands of soldiers of all
nationalities lay buried in Flanders mud. The sheer waste of so many young
lives touched me so much that, on my return to Australia I immediately reworked
the story and sent it for publication.
My grandmother, to
whom the book is also dedicated, was still alive when I returned from Flanders
and when I told her I had found her uncle, James Bowen’s grave at the Menin
Road Cemetery, she clearly remembered him from eighty five years earlier,
“Uncle Jim, oh, he went away to the war…and never came back.”
For the sake of
popularity I could have set the story in the more widely known Gallipoli but
felt that I owed it to my ancestors who had actually died at the Western Front
to use the Flanders battlefields. More Australians were killed in a few days on
the Western Front than in the whole Gallipoli campaign but a lot less is known
about those terrible battles.
Making the decision on the final page of the book proved to be most difficult. Opinions differed on how to end the story. After many changes, however, we returned to the original idea of endless rows of crosses and countless red poppies. Using the first verse of the famous poem, In Flanders Fields, by Lt Col. John McCrae of the Royal Canadian Medical Corps, who died in France in 1918, seemed the most appropriate way to conclude the story.
From the Illustrator:
Researching photographs through my
magnifying glass I was touched by the way these poor young fellows, in the most
appalling conditions, bedraggled, cold and soaked to the skin, uniforms
unrecognisable, festooned and weighed down with equipment, up to their knees in
slime, could still be bothered to tilt their steel helmets at a jaunty angle
and raise a smile for the cameraman.
The cover drawing was my first
completed illustration by which time the hero’s character and personality had
taken on the persona of my nineteen year old son, Tom. Over several months of
concentrated research and actual work on the drawings, I became totally
absorbed by the appalling conditions of the Western Front and the happenings
"In Flanders Fields". Having to turn off the desk lights and close
the door on it all each night, feeling at times that I was leaving my son in
there, was difficult. It was necessary on some nights to open the door to his
room just to reassure myself that he was sitting happily working at his
computer.
For years I had hoarded a couple
of reams of an extra tough French watercolour paper that allowed for multiple
dunkings and washing’s back. I initially decided to limit my palette to Sepia,
Pane’s Grey, and diluted black ink, with the robin’s red chest feathers being
the only bright colour through the book. As the work progressed a touch of
watery Vermilion and Cadmium Yellow was included in the fire tins as a
concession to Christmas for the poor homesick youngsters. As morning breaks and
the daylight strengthens I added a little Cerulean Blue to the sky and the
morning light.
My procedure was to draw the
figures lightly in ink using a technical drawing pen, then line in the
background of the trenches and sandbags. Next was to colour wash with sepia,
then finally with the Payne’s Grey. Once dry I would soak the paper in a bath
of cold water washing back the colour to achieve an "aqua tint"
quality. The sheet was then hung out to dry on a rack over the bath. Ink
texturing and detailing was next, before final colour was added, then final
wash back.
With the battlefield landscapes,
the vertical line technique and textures was a result of hours of work with a
mapping pen, diluted inks and watercolour, with pale water colour washes
brushed over, before washing back again. Once the subtle washed out effect was
achieved the robin’s bright red feathers were the final touch.
Study
notes:
The following contacts may be
useful for research into Australia’s involvement in various conflicts,
especially World War I.
Websites:
The
Australian War Memorial http://www.awm.gov.au/
Commonwealth
War Graves Commission http://www.cwgc.org/
In
Flanders Fields Museum Ypres, Belgium website www.inflandersfields.be
Local
branch of the RSL http://www.rsl.org/
Magazine:
The
Literature Base, February 2002 (Article: Literature to Commemorate Anzac Day)
Discussion
points:
The story is deliberately set in
the present tense. What reason would the author have had for doing this?
Why has the illustrator used
mainly brown and grey in the pictures? What impact does the robin have and does
the colouring change the mood of the story?
A white silk scarf was sent to the
soldier. What does that convey about the ideas people at home held of the
conditions in the trenches? Consider the current conflicts in which Australian
soldiers are involved. What Christmas gift would you send a soldier?
How does the book show that we are
all the same under the skin, whether a young Australian soldier or his German
counterpart?
The main character in the story
remains anonymous. Why do you think the author did not give him a name?
Study Notes/ Activities “