By E.G.N Lafleur
“Every book by an English historian is dedicated “To Gladwyn Turbutt- who took me to Crécy” and what that is referencing is a torrid homosexual affair that took place between the two ugliest men imaginable”
- @WB_Baskerville, 04 Jun 21, X.com
For Gladwyn Turbutt, who took me to Crécy
It was his moustache that got me, his moustache and the
Wellington boots, which he invariably wore
to view battlefields. We stayed at Le Lion D’Or and ate at the
Signe du Lapin, Côtes du Rhône between us.
I couldn’t understand why he wanted me
to come with him. He wouldn’t say he loved me
but he said, we’ll walk out tomorrow. It’s dark now.
And it was, November, not yet Advent.
All night I lay in the silence, no streetlamps,
waiting for him to roll across the bed.
We did walk out, under an Austerlitz
sky, revelatory.
I skidded on the edge of a pikeman’s pit –
heavy soled Derbys for me –
feet divorced mud and air, and in the air
time, percussion, the
hiss of arrows and squelch
of flesh.
He caught me by the arm,
hard,
hauling me up by hairy tweed and
the plain was grass, inviolate, but he took me back to Le Lion and
took me.
That was ten years ago now, and
Gladwyn is dead, Poelcapelle,
body lost to the battlefield.
Think of his hand tight on my bicep,
three years my elder and better,
shell-hole, archer’s stance, Le Lapin and time and
air.