David Dickinson - Death Comes to the Ballets Russes

A gun went off, firing from the far side of the trenches, Powerscourt thought. He could see no sign of anything landing. Perhaps it was a blank. The shot had a dramatic effect on his two colleagues.

‘ Achtung Achtung! ’ said the Frenchman.

‘ Merde! Attention! Attention! ’ said the German.

Both whipped fresh notebooks from their pockets and proceeded to virtually glue themselves to the nearest binoculars. Powerscourt did the same, wondering if he would be reprimanded afterwards for not having a fresh notebook to hand. The other two were focused on the trenches. Powerscourt turned his glasses across the landscape and saw what the others didn’t.

A young shepherd, complete with attendant sheepdog, was driving a flock of about thirty sheep towards the trenches. Fiddling with the controls, Powerscourt saw that the young man — he didn’t look more than twenty — was crying, and that the tears were running down his sweater as if he had been weeping for some time.

The sheep were driven into the enclosure surrounded by the trenches. They did not find them attractive, preferring to wander round their new enclosure. Powerscourt noticed that two large troughs of water had been placed at either end to keep the sheep in place. He glanced back up the hill. He thought he caught the glint of another pair of binoculars lurking at the edge of the trees. But however much he adjusted his controls, he never saw it again.

Looking to his left, Powerscourt saw that half a dozen goats were being driven down the little hill to join the party. They were roped together and their handler, a much older man, drove a post into the ground to keep them tethered as soon as they entered the enclosure. This man was older. He didn’t cry. But he scuttled off back up the hill as fast as his legs would carry him. He seemed to be saying something to himself as he went, possibly praying, Powerscourt thought. For he was now certain that something terrible was about to happen in this parallelogram hidden among the green fields of southern England.

His two companions were scribbling furiously, though Powerscourt saw that their eyes never left the enclosure. Then the gun went off again. This time it seemed to land in the centre of the parallelogram. A thin mist, or fog, settled over the trenches and the grass. Thinking about it afterwards, Powerscourt remembered that the animals made no noise at all. Their fate was met in silence. One or two of the sheep tried to run back the way they had come, to the safety of the trees and their weeping shepherd. After a dozen paces they staggered to a halt and lay down. Other sheep and a couple of goats began slumping to the ground. The parallelogram was turning into a death chamber.

The German began saying ‘ Ave Maria ’ very quietly in French, his eyes locked on the sheep; they were twitching furiously now, as if they could not control their arms or their legs. ‘Hail Mary full of Grace, Je vous salue, Marie, pleine de grâce. ’

The Frenchman replied with the Lord’s Prayer in Luther’s language. ‘ Vater unser im Himmel, geheiligt werde dein Name . .’

Powerscourt was certain that the animals were dying, killed off by some form of poison gas. He thought of his son Thomas, and all his friends and contemporaries who might man the British trenches in a future war in Europe, spread out in their innocence the length and breadth of England, and he put his head in his hands.

‘ Mère de Dieu, Priez pour nous, pauvres pêcheurs, maintenant et à l’heure de notre mort . Pray for us now, poor sinners, and in the hour of our death.’

All the animals were sinking to the ground now. Most of them lay flat on the ground, one or two still twitching feebly in their death agonies. The goats too were passing into the next world.

‘ Und vergib uns unsere Schuld, wie auch wir vergeben unsern Schuldigern . And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us.’

Powerscourt was close to tears. Why were his fellow countrymen preparing to use this terrible weapon, for he was certain that the animals were merely an alternative to humans who could not be found to volunteer for such a dreadful death. Who had approved it? The Prime Minister? The Chief of the Imperial General Staff? The Archbishop of Canterbury?

The Frenchman was stuck at the end of his prayer, saying it over and over again. There were only a couple of sheep still writhing on the deadly grass. The cloud of fog had passed on and was drifting slowly towards the hill where the shepherd had gone.

‘ Denn dein ist das Reich und die Kraft und die Herrlichkeit in Ewigkeit . Amen. For thine is the kingdom the power and the glory for ever and ever, Amen.’

Powerscourt promised himself that he would do all in his power to make sure that this gas was never used. Perhaps, he reflected ruefully, that was why he was here, to spread the word around the upper reaches of London society.

It was as they were leaving, the dead animals left in their place until the gas had totally cleared, that Powerscourt listened to what must rank as the most tasteless remark he had ever heard.

‘We Germans are not good at tact or at jokes,’ the German Colonel began, speaking now in perfect English, ‘but it seems to me that the gas did not draw any distinction between the sheep and the goats.’

A pirouette is a turn on one leg, often starting with one or both legs in plié and rising onto relevé (usually for men) or pointe (usually for women). The nonsupporting leg is held in passé. A pirouette may return to the starting position or finish in arabesque or attitude positions, or proceed otherwise. It is most often en dehors turning outwards toward the back leg, but can also be en dedans turning inwards toward the front leg. Although ballet pirouettes are performed with the hips and legs rotated outward (‘turned out’), it is common to see them performed with an inward rotation (‘parallel’) in other genres of dance, such as jazz and modern. Spotting technique is usually employed to help maintain balance. Pirouettes can be executed with a single or multiple rotations.

Petroc Danvers Tresilian did not live up to the rich promise of his name. Earlier Tresilians had made their money through smuggling in the eighteenth century. When large bribes were not enough to satisfy the customs men, it was rumoured that attractive young girls from the servants’ hall or the more formal quarters upstairs were pressed into service. That never failed. Turn your faces to the wall while the gentlemen come in.

Later Tresilians, especially after their union with the Danvers at the time of the Repeal of the Corn Laws, had escaped from the clutches of the customs men into the great bosom of the English middle class. Amelia Danvers, who married Caradoc Tresilian, brought with her the virtues of High Church, high moral standards and a burning desire to make it into the upper reaches of society. One of her brothers became Governor of Bengal, another was a Fellow of All Souls and another kept up the family ambition by becoming a High Court Judge.

Petroc Danvers Tresilian did not seem to possess the buccaneering spirit of his ancestors. As the senior civil servant in the Cabinet Office, he glided around Whitehall, a couple of new recruits accompanying him on his progress. The cynics said he resembled nothing so much as a senior hospital doctor on his rounds, flunkeys and junior doctors in tow, as he pronounced the sentence of life or death on the recumbent forms (or government plans) as he passed on his way.

‘Gentlemen,’ he began, in a private lounge looking out over the river, ‘thank you for attending our little demonstration. English is now the lingua franca of the day. From now on we are all complicit in these matters. We have all broken the Official Secrets Act many times this morning. It applies, as you know, to the clean shaven and the bearded, the washed and the unwashed, to foreigner and native Englishman alike.’