When the World Turned Upside Down

Chapter I

AN: Timeline notes- although The Secret Garden was published in 1911 I am setting the events of the book around 1908 so that Colin is 17 in 1915. The lowest age for joining up for training was 18 and you had to be 19 to go over there with the British Expeditionary Forces in 1914 but tens of thousands of boys joined up young. Some at only 15 or 16. Colin is sent "over there" to France soon after his 18th birthday in early 1917 and is wounded in action several weeks later. Most of the events in this story take place in the war years between 1914 and 1920. This will be Mary/Dickon and Colin/OFC Rutka Ludtke. this is definitely a Colin-centric piece. Also I will be tackling Jewish issues like pogroms, anti semitism, early Zionism, Jewish culture, and interfaith marriage. Because the character Rutka is an Ashkenazi immigrant I will be using some Yiddish and perhaps some other Eastern European languages (Polish, Russian) and Hebrew. I'll also be discussing disability and veterans issues, and issues of class. I should also mention that although I don't kill him, Colin would have had an 80% chance of dying of his injuries in real life. Even if he survived the first few weeks it was almost guaranteed that he would eventually die as a result of his injuries and that he would die young. Nowadays approximately 75% of SCIs are survivable and a majority of SCI patients, particularly paraplegics have a normal or near normal life expectancy and are able to be independent or partially independent. Essentially this means that the life I give Colin is more like that of a paraplegic who lived at least a few decades after the Great War.
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Colin POV: March 27, 1917
I was 15 when the war started in the summer of 1914, from that day I wanted to enlist. I was a month away from my 19th birthday when I finally joined up in early February of 1917. I was partially through my first year of university where I was studying medicine. I wanted to help people who were like I was as a child, science and medicine would be the 'magic' I wielded to make my mark on the world. But as the war became more entrenched and the news from the front became worse I couldn't stand the falsely peaceful atmosphere of university. Particularly after Dickon was conscripted, I felt as though the air was electric with the call to fight. I didn't tell my father my plans and lied about my age to the recruitment officer. I don't know how he could have believed me when I told him I was 21. I don't know why I did that, at almost 19 I was old enough to enter the army without lying. I suppose I was afraid he wouldn't believe I was old enough to join up. I didn't even have a shave for the first time until after I was in basic training. They were desperate for men- men!- they were taking boys, some much younger than I. By the time I told my father it was too late for him to do anything about it. I just walked in wearing my new uniform and told him, then I gathered my things and left. How could I have been so cruel? At least I allowed him to hug and kiss me before I left. When we said our goodbyes, there was such sadness in his eyes. He held me close. Mary cried in my arms. She never cried. I suppose I just wanted so badly to prove once and for all that I was just as strong as the other boys. That I was stronger even, could go to war even younger than they could. I wasn't going to hide in university, I was going to fight with everything I had. I had heard the stories from overseas. But I didn't understand what I was getting into, and the recruiters were always around school and they pestered me all the time, despite the fact that I was still rather thin and small for my age due to my extended illnesses as a child. I never reached even 5'4" a good three inches shorter than Dickon and shorter even than my father, although not much. I don't know how I passed the medical exam, but I did, I lied and told them I was healthy as an ox as a child. Then came training, which forced me to accept that my years as an invalid had taken more of a toll on my body then I had ever admitted. My legs in particular were still somewhat thin and tired easily. The muscles having never completely recovered from the years of disuse. My back and legs ached almost constantly from the sudden, extreme exercise. And although I built muscle quite quickly I still lagged behind the other men when I ran or marched. Had I not discovered that I was a crack shot with an Enfield rifle and quite good at working the new field radios and telephones then I would have been lost before I ever made it overseas.
Once during training I became very ill. I had a high fever and painful muscle spasms in my back and legs. My neck ached so badly that I feared the worst of what the medical textbooks I had taken to reading had to offer; meningitis perhaps, or infantile paralysis. It turned out half the regiment seemed to have contracted the same illness, one which manifested in most of the company as a sore throat and slight temperature but managed to put me flat on my back in bed for a week. A fact which was not missed by either my fellow enlisted men or my commanding officer, or, unfortunately by Dickon. Dickon had enlisted several months before and was on his first leave from the front. He found out that I had joined the same regiment he had, the West Yorkshire Regiment. And so, before going back to Misselthwaite Dickon turned up in our camp only to find me recovering in the medic's tent, still half delusional with fever. It would be putting it far too lightly to say he was angry, I never thought Dickon was capable of anger, but he certainly expressed something close to it when he found out I joined up. He looked so different, haunted. When he saw me he just shook his head.
"My God Colin, what are you doing here? You should be at university or at Misselthwaite. You're not even at the front yet and it's beating you down." I picked at the thin wool blanket which covered me. The change in Dickon frightened me. He was harder, rougher around the edges. The magic in his eyes had a film of sadness over them. There was something else too, a knowledge, some horrific knowledge which I would only understand once I too had seen the front lines. I had no idea. I simply said,
"I want to be like everyone else." I muttered. "For once I want to be strong like the other boys." Dickon looked me over. My strong limbs and pale face, my heavy breathing, my clammy, shaking hands.
"I know, I knew you wouldn't ever tell the army about being ill before. It's not like you." I smiled but began to cough. I sat up to try and bring up some of the thick fluid which clogged my lungs. I looked away from Dickon coughing heavily into a handkerchief. I hated to look weak even in an army uniform. Dickon rubbed my back, he shook his head again.
"Tha shouldn't be here. It's too much for thee, and over there, tha's got no idea. It's hell, Colin." My coughing fit ended and I gave a half smile. "Well, it's too late now, I've gotten myself into this mess and there sure as hell isn't a way out."