That Word Honor-

Safely at school, Peter and Edmund have a talk about the new nature of war and honor in 1942. Not slash, just a brother to brother talk.

You can listen to the song at the beginning of the story on youtube, here :

Youtube dot com/watch?vuBH-zUqVRw0

OR

you can search "The Washing on the Siegfried Line" in the Youtube search engine.

It was, by all accounts, a perfectly normal day at Hendon House School- the boys of Landon Tower were fiddling away with workbooks and assigned reading while the large console radio in the corner of the house common room prattled on over the sounds of cricket practice outside, filling the room with the best of the BBC's Music While You Work.

"And now for all our friends in the Islington Munitions plant, another selection from the hit charts," the announcer was saying, "Miss Marie Martin with her rendition of 'We're Gonna Hang out the Washing.'"

A woman's voice replaced the announcer's, coy and flirtatious. Several boys turned away from their studies to listen, whispering amongst themselves as to what Miss Marie Martin looked like and if they hadn't seen her picture in the society pages with some movie star or another.

"We're gonna hang out the washing on the Siegfried line

Have you any dirty washing, mother dear?

We're gonna hang out the washing on the Siegfried line

'Cause the washing day is here.

Whether the weather may be wet or fine

We'll just ride along without a care

We're gonna hang out the washing on the Siegfried line

If that Siegfried line's still there…

Mother dear, I'm writing you from somewhere in France

Hoping this finds you well.

Sergeant says I'm doing fine - a soldier and a half

Here's a song that we all sing

This'll make you laugh..."

"Will you shut it off?" Peter asked from the corner, seriously annoyed that Henry the Fourth was being disturbed by this...song.

"What's the matter with it? Not quite to your taste, Pevensie?" One of the other boys, Blake, asked, sneering at Peter in the corner.

"I'm just trying to read," Peter said, his temper rising. Why did they have to question him? The radio warbled on in the background, silly and benign.

"We're gonna hang out the washing on the Siegfried line

Have you any dirty washing, mother dear?

We're gonna hang out the washing on the Siegfried line

'Cause the washing day is here..."

"Like something a little softer?" one of the other boys asked. Blake cottoned on to this immediately.

"Yeah, Petey, do we need a lullaby on or something?"

"Just shut it OFF!" Peter shouted, picking up his book and striding angrily over to the radio, punching the off-button with enough force that the console radio shook a little on its legs. The program snapped off and the lights in the console went dead.

"Hey! Some of us were-"

"Oh, shove it," Peter said witheringly, storming back to the empty dormitory.

"What's the matter with him, d'you suppose?" he heard from the common room.

"Dunno. His dad, maybe? Over hols?"

"Maybe," someone suggested drearily.

"Pete, what was that about?" Edmund asked, coming into the dorm; he'd obviously been sitting where Peter hadn't seen him in the common room.

"I'm sick of this war being treated like it's a game," Peter said. "We're going to hang out the washing on the Siegfried line? It's a defensive fortification stretching from the Netherlands to France, not someone's back garden! People are dying there, and they're making fun of it!"

"Peter, it's just a song," Edmund said rationally, shutting the door quietly. If Peter was going to start ranting, he'd rather not have the whole house hear.

"It's not just that song, Ed! It's the posters, the news broadcasts, the speeches! Oh, god, the speeches. I don't think Churchill's ever seen a battlefield, the way he prattles on. I've been listening to the news, Ed, about the battles in Germany. The RAF firebombed Hamburg the other day. Estimated 500 people dead so far. Civilian deaths, Ed. And for what? For a little chunk of Germany, for an attack on German morale? Who attacks a country's morale? That's something only a coward would do, there's no honor in that! And Hamburg? That's a rule of war you don't violate, killing civilians. A rule of war!" Peter said, punching his pillow.

"It's a different war, Pete. There are different rules. And really, is Hitler so much more different than… her?" Edmund asked. Peter hung his head. "They're both tyrants who got into power with lies and trickery, and they've had their people under a spell. Both tyrants. And both need to be stopped."

"This isn't the way to stop them, Ed," Peter said, shaking his head.

"Well, tell me another way, if you're so clever!" Edmund burst out. Peter looked sharply at his brother -- it wasn't often Edmund raised his voice. "Pete, you're used to wars where you can see the enemy's face before he dies," Edmund pointed out, pacing in between the beds. "This is a different war."

"Yeah," said Peter morosely. "A different kind of war. Well, if that's the case then it's for a different kind of man. There's no honor left in being a soldier anymore."

"Are you going to say Dad's not honorable, going out there to die for England?" Edmund asked quietly, a deadly sort of calm quiet, the kind that unnerves you when you're not expecting it. His words hit Peter hard, and he did not speak. Edmund sat down on the bed next to his brother and went on.

"I think war stopped being honorable when men started fighting countries and stopped fighting other men," he confessed, "but that doesn't mean that there aren't men of honor left in the world. Picking a fight with Frank Blake over a song on the wireless that goes against your idea of war -- that's not honor, Pete, that's just what you think honor is. And maybe… maybe that idea worked there, but it doesn't work here. They're making fun of the war, Pete, because they haven't got much else to make fun of, and if they don't belittle it and make it into something we can all laugh at it'll swallow us whole and spit us out at the end of it all wearing red armbands and shouting 'Heil Hitler!'" Edmund stopped his diatribe and took a deep breath, trying not to get too caught up in his passion. "We can't all of us be stoics like you, Pete. Not everyone has that strength. Not everyone's had to be a king."

"Lucky them," Peter said off-handedly.

"Yeah," said Edmund, commiserating. "Lucky them." There was a long, steadying silence while both of them thought about this, and then Peter spoke.

"Ed, how do you do it?" he asked.

Edmund didn't have to be told what his brother was talking about. "Easy," he said. "I remember that here I don't have to be just or valiant or magnificent. I just have to be Edmund," He confided, getting off the bed and, patting his brother on the shoulder, he left the room.

"Sorry about Peter," Peter heard him say in the next room. "He had a rough hols." The lies come so easy, Peter thought to himself.

"Your dad?" someone asked.

"No, no, just…this and that," Edmund said ambiguously. "Nothing terrible. There are a lot of things at home. It's a bit hard for him."

"Can we –"

"Oh, yeah, sure," Edmund assured them. The radio clicked back on, and Peter turned his back to the door, settling back into the first part of Henry the Fourth.

"Hal," Falstaff was telling Prince Henry, "if thou see me down in the battle and bestride me, so; 'tis a point of friendship."

"Nothing but a colossus can do thee that friendship," the prince said. "Say thy prayers, and farewell."

"I would 'twere bed-time, Hal, and all well," Falstaff joked, but the joke was lost on Henry-

"Why, thou owest God a death," the character said, and there was a tidy Exeunt for Henry before Falstaff began speaking again, musing to himself.

"'Tis not due yet; I would be loath to pay him before his day. What need I be so forward with him that calls not on me?" Falstaff brushed it aside. "Well, 'tis no matter; Honour pricks me on. But what if honour pricks me off when I come on? How then? Can honour set to a leg? No: or an arm? No: or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honour hath no skill in surgery, then? No. What is honour? A word. What is in that word honour? What is that honour?"

"Oh, Falstaff," Peter said aloud to the empty dormitory, reading on. "Seems you and I are both confused."

The aforementioned RAF bombing of Hamburg took place in July of 1942, so it wouldn't really have been 'just the other day.' I hope all you history sticklers won't mind.

The song that ticks Peter off at the beginning was a pretty popular song in Britain during the war, as was the program it was on; I wrote a large research paper last semester on British, American and German radio propaganda, so this story has been a long time coming. If anyone would like to read that paper, I will consider posting it on my fiction press as a public service to the Narnia section, who could all probably benefit from an insight into civilian life in Britain during the 1940s.

That last scene is from King Henry IV, part one, by my friend and yours, Will Shakespeare.

Well- I know it's just another 'let's get back to England and see what they're like now' but seriously, what did you think?