Strong Woman
Jack toddles, and Betty chases after him, cooing and clucking like any housewife. Don't go near the stairs, don't touch that sword, for god's sake Jack get away from the fire! You'll be my ruination, Jack, really you will.
But he's such a darling baby, and she loves him dearly, and she tells him happy stories every night where Johnny did not go for a soldier. And she sings, in a voice that does not belong to Betty but really belongs to Shufti (The voice that makes her want to cry because she'd promised, Oh! She'd promised herself that Shufti was gone and never returning) Shufti sings, in the remembered glow of dying embers and dying men,
O Johnny dear has gone away
He has gone afar across the bay,
O my heart is sad and weary today,
Johnny has gone for a soldier.
Shule, shule, shule agrah,
Time can only heal my woe,
Since the lad of my heart from me did go,
O Johnny has gone for a soldier.
I'll dye my dress I'll dye it red,
And through the streets I'll beg my bread,
And through the streets I'll beg my bread,
Johnny has gone for a soldier.
Shule, shule, shule agrah,
Time can only heal my woe,
Since the lad of my heart from me did go,
O Johnny has gone for a soldier.
I'll sell my clock, I'll sell my reel,
I'll sell my flax and spinning wheel,
To buy my true love sword of steel,
Johnny has gone for a soldier.
Shule, shule, shule agrah,
Time can only heal my woe,
Since the lad of my heart from me did go,
O Johnny has gone for a soldier.
Me, O my, I love him so,
Broke my heart to see him go,
Only time can heal my woe,
Johnny has gone for a soldier.
Shule, shule, shule agrah,
Time can only heal my woe,
Since the lad of my heart from me did go,
O Johnny has gone for a soldier.
Little Jack sings along to the nonsense-sounding bits, Shule, shule, shule agrah. Shule shule shule… in his tiny baby voice. He doesn't know what they mean, he can't understand the strange language any more than he can speak his own. Betty carries him downstairs one day and sits him on the bar while she serves the customers, and when she comes back there's an old man in silent tears as the baby sings, shule shule shule agrah.
The old man says, that was me, I left my girl behind me and when I came back Nuggan had taken her. Young man – Jack, Betty whispers, his name is Jack after a great, great man – Young Jack, don't you ever leave your girl or your mother behind you. Don't go off for a soldier, stay home and keep your heart whole.
Betty gives him a free whiskey and has to go and have a little cry.
Betty chases after Jack like the good mother she is as he toddles to the swords the men hold – Why does he have to be so much like his namesake, drawn to weapons like a magnet? Betty wants to protect him from the whole world – she never lets him touch the shiny things, never lets him near the pretty fire, holds him away from the glittery blue water. All the pretty things, all the deadly pretty things, Jack is drawn to. Betty keeps him as far away from them as possible, while from the sidelines Shufti cheers him on.
The inn is cold and empty and it's another invasion coming down the road, how did this happen when there was supposed to be peace? But it's there, and Betty bars the door.
And they're in the Duchess and she's got the baby, stay upstairs, hide, hide, hide! Is what she tells herself, and they cower in a closet, and something two feet long and hard pokes Betty in the back, but she's too scared to get comfortable.
Footsteps on the stairs. Don't even breathe loud, Jack, stay silent, I don't want to fight anyone. Betty hears the sound of hobnailed boots on the wood floors. She hears swords, the deadly silence of same being drawn from a sheathe. She hears, with heart-stopping stomach-dropping dread, Jack sing in his high-pitched little boy voice, Shule, shule, shule agrah.
The winter light is blinding as the closet door is flung open and Betty realizes – No, Shufti realizes – exactly what it was poking her in the back.
She does the only thing she can and plants herself in front of the baby, shielding him with her body and the sword she found. Betty remembers she really was never that good at fighting. She was always the woman of the group, the one with the mindset of a lady. She'd been so useless, so weak, so typically female. She'd been a nothing. She'd been the gullible pregnant deadweight.
But she'd learned some things, and she fights like a man now, hard and not caring if she gets hurt, because Shufti knows that above all else she has to protect Jack.
Jack watches as the men he doesn't know leave the room, as they leave his mother bleeding on the floor. The sword, pretty and bloody and red and deadly, glitters on the ground where she dropped it. There's red, vibrant and terrifying, seeping from her stomach and chest and now onto Jack as he holds her, wondering what's happening. He wonders why her voice shakes as she sings, reedy and rattling when once it was so strong, like campfires in the night.
O Johnny dear has gone away
He has gone afar across the bay,
O my heart is sad and weary today,
Johnny has gone for a soldier.
Shule, shule, shule agrah,
Time can only heal my woe,
Since the lad of my heart from me did go,
O Johnny has gone for a soldier.
I'll dye my dress I'll dye it red,
And through the streets I'll beg my bread,
And through the streets I'll beg my bread,
Johnny has gone for a soldier.
Shule, shule, shule agrah,
Time can only heal my woe,
Since the lad of my heart from me did go,
O Johnny has gone for a soldier.
I'll sell my clock, I'll sell my reel,
I'll sell my flax and spinning wheel,
To buy my true love sword of steel,
Johnny has gone for a soldier.
Shule, shule, shule agrah,
Time can only heal my woe,
Since the lad of my heart from me did go,
O Johnny has gone for a soldier.
Me, O my, I love him so,
Broke my heart to see him go,
Only time can heal my woe,
Johnny has gone for a soldier…
And then Jack wonders why his mother has stopped singing, and why her eyes are staring at the ceiling like they don't even care anymore, and without knowing why he's doing it Jack starts to cry. He does not cry like a baby, bawling and loud – He cries silently, like the old man, shoulders shaking, tears coming down like fast rain, but no sound except the end of the song –
Shule, shule, shule agrah,
Time can only heal my woe,
Since the lad of my heart from me did go,
O Johnny has gone for a soldier.
And those are the first words Jack says in his own tongue.
He visits her grave when he's old enough to understand and stares at meaningless words – Devoted wife, loving mother, will not be forgotten. He remembers the song, how she chased her husband and nothing came of it, how she cried when she thought he was asleep. He remembers how she chased him, made sure he didn't ever fall or get hurt. Jack remembers how she died, singing her losses and his lullaby. He remembers that he had to finish the song.
Jack kicks the gravestone until it falls over. He turns it around and scratches words deep into stone.
He's gone and found out what his first words meant, even if they were in another language – Walk on, my love. Keep going, travel forward, march away, do not look back.
I will still love you as I watch you vanish into ranks of blue and red and gold. I will pray for you to live on and march on, although you may never see me again.
Jack does not remember his mother's face. He was far too young to remember that. He remembers, however, a figure that clucked and worried and chased, that prayed that all the people who had left her behind would be safe. He remembers, very, very vaguely, his mother breaking down and crying when letters came, letters that he finds today in the deserted inn. They tell of death on the front lines, in the glorious line of duty, death for the good of the nation. One, which he does not understand, details in shaky handwriting the hanging of a female criminal known only as Tonker. All of them have waterspots, tearstains. One, the ink run almost to illegibility, speaks briefly and coldly about the tragic yet unavoidable death of a sergeant named P. Perks. A third speaks even more briefly about someone who was, it seems, turned to dust and scattered. It is hard to tell, from the letters, who killed them – The enemy, or the army.
Jack hears, outside, the roar and rattle of drums, and his heart speeds up. Roll up, me young shavers, it's a good life in the ins-and-outs!
Jack takes his mother's sword from the upstairs room where it has been waiting sixteen long years, and he joins the army. Before he leaves, he glances at the headstone he made for his mother's grave.
Betty "Shufti" Manickle
A lover and a fighter to the last.
Shule Agrah.
He has a chance right then to turn around, but Jack follows his mother's blood, the strong blood, and he goes for a soldier, and ghosts of peaceful times gone past say, Walk on, my love, walk on.