'If a man can't serve his country he's better dead.'

[aHalf-FinishedBook]

Просто наткнулась на стихотворение, посвященное Эдварду Бриттену.
И опять стало грустно.

CAPTAIN EDWARD BRITTAIN: 16 JUNE 1918, NORTHERN ITALY, AT 22 YEARS OLD

Yes, I loved him, a dark-eyed Sherwood lad.
You always knew it would be one like him:
At nineteen a corporal, cap this side of mad.
Peace would have rated our chances slim
For love, but he was innocent of sad
Charades - his life was still a school day hymn -
And in the thud, bloody thud, rat-a-tat making
War, he'd hold me tenderly to stop me shaking.

And yes, I should have known my fortune's end
Was not enough to be a Sunday hero,
When Colonel Hudson's quick to apprehend:
'They censor letters from the front, you know.'
Twixt shame and death, death was my true friend,
No man's land a convenient road show
By which this inconvenient wretch's head
Was crowned with wire and painted honourable red.

Forgive me, Vera, for the brave young men
Whose love and love of war have brought you sorrow.
Forgive me for what can never be again,
But where I lie, we disregard tomorrow:
Snow falls in the vacancy, all ken
Of time lost. Lakes and rivers borrow
Blue from blue and sigh 'qui tacet consentire'.
Where Alpine roots twine, binding me to the soft clay,

Years back it was, you found me, kissed my name,
Stone and earth a meagre barricade;
And were it given me so to frame,
A sister's love might death for breath trade;
And 'never mind my dear' quench the shame
Eternity's allotted, so I, yet made,
Had never caught the saturnine schoolmaster's thread:
'If a man can't serve his country he's better dead.'

© Kevin Childs, 2015
(с)
очень много пишут о самоубийстве. О том, что Эдвард оставил свой отряд далеко позади и пошел вперед, один. А потом они нашли его, с пулей в голове.
Вообще, я смотрю, газеты хорошо так бомбануло британские, все теперь говорят о том, что на такое знаковое произведение, как Testament of youth, теперь можно взглянуть совершенно иначе. Хотя, с другой стороны, какой смысл? Мальчик был, мальчик воевал, мальчик погиб.
Судя по тому, что вся шумиха началась уже после выхода TOY в прокат, в фильме эту тему затрагивать не будут. К лучшему, наверное. А то и так будет все плохо.