大象传媒

This story and poem are submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by a member of Market Harborough Branch, Royal British Legion on behalf of the author, Kenneth West and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr West fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

Gently Graze the Cattle
By K.J. West, Fus (Ret鈥檇),

In 1984, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the landings, I returned to Normandy with my trusty old bike and spent two weeks cycling around the battle areas. Starting at Cherbourg, I visited the American beaches and went on to the British sector, eventually reaching the village of Fontenay-le-Pesnil, where, in a matter of a few days, more than a quarter of the 49th Infantry Division (The Polar Bears) were killed or wounded in the bloody battle.

I found the orchard where I鈥檇 joined the 11th Battalion Royal Scots Fusiliers on that June evening. Memories came flooding back of the blasted apple trees and the dead cattle, lying with their legs at grotesque angles, their innards heaving with maggots and the stench of cordite and death permeating all.

Now 40 years later, cattle were back in the orchard and stood quietly chewing. The hedges had re-grown and some new trees had been planted, but older ones grew in odd, twisted shapes. Many old stumps remained and here and there, cows rubbed themselves against a broken stump, a scene of quiet solitude and contentment which I found to be a most emotional moment and one of the most memorable of the whole two weeks trip, one which in some way, made all the former hardships and efforts seem so worthwhile.

As I cycled on, I couldn鈥檛 shake this scene from my mind and I found myself putting my thoughts into verse, which were as follows:

Return to Fontenay
Gently graze the cattle now,
Beneath the shady apple bough,
In quiet contentment they scratch their rumps
Against the twisted, gnarled old stumps.
Blasted by shell whilst in their prime,
Part of man鈥檚 inhuman crime.
They remain a memorial, still today,
To those who fell at Fontenay
And died beneath the apple bough,
Where gently graze the cattle now.

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