Brace Up

This is an archaic expression, probably originating in the braces—suspenders—men wore in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, to cinch up their trousers as tightly as possible. There are probably some men of the older generation who still wear them, although I haven’t seen them for years. We are a little more skeptical now of all forms of tightness.

But there is another meaning for the expression: brace up, stop complaining, and remember that there are many other people worse off than you are.

This idea grates, especially in the U.S. where those who can afford to indulge their feelings, or at least to analyze them, do so with a great sense of righteousness. Our president lauds the wisdom of his “gut” so often we might wonder the exact location of this organ.

As we advance into—and, I hope, through—various stages of panic and hysteria because of the virus, I am reminded of what the British went through during the German Blitz in World War Two.

This was the savage bombing of British cities in massive day and night time air raids that lasted from September 1940 to May 1941, in an attempt to break the spirit and the response capabilities of Britain in preparation for a German invasion.

The invasion never took place. British fighters and land-based artillery worked to limit the destruction wrought by the Nazi bombers, but the suffering of citizens was dramatic.

At the sound of the air-raid sirens, everyone in the affected cities—mainly London, but also Coventry and many of the port cities—had to grab their children and run for the nearest underground station. Maybe they had time to grab blankets and food, maybe not. These deep subway stations were often accessed by two or three steep flights of steps or escalators; panic would have resulted in a stampede.

But there was no panic. People camped out on the cement, often without food or water or sufficient covering. It could go on half the night or all night, until the all-clear was sounded. Parents had to find ways to console frightened children and keep them entertained. And everyone had to cooperate about using what was available—sharing blankets, food, water and public toilets.

When the raid was over, they came up into scenes of total devastation.

At the end of the Blitz, London lay in ruins: 43,000 British citizens had been killed by bombs or falling buildings, 139,000 were wounded. The assault had lasted for 76 consecutive nights.

Comparisons are invidious, but it may be worth a thought about the degree of difference between the suffering of British citizens during this period and our suffering from virus-caused deaths here in the United States.

At the moment, the national toll stands at 200.

That will probably rise. But it might be worth thinking, talking and reading a little less about this scourge, and instead taking a look at a short novel called The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico.

It tells the story of a lonely lighthouse keeper who is also a hunchback. He is helped by the re-appearance every spring of a snow goose, and also by a developing romance with a girl. But the heart of the story is the lighthouse keeper’s attempt to rescue the British soldiers trapped on the coast of Dunkirk, in Normandy, under an onslaught by Nazi planes after the fall of France.

He sailed his small boat, along with a flotilla of other pleasure craft, across the British Chanel to rescue the soldiers, one by one, or two by two, accompanied by the snow goose flying through the smoke of battle overhead.

He lost his life in the attempt.

Someone read me this story not long after it was written, and I remember crying. During that same time, I often heard this line repeated, from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar:

A coward dies a thousand times, but the valiant taste of death but once.

So: brace up.

In Writing World War Two