weekly drabble challenge
Nov. 10th, 2012 02:01 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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indeedsir_backupRules:
1) A drabble is, by definition, a 100-word story therefore all responses should be 100 words exactly, no exceptions.
2) You may also choose to respond to this challenge with a five-minute sketch.
3) PLEASE put the word DRABBLE at the top of your post. That way people can easily spot the drabbles in amongst any reader comments they receive.
RATING: I don't think this should be limited so reader beware that they could be any rating (you could put it in the subject line if you feel it needs it)
PLEASE try to remember to make each drabble a comment in response to the original post. That way, if the comments start to collapse, the drabbles themselves should remain visible.
Remembrance
Sorry I missed this yesterday - still ill!:(
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Date: 2012-11-10 02:43 pm (UTC)A flash of red drew the e. from the steaming tea held aloft in the Jeevesian hand like a sacred thing proffered by a high priest of one of the posher cults. Red rimmed his e.s as well. I plucked the poppy from his trembling fingers, tucked it into his buttonhole with a kiss. The noble head bowed to my shoulder.
“I apologize.”
“None of that. It takes us all like this today.”
We met after separate stints at the Drones and the Junior Ganymede. So many friends had been snuffed out. Jeeves and Bertram curled up together and wept.
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Date: 2012-11-10 03:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2012-11-25 05:35 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2012-11-10 03:09 pm (UTC)I had no idea Jeeves has even been in it until his first Remembrance Day in my employ, when he brought in the morning Darjeeling and asked for a bit of time off that evening to see old friends. I had told him that of course he might, and also offered a little advance on his pay to treat them if he needed it. My paragon politely declined, and left just after dinner.
I only realized when he came back half-drunk, listing a bit and gazing deeply into my eyes and whispering, "I thank god you were not there, sir."
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Date: 2012-11-10 03:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-25 05:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-10 08:27 pm (UTC)‘Doesn’t look as if we’ll get to Berkeley Square by 11 does it?’
‘No sir.’ My new valet, a dark haired cove, took my meaning at once. ‘Perhaps it would be best if I pull over.’
‘I think so Jeeves. Always bad around Piccadilly.’
‘Thank you sir.’
A solemn chap - impossible to tell if he’s always like that of course – Jeeves’ head remained bowed over his hands all the time we stood silent by the car. I wondered if he was praying but didn’t like to mention it.
Then he handed me a fresh handkerchief, and we continued home.
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Date: 2012-11-10 10:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-13 01:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-16 11:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-25 05:38 am (UTC)Subtly done, and well.
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Date: 2012-11-11 04:55 am (UTC)“No. sir.”
“They’ve written all the old Magdalene grads. Severe officer shortage, so the provost says. Says those of us still single should sign up.”
“No. Sir.”
“It’s not like I’d be heading to the front lines.”
“No.”
“This wars different. Its’ not like when you….”
Jeeves shut Bertie’s lips with a kiss.
“Dash it, Reg! There was a Wooster at the battle of Agincourt.”
“Should Henry the Fifth invade France again, you may join him with my blessings.”
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Date: 2012-11-11 01:32 pm (UTC)....I always find it amusing when Bertie uses the Agincourt reference because the whole reason for the French loss was the longbow.
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Date: 2012-11-16 11:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-25 05:39 am (UTC)Nicely done!
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Date: 2012-11-11 05:31 am (UTC)At ten o’clock I removed my fingers from the typewriter’s keys. The page was blank, as it had been an hour ago.
“Creative juices blocked today, sir?” asked Jeeves, arriving with his heavenly coffee.
“It would seem so.” I rose to look out the window; the crowds were already gathering.
“When I returned, the War was in everything I read; I never wanted to hear about it again – nor did any bloke I knew.” I grasped the Flanders poppy over my heart. “I won’t write it.”
“No one thinks that means you’ve forgotten, sir,” whispered Jeeves, and pressed my arm.
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Date: 2012-11-11 05:58 am (UTC)Most seem to consider ( if they wonder at all) that Bertie somehow missed the war ( Or that Woodehouse for some reason want's us to think so, given how the war is never mentioned). I like the idea of the Great War being unmentioned because Bertie finds it *unmentionable*.
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Date: 2012-11-11 01:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-25 05:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-11 07:48 pm (UTC)“Milord? You feeling…”
Bertram Wooster dropped the picture. By fortune it fell to the table he had forgotten was below that particular elbow. He’d been quite lost in thought, or rather in the lack of useful thoughts, and whatever image had been before his hooded eyes had been quite other than the faded furnishing of this narrow parlor.
“Just… remembering.” He let the young woman fluff the lap robe closer around him. In the grate the fire had died to white ash, leaving the room slipping that last line into chill.
“Afore the war?”
He looked up, taking in the flat, plain face and contradicted by her bright eyes. Clever eyes, so much like…
“Were you here when Jeeves ruled the roost?”
She shook her head. “Only saw Sergeant Jeeves the once, and that was when they was mustering out.” Finished with her fussing, she collected the fallen photo and set it gently back on the mantle ledge. “You took the whole household to Dover to see the troops off, and I thank you for that, sir. Last time I saw my Danny.”
Bertie arched an eyebrow. His memory wasn’t what it had been, not since London, and there had been so many changes.
“Lad I came to replace? Danny Winsters, gone with the 17th Lancastershire. You remember him?” She paused, giving her listener time to pull the bits together.
“Blond lad? Footman sort?”
Her smile turned her face beautiful. “That’s my Danny!”
“Cheerful chap. I may not have much upstairs,” Bertie tapped his scared temple, “but I do remember a bright smile.”
“You should have one – a smile I mean.” She circled sound the room, bringing order to the books and magazines. “Here as its Christmas Eve, and Mrs. Huston’s making potatoes with bacon. Half an hour – no more – and she sent me to ask if you want yours here or in the dining room.”
Accepting his cane, he pushed to his feet.
“Potatoes with bacon?” Bertie did a fine job of sounding impressed. Which he was. Rationing had been hard, and much of the stores laid down before the war had been given to those harder hit. “Not a goose and pudding, but then we can’t have all we want.”
He wanted the table downstairs, where there would be some sort of company and music not pressed for the phonograph, but that would ruin their holiday more than it would make his… and really, what Bertie would be looking for in the servants dining room? Well, it wouldn’t be there.
She stood aside to let him pass. “Victory soon, and then the lads will be home. That’s what I want.”
“What we all want.” Bertie paused at the doorway, allowing one glance back at the images of happier times. “For our lads to come home.”
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Date: 2012-11-11 10:10 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2012-11-16 11:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2012-11-14 12:50 am (UTC)####
“Hey! Sarge!” One of the Australian soldiers was shouting from the back of the canvas-covered lorry.
Jeeves snapped to attention.
He spotted the driver, leaning from the cab door, fiercely waving to indicate that Jives should follow the men up to the rear platform. His vehicles wheels were already turning, slowly shirring the dust off of the packed dirt road.
Shouldering gun and pack, he jogged to catch up.
An American Corporal pulled him over the back gate. “Don’t want to miss the your ride. It’s a long walk back home – and you’d get your feet wet.” He slapped his right leg – heavy in a plaster case – to emphasize what a disaster that would be.
“Today? I would swim.”
Jeeves tossed his pack into the center of the company. It made a poor seat, but better than the boot-soiled truck-bed. By rank he should have had a place on the benches to either side. But then? By rank he was responsible for his men’s care before his own, and from the deep exhaustion engraved in either face, they each and all needed the seat.
One of the other soldiers – American by the uniform (senior enlisted by expression and attitude – but rank and unit vanished under wrapped bandages) offered his coat as a backrest.
Jeeves accepted with a nod and a sigh.
“I’ll take watch if you want to nap,” the man offered. “You looked pretty lost back there.”
Jeeves allowed a half-smile. Not of acceptance, but of appreciation. “Just remembering.”
“The little woman at home?
“The home.” Jeeves closed his eyes for the briefest second – just long enough to summon the memory of cheerful music and a warm fire in winter. A warm fire and a warmer hand. “That is memory enough.”
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Date: 2012-11-16 11:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2012-11-25 06:17 am (UTC)DRABBLE: There But For The Grace Of God…
Jeeves looked up from buttoning his overcoat when Bertie came out trying to get the poppy stuck into his buttonhole. When he was in range, the paragon of paragons gently pushed Bertie’s fingers aside to do the job properly.
“Thanks, old fruit. Always a struggle with the bally things. Ready to go?” Bertie asked.
At Bertie’s words, the Jeevesian brows rose. “Go, sir?”
Bertie stood a little straighter, manner taking on a bit of defensiveness. “I might’ve been too young to go, Jeeves, but I can still show proper respect for those who weren’t.”
Jeeves’ expression softened. “Of course, sir.”
DRABBLE (accidental bonus): Snippet From A Documentary
“I remember Uncle Bertie and Mr. Jeeves,” Dahlia Scholfield-Watson said with a fond smile. “We’d go to London and Mummy would leave me and my sisters with old Uncle Bertie while she went shopping and had a ‘spa day’ for herself. Uncle Bertie spoiled us rotten. Mr. Jeeves was a little intimidating at first, but we realised he was nearly as soft a touch as Uncle Bertie—long as we behaved—and we adored him. He looked after all of us, especially Uncle Bertie. Years later we realised... you know... but even as little girls, we could see they belonged together.”
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Date: 2012-11-25 06:20 am (UTC)(no subject)
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