The 306: Dusk

Oliver Emanuel

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781786826305
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

The 306 trilogy is dedicated to the memory of the 306 British soldiers of the 1914-18 war who were shot at dawn, by their own side, for what was then called cowardice or desertion. This final play, The 306: Dusk, is set on November 11 2018 and considers the impact of the First World war on today's attitudes to and experiences of war. 2018. Armistice Day. A pregnant school teacher is haunted by the story of her grandfather's story of having to kill his deserter friend. On a school trip to the battlefields she goes AWOL in a wood whilst on this very personal mission of remembrance. An injured veteran of the Iraq war has yet to cope with the aftermath of killing, and still relives the nightmare of battle. A blindfolded soldier wakes up after 100 years to hear the birds singing once more… The 306: Dusk is a unique piece of music theatre about memory and forgetting, friendship and betrayal, exploring what the Great War means to us today. From the 2-minute silence at 11am to dusk that same day, three disparate characters, a string quartet and a choir of voices from the past and present show how our world is shaped by the war to end all wars. The play ends with a roll call of the first names of the 306 soldiers. It also includes extracts from the diary of Oliver Emanuel as he researched and created the 2018 production. The 306: Dusk was aNational Theatre Scotland and Perth Theatre production, co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW, the UK's arts programme for the First World War centenary and is the concluding part of the 306 Trilogy, following 2016's premiere The 306: Dawn, and performances in 2017 of The 306: Day.

1.

He wakes up after 100 years, in the middle of a wood.

Shivering. Fearful. Blind.

There’s no light.

Yes there is light, just not much of it, not sun, but a lightening of the dark.

Dawn.

He jumps as a crow takes off from an unseen branch, scattering the silence.

He lies, half-buried, within and between the roots of an ancient hornbeam. He’s in considerable pain. Stiff and brittle. He checks himself over. Hands. Head. Arms. Legs. Feet. Everything is present and correct, thank God. His entire body is encased in mud and wetness – sweat, dew, vomit, blood – he has no idea. He has seven round holes in his shirt. The wind whistles right through him.

He gets to his feet. There’s no sign of another soul. He closes his eyes and listens but the darkness frightens him so he opens his eyes again. Everything feels close in the half-light. He smells something burning far away.

A church-bell?

That’s not possible.

First the crow now this.

He can’t remember how long it’s been since he heard these sounds.

And that’s when it occurs to him, it dawns on him, you might say, as the dawn steps slowly through the trees and across the ground, giving shape to the world that was previously only blackness, it dawns on him that he has absolutely no idea where he is.

Or who he is.

He can’t remember his name.

He can’t –

He can’t remember –

Sweat breaks out on his forehead.

He opens his mouth to scream but it’s full of cobwebs.

He holds up his hands in front of his face. Hard and cracked like dry wood. He tries to recall something, anything that these hands have done, but he can’t.

Alone in a wood, freezing, exhausted, starving. No memory of who he is or what he is doing. No clue as to what he should do next.

What happened?

Someone must have hit him. Yes. He must have been in a fight. Or he fell over, knocked himself against a tree branch. Possibly there was an explosion of some kind.

There was violence, he is sure.

He watches the light brighten in the canopies of the trees and listens to the crows.

There’s something off about this place, something wrong.

It’s more silent and still than a wood has a right to be.

More like a church.

Or a cemetery.

He sees that he is a soldier. He is wearing a soldier’s uniform and soldier’s boots. But instead of feeling reassured by this fact, he has only questions. What war am I fighting? Where is my regiment? Where are my mates? What happened to my weapon? What happened? What happened?

He notices that he knows the names of trees. Oak. Lime. Beech. That’s something, at least.

He rests his hand against the broad trunk of an oak tree.

There’s a song too, a random melody, the rise and fall, on the tip of his tongue. He believes that if he can somehow remember the song that everything else will reappear.

He gives up.

He punches the oak tree and says fuck.

It’s his first word in a long time and he scares himself half to death.

He says it again to make sure he wasn’t imagining it.

The light grows every minute.

As the sun rises to meet him, as the first rays of day hit him in the face with the force of a slap – no warmth in the light just colour, yellow, cold, unforgiving – it’s then that he remembers –

He remembers he is dead.
He remembers –
He remembers everything.

2.1

RACHEL: First thing I do when I wake up is check the news on my phone.

A mistake.

Nuclear threats. An unstoppable wildfire burning a hole in the atmosphere. Fucking Trump. Fucking Brexit.

I know I should relax.

I know I should be stronger.

I know I should block out the noise and the violence of everything.

The baby is kicking and I desperately need a piss.

I have the feeling that something is about to break.

*

I lead the kids into the woods and have them line up beside the memorial.

The veterans form similar ranks opposite.

Medals tinkle like rain on glass.

You can tell how old each regiment is by height. The younger, more recent soldiers are big, upright. The older ones bent and small.

They seem to be having a smashing time.

Chatting, back-slapping, telling jokes.

It’s a party!

One by one the kids fall silent as they observe the soldiers.

They’ve never seen real soldiers before.

Not what they imagined.

Not big, brave, bloody heroes.

Their ordinarin...