Orville R. Emerson (1894-1945)-A Second War Story

Orville R. Emerson wrote the second war story to appear in Weird Tales. The first was "The Dead Man's Tale" by Willard E. Hawkins. Whereas Hawkins' tale begins on the battlefield in Europe, that's only the set-up. The main action takes place in America after the war has ended. "The Dead Man's Tale" is one of the title character's perverted love for a woman, his obsession over her, and his cruelty towards her and his living rival. In contrast, Emerson's tale, entitled "The Grave," is set entirely on the battlefield and is a story of men without women. "The Dead Man's Tale" was reprinted in Weird Tales in July 1934. "The Grave" received perhaps a higher honor by being selected for inclusion in The Best of Weird Tales: 1923 by editors John Gregory Betancourt and Marvin Kaye (1997). 

Orville R. Emerson was born in Burlington, Iowa, on June 12, 1894. He graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a degree in law and taught at Page Military Academy in Los Angeles before World War I. When war came, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army. He served as a regimental intelligence officer in Belgium and France. After the war, he served with the American Legion, Kiwanis, the YMCA, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), Los Angeles County, and in other places and other capacities. Emerson was called back to the Army during World War II and served only stateside. Discharged for ill health in November 1944, he died in January 1945.

I wrote about Orville R. Emerson on December 25, 2018. You can read what I wrote and see a picture of the author by clicking here. By the way, the day on which I wrote was the 100th anniversary of the discovery of the German soldier's manuscript. Read on . . .

Orville R. Emerson's Story:

"The Grave" is actually three stories in one, with three narrators. Two of these stories are nested inside the third, which acts as a kind of framing device. The framing story is brief and is narrated by an unnamed man, presumably a U.S. Army officer. That officer could easily have been Emerson himself. His part of the story reads like a report, almost like a journalistic work.

The second story is told by another man, probably also an officer. His name is Fromwiller. He tells the first officer of a strange experience he has had at Mount Kemmel in Flanders, the location of some recent fierce fighting. The fighting has ceased. The two men return to Mount Kemmel, and on Christmas Day, 1918, they discover a manuscript, written in German, in a bombed-out German dugout. The chaplain helps them translate the manuscript, and the next story--the central story--begins.

The manuscript was written by a German soldier who retreated into a deep dugout during some heavy shelling. The entrance to the dugout is destroyed in the shelling and the German soldier is trapped. He has food, water, wine, candles, and other supplies, enough to last several weeks. He begins a written account of his actions, chronicling each day's efforts at digging himself out.

The shelling has stopped. He expected an attack after that, but everything above him has gone silent. He begins to realize that no one is going to arrive to help him. If he is going to escape, it must be by his own efforts. Days and weeks go by. The water runs out first, then the food. He begins eating rats that he catches in the dugout. He also begins losing his mind and is unable to account for longer and longer periods of time in his underground prison. Finally, he sees sunlight and closes his account with the realization that there will be a happy ending after all.

The first officer comments briefly. Then he moves on to retelling Fromwiller's tale:

Fromwiller had gone to Mount Kemmel to look things over. He saw many unburied dead, but he also saw something he had never seen before: "the buried living!" Looking down into a huge shell hole, he saw, at the bottom, earth being pulled downward and inward. Then a man appeared out of the hole and stood erect. "I never want to see such another creature," Fromwiller says. "It looked like a corpse that had lain in the grave a long time."

At first insensate, the man saw Fromwiller and ran from him in terror. He tumbled into a trench and broke his neck in the fall. Fromwiller left him where he had fallen, explaining, "Buried while living, I left him unburied when dead."

It takes a moment. Then you realize: the shelling and the sounds of battle stopped because the armistice had been reached. If the war had gone on, the German soldier might have been found and rescued. Instead, he spent the weeks between November 11 and very near Christmas Day digging himself out.

The blurb at the beginning of "The Grave" reads "A Story of Stark Terror." And it is--a terrifying, cruel, and bitterly ironic story. And although there isn't any supernatural element in "The Grave," there is a weird element. Emerson's tale had found just the right place to see the light of day. It's strange and terrifying to think that "The Grave" could also easily be a true story.

Mount Kemmel (1919) by British artist Ian Strang (1886-1952).

Original text copyright 2023 Terence E. Hanley