by: Andrew Riddles Cast of Characters MAN 1 – A young French soldier, 19–years–old, any race. Can wear khaki or dull grey–blue. MAN 2 – A British soldier, 23–years–old, any race. Can wear khaki or deep but dull green. Synopsis Two soldiers – one French, one British or American – meet in a simple, sparse room. They are dressed in fatigues. It quickly becomes apparent Man 1 fought in WWI and Man 2 in WWII. They were cut down in their prime. Man 1 died at the age of nineteen; Man 2 at twenty–three. The French soldier is reciting his times tables as a way, he says, to kill time as the wait is long. The men discuss their lives as farm hands before the wars they fought in, their politics and their families. Man 1 says how cruel and pointless life is, while Man 2 tries to spin things more positively. In the end, they resort to reciting their times tables to pass the time. Man 1 explains that when he arrived, he was told to recite his times tables until he found one of the answers to be his age (19). Man 2 asks if he can do the same till one of the answers is his age (23). As the play ends, they begin reciting, neither realizing that their ages are both prime numbers, and thus their task is eternal. A note on dialect MAN 2 speaks with a typical working class British or American accent. Although at times he adopts the common practice of speaking in a more posh/well–educated manner (e.g., “…a gentleman does not ask a gentleman for whom what they voted.”) as is clear, he gets the grammar wrong. Other typical signs of his dialect include saying me for my, and missing out an auxillary verb and adding an unnecessary adverb (e.g., Why you doing that then?) Setting A liminal space which has the feeling of a waiting room, with a row of chairs as its only furniture. SCENE: INT. – 4 OR 5 PLAIN HARD–BACKED CHAIRS, IN A LINE, NEAR DOWNSTAGE CENTRE, FACING THE AUDIENCE. LIGHTS UP ON: A YOUNG MAN (MAN 1) IS SITTING IN THE FIRST CHAIR FROM SR. HE IS ALREADY SPEAKING. MAN 1 (to himself) …Two sevens are fourteen. Three sevens are twenty–one. Four sevens are twenty–eight. (As he recites, MAN 2 enters tentatively from SL.) MAN 1 Five sevens are thirty–five. MAN 2 Hello. Is this where we wait? MAN 1 Six sevens are forty–two. MAN 2 I say, hello. Hello? (MAN 2 waves to get MAN 1’s attention. Man 1 stops reciting) Is this where we wait? MAN 1 That’s right. (turning to face forward, MAN 1 is about to resume his times tables. Then he becomes sensitive to the fact MAN 2 is just standing there) You can sit if you like. MAN 2 Thank you. (despite looking very tempted) I’m fine here. MAN 1 All right but, it’s just… MAN 2 What is it? MAN 1 It can be a long wait, you know. MAN 2 (seeming relieved for an excuse to sit) Don’t mind if I do take the weight off. (sitting as he speaks) (Pause. MAN 2 looks around, with some expectation. MAN 1 awkwardly half looks at MAN 2, uncertain as to whether he should be entertaining him or getting on with his own thing. Finally he turns back to face the audience once more.) MAN 1 Seven sevens are forty–nine. Eight sevens are fifty–six. Nine sevens are sixty–three/ MAN 2 (simultaneously, and with eager curiosity). What ya’ doing there? MAN 1 (with an annoyed sigh and some frustration) My times tables. MAN 2 Why you doing that then? MAN 1 No reason. I don’t know. To kill time. MAN 2 Kill time? MAN 1 Yes, kill time. It can be a long wait, you know. MAN 2 Why? When did you get here, mon ami? MAN 1 1917. MAN 2 That’s (quickly doing some math) twenty–seven… That’s longer than I’ve been… than I was… That’s since before I was born. (Fishing around in a pocket, MAN 2 pulls out a tin of tobacco and some cigarette papers.) MAN 1 Eleven sevens are seventy-seven, twelve sevens are eighty- four. (MAN 2 rolls a cigarette. He then rolls a second. Offers it to MAN 1) MAN 1 One eight is eight. Two eights are- (noticing the proffered cigarette) There’s no smoking here. MAN 2 No smoking? And how exactly do you think they can punish us for that? (re-offering the cigarette, How precisely do you propose they might subjugate us for that particular infraction? (offering the cigarette for the third time. MAN 1 looks around and eagerly takes it. They light their smokes.) MAN 2 Before I left, my dad said, “Son, in the trenches, a cigarette is your best friend.” MAN 1 That’s the truth! MAN 2 The God’s honest truth. (pause while they smoke) MAN 1 What did you do? I mean, before you were a soldier. MAN 2 I was never a soldier. I was a farmhand in a uniform, that’s all. MAN 1 You worked on a farm? MAN 2 My dad’s fields. He only rented them, of course. MAN 1 I worked on my parents’ farm. It was small and not good for much. But my father had promised his father he would never sell, so we worked it. MAN 2 Listen, at the front, when we was fighting alongside you French, they told us that us Englishmen had a terrible habit. That is to say, we would go an entire conversation and only at the end say, “Oh by the way, my name’s blah–de–blah.“ So here’s me, undoing that disgraceful national inclination: I’m Jack. (offers his hand) MAN 1 (laughing, shaking MAN 2’s hand) Hello Jack. I’m Jacques. MAN 2 (shaking hands heartily and laughing) Well isn’t that the darndest thing? Jack and Jacques. Well I never. MAN 1 Both Jacques. Both farmhands. Is your birthday March 21st? MAN 2 Sorry: September 21st. MAN 1 (trying to think of something else they could have in common) Do you have a sweetheart called Marie–France also? MAN 2 Ha! No – not too many English lasses with “France” in their name. But there was an Alice in my village I was looking to marry, before… you know, before all the nonsense started. MAN 1 “All the nonsense.” I like that. I never voted for it. MAN 1 How old are you? MAN 2 Twenty–three. (pause) What about you? MAN 1 Nineteen. MAN 2 Well, that’s no age. That’s no age at all. MAN 1 Yes, I’m well aware of that, thank you very much, Sergeant–Fucking–Obvious. MAN 2 All right, no need for the use of language, young sir. MAN 1 No need to point out that I didn’t get very long. You think I’m not aware of that? MAN 2 I’m not exactly Methuselah over, mon ami. MAN 1 It’s fine. Whatever. (turning again, resuming his task) Nine sevens are sixty–three. Ten sevens are seventy. Eleven sevens are/ MAN 2 I supposed you’ve heard about the… current nonsense (flicking his head to imply a realm outside of this place) MAN 1 Is that where you were… where you just came from? MAN 2 Yes, a place called… well, it was a village in Belgium somewhere, near Bastogne MAN 1 I was at Verdun – not so far from there. It was near Verdun anyway, also a small village. But I don’t know the name either. (pause) Everyone knows where they were born/ MAN 2 I was born at home, in my parents’ bed. MAN 1 Me too. But neither of us know the name of the place we – well, the other place. That’s the funniest thing about this whole business. MAN 2 Yeah, ha–bloody–ha, if you think that’s the funniest thing about this. MAN 1 What else is there to laugh at? I was nineteen–years–old. Nineteen. MAN 2 I was twenty–three. That’s no age at all. My great–grandfather lived to one hundred years of age. Imagine. I didn’t get one quarter of that. MAN 1 Join the queue, “mon ami”. You’re not the only one short– changed here. MAN 1 I’m not saying I am. It just doesn’t seem very fair to any of us. I never voted for it. (pause) Hey, who did you vote for? MAN 2 Where I come from, a gentleman does not ask a gentleman for whom what they voted. MAN 1 (unabashed) I’m not a gentleman. MAN 2 (deflating slightly) Fact of the matter is, I never voted. Should say, I never could vote: there was no election since I turned twenty-one. Last one, I was only nineteen. My dad says it makes no difference anyway. MAN 1 Why not? MAN 2 ‘Cos the government always wins. MAN 1 Your dad has a point. MAN 2 My dad, he was a farmhand like me when the first war started. He didn’t have the vote then. Working men like him didn’t get the vote till 1918. If you were too poor to own a home or pay much in the way of taxes you didn’t get to vote. Only ‘cos of the war they gave it to us. MAN 1 Rich man’s war… MAN 2 …Poor man’s fight. (pause while both men consider this) Anyway, dad, he was captured, like, at Wipers. He missed the election ‘cos he weren’t home in time after the war, took him so long to get back from the camp. He was thirty-five by the time the next one came along. Said the Jerry guards used to laugh at the British prisoners cos they didn’t have the vote but the Jerries, well they’d had it for decades. It was the Germans who were “fighting for democracy” back then, not us British. Dad had the last laugh though, didn’t he? He did? MAN 2 Of course he did: Britain, it won that war. MAN 1 What did your dad win exactly? The right to send his son off to the next war? Wonder how he’s managing without you. Wonder if he thinks his King is worth it. His six acres, one horse, one plough. MAN 2 You leave my dad out of this. He’s a fine and wonderful man. MAN 1 It doesn’t matter what kind of a man he is. (leaps up, stands over MAN 2) You idiot, can’t you see that? (MAN 2 leaps up also) MAN 2 Who are you calling an idiot? No one calls Jack Parrish an idiot and keeps his teeth. (they simultaneously grab each others lapels in both hands) MAN 1 You- MAN 2 I’m gonna- (but then, simultaneously, the two men, disgusted with themselves and each other push each other back, but not with full force) MAN 2 (sitting down) I’m sorry. MAN 1 No, I’m sorry. It was thinking about my parents. It must’ve broken them. He must be so sad now and there is nothing I can do about it. That power to brighten your parents’ lives is what I miss the most. (chuckling to himself) When I was alive I made him angry so many times. MAN 2 ‘Course you did. That’s what sons do. But we also make ’em proud, don’t we? MAN 1 I suppose we do. Learning to ride a horse, learning to plough, learning to read and write. You should have heard him sing about me when I sheared my first sheep! MAN 2 Now there’s something I never learned. We grew wheat and potatoes mostly. MAN 1 I just think that I would never have bothered if I’d known. MAN 2 Never bothered? Never bothered with what? MAN 1 With any of it! With learning to count and do sums, to read and write, to plough the fields and mend a fence. It was a complete waste of energy, to end up where I did, when I did. Think of it, think of the energy extracted from the world by all this (gesturing broadly), think of everything you ever did in your whole life, leading up to that moment, and all of it: a waste of time, effort, feelings, energy. Then times it by a million for Verdun, and then times that by twenty. Worrying if I spelled a word wrong in school, or that my boots were dirty. Drying my clothes out after getting caught in a rain storm. Taking medicine when I had scarlet fever. Picking flowers in the meadow for mother at Easter. MAN 2 But you did some good things, didn’t you? Didn’t you enjoy riding a horse? Didn’t your mother love those flowers? (thinking of something) And shearing that sheep! What about shearing that sheep? Wasn’t that a worthwhile feeling? MAN 1 You know the only value I can think of when I think of those sheep on my farm? When we were brought to Verdun they marched us past the generals, and we all bleated like sheep, because we knew that to them, that’s all we were. And my bleating was the best! That’s what the sheep taught me. How to act like a sheep. That’s how I ended up here. I would never have bothered to have done all those things – I would have just gone off into the world, travelled to Africa or America. Instead, all that time all that needless effort and energy to march past those generals who told us it was our duty to die, not in so many words but with their faces. “This is what we always had in store for you,” that’s what they said to us. “To come here, to this place in the world, to this moment in time, this was always your fate. You have no choice. You never had a choice.” I wish I had never bothered. I wish I had died in my mother’s womb. Better that than a meaningless life, a meaningless (pause. Both men sit in silence for a hot minute) MAN 2 (tentative, faltering) Why… why was you really doing your times tables when I came in? (pause) MAN 1 I was… it’s silly… I wasn’t very good at mathematics, but I could do my times tables. MAN 2 I’m the same. We learned them at the school. I can still remember them. MAN 1 When I came here, they told me to wait, and to recite my times tables until my age came up as an answer. Nineteen. MAN 2 Can– can I do it too? Until my age comes up, at least. Twenty–three. MAN 1 Why not? Let’s start again, from the beginning. (Both men sit up straight in their chairs) MAN 2 All right then. You lead, mon ami. MAN 1 One one is one. Two ones are MAN 2 (waiting to join in [Lights fade on the men, as their voices trail off] MAN 1 …Six ones are six. Seven- MAN 2 …Six ones are six. Seven- [Voices fade.] The end. About the Author Andrew Riddles has written forever. His first play, BUYSEXUAL, won a Best in Festival Award at the Ottawa Fringe 2024. His second play, Third-Party, Blameless won both first prize at STN’s Short Play Festival 2024 in New York, beating out 240 other entries, and Audience Choice Award – Best Play at THINK Fast’s Online Festival 2025. Andrew is currently shortlisted for the Alpine Fellowship, and he will be an artist-in-residence for three months this fall at das Institut für Alles Mögliche in Berlin. His short fiction, plays, and CNF have appeared in the past year in Borderline Tales, Type!, Viridine Literary, Fresh Words International, and many other journals internationally in the past year. From Britain, Andrew has lived among the Canadians for these twenty years.
Prime
putting on a slightly more
refined accent)
MAN 1
death.
two. Three ones are three.
Four ones are four. Five
ones are five…
…
then:) Three ones are
three. Four ones are
four. Five ones are
five…
