In a Field of Blue

by Liviero, Gemma

  Deeper into the book the thoughts and poems grew darker and more disturbed, with reimagined beginnings in a gloomy, bloody world where ghosts of soldiers wandered restlessly. Then it was summer 1917, and his writing suddenly changed. It was lighter, his soul given some temporary respite. In a field of wilted blue, she is the peace amid the madness, an extra weight in my pack that I would joyfully bear to where the world is bluer still. I wondered if he was referring to Mariette and felt stricken with guilt as large as grief. I lamented that I had disturbed a precious memory, had sullied something that he had found and lost and would not have again.

  These strange notes, thoughts and poems, did not provide answers so much as give me more questions. Caught between the pages, I found a pressed blue flower also, alongside the last words in the book. To the silence I must go. Then the pages afterward were blank.

  I could not yet give this book to Mother. It would torture her further in her current condition to speculate what these messages meant. The words that weren’t said, the detail omitted, still rose from the pages to be painted with one’s own mind.

  Turning to the last page of the book, I found the will that Mariette had shown me. I felt a surge of excitement, a connection to her, and mused on whether she had left this here for me to find or whether, perhaps in her haste, it was left inadvertently. Though unless circumstances did not allow it, I could not imagine Mariette as forgetful. The items were pieces of a giant puzzle, and I resolved that my life could not move forward without collecting all of them.

  I searched once more through correspondence in the study until I found a letter sent from Edgar’s friend, who had served also. Andrew was one of Edgar’s close service friends who had returned from war, and using the address on the back of the envelope, I sent a telegram to check that he was still there and whether he would receive me. Andrew had attended school with Edgar, and Andy, as he was more commonly known, had stayed with us on a number of weekends. He had written this personal message to us after Edgar had been reported as missing, himself only serving for one battle and returning home to England badly injured.

  Several days later, I made the excuse to Mother that I was returning to complete some tasks at the newspaper, resolving to get more answers before I spoke to her, then took the train to London. Arriving at Andy’s house, I was ushered in by a housekeeper to a sitting room, and a few moments later, Andy entered in a wheelchair pushed by a young woman.

  “I’m sorry I can’t get up, but it’s a pleasure to see an old face, or a young one as is the case with yours.”

  I shook Andy’s hand, while the woman slipped away from the room. He reminisced about the wonderful summer holidays he had spent at Lakeland Manor. He was thinner than I remembered and heavily lined in the face for someone so young, and I thought that if war didn’t take his life, it did at least take much of his youth.

  “Thank you for your letter after the war,” I said. “It meant a lot to us.”

  His mood changed then. He had learned of Edgar’s death several months after it had happened. They had been together briefly at officers’ training prior to the war and then entered the “French fields of fire,” both as lieutenants. Edgar seemed destined to remain on the front lines.

  “Many who knew him didn’t want to put his brain in the firing line,” said Andy. “He was promoted to captain, I heard, a year after I returned here, and then when officers were dropping like flies, another promotion was apparently bandied around. God knows he’d been there that long and deserved it. They needed strong leaders, but Edgar didn’t have the ambition to rise higher. He didn’t want to stand behind the men, but up front, and certainly had no desire to push a pen. He had done enough of that at school and university. From what I’ve heard since, he was encouraging and strong and an asset to the team. He was there when conditions grew worse. As soldier numbers decreased, many of the badly injured were simply patched and sent back out again.”

  “Can you tell me something of the village you were billeted near?”

  “We were stationed in soldiers’ quarters near Béthune. The whole village practically overrun with soldiers at the time. The school became the hospital. That’s where I spent most of my time in France, I regret to say.”

  “Were you ever billeted with families there?”

  “No,” he said. “Why do you ask?”

  I showed him the photograph and asked if he had seen the girl pictured or known of the place.

  “Bailleul, the name on the back, is further north, but I was never there. Though I recognize one of the fellows,” he said, pointing. “That’s Roger Whitney. He was in our unit when we landed.” He looked at me curiously then. “So tell me, what exactly are you looking for?”

  There are some people one knows instinctively to trust, and I told him everything, bar my intimate relationship with Mariette.

  “The whole thing seems highly suspect,” said Andy. “I don’t like the sound of it at all, and I’m not sure I can add anything that might help with your investigation, particularly about the girl. Your brother was quite taken with the French girls like we all were to start with, though war seemed to take some of the wanting out of liaisons, I have to admit. Praying for the future and returning to family became more desirable than the warmth of a woman. Though some sought the latter purely because it might be their last. I know that sounds crass, but it is the truth.”

  “I’m in no position to judge anyone,” I said.

  I realized he had not talked about himself, and I was aware the whole time that his legs were covered by a blanket. He must have seen my glance, and he pulled back the blanket to reveal a missing leg and a missing foot from the other one.

  “I’m so sorry. You never said in your letters.”

  “I hated to be a wet blanket and send my thoughts of misery. They thought they could save the foot on my good leg, but I was sad to see that one go as well. That’s how it is,” he said, and looked out across the quiet street. “Time has healed me, though not in body and perhaps not completely in heart. In any case the lovely woman you saw before is my wife, Frances, and she was also my nurse at the Endell Street hospital. So there was a reason for all of this suffering. There has to be, don’t you think, Rudy?”

  I wished I could speak with better knowledge, having never endured such wretchedness and deprivations. I wanted to believe there was a reason for everything. I truly did, but not having Edgar here, I silently disagreed. I smiled and shrugged and muttered something about hope and wondered if it sounded sincere.

  “Do you know where I can find Roger?” I asked.

  “Last I heard, he’d been injured toward the end and returned from France to a hospital here. I don’t know his home address, but I know someone who can probably find out.”

  He called out to Frances, and once our formal introductions were over with, Andy spoke briefly to her about the situation.

  “I’m not supposed to give personal information away, but to hell with it,” said Frances. “With so much tragedy I hardly think they will begrudge me an address.”

  She called the hospital from a phone in the hallway and came back with the information. I thanked them both, promised I would visit again, and caught the underground train across London, determined to make use of whatever light that was left of the day.

  Roger’s street was jammed with narrow terraced houses, and I stepped over several bags of strewn rubbish and potholes, counting down the houses until I reached the one I guessed to be his. There was no answer the first time I rang the doorbell. I tried again until the door was opened by a woman I assumed to be a relative of Roger’s.

  “Mrs. Whitney?”

  She nodded, appearing weary and unwelcoming. I explained who I was, what had happened to Edgar, and that I had some questions I would like to ask Roger. She was courteous, commiserated in a few words about my loss, and then, with some detachment, told me her son wasn’t home.

  “Do you know when he will be back?”

  “I can’t really say
,” she said.

  “I’ve been given this address—”

  “As I said, I can’t say.” Her tone was so abrupt I wasn’t sure how to progress.

  “It’s all right, Mother,” came a voice from the room to the side. “Let him in!”

  His mother looked toward the door where the voice was coming from, clearly torn about something.

  “I won’t take up much of your time!” I called out quickly.

  The woman stepped back to allow me through and I nodded my thanks. Then as I proceeded toward another doorway, she pulled my arm to hurriedly whisper, “Don’t talk about anything that might upset him. He’s very ill.”

  She turned and left me. I found Roger sitting in an armchair by a front-street window. I sat opposite him in the cramped front parlor that overlooked a barren street. The air was stale inside the room, which was grim and dark and oppressive, and I felt sorry for him in such conditions even before I learned the full extent of his injury.

  “You’re Edgar’s brother?”

  “Sorry, have we met?”

  “No, but you have the same eyes and look about you . . . Speculative, away someplace else,” he said with a wheeze that rattled in his chest. “I thought I was seeing a ghost when I spied you from the window. I could tell anywhere. You’ll have to excuse my mother. She’s overcautious . . . Any visits only tire and worsen me, according to her.”

  “Thank you for agreeing to talk with me. I’m Rudy Watts,” I said, moving forward to shake his hand before noticing the cylindrical mouthpiece he was holding. The article was connected by a rubber tube to an earthenware bottle on the table beside his chair and contained an inhalant of some kind, which I took to be the cause of a chemical smell I had also detected. “I’m sorry . . . If it’s too much trouble, I can send a letter.”

  He waved me away, lifted the mouthpiece to inhale deeply through the tube before lowering it again. I looked around the room at the photograph of a young boy holding a trophy and another of Roger as a young man, at someone’s wedding, a sister perhaps. But there were none in uniform.

  “My doctor’s had me experimenting with all sorts of treatment. This one’s been the best relief so far.”

  It became obvious throughout the conversation why his mother did not want me disturbing him. His words were sometimes breathy and rushed, squeezing in as many as he could in a short window of time.

  “The mustard gas apparently has had more of an effect than many first thought,” said Roger. “It looked like I was improving briefly, but then my breathing has been getting steadily worse over the years, and I fear that by the time they have worked out a cure for whatever it is I have, as well as an appropriate pension, I will be dead.”

  He smiled wryly. “At least my mother will benefit. She has dedicated her life to me these past years.”

  I looked into his eyes and saw the extent of his misery. I also felt pity, but for his sake I was determined not to show it. Here was a man who had lost much and to whom the country owed a great deal.

  “I suppose you’re here to learn of Edgar’s last movements.”

  “Yes,” I said. “We know only of the date he went missing, and we are looking for some kind of end to . . . speculation. My mother has taken it badly, as you can imagine.”

  “Yes. I can,” he said.

  “But if you can tell me at least what you know, I would very much appreciate it.”

  He closed his eyes for several seconds and, after breathing through the tube again, held his breath longer this time, perhaps long enough to capture images from the past. “I saw your brother in a field of mustard gas, and we were then shipped elsewhere to field hospitals. They couldn’t rip our bloody clothes off fast enough. You see, it gets through fabric and sinks into the skin. Your brother escaped the worst of it. That time anyway.”

  “Were you both in hospital for long?”

  “I was. Ed went off to convalesce at a French hospice or something. I can’t tell you, because I was shipped home pretty soon afterward when they realized that what I had might kill me or be permanent. He had various injuries earlier on. They repaired him, or rebuilt I like to say, then sent him back. I could tell from when I first met him he was determined to see it through . . . It was a bloody massacre the last battle he fought. I know that much.”

  “Could he have somehow survived?”

  “No. If there were any survivors, they would have been picked up by Germans. The battle for Flanders was intense, like many others. When there are no remains, sometimes people talk. Some had said that he had run to the other side, believing they were going to win. But I can tell you that he was a good soldier. That it was good to have him at your back. He would not have been a traitor.”

  The very mention of the word caused me to flinch, the sound of it cruel and unforgiving.

  “Though truth be told I feel sorry for the boy in Ed’s unit . . . executed, I heard, for hiding, and I must admit I did not expect to learn of Edgar’s reaction.”

  “Executed?” I’d heard nothing of this.

  “Just turned eighteen, the boy. He’d lied about his age originally to join the war with hopes to see the world. Though he was not ready for the world as it was then. The boy had seen all his friends blown to bits and his best mate die in his arms, then he just up and ran. The war, the sights, the things no man, woman, or child should see. Blighty’s soldiers found him, not the Germans. Though no good that did him. Found him at the back of a barn curled up asleep. Ed spoke up for him since none of his friends were there. All dead. Your brother could have been court martialed for it. From what I heard, the authorities decided then there’d be no further progression for Edgar in the ranks, not that he chased that sort of thing. Quite the opposite.”

  He must have seen something worrying in my face.

  “I hope this doesn’t upset you. I would have thought he would have written to you about this.”

  I shook my head. I wondered if Andy had known this, too, but had thought to spare me from any further truths.

  “Anyway the boy killed wasn’t the first or the last. There were others not fit for war. Still, I would have rather been shot by the Huns than my own. And you should know that Ed wrote to the boy’s parents, telling them of his courage. Ed would have enclosed his own heart if it would have made it better for them.”

  “Is there any chance Edgar could have been captured? Taken elsewhere?” I had an irrational glimmer of hope. What if he had wandered behind enemy lines without realizing it in the chaos and been captured, and was somewhere still alive?

  “I was never fond of false hope,” continued Roger. “I know there was a lot of talk of soldiers switching sides. If you hear any of this, I want you to throw it out. Ed was a good man and one of the many who vanished without a trace. It is more torturous for the families of men who are missing. Being captured by the Germans was sometimes a death sentence as well. But in all honesty, I believe that he was going to die regardless.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  He coughed and cleared his throat. “It’s hard for me to say, though I think you should know the whole truth. See, people think that if we sweep everything under the rug, then it didn’t happen. Such illnesses are very real. I witnessed them myself. People called them malingerers, but there were only a handful of those in comparison.”

  I was still completely confused. “I’m sorry. I don’t follow what you’re saying.”

  “I guess I’m having trouble telling you . . . Ed had a death wish. He was considered suicidal for a period and a risk to the safety of other soldiers. They had to hide him away for a while. It happened not long after the kid was caught and executed.”

  “You mean Edgar was imprisoned?”

  He looked at me strangely then. “You haven’t heard. No. I can see that you know nothing of this at all. I thought at least someone would have written briefly. I’m so sorry you had to hear it like this. There were some who said he had Soldier’s Heart. And God knows why they call it that, becaus
e it appears to have less to do with the heart than it does the head and a barrage of bloody shelling. In any case, it was Edgar’s nerves that got him, you see. He had the shakes.

  “He went to an institution briefly. Most now know your brother’s actual condition as shell shock, a term that came about in war, if you haven’t already read about it in the papers. The name speaks for itself. The shelling, day in, day out, shook the ground. The force of it went through your whole body and shook the teeth in your head.”

  This revelation added to the already layered issue of Edgar and his disappearance. I wondered why we were not told this. It seemed absurd now that we didn’t know. There was a gap at the end of his writings and poems, the missing words, between the last one and the final months before he went missing. It was this space in time that I wondered about. I thought he might have been separated from the book itself for a period, however. Roger may well have revealed the reason.

  “So if he was so ill, why did he go back in the field?”

  “It is a question that many will ask you, but the answers won’t thrill you. If you aren’t bleeding and you’re not missing any limbs, then you’re qualified to fight and carry heavy weapons and face an enemy. And Ed was always secretive. He may have told doctors he was all right. The lad was good at playing his cards close to his chest. It was hard to read him. But what many of us don’t see is that the fear on the battlefield follows you once you leave it.”

  He was calm and optimistic in the days before he left Lakeland. I would never have picked Edgar for suffering like this, and I wondered what else we didn’t see about him.

  “Open the window for me, would you?” said Roger.

  I lifted up and latched the glass while Roger took another breath through the tube, then drew a lighter and a cigarette case he had hidden beneath his chair. Leaning close to the gap at the window, he lit and inhaled from a cigarette before blowing smoke outside. I noticed that his hand shook. “If my mother asks, tell her it was yours. She is always telling me off since she can’t stand the smell, and it makes her cough. I usually say it’s someone burning something down the street. I have to pay the newspaper boy to bring them to me secretly. Mumsy also thinks they’re somehow bad for one’s health, that they’ll kill me quicker. But I don’t think I would cope so well without them. I, too, have vivid memories, and sometimes in the night I think I’ll go mad, I sleep so poorly. I expect I’ll be back in hospital soon, and then I’ll probably miss her fussing.”