‘What is it, love?’ her husband asked as he came quickly to her.
‘It’s… it’s from Albert. Look,’ she said thrusting the letter to him. ‘What does it mean? I don’t understand.’
Sidney joined his wife in total bewilderment. ‘Maybe it’s just been long delayed, a letter he wrote months ago.’
‘But that can’t be. Look at the date: twenty-sixth of August. It doesn’t say this year, but it must be.’ Together they read:
Dear loving parents,
I’m afraid this letter will be another shock as I haven’t written for a long time. A mate of mine, whose name is also Albert, is writing it for me as my right hand and arm are still bandaged. Don’t worry, I really am all right and I’m sorry to give you worries again. I don’t really know all that has happened, but it won’t be long before I’m back home. I can’t remember everything and it’s difficult to explain in a letter. What is important is to send my love; I think so much about you and Flo, Willy, Henrietta and George. Give them a big hug from me. I was injured by another shell and ended up in hospital again. I’m not sure exactly when. It seems I was there for several weeks before I was moved to this hospital which is near Calais; I can see the sea. The doctor said I needed feeding up and I’ve put on a lot of weight. Last week my leg came out of plaster and I can walk really well now and won’t need my stick in a few days. The doctor said I can go home in about three weeks. I can’t wait to see you all. Please remember me to all my friends as well, especially Doris if she ever asks after me. I thought about writing to her but I don’t really think she would want a letter from me.
Your loving son Albert
‘He’s alive,’ gasped Susannah. ‘So he’s been injured again, but he’s all right. I can’t believe it, but it must be true, mustn’t it Sid?’
‘Of course it must, my love. I don’t know what’s happened, but someone must have got things terribly wrong. I suppose with so many being killed, things get mixed up.’ He put his one arm round Susannah and both cried; in joy, in wonderful joy. ‘I’ll make a cup of tea and then let’s close the shop for the rest of today. Who would believe it?’ The “Rusfield miracle” had been born.
Putting up the closed sign twenty minutes later, Susannah and Sidney decided to make one call before walking home. They had been close to Arthur Windle since he had persuaded Sidney’s employers at the brewery to give him some compensation; his efforts had enabled them to buy the shop. On that occasion, six years earlier, Arthur and Eleanor had been surprised when Susannah had thrown her arms round him; he was no less surprised now. Her explanation was confused and even when they were all sitting down in the vicarage kitchen, he did not really understand. Then they showed him the letter. His faith did not embrace a belief that God had intervened in saving their son; why not the others who had died? But he silently thanked God and could feel Eleanor sharing in the joyful news.
Customers had been surprised to find the butchers shut, but by early evening there were few villagers who had not heard the news. Amazement and joy abounded. However, Arthur was not the only one who realised that others in mourning would now cling to a hope which would surely not be repeated; nor was it in Rusfield.
By late October when the news from Europe finally showed victory to be in sight, Private Albert Jones came back to the village. The family rejoicing was constantly interrupted by a succession of friends calling at the cottage in Wood Lane. Albert’s return was the source of celebration that the village had not known for years. He did not have the strong look of the man who had gone to war, but anyone with him in the trenches six months earlier would have been surprised at the rebirth from his terribly haggard, torn look. He walked with a slight limp and his right hand, the one that Nurse Betty Hazlett had treated two and half years previously, was improving.
Three days home and he had still not seen Doris Groves. He had thought many times about calling on her, but had not plucked up the necessary courage; he little knew that she had the same failing. However, on the fourth afternoon, she was passing the Jones’ cottage on her way back from Spinney Farm when she saw Albert in the garden looking at the vegetables; facing away from her. She wondered how her trembling legs carried her towards him and, still three yards away, Albert suddenly became aware of a slight sound and turned. Neither needed to worry about apologies or regrets, for they simply threw their arms round each other. They hugged, they kissed, they held each other for what thirteen-year-old Henrietta, who happened to be looking out of her bedroom window, later described as: ‘For ever. I thought you were never going to let go.’ Hand in hand they went round to the rear garden and into the kitchen. Any misgivings Susannah may have previously had about the dark-haired and certainly attractive twenty-year-old Doris, disappeared when she saw the joy on her son’s face. To her, nothing but his happiness mattered.
Susannah had put the potatoes to one side, rapidly poured cups of tea and put out on a best plate some chocolate-chip biscuits baked the previous evening. She later admitted to bad manners to her husband: ‘I was so overcome by their happiness, I forgot to invite them into the front room.’ Sidney had always admired his wife’s understanding of people, so he was not surprised that half an hour after the reunion, she turned the conversation from recent village happenings by saying: ‘There’s still nearly three hours of daylight left, why don’t you two go for a walk? It’ll do you good, Albert; you know what Nurse Hazlett said about making sure you exercised each day.’
Doris and Albert were delighted at the suggestion and, a few minutes later, hand in hand, the couple turned left from the cottage, passing the pond to begin the slight ascent to Bramrose Hill. They chatted away happily until Doris suddenly stopped. ‘Do you remember when we walked up here over two years ago, and it suddenly came on to rain? We can’t have been far from here and we sheltered in that old barn. Let’s see if it’s still there.’ She knew it was, as several times she had walked this way in the months following the arrival of the fateful letter to Albert’s parents, gone into the barn and wept tears for Albert and her own subsequent foolishness. Albert, less certain of the way, soon picked up the pace as he recognised the faint path to the left and followed. There was the barn.
They later admitted to each other that they knew what would happen next. ‘It’s just the same,’ exclaimed Doris as they stood just inside the barn, dark, save for the shafts of light from the open door. There were the bales of straw that had been stored for a need long forgotten, the lofty timbers and an earthen floor protected from the ravages of weather by the centuries-old roof. Doris moved to Albert and put her arms round him, clasping him to her anticipating body. ‘Oh Albert, I do love you, so much. Forgive me for that letter, I never meant it. I just missed you so much.’
‘And I love you, Doris. I have thought about you so often: wanting you so much.’ They kissed, their lips and tongues touching, feeling, knowing of the other’s love. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve changed. I know I become easily upset and have a long way to get completely better, but I love you more than ever.’
‘Albert, I know you have had a terrible time, but that’s all over. You haven’t really changed and I’ll help you get completely well again.’ Even as she consoled him, her hands had unbuttoned his coat. They embraced again, their kisses more passionate. She slipped off her dark green cloak and laid it on the loose straw that had become separated from the main bales. ‘Albert come, take me. Please.’
Swiftly, though with some fumbling, they undressed each other, unaware of any slight chill in the air. Both were completely naked. They embraced; Albert feeling her hardened nipples against his chest, she his stiff manhood against her as yet unfulfilled body. She detached herself from him for a moment and made a slight cushion under the spread-eagled cloak with their other clothes. She lay down, moved her legs apart and held up her arms. ‘Come.’
As Albert entered her and moved in unison with the woman he had loved for so long, his mind emptied of the terrors of war; replaced with a passion, a deep love whic
h overrode all else. He could feel every part of her body against his own; her hold on him tightened and her nails dug into his back as she uttered a cry and shivered in an all-consuming fervour. A moment later he, too, climaxed.
As they left that place, the sky was peacefully darkening with the approaching twilight. Albert’s mind and body felt strangely, yet wonderfully repaired; Doris could feel part of him within her. She had no fears; she knew they would be together for ever.
At the end of October, Charlotte Windle travelled to Rusfield. Over the past months she had increased the length between visits, still wanting to reassure herself that Arthur was coping with the loss of Eleanor, but not wanting to fuss over him. The late autumn weather had changed with the shortening of the days and she and Arthur could hear the rain tapping against the window as they sat in the comfortable lounge; empty coffee cups on nearby resting places.
‘Arthur, the story of Albert Jones is obviously a remarkable one. You told me in your letters about the terrible time that he had; of being trapped in the shell-hole with the New Zealand man and then being a guard to the man awaiting execution and the explosion. But that doesn’t explain why Albert was declared dead. Do you know what happened?’
Arthur crossed one leg over the other, sat forward and gently smiled. ‘Mother, it’s an amazing story. Albert, bless him, hasn’t always been forthcoming, but I think we can work out what happened.’ His mother nodded and sat back. ‘It’s one of the bravest stories that will come out of this terrible war which at last seems to be nearing an end.’ He settled back in his chair, fingertips together in Dürer style.
‘We can’t even begin to imagine the terrible time he had in 1917 and the first half of this year. It was an experience that no one should ever have to go through and it’s not surprising his mental state was shattered by what happened. You have mentioned how he was trapped in the shell-hole with the New Zealand man; well he told me last week that he had written to the lad’s father to see if there was any news of his son. I even had the feeling that Albert might like to go to New Zealand.
‘But it was a little later that events took an even more incredible turn. When he was ordered to be one of two guards the night before the execution, he was appalled.’ He paused, even telling the story was distressing. ‘Believe it or not, and it is incredible, Albert felt so much for the older man that he offered to change places with him. There was a change of guard duties and a different sergeant took over late that evening, so the only person other than Albert and the poor soldier waiting execution who knew of the swap was his fellow guard. Albert said that soldier was so frightened that he hardly knew what was going on. He certainly didn’t try to do anything about Albert and the other man swapping places.
‘Albert and the condemned man exchanged identity discs; you may have heard how the soldiers have to wear a small disc which bears their name and other details. I can’t even begin to imagine the scene when early the next morning Albert was led out by the man who had taken his place, along with the sergeant and the men to carry out his execution. My God, it must have been like something from hell. But at that moment a heavy bombardment from the Germans began. Albert said he thinks a shell must have landed very near, but his first clear memory was being in a hospital near Calais.’
‘So what do you, or rather Albert, think had happened?’ Charlotte asked.
‘We shall almost certainly never know the whole story, but when I asked Albert, he could only imagine that the men he had been with had either been injured or killed by the shell. He said his mind was full of fearful images before the shell fell, but he thinks he had already been slightly separated from the rest awaiting the order to fire. When he was talking to me, he broke down when he went on to say that he vaguely remembered a post to which he was about to be tied. I didn’t press him, of course, but a while later he added that he couldn’t separate in his mind what had actually happened and what he imagined in his frequent nightmares. The poor man; his suffering has been unbelievable.’
‘And what a brave, brave man,’ Charlotte Windle added.
Arthur sat up a little more before adding, ‘And Albert has told his father that when the war is over he is going to seek out the wife of the man with whom he changed places. That soldier’s disc would have been with Albert so probably his wife would have been told he was injured. However, since the disc with Albert’s details was sent home, he assumes the man must have been killed. If he is dead Albert wants to tell his wife what a brave man he had been. Can you imagine that? Albert, as you say, is an incredibly brave and wonderful young man.’
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
November 1918 - April 1919
To Lance Corporal Jack Atkins advancing beyond Festubert in northern France, Corporal Abraham Richards over 120 miles to the south-east in Reims and millions of other fighting men, the end came as something of a surprise; relief, but so long had they been fighting that peace seemed beyond any horizon.
The guns became silent and the shells stopped killing, but Arthur Windle knew lives would remain scarred for generations. He thought back to the death of the first Rusfield man, Copper Chambers; hardly a month had passed since then without a further fatality. The tentacles of war had reached so many in the village. But when St Mary’s bells were rung on Monday, 11 November by Fred Richards, Alfred Reynolds and Jack Groves, who refused to let his increasing breathlessness prevent him from what he called ‘my final but greatest ring of all’, there was much rejoicing, albeit tempered by a profound sorrow for those grieving. After several unofficial discussions it was agreed that a more immediate celebration be held, although the major one must wait until the men returned home. This “muted celebration” as Arthur thought of it, would be held on the village green; November weather was unpredictable, but the scene for so many past village events saw no opposition. Fred Jackson’s offer of his largest barn was held in reserve. The kitchens at The Queens Head and The Ark became centres for baking with more refreshments prepared in many cottages and the larger kitchens of Henrietta Jackson, Isabella de Maine and Mabel Mansfield. The food was kept overnight in the storeroom behind Violet Rushton’s shop where so many soldiers’ parcels had been prepared. The Union Jack, flown in Robert Berry’s garden for many years, was proudly carried by the veteran of an earlier war to the green. Chairs had been carried from the Methodist chapel to the school, then only requiring a short journey to the green. The school closed and work in and around the village stopped for the day.
As Olivia Atkins joined Pauline Richards to lay coloured paper on the tables where the children would sit for tea, she gave a weak smile to her friend, saying: ‘Have you heard from Abraham recently?’
‘I had a letter just a month ago and he made it sound as if all was well; but you know Abraham, always one to understate dangers and difficulties. What about you?’
‘I haven’t heard from Jack for six weeks, but he sounded all right then. I wonder when they will all come home. It said in the newspaper that it could be well into next year before they are all back.’ Having clipped the paper to the tables, they laid out the designs which the children in the youngest classes had made at school. There was now an army of helpers rushing to get everything ready for the start at noon; early preparations in the open air had been delayed as long as possible. It was cool but the sky remained clear of rain clouds.
The children carried Union Jacks that they had made and attached to small sticks; races organised by Grace Reynolds, Reggie Gregg and three of his chapel members helped build up appetites. The array of food, a tribute to all who had been faced with the shortages, surprised everyone. Arthur started the celebration with a prayer of thanksgiving, followed by two verses of the national anthem led by the choir which had been formed by Eleanor, with Sammy Hatfield on accordion and Bernie Thomas on his ancient fiddle. Two hours later, as everyone left the green after many helpers had cleared everything away, all agreed it had been a memorable day. The many families with men still abroad had celebrated with slightly muted f
eelings, those who had lost love ones concealed their thoughts or quietly stayed away.
On the following afternoon, Arthur sat in the vicarage kitchen finalising the next Sunday’s service. When he and Reggie Gregg had met at the manse the day after the armistice, they had agreed the main thanksgiving and remembrance service be held when the men had returned from abroad, but immediate services to mark the armistice should be held at both church and chapel.
Arthur and the Methodist minister had become close friends and as he sat thinking about the service, Arthur reflected on their times together over the past months. Many of the doubts which had torn holes in his faith remained, but he still felt at one with Eleanor’s central beliefs that there was a God and the teaching and example of Christ were the essence of the Christian faith. His occasional meetings with the Very Reverend Edgar Hartley Williamson could hardly be described as building a warm friendship, but a mutual understanding had developed and Arthur had been persuaded by the dean to continue his priesthood. Arthur decided that he should not forego his allegiance to St Mary’s and the Rusfield community until the war was over.
It was his conversations with his Methodist friend that had really swayed him to stay within the ministry. Whilst he was close to many villagers, it was only with Reggie Gregg that he felt able to expose his doubts and critically examine his faith. His colleague knew that Arthur’s sense of loss when Eleanor died was of the most profound depth, and marvelled at the selfless way in which Arthur continued to serve the community; to Reggie this was a wonderful act of Christianity. ‘Arthur, I too have doubts, serious ones. I’ve wrestled with some of the same doubts you have mentioned: how on Christ’s earth can we ask a God whom we believe to be powerful enough to intervene in a war, when that same God has allowed it to happen in the first place? I can only think that we were given the intelligence to ask such questions and that one day, I don’t know how or when, I may understand such things.’
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