by John Masters
It would take time. April Fool’s Day today … It would be a big occasion, this shaming of Swanwick, so it ought to happen on a big occasion. What was the biggest occasion of the year, any year? What did you remember, every year? Why, Christmas. Also, even gamekeepers had other things than poachers on their minds at that season, both day and night. Christmas Day, 1915, it would be then. He got up abruptly and headed for the bedroom.
She sat quiet in the big chair, her hands folded demurely in her black satin lap. All the lights were off except one, in a far corner over a music stand; but Cate was not there, he was standing close to her, facing the dark windows of the music room, the bow sweeping across the violin in the second movement of the Kreutzer Sonata. He had told her that was what he would play. She would remember the name, and the music: it was the kind of thing she must know, once she was in London as Lord Cantley’s mistress. She would know, and learn, faster than they could teach.
They had been half-way to the Manor, walking side by side across a dark field, when he had said gently to her, ‘Would you come to my bed, Florinda?’
‘You want me to?’ She was not surprised. For years now, men had looked at her a certain way, spoken with a certain strange tightness in their voice, and when it moved her to give them what they wanted, she did; if not, not.
‘Yes,’ he had answered, ‘but it is loneliness – and lust, I suppose. You have grown into a very lovely woman.’
She had respected Cate all her life, not because he was squire of Walstone, but because he was a gentle man, and a gentleman, and had never done any mean thing to her, or her family. It would please her to go to him; so she answered, ‘I would come.’ She thought a tear glistened in his eye.
He said, ‘I will ask you, then. I am lonely, Florinda. And hungry.’
‘I know … I knew.’
At the Manor she had waited a few minutes in the garden while he went in through the front door, and a little later opened the french windows of the music room to let her in. Now the book for Fletcher was in her lap, for he had got that almost first thing: then he had poured himself a brandy and soda and given her a glass of wine; and, finally he had taken his violin and, all the lights out except that one, the french windows open, the curtains drawn back so that they looked out on the pale green of the lawn, lit by a moon a day past full, he had said, very formally, ‘The Kreutzer Sonata, by Beethoven … for you, Florinda.’
Then he began. She had heard him before, for sometimes he and her grandfather played together at the village fête – squire the violin and Probyn a battered fife he said he had learned to play in the army (but that was the only time he ever said he had been in the army). She did not know whether Cate was a good violinist, but she thought he could not be bad, because the sound seemed pure to her, and sweet. He was completely absorbed, his chin tucked under his head on the soft red wood of the instrument.
The fields smelled green and cool, and the sky seemed only a giant alcove for the moon. A fox barked distantly in the Home Copse, and she felt her body soften, and relax, preparing to share with Cate a wonder as magical as this, that he was sharing with her.
From far off, she wondered whether Miss Stella would come down. She must be used to hearing her father play at night – it was the only time he had free for it, what with the troubles of his farms and other affairs of the village always on his mind … but she might come down for comfort. And what would she think if she did come? She had been silly, trusting a silly man, but Florinda thought she’d understand the truth here. She was a Cate, and Cates and Gorses had always understood each other, through the necessities of the land they shared.
Eventually, time passing without her regarding it, Cate put away violin and bow and turned out the light. Florinda followed him quietly upstairs.
When she reached the cottage again, about three in the morning, a cold wind had sprung up, rustling the boughs and whipping the moon-silvered Scarrow. A hunting barn owl swooped low overhead as she went in, closing the door behind her. Fletcher moved over in the bed when she got in, wearing petticoat and bodice, having taken off the black dress, shoes, and stockings. He said nothing but patted her sleepily on the shoulder, and then they both slept soundly, back to back, until morning.
Daily Telegraph, Saturday, April 3, 1915
OFFENCES AGAINST HUMANITY
Foreign Office, April 1, 1915 The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs presents his compliments to the United States Ambassador, and with reference to His Excellency’s Note of the 20th ultimo respecting reports in the Press upon the treatment of prisoners from German submarines, has the honour to state that he learns from the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty that the officers and men who were rescued from the German submarines U-8 and U-12 have been placed in the Naval Detention Barracks in view of the necessity of their segregation from other prisoners of war.
In these quarters they are treated with humanity, given opportunities for exercise, provided with German books, subjected to no forced labour, and are better fed and clothed than British prisoners of equal rank now in Germany.
As, however, the crews of the two German submarines in question, before they were rescued from the sea, were engaged in sinking innocent British and neutral merchant ships, and wantonly killing non-combatants, they cannot be regarded as honourable opponents, but rather as persons who at the orders of their Government have committed acts which are offences against the law of nations and contrary to common humanity.
His Majesty’s Government would also bring to the notice of the United States Government that during the present war more than 1000 officers and men of the German navy have been rescued from the sea, sometimes in spite of danger to the rescuers, and sometimes to the prejudice of British naval operations. No case has, however, occurred of any officer or man of the Royal Navy being rescued by the Germans.
‘Scoundrels!’ Harry Rowland said, pointing at the item. ‘They ought to be shot out of hand.’
‘Now don’t get so excited,’ his wife said. ‘It’s bad for your blood pressure.’
Cate got up and helped himself to a pair of kippers from the sideboard. He enjoyed having his father- and mother-in-law coming down for a day or two: ‘A weekend in the country,’ Harry always said, ‘fresh air, green grass … not as green as Devonshire when I was a lad, mind!’ The old man looked worried when he thought no one’s eyes were on him: that would be the problems at Rowland’s, Cate thought, as Richard and Johnny Merritt had explained to him. You thought Rose was looking better, until you realized how much rouge she had put on her thin cheeks.
‘Don’t you agree?’ Harry said, turning to the room at large.
‘Yes,’ Laurence said quickly. ‘Beasts, that’s what they are.’
‘And you, Christopher?’
Cate kept his head down and spoke slowly, ‘They’re the weaker power at sea. The reason they haven’t rescued anyone is that they can’t, without being sunk themselves. Think of that U-boat which sank our three cruisers. How could he come to the surface, and start rescue operations, with the sea full of other British ships – even if he could get more than a dozen men on board?’
‘But … but … this sinking of innocent merchant ships without warning … that’s inhuman, barbarous. It’s just as the Kaiser said, they’re Huns. He actually boasted of it!’
Cate said, ‘We’ve got to beat them, and we will … but we should try to understand their position, if only so that we can better counter it … They are starting what is in effect a submarine blockade. As the submarines can’t come up and check papers, they’re just sinking all merchant ships in areas round our coasts, meaning to starve us into submission … just as we mean to do to them.’
Harry grumbled, ‘Swine!’
Laurence said, ‘They’ll sink an American ship one day … and then the Yankees will come in on our side.’
‘I hope so,’ Cate said, ‘but I’m afraid that if that does happen it will be because it will be in America’s best interests, not because th
e Germans are breaking the law of the sea – the existing laws … Father, Mother, would you care to come and look at the daffodils, while the dew’s still on them?’
25 Flanders: Wednesday, April 21, 1915
‘Dismiss!’
Captain Maclachlan stayed at the salute until the company had performed the Light Infantry dismiss drill, then slowly dropped his hand and walked away, his head bent. Boy Rowland followed for a few paces, then turned off down a side alley, his batman Private Frank Stratton at his heels. It had not been a bad spell in the line, as such spells went; three weeks, not much rain, and very little activity from the Boches – but it had been hard work, with every man labouring all day and part of the night to improve the trenches. In December, when he had arrived from India, the trenches had hardly existed. He had seen for himself that the ground over which the 1st Battle of Ypres had been fought was really open country, hill sections separating the valleys of the beeks; and that the ‘trenches’ were often little more than loosely linked shell holes, far more primitive than the sandbagged, revetted, and traversed trenches, complete with berms, parados, parapet, firesteps, and communication trenches, that were now being constructed in the Salient.
And now the 1st Battalion was back where it had been before it went up the line, back with the reserve brigade of the division, in Wieltje, a tiny hamlet on the Ypres-Poelcapelle road, three miles behind the front line. They were returning to the same billets, vacated yesterday evening by the battalion which had last night replaced them in the line. It was their third return to Wieltje since they first came in January. They knew each other – the few old Belgian farmers, shopkeepers, and women remaining in this corner of their country; and the 1st Battalion of the Weald Light Infantry, by number a regular battalion, but no longer manned by regular officers and men.
Boy looked at his watch. He’d just get rid of his pack, greatcoat, and blanket and then go round his platoon’s billets, and make sure that a meal was on its way … then some ‘study for the Staff College’, more commonly known as shuteye, or a nap.
He reached the door of the little house where he and Beldring had been billeted all three times, and raised his hand to knock. The door flew open and Mme Baret’s shining face appeared. She was about thirty, he thought, rather short, with curly brown hair, strong arms and legs and a big bosom, but surprisingly slim at the waist and hips. She always wore the same clothes – a simple blouse, a blue or black skirt well below the knees, rolled cotton stockings, an apron and, outside the house, wooden clogs. She owned a little patch of land behind the village where she grew vegetables; and in the backyard here she kept a few chickens. She was beaming now, her head down-turned, so that she looked up at him from under her eyebrows, and her hands were at her skirt, holding it out, as she bobbed a curtsey. ‘Ah, que le bon Dieu soit remercié,’ she cried, in a strong Flemish accent. ‘Vous êtes revenu, sauf et sain !’
Boy’s French was fair – it was barely four years since he had left Wellington, where he had studied the language; and he had been in Flanders for over four months now. By the same token, she had had British troops billeted on her since October. She spoke quite a bit of English, and when Boy replied, ‘Oui, madame, rien n’a passé. Un temps très ennuyant,’ she said, ‘Better is boring than exciting, par là, eh?’ and held the door open for him to pass into the house. Boy looked at his muddy boots but before he could say anything she said, ‘Sit, Meester Boy, and I will take them off.’
‘I have to go, Mme Baret. Will you please take these to our room?’ He slipped out of his pack and heavy equipment and laid them on the floor just inside the door. ‘Stratton, come back here after you’ve had a meal, and get everything clean and in good order – my revolver holster needs restitching, for one.’
‘I know, sir, I’ll see to it.’
Mme Baret said, ‘ ’Ow long will you be? I ’ave a good dinner for you … special killing chicken.’ Her blue eyes were wide and anxious and after a moment’s hesitation Boy said, ‘I’ll be back in three quarters of an hour.’ He was supposed to be dining in the B Company officers’ mess, in one of the school-house’s undamaged rooms; but Captain Maclachlan would excuse him, this time. He could not bear to disappoint Mme Baret.
He walked back up the street, meeting Beldring on the way. ‘You look like the cat which swallowed the bowl of cream,’ he said, for Beldring’s expressive face clearly showed that he was in a high state of euphoria.
‘Quite right, Boy,’ he said, beaming. ‘I’ve got four days’ leave. I’m off now … hope nothing happens while I’m away … but Captain Mac doesn’t think there’s a chance. He’s positive the Boches are going to spend this year trying to knock Russia out of the war and there will be nothing but holding actions on the Western Front.’
‘That means we’ll be doing the attacking for a change,’ Boy said. ‘But not before you come back from leave. Sir John wouldn’t dare.’
Beldring shook his fist at him and hurried on to Mme Baret’s where he shared a room with two narrow beds with Boy when they were in billets in Wieltje. Boy found his platoon sergeant, Knapp, who was billeted with half a dozen other men, including Frank Stratton, in the back of an estaminet; and together they satisfied themselves that every soldier of Boy Rowland’s platoon was in his allotted billet, cleaning himself up ready for the dinner parade.
Frank Stratton sat in the yard in the watery sunshine, brushing mud off Boy Rowland’s blanket. The smell of roasting chicken wafted by his nostrils would have made his mouth water an hour ago, but since then he had eaten a bowl of bully beef stew, in fact two, for the quarter blokes had wangled a double ration for the company – for the whole battalion, perhaps.
The kitchen window was straight in front of him, and through it he could see Mme Baret peering into pots, slicing vegetables with a huge knife, hurrying through to the little dining-room with dishes. Mr Charles would be eating well, soon … a dish flavoured with love, he thought, grinning to himself. The Madame, as he always thought of her, was certainly sweet on him; the difference in her manner to him, and to Mr Beldring, was very noticeable. There wasn’t anything the Madame wouldn’t do for Mr Charles, in his opinion … anything: but Mr Charles was too innocent to have seen. No, he wasn’t innocent, he was a gentleman, and that was a fact. Frank wondered if he had ever been with a woman. Probably not, he thought.
The thought brought a picture of Anne to his mind and after a few moments more brushing he put down the blanket, found his wallet in the left breast pocket of his tunic and drew out the pictures of his wife, the two girls, and baby John. He sat a long time, looking at them. He loved them all. It was sad that he had to be here, but there was no other place for a proper Englishman these days. She must miss him as much as he missed her. She’d be lonely, there in Hedlington … of course, the children would keep her busy, and since he couldn’t send home much money, though he saved all he could, she wouldn’t be able to have the girl so often, if she could afford her at all. The King’s uniform was the only coat for a self-respecting man to wear these days, but His Majesty certainly didn’t put much money in the pockets. Still, other folks were giving up much more than he. Look at Mr Kellaway, OC 5 Platoon now – well into his thirties, and a millionaire several times over, by all accounts … no children, though. No women, either, just paintings and a big house in Berkeley Square, they said. Some of the blokes said he was a pouf. Well, maybe he was, but they shouldn’t say things like that, unless he bothered them, and he was a good officer, even though he did speak sort of strange and always smelled of perfume.
For Anne’s sake, shouldn’t he find a safer billet, somewhere? Mr Charles kept telling him, he’d see that he was posted to the rear – that at his age he shouldn’t have to live in the trenches with a lot of nineteen-year-olds. But he didn’t want to go. He’d come here to kill Germans. Anything else, and he might just as well have stayed home – at least he’d have been able to cuddle up to Anne nights … But once, up in the line when he and Mr Charles spent an hour in the
middle of the night with the sentries on the firestep, Mr Charles had said that he, Frank, ought to transfer to the RE, or the RFC even. He was wasted here, Mr Charles said – thinking of the water business. The water was carried in carts and then by hand all the way here from Ypres, and that took a lot of men, working all night when they might have been resting. Frank had worked out a way to have the water pumped from Ypres as far forward as the reserve battalions’ lines, and Mr Charles had sent the idea to Battalion: and the Colonel had liked it and sent it up to Brigade. And a few days later, Mr Charles had read Frank the answer that had come down from on high: ‘Will Mr Rowland kindly remember that he is an infantry officer, not a plumber?’ And that was when Mr Charles had told Frank he ought to transfer to the Sappers. But, Frank thought, I don’t want to go. Maybe if Mr Charles went, he’d ask to go with him; but Mr Charles would stick with the battalion until he copped a packet or got a Blighty – and so would he.
He picked up the blanket, but it was clean now. So was everything else, except the greatcoat. Through the window he saw Boy Rowland poke his head round the door from the dining-room, and heard the Madame chirp something to him in French. He’d best tell Mr Charles he needed to take the greatcoat back to his own billet, to work on it and that everything else was done: then leave them to their roast chicken, with love.
Boy saw him through the window and a moment later came out of the back door, ‘Stratton, your brother’s arrived with two other replacement officers.’
‘Fred, sir?’
‘Yes. He’s been posted to us … B Company. Captain Maclachlan’s going to keep him at Company HQ until … he’s needed. Take time off to go and see him.’