Dark Harvest

by Amy Myers

  ‘A new offensive, Mrs D.’ It was a compromise since she had never been invited to call her Margaret. ‘But no mention of who’s involved,’ she added quickly.

  ‘A big one?’ Mrs Dibble sat down heavily.

  ‘Sounds like it.’ They looked at each other, sharing a common worry.

  Phoebe, having had breakfast earlier, had not dared touch The Times, though the thought of Harry preyed on her constantly. All she could see on the front page was the personal column and the advertisements from the shipping companies, just as if everyone was still enjoying holidays. It wasn’t till she got to work that she heard the news. She didn’t care about the offensive itself. All she could think about was whether the London Division was in it.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Laurence’s day had been busy, even by present standards, and it was not until mid afternoon that he found his mother’s letter awaiting him. Usually these arrived on the first day of each month, plopping like cuckoo’s eggs into the Rectory nest. To receive one written on Saturday, 9th October, only a few days after its predecessor, and received today, Monday, was disturbing.

  The morning’s events had drained his resistance. His village calls were now far more numerous than his daily Rector’s Hour could cope with, or too personal for people to wish to be seen attending the Rectory. Attendance at church had risen too, as villagers turned to God for support in times of crisis. Not everyone saw it that way, however—not Mrs Barton, Alfred Thorn’s sister, whom he’d just been to see. Yesterday she had received the dreaded yellow envelope denoting a government telegram. She had shown it to him: ‘We deeply regret to inform you that Private John Barton was killed in action on 4th October. Lord Kitchener expresses his sympathy.’ He had suggested they pray together. She had done so until they reached ‘But deliver us from evil’, when she burst out, ‘Well, He hasn’t, has He, Rector? Not my John.’

  ‘He has gone before you into the life everlasting, Mrs Barton.’

  ‘Begging your pardon, Rector, I want him here.’ She burst into loud sobs. ‘How can He let it all happen, you tell me that.’

  Of what use were theological arguments about moral freedom and God’s plan for the world, to a woman whose son lay dead? There, with a black ribbon round it, was John’s photograph taken before he left for France, so proud to be one of Kitchener’s First Hundred Thousand. And only weeks after his arrival he was dead. Shortly his few possessions would be sent back with typical Army efficiency—and lack of compassion. Portraits of the King and Queen hung over the mantelpiece torn from a magazine and carefully framed. Mrs Barton followed Laurence’s gaze. ‘God bless them, they do their bit.’

  ‘And so does Our Lord, but His ways are more difficult to comprehend. And John has done his bit too. He went to war because he wanted to make a stand against evil. Now he has given his life for that cause. He would want you to be proud of him, even in your grief.’

  ‘Will you carve his initials on your tree, Rector? He’d be valiant proud. But it don’t make no difference. I’ll not be coming to church again.’

  As he left the cottage, he saw Beth Parry dismounting from her bicycle and leaning it against the fence. ‘Is Mrs Barton ill?’ he asked.

  ‘I heard her son had been killed. I thought I would call to see her.’

  ‘I’m afraid she is too grief-stricken to listen to our words at the moment.’

  Beth hesitated. ‘I had not been intending to encroach on your prerogative. Rector. But as a woman, I can sit in silence with her. That may accomplish something at least.’

  His respect for her grew even higher. ‘Do bear in mind she’s Alfred Thorn’s sister. She may be hostile to you,’ he advised.

  ‘That seems unimportant. Good-day, Rector.’ Beth walked past him up the cottage garden path, still bright with nasturtiums and a few unpicked tomatoes, and the door closed behind her.

  Humbled by his failure, Laurence waited a moment or two to see if it would re-open but it did not. The new doctor, he realised, was a remarkable character. He had already noticed with some amusement that both Philip Ryde and his curate Charles Pickering not only spoke of her approvingly but were vying for her attentions after church service. According to Elizabeth, Philip had been spotted at her side at one of Maud Hunney’s concerts in Tunbridge Wells, and Charles had been seen with her boarding the London train. The same informant had added, a little regretfully, that they had both returned later the same evening. A village like Ashden had a thousand eyes, as Laurence knew only too well, and none of them needed sleep.

  The Rectory entrance hall felt as empty as it looked when he came in. George would not be back from school yet, nor Phoebe from work. From the kitchen he could hear Mrs Dibble singing loudly, ‘Do no sinful action, speak no angry word—’ Normally, however many times he told himself that the voice lifted in song was a prayer to God, the sound of her singing intruding as he worked in his study was an interruption. But today, he found it comforting to hear the children’s hymn ringing through the Rectory. ‘Ye belong to Jesus, Children of the Lord.’ It had been Caroline’s favourite, and her familiar accompaniment to her performance of Rectory household chores. ‘Ye are newborn Christians, Ye must learn to fight.’ Each line took two energetic pushes with the polishing duster on Granny Overton’s desk in the drawing room, Caroline had explained to him one day … ‘With the bad within you, And to do the right.’

  And he had tried. Yet often, as with Mrs Barton, he failed. Then he noticed the letter from his mother, and opened it in the seclusion of his study.

  ‘My dear Laurence, I am displeased with Charles. He has offered Buckford House to the military for the duration of the war. Officers, he has stipulated; one presumes therefore the silver will be safe. He is proposing to move his family to Wiltshire while he remains at his command in Dover. Naturally I have refused to go with them. My home is here. In the circumstances I am considering whether to move into the Dower House, as Charles wishes, or to stay with you in the Rectory. I will inform you of my decision shortly. Your affectionate Mother.’

  Laurence read the letter again to ensure he had not misunderstood. How could she even consider coming to Sussex when she had refused to visit them, or even to meet Elizabeth? It was out of the question. Mother must move into the Dower House. He would tell Elizabeth so. Where was she? He went through to the kitchen to ask Mrs Dibble and, as he entered, Agnes’s baby woke up and began to cry. Mrs Dibble looked at him reproachfully, but he had no time to waste.

  ‘Mrs Lilley’s at Owlers Farm today, sir, this being the last of the corn harvest.’

  As he entered Silly Lane, Laurence told himself that outings such as this were good for him. Before the war he had sat in his study, expecting the village and his family to come to him. Now he seemed to be rushing around perpetually in search of them.

  Reaching the Roffeys’ market garden, he could hear cries and laughter further down the lane. Shading his eyes against the late sun, he saw a horse-drawn corn wagon with a crowd of people running at its side, cheering it on. Of course, they were bringing in the last of the corn up the lane to the barn. It was an ancient fertility rite which still persisted, the Church having long since elected to have the last word by holding a harvest supper and festival.

  As the wagon drew closer he looked to see if Elizabeth were among them. A few doffed their hats to the Rector, but many did not notice him. The wagon was loaded with corn sheaves packed high at the front to make a throne; on it sat Elizabeth, her black hair beneath a crown of corn, a sceptre of corn in one hand and the ritual corn dolly in the other. She did not see her husband standing on the hedge bank, clinging for support to a hazel bush. She was smiling and her eyes were bright. She seemed the same girl he had met in the hopgardens all those years ago: alive, vibrant and hopeful, so different from the rigid darkness of life at Buckford House. Laurence wanted to cry out to her, to stop the wagon, to climb on it and claim her as his wife. But he could say nothing for it had passed and she was already out of his reach and far a
way.

  Beth returned from her rounds exhausted. She had taken Dr Marden’s motor car to visit his outlying patients this afternoon, for he was in East Grinstead for the day, and she found driving tiring. She disliked his precious Wolseley, but Dr Marden’s horse had been requisitioned by the Army, and arrival on bicycle was not what Ashden expected of its doctors. She compromised by using both means of transport.

  As she went into Tillow House she found Dr Marden was not yet back, although it was past surgery time. There was only one person waitings she saw to her relief—until she realised it was Len Thorn. She hardly recognised him. He had a rapidly emerging black eye and his face was puffy with bruising and brown with dried blood from a deep cut. A dirty handkerchief had been tied round his hand. ‘Come into the surgery, Mr Thorn,’ she said.

  He scowled but, rather to her surprise, followed her in.

  ‘How did this happen?’ she asked as she cleaned him up.

  ‘Mutters,’ he growled, wincing.

  ‘Did they have a reason?’

  ‘Young Barton. If it’s any business of yours.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘It were ten of them against nine of us,’ he continued, ‘so I let that Mus Cyril have it, I did.’

  It looked more as if Master Cyril had let Len have it, but Beth held her peace. Dr Marden’s daughter, Janie, had told her that the Mutters and the Thorns were now running a competition as to how many Thorn and Mutter initials were carved on the oak tree. Woe betide anyone who passed after the Norville Arms or Red Lion closed their doors, the favourite time for assessment as to who counted as a Thorn or Mutter and who did not.

  ‘I still don’t hold with women doctors. T’ain’t natural. They didn’t ought to be wearing trousers,’ Len grumbled as he rose to leave.

  Beth was amused. It wasn’t much of a thank you, but it was a move in the right direction. ‘That will be one shilling, Mr Thorn,’ she told him.

  He paid in silence.

  ‘No!’ The word exploded from Elizabeth. Now she knew why Laurence had been so quiet all evening.

  ‘Mother must move to the Dower House,’ he agreed, ‘and I will tell Charles so quite firmly.’

  ‘The woman is mad. To insult me all my life, and then inform me she is considering coming to live under my roof, in my home. It is insupportable.’

  ‘It cost her a lot to ask.’

  ‘She hasn’t asked,’ Elizabeth pointed out. ‘You cannot seriously be contemplating her living here?’

  ‘I felt it right to warn you that we may, despite all Charles can do, be faced with the possibility.’

  ‘Well, you have warned me, and my answer is no.’

  Once, Laurence felt, Elizabeth might have been less intransigent. The Rectory had always been open house for their family and friends; with her warm heart she gathered around her all those in pain. He had hoped that she might see his mother’s request, if request it could be termed, as some sort of triumph. Now he realised how mistaken he had been.

  He tried again. ‘Despite our shared feelings about her, we are a Christian household. We have more rooms here than we can possibly use.’

  ‘But your mother is not homeless. There is the Dower House; she can easily rent another property. She can move with Charles’s family to Wiltshire.’

  ‘She grows old, Elizabeth.’

  ‘But not helpless. I beg you not to ask me to do this, Laurence.’

  ‘I will speak to Charles and we will advise her to move to the Dower House.’

  There was a pause as if he waited for her response. Before the war, she would have done anything to relieve the sad look in Laurence’s eyes. Now she could not. Not God, not her conscience, nothing, could make her believe her duty lay in looking after Laurence’s mother.

  The news from the front line depressed Caroline so much that she had tried postponing reading the newspapers until the evening, but it proved impossible. The assault round Loos was still continuing and the news was full of something called the Hohenzollern Redoubt. But what mattered to her and to thousands of other families much much more was the ever lengthier Roll of Honour lists of the fallen. Of course, she would have heard from Ashden if anything had happened to Reggie before it appeared in the newspapers, but she felt she had to read the lists anyway, just in case.

  The news in England was not much better. There had been no less than six Zep raids during September, one of them so severe that over twenty people were killed and nearly a hundred injured after bombs fell in Golders Green, Euston and Liverpool Street. Babies had been killed, and a bus driver. The most dangerous bomb had fallen by the beautiful old church of St Bartholomew the Great. She had gone along after work next day to see the damage, and had been intrigued to see that the explosion had ripped the plasterwork off the entrance to the church to reveal an old Tudor frontage.

  Recently, however, the raids seemed to have stopped, probably because the Government had organised proper anti-aircraft defences round London. Everyone felt much safer, and Caroline felt pleased she was going out this evening to dine with Simon at Rules. London’s theatreland and restaurants were full of life even though all the windows had to be blacked out by heavy curtains. Outside the streets were dark, with only the odd dimmed street light to illuminate the pavements. Like everyone else, Caroline was forever falling down kerbstones, and she took Simon’s arm as they came out of Rules after dinner.

  ‘We’ll walk to the Aldwych. We might find a cab at the stand,’ he suggested.

  As they reached the Aldwych, the Gaiety Theatre was suddenly lit up by the crisscrossing beams of searchlights moving across the dark sky. Inside Leslie Henson and George Grossmith were still playing in the highly successful Tonight’s the Night, and at the stage door Caroline recognised Jupp, the well known ex-sergeant-major doorkeeper. Two young boys came out of the stage door and crossed the road towards them.

  ‘Marconi House is next door to the theatre,’ Simon joked. ‘We always say in Whitehall that Jupp gets the news from France about a Zep raid before we—’

  His words were blotted out by a terrible wailing and the crack of anti-aircraft guns, followed by two horrific booms somewhere nearby. Caroline saw him reach out to draw her to safety, then everything spun round her. Noise enclosed her in an exploding box and a giant hand picked her up, threw her into a doorway, dragged her back again, then knocked her to the pavement. There was a roaring in her ears and all around her she could hear falling stone and crashing glass, screams, and then more wailing followed by dull thuds. When she opened her eyes, she was alone. Simon had vanished and everywhere—in front, to the left, and right to the Strand there was the noise of people running.

  Cautiously she tried to move, aware even in this darkness that there was blood on her. Everything seemed to be working. No broken bones. She sat up as two men loomed above her, carrying a theatre board as an improvised stretcher. She shook her head, and pointed to one of the two Gaiety lads who was lying inert a few yards away. There was no sign of the other boy. Nor of Simon. Only bodies and—pieces of bodies. She started to feel sick, and concentrated on the fact she was a VAD with first-aid training.

  Caroline staggered along the side street where the first thuds had occurred towards the corner of Exeter Street and Wellington Street. There were bodies everywhere. Vomit rose again in her throat, and she swallowed hard as she saw Nell Gwynn, as she and Simon called the orange seller who sat outside the Lyceum every night. Caroline picked her way over to her in the dark. The hand still clutched an orange, but a quick inspection told her that she was dead. Then, near the crater that the bomb had made, she heard a groan and fell to her knees to see if she could do anything to help. She felt the stickiness of blood, welling out of a shattered arm. It needed immediate attention.

  A man stumbled into her and, seeing what she was doing, knelt down beside her. ‘Tourniquet,’ she said briefly, hitching up her skirts to pull off her petticoat. The buttons resisted, and his hands ripped off a strip from the bottom. She snatched it from
him. ‘Help me,’ she said.

  In the darkness, illumined only by occasional glimmers of a dim torch or light from the theatre, she could only see his hands, manoeuvring, then holding the shattered arm in position. She concentrated on those hands as she tied on the tourniquet. If she tried to memorise every single line and angle of them, she wouldn’t have to think about the horror in front of her, or what she had just realised was half a woman’s torso lying near them. Hands, that was all she needed to look at. Those hands.

  As she finished, stretcher-bearers arrived, and began to put the seriously wounded into ambulances. She ran over to the pub on the corner of the street which had obviously had many casualties for its walls were shattered and victims were being carried outside. Then minutes later, the pub was cleared, because of a shattered gas main. She was only a little distance away when the hissing gas caught fire, exploded and sent flames roaring into the air. Soon fire engines added their presence and noise to the pandemonium. Dazed, she hurried to offer her services to the Strand Theatre where casualties were still being treated.

  An hour later, when there was no more she could do, she rode in one of the ambulances to the Charing Cross hospital. There was no sign of Simon, and he might well be there, she reasoned. On arrival, however, she was too weak to protest when she was whisked off for treatment herself.

  ‘I’m not hurt,’ she tried to explain. ‘I’m looking for someone, that’s all.’

  ‘But have you looked at yourself recently?’ the nurse asked in concern.

  Wearily she did so. She did not recognise the face in the mirror. There was blood all over her and she was covered in scratches; her hair was like a bush. ‘It’s not my blood,’ she said.

  As her cuts were dressed feeling began to return to her. There was a heavy pain in her chest, and the whole of her body seemed one massive bruise. They insisted on her staying in for the night. ‘Simon. Lord Banning,’ Caroline said again. ‘Is he here?’