He wouldn’t have said no to learning more if she had offered to show him how to . . .
‘Sir?’
He cleared his throat and glanced at his watch, banishing the guilt that surged through him at being caught daydreaming. It was just past nine-thirty and the thin autumn sunshine this morning was pleasant on his back.
‘Sorry, Corporal, miles away. It doesn’t take much imagination to see how fierce the fighting was here.’
‘Yes, sir. It’s been a vicious battlefield as we gained ground and lost it repeatedly.’
‘I gather the Germans pushed us aside here only earlier this year.’
The man at his side nodded, and cut through the air horizontally with his arm. ‘They swept us back several miles.’
Harry shook his head. Right now it was hard to fully appreciate the relatively small stretch of ground they’d fought over, and the lives lost so ruthlessly and pointlessly in holding it.
‘Three years ago this was no-man’s-land . . . right where we stand,’ he murmured, frowning at the map. His companion nodded sadly, saying nothing. ‘There have to be men below this spot, Corporal, because there are too many who were in trenches just about here —’ he pointed, ‘who are unaccounted for. We know the Bavarians buried about two hundred and fifty Allied soldiers over there,’ he mused, gesturing south. ‘That’s Pheasant Wood, although it doesn’t look like that right now. It was a particularly fierce winter in 1915 and the trenches weren’t stable in this region. They were collapsing constantly. So men would have gone over the top just about where we stand and would have died here, not recovered, according to what we know.’
‘The parties bringing up the rear will find them, sir, you can be sure.’
Harry took a slow, audible breath. His holiday playground had no doubt become a gravesite and perhaps it was fate guiding him when he left his companion behind a few yards to walk towards what looked to be a recent shell hole. It was deep and, as if the heavens wanted him to make this discovery, he glimpsed the human remains, wearing insignia he recognised, and gave a low yelp.
‘Sir?’ His corporal hurried to his side and groaned next to him.
‘Go get a marker,’ Harry ordered. ‘The teams coming behind us will do the retrievals.’
‘Yes, Captain!’ the man replied, turning crisply.
__________
Harry straddled the remains of a soldier. He’d found him so he felt it was important to be the one to search him for clues to his identity. They’d already gathered around the crumpled body that appeared so desperately sadder because the soldier had not yet disintegrated to skeleton. The deep burial plus the frozen earth had protected him somewhat, so he still filled his uniform, although the exposed skin was beginning to decompose. Perhaps what Harry found most poignant as the men said a prayer for this as yet unknown English soldier – a sergeant, according to his uniform – was the fact that he wore a cloth cap. Harry had initially thought he’d found one of his own men but realised in the next heartbeat that the white horse on the cap badge was not the upright horse of Kent but a running horse. That pinpointed the West Yorkshire Regiment and the badge was attached to a cap rather than the hard bowler of today’s army. So this fellow was definitely a soldier from the trenches of 1915 when steel helmets were not yet part of the uniform.
‘All right, lads. Keep looking. I’ll deal with this fellow.’ His men scattered in various directions to search. ‘I’ll be with you shortly,’ Harry assured his corporal as he bent down low over the soldier to check his pockets. ‘You’re a bit lost, mate, aren’t you? Well, we’re not going to lose you again,’ he said.
The first item he found was a pipe, its bowl already filled, tamped and ready for a smoke. He had to swallow the surprise clog of emotion that filled his throat at this discovery. This sergeant from West Yorkshire, Harry’s team had established, would likely have reassured his men simply by the calm exuded from watching him puff away on his pipe. The man reminded Harry once again of why he volunteered for this new role. And while he treated this forlorn corpse with as much care and respect as he could bring to this solemn moment, he hoped that if he wasn’t the one to find his own brother, then whoever did would treat him with the same care and respect that he would now show to this fallen soldier.
He found what he was searching for – a single red fibre disc around the sergeant’s neck. Among some of the army this had been nicknamed the ‘cold meat ticket’ but Harry preferred to call it the identity disc. Today soldiers wore two; he had a second green one, octagonal in shape, that could be easily removed for records purposes. So this single disc clued him that this man died before the Battles of the Somme. It was well preserved and he could read it easily.
‘Hello, Sergeant Tom Fletcher,’ he said with soft respect, jotting down the name and regimental number as well as noting his religion as Roman Catholic. Harry guessed that Tom was maybe twenty-four when he died. He checked the birthdate. No, Fletcher would have been twenty-seven when the artillery found him, so he was older than Harry; he was Ed’s age, which only made the loss more poignant for him. He began to imagine that Tom was Ed – in fact, Tom was all the Edwards, all the lost soldiers . . . all the fallen. He was becoming maudlin.
Harry put Tom’s pipe, fountain pen and an unfinished letter to his mother – who was called Rose, he established from the address on the unsealed envelope that had survived well – into a small sack. Tom Fletcher hailed from York. Harry had never lingered in York, although he remembered passing through once or twice to and from Scotland. But Harry knew that Rose Fletcher of Eldon Street would still have her son alive in her mind and turning thirty-two next month. Ed would have celebrated a birthday a month later. ‘So you’ll both remain twenty-seven forever in our minds,’ he said to Tom amiably.
He heard the corporal give a whistle to attract his attention and raised a finger to suggest he needed just a minute longer.
Harry regarded Tom, feeling a strong sense of kinship. ‘Brothers in arms,’ he murmured to himself before he addressed Tom directly, as if in quiet conversation. ‘So now, I’m going to make sure your family – especially your mother – knows we’ve found you. She’ll be wondering, keeping herself awake at night. You and I can help her rest more easily.’ He couldn’t bear to look upon Tom Fletcher’s half-open eyes a moment longer and closed them gently. ‘You sleep now, Sergeant. We all owe you,’ he soothed. ‘Forgive me for rummaging through your pockets but I want to make sure we get everything back to those that matter to you, all right?’ He knew it was odd to talk to the dead in this manner but it comforted him, and made the process of confronting the fallen more respectful in his mind. He found sundry items in the man’s pockets and put them into the small sack that he would label shortly. He looked up at the sound of his corporal approaching.
‘Found another few over here, sir.’ The man pointed over his shoulder to where a group of soldiers stared down into another pit.
He nodded. ‘Mark them as we’ve been instructed; reassure our boys we’ll say a few words for the fallen before we leave but remind them, Corporal, that our orders are to keep moving,’ he said, looking back to the sergeant and frowning. ‘It’s odd, don’t you think, Corporal, that Sergeant Fletcher here is dislocated from that group you’ve just found?’
‘We’ll never know, sir,’ the corporal replied and moved back to the main group.
‘What were you up to, Tom?’ Harry murmured to the corpse as he pulled gently at the soft tissue of the man’s formerly clenched fingers. They parted to reveal a round of ammunition. Harry immediately recognised it as German. ‘What’s this, then? Is this what you were looking for, Sergeant?’ He carefully placed the casings of the spent rounds into the tiny sack and, as gently as if handling a newborn, he turned the corpse slightly so he could reach the far breast pocket. He could see it bulging and wanted to be sure all of this sergeant’s personal items were kept together. He flipped open the pocket and slid out the familiar A.B.64, the all-important paybook, before he
felt the hardness of tin beneath it. He knew what that second item would be even before he withdrew it. Even so it felt heartbreaking to see that the tin had not yet been opened, or if it had, then the contents had not been disturbed.
It was the King’s Tin of Chocolate from Christmas 1915; he had received an identical gift from Rowntree’s, although his chocolate was long ago consumed and he now used his tin for small keepsakes. He knew precisely what this one contained, from the chocolate itself to the postcards, pencil and matches in the sliding compartment behind. He was sure all the additions would be intact and he would not touch them, but keep them as Tom had left them.
He lifted the lid and the chocolate itself smelled surprisingly fresh. He peeked beneath its paper to see it was still glossy. Either Sergeant Fletcher didn’t like chocolate or he had just received his delivery prior to giving up his life. It felt like an important keepsake to get to Mrs Fletcher as she would have applied for it to be sent to her son. As he was about to snap the lid closed, a note floated from the tin, swooping left to right like a pendulum to the earth. Harry frowned, couldn’t catch it before it landed in the mud, but he didn’t recognise it as one of the familiar inclusions. He was sure he glimpsed handwriting, not much of it, but definitely a looping scrawl. A breath of wind dancing over the land blew the note flat and facedown in the mud.
He crouched and reached past Tom to where the note had landed and turned it over, clicking his tongue in exasperation as he brushed away the smudge of wet earth . . . Tom’s earth. It was a scrap of paper, one edge feathered from where it had been clearly torn from a larger piece.
‘Come home safely,’ he read in a soft mutter. ‘With love . . . Kitty.’ He noticed a tiny kiss denoted by the letter ‘x’ after her name. He felt his heart lurch for Tom and for the sweetheart called Kitty back in York, no doubt. Kitty must have worked in the factory, perhaps, because the notepaper was of the same stock as the printed note from Rowntree’s. Did Tom die before he wrote back to her? Did Kitty even know that her beloved Tom was dead, or was she hoping against hope that his absence meant he was hurt in some hospital or that he was unable to get word home yet?
He sighed for her as he placed the small sack of possessions inside Tom’s jacket and double-checked this site had already been marked by two barbed-wire poles and a strip of red fabric tied to it. He cast a thought of hope to the heavens that the corpse would not be ransacked by marauders.
Harry stood and gazed down at the remains of Tom Fletcher. He appeared to be sleeping now but as if in the midst of a nightmare because his body lay in an unnaturally uncomfortable position and his features, twisted by the ravage of decomposition, looked to be in pain.
In that moment Tom seemed to represent all the dead of the Great War for Harry. So many men on both sides had ended up like this sergeant: broken, lost, and behind them led a trail of hurt to the women especially whom they loved and who loved them.
He thought of Rose Fletcher and sweetheart Kitty, waiting for news . . . praying that their Tom might suddenly walk back into their arms soon, maybe limping, possibly even without a limb, but alive and able to hug and kiss them and promise them he’ll never leave them again.
Harry didn’t know what it was particularly about Tom Fletcher that was undoing him, or forcing him to linger and burn this picture of the twisted corpse into his mind. Perhaps it was the uneaten chocolate and the fact that Tom never got to enjoy his treat that seemed to hurt him so deeply. He knew the men received so few gifts from home that this tin of chocolate meant the world to them, could enliven their spirits immeasurably.
He wondered if Ed lived long enough to receive his King’s Tin and enjoy its contents.
‘I’ll take you home with me, Tom,’ he promised the dead sergeant. ‘I promise that I will personally visit your mum.’ He bent down again, breaking all protocols, and removed Tom’s little sack again. ‘I’ll comfort your mum, return your stuff to her and then I’ll find Kitty and look her in the eye when I tell her that I’ve seen you and that you are now in England’s care again. All right, mate? You rest easy now – I’m glad we found you.’
He turned away, annoyed at the dampness in his eyes, as he tucked Tom’s belongings beneath his jacket and walked away from the grave.
9
27 JANUARY 1919
Henry Blakeney, who’d found it easier to hide his family connections by becoming simple Harry Blake during the war years, was dressed in civvies again and sipping on a cup of tea at Kings Cross Station, awaiting a train north. He hadn’t been in this terminus for many years – not since his teens had he travelled on the Great Northern Railway to Yorkshire and into Scotland. It felt instantly nostalgic to be back in the familiar grand London hub of the lines that tracked north to south across the country and included romantic trains like the Flying Scotsman.
He read on a plaque that the first stone was laid in the early 1850s, and what a glorious-looking station it was with its pair of enormous arched openings, half of their height glazed to let in maximum light to the platforms. It thus came as no surprise to learn that the designer was William Cubitt, responsible as chief engineer to the Crystal Palace.
He’d bought his ticket, for some odd reason known as an ‘Edmonson’, and while the question was at his lips, he lost the desire to ask it because the ticket seller had already looked over Harry’s shoulder to the person behind him. He’d swallowed his curiosity and moved away from the window, tucking the cardboard ticket carefully into his top pocket, and with time on his side he looked for the refreshment rooms.
Harry had thought about travelling in uniform to meet Rose and thus making his visit seem more formal for her. However, this was not formal; there was nothing even vaguely official about what he was doing. The army would likely be disturbed to hear that one of its captains was gallivanting off to see a grieving mother who would face a stranger in civvies delivering the news that her precious son’s remains had been discovered and here were his possessions found on him.
Was he potentially being cruel by persisting with this mission? The army had procedures in place to deal with this very matter. Even so, Harry didn’t think the army could offer the personal touch he was aiming to provide, although he would be pressed to fully explain the tenderness he felt towards Tom Fletcher. The true reason behind taking on this job hadn’t yet fully coalesced in his mind. A mocking internal voice told him he was running away again . . . from his life, from his responsibilities, from those who loved him.
Harry realised he was staring at the same sentence over and again in the editorial on page three of the newspaper, that Germany would likely elect Friedrich Ebert from the SDP as its new president. And, just to cheer him, opposite on page two was detail on the brewing battles between the Poles and Russians. He couldn’t bear to think of war erupting again. Harry looked up from the pages, returning his thoughts to just how many rules he was breaking as a former officer in the British Army.
‘Nevertheless, I am connected. I am the right one to do this for Rose,’ he murmured.
‘Sorry, darlin’, missed that,’ a passing waitress said, turning back. She was holding a tray filled with used crockery and the remains of biscuit crumbs and cakes.
He shrugged. ‘Er . . . just rehearsing a conversation,’ he said, surprised by the easy fib that slipped out.
‘Ooh.’ She giggled. ‘Proposing to your sweetheart, are you? No need to practise, darlin’. Looking like you do, she’s going to say yes if you asked her in bleedin’ Latin. I’d say yes to anything you want,’ she added with a cheeky wink, laughing at her own jest because she was potentially old enough to be his mother.
He grinned to please, looked back down at his newspaper and read the same sentence yet again.
Harry had noted in those few moments of distraction that so many men in the station were still wearing their uniforms and perhaps it would be easier to speak with Rose if he was dressed with his rank on show. For a so-called leader of men, he was certainly indecisive today.
&nb
sp; There was one inescapable fact. He was privately glad he was now discharged from the unit he’d volunteered for in 1915. At the outbreak of war its London headquarters had been besieged by volunteers and against his family’s desires he’d managed to persuade one of their well-connected friends to sponsor him. To his family’s dismay it was one of the first territorial units to be sent to France, so he’d seen more than his fair share of major battles and action, surprising himself at how he’d managed to dodge not just death but serious injury.
He could see men with the sleeves of their jackets pinned neatly flat against their sides, others moving on crutches or in wheelchairs, some with feet lost or a leg amputated to the knee. One poor sod he passed this morning had neither leg. The majority hid a haunted quality in their gazes and sometimes in their unguarded expressions. Harry was sure he possessed that same mask, beneath which lay the darkness of war and what he’d seen, experienced. He knew he would be able to taste gunpowder and blood in a blink rather than the untouched oat biscuit in front of him if he let his senses go there, but he avoided giving his mind that kind of free rein. He’d trained himself instead to remain occupied. If he wasn’t out walking around one of the great London parks, he was reading, or attending to the business he’d run away from when he’d volunteered. Back in 1915 he could get away with fleeing his responsibility under the guise of doing his bit for England; there were no more excuses now and yet he felt more unsettled. His desire to run from the life opening up before him had intensified and, unlike most men, home was frankly the last place he wanted to be. Harry thus spent as much time as he could at his private club, where there was always someone to distract him with conversation or a game of chess.
The business could not run itself for very much longer, though, especially not now that the Treaty of Versailles was in place and the world was looking forward to recommencing trade, rations being slackened, and life trying to reassert itself as normal.
The Chocolate Tin Page 14