Nevertheless, after commanding troops in the field of battle for the past three years, the price of tea and inventories for shipments coming in felt faintly ridiculous and certainly dull. During many a single nightcap with someone from the club he’d come to the quiet realisation that he needed to draw some sort of line under the war to make it his past so that he could face the future. Harry Blake had convinced himself that confronting Rose Fletcher and speaking of Tom, sharing her grief, being able to look her in the eye and give her something of her son back was, for no reason he could fully pinpoint, his way back to this life.
Was this journey his way of drawing a line under Edward’s name too? Of finally accepting his decision that he must shoulder his responsibility now as head of the family and relocate from London back to Sussex?
Tom had become both his burden but also his steed, as though he might ride the loss of his brother away from the darkness of war and into the light of peace and the life that he must create after four years of fighting.
An older man loomed into view and asked if he might share the table. ‘It’s rather busy, you see,’ he said, gesturing.
‘Yes, of course, do go ahead.’
‘John Fanshaw,’ the man introduced, taking off his hat and extending a hand.
He hadn’t wanted company but how could he be surly? ‘Harry Blake,’ he replied easily, because he was so used to that name now. He shook the man’s hand.
‘Penny for your thoughts, Harry Blake,’ John wondered.
Harry thought John looked like a kindly character from a fairytale – the old man who offers wisdom at just the right moment in the story. He even had a thin sweep of white hair doing battle with baldness down the centre of his scalp. Harry sighed. ‘It’s not something that’s easy to talk about,’ he admitted.
The man nodded, understanding. ‘Which regiment?’ he asked, moving swiftly away from the threat of polite talk between strangers.
Harry told him.
‘Just demobbed?’
‘Disembodied, they call it in the territory units. Awful word but I have to say, disembodied is precisely how I feel right now. I’m from the 20th London.’
‘It’s very normal to feel this way. We all do coming out of a war. I was in Africa during the Boer Wars. You look whole.’
‘I am.’
‘The angels smiled on you then. How about up here?’ Fanshaw asked, reaching a finger to tap it against his head. ‘Feeling strong here too?’
‘Reaching an enlightened place in my mind,’ Harry said, deliberately vague.
‘And you’ve avoided that wretched Spanish Flu, too.’
Harry nodded.
‘Lost our only son during the Somme battles. He nearly made it, you know.’
‘I’m very sorry to hear it, Mr Fanshaw.’
A young waitress arrived with the obvious question in her expression. ‘A tea and one of your rock buns would be lovely, dear, thank you,’ Fanshaw asked before she spoke. She smiled and moved away as quietly as she’d arrived.
Harry was reminded to sip his tea.
‘It’s still so terribly raw,’ Fanshaw continued, sounding surprised to admit it. ‘His darling mother is going mad with her grief. His wife, two children left behind . . .’ His voice petered away as he shook his head. ‘Are you married, son?’
Harry baulked. ‘No.’
‘Probably a good thing while you find your feet again. Johnny was torn, racked with guilt at volunteering.’
‘He’d have probably been conscripted anyway. It was brave of him to put his hand up before his time.’
‘I remind myself it wasn’t personal. The Germans didn’t set out to kill our son specifically. Johnny was courageous but unlucky, that’s all. It’s the only way I can justify the waste of his young life. He made it to lance corporal, so we’re proud of him. I tell myself this every day as I force myself to leave our bed, make Gwen breakfast, get dressed. I’m retired – it’s not as though I have anything to get dressed for, but it seems important.’
‘You have grandchildren. They’re the important reason,’ Harry offered, watching the rise and fall of the tramlines of wrinkles in Fanshaw’s forehead as he battled emotion.
‘Indeed. In fact we’re even thinking of moving down to Devon to be closer to them. I think Alice – that’s John’s wife – could use the help.’
‘Change is good,’ Harry tried. There was a strange comfort in that sort of cliché. It didn’t need explaining, but at least it meant soothing words were being exchanged which didn’t create challenge or disturbance.
Fanshaw’s tea and rock bun arrived. ‘There you go, Mr Fanshaw,’ the waitress said, clearly familiar with Harry’s companion.
He cleared his throat. ‘Thank you, Shirley,’ he said to the waitress as she turned away with a kind smile. ‘I come to the station most days to sit and take tea, annoy strangers such as yourself, watch the men in their raggle-taggle uniforms make their way to wherever it is they’re going.’ Harry said nothing. ‘I’m a coward, I realise. I can’t face Gwen’s grief – I take this hour of escape a few times a week. Sorry – you’re the unlucky chap today.’
‘I don’t mind,’ Harry said and meant it.
‘There’s so much uncertainty surrounding our Johnny’s death; we don’t even have anything of his to say it’s real, that this isn’t some nightmare that we may wake from. I suspect that’s what my wife’s hoping for.’
‘A mother needs to know, doesn’t she,’ Harry reinforced. ‘I suspect Mrs Fanshaw would benefit from knowing there’s a grave that can be firmly attributed to your son.’ He wondered if he’d pushed too far in his presumption as he watched the older man’s eyes glisten with tears.
‘I think it’s exactly what she needs – what we both need,’ Fanshaw agreed. ‘Then we would have no choice but to get on with life as best we can.’
That settled it for him. Harry knew he had made the right decision to go and see Rose Fletcher. The army could take months to finally get news to her of finding Tom.
‘So how come you’re out of duties so early?’ Fanshaw asked. He broke off half the rock bun as he stirred his tea. There was no sugar in it – rationing was still in effect.
‘My unit was one of the earliest on European soil to fight the enemy, but as it was not part of the army of occupation beyond the peace treaty, it was also one of the first to be disembodied.’
‘What rank are you, son?’
‘Captain,’ he admitted.
‘That you led men into battle and survived is testimony to your courage.’ Fanshaw downed nearly a third of his tea with one gulp.
Harry lifted a shoulder. He struggled with his survival daily.
‘I’ll bet you were even decorated.’
Harry sipped the now barely lukewarm tea to avoid saying anything.
‘I know what you’re thinking and you shouldn’t.’
‘What am I thinking?’
‘You’re wondering why hundreds of thousands died, why so many of your own unit were killed, and yet you were spared.’ He drank again, clearly thirsty as much as eager to enjoy tea that hadn’t cooled. He noted Harry’s amusement. ‘Gwen always says I must have a throat like a furnace to withstand the scald.’
Harry nodded, and let the older man talk.
‘There is no explicable reason because the good and bad died alongside each other. I don’t know your situation, young man, but the cut of your suit suggests you . . . well, let’s just say you’ve had opportunity, so now live for all the others who didn’t make it. Don’t settle, enjoy life on your terms even if it makes others frown.’ Fanshaw swallowed the remnants of his tea and packed up the other half of rock bun, wrapping it in the paper napkin, leaving fourpence behind at his place. ‘I might be able to tempt a smile from Gwen with this,’ he said, brandishing his wrapped treat. He put his hat back onto his head but then lifted it slightly as he slowly got to his feet. ‘Thank you for the company, Captain Blake. Don’t punish yourself for being alive. Embrace life.’ H
e nodded, turned on his heel and walked away, a slight limp in his gait.
Harry experienced a fleeting notion that John Fanshaw was an otherworldly being who’d broken through the fabric of this world just to deliver the advice that Harry had been trying to swallow for several weeks. He now believed there was nothing wrong in taking more time away from home, and there was everything right about climbing on the train north to York so that he could end his war and restart his life in peace, with a lucid mind and a clear path ahead.
There were two women he was leaving behind. He would write to both from York so they stopped worrying, blaming themselves or believing he’d lost his mind somewhere in France.
__________
He’d given himself just days, only long enough to buy some new clothes, get a proper shave, a fresh haircut and to write to his family that he would visit soon. They knew he was safe and uninjured physically; he’d sent a telegram to this effect as soon as he set foot back in London. The letter he hoped would explain his elusiveness.
He checked the clock again – his train would be announced shortly – and walked up to the counter to pay for his tea and biscuit, leaving a threepenny bit in the tips saucer.
‘Thank you, sir!’ the woman taking the money said, glancing at the tips plate. ‘No wonder the angels spared you on the battlefield.’
Harry grinned and turned to make his way to the platform where the Great Northern Railway locomotive was bellowing steam in preparation for departure. He found himself alone in the first-class compartment. The gas lighting flickered, throwing shadows against the wood panels of the carriage, and he felt a rush of pleasure as the whistles blew for imminent departure. The engine’s noise intensified and doors were slammed up and down the platform. He waited for the inevitable lurch, which came with a belch of smoke as they eased out of the station.
The inspector duly arrived to clip his ticket. ‘Thank you, sir. We’ll be stopping at Peterborough, Grantham and Doncaster on our way to York. The long stop at Doncaster is the best place to stretch your legs, as we’ll be taking on water there.’
‘Thank you.’
The man slid his compartment closed and Harry was finally alone to watch the late afternoon slide into early evening across the English landscape. He stared into people’s back gardens for a while but soon the rear of terraced homes gave way to intermittent clusters of dwellings, then to single farmhouses dotting the route in the distance before ultimately he noted they had broken free into the patchwork fields of the English countryside. The fields were mostly bare soil, sleeping quietly for spring, but the different hues of green around them definitely had the effect of a haphazardly quilted coverlet to keep that soil warm and protected through winter. He smiled, enjoying the carefree whimsy of his thoughts, and let them continue to roam down this pleasant path that his mind found soothing. These fields had not known the explosive, death-marauding nature of the war’s artillery and no network of trenches or underground tunnels wove around its towns and villages. They sprawled – innocent, pristine and confident – in their peaceful beauty.
Men had died around him by the score but death had swerved past him so many times, bringing only minor injuries. He dug into his leather holdall to retrieve Tom Fletcher’s belongings, which he’d now wrapped in a silk kerchief. There were so few objects – hardly much to account for a man’s life – but he hoped this scatter of possessions would help Rose bring her son back into her home. They were the last items Tom had held. His lips had touched the pipe; his fingers had written his last letter with the fountain pen that was still three-quarters full of ink. And the tin of chocolate, of course. He clicked it open and once again smelled his immediate space filled with the comforting promise of the sweet delicacy. Its scent was as rich as liquor; raisins and vanilla seemed to outmuscle the subtler background flavours that hinted at coffee, even pepper, certainly berries. The vanilla was the most intoxicating. He’d smelled the damply fresh pods many times previously, coming in on shipments to London from exotic lands. He didn’t think he could tire of vanilla’s sweet, dense, toffee-like perfume. Its warmth evoked memories from childhood and happier times of funfairs and ice-cream, confectionery and yellow custard on steaming puddings. It had amazed him the first time he’d seen one of the blackish brown pods – so oddly narrow and moistly puckered, like the flesh of one’s fingertips wrinkling from a long soaking. What a surprise inside that pod, though; scores of tiny seeds to be scraped like a miniature pyramid of black soil and whose combined flavour could take a cake mixture from bland to special, a chocolate drink from ordinary to dizzying. Harry was sure the smell of vanilla could actually change one’s mood. It was transient but it was powerful all the same.
Perhaps they should have sprayed vanilla over the warring factions instead of mustard gas – peace may have come quicker.
He took out the note from Tom’s sweetheart and turned it over in his hands, lightly tracing her words with a fingertip. There were so few of them and yet they were so touching. Sweet Kitty; her heart must be breaking, he thought, and fresh guilt closed in on him at being reminded of another woman, another heart that may be breaking.
He gazed out of the window and saw the sun’s rays leaking through a layer of clouds that looked painted onto the sky, as though an artist had coloured their underbelly in patches of dark grey, yet above, still lit by the sun, were pillows of dreamy white.
And it was as the train started to slow into Peterborough that Harry began to wonder how the girl of few words had managed to secrete her love note into the tin. With the train lurching to a stop and steam billowing all around the platform and gusting around the waiting passengers, Harry realised that the logistics involved in getting a particular tin to not only a specific few square miles but then to an exact trench in France no less, and ultimately into the hands of one man alone, seemed all but impossible. Presumably this woman must have been extremely resourceful to coerce not only the packing department but presumably the filing and despatch team to ensure a precise destination.
It made him smile to think of how ridiculously romantic his mission was, but it pleased him, for surely Kitty loved Tom with such fervour that she knew no bounds in showing that love in her determination to get a note to him. He pondered what it might be like to experience a grown-up love like that, despite knowing it would never happen for him . . . not now. He would have to instead admire and privately enjoy Kitty and Tom’s love affair and hold that as close to his heart as Tom had kept the chocolate tin to his heart as he died. It was a sad mission too but perhaps his reconnection of Tom to his mother and also to his sweetheart would help ease the sorrow. He hoped so.
The train set off again with its new uptake of travellers accompanied by the usual cacophony of piercing whistles, squeals, false starts and men yelling. He could hear doors opening and closing and hoped he might be left alone a little longer. His luck held, for no one joined him out of Peterborough, but he didn’t trust his luck to keep running all the way to York. He decided he should make the best of the quiet carriage now, especially while there was still enough light in the falling afternoon to enjoy the peaceful scenery, the likes of which had been sorely lacking in his life for the last five years.
He put away Tom’s belongings, assured he would not look at them again until he gave them to Mrs Fletcher. Meanwhile, the conundrum of Kitty’s note amused his mind as the train sped him north.
10
There was lightness to his step the following morning. Harry was aware of it, too: as though by sleeping in York the burden of his heavy heart was left behind in the south. While he knew Harkers Hotel in the city was available to him, he preferred more simple accommodations and chose a guesthouse overlooking the grim, grey stone of St Olave’s Church with its arched entrance to a curiously pretty pathway that led into gardens.
Breakfast was a hearty affair of eggs with bacon and doorstops of toasted bread glistening thickly with gooey, bittersweet marmalade. ‘Get that down you, Captain Blake,’ the middle-
aged waitress urged. She’d introduced herself as Mary. ‘I’ll bet you haven’t seen plentiful food like that in a while.’
He gave a low whistle for effect, knowing this was what she wanted. ‘Not sure I can eat all of it, either! What a spread – thank you. Oh – and I’m a civilian now, Mary. Just Harry Blake these days,’ he said as he scattered salt over the sunny domes of fried eggs.
The woman who had welcomed him to the guesthouse had kept up a lengthy conversation with him while she’d busied herself with organising his key. His luggage – what there was of it – was taken up to his room by a tall but scrawny lad she called Jimmy. He remembered now her direct query as to his regiment and rank when he signed the register. At the time he’d thought she was being fastidious but now he realised she was not so cautious about the privacy of that register.
Mary continued talking over his thoughts as she poured steaming tea the burnished colour of toffee from an enormous pot she carried around like a pet. ‘Can’t help but feel very proud of our returning soldiers, Cap, er, Mr Blake. You all need thanking and spoiling. Too many of you left behind, of course.’
He nodded. ‘That’s why I’m here in the north. I’ve come as far from the French battlefields as I could.’ He smiled a gentle dismissal.
He sipped the tea and it was surely a confirmation that the war was over. No tea in any trench tasted this good. He sighed with genuine pleasure, feeling his shoulders relax slightly. Harry tucked into his breakfast slowly, chewing each small mouthful diligently. Like other soldiers being demobbed, he had been warned not to be overly greedy about food or its availability.
He worked at his chewing for the next five minutes in silent pleasure before Mary was back. ‘Ready for a top-up, Mr Blake?’
‘Please,’ he said, pushing his cup and saucer forward. He saw her note his half-eaten meal and frown. ‘Er, forgive me, Mary. I’m used to neither so much food, nor such feasting. The most we could count on in the trenches was some fruit cake or chocolate from home.’
The Chocolate Tin Page 15