The Moon Field

by Judith Allnatt

  It was only when Wellings clumsily knocked the table, tipping over a glass of water that George snatched up the letters and held them tight. Wellings fussed around mopping up the spillage and then settled back to his newspaper. George waited until the quiet time, after lunch but before ward rounds, before opening the letter from his mother. Reading with only one eye was difficult: the words blurred and faded. He screwed up his eye and squinted at the date. The letter had been written two weeks before.

  My dear George,

  I hope this finds you well and not suffering too badly with the cold and wet that you wrote about. Did the knitted chest-warmer and chocolate that I sent reach you safely?

  We have been busy at church this last Sunday starting preparations for the carol concert, and Lillie is to be in the nativity play. You will recall that Reverend Morgan encourages all of the children, however small, to join in. Lillie is to be a shepherd, wear a cloth on her head, and carry a toy lamb. She is not well pleased, as she would far rather be an angel. She was rather a crosspatch in the rehearsal; she sat on the edge of the stage, refused to give her gift of a lamb to the baby Jesus, and kept a firm hold on it. I was rather mortified but could see the funny side afterwards, as the Virgin Mary (Mrs Towers’s little girl) was pulling with all her might on one end while Lillie hung on to the other for dear life!

  Many people have been asking after you, Aunty Elizabeth and Uncle Ivor and the cousins, and at church, Mr and Mrs Kettlewell, the Barnwell family, Thomas and the others. None of the Ashwells were there on Sunday so I was unable to give Kitty news of you. I hope they haven’t gone down with the cough that has been going the rounds. Fortunately, we are all in the best of health here. I am sorry to harp on about it but do make sure you wrap up well; I don’t like to think of you out in all weathers and do please take every care and come back safe to us. We all miss you, and Father, Ted and Lillie all send you their fondest love, as do I,

  your loving Mother xxx

  And these are from Lillie

  George slowly put the sheet of paper back into the envelope. Tears pricked his eyes. He imagined his mother writing at the parlour table, and remembered how he used to sit there with her when he came in from work: the chipped cups on the threadbare tablecloth, the smell of drying washing mingling with the taste of sweet tea. It seemed another world, almost impossible to comprehend how it could still exist when the world he carried with him was one of guns and filth and blood. It hung on him like the pounds of mud that had weighed down his greatcoat; it had seeped into him like the freezing water that had soaked through his clothes.

  He didn’t know how he was going to tell her what had happened. He’d been barely conscious when he was brought in, too badly injured to sign a Field Service Postcard with its blunt printed note: ‘I have been admitted into hospital.’ He hoped that no one had yet informed his parents in similar vein on his behalf. Mother had told him not to go; he had caused her incalculable worry. How could he tell her that her fears had been realised? She would break her heart over this. He had let her down.

  He picked up Kitty’s letter. He felt so low that he didn’t think he could bear another stiff little note. There were worse things, far worse things a man could do than fail to confide in a friend. He rested his eye for a minute by focusing on the middle distance: the greenery that decked the ward, the polished holly leaves and feathery yew mingled with the long fingers of mistletoe and dots of pale berries. They made him think of being out of doors, of the churchyard with its quiet yew shade, of alders over running water and the open hillsides with soft grass as fine as an animal’s pelt. What a balm it would be to the spirits to be on a fell somewhere, completely alone.

  With a sigh, he opened the letter and saw that it was dated a couple of days after his mother’s.

  Dear George,

  I’m so sorry to write with bad news and I know we haven’t been on the best of terms lately so maybe you will not welcome my letter but I have no one else to turn to and I hope that for the sake of our long friendship you will bear with me. We heard last week that Arthur has been killed. His company came under heavy shellfire near Arras and was virtually wiped out. It hurts me so to write these words. He was my brother, my only brother, and now I’ll never see him again. I cannot tell you how much it hurts. I keep remembering all the times we argued and I think of words I spoke in anger when he decided to enlist. I would do anything to have him back and do it all differently.

  Mother and Father are in a terrible state. We had a couple come to take over the post office for a few days but Father insisted that he was all right to carry on and now they are gone. He is not all right. He is always at the counter to save Mother from the long line of enquiries and condolences from customers, and sometimes I think that he is clenching his teeth so hard his jaw will break. Mother hardly speaks to me when we’re in the sorting room. She disappears upstairs and comes back with red eyes and at night, through the wall, I can hear her weeping and Father trying to comfort her. It’s awful. There’s nothing I can do; they have shut me out. We don’t even have Arthur’s poor body to bury or anywhere to go to remember him.

  I’m so sorry to be writing this to you. I know it isn’t tactful when you are out there too and in all manner of danger but I knew you would want to know about Arthur. No, that is not it; if I am truthful I am just so desperate, George, and you are my only real friend. I know that I was angry with you when you wouldn’t trust me with your reasons for leaving but it was only because we have never had secrets before and I do so value that openness between us. In any case, I have no right to take the moral high ground as when I told you that I had a follower that was sheer pique. I suppose my pride was hurt at being left out of your confidence. I hope you have forgiven me for not trusting more and accepting that you must have had your reasons. Well, you may think that we have grown out of telling each other everything, and perhaps you do not want this much honesty, but I have bared my heart in any case. It was too full for me to carry alone. I wish that I could see you and we could talk as we used to, and all could be as it was before. Write to me. Let me know when you might get leave to come home. I hope and pray that you are safe and well and continue so.

  Your dear friend,

  Kitty

  George felt a lump in his throat. Arthur had been good to him; when he first started work it had been Arthur who showed him how to swing the mail bags up on to his shoulder without losing his balance and who had distracted Mr Ashwell’s attention when one of George’s many initial delivery mistakes had been about to come to light. He remembered how Arthur used to get bored and irritated when the post office was quiet, reading motor magazines and travel brochures under the counter, always dreaming of speeding off to far-flung places. He used to say that the motor car had opened up Cumberland to the world so why shouldn’t it open up the world to him? George found it hard to believe that he was gone: like Edmund, like Percy, like so many others, part of the long line of men gone into the dark.

  His heart went out to Kitty. He should have written properly before this, not responded in kind to her stilted letters. He should have seen the hurt that lay behind her reserve. It must have cost her to write to him like that and to admit that she’d told a lie in anger; he knew how proud she could be. The thought of her misery made him feel agitated. He must write to both Mother and Kitty straight away.

  He called over to Patterson and asked if he could possibly have something to write on. She smiled and hurried away, returning with a pen and some postcards. They bore a sepia picture of the hospital and George was surprised to see that it was a huge three-storey building with heavy towers and gothic turrets set in wide grounds and with a separate chapel standing nearby. He had had no sense that he was within a building larger than a cathedral and wondered at the number of sick and wounded men that must be housed here. The caption said simply ‘3rd London General Hospital, Wandsworth’, a place he had never heard of. He wondered whether there were city roads or parkland beyond the bounds of the p
hotograph and felt again the pang of longing for open space and grass. He was glad that the caption did some of the job of communication for him.

  To his mother he simply wrote:

  Dear Mother,

  I am safe in England again and I’m making a good recovery. No need to visit. The train is too expensive and they will probably let me come home in a week or two to convalesce … He wrote: depending on and then crossed it out. I am being well looked after and send you and the family all my love and happiest Christmas wishes.

  Your loving son,

  George

  He rested his eye for a minute or two and then wrote again on the other card.

  Dear Kitty,

  I’m so sorry about Arthur. It must be awful. I hope to get home soon and be what comfort I can. I have been hit in the leg and in the face. It looks as though my leg will be saved but my eye and one side of my face is in pretty bad shape. There, I’ve not held anything back from you but don’t tell anyone as I hope to spare Mother worry. I’m sorry I upset you, Kit.

  With love and sympathy,

  George

  The next time that Patterson passed, he gave the cards to her and asked if she could post them. She said at once that she would and George felt relieved as she walked away with them, as if a small part of his burden had been lifted. He settled down to write another card to Haycock and Turland to let them know what had happened to him. He addressed it to Haycock and then wrote:

  Dear Tom and Ernest,

  I’m a bit shot up but am in London getting put back together again – gammy leg and still waiting to see what happens with my eye. I feel bad about being here when you’re still slogging it out. Write to me at 26 Leonard Street as I will convalesce at home.

  I’m so sorry Rooke bought it. It was awful to see. He should never have come with us overseas. I hope everything is quiet where you are.

  Your old pal,

  George

  Exhausted, he put the card on the table to pass on to Nurse Patterson and sank back against the pillows.

  A few days later, it was decided that George could be moved out to the veranda for an hour or two each afternoon. It was a glassed-in, green-painted wooden structure that ran along part of the south-facing wall of the hospital. Alongside other men, George sat in a wheelchair, a rug tucked around his knees and his injured leg bared and propped on a stool to let the sun shine on it, for the sake of its antiseptic properties. Although the shin and calf remained red and inflamed, the wound was clean and almost dry, a far cry from the slimy green and scarlet mess that had smelt so awful.

  Every day, men chatted, read or nodded in sleep around him but George just gazed out at the grounds. In the foreground was a rose garden, the thorny stems and old brown flower heads all furred by frost, outlined in white. Beyond this, a long sloping lawn with elm and beech trees was bounded by a laurel hedge bordering the road. At visiting times, when patients were sometimes wrapped up well and wheeled around the grounds, George watched enviously as they exchanged the stuffy, disinfected atmosphere of the hospital for cold sharp air and a clear blue sky.

  At last, the day came when Patterson said that she was so pleased with his progress that she intended to stay behind at the end of her shift so that she could take him into the garden. George said that he wouldn’t want to inconvenience her and there was no need. She looked at him with a sceptical expression and said that they both knew that he was only being polite, and in any case, a promise was a promise.

  She wrapped him in so many blankets that he resembled a fat cocoon, gave him some other private’s cap to wear for good measure, then put on her long cape and manoeuvred the wheelchair over the threshold and through the veranda doors.

  The freezing air was heady as they explored the gravelled paths of the rose garden and every sensation seemed magnified after the dullness of indoor living: the sun too bright, the crunch of the wheels on the small stones loud, the smell of leaf mould musty and pungent. As they came level with an evergreen shrub, he asked if he could stop and pinched the foliage between his fingers to smell the green, piny scent.

  The fishpond had a wall with a wide stone rim and a central fountain that was reflected in the dark water below. A stone shell was supported by verdigris-covered porpoises but no water flowed from the pipes that protruded from their mouths. Slices of broken ice floated on the surface like tectonic plates. George saw a quick flick of orange in the water and bent forward to follow it but his bandaged reflection distracted him and the fish was gone, lost amongst the waterweed below the ice.

  They passed on to the paths that circumnavigated the broad lawn and Patterson told him of the plans for the concert that was to be held in the refectory on Christmas morning. The VADs had their own choir, convalescent officers had formed a quartet and some of the other ranks had formed a barber’s shop chorus.

  ‘Shall you come, do you think?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ George said, his mind elsewhere.

  ‘It might do you good,’ she ventured. ‘It’s important to be sociable. All part of moving towards normality, you know, getting involved in life again.’

  George didn’t want to be with other people. He couldn’t see how his life would ever be normal again. ‘I’ll think about it,’ he said.

  Early on Christmas morning, George was taken to a cubicle where he was told that his bandages would be taken off for good, and that Dr Bailey would remove his stitches and examine the wound.

  A nursing sister whom he hadn’t seen before, a small, middle-aged woman with a sharp voice, supervised a young nurse while she carefully unwound him. The dressings were stuck to dried blood in places and had to be peeled away painfully. He gritted his teeth and bore it as the nurse repeatedly apologised and the sister directed and criticised by turns. George held tightly to the arms of his chair. It seemed to him that through his closed eyelid, as the bandages thinned, he could see light. Hardly daring to breathe as the layers fell away, he tried to open his eye. The skin around it was so swollen that he could open it no more than a slit, yet the brightness of the room was blinding. He shut it and then tried again, blinking until he could make out the strangely doubled image of a rectangular window and the dim form of the figures moving in front of it.

  ‘I can see light and shapes!’ He grasped the nurse’s hand.

  ‘That’s marvellous,’ she said, squeezing his hand in return. ‘I’m so glad for you.’

  ‘Will I see detail again eventually?’ George asked the sister.

  ‘Blurred vision is perfectly normal at first,’ she said briskly. ‘Take the bandages to the incinerator please, nurse, and tell Dr Bailey we’re ready for him.’ She set out a basin and some implements on a table covered with a white cloth.

  Dr Bailey had very pale skin, as though all his time was spent indoors, and long slim hands. He wished George good morning, congratulated him on the discovery that his eye was functional and reassured him that his vision would slowly improve. He examined George’s face, saying to the sister, ‘The maxilla, the nasal and zygomatic bones are all compromised, of course, but the mandible is wholly intact.’ George winced as he began to remove the horsehair stitches, dropping them into the basin, tough and dark like the bristles of a shoe brush. To George he said, ‘Hmm, there’s some puckering at the maxilla where the wound was closed. Otherwise the scar tissue looks healthy and as the swelling goes down you’ll lose some of the puffiness and shine and be a little more comfortable.’

  When he’d finished he passed the basin to the sister and stood back to survey the overall effect.

  ‘Could I see?’ George asked.

  The sister and doctor exchanged a glance and then both spoke at once.

  ‘We discourage it. We don’t have mirrors on these wards for that reason,’ said the sister.

  ‘It’s early days,’ Dr Bailey said.

  George’s eye was watering and he put his hand up to wipe the wetness away.

  ‘Oh, you mustn’t touch it,’ the sister said. �
�Absolutely not. It could still become infected, you know.’

  George let his hand drop and tried to ignore the irritating tickle as it ran down over his cheek.

  Dr Bailey said to the sister, ‘Let me know if any problems arise.’

  He looked at George and gave a faint smile. ‘Good luck,’ he said.

  As the nurse wheeled George back through the draughty corridors, the air felt chill against his newly naked face and the salt tears from his watering eye stung his raw skin. The nurse glanced quickly behind her to check for the sister and produced a white folded handkerchief from her pocket. George dabbed at his eye. When they passed the corridor that led down to the refectory, the sound of men’s voices reached them, singing, ‘Till the Boys Come Home’.

  The nurse’s steps slowed. ‘Oh, I say, it’s the Christmas concert! I didn’t realise it was that time already.’

  ‘Would you like to go?’ George felt obliged to ask.

  ‘It sounds awfully jolly. They’ve got a tombola and everything. We could just slip in at the back.’

  ‘Well, better wait until this number finishes.’

  The nurse turned the chair round smartly and wheeled it up to the arched doorway into the refectory. A burst of applause and shouts of ‘Encore’ greeted the end of the song and the nurse opened the door and wheeled him through. Tables laden with trays of teacups lined the sides of the room and chairs were arranged in rows facing the far end where an officer sat at a battered upright piano and four others were gathered around it, holding sheet music in front of them. All were dressed in uniform for the occasion, although they were clearly not ready to be discharged, as all had bandages, slings or crutches. The room had been hung with flags and red and yellow Chinese lanterns, and the smell of greens and a faint haze of steam mingled with the scent from a large display of hothouse lilies on the table beside the performers. The room was packed, the front row full of VADs ready to take their turn as the choir, and behind them staff and patients sitting in groups with friends. George spotted Patterson near the front. She raised her hand but couldn’t move, being hemmed in right in the middle of a row.