“Well, it is a good thing for me that I shall have no part in it. Soldiers should have nothing to say to politicians.”
Squire shook his head – Tommy was being naïve again.
“You may have no choice, Tommy. I much suspect that ‘my brother by marriage, the Flying Corps hero’, may feature in many of Mr Monkton’s speeches.”
Tommy was outraged.
“The sod! He can’t do that – not willing to go out and risk his own precious skin, yet trying to reap advantage from those who do. He should be ashamed of himself!”
Monkey spoke up, to her father’s amazement, saying that if the gentleman had possessed the capacity for shame, then he would hardly have chosen to become a politician.
“Well said, my love!”
“Hardly an appropriate comment to be made in public, Grace. It behoves us all to support our King and his Government in this time of national tribulation!”
That was, Monkey thought, an arguable statement, but it was not her place to open such a debate in her father’s house, especially as she had only very recently ceased to be his responsibility. She smiled an apology.
They talked and dined and retired for the night, Monkey just a little awkward at joining her husband in their bed in her parents’ house – it seemed a very strange thing to do, somehow.
“What did your mother have to say that we men could not hear, Monkey?”
She flushed red again.
“Oh, this and that, the sort of thing women talk about when the men are not there, you know… As much as anything, she wanted to know if all was well between us, in the sort of… physical way, if you know what I mean… in bed, that is. It seems that Lavinia finds Mr Monkton, well… clumsy, I suppose, and only interested in himself, in what he is doing; she is not very pleased with that part of her life. If you must know, I told Mama that you are not Mr Monkton and that I enjoyed all that we had done together. Very much! She said, by the way, that she was not surprised, not at all, knowing you, Tommy. She said as well that Lavinia had chosen to marry the richest man she could find, and now she could put up with all that came with it.”
“A pity, I suppose – but I am glad to know you like everything about being married – I do! And not just this part of it, either!”
He moved his hand to cover the part he was referring to.
“I don’t think Mr Monkton has ever said anything like that to Lavinia, Tommy!”
“Even more of a pity. I am so happy to be married, Monkey – and that might be very selfish, I know, for I shall continue to fly, and will go back to the war soon enough, and leave you behind to wait and worry. Your father is worrying about George, you know. He said so little that I am sure he fears for him.”
“Mama said the same. They both think that something has happened. She said that Uncle James’ lady is expecting, and they hope that must be a son, for otherwise the house and land descends to the Scottish cousins, the Moncurs, and it seems that they are rather low, and the name will be lost as well. Mama thinks that there is a title in the offing, you know, Tommy, for my father’s work in organising the flow of foodstuffs; it will come for free, as well, not one of those that is paid for. That will make me the Honourable Grace Stark, daughter to Lord Benchley, or whatever handle Papa chooses. That would be rather nice, though Lavinia must become Lady Monkton, sooner or later, for he will certainly buy his way into something!”
“No titles for me, Monkey – I am in the wrong trade for that, I fear. You must be content with being Mrs Captain for the duration of the war, then after that whatever turns up. I do not know what may happen then – it is a long way ahead, and we do not know what the world will be like for us. I am not certain that I shall wish to be a soldier for the rest of my life, and I am not sure what other choices there will be. Your father says that I shall be rich enough that I will be able to do anything I wish, but I shall not rely on that either. For the while, all that is to be done is to enjoy life as it comes – talking of which, my lady…”
Conversation ended, and later they were too tired for anything other than sleep.
“Should I make the attempt to speak to my brother, sir?”
They were sat at the breakfast table, Tommy polishing off the toast, having enjoyed bacon and eggs and devilled kidneys first. Monkey passed him a second cup of tea, knowing why he had an appetite this morning and grinning rather proudly for having excited him to such endeavours. Squire, who habitually ate porridge of a morning, scowled.
“No, I would not if I were you, Tommy. The more I hear of the gentleman, the less I wish to have to do with him. This factory of his is not something to write home about, Tommy. His so-called jam is not the least of it! Beef stew and steak-and-kidney puddings and lamb stew, canned for rations – and the carcasses that go in for cooking are the oldest and cheapest of milk cows and ewes, and rumour insists on a share of horse-meat from the knacker’s-yard! I am told that oak sawdust has been seen as well, to supply pips for the ‘raspberry’ jam!”
“Rather shocking, sir.”
“A disgrace – but it is not for me to play the informer, I believe; a gentleman cannot be a policeman! One must simply wait for retribution to come his way. That does not mean that I have any wish to rub shoulders with him, however! Add to that, his personal habits are not of the most desirable!”
Squire caught Tommy’s eye and nodded significantly towards Monkey – whatever he had to say was not to sully her ears. She noticed the by-play and wondered whether to point out to her father that she was grown-up now; probably futile and no more than a cause of embarrassment to him, for she was still his little girl; she stayed silent.
Later, Tommy enquired whether Mr Stark was amusing himself with the local girls, received the dark reply that Squire wished it was as innocuous as that. The older man would say no more, left Tommy to speculate.
“Tommy, do you wish to go across to the airfield at Farnborough while we are here?”
“No – holiday for another week. Together - I can play with aeroplanes to my heart’s content from next Monday. Do you wish to drive down to Winchester, or across to Guildford, say, to do some shopping?”
She preferred Winchester.
“Will you wear uniform, Tommy? To prevent any fuss like there was in Salisbury?”
He agreed – he wanted no more old sergeants on his back.
Barely an hour’s drive to the south, the old cathedral town was at least as rich as Salisbury and equally busy on a Saturday morning. There were recruiting parties out for the Rifles and the Hampshires, more for the form of it than from any anxiety to make up their numbers, both being known local regiments who had been almost swarmed under by Hampshire men in the first days of the conflict.
Tommy discovered that the uniform protected him from the one form of harassment, but led to a tedious amount of saluting, and to an amount of enthusiastic pointing at the wings and ribbon on his chest by small boys and females old enough to know far better. They passed a pair of extremely junior second-lieutenants, possibly venturing out in public in their new uniforms for the very first time; they were older than him, Tommy suspected, but instantly awe-struck in his presence, rigid in their salutes.
“I say, sir! I had thought about the RFC. Do you think I should volunteer? Is there a need for pilots, still?”
Courtesy demanded a full reply.
“There is, and I much suspect always will be, gentlemen. There is a need for subalterns in the infantry, as well, and much harder fighting there on the ground. From the little I saw of the battles around Ypres, the men there need you more than we do. That said, flying is the life for me, and if you think you might like it, then you should give it a try. Speak to your colonel. He may find it possible to release you to the RFC, or he may have too great a need for you and all his young men. I do not think it entirely right that we should poach you, you know! We must take care to follow the honourable course!”
They agreed very gravely that honour must come first and thanked him for pointin
g out that particular problem; they would discover whether they might properly volunteer for the RFC. They left him, discussing the matter of honour between themselves in the most earnest fashion.
Monkey was puzzled.
“Why did you not welcome them, Tommy? I know that you need many more pilots.”
“The pink-faced one, Monkey, with the fair hair. Did you see him screwing his eyes up just a little? He would never see an aeroplane at half a mile. Better he should stay on the ground.”
“But will not the doctors…”
“No. He has passed a medical examination already, to be accepted as an officer. They will see no need to repeat the performance. In any case, he would be able to read the card on the wall that is all they rely upon. A pilot needs much above average sight, I believe, but that is yet to be accepted by the RFC. Is that a bookshop I see? I need to buy some books to send back to the Mess in France. Some of the chaps like to sit down with a novel occasionally. So do I, sometimes.”
They descended on Gilbert’s, fortunately the largest bookshop in Winchester, and bought eclectically, Henty and Rider Haggard, Conan Doyle and Edgar Wallace, Kipling in addition to Dickens and Thackeray, almost at random. Monkey bought for herself as well, the beginnings of her own little library for the house.
“To be delivered, sir?”
They split the volumes into two piles. The larger, exclusively fiction, to go off to France, to the Officers Mess, Three Squadron, RFC; the smaller, and more precisely selected, for River Cottage.
Tommy made out a cheque, very carefully for not being entirely sure of the procedure. As an officer, it was accepted without query – officers’ cheques did not bounce, except on penalty of a court-martial, and the regiment would cover the sum involved in order to keep its name clean.
“What next, Tommy?”
“I need a new supply of silk scarves. They wear out quite rapidly for some reason – I suspect the petrol rots them away. They do prevent the neck being chafed raw by the flow of cold air, and they allow one to turn one’s head comfortably, more so than wool. Where does one purchase such things?”
There was a gentleman’s outfitter, one of several in the city, that stocked plain scarves and was quite happy to sell six, amazed when the need was explained to them. The shopkeeper promised to buy in a further stock, as there were training airfields being created within easy reach of Winchester.
They passed a troop of boy scouts, collecting for comforts for the troops; they cheered him.
“Home, I think, Monkey!”
The Big House was silent, gloom-filled and empty; Abbot, the butler, explained that the master had received a telegram and had rushed off in the car, the mistress with him. He had left Tommy a note.
“’George is in hospital, at Haslar, between Southampton and Portsmouth. He is gravely wounded, has only yesterday been able to speak, to identify himself, his tags having been blown off.’ That was a bad one, Monkey – the tags generally remain intact, that is their purpose. Still, if he has regained consciousness and the power of speech, then he must be to an extent on the mend.”
“He may be crippled, Tommy.”
“So he may. We must try to be realistic, my love. He may have been blown half to pieces by a shellburst; he might have been injured to the chest by a single bullet, the wound then becoming infected by the mud and mess of the fighting lines. The possibility is there of a relatively minor wound; or of a massively severe, shattering set of injuries. We will not know until your parents return, which we must assume will not be today.”
They came back three days later, old and tired from hours sat at their son’s bedside.
Squire sat down with a rare whisky in his hand.
“Join me, Tommy?”
“Not at this time of day, sir.”
“You are wise. I would not normally, but I need this one. For the good news, George will live, in all probabilities, though he could still fall to another infection. He may well walk again, though with a stick to keep his balance. He will never, as an example, ride. He has only the one arm and has lost an eye. He seems to have been deafened in the ear on that side. The facial scarring is bad, as well. At least he is still in his right mind – there were some in the hospital who had been sent mad by their experiences. It is a massive place, Tommy, ward upon ward, full of broken men! What he will do with himself, I know not. He was very much a hunting, shooting and fishing man – and none of those pursuits will be eligible in his future. He was never one for books. He too is broken, Tommy.”
There was nothing to be said; Tommy thought George would have been better off dead, suspected that the poor young man would agree with him.
That was one fate that was unlikely to await an airman, at least. He might spin in from five thousand feet and be spread thin across an acre of pastureland; he might catch fire in the air and be cremated alive; it was highly improbable that he would survive to be crippled.
“When will he be able to come home, sir?”
“Two months, perhaps three, Tommy. Time sufficient to bring in the builders, to put up a bedroom and sitting room and his own bathroom, all at ground level. I do not know whether he will be able to come to table with us, or whether his digestion will have suffered too much for a normal diet. He was wounded in the stomach as well, a shrapnel burst from a small shell that landed close to him. Some of the shell splinters hit lower still, as well, and he has some bladder problems that may not go away. He is in no case ever to take a wife, poor lad.”
“Christ, sir! There?”
“Yes, Tommy.”
“Will he wish to live, sir?”
“God alone knows, Tommy; I do not. I doubt it, but he may change.”
“What of pain sir?”
“The doctor told me that he is giving him injections of morphine; as much as he needs and when he needs it, so he said. He could not say for sure that he would ever not need it. He made it very clear that it was possible that George would become addicted, unable to exist without his regular doses. Apparently, it was the case after the American Civil War that many thousands of soldiers became dependent on the drug, and the same to a lesser extent after the Boer War; it was a smaller war with fewer involved, of course. It will be best, it seems, for a nurse to live in while he needs such care.”
“For life?”
“Yes. Not for many years, of course, Tommy. The doctor was also clear about that; he asked, in fact, whether we were convinced of the wisdom of bringing George home. He could go to a nursing hospital where he would have a doctor always available and quite possibly be in some ways happier. If he is to remain in his drug-induced state of euphoria, then he may commonly be unaware of his surroundings, so he said.”
Squire was silent for a few minutes, lost in contemplation, perhaps.
“I thought it possible that he might be killed, Tommy. If a boy – a young man, rather – goes to war, then death is always on the cards. But I did not dream of this eventuality – neither alive nor dead, in effect. He was awake and in his right mind for a few minutes while we were there… he asked me to let him die.”
“I will take that whisky, if you don’t mind, sir.”
A few minutes later Tommy asked what was to be done immediately for George.
“I don’t know, my boy. I must speak to his mother, at length. Perhaps, on second thoughts, we may not bring him home. It was our first reaction, naturally enough, but I do not know that it is wise to put him under the care of our local man, who at best will be an hour before he can visit us – possibly far longer. Is it right that we should hire a nurse, a skilled young woman, to tend just one patient? The hospitals are increasingly busy, the doctor implied, and need all of their staff. I cannot be sure…”
“The decision must be yours, sir, but I wonder whether he might not be far better off in a place where there are many skilled people to attend him. A nurse cannot work all day, every day - you might need more than one in order to care for him at night as well as in daylight hours. Laundry, as w
ell, sir, if, as you say, he cannot control himself…”
“It is very hard simply to put him into an institution, Tommy, even if it is close to hand and we may visit him often. I do not know of a nursing hospital outside of London, in fact.”
Tommy knew nothing of such places, had not even heard of them before. George had asked to die, and Tommy was much of the opinion that his wishes should be met – it was his life, and it had become a burden to him, on the rare occasions that he was sufficiently aware to recognise the fact. A hospital might be best – the doctors and nurses would have the experience, the knowledge that could at least ease the poor fellow’s passing.
“I suspect that the harder course might be the best for George, sir. From all I have heard, the soft option is rarely a good choice, sir. I think you should discover a good hospital for him and send him there; they may be able to help him make some sort of recovery, will certainly be aware of the latest advances in medicine.”
“I must discuss the matter at length with my wife, Tommy. Thank you for your advice – I had not considered that last factor.”
They had been due to stay just five days but remained another two, so as not to leave the house empty and Monkey’s parents on their own. Finally, four days before Tommy must return to duty, they went back to Wilton.
“Mama said that George is no longer a man, Tommy. Can he wish to live in such a condition?”
“I doubt he is aware of it, Monkey. From all that your father has said, he is in such pain that they must keep him doped with morphine, drifting in half-sleep, or so I must imagine. He cannot live long, you know. The morphine itself in such large amounts must poison him in the end, and they cannot stop injecting him for lack of an alternative to remove the pain. As well, they cannot be sure to prevent infection recurring, and it is difficult to feed a patient in such a case as he is…”
“Poor old George! Better dead than half-alive, do you not think, Tommy?”
“Much, but he has no choice in the matter, of course. He has no control of his own fate, poor fellow!”
A Deadly Caper (Innocents At War Series, Book 2) Page 4