Fall of Poppies

by Heather Webb

  “How can you even say that?” Frank shouted after her.

  She didn’t bother answering him. He was young and idealistic. Time would teach her son, as it had taught her, that none of us ever fully knows the rights or wrongs of anything. Especially not where love is concerned.

  “Your republican auntie Eileen was in love with a British soldier,” she said.

  “What?”

  “That’s right. Dave is the second British soldier in the family.” Not strictly true, perhaps, but it left him speechless which was no harm.

  Then Bridie walked down to the high street to buy the best double frame she could find.

  Hush

  Hazel Gaynor

  Monday, November 11, 1918

  10:58 A.M.

  ANNIE RAWLINS STOOPS over the pale, lifeless form at the foot of the bed, her back turned to the narrow lattice window of the station master’s cottage. She checks the small watch pinned to her apron and notes the time. Time is everything now. Time is what the infant doesn’t have; what none of them have had since the war started. Too often, Annie has seen how everything can change in an instant: a gas attack, a sniper’s bullet, a shell explosion, the dreaded telegram from the War Office: The King commands me to assure you of the true sympathy of His Majesty and the Queen in your sorrow. Another son, lost. Another mother’s heart, shattered. Moments that arrive in a sudden second and roar endlessly on, forever affecting the remaining fragments of a broken life.

  She looks at the helpless infant. A child, much longed for. A life, slipping silently away. She takes a deep breath, gathers her thoughts, and draws on all her years of experience.

  “Come along now,” she urges, working quickly to clear the mouth and nose. “Breathe, won’t you. You must breathe.”

  The weak winter sun flickers against the rain-­speckled glass at the window, hesitant to come inside. If only it would. Annie is certain that everything would be all right then. “Everything feels better with the sun on your face. Don’t you think, Mam?” She sees her boys standing by the back door. Jack, the eldest, has his eyes closed. A carefree smile at his lips as the autumn sun bathes his face in a soft buttery glow. So handsome in his uniform. And there’s Will, kicking at the dirt, his eyes red with angry tears because he is too young to go. “It’s not fair. I always miss out on the fun.” She wraps her arms around him, hugging him tight to her, nuzzling her nose into his thick black hair. She is glad of his tears; glad he cannot go. “It’ll all be over by Christmas,” Jack had said as he’d kissed her good-­bye on the station platform.

  It’ll all be over by Christmas.

  For Jack, it was. His war was over before most men had even arrived to fight. She sees his face and hears his voice as clearly as if he were standing beside her now. But he isn’t. Never will be. There’s only Will now. Out there. Somewhere in France. That’s what his letters say. How her arms ache to hold him. She would fight for him if she could, would become his bones, his skin, his very breath, if only he could come home safe to her.

  Sensing the long shadows cast by her boys’ absence and Annie’s fear for the infant, the sun creeps quietly away from the station master’s cottage. It ducks behind a cloud, drawing the pale yellow light from the room. The fragile life in front of Annie fades with it.

  She struggles on. “Come along now,” she urges. “You’ve got to fight. You have to. You must breathe. Breathe.”

  The infant’s appalling silence fills the room like an autumn mist rolling down the valley, drifting away from the tiny form to settle uncomfortably against the framed pictures of stern-­looking men and women on the oak chest, against the rose-­patterned ewer on the night stand, against the faded hearth rug and the splintered floorboards, against the distempered walls and the blackened grate of the smoldering fire; the simple possessions of a hardworking, loving family. The simple possessions of a man who valued life too much to fight. Annie knows the names they call him. Conchie. Feather Boy. She has watched this family’s suffering and wishes them no ill. Death doesn’t belong here. Not today.

  The silence is disturbed momentarily by the mother’s soft moans. “My child. Where’s my baby? Why doesn’t it cry?” Her words drift through the fog of laudanum that clouds her mind, her questions a broken strand of slivered web, searching for an answer to attach themselves to as Annie stares at the limp creature on the bedsheets. The lavender hue of his skin is unbearable.

  She looks up. “You have a son, Mrs. Miller.” Her voice is firm and calm. “A beautiful baby boy. He is here.”

  Yet he is not.

  His silence is suffocating. Annie pulls roughly at the buttons on her high collar, struggling for breath as she wills the infant to find his. “Come along now,” she whispers, her fingers working as firmly as she dare, massaging the paper-­thin skin at the place where she knows the smallest of hearts lies idle beneath. “You’ve got to fight. You have to. You must breathe.”

  The mute response chills her.

  She checks her watch, the relentless sweep of the second hand paying no heed to the drama unfolding in the little room.

  Time, and silence, march on.

  ACROSS THE NEAT tapestry of England’s harvested fields and berry-­rich hedgerows, above the soaring church steeples that pierce the sky, through the quiet countryside, over the white-­tipped rushing waves of the English Channel and on, beyond unfamiliar French villages with hopelessly romantic names, the silence reaches out.

  Above the scarred fields of Les Gros Faux, a barn owl swoops low over the trenches and dugouts that segment the landscape like broken wickerwork. Only the keenest of ears can detect the rush of air against his ghostly wings. He settles on a single fence post, guarding the torn earth like a sentry.

  Beneath him, Private Will Rawlins cannot breathe. Engulfed in a dark hell, his lungs burn with the desperate urge to take a breath. But it will not come.

  He remembers the scream of the shell, his officer shouting at him to take cover. “Get down, man! Get down!” Air, rushing past. The dull thud and thump of earth, men, life raining down on him. Now, only silence.

  His arms are pinned tight against him. He kicks out with his feet, sending an incomprehensible pain shooting up his right leg. He tries to scream, but something blocks his mouth, his nose. Realizing he is buried, smothered by the ground he had walked on not a moment earlier, he wriggles and writhes in desperation, his frenzied movements unfamiliar to him. He frees a hand, scrabbling at the stinking damp earth on his face, clawing and scratching to get it away, to break out of his tomb, but the earth is heavy and he is weak. Panic and terror take over, dispossessing him of conscious thought as he slips away from this hideous place and drifts toward a dream of autumn mornings knocking conkers from the great horse chestnut tree at the end of the lane. He balances on Jack’s broad shoulders, laughing as they both tumble to the ground. He kicks a stone along the neatly furrowed earth, freshly plowed. He tastes the sharp tang of juice from the just-­picked blackberries. He catches a minnow in a jar, and marvels at the shimmer and sheen of its scales in the sunlight. He kicks a football. Watches his grandfather light his pipe, the tobacco, mellow and warm. Simple things. A simple life.

  And then he hears her. “Come along now.” His mother’s voice, her breath warm against his cheek. “You’ve got to fight. You have to. You must breathe. Breathe, won’t you.”

  He drifts toward her. “They said it was over. Take me home, Mam. I want to go home.”

  THE CHURCH BELLS were striking the hour of seven when Annie arrived at the Millers’ cottage the previous evening. A tall candle burned on the windowsill. Everything was progressing smoothly. “Your baby will be here before that candle burns down, Mrs. Miller,” she’d said. But he wasn’t. The flame guttered and died. Dawn crept reluctantly into the room. Time marched carelessly on and still the child wouldn’t come, not through the endless rise and fall of the laboring woman’s pains, not thro
ugh all the pails of steaming water or the bundles of towels and rags that the young girl had brought when Annie had asked her to; towels and rags that lie scattered about the bed covers now, speckled and spotted with crimson. They remind Annie of the words in Jack’s letter. The poppies are so pretty, Mam. They seem to grow in every field here. It was the only letter he ever wrote to her. She shivers. Where is the girl with the coal for the fire? It, too, is cold and lifeless.

  Behind Annie, beyond the narrow window, village life carries on, the familiar rhythms and patterns, sights and sounds of a Monday morning in Brimsworth: the children skipping and singing their rhymes in the school yard, the clang and clatter from the forge as the great shire horses are fitted with new shoes, the rumble of the wagons, the trill of a bicycle bell. But Annie hears none of this. She hears only the dreadful silence in the small room, and she wants to scream and shout at the injustice of it all. She has delivered a dozen blue babies in her time, but this one is different somehow. This one chills her. This one seems to hold all of their lives in its miniature frozen hands.

  She glances over her shoulder as she hears the click of the latch at the door. The girl is back with the coal. She places the bucket down on the hearth and walks toward the bed, her boots heavy against the boards that creak and groan in sympathy with the melancholy she senses in the room. Her face pales. She clasps her hand to her mouth as she watches the midwife at work. Her manner is businesslike, efficient. The girl cannot take her eyes from the lifeless shape on the bed. Like the puddle of wax on the windowsill he is gray and still and stiff.

  She glances at her mother and lowers her voice. “Is he dead, Mrs. Rawlins?”

  Annie wipes the sweat from her forehead. “No, Beth. He isn’t. He just hasn’t worked out how to live yet. Go and fetch your father. Tell him to come straightaway.” Her words are clipped and insistent. “Quickly.”

  Beth turns, and runs from the room.

  The silence follows, leaving the small bedroom, creeping beyond the open door, tiptoeing quietly through the simply furnished cottage. It stops for a moment to consider a photograph of a young man on the sideboard, fresh-­faced and smiling, proud to be in uniform and on his way at last. The much-­loved twin brother who had just become an uncle again, and didn’t even know it. It moves on, seeping out of the back door, wending its way along the dirt track roads of the village, past the grocer’s shop, the pub, the post office, the public baths, the blacksmiths and the coal merchants. The ­people of Brimsworth go about their business, chatting in doorways, bundling distracted children along the narrow pathways, hanging the Monday wash on sagging lines. They are unaware of the tragedy unfolding in the little cottage on the corner. They are unaware of the great change that is about to fall upon them all.

  The silence passes by, touching them with a cool breath. They feel it only as a stiffening in the breeze, pulling their hats over their ears, wrapping scarves and shawls closer about their shoulders. They hurry to be indoors, beside the fire. Only Bill Lacy looks up as he rolls a heavy barrel of ale from the drayman’s cart into the deep bowels of the cellar. Only he senses the change on the wind. He stops for a moment and thinks about his son in France. He feels so very far away. He sighs, pushes up his shirtsleeves, and continues with his work. Keeping busy is the only thing he knows how to do. The only way he knows how to help. Keep the home fires burning. That’s what the song says and that’s what he’ll do.

  The silence pushes on, wandering through the cemetery, slipping easily between the spaces where the fallen fathers and sons of the village will never be laid to rest. It glides toward the church door, peers inside, and pauses to look around.

  There he is. The praying man.

  It meanders on, settling in the pew beside him, absorbing his muttered words. “Let them live, Lord. Please, let them live.”

  He repeats his prayer, over and over, until he can speak no more and falls into a wretched silence. He is being punished. He is certain of it. The life of his wife and child being taken in exchange for his because he refused to take up arms.

  “Coward,” they call him. “Conchie. Feather Boy.” Their taunting jeers follow him everywhere. When it had snowed last winter, he didn’t see snowflakes, only hundreds of white feathers, tumbling down, smothering him until he couldn’t bear to look anymore.

  As the village station master, Tom Miller had always been well regarded. His was a position of respect and authority. Now he is ignored. ­People pass him in the street. Even the young lads who used to ask if they could blow the whistle don’t stop to say hello. The men who returned on leave or had been sent home, their bodies shattered and their minds broken beyond repair, men who had seen the very worst of all the horrors, still thought it was better to have done your bit than to have taken a moral stance like Tom and the other conscientious objectors.

  “Tom?” A broad hand rests on his shoulder. “Would you not go home? See how she’s doing? It might all be over. You might have a baby to welcome into the world.”

  Tom wipes his nose on the back of his coat sleeve and looks up at the vicar. Such kind eyes. He doesn’t judge. He only prays for them all.

  “I’m too afraid, Vicar. It’ll be my fault if they die. My fault.”

  The vicar sits down in the pew beside Tom and places his hand on his. It is dry, like paper. Tom flinches under the man’s compassionate touch. He wants to pull his hand away, wants to be alone with his fear and his guilt as he has become accustomed. But the vicar pays no heed. He wraps his fingers tight around Tom’s and begins to pray. Tom settles onto his knees beside him, closes his eyes, and recites the Lord’s Prayer.

  After the “Amen,” the church falls silent. Even the solitary bird flitting between the rafters high above finds a perch and is still. The figures in the stained glass, the hideous gargoyles, the organ pipes, the crows on the roof outside—­they all hold their breath in the desperate hope that the dying infant will find his.

  WILL WAS IN the reserve trench when they were told. They were due to rotate that morning, Eleventh Battalion’s turn at the front, and the boys were nervous.

  Nobody had slept that night. Shivering in his greatcoat, Will had thought about how anxious he had been to sign up; how keen they had all been to do their bit, to see some action. Bored with the long, cold nights in the reserve and communications trenches, they couldn’t wait to get their orders to march to the front line. What fools they were. One of Lord Kitchener’s Pals Battalions, formed from the entire village enlisting together, except for Tommy Miller and his misplaced morals. They weren’t trained soldiers. Not one of them. They were just naïve boys looking for adventure. Naïve boys who were soon lost and afraid in the reality of war. Over his years of ser­vice, Will had seen unimaginable things: awful, agonizing deaths; the rotting corpses of the horses; the metal helmet all that remained of a dear friend. He’d seen men crack under the strain, throw down their rifles, and run from their posts, knowing they would be shot. Anything to prevent the torture of the front. Deserters were shot dead, an example to them all. The battlefield was no place for cowardice. That’s what the officers told them. Lacking Moral Fiber. Not Yet Diagnosed, Nervous. Absent Without Official Leave. Missing in Action—­there was a label for them all, yet nobody had a label for the simple truth: Afraid.

  Will was sharing a smoke and drinking the weak trench tea with Privates Henderson and Walsh. They used to share a pint in the Blacksmith’s Arms. Now they shared their smokes and their fears. They’d become like brothers to him. They alone were the reason he came back from leave, to give the next in line his turn back home with his loved ones.

  Davey Walsh was teasing Will about a letter he had received from home. “Another letter from Martha Lacy? Trust you to fall for the publican’s daughter. Always after a free pint you are, Rawlins. Never knew anyone for missing their round as much as you.”

  “Bugger off, Walsh. I haven’t fallen for her. She keeps sending me socks,
that’s all. It’s not like I’m going to marry her or anything.”

  “She seems to think you are. Our Mary says she’s going around telling everyone you’ll ask her when you get home.”

  Will laughed. “I’ll ask her to pull me a pint. That’s about all I’ll be asking her. Anyway, you’re only jealous ’cause nobody writes to you.” He took a long drag of his smoke.

  “Who needs letters? Had more than my share of French girls at the billets in town. Partial to a bit of English sausage, they are.”

  Will threw his packet of matches at Walsh’s head. “French tarts, the lot of ’em. You want to watch it, Walsh. You’ll be riddled with the clap.”

  “Might get me out of this shithole for a while. I’d be glad of a dose of the clap for a week if it would get me out of here and into a field hospital.” He stubbed his cigarette out against his helmet. “Maybe I’ll start writing to Martha Lacy. If I’m friendly enough maybe she’ll pull more than my pint when I get home.”

  Will was about to punch Walsh in the stomach when a signal corps officer entered the dugout and handed the lieutenant a message. Will sensed something shift in the atmosphere, a change on the wind. “Shh,” he hissed to the others. “Something’s happening. Listen.”

  They huddled together, sipping their tea, listening to the muffled voices.

  Will took a long drag on his Woodbine as Lieutenant Cavendish ducked beneath the wooden struts and leant against the sandbags. He scrutinized the man’s usually emotionless face. His cheeks were pale, his eyes glistened, the muscles in his face contracted, his jaw tightening and relaxing, tightening and relaxing, stirred by whatever was written on the piece of paper he held in his hand. He cleared his throat. “Gather round, men. I have important news.”

  All the joking and larking around was instantly forgotten. This was serious. There was a shuffling and rearranging of crates and personnel as the men gathered around, glad of the extra body heat as they squashed together in the cramped space. The lieutenant cleared his throat again, stiffened his back, held his head up high. He straightened the piece of paper and started to read. The tremble in his voice was audible to them all.