Liam’s face erupted into a huge grin when he saw his friend’s surprised look. ‘You alright then, Eddie? You look as though you’ve just seen a ghost. Your Dad hasn’t been round to have a chat, has he?’
Edward’s lips moved silently as he struggled to overcome his surprise. He waved his rifle in the direction of the prisoners. ‘Where’ve they come from? In fact, where have you come from? I’ve just been told that you’d gone looking for a stretcher so that we could get Charlie back.’
‘Well, not quite. When I saw the big fella on the ground looking in a bad way, I thought there’s no chance of getting him back to the line without a few of us copping one off these trigger happy Germans. So I told the lads to tell you that we were going to see what we could sort out so that we could get Big Charlie back for some treatment. Me and Jim went for a bit of a walk and followed where the bullets were coming from. We found them easy enough. They had their machine gun set up in a trench and they were only a few yards away from their dump. So we chucked a couple of feet warmers in and they were out of there like scalded cocks.’
‘You’ve done a good job there, mate. Perhaps we could get them to carry Charlie back for us.’
‘I’m sure that they’d be glad to oblige. To be honest, I think that they were quite glad to be caught. They’ve had enough. They’re looking forward to a stay in Hotel Blighty.’
When they got back to the crater, Big Charlie was sitting up with a sheepish grin on his face.
‘Bloody wars,’ Liam whooped on seeing him. ‘I’d put you down as at least a fractured skull. You must have a head like pre-cast concrete.’
He sat down at the side of Big Charlie and put his arm round his shoulder. ‘I’m glad you’re ok mate. I was getting a bit worried about you,’ he said consolingly, before adding ‘We’ve got a big match against that lot from Leeds next week.’
He ducked the poorly aimed cuff to his head then bent down to help his ailing prop forward to his feet.
When they returned to their front line, they delivered the hapless prisoners to the dugout occupied by the Company Captain. They took the tot of rum that was offered them by way of thanks then collected together the few personal possessions that they had with them in the front line trench. Their tour had finished and they were due to be relieved. The Captain told them that they could escort the Germans back to the reserve trenches where there was a holding compound.
It had been a long night and the prospect of a two mile walk before they could get some sleep was not appealing. They knew, however, that at least they would be able to get some decent food and a good bed so they hurried their charges along with enthusiasm. The Germans seemed to relax more as they moved away from the line and, by the time that they had reached Battalion Headquarters, they had managed, with the help of much gesturing, to tell the British soldiers their names. Liam was disappointed to learn that none of them were called Fritz – the only German name known to most of the Tommies.
The pale rosy glow of daylight was just easing its way into the sky as they shook hands with their prisoners and wished them good luck. They made their way over to the canteen knowing that it would still be too early for anybody to be about. Liam had assured them that he knew where everything was and that he would brew them the best cup of tea that they had ever had.
The tables were littered with grease proof paper and chunks of cake with green mould thriving on them. Packs of cards, crib boards and sets of dominoes were scattered untidily around and English newspapers were left open as if waiting for their readers to return.
Whilst Liam stood frowning at the array of knobs that held the key to success on the blackened stove, Edward collected some enamel mugs and carried them over to where the rest of the group had organised sufficient of the metal framed, plywood seated, chairs around a table. Two of the men were now searching through the oddments of the newspapers for the latest sports news. Another was fixing a crudely applied plaster to the wound on Big Charlie’s nose.
Over the general hubbub of shifting chairs, shouts of delight at the news of a Manchester United win, hoots of derision at the appearance of Big Charlie’s blooded brow and the banging of enamel mugs there was a triumphant whoop as Liam succeeded in lighting the temperamental stove.
In the gloomy far corner of the otherwise deserted mess a young officer was slumped in a chair, an empty whisky bottle on the table in front of him, and a crumpled letter written on blue note paper clutched in his hand. On his head flies congregated on a dark red stain of blood that was matting his fair hair and congealing round the hole where he had shot himself.
The mail from home had finally caught up with them.
***
29 Myrtle Street
Cross Lane
Salford 5
Great Britain
25th April 1917
My Dearest,
I cried so much when I read your letter and thought of the pain that you are suffering because perhaps I was a bit insensitive. I am sorry if I hurt you by being so thoughtless and I can only ask you to try to understand that it was also difficult for me and I don’t even know whether I can begin to explain it. I suppose that I was a bit surprised when I saw you because your appearance has changed quite a bit. Since you first joined the army and went away I have kept an image of you locked away in my heart, to preserve you for ever and keep you safe. It has given me the strength to get up every day and look after us all, and to brace myself against the possibility, that I dread every minute of every day, that someone will come and say that you have been taken away from us. There’s not a day gone by in nearly three years that I haven’t thought about you back with us and yearned to hold you. But when you came through the door you looked, for a minute, like a different man. You are thinner and browner and, I’m sorry if this hurts you Sweetheart, but you look older and careworn. When I looked in your eyes they were full of dark shadows. I felt almost guilty for a moment, as though I was embracing another man. But then, I suppose, you are another man. You have been through things that I cannot even begin to understand and when I tried to share them with you, you just closed up.
There’s something inside me that I don’t really understand that stops me letting go of this memory even though you were standing there in front of me. I felt as though somebody was teasing me by just sending you back for a few days and then taking you off us again and that might be the last time that I ever saw you. (Please God forgive me for writing these words and tempting fate but I am trying to make you understand).I know that things have changed whilst you have been away, with the kids growing up and me having to make do the best that I could, but that can’t be helped and can’t be changed in a few days. When you get back for good, we will do what has to be done then to make things right. We have both got to face up to the fact that it will never be the same again for any of us but we will pull together, just like we always did, and we will make things work for our family.
Eddie, I’m sorry if any of this hurts you because it is not meant to. I have had to change in some ways in order to manage without you being there for the time being, but you are still as dear to me as ever. I love you just as much as when you first put the ring on my finger in Stowell’s Church and I won’t change till I breathe my last.
When I said that about our Laura going to High School I wasn’t meaning to push you out. It was just that I didn’t want her getting her hopes up too much. I want the best for her as well, even though she is a girl, but things are a bit tight now, Eddie, and that would be very expensive with the uniforms and books and everything. Just let’s see what happens when you get back.
By the way, our Laura doesn’t know why you got up suddenly and went into the parlour when she asked you how many Germans you had shot. I didn’t tell her that you were crying in there because she wouldn’t really understand. She thought that you were annoyed with her when you went out so quickly but I told her that you had just gone for a cigarette out of the way because of our Mary having a bad chest. She was only
asking you that because, the other day, Edith from next door to your Jim’s was in their house breaking her heart. She had just heard that her Frank had been killed in France and our Laura heard your Jim saying that he hoped that you would kill a few of those ‘Bs’ and get this mess over and done with. You know what she is like for listening in when you don’t know. She doesn’t mean any harm.
Take care, my Precious, and come back home safe to me just as soon as you can.
Laura
***
29 Myrtle Street
Cross Lane
Salford 5
Great Britain
19th May 1917
Dear Dad,
It was nice to see you home again on leave and I hope that you have got back safely. I have finished that book that you brought for my birthday. I’m ten now but I just feel the same as before. It was a really good book and it sounds very nice in Yorkshire. Mam said that it is God’s county and that’s where she was born. Perhaps when you have finished in France we could go for a holiday in Yorkshire because Mam would really like that.
They have cancelled the Whit Week Walks now from the Mission but Mam has made us some new clothes anyway so if we’re lucky we might still get a penny in our pockets from Uncle Jim. There are hardly any people left in the brass band that leads us because they are all in the army and the big drummer has come back with only one arm. I heard Mrs Willoughby telling Mrs Jones that he was slow enough at the best of times and if we were to go at only half the pace we would never get round.
Our Ben has asked me to tell you that he has just won his third class certificate for swimming at Regent Road Baths. Mam told him to write himself but he’s gone down to Ordsall Park playing football. He is going to do his second class in the summer holidays and, if he passes, he will win a free season at the baths.
I’m sorry that I haven’t finished your socks yet but it is hard to do knitting round four needles and Mam keeps making me undo it even for the tiniest little mistake. I don’t think that I will have enough of the green wool because it was only one of our Mary’s cardigans that I’ve undone. I might just put some stripes round the feet because we have a bonnet that she doesn’t need now. I might decide to keep them for me to wear in bed this winter because they might stop those horrible chilblains and I don’t mind just little mistakes.
Dad, you would have been alright if you had been injured because the King has just been to Salford and he went talking to the injured soldiers in Salford Royal. We went to watch on Chapel Street and there were loads of carriages and all the horses had been polished and plaited. The King waved to us but he was nothing special and he didn’t have his crown on. The Queen was very beautiful but she was waving at the Catholics outside the Cathedral so we didn’t see her properly. The policemen had to stop some men with buckets who were nearly having a fight. They were arguing about the horse muck that they wanted for their allotments and one nearly hit the other with his shovel. Mam said it is Lloyd George’s fault because there isn’t enough food to keep your family. We have meat coupons but there is never much in the butcher’s anyway. The police started the coupons to stop the big queues but the butcher runs out of stuff. Mam was telling Mrs Murphy that he favours those who favour him and she’d rather send our Eddie up to Rabbit Hills with his Uncle Jim.
Our Mary is starting school next year and I have been teaching her to read but she doesn’t like it very much. We played school with our Ben and our Sadie last week but then our Edward came in and said that he was the headmaster and he was going to cane them for being naughty children and they all finished up crying. Mam said that I should stop being so bossy but our Ben said that it was our Edward so she sent him up to the greengrocer’s where he works to see what they had that might be on the turn.
Love
Laura
***
Gomiecourt
France
15th July 1917
Darling Pippin,
It was lovely to see you all again when I was home. I was so surprised to see how much you had all changed. You are the image of your Mam when she was your age. Ask her about when she used to play football with the lads.
That must have been very special, going to see the King. It’s a shame that you didn’t get a proper look at the Queen as well. I’m told that she is very nice but I have never seen her.
Tell Ben that I am very proud of him for doing his swimming certificate. Don’t you go to the baths with him? I heard that they were talking about having mixed bathing for children. When I get out I will take you all swimming and playing football. Perhaps we might get the chance to go to Blackpool for a holiday. I was talking to another soldier the other day and he was saying that the sands there are lovely and they stretch for miles. It would be lovely to sit in a deckchair and get a nice jug of tea for the sands.
I am sorry that I seemed to be a bit strange when you talked about killing the Germans. I wasn’t annoyed with you. It’s just a bit upsetting because the ordinary German soldiers are just the same as us and lots of them are getting killed as well. They have wives and families at home and they would rather be there with them – just like we would. The fault is with the people at the top who are running things. They seem to lose their proper sense of values when they get power and it’s the rest of us that have to suffer for it. That’s why it’s good for you all to get a proper schooling and then you can make your way in life without being at the bidding of these people who’ve never done an honest day’s work in their lives.
Don’t worry about the socks, Darling. I don’t think that I would notice the little mistakes but your Mam would want you to get them right, which is good. If you would like to use them for yourself to stop the chilblains then that would make me very happy.
We went to help a local farmer last week for a few days. His daughter spoke a little English and she taught us a few words in French. They say ‘Bonjour’ for ‘Hello’ and ‘Merci’ for ‘Thank you.’ She was telling us that things are very difficult because when the Germans left they slaughtered their animals and burnt their crops and they had to hide anything of any value. Her Dad was trying to repair the roof where it had been damaged by the shelling so we gave him a hand. The girl cooked some nice meals with produce from the farm. It will be very hard for them when the war is finished because they have already lost so many of the young men from the village.
We see lots of interesting wildlife around here that we never see in Salford. There are some beautiful birds. They have one called a chaffinch that has lots of different colours on it and they come down in the trenches to see if we have any bits for them. We sometimes hear one called a nightingale that sits in the woods singing its head off. There is a big bird flying over us at the moment and I think that it might be called a buzzard. It is soaring in the air looking for any little animals on the ground that it can have for its dinner. Sometimes we see a family of foxes. The little ones wait near to where they live for their Dad to come home with something for them to eat. We’re just hoping that they will take a fancy to all these rats that are running around because we are fed up with them.
Look after yourself and take care of your Mam for me.
Love
Dad
Chapter 14
Frezenberg September 1917
Big Charlie had been persuaded to write a letter home to Dorothy and Edward had agreed to pen it for him. The mood of the soldiers, as well as the weather, had changed since they had moved North into Belgium. When they had marched into Ypres a few days before, they had been profoundly disturbed by the sight of the mutilated buildings that littered the streets with the debris of their downfall. Medieval structures stood roofless and gashed. Towers that had been built five hundred years before, when craftsmen devoted years of their lives to just one project, had been ripped apart as if by the hand of some petulant child sick of the sandcastle that he was building.
They had approached up the Menin Road, which was subject to almost round-the-clock enemy shell fire from
the Germans and repairs by the British, and now they were in the front line at Frezenberg. Big Charlie had been prompted many times to try and put things right at home but he had firmly resisted. Now, suddenly appearing aware of his own mortality, he had decided that it should be done. The air of gloom, that had weighed so heavily on him since his April folly, had increased daily with the lack of any forgiving or loving words from his beloved Dot and now the scarred images of Ypres faced him with the cold and deadly reality of this war. There had just been another major action in the area, the third in as many years, and although thousands had died there had been no strategic advantage of any consequence gained by either side.
This whole battlefield area was pock marked with water and slime filled shell holes that claimed many victims from those who had the misfortune to slip off the duck boards. The front line trenches were a series of joined-up craters whose shape was changed constantly by the incessant barrage.
The three pals sat huddled over a makeshift table trying to think of the elusive words that might soften the implacable resistance that Dorothy had developed. The thunderous roar of high explosive, shrapnel-filled shells rocked the ground and shook their table. Big Charlie was avoiding the idea of anything that might sound personal or affectionate having convinced himself that there was no possibility of his wife harbouring any shred of feeling, other than loathing, towards him. He had dismissed ‘My Darling Dot’ as an opening line, feeling that ‘Dear Madam’ might be safer, but had settled in the end for ‘Dear Dorothy.’
Made in Myrtle Street (Prequel) Page 22