Mortar shells continued to fall but without too much accuracy. The grenades thrown at the OP had done their job and the operators in the trenches clearly couldn’t get a fix on their positions. The soldiers made their stumbling way out of the vicinity of the shell fire, sharing the burden of their injured comrades as they slithered perilously along the narrow tracks. There were stretches where they were visible to the German gunners but the fire was spasmodic. They had lost interest in their now retreating foes.
Eventually, they reached the edge of the woods where they had left the ailing German soldier. There were now five miserable, wet men in grey uniforms huddled together for warmth. They had thrown their own rifles into the mud. ‘I don’t know about shock troops,’ Liam mused, ‘but it will give them a big surprise at the office when we take this lot in.’
Four of the German soldiers rose unsteadily to their feet but the fifth remained prostrate under the trees. ‘Er ist sehr krank,’ the original prisoner said, pointing towards the man on the floor. ‘Not good.’
The Germans tried to lift their weakened comrade but their own enfeebled condition meant that they could barely raise themselves. The face of the fair haired young man sprawling limply on the ground had, already, a deathly pallor. Big Charlie stepped forward, checked to make sure that there were no broken limbs then poked the dying young man in the ribs. The German’s lips moved slightly. ‘It’s ok. Ich trage ihn,’ Big Charlie told the group of Germans, ‘I will carry him.’ Bending down, he gently picked up the dying man.
The original prisoner, struggling with his emotions, put his hand on Big Charlie’s arm. ‘Er ist mein Bruder,’ he said. ‘My brother.’
***
29 Myrtle Street
Cross Lane
Salford 5
Great Britain
25 September 1917
Dear Dad,
We are back at school now but it is a bit boring because we might have to have all our hair cut off. The nit nurse has been round and Freda Higginbottom is full of them and they said that we might all have to be treated. Mam has got a special comb and she said that none of us have got nits because she makes sure that we are looked after properly. The teacher said that they are called head lice and I told her that you get rid of them over a lighted candle. She said that I know too much for my own good sometimes but I told her that that is what my Dad does.
We don’t have any wild animals around here so you are very lucky being able to see all those. I have been looking them up in a book at school and you should be careful of those foxes because they can be a bit sly. I wish we could have some of those chaffinches though. We only have sparrows. We hardly ever see any pigeons now because people trap them.
Our Edward has told our Ben that he has got a girlfriend at a house he delivers to and he gave her a kiss in Buile Hill Park. Our Sadie wants to know if she wears clogs like us or is she posh. Mam said that there is nothing wrong with clogs and they are no better than we are just because they don’t wear them.
We had a ceremony in the street last week for the opening of the roll of honour. The Mayor came down and made a speech and Billy Murphy said that it was the same speech that he had made in their street the day before. We all had to put on our best clothes and then we took them off again an hour later because the Mayor had gone home. They left horse muck and straw all over the street after we had spent all morning cleaning the road ready for them coming. Mr Kirkstall with no legs from round the corner, sat in his chair and cried all the way through. Then somebody brought him a big glass of that whisky stuff that Uncle Jim likes and afterwards he started singing and then Mrs Kirkstall started crying. Old Mr Cooper took his pipe out of his mouth, which he doesn’t do very often, and sang a song for his son because they didn’t know where he was, and Mrs Cooper was singing and crying at the same time. Mr MacFarlane came out of the pub and marched down the street playing his bagpipes then Mr Simmons went in his house and came out with a big piano accordion that he pumped up strapped round his neck. He was marching behind Mr MacFarlane and then some more people came out of the pub and one had a mouth organ. They all stood singing near the new roll of honour. Mr Simmons took one of the flowers out of a wreath that we had made – well it was one that Billy Murphy brought round from their street because they had finished with it and we put a new card on it – and he sang one called ‘Will Ye No Come Back Again.’ Mam said it is Scottish, which it probably is because Mr MacFarlane knew it, and Mrs Cooper started crying again then nearly everybody was singing and crying at the same time. It was getting a right miserable do but Mam brought out a tray of treacle toffee so that was better for all the kids.
Dad, I hope that you don’t mind but I have decided to keep those socks because I forgot to put a heel in one of them until I had gone past it and I don’t want chilblains again when it gets cold.
Our Ben has passed his second class certificate for swimming so he can go to the baths for a year without paying.
Love
Laura
***
Oblinghem
France
11th December 1917
Darling Pippin,
I so enjoyed your letter about the ceremony to dedicate the Roll of Honour in the street. I told Mr Murphy and some of the others about it and we had a good laugh. We needed something to cheer us up and that was a real good tonic. We were in a place called Nieuport at the time on the coast of Belgium and it was a pretty depressing place. The destruction to the villages and towns is beginning to get us all down but it must be worse for the locals. In Nieuport there is a large canal that runs through and it has three bridges that cross it. The Germans have positions on high ground outside the town and every night they shelled the bridges and every day we rebuilt them. They think that it is some kind of game but it was not very funny for us in this awful weather.
The whole of the area is very flat and miserably muddy. Sometimes we spend all day on little islands in the river hiding behind low shelters and hardly daring to move because you would be seen by the Germans. Fortunately, there are still parts of the town which are largely undamaged where life goes on more or less as normal. We go into town when we have got time off and have a beer in the bars.
They speak a very funny language here. I have been told that it is a mixture of Dutch and French but it could be Double Dutch for all I can understand it. It makes you very homesick, sometimes, when you sit in a cafe and you don’t understand a thing of what is being said. I would give anything for one of your Mam’s hot pots with a thick pastry crust on the top. With some nice pickled red cabbage, of course.
Our Edward is getting quite a young man now if he has a girlfriend. I won’t ask him about her, though, or else he will guess that you have told me so it will have to be our secret. I sneaked a kiss once off your Mam when we were fishing on the cut canal. She said that it was like sucking a stickleback. I was very hurt so I didn’t try again for quite a few years. So that’s another secret that we have.
Your Mam told me that you have been reading a book called ‘Little Women’ and she says that you hide away in the corner and ignore everyone. I used to enjoy reading when I was young but it was difficult to get hold of books then. Our entertainment was mostly found out in the street and down at Peel Park. We used to help out round the market whenever we could, to earn a bit of extra money. Sometimes we got paid in kind by the stallholders who gave us some of the stuff that hadn’t sold. It was good fun but it wasn’t great schooling. Knowledge gives you strength, Darling, so keep enjoying it. Maybe one day you will be another Emily Pankhurst. You might not have heard of her but she is the lady that has been fighting for women’s rights, especially for their right to vote. She is a Manchester girl, born in Moss Side, and her Dad owned Goulden’s Calico Printers in Salford. We all have to be willing to fight for our rights and to be respected for who we are so I admire Mrs Pankhurst for devoting so much of her life to this. Her daughters are very keen supporters and I read in the Reporter that there are a number
of ladies in Salford who are in the Women’s Movement. I hope that they succeed. They deserve to. There are too many of us in Britain who are treated as second or even third class citizens.
I have sent a little parcel with some bits and pieces for everybody for Christmas. It’s not much, but it is difficult to get hold of things when you’re doing a job like this.
Happy Christmas my little one. I can’t tell you how much I would like to be there to share it with you all.
Love
Dad
Chapter 15
Vaudricourt, March 1918
‘Vous voudrez le meilleur?’ the young woman enquired. She was pretty, with long dark hair, but her eyes were tired and her smile more fixed than welcoming. She was the daughter of le patron and, although they came to this bar quite often when they were on free time, they found that she distanced herself from the visiting soldiers with her quiet, but powerful, authority.
The room had cheerfully painted walls and a smoky ceiling. A local artist had, at some time, decorated the top half of the walls with sensual, though clearly agricultural, females. The tables were heavy cast iron with marble tops but the chairs were a motley mix of styles and quality. The bar was popular with the British troops who welcomed the draught beer and enjoyed the local wines, and they savoured its authentic charm. It was also frequented by the older locals and the British soldiers delighted in the small exchanges that they were able to make with the few French words that they had acquired.
Big Charlie shifted uncomfortably under the searching gaze of the young French waitress. He never felt at ease in the presence of attractive females and the minimal contact that he had enjoyed with any member of that sex during the last three years had only served to erode his confidence further. Her dark eyes stayed on Big Charlie as she waited for a reply but the words were nowhere near forming in his brain. He wasn’t certain, even, whether she had been addressing him in English but he did know for sure that he hadn’t understood a single word.
He had always felt discomfited when young women spoke to him. He was usually the butt of their jokes. He was a chance for them to sharpen their humour and then to walk off arm-in-arm, laughing as they enjoyed their minor intellectual conquest. He sometimes thought of suitable responses but they were always too late. Even the day after. When his Dorothy had come along and seen in him qualities that others had missed, he couldn’t believe his good fortune. She was bright and funny but not at his expense. She saw in him a gentle, caring and protective temperament and she understood his dark moods of frustration.
Big Charlie had never been able to totally accept her commitment to him because he never understood it. She was a thing of beauty that had come into his life but he had always believed that the day would come when she would be snatched away again. He was in awe of her and fearful of doing something that might hasten her departure. His physical contact with her was hesitant and guarded, dominated by his constant worry that his size and clumsiness might in some way harm her.
But he did know that Dorothy accepted him for what he was and she took care of him with a good humoured tenderness. He, on the other hand, responded to her sudden bouts of shrieking fury with silent resignation. Now, as he sat glowing uncomfortably under the mocking stare of the French girl’s big dark eyes, he felt the familiar sense of panic and the rushing blur of words and thoughts in his head.
‘What’s she on about the Mayor for?’ he eventually asked Edward and Liam. His two companions, who clearly didn’t share his aversion to the obvious charms of the young waitress, dragged their attentions away for a moment to address this difficult problem.
‘You’re not in trouble about something, are you Charlie?’ asked Edward.
‘You haven’t been daubing slogans on the wall of the Town Hall, have you?’ Liam pursued. ‘Or perhaps Farmer Pierre has complained about you nicking his cow.’
‘I didn’t nick his cow,’ protested Big Charlie.
‘No. But he could see you was weighing up how many steak pies you could get out of it,’ retorted Liam.
‘Just ask her,’ suggested Edward. ‘She might understand a bit of English.’
‘I’ll ask,’ Liam said. He cleared his throat and said loudly and precisely, in the way that the English believe somehow converts the words to the recipient’s language, ‘What… you… say… about… Mayor.’
‘Non, non, c’etait le meilleur,’ she affirmed patiently.
‘Hope that you don’t mind me interrupting, mate.’ The voice came from an adjoining table in the bar. It was a teacher from Bolton who had just been assigned to their regiment. He had gone through the Officer Training Corps before coming to France where he had been for the last two years. ‘I think that she is asking you if you want the best.’
‘The best what?’ queried Edward.
‘I would think that she means the wine. They usually have some decent quality stuff in the cellar that they keep for their favoured customers.’
‘Well, this stuff isn’t too bad,’ reflected Liam, taking another mouthful and letting it roll gently down his throat.
‘I suppose that we could always try some of the good stuff for a change,’ Edward said encouragingly.
‘Good idea,’ Liam said. ‘We’ll order some. It’s about time we spoiled ourselves a bit. Tell her we’ll give it a try,’ he instructed Big Charlie.
A look of alarm started to spread across the already flustered face of the Salford soldier and he started to splutter. He fingered his collar and glanced briefly at the lovely face. ‘Aye. Right,’ he said, nodding.
‘Bien. Venez,’ she said, beckoning Big Charlie with an elegant finger.
Accompanied by much barracking from around the bar, Big Charlie rose uncertainly to his feet and followed as if mesmerised by the gently swaying hips of the waitress. The neat black skirt was his preferred option for somewhere to rest his gaze rather than meet the eyes of his fellow soldiers who were offering their own helpful observations on the nature of his mission. Heat raged up through his body, his tight collar constricted his breathing and sweat dripped into his unseeing eyes. Chairs, and sometimes their occupants, fell as he followed the French woman clumsily towards the door marked ’Privee.’
Liam poured some more wine from the carafe and fished in his pocket for the few francs that he needed as his contribution. ‘We might as well finish this so that we can compare it with good stuff.’
There was a hushed moment in the bar as all its occupants watched the graceful hips in the long black skirt, surmounted by the elegantly curved white blouse, go through to the back of the bar. This was a confused silence of envy and incomprehension. It was not within the scope of the average Tommy’s thinking to believe that this beautiful lady might be available, and to see her disappearing through this door, beckoning the reluctant Salford lad, was a mental challenge with which they could not cope. They listened in total silence to the heavy tread of Big Charlie’s boots ascending the stairs accompanied by the constant prompting of the French woman.
Edward and Liam clinked their glasses together. ‘Here’s to a good show – when it arrives,’ they wished, alluding to the rumours that were rife that the Germans might be planning something big. There had been reports that they had been moving divisions in from the Eastern Front to support their French operation.
‘Let’s hope that it’s a short one and that the whole thing’s over with soon.’
Whilst the occupants of the bar remained staring in open mouthed amazement at the door into the back there was a thunderous thudding noise on the stairs, the door burst open and Big Charlie came crashing through. He was muttering something about ‘getting in bed with a scabby old tart’ as he dashed past them and out through the front door.
Moments later, le patron’s daughter appeared, bending forward and holding her stomach as she struggled to suppress the violent laughter that was, in that peculiarly feminine way, applying pressure to her bladder. She struggled over to the corner of the bar where the locals were gather
ed and in seconds they were shrieking. The French woman gesticulated dramatically as a substitute for the words that she couldn’t get out and the old men spluttered through their cigarettes. One held his hand to his chest as his excitement mounted and another failed to hold his buttocks tightly enough to restrain the gases that his uncontrollable laughter had promoted. Hands were slapped on the bar and large, and sometimes dubious, handkerchiefs were wiped over their eyes as the waitress’s recounting of her story was accompanied by gales of laughter from the locals. The British soldiers stared at them, totally bemused.
The Bolton teacher had moved closer to the bar and was listening attentively to the discussion. Presently, he came over to Edward and Liam and explained that, apparently, the best wine had been hidden under the Grandma’s bed since the German army had arrived. Le patron’s daughter had needed assistance to lift her invalid Grandma from her bed so, in the absence of le patron, she had selected Big Charlie because of his obvious power. Unfortunately, the obliging Salford man had misunderstood the nature of his assignment when the French woman had pulled the sheets back and pointed first at Big Charlie and then at the bed. The situation had not been clarified when the occupant had given him a toothless smile and held her arms up in a welcoming gesture. He had taken one look at the wrinkled old crone smiling invitingly up at him and fled.
They had a brief discussion and concluded that Big Charlie might prefer to have a little time to recover before the situation was explained. There was the carafe of wine to finish anyway and it was improving as the evening progressed. They took their wine and joined a group from their platoon on the adjoining table. They discussed the football match planned for the next day and the shooting competition that was due to be held later in the week.
In the training sessions, heavy emphasis was now being placed on the platoon as a unit and much of the sporting activity was organized as inter-platoon competitions. After more than three years of fighting, many painful and expensive lessons had been learnt by both sides and the training was now focused on responsibility being taken at a more local, and even personal, level. The rigid patterns of battalion warfare were giving way to a more flexible approach at platoon level and the army was encouraging them in the recognition of the significance of this by arranging these inter-platoon activities.
Made in Myrtle Street (Prequel) Page 25