White Feathers

by Susan Lanigan

  ‘She’s talking about Miss Hedges,’ Christopher explained to Eva. ‘It’s my mother’s belief that the woman had her claws into me.’

  ‘She was a predatory and self-interested creature,’ declared Mrs Shandlin, ‘and wouldn’t look at you unless she wanted something from you. Why, she didn’t say a thing when you enlisted. Every marriage and decoration mentioned in her little past pupils’ book and not even the smallest sentence about you.’ She made a face.

  ‘Well, why do you insist on getting the bloody book, Ma? It always makes you angry.’

  ‘Christopher, language.’

  He rolled his eyes.

  Eva was amused at this display. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, she thought to herself. But Mrs Shandlin was kind to Eva, not peppering her with questions and apologising for the few enquiries she did make on the grounds that ‘Christopher is useless at providing information.’

  The sun came out, and the men swapped stories. Not from the lines of battle, but from home, about families and lawn parties and queer people they met at work – and someone nagged the Royal Welch man, Johnstone, to recite Browning’s ‘Home-thoughts, from Abroad’, which he did in a faltering but clear voice. Christopher had to prompt him when he got to ‘The first fine careless rapture!’, which Johnstone repeated in a somewhat shaky voice. The first fine careless rapture – so long ago now, so far away!

  After Johnstone finished, the assembly was silent for a moment, the only sounds being the clink of lemonade glasses and some shouts from inside the building where the more troubled of their fellows lay. Then Mrs Shandlin said, in a harsh tone, ‘Time it was when we would gossip about the neighbourhood, we’d joke about who had died recently, and it was always my generation we were talking about.’ She looked at her son. ‘Now, it’s yours.’

  ‘Ma,’ Christopher said quietly, putting his arm around her shoulders. ‘Please, don’t start.’

  The silence began to hang dangerously in the air. Eva thought of the eurhythmics woman. ‘Could we put on some music?’ she suggested. A collective exhalation ensued. What to play?, Where was the gramophone?, Was it too windy? The conversation was back again, though it had a different quality now, less sweet and languorous than before.

  Shortly afterwards, Mrs Shandlin took her leave of the party and invited Eva to walk her down to the driveway. ‘No,’ she held up a hand as Christopher rose to join them, ‘you stay where you are. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  ‘All right,’ he said, ‘but whatever you do, don’t tell her the truth.’

  Eva wasn’t sure if he was addressing her, or his mother, or both of them.

  They walked down the driveway together, their shoes making crunching noises on the gravel. Then Mrs Shandlin spoke. ‘I wanted to give you some time together, you don’t want an old woman getting in the way.’ She smiled and dipped her head, in just the same way as Christopher did, and Eva felt a rush of affection.

  ‘You’re not in the way at all.’

  ‘It’s very brave, what you’re doing, looking after Christopher. I can see how you watch him, to catch him should he fall. Oh, don’t worry, you don’t make it obvious. But you rush to his side every time somebody drops something, or shouts loudly. You are on alert, all the time.’

  Eva was too overcome to answer. She knew all too well what Mrs Shandlin meant. Just the other day, when they had been walking through the town, a barrel had come off a cart, and the dray horse had reared up. Christopher had cried out, a high, unnatural scream, and had thrown himself to the ground. When he got up, he was covered in spilled ale and dirt from the street. She hadn’t been quick enough to prevent that.

  ‘It’s been my life’s work, Eva – may I call you that? – worrying about him. Especially since we lost Francis. I know he is putting on a front for me right now. He wants to shield me from the worst of it. But it gives me great peace of mind to know that he has somebody to take care of him.’

  ‘I will do my best,’ Eva said, ‘I promise.’

  Mrs Shandlin put her hand on Eva’s arm. ‘Don’t lose yourself, though. He wouldn’t want that, and neither would I.’ She kissed Eva’s cheek and walked away. She had the same walk as Christopher too.

  That seemed to go all right, Eva thought, making her way back to rejoin the party. But when she got there, the men had all gone. Only Christopher was left, sitting disconsolately on the bench, one knee pulled up to his chin, the other loose and swinging restlessly, showing a trace of bare ankle above his sock. Around the table lay crumb-covered, discarded plates, while wasps crawled down the glasses, chasing the sticky residues of lemonade.

  Eva ran over. ‘What happened? Where is everybody?’

  ‘McCrum.’ The one-word reply was like a dagger to the chest.

  ‘What about him? What did he do?’

  Christopher rose. ‘Let’s go inside.’ They moved to the room with the French windows overlooking the patio and sat down. ‘He strutted over to the table with his array of flunkeys, and everybody jumped to their feet to salute like clockwork toys. Everybody, that is, apart from me.’

  Eva felt her heart sink to her boots. ‘Oh, Christopher, no.’

  ‘Then he demanded that I salute. He didn’t ask, mind you, just barked at me, as if it were his due and I were some delinquent child. Imagine someone so deficient in manners that they would demand a salute from somebody here, after all we’ve suffered.’

  ‘And?’ Eva tried to stop the shake in her voice.

  ‘And? I refused, of course. I told him I had heard of how he’d kicked a man on the ground and that he didn’t deserve my allegiance, or my respect. So he shouted blue murder at me for several minutes. Mentioned the Medical Board coming up. He’s there as a “duration of the war” official, which is a bit of a joke, since he’s hardly set foot beyond Rouen. The rest are doctors.’

  Eva turned her face away with a cry of horror. ‘Oh, God! I wish I’d never told you.’

  Christopher took her hand. He was excited, almost febrile, boyishly defiant. ‘But don’t you see, Evie,’ he said, ‘this is my moment. Finally I behave like a man and not a slave. Do you remember that time when that unco guid of a stepsister of yours called me a coward?’

  ‘Yes, yes I do. But Christopher, please calm down—’

  ‘The bit that hurt most was, she was right, if for the wrong reasons. I thought about it often during training. I was a coward. I thought I could hold out, but the pressure from everyone, those rotten posters too … and then you gave me that feather and my resolve went to pot. I betrayed Francis when I signed up for this palaver, and I betrayed my own good sense. And now that popinjay demands my obeisance? While calling me a malingerer? No, no. This is as far as I go and no further, Eva.’ His hands were bunched into fists and his entire body tense.

  Eva stroked his back, her hand drawing long, even lines. ‘Easy. Take it easy.’ She tried to hide her dismay that in his mind such a futile, almost childish gesture against a powerful, dangerous enemy like McCrum could be a symbol of any sort of self-redemption.

  ‘And that bitch Grace – I know what she thought of me. I won’t take it, not from any of them, I’ll not …’ He was shaking; his entire body was consumed with spasmodic jerks.

  Eva realised he was in the grip of full nervous shock and called out for help. But there were no nurses around. She put her arms around him and started to rock him back and forth, just as he had done for her that day in Southwark Park, two years ago. She whispered gentle words in his ear, saying the things she had wished her own mother could have said to her in all the intervening years, trying to comfort him, just as she had promised his mother.

  But he was beyond help. He sobbed convulsively, gripping onto her as if she were a rock in the middle of a stormy sea, pulling at her blouse with his fingers like he were a child. She ran her hands up and down his back, stroking him the way she used to stroke Imelda when she had a bad night. But nothing calmed him. He was trying to say something, but it was lost in his anguish, which was all-enco
mpassing, like a drowning wave.

  Eva touched his forehead with her own so that they were face to face. Tears streamed down his cheeks, and his expression was all broken up like smashed glass. Some instinct prompted her to lick his tears with her tongue. That seemed to calm him a little. She whispered at him to breathe, to breathe normally, and … What was he saying? Eventually he was able to force it out: ‘I’m afraid. Oh, God, I’m so afraid. I can’t—’

  ‘It’s over now, darling,’ she whispered. ‘Soon they’ll let you go home. You’ve done your part, and more. I’ll take you home, my love. Nobody’ll ever hurt you again, Kit, I promise.’

  But he was inconsolable. He muttered broken sentences about there being no escape, that they were waiting for him, that they would catch him.

  Still she called out for help, and still no one came, so she held him until his weeping subsided a little, the loud gasps turned into smaller sobs, until his twitching began to subside. Then she kissed his scarred hands and stayed with him until the pain and terror and unspeakable fear had gone out of his body for a while, or at least until his body was too tired to convey them any longer. She held him and said nothing, because she too was afraid.

  The following day, Eva woke late, her hair sticky and tangled. Wind and rain soughed through the small crack in the open sash window. Yesterday had been exhausting. She had stayed with Christopher until he was totally calm, which took a while. After he stopped crying, he started talking gibberish, and she could tell he was reliving the horrors he had told her about. This damned war! She wanted to wipe away all the horrible things he had seen, felt, smelt and endured. She would have even wiped herself away, if it helped; all she wanted was for him to be right again.

  What tore her apart was his apologising so often for his condition, when it was not his fault. She tried not to think too much about what might become of him in the civilian world. Would this trembling, frightened, distraught man ever be able to stand in front of a class of youngsters again?

  Tomorrow was his mother’s last full day on the island, so he would spend it with her. He would come to Eva’s room at the hotel at nine in the evening and stay there all night, regardless of the rules. Even if they ended up just sleeping, it would be the first time they had said goodnight with their heads on pillows next to each other. She hoped he would be better by then.

  At around seven o’clock that evening, Eva bathed, then dried her hair with a towel and brushed out the tangles. She applied cold cream to her face, starting at her cheekbones and working down slowly until all the white vanished into her skin. A quick dab of rosewater to her wrists and her toilet was complete. She dressed quickly, then sat on the bed and waited for her visitor.

  By half past nine she was growing restless but did not want to move. Perhaps his mother wanted to talk about something. Perhaps she had heard about the white-feather incident. Somebody might have talked to her about it. These things got around. Eva began to sweat under her bodice.

  She checked her watch. A quarter past ten. She could wait no longer. Downstairs, the concierge sat hunched at the desk. ‘Did … did anyone call for me?’ she asked falteringly. The concierge jumped and snorted herself awake. ‘No, not that I rightly recall. Nobody’s come in.’

  Eva retreated to her room and waited some more. Although she was too proud to check with the concierge every five minutes, desperation at last prompted her to ask one more time, at eleven o’clock, whether anybody had called. The irritated negative she received removed all hope.

  Something must have happened.

  She lay awake, the curtains open, looking at the varying patterns of the night sky. She was afraid that if she fell asleep she would miss his arrival – but by two o’clock natural body rhythms asserted themselves, and, against her will, she fell asleep.

  She did not wake until the following morning, still fully dressed. Forgoing breakfast, she made her way to Osborne House, where she learnt that, in her absence, and in his mother’s presence, the Medical Board, led by Brigadier Lionel McCrum, had convened early and without notice, had judged Lance Corporal Christopher Shandlin fit to serve and had sent him directly to the eastern front.

  V

  Singing It Straight

  33

  November 1916

  ‘If I have to stay here one more day, I shall go absolutely barmy.’

  Eva watched Sybil trying to stretch her long legs out on her cabin bunk and failing. Defeated, she rolled onto her back with her legs hunched and her hands behind her head, looking out the small porthole at the overcast sky of a southern Italian winter. Rain flecked the glass; a storm was in train. The passengers on HMHS Britannic, all medical personnel supplemented by VADs, were immured in their cabins.

  Eva merely sighed in response. What could she say? Captain Bartlett was a sensible man. If he thought it too risky to put to sea, then Sybil would have to wait.

  ‘We’ll never get to Greece at this rate. Which means you won’t get to see Christopher.’

  Eva did not rise to the bait. ‘Nor am I likely to see him if we end up taking an unexpected bath in the Mediterranean. I’ll take my chances and wait.’

  ‘I still can’t believe they shipped him off to Salonika like that. It’s completely irregular.’ Eva said nothing. They had been down this road before. ‘No, it’s jolly rotten, that’s what it is. Do you mean to tell me that it was all down to that popinjay McCrum and that the three doctors were just yes men?’

  ‘Perhaps they really did think he was fit.’ Eva felt tired to the bone. ‘Maybe he convinced them? He’s very articulate.’

  ‘Oh, Evie, darling,’ Sybil said in gentle reproach. ‘If even half of what you’ve told me about Christopher is true, he was manifestly unfit. Let’s face it, he was never the most resilient of men, was he? Always at least flirting with a nervous breakdown as far as I could see. Augh!’ as the Britannic pitched suddenly, ‘Blasted ship! It’s supposed to be in the harbour.’

  The ship was actually supposed to be halfway across the Ionian Sea, en route to Greece to pick up wounded soldiers from the eastern front. It had left Southampton on 12 November and stopped in Naples on the Friday to refuel. They should have left on Saturday morning, but it was now midday, with no sign of any movement, and tempers were getting frayed.

  ‘I agree with you, Sybil. He was unwell and frightened. But there was nothing I could do.’ Eva wished Sybil wouldn’t keep bringing it up. For her, Christopher’s redeployment was an injustice to be championed, but for Eva it just hurt. To remember how she anticipated him coming to her that night – the bath, the rosewater – then the morning’s news and the look on Mrs Parvenor’s face. And to think of poor Mrs Shandlin, having her son taken away like that, manhandled into a troop carrier with ten others. Mrs Parvenor told Eva over cups of hot, sweet tea that Christopher’s mother had left immediately. Eva could not blame her; she herself packed up as soon as she could.

  Telling Sybil what had happened had been difficult. When they met at the station at Boulogne, her first question was, ‘Why the long face? I thought you were engaged.’ Eva explained, her lips feeling as if they had been numbed with proof alcohol. Sybil had been outraged, then had gone into action.

  ‘Where did you say it was they’ve put him? I bet it’s Salonika, that’s where Henry Lamb is stationed.’

  ‘Henry who?’ Eva’s head spun.

  ‘He’s with the RAMC, has been there since September. He’s another of those painter chaps Roma hangs around with. Pretty good, by all accounts. Roma’s going over to accompany him, but it’s all for show. He’ll be doctoring, not painting, and she’ll be filing copy to Reuters like a proper reporter. It’s the only way she can get around the nonsense of being accredited by the War Office. I’ve applied for a transfer. I’m not spending this winter away from her.’

  Ah, Roma. Eva allowed herself a small smile. Whenever Sybil had some sort of wheeze on the go, one could usually rely on Roma’s being the reason behind it.

  ‘You should come too.’
Sybil put her hand on Eva’s shoulder. ‘We stuck it out here through all the rotten bits. We deserve a break. I miss Roma like hell – and you’re engaged now, Eva. Your place is with Christopher, or as close as you can get. Come with me.’

  Eva had needed little persuasion. When the transfer was granted, she wrote to Christopher that they were crossing on the Britannic. He replied quickly to tell her to watch out for the handsome Italian stevedores. He was bored, he said; it was all short intervals of aggression broken up by days of tedium. His writing was sometimes shaky. He missed her very much. He would say more, but … Yes, Eva knew. Everything was censored.

  The ship rolled again and nearly tipped Eva off her bunk. She dropped the letter she had been reading and bent over the bunk edge to retrieve the single page. It was the first sent after he left the Isle of Wight, dated 5 October, and postmarked Folkestone.

  Beloved Eva

  As you have heard, I have been redeployed to

  Serve on the eastern front. Have no idea where

  They are taking us, but believe it is near Salonika

  And we are leaving directly. Being with you was blessed

  Respite in the midst of chaos and I love you

  Dear girl, with all my heart. Yours, always, Christopher

  Shandlin

  On Sunday the weather cleared slightly, and Captain Bartlett wasted no time. Under full power, the Britannic headed east. As they neared Greece on the Monday, the air became noticeably warmer. Hard to believe in November, but, as Sybil said, ‘That’s the Med for you, darling.’ Below decks, the nurses started opening the portholes to let the air in to circulate around the wards, a welcome antidote to the stuffy heat and smell of medicaments.

  Tuesday dawned in similar fashion. Sybil was one of those morning people who bounced out the moment the ship’s bell went off, but Eva lingered abed. The throb and drone of the engines made her feel sleepy, and she fell into the kind of sweet oblivion that only occurs when one sleeps at a time one shouldn’t. Soon she would get up—