The House

by A. O'Connor

  “Sir?” asked the private beside him.

  Pierce looked down the line of men anxiously waiting. He quickly stuffed the photos back in his pocket, placed the whistle in his mouth and blew hard. At the sound of the piercing whistle, the soldiers quickly climbed up the trenches and spilled over the top. Pierce clambered over and along with the men began to race across the darkened landscape towards the enemy line. The rat-a-tat-tat of the machine guns cut intothe night and began to spray bullets at them. Pierce faltered as the first of his soldiers were cut down by the bullets screaming intothe night. He stood still and looked to his right and left seeing the casualties everywhere. He thought about sounding the retreat, but then he saw some soldiers racing on. He joined them and continued to run towards the enemy trenches. He ran as fast as he could. As the machine guns continued to gun down the troops his heart was pounding and he was gasping for breath as he expected to be shot any second.

  He suddenly remembered growing up in Ireland. His father bringing him out shooting one sunny afternoon.

  They stood at the top of a rolling field.

  “Fire the gun intothe air to get the rabbits running,” said his father.

  Pierce aimed the gun intothe air and fired a shot. Suddenly a rabbit jumped up from some long grass and started running across the field.

  “There he is! Shoot him!” ordered his father.

  Pierce aimed the gun at the rabbit and fired, but missed him. He aimed again and fired but missed him again.

  “You’ll lose him! Hit him!” ordered his father.

  But as Pierce tried to get an aim on the rabbit, the rabbit wasn’t running in a normal fashion, he was zig-zagging across the field making it impossible to get him in the direct line of fire.

  As Pierce remembered this, he started to run in a zig-zag fashion across the no man’s land. As the others ran in a direct line, he manoeuvred quickly from left to right. He kept doing this for what seemed like an eternity and suddenly he was at the enemy trenches.

  “We’re here! We’ve made it!” Pierce screamed at the others. But as he turned to look he saw there were no others. They had all been gunned down and he was on his own.

  Gasping, he jumped down intothe trench. He could see the German soldiers at their machines gun positions shouting at each other.

  He held up his gun and aimed it at them. Suddenly a soldier appeared from nowhere and knocked the gun out of his hand. He reached down to get it, but was knocked over on to the ground. He turned and looked up where ten soldiers stood around him, pointing their guns at him.

  Pierce was marched intothe small room and pushed down on a chair. He looked around the room and it seemed to be a high-ranking officer’s room. Looking up,he saw a group of German soldiers staring at him.

  An officer came in and started speaking to the soldiers. The officer came up to Pierce and studied him.

  “Name?” demanded the officer in English.

  Pierce said nothing but stared back. The officer reached into Pierce’s pockets and took out his wallet and photos. He looked at the photos of the house and Clara before putting them in his pocket and then he riffled through the wallet.

  “Captain Pierce Armstrong,” read the officer. He turned to the soldiers and said, “Leave us.”

  The officer went to a table and took up a cigarette box and lit a cigarette.

  “So, Armstrong, you got inside our trench and didn’t shoot anybody, or set off any grenade. All you did was hand yourself to us . . .Cigarette?”

  Pierce nodded and the officer handed him a cigarette and a light.

  “You’re quite a coup. A high-ranking officer. Tell me, what are you planning to do next?”

  Pierce dragged on the cigarette but said nothing.

  “Be silent then. You’ll be transported to a prisoner-of-war camp where you’ll be questioned. I’m sure you have a lot of information that will be helpful to us.”

  “Questioned? You mean interrogated,” Pierce said.

  “Make it easy on yourself and give the information freely.”

  “What’ll happen then?”

  The officer took out the photos and looked at the house. “Your home?”

  Pierce nodded.

  “And your wife?”

  Pierce nodded. “Clara.”

  “A privileged man. It’s going to be a long time before you see either again.”

  Pierce watched the man intently. The German officer found Pierce’s dark eyes unsettling, his cool unconcerned behaviour strange.

  “Let me go,” Pierce suddenly said.

  “What?”

  “Let me go free. Bring me to the edge of the trenches and I’ll find my way back to our side.”

  “Are you crazy?” The German officer started laughing.

  “Please. I won’t be able to stand being captured. Anything but that.”

  “You’re a prisoner of war, now shut up.”

  “Please. I’ve never asked for anything in my life from anyone. I’ve never needed anything from anyone. But I need this from you. Let me go free. Please. I’m begging you.” Pierce’s starebored into the German’s eyes.

  The German officer returned his stare for a long time, and then he got up and walked out of the room.

  Pierce heard the officer giving orders to the men outside and then there was silence. He eventually got up and walked to the door. He peeped out and saw nobody about. His heart started to pound. He stepped back into the room and saw the German officer’s clothes stretched out on the bed. He quickly changed intothem. Heslipped out of the small building and started walking down through the trenches. He kept his head down as he walked past some soldiers. He got to a quiet area and then he jumped up over the trench intono man’s land. He fell to the ground and began to drag himself along the ground towards the British lines.

  After the earlier onslaught nobody was expecting any more advances and so the artillery were not on the alert. But Pierce didn’t raise his head as he continued to drag himself through the mud. When he was halfway over he wriggled out of the German clothes and continued on his journey until he finally reached the British trenches where he collapsed.

  Chapter sixty-nine

  Clara took up her letters and looked through them. She stopped suddenly when she saw Pierce’s handwriting on an envelope. Her hands started shaking as she carefully tore open the envelope and unfolded the paper inside.

  I’ll be home on leave on the 19th, Pierce.

  As she read and reread the note she started crying. She stood up and startedrunning through the house shouting, “He’s coming home! He’ll be home next week!”

  Tossing and turning the whole night before Pierce was to arrive home, Clara was consumed with nerves. All she had wanted over the months was to see Pierce back. But now he was due she was consumed with worry. Would he be changed? Would he be different to her? She hoped he would have missed her so muchthat the barriers would have come down. Maybe he would have changed. Clara decided it might be better for Pierce not to see all the letters she got from the front, in case he got the wrong idea. She managed to find a loose floorboard in one of the guest bedrooms and, taking it up, she hid the letters in a couple of bags under it. The letters had been her little way of helping her friends in the war, but now she must concentrate on her husband.

  Prudence sat at the steering wheel outside the station, Clara standing up in the car beside her so she could see over the station fence onto the platform. There were a lot of soldiers coming home on leave that day and the station was packed.

  “Oh, sit down, won’t you, you’re giving me vertigo!” pleaded Prudence.

  Clara reluctantly sat down.

  “Here it is!” she shouted, jumping up again.

  “For goodness’ sake!”

  The train was pulling intothe station. As soldiers started spilling out on to the platform there was a rush of people to their loved ones.

  “I can’t see him, I can’t see him!” said Clara, standing on her tiptoes.

  �
�Everything comes to those who wait,” said Prudence.

  “There he is!” said Clara as she spotted him cutting through the crowd.

  She jumped from the car and made for the station entrance. She pushed through the emerging crowd until she got to him, flung her arms around him and held him tightly.

  “Clara, there are people looking,” he said irritably as he drew back from her.

  “I don’t care!” she said happily, gazing intohis face. “You haven’t changed. I thought you would have changed.”

  “Let’s get to the car and back to the house,” he said. He turned to the corporal who was carrying his bag. “This way.”

  They reached the car. Prudence was sitting back, a cynical smile on her face.

  “Welcome, dear brother,” she said.

  He smiled and nodded at her.

  The corporal put the bag intothe back of the car. “Is that everything, Colonel?”

  “Yes, you can go. Enjoy your leave.”

  The corporal nodded and dashed off to his family.

  “Colonel?” said Clara, amazed. “You’ve been promoted?”

  They got into the back of the car. “Yes, last in a long line of promotions.”

  Clara sat holding his hand tightly in the back of the car, gazing intohis face.

  Pierce was lying in a hot bath filled to the top of the tub, his eyes closed. Clara walked in, holding some fresh towels.

  “You’re in luck. The plumbing is actually working today and there’s hot water,” she smiled down at him.

  He opened his eyes.

  “Can I get you anything?” she asked.

  “No, I have everything I need,” he said, reaching for the tumbler of whiskey resting on the edge of the bath and downing it in one.

  “I’ll leave these for you,” she said, putting the towels on the chair and retreating into their bedroom. “We’ve organised a gathering for you on Saturday night,” she called from there. “Just some close friends and neighbours. All desperate to see you.” She sat down on the couch in the room.

  A minute later Pierce came out with a towel around his waist, and proceeded to dry his hair with another towel in front of the fire.

  “We didn’t know what to do for best. Whether you wanted to see people or just wanted to relax,” said Clara.

  “Whatever you think.”

  “Well, it’s your leave, your decision,” she smiled. “Perhaps if you had written and said what you would like to do.”

  “It wasn’t really high on my list of priorities.”

  “I can imagine.” She thought hard before speaking but decided to blurt it out. “I mean, perhaps if you had written at all while you were away. Not one letter, a postcard even. Just to let me know that you were all right, thinking of me. Alive even.”

  “I did write. I wrote you a card at Christmas.”

  She looked at him, surprised. “I never received it.”

  “Pity.”

  “But even that, one card, Pierce, to your wife!”

  “I had a war to fight, in case you had forgotten.”

  “You still managed to write to Prudence all the time!”

  He turned around and faced her. “I didn’t write to her that much. From time to time, maybe. Besides, I had to deal with business with Prudence.”

  Clara looked down at the floor before looking up at him. “But Pierce! I’m your wife! I wrote to you non-stop. Did you get my letters?”

  “All of them.”

  “Well, why in God’s name didn’t you write back?” she demanded angrily.

  He walked over to her. “Can you even imagine what’s it’s like over there? The flooded trenches, the vermin, the stench of dead bodies, the disease?”

  She drew back. “I’m sorry – I know it hasn’t been easy for you. But if you’d only writtento me, shared your experiences with me. I could have –”

  Pierce went over to his dressing room. “Let’s dress for dinner.”

  Chapter seventy

  It wasn’t as if Clara saw much of Pierce over the next few days. He went off riding on his own, or went walking for miles along the lakeshore. He would stand on the shingled beach at the lake, looking out at the still water, not a sound for miles except a bird and it seemed impossible to imagine the trenches being on the same planet.

  Clara realised he needed time to recuperate and tried to understand what he had been going through. She was careful not to push him too far.

  On the Saturday night he dressed in his uniform and he and Clara descended the stairs together to greet the guests as they arrived for the dinner party. She held his arm tightly. Many of the guests were already waiting in the parlour and they rushed to Pierce when he arrived in the room.

  “Welcome home!” they cried.

  The girls and women kissed him while the men grabbed his arm to shake hands or clapped him on the back.

  Watching, Clara realised he was acutely uncomfortable.

  “Come on, everybody, give him some space,” she said loudly with a big smile.

  “But he actually escaped from the Germans!” said Mrs Foxe. “They had taken him prisoner and he got away somehow. How did you do it, Pierce?”

  Clara looked at Pierce in amazement. Why was this the first she had heard of it? Why hadn’t he told her? She felt panicked at the thought of him being captured and held his arm tightly.

  “It was nothing. Really it wasn’t.” Pierce’sobvious discomfort indicated it was no false modesty on his part.

  “That’s not what my husband said,” said Nell Bramwell. “He said your escape was the talk of the ranks.”

  “Shall we all go to dinner?” coaxed Clara. “Mrs Fennell has done a marvellous spread for us, and all made with the war effort in mind, so no waste!” She linked her arm through Pierce’s and they turned and headed towards the dining room.

  “I meant to tell you, the Cantwells send their apologies, butthey can’t make it. Their nephew was killed in France. Shot dead,” said Prudence in a matter-of-fact voice as they ate dinner.

  “That’s young Timothy Cantwell, isn’t it?” said Mrs Foxe.

  Clara saw she had gone ashen-faced.

  “I’m afraid so,” said Prudence. “Excellent shot himself as I remember. I’d been on many a hunt with him.”

  Everyone became subdued.

  “I wish it would just all stop!” said Emily Foxe, grasping her husband’s hand. “They said it would only last a few weeks.”

  “It’s bound to be stopped soon,” said Clara encouragingly. “That’s what all my friends at the front say. And this war, the Great War, will be the last war. No more wars ever again. Imagine!”

  Pierce gave a dismissive laugh. “It’s not nearly over. And it won’t be the last war.It’s only the start of wars the likes of which we’ve never seen before.”

  “Pierce, you’re upsetting Mrs Foxe,” said Clara quietly.

  “I’m not upsetting her. The war is,” said Pierce.

  There was silence for a while, broken by Clara smiling and talking cheerily. “Has anyone seen these moving pictures from America? Movies? I can’t wait to see one. Seemingly it’s like watching a play on a screen. Isn’t that exciting?”

  News of young Timothy Cantwell’s death dampened the spirits for the rest of the night. They gathered in the drawing room for drinks after dinner. Clara saw Mrs Foxe go over to Pierce and talk quietly to him. She strained to listen in.

  “Pierce, could I ask a huge favour?”

  “You can certainly ask.”

  “I’m so worried about Felix out there. He’s not like you, Pierce, he isn’t built from the same material. He could never be a war hero like you. I just wonder could you look out for him?”

  “He’s not in the same regiment as me.”

  “I know, but you’re a high-ranking officer now and maybe you could – I don’t know – just seek him out and talk to him. See if he needs anything.”

  “Everyone has to fight his own war, I’m sorry,” Pierce said and moved away fro
m her.

  Clara tried hard to concentrate on the conversation she was involved in but couldn’t take her eyes offMrs Foxe’s upset face.

  Finally, the last of the guests left. Prudence had gone to bed early. Clara waved goodbye at the door, then walked back intothe drawing room where Pierce was sitting staring intothe fire with a glass of port.

  She closed the door and went and sat on the couch.

  “Pierce, I overheard your conversation with Mrs Foxe. Did you have to be so cold to her?”

  “I wasn’t being cold. I was just stating the facts.”

  “The woman’s son is off fighting the war and she’s worried sick. She didn’t want facts, she wanted some comforting words.”

  “Well, she came to the wrong place to find them.”

  “Isn’t that a bloody fact!” she said angrily, causing him to look up at her.She bit her lower lip before continuing. “I just think you could have said you’ll do your best for him.”

  “But it would be a lie. I don’t have the time to do my best for him.”

  “Then lie to her! Damn it, lie to her!”

  “Where did you learn such language?”

  “From your sister!”

  Pierce looked intothe fire. “So if I lied to her, when Felix Foxe is killed and buried forever out there, she will think I didn’t do my best for him and hold me somehow responsible. No – best to be straight up and honest.”

  “Pierce! Don’t say such things about poor Felix.”

  “Why? It’s the truth. It’s a wonder ‘poor Felix’ has got to this stage without being obliterated. The lifespan of junior officers is very short – most get mown down first. All that excellent breeding snuffed out in a second.”

  “Well, you didn’t!”

  “I’m different.”

  She stared at him, then stood up. “I’m going to bed. Are you coming?”