Storm Warnings

by Vanessa Gebbie

  Storm Warning is the latest collection from award-winning writer Vanessa Gebbie, described as ‘prodigiously gifted’ by novelist Maggie Gee. It explores the echoes of human conflict in a series of powerful stories inspired by life with the author’s own father, who fought and was decorated in WWII, but suffered the after-effects for the rest of his life.

  Conflict is often explored from the child’s perspective and ranges from conventional warfare to historical religious persecution. War veterans are haunted by events that echo louder and louder, and eventually break them. A prisoner sees the violent execution of a friend and mentor, a boy hides from a necklacing, a young student escapes the fighting in Iraq in the hope of continuing his education in the West and a woman tells what she knows of her parents’ torture.

  The people in these stories are not those who go down in history, but ordinary troops, the powerless, caught up involuntarily. All are tested, sometimes to breaking point, in this extraordinary collection as Gebbie explores the surreality of conflict and the after-effects of atrocity.

  ‘In these terse and complex fictions, Vanessa Gebbie gives us an entire worldview in only a few pages. Her carefully etched story-moments and sharp-edged prose style are only the least of her considerable storytelling gifts.’ Rusty Barnes, Editor and Co-Founder, Night Train

  ‘Vanessa Gebbie is a massively gifted writer. Her harrowing honesty pulls no punches.’ Peter James, author of best-selling Roy Grace novels

  Storm Warning

  VANESSA GEBBIE is Welsh. She is author of Words from a Glass Bubble (Salt), a collection of her award winning fiction from prizes including Bridport and the Daily Telegraph. She is contributing editor of Short Circuit, Guide to the Art of the Short Story (Salt), and contributor to The Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction (Rose Metal Press, USA). She teaches widely; in 2010 she was Writer in Residence at Stockholm University.

  Also by Vanessa Gebbie:

  Words from a Glass Bubble (Salt 2008)

  Short Circuit, Editor (Salt 2009)

  for my father, ex-sapper David Rees MC

  The Return of the Baker, Edwin Tregear

  UNLIKE SO MANY, I came home in July. Some of the lads got off the train at Exeter, some at Plymouth. I must have gone to sleep. I woke at Penzance, my stop, when someone shouted, ‘End of the line, mate.’

  Mr Olds was outside the station in the trap; that was a godsend. It was a long walk to St. Just.

  ‘Edwin Tregear. Well I never,’ he said. Indeed, that’s all he said for the first five minutes of our journey. ‘Edwin Tregear the baker. Well I never.’

  There was bunting outside the cottages. Kiddies with flags. ‘S’pect you’re glad to see that, then?’ Mr Olds said, waving at the kiddies. I didn’t wave, just held my bag on my knee.

  Mr Olds asked questions. ‘S’pect you’ll be baking again?’

  I looked at my hands and tried to imagine them twisting dough into pretty plaits for the mine owner’s wife. I couldn’t. Still saw them trying to hold a rifle steady.

  ‘Maybe not, Mr Olds. Maybe I need to do something else.’

  ‘They are recruiting up Levant,’ he said.

  It would not be long before we saw the first mine chimneys, the first engine houses.

  I shut my eyes. ‘I dare say,’ I said.

  Later, there was the sound of voices, excited, and Mr Olds tapped me on the shoulder. ‘You awake, lad?’ We were passing through Newbridge. More kiddies, more flags.

  We passed a small stone house on the road outside Newbridge. No bunting here. Front door closed. Curtains drawn. Mr Olds didn’t take his eyes off the pony’s hindquarters, just flicked the reins. ‘Young Matty Harris, shot for desertion. S’pect you know.’

  It was cold, suddenly. I shut my eyes again. The trap lurched, bumping me and Mr Olds together like dice in a shaker. Then I had to stop. And before he could rein in the pony, I half fell into the mud, knelt and retched.

  When it was over, I leaned against the wheel of the trap, shaking, wiping my mouth on my sleeve, just breathing.

  But then there was no trap, no Mr Olds, no pony. My wrists were raw, tied to another wheel with a strap, my arms stretched wide, pulled almost out of their sockets. A young lad’s body being dragged away, his head not quite covered, mouth open like he was trying to say something. His boots gouging small furrows through a different mud.

  ‘You alright lad?’ Mr Olds said.

  I think I nodded.

  What a homecoming it was — even if home was just a room above a bakery. What do I remember? The village kiddies grown so much, lifting paper chains up round my neck. The hottest, sweetest tea served in the best Royal Albert cups. A great cake decorated with flags and Welcome Home Edwin piped no doubt by Baker Jebb.

  Baker Jebb himself, so old, his hands trembling. Mrs Baker Jebb, unchanged, red-faced, hair white as good flour.‘We kept your room exactly . . .’

  I remember how the bakery door flew open, neighbours pushing to slap me on the back, shake my hand,‘Welcome, welcome back.’ Pots of jam, bottles of home brewed beer. I remember some lads rapping on the window, sticks over their shoulders, grinning: ‘What’s it like killing Germans?’ and Mrs Baker Jebb shooing them away.

  I remember the brass band playing a bit ragged in the square. Less three cornets, the tuba and the bandmaster.

  The publican from The Tinners’ carried round a gallon jug. ‘A soldier needs more than tea now, Mrs Jebb.’

  Later, after the homecoming, I went up to my old room. I could not sleep. The bedstead creaked with every movement, it seemed. But I must have slept in the end, as it was late when I woke to the smell of flour and yeast heavy in the air.

  I lay there, stretched my arms up towards the roof, flexing my fingers like I used to, get them ready for kneading. I did not go downstairs for a while. Then, when I did, I stood in the doorway, watching Baker Jebb setting the early loaves to rise. It was so, so familiar.

  Baker Jebb looked up eventually, wiping his hands on his apron. ‘Edwin? Been waiting on this day. ‘Bout time you took the place over, then?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Jebb,’ I said. ‘I don’t think I can do that, not now.’

  It was not easy, that conversation. Baker Jebb came over and held his hands up for me to see. Old, twisted. ‘Painful, they are,’ he said. ‘Been waiting on you, Edwin.’

  I didn’t reply.

  ‘Best baker in Cornwall, you were,’ he said. ‘Never seen a lad take to baking like you done. I can’t be doing much more.’

  True enough, I loved baking, before. I loved the feel of the dough. The smells, rich and round, the sweetness of sugar, the sharpness of orange and lemon peel. The depth of saffron for the saffron bread. Its colour.

  But not with these hands. Not now. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Jebb,’ I said. ‘I’m going down Levant, if they’ll have me.’

  The mine manager’s office was not that different to the recruiting office in St. Ives. One thing was different though. In the corner there was a great boulder on display, lines of tin and copper ore running through.

  A sign: A TIME TO CAST AWAY STONES. A TIME TO GATHER STONES TOGETHER.

  Mr Nicholas sat behind his desk and looked at me over his glasses. ‘Recently back from the war, isn’t that right?’

  I nodded.

  A hooter sounded somewhere in the mine. It echoed like the whine of shells and the howls of half-men.

  ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Well, you look fit enough to me. Monday next, five-thirty.’

  He gave me some papers, told me that I’d have linen trews and tunic supplied by the mine, one set every six months. One strong hat and candles.
I was to bring my own boots, food and match tins.

  Then he said, ‘The first week you’ll have a helping hand with Fritz.’

  I half-laughed. ‘Fritz?’

  ‘Ah. The man-engine. The mechanical lift down the mine. Boche contraption. Been here for years.’

  ‘They get everywhere,’ I said.

  I must have looked like a daisy the next Monday, my work clothes so painfully new. The older miners’ clothes ⎯— stained red from the clay⎯— were stiff from a night over the hot pipes in the dry. That dry stank. Sweat.

  There was a man sitting at a table taking down who was at work. The Marker, he was called.

  ‘Make your mark,’ he said. I signed my name. He looked up.

  I had trouble with my strong hat when I loaded the brim with clay and candle. The whole thing felt as though it would fall off any second, and I must have been holding my head at an angle until a small man with a broken nose said to stand up straight while I could. ‘Jarvis,’ he said. ‘No Miners’ Federation here . . . I run something like it, unofficially. See you afterwards for your dues.’ Then I dropped my food and match tins in the passageway. I held up the line of men waiting for their turn on Fritz, until Jarvis grinned and showed me the knack of holding both tins in one hand, leaving the other free to grasp the handles of the man-engine.

  Extraordinary contraption. Beam engine in the engine house up top. Then a great wooden rod that rose and fell over and over again in the shaft, little ledges fixed to the rod, made to take a miner’s boots.

  The noise was deafening. Thudding and hissing, shouts. My ears rang with it all. I watched as the man in front grasped a handle on the rod, stepped forward, then disappeared, standing, down into the darkness.

  I stood on the wooden platform, feeling it give slightly under my weight. I reached for the metal handle as it rose back up, my boot found a ledge on the rod, the rod plunged, and my breakfast nearly reappeared. Twelve feet. Then the rod slowed and Jarvis shouted from above to step off: ‘Backwards!’

  I stepped back and my foot met a platform on the side of the shaft. I forgot to let go. My arm was jerked upwards as the rod rose.

  ‘Let go, man!’ Jarvis shouted. I did, and just stood there, shaking. I peered between the boards; could just see another platform below mine. The candle on the strong hat of the man below.

  Half an hour, this journey would take. Half an hour to the bottom, Hundred and fifty men at once, they said.

  Then other sounds. First the hiss and thud of that beam engine up at ground level, getting fainter the deeper we sank. The scrape of hobnails on wood, as the column of men slid on and off their perches. Coughs.

  Then singing, the men’s voices rising up the shaft for all the world as though angels had fallen into the dark. Slow pieces, chapel hymns, the words all lost as the music bounced round the walls and echoed down the adits.

  Someone was singing loudly, out of tune.

  ‘He’s a voice that’d crack granite!’ shouted a voice from below. And another replied: ‘Perfect! Bring him along here . . . let the man sing . . . do my work for me nice!’

  Working at Levant was tough. Plunged into darkness, just you, despite what they said about teamwork. Backbreaking, the only light the flicker of candles on wet red walls.

  At the end of each shift we brought a little of that sombreness up with us, with the painfully slow ride in silence up into the fresh air. Then the long walk back to St. Just, unless Mr Olds passed by on his trap.

  Then one day the shift-end silence seemed greater than normal. The passageway at the top of the man-engine leading to the dry seemed full of a heavy quiet. Where were the sounds? Where were those half-hearted bursts of singing, when someone usually called out to shut up? Where was the talk of payday, and arguments about the strength of the beer being better in St. Buran than Pendeen?

  I came up the steps pulling the work shirt over my head. There was a knot of men waiting, silent. Looking at each other. Then a voice, ‘So how’s the hero Edwin Tregear, then?’

  I stood there, shirt in hand. ‘He’s fine, thank you,’ I said.

  The men said nothing. Just looked at me.

  There was a laugh, and Jarvis, the Miner’s Federation type, pushed his way forward. ‘So tell us, Edwin Tregear . . .’ he leaned against the wall, folded his arms. ‘Tell us, what exactly did you do to be a hero?’

  I shook my head.

  I said nothing. Just stood there, naked but for my work trews, bootlaces undone, sweat running into my eyes.

  I could hear a sound like the biggest shell flying straight for me. The biggest bloody shell the Hun ever managed to put together. I waited for the impact.

  ‘Aaah. Go on . . . hero,’ said Jarvis. ‘Go on, you can tell us. We’re your mates.’ He turned to the men. ‘Aren’t we, lads?’

  There was no answer. Not one word from them, or me.

  Then he spoke again, and his voice rang against the granite steps. ‘Our hero Edwin Tregear shot young Matty Harris.’

  The silence that followed came deep. Then a few men, still red with clay, broke forward. ‘You bastard, Tregear . . .’

  A fist swung, I ducked.

  Jarvis laughed,‘Not yet, lads.’

  The men gathered closer. What had been silence swelled into a hum, and the hum into a growl. Then Jarvis’ words came again.

  ‘Had it from my cousin up Plymouth. He’s no hero, isn’t Edwin Tregear, he’s a murderer. A fuckin’ murderer. Cowardice is one thing, can’t abide that, can we lads — but murder?’

  All I could do was shake my head.

  There was a long pause.

  Then I said, quiet, ‘Yes. I shot Matty Harris. And no he wasn’t a coward.’

  Hard to say exactly what happened then. A fist caught me on the jaw. I fell. A boot in the stomach . . .

  But then it stopped. Someone was standing between me and them. The Marker, turned up for the next shift, to take down the names.

  ‘What’s going on here?’ he said.

  I lay there, shaking.

  ‘Tregear,’ said Jarvis. ‘Just explaining how he shot Matty Harris from Newbridge.’

  ‘You want to hear?’ I said. Then louder. ‘You want to hear?’

  The Marker stayed put. ‘I’d say if he’s explaining, you let him finish,’ he said. Didn’t help me up. But I stood.

  Jarvis said nothing. Held up a hand, and they went quieter.

  Then, I told them.

  I told them how Matty Harris shook in his boots. How he slapped his hands over his ears at the sound of gunfire. How he buried his head in my chest and cried when he saw a man’s head blown apart right next to him. How he shouted to be let home, that he lied, he wasn’t of an age. He wasn’t of an age.

  ‘I took him with me,’ I said. ‘Kept him by me, as much as anyone can. I had him by my side. Looked after him, but you can’t properly, not out there. No truck with cowards, that’s what they called them — him and others — and Matty was no coward, just frightened out of his wits. But they couldn’t have that either.’

  Silence, then. No one moved.

  ‘I told him,’ I said, ‘I tried to tell him to buck up. I did . . . tell him . . . just before Vimy Ridge it was, but Matty Harris just wanted to go home, that’s all. Kept talking about Newbridge.

  So he went. Ran away. But he was no coward, I say.’

  Then Jarvis laughed. That was too much.

  I reached for the bugger, grabbed him by the shirt. ‘You got no idea, have you?’ I said. ‘You wanted to hear? Well damn well hear.’

  The men surged forward, but the Marker shouted to wait.

  Then I told them the rest.

  ‘Three of them there were. Three kids. Matty and two others. Some quick court martial that took five minutes, and a little ceremony to keep us troops in line . . .’

  Jarvis had a sor
t of grin on his face. I pulled him round to face the men.

  ‘They do that,’ I said. ‘Didn’t you know? Get men from the same troop to form the firing squads? Only no one wants to do it. So they pick.’

  I jabbed a finger at a tall man in the front. ‘You.’

  And at the man next to him, ‘You.’

  And at the Marker, ‘You,’ and he flinched, shook his head. I ignored him.

  Then I pointed straight at Jarvis, whose grin wavered. ‘They have to shoot you.’ I said. ‘Their mate.’

  I turned back to the men.

  ‘They chose me. Matty’s mate.’

  The men said nothing. But they were listening.

  ‘No choice. Or you get shot yourself. Insubordination. Refusing an order. Then they give you rifles already loaded. And they tell you that one has been loaded with a blank. So. Go on. What would you do? Eh?’

  At first no one spoke. Then it started.

  ‘I’d not shoot straight, tell you that for nothing.’

  ‘Nor would I . . . give the blighter a chance, eh?’

  ‘I’d go for his legs. Maybe . . .‘

  Jarvis was saying nothing. I turned to him. Lowered my voice. ‘What would you do, if you were them?’

  Jarvis, red-faced now, ‘Nothing. I’d bloody do nothing.’

  That struck me as funny. I almost laughed. ‘So you’d like them to blast you open and leave you screaming until some bastard officer finished you off?’

  That shut him up. And the rest of them.

  ‘What to do?’ I said. ‘I tell you what was to do. I could put a bullet straight into Matty’s heart, that’s what. No sodding about. Finish it. I still hear him at night, standing there while they were about to cover his eyes, not understanding anything, shouting: “Edwin? Let me go home?”’

  And I held up my hands, still red with clay, and shaking, now. ‘With these. Used to make bread, then they killed people. Hundreds.’