Heart of War

by John Masters

  There was old Mr Kirby, wearing a heavy black overcoat that must have been made for him in Savile Row about 1860, and his low John Bull topper, his hunting hat, a thick white wool scarf hiding his dog collar. There was Miss Hightower, always to be found as close to the rector as she could get on such occasions … old Commander Quigley, trying to look like a seadog facing down an arctic gale, but appearing as a dear old man with a rheumy drop on the end of his nose … Alice exclaimed – ‘There are John and Louise, at the back! I never thought they’d …’

  Cate said, ‘I asked them to go carolling … told them how pleased Mr Kirby would be if they did … sort of proof that they’d forgiven the Germans for killing Boy … though I don’t think the rector has, himself.’

  Harry said, ‘And Louise never will.’

  Betty said, ‘In time, perhaps … but Uncle John has. Boy killed a lot of their fathers’ sons, too.’

  Harry said, ‘Nice of Richard and Susan to come, with the children. They’re singing their heads off – I can see from here.’

  ‘They came into Hedlington yesterday, to wish us a Merry Christmas,’ Alice said.

  ‘… and give us Christmas presents,’ Harry added. He chuckled contentedly – ‘Do you know what those young scamps gave me? Sally gave me tweezers to pull the whiskers out of my nose, and Tim a moustache cup … must think I strain my soup through my moustache.’

  ‘Ha ha!’ Alice laughed dutifully: her father did occasionally do exactly that. Her missing leg throbbed sometimes; but she no longer craved morphine or any other drug. The pain grew infinitesimally less every day; and her mobility with the artificial leg grew steadily more. Most of the time, when she was concentrating on the accounting manuals, she forgot it altogether – which proved that all she needed was something to do – especially for her mind, rather than her hands, or of course her legs. Once she actually started work at the Aircraft Company, she would soon forget even that she had an artificial leg. And then she’d have to make up her mind over Daisy Cowell’s proposal … her amazing suggestion of a ménage à trois. Oh dear, why was the path of love always so complicated and … messy?

  She glanced at Betty Merritt. The girl’s young face was drawn and pale, and she sat very close to Christopher, looking at him from time to time. They shared the tension and pain of waiting for news of Mrs Kramer … Christopher had obviously become fond of her. You could see he was quite distraught.

  The waits finished another carol and Christopher, through the window, made a ritual pantomime of lifting a glass to his lips, eyebrows raised interrogatively. Mr Kirby put up his hands in mock horror, and shook his head, smiling. Then the waits trooped away into the darkness and out of sight.

  Harry Rowland cleared his throat – ‘What did the Governor of North Carolina say to the Governor of South Carolina?’

  Alice looked at her father in shocked surprise – but of course he didn’t know that Mrs Kramer had become a close friend – or more – of Christopher’s.

  Harry said, ‘It’s a long time between drinks! … Heard that in the House last week.’

  Christopher got up, went to the corner cupboard and poured sherry, none for himself. ‘Not for me, thank you, Uncle,’ Betty said. Christopher handed full glasses to Harry and Alice.

  Alice said gently, ‘We can drink to peace, Christopher …’

  ‘And victory!’ her father added.

  ‘Let us pray to God that they’re all safe and sound,’ Cate burst out – ‘All of them! … Laurence, Quentin, Isabel, Guy, Naomi, Virginia, Johnny – all those boys and girls, men and women, who have gone out from their homes, and not yet returned.’

  He remembered, two years ago, that his main worry at Christmas was a plan of Probyn Gorse’s to poach a lot of pheasants from Lord Swanwick. He remembered the shock of hearing the guns from France, and feeling them shake the Kentish earth under his feet on Christmas dawn. The guns were shouting even louder now, over there, but now everyone in England heard them in their soul, even when they could not hear them in their actual rage.

  The telephone rang in the hall, and Alice saw Christopher look quickly at Betty, his face falling and seeming suddenly collapsed and old. Betty was on her feet, going out of the room, closing the door behind her. The peal of bells continued from the tower of the Saxon church, the fire crackled in the grate.

  They heard a cry from the passage and Christopher sank into a chair, his whole body trembling. Betty burst into the room, shrieking, ‘She’s safe, Uncle … picked up by a ship … two days in a lifeboat … frostbitten toes … hospital in Liverpool …’

  ‘Liverpool!’ Christopher exclaimed.

  ‘Yes, the ship was coming from Halifax with wheat … Uncle Virgil telephoned the Admiralty this morning for news …. there wasn’t any news, then … half an hour ago, it came in!’

  Christopher was up, pouring himself a glass of sherry. He downed it in a single gulp, and poured another. ‘Oh my God,’ he cried. ‘Oh my God!’ and burst into tears.

  Lieutenant Billy Bidford, D.S.C., Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, stretched out his hand to pour her champagne but the attentive waiter reached the ice bucket first and, carefully swathing the bottle with his white napkin, refilled Florinda’s glass, then retired.

  Florinda drank, put down the glass and said, ‘We ought to be washing those kids’ feet with this, instead of drinking it.’

  ‘What kids? … Oh, the children begging in the Strand as we came in.’

  ‘Barefoot, in rags, on Christmas Eve!’ she said. ‘Oh well, I’ve gone barefoot. It’s not so bad.’

  Bidford eyed her cautiously. She was in one of her moods … not that he had ever had much opportunity to study them, being on duty with his Motor Torpedo Boat in the Dover Patrol; and that would become a good deal more exciting when Admiral Keys replaced Admiral Bacon next week … patrols at all hours, trailing their coats miles up Channel, while fast cruisers lurked in the mists, ready to pounce if German destroyers tried to cut them off … practising with depth charge patterns … precious few U-boats made safe passage through the Straits even now, either going out or returning.

  She was wearing her favourite long emerald-green gown of silk, plunging décolleté revealing much of the curve of her breasts, one ring, one bracelet, arms bare to the shoulder, an emerald and diamond tiara in her hair. She said, ‘I’m fed up. I think I’ll join the F.A.N.Y. and go to France. Or do you think they wouldn’t have me? I hear they’re a proper lot of snobs, and they’d know who I am … was.’

  Billy said, ‘I don’t think that would upset them … but they do want ladies with a knowledge of cars … how to drive and repair them.’

  ‘Which I don’t know one bloody thing about,’ she said. ‘And I’m not going to scrub floors, or peel potatoes, or type letters for the W.A.A.C.s, even if I could get to France with them … no time to learn nursing … Hey, isn’t there a women’s service with the R.F.C.?’

  ‘I really don’t know,’ Bidford said.

  Florinda drank moodily. She put down the glass – ‘I suppose I’ll just have to go on taking concert parties wherever they’ll let me … and get leered at by fat old generals who think they know who I am … and me hardly able to sing for looking at the poor men, watching me … They clap till their hands must hurt, and sometimes the shows are awful.’

  ‘They’re grateful you’ve taken the trouble to come. They know you don’t have to.’

  ‘I don’t want gratitude. I want recognition,’ she snapped. ‘And that I won’t get – because I don’t deserve it.’

  The maitre d’hotel of the Grill passed, smiling. ‘Everything satisfactory, my lady, Mr Bidford?’

  ‘Quite, thank you, Mr Schneider,’ Billy said, and Florinda flashed him a dazzling smile. Schneider passed on with a small bow of acknowledgement. Florinda said, ‘My mother thinks I’m a whore.’

  Billy held his tongue. Florinda needed to talk; he’d listen. She continued – ‘My dad’s simple, but he’s gone off and joined the Army, so Mum’s not g
etting enough money in … there are other kids … She went to the barracks to get Dad out, but they said he’d got two legs and knew what he was doing, and they wouldn’t let him go … I’ve been down to Hedlington, trying to give her money … bribing people to offer her jobs, that I’d pay for. She won’t touch any of it.’

  ‘Why?’ Billy asked gently.

  ‘Because she thinks I earned my money with my cunt. Because my next sister – Violet, she’s thirteen now – had a baby last year from a sixty-year-old man, for money – a bob a time … and now she doesn’t look after the baby, and has gone back to whoring with anyone who’ll pay her, Mum says. Mum doesn’t come right out and say it’s my fault, but … she loves me, but she isn’t going to take any help from me, in case it sends the other girls the same way, I suppose. And that’s final.’

  Billy waited a long time; and when she did not speak, but stared at the wall over his head, her face troubled, he said quietly, ‘Shall we go to bed, Florinda?’

  She shook her head without speaking, her heavy auburn hair waving, settling, glowing.

  He covered her hand with his – ‘If you think it more proper, shall we get married?’

  She shook her head again, and he slid off his chair, and knelt beside her in his uniform, his hands clasped before his chest in supplication – ‘My dear Lady Jarrow, I humbly solicit the honour of your hand in matrimony. Messrs Coutts and Company of 440 Strand can vouch for my financial soundness. My heart is not so …’

  She leaned down, suddenly laughing, caught his hands and pulled him to his feet. Everyone within earshot had stopped eating, forks halfway to their mouths, listening in awed silence, for Billy Bidford and Florinda, Marchioness of Jarrow, were as well known to the gossip and society columns as Lord Derby, Churchill and Lloyd George were to the political pages. Schneider, sensing the silence, and alert to every nuance of what was going on in his domain, stopped and glanced back; then, seeing what was afoot, turned back with a half smile and continued his majestic pacing.

  ‘You meant that, Billy?’ Florinda said.

  ‘Yes. I’ve been thinking about it for six months. I wouldn’t be much of a stay-at-home husband even in peace time … racing cars here, motor boats there, flying, polo, skiing in winter, but you’d be with me. We’d do it all together.’

  ‘Me, drive racing cars?’ she said wryly.

  ‘I meant, you’d come with me … watch, sort of.’

  She shook her head, ‘Might as well marry a bank clerk, really – watch, wait, clap hands …’

  ‘Anyone else?’ he asked cautiously.

  ‘Sort of. But he doesn’t own me … He frightens me, too. He kills people – very well. And likes it.’ She gazed into Bidford’s anxious eyes. She said, ‘I won’t marry you, Billy, but I’ll be your official mistress.’

  ‘For ever?’

  ‘For as long as I want to.’

  ‘My offer remains open.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  SOLDIER VISITORS MERRY GATHERINGS

  No member of the Forces need spend a lonely or a cheerless Christmas Day in London. Efforts are being put forth in every direction to provide welcome and good comfort, and a visit to a few of the principal huts revealed that decorations, music, and Christmas dinners will be offered everywhere. The special secretary of the Hospitality League of the Young Men’s Christian Association has received large numbers of invitations from hostesses who are willing to entertain men from France. At the Aldwych theatre the Australians will serve dinner in three relays and any soldier who cares to walk in and seat himself will be made welcome. At the Young Men’s Christian Association Shakespeare Hut celebrations will begin at 9.30 a.m., when groups of men, accompanied by guides, will start on a tour through London. Guides also will take strangers to the Christmas service at St Paul’s.

  At the Eagle Hut, Strand, there will be a dance on Christmas Eve. A tree will be lighted up and everybody present given a souvenir. At six o’clock the next morning the men in the hostel will be awakened by children singing carols.

  At the Church Army, Buckingham Palace Hostel any man passing through London will be welcomed, given Christmas cheer and comfort, and a good send-off… At the Church Army Lord Kitchener Hut, Hyde Park, which is an immensely popular centre, wounded men are organizing a billiards’ tournament, also a whist drive, with prizes, music and games which should keep everybody happy.

  IN THE HOSPITALS HAPPY SOLDIER PATIENTS

  The spirit of Christmas prevails in the London hospitals, the wards of which have been made bright and cheerful. At St Thomas’s soldiers and 450 civilian patients will each be provided with an excellent dinner of turkey and plum pudding. The King sent a cheque for 10 pounds toward the festivities there and his Majesty’s thoughtfulness was much appreciated by the 600 patients. The usual Christmas fare was provided, strict regard being paid to the Food Controller. The members of the nursing staff sang carols to the patients…

  Quentin Rowland sat in his dugout eating Christmas cake. His nephew, Laurence Cate, sat opposite, sharing the cake and the red wine which his uncle’s batman had ‘won’ when they were out of the line a week ago. Now they were back, and it was Christmas Day. The dugout was damp and battered. The trenches were barely more than linked shell holes.

  ‘You’ve done all right, Laurence,’ Quentin said. ‘But sometimes you don’t seem to be with us. You can’t afford to be thinking about birds that are or aren’t here, when the Germans are attacking.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Laurence said. He wished he could make his uncle and Sergeant Fagioletti understand that when the war came too close, in its actual terrible shape, he could not prevent his mind fleeing to shelter in what he loved – birds, trees, nature … of course there wasn’t any here, or not much – no live trees, no grass anywhere near the front line, few birds … so he wasn’t here at all in those bad times, but on Beighton Down, or walking Scarrow bank.

  In some waterlogged mudholes close by the men of C Company, in battalion reserve, were singing:

  Send out the Army and the Navy,

  Send out the rank and file,

  Send out the brave Territorials,

  They’ll face danger with a smile

  (I don’t think!)

  Send out my mother, my sister and my brother,

  But for Gawd’s sake don’t send me!

  Quentin got up. The cake was a present from his sister Alice, and it was very large. They’d only eaten a small piece of it.

  Quentin said, ‘On Christmas Day the officers serve the men their dinner, but …’

  ‘I know, sir,’ Laurence said eagerly. ‘I did it last Christmas, at the Depot.’

  ‘Well, we can’t do it in the line, because the men cook their own rations. But we can share out this cake. Come along.’

  He went up the broken steps into the trench. The nearest men stopped singing, and Quentin said, ‘Here, have a piece of cake.’

  He cut off a slice and said, ‘Share it round … Merry Christmas.’

  ‘Merry Christmas, sir. Merry Christmas!’

  Quentin passed on, sometimes in the open, sometimes below ground, splashing toward the front line. There he handed out more cake. Singing began again behind him:

  For he’s a jolly good fellow,

  For he’s a jolly good fellow,

  For he’s a jolly good feeeellow…

  And so say all of us!

  Laurence smiled with pleasure. Quentin’s lips tightened, and he handed out another piece of cake – ‘Merry Christmas, Loader.’

  ‘Merry Christmas, sir.’

  And so say all of us, and so say all of us,

  For he’s a jolly good feeeeellow…

  And so say all of us!

  The Germans began shelling a rear area, the shells whistling and sighing high overhead. To the south a British machine gun in Passchendaele fired a belt in four long bursts at some suspicious movement in No Man’s Land.

  Quentin struggled back to his dugout. Laurence saluted and returned to his company.
Quentin began to write a letter:

  Dear Fiona, I have at last had a letter from Archie Campbell. He has been in a coma off and on for weeks. It turned out that a tiny shell splinter had also entered his stomach close to the bullet’s exit wound, and this was not discovered till much later. He is [ – he paused, pen held high. If he told Fiona where Archie was, she’d go to him, and Archie had said he didn’t want to see her again. But he, Quentin, wanted her to be happy. He finished the sentence;] in Charing Cross Hospital, London. Not five miles away Lieutenant General Sir Launcelot Kiggell was inspecting the Ypres front … actually, the rear, as he was in a motor car, which could not get anywhere near the actual Front. Kiggell was Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig’s Chief of Staff, and thus held much responsibility for the planning of what was later to be officially called the Third Battle of Ypres, but which was already being generally referred to as ‘Passchendaele.’ This had begun on July 31 and ended on November 12, six days after the capture of Passchendaele itself. The advance had been of five miles, in three months, at a cost of some 244,000 casualties. A great many of those casualties had not been shot, but drowned – in the mud; and a man wounded in that mud was almost certain to drown within a short time. In fact, the landscape of the Ypres salient, which Kiggell was surveying, contained the pulverized corpses of 40,000 British soldiers, whose remains were never found. Not included in the total were hundreds of horses, mules, wagons, and guns that had also disappeared in the mud – sometimes shattered by shell fire, sometimes whole.

  Now, as Sir Launcelot stood by his car, staring at the desolation, the shattered earth, splintered trees, abandoned artifacts, tears began to flood his eyes and he gasped, the words choked out of him, ‘Good God … did we really send … men … to fight … in that?’

  Fletcher Gorse lay thirty yards out in No Man’s Land under the ruins of two German ammunition wagons, three dead horses, five dead men, and a scattered mountain of German whizz bang shell cases. This had been well behind the enemy reserve lines, in the field gun areas, before the long autumn offensive, when a salvo of British heavies had hit the battery with destructive effect – three months ago. The place didn’t stink too bad, except when it got warm, and the maggots weren’t too bad, for the same reason – it wasn’t warm, it was bloody cold. The land sloped away gradually to the east, giving Fletcher a good view over the German trenches to a depth of six hundred yards. Lying under the litter of war, he was wearing a loose cloak of sandbags sewn together, and that plastered with mud and dotted with bits of green sprinkled with white paint, to match the thin snow on the ground. His rifle butt was rested an inch in front of his right shoulder, and his eyes ceaselessly scanned the terrain in front of him.