Gifts of War

by Mackenzie Ford

  We set off.

  “Did you get to church?” she asked.

  “Yes, I saw Katharine in the choir.”

  She nodded.

  The rain was as insistent as ever and when we reached the canal we could see that the wind swept the waters into minuscule waves, the tips of which were whipped white in fury. No fishermen today.

  “And you had lunch at the Lamb?”

  I nodded.

  These were seemingly innocuous questions but I knew enough now to understand where she was going.

  “Sam… I know about the baby.”

  She didn’t react in any way that was obvious. Her step never faltered; she didn’t turn toward me but held her face steady into the wind and the rain.

  I had finally put two and two together that morning in church, and fleshed out my inferences in the Lamb at lunchtime. Sam had a baby son. Very young. The tall girl, Katharine, whom I had seen in the vicinity of the lockkeeper’s cottage, was her babysitter, and that’s why Sam couldn’t go out at night—Katharine, though she had left school, was herself too young to be allowed out after dark. And it explained why Sam hadn’t been in church that morning: Katharine had to sing in the choir, and Sam didn’t want to take the child out too much in public.

  These details also put into context the conversation I had overheard the very first time I had visited the Lamb, between the barman and the headmaster. The fact that Sam, a schoolteacher, had had a child out of wedlock was regarded by some in the village as wicked, very wicked, unforgivably wicked, the work of the devil himself and an appalling moral example to the young children in her charge in class. I have to admit that, to begin with, I was shocked myself. It didn’t fit with the image I had of Sam, or with the kind of woman I’d hoped she was. She didn’t seem loose or promiscuous; quite the opposite, in fact. It wasn’t tidy.

  I had also learned that, in a few weeks, the local school board would consider whether Sam should be dismissed. She had held her place so far only because the relevant committee took time to be assembled, because she was a popular teacher, a good one and, owing to that, had the support of many on the staff. And because there was a war on and teachers were in short supply. The scandal was, of course, the talk of the village but not to outsiders like me. Only when I started asking, and because I was now living at the Lamb, did I learn the details.

  After the penny had dropped, and I had broached the subject in the pub, I had been interested to observe that, in the Lamb at least, opinion was sharply divided. There was no shortage of those who were convinced that what Sam had done was evil, wicked, shameful, indefensible morally, and a sin beyond redemption. But there were others who agreed with the majority of the school staff that Sam was a superb teacher, an otherwise clean-living, upright young woman who was adored by the children. No less important, and perhaps the most significant factor of all, it was accepted that the father of the child was a soldier at the Front who might be killed at any moment, and that he had left for the war before Sam or he knew she was pregnant, and couldn’t get back to marry her. Therefore, on this reasoning, Sam’s “sin” was entirely pardonable.

  I, of course, was devastated by this development. However, unlike everyone else in the Lamb, in the village, I knew who the father was. I also knew that the gossips who supported Sam were right in one respect at least: the father was at the Front and did not know he had a child.

  It was some time before Sam spoke again. We trudged on, our faces set into the wind and rain, following the towpath, until we came to a bridge, where a lane crossed the canal. We walked into the shadow of the bridge, and for a moment we had a break from the weather.

  Now Sam stopped and I felt her turn toward me. I say “felt” because, with the weather outside being so bad, it was dark and dank under the bridge and I couldn’t see her features properly. Perhaps she intended it that way. When she spoke, her words echoed against the damp bricks of the underside of the bridge.

  “I wanted to tell you myself but… yesterday… you made me feel so safe … I didn’t want to spoil it. I’m sorry …,” she sighed. “I’m damaged goods.”

  “Is it so bad,” I whispered. “I know that gossip in the Lamb isn’t the most reliable testimony… but half the people are on your side, and they think you’ll be acquitted.”

  She brought her face closer to mine, so I could just make out her features. “Because the boy’s father is a soldier at the Front, is that what you’ve heard?”

  I couldn’t speak.

  “It may be true.” Her voice had dropped to a whisper. “It may be true, it may not be. I can’t be certain.” She turned away, then turned back again. “You know why I can’t be certain? I’ll tell you why I can’t be certain. I can’t be certain because he’s German!” She almost spat these words. “He was a teacher here, in Stratford I mean, but he went back in the summer, and then war broke out. He promised to write but I suppose there wasn’t time.” Her eyes glistened in the dark. “I felt sure he’d get in touch some way. I don’t know if he volunteered or was called up—nothing. He was in the reserve: I know that.” She sobbed. “There… you know something no one else knows, except me and him—Wilhelm, that was his name.”

  Her breaths came in large gasps, as if she were chewing the thin air under the bridge. “I shouldn’t say this—” She fought for breath. “But it’s a mercy my mother is dead. Imagine what she’d think—me getting pregnant without being married and to a German. My mother—” She faltered. “My mother would have spat at me—that’s how she was when… how she showed her disgust.”

  She breathed out. “She would have spat at me and I would never have seen her again.”

  She was in tears now; I could see them glinting silver on her cheeks as they caught what light was going. “What do you think people’s opinion of me would be if they knew what you know? They think I am wicked enough as it is—evil, they call me, godless; they say the Antichrist is in me! Do you think I would keep my job if they found out what you know?” She caught her breath, to stop herself from sobbing again. “I’d be lucky to keep my life!”

  I still didn’t speak. Words were too dangerous for me.

  She wiped the tears and the rain from her face. “Are you shocked? Are you angry? Do you despise me, hate me?” She pointed back along the canal, and as she spoke her voice finally broke. “You—you can go back if you want to. Leave me here, I’ll manage.”

  She was broken and she had taken a terrible risk in telling me. But she’d had to tell someone.

  I didn’t move. For a moment the only sound under the bridge was the water dripping from the bricks of the arch.

  Should I tell her what I knew? She was broken and the photograph I had could help put her back together again. She thought she had been abandoned but I knew… I knew otherwise. It was within my power to lift her spirits.

  She was broken, yes, but under that bridge, in the half-light, she was more beautiful than ever.

  I waited till her breathing had calmed; then I slipped my arm through hers, just as she had done with me the day before, by the river in Stratford. And I said, “Tea, that’s what we both need. Come on.”

  She let me lead her out from under the bridge, back into the wild weather. We walked on, with neither of us speaking, letting the rain and the wind wash over us, each blown around by our thoughts. I was still fighting shy of too much talk, uttering words that I might regret.

  We saw a few moorhens, miserable in the rain; we skirted puddles on the towpath, and smelled the bitter tang of wet cow parsley. We saw no one. We reached Hampton Gorse and, yes, the tearooms were not only open but, because of the terrible weather, almost empty. We found a table in the window and were brought a large pot of steaming tea. Despite rationing, there were scones and jam on the menu. We couldn’t believe our luck and Sam cheered up a bit.

  “Tell me about him,” I whispered after the tea had been poured and we had absorbed the smells and the coziness of the room. “How did you meet?”

  This was
wrong of me, I know, very wrong. But it is how it happened. I did what I did.

  The scones arrived. Sam buttered one, put dollops of jam on the butter, and handed it to me. I still remember the taste and wiping excess butter and jam from my lips and chin. The windows of the tearoom were steaming up.

  “He was—is—called Wilhelm. He comes from Göttingen and was a teacher at the Ag, where you are now. Before the war it was a private outfit—but I suppose you know that. We met at the Stratford Mop last year; that’s a big fair—swings, roundabouts, coconut shies, candy floss.” She smiled at last, thinking back to that day, that meeting.

  I had to ask. I couldn’t help it. “You fell in love?”

  Her mouth was full of scone, crumbs all over her lips. I even loved the way she chewed. She nodded and her eyes grew rounder.

  Not the reaction I wanted.

  “Wasn’t it obvious he was German?” I asked. “To the other villagers, I mean. Couldn’t they put two and two together?”

  She shook her head. “He never came to Middle Hill—we always met in Stratford. And the woman I was with when I met him— another teacher—left at the end of the term and volunteered in the war.” She wiped her lips with her hand. “At that time I was living with Mrs. Foley in the high street, in Wellesbourne Road, and she didn’t allow gentlemen callers—as she put it. So I only ever saw Wilhelm in Stratford.” She smiled again. “That’s why I know the times of the trains so well.

  “He wanted to come here, but I said no. Some people are so jingoistic. Stratford isn’t London but they do get a lot of visitors—foreigners—because of the Shakespeare connection. So we were happy enough there, while it lasted.”

  She smiled, relieved to be able to talk to someone about him.

  “He had a brother, and we used to joke about Dieter—the brother—falling for one of my sisters. This horrid, beastly war has spoiled everything. I was looking forward to going to Germany, to seeing Göttingen—that’s a university town.”

  “You’d live in Germany?”

  “I would have done, yes. But he said no. He said there is as much anti-British feeling in Germany as there is anti-German feeling here. Our plan was to emigrate and live in New York. He wasn’t—isn’t— as obsessed with New York as I am, but he did—does—think that America would suit us.”

  I pressed on, knowing the answers to the questions I was asking, but asking them all the same.

  “He doesn’t know about the baby?”

  She shook her head. “He left quickly, meaning to come back quickly, but the war broke out so suddenly, so unexpectedly … he must have been trapped.”

  “And you don’t know where he is?”

  “No!”

  That “No!” sliced through my heart. It was little more than a sigh, a soft sound, but it was as if some part of Sam were escaping, and she seemed to subside in her chair and grow smaller.

  She gave me another half of a scone. “He said he’d write and put his address on the letter, so I could write back. That was the plan.” She sighed again. “It doesn’t matter, I suppose. Even if I had his address, anything I wrote wouldn’t get through, because of the war. I just wish… I just wish I knew if he was … safe.” She poured more tea. Her face had more color now, from the warmth of the room and from the relief in talking about him at last. “You know a funny thing? When you came to the school and gave us that talk about the Christmas truce, on the Front, I thought how extraordinary it would have been if you had met Wilhelm—that the German officer you talked with, and exchanged gifts with on Christmas Day, had been him.” She handed me a fresh cup and saucer. “But, of course, coincidences like that don’t happen.”

  Again, I said nothing for a moment. My face had more color, too. Then: “What is your son called?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing yet. I call him ‘baby’—he’s not quite five months, after all. I can’t call him Wilhelm—as well as being his father’s name, it’s the Kaiser’s, and think of the problems that could raise, both now and later.” She shrugged. “And I won’t name him after my father.” She poured herself some tea. “In any case, I’m by no means certain that if I took him to the vicar in Middle Hill he’d consent to christen a bastard. So I’ve let it drift. Have I upset you, saying I’m still in love with Wilhelm—the enemy?”

  I stirred my tea.

  “I’ll take my chances,” I whispered, swallowing some of the hot liquid to disguise my discomfort. “The war may last a long time— and who knows what will happen or how it will end?” I raised my cup to her. “We’ve come a long way since eleven thirty-eight yesterday morning.”

  She leaned forward and put her hand on mine. “Would you like to see … the baby?”

  “William,” I said suddenly as it came to me. “I’m going to think of him as William. It’s a good, traditional name, strong, the name of the one man who conquered us. It’s not too far from Wilhelm, and I can’t just call him ‘baby.’ Yes, I’d love to see him.”

  “William?” she whispered thoughtfully. “No, too … too formal. And it always gets shortened to Bill. I hate Bill.”

  “Make it Will, then,” I said. “That sounds informal, the link to Stratford is obvious—and it can’t be shortened.”

  “Will? Will?” She tried it out. “Yes, all right… why not? I like Will, and you’re right, it does recall Wilhelm without giving the game away. People will think the baby’s named after Shakespeare. He’ll have to know about his father someday, of course, but not yet, not until we see how the war turns out.

  “Will?” She tried out the name again. “Yes, I like it.” She smiled. “Thank you. If he ever does get christened, why don’t I call him Will Henry?”

  The next day, Monday, I was back in Stratford, at the Ag. It was, however, a day with a difference, for that Monday we in the advanced German course—there were about a dozen of us—had a lecture. It was given by a Colonel Pritchard, a slight man with unruly pepper-and-salt hair and a mass of broken capillaries that covered his cheeks like an elaborate wiring diagram. His talk concerned Germany’s prewar capabilities in coal mining, steelmaking, and shipbuilding insofar as it was relevant to her ability to wage war. The point of the lecture was to familiarize us with the sort of intelligence material we would be dealing with once we had finished the course—subject matter, words, concepts. His sources included books, newspaper reports, interrogation transcripts, aerial photographs.

  Now it so happened that Montgomery & Mann had published some of Colonel Pritchard’s raw material and I knew several of his sources very well. So well, in fact, that I spotted what I thought was a small but significant error in the colonel’s argument. When he came to the end of his lecture and asked for questions, I put up my hand.

  He nodded affably.

  “Sir, in your discussion of German steelmaking capacity, you say that Germany overtook Britain in 1908. I don’t know whether you think this is important, but in Trevor Kennedy’s survey—the work you quote—it says they overtook us in 1903, five years earlier.”

  Total silence in the room. Except that I could hear a train far away.

  Then Pritchard spoke: “So you’re saying I am wrong.”

  I reddened. “It’s easy to confuse a three and an eight, sir. It’s probably a misprint.”

  “Good grief!” growled Major Romford. “Apologize, Montgomery, for pity’s sake! Who do you think you are, Winston bloody Churchill?”

  When I didn’t immediately do as he said, he exploded a second time. “Well, if you won’t have the grace to apologize, I will do it on your behalf—and I’ll see you later… in—my—office!” He turned to the colonel but the colonel waved him down.

  “No, no. Let’s have this out.” Pritchard faced me. “Because it’s not a small matter, is it?” He passed his stubby fingers through the waves in his hair. “You’re saying, if I understand you correctly, that our estimates of German capacity are five years out—and five years in the wrong direction. Which means we may have seriously underestimated their cap
acity.”

  I nodded. “If I’m right, sir. If it’s not a misprint.”

  “Jee-sus!” breathed Romford. “You cocky bastard—”

  “Well, it’s checkable,” said Pritchard, rubbing his jaw “And I’ll certainly check it, just as soon as I get back to the ministry in London.” He shifted in his seat. “But I’m interested to know how you are so well informed. When I asked for questions, I must say I didn’t expect that kind of question.”

  “Exactly!” growled the major. “Quite out of order. I won’t have this kind of—”

  “Shh,” said the colonel. “Just a second. Let’s hear the young man’s answer.”

  I told the colonel about my family’s publishing history, my interest in science, my two years in Germany, the books I had borrowed from the Stratford municipal library.

  When I had finished, he nodded. “What were your impressions of Germany—did you like it?”

  “Yes, I did. I know they’re the enemy but—”

  “That’s all right,” he interrupted. “Any differences between us and them? Differences you think are—or were—important?”

  I thought for a moment. “A couple of things struck me. Germany’s just as snobbish as Britain—more so in some ways. But they do give more respect to scholars and, in particular, to engineers. When I was there the engineers were just getting organized, into a professional group.”

  “So?” snarled Romford.

  “Yes,” said Pritchard, much more quietly, “why do you mention that?”

  I shrugged. “Make engineers respectable and you get better-quality people becoming engineers. That means their ships and industry are going to improve, and they are going to invent new and more terrible weapons.”

  “Any ideas?”

  I nodded. “This new automobile technology… combine that with their steelmaking. Once you solve the problem of how an automobile travels over open country, you’re bound to get armored vehicles.”

  Pritchard hadn’t stopped rubbing his jaw “Anything else?”