Coming Home

by Roy E. Stolworthy

  Thomas sat with his mouth open, his mind as clear as a blinded window. Promotion, medals, what in God’s name is he talking about? His spirit spiralled into his boots. Which part of this army didn’t he understand? He was a deserter not a bloody hero. He desired death not medals. Perhaps he should go home, break into Buckingham Palace and shoot the king while he’s on the crapper. Maybe that’ll make them sit up and take notice.

  “But, Sir, it’s true, I was trying to desert, Sir,” he stammered.

  Lieutenant Devonshire cocked his head to one side and ran his hand across his mouth.

  “Hmm, give you a bad time did they, eh? Rest, that’s what you need, old boy. Get some food and a good night’s sleep. They moved your lot up the line to a place called Serre, I think. We’ll sort it out in the morning. Anyway, well done, lad, been a pleasure to meet you. And one other thing, pop along to the stores for a new uniform – can’t have you wandering around dressed like that, old chap, against army regulations.”

  Chapter Ten

  1917

  On the top deck of a red double-decker London bus converted to carry twenty-five fully kitted soldiers, Thomas sat in his new uniform feeling like a teat on a bull. More than one hundred buses made up the convoy for Serre that day and the air quickly grew heavy with choking diesel fumes. With unrelenting regularity, soldiers exercised their God given right to complain about anything that moved and grumbled at everything that didn’t. In joyous unison they hurled obscene insults as a long tailback built up and lorries hooted impatiently trying to queue-jump horse-driven wagons loaded with supplies for the front. The majority of the troops were from the 12th Battalion Durham Light Infantry in the process of being moved to new positions. The minority, aware of where they were going, made it uncommonly plain to the drivers that they were in no rush to reach their destination.

  As usual Thomas continued to keep a low profile, content to listen as some ignored the furore while eating tins of bully beef and singing the tunes of the day in loud, confident voices. Some showed scant regard to his new uniform; others threw a brief enquiring stare and then turned their interest to three-card brag or pontoon. It wasn’t their place to interfere with another man’s thoughts, most were too intent on wiping away gruesome memories of their own.

  Although he didn’t agree Thomas accepted that the released Australian prisoners had taken it upon themselves to over-elaborate the events relating to their escape. Men liked to exaggerate their exploits in time of war, it made them a figure of respect in the eyes of other troops, and through their splendid accounts he had been reluctantly pushed to the fore as a hero.

  All along the front line the landscape remained unchanged. The big thaw was taking place and thick mud and slush replaced the frozen earth. Men stripped to the waist and bathed in sweat heaved and cursed with every expletive known to man, and slowly field guns and cannons were manoeuvred into position for the next onslaught. Outside the graveyard, marked by helmets atop bayoneted rifles, lay the heartrending sight of dead cattle and horses, prone and bloated, their legs pointing grotesquely towards the sky.

  As far as the eye could see the countryside resembled a charcoal etching on a dull grey background, a place where gaunt black branchless trees stood stark, cold and forbidding holding up a bleak sky. Hills and mounds where proud men once stood and fought and died magnificently were now unprepared burial sites roamed by the spirits of warring soldiers, and in the mist alone and cold they waited for the Valkyries to transport them to the halls of Valhalla.

  After a cold journey of several hours the convoy slowed to a crawl. The sickly smell of blood, gangrened wounds, iodine and chloroform mixed with the stench of death penetrated the air, dulling the senses. Men quickly lit cigarettes allowing the smoke to drift up their noses in a vain attempt to neutralise the nauseous odour. Those that never smoked held dirty rags over their mouths to prevent from retching. Ahead, a medical station full of mutilated and dying men with red and pink stumps where strong limbs once grew waited for attention, some covered in masses of wriggling maggots gorging on the rotting flesh. A soldier with his head wrapped in a bloodstained bandage moved slowly among them offering words of comfort, while swabbing the maggots away with stinging disinfectant. It seemed extraordinary that in this tented house of pain and misery there was no outward expression of moans or complaints. Most of the wounded and dying asked for no more than a smoke, some never lived long enough to finish the cigarette. Men left the buses and searched their pockets and kitbags for small titbits of food, and perhaps a packet of cigarettes or a sticky boiled sweet for the fallen soldiers.

  “There you go, mate, all the best. Ain’t you the lucky one, going home to Blighty? Chin up, pal,” they mumbled holding back the tears and handing out all they could spare.

  Shuffling to one side they bowed their heads in humble silence and fumbled with the buttons of their uniforms, each man aware he might be next to die a long lingering death. All around young nurses with matted, straggly hair and bloodstained uniforms swept to and fro with empty, vacant eyes caring for their charges. Their pretty faces were drawn and tired yet never without a brief semblance of a smile. Some sat with men calling out for their mothers as death drew closer. “Yes, dear, Mother’s here, rest now,” a nurse whispered, taking the man’s hand. For a moment he looked young again, the pain drained from his boyish face, and with a final upward glance his head rolled to one side and he left this hell for a better world.

  When night-time fell each man had to fend for himself: no hotels, no beds, no feather mattress. Throw your kit down anywhere. Sleep wherever you can lay your head and be grateful if it still remained on your shoulders when you woke in the morning. Tired men slumped fully-dressed on the seats of the red London buses, their faces black and grimy, and with clothes and boots caked with wet mud they shivered without complaint into a fitful night’s sleep. Perhaps tomorrow would be a better day, a day when a nightingale sang, a day when the battlefield turned into a golden meadow and all the things nature intended. Instead the morning of disappointment dawned and everything was as the day before, tired eyes rubbed sore with grimy hands. Then it was time for a quick brew and back to the buses and the next port of misery.

  Thomas watched Sergeant Bull bobbing along with his jaunty walk. He smiled, feeling as though he had never been away. The time he’d spent suffering in the prison camp he’d erased from his mind and now amounted to no more than a bad dream. Close by Leslie Hill leaned against the wooden timbers supporting the side of the crumbling trench, his grimy face a picture of concentration as he cleaned his rifle with an old sock full of holes. Stan Banks sipped steaming hot tea from a dirty enamel mug with a broken handle. His skin grey, his eyes rimmed red, he looked up with an empty stare displaying no acknowledgment. Ian Lewis lounged against the muddy trench wall staring down with a bored pitiless expression at a rat the size of a mongrel dog nibbling at his boot. There was something in their sad haggard faces that evoked apathy in others and kept at arm’s length any introspection. He felt the cold breath of disappointment tug away his smile.

  “Eh, lad, it’s good to see you in one piece. Had a bad time by all accounts, been expecting you we have, only a few of us left from those who started out with us,” Sergeant Bull said, his ice-blue eyes even wilder than ever before. “Got a new officer now we have. Other poor lad disappeared under a bomb blast along with Ollie Love. He’ll want to see you straight away.”

  Lieutenant Tarry gazed at Thomas through dull grey lifeless eyes. His sharpened cheekbones jerked like a man used-up, and his mouth twitched at the corners. In his bony white fingers he clutched a pencil, and his hands trembled and shook in spasms as though they might fall to pieces. He pushed the writing paper away and tried unsuccessfully to work his facial muscles into a smile.

  “Lieutenant Tarry, Sir, this is Lance Corporal Elkin, Sir. We were informed some days ago he was on his way, you particularly asked to see him,” Sergeant Bull said.

  “Elkin, who the devil is Elkin? Ah y
es, Elkin, I remember now. What did I want to see him about, Sergeant?”

  “I understand he is to accompany you to HQ, Sir, as soon as he arrives, both to be awarded medals, so I’ve been told.”

  “Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s go.”

  “Best if you put your boots on first, Sir. I’ll fix up some transport and we’ll leave first thing in the morning,” Sergeant Bull said gently.

  “Good idea, Sergeant, till the morning then.”

  Outside the trench, Sergeant Bull took Thomas to one side.

  “He’s lost his nerve he has, poor bugger. He led two assaults from the front. Stepped out in front of the men as brave as a dog in a bone factory and marched with his arms swinging into a hail of bullets without flinching. Aye, then he stood on top of the trench hurling grenades at the Germans from a bag he carried slung over his shoulder. When he was finished with that lot he walked to the second German trench and did the same again. Bloody Germans scarpered like rabbits in a field full of greyhounds when they saw him coming. It finished him though. He knows he’s going to die and he’s just waiting for it to happen. I’ve tried to reason with him but he’ll have none of it. You’re both being awarded medals for bravery tomorrow. I’ll come along to keep an eye on the pair of you.”

  And so he did. He fussed over Lieutenant Tarry like he was a child, cleaning his boots and uniform – unheard of for a sergeant.

  Lieutenant Tarry was awarded the Military Cross for Gallantry in the Field by a major general wearing a starched uniform, and promoted to captain. Thomas stood in line with other ranks waiting his turn to be decorated by a bent and decrepit old colonel, who had to shout to overcome his own deafness. Thomas wondered what part they had played in the slaughter of the thousands of men dispatched from the trenches to certain death, or if they even knew there was a war on.

  “Well done, Corporal, damn fine show, fine exhibition of soldiering,” the elderly officer rasped, and with fumbling hands spent the next two minutes attempting to pin the Military Medal to Thomas’s tunic.

  The officer’s handshake felt cold and weak, almost without life. He cringed and wanted to be free of him. He wanted neither the medal nor the promotion to corporal. Nor did he wish to be in their company. The only tangible memento after battle was a decoration of some sort, and its tangibility made it highly valued. The only prize for the ordinary soldier was a coloured ribbon to show he had done his duty towards his king and country. Yet, to Thomas this meant publicity, the one thing he wanted to avoid. Later, an army photographer looking for a story tried to take his picture and he ducked away, covering his face. The offer of seven days leave in Blighty softened the blow, and that evening he caught a train to Calais.

  Chapter Eleven

  Blighty

  The slow train to Calais was packed sardine-tight with sunken-eyed men returning to England. No light or hint of emotion appeared in any of them, not even a dash of hope glimmered faintly in their dimmed eyes, apathy ruled. Most suffered wounds and sat minus limbs on their way to hospitals all over England. Allied field hospitals were no longer capable of coping with the horrendous number of wounded pouring in – men had died who might in a different time have been saved. Gradually the chatter abated.

  Tired eyes sparked to a glimmer and gazed in wonder from steamed windows at the sight of trees with rustling green leaves, a spread of lush green grass conquered the manmade desolation. As if by magic a landscape untouched by thousands of screaming shells annihilating and demolishing everything in their path appeared like a dream from another world, stretching for as far as the eye could see. Gone were the blackened battlefields of death. Gone were the decaying bodies, rotting and putrefying in the near-forgotten realms of No Man’s Land. Gone were the thousands of upturned rifles holding a solitary helmet, standing in dark silhouette against the dim early-morning dawn, marking the grave of a husband, a father, a boyfriend, a brother, a son or a boy not yet out of his teens. Houses with bright-red tiled roofs clustered together forming a small village, the smoke of house fires drifting lazily into the still air like white columns from stout chimney pots.

  “Are we there already? It’s gone very quiet,” a man with a bandaged face whispered. “It’s just that I can’t see. Can someone tell me what you see?”

  “Aye, I can that, lad,” Thomas said, looking at the weeping blisters on the man’s hands. “I can see a forest of a thousand trees. Green they are, like holly at Christmas. The fields are full of golden corn and flowing yellow rape surrounded by neat and tidy hedgerows. In the middle I can see a small village with white painted houses sitting side-by-side with bright-red roofs glistening in the sunlight. Children are playing on a swing watched over by their mothers. Hey, I can see a herd of horses cantering towards a silver lake full of leaping fish. In the distance black-and-white cattle are grazing in a meadow, with larks sweeping and diving overhead in a sun-drenched blue sky. It’s a grand sight, lad, one to remember,” he said, reddening at his newly acquired eloquence when eyes swivelled towards him.

  “Aye, it sounds like it is, thank you. You’ve given me something to think on, lad. God bless you,” he answered quietly, and turned his blinded eyes to face the window.

  At Calais the ever-present rain sheeted down like the devil’s gift to the righteous. Injured and hollow-eyed soldiers stood soaked to the skin without complaint, to be helped aboard the dipping ship waiting to take them home. Thomas looked around for something to cheer him: a peal of laughter, a smiling face, a dog wagging its tail. His optimism unrewarded, the fingers of war and misery reached out like the tentacles of a malevolent octopus, tainting and defiling all in its wake. He was one of the more fortunate: a hero and a winner of the Military Medal. The sight of an uninjured soldier with all limbs intact seemed to be rare. From the gloomy hardware shop doorway, he sheltered as best he could from the rain and watched a young, frail, pretty nurse stagger while attempting to support a burly private twice her size. With only one leg he struggled to manoeuvre his crutches without crushing the young woman and they began to slip from his hands. He tottered and the nurse’s face creased in pain in a vain attempt to steady him. Thomas caught his arm and slipped it over his shoulder.

  “All right, lad, I’ve got you. Let me take the weight and we’ll get you safely onboard,” he said, glancing at the blood seeping from the dressing covering the stumped remains of the man’s leg. Through a line of stretcher-bearers with their patients he made his way to the front of the queue.

  “Gangway!” he hollered. “Got a man bleeding to death here, make way.”

  “We’ve people on stretchers here if you don’t mind,” someone called. “Wait your turn.”

  “Aye, and he can lay on his arse a bit longer. Now get out me bloody way or I’ll throw the lot of you into the bloody sea,” he growled. “I’ll not tell you again!” he roared.

  Quickly they shuffled to one side mouthing silent complaints and made room as the two men stepped onto the swaying gangplank.

  “Come on, lass, follow me, you’re going to be needed in a minute, I reckon,” he called over his shoulder.

  Pushing a lock of loose golden hair away from her forehead and with a small grateful smile forming on her lips, she followed him onboard. Thomas found an empty table in the saloon, laid the man on the surface and turned to the nurse.

  “Will he be all right, miss?”

  “Thanks to you I think he’ll be fine, thank you,” she said, searching through her bag for a needle and thread to re-stitch the leg. “Are you one of the walking wounded?”

  “No, miss, thank God, I’ve just got a spot of leave,” he said sheepishly, walking away to escape the eye-watering smell of disinfectant.

  Through tired eyes he watched from the stern of the ship as France disappeared into a heavy mist. White horses leapt from the crest of waves and a stinging spray whipped into his face. He tugged the collar of his greatcoat closer around his ears. Gripping the handrail he leaned out over the side and watched churning foam from huge br
onze propellers leave a frothing trail in the grey waters. Overhead shrieking seagulls wheeled and hovered against the biting wind, hoping for the sight of a small fish to ram down their hungry gullets.

  Not so very long ago back in the dark doorway at Calais he’d almost made up his mind he wouldn’t travel back to England. The French port would have suited him fine, a roof over his head and a dry bed to sleep in would more than suffice. But deep down he knew helping the nurse to get the injured soldier onboard had been the right thing to do. If the situation were reversed, he was certain others would do the same for him.

  The miseries of war were a self-inflicted burden waiting to be shared by everyone, and he was no exception. He’d been lucky up to now – or perhaps in his state of mind, unlucky. He held his breath and leaned further out over the handrail, until he reached the point of balance where an inch either way would make the difference between going over the side into the waiting waters or remaining onboard. With his eyes closed, he gritted his teeth and loosened his grip on the rail. Now was the time to repay his dept to the living world.

  “Hello, I thought you might appreciate a warm cup of tea.”

  For a stunned moment he thought his ears were playing tricks with him. A sense of great joy seemed to leap and flame within him and he was barely able to contain the heat of happiness coursing through his blood. Once again he had cheated death and left Archie floundering and sneering in the black waters below. He pushed himself back and turned to face the young nurse. When she removed her hat to prevent the wind blowing it from her head, he gasped at her golden hair, long and curled it streamed into the wind. Her pale-blue eyes were large and held a permanent expression of disconcerted bewilderment. Her soft flesh glowed young and unwounded with an aura of peace and gentleness, and the tenderness of her smile said, let’s be friends.

  In an instant he went from man back to boyhood. He felt foolish and awkward, wondering if she knew he had been about to hurl himself into the swirling black sea. He looked down at her small slim body trying to come to terms with the dipping and rolling movements of the ship, the knuckles of her small hands chalk-white as she gripped the ship’s rails. Turning his head, he glanced ruefully at the dark waters and fought the malignant forces squeezing his heart. The feeling passed as quickly as it came and he returned to his imaginary state of manhood.