David gave him a bland stare, then pulling a key from his trousers pocket slipped it into the lock and allowed the chain to fall free. Françoise’s gasped, her breath came in short, rapid bursts, her tiny hands clutched at Thomas’s trousers and she refused to let go. With a grin he looked down and lifted her. She smiled, and when he blew gently into her ear she slipped her arms around his neck and held him tight as though he might try to escape.
“Shh, don’t be frightened little one, I’m not going anywhere,” he said softly, cradling her head in his hand. He felt the slight tremor and waited for her to push her thumb into her mouth and close her eyes. Warmth such as he’d never experienced before swarmed over his body, caressing and soothing his mind. He couldn’t remember the last time anything so tender had reached his inner feelings and touched his soul and it frightened him. No longer did he suffer the grip of loneliness as though he existed in a wilderness hewed out for him alone. Gingerly he lay the child on the bed and gazed down, his one thought was to chase away the fears and vulnerability of an innocent child seeking solace in a turbulent world. For a moment, he forgot about death and rejoiced in the gift of life.
A few minutes spent rummaging through the drawers and cupboards in the kitchen produced flour and a small quantity of milk. With his bayonet he sliced vegetables and mixed them with water and flour to produce a thick soup, and with two eggs and some flour mixed with milk and water he baked a Yorkshire pudding. That afternoon they ate their fill and saved some for the evening.
After the evening meal Françoise sat quietly and allowed him to unbutton her dress and remove the rest of her clothing. With gentle hands he lifted her into the sink of warm water. Playfully flicking his finger, he sent a jet of water into her face. She smiled her tiny smile, the one that tugged at his heart, yet still she never uttered a word. With a small remnant of soap he lathered his hands and washed her clean. Finally, he dried and dressed her and sat her on his lap so he could brush her hair. She remained quiet, her eyes overflowing with uncertainty, and gripping a handful of his waistcoat she sought refuge and refused to let go. Still her nightmares persisted within her, and the ceaseless flood of jumbled memories washed her childish thoughts into a vast sea of confusion that sank so deep they became impossible to reach.
For a while he sat impervious to the demands of time, waiting until she pushed her thumb between her lips and slipped into the sanctuary of sleep. As she slept he prised her hand from his waistcoat, laid her on her small bed and gazed down at her face. Without warning an abrupt rush of guilt poured into his mind and he clenched his fist with a barely suppressed fury. Tension hammered into his brain and he hardly dared to think of his own self-inflicted predicament. He turned his head away in a quivering sense of shame. His problems were negligible, unworthy of a mention compared to those of the child who lay sleeping in front of his eyes. Yet he lacked the backbone and inner strength to purge from his mind the experience that had caused him to leave the place he never wanted to leave. It was he that had fed Archie to the pigs, no other, him and him alone, and while he lived he must bear the guilt, it was only fair.
She lay still, save for the barely audible sound of her breathing, abandoned, lost and adrift in another world that only the remotest corners of her mind recognised. He leaned forward and covered her shoulder with the thin blanket. Before he could rise, the door crashed open and four military policemen battered their way inside.
“Corporal Archie Elkin, you are under arrest for desertion!” the heavy-built sergeant roared. “Cuff him, and bring his uniform.”
Françoise stirred, sat upright and ran towards Thomas with outstretched arms. “Papa, Papa!” she screamed.
“Get that bloody brat out of here,” the sergeant called, flinging the child to one side. Thomas watched Françoise slam into the wall and lie un-moving on the floor. A curtain of scarlet mist dimmed his vision and snapping his head forward he caught the sergeant flush on the nose. He staggered back moaning with blood gushing from shattered bones. Thomas twisted and sent his foot crunching into his groin. When he doubled, groaning in agony, Thomas’s knee smashed into his face, splintering his cheekbone. From the corner of his eye he glimpsed the rifle butt coming for his face. Now he was trench fighting the way he’d been taught – no rules and nothing barred. Leaning back, he sent his fist into the man’s face and felt the teeth give way and cut into his knuckles. The remaining two men backed away with fear and uncertainty etched on their faces. Thomas crouched, looking for an opening, his outstretched fingers groping for their eyes or anything else to rip open and maim. For a split second he felt the heavy blow cannon into his head and his legs buckled. A second blow knocked his head to one side and he sank, dazed, to the ground. When the first hobnailed boot thudded into his side, he passed out.
Stan Banks winced at the bruises and looked the other way. He’d seen the state of the sergeant and in no uncertain terms made it public that he wished Thomas had killed him. Throwing orphaned kids around wouldn’t be forgotten by the men in the trenches.
“We’ll deal with you bastards in our own time, think on that shithead,” he sneered at the hawk-faced military policeman sitting in the police station with his feet up on the table.
“What happened, Thomas?” Moses asked, ignoring Stan’s threats. “Where in God’s name have you been for the past four days?”
Thomas heaved himself to a sitting position and told them everything, including the knife wound to his neck. They listened grim-faced to his story of the child, Françoise, who refused to speak after seeing her mother taken from her and her father shot down in cold blood by the Germans, and of David, her brother, who tried his best to care for her.
“You have to find her mother. Fritz took her a couple of weeks ago so she could be anywhere, looking after their wounded or more likely in one of their mobile brothels,” Thomas said, wincing through the pain.
“Aye, Sergeant Bull’s the man for that,” Stan Banks said, scowling at the military policeman with his feet on the table.
“That’s your bloody lot, you’ve had your five minutes, now sling your bloody hook, go on hop it,” the policeman said. “He’s not allowed visitors anyway. You can see him tomorrow after the court martial when they stick him in front of the firing squad.”
Banks’s face exuded an undisguised hate and disgust at the policeman lounging in the chair with the top button of his trousers undone, and lashing out with his boot he sent the chair crashing from under him. Spluttering and roaring obscenities, the policeman fell to the floor. Banks bent down, ripped the policeman’s trousers down to his ankles and walked to the door.
“Hey, lad, fetch an officer,” he called to two Highlanders. “There’s a bloody Redcap in here pleasuring himself in front of the prisoners.”
At ten o’clock the next morning, in the bombed-out town hall, Thomas stood to attention before four officers sitting behind two tables jammed together. They gave short thrift to excuses. The verdict was guilty as charged, and he would be shot at dawn the following day. He gave a slow smile and said nothing. Outside, he waited under escort for the battalions of Anzac troops to pass before crossing the road to the police station.
It was done and he felt no remorse. Archie’s death had been no great loss to the world, in all probability it was a better place for it. Harsh but true, he mused, then again, maybe not his judgement to make. After all, Archie was now a hero, a winner of a Military Medal, a trainer of an elite band of snipers who terrorised the Germans and saved endless allies’ lives. Archie will bring a child into the world through Dilly, dear Dilly, who wears her heart on her sleeve. Where else would a pretty girl wear her heart during a war? Archie held the respect of many men who served with him, ate with him and slept fitfully in the rat-infested trenches by his side. He had even been the best man at his friend’s wedding. Archie had done well in his short eventful life, and even his pending execution would go down in the annals of war as killed in action to those unwilling to delve further. Thomas had died
fighting for his breath in the bottomless gravel pit close to the farm on the edge of the Yorkshire Moors, so the story would go. He wouldn’t be remembered as a hero, or anything other than an unfortunate little boy. He pulled the ragged blanket over his shoulders and lay down to sleep on the stiff bare wooden board. All was well with the world.
In the morning, he was informed by the police his execution had been deferred for twenty-four hours until his death warrant could be signed at GHQ. He spent the morning playing draughts with a policeman from Rochdale, who had originally signed up for the Catering Corps. Such was the transience of the British Army.
“Here, mate, want a fag?” he said.
“No, I don’t smoke.”
“No, and you don’t want to start, mate, bloody things will kill you,” he said, closing his eyes tight shut upon realising what he had just said. “I’m sorry, me and my big mouth.”
Thomas smiled at the unintended pun and turned as Sergeant Bull walked into the police station.
“You have visitors, lad,” he said, pulling the door open. “We found her hiding in an outhouse after escaping from Fritz, been working as a cook she has, among other things.”
The young woman might have been pretty in the past but today she looked used and haggard. Her black three-quarter-length coat was held together round her waist with a piece of dirty white string and she wore a beret on her head, perched to one side in an attempt to portray a fashion. The sole of one of her muddy shoes was hanging off. In her arms she held Françoise, David clung to her coat.
“Papa,” Françoise whispered.
Thomas looked hesitantly into the woman’s face and waited. With a small smile she nodded. He stepped forward and took Francoise in his arms. Her arm slipped around his neck and she pushed the thumb of her other hand into her mouth, closed her eyes and lay her head on his shoulder while he gently stroked her hair. It was a wasted effort closing his eyes – it did nothing to halt the flow of tears springing between the lids and running down his cheeks. He cried in a manly way, silently and without a change of expression. Françoise wiped away his tears with her small hands until his face shone with wetness, and afraid he might lose control he handed her back to her mother. David stepped forward and thrust out his hand. They shook hands, like men do. Thomas raised a breathless smile and recalled the day he’d shaken his father’s hand. It was a fine thing to do and he felt grateful for the memory.
“Thank you, Monsieur. I shall show my mother how to make the Yorkshire pudding, and when we eat it we shall always think of you,” the boy said.
Thomas nodded and wiped his face with the back of his hand, pretending the tears were not there.
“From the bottom of my heart I thank you, Monsieur,” the woman nodded. “I have begged on my knees to your officers for your release, but there is nothing they can do. I tell them it is a waste of a fine man.”
Thomas watched them leave. A fine man, she had said – it was a good feeling.
That evening the signed warrant for his execution arrived. The Provost Marshall accompanied by a padre explained the procedure for death at dawn by firing squad. He would be allowed a good tot of rum to dull the brain or a shot of morphine. He refused both and declined the attention of the padre.
Moses came alone later and asked if he could speak with the condemned man.
“You’d better make it snappy. I could be shot for letting you in.”
Moses curled his lip and glared at the cringing policeman.
“We are trying all we can to get the sentence overturned. The snipers are threatening to shoot the officers, some are even asking for Ruby’s address. They want to write and tell her you were a good man and that you died honourably. Not that it makes any difference, but I’m convinced you wouldn’t want to die with a lie on your lips.”
“Moses,” Thomas snapped angrily. “I’m being shot in the morning for caring for two young abandoned children who thought they had lost their parents. I fed them, washed them and tucked them into bed and told them bedtime stories when no other bugger gave a damn. What’s your reason for dying tomorrow?”
Moses tilted his head and stared at the floor. Thomas was mocking him – fine words disappear into nothing once spoken, but deeds have a way of lasting longer. The logic of a boy had defeated him.
“Very eloquently and succinctly put, Thomas, I applaud you. Are you telling me you held no thoughts of your future when you decided to stay and care for the children?”
“Do I really need to answer that silly question?” Thomas said softly. “Whatever you think of me no longer matters; it’s what I believe that counts. You and Stan are my two best friends, and now you will become my lifelong friends.”
Moses reeled at the words, he tried to pull himself together and his shoulders slumped in despair.
“Time to go, sorry, mate,” the young policeman said.
“Goodbye, Thomas, I salute you for your courage,” Moses said quietly, unable to disguise the choke in his voice.
“Goodbye, Moses, thank you for all the kindness you have shown me in the past. I want you to have this,” Thomas said, holding out the pocket watch.
Moses snatched the watch and strode out into the night – for once, it wasn’t raining.
Bully beef, green beans and hot potatoes followed by a whole jar of preserved apricots – a last meal fit for a condemned man. In the morning, a cup of coffee only, they told him.
Dawn crumbled away the darkness. The escort came accompanied by a young pale-faced captain from the Royal Engineers. The night before he’d refused the assignment, and only the threat of going the same way induced him to obey the order. He stood before hundreds of troops lined up and ordered to witness the punishment meted out to deserters. He knew how the men felt. The reason for the condemned man’s execution had travelled like a tropical brush fire down the lines. What was the alternative, what was he supposed to have done, ignored the children after one of them had saved his life? Grim-faced they watched Thomas stumbling blindfolded accompanied by an escort. To his right waited a freshly dug unmarked grave. When they tied him to the post he braced himself so as not to lose his balance during the ceremony of shame and thought of Archie. He refused the white cloth bag they wanted to slip over his head leaving him in darkness, and asked for the blindfold to be removed.
“Sorry, mate,” a man with a florid face said fumbling while pinning on the white piece of cloth for the executioners to aim at.
Thomas closed his eyes. His breath, rushing from his chest, pounded in his ears like a winter storm on the moors. “Walk easy on the plough, Ruby,” he whispered. The padre murmured some unwanted words over the sound of the officer’s command to present arms, and he waited.
“Aim!”
“Here, just a minute, you bladdy drongoes, I know this bloke. He ain’t no bladdy deserter,” Warrant Officer Digger Barnes called out. “What the bladdy hell’s going on?”
Sergeant Major Ned Molloy stepped in front of the pale-faced captain and glowered at him. Hesitantly, the confused firing squad lowered their rifles and looked at the captain, standing rooted to the spot with his mouth gaping open.
“You’re a troublesome little bugger you are, what the bladdy hell have you got yourself into this time?” Barnes grinned at Thomas.
Thomas blinked and looked at the Australian. Something stirred in his heart and he wanted to scream, to tell them to go away. How could they snatch from him what he wanted more than anything else in the world, his freedom from the guilt that kept him awake every night and haunted him throughout the hours of daylight? He stood stunned, his brain scrambling, why was it they failed to understand he longed for death to cleanse him from his sins and pain.
“What the blazes do you think you are doing? I’ll have you arrested and thrown into prison, now get out of the way and I’ll deal with you later!” the captain roared, coming to life.
Digger Barnes, like most Australians, had no time for British officers.
“You listen to me, you Vi
ctorian-bred mongrel. Lay a finger on that boy and I’ll see that every Anzac soldier is pulled off the front line by noon. He won the Military Medal for helping twenty-five Australian soldiers escape from a prisoner-of-war camp and you stupid bastards want to shoot him. He’s a bladdy national hero back home,” Digger Barnes raged.
The captain’s face turned as white as a penguin’s bib and the veins on his neck pulsed and throbbed purple. In one flowing motion he swivelled to face the Provost Marshall standing to one side with four military police, and thundered, “By God, I want these men arrested at once, both of them, and throw them in the cells, they’ll be dealt with later.”
The Provost Marshall gulped and remained stationary, salty sweat glistened like tiny drops of rain on his upper lip. He’d experienced trouble with the Aussie and New Zealand troops in the past concerning executions. They refused point blank to participate in the executions of their own men and threatened withdrawal from the war if any other foreign soldier raised arms against them. They had volunteered to fight of their own free will, unlike the British who fought through conscription. At this moment they considered Thomas to be one of theirs.
“I think we had better stand down on this, Sir, and await a ruling from above. Seen this type of thing before, and he means what he says. We picked up three Welsh guardsmen a few months ago trying to cross the border into Holland. Guilty as sin they were, one of them a young lieutenant from a titled family. Let them off scot free they did, said it would bring shame on the regiment,” he said to the fuming captain. “Three days later they sentenced a soldier from an Australian regiment to be shot for cowardice. Suffering from bomb fever he was, Sir. The poor blighter couldn’t even stand up. His commanding officer pulled his troops out of the trenches and threatened to shoot the officer in charge of the firing squad and return to Australia.”
“Did he, by God? Well I’ll not stand by and allow a mutiny in the British Army to take place in front of my very eyes,” the captain said, drawing his revolver.
Coming Home Page 32