Less than an hour later, exhausted, he finally exhumed the remains of the mutilated corpse, and beneath a torrential cloudburst struggled to his feet like a man way past the end of his tether. She led him back to the cottage and nursed him through his delirium. For three days and nights the past became crystal clear in his mind and he re-lived the past two years. Although his soul fought against a complete recollection of memories she listened to his ramblings and pieced together the secret of Thomas Elkin. On the morning he woke he lay with his eyes open, he no longer trembled and she cradled his head to her chest and said the words he needed to hear.
“He is gone to a place of rest now,” she reassured him. “Perhaps Archie came for him and they finally made their peace; time to let him be.”
Moses mulled over Bernadette’s words. Maybe her assumptions were correct, yet often in the stillness of time he imagined he caught the echoes of Thomas’s voice and thought he might be returning to near insanity. Then finally common sense triumphed over foolishness, and he left his sickbed to prepare the six coffins containing the remains of the unknown soldiers.
Brigadier General Wyatt randomly chose one of the six coffins. Moses waited till after dark and transferred the charred body into the selected coffin. That same evening he and Bernadette left for Brighton, and on the south coast of England they purchased a small two-bedroomed flint stoned cottage with a thatched roof just off the lanes.
From the chapel, the coffin was transported to Boulogne and then to Dover aboard HMS Verdun. After an overnight stay at Victoria Station it was drawn in procession with full military honours to Whitehall. Moses stood with hands clasped and head bowed and watched King George V unveil the cenotaph at eleven o’clock in the morning on the eleventh day of the eleventh month. Two minutes of silence followed. Then from the cenotaph the coffin was carried to Westminster Abbey and passed hand-over-hand by one hundred recipients of the Victoria Cross to its final resting place in the west nave and buried in soil brought from France.
Slowly Moses turned away and raised his collar against the biting wind channelling through Whitehall. In his mind he felt the warmth of satisfaction of knowing he could do no more to honour his young friend. Should he and Bernadette ever be blessed with children, he would tell them the story of Thomas Elkin, the soldier who saved his life. A worthy ambassador for the unknown fallen.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Cromwell Bull, ex-sergeant of the 3rd Rifles sat by the roaring open fire in the inn overlooking Torbay and read the front page of the local paper reporting the story of the internment of an unknown soldier about to be laid to rest in Westminster Abbey one more time.
“Never bloody happy unless they have a drum to beat and a trumpet to blow,” he declared to the man sitting by his side sipping lemonade. “I wonder who the poor bugger is in the coffin.”
“I don’t suppose anyone will ever know the answer to that,” Thomas Elkin said. “But I reckon its time we made our way to Southampton if we’re going to make the boat to Canada.”
Cromwell Bull neatly folded the newspaper, pushed his hair back with short stubby fingers and smiled. All they had planned couldn’t have worked out better. The burning inn had provided them with the opportunity they had been seeking for months. History would never know that after saving Moses and Stan Banks, Thomas had re-entered the burning building and made his way through the rear door. Further down the road on the outskirts of the airfield he hid in a disused farmhouse. With the knowledge the war was all but over and with a dull satisfaction he watched the RAF bomb the Germans to a standstill. Alone he had managed to survive on anything edible and looked into the reserves of his strength. He could never return to the farm on the edge of the Yorkshire moors, he knew that. Never again would he feel the firm comforting grip of his father’s handshake or the warm embrace of his mother’s arms. On more than one occasion he opened the hard-covered notebook, and extracted the pressed daisy. He felt a strange intimacy embrace his body and held the daisy to his lips and imagined the fresh smell of the moors teasing his face. And Ruby, always there was Ruby. She displayed no flashes of temper nor made unreasonable demands. She had given him the only thing she had to offer, her inescapable and unconditional love and affection, how could he ever forget her. “Walk easy on the plough, Ruby,” he murmured, ignoring the tears streaming down his face. “I won’t be coming home lass, not today.”
When finally, at last, the big guns fell silent and the blackened environment lay like a playground for those practiced in the art of hideousness and evilness, he made his way to England with a Field Artillery Battery. The sky hung overcast with a drizzling rain when they finally reached Folkestone, a small crowd eagerly waited on the quayside. Some waved flags and cheered as England’s returning heroes made their way slowly down the gangplank.
The gaunt hollow-eyed men who stepped ashore were not the same happy rounded men who had left laughing to the stirring strains of a regimental band and kisses blown from sweet soft lips. That had taken place many long months before. Now they came like men devoid of purpose. Each wore an assortment of clothing nothing like the smart uniforms they had left in. Sheepskin jackets and skin coats purchased from local French and Belgium farmers, or ripped from mutilated corpses scattered and rotting over No Man’s Land. Instead of caps with gleaming badges they wore dirty bloodstained scarves tied around their heads. Their clothes cut and ripped for comfort, and caked in thick dried mud.
Back in civilian life some would be fortunate enough to have jobs to go to. Others, those not permanently affected by the horror of war would go from house to house selling bootlaces for a living. The more unfortunate would knock on doors and ask for second-hand clothes, perhaps a slice of dry bread and dripping. The faces in the crowd changed from one of happiness to bewilderment and horror, and for a moment felt afraid of these men, the same men whose only aim had been to endure or die without complaint all that their peers had set before them.
After disembarking at Folkestone, Thomas had travelled alone along the south coast to the fishing town of Torquay, Devon, and waited, as pre-arranged, for Sergeant Bull to join him. Once settled they quickly found work on the fishing fleets bringing food to a hungry nation. Here, at last Thomas had found the freedom he’d always sought. Since the day the war ended Archie never again appeared in his dreams or haunted his once troubled mind. It was as though he had suffered enough, and the debt was put to rest, paid in full. As for Cromwell Bull, well, he wanted more from life than repairing bicycles and dangling from a church bell rope twice a week.
“Aye Archie, lad. Let’s be away. Between us we’ve saved more than enough money over the past two years to start a small automobile repair business in Canada. Time to start a new life,” he said.
Thomas chuckled, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and gave the ex-sergeant a sideways glance. Archie, Thomas, what’s in a name?
THE END
About the Author
Now retired, Roy E Stolworthy lives with Janice, his partner of twenty-five years, on the outskirts of Northampton. Born and educated in the town of Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, and with an urge to see the world he signed up for a nine-year regular engagement with the RAF. Quickly discovering a deep aversion to military discipline, it didn’t turn out to be the happiest time of his life. Within three months of leaving the RAF he accepted a two-year contract as an instructor in Welding Science & Processes in Saudi Arabia where he visited many Middle East countries. Later he worked in Iran close to the Russian border until 1979, then on a military installation for a further two-and-a-half years. Returning to the UK he worked through various agencies as a pipefitter/welder before setting up two businesses in magazine distribution and loans and finance. As an avid reader of anything close at hand he always knew somewhere down deep inside of him he had a book waiting to be written. Although Coming Home is his first published novel, his second, All In, is available on Kindle.
Acknowledgements
Janice always. For her undyi
ng patience in helping me to put this book together. Without her I would never have got started.
Emma Morris for her computer skills.
And in memory of SAM, my yellow Labrador and constant companion during the writing of this book, now sadly passed away.
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