Reilly didn’t answer. It was as though he was determined to go right up to the Jerry trenches. Terror took hold of Bill and he halted. When the moon slid from behind the gauzy clouds Reilly’s bayonet glittered in the light.
‘Good God, man,’ Bill moaned. There was nothing he could do but follow.
But then a distant boom of guns startled him and he dropped, peering through the uneven mounds of grass and bodies.
There was a muted shout. A flare blazed from the enemy trenches and a mortar rose high into the air and hovered, suspended from a small parachute, at the peak of its flight. The time it stayed there seemed endless to Bill.
‘Come on!’ he whispered to Reilly, shuffling backwards and rolling over bodies, hoping their shapes would hide him from the Germans looking for any sign of movement. ‘Shift, yer daft bastard.’
But Reilly didn’t.
The rocket fell, dropping like an old boot, in the pool of white light.
It was too close. Bill didn’t wait. Holding his nose he burrowed under a pile of the putrid corpses.
The ground shuddered violently when it landed and burst. Through the whistling in his ears Bill heard the cheers from the German trenches intermingled with the heavy thuds that followed. He squeezed his eyes tight, trying to shut out the image of the bodies being torn and scattered around him.
Then silence.
After counting to twenty Bill wriggled free, gasping. The mud and the cadavers gave him up with wet sucking reluctance. Rolling onto his side he sobbed, vomited until his stomach hurt, frantically rubbing his sleeves through his hair, over his face to rid himself of the gore. He was in hell. When he stopped snivelling he rose up on one elbow and looked around. The moon was covered again by a thin veil of cloud but he swore he could see the silhouettes of figures stealthily moving yards away. A smell of explosives hung in the air, fragments floated all around, landed on him. Bill gulped back sobs.
Whispers floated towards him. Foreign voices. Fuck! German voices, coming towards him.
Where the hell was Reilly? Panicking, Bill slowly crawled backwards, stopping when the clouds cleared away from the moon, allowing a contrast of dark and light shadows on the horror around him.
He saw what was left of Reilly; a mess of splintered bones and flesh and blood surrounded the hole in the earth that the shell had made.
Bill bit down on the scream that wanted to burst from his mouth.
How long he stayed with his back pressed against the wall of boards and mud Bill didn’t know, but dawn was gradually lighting up the trench. Shit…shit…shit…shit. Looking up at the underbelly of the dark clouds being buffeted in the steel-grey sky by the wind, he couldn’t stop the word.
He remembered he was supposed to report back to the officer. An officer. Which officer? Reilly hadn’t said.
Placing his foot flat on the ground he tried to stand. His legs gave way and he slid down on his backside.
Fuck it. Fuckin’ officer could fuckin’ wait. It hadn’t been his idea to volunteer. He wished he’d refused Reilly when he’d appeared next to him. It had been a quiet night up to then. What he’d give to have kept it that way. Reilly wouldn’t have gone without him. Would he?
‘You all right, mate?’ The soldier who spoke slid alongside Bill in the mud.
Wilson. Red-rimmed eyes, unshaven, skin grey under the dirt and grime. A poofter. When they’d first joined up he’d got a load of flak from the other blokes for the way he spoke. There was no way he could disguise what he was, even if the recruitment officer hadn’t seen it. Or perhaps he had and thought it a good way to get the bugger off the streets of Lancashire.
‘You all right?’ Wilson spoke again. He put his hand on Bill’s.
For a moment anger flashed through Bill, his instinct to draw away from the bloody nancy. But then he saw the genuine concern in the man’s eyes and was ashamed of his first reaction. He shook his head. He stared down at their hands.
‘Where’s your mate? Reilly, isn’t it?’
Bill moved his head. ‘Gone.’
‘Oh God. I hate this fucking war.’ The words sounded strange in Wilson’s soft, girlish pitch.
They sat in silence. Bill had the sudden urge to rest his head on the man’s shoulder and weep. For Reilly. For Boardman. He resisted. Instead he removed his fingers from beneath Wilson’s and rubbed at his sore eyes. ‘And me,’ he said. ‘What the hell is it all for?’
The silent shrug was all Wilson could muster, apparently. And what answer was there to this madness anyway, Bill reflected.
From down the line he heard the clang of the gas gong, the rattle of the empty shell casing echoed along the trench. The urgent cry was passed on. ‘Gas!’
A slow wave of greenish, yellow cloud was twisting towards them, low to the ground. Watching it, Bill’s scalp tightened but he couldn’t move. Didn’t want to. ’Appen this was the best way to get out of this torment.
‘Put your bloody mask on, man.’ Wilson dragged the gas mask from its bag and fitted it over Bill’s face before putting his own on.
Breathing in the vile smell of rubber Bill began to laugh. Struggling to his feet he pulled the mask off and shoved Wilson. Stumbling to the nearest ladder he climbed, the wood slimy under his fingers.
‘Come on then, you bastards,’ he yelled, standing well clear of the parapet. ‘Come and get us. Finish us off.’ The thump of the bullet in his shoulder knocked him back to the floor of the trench. He couldn’t see through the thick swirl of gas. His skin began to burn. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t see.
So this was it; this was the fuckin’ end to it all. He smiled.
And then there was only pain.
PART THREE
Chapter 63
December 1919
Winifred looked up as the doorbell pinged.
The corners of the window were now covered in white triangles of snow glistening in the reflection of the shop’s light. She hadn’t expected customers this late in the day. Her image in the dark glass rippled when she moved back behind the counter. She was tired; it had been a long chilly day.
‘Can I help you?’ She forced a smile towards the lad who hovered from one foot to the other in front of her. He must have been around her age but looked younger, vulnerable. His ginger hair was cut high above his ears which were bright red with the cold, despite the turned-up collar. The left sleeve of his thin jacket was inches above his wrist; the other, empty right sleeve was pinned to the front of his jacket. ‘I wondered if I could speak to Mrs Duffy?’
He had a slight stammer and didn’t look directly at her, his gaze fixed just above Winifred’s head. His forehead, shiny with sweat despite the cold, creased. ‘Please.’
There was a tremor in his left hand and, as though suddenly aware of it, he shoved it into his pocket. She noticed the shiver that ran through him.
‘Mrs Duffy?’ Her stomach clenched in sympathy for him. ‘Which one?’ If it was her mother he wanted to talk to he would be no match for her these days. ‘I’m afraid we have no rooms to let.’
‘No, it’s not that.’ He looked around the shop. ‘Florence,’ he finally said, ‘it’s Florence I want to talk to. I’m ’Orace. ’Orace Corbett. I live – we live near where she lived in Wellyhole Yard. I’ve been away a long time; I was in the army even before the war. And I’ve been in hospital. I was only discharged last week. Ma says Mrs Duffy was always good with the family when she was next door.’ He shuffled forward. Winifred noticed the front of his sole on his shoe flapped open. ‘The war, you know…?’ This time he looked straight at her. ‘It’s all changed, and yet it’s no different.’ There was an expression in his eyes she couldn’t fathom yet she knew what he meant.
‘I know.’ Her memory of the years before the war might be different from his, yet her life had changed too.
‘She, Mrs Duffy, knitted me a balaclava. Ma sent it to me.’
‘Yes, I remember. Didn’t she write letters to you as well?’
‘Yeah.’ He had a w
ay of lifting half of his mouth in a nervous smile. He raised his shoulders. ‘I wanted to thank ’er, to let ’er know I was glad of it and I’m back…home.’ He hesitated over the last word.
Winifred pushed herself away from the counter and glanced at the clock on the wall. Outside the flakes were getting heavier, more and were sticking to the glass. No-one else would be making their way to the shop now.
‘Turn the sign over, will you, please?’
The pale thinness of the back of his neck seemed to add to his strange vulnerability.
‘She’s in bed. I’ll let her know you’re here.’
Her grandmother had stayed in bed, protected from the cold. When Winifred had refilled Florence’s hot water bottle and piled yet another blanket from her own bed on top of the tiny figure, she noticed her Granny’s breath clouded in front of her face. It worried her. However many times she piled coal on the fire in the bedroom grate barely cast out any warmth. Perhaps she could persuade her to come down into the kitchen to see this lad.
She smiled when he protested.
‘She’ll want to see you, see you’ve got back safe.’ She didn’t add, ‘in one piece,’ because he wasn’t; he was like so many of the other young men who’d returned. She’d seen them around Morrisfield, the maimed, the broken. The ones with only one leg, or worse, no legs. The ones with faces half covered by muslin cloth, hiding dreadful injuries; deformed, with holes where their eyes, noses should be. Winifred swallowed at the remembered images.
‘Sit down.’ She pointed at the shop chair, more used to the ample backsides of the local gossips who came in to stare and whisper about her. ‘Wait.’
Going up the stairs she ignored her mother’s irritable call from the kitchen that she’d shut the shop five minutes too early.
‘Think we’re made of money?’
She only acknowledged her son’s, ‘Mam?’
‘Just a minute, love. I’ll be back down in a minute.’ Lifting her skirts she ran up each creaking tread and stopped for a moment outside Florence’s bedroom door to catch her breath and prepare her words.
‘Granny? You awake?’ She pushed open the door a fraction.
‘I am, ducks.’ There was a movement under the huddle of bedclothes. ‘By heck, it’s gone bloody freezing tonight.’
Winifred glanced towards the windows; the curtains weren’t drawn although she asked her mother to make sure they were over an hour ago. She tightened her lips together against the irritation and worry.
Pulling the curtains closed, she said, ‘You’ve got a visitor.’
Florence poked her large nose above the covers. ‘Visitor? Me? Who?’ Her fingers clutching the covers were white-knuckled.
‘Don’t look so worried.’ Winifred smiled. ‘He says he’s called Horace. A lad back from the war?’
‘Horace? Bertha’s lad? Dear God. He’s back? Well, bless me and thank God.’
Florence moved faster than Winifred had ever seen her granny move. She threw back the bedclothes and struggled to sit up, pushing against the mattress. ‘Here, Winnie, help me.’ She stopped, a look of disbelief on her face. ‘Don’t say you’ve left him to the mercy of her downstairs?’
‘No, he’s in the shop. She doesn’t know he’s there.’ Winifred helped her Granny into the beige candlewick dressing gown. ‘Granny…’ Winifred stopped helping Florence push her arms into the sleeves. ‘Granny… he’s lost an arm. And I think there’s something wrong with his mouth. I thought I should warn you.’
‘Oh, dear God. Poor lamb.’ Florence’s lip quivered. ‘I saw a photo of him once in his mother’s house. Such a handsome lad he was.’ She straightened her back. ‘Bloody war!’ Shaking her head she bent down feeling for her slippers with her feet. ‘Here, love, help me with these.’
She shuffled across the linoleum, tripping slightly on the rug.
‘Steady, Granny, take your time.’ Winifred pulled the back of Florence’s slippers over her heels. ‘He’s going nowhere ‘til he’s seen you, I’m sure.’
‘I don’t want your mother getting at him.’
‘She’ll have me to deal with if she does. Let me go first down the stairs, you know how lethal they are.’
She walked backwards on the treads holding the old woman’s hands.
Ethel Duffy was waiting for them at the bottom, her neck craned, watching Horace in the shop. ‘What do you think you’re doing,’ she hissed. ‘Leaving a stranger in there. He could have stolen anything.’
Her grandmother’s fingers tightened on Winifred. Before she could speak Florence glared past her. ‘He wants nowt of yours, you nasty woman. He’s like the rest of his family; as honest as the day is long. His mother brought him up right. Now bugger off back in the kitchen and mind your own.’
Winifred bit inside her cheek to stop the surprised giggle. Nobody else spoke to her mother like that, only her Granny seemed to get away with it.
Horace was standing in the middle of the shop, a strained expression on his face as he looked towards them.
‘Take no notice of her,’ Florence said. ‘Ee, lad, you’re home. It’s good to meet you at last.’ She reached up and put her arms around him, kissing his cheek, before leaning back to look him up and down. ‘Oh,’ she sniffled, fishing for her handkerchief in her dressing gown pocket with one hand as though reluctant to let go of him with the other. ‘Oh, lad.’
The tears were washing down his thin face. ‘Looking a bit different from when I joined up, Mrs Duffy.’ The youth spoke quietly, scuffling his feet from side to side self-consciously.
She gave a gusty sigh. ‘Aye, well, there’s a lot come back the same as you and some not come back at all.’ She laid her head on his chest. ‘So proud you all were – all pals together. Oh dear, oh dear.’
Winifred saw her wobble. ‘Let’s get you sat down, Granny. Jumping out of bed like that.’
‘Hardly jumping, lass.’
‘Yes, well. Sit down and I’ll get you some water.’
Between the two of them, they led the old woman to the shop chair and lowered her on to it. Horace crouched down so he was level with her.
‘You don’t look well, lad.’ Florence stroked his hair.
‘Bit of a cold, that’s all.’
‘I’ll go for that drink.’ Winifred left them.
In the kitchen Tom was sitting by the fire, holding his hands out to the flames. ‘Who is it, Mam?’ Curious he stood to peer over her shoulder. ‘Who’s the man? He looks odd.’
‘He’s the son of a friend of your Granny’s. From Wellyhole Yard. Back from the war.’
She ignored her mother’s harsh scoff.
‘Can I go to see him?’ Tom jumped up and down. ‘Can I ask him what he did? If he killed anyone?’
‘No.’ Winifred spoke sharper than she meant to. He sat down with a thump. She saw how he pulled his lips in, how he blinked. ‘Sorry, love, I’m not cross. Leave it for now, eh? I’ll explain later.’ She touched his shoulder when she passed him to go to the sink. ‘It’s just that he’s only come to see Granny Flo.’ She ran cold water into a cup before adding, ‘And I don’t think he’s all that well.’
‘He’d better not be bringing anything into this house.’ Ethel narrowed her eyes at her daughter. ‘We don’t want any foreign germs in here. We have a shop to run that people depend on.’ Her voice followed Winifred.
Horace had his head on Florence’s lap and she was still stroking his hair. His voice was hushed when he next spoke. ‘It was ’ell, Mrs Duffy, sheer ’ell. I didn’t think I’d get out alive. A lot of me mates didn’t.’
‘Hush now, lad, you’re safe now.’
‘We were all so cold.’ Then there seemed to be a smile in his voice. ‘That balaclava you knitted for me were great. I wore it all the time, though I weren’t supposed to.’
‘I’m glad.’
‘I wanted to tell you that. I thought you’d be at our house but Ma said you’d moved to a posher place…’
He lifted his head as Winifred held the
cup to her grandmother’s mouth.
‘Sorry, Miss.’ There was no mistaking the admiration. For the first time Winifred saw the young man for what he must have been before all the atrocities that the powers that be had inflicted on him.
‘It’s fine.’ She smiled and offered the cup to him, watching when he gulped down what was left of the water. ‘Granny came to live with us after my father died. She’s better off here.’ Flushing as she realised what she’d said. ‘I mean…’
There was a long silence before he smiled and said, ‘You’re right.’ He shifted on his knees, turned back to Florence. ‘But really I wanted to thank you for all you’ve done for Ma and the kids. It wasn’t easy when Da went and they moved to Wellyhole Yard. You were good with them.’
Florence moved her shoulders in a shrug. ‘Aw, lad…’
‘I mean it.’ They stared at one another for a long moment before he placed his hand on the floor and pushed himself, unsteadily, into a standing position. ‘I’d best be off.’
‘Tell your mother I’ll call over in a couple of days to see you all.’
‘I will.’ He bent and kissed her forehead, nodded to Winifred and tipped his hat, looking past her.
‘Bye son,’ Florence said.
Winifred hadn’t seen Tom standing in the doorway between the kitchen and shop. Now he came towards Horace, an admiring smile creasing his face. They shook hands.
‘Bye sir,’ Tom said.
‘Just ’Orace will do.’
‘I’m Tom. I’m seven.’
‘You’re a good size for your age, Tom.’
The boy grinned. ‘Thanks.’ He stared at the empty sleeve. ‘How did you—’
‘Tom.’ Winifred gave her son a warning look. ‘Sorry, Horace.’
‘It’s okay.’ He bobbed his head. ‘I’ll get off, then.’ He looked shyly at Winifred. ‘Miss.’
‘Look after yourself, Horace. I’ll bring Granny round to your house as soon as I can.’
She locked the door behind him and watched as he struggled through the snow. She couldn’t stop the rush of despondency.
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