On the Front he’d seen some bloody awful things; men, his friends, blown to pieces, the blood staining the slush of dirt, arms and legs scattered. Crows feasting on corpses. But nothing as vile as this, nothing where men had so tortured other human beings. He vomited again.
Pushing against the wall, he forced himself upright; he couldn’t stop the trembling that moved every part of his body.
‘Get down, fucking idiot.’ His sergeant had hold of his leg, dragging him backwards. He kicked out. Heard the curse. Didn’t care. All he needed was to get away. From the gaze of Tommy, from the horrible sight in front of him, from the bits of flesh stuck to the shoulders of his jacket. Frantic, he batted at the gore but it stuck to the fibres. Ripping at the buttons he tore the jacket off him.
Heedless of the angry shouts of his sergeant and the other men in his unit, ignoring the bullets that screamed around him, hitting the ground, Bill walked on. Let ’em all get on with it. ‘I’m out of this shit hole, once and for all,’ he muttered, hardly knowing he’d spoken aloud. ‘This is not my fuckin’ war.’
All this just because they’d killed two of the scum who’d tried to jump them outside Guthrie’s. All because they’d had it off with two Irish tarts.
Chapter 69
August 1921
Bill’s show of bravado dwindled rapidly once he realised he was a sitting target for snipers, or anyone who hated the Black and Tans. Which was most, if not all, of the Irish.
That first day and night he skirted hamlets and farms, feeling nothing but the desperate need to get away from Killaire, and to get rid of the rest of his uniform. With each passing hour his thoughts became more incoherent. Crouching behind hedges, squirming across fields on his belly, his one consuming urge was to escape; his one growing and overwhelming emotion was fear.
As dawn approached with the sporadic calls of birds, and the darkness became bleached with subtle blurred lines of light, the ground became wet and yielding under Bill’s knees and elbows. When he stood he saw a wide expanse of a glinting river in front of him. Collapsing, he worked his fingers into the earth and pulled at the grass. Hot tears mingled with snot. He didn’t know what he was doing, what he should do.
He slept. At first into oblivion, but then came the images; of blood, torn limbs, bodies grotesquely angled in death, the sounds of bayonets slicing into flesh, the screams of terrified girls struggling as grinning men held them down, repeatedly raping them.
When he awoke he didn’t know where he was. He sat bolt upright, his eyes still closed. Trying to get onto his knees he fell over, shaking, blood pounding in his ears. When he finally opened his eyes he looked along his body. Under the slime of mud he could see the black and tan of his clothes. Agitated, he tugged at the buttons of his shirt, rolled on the ground pulling it off his shoulders, from his arms. Dragging at his braces, he fumbled at the waistband of his trousers. A flashing image of the night he’d unbuttoned them and forced himself into the two girls brought a loud sob from deep within his throat. Wriggling backwards he tore at his trousers, kicked off his boots, until he lay panting in only his vest and long johns.
When he next came around it was night time again and he was shivering. Uncurling himself from, he stretched his limbs.
Something had woken him.
Trying to hold his breath, he heard the rustle of grass and murmur of men’s voices within inches of him. Fear weakened him and he realised he’d wet himself; but the humiliation didn’t hit him until whoever it was had moved away. Holding both arms over his eyes he lay still waiting for the shouts that would mean they had found his uniform. But the voices faded away.
Eventually, he scrambled to his knees and felt around for the shirt and trousers. Grubbing a hole in the ground, he stuffed them into it.
He was shivering uncontrollably by the time the next night had crowded in over him. He had to move on, but needed clothes. His long johns were still damp, and there was no way he could carry on without at least trousers and a shirt.
Following the line of the river he scuttled through scrubland, rushes and stunted trees until he came to a small stone bridge. Peering over the wall he saw a row of run-down cottages a couple of hundred yards away. A line of clothes dangled motionless from a washing line in one of the gardens. There was a dull light in one of the upstairs windows, but downstairs was in darkness.
The gate grated under his hand when he opened it and he stood still, every nerve tingling. Almost dizzy with fear he made himself move towards the washing, grabbing whatever he could get hold of. One wooden peg flew off and hit him in the eye as he yanked at a pair of trousers but he didn’t stop until the line was empty.
He ran, his eye stinging and half-closed, the bundle of clothes held tightly to him, and kept on running until he was out into the countryside again. Hiding in a ditch, huddled under the undergrowth and squatting in mud, he began to cry.
In the years that followed Bill couldn’t remember much of what he’d done in the following few weeks. The nights were filled with scenes of dismembered bloody limbs, of huge rats gnawing at his face as he lay beneath bodies laid out for miles in the trenches. Boardman and Riley appeared constantly shouting and screaming; blaming him for their deaths. John Duffy walked alongside them as they approached.
Always Bill awoke sweating and trembling. The days were a mindless stumbling along lanes and footpaths. Sometimes, later in the day, he found himself staring up at the same wooden signpost on the same lane he’d started from that morning.
Once, tramping along a path he looked up and saw a large flock of geese crossing the sky as it blended into bright, crisp daylight. And then, from somewhere he heard the wail of a siren. He couldn’t see where it came from, or what it was but it shocked him into stillness. Sitting down on the grass he rubbed his hands over his ears, and held them there for a moment, staring down at the battered boots he’d stolen from a farmyard somewhere. It was as though hearing the noise had suddenly brought him out of the confusion he’d existed in for so long.
Brought back to him the distant memory of the day his father died.
Wilfred had given Bill a beating that morning for not getting up when first called, and had promised another when he returned home after his shift. He’d said he was getting Bill used to an early rise because the following day would be his thirteenth birthday; the day he was to follow his father down the mine as a putter. It didn’t bother Bill; he’d always known that pushing the small wagons along the metal plates through the workings to the passages where the horses could be hitched up to them was to be his lot in life.
Bill remembered hearing the thump and rush of running feet on the cobbles outside his house at the same time he heard the warning siren from the mine. He’d run with the crowd before even knowing what was happening; seeing the strain on the faces and the hearing of the sobs and cries of the women and children around him, knowing that life in the village had changed forever.
‘What’s ’appened?’ Bill caught the arm of a woman.
‘They say there’s been a flood.’ Her eyes were wild. ‘My three lads are down there. What am I going to do? I have two more bairns to bring up. Their da’s already gone; killed in that explosion last year.’ She grabbed his sleeve before dropping to her knees.
Pulled down with her Bill looked around for somebody to help the woman but there was no-one. They might as well not be there for all the notice paid to them.
He dragged her to her feet. ‘C’mon. Unless we get to the gates we’ll never know who’s safe and who’s still down there.’
The management had closed the gates. The cries of despair soon changed to shouts of anger in an effort to discover what had happened. When a grey-faced man in a suit approached the crowd the silence was instant. He held up his hand to quiet them, an unnecessary gesture, before he spoke.
‘From what we can gather there was break through to an old abandoned mine that was flooded. We know some of the men are safe…’ He waited for the cries of relief to abate. ‘But
we don’t know how many yet.’
Then a huddle of men, bowed, silent and trailing a thin stream of black water behind them, appeared, walking towards the gates.
Bill’s knuckles grated together as the woman’s gripped his hand. And then she screamed. ‘Eddie!’ She looked at Bill and laughed; a high-pitched noise. ‘That’s Eddie, my eldest.’ Then turning she shouted, ‘Where’s your brothers?’
As the young man came closer Bill saw the white tracks cutting through the black of coal dust on his face.
‘Gone, Ma. They’re gone.’ He shook his head, bewildered. ‘There was so much water–water and thick mud. One minute we were working together and then all this water came flooding through and they were gone.’
She fainted. The manager unbolted the gates and the crowd surged around her, pouring into the yard before milling around in sudden confusion. The man’s blank gaze fastened on Bill in a blink of recognition. ‘Your da was with ’em.’ He nodded, his voice trailing away. ‘He’s gone too…’
Bill thought his feet would never move from the spot he stood in. Then he turned, jumped over the lifeless form of the woman and ran for home, shocked by sense of release and freedom that coursed through him.
He tumbled through the doorway of the house.
‘Didn’t you hear the siren?’ He held his side against the pain of the stitch.
‘I did.’ Marion didn’t lift her head from staring into the small fire in the grate. ‘I reckon someone would tell me sooner or later what’s happened.’ Now she did look at him, her eyes narrowed. ‘And here you are.’ She slowly moved her head up and down. ‘Here you are. You’re going to tell me he’s gone, aren’t you?’
Bill nodded, a succession of small bobs of the head. ‘Yeah. The mine—’
‘I don’t want to know. All I want you to know is that you’d better make sure you’re ready to take his place as wage earner in this house.’
It had taken months to recover some of the men’s bodies. But they never found Wilfred Howarth’s.
It took Bill months to realize his stepmother had received a pay-out from the mine owners for the loss of her husband. Angry, because he’d tipped up all his wages in the belief he was keeping a roof over their heads, each time he got promotion or was shifted to a better-paid job underground, Bill kept the difference in the money.
He knew he was only tolerated for what he could give to his stepmother and stepsister. They’d done nowt for him.
‘Never did,’ he muttered now. Wiping them from his mind with a grunt of satisfaction he looked around, forcing himself to think. Christ he was in a right fix.
His stomach rumbled. When had he last eaten? Finding food from somewhere was the first thing to do.
Then somehow he had to get to Limerick and then on to Kingstown to stow away on the freight ferry to Liverpool. He didn’t know how he’d manage it, but that was what he had to do to get back on the mainland. And he had to do it under his own steam; there was no way he dare hitch any lifts, not with his accent. He’d got himself into a pile of shit. Somehow he had to dig himself out of it.
Pushing himself to his feet, he set off.
PART FOUR
Chapter 70
January 1922
The snow was dirty and mushy underfoot when Bill stepped off the tram in Lydcroft. He wasn’t sure what he would do but having landed a job in Stalyholme mine as a chargeman tunneller he needed to find lodgings. After he’d had the interview with the son of the owner he’d wondered if he was mad coming back to Lydford. Now he was convinced.
But it had been a miserable six months since the day he’d walked away from that bloody mess in Killaire.
During the last month as he’d made his way to Kingstown he’d thought back to his early years, trying to work out how he’d got himself to this point.
Initially, Annie Heap was in his mind a lot of the time. The old agony he’d felt when she’d died returned in great waves of sorrow, sometimes even halted his footsteps. Sometimes he dreamt of the day he tramped the moors, the day he lost her. A week later, a heart attack took Bob, her father; the man who’d become his friend, perhaps even the man who would have become the father figure Bill had missed out on. He convinced himself for a while that, if she’d lived, his marriage to Annie would have been perfect. But he knew himself too well and admitted that, with his temper, it likely wouldn’t have lasted.
And, as the days went by and he huddled frozen and seasick in the depths of the freight ferry on its way to Liverpool, the misty outline of Annie’s face was replaced by the clearer one of Winifred Duffy. The brown eyes of his first girlfriend – he was fairly certain they were brown – faded to be replaced by the clear dark blue eyes of the girl from Lydcroft.
Once on the mainland Bill felt he could breathe at last. In shoes he’d stolen from one of the crew of the freight ferry, he left Liverpool to make his way further north. He didn’t know where else to go.
Still, it didn’t stop his apprehension; the misgivings that he was making a bad mistake. But he needed to see Winifred Duffy again. Thoughts of her mingled with all the bad memories. He had to know whether the stirrings of his body at those times would be the same when he actually stood in front of her.
Sometimes he persuaded himself that nothing would have changed in Lydcroft; she would still live at the shop, still be the girl he wanted her to be, the same gentle, decent girl he’d first believed her to be. No woman since had got under his skin like she had. Yeah, he knew she’d be older but so was he. She couldn’t have changed that much; she hadn’t seen the things he had, women had much easier lives, every bugger knew that.
Other times, his old feelings of jealousy and doubts reared up a lot; she might have married the Irish bastard, might not even live in Lydcroft. But the urge to know grew stronger each day he tramped the roads.
He had to see her. Had to be sure.
He’d be mad to go back. Mad to go back into the mines.
But, as though of their own accord, his footsteps took him closer to Morrisfield. And then to Lydcroft. To Winifred.
And at long last he was standing outside the shop, looking up at the sign above the window. Faded now but still there. Duffy’s.And in the windowa sign. ROOM TO LET.
Bill hesitated, his insides churning, his bladder bursting. He badly needed a pee. Spinning on his heels he ran along Mine Road and found some shrubs to relieve himself in.
The wooden headframe of the mine was a stark outline against the purpling sky of dusk. He’d be there next week; a good job with decent pay. Security. And he’d found himself some digs; a room in one of the miners houses on Mine Road. A bit of a muck tip but he’d thought it would do for the time being. He hadn’t had a good sleep in the weeks. But with the job and a bed to sleep in he’d believed his luck was turning.
Now this. ‘Room to let,’ he murmured. He couldn’t, could he? Did he dare? Did he want to?
He stood outside the shop for five more minutes before gathering all his courage and going inside.
He rubbed his feet on the mat at the shop doorway, wiping off the grey slush of the road. The bell tinkled again when he closed the door and waited.
‘We’re closed.’ The words came from somewhere beyond the shop.
Bill coughed. ‘I know,’ he called, aware that he was standing on the same spot as he had when he had thrown the box that killed Winifred Duffy’s father. Shaking with cold and weariness he blinked rapidly; a nervous twitch. What the hell was he doing?
He almost turned to run from the shop; would Winifred remember him? But how could she? She’d hardly noticed he existed even when she shopped at Bertie Butterworth’s fish shop. Why would she recognise him now? This was the moment he’d anticipated for months. He’d got this far, he couldn’t chicken out now.
When the woman came through to the shop it was the mother. Bill swallowed his disappointment. And relief.
She hadn’t worn well, he noted, when she finally appeared from the back of the shop, fussing over the buttons
of her coat. She was fat, her face raddled and red. The navy felt hat she wore was jammed low on her head, but not enough to hide the thin red line across her forehead or the net drooping down over one ear.
But if she was still running the shop then Winifred could be around as well. He needed to know. He hadn’t thought beyond that, but it had become an obsession. Why or what he’d do when he found out, Bill didn’t know. It was more important than ever that he got lodgings here. He forced a smile onto his face.
‘I said we’re closed.’ The woman didn’t hide her irritation, eyeing him with suspicion. ‘I was just going to lock up.’
‘I’ve come about the room.’ He gestured towards the window. ‘It says there’s a room to let?’ He touched the peak of his flat cap, kept his voice low, respectful. Even though he had a room to go to this was the one he wanted. ‘I wondered if it was still available.’
‘Do you have a job?’
He watched her weighing him up from the old cap, down over the black overcoat he’d acquired from a coat stand in one of the pubs he’d been in, past his trousers, now frayed at the hems, and to his shoes. He was conscious of his appearance and stiffened. He wouldn’t let the old bag make him feel worse than he did.
He took his time. ‘Yeah,’ he said, not trying to keep the pride from his voice. ‘I’ve just been taken on as Chargeman Tunneller at the pit. Stalyholme mine,’ he added.
‘Hmm.’ She sniffed. ‘We had to let the last lodger go when he lost his job. And the one before him. I’m not a charity.’ He waited as she stared at him again for a minute. ‘Well, perhaps we’ll have better luck with you. You’d better come through, I suppose,’ she said at last. Standing back she lifted the flap of the counter so he could pass through to the small hall beyond the door at the back of the shop. He waited there for her, clasping his rucksack to his chest.
‘Up there. Up there.’ She flapped her hand towards the narrow stairs. ‘First on the right. Only small, looks over the back yard but what can you expect for four shillings a week. You will be paying up front.’ It was more a statement than a question.
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