The Grass Memorial

by Sarah Harrison

  Between the rolling hills were long stretches of harsh grassland, pitilessly open, and there were frequent halts to allow the baggage and supply trains to catch up in the beating sun. The horses had had no oats in days and the forage was so sparse that many of them were stumbling with weakness. The moment a halt was called the poor things’ heads hung and their sides sucked in and out like bellows over staring ribs. Once, among the detritus of the Russian retreat – which the men were permitted to loot – they came across a little Cossack pony with an injured leg, its saddle slewed round and trailing on the ground. Attempts to put it out of its misery with several shots to the head proved unsuccessful: it tottered but remained standing, dazed but still upright as the British troops marched past. Perhaps, thought Harry, it would die on its feet in the way that horses sometimes slept, and its skeleton, picked clean by the vultures, would still be there in weeks to come like a strange leafless tree in this barren plain.

  It was during one of the sweltering pauses that Harry experienced something strange, and quite inexplicable. The sun was at its height, a time when morale, even following a famous victory, was always proportionately low. Near to him were at least two men doubled up in their saddles, their overalls bearing testament to the violent effects of cholera. Suddenly, without reason or warning, he felt a moment of coolness . . . a caress on his face, a brief and blessed eclipse, like a small cloud passing between him and the sun. For the few seconds that the sensation lasted his surroundings faded. The soft light and scent of England washed through him. He was transported.

  Then as suddenly as it had come it was gone. The heat returned like a blow. He looked up. The sky was pale and fierce: not a cloud was in sight. One of the sick men had fallen from his saddle and Palliser was calling for assistance.

  ‘Another gone,’ he remarked to Harry. ‘Let’s for God’s sake hope that the litter gets to him before the infernal buzzards.’

  Maria did not go into a decline. On the contrary, she flared up like a funeral pyre, awesome in her grief but never more magnificent. Her theatricality came to her aid. She wore dramatic, elaborate black, Spanish lace and taffeta. A lightning-flash of pure white had appeared in her black hair in the days after Percy’s death. She was if anything more beautiful and exotic than when he had brought her home as a young bride, to the astonishment of all. Everything about her was a declaration, not of acquiescent bereavement but of continuing passion. It was as if without her husband she was free to show what the love between them had meant – that it was not a pact, nor a mere accommodation between opposites, but an all-consuming fire from which she now removed the guard and would allow to burn itself out in a public glory.

  So many people came to the funeral that they could not all be accommodated in the parish church, and a large number had to stand outside, in the rain. The funeral carriage was drawn by the heavy horses. Flower and Fury, huge and gentle, their shining tack dressed with purple and black ribbons for the day, Oliver at their heads. It was a big occasion, with the village street lined with mourners and Maria, tall and splendid, the focus of all eyes. Because of the weather the burial itself was a perilous business, the earth turned to mud and the ropes that supported the coffin on its descent were slick and wet. Shoes, boots and hems became sodden, hat brims dripped and the hair on the men’s bare heads was plastered down. But no one flinched. Maria herself had scorned an umbrella, and now those that had brought them lowered them in respect. It was a token of the affection in which Percy Latimer had been held that not a man, woman or child sought shelter or complained, and free-flowing tears mixed with the rain.

  Having helped her mother-in-law to make the arrangements Rachel stepped back and moved through the day softly as a shadow, content to be drab and inconspicuous. The new life of which she was custodian seemed doubly precious, and now that her time was so near a stillness had overtaken her. The baby, grown to fill its watery cell, scarcely moved, but was quiet and heavy, biding its time.

  When they had left the graveside the umbrellas went back up. While people were offering their condolences to Maria, Rachel withdrew to one side and leaned against the trunk of one of the great yew trees, its shaggy black branches creating a natural canopy through which the rain scarcely penetrated. Ben joined her – a strangely tidy Ben with parted hair and a too-tight jacket.

  ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘Please do, though I can’t offer you anything. I didn’t expect you to be here.’

  ‘Mother said I had to.’

  The candour of this answer made her smile. ‘And are you glad you did?’

  He gazed over his shoulder at the black gathering, the rain, the umbrellas. ‘I don’t know really.’

  He meant no, but was being tactful. Appreciative of this she said gently: ‘There has to be a funeral, a proper public ending to someone’s life. It’s a sad thing, but it has to be endured.’

  He turned back to her with a bold look, not disrespectful but direct. ‘You’ve been to two.’

  ‘That’s right. In fact more than that, in my lifetime.’

  He seemed to consider this, before adding: ‘Do you think my brother had a funeral?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said quickly, not giving herself time to think. ‘Just because he died in another country in a war doesn’t mean that he wasn’t treated with proper respect. Captain Latimer will have seen to that. It will have been different from this, of course, but there will have been a ceremony.’

  ‘We couldn’t go, though.’

  ‘No.’

  He glanced back into, the churchyard. Now that the mourners were dispersing they could see the glistening heap of newly turned sod and Maria’s spray of defiantly red roses. ‘The only thing is . . .’

  She waited. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Will people know where he is?’

  ‘You mean, will there be a stone?’

  He shrugged. She sensed tears perilously close and wished to save him from what he would see as their humiliation.

  ‘There doesn’t need to be, Ben. There doesn’t have to be. Where brave men have died in a good cause people always remember.’ She added something which she herself felt but was not sure he would understand. ‘The ground remembers. There’ll be a sort of – a grass memorial.’

  There was a short silence during which, with head still averted, he swiped his jacket cuff over his upper lip. Then he said: ‘Better go.’ And was off.

  God help me, she thought, by making it true.

  When they came to the next river, where they were to bivouac for the night, it appeared like the promised land after the long day’s arid route-march.

  It was no more than a vigorous stream, smaller than the Alma but surrounded by rich soil supporting orchards groaning with the season’s harvest of apples, plums, apricots and pears. And beyond the single post-bridge, miraculously left intact by the retreating Russians, was a straggling village of such fruitful and inviting beauty – all of it empty – that one might almost have suspected it of being a trap. Pretty cottages, deliciously coloured as sweets, sat among shady trees, and further up the slopes were ample villas hung with vines and set in snug, well-cultivated gardens bright with flowers. In the softening sunshine of evening it seemed nothing less than paradise.

  But it was, as they found, a spoiled paradise. The Cossacks had been here before them and every last dwelling and outhouse had been ransacked with brutal thoroughness. It was now swarmed over greedily a second time by the hungry, thirsty British troops. Palliser remonstrated with one man emerging from a house carrying a handsome fur rug under one arm and a half-full carafe in the other hand, and was coarsely informed (courtesy no doubt of the local wine) that since he had seen at least one officer doing the same thing, he naturally assumed it was ‘all right to take a few trophies’. Palliser ordered him furiously to return the items which the man did with a poor grace, scornfully upending the carafe and allowing its contents to splatter on the path as he went back into the house. It was only with difficulty that Harry prevented the
choleric Palliser from dismounting and taking the matter further.

  ‘Leonard – let it be, for God’s sake.’

  ‘The fellow’s damnably insolent!’

  ‘He’s drunk.’

  ‘And that is supposed to excuse him?’

  ‘Look around you – if you take issue with him where do you intend to stop?’

  It was true. On every side there were similar small transgressions taking place. The same men who had tended their defeated and wounded enemy with the utmost honour and gentleness only two nights before now exulted in an orgy of despoliation, whatever pangs of conscience they might have had on the matter stifled by the plentiful evidence that they were not the first.

  The house where Harry, Leonard, Hector and Philip Gough billeted themselves was a shocking example of what had taken place. Once they had handed over the horses to the grooms and gone inside they were confronted by a scene of devastation all the more shocking because of the pleasant situation and what had clearly been the comfortable and civilised existence of the former occupants. Furniture was broken, glass and china smashed, clothes, curtains and rugs slashed and cushions and quilts ripped apart: downy feathers still drifted across the floor and floated, spiralling like snowflakes in the air.

  Particular gleeful attention had been paid to pictures, which had been torn from their frames and savagely cut. A mirror above the fireplace had been smashed with a single blow to its centre, so that the cracks spread from the ugly black hole like a spider’s web, and the fireplace itself was choked with charred and burnt paper, the remains of diaries, letters and ledgers, all the contents of an upturned bureau. The pen and inkwell had been used to write some words on the wall but Harry was glad that the daubs meant nothing to him. He could only wonder what damage might have been done to the houses of an enemy.

  In the garden at the back, which was in the form of a shady arbour with an ornamental pond, statuary had been broken, and a stone nymph jutted from the water as if drowning, surrounded by pathetic domestic jetsam – a wooden spoon, paintbrushes, a doll, a lampshade. Worse, still emitting tendrils of smoke and an acrid smell, was a pile of burned books.

  They were silent, aware that they constituted a second invasion, and that each crunching footstep was a further insult to the family who had lived here and had fled from their path only to have this havoc visited on their home and possessions.

  There was one sign of life. Beneath the verandah at the front of the house, not two yards from where the cook had made a fire of splintered furniture, Harry found a skinny black and white cat. He reached his hand towards her and she flattened her ears and drew her lips back in a ferocious silent warning: she had six kittens with her, so small they were like furry insects, their tiny blind heads nudging for milk that wasn’t there, protected but starving.

  A shadow fell over Harry and he looked up to see Hector standing behind him, mopping his brow.

  ‘What the devil have you found down there?’

  ‘A cat with her kittens.’

  Hector peered. ‘Shooting her would be the kindest thing.’

  ‘I don’t know . . .’ Harry stood up.‘Cats can fend for themselves.’

  ‘Not with a litter.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘That’s certainly true.’ Losing interest, Hector clapped his hands together and turned to the fire. ‘What delights have we tonight?’

  After supper Harry walked to where the horses were picketed in a little scrubby field at the bend of the road. There was some tolerable grass in the field and the horses were cropping contentedly. As he’d half hoped he stumbled upon Betts in one corner, playing cards with a couple of others. They scrambled to their feet but he indicated to them to stand easy.

  ‘Betts – a word?’ He drew him aside. ‘You have a way with animals.’

  ‘Horses, sir,’ said Betts warily.

  ‘Well, give me your advice anyway.’

  ‘If I can.’

  ‘There’s a cat under the house where we’re staying.’

  ‘No, sir. Really, sir?’

  Harry ignored the gentle mockery. ‘She has kittens. Naturally she can’t feed them. What would you advise?’

  Betts shrugged, poker-faced. ‘What do you want to do, sir?’

  ‘It seems a pity to kill all of them.’

  ‘If you show me where they are, sir, I’ll deal with it.’

  Harry could never be sure, even with hindsight, whether Betts thought him mad or ridiculous or both, but at the time it seemed that some unspoken understanding was reached between them – that this mission was not about a fleabitten cat and her starving litter, but a matter of life and death no matter how inconsequential. Betts did everything that was required, straightfaced and with admirable speed and sureness. He grabbed the cat and stuffed her unceremoniously into a kit bag, to bellows of laughter from the other officers; scooped up all the kittens but one, wrapped them tight (with permission) in one of Harry’s discarded shirts and dunked them firmly in the pond for a count of thirty seconds. He then returned the furious cat to her one kitten, with some biscuit and meat soaked in water, and announced it was the best he could do.

  ‘At least two stand a better chance than seven. Leave her a bit more food when we move on, sir.’

  ‘I will, thank you, Betts.’

  ‘My pleasure.’

  The others were rocking with mirth as he returned to the fire,

  ‘What a gem that man of yours is!’

  ‘A fearsome killing machine!’

  ‘So one pest we shan’t suffer from is mice, eh, Latimer?’

  ‘Thank God for that it would be too much to bear!’

  But Harry felt sufficiently calmed to smile good-naturedly and didn’t bother arguing. There was no point in pretending there was sense or logic to it, for there was neither. He didn’t care for cats in general, and especially this one which was ugly, hostile and verminous. But as they stood to before dawn next day he took a tiny personal comfort from the notion that if the child who owned the doll were ever to return to the house she might be happy to find her cat and its kitten alive amidst the destruction.

  The men had eaten too many unripe grapes, and both stand-to and march were marked by the after-effects of their foolishness. It was impossible for the untrained eye to tell the difference between this painful colic and the early stages of cholera, and several sufferers were noisily berated and jeered at, who subsequently died.

  The letter had to be written, and two days after the funeral Rachel called on Maria at the dower house to ask about it in terms that were general and therefore diplomatic.

  ‘Please – you will let me know if there is any correspondence that you would like me to deal with?’

  Maria, seated at her desk, continued to look down at the letter she was reading. A pair of despised spectacles sat on the end of her long nose with an effect something like an insect on the face of a tiger.

  ‘You mean Harry, don’t you?’

  ‘Any that I can help with.’

  Maria pulled off the spectacles and looked at her. ‘Please write to him for me, Rachel. I know how fond you are of him and how well you will manage it. Whereas I—’ she swept a long beringed hand back and forth over the sea of letters ‘—I have enough to be going on with.’

  ‘I shall say, shall I, that you will write yourself in due course?’

  ‘Naturally. Thank you.’ Maria was peremptory but Rachel knew and understood her by now. As she turned to leave Maria said: ‘Have you seen the newspaper report?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you think . . .’ Maria placed the fingers of both hands momentarily over her mouth, eyes closed. ‘Do you think that it is right to send this news at this time?’

  Rachel was astonished. ‘Of course. We must!’

  ‘We have no idea what Harry’s condition may be.’

  ‘Whatever it is, he has a right to know that his father has died.’ Maria flinched and Rachel regretted her bluntness, adding more gently:
‘We have to write, whatever the reports in the papers. It would be unforgivable to leave him in ignorance.’

  ‘Unless,’ murmured Maria, the merest breath of sound, ‘unless . . .’

  ‘Unforgivable,’ repeated Rachel firmly, not allowing either of them to entertain the thought.

  It was a far from easy letter to write, and it was true that the first reports from the Crimea had not been encouraging. There was no alternative to simplicity.

  ‘My dearest Harry,’ she wrote, and almost immediately discarded the paper and began again.

  My dear Harry,

  It is with the greatest sadness that I have to tell you of the death of your father only four days ago. Though this news will not, I know, be wholly unexpected, it will be particularly hard to bear while you are so far away. I know how much you cared for him, and he for you. Your mother has been a tower of strength but has generously permitted me to write on her behalf at this time because she herself is still somewhat overcome with the shock, and the many tasks that follow bereavement. She is also, as we both are, desperately worried about you, and concerned that this dreadful news will necessarily add to your sufferings, but we both believe you would prefer to know as soon as the delays of the post allow.

  Nothing I can say can alleviate your distress. But I must tell you that Percy died at Bells, peacefully in the sunshine with your mother at his side, and the sights and sounds of the first meet of the season still freshly remembered. If a man could be said to have a good death, then his was a good one. And Maria, as I have said, is quite wonderful – her beauty and courage are commented on by everyone.

  Please take care of yourself insofar as it is possible where you are and with the task you must undertake. Accept my deepest sympathy, dearest Harry (she did not change it this time), and I hope soon to be writing to you again with happier news.

  Believe me your loving sister-in-law,