Black Parade

by Jack Jones

  ‘I don’t want to go to the theatre,’ said his father.

  ‘Dad, as company sergeant major, I’m taking charge. So be ready. I don’t suppose you’ll come with us, Uncle Harry?’

  ‘I think I will this once,’ Harry surprised them all by saying. ‘That is if none of you minds me coming like this?’

  ‘What is there for anybody to mind, I’d like to know,’ said Saran, glaring around into the faces of all present.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Meurig. ‘Come on, get me those civvies, mam.’

  The suit had shrunk a bit, and it was creased a little as well, but Meurig, who looked grand in anything, Saran thought, was more comfortable in it than he would have been in regimentals. And off they all went leaving old Marged, who said her legs were too stiff to go trapesing about at that time of night, to look after the place and prepare supper by the time they returned. And everyone, with the possible exception of Glyn, who said he couldn’t stomach the beer sold in the bars of the theatre – though he bolted about five big glasses of it during the one interval – enjoyed themselves immensely, for it was a good bill that week, the third week of the theatre’s variety season. One turn, a stout woman she was, was great, they all thought. She sang a song – and a wonderful voice she had – with a touching chorus that Saran long remembered. What was it, now? Oh, yes:

  Sunshine and shadow

  You promised to love alway.

  Now that the shadow hangs over me

  Your dear face I never see,

  Not that I would reproach you.

  I trust that you’ll happy be,

  But you’ve taken away the sunshine,

  The shadow remains with me.

  Then there was a doleful comedian who made everyone laugh until their sides ached when he went on to tell the audience of how his wife treated him now that he had sold his food-cards to get money which he had gone and lost on a horse which a pal said was a cert. Then there was – well, it was a good bill, and by the end of the show Meurig was more like his old self than he had been from the time he had arrived up to then. He refused to hurry off from the party to get the one his father urgently whispered that there was just time for; and he insisted on escorting his uncle Harry every step of the way down to the place where he lodged. His uncle Harry said: ‘God bless you, my boy, and may He watch over you, now and always’; and Meurig said: ‘Thank you, Uncle Harry.’ Then his uncle Harry went into the house of the woman with whom he lodged, and Meurig walked back to his mother’s house, where all the rest and a grand supper awaited him.

  After but one more day at home Meurig left to go through the short course at the Guards’ Barracks in Chelsea, and all at home counted the days until he came back home again, for ten days this time, before returning to his unit in France. He arrived home the second time on the eve of the poll of the by-election, one of the most exciting days and nights in the history of the borough, for there were meetings on every street corner. More in the nature of unholy rows than meetings, they were. Meurig stood with his father and Benny on the fringe of the huge crowd assembled on the rising ground near the Public Offices, where the Independent Labour Party candidate was getting a very rough time indeed from the win-the-war crowd. He was trying for the umpteenth time to make himself heard when Meurig and Benny and his father arrived, on their way home from the station, at the place where the crowd was assembled. ‘Just a minute,’ said Meurig, stopping.

  ‘Come on, that feller isn’t worth listening to, even though he is one of our miners’ leaders,’ said his father. Meurig stood and his face darkened as he watched and listened. ‘If on, ‘and supported the war, we’d have supported him to a man; but…’

  ‘Shut up; let’s hear what he’s got to say,’ said Meurig.

  ‘They won’t let him say much.’ Neither did they.

  ‘Friends. In coming before you…’

  ‘Are you in favour of the war? Answer that, yes – or no.’

  ‘Ay, answer that,’ roared the crowd.

  ‘My friends, I…’

  ‘Answer.’

  ‘Well, my answer to that question, a question which I’ve already…’

  ‘Yes or no is all we want. Are you prepared to support the Government in its efforts to win the war for us?’

  ‘Well, I…’

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘No, I’m not…’

  ‘Then neither are we prepared to support you.’

  ‘Or bloody well listen to him.’

  ‘That’s how it’s been at all his meetings,’ Glyn informed Meurig as the crowd let itself go and the Independent Labour candidate and his handful of supporters again bowed to the storm of hooting and abuse and walked away up the hill towards the workhouse. Meurig and his father and brother continued their way along the main street towards home until they reached the Pontmorlais Square, just off which, on the patch of ground where the boxing booths had in the old days been erected, another meeting was in progress, and a most enthusiastic meeting it was, the chief speaker at which was the win-the-war candidate, who was saying as Meurig and his father and his one-armed brother drew near:

  ‘If I am returned as your member…’

  ‘You will be, Charlie.’

  ‘… Mr Lloyd George (cheers). Yes, and we should thank God for having placed Mr Lloyd George at the helm of…’ (Loud cheers.) ‘And I shall support him through…’

  ‘Good old Charlie.’

  ‘… his efforts to secure victory; and to see that our boys in France and in…’

  ‘Come on, for Christ’s sake,’ muttered Meurig as he continued his way home, followed by his father and his one-armed brother.

  ‘By the time you come home next Benny’ll have had his false arm fixed,’ said his father.

  ‘Oh, what a bloody lot you are,’ muttered Meurig as they turned the corner by Tom Hall’s shop.

  ‘Boy, what’s the matter with you?’ said his father. ‘You talk as though you didn’t belong to us any more.’

  ‘If it wasn’t for mam…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Well, I’m damned if I know what’s come over you,’ grumbled his father.

  ‘Let him alone, can’t you?’ said Benny.

  Meurig almost ran up the hill towards home and his mother, who soon put him in a good mood. For ten days and nights she left everything to old Marged, and what old Marged couldn’t manage was left to stand over until her Meurig’s leave was over. Meurig had any God’s amount of money, and it was family parties all the way: in a party to the theatre, where Saran sat with the borough’s best at the side of her DCM son in the three-shilling circle, the rest of the family party almost filling the front row of the circle on both sides of Meurig and his mother. Harry never went with them to any place of entertainment after that once to the theatre, but he was up at the house quite a lot during the ten days Meurig was home; and not once did he open his mouth against them going to the theatre and the pictures and to watch people skating in the roller-skating rink.

  ‘Went like winking, the time did,’ sighed Saran, as she sat in the house with Jane and the other women of the family and old Marged after Meurig, in his regimentals that morning, had left the house accompanied by his father and brothers to return to France. ‘Oh, I don’t feel a bit like work,’ she said.

  ‘Then what say if we all go down town for a walk?’ suggested Jane.

  ‘And with all the washing as I’ve been leaving and leaving waiting to be done?’ said Saran, rising to her feet. ‘No; must get on with it, and if any of you gels got nothing particular…’

  ‘I’ve got a fine old dollop of my own as wants doing,’ said Jane.

  ‘So have I,’ said Annie.

  ‘And so have I,’ said Sam’s wife.

  ‘Then you’d all better go and do it,’ Saran told them, ‘for you’re not likely to get a better drying-day than today. Marged and I will soon have all I’ve got drying on the line.’

  ‘But isn’t it butter-day today?’
said Jane.

  ‘Damn, so it is. And you gels owe me nearly all those coupons of yours after the way you and the children been stuffin’ yourselves up here all the time Meurig was home. Oh, look at Annie bridling. Some day you’ll get to know me, Annie. Then we’ll leave the washing today again, Marged, so as to go on parade with our food-tickets – though you can rub a few towels through whilst I’m out, for there isn’t a clean towel in the house. How long will you gels be before you’re ready?’

  ‘I’m ready now,’ said Jane.

  ‘I’ll slip down to wipe baby’s face and put his best coat and hat on, then meet you on Tom Hall’s corner,’ said Annie. Off she dashed.

  ‘If you’ll lend me your white shawl to carry baby in, then I needn’t go all the way down to the house for my best shawl,’ said Sam’s wife.

  ‘What, my best shawl again,’ cried Saran. ‘You’ll do, Mrs Sam. Go and get it out of the drawer. Sure there’s nothing that you want to borrow, Jane?’

  ‘Well, I could do…’

  ‘You couldn’t, not from me, my gel. Come, let’s hurry. Mustn’t keep lady Annie waiting.’

  ‘It’s more likely that we’ll have to wait for her,’ said Jane.

  Ossie, Jane’s husband, was home on leave from the front, but it was little Jane, Saran – or anyone other than Glyn, his father-in-law – saw of him during the fortnight he was home. It was booze, booze, booze all the time.

  ‘That husband of yours had better not come home too often or he’ll have us all in the workhouse,’ said Saran to Jane as they walked towards where Sam’s wife lived, for they had promised Sam’s wife to call for her on the way to town to try and wangle a bit of extra meat from one of the butchers. ‘This is the second day this week that your father has stayed home from the pit to go boozing with him; and…’ She nearly let out about Ossie’s borrowings from her.

  ‘Well, after Saturday he’ll be gone to where…

  ‘Jane, gel, don’t snivel here on the road where people… Come on, pull yourself together, gel. I was only joking about Ossie. Why, the boy’s as good as gold; and it won’t trouble me if your father don’t go to the pit any more this week. Now, now. That’s better. I expect we’ll have to pay through the nose for the bit of meat old Hoskin promised to put on one side for me. But that’s the way it is, if you want a bit extra, then you’ve got to pay for it.’

  Then long months of working, saving – Saran only, who kept on adding part of the fairly good wages Glyn and her boys were earning in the pit to the two allowances which her boys in France were making to Glyn and herself – wangling, drinking, theatre and picture-going, and letter-writing – and ever so much more that helped the long and anxious months along. Then the second blow, a blow Saran felt more than she ever let on to anyone. Meurig, regimental sergeant major at the last, died leading an attack on a German position in Mametz Wood, though Saran didn’t know where he had been killed until Sam came home about a month afterwards and told her. All she got was the usual notification and her share of His Majesty’s sympathy, which wasn’t much when shared amongst so many. Meurig gone. ‘My God… humph, God indeed. My boy – my boys – and who the hell cares? Leave me alone, I tell you. Glyn, if you don’t shut up… my Meurig. Leave me alone, Benny. Go on and attend to your work. No, I don’t want Annie or anyone else. Meurig. I’m all right, Harry, thank you. My Meurig. Do you remember the night you were in the theatre with him and all of us, Harry? That was decent of you, Harry. Decent of you not to be too – well, what you might have been that night. And then he went on down to your lodging with you, Harry. My Meurig. I’ve often wondered what you two talked about that night, Harry. You and my Meurig. Did he talk about me at all, Harry? I’m all right now, thank you, Harry. I’m getting grey, Harry. Well, so was Lloyd George when I saw him on the pitchers in the Palace that night we all went with Meurig. With Meurig. Meurig.’

  ‘Well, mam,’ was all Sam could find to say when he presented himself to his mother before going to see his wife and children the night he came home for his first leave from the battle-front.

  ‘Sam, bach, you’ve been away a long time. But you have come back, thank God. Meurig…’

  ‘Ay; I came home as far as Pontypridd with a chap as was with him when – when…’

  ‘Yes. Tell me, Sam. What did the man say?’

  ‘Not much, man. Just said how Meurig copped out – all over in a second, he said it was. No pain, mam. In the head he said it was.’

  ‘Where – where was it?’

  ‘In the head, mam.’

  ‘The place, I mean.’

  ‘Oh, Mametz Wood.’

  ‘What sort of a place is that, Sam?’

  ‘Oh, a proper bloody slaughterhouse, mam. Regiment after reg…’

  ‘Yes, but what sort of a looking place is it, Sam?’

  ‘Well, something like Cyfarthfa Wood, only with all the trees shot in half and big shell holes everywhere.’

  ‘Not much of a place, then, Sam.’

  ‘No, mam.’

  She sighed as she placed her hand on his head and rumpled his hair affectionately. ‘Have you been home?’

  ‘No; came straight up.’

  ‘Then go straight back down to your wife and children, my boy. They’re lovely and they’re dying to see you. So is your father and the boys and Jane. Did you meet her Ossie out there, Sam?’

  ‘No; we never ran into his mob.’

  ‘Off you go, now; but bring Kate and the children back up after – well, by the time your father and the boys get back home from wherever they’re gone to this night. I’ll get Mrs Owen’s boy to run around and tell the rest. Why didn’t you write to let us know you were coming, Sam bach?’

  ‘I…’

  ‘Tell me when you come back up with Kate and the children. Off you go, now. Oh, I forgot to ask you about your brother Lewis. Don’t you think it’s time he was let come home to see us?’

  ‘I should think it is…’

  ‘Did you happen to meet him out there at all?’

  ‘Not once, though I heard that his mob was within…’

  ‘Yes, remember to tell me about that when you come back up to see your father and the boys. Don’t forget now. Off you go.’

  As soon as he had gone she gave Mrs Owen’s boy sixpence to round up all the members of the family, and old Marged as well, for she knew that she’d want a bit of help to do things in style for Sam, as she had when her Meurig was home. But this time she would have to foot the bill for food and entertainment, for she knew that it was little enough Sam had to spend, whereas Meurig… well, he was a sergeant major, and an unmarried one at that.

  And no sooner had she given Sam a good time and sent him back to the front with a tidy few shillings in his pocket… the letter came in the morning when she was alone in the house, and she was undecided whether to send for Mrs Owen’s gel who had come home from service to read the letter for her, or to wait in the hope of Benny calling in, when who should walk in but Benny himself.

  ‘Here’s a letter,’ she said, holding it out to him. ‘I know it’s our Lewis’ writing, so there can’t be much wrong. Maybe it’s to tell us that he’s coming home on leave.’

  ‘He is home, for this is posted in London,’ said Benny tearing open the envelope. ‘He’s wounded – slightly.’

  ‘Read the letter out to me, Benny. Every word, remember.’

  After he had read it to her she took the letter from him. ‘Now it’s Lewis,’ she said as she sat down with his letter in her hand, looking up into Benny’s face. Then after a while she said: ‘I’m going up to London to him, Benny. I’m going to see him at that hospital – and your father shall go with me.’

  ‘I don’t see any need for going to such expense when he says in that letter that it isn’t much, and that…’

  ‘That’s what you wrote to tell us when you had an arm blown off, Benny, and p’raps it’s the same, if not worse, with him.’

  ‘Not it. If you like I’ll wire the hospital…’


  ‘What need to when me and your father are going there?’

  ‘Do you know that London is no place just now, now that these raids are on so often, for an old coup… well, for people who’ve never been there before?’

  ‘Benny.’ She rose to her feet and faced him. ‘Do you know that I’ve lost four – two in the pit and two out there in France – without as much as a sight of one of ’em? If I’d only… but it’s no use you or anyone else bothering. I’m going to London to see my Lewis.’

  ‘Then I’ll arrange…’

  ‘Nothing, Benny. I’ll do all the arranging as wants to be done.’

  Every available man in the depot at the time – and that meant several hundred recruits under canvas in the field outside the barracks wall as well – was ordered by the officer commanding the depot to turn out on parade to honour the hero’s parents, who were to receive the DCM their son had won on the field of battle shortly before he was killed in Mametz Wood. Benny wanted to accompany his parents to Cardiff, but Saran said: ‘Never mind; your father and me will be all right. You’ve got to c’lect the insurance, and if you’re not there on the day, then people may not have the money to pay two weeks the next time you call. So you look after your work, my boy; and your father and me will go for the medal.’ And they went.

  When stopped at the gates by the military policeman with the MP armlet on his arm and a stick under his other arm, Glyn nervously began to explain.

  ‘Show the man the letter,’ Saran suggested. And as the military policeman was reading the letter she said: ‘I’m his mother – and this is my husband – his father.’

  ‘Come this way, please,’ said the military policeman after he had read the letter and handed it back to Glyn. They followed him under the archway and around the corner and into the orderly room, where they were received by the adjutant, who was as nice as could be to them, though some of the old sweats who were trying to swing the lead at the depot reckoned that he was – well, you know. Anyway, he was as nice as anyone could be to Saran and Glyn, and so was the officer commanding the depot as well. Had tea in a silver teapot which was carried on a silver tray brought in to them, and it was silver, for Saran showed Glyn the stamp at the bottom of the teapot. And there were little cakes on a silver plate as well, but they couldn’t eat any of them, though they were thankful for the cup of tea. The adjutant, just before he went out to the parade ground to inspect the parade, pulled out his silver cigarette case and opened it with a click and held it out to Glyn. ‘Like a cigarette?’ he asked.