by Max Hennessy
She handed him his gauntlets which he dragged on one after the other in silence, then she held up his cloak.
‘Shan’t want that,’ he said.
‘You’ll catch your death of cold.’
‘No, I won’t.’
‘I’ve ordered the Vauxhall.’
‘You can send it away.’
His manner was gruff but she was well aware of the hurt he felt and ignored his brusqueness.
‘You’ll need the car,’ she said.
‘No I won’t.’
‘You’re surely not contemplating walking all the way to church?’
‘Yes I am. Back, too.’
‘You silly old man,’ she said softly. ‘You’re nearly eighty, it’s much too far.’
‘No, it isn’t! Dammit, it’s only just down the lane. I’d do it for Tyas if I were a hundred and eighty. Robert turned up yet?’
His wife drew a deep breath, dreading having to tell him something she’d known for forty-eight hours.
‘He can’t manage it.’
The Field Marshal’s head jerked round. ‘What in God’s name does he mean? – he can’t manage it.’
‘He has to go to London.’
‘That bloody woman, I expect!’
Lady Goff sighed. ‘Perhaps that was his intention originally, dear, but Elfrida’s insisted on going with him this time. I think she’s wise. She’s sent her apologies.’
‘He should have been present. Tyas wasn’t just a servant in this house.’
‘No, dear. But you can’t dragoon people into it and Robert’s never felt the same about the Regiment as you have.’
‘Pity Dabney ain’t home.’
‘It’s always a pity Dabney isn’t home. Still, Josh says he wants to go.’
‘He shall walk alongside me.’
‘He’s too young.’
‘He’s ten.’
‘That’s far too young.’
The Field Marshal sighed. ‘Then he shall sit next to me in church. Represent his father. Future of the Regiment. I’m the past, like poor old Tyas. He’ll go into the Regiment.’
‘He might decide he doesn’t want to.’
‘Rubbish, woman. Bound to.’
‘Robert didn’t.’
‘Robert’s an ass. Always was.’
Lady Goff sighed. The Field Marshal was in his most intractable mood. She was well aware, however, that the occasion meant a lot to him. The previous year he had gone halfway across the country to attend the funeral of some old man who had died in a workhouse in London, simply because he had ridden at Balaclava, and had come back in a foul temper, demanding to know why the bloody Government let men die in poverty after they’d served their country well.
‘Where does the cortège start?’ she asked.
‘Tyas’ cottage.’
‘Surely there’s no reason for you to walk there? It’s a good quarter of a mile. You could be driven there and then walk. It would reduce the distance a little.’
He considered for a moment. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I’ll do that.’
Sitting in the Vauxhall with his grandmother, Josh watched as his grandfather waited. His mother was working for the Red Cross in York and, claiming that the dead were less important than the maimed and dying, she was coming alone in her own car. Without her, Josh felt lonely. He had no idea she was thinking of her husband, whom she might also be mourning in a matter of days, and that she found it hard to be present at all. He had been crowing over a new cricket bat with which he expected to score an incredible number of runs when he had heard of Tyas Ackroyd’s death. Not only had he lost a friend but he felt also that somehow a part of the past had vanished. He was shivery and chilled and he could only put it down to the sorrow he felt.
His mother’s car drew up alongside the Vauxhall and he gave her a grave nod. His grandfather was a small slight figure rigid as a ramrod but swaying a little in the blustery wind.
‘I’m sorry Tyas is dead, Grannie,’ he said.
‘Yes, dear,’ his grandmother said. ‘I think your grandfather is too.’
It had been Tyas Ackroyd he remembered, who had first taught him to ride.
‘If you learn to ride like a Clutcher,’ he had said, ‘you’ll have learned proper.’
The boy thought for a minute, trying once more to imagine his grandfather and Tyas Ackroyd riding down the valley at Balaclava. He’d seen pictures of the charge but somehow all he could ever imagine was the Braxby Hunt going into Rush’s Meadow after a fox.
They were using a haywain from the Home Farm to carry the coffin. It had been washed and cleaned up and the two great Percherons which were to pull it, groomed to within an inch of their lives, waited now, pawing the ground, the black crêpe on their harness fluttering in the breeze.
The Field Marshal was shaking a little with the effort of keeping still. His hand lifted to the salute as the coffin appeared.
Josh stared about him, trying to stop his eyes prickling. As they waited, another small boy on a bicycle appeared. He was dressed in his best suit, with a black tie and his hair plastered down into spikes. It was Robert’s son, Aubrey, Josh’s cousin.
‘Thought I ought to come,’ he whispered as he climbed into the car on the other side of Lady Goff. ‘I borrowed some of Father’s brilliantine.’
Josh felt like weeping. When rotten old Aubrey could manage to turn up, it clearly meant something. He blew his nose hard. Perhaps Aubrey wasn’t so bad, after all, he decided. He’d have to remember to include him more.
As the little cortège moved off behind the haywain that carried all that remained of Tyas Ackroyd, it was followed by black-coated relatives, among them a sprinkling of uniforms. The Vauxhall took its place at the rear and Josh could see his grandfather, clutching his sword in frozen fingers stumping along behind, a small figure with the schapka bouncing on his nose. Without knowing why, Josh found his eyes had finally filled with tears.
At the graveyard alongside the church, with the Percherons stamping at the ground, the Ackroyd family and relations, followed by the Field Marshal’s family and anyone else who could crowd inside, moved into the pews. The two boys sat down alongside their grandmother. On her other side was Josh’s mother and the Field Marshal, and just in front Hedley Ackroyd.
‘We are gathered here today to say farewell to Tyas Emmott Arthur Ackroyd—’ Josh was startled to realise that the old man he’d known only as Tyas had had other names as well ‘—who was one of that dwindling band who rode with the fearless Lord Cardigan down that Russian valley in the Crimea nearly sixty years ago with the Light Brigade…’
Glancing at his grandfather, Josh saw his face was like stone. Turning, he looked at his grandmother, and was surprised to see there were tears on her cheeks and, in a strange moment of adult awareness, he knew they were not just for Tyas Ackroyd.
As they filed out of church again and took their places behind the coffin, Josh sidled forward until he was alongside his grandfather, trying to stand as rigidly to attention as the old man as they lowered the coffin into the hole in the earth.
‘Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery—’
Josh’s thoughts wandered. He had never thought of Tyas Ackroyd in that way. Until recently, Tyas had been a mischievous old man with a fund of funny stories, a fondness for helping himself to Grandpa’s whisky – something which Grandpa was well aware of but said nothing about – a tendency to demonstrate sword drill with the fire irons when he should have been cleaning them, and a liking for his pretty nieces. According to Grandpa, he had been quite a boy in his youth and had certainly never seemed to be full of misery.
After it was over, Aubrey reached for his bicycle and lifted his hat to his grandmother.
‘Wouldn’t you like to co
me home for tea, dear?’ she asked.
‘No, I’ve got to get back.’
As he rode off, Josh stared after him. ‘Old Auby’s not bad, you know, Grannie. Better than I thought.’
‘Most people are, dear.’
They talked for a few moments with the relatives, then they solemnly put on their hats and moved away as the Field Marshal headed for the Vauxhall. His wife hung back, knowing he wished to be alone.
‘I’ll go back with Fleur, dear,’ she said. ‘Josh can go with you.’
The Field Marshal nodded and they climbed into the car together. As Fleur’s car moved off, the Field Marshal lifted his hand and touched his driver’s shoulder.
‘Just a moment, George,’ he said. ‘Not yet.’
They sat silently. It had begun to spot with rain and the splashes were striking the windows and sliding down the glass. The boy was surprised to realise that his grandfather was singing, half to himself in a low shaking voice. He recognised the song at once.
‘Wrap me up in my old stable jacket
And say a poor devil lies low.
And six of the Lancers shall carry me
To the place where the best soldiers go.’
The old man stopped and, without turning his head, spoke to the boy.
‘When they buried my father,’ he said slowly, ‘that song went round and round in my mind. They played the Dead March in Saul, but he wasn’t a fussy man and I think if he’d been asked, he’d have preferred that above all others.’
There was a long silence. ‘They had a good trumpeter that day,’ the old man went on in his faraway voice. ‘The trumpet had its origin in heaven, boy. Did you know that? I’ve heard many beautiful things in my time – the slow march of the Gordons, for instance, and that heart-tearing Lament for Culloden. But nothing beats a good trumpeter. There was always only one thought in the darkness when I heard the Last Post at night: Military funerals, boy. Muffled drums and lonely graves in empty fields all over the world. Cavalrymen who’d gone ahead.’ The old man paused. ‘They’re notes of loneliness, boy, and the exile of men far from home, but they’re also notes of pride, for men who died defending their country.’
As he stopped speaking there was a long silence except for the blustering of the wind that shook the high-tonneaued car and the soft spatter of rain on the windows.
When the old man spoke again, his voice was thin and old.
‘Josh—’ he stopped, cleared his throat, then went on in a stronger voice ‘—should I predecease you, which I have no doubt I shall, you will remember that as a field marshal I am entitled to a little more pomp and ceremony than poor Tyas. I don’t want it – bloody tiresome business for all concerned – but they’ll probably insist on a band and medals and all that rot. You will therefore – assuming you’re old enough and that the war is over – arrange that the band will be that of the 19th Lancers and that they will play me to my grave with the Dead March in Saul. That’s because funerals are supposed to be sad and the Dead March in Saul’s the saddest thing we know. However, I don’t expect you to be sad, my boy, because by then I shall have had a good run for me money and I’ve enjoyed most of it, apart from the bits where the grocers in the army took over and those people in the cads’ cricket team were in the ascendant.’
‘Grandpa—’ the boy looked anxiously at the old man ‘—you’re not going to die soon, are you?’
‘I don’t intend to hurry it along, boy,’ the old man said briskly. ‘It’s nevertheless the one event that none of us can escape. I’m not worried. I’ve done most things and it’ll be a new experience. There’s one thing, however, I want you to do for me. I’ve never been of a musical turn of mind but I’ve always thought that Morning from Peer Gynt would be a suitable tune to go to Heaven with. A touch of sadness but also a touch of hope. I’ve been told more than once by the Rector that I might not get into Heaven because I haven’t been much of a believer, but personally I think God’s far too intelligent to blame me if I’m wrong and He might even welcome a pleasant tune as I arrive at the pearly gates. Will you arrange it for me?’
‘Of course Grandpa. Morning from Peer Gynt.’
Josh was still wondering who Peer Gynt was when he noticed the old man had become silent again. His thoughts were clearly sombre. And Josh saw his mouth working, as if he were chewing, and caught glimpses of old brown teeth.
‘It does occur to me, of course,’ the Field Marshal went on slowly, ‘that the band may well be engaged elsewhere. They may still be in France or serving in India, in which case it might be difficult to get them home. In that event I will settle happily for just two trumpeters, one at the head and one at the foot of the grave, to play the Last Post and the Reveille. The Last Post for my departure and the Reveille for my entry into Heaven.’
There was another long pause. ‘It has also just occurred to me,’ the old man continued, ‘that perhaps neither the band nor the trumpeters will be available. In which case, anybody will do who can play an instrument. Even the first violinist from the theatre in York.’ There was another long pause. ‘There is still one final snag. Perhaps the Rector would refuse permission for such a tune to be played on such a solemn occasion. It might not meet with the mealy-mouthed attitudes of the Church. In that case, you will just have to sing something for me. Under your breath, if necessary. Think you can do that?’
‘Yes, Grandpa. I’ll remember.’
‘Then, that would do nicely, coming from you.’ The old man leaned forward and tapped the driver on the shoulder. ‘I think, George,’ he said, ‘that we can go home now.’
Four
The year ended in gloom and the Somme died, mourned by no one.
It had been a victory of a sort, but it had been an empty victory because the British casualties had been higher than those of the Germans. They had gained nothing but a few miles of shell-torn ground which were of use to no one, and finally the mud, stirred up by the rain and the bom- bardments, had become so impassable the attack had stopped for the simple reason that it was no longer possible to move.
It was now being said the battle had been fought to relieve Verdun, but that had come to an end before the Somme had even started; and all they had to show for it were a few miles of broken trenches, ruined fields and obliterated villages with their scattered graves marked by rusting helmets, wooden crosses or bayoneted rifles, while the glowing idealism of the New Army had found its end in the hills and valleys of Picardy.
Churchill was not hoodwinked with the talk of victory, and even came to Yorkshire, full of indignation and splendid rhetoric, ostensibly to ask the Field Marshal’s views but in reality to expound his own in the hope of receiving support.
‘This open ground to which we struggled with such appalling loss of life,’ he said, ‘was entirely without strategic significance. The capture of Verdun would obviously have been of value to the Germans. But what were we after? There was nothing beyond the German line of any military value whatsoever.’
Even Lloyd George had been to see the old man, trying to tempt him to London in an effort to topple the military hierarchy he so disliked. But the Field Marshal refused. He was too old now and he knew it. Nobody of his generation seemed to be still active. Even Kitchener was dead now, drowned when the ship taking him to Russia had been mined off the coast of Scotland.
The war seemed to be turning Europe into a form of hell. Most people were apathetic, not only towards the enemy but also towards their own political and military leaders who seemed to have no idea what to do next. The old belief that they would smash their way through had given way to the feeling that eventually there would have to be a negotiated peace, but nobody could accept anything that would leave the Germans still occupying Northern France and Belgium, something that would be tantamount to a defeat. Yet the Germans would never give them up because that would be tantamount to a defeat for them.
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The New Year was surprisingly quiet. England was a country these days of women, because all the men were in France and everyone had become silent in a sort of sullen resignation. One no longer offered condolences about death because every family in the country seemed to have been affected by it. Everything was short, and in some of the villages round Braxby it seemed that the Somme had wiped out the whole of the male population under forty.
A few people seemed to be doing well, however. Lloyd George had become Prime Minister at last but he was curiously without the power to do what he wished. The military leaders still seemed to be making plans and, as he read about them, the Field Marshal felt a sense of guilt that he could not feel at one with them. Business was also booming and Walter Cosgro had bought a shooting box in Scotland from some family whose sons had all disappeared in the holocaust across the Channel and no longer had need of it. Robert’s fortune had also increased and he had received a knighthood for his work.
There was an uneasy feeling in the old man’s mind that they were going to lose the war. The Russians were in a state of chaos and the French, bled white by their losses, were said to be mutinous. Jutland had been a disaster, the great naval victory everybody had been expecting ever since 1914 turning out instead to be a fiasco with over-caution allowing the German fleet to escape. Finally the U-boat campaign had reached a climax that left the country desperate for every kind of necessity, and the newspapers could think of nothing but to castigate the politicians who seemed far more concerned with the success of their own parties than with the result of the war.
But, while the Somme had been a disaster for Britain, there was little doubt but that it had been a disaster for Germany also. While British casualties had been enormous, German losses were very nearly equal, something apparently borne out by the fact that the Fatherland had put out peace feelers at the end of the year.
There seemed little to hope for but the entry into the war of the United States with her legions of fresh young men. Rumours that they were intending to come in on the Allied side had been circulating for three years and German-American relations had finally been severed. But the phrase, ‘America on the verge of war’, that the newspapers had pumped out so regularly, seemed to have grown so old and tired nobody believed there was any truth in it any more.