by Fern Britton
Ealing
October 1916
My dearest Bertie,
How brave you all are. Please tell the men that I shall bake a decent fruitcake for you all and post it. I have never made one before but I have looked out a recipe. What else can I send you? I hear, from the office, that there is a shortage of razor blades, soap, matches and tobacco. I will send you anything you need. I have finished two pairs of socks this week and I shall post them with this letter.
London is much the same. Everybody is cheering you all on. When all this is over, they are talking about throwing a huge parade to honour you all.
Our little home is safe and I am waiting for you always. I can’t tell you how proud I am of you. Something to tell your grandchildren. How Grandpa won the war!
Elsie is well and sends her regards. She has got engaged! Imagine that! A nice enough chap who couldn’t join up on account of his polio as a child. Elsie is constantly going on about flowers and what she will wear. She found a lovely pair of shoes in Selfridges but she’ll have to save up for years to afford them!
I love you with all my heart, Bertie.
Forever yours,
Clara xxx
Chapter Thirteen
Bertie, France
2 November 1916
I am unable to get any rest and have no time to write to Clara. Conditions here are so hellish that the mailbags with our precious letters from home cannot get through. I miss those letters so much. Clara has an ease of writing that makes me feel I am in whatever story she is recounting. I feel the pavement under her feet, the rattle of her bus to work, the sanctuary of our bed. When I get home, I shall marry her. I dare not propose with a letter as I may not be able to fulfil my promise, things being as they are. I almost proposed to her as I held her before putting her on the train from Lichfield back to London. Asking her to wait for me was all I could beg of her.
I am sitting now, bunkered into a hole held up with wooden beams, a roof of tarpaulin and sandbags above my head. As an officer I am allowed this privilege, and even have use of a lower bunk bed. There are three bunks crammed in here and my cell mates are all good men. But tonight, two of the mattresses will remain empty. At 14.45 today, or was it yesterday, we were engaged in hand-to-hand fighting with the enemy. A first for all of us. We charged a line of old gun-pits, hoping to surprise the enemy, but, naturally, they retaliated with heavy machine-gun fire. I killed five of them with my bayonet. I am not proud of it. They were men with families who, in any other time of life, might have been friends. But we are all soldiers and we kill.
When the horror had finished and the adrenaline subsided, I found an unseen place where I could be as sick as any dog.
It had been our first attack against an enemy post rather than a trench line. At daybreak we counted the men we had lost. We had gained nothing. I have never known such terror.
After that we were withdrawn from the front and marched along the muddy road to Amiens. We reached our billets and were given ten days’ rest. Rest! There was no rest. We refitted, reorganised and trained.
Within two weeks we were sent to the Belgian border to relieve the men who had been working to strengthen our lines. The enemy welcomed us with a cruel bombardment as the relief was taking place. We had few casualties (thanks to a God whose existence I question), but all the good work done by our predecessors was blown apart. We got stuck in and began to rebuild our defences.
It took us all the winter months to achieve. Compared to the Somme, we were grateful for the relative peace. Of course, we would send the enemy odd bouts of artillery fire at inconvenient times and they would return the compliment, but in lots of ways it felt like a holiday. At least we weren’t being shelled.
And we began to get post again.
Near Belgium
4 December 1916
My dearest Clara,
How worried you must have been not to hear from me for so long. But here I am, ripe as ninepence. You cannot get rid of me easily!
Our postal service was halted due to unfortunate circumstances, i.e. mud, more mud, and the possibility that the dear postie might get shot. But it appears that normal service has resumed. First of all, I must ask you for more cake! It kept us going for a week and the men are badgering me to ask you.
Is Elsie married yet? I hope she is happy. It makes me think of how happy we shall be when I get back. I have never told you that I love you, have I? I knew I loved you in that first week when you stowed me away in your little room across the hall from Elsie. I wanted to tell you many times but I felt it would be unfair to you. Supposing you met someone else? I would hate for you to miss out on happiness because you were waiting for me. But I did ask you to wait for me, didn’t I? And you said you would and I believe you have. It was very unfair of me. In Lichfield I should just have got on one knee and damned well proposed to you. So, darling, if I were to ask you to marry me now, would you say yes? I would understand if you cannot give me that promise. We shall say no more about it and be friends. But I hope that won’t be the case. Please write to let me know as soon as you can with an answer.
Tonight the snow is falling. We keep ourselves warm with drills for everything: battalion, physical, gas, etc., etc. Some nights we play football or have a singsong.
My darling, I still have your picture with me. I am looking at it as I write.
With true love,
Bertie xx
Ealing
7 December 1916
My darling,
Yes yes yes yes, please. You have made me the happiest of women and I will be the best wife a man could have. I love you too. So very much, and I have a special thing to tell you too. I hope it won’t change how you feel. You see, I am expecting your child. I think I must be almost four months along now. Which means the baby will arrive in May. A spring birthday. Just like us.
I have told no one and will have to resign my work at Christmas as I don’t want the girls to gossip about me. Elsie has already been asking questions as I cannot do up the dress I am wearing for her wedding next week. I have told her that I must be eating too much cake (I will send you one at the weekend).
I will also have to leave our home. I shall go to Kent. My uncle has lost his housekeeper (she’s ancient and cannot do all she used to do), so he has asked me to look after the cooking and cleaning for him. I hate to leave our Ealing home but when you get back, we can find somewhere else with the money I have saved.
I know this must all be a terrible shock to you as it was for me, but I am so happy. I pray you will be back in time for the birth. If you don’t mind, I shall tell the doctor that we are married. There’s nobody but you and there will never be anyone but you, my darling.
What a pretty picture you paint of snow and singsongs. I am glad you are in a safer place.
I am so happy.
At last, when this war is over, you shall have your own little family to come home to.
With my eternal love,
Clara xxx
Bertie, Northern France
14 December 1916
I was to be a father. I held the news like a light in my heart. The weather had taken another turn for the worse, and we were all doing what we could to keep our spirits up. We moved inches and the loss of men was becoming intolerable.
I kept Clara’s precious letter with news of our baby in my top pocket; it gave me more strength than a man could put into words. I was acting now only on raw instinct. I could not hear my thoughts, even if I wanted to, which I didn’t.
For nigh on fifty hours we had taken the brunt of enemy shelling. In the last one hundred hours I had had no more than six hours’ sleep, and that was broken into fifteen-minute splinters if I was lucky. We lost our motorbike messenger less than ten minutes ago. It was he who delivered this miraculous news of a baby. We hadn’t seen him for over a week, so when we heard the putter of his engine, a small cheer went up. I watched as he delivered his packets and letters through the trench and when he got to me he said, �
�Post been rather delayed, sir. Apologies. I hope you’re not expecting a Harrods hamper?’ This was a joke we shared every time we met. My response was always, ‘Never mind, Private Thompson, it’ll arrive in time for next Christmas.’
He handed me my letter, the last in his bag, saluted me and began the long walk of the trench to return to his bike.
I gazed at the envelope and savoured Clara’s handwriting. I put my nose to the paper and inhaled, imagining the scent of her hands still upon it.
I opened it and read what she had written. My hands started to shake. A baby? I was to be a father. I looked to where Private Thompson had gone, hoping to shout to him the good news, when the loudest bang yet, far too close for comfort, coming from the far end of the trench, shook the ground beneath us and the mud above us, so that a hail of damp earth, sharp pieces of metal and the blasted remains of Private Thompson rained down upon us.
‘Jesus Christ,’ one of the men shouted, ‘the bastards have killed Tommo.’
One small lad, only seventeen, clutching a parcel from home, threw up, whilst one of his mates picked up his rifle and climbed the ladder shouting, ‘Prepare to fucking die, you bastards.’ Before he went over the top and met a hail of bullets.
As the officer in charge, I screamed at the men to gather their senses. This was war, not a bloody pub brawl. We were the British Army and we were to damn well fight as we were trained. Not die from stupidity. And if I saw anybody, anybody, doing anything stupid again I would have them shot. Did they all understand?
Yessir, came the answer.
The shelling began again.
Wheeeee … boom … wheeeee … boom.
I couldn’t take it. My head felt as if it would explode with the pressure of emotion and exhaustion and sheer bloody homesickness. I marched to my dugout, threw myself on my wooden bed and screamed until there was nothing left.
And now I was lying on my bed holding Clara’s letter and feeling the light in my heart pierce my darkened thoughts. For strength, I tucked the letter into my top pocket. I was to be a father. I had a reason now to make it through this bloody war.
My brave Clara had left London to return to Kent and the sanctuary of her childhood home, her uncle’s farm.
To be alone at such a vulnerable time. My admiration and respect for her grew every second – just as our child was doing. This war could not go on for ever. Each day and every night I held onto the hope that I should be there when our child was born. I would. I knew I would. I felt it.
Christmas was coming and the men and I would make the best of it. Why should I be sad when my heart was full of joy. If Clara could be brave, so could I.
Clara, London
15 December 1916
Today was Elsie’s wedding. Just four of us attended and I could barely sit down, my dress was so tight. Elizabeth – Elsie’s old friend and the second witness – and I threw rice at the newlyweds as they went to catch their train to Brighton for their three-day honeymoon. Elizabeth and I exchanged the usual pleasantries. How nice it was to meet each other after all this time. How pretty Elsie had looked. And then we said our goodbyes and I went to the office to hand in my notice. I would work until 19 December.
I was now in our little Ealing home and sorting through what to keep and what to give away. I had to tell Bertie that I was going to stay with my nonexistent uncle or he would be afraid for me and the baby. This way, he won’t worry so much. I must keep his spirits up. And when, after the war, he wants to meet my uncle, I shall have to think of a short illness – flu maybe – that will have finished him off; tell Bertie that the farm was heavily mortgaged and the bank repossessed it.
I felt the baby kick. ‘It’s just a teeny little fib to make Daddy happy. That’s all. And I haven’t lied about going to Kent, have I?’
Dear Miss Hampton,
It’s me, Clara Carter. I hope you are well and that the shop is busy. I have had a very exciting few years since I last saw you. I can never forget what you did for me and I still have the clothes we made together.
Life at the News has been very exciting and I am now, or will be until this Friday, the chief subeditor’s secretary. I couldn’t have done any of this if it weren’t for your encouragement and help.
I expect you are wondering why I am writing to you now when you haven’t heard from me since the day I left Faversham? The truth is, I am in a bit of a fix and I have no one else to turn to …
Chapter Fourteen
Bertie, Northern France
Christmas Day, 1916
My darling Clara,
Happy Christmas to you and our little one. How is he coming along? Are you very big? Oh, how I would love to put my arms around you both. You will tell him Pa says Happy Christmas, won’t you?
And don’t be cross when I keep saying he! I just have a feeling …
I am so glad that you are settled in Faversham. Your uncle’s farm does sound very rundown and your bedroom unsuitable for human habitation. But it was good of him to find you lodgings in the town. I can see you doing your daily shopping and cooking for him, then getting back to Miss Hampton’s for good female chat.
Please tell Miss Hampton that I will never let you down, and thank her for me for looking after you. I shall be there before either of us know it.
I dreamt about you last night. Standing in the window of a sunlit cottage, our baby in his cot beside you, sleeping soundly, while you arranged lupins – of all things – in a vase. That dream made me so happy and gave me all the more determination to be with you as soon as possible.
We were up early this morning for church parade. Thick snow fell last night but today the sky is clear blue. The broken buildings and burnt trees look rather beautiful clad in white and Gerry, only two hundred yards away, have popped their heads over the trenches to wish us Happy Christmas. Tomorrow we’ll be trying to kill them. My father has sent me a pamphlet of seasonal religious verses to keep my spirits up but, and please don’t tell him, my faith in God has left me. How can this be God’s plan? Yesterday, one of our boys was in his hut with six others and he saw an enemy grenade under his bed. Must’ve rolled in there during the last attack. He picked it up and saw that the pin was out. He knew he had to get it out of the hut but his hands were shaking so much that he couldn’t undo the door latch. He knew the thing was about to go off, so he covered it with his own body and was blown to bits. His five friends survived, although two were badly wounded. The padre said that God and his angels had been with him, but I cannot believe that.
Oh my darling, I am sorry to tell you these awful things, but if I don’t tell you, who do I tell? The thought of you keeps me strong, as strong as you.
Just had a thought, maybe you could have lupins in your bridal bouquet?
With my deepest love. Merry Christmas and here’s to 1917,
Your Bertie xxxxxx
Clara, The Haberdashery, Faversham
New Year’s Eve, 1916
My letter to Miss Hampton told her the full truth of my condition and my fibs. She wrote by return and welcomed me into her lovely home without a blink. Her beautiful little shop, as I arrived, was twinkling with Christmas trimmings and gewgaws. When I opened the door, the bell still jangled, and the scent of oranges and cinnamon was on the air.
Miss Hampton came from behind her counter, her arms wide. ‘Clara dear. I am so glad you came.’ She held my arms to look at me. ‘You’re tired. Come through to the back parlour while I shut the shop for the rest of the day.’
She made me sit comfortably and gave me her footstool, lifting my feet onto it and removing my shoes. ‘Now. A cup of tea? I have made some mince pies if you’d like one?’
I held her hand before she could walk away. ‘Thank you. Thank you for all this. I don’t know why you are being so kind. I owe you so much for helping me.’
‘You owe me nothing. We are women, and as such have to look after each other when life gets a little awkward.’
She went to her little kitchen and, as she bu
sied herself with kettle and cups, I looked around this room that I hadn’t thought twice about leaving. I was so lucky to be back.
As the afternoon wore on and night began to wrap the village in darkness, Miss Hampton sat and quietly listened to my story. I told her everything. I left nothing out.
‘May God forgive me for my lies,’ I finished.
‘He will,’ she said. ‘Have you got a picture of this young man of yours?’
When I showed her she nodded. ‘That’s a face that will do you well. Now then. Have you seen a doctor?’
Miss Hampton insisted that I should see the doctor the next morning. ‘The appointment is for ten o’clock,’ she told me briskly.
‘But what am I to say? What will he think?’
‘You will tell him that your husband is away in France and that I, your aunt, on your mother’s side, am caring for you until the war is over.’
‘Really?’
‘We women sometimes have to brush over the truth in order to save our men the absolute truth.’ I knew this all too well. She put her hand in her pocket. ‘You had better put this on your wedding finger.’
She passed me a gold ring. ‘It was my mother’s, so look after it.’
‘I can’t take it.’ I tried to hand it back.
‘You will take it. And you will return it to me as soon as your fiancé buys you one of your own. Now put it on.’
Dr Channing’s surgery was in his house and overlooked the front path, in order, I thought, to see who his next patient was.
Miss Hampton looked at me as we approached. ‘Stand up tall. You have nothing to be ashamed of.’
An elderly woman opened the door and ushered us in. ‘Miss Hampton, how lovely to see you. We see you so rarely here.’
‘I am blessed with good health.’ Miss Hampton kissed the woman on both cheeks. ‘But how are your rheumatics, Mrs Channing?’