In Distant Fields

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘No,’ Kitty replied quietly. ‘Not a bit. Not even the tiniest bit.’

  ‘And it will be something we can look forward to – on my next leave. When I’m gone you make absolutely sure that there are no more – sorry, I nearly got a bit military there.’ He stopped and started again. ‘You can make sure that all the arrangements are in place and if I can get a long enough leave then we can even motor off somewhere and stay there all by ourselves – somewhere really romantic.’

  ‘Of course, Almeric,’ Kitty agreed. ‘I understand absolutely.’

  The next morning they took the trap to the Halt and only just caught the train, it being right on time for once, their lateness caused by Trotty having to walk half the journey due to spreading a plate halfway to the station. They barely had time to say goodbye, both of them flying onto the platform as the station-master held the train back for them, seeing them arriving late and hearing Almeric’s anxious call. Having found a seat for him, the station-master stood back, holding up his flag in readiness.

  ‘Goodbye, my darling,’ Almeric called above the sound of the engine and the slamming doors. He embraced Kitty, who kissed him back, holding her hat on with one hand. ‘I’ll write as soon as I can – take care of yourself.’

  ‘And you take care of yourself too!’ Kitty called back a little hopelessly, as Almeric closed the door, having pulled the window down to lean out and wave his last goodbye.

  ‘I shall, my sweet!’ Almeric laughed as the train began to pull out. ‘I shall keep the old head well down and out of sight! I love you!’

  ‘And I love you too!’ she called, running up the platform after the train, before coming to a halt at the end of the platform as the train drew away, picking up speed, until it turned round the first bend and was gone.

  Kitty stood at the end of the platform, looking into space, feeling the emptiness where warmth had just been and such a feeling of sudden desolation it was all she could do not to break into sobs. Instead she adjusted her hat, tying the bow back under her chin, and made her way to the station yard, wishing the porter and the station-master goodbye and wondering how long it would be before she found herself standing and waiting on the platform once again. And then she picked up Trotty’s ribbons and, with a gentle flick of them, walked the pony on up the slight incline that led from the station yard to the road, and back to whatever the future might hold for them all.

  There was consternation when Kitty returned to Bauders, some sort of a search party out in the grounds being marshalled by Jossy with some of the older grooms. Curious to see what was happening, Kitty redirected Trotty away from the stable yard to follow the line of men.

  ‘One of your patients disappeared, Miss Kitty,’ Jossy told her. ‘Been told to organise a search of the grounds, like.’

  ‘Do you know who it is, Jossy?’

  ‘No idea, miss. Just been told to look for one of the patients – oh, yes!’ he called, half turning back. ‘Michael? Would that be right? Answers to the name of Michael. If at all – I gather.’

  It seemed Michael’s bed had been found to be empty when everyone was getting up.

  ‘Not that there’s anything unusual about that,’ Partita told Kitty as she was putting her in the picture. ‘Lots of them get up early now the weather’s so much better and summer’s just around the corner. But as you know, Michael is not one of the earliest risers.’

  ‘And nobody’s seen him this morning?’

  ‘Sight nor sound, Kitty. So Mamma thought it best to organise a search party.’

  ‘Did anything happen yesterday to upset him, I wonder. It’s difficult to know, since we were otherwise engaged, so to speak.’

  They went to enquire of one of the nurses who had been on duty the day before, learning that Michael had indeed received a visitor, a doctor who had travelled from London to see him, accompanied by another gentleman. They had asked to be left alone with Michael, which they were, sitting out on the stone terrace while they talked for the best part of an hour.

  ‘You say talked,’ Kitty said. ‘I take it Michael didn’t do any of the talking, or weren’t you aware of what was going on?’

  ‘I was busy with my other boys,’ Nurse Rose, a pretty little dark-haired Scots girl, replied. ‘Although I did keep an eye on Michael from time to time, knowing how very sensitive he is. He wasn’t doing any talking each time I had a peek, certainly not. In fact, he was sitting in his chair with his eyes closed, the way he does; that is his way.’

  ‘Did you speak to the doctor who came up to see him?’ Partita wondered.

  ‘Oh, of course, Lady T,’ Nurse Rose replied.

  ‘He wanted to speak to us and of course we wanted to speak to him. He told us they were just checking up on his case because he had been so notably and badly traumatised by his – his experience, as they called it.’

  ‘His experience?’ Kitty glanced at Partita.

  ‘Aye. He said they had to check his progress to see whether or not he could be returned to active service.’

  ‘They don’t usually send someone up from London to do that,’ Partita remarked. ‘They leave that to our team here – our doctors’ reports. I find that jolly odd.’

  ‘It was all done properly, Lady T,’ Nurse Rose assured her. ‘There’s a full report awaiting the Duchess when she’s a moment.’

  ‘There’s something happening down by the lake,’ Kitty said, interrupting and pointing to the distant activity. ‘They appear to have found something.’

  ‘Let’s hope it is something – rather than somebody,’ Partita said, hurrying out.

  They had a body on a stretcher, which they were carefully loading onto a long garden handcart, preparatory to bringing it up to the house.

  ‘Is it Michael?’ Kitty asked when she and Partita arrived breathless after their run from the house.

  ‘Aye,’ a soaking wet Jossy said with a grave nod. ‘So they say.’

  ‘Is he dead, Jossy?’ Partita asked, direct as always.

  ‘Not quite, Lady Tita, I’m happy to say. Got to ’im just in time, it appears.’

  ‘You got to him, you mean?’

  ‘Aye, Lady Tita. That’s about the size of it. He were in that boat, see?’ Jossy gestured to the rowing boat that was still floating halfway across the lake. ‘Couldn’t be seen from the house, like, because he’d taken the boat from its mooring where I were fishin’ last evening. Must have jumped in straight from the boat.’

  ‘How did you get to him, Jossy? You swam all that way and still managed to save him?’

  ‘I can swim a bit, as you know, but he’d gone a couple of times when I got to ’im. One more dip and he’d have ’ad it. He’s barely alive as it is.’

  Someone threw a heavy towel round Jossy’s shoulders and he began to rub his hair and face dry as he watched the rest of the party hurrying the cart and stretcher up to the house.

  ‘Melancholy bloke, was he?’ Jossy wondered, tipping his head on one side to shake some water out. ‘Sort to do hisself in?’

  ‘He was no talker, Jossy,’ Kitty said. ‘He hardly spoke at all.’

  ‘Must have something dread on his mind then,’ Jossy replied. ‘Poor man. Shouted some’ at as he jumped off the boat. You know how sound travels over water – heard it clear as anything. “It is done,” he called. “It is done.”’

  Jossy shook his head, remembering the strange cry and wondering what bell it was ringing in his head, just as Partita and Kitty were doing as they now hurried on back to the house to see what they could do for the victim. When they got there, they learned the duty doctor and Nurse Rose were attending to him in the surgery, but that Michael was now conscious and seemed on the way to recovery.

  Circe was reading the report that had been left for her on her desk, both hands under her chin as she studied Michael’s case history, having requested to be alone until she had finished it. Respecting her wishes Partita and Kitty went about their duties in a predictably subdued atmosphere as the men gathered into groups to di
scuss the day’s event.

  ‘He was at Mons, Nurse Kitty,’ Jack said as Kitty was helping him do his walking exercises, her patient having now finally been released from his wheelchair to try his luck on crutches. ‘And when he first come here word had it that he had seen the angel.’

  ‘What angel’s that, Jack?’ Kitty wondered, concentrating more on Jack’s tentative steps.

  ‘You never heard tell of the angel, Nurse Kitty? You have to be kiddin’.’

  ‘Why should I? And try putting that foot straight. You’re turning it out too much.’

  ‘It was in all the papers, weren’t it? That’s how you might have lemon curd.’

  ‘Lemon curd?’ Kitty laughed. ‘It’s all right – I’ve got it. How I’d have heard.’

  ‘Or one of the blokes here might have told you. Don’t know why I didn’t mention it. Although I never saw nothing. I was at Mons too, remember?’

  ‘I remember – and do concentrate on what you’re doing, Jack. You nearly fell there.’

  Jack took a few careful steps in silence, pondering about Michael and his attempted suicide.

  ‘I don’t believe I didn’t tell you about the angel,’ he said with a frown, shifting his weight from one crutch to the other. ‘I told Nurse Rose, I know that.’

  ‘Do you want to tell me now?’

  ‘Like I said, I din’t see nothing – and as far as I’m concerned it’s a lot of hooey, but a lot of the old sweats—’

  ‘The older soldiers, you mean?’

  ‘The blokes who done service before, you know. The old sweats, as they’re called. Usually pretty hard numbers and all, you bet – what they seen and done. I din’t hear nothing about it while I was out there ’cos I got my wounds in action before we fell back, like. General French’s fighting withdrawal.’

  ‘You were heavily outnumbered.’

  ‘And the Frogs had done a runner. Anyhow, I was invalided out of it all, taken off to hospital – but that’s where I heard it first, all these stories. There were rumours buzzin’ around about how this angel had been seen – although some say it were several of ’em – just when things were gettin’ really hot, they said. And this was an ’eck of a lot of blokes what said it, Nurse Kitty. They said just as they thought that they saw these angels – the next thing they knew, Jerry was on the back foot and they were saved, like. I don’t go for it meself, I think it’s a lot of hokum, but all these blokes swear on the Bible that’s what they seen.’

  ‘And you think Michael might have been one of them? One of the soldiers who saw this?’ Kitty asked, turning Jack round at the end of the room to walk him slowly back to his chair.

  ‘I dunno, Nurse Kitty. All I know is he was at Mons, so he might have done. Somethin’s done his head, and of that we may be quite sure.’

  That evening after supper, which they had taken with the men, as was their custom when on duty, Partita and Kitty sat in a sad exhausted state, clinging to cups of cocoa in the underheated, underlit library, reviewing the events of the day with Circe and discussing what Kitty had been told, Partita confessing that she had never heard the angel phenomenon mentioned and, since she never really read the newspapers, had missed the story altogether. Circe, on the other hand, remembered hearing John remarking incidentally on some such thing, but was unable to ask him directly now since her husband had been summoned urgently back to his post in London that afternoon.

  ‘He was more interested in the use that he said was being made of it, in propaganda terms, the powers that be being determined to show that the enemy is a pretty foul fellow and that God is on our side – which brings me to Michael Bradley’s case, which is really most intriguing. As you know, he was wounded in battle, at Mons, in fact, but not in the front line. I gather he was a sniper, and a very good one at that. But apparently when General French withdrew, Michael got cut off behind enemy lines, and was duly captured.’

  ‘But if that was the case, Mamma, how come we have him here?’ Partita interrupted. ‘He’d be a prisoner surely, if he’d been spared.’

  ‘Which he obviously was,’ Kitty offered. ‘But yes, yes, how did he get here if the Germans captured him?’

  ‘It’s a little gruesome, I’m afraid,’ Circe sighed, with an eye on the young women.

  ‘Mamma, there’s hardly anything we haven’t heard by now,’ Partita returned. ‘Some of the things the men fell us …’ She opened her eyes wide and stared at her mother expressively. ‘So please go on Mamma, please.’

  ‘The enemy captured him but they didn’t treat him very well, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Probably because he was a sniper,’ Kitty said. ‘At least that’s what I was told. Soldiers don’t like snipers. They think in a way it’s a cowardly act, shooting someone when they don’t get the chance to shoot back.’

  ‘They’re afraid of them, that’s why,’ Partita said. ‘And who can blame them? Being sniped at by an unseen gun, by someone up a tree, or a church tower.’

  ‘Obviously this was what the soldiers thought who captured Michael, because they did the most dreadful thing to him.’

  Circe stopped shaking her head and, unable to go on, she picked up the silver crucifix around her neck and silently held it out.

  ‘That is what they did to him?’ Kitty put her hands to her face.

  Circe nodded, unable to speak.

  ‘How despicable, how bestial! What happens to so-called civilised people?’

  Circe cleared her throat. ‘I would have to think that when war breaks out, Humanity goes and buries her head. The good part about it is that he was saved – rescued by a woman, apparently. At least this is what they gathered from Michael before he retreated into what appears to be eternal silence. A woman, who was some sort of camp follower it’s supposed, a woman called Marie – she took pity on him and when the soldiers had gone and left their victim to die, she rescued him, and somehow – and I don’t know the fine details – she tended his wounds and returned him to the British troops, to a field hospital where they learned what had happened to him, and duly sent him home to recover.’

  There was more, of course, inevitably. Whatever the truth of the story, however embellished or imagined it might or might not have been, it seemed from the end of the report that those who had come to see Michael now wanted him moved, ruling that although physically he had recovered entirely from the wounds inflicted on him, his mental health gave rise to too much anxiety.

  Everyone concerned with the welfare of the men at Bauders knew what this meant, that Michael would have to be transferred to some sort of mental institution, the sort of place from which he would have little hope of any immediate release.

  Some, however, suspected there was more to it than that, Partita in particular.

  ‘Seems to me from what one gathers that the politicos are at pains to step up the propaganda no matter what,’ she heard her recently returned father saying as he and Circe sat by the fireside late one evening, while she herself, unknown to them, had fallen asleep in a large winged chair down the bottom of the room. ‘It seems to me the idea is to turn the enemy into some sort of amoral fiend, sort of fellow who goes round ravishing the maidenhood of every country he conquers, who tortures and mutilates his prisoners and who will not rest until the entire world is under his yoke. I don’t happen to think that it is quite so. I have had a lot of dealings and so on with some of these people who are now our sworn enemy – through no great fault of our own – and I hasten to add that I find most of them all too civilised. While one recognises that there are differences between us, just as much as there are differences between us and our allies, we are basically all very much the same when all is said and done. I’m not happy with all this propaganda machinery, telling our chaps things that simply are not true. There are fair tricks and there are dirty tricks. I think it is a perfectly fair trick to make it appear that there are thousands of Russian troops making their silent way through the heartland of England, preparatory to launching an offensive against the enemy from t
he South Coast, in order to draw as many enemy divisions away from the Front as possible for them to watch their backs – fair enough. That I call tactics. But I do not consider it fair to put stuff about concerning the appearance of God’s messengers on the field of battle so that we might appear to have God fighting in our colours, nor do I consider it right and proper to – what’s the word?’

  ‘What word are you looking for, John?’ Circe enquired, looking up from her knitting.

  ‘What one does with information, that’s what – disseminate, that’s the word. The very thing, dissemination. No, I do not consider it correct to disseminate these untruths about torture and mutilation and make them out as being biblical in their veracity. This can only lead to an unfairly deep hatred of the enemy, and if that is the case, dearest dear, it will only lead to yet more wars of this kind of ferocity and size.’

  ‘Don’t you think we should be fighting this war, John?’

  ‘What I think is that this war should never have happened. But now that it has, we have no real alternative. By the time the politicians had woken up and got out of bed, it was too damn late. That is what I think.’

  ‘They want us to return one of our patients.’ Circe put her knitting down. ‘They want to move the man I told you about, Michael Bradley.’

  ‘Yes, I happen to have found out all about that,’ John replied. ‘Been trying to put a stop to it. It’s all part of the thing I’ve been talking about. I dare say they are planning to use the poor chap as some sort of tool against the enemy, all in the cause of propaganda. It’s turning another nation into devils. All wrong, all wrong.’

  ‘He’s a sick man, John. I’m sure we can mend him here, finally, but we need time; and if they either lock him away or put him on parade as this freak show you’re talking about, then I really see no hope for him. I want him to stay here, John.’

  ‘See what I can do, my love – promise you that.’

  ‘And if you can’t? If you can’t do anything?’

  ‘Then perhaps you should,’ John replied carefully. ‘Although of course you didn’t hear me say that. Or anything like it.’