Between Friends

by Audrey Howard

  Meg had another worry now as the war got into its stride. As men left for the front there was far more work for women to do and opportunities to demonstrate they could do it well. And the wages! £2 a week to work in a munitions factory which was more than double the amount they could hope to earn in service. They flocked to the auxiliary branches of the armed services, they worked on the land, as nurses, clerks and typists and Meg’s maidservants, sadly, they told her, for she had been good to them in the short while they had worked for her, felt the need to get in on the bonanza, and, of course, do their bit to aid the war effort!

  So there was only Edie, and Jenny Swales, who lived near by and was ‘walking out’ with a coal miner, a restricted occupation and therefore unlikely to go into the army, the little skivvy, only just fourteen who worked in the kitchen, and Meg, for even the handsome young receptionist had been called to enlist in the service of his country.

  Meg had been forced, regretfully, to turn away guests for how could the four of them do what a staff of a dozen and more, had done before the war. She did the cooking still, and Edie and Jenny cleaned and served in the dining-room, doing the work of four, whilst in the kitchen the young maid squared her shoulders and ran like a hare from oven to table to sink in an effort to keep up with Miss Hughes’ orders. Half the lovely suites were closed up and the furniture swathed in dust sheets but still Meg sighed through the days for nothing was important now but the safe return of her love. The winter was setting in and Derbyshire was a long way from London, where the young officers on leave from France went and so she waited, and dreamed her dreams contained in her world, indolent and filled with a strange languor.

  It was in September that the elderly gentleman appeared, speaking most courteously to Ethel, the young skivvy from the kitchen of ‘Hilltops’. It was her afternoon off and she had gone blackberrying that day with her younger brother. They were up the lane which led to Addlestones Farm, their booted feet deep in lady’s smock and wood-sorrel, their fingers and lips blue with the juice from the dewed, sun-smelling berries, their baskets already half filled. Alfie was propounding on the nuisance of being so young and considering with Ethel whether the war would last long enough for him to get in it. Did he look sixteen, he begged her to tell him anxiously, his thirteen-year-old frame striving for another inch or two, but Ethel took no notice, the voice of her brother just a constant irritant on the perimeter of her thoughts but when it stopped she was surprised and turned to look at him.

  He was standing, awkwardly holding his basket, his eyes on the immaculately turned out gentleman who had appeared – from where, Ethel thought wildly – in the exact centre of the dusty lane. He wore a tweed jacket and well-cut breeches with brightly polished boots. He carried a stout walking stick and on his head was a soft felt hat in tweed with a wide brim. He was the perfect country gentleman and Ethel stared about her, looking for his horse, or his carriage, or even his motor car but there was nothing, only himself.

  He smiled and for some reason Alfie moved nearer to his sister.

  ‘I’m sorry, did I startle you,’ the gentleman said.

  ‘We were blackberrying,’ Ethel replied as though in explanation.

  ‘So I see, and what fine ones they are. Just right for a pie.’ There seemed to be no answer to this so neither youngster spoke up.

  ‘I am out for a walk.’ The gentleman turned to look about him, studying the rolling hills, the low sheltered valleys, the rippling grasses which stirred in the breeze and the soft, hazed blue of the sky. It had rained in the night and the earth smelled damp and on the bramble bushes, diamond drops glittered where the sun’s rays caught them.

  ‘It really is a beautiful day,’ he continued affably, ‘and just right for a walk but I appear to have missed my turn.’ He smiled and again young Alfie seemed inclined to huddle closer to Ethel. ‘I am to visit a friend of mine … Miss Hughes of the “Hilltop Hotel”. Perhaps you know her?’

  At the mention of her employer’s name Ethel’s suspicious face broke into a smile and she gave Alfie an irritable shove, her expression asking what the devil he thought he was doing, crowding up to her like a baby, and him wanting to be a soldier!

  ‘Oh aye.’

  ‘You mean you know her?’

  ‘I work for her.’

  ‘Well, imagine that! What a coincidence! In what capacity?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘What do you do at the hotel, Miss … er …?’

  ‘Ethel.’

  ‘… er Ethel …?’

  ‘I work in the kitchen.’

  ‘Indeed. That sounds a very important job.’

  Ethel preened. ‘Oh aye. Miss Hughes says I’m her right-hand man … or woman, now that the rest of the servants have gone to fight the Germans.’ She became expansive, rounding out her routine, often menial work until it became as important in her fourteen-year-old mind as the cooking done by Miss Hughes. ‘Well, I have to be really ’cause there’s only Mrs Marshall and Jenny now that Mr Tom’s gone …’

  ‘Aah … Mr Tom!’

  ‘And all the other girls have left to make bombs so I have to do their jobs an’ all.’

  ‘My word, you must work hard, particularly with Mr Tom in … where has he gone now … I have forgotten for the moment.’

  ‘Edinburgh. They’re teaching him to be a soldier, Miss Hughes says and then she has to see to the field …’

  ‘The … field …?’

  ‘Oh yes! Where they make airyplanes, Jenny said …’

  ‘Aeroplanes?’

  ‘Yes,’ she explained patiently, ‘those things what fly in the air.’

  ‘Oh, of course, and why does she do that. One would imagine she has enough to do without … seeing to the … er … aeroplanes.’

  Ethel became confidential then, carried away by her own importance, by the thrill of having her own voice listened to by a grown-up, and liking the sound of it herself, and with the delight all those who gossip have in passing on information, usually blown up out of all proportion to the the truth.

  ‘Well, Jenny said that this chap who’s a friend of Mr Tom’s and Miss Hughes builds them and he’s gone …’

  ‘Gone! Gone where?’

  Ethel blinked and hesitated for it suddenly occurred to her that this man, gentleman or not, was asking an awful lot of questions, but then, as she said later to Alfie, he was a friend of Miss Hughes so what harm could there be in chatting to him?

  ‘He’s gone to France in his airyplane.’

  ‘Has he now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, that is most interesting and I don’t suppose you know where in France?’

  ‘I just told you, France!’

  ‘Of course … well, I must be off since I fear it is to rain.’

  ‘Will I show you the way to “Hilltops”, sir?’ Ethel said, reluctant to part with this gentleman who found her own conversation so fascinating.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll find it …’

  ‘But sir …’

  ‘Thank you. Good afternoon to you.’

  The war was going well, they said, those who knew and the Germans had discovered they could not get through the British Army as easily as they had marched through Belgium. At the first battle of the Marne the German advance was checked by the British Expeditionary Force, and by the French under Marshal Joffre. Not only were they stopped they were forced to retreat across the River Aisne. The Germans’ attempt to reach the Channel was similarly thwarted by the first battle of Ypres and the people were jubilant, trying to get their tongues round the strange name with no idea of how familiar it was to become to a nation in which most households were to lose a husband, a father or a son there over the years.

  The final attack on Ypres began on 20th October and with the arrival of reinforcements in November, the Germans ceased their attempts to break the line. Both armies dug into their trenches and waited, surely, for the end of the hostilities to be declared.

  Letters came from Martin. There
was not much doing, he said for there were not many of them to do it! There were in Great Britain at the start of the war only 862 men who held the Royal Aero Club’s flying certificate and of those only 55, himself included, were sufficiently advanced to be considered for active service. Despite this they had gone to war with 197 pilots. They earned seven and sixpence a day as officers and got an additional four shillings daily as flying pay.

  ‘We shall be millionaires by the war’s end at this rate, sweetheart,’ he wrote, ‘and well able to afford that diamond ring I promised you by Christmas. I am almost sure of leave then for I will have done three and a half months service and if I am able I shall fly home, so tell old Knowsley to have the runway ready at the airfield. About the investments you mentioned. Do just whatever you think fit, my love. It will be your business as well as mine when we are married and you have become as sharp as any businessman I know, and better!’

  She kept his letters beneath her pillow and, smiling at her own foolishness, tied them together with a white satin ribbon as was traditional with love missives, putting them to her face and smelling what she was certain was the fragrance of his cigars on them. She worked hard, as hard as she had ever done, in keeping open a part of her hotel and her health was superb. She seemed to bloom that autumn, her love giving her a gloss and polish, a dancing, sparkling vitality which had the quality of a firework, a shooting star, and yet the delicate wonder of a simple, pink-tipped daisy. The war would be over soon, she believed, for was that not what everyone was saying and perhaps Tom would not even get to France. Martin would be home and together they would face the task of telling Tom how it was between them. It was the only sadness she bore and it was heavy but they would overcome it, the three of them, as they had always done.

  The dog began to vomit about midnight. Awakened by the sound of his pitiful howling Meg stumbled down the stairs to the small back room used for storing all the paraphernalia which had not yet had a home found for it and where he slept, afraid he would waken the guests. Perhaps he had scented some intruder, a fox or one of the nocturnal creatures which lived in the woods beyond the boundary of the hotel, on the forage at the dustbins in the yard.

  He died with his head in her lap, his eyes, even in his agony, begging her forgiveness for the mess he had made on her carpet. Edie sat with her and when he had gone she helped to lift his heavy body into the cold dawn of the back yard, and beyond to the garden. She would bury him under the branches of the tree where he had liked to lie in the summer, sheltered from the sun’s heat, Megan declared, the tears streaming desolately across her drawn cheeks for she had developed a great fondness for him in the four years he had been with them.

  ‘Nay love, Albert will do it. ’Tis too hard for you. The soil is heavy at this time of the year,’ Edie protested and drew her away and when Meg went later that morning the dug ground had a sprig of fading heather laid on it and she felt comforted.

  It did not occur to her to wonder why he had died and in such obvious pain until mid-afternoon. He had been an elderly dog with grey hairs in his muzzle and she had supposed his time had come, but why had he suffered such agony, she thought? She was preparing the ‘Fillet of Veal au Bechamel’ which was on the menu for the evening meal. Edie had roasted the fillet the day before and had cut out the middle when it had gone cold. The meat taken out had been minced, mixed with forcemeat and Meg was adding the bechamel preparatory to returning the mixture to the meat, sprinkling the whole with breadcrumbs and clarified butter before browning the dish in the oven to be served hot. Edie was grating breadcrumbs beside her.

  ‘It’s strange he died so quickly and without warning,’ Meg said and with the words it was as though she had opened a door and allowed in a chink of light. Not enough to see by but sufficient to place an outline around her still quiescent thoughts.

  ‘He were an old dog, lass.’

  ‘I know, but he was fine last night when I let him in, begging as usual for a titbit and lively as a puppy.’

  ‘’Appen he ate something he shouldn’t. A rotten apple or rubbish he picked up in the wood. Them toadstools are reckoned to be poisonous you know.’

  ‘Yes, I know, but he’s never eaten them before. Why should he do it now?’

  ‘Nay, I don’t know, lass. ’Tweren’t as though he was hungry. Not after what he had last night.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘I gave him the left-overs from what we cut out of this veal for his supper and by heck, did he enjoy it!’

  The door in her mind creaked open further and though she could not as yet make out the clear shape of the horror she knew awaited her, it was there, smirking and obscene and in a moment the full force of it would be upon her. She stepped back from the meat she was stuffing as though it had burnt her fingers.

  Edie turned towards her, amazed.

  ‘What’s up, lass? What is it? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.’

  ‘Oh Edie … Dear God …’ she could do no more than whisper.

  ‘What … for God’s sake what is it?’ Edie was badly frightened by now.

  ‘The veal!’

  ‘The veal! What’s up with the veal?’

  ‘Did it come from Mr Talbot?’

  ‘Of course!’

  ‘Can you swear to it?’

  ‘I saw his van meself.’

  She telephoned Mr Talbot who was most bewildered, swearing he had delivered no veal to Miss Hughes for at least a fortnight, and what one of his vans was doing up her way yesterday he could not imagine, and he would certainly get to the bottom of it and if one of his men was up to no good …

  Her face was as colourless and damp as the dough Jenny was kneading and the room and its occupants held their breath in dreadful anticipation for surely she was about to impart something of a quite appalling nature but all she said was, ‘Burn that veal, Edie, and I shall personally check every particle of food, and where it came from in future. Do you understand?’

  Edie didn’t but she did as she was told without question for there were some strange things in her employer’s past and they had nothing to do with her, so she shut up Jenny’s excited curiosity with a sharp word and told her to mind her own business, which she herself intended to do!

  Megan Hughes huddled in her bed that night, listening in her head to his dreadful laughter and thought she would never get warm again.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  THE FIRST AIRCRAFT to fly over the English Channel in support of the British Army in the field took off from Swingate Downs, near Dover on 13th August 1914. The first British reconnaissance flight over German territory was carried out by a lieutenant and a captain of number four squadron, the Royal Flying Corps, on 19th August 1914 and the first aircraft to be brought down in action was one belonging to number five squadron the Royal Flying Corps, on 22nd August 1914. The aircraft was shot down by rifle fire from troops in Belgium. The first Royal Flying Corps air victory took place on 25th August 1914, when two unarmed aircraft of number two squadron forced a German two seater to land.

  On 10th November, two months after he arrived at St Omer, France, Lieutenant Martin Hunter took off in his own aircraft, the ‘Wren’ to fly over enemy lines. With him was another young airman, in a Blériot monoplane. Their orders were to reconnoitre the enemy’s territory and to report back to their Company Commander what they had seen.

  The war was young. There was still enthusiasm and a certain feeling that they were boys, playing boy’s games, heightened by the fact that they slept in barns, used aircraft as windbreaks, ate in a tent – the mess – all giving the impression that they were almost on holiday and camping. The patrol went out at certain times of the day, depending on orders from wing headquarters and on this particular day the two airmen had been selected for the dawn patrol.

  ‘Good Luck,’ they wished one another, shaking hands enthusiastically, two handsome young men in the prime of their manhood, excited, warriors off to war, afraid for they were not fools, but nevertheless willin
g to go for they were both lovers of the frail aircraft they flew, and firm believers in their contribution in the war they were fighting. There were those who scoffed, asking what possible use these flimsy war birds could have in the destroying of the enemy and so far no-one could answer but at least they could observe, it was said.

  The two young men were equipped with maps and instruments and told to pin-point the enemy’s trenches to a depth of three miles inside their lines, to keep their eyes open for troop movements and anything they thought might be useful, for truthfully, this new war, being only three months old, those in charge were not awfully certain on how to go about it.

  The Blériot monoplane was sighted an hour later and those on the ground who watched it land were surprised at the shakiness of it for the man who flew it, though he had been out here only a matter of days, was an experienced pilot who had flown for at least a year back in England.

  When the first mechanic reached him, for he made no attempt to leave his aircraft, the young pilot was weeping quite openly, the tears collecting inside his goggles. When he was coaxed to remove them he rubbed his eyes like a child and the oil which covered his face streaked and ran and he looked no more than fifteen.

  ‘Sir?’ the mechanic said, at a loss what to do next for his officer seemed close to hysteria. ‘Sir, why don’t you … why don’t you get down, sir?’ He was embarrassed but filled with a strange pity for the young man was distraught.

  They got him to the ‘mess’ and gave him a brandy and his teeth chattered on the glass. The commanding officer was patient for the young pilot was no more than a boy really, straight from his public school, the son of a quite famous father, privileged and, knowing how to fly, one of the first to volunteer for the relatively new Royal Flying Corps.