Ghost Soldier

by Theresa Breslin

  ‘Nor is mine,’ said a voice.

  ‘Can you read out the whole list?’ someone asked. ‘There’s a good lad.’

  Rob looked into the post office, hoping for help, but Mrs Shelby, the postmistress, was busy with a queue of customers.

  ‘You go on, Millie,’ he said to his sister. ‘Your friends Pearl and Daisy are waiting for you. Tell the teacher I’m going to be late.’

  Rob started to read the casualty list. He’d only called out six names when, from the back of the group, a young woman screamed. Rob knew her. She’d been married last year and was expecting a baby any day. She began to cry, sobbing loudly.

  ‘Are you sure?’ The older woman beside her pushed her way to the front. ‘Are you sure? Show me. Show me where it says his name.’

  Rob pointed to the line.

  ‘Spell it out,’ she said.

  Letter by letter, Rob spelled out her son’s name.

  ‘Ah.’ She placed her hands over her heart. ‘It’s true, then.’ She put her arm round the shoulder of her pregnant daughter-in-law and helped her away.

  Rob called eight more names before the same thing happened. Another woman came forward and asked him to point out her brother’s name. And so it went on – brother, son, husband, father identified – and the bereaved relative departing in despair. Then Rob realized that there was nothing wrong with their eyesight. The reason they’d asked him to read the list was because many people in the village could not read.

  Keeping his voice as steady as he was able, he got to the end. Of the twenty or so who had been gathered there, only three remained. The old shepherd, Tam, was not one of them.

  When Rob finally arrived at the school, his teacher didn’t give him a row. She merely nodded her head and indicated for him to sit down. His pal Kenneth whispered that someone had told her that Rob was standing outside the post office reading out the ‘killed in action’ list.

  Annie, the assistant, had already filled the inkwells from the big jar of ink beside the sink. Brow furrowed in concentration, she carried the rack from row to row to replace the full inkwell in each desk. As she passed down the aisle Jed, a boy who sat opposite Rob, deliberately nudged her so that the tray wobbled. The ink slopped over, dripping onto the floor.

  ‘Oh! Oh! Look what I’ve done. I’ve gone and spilled the ink.’ Annie’s bottom lip trembled. She looked anxiously towards Miss Finlay.

  Rob glared at Jed. Trust him to pick on someone weaker than himself.

  ‘Lay off!’ Kenneth hissed at Jed.

  Rob grabbed a piece of blotting paper and mopped up the puddle of ink.

  Annie gave the boys a big smile.

  But Miss Finlay was restless this morning. She had a handkerchief in her hand and was twisting it constantly between her fingers. The class was on alert for anything out of the ordinary in their teacher’s manner. It usually signalled a test or tables or a visit from a school inspector. All these were torture for Rob, for he wasn’t good at most school work.

  Miss Finlay stood up, straightened her shoulders, patted her already perfectly groomed hair, and clapped her hands. ‘I think we might do some singing,’ she announced.

  ‘Singing.’ Kenneth mouthed the word at Rob. They never had singing first thing in the morning. It was kept as a treat for after hard work, like sums or writing practice.

  ‘That’s correct,’ Miss Finlay said briskly. ‘I’ve said that the younger classes may engage in free art work today. While they get on with that, the top classes will sing.’ She went over to the piano in the corner and flung open the lid.

  Annie picked up a stack of song books from the windowsill and passed them out.

  Miss Finlay crashed some chords. ‘I’d like you to sing really loudly so that everyone in the village’ – she paused – ‘indeed, everyone in the whole country, can hear you.’

  At lunch time their teacher surprised them again by saying, ‘You may have extra playtime. I think it would be good for the village to hear children laughing on a day like this.’

  Rob and Kenneth found a quiet space in the school yard to sit and talk.

  Kenneth already knew that the hospital train had actually stopped in the valley. ‘My dad heard his bosses mention it. They reckoned that the engine wouldn’t be able to make it up Glebe Hill without taking on more water. The engine drivers have been told not to stop at public railway stations. It might upset people to see so many wounded soldiers.’

  ‘Mr Gordon said there used to be a water tank there,’ Rob said.

  Kenneth nodded. ‘My dad says there’s to be a proper water tank with a mechanical pump built below Glebe Hill so in the future the hospital trains can stop there. They’re expecting more coming up from the south soon.’

  More trains already! Rob’s heart rate quickened. Although he felt sorry for the men who were wounded, more trains meant more chances of finding out about his dad. Rob longed to let his friend know what he’d seen on the train, but he knew he mustn’t. Instead, he told him about Nurse Ethel Evans promising to keep a lookout and make a signal if she had any news.

  ‘Dad says they’ve constructed spur lines outside cities to take the trains directly to the military hospitals so they don’t go into main railway stations.’

  ‘There’s going to be so many.’ Rob lowered his voice. ‘Yet they’re still telling us we are winning the war.’

  Kenneth shrugged his shoulders. ‘My dad says we shouldn’t believe everything we read in the newspapers.’

  ‘What are you two whispering?’ The bulk of Jed’s shadow fell over the boys.

  Rob and Kenneth got to their feet. Jed was bigger and heavier than them, and if it came to a fight there was a good chance he’d beat them both. At break time he amused himself by charging around the yard pulling the girls’ hair. Rob had warned Millie: ‘Jed’s a bully, so best keep out of his way.’ Normally Rob and Kenneth avoided the playground if Jed was on one of his rampages. They hadn’t noticed him creeping up beside them.

  Rob ignored Jed and spoke directly to Kenneth. ‘Let’s go to the cloakroom.’

  Jed stuck his face up against Rob’s. ‘Your mum’s gone barmy,’ he mocked.

  Rob’s face went red. He pushed his hands into his trouser pockets. Dad’s advice had been to always try to talk your way out of a situation rather than get into a fight. But his dad had also said that sometimes you had to stand up for yourself. Jed had insulted his, Rob’s, mother. Rob bunched his fists and pulled them out of his pocket. ‘Take that back!’

  Millie stepped between them. ‘Rob, I need my scone. I left it in my desk. I’m too scared to go and get it ’cos we’ve not to go into the classroom at playtime.’ Rob hesitated. ‘Please, Rob, I’m hungry.’

  ‘That’s right. Off you go. Run along and find your sister’s scone.’

  Rob made to take a step forward, but Kenneth dragged on his arm. ‘If you fight him, you’ll get caned. He’s not worth it.’

  Reluctantly Rob allowed his sister and his friend to pull him away from Jed’s taunting voice. He went inside the school and walked quietly along the corridor to Millie’s classroom. It was the work of seconds to retrieve the scone from her desk. Rob breathed in relief. It was one of Miss Finlay’s pet hates to have children going in and out of the classroom during recess. On his way back Rob saw that his own classroom door was ajar. He wondered who’d had the nerve to disobey their teacher. Rob put his eye to the hinged part of the door where he could see into the classroom through the crack.

  Miss Finlay was sitting at her desk, head bowed. Before her lay the crumpled paper of a War Office telegram.

  With a sense of shock Rob recalled that one of the names he’d read out this morning on the ‘killed in action’ list was Sergeant-major Finlay – Miss Finlay’s father.

  Rob returned to where Millie was standing with her friends around the big metal stove the janitor fired up on cold days. They’d placed their tin mugs full of water to heat on the top. One of the girls dropped a blob of jam from her bread into
the mug to flavour the water and the rest copied her. They compared flavours and swapped cups. Kate Ward, who was in his class, smiled at him. Rob looked away. Ward had been another of the names on the list outside the post office.

  In the afternoon session Kate Ward’s mother and several other mothers and grandmothers came and took children home from the school early. Their surnames echoed in Rob’s head as Miss Finlay called them out of class – the same names he’d read from the casualty list.

  Although their teacher had permitted painting or silent reading, the atmosphere in the classroom became gloomy. Even Jed was quiet. Miss Finlay made no comment when he laid his head on his desk and fell asleep.

  On the way home from school Millie put her hand in Rob’s. Since she’d turned seven she rarely took his hand, but after the War Office telegram had arrived she had gone back to doing this.

  ‘Soldiers will shoot at the messenger dogs when they’re running across the battlefields,’ she said. ‘They’ll try to stop the dog delivering their message, won’t they?’

  Rob remembered what Nurse Evans had said about battlefield conditions. He felt sick in his stomach at the thought of the dogs and the horses in the mud.

  Millie was trying to be brave. ‘I suppose I shouldn’t make a fuss if it is going to make us win the war. I suppose the war will be over sooner if the dogs help. Maybe our puppies will be sent to where Daddy is. Maybe Daddy will see them or hear them barking and recognize them as Nell’s puppies. But I don’t think they should be allowed to take the baby pup.’

  Rob was only half listening as Millie chatted on.

  ‘I know you let me have the puppy ’cos it was the littlest. And I’m the littlest in our family. And he was quite feeble for the first few days. But Nell’s such a good mummy dog she gave that puppy special care. That’s why he’s alive.’

  ‘And also because you looked after him,’ Rob said.

  Millie smiled her thanks at his praise.

  ‘Of course you did,’ he went on stoutly. ‘You were very caring when he was born.’

  ‘It does seem a bit daft to have saved his life and then he gets sent to the war. But I suppose we must all make sacrifices.’

  Millie was repeating something she’d heard an adult say, Rob thought. ‘If it hadn’t been for you he wouldn’t have made it. The runt of a litter often dies.’

  Suddenly he stopped in the middle of the road.

  ‘What is it?’ Millie asked him.

  ‘Let’s get home as fast as we can,’ said Rob. ‘I’ve had a brilliant idea.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ‘ONE OF NELL’S puppies has died?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Rob’s eyes slid away from his mother’s face as he answered her. He found it hard to lie in normal circumstances, but almost impossible to do it to his mother.

  ‘I thought I should tell you. So you’d know that when the Army Procurement Officer comes round to get them, there will be one less.’

  ‘Oh.’ His mother’s voice sounded distant, even though she was only standing a few feet from him in the kitchen. Since the delivery of the War Office telegram it was as if, inside her head, she had moved and was living somewhere else.

  ‘It was the one I was going to give to Millie,’ Rob went on. ‘It was the smallest pup. The runt. The runt of a litter often dies.’

  ‘That’s true,’ his mum said slowly. She looked from Rob to Millie. ‘I’d have thought you’d be more upset.’

  ‘We all have to do our bit,’ Millie intoned.

  ‘What?’ Their mum looked bewildered.

  ‘A noble sacrifice for the war effort,’ Millie said.

  ‘It’s just something Millie’s heard a grown-up saying, or read on one of those government posters that Mrs Shelby has put up in the post office.’ Rob flashed his eyes at Millie. He didn’t want his mum to have to think too much about this. ‘We’re going to bury it in the back garden.’

  ‘You’ll need a box.’

  ‘I’ll find one,’ Rob said quickly. ‘There’s no need for you to bother. Can you remember to say to the Army Procurement Officer when he comes that one of Nell’s pups died?’ He patted his mother’s hand. ‘You go and lie down for a bit. I’ll leave Nell with you while Millie and I take care of everything that needs doing.’

  Rob waited until his mother had gone into her bedroom and closed the door before he went to the outhouse.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Millie asked as he packed wood, straw, nails, hacksaw, hammer, chicken wire and a host of other items into a large haversack. Then he picked up Millie’s pup and stowed him inside his jacket.

  ‘These things are going to help me deal with your puppy. Fill one of the small churns with water from the stand pipe in the yard and you can carry that.’

  ‘Where are we taking him?’ Millie gasped out the question as they ran from their cottage towards the hills.

  ‘There’s a big old house in the woods in the valley below Glebe Farm,’ Rob replied. ‘Mill House – the owners shut it up and moved somewhere else when their only son was killed at the beginning of the war.’

  ‘We can’t go there.’ Millie stopped. ‘It’s haunted. Everyone knows that.’

  ‘Because people say it’s haunted doesn’t mean it actually is. It’s mainly Jed that says things like that ’cos he lives over that way. He’s always trying to scare or annoy people.’

  ‘It’s not only Jed that says it,’ said Millie. ‘I’ve heard Mrs Shelby tell stories about the ghost of a dead soldier. The ghost soldier walks in his pale white shroud, sobbing and sighing, through the attic rooms of the house because that’s where his nursery was when he was a baby. She says she saw him when she and Annie were in the woods picking bluebells in the spring, so I know it’s true.’

  ‘That’s one of those tall tales people tell. You don’t believe in elves or brownies or fairies any more, do you?’

  ‘No-o,’ said Millie.

  Rob thought it likely that she did still believe in fairies. He’d heard Millie playing with her doll outside and nattering on about fairy rings. He’d seen her setting out flower-petal cups and plates made from leaves to have a tea party for tiny imaginary guests.

  ‘Come on, Millie,’ he urged her. ‘Forget about ghosts. If we want to save your puppy, we have to get to the woods and home again so that we can dig a pretend grave in our garden before the Army Procurement Officer arrives.’ Rob pulled the collar of his jacket higher to hide the pup, who’d pushed his head up from inside to see what was happening.

  ‘We might forget about ghosts,’ said Millie, ‘but this one doesn’t forget about us. Mrs Shelby says the ghost soldier cannot cross over to the other side ’cos he wasn’t able to save his friend from dying of his wounds. The spirit of the ghost soldier will not be at peace until he rescues another soldier from death.’

  ‘Then he can help us rescue our puppy,’ Rob snapped. ‘Are you coming, or aren’t you?’

  Rob wasn’t absolutely sure that there weren’t ghosts. But it was daylight and the woods glowed with the colours of late summer. Halloween, when spirits came out to haunt people, was weeks away. He strode off in the direction of Mill House.

  ‘Wait for me!’ Millie decided that keeping her puppy safe outweighed any fear of ghosts. She hurried to catch up.

  ‘We need to be careful that nobody sees us.’ Rob glanced around before going into the trees. There was no one there. Why then did he feel that someone was watching them? He paused. In addition to his sister’s footsteps there was another noise behind him. A soft tread over leaves, the slight scrunch of twigs. An animal? Deer came down from the hills . . . But only in colder weather when they were hungry. A fox maybe, or a badger . . . But those creatures hunted at night. Rob looked back. Dappled sunlight made patterns on the forest floor. The leaves were rustling as squirrels leaped from branch to branch gathering nuts for their winter store. Rob gave his head a shake to clear it of any lingering notions of spooks and spirits. They went on until they came to the high wall th
at contained the grounds of Mill House. The iron gates leading to the wide driveway of the house were locked shut.

  ‘We’ll circle round. There’s bound to be a place where we can get over the wall.’

  Rob’s eyes were drawn to the front of the house – to the attic windows where the ghost was said to be. He started to turn his head to speak to Millie, when—

  A flicker of movement.

  No blinds or drapes covered the attic windows. With the sun shining directly onto the house it was obvious there was nothing there. Yet Rob was sure he’d seen a blur of white.

  ‘Over here,’ Millie called to him. ‘There’s a tree fallen near to the wall.’ The old elm tree must have been blown over during a storm. Its upper branches, brushing against the wall, were strong enough to bear their weight as they hauled themselves to the top.

  From this vantage point Rob could see the house and gardens of the estate. Apart from those in the attic, the windows were firmly shuttered, the gardens overgrown and neglected. He realized that he wouldn’t be able to force an entry. But in the part of garden farthest from the house, deep among shrubbery, he could see the roof of a garden hut.

  ‘Let’s explore there.’ He led Millie along the side of the house and down a path that eventually ended in a thicket of trees, followed by dense rhododendrons and then a tangle of thorn bushes. They came to a halt.

  ‘It’s like the castle after the Sleeping Beauty had slept for a hundred years,’ said Millie.

  ‘Then it’s the perfect place to hide your dog,’ said Rob. ‘No one will ever find him here.’

  ‘We need a magic sword.’

  ‘Or a hacksaw.’ Rob opened up the haversack and took out the one he had packed. He went on his hands and knees and cut a tunnel through the bushes until they reached the hut. It was an old potting shed, but the roof and walls were intact. Rob pushed open the door, sending dozens of spiders scuttering away.

  ‘Yeuchh!’ said Millie.

  ‘Lend a hand.’ Rob issued instructions to his sister to divert her mind from what other beasties might be lurking in the corners. Millie held offcuts of wood while he nailed them together with chicken wire across the front to make a long cage for the puppy. One end he boxed off with a hinged flap, where he scattered the wood shavings. ‘You’ve got to train him to use that area as a toilet,’ he told Millie, ‘so that he keeps his living area clean.’