No Greater Love

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  They gave up their bed in the corner and moved into the loft, while Jimmy slept on the sofa in the cottage.

  ‘I’ll make us a proper bed,’ George promised as they nestled down in the straw.

  ‘I love you, Geordie,’ Maggie murmured into his shoulder. ‘You’re a canny, canny man.’

  They left the skylight open to the mild night air with its scents of roses and clover and newly cut logs and chickens and gazed up at the stars. For two weeks they continued to enjoy their rustic freedom and the dry balmy evenings. After the sweat and toil of the forge, George would hasten up the hill and out of the dusty, hot streets as fast as he could, while Maggie stayed close to home, attending her grandmother and impatient for his return.

  He stopped bringing newspapers home, as if that could stem the rumours of war and the quickening excitement flowing out of the town. Jimmy would return with reports of activity at the barracks and grave talk along the quayside and he elected to sleep outside wrapped in a blanket, saying he was preparing for a life on the march.

  ‘Well, you can forage for your own food then, Private Beaton,’ Maggie told him. ‘I’ll have no talk of foreign wars in my house.’

  After three days of thunderstorms, Jimmy beat a retreat inside and spent the next two days sneezing by the fire, his head disappearing under a blanket to infuse the steam from a bowl of hot water.

  ‘It’ll not be that wet abroad,’ Jimmy muttered at Maggie’s amused face. ‘You don’t catch your death in hot countries.’

  Maggie shivered at his words and told him sharply to eat some soup.

  But the following day, Jimmy’s war games were overshadowed by the arrival of the police. Maggie had not reported back at the expiry of her licence and they had come to re-arrest her.

  It was all so calmly and politely done compared to the awful scene at Gun Street. George was at work and Jimmy was out in the garden, digging up some vegetables. He came running in to gawp at the policemen. Maggie bent and kissed her grandmother on her capped head and said mildly to her brother, ‘Take care of Granny till I come back.’

  She kissed him too as she passed and walked meekly out of the cottage that had become such a dear home to her and George. As she said a silent farewell to Hibbs’ Cottage, Maggie was thankful that George was not there. She could not have borne such a parting.

  That day the view from the hill was clear, a strong west wind blowing the smoke from the chimneys downriver. The Tyne shimmered in the strong sun like a band of steel, binding the communities on both its banks - Scotswood to Blaydon, Elswick to Dunston. They all lived off its strength, Maggie thought, feeling a pull of belonging yet already detached from the world before her.

  Somewhere down in the bustling industrial sprawl at the river’s edge George was labouring over a new ship for Pearson’s. Perhaps it would be used in the war that everyone was talking about as if it were a certainty. But one day it would either rust or break up on the sea bed. Maggie was struck by how transitory human existence was. All the struggles and desires and achievements - what were they for?

  As they approached a waiting van at the bottom of the track, Maggie looked at the river for the last time, trying to imprint its curves and patterns in her mind. There was the symbol of permanence that she sought, right before her very eyes, she realised. The River Tyne. Whatever happened, she comforted herself, the river that had been a part of her existence since her earliest memories would always be there.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Alice went out with her camera to the High Level Bridge to capture the excitement. It was a bank holiday and the town was full of people standing around the streets talking and speculating. Rumours of war abounded. This morning’s newspapers had reported Germany’s declaration of war on Russia and France and it was believed the Germans were sweeping through Luxembourg towards France at this very moment.

  Alice found the bridge guarded by soldiers and as soon as they saw her with her tripod and camera, they warned her away.

  A paper-seller beside her spat and spoke. ‘They’ve arrested a lad this morning. Marched him off to the guardroom at the station.’

  ‘What was he doing?’ Alice asked.

  ‘Drawings of the bridge,’ the man answered with a sombre nod.

  ‘That’s hardly a crime,’ Alice said in astonishment.

  ‘Aye, but he was spying!’ the man said with glee. ‘Doing drawings for the Kaiser.’

  Alice shook her head in disbelief and strode off towards Central Station where crowds were gathering. Reservists had been asked to return to the colours and there was worried talk down on the quayside that boats and cargoes abroad had been seized by the Germans. But around the entrance to the station, all were in a state of joyful frenzy. A special train was leaving for Chatham with naval reservists on board and they were being given a tumultuous send-off. Women wept, boys threw their caps in the air and men clapped them on the shoulder and wished them luck.

  ‘And war hasn’t even been declared,’ Alice said under her breath, quite overwhelmed by the passion of the people.

  She felt a stab of envy for the ordinary townsfolk, showing their uninhibited support for their men. For a moment she revelled in being a part of the show of patriotism, proud to be there at the departure of the first sailors and soldiers. It gave her a sense of belonging after the months of aimlessness following Herbert’s election to the House of Commons. Her brother had soon made it clear he had no more need of her and Felicity was running Hebron House once more. Herbert was away all week in London, while Felicity entertained her friends, filling the house with loud ragtime music and acrid tobacco smoke. At weekends they threw extravagant parties and gambled late into the night.

  Alice felt she was tolerated rather than welcomed at such affairs and so chose to dine alone in her rooms or take herself out to the theatre. She felt bitter at her rejection by Herbert but even angrier that he had not kept his promise of involving her more in the business. Increasingly she escaped to Oxford Hall where she pushed her invalid father out in his wheelchair and talked politics, while a delighted Rosamund barked and chased after butterflies.

  On her last visit, her father had struggled to say, ‘If there’s a war with the Kaiser, Herbert will need your help. We won’t be able to make ships and armaments fast enough. Your time will come, Alice.’

  She had sensed his frustration with his half-paralysed body and his slurred speech and had bent to kiss him tenderly on the head.

  ‘He’ll need your advice too, Papa,’ she assured him, though they both knew Herbert would never do anything his father advised.

  Standing now among the smell and press of scores of bodies, Alice felt ambition stir for the first time in months. If war broke out as everyone predicted, she thought, she would do something to help. As yet she did not know what, but she would do something.

  Emerging from the station into the light of a sunny August day, she saw a silver-haired man being marched between two soldiers, with a gaggle of booing boys in their wake.

  ‘Spy! Spy!’ they taunted the frightened man. ‘Dirty rotten Hun!’

  Alice felt a moment of misgiving, then shrugged it off. It was necessary to be vigilant against the enemy and there were bound to be Germans living in Newcastle who would be sympathetic to the Kaiser. They must learn swiftly that Great Britain with her mighty empire would not be cowed by German aggression and that every Briton would rally to the country’s defence if war were declared.

  ***

  George was digging in the garden when a breathless Jimmy came scrambling up the path shouting, ‘We’re at war with Germany!’

  George paused for a moment to push back his cap. ‘Bloody daft!’ he muttered and carried on digging, aware of Jimmy’s deflated look.

  Jimmy said, ‘Don’t you want to come and watch the soldiers leave?’

  ‘No,’ George replied curtly. ‘I’ve better things to do with the holiday than watch folk gettin’ hysterical over uniforms.’

  ‘That’s not very patr
iotic,’ Jimmy answered in disappointment. ‘You should be proud of our lads going to fight for our freedom.’

  George thrust his spade into the soil and looked up.

  ‘Freedom? What freedom?’ he cried savagely. ‘We’re wage slaves to the bosses and now the bosses are packing us off to fight against the German working man. Aye, that makes me really proud!’

  George saw the look of incomprehension on the youth’s face and wanted desperately to make him understand.

  ‘Can’t you see, Jimmy? It’s not a war about our freedom, it’s a power struggle between rulers and bosses wanting more land, more power. The likes of you and me are just cannon fodder in their daft war. We should have nothing to do with it, let alone be supporting it! The only fight that concerns the working man is the one the trades unions are fighting against the bosses. That’s the only struggle I’m bothered about - and I don’t give a toss if they’re British bosses or German!’

  But by the hostile look on Jimmy’s face, George could tell the boy understood nothing of what he was trying to say. He sighed and went back to his gardening.

  ‘I always thought you were brave,’ Jimmy said accusingly, ‘but you haven’t got the stomach for a fight, have you? You’re all talk. Well, I’m proud to be English and I’d join up the morra if I was old enough!’

  ‘Be thankful you’re not,’ George grunted.

  ‘Well, I’m not thankful,’ Jimmy huffed ‘War’ll be over before I can gan. It’s not bloody fair!’

  ‘Stop your moaning and gan to the fish shop for some herring,’ George ordered with a friendly cuff. He pulled a sixpence out of his pocket. ‘Your gran likes a bit herring, and we’ll have some o’ these new tatties, eh?’

  Jimmy took the coin with a scowl. George watched him stomp off down the hill, hands thrust into his over-large jacket, and realised he had proved a great disappointment to Maggie’s young brother.

  The boy had shown his affection and admiration since coming to live at the cottage, eager to run errands for him and learn what he could about the work of a blacksmith. George had approached the smith at the forge where he had learned his trade and the man had allowed Jimmy to watch him and do small jobs around the smithy. But Jimmy was still so scrawny and immature; George was worried that the boy’s head might be turned by all this war hysteria. What if he were to run away and try to join up while Maggie was still in prison? He felt responsible for the lad and did not want to see him come to any harm.

  ‘Oh, Maggie,’ he sighed to the sky, ‘I need you here, lass.’ Then he went on digging.

  By Friday and the return to work, George could no longer cut himself off from the quickening pace of war preparations. The shipyard and the pubs buzzed with the news. There were lengthening queues outside the co-operative store and the bakers, as panic buying of flour and sugar and other staples spread.

  By Saturday, Newcastle was declared a ‘prohibited port’, with no one allowed off ship without a permit from the Customs House. Schools were taken over as billets for the army and recruiting offices were mobbed by volunteers. Cinemas advertised special films entitled England’s Might and Boys of the Bulldog Breed which Jimmy rushed off to see. Motor wagons were requisitioned for ambulances and horses were taken over by the military in large numbers. Soldiers were given free train travel and George was disgruntled to notice that those in uniform were admitted free to the baths.

  The unwelcome news that HMS Amphion had been struck by a mine and sunk with over a hundred men lost was swiftly followed by jubilation that a German cruiser had been sunk off the Tyne by a British destroyer, HMS Lance. Young boys dashed around the back streets, shooting each other with imaginary revolvers and falling mock-dead at George’s feet, but he was more concerned by the jingoism that had led to a German pork butcher’s shop being set on fire at New Bridge Street. The town seemed gripped by a fever.

  A visit to his family had ended in a blazing row with his father and siblings about the war. Billy, already in the Territorial’s, had reported to the depot and Joshua was eagerly talking of joining up. A heated argument had flared, with his sister Irene telling him to wash his mouth out with soap and water for saying King George was nearly as German as the Kaiser. His father had called him a traitor and told his brothers to ‘hoy ’im oot!’ Punches had been exchanged and George had left with a bloody nose and the neighbours jeering.

  In search of sanity, he had gone the next evening to Isaac and Miriam’s, but found them tense and nervous in their small flat and reluctant to let anyone in.

  ‘But you’ve nowt to fear,’ George had said in astonishment, ‘you’re Russian!’

  Isaac gave a dispirited shrug. ‘Simple people do not know the difference. They hear my accent, my name, and they think I’m a spy. Everywhere there is suspicion - and ignorance. It is just as it was in Russia for us Jews. Now we are not wanted here.’

  For once Miriam was vocal. ‘Isaac was arrested last week on his way to the synagogue,’ she told him. ‘They came here and went through all his papers before he was allowed to go. But they found an old ticket from Hamburg - it’s where we got the boat for Newcastle when we escaped. I didn’t even know we’d kept it. But they kept on at Isaac to produce a return ticket, still thinking him a spy. When they couldn’t find one, they left.’ Miriam shuddered deeply. ‘But they said they might come back.’

  George looked at his elderly friend, appalled. ‘If they give you any more trouble, I want to know,’ he answered angrily. ‘This war’s turning England into a police state. They’ve already made it plain at the shipyard they want no agitation. This war’s a godsend to the bosses.’

  Isaac sighed. ‘I don’t know about that. All I do know is that your people do not want a foreign music teacher any more. My students are joining up or staying away. Perhaps it is time for Miriam and me to move on.’

  ‘But where would you go?’ George asked anxiously. ‘Russia is at war now too.’

  ‘We’d never go back to Russia,’ Miriam said with feeling. ‘But we have a cousin in New York. Perhaps if we sold everything...’

  George looked at their bleak, resigned faces and did not know how to reassure them. He could stand up for himself, but how could he defend his friends from the creeping prejudice and rumour that was choking their livelihood? As for the tide of patriotism rising in the country, it threatened to drown all opposition to the war. Even in his own home it lapped around them, causing a growing gulf between himself and Jimmy.

  A week after the start of the war, the boy came home brandishing a newspaper at George.

  ‘Your King and coun-try needs you,’ he read out haltingly. ‘A call to arms. Kit-chen-er is con-fid-ent it will be res-ponded to by all - those - who have the safe-ty of our Em-pire at heart. God Save the King!’

  ‘Aye,’ George grunted, ‘that’s all they’re bothered about, saving the empire.’

  ‘The first soldiers have sailed for France,’ Jimmy announced, ignoring the remark, ‘Uncle Barny said.’

  George looked up. ‘You been seeing your uncle and aunt again?’

  ‘Aye. Uncle Barny’s been telling me stories about the Fusiliers. That’s who I’m going to join.’

  ‘Well, look what happened to your uncle - got his leg shot off for his trouble,’ George pointed out.

  ‘I’m not scared of getting’ wounded,’ Jimmy said with disdain. ‘I’m prepared to die for me country. Me and Smithy, we’ve made a pact to join up together.’

  ‘Smithy!’ George laughed. ‘He’s just out of short britches.’

  Jimmy threw down the newspaper. ‘Don’t laugh at us!’ the boy cried and stormed out of the cottage.

  That evening, George went for a long walk across Hibbs’ fields, up the valley, among the ripening corn. He had paid one of the dairymaids to come in and bathe Granny Beaton and sit with her twice a week so that he could have the odd evening to himself. The old woman was becoming too much for him to look after and Jimmy was increasingly absent and of little help. Soon he would have to consider
taking Agnes Beaton back to the workhouse.

  The future seemed so grim for them all and with war occupying his mind, George turned morosely for home.

  It was half dark by the time he reached Hibbs’ Cottage and all was quiet. He called for Jane, the dairymaid, but no one answered. Cursing the girl for having slipped away early, George strode into the cottage and saw the old woman lying asleep in the corner bed.

  ‘And where the devil have you been?’

  George started at the voice. A figure rose from the chair by the dying fire and turned to face him.

  ‘Maggie?’ he gasped.

  ‘Aye, Geordie, they’ve hoyed me oot.’ He could not see her face clearly in the gloom, but the amusement in her voice was clear.

  She stepped towards him and in a moment his arms were about her, squeezing her close to him so that she protested she could not breathe.

  ‘Maggie! Oh, Maggie!’ He picked her up and swung her round. ‘It really is you!’

  ‘Well, I hope you wouldn’t be doing this for that lass from the dairy I found here,’ Maggie teased.

  ‘Only on Saturdays,’ George teased her back.

  They kissed in relief and delight.

  ‘But why didn’t you send word you were being freed?’ George demanded. ‘You’re under licence again?’

  Maggie shook her head. ‘I’m not going back this time, Geordie. They’ve given us all a pardon - Mrs Pankhurst, all of us. It all happened that quickly. Mind you, it’s a bit of a cheek - pardon indeed! It’s the government should be asking us for a pardon!’

  George laughed and hugged her to him again.

  ‘That’s me fighting lass!’

  ‘Aye, well, that’s what Mrs Pankhurst is saying we should be doing now,’ Maggie told him, ‘fighting with the government and not against them in the war effort. She’s told us to be loyal to them and the country. At least that’s what it says in the paper the prison governor showed me.’