by Leah Fleming
Yet this war had to be won, though they weren’t doing much of a job here, and the bloody weather didn’t help. If only the fog would lift and air support could begin again. He glanced at the paper flyers dropped down on the Third Army, not propaganda, for once, but a prayer from no less a general than Patton himself: a prayer to shift the fog in their favour. Charlie almost laughed at the desperation this was showing.
Grant us fair weather for battle,
Graciously hearken to soldiers who call
Upon thee, that armed with that power
We may advance from victory to victory.
Where was the Lord in all this? Whose side was he on, if any? Charlie was too tired to think about anything but staying warm and keeping his feet from freezing. It was hard to dig in when the ground was rock hard and covered with snow, and still the barrage came, lifting him off the ground with its impact. All he could do was duck and pray.
When another shell landed close by, he felt nothing, but kept on firing his weapon. Then another one came closer, flinging shrapnel around him. Charlie felt no pain, nothing at first, everything was intact but he couldn’t lift his gun and then he saw there was no hand left to do the job. Someone pulled him into the back and pushed him towards the dressing station to get his stump bandaged before he lost too much blood. They gave him morphine and a transfusion and sent him back to an evacuation hospital, knocked him out to clean up the mess.
Charlie woke to a world that looked like a Christmas card, the telegraph poles outside his window sparkling like tinsel, a forest of Christmas trees, but the snowmen he’d met were storm troopers, their snowballs were grenades and being wet and numb with cold wasn’t much fun when you couldn’t run home to where a log fire burned and Mom’s cookie jar was waiting.
This was no Christmas party. Charlie stared down at his bandaged wound in disbelief. How the hell was he ever going to write home with his left hand?
Dearest Mom,
I wrote before about Charlie’s injury. I got to see him in hospital near London and he’s in good spirits. I think he’s still in shock at losing his right hand. He’ll be shipped out eventually to some hospital in California for amputees, but he’ll get some leave first.
I’m trying to get leave to be with him. He’s being such a brave spirit but his progress is slow and he gets so impatient. He is too proud to write to his parents at the moment so I have told them everything they need to know. It’s not the end of the world. It could have been far worse, believe me. You can live with only half an arm and they can do wonders with artificial limbs these days, but it will take time.
It has been a hard few months and the losses from the winter battle they call the Battle of the Bulge have been staggering. But the Germans are routed and racing back home to defend their own territory. It can’t be long now. They are exhausted and demoralised. We just have to hang on in there and see it through.
There are so many broken people to mend and the doodlebug rockets have made London a scary place to live. Have you made contact with the Wests like you said? Perhaps when Charlie comes home, we will all meet up together. Thank you for your wonderful parcel. Thank Lisa for the beautiful silk underwear and pretty dress. I shall be so glad to be out of uniform, one day, but for now it is like an armour I wear for protection. When I’m in the street I feel I’m flying the Red Cross flag for humanity and decency and compassion, and so lucky to have Charlie back safe in England for a while.
Your loving Shari
Selma shivered at all this young couple had been through together already. They made her feel ashamed of her easy life so far away from their troubles. A little bit of charity work wasn’t enough. She’d not bothered to make the effort to visit the Wests. Her excuse was the journey by train or bus was not absolutely necessary. The posters everywhere demanded sacrifice and savings. Now it was different.
Shari’s husband was going to need all the support of his family to overcome this blow. No point on standing on ceremony, the young couple must be welcomed home in style with a party gathering, a reunion. Weren’t two families blended into one by this marriage? It was going to be something to look forward to, to plan for, but first she must make the effort to go to Pennsylvania and seek out these elusive Wests.
‘The mother is coming to visit with us. She has plans to discuss their return.’ Rose read out the letter with a sigh. ‘Shall I put her off? It’s a long way for her to travel just to be told we’re not inclined to rejoice in the same way as she is doing. Charles, are you listening to a word I’ve said?’
Guy was staring out the window. So it had come, the moment of truth he’d been avoiding for months. ‘Oh, let her come and see for herself. We can’t put it off. For Charlie’s sake, we must make them all welcome.’
Rose had taken Charlie’s injury to heart. How would a man without his right hand be able to work the fields or guide horses, build barns or do the necessary repairs, she cried.
Guy tried to explain about artificial limbs and prosthesis, how in the Great War many limbless had found ways of getting round their loss by compensating with other parts of their bodies: toes became fingers, blind men read Braille and wheelchairs became legs.
If only their boy had resisted enlistment. But he was his father’s son, and impetuous, just as he himself had been. Now he would know better. He would understand how it felt to look hell in the face and realise there must be another way to keep peace among men. All Guy wanted now was to see his son home safe and well, and to meet the wife who had written to them so graciously, breaking the news of his injury with such delicacy. He liked the sound of Shari West, if her letters were anything to go by.
Rose was jealous that her son had left home so abruptly against their wishes and found a wife for comfort. Rose was hurting at his wounding, angry, shocked and confused. They were going to have to open their hearts to strangers, to English relatives, and he was going to have to face a ghost from his past.
‘Let her come, Rose. We can’t keep putting this off. We have to make a bridge between us all for the children’s sake. What happened in the past between us was none of their doing. Why should they suffer because of my mistakes? It’s time I faced Selma Bartley.’
‘She may not recognise you after all these years,’ Rose said.
‘I’m not that decrepit, surely?’ he laughed. ‘Do I look that old?’
‘I won’t feed your vanity. I don’t want her to steal your heart again.’ Rose looked up at him, revealing her fear, and he gathered her into his chest in a bear hug.
‘You have filled every crevice in my heart. There’s no room for anyone else. We were children then, just sweethearts for a season, just practising being in love.’
‘But your mother broke it up so it must have been strong. It didn’t run its course. It must still be there somewhere inside you, waiting to come out,’ she argued.
‘What happened, happened. It brought me here. I’ve no regrets…none at all. Only that it caused Selma pain for a little while. Come on, no more of this talk. Work’s got to be done. We don’t want Mrs Barr thinking we live in a mess. There’s fences to mend and yards to be tidied up!’
Guy was being bright and breezy but, like Rose, he was wishing this visit could be cancelled. He wasn’t looking forward to seeing that face from his past again.
Selma’s journey took several days, many connections and delays on trains and buses, until her backside ached, her feet swollen with the heat. Now she knew what a real pioneer must have felt like! She could have flown across but wanted to see more of the Midwest states. Lisa offered to come with her for company but she had her college work to prepare and was waiting for more news of Patrick, who was a POW somewhere on a South Pacific island.
She thought of that first overland journey all those years ago when she was so excited and naïve, so full of Jamie Barr. He was last heard of running a bar in Vegas, married to a showgirl there. Why had she never bothered to look for someone else, as Lisa had suggested?
She
smiled, thinking about all Pearl Levine’s lovers since Corrie died; all those Hollywood liaisons kept secret by the studio executives from their adoring fans, the fake marriages of homosexual stars to please the public. There was so much fakery and illusion in Tinseltown, such a long way from the Yorkshire Dales. What had she lost by going west and staying there?
Perhaps a bit of her true self. She had Shari and Lisa but not a lot else. She’d kept up some horsemanship, loved going to the races and driving around in Lisa’s open-top tourer, learning to drive.
She kept returning to Arizona to stake out her claim on the territory round Prescott. She loved its Victorian houses and prim streets. It reminded her of Sowerthwaite, in some strange way. ‘If ever I come into money, this is where I’d live,’ she told Lisa.
The clothing bank and collections kept her busy supporting the war effort. Looking around the town, with its growing wealth and glamour, she sometimes felt as if she didn’t belong here any more. It worried her, as if the gaps in her life were never going to be filled. Would she end up living alone with only her thoughts for company? She wondered what Charlie’s parents would be like—solid farm stock, religious by all accounts. She’d have to mind her language with teetotallers and churchgoers, not her type at all these days. But having promised Shari to go and introduce herself, she was keeping to the bargain.
She landed in Philadelphia and caught a bus north through open country, pretty, rolling green hills and lush forests. The colour of stone and earth were so different from California. She could see why the Yorkshire Quakers felt at home and settled around these rivers and creeks all those years ago. There was a horse and buggy waiting for her at the Crossroads Inn to bring her to Springville and the Wests’ farmstead.
By this time it was hot, and she was steaming and very tired. As they drew closer to the stop, she glimpsed a man waiting in shirtsleeves, with a large straw hat and a beard. His wife stood in her sky-blue dress with white pinafore, and her hair covered in a white cap with strings tied round. Were they plain folk, Amish, Quakers or what? That’s all she needed, she sighed, to be stuck for a week with holy rollers. She was too exhausted to look them in the eye.
‘Mrs Barr, Selma Barr?’ said the man with the strangest of accents.
She nodded, not looking up into his face. ‘Mr and Mrs West, I’m pleased to meet you. Thank you for waiting. Not one thing has left on time since I started out,’ she sighed.
‘You’ll be ready to rest then,’said his wife,smiling.‘Charles will put all your things in the back.’
It was a slow awkward ride through the leafy lanes, trying to make polite conversation with strangers, trying not to show her ignorance of their way of life. It brought back memories of home. She’d not always been a city girl. The scenery was pretty and the shade of the trees welcome. The farmhouse was a wooden slatted salt-box affair with neat glass-panelled windows and a picket fence round a yard full of vegetables. There was something very familiar about the foursquare shape that reminded her of the farms out in the Dales. There were cattle grazing, and in the far meadows she could see horses.
A line of girls stood on the steps waiting to be introduced: Kitty, Lorrie, Joan and Dorothy, all dressed in the same plain frocks, with scrubbed faces, braided hair tied into buns. They had old-fashioned manners, waiting for their parents to take the lead.
All at once Selma felt overdressed in her frilly frock with ruffled sleeves and peep-toe sandals, her hair piled up in pompadour style, her nails coloured bright pink.
Lorrie kept staring at her fingers and back at her hair. They were quiet, polite, shy girls, who disappeared as soon as was respectable to run out into the fields, no doubt to discuss her frivolous outfit.
The shades in the house were down to keep the house cool. She was dying for a smoke but knew that would not be fitting. How on earth was she going to survive here?
‘Have you heard any more about your son?’ she asked.
‘Only what your daughter has been able to tell us. She’s been diligent in keeping us in the picture. He’ll have to learn to use his left hand, of course,’ said Rose.
‘When are they coming back home?’ she added. There was such a tension in the air and she didn’t know what to say next.
‘That we don’t know, Selma,’ said the man quietly, and it was the way he said her name that made her look at him more closely. His hair was bleached white. His beard reddish, his cheeks lined with the sun, but his voice echoed in her head for a second. It wasn’t a pure American accent; there was an English vowel or two caught in his speech. Then she recalled he’d gone to Sharland School. Why had she forgotten about that? It was an important connection.
‘I gather you’re a Yorkshire tyke,’ she smiled. ‘You went to the public school in my village.’
‘I was born in London…but I did go there and I lived not far from the forge,’ he replied.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t recall any Wests…’
‘I wasn’t always known by that name,’ he replied, staring at her. ‘You don’t recognise me, do you, Selma, or shall I say, Selima?’
Still, the penny didn’t drop as she looked at him blankly.
‘Stop teasing her,Charles!’said Rose.‘Mrs Barr,you knew my husband many years ago. Your mother was a friend of his mother, Lady Hester Cantrell.’
‘Angus? Not Angus Cantrell? I don’t believe it after all these years! We wondered where you were, and you’ve been hiding away here.’ She looked at him again. This was not the haughty young man she recalled, but that was over twenty years ago. ‘I hear she’s passed away. She was kind to my mother.’ How could this man be a Cantrell? On the other side of the world. How odd.
‘Your mother was kindness itself to her in her latter years,’ he replied.
‘And you are well now?’ she said, suddenly recalling his fits as a boy.
‘Never better. This life suits me. It took a bit of getting used to at first, but Rose and her family made me very welcome.’ He smiled at his wife and Selma could see the affection between them.
‘I must be dreaming this…of all the people in all the world.’ Should she break up these cosy reminiscences? Why should they be sitting there so smugly? Just the sound of that Cantrell name fired up her anger. ‘I suppose you heard what happened to my brothers. Your mother must have told you the circumstances of Frank’s death. It seems to be common knowledge. He was never a coward or a deserter, but your family did him no favours.’ There it was, blurted out, the anger stored in her heart for so long. What else could she say, even though she was their guest?
‘I know,’ said Angus. ‘He was a brave man in the end.’
There was something in the way he was looking at her that puzzled her. ‘I don’t understand…’
‘My mother and I did correspond for a while. I just wanted to clear the air between us all. You still don’t recognise me, do you?’
Now he was confusing her. She looked at his wife, who shook her head and left the table. ‘Excuse me, I must get on with our dinner…I think what’s said now is better said between you both alone,’ she whispered as she put her hand on his shoulder.
What on earth was going on?
‘Selma, you still think I’m Angus.’ He spoke softly while lifting his forelock of straw hair to reveal his brow. ‘So where’s the injuries, the stitches that came when I dived and hit the rock?’ His brow was smooth and pale under the flaxen hair.
Her heart missed a beat and she looked at him again. ‘Guy?’she spluttered,her face flushing.‘What are you doing here? You should be dead and buried!’ She stood up to leave but he grabbed her wrist. ‘What game are you playing with me?’
‘I am dead and buried. My brother made sure of that when he stole my uniform and took my place all those years ago.’
‘Let me go. I don’t believe you. It can’t be you…you let my brother die for the want of a good word from you. You couldn’t be bothered to turn up. You brought me here on false pretences to make excuses. How dare you insult
me! I’m leaving right now!’
‘Don’t go, Selma! I promise as God is my witness and I shall have to answer to Him on the Day of Judgment, it wasn’t me. Hear me out, I beg of you. It has lain so heavy on my conscience. I beg you hear me out before you leave.’
Selma sat down, shaking at the sight of him.
‘My mother played her part only too well,’ he continued. ‘It suited her purposes to let Angus pose as me but it all went too far. I was trapped in the house, sick, and I didn’t know what had happened until it was far too late. Then I fled from what was done, as far away as I could. There was nothing I could do after that. How could I expose my brother or betray my family’s honour?’
‘Your silence betrayed mine. Even one word from you and he would have lived,’ she cried. ‘You left him to die alone.’
‘How could I have known what was happening at the time until it was too late to change anything? It was a bad year for executions. The generals were wanting to quell any thoughts of mutiny in the ranks. They were heavy-handed and overruled so many pleas for leniency, but when I found out I wrote to Angus and left him in no doubt of what he had done. Mother did the same. Angus was many things: stupid, ignorant, full of gung-ho. He made a terrible mistake and it haunted him. I think he was too ashamed to survive after that…If you don’t duck when mortars explode around you, the end will come soon enough. If you volunteer for suicide missions…We can’t turn back what happened then. I only wish I could.’
‘So, you hid yourself out here in comfort. I don’t understand. I’m not staying here to listen to more of your excuses. You let me think you were dead, not even a hint to me. You crept away. If I’d known I’d have helped you to escape. I was your friend.’
‘I thought it was better to leave. You’d been sent away and I was confused and angry with everyone. Don’t blame just Angus, blame the cruelty of war that takes a man to the brink of his sanity and beyond until his spirit is broken. What was done to Frank and many others was by the rulebook, by the letter of military law.