Remembrance Day

by Leah Fleming

  ‘Surely you realise now that whoever spoke harsh words to you at the forge wasn’t me. It was my mother’s infernal interference yet again. She wanted you out of my life once she knew…’ He paused. ‘I did what I thought was best. I wandered the earth in a drunken stupor for years before I found this haven. When I came to Springville, I became who you see before you: a farmer and man of the Mennonite faith. It has been a good life. I thought I could put it all behind me and then my son chooses to enlist against my wishes and history repeats itself. Don’t you think it’s strange? Now Charlie has paid a price for that enthusiasm as I once did. He needs my help, not my disapproval now.’

  Selma could see the tears glistening in those blue eyes. How could she have ever mistaken him for Angus? She felt so confused, not knowing whether to stay or leave.

  ‘Don’t you think it’s strange that these two young ones’ve found each other across the continent, and in England of all places? There’s a sort of justice for us in that, I’m thinking. What was denied us? The freedom to love where you find it, despite class, religion and nation. Theirs is this new world. Surely their love and happiness are all that matter now?’ he pleaded.

  Selma tried to concentrate on his words but she was shattered by this discovery. He must have known for months who Sharland was, and all this time they had said nothing. She shook her head, unconvinced.

  ‘Don’t you think they should be told this story and know what bigotry and misunderstanding and the cruelty of war did to us and our families?’ Guy continued. ‘Charlie will have found out all too soon, as I did in the trenches. We have to give them our support no matter what the consequences are for ourselves. If you withdraw because of me, then they’ll have to take sides. It’s so hard when you have to split your loyalties, believe me. I know the price I have paid for doing that. If families can’t agree, what hope is there of everlasting peace between nations?’

  Selma shook her head, still not convinced and unable to speak for shock.

  Guy reached out for her hand. ‘Please forgive me this deception. If I’d told you, would you have come? I wanted to unburden all this to you in private. How would you have felt if we’d met for the first time in public?’

  She looked at him. ‘I don’t think I’d have recognised you if you hadn’t said my full name like that. Why did you have to enlighten me?’

  ‘Have I changed so much? You haven’t,’ he said.

  She ignored his compliment. ‘You seem to have found some measure of peace here. I’m not sure I ever will. I’m too angry at what happened to Frank.’

  ‘Then put that anger to good use like Hester did. She battled on about that monument. There still isn’t one in Sharland or ever will be until this matter is resolved.’

  ‘Don’t preach to me, Guy. It doesn’t suit you,’ she snapped. How dare he tell her what to do!

  ‘I’m not preaching—don’t be so sensitive—I’m just making a suggestion. Come and let’s join Rose on the porch. She’s trying to be discreet. I do so want you to like her. Without her I’d have been dead long ago. We may come from different sides of the country but you and I love our kids, wayward or not. Better for us to pull together than apart. You and I were always good friends.’ He smiled and she saw that grinning face of long ago. It was hard to stay sulking.

  They sat in silence, each trying to think of something to lighten the heaviness of what had been said. Selma kept trying to go over Guy’s story and make sense of it all: all their family secrets out in the open. She felt so exhausted by the journey and now by this amazing revelation.

  It would be so easy to pack her bag and stomp off to LA in high dudgeon, never speaking to the West family again. She could slant everything so as to make Shari take sides against them, put her side of the story in such a way that Charlie’s parents would be elbowed out of the room into the shadows, but was that fair? How did that help Frank’s lost cause?

  It was Rose who broke the deafening silence. ‘How do you intend to celebrate the newlyweds’ return when it happens? We will find it difficult under the circumstances…Mixed marriages are not condoned by our Church but they do happen,’ she said, looking up at her husband with a smile.

  Guy was quick to butt in, smiling, ‘But there are ways, Rose. Other members have found ways. Love finds a way…’ He really was quite the preacher man, Selma mused, not like the old Guy at all.

  ‘I was thinking, how do we all intend to celebrate, together? That’s why I came. I don’t know how you folks do things round here,’ Selma said.

  ‘Like everyone else: a bit of a hoedown, a feast of shared offerings and a singsong in the barn,’ Rose replied. ‘Would that suit?’

  ‘That would suit fine as long as there was a bit of liquor on tap for some of my friends,’ Selma added.

  ‘We can put it in the yard for those who choose to imbibe,’ Guy was quick to answer.

  ‘But judging from Shari’s letters, maybe they’ll want time alone to themselves before Charlie’s ready for public scrutiny. Injuries can be exhausting.’

  Rose smiled.‘Dorothy’s already started asking if he’ll have a hook on his hand.’

  ‘It’ll be a nine-day wonder and then they’ll forget. I’ll give her a talking-to,’ said Guy.

  ‘No, you won’t. She’s just being curious,’ Rose snapped at him.

  Selma watched their light-hearted banter with a smile and a sigh. This was how it should be in real family life, talking things over in the cool of the day after a mighty fine supper.

  Here was Guy, the once love of her life sitting contented on a porch with a perky little wife in drab clothes. And here was she, feeling none of the old passion and envy or bitterness. How strange that her anger was evaporating like snow in sunshine. The two of them had been forced apart by life’s experiences into different worlds. His had narrowed and hers had widened. Their shared memories were frozen in the distant past. Neither of them could thaw them now, nor wanted to. The only thing she did envy was that he had found a safe haven in his stormy life. When was she ever going to find one for herself?

  26

  September 1945

  Charlie wasn’t looking forward to the visit home. He’d had a polite note saying that they would be waiting for him on 20 September, and trusting he would bring his wife to meet the family. They hoped his wound was healing well and that he wasn’t too exhausted by the journey back across the Atlantic. He’d tried to prepare Shari for any awkwardness, explaining that he’d not be welcome within the Church community and that they must expect a very quiet homecoming with no special ceremony.

  Shari had smiled and said that nothing mattered except they were together. She had resigned her post and came back as soon as she could, making plans for when he went into rehabilitation later in California at the end of the leave.

  Now that victory was secured against Japan they could celebrate the end of the war properly with flags and bunting and victory parades in New York.

  How would Charlie make out? His attempts to build up his left hand were making slow progress, but he was assured that, given special training, he’d be as good as new.

  Charlie knew he’d never be as good as new. The shine was off his apple. He’d seen too much slaughter and madness. He’d seen the best and worst in human beings, lost too many buddies, but now it was time for a fresh start—once he got over facing his parents’ disapproval. He wouldn’t be shunned by them, but treated with polite distance, and he loved Shari too much to want to make her feel uncomfortable. It would be a short visit.

  As they were driving back across the state along the turnpike, he suddenly called out, ‘Pull over! I’m not sure I want to put you through this. It won’t be easy, so let’s make an excuse and give it a miss.’

  Shari drew up by the kerb to give him one of her piercing black-eyed stares. ‘I never took you for a coward. They will want to see you, and your sisters will be upset. I’m dying to see where you live. I don’t care if they make me wait in this car all afternoon,we’re
going there.You’ve done nothing to be ashamed of. You chose your opinion over theirs. Where I come from that’s called free will. They are entitled to believe what is true for them, and we are free to do the same. Nobody in this world has all of The Truth. My pa was Roman Catholic, my mother was strict chapel, the Grunwalds were Jews, your parents are Mennonites. This is America—we have to live alongside each other and see the good in each other, not insist you must believe what I believe. The spirit of Love is in all faiths and none, I think.’ She hesitated, flushing up, seeing the look on his face. ‘Does that make any sense?’

  ‘You do say the most beautiful things, Sharland West. You make it all sound so simple. I wish it were, but I’m scared. I love them and I hate having let them down.’

  ‘Don’t you think they might be feeling just the same? Trust me, love will find a way through this, I promise.’ She started up the car again. ‘Do I have to leave the Ford at the end of the drive? Will they allow an engine on their land?’

  ‘We do have a tractor,’ Charlie laughed when they reached Springville. He noticed the yellow ribbons tied around the tree trunks: someone else was coming home, a regular soldier from a regular home where they celebrated his return in the regular Texan way.

  As they drove ever closer to his house the ribbons were still there and as they turned into the drive there were flags flying. What on earth was going on?

  ‘Look up there,’ shouted Shari. ‘Someone’s put out a “Welcome Home” banner.’

  ‘This isn’t their way,’ he gulped, confused now.

  ‘But it’s ours!’ said Shari, laughing.

  ‘You knew about this?’

  ‘Just a little. My mom and my auntie had a hand in this, I’m thinking. Lisa loves a party.’

  ‘Your mom’s here?’ This was getting stranger and stranger.

  ‘Of course. You don’t think she’d miss out on a party too?’

  ‘She’s visited here already?’

  ‘Oh, yes. There’s quite a story there.’

  Charlie was shaking. This couldn’t be happening. The Wests didn’t mix with many English or make a fuss of soldiers. Then he saw his parents waiting on the porch, dressed formally but not in Sunday black, and his sisters were waving. There was patchwork bunting all round the porch. There were old schoolfriends and neighbours, and two women smiling, who must be part of Shari’s family.

  ‘Good to see you, son,’ said his mother with her arms open to him, and his father was smiling. ‘It’s been a long time coming…but you’ve been spared.’

  Shari’s mother looked up and then looked at his pa. ‘I don’t believe it, Guy. It’s like seeing a chip off the old block and no mistake. He looks just like you did!’

  Guy? Who was the guy?’

  Shari was tugging his stump end. ‘All in good time. You’ll never believe it when they tell you their story. Hollywood couldn’t make this up!’

  ‘Come in, Sharland,’ said Rose. ‘You’re just how I imagined you to be only prettier…Welcome to our family.’

  ‘They’ve got quite a party lined up for you both,’ Selma whispered in his ear. ‘The Wests and the Barrs; quite a combination, don’t you think, young man? Forty years in the making,’ Selma was laughing. ‘From the Old World to the New and back…a special relationship through two world wars and a depression…but nothing gets in the way of true love,’ she added. ‘Welcome back.’

  Remembrance Day 2000

  What a formidable force a strong family can forge when it has a mind. What a heap of compromise it took to swallow pride and bitterness and strong opinions, to give these young people a day to remember for the rest of their lives; what a feast of pies, hams and cornbreads, sauces, shoofly pie and pumpkin and squash cakes, zucchini cake and cordials; what songs and dancing and laughter breaking down so much of my hurt and heartache that evening way back in 1945.

  The barn was laid out with straw bales, the fiddler played and called out the dances, the lanterns twinkled under the starlit sky. I even sang my blacksmith’s daughter song to cheers and clapping, made a right fool of myself, but it did the trick, I’m thinking.

  To see young love in its first flush of passion softens the hardest of hearts. When your child is happy, how can your own feelings not burst with pride and joy? That’s all that mattered then and matters now as I look down over the line of children we produced from this unexpected merger.

  In that opening up of hearts, something shifted for me too. When Charlie and Shari settled near my dream home in Prescott, Arizona, I found myself helping them set up the vacation trekking trail for horses and riders in Skull Valley, not far from the Santa Fe railroad, a little ranch down an avenue of cottonwood trees. It wasn’t a happy time in Hollywood in the early fifties, with the McCarthy witchhunts in the studios. We decided to pool resources and find something permanent, take a risk and make a dream come true.

  It was in Prescott I met Andy McKade. He’d retired from the army, a widower, who liked horses and country life, just like me. We made good companions for many years and I took him back to Yorkshire, where he renewed his lifelong passion for English ale.

  Rose and Guy came to stay awhile after his first major operation. They came to enjoy the warm winter sunshine. I can’t say Rose and I were ever close, but her calm nursing was what was needed to see Guy through all the chemical treatments, all to no avail. He died a year later and with him a piece of my own history: the last connection with my West Sharland life until now.

  Except that Shari, Charlie and Grace, their daughter, made contact with small groups in England, who worked behind the scenes to get those executed men pardoned. It was hard work to get even a hearing until the 1980s.

  Those of us with relatives wrote endless letters to MPs and lobbied for our loved ones to be recognised as honest soldiers, many of whom were sold short measure of compassionate justice. It was a long slow process of gaining support in high places after that. A TV documentary helped, and books were written.

  No one wants to be reminded of such uncomfortable facts. Gradually more information was released and the names of the executed became public knowledge. More books were written on the subject and interviews given. I shared some of our precious letters to prove a point. The battle isn’t over yet, but we are hopeful of some official pardon in the future.

  Then West Sharland got fed up with having no proper memorial, and as part of their Millennium celebrations decided to raise one in Elm Tree Square.

  Hester had left a sum of money for such purpose in her will, on condition, of course, that Frank’s name was alongside his brother’s. I made contact with them and told them everything I knew about his case.

  There were letters of protest in the Gazette and others of commendation about this whole sorry subject. We became experts in sifting through public opinion to plead our cause, hence all the media interest in this occasion.

  An invitation was issued to all surviving relatives of the deceased and now this simple lump of rock, in which is embedded a bronzed rifle and helmet, stands by the entrance to St Wilfred’s.

  Shari is standing by my side, but not Charlie. He passed away suddenly five years ago. Grace and her husband, Elliot, are here and my great-grandson, Curtis, who looks so much like Guy. He’s on his first visit to England.

  Later we’re going to be entertained in Waterloo House, which is now, I’m told, a girls’ boarding house for Sharland School.

  No one in the family ever claimed Guy’s inheritance. In proving his claim, the Cantrell history would have been made public. As he used to say on many occasions, ‘It’s only money.’

  Shari replied it would have come in useful to help fund the ‘Shot at Dawn’ campaign. But it’s somewhere gathering interest, never to be claimed unless my confession stirs things up…

  We told all the kids about Frank, and my connection with Charles West, but I never told them his true identity. His children assumed he was Angus and we never enlightened them. What good would it do? It was his story and his choi
ce to keep the illusion intact, but I think it has gone on long enough…

  It’s all here in my account, but some may discount this version as the ramblings of an old woman with an axe to grind against the Cantrells. I made my peace with them years ago. Providence has given us fair measure of recompense when I see these children, flesh of our flesh, making their way in this world.

  Now it’s two minutes to midnight in my long life. I’ll not see another Remembrance Day. I’ve got all this stuff off my chest at last, but my bones are chilled with waiting to lay my wreath and take my leave of my brothers.

  I hope Frank won’t feel the need to keep roaming up and down the old high road, scaring the hell out of motorists now he’s carved into stone with gold lettering alongside his brother at last.

  Just the initials of first names are given with the full surname. That was another of Lady Hester’s instructions. She had the last say, and quite right too, so no one was missed out, especially G. A. C. Cantrell. Guy or Angus? Take your pick.

  Who is there left to tell their story but me? I’m the last piece of living history, and quite a burden it’s been to bear at times. The truth and the rules that we lived by all those years ago are not what people can understand now. That’s why men like Frank were shot by their own side. It was a different world and can’t be judged by today’s understanding of things.

  Time and silence quieten all the gathered assembly now the sacred moment of remembrance is here at last. What is there to pray but rest in peace…As long as this stone stands, none of you will ever be forgotten.

  About the Author

  Leah Fleming was born in Lancashire of Scottish parents, and is married with four grown-up children and six grandchildren. She lives in the Yorkshire Dales and is currently working on her next novel, Winter’s Children, to be published in 2010.