It had come weeks ago and been read daily since his receiving it. It was his one contact with a world which, in the hell he was in now, seemed only a remembered dream, its smiling faces, warm homes and freshly cooked meals a fantasy of imagination. Had he truly once lived in the sanity of a world at peace, a world where men did not live with that one thought, kill before you are killed?
From each side the snores of men defeated by weariness rose and fell in concerted rhythm. Despite his own bone tiredness, Abel smiled. It was so well regulated the sleeping men might well be dreaming themselves under the all seeing eye of the regimental sergeant major. Now there was a man to be reckoned with! Folding the sheet of paper he replaced it in his pocket. Half a dozen like Sergeant Major Potts advancing with his stick under his arm would see every man jack of the Kaiser’s legions running full pelt back to the Fatherland. But those men were no different to the British soldiers; they too were men dragged from their homes to fight their master’s war. Lord! He sighed loudly. What wouldn’t he give to have the Kaiser and his Crown Prince, Lloyd George, Herbert Asquith, Horatio Bottomley and all the other war mongers sitting in a dugout half filled with rainwater, their slimy legs in mud to the tops of their puttees, most of them bleeding, all of them numb from shell shock; this war would not last another hour. But that sort did not know the horrors of the trenches, they only sent others to endure that.
‘You should get some sleep, Preston.’
Squinting into shadows only deepened by the narrow reach of the anaemic lantern glow, Abel made to salute the officer.
‘No need for that.’ The quiet voice was heavy with the man’s own weariness. ‘Find yourself a place and sleep while you can.’
In this chaos of fear there was still humanity. Abel watched the tall figure melt into the shadows. That man had no need to check positions, to squelch through trenches or dodge shells whistling down on buildings to come to speak to the troops huddled there; as an officer he could send others to do that… but not this one. Since being posted to this command he had taken part in each battle, whether a skirmish or a full onslaught, and after it had made the rounds, a quiet ‘well done’ for every survivor, words of encouragement and reassurance for the injured. And for the dead? Wedging himself between slabs of fallen masonry, Abel closed his eyes. Not even Lieutenant Harold Allen could give reassurance to them.
Glancing through a gaping hole in what had once been the roof of someone’s home he saw the first pink tinge of dawn. The only normal thing in this mad abnormal world. Outside, the quiet crunch of the officer’s boots halted. Was that man too, watching the sunrise, was he too, wondering how man could destroy man as both sides were doing, taking lives in great swathes with neither thought nor reason, just a blind obedience.
Beyond the nearest ridge the sound of heavy guns ripped apart the blessed minutes of silence, adding their flashes of brilliant crimson to the gentle dawn. A new day? Or his last day? It was not an idea fresh born in his mind, it was there every moment, with him, part of him, as it was part of every man caught in this devil’s trap of war.
Around him the choir of snores sang undisturbed, gunfire making no impression on bodies weary almost to unconsciousness. There had been rumours of a big push, an attempt to throw the enemy back at Ypres; were those guns the overture to the symphony of death, the music which would accompany so many into their graves?
Was today to be his turn… would he be one of the many? Taking out the letter he read it again, searching between the lines as he had a hundred times. But he would not find what was not there. Mrs Davies had written that all was well with his home, but it was not that which he yearned to hear of.
He had thought that maybe, with his being so far from England, she might write to him. But he could not expect that. He returned the envelope to his pocket. Anne Corby was not a girl to write uninvited and he had not asked she should.
Why hadn’t he? It was a silent query, a cry rising from his soul. They had been friends in childhood, friends since her returning to Darlaston. Dropping his head onto his knees, Abel heard the reason in his heart. He had not asked she write to him in friendship for it was not Anne Corby’s friendship he wanted, it was her love.
‘Christ, don’t they ever stop!’
‘Now c’mon, Dusty, you knows you’d miss it if they did.’
From several corners his companions began to wake, immediately indulging in banter he knew kept each man sane, kept him from thinking of what lay ahead.
‘Think I’ll tell old Pottsy I needs to see the MO.’
‘You do that, Nutty me old mate, an’ you’ll be seein’ the devil long afore the Hun sends ya to ’ell with ’alf a shell up ya arse!’
The answer swallowed in laughter, Abel lifted his head. The last of the men were awake, some enquiring about ‘tea in a china cup with cream and extra sugar, my man’, others coughing and shivering with the first signs of swamp fever.
‘Anybody got a fake ’til I gets a parcel from ’ome?’
‘Get lost, Baker, ya scroungin’ git!’ Amid the mounds of rubble an arm raised. Instinctively Abel ducked, the air from a flying boot fanning his face.
‘One fake won’t hurt ya.’ Baker returned the boot the same way it had come.
‘And it won’t hurt you neither, ’cos you ain’t getting one!’
‘I thought you was my mate,’ Baker tried again.
‘Yoh think any bloke be your mate if’n he’s got a packet of fakes in his pocket. Well, that be where mine be stoppin’… in me pocket!’
His fingers brushing the letter, Abel fished his own packet of Woodbine cigarettes from his pocket, handing them to Baker.
The envelope touched his fingers as they returned the cigarettes. It could soon be too late, the chance might be gone for ever. In the near distance a gun boomed, the shell it delivered shaking the earth beneath him. The last chance!
Reaching into the backpack set on the ground beside him he took out the notepaper he had carried halfway across France. This was not the right thing to do. He paused. Had Anne Corby wished to hear from him she would have told him so. Beyond the shattered building a bugle blared sharply. Shoving the notepaper back, Abel climbed wearily to his feet.
*
‘What’s this world coming to!’ Unity tutted her disgust as she read the newspaper. ‘Them there Bolsheviks should be horse whipped; I’ve never ’eard the like, it’s the same as putting the man in gaol along with his whole family!’
‘People behave as they don’t mean when they’re hungry.’
‘Hungry!’ Unity glared at her husband over the top of the newspaper. ‘The folk of this country have gone hungry many times but they haven’t never laid hands on their king!’
‘P’raps it be more than just hunger, though heaven knows that can rip away a man’s senses, especially when he sees his little ’uns suffering, newspapers don’t always print the truth.’ Taking a handmade, six cord, waxed thread, Laban fed the purposely constructed pointed end through the eye of a three inch quilting needle.
‘Well, maybe we don’t get to read the all of things but I can’t see any newspaper being so daft as to print a story like this if it don’t be the truth.’
Pulling the thread tight after each stitch Laban began to attach the girth strap to the saddle flap. ‘You know the old saying,’ he smiled, ‘there be naught so queer as folk.’
Folding the newspaper Unity nodded as she set it aside. ‘Ar, I know it, but they have to be mighty queer to go telling the world such a thing as is printed there if it be naught but a lie. Still, we have more to worry about than what them Bolsheviks be doing.’
Laban glanced across to his wife settling herself beside the clamp she insisted on keeping. She worked hard as any man and stitched better than many and every evening stitched yet more pieces, but every day orders came from the War Office requesting still more. Saddles, bridles, harness, satchels and a host of other things beside streamed from the saddlers of Walsall, yet the demands of the army went on
. But how long could the supply go on, how long before women like Unity, ar and men like himself, working longer and longer hours, gave way under the strain? How long could men not yet fully recovered from wounds received on the battlefield, and already at work in the leather or anywhere else, be of assistance? God damn men like the Kaiser, men blinded by ambition! Cursing beneath his breath he stabbed the needle into the leather.
‘How much longer do you reckon this war to go on?’
It was softly asked but Laban heard the heartache inherent in the question, a question which really asked how many mothers must suffer as I suffered, how many must lose their sons as I lost mine?
‘There be no telling,’ he answered, ‘but it must be over soon now.’
Why must it? The clamp between her knees, Unity bent to her stitching. It had already lasted years while the country had been led to believe it would be over in six months, so why should it be soon now? Lads were still being taken in their thousands; every day more women could be seen with tears on their faces, men with black armbands announcing yet one more of the family dead in war. Would the nightmare only stop when no more men were left to sacrifice?
But death in battle was not enough. Her lips tight as the thread drawn behind the needle, Unity stitched on in silence. Men breathing their last in a bed of mud or cut to pieces by shell fire was not sufficient, women and children too, had to die. The Zeppelin, that brainchild of some deranged lunatic, had brought the horror of that nightmare to the Midlands. It had flown over the Black Country loosing its bombs on Tipton and Bradley. But that had not been enough for the devils flying in it; they had brought it on to Wednesbury where a bomb had wiped out an entire family with a direct hit, and them doing no more than sitting peaceful in their own home; and then it had moved on across to Walsall. Fingers moving in steady rhythm, Unity’s thoughts ran on. A bomb had dropped onto the centre of the town, right onto Bradford Place, shrapnel splintering from it striking a passing train; many passengers had been cut by shards of flying metal, Mrs Slater, the mayoress, being injured so bad she had died of wounds to her chest and stomach. How could acts such as that be justified? Reaching for a sharp bladed knife with which to cut the thread. Unity stared at the blade gleaming in the yellowy light of the lamp. If only she could meet up with the man who had flown that Zeppelin, he would be wearing his gizzard for a necklace!
*
I ain’t heard no word from him.
The words rang in Anne’s mind. They were the same words she heard every week when she called to enquire of Abel’s next-door neighbour if she had had news.
No word! She crossed the Bull Stake, passing in front of a tram, its bell indignantly demanding she hurry. The woman said she had replied to Abel but that had been months ago. There had been no more since unless letters had gone astray… maybe been wrongly addressed? No, Mrs Davies might not be exactly a young woman but she had all of her senses, she would have made no mistake. So why had Abel not written again? She could go on asking that question and each time find a possible answer, yet never know the truth.
Reaching the gates of Butcroft House she stood still. There were many truths might never be known, truths such as why was her cousin found in his mother’s room, surely he would have heard the crash of that falling lamp, the scream of a woman hurtling down the stairs… would he not have come to the head of those stairs instead of to her aunt’s bedroom? Then there was the death of the nightwatchman and her own assault… was the conclusion reached by the police the correct one or was it, as Unity declared, ‘summat as they’ve come up with ’cos they have no idea what they be about; as for that there inspector, he’s no more sense than a sucking duck!’
At the end of the short drive, window lights subdued in accord with the Defence of the Realm Act, Butcroft House stood tall against the night sky. This house had been her home, a place she should be happy to return to; instead it seemed to hold an aura of threat, a shadow of menace. She could go back, send someone in her stead. The idea tempting, she stood for a moment, the sound of a tram reaching faintly across night-still streets, its bell evoking memories of a different sound, a different time: the soft swish of runners over snow, the tinkling of bells on horse harness, the vast silent spread of the Russian steppe. There had been fear there, too, and death…
To her side a shadow moved in the darkness bringing a scream to her lips, startling a cat emerging from the bushes.
She was behaving like a child. There was nothing here to be afraid of, she was simply letting imagination run away with her. Now, if she didn’t hurry she really would have something to be wary of… the sharp end of Unity’s tongue for getting home late yet again.
‘It is so kind of you to think of our patients, Miss Corby, especially when you have so much else to do.’ White cap flaring stiffly to her shoulders, matching cuffs on each wrist, a silver buckle gleaming on the scarlet belt circling her waist, the matron led the way to the study, boots clicking on floors cleared of carpet.
Much as she would have enjoyed a cup of tea, Anne refused the invitation knowing it would take someone from her duties. ‘I was thinking earlier of what you said regarding the men who are recovering well, of their having to occupy their time.’
‘One of the drawbacks of convalescence, I’m afraid.’ The starched cap barely moved as the woman’s head shook briefly. ‘They are each of them thankful to be back here in England and grateful, as we all are, for your generosity in loaning this house for a medical unit, but a man can only play so many games of cards, darts or dominoes before boredom removes his appetite for them; boredom is a dangerous thing, Miss Corby, it can lead to apathy, and once that sets in it makes the task of healing so much more difficult. What they really need is to feel useful again, to feel they are still helping those remaining at the front. These men cannot… will not… rid themselves of the thought that this is still everyone’s war, injured or not, and they must help win it.’
‘Which is why I brought these along.’ Opening the bag she had brought with her, Anne laid the contents on the desk, quick to explain as a frown settled between the woman’s neat brows.
‘Those patients without injury to the upper body could help a great deal. Leather goes through many processes before becoming a finished article; it can need to be skived to reduce its thickness; sometimes a piece has to be bevelled, thin shavings removed from its edges before burnishing with a smooth piece of boxwood; there is channelling using a race… a tool shaped like a V or U which marks a groove that facilitates the bending of the leather; then there is buffing, this is eliminating scars or surface scratches with the use of an abrasive—’
‘This is all very well,’ the matron lifted the palm of one hand resting on the desk, ‘but what you describe is surely skilled work, and though the military are ever at pains to return men to their own areas of the country not all of our patients may have been formerly employed in the leather industry.’
‘Every aspect of leather work is skilled, some obviously only a craftsman can perform, but those I have mentioned can be quickly learned given careful tuition and this would release experienced workers to the more complicated tasks.’
‘That I can understand.’ The starched cap resisted the nod. ‘But you also should understand that space here is at a premium. Did I wish to, I could not sanction a square foot of it as a workshop; also, the risk of infection… fibres floating on the air are not advisable where open wounds must be dressed. You do see that, my dear?’
It was a perfectly feasible refusal but one Anne was not prepared to take. ‘I do see,’ she answered, ‘but the space I was thinking of is not part of this building… it is the garden house. It was built for my mother. She would often sit there away from my—’ She paused abruptly, the word ‘aunt’ swallowed back into her throat. The garden house had been her mother’s retreat from her sister-in-law’s sharp, ever critical tongue, a place to hide away.
‘Do you mean the long greenhouse set beyond the trees! I’m afraid that place would be too da
mp for my patients to sit in.’
The finality embodied in that clipped tone struck a chord in Anne. That was the tone adopted by Clara Mather whenever she spoke to a small, frightened little girl. But Anne Corby was no longer that little girl and she was no longer to be easily defeated by a tone of voice.
‘You are mistaken.’ She lifted a cool glance to the woman facing her across the desk. ‘The garden house was not built, or ever used, for the cultivation of plants. My father had it designed as a retreat, a place my mother could sit and read or do her needlework free from the bustle of a busy household. It boasts several stoves which provide more than adequate heating, its roof resists the heaviest of rain, while its floors are not concrete but wood, raised from the ground on low stilts. I think, should you inspect it, you would find it more than suitable for the purpose I have proposed.’ It had not ended there. The matron had placed several more obstacles in her path. The sound of her steps echoing from the setts, Anne retraced her way across the Bull Stake, continuing into King Street. St Lawrence church had already chimed nine but the shaded light of shops not yet closed and the few women still marketing gave a reassurance she found comforting.
Where is the coal for the stoves to come from? Who will attend when nurses could not be spared to carry meals to the workroom? Who will teach the patients to work the leather? The questions had been answered one by one until, at last, there was agreement to put the final and most vital question of all to the men: were they willing to take part? It had been promised that a reply would be sent tomorrow. But there was another hurdle to cross – Unity and Laban. They were of the opinion she already did too much and Unity voiced that opinion regularly. It was true she did not have much time to relax, but to relax was to have freedom to think, to remember.
The empty bag clutched close to her middle she glanced to her right, a tremble flickering in her veins as the low, squat huddle of the workhouse materialised dark and threatening against the shadows, and with it the horror of what she had so nearly done. Her baby, her sweet innocent child, she had thought to leave him there, give him into a life that would most probably have been one of hardship and misery. Bastard… the word edged into her mind. Joshua would never have been allowed to forget he had no father, forget his heritage of shame. But would the workhouse have proved worse than where he was now? Would he have died if she had taken him there? Would they have loved him more than she had? Had her selfishness stolen her baby’s life, snatched it from him, throwing it away before he had the chance to live it?
Heritage of Shame Page 26