by Evelyn James
“Where is the town of Lugrule?” She asked Janssen.
“Several miles away,” Janssen shrugged carelessly. “I never go there. The people are…”
He paused for a considerable time to contemplate just the right word for the residents of Lugrule.
“Crude,” he concluded. “If you are already bored with our town, I would suggest a ride out to a lovely little village a couple of miles from here.”
“We are certainly not bored with your town,” Clara told him warmly. “It is just I have had word that a friend is in Lugrule and I thought about visiting them.”
“Poor soul, if you do visit them, tell them to come and spend the rest of their holiday here,” Janssen replied and his condolences seemed genuine, rather than the spite of prejudice.
“Why do you consider Lugrule such a bad place?” Colonel Brandt asked their host.
Janssen raised his hands in a gesture that indicated he had quite a list of reasons for his assertion.
“Lugrule was built up during the rise of industry in Belgium, it was once very famous for its ironworks. There were great factories employing many hundreds of people. But its wealth could not stop the place being a blot on the landscape,” Janssen clicked his tongue as he reflected on the past. “It always used to be said the winter snows were black instead of white in Lugrule, and in the summer the trees were coated in soot. The rivers were fouled along with the ground. Soon it was realised that the town was killing the local wildlife, polluting the landscape and ruining the soil for miles around. Farmer after farmer had to abandon his home for the crops would not grow well and the cattle would not thrive. Something had to be done.
“Eventually the government had to step in. Efforts had been made locally to no effect. The men in charge of Lugrule refused to see the problem and were wealthy enough to make light work of any fines that were imposed on the town. When the government said that Lugrule was a hazard to human life and all production must stop, there were protests from the workers and residents who relied on the ironworks. But, ultimately, it could not be allowed to continue. A ban was imposed on the purchase of goods from Lugrule by Belgium firms, and they were not allowed to export their products. Very soon their trade withered to nothing.”
“How very awful for those who relied on the iron for their livelihood,” Clara frowned.
“What of the farmer’s whose livelihood the factories had ruined? What of the children who sickened and died before they could grow up? What of the men who were dead before they were forty from the work? Everyone suffered,” Janssen shook his head. “The factory owners were to blame, of course. They had been pushed for years to better regulate their waste products and to improve the conditions of the factories, but it was cheaper to keep poisoning the land. In the end, you could not drink any of the local water, not if you wanted to live to a ripe old age. All the residents of Lugrule were suffering from lead poisoning at varying degrees of severity. There was also arsenic in the water. It was awful.”
It didn’t sound like much of a place to live, and not somewhere you would want to move to after living in the pleasant surroundings of Janssen’s town. Not, unless, you had no choice.
“Do many people live there now?” Clara asked.
“A few. Most had to leave,” Janssen seemed to think this was not such a bad thing. “Those that remain scavenge off the remains of the ironworks. The factories produced tonnes of waste and much of it contained fragments of iron or other minerals that can be collected and sold for a small pittance. Some people live in Lugrule and walk three or four miles each day to reach a farm or somewhere else they can work. Only the very poor exist there, and those who try to help them.”
“It does sound pretty grim,” Tommy observed. “Why would anyone choose to go there?”
“Exactly,” Janssen was satisfied he had made his point. “I have heard some of the farms that were on the very outskirts are being returned to use. The water is still poisoned, but not so badly. Actually, I believe some of the old waste is full of nitrates which can be sold to make fertiliser. But it is very bad to collect and kills people faster than anything else if it gets into the lungs.”
Clara thought it sounded awful, but that was the place she had to go if she was to confront the Devereauxs and hear their side of the story. They had disappeared for a reason, whether it was linked to Father Lound’s death or not.
Janssen had other guests to attend to and made his excuses. Clara and her companions sat and finished their puddings, musing on the information Janssen had just imparted. The mystery of the Devereauxs had deepened. Why had they chosen such a hellhole to escape to? Could it really all be due to the eldest girl’s pregnancy, or was it due to something else? Clara was thinking about Ramon’s links to Father Lound. How far would the Father go for that family? Would he consider risking his own reputation, his own life to protect Ramon? For Clara could not help thinking that if there was anyone who might have acted as a traitor to his town, Ramon Devereaux was it.
Chapter Twenty
Night was never Tommy’s friend. Over the years he had learned to accept its dark embrace and to endure it, but he was never entirely easy when the sun set and the world was enveloped in black nothingness.
Part of the problem was that night involved sleeping and Tommy’s sleep had never been the same since the war. The doctors at the first hospital he had been confined in had told him the nightmares would ease with time. They were wrong. They did not ease, but they became familiar and Tommy could largely cope with them. He didn’t wake up screaming these days, instead he would jerk awake, his body caked in sweat and the dregs of some awful dream lingering at the corners of his mind. Sometimes his heart was pounding as if he had just run a mile.
He had developed tricks for coping. He found there was solace in the quiet act of pouring a glass of water and sipping it slowly, so there was always a jug of water and a glass by his bed at night. With each sip of water, he could feel his heart calming and he could start to focus on relaxing again. The Fitzgeralds’ dog, Bramble, was also a huge comfort. He slept on Tommy’s bed and would cuddle up to his master when he awoke from his dreams. The dog would press into him as hard as it could, as if he knew something was wrong.
Time had also healed over some of the scars the war had left inside Tommy. He was able to put distance between himself and that terrible period of his life. Occasionally, he could almost pretend it was not even real, that it was something he had read about in a strange book.
Until he came to Belgium.
Tommy could not articulate to Clara, Annie or anyone else, just how crippling those old memories were, and how much he feared that going back to the place where they were created would somehow spark them back into life. He didn’t know how to speak about such things, no one had taught him how, and the prevailing attitude among the army doctors was that he ought to really push them out of his mind, forget about them altogether, and if he couldn’t… well, he would just have to try harder.
Tommy had tried hard; really hard. But the memories did not go away entirely, they just faded a little. He knew they were always there at the periphery of his thoughts, like a savage tiger waiting to pounce the moment he grew unwary. He had been scared that coming to Belgium would give that tiger just what it needed to strike.
At first, much to his relief, that had not been the case. He had suffered no noticeable increase in his nightmares, if anything, the initial night in the hotel he had been so exhausted he had slept well. It was the following night that was the problem.
Maybe it was that strange episode at Dr Jacobs’ house that had triggered it all. Or maybe it was that his brain had now had time to absorb the fact that Tommy was back in the country where his life had changed. All he knew was that something had been nudged awake.
That night he had the worst nightmare he had suffered in a long time. The images were fragmentary, but that only made them worse. He saw friends who had perished a long time ago, die all over again before his eyes. H
e saw a lot of blood and a lot of gore. He physically felt the grief and horror this all caused, along with the pain in his leg as he was shot down on that fateful day and lay in the battlefield mud. That was not the worst part, the terrible bit came always at the end of the nightmare. He would dream he was lying in the mud and that he was sinking, the mud seeping up and over him. He would try to push himself up, to rise from the ground, but he could not fight hard enough to escape the terrible suction as he was drawn deeper and deeper. He could feel the mud flowing over his arms until he was paralysed, he could not pull them away anymore, and then the mud was flooding over his face and he would feel it pouring into his mouth and causing him to struggle to breathe.
Just as suffocation seemed inevitable, he would awaken violently.
That night he woke with a muffled scream and nearly fell out of bed. He found that his blanket seemed to have tangled about him and restrained him like a rope. He gasped painfully for air, uncertain if he was capable of breathing or not, his thoughts so muddled and disjointed. For a few seconds there was only blinding panic and no sense of rationality.
Tommy could not remember where he was and his fear heightened. He didn’t recognise the room and his mind seemed unable to help him. When he wrestled the blanket free he was cold and scared. His legs ached like they were on fire and he reached for them, rubbing at the flesh, trying to stop the terrible pain. He was shaking from head to foot, the violence of the sensation so strong he was amazed the bed was not rattling as well. His teeth chattered in his head and he felt sick to his stomach. The tears finally fell from his eyes; almost an after-thought, but falling nonetheless.
Every ounce of grief and terror he had ever experienced during the war, every drop of horror and fury, hit him again. Smacking into his chest like an iron bar and knocking the wind from him. He wanted to run away, and yet he also wanted to fight, only there was nothing to fight. The war was done.
He was done.
Tommy somehow managed to stumble from the room and made his way downstairs. Colonel Brandt was sharing the room with him, but had not stirred from his deep slumber. Tommy left him to his snoring, angry that the man could sleep so contentedly when he was suffering like this.
Tommy found the hotel door was locked, but the key was close to hand and he made it outside, heading into the night, his feet finding a route to the nearest bridge in town. Tommy was still in a daze, he was aching inside and out. His legs still hurt and felt numb, that he could walk at all was a sort of miracle. But Tommy wasn’t thinking of miracles right then. He was thinking dark thoughts that had not disturbed him for many years. The last time he had suffered them, he had not been in a position to act upon them as his legs had not been functioning. Now he could walk and he walked to a bridge with a quietly babbling river running beneath it.
He was not connecting thoughts in a rational sense. He was operating out of desperation. In his head he could hear the cries of his friends; poor old Bobby Roper calling for his mother as his guts spilled out into a trench; desperate Freddie Lyons clinging to an arm that was no longer connected to his body and bleeding to death as he sobbed; anguished Archie Holmes, telling Tommy over and over again he could not die as his young wife was pregnant, even while he slowly faded from a gunshot to the chest.
They were long gone, and yet they were also forever at the back of Tommy’s mind, calling to him, reminding him that he lived when they did not. How was that? What had made him lucky?
Tommy stumbled. There was a loose stone on the bridge and for a second the pain in his toe snapped him back to himself. He clenched his fists. He had been so stupid. When Dr Jacobs had insisted he pray before St. Helena, he had actually believed that there was something in it! He had thought he would be healed. More fool him! He had just had the worst nightmare of his life and he could not go on any longer, not like this. He could not bear the pain inside. No one understood that.
Tommy leaned on the rail of the bridge and stared down at the water. He never wanted to dream again, he never wanted to think again. He rocked forward a little. He had tried, he told himself, he had attempted to get better. No would could argue with that. There had been doctors and there had been prayers and helpful friends, and Clara and Annie, of course. None of it had made a difference. He could no longer endure. He could no longer smile bravely and cope.
He put his feet up on the bottom of the barrier, so he could push himself over. He wasn’t sure how deep the water was. He didn’t really care. Maybe he would crack his head open rather than drown, would that matter? He rocked forward again, one more push and it would be over. He would be glad to be out of this life and all the traumas it brought him.
Footsteps near the bridge made him freeze. His hands clenched tight around the rail, so he didn’t think he could pull his hands away even if he wanted to. He was breathing hard, not wanting to be seen like this. Shame replaced terror and the tears fell again. Then a breeze fluttered by him and he shivered from the cold. He thought someone was walking towards him. His feet came down from the barrier and back onto the bridge. He tried to right himself, to make it looked like he was just out for a walk. He took a breath, composed himself. Finally, he let go of the rail, his knuckles white and stiff as he turned to face the only other person out this late at night. He was expecting to get asked what he was doing, it must look odd, a man in pyjamas on the bridge. He wasn’t expecting to turn around to an empty space.
He hesitated. Tommy was sure he had heard footsteps. They had sounded as if they were coming towards him. He was even sure he had felt that odd sensation of a person walking up behind him, like when someone comes into a room you are in. Apparently, he had been wrong.
The roads near the bridge were all open and easy to see, if someone had walked past he should still be able to spot them. They would have come from behind, walked past the bridge and then into his eyeline. There was no one.
Tommy started to feel a little strange. He had always believed he had an acute sense of hearing, and a ready instinct for knowing someone was about. He had been credited for just that during the war on multiple occasions. His ‘sixth sense’ had enabled him to spot snipers and prevent his working party from stumbling into enemy troops more than once. It was perhaps the reason he had lasted the entire war, when so many could not last a month.
Yet, for once, his senses had let him down. There had been no one near the bridge. The footsteps must have been in his mind.
Tommy shivered again, he was very cold now. He had walked out bare-foot and the night was not that warm. The dregs of his nightmare were lifting as the reality of the situation was slowly restored. He glanced at the bridge rail and felt guilty at what had nearly transpired. Rubbing a hand over his face, he felt terrible; had he gone through with what he had intended he would have been letting down his sister and Annie. Suddenly, all he could think about was how horrible it would have been for them to wake up and discover him missing, then to learn he had drowned himself. He would have caused them such pain.
“Stupid man!” He scolded himself angrily.
The cold breeze seemed to scuttle around him again. It tugged at his legs this time, like little fingers pulling him away from the rail of the bridge. Unconsciously he moved forward and his naked foot stepped on something soft.
Tommy automatically bent down and picked up what had become stuck to his foot. He walked off the bridge, the item in the palm of his hand until he reached one of the public bins that dotted the pathways, right by a lit street lamp. Opening his hand to place the scrap in with the other rubbish he stopped. The thing that he had stepped on was a wildflower. Tommy didn’t know its name, but he did recognise it as one of the flowers that Dr Jacobs’ granddaughter had collected into a bunch and presented to St. Helena. It seemed remarkable that such a delicate flower would have blown all the way into town.
Tommy felt rather odd. He didn’t put the flower into the bin. Instead he carried it back to the hotel. He let himself back in through the unlocked door, turned the key a
nd replaced it where he had found it. Then he went up to his room where Colonel Brandt still snored away.
The blankets were on the floor and had to be replaced on the bed, then Tommy could climb in and begin to warm back up. The terrible thoughts and feelings had dispersed, now just a mild echo in the back of his mind. He took another look at the flower he had found.
What a peculiar night. He had clearly still been dreaming when he walked to the bridge, some sort of sleepwalking. The footsteps he heard were a part of that dream, just before he came sharply to his senses. Tommy scratched at his head. He supposed that was it, anyway. What a relief the nightmare had let go of him just in time!
Tommy put the flower, now a little squashed, onto the cabinet beside his bed and then slipped beneath the blanket. He didn’t want to think about what had so nearly happened. He was tired, and his eyes drifted shut. His body relaxed and this time when he slept, it was the deep, dreamless sleep he so craved. No more nightmares. No more midnight walks that almost ended in doom. Tommy finally got the rest he needed.
When he awoke the next morning, the sun coming through the window and Colonel Brandt yawning as he sat on the edge of his bed, everything seemed like a very weird dream. He was not so sure he had left the hotel at all. Maybe it had all been part of the nightmare? However, his feet were filthy, clear evidence he had walked the roads.
Tommy looked for the wildflower he had carefully brought back with him.
It was nowhere to be found.
Chapter Twenty-One
They agreed to split up once again. Colonel Brandt and Tommy would follow up on the treachery side of the case, while Clara and Annie would travel to Lugrule and locate the Devereauxs. The first stop, however, was the Post Office, to see if a reply had come for the telegrams sent the day before.
