The Darkness and the Thunder

by Stewart Binns

  Hywel was spared the frontal attack and survived the day, having been positioned as a sniper on a Zwarteleen barn. He was exhilarated by the experience of sniping in defence of his comrades and found in it a purpose amidst the wretched mess of his life. But he, too, soon paid a price.

  A German sniper found his position and smashed his right hand with a bullet that passed straight through his palm. Thinking his newly found gift with a rifle had been destroyed the day he had discovered it, and fearful that he may never see his brothers again, he prepared to end his life with his own rifle. Then destiny played a kindlier card. The remnants of his battalion stumbled across him on their way back to the British trenches and helped him back to safety.

  Hywel had thought his career as a sniper was over, but for once the fates conspired in his favour, and doubly so. The bullet had shattered his right hand, but his left is dominant, and after much persuasion Captain Chavasse agreed not to send him home, as was standard practice for such a severe wound. Not only that, Chavasse ordered a reinforced glove to be made by the Desoutter Brothers in London, specialists in artificial limbs, so that Hywel could attempt to return to sniping duties.

  As Hywel walks towards a former cupboard into which he has managed to squeeze a bed for himself, Captain Chavasse goes with him. ‘How is the training going?’ he asks.

  ‘Well, thank you, sir. The hand is still sore, but the glove works a treat and is rock solid. In a funny way, it’s even steadier than when I had full use of my hand.’

  Hywel’s glove is a very clever piece of improvisation. It is an extra-large officer’s black cavalry glove, reinforced by sewn-in, bendable copper rods that allow him to position his disabled middle fingers so that they hold the barrel of his rifle securely. Fortunately, Chavasse’s expert surgery has given Hywel full feeling in his thumb, index and little finger.

  ‘Go easy on that hand,’ says Captain Chevasse. ‘It will take time.’

  ‘I will, sir, don’t worry. The next time I raise my rifle in earnest I will have a bead on the Hun who shot my CO, Lieutenant Orme, in the back. He won’t get it in the back from me. He’ll get one of my green spots right down the barrel of his sight, through his eyeball and, if you’ll excuse my French, sir, clean out the back of his fuckin’ head!’

  Chavasse smiles warmly. ‘Well, Colour, all the more reason for you to get some rest!’

  At the beginning of 1915 the BEF occupies a newly extended, continuous line of trenches from the Canal d’Aire at La Bassée, just north of Lens, to the Yser Canal between Ypres and Diksmuide, a distance a little less than 40 miles. To the north, the Belgian Army holds the ground to the Channel, while the French hold the line all the way to the Swiss border.

  Not surprisingly, now that the winter stalemate has produced a static war, coincidences and chance meetings are commonplace in the British sector of the Great War, especially in the BEF’s major rear-support towns like Pop and Armentières. So it was when the Royal Welch Fusiliers marched through Pop’s Grande Place at the end of October, sporting their white hackles and singing ‘Sosban fach’. It was then that Bronwyn saw her three brothers for the first time since she had left Pentry Farm in disgrace at the end of August. Two of them – Geraint and her twin, Morgan – are now lost to her, missing, presumed killed, at Zwarteleen. She had encountered Hywel on Pop’s wards shortly after the battle. He had initially disowned her, but they were soon reconciled. War creates many wounds, but it can also heal them, often making a bond even stronger than it was before.

  The war also brought Margaret Killingbeck and Hamish Stewart-Murray together. They became close after sharing the emotional confession of Bronwyn’s lover, Philip Davies, on his deathbed. Hamish, something of an aristocratic rogue, pursued Margaret avidly, unaware of her sexual preferences. Margaret, encouraged by Bronwyn, eventually relented. Flattered by the attentions of the handsome heir to the noblest dukedom in Scotland and hoping that she might finally find pleasure in a ‘normal’ sexual encounter, she gave in to his advances.

  Hamish was satisfied with his conquest of the redoubtable English nurse, who looked so compelling in her scarlet-and-grey uniform. It cost him an expensive dinner and the finest bottle of claret to be found in Pop, but it was worth it. His conquests always are; he thrives on them. However, for some time to come, there will be no more, as he is now languishing in a German prisoner-of-war camp, having been captured at Givenchy on 20 December.

  For Margaret, the encounter had not been as satisfying. Although it was not unpleasant, the frisson she hoped to find with a man did not materialize, leaving her with the guilt she has felt throughout her adult life about her ‘abnormal’ appetites, and now, especially, her longings for Bronwyn.

  Blair Atholl Castle, Perthshire

  New Year’s Eve of 1915 at Blair Atholl Castle has been even more desolate than were its Christmas celebrations. Several tragedies have struck Scotland’s most prestigious aristocratic family, leaving a pall over the entire household, estate and local community.

  John James ‘Iain’ Stewart-Murray, the widowed 7th Duke of Atholl, Chief of the Murray Clan and Commander-in-Chief of the Atholl Highlanders, Europe’s only surviving private army, is the most titled man in Scotland. But, thanks to the terrors of the Great War, he is now seeking solace in the arms of his mistress, Mrs Maud Grant, at her small cottage on the Blair Atholl estate. He was drunk during dinner and comatose long before the clock chimed the arrival of the new year. His family is scattered and grieving, his world, created by centuries of privilege, has been turned upside down.

  Of his three sons, his middle boy, Lord George, known as ‘Geordie’, has been missing since his regiment, the Black Watch, was in action at the Battle of the Aisne in September. The ‘baby’ of the family, Lord James, ‘Hamish’, was captured just before Christmas and is now incarcerated, fifteen men to a dormitory, with hundreds of Russian, French and Belgian prisoners in a disused oil factory in Germany. He spends his time refining his French and learning Russian. In return, he teaches English and, to a few far more intrepid souls, his first language, Scots Gaelic.

  Only his eldest boy and heir, Lord John George, ‘Bardie’, is in Britain. But he and his wife, Lady Katharine, Kitty, left for Blagdon Hall, Northumberland, the home of their friend, Matthew, Viscount Ridley, on the 30th. From Blagdon, Bardie commands his regiment, the Scottish Horse, which, to his great frustration, is not at the Front but undertaking coastal defence duties in the north-east.

  However, Kitty is in her element. After overseeing the knitting of 15,000 hose tops to warm the cold knees and thighs of the kilted men of the Scottish regiments, she has been asked by Dame Katherine Furse, the formidable founder of the Voluntary Aid Detachment, to join its committee to help improve the provision of nurses for the war. This means she makes frequent trips to London, where she can enjoy herself at some distance from her less than happy, childless marriage to Bardie, whose amorous pursuit of other women, and at least two resultant illegitimate offspring, are a source of great distress to her.

  Of the 7th Duke’s three daughters, all older than his trio of sons, only Lady Helen lives at Blair, where, in the absence of her long-deceased mother, she acts as châtelaine. Her older sister, Lady Dorothea, Dertha, is in England with her husband, Colonel Harry Ruggles-Brise, where he is recovering from a severe shrapnel wound he received at the Battle of Ypres while in command of 20th Brigade, 7th Division, of the BEF. Evelyn, the youngest daughter, is living with her companion in a small cottage in Spa, Belgium, to where she has escaped from the fighting around her home in Malines. Evelyn is yet another source of family distress, having been ‘sent away’ as a child as ‘emotionally unstable’ after repeated clashes with her mother. The old Duke thought it was for the best and hardly ever talks about her, but his draconian decision has eaten into his conscience ever since.

  Lady Helen is the only Stewart-Murray at Blair for New Year. With a mere skeleton staff on duty, she has had dinner alone and is now asleep by the fire. But her slumber, unco
mfortable as it is in Blair’s cavernous and ornate drawing room with its huge fire almost extinguished, is disturbed by the handsome ormolu clock chiming 1 a.m. on the mantelpiece of sculptor Thomas Carter’s masterpiece in Sicilian marble.

  As is typical of the season and Blair’s location in the Highlands of Perthshire, it is a bitterly cold night. In an appropriately subdued fashion, given the family’s wretched circumstances, the few staff who are on duty offered her their New Year greetings an hour ago and went off to enjoy a more lively celebration below stairs.

  Unlike the Blair celebrations of decades’ standing, this New Year has not been piped in by a Highlander on the battlements, there were no fireworks lighting up the black night, no frolicking in the snow fortified by hot toddies and bacon sandwiches and certainly no early-hours cavorting in the countless bedrooms, where the sleeping arrangements are usually organized by the host to maximize the temptations of the flesh.

  Helen’s snoozing has led her to tip down her dress the dregs of her glass of Benedictine, her favourite postprandial nip. As she hastily wipes away the spillage with her handkerchief, she hears the sound she has been awaiting for several hours, the approaching footsteps of two men rattling along the highly polished oak floorboards of the second-floor corridor. One pair she is certain belongs to Jamie Forsyth, Blair’s sagacious butler, who has had to remain on duty to greet the guest Helen has been waiting for all evening. From the rapid timbre of the second pair of shoes, she immediately recognizes the orderly gait of her friend and lover, Edinburgh businessman and sculptor David Tod.

  Small, dapper, with a neatly trimmed, eleven-a-side moustache, he has dashed from Edinburgh in a mad rush. Thankfully, there were almost no other vehicles on the road to delay him. To her obvious discomfort in front of Forsyth, Tod embraces Helen warmly.

  ‘You’re four hours late!’

  ‘So sorry, H, but my bloody car wouldn’t start, and getting a mechanic out on Hogmanay is not easy.’

  ‘But you did, I take it?’

  ‘After a while, and in exchange for an exorbitant amount of silver – cash in hand, of course!’

  Helen warms a little. ‘Well, you’d better have a drink. Forsyth, send someone to get the fire going and bring Mr Tod a malt – a Speyside, please.’

  Forsyth nods his head deferentially in the time-honoured way. ‘Very well, Lady Helen. May I bring you another Benedictine?’

  ‘Yes, Forsyth. Thank you.’ The butler makes to leave and then stops himself. ‘May I ask, have you heard from His Grace?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. I did get a note the other day from Mrs Grant. He’s still a little unwell, but on the mend, she says.’

  ‘That is good news indeed. The staff all wish him a speedy recovery.’

  ‘Very kind of you all.’ David hands Helen a fistful of salt. ‘See, I’m your first-footer, and here’s for good fortune in 1915.’

  ‘Thank you, but aren’t you supposed to be tall and dark?’

  ‘Hmm, you can’t have everything, H.’

  After Dougie Cameron, first footman, has turned the drawing-room hearth into an inferno and Forsyth has brought David a very large tulip (a style of whisky glass much preferred by the Stewart-Murrays) of Glenlivet and Helen another Benedictine, the two of them are alone. David toasts his hostess.

  ‘Happy New Year, darling. I hope 1915 is a better year for you than 1914.’

  Helen takes a large swig of her drink. She suddenly looks tearful. ‘Oh, David, I do hope so, but I fear it may be even worse. Geordie is never coming home, Hamish will not be home until the war is over and Bardie hasn’t even gone to fight yet. God knows what fate awaits him on a cavalry charger!’

  ‘Don’t fret, H. I don’t think the cavalry are making madcap charges any more.’

  ‘Don’t be such a clever arse! So many men are not coming home. I don’t know a single family which hasn’t lost someone: from the house, the estate, the village, all my friends. Poor darling Evelyn is living in a cottage in the woods in the middle of nowhere, which could be under Hun control at any time. Papa is in such a bad way I doubt he will recover. I can’t bear it!’

  As Helen ends the list of the Stewart-Murray family woes, her eyes flood with tears. She goes to an occasional table, where, perceptively, Forsyth has left the bottle of Benedictine, and fills her glass with another large measure of the amber liqueur.

  David has been hoping that he can usher in the New Year with a passionate tryst with Helen, a habit of which she has become increasingly enamoured.

  ‘Let’s go to bed, H, and lose ourselves in simple pleasures.’

  Helen smiles. ‘What a sweet thought, David. Perhaps in the morning, darling. Not tonight, there is too much sadness in my heart.’

  David peers into his tulip of malt, sniffs its pungent aroma and takes a deep breath. He has decided to ask a question he has been wanting to ask for a very long time. He is suddenly taken by the moment but, despite being a man of some substance and of mature years, he is anxious. He gathers himself: ‘H, will you marry me?’

  ‘Good heavens, this is very sudden, David.’

  ‘I know, but this is the first day of a new year. We’re in the middle of a catastrophic war that is changing everything. When it’s over, the world will be a different place. What better time could there be?’

  Helen’s eyes swell with even more tears. ‘Oh, David, Papa will be furious!’

  ‘I know – I’m a common merchant! You should be marrying a baronet, at worst, but preferably a peer of the Scottish realm.’

  Helen smiles a little and delicately wipes away her tears with the ends of her index fingers. ‘An English peer would probably pass muster, but he would have to be at least an earl!’

  David laughs. ‘Well, I’m not an earl, but I could afford to lend some filthy lucre to an impoverished one, and I could sculpt one in clay, resplendent in his robes and ermine finery!’

  ‘So you can – two gifts I so admire you for. You’ve earned the money Papa resents you having, whereas we’ve never had to earn our money and, of the six of us, not one has the talent you have.’

  ‘You know, you’re beginning to sound like a socialist!’

  ‘Hardly, but I do believe that credit should be given where credit’s due.’

  ‘So, leaving the interesting subject of equality and justice to one side for a moment, what’s your answer?’

  ‘To what?’

  ‘Don’t tease, H!’

  Helen’s face breaks into a broad grin. ‘Yes, you bloody fool! I’m so happy. But let’s keep it to ourselves for now. Papa needs to recover from the loss of Geordie and get used to the fact that Hamish isn’t coming home for the foreseeable future. But when the time comes, you’ll have to go to him to ask for my hand.’

  ‘I know. That’s a prospect that fills me with total dread. But, as for the timing: agreed. Come on, let’s take our glasses upstairs and see in the New Year properly.’

  Helen smiles mischievously. ‘David, when will you understand? This is Blair; I’ll ring for Dougie to bring up our drinks … and the bottles, just in case we’re in need of a bit of sustenance. Shall we have a hearty breakfast in our room – say, at nine?’

  ‘Let’s say ten. Don’t want to rush things.’

  David thrusts his arms around Helen’s waist. ‘So, have you changed your mind about consummating our engagement?’

  ‘Well, as I’ve just agreed to marry you, I can hardly deny you your conjugal rights.’

  Keighley Green Working Men’s Club, Burnley, Lancashire

  John-Tommy Crabtree, a volunteer in the newly formed D Company (Burnley) 11th Battalion East Lancashire Regiment, the ‘Accrington Pals’, is Keighley Green’s former steward. But, as it is New Year’s Eve and the club is packed, he has discarded the Melton blue uniform of Lord Kitchener’s New Army and donned his old barmskin apron for a bit of moonlighting to supplement the King’s shilling.

  John-Tommy is a local legend, as fearsome a sight with his shillelagh in his fist to dea
l with troublemakers as he once was in the Lancashire League with a brand-new cherry in his hand to skittle out opposing batsmen. He twice won the League Championship with Burnley Cricket Club, in 1906 and 1907, before going to Oldham in the Central Lancashire League as the club’s professional.

  On one memorable occasion at the end of the 1907 season he took six wickets for two runs against Church, Burnley’s fierce rivals from Oswaldtwistle, to secure the title. It was a memorable feat, enshrined on a silver clasp around the match ball, which sits in pride of place behind Keighley Green’s highly polished mahogany bar. John-Tommy played with and against the great English cricketing legend Sidney Barnes. He once ran him out, took his wicket on more than one occasion and on an unforgettable August day in 1904 scored forty runs, including two sixes, off his prodigious bowling. ‘The day our John-Tommy hit S. F. Barnes fo’ six o-er t’football stand’ is still talked about at Turf Moor, the home of Burnley’s famous cricket and football teams.

  ‘C’mon, you lot. ‘Ave rung t’bell; sup up an’ get tha’sens ’ome. It’s one in t’mornin.’

  There is only a token response from the drunken revellers. So John-Tommy’s huge shillelagh, Ireland’s ancient weapon of war, given to him by Gerry Cooney, his father-in-law from Armagh, crashes on to the bar with a mighty thump. Over the years the shillelagh has made a deep impression in the same spot on the russet-red bar, the only indent in an otherwise glass-like, pristine surface. The members call it ‘John-Tommy’s fettlin’ oyel.’

  ‘That’s t’last warnin’. Next time, a’ll fettle sum’un’s heed wi’ it!’

  It has been a big night, and the lant trough in the yard, which is the club’s urinal, is so full that the local tanner, who uses its contents to soften his leather, has been asked to come to empty it as soon as possible. As John-Tommy frequently says to his more lubricated customers, ‘If yon lant wer’ full o’ sixpenny bits tha’d pissed away, tha wouldn’t sup s’much!’