Barbed Wire and Roses

by Peter Yeldham

  Then, one day after work, when the prisoners had been gathered for a mail call, his name was read out. He thought it was a mistake and took no notice until it was called again, shouted loudly this time, and with utter disbelief he took the letter — readdressed from the Australian Army headquarters in Britain — and recognised the familiar writing on the envelope as Jane’s.

  When it came, the shock was all the greater for Jane because she had no warning. She was alone in the house, Stephen’s parents were out; it was also a half day at school, and she was busily occupied correcting homework. The dining-room table was covered with exercise books containing essays that had engaged her all the morning. When the bell rang and she answered it to find an army officer at the door asking if he could come in and speak to her, she felt sure it was to do with the missing telegram.

  The officer, who introduced himself as Staff Captain Clarkson from headquarters at Victoria Barracks, appeared confused when she mentioned this. What telegram did she mean?

  Jane thought it a strange question. She explained that she had never received an official army telegram reporting her husband’s death. Hearing this Captain Clarkson looked perturbed and cleared his throat. He asked her courteously if there was somewhere they could talk in private.

  Jane readily agreed. She showed him into the empty dining room and tidied away the school books. While busily doing so she explained that her son had been taken to the park by his granny, her mother-in-law, and that her father-in-law was at work. She wondered why she told him this, but the way he stood there, refusing her offer to sit down and constantly clearing his throat made her feel that he was apprehensive for some reason, and this unease communicated itself to her.

  She asked if he would like a cup of tea, and again he politely declined. She began to feel irritated with his civility; something about the way he looked so apologetic alarmed her.

  ‘This is a most delicate matter,’ he finally said, the dry cough he tried to suppress clearly a nervous habit. ‘I’ve been asked to come here today by headquarters to explain certain things to you. As you know, since Christmas the troopships have gradually been bringing our soldiers home. The last group should be back from overseas this month. We discussed the matter and felt you should be informed your husband will not be among them.’

  ‘But I know that,’ Jane replied, puzzled.

  ‘Oh, then you’ve heard?’ He seemed surprised and somewhat relieved. ‘That makes it easier for me. My job is, first of all, to tell you the army promises to be discreet on this matter. We have a number of reservations about the way his case was conducted at the court-martial, so his discharge will not be made public, although of course by law it has to be a dishonourable one.’

  ‘I beg your pardon —’ she started to say, but he was intent on continuing and did not seem to be aware of her shock.

  ‘We believe that releasing the matter would be grossly unfair to you, and cause unnecessary suffering to all your family. However, as a matter of conscience, you should know he’s still alive.’

  Jane looked at him in utter perplexity. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’ she asked. ‘My husband was killed in action!’ There was a silence that seemed interminable and unsettled her. ‘Court-martial? Dishonourable discharge? That’s impossible, there’s been a terrible mistake!’

  ‘Mrs Conway —’

  Her temper rising because it seemed like a nightmare, she began to rail at him. ‘Stephen died fighting in France. He was one of the very first volunteers, the first month of hostilities, and he died for people like you, who probably never even went overseas. I’m sure you spent your entire war in a chair at Victoria Barracks! How dare you! This is outrageous. I can show you letters that will prove this is a lie!’

  Without even waiting for his answer she ran to her bedroom, snatched the two letters from a drawer and brought them to him. He read them with a frown before returning them to her.

  ‘Mrs Conway.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m awfully sorry, but I can prove those letters are untrue. Your husband is alive and has been imprisoned for desertion.’

  Captain Clarkson was clearly rattled by the situation. He told Jane he’d been sent because the army felt great sympathy; what her husband had done in the face of enemy fire was no fault of hers. The decision to send him here to explain this had been done with good intentions, but he wished they had known the circumstances and particularly the existence of those letters, for perhaps they would have followed a different course.

  The letters — from a minister of all people, and a medical officer who should’ve known better — were doubtless well meant but had caused her an awful situation, with so many people believing Stephen had been killed in action; even her young son had been led to accept this. It posed a real problem, Clarkson pointed out.

  Jane asked him if he would please go. She needed to be alone.

  The staff captain said he quite understood. She had much to think about. Some day, after he’d served his ten-year sentence, or perhaps earlier if there was an amnesty, her husband would expect to come home. Mrs Conway would doubtless want to address her mind to what might happen then.

  I was an impressionable sixteen-year-old by the end of the war, and deeply envious of my sister Henrietta, a volunteer nurse, and one of the so-called Roses of No-Man’s-Land. They were so romanticised in the newspapers and on the music hall stages that I sometimes felt as if she was a combination of heroine and an angel of mercy.

  I suppose it was a lasting perception, because in 1922, four years after the war ended, I enlisted in what was then known as Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service. My home at the Lodge had become an unhappy and depressing place; my three brothers dead, two in the trenches of France, and one in a London traffic accident. I left there with relief. There was no opposition from either of my parents, for the family was in total disarray ever since our loss. Only Henrietta tried to dissuade me, saying the war was over and there was no future or indeed any fun in an army nursing career. Although we were still friends at this time, we quarrelled about this. It was not our first disagreement, nor would it be our last.

  After elementary training in a military hospital at Aldershot, I was sent as a junior nurse to Netley. The place was still full of casualties from the war, serious cases, many of whom would never fully recover. It was not the romantic job that I’d envisioned. It was tedious routine, and after twelve months of doing nothing more stimulating than scrubbing floors, washing dishes and emptying bedpans, I was forced to reluctantly agree that Henry had been right. I wanted to give up and go home.

  But that, I learnt with a shock, was not an option. In my haste to join the service I’d enlisted for the minimum period of nine years. I soon learned it was as binding as an army enrolment. I applied for early release on compassionate grounds that my father was ill and needed a nurse’s care. The hospital considered the case, agreed my father was indeed ill, but was being well cared for by his elder daughter, a former VAD who had served both at home and abroad during the war. The verdict was that with Henrietta’s experience she would be more able to cope with the situation. My application was denied. Perhaps unfairly, I never quite forgave my sister. I suppose it would explain the rancour between us later.

  So I endured five more years of drudgery, and at the age of twenty-six, facing at least another three years until I could leave this servitude, I felt that I had wasted my life.

  Stephen served his full sentence in the harsh Yorkshire military prison, the only inmate who received no amnesty. In the ten years behind bars his health deteriorated; no attempt had been made to treat the result of his shell shock, and his lungs had become weakened by the excessive hours of hard labour and severe winters, as well as the after-effects of the poison gas. He was thirty-four but looked closer to fifty.

  On discharge from Bridgeway, detainees were given a mandatory medical examination. A new doctor conducted this; he had only been at the prison a matter of weeks and did not know Stephen. He was
a more sensitive man than his predecessor, and concerned about the condition of his patient. After a series of tests he declared Stephen was unfit to return to civilian life. He was emotionally unstable from damage suffered in France; it was likely he could harm himself, or even be a possible danger to others.

  The tyrannical Major Norton, still commander of the prison, was not prepared to accept the medical officer’s report. Conway was a difficult detainee he wished to get rid of, and as quickly as possible.

  ‘You’ll have to rethink this,’ he told the doctor, who replied it was not only professionally out of order to change his diagnosis, but quite impossible. Copies of his report had been sent to provost and army headquarters. In his opinion, he had stated bluntly, it was the fault of the system and this prison. The man had been badly neglected, ill-treated and needed proper care and attention.

  The matter was passed up the chain of command for consideration. The army was in a quandary, for they could not legitimately keep Stephen Conway in prison any longer, but nor did they want the responsibility of releasing him into the community after this troubling medical report. They took advice on the legality of what seemed the simple and logical solution. Eminent counsel agreed the problem could lawfully be sent back to its place of origin. An application was made to the Home Office for his immediate deportation to Australia. Stephen was paraded in the commander’s office to be told of this intention.

  ‘No,’ he said, becoming distressed at the suggestion, ‘you can’t do that, and I won’t agree to go.’

  ‘That’s where you belong,’ Norton told him, ‘and it’s where you’ll be going as soon as possible. If you make it necessary, you’ll be taken to the first available ship under escort. Like the bloody convicts were taken on board in irons at the start of your country.’ Stephen lost his temper. He shouted angrily that nothing would make him ever go back to Australia. He no longer belonged there. That part of his life was over. His agitation became so violent that the guards wanted him restrained and Major Norton had no real solution except to propose another spell in solitary. It was pointed out to him by the same doctor that this could be unwise, because technically Stephen Conway was now a free man.

  ‘Well, you opened this fucking can of worms,’ the major snapped, ‘so what are we to do with the bloody man?’

  ‘Let’s start by treating him like a human being,’ the doctor suggested. ‘I don’t think that’s a privilege he’s enjoyed for a long time.’

  The next day the doctor and Stephen went for a long walk on the moor together. It was with extreme reluctance that the prisoner was allowed out of the main gate, but risking further displeasure from authority the doctor argued that they could not have the kind of amicable conversation required within the walls that held only grim memories for him.

  It was on the walk that the doctor encouraged Stephen to talk, and during this he spoke about the places he’d been during the four years of the war, among them Netley. The doctor asked if Stephen could face going back there. If not, there might be a successful move to repatriate him, however unfairly and even against his wishes. Stephen asked for time to think about it, and decided if it was a choice between that or deportation, the hospital in Southampton Water was at least a recognisable refuge.

  So he came back to Netley by his own concurrence. He arrived there with an old kitbag, pitifully few possessions in it, but among them was the notebook, still preserved and treasured as though it were a talisman. He no longer wrote in it but read it sometimes, as if to recall his life.

  The first time we met I was on my hands and knees, scrubbing out the men’s shower block. Stephen walked across my wet floor, unaware his boots were dirty and left a trail of muddy imprints. I sat back on my haunches, annoyed at his thoughtlessness, and hurled my scrubbing brush at him. It hit his shoulder, and I shouted my candid opinion of him.

  ‘Mind where you put your filthy feet, you stupid clod!’

  To be honest, I was about to follow this with more abuse when he turned and stared at me, instantly sat down, unmindful of the wet floor, and burst into tears.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ I said, ‘it was only a scrubbing brush. It didn’t hurt you that much.’

  This seemed to provoke a fresh outburst of tears. He began to sob uncontrollably, his hands held to his face as his body rocked back and forth in what seemed like an awful paroxysm of grief.

  ‘Please don’t cry,’ I begged, now distressed, but it went unheeded. I stood up, wondering what to do. Should I go for a doctor, or call one of the ward sisters? Not being able to decide the best course of action, I moved across and sat on the wet floor beside him. Uncertain how to cope, I reached for one of his hands and held it.

  ‘Get a cold bum sitting in the sopping wet like this,’ I murmured, feeling it was probably the wrong thing to say at such an awkward time. ‘Do you want to move somewhere else, where it’s dry?’

  He took his other hand from his tearful face and shook his head.

  ‘Might end up with a chill, or a dose of piles.’

  I waited for him to say something, but he just looked at me. At least he had stopped crying. I took off my nurse’s cap and used it to mop his tears. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Stephen,’ he said, after a long pause.

  ‘I don’t think I’ve seen you around the hospital before. Have you been here long, Stephen?’

  ‘A few weeks.’

  ‘What do you think of it?’

  ‘Better than it used to be.’

  ‘Not your first visit?’

  ‘No,’ was all he said, and asked my name. When I told him he repeated it softly. ‘Georgina.’

  ‘It’s a mouthful, so people often call me George.’

  ‘Georgina, that suits you best. I’d never call you George.’

  ‘That’s good,’ I said, ‘because I don’t like it either. Are you English, Stephen?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Where are you from?’

  He did not answer, his eyes beginning to fill with tears again.

  ‘Don’t, Stephen. Please don’t cry. I won’t ask if it upsets you.’

  ‘Australia,’ he said, ‘but I can’t ever go back there.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘She asked me not to.’

  ‘Who did?’

  ‘Jane. My wife. She said it would be… embarrassing.’ He wiped his eyes with his sleeve, and struggled to continue. ‘It would embarrass my son. So I can’t ever see him. He’s thirteen now; I’ve never seen him and I never will. He was only five years old when she wrote the letter…’

  He took a few crumpled pages from his pocket and gave them to me. Reading it, I thought it the saddest letter. It explained how the two sympathy notes had made Jane believe her husband had been killed in action, then some months afterwards the shock visit of the army officer had revealed the truth. And how she didn’t know whether to write, and having decided she must, didn’t know where to send her letter, but could only address it to him at army headquarters and hope it would somehow reach him. And yet, because of the things she had to say, she also dreaded the day it might arrive.

  I have agonised, it said, for so many weeks now.

  Awful sleepless nights, losing my concentration when I try to teach the children in class, wrestling with the problem which seems to have no answer. For myself selfishly I desperately want you home, but this news places me in a terrible predicament.

  People can be vicious and cruel. Surely you can imagine the hurtful things that would be said. After all, we had a church service, where Father Geraghty eulogised you. All because of the two men who wrote to me. I’m sure they were trying to be kind and helpful, but their kindness means that your return some day can only cause anguish and misery to all your family. I fear what will happen when people learn the truth, as they assuredly will.

  It would be humiliating for your parents who have been so good to me, and would be made to feel disgraced. I hate the thought of them being hurt. People would not take it kindly that the
y were misled, and I expect in the end they would blame me. I can put up with that, but I fear it would be especially hard for Richard to accept. He believes you died in battle and he venerates you as a hero. So do all your friends, as well as your parents, and after thinking about it deeply I’ve decided it’s best not to tell your dad and mother, nor mine. Perhaps one day when Richard is older I might be able to explain it to him, but at present I feel it best not to do that.

  My dearest — for you still are my dearest and there will never be anyone else — no matter how many years they make you spend in prison, you have every right to come home afterwards. No one can prevent you from doing that. But I ask you to think of the harm it could do. Think of your father and mother. Think of your son. And if you still have any feeling of love for me, you must see how it would completely destroy our entire family.

  For this reason, I can only beg you with all my heart to stay away.

  I didn’t know what to say. Because of that, I carefully smoothed and folded the pages, then gave the letter back to him. It allowed me a moment to think of what reply I could make without hurting him.

  ‘Poor Jane. It can’t have been an easy letter for her to write.’

  He looked at me, nodding agreement. It seemed as if it had helped. ‘I’ve always wanted to write back and say I’d do as she asked,’ he said softly. ‘But I wrote her five letters and tore them all up.’

  ‘It might’ve eased her mind.’

  ‘Or made things worse,’ Stephen replied. ‘An overseas letter with an English stamp, and the address in my handwriting. My parents would’ve recognised it at once.’

  I asked him questions about Jane, and Stephen seemed willing to answer. He spoke of their growing up together, and made me smile as he explained their first engagement at the age of eight, and told of their rushed marriage when they were both nineteen. He mentioned Echo Point and how he remembered the sound of their voices resonating past the Three Sisters and down the Megalong Valley.