Archie's War

by Margi McAllister

  The camp’s commanding officer sat behind a gleaming wooden desk. He looked like Lord Hazelgrove but older. Will faced him, his feet apart and his hands behind his back, with a soldier on either side. Archie and Corporal Hick stayed by the door with Star at Archie’s feet while the officer read the letters from Ma and Lady Hazelgrove.

  “Will Sparrow, I admire your courage,” he said at last. “I honestly do. But I don’t send boys into battle. There are plenty of ways a lad like you can serve his country, and this isn’t one of them. You’re learning to be a gardener. It’s a good thing to do. Growing food, that’s a real job. Soldiers can’t fight without food. Give a gardener a patch of ground and a handful of seeds and he’ll feed you through the winter. Be a gardener. Be a good one. When you’re older, when we’ve won this war, the men will come home hungry, and how are they going to eat if nobody’s left to grow potatoes? Go back to…” he looked again at the letter and raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Have you come all the way from Yorkshire?”

  Will said nothing.

  “Please, sir…” began Archie.

  “The lad would like permission to speak, sir,” said Corporal Hick, and Archie explained about Ashlings, and Will going to work for Lady Dunkeld. At the mention of her name, the officer raised his eyebrows.

  “From Fivewells?” he said. “How did you get here from Fivewells?”

  “On a bicycle, sir.”

  “And you, Will?”

  “Walked, sir.”

  “My word, they breed ’em tough in Yorkshire,” said the officer. “Corporal!”

  “Sir!”

  “Take them away – may as well feed ’em while they’re here, then find a junior officer who can drive a motor car without hitting a tree and get them back to Fivewells. And their bicycle. And the … good gracious, whatever sort of a dog is that?”

  The word “dog” alerted Star. His ears lifted.

  “We don’t know, sir,” said Archie. “His mother was a poodle, sir.”

  The soldiers both laughed, and Archie turned red.

  “And his father was goodness knows what,” said the commanding officer. “Jolly nice little chap, whatever he is. Will, you’ve proved that you have courage and you’re willing to serve your country, and that’s enough. You’ve got a good brother there. Go on, the pair of you, make yourselves scarce.”

  Will turned his face away from Archie. He said nothing all the way back to Fivewells.

  When Will and Archie reached Fivewells, Lady Dunkeld was outside talking to one of the doctors. At one moment, they were climbing down from an army truck. The next, Will was pinned against the side of it with Lady Dunkeld gripping his shoulders.

  “So you’re back, you wicked little tyke!” she barked at him. “Have you any idea of the trouble you’ve caused? You lied to me, your parents have been frantic with worry, your brother has come all the way from Yorkshire to find you, what have you to say for yourself?”

  “I wrote to my dad and ma, my lady!” gasped Will. He could barely get the words out, and Lady Dunkeld loosened her grip a little.

  “Oh, so that makes it all right, I suppose!” snapped Lady Dunkeld, then glanced at Archie. “They didn’t get a letter, did they, Archie?”

  “No, my lady,” muttered Archie wretchedly, knowing it would only make things worse.

  “I just wanted to fight for my country, my lady!” protested Will.

  “Don’t answer me back, boy!” She let go of him so quickly that he staggered, but she ignored him and turned to the driver. “The king, Lord Kitchener, the army, the navy and the what-you-may-call-them, the flying chaps, they can’t win the war, you know, not without help from Master William Sparrow.” She turned back to Will. “You’re a brave lad, I’ll give you that. You’re also a complete idiot. I’m going to telephone Ashlings and let them know you’re here and in one piece. I suppose you’ll have to stay here until we get you back to your parents. Make yourself useful. Do some digging or something. You’ll have to sleep in the shed with your brother. And I want an apology out of you for being more trouble than you’re worth.”

  “I’m sorry, my lady,” he said sullenly.

  She began talking to the driver again. Nobody seemed bothered about what Archie did, so taking Star for a walk in the grounds would be a good idea.

  “Come on, then,” he said, and let Star run ahead. Now and again Star would stop to make friends with a bandaged soldier sitting on a garden bench then he’d race far ahead again and suddenly, Archie felt unbearably lonely. He didn’t belong here. Nobody would notice if he wasn’t here at all except Will, and Will hated him now. He thought of Dad and Ma, and summer evenings playing cricket on the lawn.

  He had Star, and he and Star were everything to each other – but if Lady Dunkeld worked out that Carr was really Star, she’d want to keep him. Star’s life was woven into his now, and they couldn’t be separated. He threw a stick, and when Star brought it back Archie sat down, took the dog’s collar, and pulled him into his arms.

  “Stay, Star,” he whispered. “Stay. We need each other.”

  He heard boots on the path behind him, and glanced round. It was Will. Archie turned his face away. Will hadn’t wanted to speak to him before. He could be like that, too. A rabbit hopped across the lawn and Star wriggled to be free, so reluctantly Archie let him go. He ignored Will until Will kicked him in the hip, not hard enough to hurt much but enough to let him know how he felt.

  “Pleased with yourself?” asked Will. Archie shrugged. He didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t say anything.

  “That looks like Master Ted’s dog.”

  “Well, it isn’t.”

  “Get up, you,” ordered Will. Archie did, and faced him at last.

  “What did you want to do that for?” yelled Will. “Why did you have to interfere? I was doing well, I was training, I was a soldier!”

  “Ma’s been worried sick about you!” Archie shouted back. “She never knew where you were, Lady Dunkeld thought you were home – if she hadn’t said anything, Dad and Ma would have thought you were still here!”

  “I told you, I told that officer, I wrote to them! Are you calling me a liar?”

  “I’m not calling you anything, I’m saying they never got any letter! What was I supposed to do, stay home and let you get killed? Somebody had to come and find you! And anyway, you are a liar, you lied to Lady Dunkeld, you lied to the army, you’re a liar, you’re a cheat…”

  Will grabbed Archie’s shirt. He was shaking with anger. “I’m not a coward like you!”

  “I’m not a coward, and get your hands off me!”

  “You never tried to be a soldier! Cowardy, cowardy…”

  Archie kicked him hard in the ankle, Will overbalanced and then they were rolling on the ground, punching and kicking. Barking like gunfire, Star launched himself at them and grabbed Will’s sleeve.

  “Carr, let him go!” yelled Archie, and remembered the right command just in time. “Carr, give!”

  Star released the sleeve. The boys sat up, breathless and battered, and Will pulled his sleeve round to look at it.

  “He’s torn me shirt!” he grumbled. It wasn’t really a tear, just a hole, and it had stopped them fighting, but it didn’t improve Will’s mood. Star ran to Archie’s side and sniffed. Archie smelt of sweat, but he wasn’t hurt. All the same, he’d watch that boy.

  “Got your little dog to look after you?” growled Will. Archie knew that Will was trying to provoke him, so he sat still with one arm round Star.

  “Never got any letter,” he said. “Honest.”

  “Well, I sent it.”

  “Must have got lost,” said Archie, and couldn’t resist adding, “I’m not a coward.”

  Will gave him a look as if Archie was such a coward it wasn’t worth discussing. And Archie knew there was no point in saying anything more to him just
yet.

  There was so much he could have told him. He wanted to give news from home, tell him about Dad’s bad leg and how Ma, Jenn and little Flora were helping in the garden. He could tell him about the memorial garden they were going to make for Master Ted. Sooner or later, he’d explain about Star. And maybe, when Will had calmed down a bit, he’d see the ambulances arriving and the injured officers and the ones who’d left their sanity behind in the trenches, and understand what Archie had saved him from.

  From somewhere in the gardens came a shout, and a man in pyjamas ran across the lawn, his pyjama jacket flapping open. Archie recognized him. This was the officer he’d seen yesterday, shocked and shaking and talking about someone called Nicholson. Seeing Archie, he took him by the shoulders.

  “Where’s Nicholson?” he asked. Star stood in front of Archie, watching.

  “I don’t know, sir,” said Archie.

  The officer looked round and saw Will. “Have you seen Nicholson?” he demanded.

  “Who’s Nicholson?” asked Will.

  “If the noise would only stop, I could think,” said the officer. “Nicholson? What happened? Shall I write a letter?” A nurse was walking towards them.

  “You want to go with this lady, sir,” said Archie. “She’ll help you. She’ll get you some paper and you can write your letter.”

  “Nicholson?” he asked once more. The nurse led him away gently by the arm and Will stared after them.

  “What happened to him?” he asked.

  “What do you think?” Archie muttered back. “The war, that’s what.” They said little to each other all evening, and to Archie the time seemed endless. Star stayed close to him, and it was a relief to everyone when it was time to go back to the heap of blankets on the potting shed floor.

  Star sensed Archie’s unhappiness. He stayed very close, and lay down with his head against Archie’s leg.

  “Don’t snore,” said Will, but Will was the one who snored and kept Archie awake late into the night.

  When he woke in the morning, Will had gone.

  There was mist on the gardens when Archie ran outside with Star ahead of him. Maybe Will had just gone for a wee, or to the house to see if there was any breakfast going – but the birdsong told him that it was too early for anyone to be making breakfast yet. He ran, calling, then went back to the shed. Will’s bag had gone.

  “Star!” he said. “Find Will!” Star ran and sniffed, but Archie was pretty certain that he was more interested in all the other scents he could find.

  “Star, heel!” he said. He brought the blanket from Will’s bed and held it under the dog’s nose. “Will! Find Will! Come on, Star, concentrate. Find Will!” He didn’t know if Master Ted had ever taught Star about following a scent, but it was worth a try. “Seek! Seek Will!”

  He had no idea whether Star had understood or not but the dog ran towards the house, so Archie followed him. It would be all right, thought Archie, he’s just gone to the house, he’s still here … in the staff hall the kitchenmaid was on her knees in the grate, trying to coax the fire into life.

  “If you want bread you ask for it,” she snapped. “Don’t just go helping yourself like the last one did.”

  “My brother? Was he here?”

  “I wouldn’t have minded, but he could have helped me get the fire going,” she grumbled. “Just helped himself and ran.”

  “May I have some bread, please?” he said, knowing there was another long journey to come. He couldn’t force Will to come back. He’d have to persuade him.

  The bicycle was still propped against a wall where Dunn had left it. He clipped Star’s lead to his collar and took him to the gate, wheeling the bike with his free hand.

  “Where’s Will?” he said. “Seek Will!”

  Star pulled on the leash to the right and Archie raked his memory for what he had learned about Kent. The channel ports lay that way, where the troop ships left for France.

  “Good dog!” He bundled Star into the basket and rode off. Will would be walking, he was on the bike. Depending on when Will had left, there was a pretty good chance of catching up. He rode furiously, leaning forward over the handlebars, almost out of the saddle, looking out for Will round every bend, over every hill. He was riding so fast that when he did see Will trudging along the side of the road he had to stop too quickly and fell off. Star tumbled out of the basket, rolled over, and picked himself up. Will turned quickly.

  “Are you all…” he began, then saw who it was. “Oh, it’s you again.” He set off again, walking quickly.

  “I’m not going to stop you,” said Archie. “I just brought you some more bread. If you’re going, you’re going. Do you want any message taking home?”

  This seemed to make sense to Will. He stopped at last and they sat by the side of the road together, sharing the bread with Star.

  “You can’t go back to the same camp,” said Archie. “They’ll only send you home again.”

  Will shook his head and gulped down a mouthful of bread before answering. “I’m going to Folkestone, where the troop ships go from. I’ll get on to a ship somehow, and once I’m in France they won’t send me back again. It wouldn’t be worth their while to send me back. I’m a trained soldier now.”

  “Half-trained.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Why did you have to join up in the first place?” asked Archie. “You didn’t have to.”

  “There’d be no glory in it, would there, if I only did it ’cause I had to!” said Will. He sat hugging his knees and gazing out across the Kent countryside. “What happened was – I was working for Lady Dunkeld, I was doing all right. I was in town on my afternoon off, and I was looking in a shop window when these three lasses came past. They were whispering. The one of them marched right up to me and gave me a white feather.”

  “They did that to you!” exclaimed Archie. “Couldn’t they see you were…”

  “No, they couldn’t, that’s the point. Don’t you get it? I felt grand about that! It meant that I looked old enough to join up! So I did.”

  “Will,” said Archie carefully, because he didn’t want Will to run off again, “I’ve seen the men at Lady Dunkeld’s hospital. I’ve seen more than you have, I know what it’s like when they come back from the Front. You’ve already shown that you’re brave, you don’t need to do any more.”

  “That’s when it’s really brave, Archie,” he said. “I know more than I did when I first joined up, I’ve heard them talking about what happens in war. It’s no good hearing about wounds and all that stuff and running back home again. Not even if I ended up…”

  He stopped. Knowing that he was about to say something important, Archie waited. Finally, looking down at his hands, which were tightly clasped, Will muttered, “Like that man in the garden yesterday.”

  “Oh, him,” said Archie. He had thought that Will meant Master Ted, but he was talking about the man who kept looking for “Nicholson”. So that was Will feared most, ending up like that. But in spite of that he still meant to get on to a troop ship. He thought he’d never admired Will so much.

  Star stood up. He looked along the road, growling softly.

  “What would we do if you came back like that?” asked Archie. “We’d all have to look after you, Ma and our Jenn would have to wait on you like a baby. You’re – you’re a right good chap, Will. We need you. It’s not about fighting the war, it’s about getting the world back together after it. We’ve lost Master Ted and Frank Roger. We’ll need brave people like you alive and well.”

  In that moment he felt that they weren’t fighting the Germans at all. The Germans were probably a lot of gardeners and farm boys too, who fought for their country because they’d been told to. They were fighting against stubbornness, the refusal to listen and understand, whether it came from a gardener’s boy or the rulers of countries. At least, that was his bat
tle just now.

  “Ma misses you,” he said.

  “Stop trying to stop me,” said Will, and Archie knew, because he’d known his brother all his life, that Will was afraid, very afraid, but his pride would make him go on in spite of it, plodding the Kent roads, looking for a port and a troop ship. And Archie couldn’t go back without him. He would have to follow and stay with him because Will needed him, and Ma and Dad and all of them needed him to stick to Will so that at least he could tell them where he was. Perhaps, by the time they got to Folkestone, he’d have thought of some way of getting Will to go home. He could slip away, have a word with an officer or somebody, explain, show the letters – yes, that’s what he’d do.

  Star was still growling. Will hoisted his bag on to his shoulder.

  “I’m coming with you,” said Archie.

  Will scowled. “Suit yourself,” he said.

  Archie clipped Star’s lead on, looked along the road, and saw why he was growling.

  “There’s an army convoy coming,” he said.

  It wasn’t an army truck that came first but an ambulance, a large green hooded truck with a red cross on the side, bigger and smarter than the ones that usually turned up at Fivewells. It was followed by a few more army ambulances including one that looked like a converted grocer’s wagon. The first slowed down, and the driver leaned from the window to call to Archie. A nurse in uniform sat in the passenger seat, and behind them was a blue curtain to screen the part of the ambulance where the injured men would be.

  “Morning, lads,” said the driver. “I reckon we took a wrong turning somewhere, how do we get back to the London road?”

  Archie hesitated, but Will came to his side.

  “Give over, Archie, you’ll only get him more lost,” he said. “And keep the dog quiet.” Star was fascinated, trotting this way and that, and sniffing. Will began giving directions and seemed to know what he was talking about, so Archie led Star away, walking him alongside the line of ambulances. In some of them a bandaged soldier sat in the passenger seat – those were the ones who could sit up, thought Archie. There was always that curtain between the front of the ambulance and the back.