A Time for Courage

by Margaret Graham

  ‘Stretcher-bearer, for Christ’s sake, it’s the major.’

  Smoke was all around and the thick long grass was now churned and stinking mud and no cornflowers or poppies remained. Harry could see the corporal who was calling now, his own arm bloodied and limp. He leapt over the top of the trench but turned as Ted started up the ladder behind him.

  ‘Stay there, I’ll carry him back,’ he called because Ted was crying.

  The major was wounded and lying twenty yards out. His leg was torn off but Harry could not see much blood as he stooped and gave the man morphine, but he wouldn’t, it would have been soaked up by the earth. He dragged the unconscious man back and a bullet plucked at his sleeve and another dislodged his helmet so that it fell over his eyes and he could not see. He had to lay the major down and tip his helmet back and then he saw Ted take the officer’s other arm and they dragged him back together, Ted taking the weight as Harry lowered him down into the trench.

  They ran the major back down the trench, round corners widened to take the stretchers. The breath was hurting in his chest when they reached the dressing station but they did not pause for there was no time for rest.

  They struggled back through others bringing their loads of groaning men and the corporal passed them, leaning on a man whose other arm was hurt.

  The corporal gripped Harry’s arm. ‘The sergeant’s in the shell-hole, the one the other side of the wire. I couldn’t get him, Harry.’

  Harry nodded and on they went and up the ladder again. The rain was still falling and the machine-gun was still stuttering, the shells still pounding and the smoke lay thick around them. The shell-hole was off to the right and Harry turned to Ted and said, ‘Stay here,’ but Ted was lying on the ground with a hole through his chest and his eyes wide open. The rain fell in them and clods of earth from a nearby shell but nothing could hurt the boy now. Harry turned to the front again. He threw the stretcher down and, ducking, ran towards the hole. He slipped and fell in the mud but pushed himself to his feet and ran on, into the shell-hole, falling and rolling down the sides. The sergeant could not speak but he smiled and Harry took him on his back and clawed up the sides, his fingers slipping in the mud, his mouth cursing, his feet digging in and forcing his weighted body upwards. He ran then, back to the trench, but he needed another stretcher-bearer.

  ‘Stretcher-bearer, quickly,’ he called and one came and together they forced their way to the dressing station again and now his legs were shaking but they would be worse if he stopped, so he staggered back to the trench, fear still drying his mouth, exhaustion tugging at his arms. His old wound was hurting. The call came again and the noise was louder now and his legs felt weak as he climbed the ladder again. The man was over beyond the shell-hole and it was so far and suddenly he was very afraid. He ran slower this time and when he reached him, all life had fled and Harry left the body until it could be retrieved at dusk. The groans he heard as he ran back came from a boy ten yards to his left. He turned and ran.

  ‘Coming, I’m coming,’ he called but knew the boy could not hear his panting call against the fury of the battle and as he reached him a Krupp howitzer drove into the ground too close to them both. He felt a thud, and the mud was soft as he fell; then the pain came, tearing and coursing through him and he could not hear the noise of battle just the screaming, and he realised it was himself. He tried to crawl but he could not move his legs and he felt so very cold.

  The mud was soft, too soft, and it was drawing him down but he should be helping the boy who was lying looking at him with eyes which never blinked.

  ‘I’m coming,’ Harry said but his mouth was full of blood and the words drowned before they could reach the air. He dug with his fingers, dragging himself towards the boy who had blond hair like Esther but the mud was too possessive, it wanted him too much. Had he wanted Esther too much? He coughed and there was blood on his hand, like the hunters’ jackets against the snow, like the fox’s tail against his skin; red on white.

  He was tired now and he could not fight the mud or the weight of his body which was pinning him deeper into the softness. They were tearing up his picture now and pouring water in through his mouth, his nose and he could not breathe and Frank was there, his face twisted as he shouted, ‘You should not break the rules.’ And then Frank faded away as the sun lit up Penbrin and the children stroked the guinea-pigs but he could not hear their laughter for it was so quiet. So very quiet. Hannah would like this peace, he thought, and he did not move again.

  When Hannah received the telegram informing her of Harry’s death she wrote to her father. He sent back a message from his solicitor. I have no son.

  22

  Hannah’s eyes ached but there were only three more lavender bags to sew for the Christmas stockings. In a few days it would be 1918 but would that make any difference? Would it bring an end to the horror that was the war?

  She pushed the needle through, breathing in the oily scent, feeling the lavender and its leaves in the centre of the bag, grown from Penbrin cuttings which she had brought up from Cornwall after Harry had died. The fire did not blaze but burnt steadily; ash had settled on the top of the coals and soon she would bank it up with more from the ash pan, to keep the core alight until the morning. Frances and she had cut down the lime last year and that had helped to supplement the coal rationing but nothing blazed these days, inside her body or outside. Not since Harry had died. No, not since then.

  ‘Drink your cocoa, Hannah,’ Frances said, peering over her spectacles, her pile of camomile bags toppling as she reached over them for her own drink. The dog stirred on the rug. Hannah’s hand felt stiff and she flexed her fingers, easing her shoulders.

  ‘Good idea, Frances.’ She laid the bag on her lap and reached for her mug, holding it between two hands, dropping her head to the drink. The steam flooded into her face and she closed her eyes wanting to shut out memories, feelings, just for one moment, but it did not work because Esther was there, behind the darkened lids, looking as she had done this afternoon – cool, smart and no older. No, she would not think of her cousin and she opened her eyes, focusing on the bubbles which clung to the edge of the mug, counting them, one two three four and then one burst. Esther had gone again. For now.

  When she sipped the drink it was strong and dark and she thought of Joe’s letter which had arrived today and was folded again and again in the pocket of her apron; bulky so that she could feel it all the time. He had been safe up to the time his pen had finished on the paper. So far he was not dead like Harry, like Maureen’s Edward, like the gardener, like Arthur, like his brother, like George. But no, that was enough. She must stop. It was Christmas after all and Joe was still not dead but the war was not over. When would that be? When would that damn well be? How many more Sommes, Ypres, how many more Passchendaeles, Arras, Vimy Ridges? How many more Cambrai’s could they bear and would there be any men left at the end of it all?

  She lifted her head and looked at Frances. The Chinese lanterns were hung across the room and tonight Father Christmas would visit the children and tomorrow there would be geese from Penbrin and potatoes and sprouts. Crackers would be pulled, but not by her for she still did not like the crack and the smell. Would the guns stop? Would Joe sit in his mess and think of her? She had to believe that he would, that he had not yet plunged from the sky, that as her lips were touching the mug, sipping the cocoa, tasting, swallowing, he was still breathing, was still warm, was still alive. To accept anything else was to die herself. But Hannah shook her head. She must stop this. She must make herself stop.

  Frances crossed her legs and picked up the last of the camomile bags, sewing rhythmically, the needle passing in and out. She wore socks and slippers because the shorter fashions were too cold she had said and Hannah had grinned and told her that this vision in knitted red socks would not cause men’s hearts to flutter. Frances had laughed and said that she had come to the conclusion that her heart was housed in her feet and socks were a better insulator than
a bit of flutter.

  Hannah picked up her own sewing, eased by the memory. Her hand ached and her finger was sore but she could still not use a thimble. Was Beaky sewing comforts for the troops, she wondered, and were needle-makers still dying as the housekeeper had once told her or had the war solved their problems as it had for so many others? But no, she must stop this. Death must not keep intruding.

  In and out went the needle and the lavender was strong again and with it came the memory of Esther, standing, watching, dressed in warm brown velvet as Hannah had stripped the flowers from the stems this afternoon and she knew that she must face the scene again for there would be no release from the anger until she had.

  It had been late in the afternoon when her cousin had called, had sent in her card and not given Hannah time to refuse her admittance, sweeping in on the heels of Maureen’s daughter. Hannah could still feel the engraved card as she had returned it without speaking to this blonde woman whom she had once loved, whom her brother had loved up to the end. As she sat her by the fire she remembered sending the children from the room, remembered scooping up the naked stems and tipping them into the bin, turning her back on Esther while she forced her face into a calm mask for there had been no love in her any more.

  She had turned as Esther spoke and waved her hand towards the chair that Frances was now sitting in. It had been heaped with hessian bags filled with the puppets which Hannah and Frances had made for all the children and Hannah had not moved to help her cousin lift them from the chair on to the ground, but had watched the distaste on that unlined face for the flecks of hemp that clung to her skirt as she sat and then she had asked her cousin why she had come, not moving from the table where the lavender was collected in small piles, but leaning back against it, her hands gripping the edge, her voice tight.

  She had watched as Esther had turned, her hat matching perfectly the material of her dress, and Hannah had listened as that voice, so clear and untouched, had called her darling and asked to be friends again.

  Hannah had looked at this woman, so straight-backed, hands pale and smooth holding brown gloves. Had they ever been friends, she wondered, thinking of the fight for votes, the school, the apologies she had always had to make for her cousin. But then she had thought of the nursery at Uncle Thomas’s, the puzzles they had finished together, the warm afternoons when they had sat while her mother was ill, the dance they had performed together, bare-legged, red-lipped, and she had paused a moment, watching as the dog lifted her head before sleeping again.

  But then Esther had spoken again and the memories had been reduced to nothing as she said, looking with her violet eyes at the fire which barely glowed, that as Harry and Arthur were dead any differences should die with them and that they were both rich women now, equals as it were. She had laughed, Hannah could hear it now, and had not looked at Hannah but around the room where the carpet was fraying and the furniture was worn.

  Hannah looked around now in the dull glow of the oil lamp, seeing again her cousin, but tasting the cocoa which she made herself drink. Hearing Esther as she had gone on to ask if Hannah would take her son into her school because Lord Sanders would marry her tomorrow but he did not like children. And so there it had been, out in the open, and Hannah knew then and now as she sat by the fire that Esther had not changed at all, even the war could not change this particular woman.

  She remembered looking at her, thinking that Harry was better off dead on the battlefield than destroyed by Esther. She had said no, of course. Had said that the school was still just an idea, Esther’s son was too young, but Esther had risen, stroking the velvet of her skirt, picking at the hessian, smiling and saying that she was not thinking of now, but in two years time, when he could join the kindergarten. Again Hannah had refused because she did not want to have to see her cousin ever again. She remembered looking at the lavender and the clock. There was too much to do to waste time talking to Esther.

  Then Esther had said, just think, there would be no need then to bear Joe a child, for you would have the son of your ex-lover. It would be quite perfect, wouldn’t it?

  Sitting here, opposite Frances, Hannah felt the table as she had gripped it, feeling the rage which had broken then, wanting to hurl Esther against the wall, see her break as she had broken Harry, as she was now breaking her and Arthur’s child.

  Get out, she had shouted and the noise of her heart had been loud in her chest. The dog had barked and the room had been dark with the coming of dusk but still Esther had not left and again Hannah had called. Get out, and this time Esther had moved, her face flushed and hard as she gathered up her skirt and strode to the door. Her hand had been on the brass doorknob when she had paused, turning her head to look over her shoulder at Hannah, saying in words that Hannah could remember exactly even now.

  ‘I thought I would offer you the consolation prize, after all you are behaving like the old woman who lived in the shoe, busying yourself with other people’s problems and stray dirty children, always too frightened to stop and think, stop and bear your own child because of your mother.’

  She had left then and Hannah had stayed at the table for too long, until her neck had ached and her hands grown as numb as the table she clutched, hating her cousin, trying to forget what she had said. Wishing she had not come out of the past as she had done. Glad that she was gone and need never be seen or heard again. Now in the soft light with the books on the shelves behind her chair, the silver paper-knife on the desk which she could not see, she could still not forget.

  Her hands were still aching, her neck too, and she felt that words must have burst from her again because she had told Frances over supper but all was quiet and the dog was still asleep so she had not cried ‘get out’ though her throat felt as tight as though she had. She looked down at the lavender bag. It was finished. Her hands had been working whilst her mind tore back over words she should forget. Must forget. There was blood on her apron from her finger. Red on white. She brushed at it, licked her finger and rubbed and rubbed.

  ‘You’ll need cold water for that,’ Frances said, coming across, disturbing Molly. ‘Or you won’t lift the stain. But my dear,’ and she took the needle from Hannah’s hand. ‘You will need more than that to rub away Esther’s words.’ She picked up the two remaining lavender bags and the cotton and Hannah wondered how Frances had known the thoughts which had filled the last few moments.

  ‘Go to bed, Hannah. I will finish these and at two we’ll take round the stockings to the children. I’ll come and wake you.’

  Frances touched her face and Hannah leant into the thin hand, wanting the warmth of someone who loved her.

  ‘My dearest Hannah,’ Frances said and her voice was gentle. ‘My dearest girl, think carefully about your cousin’s words. Perhaps they are true. Perhaps you cannot forget your mother.’

  As Hannah rose, picking up the hessian sacks which contained the puppets and left without a word, tiredness dragged at Frances. She did not like Esther but was glad that she had come. Frances banked up the fire, leaning away from the ash as it floated into the air. She stroked the dog, hoping that Hannah would face up to the fear that Frances now realised was there. If she did not, then a darkness would settle in her and Frances could not bear to think of more anguish for this woman that she loved as her own daughter. Yes, Hannah must face it.

  Hannah’s bedroom was cold but she did not mind. She doused the oil lamp and drew back the curtains, looking out over the city which was in darkness leaving only the rivers to guide in the zeppelins and the aircraft though there had been no more raids for a long time now. She liked the nights for she could not see then that the buildings were scarred with shot and bomb damage and that blinds still covered shop windows and paint dulled the glass of lampposts; She leant her head on the cold pane. At night, up here, you could almost believe that there was no war, no pounding guns, no frenzied dancing in shuttered bars, no desperation showing on the faces of the men as they attempted to compress into a few days wh
at should have been years of life. No anguish on the faces of the women who snatched at a moment of love, frightened that there would be no more for the rest of their long lives. Hannah rubbed at the pane. When would Joe come? It was six months since she had seen him and now they had Matthew as well because his mother had died and he was all alone.

  She pushed away Esther and thought only of Matthew’s mother and the other women, yellowed and ill from the munitions work which had sucked in so many since the battle at Neuve Chapelle had shown the grim necessity for more shells.

  She thought of the women in the classrooms which were now wards, yellow from liver failure and the babies they bore which were the same. She had visited one factory, had seen how the TNT was brought into the factory in powder, then heated and mixed with a nitrate and poured into the shells in liquid form. She had seen how the powder blew about the factory to be breathed in and how the hot liquid fumes had caused her to feel nauseous and giddy. Was it any wonder, she thought as she rubbed at the glass to clear the condensation, that women working there day after day were so ill?

  She leant on the sill. Of course objections had been made once it was realised that the TNT attacked the red corpuscles of the blood causing the liver to shrink and death to occur. Masks had been issued but still women died because the masks were not that efficient and there was no other work around here. Hannah sighed. When the women came with their children for the Christmas lunch she would look for the early signs; the lips that went blue-grey, the strained eyes which hid a headache and that way some would be saved.

  She felt anger towards Esther again. Did she not realise what was going on out in this dark country? She looked towards Henson Terrace, craning her neck to see, feeling guilt because she still had not managed to obtain even a tiny pension for Maureen’s sister whose fusilier husband had been killed falling off a lorry. She had been refused a pension because he had not been blown apart by a German shell.