Outside the door Tom pulled away from Roger’s grasp and thrust his fists into his pockets. He turned along the Straight and Roger followed.
‘Take no notice of Emery Preston. Who cares about him? Or Tilly neither?’
‘Not me,’ said Tom. ‘I ent grieving over them.’
‘San-fairy-duckwater, that’s the style.’
‘He was telling the truth, though, all the same. My dad was a bad ’un. There’s no doubt of that. He murdered my mother down in that cottage at Collow Ford and then went and hanged hisself in a tree.’
‘So what? It’s all ancient history, over and done with. You don’t want to worry yourself over that.’
‘I don’t,’ Tom said. ‘It’s other folk that worry about it, not me.’
Sometimes he tried to picture his father: the drunkard hitting out in a rage; the fugitive run to ground by guilt; the despairer saving the public hangman a task. But no picture ever came to mind. It was just a story, and the man in the story was shadowy, faceless.
Could he picture his mother? Yes, perhaps. For sometimes he had a memory of white arms reaching towards him; of warm hands receiving his body into their strong, safe, thankful grasp. But the memory, if memory it was, always slid away when he tried to catch it, and then there was only a pitch-black darkness.
‘Let’s go to Chepsworth,’ Roger said. ‘We’ll have a drink at The Revellers. They’ve got a skittle table there.’
At The Revellers, in Lock Street, a coloured poster hung on the wall, showing the ruins of Louvain cathedral after its capture by the enemy. It was an artist’s impression, it said, and it showed the German cavalry stabling their horses in nave and transept. One German trooper was smashing a painted plaster madonna by hurling it against the wall. Another was tearing the sacred vestments. Several others were burning carved wooden statues, including one of Christ blessing the loaves and fishes, to boil a pot of stew on a tripod, while, in the broken doorway, a few Belgian people, mostly old men and women, stood with their faces in their hands.
‘I was just thinking,’ Tom said, ‘supposing that was Chepsworth cathedral, in ruins like that, with soldiers breaking everything up?’
‘You ent religious, are you, Tom?’
‘No, not me, but I think it’s wicked all the same.’
‘What about all the people killed? That’s a lot more wicked than bosting statues.’
‘Ah, well, that’s right, of course,’ Tom said. ‘People is more important than statues.’
But he hated the thought of all those carved figures fed to the flames in Louvain cathedral, just to boil a stew-pot for German soldiers.
‘You’ve gone and done what?’ Jesse asked, open-mouthed. ‘You surely didn’t say enlisted?’
‘Ah,’ said Tom. ‘Enlisted, that’s right. Three o’clock this afternoon.’
‘And you?’ Jesse said, staring at Roger. ‘You surely never went in too?’
‘They wouldn’t have me. They wouldn’t believe I was eighteen.’
‘God in heaven!’ said Great-grumpa. ‘Anyone with half an eye could see you was only just weaned.’
‘They took my name, though,’ Roger said. ‘They’ll be sending for me in due course.’
‘Due course,’ said Jesse, relieved. ‘Why, it’s more’n a year before you’re eighteen, and the war will surely be over by then?’
‘It’d better be!’ Great-grumpa said. ‘It’s damn near ruining the business.’
‘So Tom is to go? Would you believe it! I can’t hardly credit it even now.’ Jesse looked doubtfully at his wife. ‘Ought we to let him, do you think, or are you going to put your foot down?’
‘We can’t stop him,’ Beth said. ‘He’s well past eighteen and a grown man. If all I had to do was put my foot down, this war’d have been over before it started.’ She looked at Tom, standing before her. ‘When d’you have to go to the barracks?’
‘They’ll be sending my papers, the sergeant said.’
‘You done right to enlist,’ Granna said. ‘I’m only glad it ent our William.’
Tom went off to bed-down the pony in its stall, and there Betony found him later, having heard the news from her father and mother.
‘Why did you go and enlist like that, without a word to anybody?’
‘I just thought I would, that’s all.’
‘Do you think it’s easy being a soldier?’
‘I dunno. I ent considered.’
‘I suppose you were tipsy as usual.’
‘I suppose I was,’ he said, shrugging.
She could never get near him, try as she might. He spoke to her only to answer her questions. It had always been so from the very beginning; from the moment he had come to Cobbs, when she had made him feel an outcast and had driven him into himself like a crab. Nothing would change him now, it seemed. He would never believe that she minded about him.
‘I can’t imagine Tom as a soldier.’
‘You seem to be worried,’ Michael said, ‘yet it’s no different for him than for any other volunteer.’
‘Tom’s known so little happiness. It would be wicked if he were killed.’
‘He’s been happy enough with your family, hasn’t he?’
‘But he’s known no joy,’ Betony said.
‘How many people ever know joy?’
‘Not many, I suppose, and then only in fleeting moments.’
They were walking in the garden at King’s Hill House. Betony had sat through afternoon tea and had weathered his mother’s interrogation. But her thoughts, obviously, had been elsewhere.
‘There ought to be special joys in the world for people like Tom,’ she said, ‘though I’ve no idea what they might be.’
‘You don’t seem to mind that he treats you so boorishly all the time.’
‘I know I deserve it, that’s why.’
‘Oh, come, now!’ Michael said. ‘You can’t have treated him that badly.’
‘You don’t know. You weren’t there. Children can be very cruel.’
‘It was all a very long time ago.’
‘I still feel guilty all the same.’
‘I’m glad it’s nothing more than that. I was beginning to be afraid you loved him.’
‘But I do love him!’ Betony said. ‘I love him dearly and I wish to God I could make him trust me. He’s a creature all alone in the world yet I can’t get near him ‒ I can’t do anything to help him. Oh, yes, I love him. I love him very dearly indeed.’
Then, suddenly, she saw the expression in Michael’s eyes.
‘Ah, no!’ she said. ‘It isn’t like that! Not that sort of love. How can I make you understand?’
And because she could not bear to see him unhappy, she reached up and kissed him, holding his face between her hands.
‘You mustn’t look like that,’ she said. ‘You’ve got no reason to look like that.’
‘Betony ‒’
‘Yes, yes, I know.’
‘You do feel something for me, then?’
‘Of course I do. How can you ask?’
‘Are your feelings the same as mine?’
‘I think they will be, given time.’
‘Time,’ he repeated. ‘Ah, time!’
But he had her promise, and it was worth more to him than her surrender. He told her so by taking her hand and raising it formally to his lips. His eyes were not so desperate now.
Mrs Andrews, watching them from the French window, gave a little sigh of resignation. The girl meant to have him. That much was obvious.
Towards the end of his leave, he went before a medical board. The wound in his shoulder had healed well. The effects of gas poisoning were passing away. He was fit for duty.
‘You’re very lucky,’ the elderly doctor said to him. ‘You’ve got an excellent constitution. Still, I’m taking no chances with those lungs of yours, so it’s home service only for at least six months. Then we’ll have you along again.’
Michael’s heart leapt. Six months in England! He could hardly
believe it.
‘Disappointed?’ the doctor asked dryly.
‘I think I can bear it,’ Michael said.
‘You’ve earnt your respite. I wish I could give it to all the men who pass through my hands, but I have to send most of ’em back out there, like so many pitchers going to the well.’
Michael went home to enjoy the last few days of his leave and await his posting.
‘I’m so relieved,’ his mother said. ‘Perhaps it will all be over soon, before you’re ready for foreign service.’
‘Perhaps it will. Who knows?’
That was November, 1915. The war must end sooner or later. Why not look on the bright side?
The new year came in, bringing a new determination. 1916! There was a certain sound about it. Great things were expected from the start, and people in Britain were pulling themselves together again, preparing for a new effort.
Michael was now at Yelmingham, attached to the new Tenth Battalion. He was lecturing recruits on trench warfare.
Tom, in training at Capleton Wick, had a weekend pass every third or fourth week, and the family at Cobbs grew used to seeing him in khaki. Dicky still jeered at his skinny legs, bound tight in puttees, but Great-grumpa Tewke thought him much improved.
‘They’ve smartened you up, boy. They’ve made you walk straight instead of lolling about like a ploughboy. There’s something to be said for discipline.’
Early in April, Tom was at home for the last time, on twenty-four hours’ draft leave. There were three other Huntlip boys due to go, and the four were given a noisy send-off at The Rose and Crown. Tilly Preston hung on Tom’s arm almost all the evening and her father for once said nothing about it. The family, too, gave him a send-off, drinking his health in a bottle of Beth’s strong coltsfoot wine, and presenting him with a pocket-bible.
‘Are you sure you don’t know where you’re going?’
‘No, they ent told us, but the chaps think it’s France.’
‘Well, wherever it is,’ Granna said, ‘always take care that you air your clothes.’
Later that evening, Tom was missing from the family party. Betony went out to the fold, where the cobbles were frosty underfoot, and saw a light in the old woodshed. Tom kept his ferrets in a hutch there, and when she went in, he had the two of them in his arms. His stub of candle stood in the draught, so that his face was lit and unlit ceaselessly, cheekbones and jawbones sharply outlined, deep dark eyes now seen, now unseen, as the flame leapt and flickered, trying to pull itself free of the wick.
‘Will you look after my ferrets for me?’
‘Why me, for mercy’s sake?’
‘The boys’d forget. They’re not keen on ferrets.’
‘I’m not keen myself. Nasty smelly things. But yes, I’ll look after them, that’s a promise.’
It surprised her that he should entrust this duty to her. He had never asked a favour in his life before. It pleased her, too, and she stroked the ferrets in his arms.
‘I suppose you think you’re going on an outing?’
‘Ah, that’s right, a regular dido.’
‘Or out poaching with old Charley Bailey.’
‘I know what it’s like. I read the papers.’
‘You’ll write to us, won’t you, and tell us how you’re getting on?’
‘I ent much of a hand at letters.’
‘Well, I’ll write to you,’ Betony said, ‘and that’s the second promise I’ve made.’
Tom merely shrugged. He was feeling a wart behind Nipper’s ear. It might be serious and need a spot of something on it. He showed it to Betony and made her feel it, telling her what she must do about it if it got worse while he was away.
Out there in France, in the trenches, however, letters were precious and were read over and over again. They were kept until they wore through at the folds and even then they were sometimes mended. All except the most intimate letters were passed round and shared, and Betony’s letters were great favourites, being full of things that made the men laugh. And because she addressed them to ‘Private Thos. Maddox’ Tom was newly christened ‘Toss’.
‘We can’t call you Tom,’ said Pecker Danson. ‘We’re all Tommies out here!’
‘What’s she like, this Bet of yours? ‒ Is she well-built?’ asked Big Glover. ‘I like ’em well-built, with some shape about them. Fair, did you say, and nice-looking? Soft and sweet and gentle, is she?’
‘No,’ Tom said, and the thought brought a faint smile to his lips.
‘Whatya mean, no?’
‘I wouldn’t call her sweet and gentle.’
‘Are you saying she’s a Tartar?’
‘Well, a bit on the bossy side, you know.’
‘We might’ve known there was snags in it somewhere.’
‘God preserve us from bossy women!’
But their disappointment did not last long. They would have nothing said against Betony. They had made her their mascot.
‘It’s a good thing sometimes, being bossy,’ said Bob Newers. ‘I wish we had her out here with us. She might get the rations up on time.’
‘Ask Bet if she’ll marry me when I get back to Blighty, will you?’ said Big Glover. ‘Say I’m six-foot-four and handsome with it. Don’t mention the mole on my left elbow. I’d sooner keep it as a surprise.’
‘She’s got a chap already,’ said Danson. ‘An officer in the Second Battalion. That’s right, ent it, Toss? Name of Andrews?’
‘Ah, that’s right,’ Tom said.
‘Sod hell and damn!’ said Big Glover. ‘The officers get all the luck.’
‘Stands to reason,’ said Rufus Smith. ‘Bet ent like Toss. She’s educated. You can tell by the way she writes her letters.’
‘It makes me laugh whenever I think of it,’ Pecker Danson said, choking. ‘What she said last time, about the girls at Coventry writing messages on the shells. It makes me wish I was an artillery man. I might’ve learnt a thing or two.’
Rain was falling steadily. The trenches fell in as fast as the men worked to repair them. They stood to the knees in icy water, filling sandbags with the chalky mud.
‘Why don’t you never gamble, Toss? Why don’t you never cuss and swear?’
‘He don’t need to, Pecker old son, ’cos you do enough for him and you both.’
‘He ent hardly human, the way he never grumbles nor nothing. Don’t you feel the cold and wet, Toss, the same as all us other chaps?’
‘I try not to think about it,’ Tom said.
Somehow he was able to shut out the cold teeming rain and the tiredness. He was able to shut himself up inside, with his own thoughts, while his body moved automatically and his arms went on working. Yet when they asked what these thoughts were, he could never tell them.
‘The same as yours, I suppose,’ he said.
‘You’re a dirty little tyke, then, if you think the same thoughts as the rest of us.’
After their spell at Hébuterne, which Danson said was to get them used to shellfire, they marched to billets at Beauquesne. The weather improved. They had ten days of intensive training, mostly in sunshine.
‘Why bayonet practice?’ Glover said, during a respite. ‘Are we running out of bullets?’
‘I saw a general this morning,’ said Ritchie, ‘the first I’ve seen since coming over.’
‘You didn’t see the C.-in-C.?’
‘I wouldn’t know him from Adam, would I, except that he’d be wearing khaki?’
‘Who is C.-in-C.?’ asked Pecker Danson.
‘Blowed if I know. Does anyone else?’
‘Charlie Chaplin,’ Glover said.
‘Mrs Pankhurst,’ said Rufus Smith.
‘Angus Jock Maconochie.’
‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band.’
‘Here, sarge!’ said Bob Newers, stopping Sergeant Grimes as he came by. ‘Who commands the B.E.F.?’
‘I do!’ said Grimes. ‘And next after me, General Sir Douglas Haig.’
‘Haig,’ said Newers. ‘Any whisk
y coming our way?’
The sergeant fixed him with a pitying eye.
‘D’you mean to tell me you didn’t know the name of the C.-in-C.? You’re ignorant, Newers, that’s what you are.’
‘I am,’ agreed Newers, nodding sadly. ‘I’m that bloody ignorant they’ll give me three stripes if I ent careful.’
‘Enough of that!’ Grimes said, without rancour. ‘Too much sauce and I’ll make you caper.’
Not all the instructors were like Grimes. Sergeant Townchurch, for instance, was out of a different mould entirely. He liked to pick on weaker men and humble them before the others, and one such was a Welshman named Evans, a small thin man with sunken chest who had trouble with his breathing: a man, Newers said, who should never have been in the Army at all.
‘Evans?’ said Townchurch, during a mock attack one morning. ‘A Welshman and a miner, eh? In other words, a bloody slacker! We’ve heard about your lot, going on strike for better pay while we sweat our guts out fighting the Huns!’
Evans said nothing. His eyes were glazed and his skin looked like putty. He was almost choking, for Townchurch had run him about at the double, weighed down by pack, rifle, entrenching tool, and two canvas buckets full of grenades.
‘How come you’re in the Three Counties? Won’t they take slackers in the Royal Welsh? Or even in the South Wales Borderers?’
‘Leave him alone,’ Tom said. He was standing next to Evans and could hear how the man struggled for breath. ‘If he was a slacker he wouldn’t be here.’
Townchurch came and stood before Tom. He looked him over from head to foot
‘Are you another bloody Welshman? No? Perhaps not. A gipsy, then? It’s what you look like. And what, might I ask, is your sodding name? Maddox. Right. Be sure I’ll remember.’
So Tom and Evans became his victims. Luckily their stay at Beauquesne was brief. The party in training broke up, and the Sixth Battalion went into the line, taking over trenches at Mary Redan. Evans was now in C Company, in the same platoon as Tom and Newers, and by a strange unlucky chance, when their sergeant was injured by shrapnel, his place was taken by Sergeant Townchurch.
The Sorrowing Wind (The Apple Tree Saga Book 3) Page 3
