The Lost Soldier

by Costeloe Diney

  Nick Potter glanced across at him and grinned. “Yes, Peter, a blow-in. But it is my home nonetheless and I don’t want it ruined with over-development, or development badly planned.”

  “And you think this plan would be over-development?” Rachel asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Nick Potter replied. “Clearly Brigstock Jones have to build enough houses to make it worth their while at all, especially if they also have to put in the road and build a new village hall. But a housing estate of that size could well change the character of the village, and must be given serious consideration before it’s approved. I shall be writing to the planning authority with some questions that I think should be taken into account.”

  “Including the trees?” asked Rachel quietly.

  Nick Potter shrugged: “Well, if I don’t, others will. Clearly they are going to be extremely important to some people.”

  The lights began to go off in the hall and Rachel looked round to find that the three of them were the only ones left and that the caretaker was hovering at the door.

  “I think that’s a hint we should go,” said Nick Potter with a grin.

  “I think you’re right,” agreed Rachel. “Thank you for your time.” She handed them each one of her cards and added, “If you think of anything more about all this, please do give me a call.”

  They left the hall then, the two men heading off together into the darkness of the village, Rachel to her car.

  When she got home, Rachel drew the curtains against the cold damp of the night and poured herself a glass of wine before she switched on her computer.

  What an evening it turned out to be, she thought. I was expecting a very dull meeting and it was fireworks all the way.

  It was exactly such unpredictability that Rachel loved about her job. On the Belcaster Chronicle, no day was like another; no day boring. Though many of the jobs were routine, mundane even, Rachel loved talking to people, and learning their perception of the world. Hearing what was important to them, fascinated her. If she had the sniff of a story, she was like a terrier, worrying at it until she had discovered all and made it her own.

  “And there is a good story here, I know it,” she muttered as she waited for her screen to come up, and looking through her notes she began to consider how she would tackle it.

  There were several aspects to be considered, and she soon realised that there was enough here for more than one article. She needed far more information, but if she could get it, she knew the story would continue to run. She certainly needed to talk to Cecily Strong, but there had been no point in chasing out after her this evening.

  I need to see her in her own home if I can, Rachel thought. I want her to be at ease when we talk. She’s the one who’ll know about the Ashgrove and the men it commemorates.

  Rachel spent most of that night working at her computer. Her piece on the meeting in Charlton Ambrose was the easy part. She settled for a factual account, offering each side of the “development” argument as it had been presented, before that was, everything had been complicated by the Ashgrove. Of course Cecily’s revelation was the high spot of the evening, and Rachel explained the problem posed by the trees, but she decided she wanted to research the Ashgrove and its history in depth before following that part of the story any further. Here was a chance to build a story on her own, to develop it and follow it through. It was a chance she intended to seize. There were plenty of angles that needed following up, and Rachel wanted to get them mapped out in some detail before she put them to Drew Scott.

  So, she worked all night, listing the things which had caught her attention, small things needing further exploration; expanding the notes she’d made, both at the meeting and afterwards, when talking to Peter Davies and Nick Potter. Determined to put everything down while it was still fresh in her mind, Rachel finally crawled into bed as the red figures of her clock radio flicked to four-forty-five.

  2

  When she arrived at the offices of the Belcaster Chronicle next morning, Rachel headed straight for Drew’s office, and found the editor behind his desk, a mug of thick black coffee at his elbow and his eyes glued to his computer screen. He glanced up as Rachel came in.

  “Morning, Rach. Good meeting?” He grinned. He knew she hadn’t particularly wanted to go, but that was tough.

  “I’ve e-mailed it in,” she told him, “but I’ve brought hard copy for you to look at as well as I want your OK for some investigation.” She handed him her copy with the headline:

  DISCORD IN CHARLTON AMBROSE

  “Some life to it then,” he grinned as he glanced through the piece. “Mike Bradley not having it all his own way this time?”

  “No,” Rachel agreed. “Do you know him?”

  Drew laughed. “Oh yes. He’s been trying to ride roughshod over people in this town for years. Same last night was it?”

  “Pretty much,” Rachel agreed, “at first anyway. Then something unexpected came up and he was all red face and bluster.”

  Drew laughed. “Sounds familiar. What went wrong?”

  Rachel outlined briefly the problem of the Ashgrove. “The thing is,” she went on, “I’d like to follow up on this one, Drew. There’s more to this than meets the eye. There are two main aspects as I see it. One is the proposed development and the other is the history of the Ashgrove. I want to sound out local feelings on the housing scheme and to interview Mike Bradley about the project. That’s one story, but then there’s the Ashgrove itself. I think there’s a real human interest story about those memorial trees. Perhaps I could discover descendants other than Cecily Strong—she’s the one who brought the matter up at the meeting—and Peter Davies who still lives in the village. A bit of investigating. But there’s no time for this week’s edition.”

  Drew looked thoughtful. “OK,” he said. “It’s an interesting enough story. Get as much background on it as you can, and then if it comes up to scratch we’ll run it as a spread. Jon can take some pictures.” He tapped at his keyboard for a moment or two studying the layout of various pages of the paper, and then nodded. “We’ll run your account of the actual meeting this week and if it all stacks up, follow it up with your article next week. Right, get on with it,” then, as an elated Rachel turned away, he added, “Don’t forget to pick up today’s list from Cherry on your way out.”

  Cherry, in the outer office, handed her a list of jobs Drew wanted covered, the magistrates’ court, Belstone St Mary’s primary school nativity play, Christmas bazaar at St Joseph’s. All pretty run of the mill, but Rachel didn’t care. Now she also had something worth getting her teeth into, and she was determined to give it her best shot. She fished Mike Bradley’s card out of her bag, rang his secretary and made an appointment to see him at five o’clock that afternoon.

  When Rachel came out from the school nativity play, she found there was a missed call on her mobile. Checking her messages she found one from Mike Bradley’s secretary cancelling her meeting at five and suggesting another for the same time next day. Rachel was annoyed, but she was also suspicious. What was Mike Bradley up to? Why had he changed his mind about talking to her? Was he trying to avoid her, or was he simply playing for time? She looked at her watch. It was nearly half-past four. Should she, she wondered, go to his office and confront him? After some thought, she decided against it. It would probably be counter-productive. If she antagonised him now, she’d never get anything from him, and she was very interested to hear how the whole deal had been put together. Better, she decided reluctantly, to wait and go when she was invited. Anyway, by then she might well have come up with more questions that she wanted answered.

  She thought about Cecily Strong. Perhaps now would be a good time to go and see her. It was worth a try and she was sure the old lady would be extremely interesting to talk to. She picked up her mobile again and after a quick reference to the phone directory which she always carried in the car, she punched in the number for C Strong, Yew Tree Cottage, Charlton Ambrose.

 
“Yes?” The voice was elderly but firm. “Who is it?”

  “Miss Strong?”

  “Yes. Who is that?”

  “You don’t know me, Miss Strong,” began Rachel, “but my name is Rachel Elliott. I work for the Belcaster Chronicle, you know the local newspaper? I was at the parish meeting last night and I wondered if I could come and have a chat with you.”

  “With me?” Suspicion crept into the old lady’s voice. “Why do you want to talk to me?”

  “About the Ashgrove, Miss Strong. I’d love to hear the history of the Ashgrove.”

  “I don’t know you,” came the reply. “I don’t want to talk about it. Goodbye.”

  “Please don’t ring off,” cried Rachel hastily. “Miss Strong? Are you there?”

  There was silence the other end of the line, and Rachel, certain that the old lady was still listening, hurried on. “I want to try and save your Ashgrove, Miss Strong. I want to write all about it in my paper, so that everyone will know what is happening, and the trees won’t be cut down. May I come and see you? I’ll come whenever you say. You could invite a friend to be there with you all the time, if you’re worried.”

  The silence continued for a minute or two and Rachel let it lengthen before she said, “Well, thank you for your time. If you change your mind please ring me at the Chronicle… Rachel Elliott.”

  “Wait.” The voice crackled in her ear. “Come this evening. My niece will be here. Come at about six.”

  “Thank you, Miss Strong. I’ll be there then, and look forward to meeting you.”

  Rachel drove to Charlton Ambrose and parked beside the village hall. It was an old timber building with the paint peeling off and a rusting corrugated iron roof.

  It really is past its sell-by date, she thought as she looked at it. They could certainly do with a new village hall.

  She got out of the car and, in the cold dusk, walked across the green to the clump of trees at the further end. They were all ash trees, tall and well grown, their leafless branches making a dark tracery against the darkening December sky. They stood, moving restlessly in the winter wind, and as Rachel entered the little grove she felt as if they had closed in round her. She counted them. Eight, Peter Davies had said, or nine. There were nine. Rachel counted them again to be sure. Definitely nine. She walked over to one of them and rested her hand on its smooth cold bark.

  “Who do you belong to, I wonder?” she asked aloud. There was nothing to indicate whom each tree commemorated… or that the place was a memorial at all. She moved from tree to tree until she had rested her hand on each trunk, and thought of all the young, fresh-faced men who had gone so jauntily to war, never to return to their homes here in Charlton Ambrose. Such high hopes they must have had. The adventure of fighting in a war, seeing a bit of the world, before settling down to their humdrum lives here in the country. Rachel thought of the pictures she had seen of the trenches in Flanders, the mud and the squalor, the cold and the rats. She shuddered, and drawing her coat more closely around her, walked out on the far side of the grove where the allotment hedge barred her way. She peered over it, and through the gloom could just make out the strips of tilled ground, bleak with only the odd line of winter cabbages. Small sheds dotted the area and well-trodden paths criss-crossed between the plots. It was quite a large area, but even so, she found it hard to imagine twenty-five houses crammed in there. The right-hand side was edged by a grey stone wall. She couldn’t make out what was immediately on the other side, but a little further over was the church, its squat tower faintly illuminated by the lights from the pub across the road. There was no way that the new road could come round that side of the green into the allotments unless it went through the Ashgrove; Rachel could see that. Turning back towards the village, now sprinkled with lighted windows, she realised how dark it had become and headed back to her car. As she passed through the Ashgrove once more she shivered. It was an eerie place to be in alone in the dark.

  She still had some time to kill before she could visit Cecily Strong, and it was too cold to wait in the car, so she went into the pub.

  The bar of the King Arthur was very warm, with a huge log fire burning at one end and the cheerfully lit bar at the other. There were only two people already in there, leaning on the bar with their pints in front of them. They looked up as she came in and Rachel immediately recognised one of them as Peter Davies.

  “Oh, it’s you,” he said with a sniff. “What are you back here for then?”

  “Hallo, Mr Davies,” Rachel said cheerfully. “It’s cold, isn’t it?” She turned her attention to the barman, a young lad of about twenty. “Half of lager shandy, please.” As the lad poured her shandy, Rachel hoisted herself up on to a bar stool and looked across at Peter Davies.

  “I came over to have a look at the Ashgrove in the daylight,” she said in answer to his question. “They’re beautiful trees, aren’t they?”

  Peter Davies took a pull at his pint and nodded, but said nothing.

  “It’s a pity there’s nothing to show it’s a memorial,” Rachel remarked.

  “Used to be,” Peter Davies said laconically. “Little name-plates stuck in the ground.”

  “Really? What happened to them?”

  Peter Davies shrugged. “Don’t rightly know,” he said. “There were still one or two there when I was a lad. There was some talk, I remember, of having the names put on stones, you know, by a stonemason. But it weren’t never done.”

  “So now no one knows which tree is which,” said Rachel, taking a sip of her shandy. “Which tree is for which man, I mean.”

  “I can tell you which were for my uncles,” Peter Davies said. “They’re side by side, on the left. One for John near the allotment hedge, and the other for Daniel next to it.” He scratched his head. “Can’t tell you which the others were. Maybe Cecily’ll know. You’d better ask her.”

  Rachel smiled at him. “Thanks, I will.”

  The other man at the bar was about the same age as Peter Davies, short, with a small head and features, and a scruffy beard so that he looked like nothing so much as a gnome. He had made no contribution to the conversation, and Rachel addressed him now. “Good evening. I’m Rachel Elliott, from the Belcaster Chronicle.”

  “Oh yes.” The answer was disinterested.

  “I’m hoping to write a piece about the Ashgrove and the new houses,” she said cheerfully. “How do you feel about the scheme?”

  “Taking away our allotments,” he said. “My father used to work that allotment. Grew veg he did, all through the war. Digging for victory!”

  “And have you worked it ever since?” asked Rachel.

  “I have.”

  “You must be very upset that they’ve been sold off.”

  The man shrugged. “Parish council told us they was going to sell,” he said resignedly. “We was lucky to have them through last summer. Always knew they’d build on them some day.”

  “So you weren’t surprised by the housing scheme?”

  “Had to happen sometime. We’re getting a new village hall out of it, which is something, I suppose.”

  “So you’re in favour of the idea?” Rachel smiled at him.

  He took a pull at his beer. “Not agin it,” he said.

  “What about the Ashgrove?” asked Rachel.

  “What about it?”

  “Well, the plan is to cut it down to make way for the access road, isn’t it? How do you feel about that?”

  “Better if they didn’t,” replied the man. “But I expect they will. Money talks, don’t it?” He finished his drink and, nodding goodnight to them, he left the bar without speaking again.

  “Are you going to fight against them cutting the Ashgrove down, Mr Davies?” Rachel asked.

  Peter Davies shrugged. “Doubt there’s much we can do,” he said. “Tom’s right, money talks.” He, too, got to his feet and downing the last of his drink said goodnight, leaving Rachel alone in the bar.

  Rachel looked at her watch. It was n
early six, so she finished her shandy and paid up. Having tidied her hair and retouched her make-up in the ladies, she called goodnight to the barman and left the pub. As she opened the door, she almost collided with someone coming in. It was Nick Potter.

  “Oh, hallo,” he grinned as he recognised her. “We met last night. Still chasing your story?”

  “Just having a look at the village,” Rachel said casually. “I was over at the Ashgrove earlier. Mr Davies said there were eight trees, or nine. It’s nine. There must have been nine men remembered.”

  “I suppose so.” Nick looked interested. “I wonder who they were. Have you found out?”

  “No, not yet,” Rachel replied, “but I’m hoping to.”

  She made to move past him and he said, “Are you leaving, or have you time for a drink?”

  “No, sorry,” Rachel said, “I’ve an appointment,” then realising she’d sounded rather abrupt, she smiled and added, “Thanks for the thought, but I’m going over to see Miss Strong.”

  “Another time,” said Nick, standing aside and holding the door for her. “Good luck with the investigations.”

  “Thanks,” replied Rachel. “Goodnight.” She found she was smiling as she stepped out into the darkness and the door swung closed behind her.

  It was bitterly cold, and the canopy of the night sky was clear, its myriad stars sharp and bright above her as she walked across the road to the church. In the row of cottages beyond it Yew Tree Cottage was the second. There was a lamp in the porch spilling light out along the path, and, as Rachel walked up to the front door, a security light came on as well. She rang the bell, and the door was opened by a woman in her forties. She looked hard at Rachel, who smiled brightly and said, “Good evening. I’m Rachel Elliott from the Belcaster Chronicle. I’ve an appointment to see Miss Strong.”

  The woman gave a brief nod and said, “Have you any ID?”

  Rachel produced her press card and once the woman had scrutinised it, she was admitted.

  “I’m Harriet Strong,” the woman now introduced herself. “Cecily’s great-niece. I’m sure you’ll understand we have to be careful.”