The driver remarked, ‘Not long now, sir.’
‘I don’t suppose I’ll recognise the old place.’
The car stopped and the driver leaned forward on the wheel to watch a line of ducks sedately crossing the road.
He said, ‘It’s quiet. What they need.’ His C.O. had told him not to talk about it, but how could he say nothing? His passenger had been there, been through it like so many he had driven from one station or the other, or had seen being taken away, denied any hope of recovery.
He swung the big car around another bend and listened proudly to the engine’s powerful response. They said it had belonged to a peer of the realm who had wanted to ‘do his bit’. His lip curled in a smile. I wish it was mine, he thought.
‘I know one thing, sir. The old fellow up at the house went mad with joy when he heard you was comin’ home.’
That would be Jack Swan. ‘I’m glad he’s all right. I should have written.’ Jonathan reached out and gripped the corporal’s arm suddenly. ‘Here! Stop just here!’
He climbed down from the car and felt the bitter air penetrating his greatcoat as if he were naked beneath it, and his breath was like the engine’s steam over the station platform, but he stood unmoving, gazing across at the main gates of the estate, or where the gates had once hung. They had been removed to make room for wider lorries and ambulances, as was the case at so many other old estates taken over by the armed forces. But the gatehouse looked clean now, and freshly painted, and there was a soldier in blancoed belt standing attentively by the entrance. Part of the old moat was still there; he could see it through the pair of oaks that guarded the driveway as they had for over a hundred years. Somebody had been thoughtful enough to break the ice on it, and the geese and ducks could have been the same ones he had always known.
He glanced round at the driver. ‘I – I’d like to walk, if you don’t mind, Corporal.’
‘I’ll bring up your gear, sir.’ Afterwards he thought the major had sounded as if he was dreading these last few minutes.
The sentry threw up a salute as Jonathan walked past. Like a ramrod, with only his eyes moving to follow the tall, solitary figure. It was pretty rare to see one walking alone, without an attendant orderly or nurse.
Jonathan paused to stare beyond the great house. It was like forgetting the navigator’s name. He could scarcely believe this was the same place. Where the vast flower-beds had been there were long wooden buildings with what looked like a new boiler-house nearby, presumably to supply heat to them, and temporary structures everywhere, some with red crosses on the rooftops, in the unlikely event that a German airship might lose its way and fly over this remote corner of Hampshire.
It was almost exactly two years since he had gone from here to board the Reliant. Two years. It seemed a lifetime, an eternity.
He quickened his pace and heard the big car growling up the gravel drive behind him.
The army certainly took care of the old place, he thought. White-painted stones to guide vehicles at night, a Union Jack flapping damply from a mast in the middle of the old croquet lawn. He felt his heart beat harder as he saw the house’s imposing entrance. The place was deserted, an earthbound Mary Celeste, and yet he had the strong feeling that eyes were watching him, observing him like a specimen. Up the steps, then into the enormous entrance hall. The fire was blazing and there were some Christmas cards on the marble mantel. A sergeant was sitting at a desk, and stood up when he saw him.
‘You’ll be Major Blackwood.’ He looked uncomfortable. ‘Sorry about all the clutter, sir.’
At that moment Jack Swan came in through the side door, his eyes nearly vanishing in the crinkles of a huge smile.
‘It’s so good to see you again, Major!’
Blackwood hugged him tightly and saw the sergeant was watching them curiously. The car’s driver opened the doors with his back as he carried in the luggage.
‘There’s a fire lit in each of your rooms, sir. A nice single malt ready an’ waiting!’
The memory triggered something, but it would not form properly. Then the sergeant said quietly to the driver, ‘Lend a hand, Bert.’ Then in a controlled tone, ‘Now you know you shouldn’t be here, Captain Beamish.’
Jonathan turned and saw a young man in a pale blue coat like a dressing gown, and felt his blood run cold. Like the one he had worn in Cairo and at Plymouth.
The man stared at the sergeant, his eyes completely blank, then he said in a small, broken voice, ‘I want to go home.’ He seemed to notice Jonathan for the first time, and probably in his tortured mind imagined he was one of the doctors. ‘Tell them, please! I want to go home!’
‘Come along now, Captain Beamish.’ The sergeant sounded relieved as two nursing orderlies hurried in from another door, where the old general’s gun-room had been.
Jonathan did not resist as Swan took his arm. It was suddenly important that David’s servant did not feel that he was shaking. He glanced back but the place was empty, and the sergeant had returned to his desk.
‘Yes, I think I could do with a drink, Swan.’ He tried to smile but it would not come. ‘Several.’
For those few terrible moments, he had been face to face with himself.
Jonathan paused halfway up the hillside, on the path that led higher still to a leafless copse. He was breathing hard after a lengthy stroll around the fringe of the estate, but not so hard as when he had first arrived here.
Ten days of walking, eating alone in his rooms, and often drinking too much, to awake in front of a flickering fire. It never seemed to go out completely, and he guessed that Swan was trying to take personal care of him. He had tried to avoid the long huts and the secluded places where men walked, cut off completely from those around them, men who sometimes stood shaking, unable to move until somebody led them back into the warmth. Shell-shock, something which the hard men joked about. It was not funny to see it at close hand.
He himself found it difficult to sleep properly, with the nightmares always lying in wait to torment him, and sometimes he thought that he had been reduced to playing a part; that he was really no better than those desperate, lost figures who stumbled around the grounds. He had tried to come to terms with it, to deal with it by remembering the complete pattern of events. Instead, there were only unanswered questions. What had become of Major Livesay’s prospects in the Corps? And young Roger Tarrier; had he overcome his youthful naivety and settled down aboard Reliant?
On his long walks, with his greatcoat collar turned up over his ears, Jonathan had probed every angle of memory. There were voices too. Who is in command of this battalion? Perhaps the brigade major had been scared as well. But Lieutenant John Maxted’s reply had not even quivered. I am, sir!
Places were always in the background, but sometimes hazy in the smoke of war. Suvla Bay and the salt lake; Anzac where the dead had lain rotting because of the snipers. Achi Baba and the Anafarta Hills, which had killed so many and had defied even the bravest to the end.
He had received a letter from Christopher Wyke. He was completely recovered from his wound and had been promoted to captain. It had been a curiously stilted, uncertain letter, as if Wyke could not believe that their comradeship and inter-dependence could be a lasting thing, and thought their closeness was merely a passing figment of battle. His father, the major-general, had hinted that there was a new appointment coming up for Jonathan, and after he had read the letter, he had wondered if Wyke was trying to warn him or prepare him for something.
Swan had spoken scornfully about one of the theatres he had visited in Winchester. Chorus girls dressed as squaddies, marching down the aisle in fake uniforms which left little to the imagination, Swan said darkly. For an old Royal Marine to be so shocked it must have been bad. Swan had told him that the girls had been careful to pause in their prancing march whenever they caught sight of a man in civilian clothes.
Jonathan had already heard the song in Plymouth.
Don’t delay, go today,
Make your Daddy glad,
To have had sucha lad . . .
Tell your sweetheart not to pine,
To be proud their boy’s in the line.
‘I nearly walked out, sir,’specially when some young idiots started to cheer!’
Jonathan smiled to himself. Harry Payne would probably have started a fight.
He groped in one pocket for his pipe. He had got out of the way of smoking it at Gallipoli, when even a puff of smoke could have betrayed his position to a sniper, and then while he had been in hospital the simple mechanics of it had seemed too remote and improbable: rather like this walk. It was only half-past three but darkness was not far away. Then silence would close over Hawks Hill once more. His rooms were in the rambling east wing overlooking the moat, where sound carried because of it, and like the hospital ship stopping her engines in the night while a burial was carried out he had often woken to hear vehicles coasting down the driveway, like undertakers. He deliberately took out his pipe and began to fill it, his fingers stiff with cold. Then the petrol-filled lighter which had been fashioned from two French greatcoat buttons emblazoned with the fiery grenade. He watched the pale smoke drifting towards the copse. He could not remember what he had exchanged for it. Just a bearded French poilu with eyes squinted against the sun, but the rest of it was lost in his mind somewhere.
A twig snapped and he swung round instantly, his hand going to his hip where his revolver would have been. It made him sweat in spite of the cold air, to discover that the nearness of danger had armed him with senses which even now refused to quit.
He saw that it was a woman, coming down the other path towards the houses and outlying farm cottages from where he had started his walk. She wore a long, dark green coat with a fur-lined collar which, like his own, was turned up to her ears. There was a tartan scarf over her head and her hands were invisible in her pockets.
She was watching him all the way, as if to guess what he was doing.
Jonathan called, ‘It’s all right, I was just walking.’
She halted and faced him. Even in the dying light he could see she was pretty, even beautiful, with dark hair that poked rebelliously from beneath the scarf, and grave, steady eyes that could have been either blue or grey.
He said awkwardly, ‘Thought you might think I was one of those poor chaps from the hospital.’
She waited for him to move and then fell into step beside him. She was quite tall, which the long green coat emphasised, and might have been, he thought, in her middle twenties.
She answered abruptly, ‘Oh, I know who you are, Major Blackwood. I grew up with tales of your family.’ She glanced at him. ‘Not going too fast, am I?’
He replied indirectly, ‘I’m getting used to it.’ Then he said, ‘I still don’t think you should be using this path. It will be dark soon.’
‘I thought perhaps you imagined I was trespassing?’
She made him feel clumsy, out of his depth, and he retorted, ‘I have no say in things here at the moment.’
They walked on in silence, their feet squeaking on wet grass. Once, on a narrow part of the track, she overtook him, and he saw that she was wearing long laced boots, which like the hem of her coat were heavy with mud.
He asked, ‘Where are you going, if it’s not an impertinence?’
‘The hospital. I work there some of the time.’
Dogs were barking noisily ahead at one of the cottages. The sound gave an edge to his voice. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve spoken to hardly anyone here.’
She pulled her scarf closer around her throat. ‘My name is Alexandra Pitcairn, by the way.’ She glanced at him and saw the memory come alive.
‘The doctor’s daughter.’ He had stopped and was frowning. ‘I saw you once at a party – something at Eastwood Farm. I remember your father very well. I was on leave, the last one I had before war was declared.’ It was all tumbling out of him and he could not stop. And all the while she stood watching him, without impatience or curiosity, as if she shared the pictures forming in his mind.
It was suddenly as clear as polished glass, and he said, ‘There was a young subaltern there too, from the Rifle Brigade.’
‘He was killed at Loos.’
A huge dog rushed out of the gloom, and for an instant Jonathan thought it was going to attack her. But she bent down with her hand outstretched as the dog pounded up to her, and it panted with excitement as she pulled its ears, murmuring something he could not hear.
‘I – I’m very sorry. I didn’t . . .’
She stood up and said, ‘How could you have known? You’ve been away, doing things for King and Country.’
Her tone was cool, detached, and he guessed she was like the women on the train. Why him? Why not you?
A figure walked past and called out, ‘How do, Major? Good to see you up an’ about again!’
It was the head groom, coming up from the stable where he kept his pony and trap.
‘Thank you, Marker. Glad you’re still here.’
They walked towards the outflung shadow of the great house and then she said, ‘I must leave you now, Major.’
She seemed to hesitate, then she said, ‘I hate and loathe this war. What it does, what it destroys. I work here when I can – they need all the help they can get. It never stops.’
Jonathan asked quietly, ‘The soldier from the Greenjackets. Was he . . .?’
She put one hand on the side door. ‘I’m not sure what might have happened.’ She pushed open the door and light spilled over her hair. It was the colour of dark chestnut.
She stood watching him, sensing his despair. ‘You see, I was in love with your brother David.’ She gave a quick smile. ‘But he never knew I existed.’
Jonathan followed her, and hesitated by the massive fireplace where he had seen the shell-shocked Captain Beamish.
Then he made up his mind and walked after her. She paused outside another door and closed it behind her. Jonathan heard her say, ‘Well, here I am, Malcolm – I told you I’d come!’
Jonathan did not hear the reply. He was staring at the notice on the door. All the patients here are blind. Please do not discuss it.
A different sergeant was sitting at the reception desk, a dark quiff of hair plastered to his forehead. He stood up and clicked his heels.
‘Good walk, sir?’
‘I was speaking to Doctor Pitcairn’s daughter, Sergeant.’ What was the matter with him? People might get the wrong impression. But she had been in love with David. It was incredible. He never knew I existed.
The sergeant walked round the desk and held out his hands to the fire.
‘Oh, our Angel – that’s what we calls ’er, sir.’ He saw the uncertainty on his face and said gently, ‘She teaches them poor lads Braille. Gives ’em heart. Most of ’em ’ave nothing else left.’
He became suddenly business-like as one of the orderlies clumped in.
‘She’s just gone in, Harry.’ He looked at the corridor meaningly. ‘Just ’ang about till she’s finished.’
As the orderly opened the door with its warning notice the sergeant said to Jonathan, ‘It don’t follow that because a bloke’s been blinded that ’e’s automatically a gentleman, if you gets my meaning, sir?’ Then he reached into a drawer of the desk. ‘So nice talkin’ to you, sir, an officer wot’s seen an’ done the things you ’ave, an’ that – I forgot to give you this.’ He pulled out the familiar buff envelope. Orders.
‘Thank you, Sergeant.’ He would have a drink, maybe two, and then he would open them.
But all he could see was the hurt in her eyes, the sting of her tone when she had told him about her love for David.
Perhaps she had been the girl in his dream, whose face had always been unclear. Of one thing he was certain: he could never forget her now.
Eleven
Harry Payne slipped off the tailboard of the farm cart and waved to its driver.
‘Thanks, mate!’
The horse trotted away and Payne sto
od watching it for some while, remembering what this great estate had once looked like when the general had ruled the place. More to the point, how it must have been before the old fellow’s extravagances had taken their toll.
He knew the soldier on the gate was staring at him curiously and automatically straightened his shoulders, testing the weight of his neatly-stowed pack and all the other clutter that hung about him. There was even more now, he thought grimly. A steel helmet on his pack, and an anti-gas respirator for good measure. It had been bad enough at Gallipoli: he remembered seeing the soldiers floundering in the sea as their equipment had carried them to the bottom. With this little lot they would not have got even that far.
He hoisted his Lee-Enfield rifle on its webbing sling and walked towards the gateway. To many he might look like just another soldier, but Payne was a true professional and proud of it, despite all that had happened. His cap was tilted at a jaunty angle, the R.M.A. grenade shining like gold, while his boots gleamed like black glass.
The soldier said, ‘Your guvnor’s not back yet.’
Payne strode on. They knew everything here, and gossip was rife amongst the staff. It probably helped to take their minds off the patients and the cruel reminders of a war they had not shared. He grimaced. Not yet, anyway. They would be calling up schoolboys if things got much worse. He thought of his young brother, who had lied about his age and had signed up with the Corps. Payne could have stayed in Winchester for a longer period; Major Blackwood had said so. He always thought of everyone but himself.
But Payne had been surprised to discover he was glad to come back, even to this place with its human derelicts.
His father had been in the Corps, with a few uncles as well. He had died of fever while serving in a gunboat during some godforsaken campaign in Africa long before the war. It had been hard for his mother to manage, so she had married a local fishmonger. His lip curled with contempt. A mean bugger to all accounts, although he always had enough brass to spend on booze at the King’s Head with his cronies.
The Horizon (1993) Page 18
