by Vince Cross
“What about brothers and sisters?”
Thinking about Michel, I began to cry. And to my surprise his eyes filled up with tears too.
He took a handkerchief from his pocket. It was none too clean but he wiped my cheeks and then his own.
“Don’t let the corporal see,” he said with another smile. “That would never do. He’d have me cleaning the latrines for not behaving like a proper soldier. I know all about missing family. I’ve got a wheelbarrow full of brothers and sisters. I write letters, but God knows whether they ever reach home. Leastways, they never write back, even those as can.”
I looked around me. We were in the stable yard of what was probably a fine house. There were low buildings on all sides of the yard’s cobbled floor, some of them open at the front. We were sitting on two low canvas chairs in one of the barns beside a stove which pumped heat out into the chilly morning. On the corners of the buildings rose bushes climbed the walls. Charlie saw me looking.
“The house is called Les Roses,” he said, “Because of the flowers, I suppose. We call it ‘Rosie’.”
“Do the owners still live here?” I asked.
“Long gone,” he answered. “Took what they could carry, and fled to England. You speak very good English for such a little girl! How’s that then?”
I explained about my dad.
“So where are your family now?” he asked.
What I did next seems dreadful to me now. Without a moment’s hesitation I told the biggest fib of my life.
“They’re all dead,” I answered. “My dad, my brother, my mum. All of them. Our farmhouse was blown up by a German gun.”
Charlie looked stunned. “How did you escape?”
I thought quickly. “I was down the garden in the privy. And then I ran away.”
What a whopping, terrible lie! But can you see why I might have told it? Since the Great War ended, people know that soldiers sometimes become ‘shell-shocked’. Their minds get scrambled by the awful things they’ve seen in battle and they go to pieces. Maybe that’s what happened to me in Ypres. Even as I was sitting there with Charlie I’d become more and more cross with Mum every minute. Surely she’d known the city was too dangerous? The driver of the wagon had just made it perfectly clear. Ypres had been bombed before. And if Mum had known that, what possessed her to send me in to buy bread? Even Madame P. had been surprised. I could have been killed. So now, if Michel and Dad were never coming back, what did it matter if I pretended to have lost Mum and Grandma too? Hadn’t Dad run away from home when he wasn’t much older than me?
Charlie could see I was shivering. “I think we could both do with a mug of something hot,” he said. “Just hang on a mo’.”
He fetched a tin billy-can and some water, and used a stand made from twisted wire to heat up the billy over the stove. From his pocket he produced some paper wraps containing a sticky dark brown substance, which went into the water.
“Oxo…” he smiled, “…beef tea. You’ll like it. Makes everything seem better.”
He was right. It was comforting to hold a hot drink and inhale the meaty aroma. However, when I took a sip it tasted vaguely of petrol. I must have wrinkled my nose. Charlie noticed and laughed.
“I know,” he said. “I’m sorry. It’s those flimsies – the cans we store the water in. You’ll get used to it. It doesn’t seem to do us any harm. And the sergeant says we’ve got to keep drinking plenty, otherwise we’ll be fit for nothing.”
While I’d been in the wagon, I’d stuffed half a stick of bread into my coat pocket and, despite my little fight with the corporal and the driver, it was still there. I pulled it out, and offered some to Charlie.
“Well, thank you young lady, I don’t mind if I do,” he laughed. “Share and share alike! You’ve got to take it where you find it, I always say.”
As we talked, the sun moved round the angle of the roof and streamed into the barn. What with the tea and the stove and the additional heat from the sun, I quickly went from being chilly to drowsily warm. I’d been up before six: it had been a long and dramatic morning. Charlie’s voice was low and soothing, and I fell asleep where I sat.
I must have slept for several hours, because when I woke the afternoon light was already beginning to fade. The soldiers had moved me and I was now lying on a camp bed covered with a coarse blanket. Charlie was nowhere to be seen, but around me there was a pleasant hum of activity. The smell of cooking drifted towards me from one corner of the yard. Men were queueing by a cart. From behind the cart two women in uniform were dishing out something brown and sloppy onto tin plates. The soldiers ate greedily, laughing and joking as they scooped up mouthfuls of food and wiped their dirty mouths on their sleeves. From the other side of the courtyard came the snort and stamp of horses. Two fine-looking mares were being brushed down while a patient old carthorse stood next to them with one leg raised, having a shoe replaced. A lorry had arrived at the entrance to the yard, and lengths of board and rolls of chicken wire were being unloaded under the corporal’s beady eye. A few metres away, a row of men were carefully cleaning their rifles, pulling lengths of cloth through the gun-barrels. Immediately next to me a soldier with carrot-red hair was sitting in his vest peering at his army jacket. He had a clown’s face with a squint and a broken nose. In his left hand he held a candle. He ran the candle up and down the seams of the jacket, one by one. He caught me watching him and laughed.
“Don’t you mind me, missy,” he chuckled. “It’s the lice, see. The little critters likes to hide where you can’t see ’em. But a candle’ll always find ’em out, don’t you worry. Like…that!” And he pounced on something with a thumb and forefinger, squashed it, and rubbed his finger in the dirt beside him. “Don’t you just wish to blazes the flippin’ Hun could be so easily squashed, eh? I’m Ginger, by the way. Charlie’s mate.”
I thought he was funny and sat up so that I could watch more closely. “Oi, Charlie,” Ginger hollered. “You’re needed over ’ere.” And then I saw Charlie coming through a gap in the walls followed by a tall, slim, smartly dressed officer. They were talking. When Ginger saw the officer with Charlie, he added with another shout, “Begging pardon, sir”. Charlie waved a hand in our direction either to show he’d heard or perhaps to shut Ginger up. He finished his conversation with a salute and crossed the yard towards us.
“I hope Private Phipps here isn’t getting you into mischief?” he said, smiling.
“As if I would,” Ginger replied. “I’m shocked you should ever dream of such a thing, Private Perkins.”
“Now, Miss Annette, you could probably do with a wash and brush up,” said Charlie, all business-like. “I’ve had a word with the captain, and he’s fine for you to use the facilities in the house. Come with me and I’ll show you.”
“He’s a good lad, is Charlie,” Ginger called out as Charlie took me away. “Not like some. He’ll look after you all right, miss. And if he gets put upon for something and can’t be found, you call on me or the corporal. We’re family men with daughters or sisters back home ’bout the same age as you.”
*
Les Roses was a handsome building of three stories with four large sash windows on each side of the steps which swept up to its gracious front door. There was a strong smell of polish around the hallway from the wood panels and banisters, but where there was paint, it was chipped, and the paper on the walls above the stairs was beginning to peel. It was a soldiers’ house now. Rough and ready would do.
“There’s a toilet and bathroom just here,” said Charlie, opening a door at the top of the first flight of stairs, and then closing it again. “And tonight, because no one can think what to do with you yet, the captain says you should sleep in here…”
The room we entered was more grand than any I’d ever slept in. The wallpaper was a beautiful pink and the bed linen was crisply white and deep red. The curtains were heavy and came together with a satisfying swish when the cord was pulled. The bed was so high off the ground I had to
clamber up onto it. Charlie handed me a key.
“When you go to bed, lock the door so you won’t be disturbed,” he said. “No one will bother you unless you call.”
Suddenly I felt very alone. “Where will you be?” I asked in a small voice.
Charlie cleared his throat.
“I’ve done a deal with Captain Garvey. He says he’s happy for you to stay here until the morning, but in return he needs me to go out with him tonight. I’m good at cutting my way through barbed wire, see. If you were to walk a couple of miles up the road here, you’d find yourself at the beginning of our CTs – that’s ‘communications trenches’ in army-talk. If you were to keep your head down so you didn’t get it blown off, then in another quarter-mile you’d find yourself at the front line. There are two lines of trenches dug in facing the Hun, full of mud and water and Lord knows what, and the furthest of the two is the firing trench. Between our trenches and theirs is an area called No Man’s Land, and in the middle of No Man’s Land is the barbed wire the Germans have laid down so we can’t get at them. Captain Garvey and me – we’re going to cut a big hole in the wire, and then our lads can make a raid tomorrow morning to teach Jerry a lesson he won’t forget in a hurry.”
“It sounds very dangerous,” I said.
“Well, I suppose it is dangerous,” he answered. “But it’s not the first time I’ve been out there, and I daresay it won’t be the last. If you find yourself with time on your hands tonight I won’t mind if you say a little prayer though. All things considered, I’d rather be home in Oxford.”
I knew all about Oxford. Dad had talked about its beautiful buildings and wide streets. He’d always said he thought Bruges or Ghent in Belgium were the best, but Oxford wasn’t half bad.
“My dad’s family came from Witney,” I said.
“Well, I’m blowed,” Charlie replied, shaking his head. “Do they now? Witney eh? I had an auntie lived there once.”
For a moment there was a faraway look in his eyes, and for a few seconds I could tell Charlie was back home, warming himself in front of the fire in an Oxford parlour. Charlie recovered himself.
“Now, we’d better find you some grub before I go and put on my make-up.”
I looked at him, puzzled.
“We have to cover ourselves with mud so we blend into the landscape and can’t be seen. Still, they do say it’s good for the complexion. Fine ladies pay quite a lot of money for the pleasure, so I’ve heard.”
Down in the yard again, as the day faded into evening, Charlie found me some stew and a hunk of bread. There wasn’t a lot of meat in the stew, but there were plenty of white beans floating around so at least it filled me up. He made me drink some more petrol-flavoured tea, and then said, “Right, you’re on your own till the morning now. There’s no one else to boss you about, so I’m going to act like your big brother, and tell you to go and hunker down in that nice room of yours until the morning. Night, night, Annette, and watch the bugs don’t bite. Only, out here you know they will! I’ll come and see you tomorrow as soon as I can.”
In the bedroom I thought to myself, “But what if Charlie doesn’t come back?” And then I tearfully remembered Dad and Michel. I even spared a grudging thought for Mum, too. She was probably worrying herself silly wondering where I’d gone while she tried to get some food into Grandma. But it was too late now. I’d told my big fib. I couldn’t change my story – what would Charlie think of me? And anyway I didn’t want to go back to the lonely farm without the protection of my father and brother. I felt very alone and sorry for myself as I wept into my grubby handkerchief.
The sound of a harmonica floated up to my window from the yard, and a quavering voice began to sing:
‘There’s a lamp that’s always burning
Outside a cabin by the sea
And beside its lonely hearth
I know you think of me.
There’ll be long, long nights of waiting
Until our dreams come true
And I’m sitting hand in hand
Around that fire with you…’
In the distance I could hear the deep rumble of gunfire. Charlie and I were in for a very long night too.
CHAPTER THREE
In fact I slept very well and I was up with the lark. When I’d splashed some cold water on my face I went down to the yard. Charlie was nowhere to be seen but Ginger Phipps was there.
“Good kip, miss?” he asked. I said it had been. “Glad to hear it,” he said. “Now, we’re not to worry, and of course I do because he’s such a good pal of mine, but we’ve had a message sent down about Charlie. He’s OK, but Captain Garvey ain’t so clever, and apparently it was a bit of a do getting him home. Charlie’ll be along in a while, but he’s spent a few hours getting some sleep in a dug-out up near the line. So just you sit tight for a while ’til he gets here.”
“What’s a dug-out?” I asked. He looked at me, amazed I didn’t know.
“Well, I suppose you wouldn’t, would you? It’s what it sounds like. To make sure the lads aren’t open to all weathers up at the front, we dig out a few extra holes in the ground and cover them over. It’s amazing what you can do with a length of old corrugated iron and a few lumps of wood. Your dug-out becomes a home away from home after a while. Somewhere to do the crossword when Jerry’s not chucking stick-bombs or doing his best to knock your head off.”
It was a long hour or two before Charlie arrived. He hobbled into the yard, covered in mud from head to toe, carrying a pack that looked far too heavy for one man. A few of the soldiers turned and gave him a cheer. He dropped the pack and sank down on a bench.
“Seems your Private Perkins is a bit of a hero,” remarked Corporal Warren, as he walked past. “Comes as something of a surprise to me, I must say. You’re obviously a good influence on him, young lady.”
A little knot of men had gathered around Charlie. Like the nosey girl I am, I went over.
“Well, make room for my lucky charm,” said Charlie, beaming at me. “Am I glad to see you!”
“Tell us the gory details, Chas,” said one of the men. “How did it go?”
“Not much to say, lads…”
“Not what we heard,” said another.
“Well, since you ask,” Charlie said, between puffs on a cigarette he’d been handed. “It was black as the ace of spades out there. Couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. We made it out into No Man’s Land all right, though it was a long old crawl. And then those new cutters of mine started making short work of the wire. Except I’ll tell you the strangest thing. Once you start pushing the wire this way and that, with no stars to see I’m blowed if you don’t lose all sense what’s east or west.
“So you got lost?”
“We could have been anywhere. And it fair gives you the runs when you thinking you’re going to end up in one of Jerry’s trenches. Pardon me for my soldier’s language, young Annette. Then all of a sudden, up goes a flare, and for a moment it’s like noon on a midsummer’s day. We hear Jerry shouting, and he lets off a few rounds in our direction. Only it’s gone dark again so there’s precious little chance of them hitting us, or so you’d think. Then suddenly there’s a cry from the captain and he says to me under his breath, ‘I think I’ve stopped one in the leg, Perkins.’ I crawl over to him, and best as I can feel he’s all right, though it’s a bit hard to tell what’s blood and what’s muck. So I take a deep breath – at least I’ve got my bearings now I know where the fire’s come from, assuming it’s Jerry shooting and not us. I tie up Captain Garvey’s leg and then I haul him all the way back and over the top into the fire trench. And I reckon that must have taken all of an hour too.”
“How’s Garvey now?”
“He’ll live. Might have been more of a graze than actually stopping one. They’ve put him on a cart down to the dressing station. They’ll fix him up again there.”
“So it’s back to Blighty for him, and a medal for you?”
“I wouldn’t count on eithe
r, lads. But it don’t half make you feel glad to be alive and back at Rosie, I can tell you that. I put it down to our little guardian angel here. I reckon she was the one who saved us.”
“Any news about the raid?”
“Well, ‘C’ company went and had a pop at Jerry first thing. But I don’t think it came to much, ’cos of course by now Jerry had got wind something was up. I think the boys in ‘C’ threw a few bombs and came back again sharpish.”
When we were on our own later, Charlie said, “I meant that bit about you being my guardian angel. You get superstitious out here. You keep the same lucky charm in your trouser pocket. You carry the same pages of scripture in your jacket. You start to think your life depends on it. We’ve been up against it these last few weeks, I can tell you. The generals wanted us to batter Jerry good and hard before winter came on, so we were taking regular turns up at the front, and not catching a wink of sleep. We lost a lot of good men one way or another, killed or maimed. You start thinking about your chances of ever making it to the end of the bloomin’ war. And if anything at all good happens you hold onto it tight. So maybe you really are my lucky charm, Miss Annette. Only thing is, Corporal Warren says I must take you down to Transport, so they can decide where to send you.”
I’d only known Charlie twenty-four hours, but now the thought of moving on without him was scary. I knew it wasn’t very safe at Rosie – we were so very close to the German lines – but I didn’t want to leave Charlie behind. He’d been so kind. He didn’t shout or scold. He was my new big brother.
“Can’t I stay here with you?” I asked plaintively.
“No, you can’t! And you know you can’t,” he replied. “I’ve got a job to do. And a very unpleasant one it is. Soldiers aren’t fit company for a little lady like you, with all our rude talk and coarse language.”
