Gilbert: The Last Years of WG Grace

by Charlie Connelly

  His pen ceased its scratching and he looked up from the paper, his glance darting from side to side. Seconds later another faint boom, then another, then two more as a total of four bombs landed in Greenwich Park. Alarm flashed across his face. His pen dropped on to the table.

  He heaved himself out of his chair, made his way through the house to the back door, opened it and listened. Four more rumbles, further distant now as the SL.2 headed further east to Charlton and on to Woolwich.

  His breath became quicker, his mouth dry. The booms had stopped. It was three weeks since the last Zeppelin raid on London. He hadn’t heard that one, it was too far north, as was the first one back in May that hit Stoke Newington, but he’d heard about them. These explosions tonight, they must be Zeppelins, too. They were closer than before, he could hear them. They were in the distance but he could hear them. The previous raids had killed people, in their homes. Every boom he’d just heard, each one could have killed people.

  The war bothered him enough when reading about events on the Western Front in the newspapers. Sometimes he avoided the papers altogether, sometimes he read every word (the naval reports were the hardest, knowing Edgar was out there somewhere in the maritime front line). But at least it was still all somewhere else. These confounded Zeppelins brought the war to London, to the streets, the pubs, the factories, shops and offices. They came on the breeze, these giant machines of doom against which the English Channel, Britain’s ultimate defence, was no barrier any more.

  He stood and listened for a few minutes but heard nothing more. He made his way back to his office, picked up the pen and tried to finish the letter he was writing but the words wouldn’t come. His mind was taxed now and the light from the lamp illuminated the fear in his eyes. He threw down the pen, stood up sharply from the chair and began to pace up and down the room, his thoughts disordered, his heart racing, his breath short.

  He was still pacing 20 minutes later when suddenly he stopped. What was that? He tilted his head to one side in an effort to hear it better. In the distance, somewhere out there in the night, there was a faint, low hum. As he listened he could hear it growing gradually louder. He didn’t know it but what he could hear was the LZ.74 Zeppelin commanded by Hauptmann Friedrich George, heading south. He’d crossed the coast at Clacton some two hours earlier and made his way to London, unloading bombs on Cheshunt. He’d passed directly over the Tower of London just after midnight and used up all the rest of his payload over Bermondsey, Rotherhithe and Deptford. Now he was heading home, skirting around south-east London in a wide arc that passed over Bromley and was now heading for Chislehurst, meaning the LZ.74 would fly close to the home of W.G. Grace, the great cricketer.

  Somewhere in the darkness a couple of thousand feet below, the Old Man was listening to the humming growing louder and looking up at the ceiling as if his eyes could bore through the plaster and brick and slate and locate the rumbling demon of the skies from where he stood.

  He hurried to the garden again, flinging open the back door, running out to the middle of the lawn and staring up at the sky. It was another clear night and somewhere between him and that canopy of stars there was mortal, evil danger. The noise had grown louder now, not overhead but still loud enough for a few lamps to go on in bedrooms along Mottingham Lane. He turned his head from side to side in an attempt to locate the source of the sound but it seemed to come from everywhere, from all directions at once. His breath was coming in short gasps and his eyes flashed in the night, his fear mixing with a rising anger. He wanted to run towards the noise as much as he wanted to run from it but all he could do was stand and stare at the sky. The throbbing hum grew louder now; the machine must be getting closer. He could almost feel the vibrations in his chest.

  Somewhere in the sky Hauptmann George lowered his binoculars, looked at his map and told his navigator to straighten the course and head north-east for the coast of Essex. It had been a successful night in which stealth had won again. He was justifiably pleased with himself and sat down at a table, put the binoculars to one side and opened the ship’s log to update his report.

  As his pen scratched over the paper he could not have known that somewhere in the darkness below there was a frightened old man with a long, grey beard looking up at the night sky, shaking his fist and bellowing, ‘You devils! You devils!’ in the direction of an invisible leviathan sailing serenely on through the heavens.

  Friday 9 October 1915

  It was one of those autumn days washed in golden light from a sun that barely rises above the treetops. The Old Man’s shadow was long as he scraped the two wooden-handled boards together and lifted some more crisp, ochre leaves from the putting green to place them in the wheelbarrow. He stopped, took off his hat, wiped his sleeve across his brow, balled his fist against his hip and breathed out heavily. He’d never liked autumn: it had always meant the end of the cricket season. In the garden it also seemed to be about decay: the dead leaves, the rotting wind-fallen apples, the skeletal branches of the trees and bushes.

  Today, though, he looked upon it differently. The colours seemed more intense than he’d ever seen: the golds, the browns and the pale blue of the sky. The air had a heady musk to it, woody with a hint of smoke: it smelt of work finished and labour done.

  He was nearly done for the day himself. There wasn’t too much to do in the garden at this time of year, just keeping the place tidy. He looked at the sky: he’d fancied getting in an hour’s putting practice before the day was out but the long shadows told him it would be dark before long.

  The thought of work finished made him think of John Dann’s funeral earlier in the summer. The genial Irish clergyman had been his brother-in-law, married to his sister Lizzy, but he’d passed away in July. The Old Man had travelled down to Downend church for the funeral with Agnes and his brother Alfred and after the service the congregation had gathered at the graveside and sung ‘Now The Labourer’s Task Is O’er’.

  He picked up the handles of the wooden barrow and began wheeling it towards the end of the garden. The wheel squeaked and its cargo of leaves shifted and jumped with the jolts and hummocks of the garden before he tipped them into the pile he was preparing for the bonfire. But that was for another day.

  He turned and pushed the barrow back towards the house, singing softly to himself.

  ‘Now the labourer’s task is o’er; now the battle day is past …’

  He noticed that the squeak in the wheel had stopped.

  ‘Now upon the farther shore …’

  He noticed that he couldn’t hear himself singing.

  ‘… Lands the voyager at l––’

  He noticed that he couldn’t hear anything at all. His right arm swung out and the back of his hand smacked against the trunk of a tree. He tried to control it, to place his hand against the tree for support but it wasn’t there. The right side of his head felt strange as if his hat was being pulled hard down over his eye but his hat was over there on the putting green. The right side of his body went numb and he could feel himself falling but it was a slow descent, almost as if it were a dream. He was lying on his side now, looking up towards the house. His cheek should feel cold against the ground, he thought, but he couldn’t feel anything.

  Then, as if in slow motion, he saw Agnes appearing framed in the doorway. She picked up her skirts and moved towards him. He knew she was running but she was moving so slowly. Everything was moving slowly, a bird overhead, how did it stay in the air and move so slowly?

  Agnes drew nearer and he could see her mouth moving and knew she was calling to him. He wanted to respond and tell her he was all right, everything was all right, but he couldn’t. Out of the silence her voice came, muffled, she’d nearly reached him now, and he could just make out what it was she was saying.

  ‘Gilbert! Gilbert!’

  Tuesday 13 October 1915

  ‘ILLNESS OF DR W.G. GRACE – The cricket world will regret to learn, by the authority of a Bristol correspondent, that news has reac
hed Dr. W.G. Grace’s friends at Bristol that a few days ago the veteran cricketer had a seizure which has affected his speech. He is receiving every possible attention at his residence in Kent, and the latest information is to the effect that the “Grand Old Man’s” condition shows signs of improvement.’ Birmingham Daily Mail

  Wednesday 14 October 1915

  ‘They came again last night, Shrimp.’

  His speech was still a little slurred but nothing like the first 24 hours when he could barely make a sound.

  ‘Who did, Doctor?’ asked Henry Leveson Gower, one of a trickle of visitors who had called in on the Old Man since news of his illness had spread through his cricketing network.

  ‘The Zeppelins, man! The Hun!’

  He’d been confined to his bed since the stroke. The doctors agreed that all being well he should make a full recovery, although his speech might not return exactly to how it was, but it could be a slow process and he should rest as much possible for the time being. He’d never in his life spent as much time in bed and was immensely frustrated at being unable to burn off any of the energy that still coursed through him even while incapacitated.

  He’d heard them, the invisible devils that come in the night with their humming engines to drop fire and death upon the innocent. He was dozing when the hum first appeared on the fringes of his consciousness and it jolted him awake. His legs wouldn’t obey him and refused to move so he lay there, eyes flashing and darting, not being able to tell how many there were, how near they were, whether they were coming closer or moving away. He’d roared with frustration and fear and brought Agnes running in, her face as white as her nightdress, asking, Gilbert, what on earth’s the matter, trying to soothe him.

  He wouldn’t settle. He felt even more defenceless than before, even more frustrated and angry, even more frightened by these monstrous machines that rained death upon the country. What kind of brute could do such a thing? Army fighting army, that was one thing, that was war, but dropping bombs indiscriminately on civilians, on women and children? The mix of anger and fear ate away at him and he’d lain awake all night fretting and pondering, straining his ears for the terrifying portent of that low hum of engines until the first fringes of dawn seeped around the edges of the curtains and he fell into a doze, dreaming of bombs and flames.

  ‘Ah yes, I heard they were over last night,’ said Leveson Gower. ‘The West End, apparently, as people were leaving the theatres. Monstrous. Just monstrous.’

  ‘I can’t get them out of my head, Harry,’ said Grace. ‘Sometimes I can hear them even when I know they’re not up there.’

  It surprised his visitor to hear the Champion like this. He had always been such a colossus that it felt wrong to see him so vulnerable, so clearly distressed by the Zeppelin raids. It was barely five months since the Red Cross game at Catford where, even though he wasn’t in the best of health, he was still that huge presence, as if he was carrying cricket itself on those broad shoulders and it was no trouble to him at all.

  He barely recognised the gaunt figure in the bed, haunted, pale and frightened. The air raids were the talk of London but nobody seemed as perturbed by them as the old man in the bed in front of him. For nearly all his life the only things in the sky had been the clouds, the birds and the occasional cricket ball: these giant flying machines must have seemed to him like something from another world altogether.

  ‘Come now, Doctor,’ he said, ‘a few airships? Think of the demon bowlers you’ve faced over the years, and on some interesting wickets, too. You once had Jones put a ball clean through your beard and didn’t flinch!’

  Grace turned to him and tried to prop himself up on an elbow.

  ‘The difference is, Shrimp, that I could see those buggers. I can’t see these.’

  On his way out, Leveson Gower spoke to Agnes as she helped him with his coat.

  ‘He is very disturbed by the raids,’ she said. ‘Mr Ashley-Cooper had sent him the proofs of his biography of E.M. to check and that seems to take his mind off them for a while, but he tires easily and has to put them down, and when he’s alone with his thoughts he becomes so anxious again.’

  Leveson Gower asked Agnes to keep him informed of the Old Man’s condition, put on his hat and headed out into the drizzle. Agnes closed the door behind him, turned, and looked up the stairs.

  Saturday 23 October 1915

  He woke, breathed deeply, rubbed an eye but didn’t feel any different. He kept his eyes closed, sensing it was very early. His hip ached from the fall he’d had a couple of days earlier when he’d tried to get out of bed and his legs had buckled beneath him. How Agnes had scolded him for that and how he regretted growing angry at her. It was born out of frustration, nothing else: it wasn’t the pain, it was having to come to terms with the fact that his body wouldn’t do what he told it to do any more.

  His eyes flickered open to darkness. He had no idea of the time but there didn’t appear to be anyone else moving in the house. His limbs felt heavy so he’d lay there until the clock struck and told him the time.

  There was a tightness in his chest, as if a weight lay upon it: probably the heavy eiderdown on which Agnes insisted. She said it was to keep him warm on these cold autumn nights but he suspected it was because she thought it would help keep him from trying to get out of bed again.

  The clock over the fireplace whirred into action.

  Ding …ding … ding … ding … ding.

  Five o’clock. Very early. He’d had a fitful night: his hip ached and he’d had frantic dreams, none of which he could remember. He wished he was awake this early in order to run with the hounds, or go and have a net in the garden. No nets until spring now. Blast it.

  The eiderdown seemed to be getting heavier somehow; he must have a word with Agnes and promise her that he wouldn’t try to get out of bed unaided again if she’d only take the infernal thing away. He couldn’t move under it at all now. He turned his head towards the window and looked at the stars. It took a second to realise that the curtains were closed so he shouldn’t have been able to see them, yet there they were, more beautiful than ever. He remembered the time he’d seen one pulsing with light and smiled at how he’d said goodnight to Bessie.

  And then they were in the room with him, all around him. Stars behind stars, as if they were surrounding him. And there was Bessie’s star, hanging over the end of the bed, growing brighter with a pulse, almost beating like a heart. He tried to move, to have a better look, and found that although he couldn’t seem to his limbs no longer felt heavy; rather, they were weightless. His hip had stopped hurting and the weight had lifted from his chest now, too. What a relief. The stars seemed to be all round him now. How could that be? Bessie’s star seemed to be drawing closer to him, or maybe the star was drawing him towards it, he couldn’t be sure. He had an urge to close his eyes and did so for a brief moment, but when he opened them the sun was out and it was dazzling him.

  His eyes adjusted to the light and he became aware of a woman’s form in front of him, in a long skirt and a halterneck blouse. He tried to adjust to the glare.

  ‘Agnes?’ he said.

  There was a girlish giggle, one full of joy, like a stream over stones. One he recognised. His eyes adjusted further to the light.

  ‘Bessie! My Bessie!’

  She smiled back at him, and he noticed she was standing by a low, white gate and beyond the gate was the most exquisitely manicured turf. She opened the gate and smiled, inclining her head to indicate he should go through. He adjusted his pads, felt the weight of the bat in his hand and took a step forward. The sun was still very bright in his eyes, it might take a while for them to adjust once he got to the wicket. At the moment he couldn’t even see the field much beyond the gate, so dazzling was the light. He pulled his battered old MCC cap down as far as he could and, peering from what little shade remained under its mashed peak, looked at Bessie, still smiling, still holding the gate open for him.

  He was ready to go out there, ready
to play everything on its merits. He walked down the shallow steps, smiled back at Bessie as he passed her and strode confidently through the gate, on to the grass and into the brilliant light, safe and happy in the knowledge that the moment was upon him.

  ‘DEATH OF DR W.G. GRACE – GRAND OLD MAN OF CRICKET – We regret to announce that Dr. W.G. Grace, the famous cricketer, died this morning from sudden heart failure at his residence, Fairmount, Mottingham, Kent. It was reported that he had had a slight cerebral attack recently, which affected his speech, but yesterday he was reported to be doing well. William Gilbert Grace, affectionately termed the Grand Old Man, was undoubtedly the greatest player cricket has known. It might also be said of him that he founded an empire, the empire of cricket, and there is not the slightest doubt that cricket – England’s national game – has played a great part in forming the character of the individual, and therefore of the nation.’ Evening Despatch

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Thanks to Charlotte Atyeo, Lizzy Kremer, Jane Lawes and of course Jude, the most newlywed of cricket widows.

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  First published 2015

  © Charlie Connelly 2015