“Goodnight, young’un,” he said, clucking to the horse to go faster.
“Goodnight, Sir,” Thomas called.
The sound of the horse’s steel plates fading into the distance conjured up a picture of Ruby.
“Stay easy on the plough, Ruby lass,” he said softly.
With no particular reason to hurry and little idea of the time, he made his way back to Frith Street, allowing the air to clear his head. As always Catherine filled his mind and thoughts. Her faint perfume of crushed lavender, her smile, her frailness and the touch of her warm hand clutching his arm brought her ever closer to him. Seven times during the short journey he was accosted by different women, each one enquiring whether he wanted a naughty girl for the night. He forced a smile and declined the offers. The first one resembled one of the witches from Macbeth, the remainder a close second. One he gave a sixpence – she looked even younger than he. Thin and pale, and wearing only a threadbare blue dress, she told him that her mother sent her out onto the streets each night to earn enough for bread the following day.
“Goodnight, Mr Soldier,” she said in a plaintiff voice. “Thank you.”
With sadness he stuffed his hands into his pockets and watched her skip away and vanish into the lurking shadows, realising no one was exempt from the cold touch of war. His mind was made up – the next day he would go to Deal and look for Catherine. London had turned cold on him.
Mrs Tuttle puffed on her pipe amidst great clouds of grey smoke that whirled into the air, while the chair struggled and creaked under her weight. One day it would surely collapse and impale the woman, and it would take strong men to raise her before she died from a loss of blood. Dilly sat at the table scribbling letters in a notebook. She jumped to her feet when he walked in, and her face shone bright with a ready smile. A tight black ankle-length skirt hugged her thighs and accentuated the shape of her long legs; the top button of her white lace blouse was undone, revealing her pale, slender neck. He watched her sway into the kitchen and listened to the sound of water splashing into the tin kettle. Seconds later, he heard the scrape of a match and the puff of a flame igniting the gas, followed by the tinkle of cups and the cocoa tin.
“Would you like a sandwich, Archie?” she called. “Got a piece of cheese left, we have, saved it for you special, didn’t we, Ma?”
“Course we did, we have to look after our heroes, or we’d never forgive ourselves,” Mrs Tuttle smiled. “Well, I’m off to bed now, don’t be late the pair of you, going to be a nice day tomorrow, I can feel it in my kidneys. Take Archie to the park tomorrow, he’ll like that. Goodnight.”
“Archie,” Dilly called, draping his tunic over the back of a chair when he entered the kitchen. “Archie, you can write to me if you want to. I’ll answer your letters if you do, honest.”
Before he could answer she turned and clasped her arms around his neck, taking him by surprise. He felt the warmth of her body pressing against his groin. She smelled clean, of perfumed soap, and he felt her small, firm breasts push into his chest. Her faced lifted, her lips parted. Was it always this easy? he thought to himself. He wanted to look at her in her nakedness, to eat her with his eyes, like he’d looked at Marie in the French village.
“Archie, you are a naughty man,” she murmured, running her hand down the front of his trousers and holding him. “We mustn’t let it go to waste,” she said, slipping his buttons undone.
In frantic haste, he raised her skirt and looked at her. She smiled. He slipped her silk drawers over her ankles and she lay back on the kitchen table. She was lovely in her excitement, her ragged gasping explosive, her panting like someone choking. He groaned and his eyes feasted on her nakedness, her slender legs encased in fine black stockings. In-between her legs his fingers probed the moist mound. Again, she moaned and her body arched. Sitting up on the table she raised herself and he entered her. His mind swam in a giddy swirl, and throwing her hands around his shoulders she pressed her lips tight against his. In the middle of the room she squirmed and jerked, and her teeth bit into his lips, drawing blood, as she moaned, this time louder. He pulled his mouth away and placed his hand over hers to quieten her.
Outside, the soft rain pattered against the windows like muted drumbeats, disguising the sound of the creaking staircase. They heard nothing but the rasping sound of their own breath. His hands clasped her warm, soft buttocks and he pumped in and out of her, fast one second, slow the next. Marie had been a good teacher and he an eager pupil. Dilly responded, pushing and heaving, her eyes rolling.
“Don’t stop, Archie, for God’s sake don’t stop, oh Archie, harder, harder,” she breathed hoarsely in his ear.
Mrs Tuttle swung open the door, her heavy breasts, freed from the whalebones of her reinforced corsets, hung to her waist, and a thick cotton nightdress hid from view a sight only a blind man would rejoice in seeing. Thomas released his hands from Dilly’s buttocks and she slid to the floor. His eyes widened with fear, uncertain of what he should do, and his face turned bright crimson with shame at his semi-nakedness displayed before the large woman.
“Go to bed, Dilly, now,” she said evenly, her eyes not flinching from Thomas’s face. “I’ll speak to you in the morning. Make yourself decent, Archie, you and me have some talking to do.”
Dilly wriggled her skirt down and, with a small cry, ran from the room. The stutter of her feet on the stairs filled the house.
Mrs Tuttle sat at the kitchen table, the withering look in her eyes enough to tell Thomas to do the same.
“I’m not going to lecture you, Archie. You’re old enough to know what is right and what is wrong, although when I look at you I wonder. Dilly has taken a liking to you. I’m not surprised, you’re a good-looking boy with them dark brooding eyes and broad shoulders.”
Thomas’s eyes flickered with childish surprise. Bloody hellfire, she wants me as well, he thought.
“I know there’s a war on,” she continued, “by God I do and I know all about live and let live. People like you live only for the day, thinking tomorrow may never come, but it will for Dilly, and she wears her heart on her sleeve. I want better things for her, Archie, better things than a randy soldier who shows no respect for womanhood,” she said, taking off her nightcap and placing it on the table. “I think it’s for the best if you leave, tonight. Get your things together, I want you out within the hour.”
Thomas stared at her, his revulsion for her turning to acid in his stomach. What did he have to do to tell her that he had no desire to live? Tell her that he only wore the king’s uniform to hasten his own death? His heart sank. And what did she mean, go? During the last few days Dilly had helped him forget the horrors of war, the killing, the maiming and the feeling of emptiness as he tried unsuccessfully to end his troubled life. In a daze he quietly climbed the stairs and packed his case. What did she mean, people like him only lived for the day? From the next room he heard Dilly’s racking sobs and raised his hand to knock on the door, then changed his mind. Minutes later he stepped into the dark streets – it was past midnight. A loose shutter turned slowly on its hinges and banged against a window in the darkness, sending an invading echo into the stillness. A tall crouching figure with his hands thrust deep in his pockets flitted by on the opposite side of the road and silently disappeared into the mouth of a dark alley.
“Archie,” Dilly called from her bedroom window. “Archie, I love you, write to me, please.”
He turned and looked up, smiled and waved back. The window slammed shut and he heard the bellowing voice of her mother remonstrate the facts of life to her wayward daughter. Perhaps he should have felt differently when he realised he wasn’t particularly perturbed at being evicted from the house. What had just occurred had served only to bring him closer to Catherine. Sweet Catherine, with the bewildered eyes and warm hands. Suddenly, shame struck him, as cold as a dagger’s blade, and his shoulders sagged. What had he done? What would Catherine think? Perhaps he should tell her that it was only an insignificant mom
ent of foolishness instigated by a woman of easy virtue. Women like Dilly took men whenever they wanted to. Maybe he wouldn’t tell her, not straight away anyway, later perhaps, when they were more settled. He wondered if his mother was the same with his father and felt a surge of self-disgust.
The rain ceased and the wind died to a gentle breeze, humming its way through the alleys and deserted streets. Tramlines glinted like long twisting serpents winding their way through the streets in the cloaked moonlight. In a side street he noticed two shadowy figures huddled round the glowing coals of a brazier. Like clothed statues perched on wooden boxes, they stared empty-eyed into the crackling embers.
“Mind if I stop for a warm, just for a few minutes?” he asked hesitantly.
“Stay as long as you like, lad, there’s plenty here for everyone,” a small man with one leg said, raking the coals with a stick. “Isn’t that right, Alf?”
“Course it is, lad. Pull up a box and get dried out, we won’t be going over the top just yet. First thing in the morning maybe, but not tonight,” Alf said in a droning voice.
Thomas forced a smile and sat on a rickety wooden packing case. Neither of the men could have been much past their mid-twenties. Dressed in worn-out jackets with frayed cuffs and collarless shirts, each wore a button-less army greatcoat draped over their shoulders. Thomas fidgeted, wondering whether he should engage in conversation or leave the two men alone in their self-inflicted seclusion. With a childish simplicity he pushed out his hands palms first and felt the heat penetrate his fingertips. The sudden sound of Alf’s staccato snoring took him by surprise and his smile widened. His heart missed a beat and he gulped to catch his breath – both men were missing a leg.
“Lost them on the Somme, we did, near a place called Thiepval, nine months back now. Bloody nightmare it was, even today I can’t believe it really happened,” the other man said, staring hollow-eyed into the flames. “Left like heroes, we did. Big crowds, young girls throwing their arms around us and bands playing. Nobody cares now; people look the other way if you have a limb missing. They’re not used to it, you see. We’re lucky if we manage to beg a crust of bread each bloody day, isn’t that right, Alf?”
Alf’s snoring ceased and he gave a tired shrug. “Course it is, lad. Pull up a box and get dried out, we won’t be going over the top just yet. First thing in the morning maybe, but not tonight,” he said.
Thomas frowned. “Do you live in London?” he asked.
“Course it is, lad, pull up a box and get dried out, we won’t be going over the top just yet; first thing in the morning maybe, but not tonight,” he answered.
“Got caught in a barrage of shellfire, he did. Poor sod’s never been the same since he lost his leg – his mind’s gone. Still thinks he’s in the trenches, he does. His best mate walked into an exploding shell. The force snapped his legs off below the knees clean as a butcher’s knife and ripped out his arms straight from their joints. He’ll be all right with me. I keep my eye on him. We’re mates now, eh, two men with two legs between them, that’s a lark, ain’t it?” he said, rubbing his brow to hide the welling in his eyes. “Got a wife I have, in Whitechapel, but I daren’t go home with only one leg, frighten the bloody life out of them it would, especially the two kids. Best I stay here with Alf.”
The words numbed him and he didn’t know how to respond. Terrible pictures formed in his mind of children asking their mothers for the whereabouts of their missing fathers. He wanted to reach out and put an arm around the two men’s shoulders to console them and tell them everything would be all right when the war ended and that people would appreciate the sacrifice they’d made. Instead, he felt an overriding desire to leave and prevent their misery touching him, tainting him like the mark of a branding iron. Then shame engulfed him like a raging virus and, standing, he searched his pockets and handed them two shillings each, enough to keep them fed for a week.
“None of my business,” he mumbled. “Best you take your friend to a doctor and go home to your wife and kids. Things might not be as bad as you paint them, and maybe the children would rather have a one-legged father than no father at all.”
In the cafeteria on Victoria Railway Station he sat hunched by a window watching the confusion of embarking servicemen each wearing a vague look of uncertainty. Wives and girlfriends stared into their faces with a faint glimmer of hope in their eyes. He turned away from the scene and with his second mug of scalding tea he ate a cheese sandwich with a pickled onion from a large half-filled jar. Shortly he would be rid of the city. Inside his mind, London was an intimidating place full of bristling urgency concealing a mass of dark brooding secrets, a place where both method and reason battened down pending chaos.
Flushed at the thought of making love to Catherine, he fidgeted. Perhaps she already had a man, or a boyfriend who made love to her as often as she wanted, leaving her satisfied and needless of another. He shrugged the thoughts to one side. She wouldn’t do things like that. She’s a nurse and they’re as pure as a nun in a nunnery. His pale face clouded and his mind whirled, casting him adrift from reason, and he wondered why he continually thought such carnal thoughts. Nurse or not, she was still a woman and he’d discovered that women were easy, like predators seeking gratification from any male of their choosing. He decided he would wait and see what happened, which way the wind blew, so to speak.
Then as if from nowhere the station filled with depressed soldiers, some so drunk they could hardly stand, the patrolling military police ignored them. Forty-two days in the glasshouse at Colchester was a poor exchange for man who might die in Ypres twenty-four hours later. Some might be lucky enough to survive and live to be broken cripples, others would be blown to a hundred pieces. Either way churches wouldn’t overflow with mourners. Freshly trained soldiers hung around in groups, fidgeting on the far side of the station, all watching from the corners of their eyes. Some clenched their fists and stared down at their feet. None wanted their eyes to fall on the broken retreating figures streaming down the platforms.
“Have you got any timber, mate?” a voice chirped. “Sorry, I should have said corporal.”
He turned and looked at the two young soldiers wearing fresh new uniforms. He felt older, like a grown-up, like a man who’d seen it all before and been everywhere. They were so alike it was difficult to tell one from the other.
“Timber, what do you mean, timber?”
“A match to light my cigarette, of course,” the chirpy voice said again.
“Sorry, I don’t smoke,” he answered.
“No, neither do we really, we just thought we’d give it a try for a bit of a lark. Off to the war too, are you, corporal? Bit of a lark too, isn’t it, so we’ve been told?”
His stomach knotted and he resisted the urge to punch the pair of them in the mouth – to draw blood, to watch them bleed. Don’t these people ever learn? Can’t they see what’s in front of their eyes? He raged inside. Dropping his suitcase to the floor, he grabbed the two conscripts by the scruff of their necks.
“Hey up, lad,” he called to a soldier with a bloodied bandage wrapped round his head and his left arm in a sling. “These two lads think the war’s a bit of a lark, what do you think?”
The soldier blinked and squinted through his one good eye. “Bit of a lark, eh? Lost ninety per cent of our regiment we did, in one bloody charge, suicide it was. We’re the lucky ones, couldn’t find the others, blown to pieces they were, heads, legs, arms everywhere. Mate of mine got knocked out cold,” he said, adjusting the bandage on his head. “Know what did it? A head, a bloody head still wearing a helmet, no body attached to it, just came from nowhere it did and hit him straight in the face. I suppose you might call that a bit of a lark.”
Thomas turned to the two white-faced young men. “Get out of my sight, you stupid little bastards,” he growled. “Get out of here before I kick your useless arses.”
Dropping their unlit cigarettes, they turned and scuttled into the crowd. “Cannon fodder, bloody cann
on fodder,” he mumbled quietly to himself.
Like a belching steel monster the train eased onto the platform. Thirty minutes later the rumble and clatter of trolleys carrying baggage ceased. Doors crashed shut, a man waved a green flag, the stationmaster blew his whistle and the train jerked and pulled away slowly, puffing and panting with the raised head of steam. Fluttering handkerchiefs and wet tears on made-up faces shrank into the distance. The tears might be seen again, perhaps next week, perhaps next year, and perhaps never.
Lucky to find a seat by the window he sat and smiled at the banter flying back and forth amongst the occupants heading for the shores of France and Belgium. The sun appeared from behind the clouds and lit up the meadows and green valleys. A river shone like a silver ribbon, snaking its way through the different shades of green before disappearing under a stone bridge. He crammed his eyes with scenes of civilisation, hills, fields, tiny hamlets, winding roads and church spires, anything to fill every crevice of his memory to push out the old, to forget the pain and replenish it with the joy of life.
At Dover doom washed away all his thoughts of civilisation like freshly-fallen rain pouring into the gutter. Morose and saddened by the continual sight of misery and impending death, he made his way to the crowded bus station. Everywhere a sea of khaki milled and throbbed, and he struggled with an overriding need to get away, to escape to normality for the peace and quiet of the countryside he was used to. A vision of Archie sprang into his mind and turned his face to granite. All that was rotten was centred on Archie, the swaggering bully who hated everything and everyone was to blame for involving him in all of this. Why couldn’t he have gone to war and died in the first few minutes?
Abruptly he felt ashamed of his rambling emotions and tried to stifle the dark feelings. Unwillingly he admitted that he must live with his feelings. He must endure, resist and adapt to the circumstances that oppressed him and learn to embrace the virtues of life whenever possible. Somehow, he decided, when Catherine undressed him and ran her hands over his body as Marie and Dilly had done, he would resist. He would refuse her advances no matter how hard she tried. He would tell her he loved her, cleanly and honestly.
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