“All right, mate, how you doing? On a spot of leave are you?” the man said, striking a match and inhaling.
“Aye, just for a few days.”
“I’m the same. I’m a cook on one of the cross channel boats what takes you over there and back. What do you do?”
“What do I do?” Thomas answered, suppressing the need to laugh out loud. “I dodge bullets, get eaten alive by fucking rats and lice, and live like a pig in a filthy trench full of rotting flesh and stinking shit! Does that answer your question?”
The man flushed, the red spots on his cheeks glowing as bright as a pantomime dame’s make-up. He turned his head and looked in the opposite direction, allowing cigarette smoke to trickle down his nose. “Sorry, mate, that was a stupid question.”
Thomas gave a wry smile, pulled out his watch and looked at the time. The sun had started to sink over the horizon and still he had nowhere to spend the night. Tiredness lingered and his flesh seemed to have died on him.
“Aye, aye, here comes the floating meat wagon,” the man said.
Thomas turned his head and followed the man’s gaze. Through the early rising evening mist, like a ghost a longboat appeared, rowed by six hatless policemen wearing rubber aprons and boots. Slowly the boat turned in a curving ripple of water and headed towards the shore. A black tarpaulin covered the stern, the corners trailing in the murky water leaving a slight eddy as a breeze skimmed over the river. The policemen shipped the dripping oars and placed their peaked caps on their heads, their mouths downturned and sour below expressionless faces, pale and ashen like a cold winter’s dawn.
“Poor sods, suicides they are under that canvas, mainly women and young girls who have lost their boyfriends or husbands in the war. They can’t manage on their own unless they go on the street. Police fish them out the river by the dozen every day. There might be a bloody war going on in Europe, mate, but I’ll tell you something for nothing. There’s a bloody bigger war going on over here. People are starving or dying of influenza every day. Got any family have you?”
“No,” he lied. “Influenza, what’s that?”
“Blimey, where have you been hiding, mate?” he said, frowning and looking at Thomas’s uniform. “Sorry, mate, I shouldn’t have said that. It’s like a cold, only worse, and it’s killing people all over the country, especially up north where it’s damp.”
Thomas’s face set hard, and what had chewed at his stomach for months like a can of maggots was about to become reality. If there was one thing he needed more than life itself it was to know his parents were well and in good health. He stood and walked away without a word. The man watched and shrugged his shoulders, turning his attention back to the meat boat.
“Bloody hell, had a busy day today, guv?” Thomas heard him say.
“Bugger off, you nosey little sod, before I run you in,” replied a gruff voice.
At Euston railway station Thomas peered through the thick glass of the ticket office window.
“Sorry corporal, there aren’t any trains for Sheffield today. Nine-fifty-five tomorrow morning,” the grim-looking ticket clerk said, trying to raise a smile over his half-moon spectacles.
“Thank you, I’ll come back in the morning,” he said.
Outside the station, he stared up at the pink-and-lilac-streaked sky hanging over the world’s largest metropolis. It was late evening and the pavements glistened, reflecting the street lights and illuminations, London was a city that never suffered from nature’s intended darkness. Not even in the late hours of night-time. Streets bustled with people, some dressed elegantly, others poorly attired. Shoeless urchins begged fervently, driving their well-heeled benefactors to lash out with an occasional well-aimed boot. Pocket watches and wallets disappeared into dipping hands, distressed ladies not paying attention to their belongings felt their handbags and purses expertly unhooked or nipped from their elegant wrists. Men in uniform were everywhere, some drunk and others about to become so. Often drinking houses ended up a shambles, drink flowed, arguments flared, tempers fired, tables were overturned and webbing belts whirred while drunken men lurched into the streets fighting and cursing. Slatternly women with scarlet gashes of lipstick plastered over their lips and powdered faces posed like a child’s worst nightmare. In a bid to attract men of any colour or tongue, they loosened their clothing like harlots in a devil’s inferno. Khaki fever they called it, and women thought nothing of sleeping with men in uniform, doing their bit for the war they said, and spreading VD like confetti at a wedding.
Thomas sneered and shifted his gaze to a stretch of lawn, which at one time had more than likely been a small enclosed park where mothers and nannies sat with tiny children and watched the world pass by. Beneath the shadows of a group of towering elms, stood a row of wooden benches covered in the acidity of pigeon droppings. Holes that once held shiny black railings heaved full of litter and bracken water, the metal now a salvo of projectiles waiting to be hurled at enemy trenches sending frightened men into a thousand bloody pieces.
Wearily he purchased a bag of hot chestnuts from a street vendor wearing a Tommies tin helmet and a large grin and sat on the bench least covered by a pigeon’s random neglect of hygiene. The evening felt warm and what he had thought dead and reduced to a faded memory began to leap and inflame inside him, and it was not an impulse. This would be his final opportunity to see his parents one more time before he died, unnoticed, in the trenches. Alone in the park, absentmindedly he allowed the hot chestnuts to grow cold, and pushing his hands into his pockets he stretched out his legs and closed his eyes. In the trenches he knew his place – where life was simple and expendable, where you died or lived to die the next day. From one minute to the next the men would never know when the dark angel would come along with a ticket for those about to perish. Outside the trenches, he struggled with life’s complications, always feeling like a blind man seeking his way from a maze.
Finally, as evening succumbed to night, he remained on the bench and for the first time in months slept peacefully. No rats gnawed at his flesh, nor did the ground heave and tremble under the thumping onslaught of heavy guns. He dreamed of the place where he longed to be – home. He dreamed of his mother kneading and rolling dough in preparation for the hot oven. In the morning she would produce a mouth-watering loaf of golden bread. He dreamed of his father yawning in front of the roaring fire while he struggled to read one more chapter of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, before he made his way to his soft down bed. Of Archie, there was no sign. No ceaseless sneering face to torment him, to force unwanted misery down his throat, leaving him to choke on a viscous vitriol. When he woke, he felt that perhaps the nightmare was finally over, extinguished from the Bedlam of his mind.
In the cafeteria at Euston station the following morning he sipped a hot cup of sweet tea and idly spun a penny on the tabletop. The minutes passed and time refused to be stopped, and at last he heard the last call for the train leaving for Sheffield from platform three. He picked up his cardboard suitcase and, taking a deep breath, boarded the nearest carriage. Opposite, a slim young woman sat with a cooing baby of no more than nine months on her lap. She wore a simple pale-blue gingham frock with a low neckline that offered no offence to anyone in terms of decency. When she noticed the stripes sewn on his uniform, she allowed him a glimmer of a smile. He nodded and turned his attention to the passing countryside. When the child made a gurgling sound of contentment, he swivelled his eyes and listened to the woman whisper terms of endearment into the child’s ear in a bid to keep him quiet.
“I’m sorry if he bothers you,” she said quietly. “I think soon he’ll fall asleep.”
Thomas smiled. “It doesn’t bother me at all,” he said. “Babies make noises.”
The child looked up with enquiring eyes and gazed into his face. Thomas took in the small mouth, upturned nose, cherubic face and podgy arms, and with a smile he thought of Dilly. He stared down at the floor, his mouth as dry as dust, and he felt the cold haunt of melancholy and
what might have been slip silently into his heart. Without thinking he leaned forward and held his hand out towards the child. His face twitched into a smile and he chuckled when the child gripped his finger. Gently he moved his hand from side-to-side. The child giggled and then laughed out loud. His mother smiled.
“Are you married?” she asked.
“No, ma’am.”
“Pity,” she smiled. “I think one day you will make a good father.”
Thomas floundered like a herring on the dry deck of a boat. It was a simple enough remark, made with no purpose other than polite conversation, but something in the way she looked at him pleased him.
“What do you call the boy?” he asked.
“Thomas, he is called Thomas.”
“That’s my name too, I’m called Thomas,” he said a little too regally, and his face exploded scarlet. For the remainder of the journey he stared from the window and remained quiet.
At Sheffield, he stood and hefted his case from the luggage net.
“Goodbye, Thomas,” he said, tickling the child’s chin. “And goodbye to you, ma’am, have a safe journey.”
“Goodbye, Thomas, keep your head down and your socks dry,” she answered, with a broad smile turning into a cross between a giggle and a gurgling laugh. “My husband taught me that, he’s called Thomas also.” Thomas laughed with her.
He waited on the platform until the train belched greasy steam and pulled away. When he saw the blue gingham arm waving farewell, he waved back frantically. He no longer had any need for the sanctuary of the trenches – he was sane, he was, he knew he was.
That day the slight breeze cooled and flapped the cuffs of his trousers and at the same time tempered Sheffield, at last he felt at home. No more strange accents he failed to understand, no more saying yes or no at the wrong times and feeling foolish. ‘The calf always returns to the milk’ was an old Yorkshire saying, and from the station he stepped onto the familiar lanes and hesitated. He felt his chest bulge and he wanted to cry out with sheer joy, to celebrate the privilege of being alive. He wanted to shout until the echoes shivered their way through every nook and cranny, proclaiming his presence. Yet he dared not, this was a clandestine visit motivated by the heart, his mind must remain sealed.
From a corner pawnshop he purchased a second-hand grey worsted three-piece suit, a white collarless shirt with light-brown stripes and a pair of nearly new brown boots. In a chemist, he paid for a roll of bandage and a large safety pin and rented a small single room above an inn advertising ponies and traps for hire.
Two hours later he pulled the pony to a halt and stepped from the trap. Concealed from prying eyes in a small copse of bushes, he wound the bandage around his face, checked his appearance in a small handheld mirror and pinned the bandage into position. Recognition would be impossible. With loose reins, he allowed the horse to trot easily and entered the village close to the small farm where he had been raised. In the short time he’d been away he hadn’t expected things to be any different, although he thought the village seemed smaller than he remembered. People glanced and some stared with curiosity at the man wearing a smart suit with his head and face covered in bandages. “Another casualty from the bloody war,” someone said, giving him a friendly nod. In the Longboat Inn he leaned on the bar and sipped a warm half-pint of dark mild.
“From round here, are you, lad?” the landlord asked casually.
“Further north,” Thomas mumbled through the bandages. “I might be interested in buying a bit of land. Heard a man by the name of Elkin might be selling. Do you know him?”
“James Elkin? Aye, I know him well enough. He’s having a hard time by all accounts. His missus is right poorly, got that influenza or whatever they call it. Aye, she’ll not last long unless she gets help. He doesn’t have the time to care for her with a farm to run, and she won’t sit still for five minutes since she lost her youngest son. Eldest one’s a war hero, so I’ve been told. I’ll not dwell on that though, none of my business.”
Archie hailed as a hero caused him to smile inwardly. Confident of his disguise, he gathered up the reins, headed for the Post Office and withdrew five pounds in cash. Turning the trap round in the small village square, he headed in the direction of the farm on the edge of the moors. His breathing came short and fast and for a moment he forced himself to settle and remain calm. He must not allow his emotions to get the better of him, whatever the consequences.
James Elkin squinted, raised his hand against the sunlight and watched the small cloud of dust growing closer. Knotted fear tugged impatiently at his insides and his skin tingled with a flurry of alarm – they were coming for the unpaid rent.
The horse whinnied then snorted down its nostrils as Thomas tugged at the reins and came to a halt. Already fear of discovery spilled into his mind and he tried to lick away the dryness of his lips in an effort to keep them apart.
“Morning, sir, would you be Mr Elkin?” he croaked, pushing his tongue inside his cheek in an attempt to disguise his voice and gripping the reins tightly to stop his hands from shaking. Immediately he felt small in stature and the scourge of shame raked his body at his cruel façade. He felt light-headed and unable to function properly. This was his father who stood before him, not some passing stranger; a father who would happily take him in his arms and cry warm grateful tears at his safe return.
“Aye, I am that, lad, and what can I do you for?” he answered, staring intently into Thomas’s eyes.
“I’ve been informed you might be interested in selling some of your land,” Thomas lied.
“Well, you’ve been informed wrong., lad. Not my land to sell. Wasted your time someone has.”
“Pity, perfect land for what I had in mind. What do you farm?”
Mr Elkin hesitated and for a long time he continued to stare into Thomas’s face.
“Corn on top meadow and half the bottom meadow, keep other half for milking cows. They’re getting old now though and milk’s drying up, can’t afford to replace them, mind you. No bugger can afford to buy the milk anyhow.”
“Do you have any other livestock on the farm?” Thomas said, turning to avoid his father’s staring eyes.
“Aye, three plough horses, one of those is as daft as a brush, and a few pigs.”
Thomas felt his stomach stir and grimaced at the mention of the pigs. His eyes darted towards the farmhouse and he prayed his mother would come outside. His prayers went unanswered and he held his head in his hands, rocking back and forwards feigning pain. Again, shame and degradation flushed through his conscience and heat welled in his eyes like a hot spring. He wanted to rip the bandage from his face and expose himself for who he really was.
“Best step down a spell, lad, and come inside out the sun if your head’s giving you pain. Mrs Elkin will make us some tea.”
Thomas tensed, afraid to move in case his limbs should cease to function. Then stepped tentatively from the trap and entered the familiar surroundings of what had once been his home. It seemed much the same as when he left, yet the sparkle seemed to be missing and things weren’t where they should be. The picture of his mother’s mother, his grandmother, hung unusually crooked and the curtains drooped, creased and untidy. But most of all the ever-present welcoming smell of fresh baking was conspicuous by its absence. The house had turned cold and lifeless, not lived in, only inhabited.
“James,” a low voice called from his mother’s bedroom. “James, who are you talking to?”
“Just a gentleman making enquiries about the farm, nothing to worry about, lass, I’ll just put kettle on.”
Thomas’s heartbeat accelerated and hammered against his chest and his hands balled tight at the sound of shuffling from the bedroom. He felt his heels lift and waited for the turn of the handle that always squeaked, followed by the creak of the door. As a child he had covered his eyes when Archie told him it was the sound of a ghost coming to haunt him. Today, he was being haunted not by a ghost but by the sight of the mother he loved. She st
epped out, bent and frail, holding a piece of white cloth to her mouth. Her black hair, once glossy and glistening like the wing of a raven, was now streaked grey, and her warm ever-smiling eyes sunk deep and lifeless into her skull. The hot tears soaking the inside of his bandages trickled down his face. She looked at him and momentarily, her eyes briefly widening. Then, replaced with a frown she began to cough. He instinctively took a step towards her, to hold her, to comfort her, and then halted.
“Have you had an accident, Mr…?” she said, her voice muffled through the white rag.
“Smith, John Smith,” he stuttered, realising she’d almost caught him out. “Shrapnel wound – it will heal, but it isn’t pretty to look at. I get the occasional headache, nothing serious, fortunately.”
“Our son is in France. He won the Military Medal for bravery, you know. Aye, it were in the paper it were, one of the very first to get it he were. We are very proud of him, the whole village is, and we say a prayer for him in church every Sunday. Archie Elkin, have you met him? He’s a corporal now, you know,” she said in a subdued voice, with the faintest of smiles.
“No, I can’t say the name’s familiar. Whereabouts did he win the medal?” Thomas stuttered.
“In France, we were told, newspaper reporter came and told us. Said he saved the lives of two hundred Australians singlehandedly from a prisoner-of-war camp. We live in hope he returns home safely one day, to run the farm. Getting a bit much for Mr Elkin on his own, and we can’t afford hired help any more – young ones are all away fighting in the war.”
Two hundred men, Thomas thought, raising a small smile, might be the whole Australian Army by this time next week.
“We’ll have no more talk of war in this house, Lizzie,” James Elkin said. “Gentleman’s got to be on his way, no doubt.”
Thomas purposely hesitated for a moment and the two men stared at each other.
“How would you feel about purchasing sheep on my behalf, and keeping them in the half meadow you no longer use?” Thomas asked. “Of course I’ll give you the money to buy them and share the profits with you,” he added. “With the war on, wool and meat fetch a good price on the market. Build the flock up for me, perhaps cut one out for yourself whenever you need food. I already have operations doing very well further north,” he lied.
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