A surge of conflicting emotions rose inside Harriet, and she stood, hastily rummaging in her bag for a coin. She tossed the money onto the table, grabbed Malcolm’s tunic and dashed from the room, tears running down her cheeks. She hurried down the hallway and outside, gulping in large mouthfuls of fresh air, as she hastened along the street. At the end of the road, she turned to look back, seeing the haunting figure of Mrs Leonard out on her front steps watching her go.
‘Did you get to speak to Malcolm?’ Fraser called from the parlour, making no attempt to disguise his facetiousness. ‘Or was he too busy to talk? Were Edward and Pa there, too, all talking over each other as usual?’
Harriet closed the front door, removed her shoes and blustered into the parlour, intent on rebuking Fraser, when she quickly stopped herself short. ‘Oh.’
A man, wearing scrappy brown trousers and a dirty shirt, stood up from behind the table, where Fraser was studying a map of Belgium. The visitor smiled in the best way that he could, given that the complete left side of his face was terribly disfigured. Most of his lower eyelid was missing, revealing a hideous network of tiny bloody veins and the left corner of his mouth was pulled downwards, permanently defying its owner’s obvious desire to smile. The skin in between mouth and eye was lumpy and uneven, as though hastily fashioned from soft wax.
Harriet cleared her throat and tried to look into his good right eye.
‘Ma, this is Timothy Mogridge,’ Fraser introduced.
‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Very nice to meet you.’ His voice—clear and well-spoken—was a complete mismatch for his appearance and took Harriet aback somewhat.
‘Ah! Thank you so much for coming,’ she managed to say, thrusting her hand in his direction, which he shook vigorously. ‘Can I get you something to eat or drink?’ she asked, casting a chastising glance to her son, who had obviously forgotten his manners in her absence.
‘Erm, if you can spare something, that would be lovely,’ Timothy answered shyly.
‘Spare it? Good heavens, you’ve come all this way; it’s the very least that I can do for you. I’ll get you a nice cup of tea and some jam sandwiches. I’ve got some fresh Swiss roll, too. Or, at least I did have, before I left this morning,’ she said with a playful nod in Fraser’s direction. ‘Come with me into the kitchen.’
She could hear him following on behind her and, as she walked, tried to regain her composure from the surprise at his appearance. The poor man and those terrible facial injuries, she thought, all the while determined not to show her shock.
‘Make yourself at home,’ Harriet said, directing him to the kitchen table. ‘It’s very good of you to come.’
‘Thank you,’ he mumbled, taking a seat.
‘Tell me about yourself, Timothy,’ Harriet said brightly, as she filled the kettle with water.
‘Which self?’ he asked.
Harriet paused and looked over at him. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Pre- or post-war me?’ he answered.
She assumed from his somewhat cryptic answer that the changes—both mental and physical—wrought by the war had been sufficient for him to consider himself now a different person to that which he had been prior to 1914. ‘Despite how incompatible they may seem to be, do your two selves not make a whole person, however damaged?’ she asked gently.
Timothy considered her response, casting his eyes out through the back door to the garden. He turned back to face Harriet and shook his head firmly: ‘No. We may share a name and a history, but the Timothy James Mogridge, who’s sitting here now, is not the same man as the one who joined up in 1915.’ He spoke matter-of-factly, as though he had long-since come to terms with the separation of his personalities. ‘My wife and daughter can attest to that,’ he added.
‘Oh…’ Harriet said, as she carefully spooned the tea into the pot.
‘My daughter’s four now and she has no memory of me before the war. During that time, she’s become very much a mummy’s girl and, what with me looking the way that I do, she generally bursts into tears whenever I go near her. Not that I can blame her, of course. And my wife, well, it’s the mental damage that she finds the hardest to cope with…’ His voice trailed off and he looked back outside again.
‘But you survived!’ Harriet exclaimed, spreading a thick layer of jam onto some sliced bread. ‘If you can survive something so devastating, which claimed the lives of so many others, you can survive anything else that life might throw at you, no matter how impossible it might feel at the time.’
Timothy smiled, but it was the smile of a man tolerating a lack of understanding. ‘Survived for what, Mrs McDougall? I’ve nothing. My wife and daughter don’t want me—not who I’ve become anyhow. I can’t get a job, which has meant that most of our possessions have had to be sold off, or pawned. We’ve been forced to leave our house and now live—for want of a better verb—in one room in my wife’s parents’ house, who have also made it clear that I’m a hindrance, and that, actually, it would have been better for everyone if I hadn’t survived.’
‘Oh, Timothy, that’s a dreadful thing to say,’ Harriet said. She stopped arranging the tea and sandwiches, about to go and place a comforting arm over his shoulder, but she saw in that moment that he wasn’t looking for sympathy or consolation, he was simply relaying the facts as he saw them.
‘It’s fine, honestly,’ he insisted. ‘I spend a lot of time by myself now, thinking, walking…’
Harriet placed the sandwiches, teapot, plate and cups and saucers on a tray and carried it to the table. She set it down, then placed her hand onto his. This time she looked into his damaged left eye. ‘You will get through it, I promise you.’ She poured the brewed tea through the strainer into the three waiting china cups.
Timothy gave her another of his you-have-no-idea looks, then glanced down at the food. She heard the unmistakable groan of his stomach.
‘Please, help yourself,’ she encouraged, her heart aching for him.
He reached over for a sandwich and, ignoring the plate that she had placed in front of him, put it straight into his mouth. In two bites it was gone, and he was reaching for another.
‘I can find you work—goodness me, there’s so much to be done around here. Gardening, odd jobs, errands—things my late husband said he would do but never actually got around to doing. I could ask around the village, too. My brother, Herbert is the village builder. I’m sure he could find something for you.’
‘Thank you, but no,’ he said between mouthfuls.
‘Well, if you—’
‘So, then…’ Fraser interpolated, bursting into the room with his map. ‘Do we know more about Malcolm’s work in the ‘P’ Special Company, yet?’ he said, to nobody in particular. ‘Swiss rolls!’ he added, leaning over Timothy and shoving one straight into his mouth.
‘Oh,’ Timothy said, glancing between Harriet and Fraser. ‘You don’t even know what Malcolm was doing out there?’
Harriet shook her head. ‘No idea. The Royal West Kents have been next to useless. Please, anything you can tell us—anything at all—would be most welcome.’
Timothy hastily swallowed the last bite of the last sandwich, took a swig of tea, then spoke: ‘I was with Malcolm from the early days of the newly formed 4th Pioneer Battalion. We trained together—’
‘But why did he transfer there in the first place?’ Harriet interrupted.
‘Because, like me, he had a degree in chemistry,’ Timothy replied.
Harriet felt a heavy sinking feeling inside, guessing where this might be leading. ‘Sorry,’ she apologised. ‘I interrupted. You were saying that you trained together?’
‘That’s right. We trained in various villages around Helfaut in France. And, around the usual military drilling and marching, we learnt about cylinder engineering, meteorological practice, and of course, the use and deployment of gas.’
Harriet sighed involuntarily at hearing the word gas, cursing herself for having taken Malcolm’s side when he had gone against tha
t field of study chosen by most other McDougall men in the family, that of civil engineering. Malcolm’s two brothers, his father, grandfather and uncles had all pursued that career, having gained degrees in the subject from Goldsmith’s University. Malcolm had wanted to study chemistry, and she had fought his corner for the right to study that which he ultimately chose. Perhaps he would have still been alive if—
No, she stopped herself. Edward had pursued civil engineering, but that, too, had got him killed. The boys could have studied anything, or nothing at all and would still be dead; that was the brutal truth of the matter.
‘In mid-June 1916,’ Timothy continued, ‘we moved out to the front line. We left Helfaut as an intact Gas Brigade of sixteen cylinder companies, with two hundred and twenty-five men per company, but we arrived, separated and spread out across the full seventy-mile-long frontline, being used among the five armies, as circumstances dictated. A little disorganised, to say the least.’
‘Then what happened?’ Harriet asked.
‘Then we did what we’d been trained to do: set up an integrated system of gas cylinders along the frontline of trenches and, when the weather conditions were just perfect, open the jets and watch the deadly vapour, White Star, roll across no-man’s land towards the Bosche trenches.’
‘White Star?’ Harriet repeated, recalling what Mrs Leonard had said about finding a red star. Could she have made a slight mistake?
‘It was the name of the gas we used: a fifty-fifty mixture of phosgene and chlorine. As I said, deadly stuff. One sergeant in our company received a slight dose, when he was disconnecting a four-way pipe. He paid no attention to it, seemed to be fine in himself, and carried on. The next day he collapsed and died.’
‘It’s so inhumane and barbaric,’ Harriet commented. ‘I can’t imagine what Malcolm, with his love of science and nature, must have thought of it.’
Timothy shrugged. ‘He just did what the rest of us did and got on with the job.’
‘What about Red Star—does that mean anything to you?’
Timothy shook his head. ‘No, sorry. Should it?’
‘Where have you got that from?’ Fraser asked her with a scowl.
‘Nothing, don’t worry,’ Harriet said, having already decided to withhold most of what had occurred with the medium. ‘Was it always awful?’ she asked, the fear of the answer almost preventing her from asking the question.
A conspiratorial look passed between Fraser and Timothy, and she knew that they were silently agreeing to spare her.
‘No, not always,’ Timothy eventually answered. ‘One of the biggest joys of working in the Special Companies was watching thousands of rats dying from the effects of the gas—that made us quite popular at times. Not that it really made a difference to their numbers, though, unfortunately.’
‘Gosh…’ Harriet murmured, not enjoying the mental picture forming in her mind.
‘What next?’ Fraser pushed.
‘Well, to be honest, I wasn’t always with Malcolm. As I said, the battalions were spread out all over the frontline, so I could easily go days or weeks without seeing him. I know at some point in late 1916, he returned to England for a brief spell—’
‘England? Did he?’ Harriet interjected. ‘What on earth for?’
‘He was a good chemist, Mrs McDougall, one of the best, and because of that they sent him to the Research Laboratory in Woolwich. I think he went there to advise on the practicalities and realities of gas warfare. You know, the view from the Western Front and all that.’
‘Good gracious. I had no idea,’ Harriet mumbled. She turned to Fraser. ‘Did you know about this?’
Fraser shook his head. ‘No, no idea.’
‘How long was he there for?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know, sorry. I saw him back on the front, though, in January 1917: a terrible winter, that was, the worst of the whole war. Ground as hard as iron, trenches flooded up to your armpits. You can imagine trying to lug one-hundred-and-eighty-pound gas cylinders through all that...’
Harriet felt sick. She desperately wished that Malcolm had been able to come home during his time back in England for one last visit. Heavens, Woolwich was only sixty-odd miles away from Sedlescombe. Then she wished that Malcolm had just stayed there, in the safety of the laboratory, quietly mixing his chemicals, while the war had happened hundreds of miles away without him. She wished…
‘Do you know what happened?’ Fraser asked. ‘When he died?’
Timothy took a long breath. ‘No, sorry. I wasn’t actually there. I know he was treated at the Essex Farm Advanced Dressing Station before he died.’
‘I see…’ Harriet muttered.
‘If it’s any consolation to you, the last time I saw him, he was in very good spirits.’
Harriet didn’t know if it was a consolation or not. To hear that her beloved son had returned to England and had not thought to mention it, never mind actually pay her a visit, wounded her deeply. She rose from her chair. ‘More tea? More sandwiches?’ she asked, glancing between the two men.
Both nodded.
‘Right,’ she said, heading back over to fill the kettle.
‘So, do you know where the explosion actually happened?’ she heard Fraser asking Timothy, pushing his map down onto the table between them.
Both men were leaning in closely over the map, studying it carefully. Harriet kept one ear trained on their conversation, as she made the tea and another round of sandwiches. This time, she made more. Fraser’s insatiable appetite had not waned in the last few days, and Timothy seemed to be devouring the food, as though he hadn’t eaten anything in several weeks. As she prepared the food, she thought about what she had just learned about Malcolm’s death. It was certainly more than she had known previously, but still lacking in the finer detail of a first-hand account of someone present when he had died.
Having arranged the tea and sandwiches on a tray, Harriet carried them over to the table. Timothy and Fraser had created a rough chronology of the battalion’s movements from July 1916 to Malcolm’s death in July 1917.
‘Tuck in,’ Harriet said, and the two men wasted no time in grabbing a sandwich each. ‘Can you think of anyone who might know more about that final day and…what actually happened?’ Harriet asked.
‘There is, actually,’ Timothy answered. ‘The Duchess of Westminster.’
‘Pardon?’
‘The Duchess of Westminster. She had her own hospital in Le Touquet. Officially it was the Number One British Red Cross Hospital, but it was known as the Duchess of Westminster’s Hospital,’ Timothy explained.
‘So, Malcolm died in Le Touquet?’ Fraser queried, opening the map out further and pointing to the French seaside town, miles from Ypres. ‘That doesn’t make any sense.’
‘No, he wasn’t sent to Le Touquet. For some reason the Duchess was nursing on the frontline at the time. I heard from a friend that he was being treated by her.’
‘Good golly,’ Harriet gasped. ‘The Duchess of Westminster.’
Timothy shrugged, as he wolfed down another sandwich.
‘It’s not such a big deal, Ma,’ Fraser commented. ‘Lots of women like her did the same thing, or else turned their mansions into convalescent homes. It was some doleful attempt to do their bit,’ he said with a note of cynicism.
‘The Duchess of Westminster,’ Harriet repeated pensively to herself, taking inexplicable comfort in the fact that this member of the aristocracy, about whom she knew nothing whatsoever, had been with her son shortly before his death.
‘I’m sorry to say that I think that’s all I can help you with,’ Timothy said, drinking the last dregs of his tea. ‘And I probably should be getting home.’
His words struck Harriet as apathetic and laden with a horrid melancholia. ‘Listen, Timothy. Why don’t you stay here? It can be for as short or as long as you need.’
‘It’s very kind of you, Mrs McDougall, but no, thank you.’ He rose from his chair and shook Fraser’s hand. ‘If I thi
nk of anything else, I shall drop you a line.’
‘Thank you,’ Fraser replied.
Harriet led the way through the hallway to the front door, where she pressed a handful of coins into Timothy’s hand. ‘To cover your expenses…’ she explained before any offence could be taken.
‘You’re very kind, Mrs McDougall,’ he said, shaking her hand.
‘My offer was genuine and will always be there,’ she reiterated.
He nodded, opened the door and made his way outside.
Harriet stood watching him go, waving as he passed through the gate and out into the street. She pondered a moment on what his life might now hold. She took in a long breath and held it, as she looked over the village green.
‘What was that all about?’ Fraser yapped from behind her.
She hurriedly closed the front door and turned to face him, knowing full well the cause of his irritation, but decided to pretend otherwise. ‘What was all what about?’
‘Inviting a veritable stranger to come and live here, for goodness’ sake!’
‘He’s a broken man, Fraser. Have a heart,’ she retorted.
‘Good God, Ma. Take a day-trip to any town or city and you’ll see hundreds of men like him—the walking dead. Are you going to invite them all back here to live as your surrogate children?’
‘Now you’re just being absurd and cruel, Fraser.’
‘What’s happening to you, Ma? Visiting mediums, stealing confidential information from the army and now this? Maybe you should just let sleeping dogs lie.’
‘Sleeping dogs?’ Harriet cried.
‘Sorry, not a good choice of idiom, but you—’
‘No, not a good choice of idiom. They’re my sons, Fraser—your brothers—and all the while I have breath left in my body, I will not give up finding out what happened to them.’
With her heart trying to thunder its way out of her chest, Harriet stormed through the house and out into the back garden. She jammed her hands onto her hips and sighed, as she tried to calm her thoughts. Hearing Fraser’s diatribe of the behaviours, which were so very uncharacteristically hers of late, allowed a tiny niggle of doubt to enter into her mind for the first time. But then—
Ghost Swifts, Blue Poppies and the Red Star Page 5
