Ghost Swifts, Blue Poppies and the Red Star

by Nathan Dylan Goodwin

  Harriet nodded at the obnoxious man, remembering and comparing this to her wartime train journeys, when almost every guard had been a woman. She recalled the peculiar sight of the women operating the signal boxes, plate-laying, shunting the trains and fixing the tracks; every one of them had silently handed their jobs over to the men, when the end of the war came.

  Fraser led the way along the platform to the end carriage, opened the first door, and they stepped inside. Harriet sat straight down, placing her bag on her lap, whilst Fraser bundled the two trunks into the wire cradle above the seats.

  Three minutes later, the train staggered forwards and out of the station for the first leg of their journey—the short distance to Hastings.

  After a short wait at Hastings Station, they boarded the continental express train to Dover. This, Harriet felt excitedly, as they entered the first-class cabin, was a much more glamourous and modern train. They exchanged ‘how do you do?’s with the other well-dressed passengers, then took their seats opposite one another beside the window.

  After a noisy announcement from the steam whistle, the train pulled out of the station and began to trundle at a decent, yet leisurely pace through the verdant Sussex countryside.

  Harriet watched with great interest as they passed through small towns and villages interspersed with uninterrupted valleys of fields, farms and woodland, crossing the seamless border between the counties of Sussex and Kent.

  When the coast came into view for the first time, Harriet sat up with a start and tapped Fraser on the leg, quickly realising, from the way that his bowler hat was on the verge of falling from his dipped head, that he was fast asleep.

  She muttered an apology to the unfortunate lady sitting beside him with a bowler hat pressed to her shoulder, then turned back to the window, gazing out at the calm seas gently stretching up to the black stripe of seaweed, which indicated the most recent high-tide line. Across the water, some twenty miles away, she could just make out the hazy white cliffs and green hills of the undulating French coastline; the soil upon which so, so many had recently lost their lives.

  The train eased up a little, as it entered the Admiralty Pier at Dover, a wide stone jetty, which extended out into the sea, and the terminus of which was the Marine Station.

  ‘We’re here,’ Harriet said, nudging Fraser’s calf with her foot.

  He sat up with a start, and Harriet feared that he might shriek out from the sudden look of horror on his face.

  ‘We’re just pulling into Dover,’ she said gently, bringing him to his senses.

  ‘Right…right.’ Fraser squinted hard, stretched, then stood up. ‘I must have…nodded off.’ He reached up and removed the two trunks from the wire rack, setting them down at his feet.

  The train reduced to a veritable crawl, as it entered the gaping, arched mouth of the grand station building. Seconds later, it stopped, and through the open windows came a high-pitched whistle, quickly followed by the clattering of multiple doors opening and the chatter and bustle of people disembarking the train.

  Fraser extended his hand out of the window, reached for the handle and opened the door. He placed the two trunks on the ground, then turned to offer Harriet a hand down from the carriage.

  ‘Thank you, kind sir,’ she said, taking a moment to absorb her surroundings. The building was alive with activity, such as she had never witnessed before: hundreds of travellers, scurrying in all directions like confused ants; porters, pushing carts heavily laden with cases; commercial travellers, dragging their wares to and fro the waiting ships. ‘Good golly—what a place!’ she murmured. ‘Have you ever seen such a thing?’

  Fraser didn’t answer and Harriet noticed the vacant expression, which she had seen so often in the past days, return to his face. She traced with her eyes to where he was looking but couldn’t tell—apart from the amassed crowds before them—what exactly had captivated his attention so. His face changed somewhat, now with an edge of palpable anticipation or nervousness. Perhaps even…panic? He was seeing something very different to that which was actually in front of them. She placed her hand on his arm, and said quietly, ‘Fraser?’

  He exhaled sharply, as though he had been holding his breath for some time to that point, and he met her gaze. ‘Sorry. I was…day-dreaming.’

  ‘Were you ever here…in the war?’ she asked, now understanding.

  Fraser nodded. ‘It was packed, absolutely jam-packed with soldiers.’ He let out a short laugh, fringed with bitterness. ‘Nobody seemed to see what I was seeing—the paradox, the irony, it was just bizarre.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘In one direction, slowly drifting off the ships, were the hundreds upon hundreds of wounded soldiers: some on crutches, some on stretchers, some with limbs or parts of their faces missing. And standing watching them disembark, somehow not seeing, as I did, the flash of their own futures, were the thousands of fresh-faced young recruits, waiting to embark on the same blood-stained ships bound for the Western Front… I heard later how many of our wounded men came through this very building: one million, two hundred and sixty thousand, all told.’

  ‘Gosh,’ Harriet said. ‘Unimaginable.’

  Another laugh from Fraser. ‘But they were the lucky ones, of course.’

  ‘Yes,’ Harriet agreed. ‘Although I’m not sure poor Timothy, or some of the other unfortunate men I’ve encountered, would say the same thing.’

  ‘Look. Look over there,’ Fraser said, pointing at the foot-passenger entrance to the station.

  ‘What am I looking at?’ Harriet asked, just seeing an endless sea of people walking in and out of the building.

  ‘The beggars,’ he clarified.

  Then she saw them, ten or more men, sitting in a row on a pile of blankets; all wearing the filthy uniform of their regiments, all in various states of distress, all of them desperately begging of passers-by.

  ‘My goodness,’ Harriet gasped, raising her hand to cover her mouth. ‘Why is nobody helping them?’

  ‘Why don’t you invite them to live with us?’ Fraser mocked.

  ‘Fraser! Just look at the poor devils.’

  ‘I know, it’s dreadful.’

  ‘We need to help them,’ she said, rummaging in her bag for her purse.

  Fraser reached for her hand. ‘Stop, Ma. They’re on every street corner of every town. The government needs to do something about it. It’s not for individuals like you, tossing down a shilling every time a wave of philanthropy takes a hold of you.’

  ‘Don’t be so critical and dismissing of the actions of an individual, Fraser: one person can make a big difference,’ she rebuked.

  Fraser snorted, bent down to pick up the cases, and said, ‘Come on, let’s get on this jolly ship.’

  They walked to the far end of the building, heading to a sign with the word CALAIS painted in large white letters over an arched doorway. Beneath the sign, a steadily moving queue of stylishly dressed men and women ran out of the building. Harriet craned her neck, but all she could see was a line of bobbing and dipping bowler hats. She turned to Fraser, trying to see from his expression how he was feeling at being back here under such very different circumstances. ‘Are you alright?’

  He nodded: ‘I think so.’ Then the queue in front shuffled forwards, and he added, ‘There’s our ship.’

  Harriet stepped out of the building, and saw, moored to the stone jetty by coils of giant rope, a huge paddle steamer boat, more than three hundred feet in length. Her name, Victoria was painted in small letters on the black hull. ‘What a thing!’ she exclaimed, leaning over the white, metal railing, which ran along the quayside to the gangplank, to fully take in the boat. This would be her first time sailing and, as she glanced down at the inky water below, she felt a sudden wrench of anxiety. Her stomach and head, as though linked by an invisible thread passing through her body, seemed unexpectedly decided and united on the matter that this was an entirely barmy endeavour. What if it ran into trouble halfway across the Channe
l? Or, were it to hit an as-yet-undiscovered, errant mine left over from the war… Everyone knew about the naval minefields on this side, never mind the mines laid by the Germans on the other side! The Navy had lost its largest vessel ever, the HMHS Britannic, to a mine. And goodness! Not even to mention that the Britannic was the sister ship to the Titanic.

  ‘Come on, Ma!’

  Harriet looked up from the water to see that the queue had moved significantly forward. Fraser was standing at the gangplank looking at her, as though she had gone quite mad. Maybe she had gone mad to even consider boarding a ship, when the closest that she had ever come to swimming was dipping her toes into the sea on a daytrip to Hastings beach. But really, as she told herself, it was too late now for such worries and qualms. She straightened herself up, hoisting her eyes from the water, and walked towards Fraser.

  ‘What were you doing back there?’ he whispered, as she drew up beside him. ‘You looked like you were maybe considering jumping in.’

  Harriet rolled her eyes. ‘Well, I can tell you now, that would have been the absolute last thing going through my mind.’ As they took their first steps onto the gangplank, she went to ask Fraser again if they were doing the right thing, but she decided to hold her tongue. As she had discovered at several key moments in her life, it was only after having pursued a certain course of action, that it could be judged as having been the right one, or not.

  ‘We’re on the boat!’ Fraser declared, taking a look around him. ‘Out or in?’

  ‘Pardon?’ Harriet questioned.

  ‘Do you want to stay outside and see the glory of the White Cliffs from the back of the boat, or do you want to go indoors and find somewhere to sit in the warm?’

  Her instincts, which lately had guided so many important decisions, told her that indoors would be for the best. If she couldn’t see the waves, or see how jolly far away from land on either side they actually were, then she could trick herself into believing that she was in some random building—perhaps a church or, better still, a village hall. But then! What if the worst did happen? Surely, they would stand a much better chance of survival if they were outside, where the lifeboats were?

  ‘Oh, I don’t know…’ she dithered.

  ‘Outside it is, then,’ Fraser said decisively. ‘It’s a smashing day, and it would be a terrible shame to spend your first time on a boat crammed inside. Come on.’

  Harriet followed him obediently, clinging to the edge rail, which ran along the complete perimeter of the boat. It felt vast; actually, too big and heavy to be able to sail anywhere. At the rear, most of the seats had already been taken, and they were forced to sit in front of each other in parallel rows, which enkindled her apprehension. She glanced to the young lady beside her, who appeared not to be accompanying the decidedly older gentleman sitting on her other side.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ Harriet greeted.

  The lady turned and smiled. ‘How do you do?’ She had a soft, warm face and startling, emerald eyes. Like Harriet, she was dressed in black but her dress was one of the more modern, high-busted types worn without a corset. She guessed the woman to be in her late twenties or early thirties.

  ‘A little nervous, actually,’ Harriet answered. ‘My first time on a boat.’

  The young lady seemed amused and quite taken aback. ‘Is it really? How charming. And where, pray tell, are you going?’

  Just as Harriet went to speak, the loudest, most infernal noise, which she had ever had the misfortune to hear, boomed from somewhere close by behind her. She jumped with alarm, and roughly grabbed the wrist of the lady beside her.

  Fraser’s bowler-hatted head appeared between Harriet and the young lady. ‘It’s alright, Ma. It’s just the departing horn. Means, we’ll be off in a jiffy.’

  ‘Marvellous… That’s marvellous,’ Harriet said, noticing that her hands were still attached to the lady’s wrist. ‘Oh, I do apologise.’

  The lady laughed. ‘No need…really.’ She extended her right hand in Harriet’s direction. ‘Mrs Luckhurst.’

  ‘Mrs McDougall.’

  ‘Nice to meet you, Mrs McDougall. I think you were about to tell me where you are headed, before we were so rudely interrupted.’

  ‘Oh, yes, that’s right.’ She took a breath, holding it longer than she might have otherwise done, as she felt the boat beginning to move. Better not to think about it, she told herself, and willingly conveyed the purpose of their visit, if only as a distraction from the sensations and experience of the voyage.

  ‘That’s what I’m doing, too,’ Mrs Luckhurst said dryly. ‘My husband was killed in service with the Royal Naval Air Service—shooting down those wretched zeppelin things.’

  ‘Oh, I am truly sorry to hear that,’ Harriet said.

  Mrs Luckhurst sighed heavily, as she raised her shoulders and eyebrows simultaneously.

  ‘Look, Ma!’ Fraser said from over her shoulder.

  ‘What?’ Harriet asked, turning awkwardly to see to what he was referring.

  ‘The cliffs—just look at them!’ he said.

  The boat—now steaming along at what Harriet imagined to be full power—was sufficiently distanced from Dover to show the sheer scale of the White Cliffs. Something about them was breathtakingly beautiful. Perhaps it was the pristine white, glinting like burnished marble against the blue skies, which so struck her with wonderment. Or perhaps it was just their ancient simplicity, that they had stood there impassively, while all around them the world crumbled into turmoil.

  ‘Simply stunning, aren’t they?’ Fraser said. ‘Enough to bring a whole ship of returning men to reverent silence.’

  ‘I can well imagine,’ Mrs Luckhurst said. ‘A symbol of home. A reminder of the past and a hope for the future…’ Her voice quivered on the final words, and she swiftly turned her head windward to the side.

  Harriet heard Fraser shuffle backwards in his seat. A stillness settled around them, now, nebulous and bitter-sweet, made all the heavier by Mrs Luckhurst’s emotive observations, for which none of them had been prepared. Still Harriet stared at the cliffs, watching as they expanded in breadth, yet diminished in height; the further they sailed from the coast, the more it felt to her, as though she were looking at little England through a magnifying glass.

  ‘Do you want to explore the ship, Ma?’ Fraser asked after some time.

  Harriet shook her head. ‘No, thank you, but you go ahead.’

  Fraser grunted a response and wandered off towards the front of the boat.

  ‘He seems a nice chap,’ Mrs Luckhurst said, watching him leave.

  ‘Yes, I rather suppose he is,’ Harriet said, before hastily inserting a retraction of her poor choice of words. ‘I mean, I don’t suppose he is; he is a jolly decent lad.’

  Mrs Luckhurst grinned and Harriet flushed red with embarrassment, which, when she evaluated its cause, she thought to emanate less from that, which she had just said, and more from a realisation that perhaps she had given Fraser insufficient consideration since his return home.

  ‘Did he see much action?’ Mrs Luckhurst asked.

  Harriet thought for a moment. She had been asked this question by strangers an inordinate amount of times since the war had ended. At first, she had reasoned that it was polite chitter-chatter or an instant way of finding common ground; after all, everyone had something to say on the subject. But the more the question had been asked, the more sceptical she had become. Were they asking—checking—to see if he had actually fought and not objected? The first time that this thought had occurred to her, she had rushed to his defence, listing all the places to which he had been sent: Africa, Hong Kong, Calcutta, Constantinople. The reaction, oftentimes patronising, went along the lines of ‘Oh, he was over there. How fortunate.’

  ‘…Or not?’ Mrs Luckhurst said in response to Harriet’s silence.

  ‘Do you know,’ Harriet said, gazing back at the shrunken shoreline of Kent. ‘I do so wish, now, that my three boys had been conscientious objectors. The very idea o
f having ‘a war to end all wars’ is patently absurd, and all those millions of young men sacrificed to the fallacy.’ She sounded more indignant than she had intended, and she looked up at Mrs Luckhurst, expecting to find contempt or astonishment in her eyes. Instead, she saw tears.

  Mrs Luckhurst smiled. ‘It’s so refreshing to hear someone say that. I feel exactly the same for my husband… I even suggested it to him when he was home on leave, once. I begged him not to go back. I said we’d find some remote place to hide, some tiny village in the middle of nowhere to see out the war together… Oh, the look he gave me.’ Mrs Luckhurst laughed through her tears at the evoked image of her lost husband. ‘I might as well have suggested he fly on an elephant to the moon.’

  Harriet laughed, understanding fully. ‘But they didn’t object, did they? They bravely answered their country’s call and carried out their duty. And here we are, the ones left behind who must repair, rebuild and find a way forward...somehow.’

  Mrs Luckhurst squeezed Harriet’s hand. ‘Yes, indeed, we must. That, now, is our duty.’ After a short moment, Mrs Luckhurst stood up. ‘We shall be docking in twenty minutes or so. I’m going to have a wander around the ship. Would you care to accompany me?’

  ‘Thank you, but I’ll stay here. Go ahead, and if you see Fraser on your travels, do check he’s not getting up to any mischief.’

  Mrs Luckhurst laughed, as she walked away, then repeated Fraser’s name, as though it were a peculiar or foreign word.

  Harriet sat among the crowds, alone. In front of her, England was now all but a hazy distant outline. Behind her, France would no doubt be clearly discernible. She should get up and look, but the sea was rougher now, and the ship was markedly rocking from side to side. Half-panicked, she looked around at her fellow passengers but none of them appeared the least bit troubled by the vessel’s sudden jerks and shudders. She closed her eyes and took herself back more than thirty years, to early September 1887. Specifically, to John’s and her honeymoon in Cambridge, where, after several attempts, he had managed to persuade her to take a boat ride along the River Cam. It had been a giddy, pleasurable experience, although she had clung to the gunwale for the entire duration, much to John’s amusement. She was there, now, in her mind. The pitching and swaying of The Victoria, upon the bottomless English Channel, was actually that little rowing boat, whose name—if she had ever known it—she had now forgotten, gently bobbing along the River Cam.