In Distant Fields

by Charlotte Bingham

  I suppose I think I know because I knew Al so very well – as you were just getting to do and as you would have done even better than I, had he survived. Let us admire what he admired, and love what he loved. That is his legacy, and it is one I intend to keep, because I think that is what a loving friendship must mean. It must mean we should honour one another to the very best of our ability, and to live our lives for the benefit of those we love, so that what we cherish so very much doesn’t once again get lost in the mire of bloody battle. You were lucky that Almeric loved you. He will love you even more for your strength, the strength I know you are going to show at this time for yourself, and for all who loved him. I think of you all constantly, and you in the most particular.

  Your loving friend,

  Harry

  Kitty always thought that the moment she finished reading Harry’s letter her life changed, that his letter was a turning point at a time when she, and indeed Partita, and everyone at Bauders felt at their lowest.

  For some reason what Harry had said in his letter had taken away the anguish that she had been secretly nursing since Almeric’s death, the feeling that she had finally not been worthy of his love, the guilt that she knew that he had loved her even more than she had loved him. Now she knew that if, as Harry had said, she tried to live her future life as Almeric would have wanted, she need not feel so wretched. She had a reason to go on, not just existing, but to try to go on living an ideal – Almeric’s ideal.

  ‘You’re looking very jaunty, Wavell,’ the Duchess remarked one morning. ‘Can your smiling expression be due to some good news, may we ask?’

  Wavell nodded.

  Life below and above stairs had become very hard for a middle-aged man used, as he had been, to having an army of servants to do his bidding, but much as Wavell might have liked to have retired to his cottage on the estate, as he had been planning once he reached his fiftieth year, he could never let Her Grace down. He was a man of honour, and men of honour stood by their women in time of war, and if the Duchess was not ‘his woman’ he did not know who was. He had loved and served her from the time he was an underbutler, first in London, and now at the castle.

  ‘As a matter of fact I am in quite a good frame of mind, Your Grace,’ Wavell admitted, as he put down a tray of tea on the desk at which she now sat for most of the day. ‘Harry, you know, Harry, my boy?’

  ‘Dear Harry, and how is he, Wavell?’

  Wavell cleared his throat, and pride shone from his shrewd grey eyes.

  ‘He’s quite a bright spark, though I say it myself, Your Grace.’

  ‘Yes, yes, Harry is quite a bright spark, indeed he is.’

  Circe was used to the conversational detours that her butler liked to take. They did not make her impatient, rather the opposite; she found that they were comforting, settling, as was so much that was gentle: her flowers, her dogs, and, yes, Wavell’s way of speaking.

  ‘Yes, Harry, being a bright spark, as I say, although I say it myself that perhaps shouldn’t. He has been promoted. Quite a leg up, that is what our Harry has had.’

  ‘Tell me more, Wavell.’

  ‘Harry had this idea, Your Grace, that the dressing stations and the clearing stations were too far apart, and he put it to the doctor he was working under, and now – ’ Wavell cleared his throat again, a hand going up to his really rather sadly under-starched collar – ‘now he is being put to work on his own plan, bringing them together, coagulating all the stations, as it were.’

  ‘I am a great believer in coagulation, Wavell,’ Circe agreed, straight-faced. ‘Gracious, where on earth would we be without it?’

  ‘Not as far as we are with it.’

  ‘Exactly so. His Grace tells me that there is fine work going on in the field, that doctors and surgeons are operating and stitching and so on, on the actual battlefields.’

  Wavell nodded, thinking of Harry. ‘I dare say, Your Grace. It’s not easy work, but very rewarding, I gather, very rewarding, in the same way that our work here is rewarding, I am thinking, saving lives. Just a pity we keep having to send them back once we’ve mended them, I always think.’

  Circe turned back to her paperwork. ‘Thank you so much, Wavell.’

  Wavell went down to the kitchens still walking tall, and naturally, since Lady Partita was busy preparing breakfast for a new arrival, he confided the same news to her.

  ‘Well done, Harry,’ Partita said, and she leaned forward compulsively and shook Wavell’s hand. ‘How proud you must be.’ She turned back to her cooking pots. ‘I don’t know what it is about boiling an egg, Wavell, but it always seems to defeat me.’

  ‘How long has it been in, Lady Partita?’

  Partita frowned. ‘About ten minutes, I think.’

  ‘Probably best if I take that one for luncheon and we start again,’ Wavell told her diplomatically.

  As a fresh egg was lowered into water, Partita began a dissertation on the courage of the doctors and surgeons as compared to the Anglican clergymen.

  ‘Some of the stories the men tell me, Wavell, really, they do make you wonder. The Catholic priests dash out and administer to the dying, no matter what, but it seems the most that the chaplains out there can do is make the occasional dash forward to offer the troops cigarettes and then dash back to safety again. Apparently it is known as the Woodbine Faith.’

  ‘You can’t altogether blame the clerics, Lady Partita,’ Wavell murmured, watch in hand, his eyes on the egg saucepan. ‘My Harry wrote to me that the Church actually forbids any of the clergy to go further forward than Brigade Headquarters. Thinks they’ll get in the way.’

  ‘How wretched,’ Partita protested. ‘What spiritual food is there in that? The Roman Catholic priests go right on to the battlefields to give Extreme Unction, while the battle’s still raging. The chaps tell me that the people they admired the most out there were the Catholic priests, the medics, the stretcher bearers and the drivers.’

  ‘Harry did say that a lot of the chaplains simply ignore the order to stay behind at HQ and get as far up front as they can.’

  ‘The joke upstairs when Jack Wilson was here was that he said that one chaplain said to them, “May God go with you all the way – I shall go with you as far as the railway station.”’

  ‘I’m sure,’ Wavell agreed, carefully removing the egg from its water and placing it in its cup. ‘But there again, my Harry says there are some remarkable men of the cloth out there with him, including vicars such as our own Mr Bletchworth. I had another letter from him the other day and I understand he’s been holding Holy Communion in barns and farmyards and ruined houses – in fact where he can – and always at night so as his men will be safe from attack. He said that recently he even held Communion in an abandoned bar in some village or other, using the old bar as an altar and an old pewter beer mug as a chalice. Harry says that because of his ministry being under fire on so many occasions, Mr Bletchworth has been recommended for a DSO.’

  ‘Mr Bletchworth?’ Partita stared at Wavell, as she now picked up the breakfast tray. ‘Gracious.’

  ‘Long may he last,’ Wavell said, opening the kitchen door for Partita to go through.

  As he closed it he shook his head. Lady Partita might make a good maid, and an excellent nurse, but a cook she would never be.

  ‘Out of wretched Flanders and into the Somme – at last,’ Cecil wrote in one of his few letters home.

  The change of scenery is most welcome and I must say the landscape here is very pleasant. Provided they send us up enough guns there is absolutely no reason to believe we shouldn’t finally get Jerry on the run, and for good. The chalky ground here is ideal for digging in, the weather is good and all the men are of much better countenance.

  Home soon, I have no doubt,

  Truly yours,

  Cecil

  Tully was feeling a wave of optimism as well, as he and his fellow troops dug in and prepared for battle. As was his role, he had been in a gun party, using the horses to haul
up the field guns and help position them as instructed, and now, as the last day of June faded into evening, he fed and watered his charges, paying particular attention as always to Sam, the battery’s favourite.

  Sam was a heavy horse with three white feet, a thick flaxen mane, which Tully kept knot and mud free to the very best of his considerable ability, two very small furry ears, which were completely out of proportion to the rest of his head, and the most enormous bright pink lower lip, which gave him a permanently good-tempered and well-humoured appearance. His favourite trick was to catch hold of soldiers’ caps and hurl them as far as he could away from him. But the habit most enjoyed by the troops was the way he rolled back his upper lip into the most enormous grin when they fed him sweet titbits. As for his workload, he never seemed to tire, and although he was a big animal and took up more space, needed more grooming and ate more fodder than two smaller horses, he had become the gunners’ fast favourite ever since he had stamped off the boat and set foot in France.

  Now his work for the day done, he stood contentedly munching his hay and swishing his long flaxen tail to keep the flies at bay, while Tully, as always, settled in for the night in his sleeping roll under a side of canvas five yards from his charge.

  Tully remembered little of the following day once the bombardments started. He had seen plenty of action but, like most of his fellow troopers, had never previously been exposed to the sheer weight, din and danger of the enormous barrage that was now exploding everywhere in the skies. Shells of every size and description screamed overhead, everything from the nicknamed crumps and coal boxes to the menacing, screaming deadly whiz-bangs. All day the artillery pounded the enemy positions and all day the enemy guns pounded those of the British. Everyone dug in as deeply as they could, some in trenches so deep that not even the heaviest artillery was going to dislodge them.

  At some point Tully was called to reposition a field gun, so, collecting Sam, he hurried forward under a fresh hail of howling shells, and the next thing he knew he was being crushed to death. He had no idea where he was or what had happened; all he knew was that he was covered in blood and finding it all but impossible to breathe. Managing to get a hand to his face that had gone completely numb he could barely recognise the feel of his features, while the rest of his body also seemed without feeling. Slowly, very slowly, some senses began to return both to his body and to his mind, and turning himself one way and then the other he found he was trapped beneath the enormous body of Sam. They were lying in a crater, a hole obviously made by the shell that must have all but blown them both to Kingdom come, but he was alive, he was definitely still alive.

  And so too was Sam, as Tully felt a great shudder heave the horse’s body almost off him, followed by the deepest sigh and groan he had ever heard from an animal. Once Sam had moved, Tully found he could ease his flattened body out from under the stricken creature, sliding his way to the edge of the crater where he could get a better look at his charge. Sam was lying on one side with half one flank missing and both his hind legs smashed, but he too was still alive and unmercifully so, Tully thought, as he slid his way on his stomach to try to comfort his old friend.

  He reached his head, which Sam had tipped to one side, one apple eye that used to be so bright and full of cheer now dulled and rolling slowly from side to side as if the horse was looking for something, or for someone.

  ‘I know what you want, old boy,’ Tully said in one small furry ear, cradling the horse’s head in his arms as best as he could. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll see to you. Tully won’t let you down.’

  He kissed the moaning animal on the side of his great head, then crawled his way back to the side of the crater, pulling himself up to the rim to try to get sight of what was happening. He could barely believe his eyes when he saw the sheer devastation that must have happened in such a short time. What had been a huge area of rolling land was now a scene from hell, and from what Tully could see through the smoke and the hail of flying earth and debris, it seemed as if the earth had exploded and caught fire. Vaguely he could discern the distant shapes of men, some running, some falling and some even flying through the air as explosion followed explosion, each seemingly bigger than the one before. Shells screamed over his head, some falling not fifty yards from him, making Tully leave go of the edge of the crater and roll back in agony on top of his groaning horse.

  He had no gun. His pistol was gone, as was his belt and half his jacket, so there was no way he could help his dying friend to leave this earth. All he could do was wait and hope and pray: wait for help, hope that it came soon and pray that Sam would die quickly and be spared further agony. But no help came, and as Tully lay in the bloodstained earth he wondered why it should, since no one would know they were there. Everyone was too busy being killed or killing.

  He had no idea how long he was in that hole in the ground – it could have been minutes, it might have been days, since Tully kept fading in and out of consciousness – but every time he awoke the first thing he did was check on Sam, who sadly seemed no better and no worse. He was just about alive, and it was in fact a miracle that he was, but so strong was his constitution and so great his determination, it seemed to Tully, not to leave his master and abandon his post, that the horse was simply clinging on to life. Then finally and mercifully, as the light seemed to be fast fading, Tully heard the fateful shot and the great horse was still, freed from his undeserved agony, released from his unearned torment. Looking slowly up above him Tully saw an officer from his battery slowly putting away his service revolver, before coming to the stricken Tully’s side.

  ‘Thought it best to see to the old boy first!’ he yelled over the barrage of screaming, exploding shells. ‘Thought his need was even greater than yours!’

  ‘You can shoot me and all!’ Tully yelled back, now feeling the terrible pain of his wounds. ‘I’m done for, sir!’

  ‘Like hell you are, man!’ the officer shouted back. ‘Chap who stays with his horse deserves only the best! Just hang on one tick! We’ll soon have you out of here!’

  At enormous risk to himself, the officer returned to the top of the crater and disappeared to get help. Minutes later, by some miracle, two stretcher bearers arrived, caked in mud and gore, their sleeves rolled up to the tops of their burly arms, their faces shining with sweat, to lift Tully gently and carefully out of the vast hole in the ground and to carry him to safety.

  He remembered little after that, only vaguely recalling being on the stretcher before being driven fast down a bumpy road. After which it seemed he was in the middle of a field of the brightest summer flowers he had ever seen with the sun shining on him, then someone injected something into him, and it took away all his pain, and must have made him sleep for days, it seemed, for the next thing he knew he was lying on a bed, a proper bed in a bright white room, being nursed by what appeared to be an angel, someone who kept smiling at him.

  ‘Please,’ he croaked, ‘will you look at me? Please, I’m so sorry, miss – will you ever forgive me? Will you just look at the state I’m in. I’m covered in mud and blood.’

  The angel put a finger to her lips, and promptly gave him another injection.

  After which all he remembered was that he was on a ship, he knew it because he could hear the drone of the turbines, feel the motion of the vessel, and he could even hear seagulls. He never had liked their sound, but now he loved it, because it could only mean one thing.

  He was going home to Blighty.

  Over a mile down the line from where Tully and Sam had been hit, the men under the command of Major Cecil Milborne were fighting a losing battle as wave after wave of them were sent over the top to meet shells that either hit them directly, or killed them in groups, until finally Major Milborne was left with a handful of soldiers – two of them nursing the sort of wounds that would induce another officer to call off the attempted assault.

  Now they sat huddled in their trench as the bombardment seemed to increase in its intensity, staring at the m
ajor they had long ago nicknamed ‘Backside’, since he was now infamous among the men for backing on to that particular part of his anatomy.

  ‘Right, you lot!’ Cecil Milborne suddenly hollered, raising the whistle he blew to signal them over the top. ‘Over you go, and fast!’

  He blew his whistle loudly. The men didn’t move.

  ‘You heard me!’ Cecil screamed. ‘Get going! Go on! Out!’

  By what seemed suddenly to be tacit agreement not one of them moved.

  Cecil undid his holster and in his customary manner went for his revolver, but he was too late. Before he had time to put a hand to his pistol, he was dead.

  The man responsible looked round at his companions. As one they rose to stand beside him.

  ‘Pity about that. But if you will stick your head over the top that’s what ‘appens, Major, that’s what ‘appens, eh?’

  They all nodded.

  ‘The way I feel about ’im he might as well be a Hun!’

  One by one they took understandable pleasure in making sure that Cecil Milborne was dead.

  The incident was reported quite simply. Major Cecil Milborne was found dead in his trench from a rifle shot to his head – a sniper, naturally.

  As for the soldier who shot him, as second in command, he led the rest of the men over the top, and by some miracle not only did they survive their passage through no man’s land, but so did he, only to find himself on top of an enemy machine-gun position, a nest he cleared out single-handed with grenades, pistol and bayonet, before being blown unharmed by an exploding British shell into an enemy trench, which, as luck would have it, had just been taken by soldiers from his division.

  For his heroism under fire, above and beyond the call of duty, Captain William Wilkinson was awarded the Victoria Cross.

  Chapter Sixteen

  When This Lousy War Is Over

  Maude accepted all the sympathies extended to her for the loss of her husband, grateful for her friends’ kindnesses while knowing that Cecil had been less than popular. She understood from his regiment that he had died in action at the Somme with a record of diligent if unremarkable service. ‘Backside’ earned no medals, and went sadly unmissed.