The Shadow of War

by Stewart Binns

  Winston is not looking forward to his meeting with Bardie Stewart-Murray, so he girds his loins with a stiff drink beforehand and paves the way by ordering a claret that is far too expensive for a midweek lunch. Bardie notices both and braces himself for bad news.

  ‘So, Winston, how is Clemmie and your third child – Sarah, I think?’

  ‘Yes, Sarah; both are well, thank you, Bardie. They are with me at the flat at the Admiralty, which is very satisfactory. I am sorry to hear about your brothers. I was with the King on Wednesday and he told me that your father is not taking the news too well.’

  ‘No, he’s pretty glum about it all, but I’ve kept the worst bit from him. I have had a letter from a Captain Marinden, an officer in the Black Watch, Geordie’s regiment, which is not the best of news. He said that he had met a man in Dalmeny Hospital, in Lothian, the other day, who told him that Geordie was severely wounded at the Battle of the Aisne. His men dressed his wounds but were driven back by an enemy attack and had to leave him under cover in a quarry. The men said they had little hope that he could survive his injuries.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Bardie, I’m afraid it doesn’t sound too promising. Don’t you think you should tell your father? It will be for the best in the long run.’

  ‘I know, and I intend to tell him when I next go to Blair. Hamish will be there, which will help. My sisters have had a bit of a scare too. Evelyn, who lives in Belgium, just managed to get out of Malines before the Germans ransacked her apartment. And Dertha’s husband, Ruggles-Brise, got a bit too close to a German whizz-bang and is in hospital in Boulogne.’

  ‘How’s he doing?’

  ‘All right, I think; Dertha’s with him. His shoulders have been peppered with shrapnel, but he’s in one piece, and they think he’ll be up and about in a month or so.’

  ‘And Helen?’

  ‘She’s well, but she’s another source of concern to Father. She runs the house and estate, as you know, and Father relies on her so much. But she’s taken up with an Edinburgh chap who is not to Father’s liking.’

  ‘Let me guess: not aristocratic, perhaps even middle class, and a bit of a liberal?’

  ‘Yes, all of those things! A businessman and a sculptor of some renown, apparently, who plays opera all the time on one of those new Tournaphones.’

  ‘Oh dear, Bardie, he sounds like an absolute cad!’

  At first Bardie is not sure if Winston is serious. But when his luncheon companion smiles at him mischievously, he realizes the remark was said tongue-in-cheek. Winston steers the conversation towards its intended destination.

  ‘I hear you’ve seen Lord K. What are his plans for your Scottish Horse?’

  ‘Well, they’re infuriating, to be truthful. Kitchener seems very agitated about an invasion on the east coast and has said that he is drawing up plans to use the Scottish Horse for coastal defence duties for the time being. The bugger is, I’m now at brigade strength, with three regiments raring to go. So I asked him to send at least one to France. He said no, categorically, but to be patient, my time will come.’

  ‘I’m sure it will, Bardie. K is a little preoccupied with this invasion threat he’s got into his head, no matter what I say to convince him otherwise. Is Kitty with you at Kettering?’

  ‘She is; we’re staying at Boughton House, near Kettering, courtesy of Billy Douglas-Scott. Now, you’ll be amused by this; she’s organizing the knitting of thousands of hose tops for the Scottish regiments.’

  ‘Very thoughtful of her; we can’t have the Scots boys feeling the bite of winter’s wind around the Trossachs! And how is Kitty?’

  ‘Thriving. As you know, she’s into everything. She wants to go into Parliament, and I think she will one day.’

  ‘But I thought you told me she was opposed to the suffragettes?’

  ‘She is!’

  ‘How strange is the female mind, Bardie. I think they’re cleverer than us, but just have strange ways of showing it.’

  As the banter continues, Bardie is led to reflect on the recent improvement in his relationship with Kitty. However, it has only got better after initially getting much worse. Following the violent row and sexual frisson at the end of July, at Eaton Place, which sparked a new passion between them, Kitty heard rumours from a girlfriend that Bardie is the father of another illicit child, this time a boy, slightly older than Eileen Macallum, his child by his mistress in Mayfair. The boy’s mother is from the Scottish lesser-gentry and lives in Ayrshire.

  Following the news, Kitty immediately went to London to speak to her mother’s lawyer – not to ask for a divorce, but to seek a way to formalize a new arrangement for their marriage. Her terms were very simple: Bardie has to make an annual payment to each child of £150. Although the children will always be welcome at Blair Atholl, the two mothers will not be and their names are never to be mentioned in his wife’s company. Bardie may carry on seeing both women, but only in circumstances beyond Kitty’s awareness and only infrequently.

  As for the two of them, they will continue to live together as man and wife, but in separate bedrooms and without conjugal rights. Should there be any other mistresses or children, the same rules will apply. It is also stipulated that Kitty will be free to pursue her own ‘friendships’, should she wish to.

  An appropriate document was drawn up, which Bardie has signed, and has now been deposited in their lawyers’ safes. Although it has taken time to adjust to the new arrangement, their marriage is now maturing into a long-term friendship and both are happy with the outcome. It is a state of affairs perhaps helped by the fact that, while they have been staying at Boughton House, it has been difficult for Bardie to visit either Ayrshire or Mayfair. However, now that he is in London, and close to the Curzon Street home of his London mistress, he will be paying her a visit, a temptation he cannot resist.

  Winston, having got all the way to cheese and an accompanying glass of port, cannot avoid the main reason for the lunch any longer.

  ‘Bardie, old boy, I need to give you a little more bad news. I’m sorry that it coincides with a difficult time for your family.’

  ‘Winston, I think I can spare you the details. The Dunne prototypes don’t pass muster, do they?’

  ‘I’m afraid not, Bardie. They are very clever, ideal for civilian use, and may well make excellent training aircraft. But in a war zone, they are not sturdy enough.’

  ‘I understand, and I think Dunne has already come to the same conclusion. But he just can’t bring himself to say so.’

  ‘I know I made you some promises when I came to see you at Blair Atholl. But my engineers are adamant; it’s a very manoeuvrable light aircraft, but it’s not a warplane. I can’t go against their advice.’

  ‘I understand. These decisions have to be taken on their merits. We’re at war, there is no room for sentiment or favouritism.’

  ‘Look, if it makes any difference, I’d be happy to have Dunne and his engineers at Farnborough. They would make a genuine contribution.’

  ‘Thank you, Winston, that may well help; Dunne’s a funny chap, but very clever. His latest theory is that time isn’t chronological, but that the past, present and future all exist at the same time. He claims that sometimes he has dreams that happen in the future.’

  ‘Really! Well, that could be bloody useful, especially if he can tell Kitchener what the Kaiser’s going to do this winter.’

  Both men laugh loudly.

  The lunch has gone far better than Winston thought it would, and he is grateful for Bardie’s generosity of spirit. He walks the short distance back to the Admiralty, feeling far better than when he left.

  As for Bardie, he can look forward to the comforts to be had in Curzon Street this evening.

  Friday 30 October

  Poperinghe, West Flanders, Belgium

  Poperinghe is one of only two Belgian towns still not under German occupation. It is eight miles west of the fighting at Ypres and only seven miles from the French border. The centre of Belgium’s hop-g
rowing industry and famed for its excellent beer, its Grande Place is crammed with troops and military vehicles.

  The hotels, bars and shops that form the perimeter of the cobbled square are doing a roaring trade, particularly the estaminet La Maison de Ville, which serves the cheapest beer and is frequented by the most raucous British soldiers. It also serves the beers brewed by the Trappist monks at the nearby Westvleteren Monastery. Its ‘light’ blond beer is much stronger than an English ale and its ‘extra’ dark brew is almost three times the strength. The former is bottled with a green cap, the latter with a blue cap, and the men have already coined the phrase ‘to go on a greeny’, which is to get drunk, or a ‘bluey’, which is to get blind drunk.

  The town has already earned the moniker ‘Pop’ and a reputation for having no shortage of girls willing to offer their favours to any ‘Tommy’ with one franc to give the madam and two francs to give to the girl. Pop has two official brothels, maisons tolérées, sanctioned and inspected by the medical officers of the French Army, and dozens of unofficial streetwalkers and backstreet cathouses. Hundreds of girls have flocked from Paris and Brussels to reap the rewards.

  On busy nights, queues of men form. Young waiters serve them beer as they wait their turn. Of course, appropriate military distinctions apply: the men go to ‘red light’ establishments while the officers frequent ‘blue light’ institutions, where the furnishings and fittings are a little more salubrious, the girls slightly younger and, perhaps, more fetching.

  Pop is also the location of several British field hospitals. They occupy two schools, long since abandoned by their pupils, and a lace factory that closed down at the outbreak of war. One of them is the workplace of Sister Margaret Killingbeck and nursing auxiliary Bronwyn Thomas.

  Margaret is relieved to have a semi-permanent home. She, her patients, staff and beds have moved multiple times since they arrived one month ago. They have been here for a week. Bronwyn’s health and demeanour are much improved and she has been true to her word; she spends her days changing beds, cleaning wards and emptying bedpans and urine bottles.

  Margaret and her nurses are lodging in a small hotel just behind Pop’s Grande Place, where she allows Bron one glass of beer and one glass of wine every evening. Her drug habit is over, she no longer needs laudanum and her gonorrhoea is responding well to treatment.

  Men and sex have proved to be no temptation for Bron – at least, as far as Margaret knows. She did engage in a brief sexual liaison of sorts with a guardsman who was severely wounded by a shell and had lost both his arms above the elbow. He was high on morphine and feeling frisky and asked her if she would oblige him and ‘give him relief’ before he died. She did so without hesitation, and thought nothing of it, regarding it simply as a gesture to comfort a dying man.

  She then gave him a kiss. She did not tell anyone about it: what was the point? The young man died the next morning and Bron went to his bed again to give him another kiss, this time on his now icy-cold lips.

  Bron often watches Pop’s street girls with a mixture of emotions. Sometimes she shivers, when a memory of a particularly unpleasant encounter comes into her head, but mostly she feels concerned for the welfare of the girls and often tries to speak to them in their limited English, but also in French, which she is trying hard to learn.

  Bron, Margaret and the rest of the girls on their shift have finished for the day. They began at 6 a.m, and it is now six in the evening. They are sitting at a table outside the Maison de Ville. It is unseasonably mild, making it possible to sit in the open air. The nurses are watching the commotion of intense military activity going on around them. Later, the bar will be full of drunken soldiers looking for girls or trouble – or both – but for now it is relatively calm. There are a few wolf whistles and a little banter is directed at them, but it is all good humoured. Some of the nurses have developed relationships with soldiers billeted nearby and are engaged in hushed or animated conversations with them.

  Then, from inside the estaminet, comes the evening’s first rendition of the soldiers’ version of ‘Mademoiselle from Armentières’.

  The polite version begins:

  Mademoiselle from Armentières, parlez-vous?

  Mademoiselle from Armentières, parlez-vous?

  Mademoiselle from Armentières

  She hasn’t been kissed in forty years.

  Hinky, dinky, parlez-vous.

  Oh farmer, have you a daughter fair, parlez-vous?

  Oh farmer, have you a daughter fair, parlez-vous?

  Oh farmer, have you a daughter fair

  Who can wash a soldier’s underwear?

  Hinky, dinky, parlez-vous.

  The officers get all the steak, parlez-vous,

  The officers get all the steak, parlez-vous,

  The officers get all the steak

  And all we get is the bellyache.

  Hinky, dinky, parlez-vous …

  But the soldiers’ far more vulgar version begins:

  Three German Officers crossed the Rhine, parlez-vous,

  Three German Officers crossed the Rhine, parlez-vous,

  Three German Officers crossed the Rhine

  To fuck the women and drink the wine.

  Hinky, dinky, parlez-vous.

  They came to the door of a wayside inn, parlez-vous,

  They came to the door of a wayside inn, parlez-vous,

  They came to the door of a wayside inn

  Pissed on the mat and walked right in.

  Hinky, dinky, parlez-vous.

  Oh landlord, have you a daughter fair, parlez-vous?

  Oh landlord, have you a daughter fair, parlez-vous?

  Oh landlord, have you a daughter fair

  With lily-white tits and golden hair?

  Hinky, dinky, parlez-vous.

  My only daughter’s far too young, parlez-vous,

  My only daughter’s far too young, parlez-vous,

  My only daughter’s far too young

  To be fucked by you, you bastard Hun!

  Hinky, dinky, parlez-vous.

  Oh father dear, I’m not too young, parlez-vous,

  Oh father dear, I’m not too young, parlez-vous,

  Oh father dear, I’m not too young,

  I’ve just been fucked by the blacksmith’s son.

  Hinky, dinky, parlez-vous …

  After which there are many more even more explicit and even more anti-German verses. The nurses are not in the slightest discomfited; they have heard it many times before and, compared to the horrors of a field hospital, a few crude words are of no consequence.

  Margaret is watching Bron closely, delighted that she is doing so well. Having her accepted into the Queen Alexandra’s nurses, even as an auxiliary, has not been easy. Emma McCarthy, the Australian-born matriarch of the service, is Matron-in-Chief of the entire British Expeditionary Force and in charge of over 600 nurses in France. She would only permit Bron to stay as a personal favour to Margaret, and only after she revealed to her Bron’s personal circumstances.

  Matron McCarthy is old-fashioned. She thinks it dangerous to recruit young women who are attractive, saying that girls who have not been blessed with an appealing face – and certainly not with an ample bosom – are the best choices. She admits that, although pretty faces and a fulsome figure are not, of themselves, barriers to being a good nurse, they invariably lead to men being difficult patients. She is happy to take ageing spinsters, saying that, at a certain age, women no longer incline men to suckle at their breasts and instead inspire men to treat them like their grandmothers.

  McCarthy is an ideal candidate for her own selection criteria. Never married, she is fifty-five years old, slight of frame, with the severe appearance of a serjeant major, and runs a very tight ship of healing. One of only six nursing veterans of the Boer War, she was a founding nurse in the Queen Alexandra’s Service and has been the army’s senior matron for over ten years. She was on the first ship carrying the BEF across the Channel on 14 August.

 
Bron is smiling, something she has begun to do more and more in recent days, and is watching intently as a column of marching men comes into view. They are typical of new recruits. It is always possible to spot the new arrivals from Blighty; they are smartly dressed, clean-shaven, singing and smiling, and certainly do not look like lambs being led to the slaughter. Farmers will tell you that animals always know when they are on their way to the slaughterhouse, but human beings seem to have lost that instinct. These new lads, like all before them, look like schoolboys on their way to an exciting new adventure with the Boy Scouts.

  This group, about 100 strong, are wearing hackles, the headdress that marks them as fusiliers. The hackles are white, which signifies they are men of the Royal Welch Fusiliers. Bron thinks the white hackles look familiar, but is not sure why, until an inebriated soldier nearby shouts in Welsh, ‘Croeso mawr i chi, Ffiwsilwyr Cymreig!’ which Bron knows means a warm welcome to France for the Welsh boys.

  It is Philip’s regiment. Bron jumps to her feet in the hope that he will be at the front of the column, leading his men. He is not, of course. Bron sits back down; she looks at Margaret with tears in her eyes. Margaret smiles at her warmly and leans across to kiss her on her cheek.

  ‘I think we should order a bottle of red. You look like you need it.’

  ‘But that will put me over my limit.’

  ‘I know, but you’ve been so good, one night won’t do any harm.’

  Bron turns to look back at the Welshmen marching towards her. Now that they have an audience in Pop’s Grande Place, they are singing ‘Sosban Fach’ in fine Welsh voice. Suddenly, Bron’s face becomes a fixed stare, as if she has been momentarily cast in stone. She then turns her head to one side, as if trying to hide herself from view.

  ‘What’s the matter, Bron?’

  For the briefest of moments, Margaret wonders if Bron has, after all, seen Philip Davies.

  ‘Margaret! It’s the boys; my brothers! There, on the far side, at the front; all three together, behind the serjeant. Oh God! Don’t let them see me.’

  Margaret looks across and sees a boy who, from his likeness, is clearly Bron’s twin. Next to him is her younger brother, Geraint, and on the other side, Hywel. She hardly recognizes him: he is clean-shaven, with his hair cropped short, and looks much more wholesome than when she met him at Pentry Farm.