‘Look, I’m sorry, Tom,’ Farrish told him.
Spears had closed his eyes and pinched his brow, worried that the anger and frustration welling within him would boil over if he spoke.
‘We did point out that Hawke was young, that he had lied about his age and that he had also given himself a false name, but I’m afraid instead of taking a dim view of this, the colonel seemed rather taken by the lad’s determination and pluck. He also told us that Brigade is expecting the Germans to launch an attack in the next month or so. He said that if we sent Hawke back, the chances are we’d simply be one man less, as getting replacements seems to be such a palaver – and you have to admit he has a point. It took the best part of two months for the last lot to turn up. He also pointed out that Hawke was desperate to do his duty and he told us he was inclined to repay that kind of determination. When Major Strickland pointed out that the lad was just sixteen, he laughed and said the army had a long history of taking on boy soldiers.’
Spears nodded silently.
‘Most of them are young, Spears,’ said Farrish. ‘We all are. I’m only twenty-one myself. A lot of the chaps are only eighteen. Does it really make any difference whether he’s sixteen, seventeen or eighteen?’
‘He doesn’t know anything,’ muttered Spears.
‘Do any of those other lads? They’re brought up in the back-streets of Leeds and Bradford and that’s the only world they know and then they join the army. They know how to crawl, climb six-foot walls, how to march, how to strip and fire a Short Magazine Lee Enfield. They know how to obey orders. We’re all new to this, Spears – yourself and a precious few others excepted. Hardly anyone in this platoon has fired a weapon in anger. Private Hawke is really no different.’
Spears sighed. ‘No, I suppose not, sir.’
‘And when Colonel B asked us whether we wanted to lose one of our platoon I’m afraid to say that we both admitted we did not. He said that in that case we should accept him and leave it at that. The lad is of legal age now and none of us feel that prosecuting him for lying is much use if the Germans really are about to attack.’
‘He’s my fiancée’s younger brother, sir. If anything happened to him …’ He let the sentence trail.
Farrish put a hand on Spears’s shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, Tom, but he’s staying. I could try to swap him with one of the other companies’ new chaps if you like …?’
Spears shook his head, as Farrish well knew he would. If the boy was not to be sent home then of course he had to remain in B Company. At least Spears could try to keep him out of trouble.
‘All right, sir,’ said Spears at last. ‘If that’s the colonel’s decision, I’ll just have to live with that. I just hope the day never comes when I have to tell his family that their boy is not coming home.’
‘We none of us want that for any of the men. But we’re not conscripted men here, Sergeant. All of us volunteered. We chose to answer the call to duty, and that applies to Hawke too.’
Now, three weeks on, the battle had begun, and so far Hawke had survived – he had lived through a few artillery barrages, several attacks by enemy aircraft and, earlier that day, when face to face with the enemy not ten yards from him, he had not frozen as some might well have done, but had shot first and killed a man. He’d done well – Spears had to admit that to himself, but the boy should never have volunteered to get that pilot in the first place. He knew Hawke was only trying to prove himself, but Spears wished to God he would not. If he had to be part of this platoon, then why the hell couldn’t the boy keep his head down and try to survive, like most of the lads?
Spears stood up, grabbed the bottle of Calvados standing on the dresser against the wall and poured himself a generous glass. Leaning one hand on the dresser, he drank, and the spirit fired down his throat. He gasped, ran his hands through his hair, then poured himself another generous inch and sat back down at the table. Feeling inside his battle blouse, he delved into the deep pocket and pulled out the bundle of Maddie’s letters. No doubt there were many more now, waiting in some sack in a depot somewhere, or maybe sitting in the back of a truck, but there was no chance of delivering them at present, not when they barely knew what day it was or where they were themselves. Instead, he would have to make do with looking at his one photograph of her, taken the day they’d become engaged, and the last letter he had received, dated 6 May. It had arrived on the morning of Friday 10 May, the day the Germans had attacked and just before they’d left to move up towards the River Dyle. Carefully, he tugged the thin blue paper from the envelope, unfolding the sheets and turning to the end first: All my love and more, Maddie, written in that by now so familiar, slanting loop.
He had, of course, written immediately Johnny had joined the company and with unusual swiftness it had taken just nine days for her reply.
I don’t know whether to feel relieved or that our worst fears have been realized. Uncle Richard seems convinced that the Germans will attack now it’s May. It looks like Mr Chamberlain is going to have to stand down as prime minister. I managed to speak with home today and Uncle Richard was convinced that Hitler will make the most of the mess the government’s in and attack, and now Johnny’s going to be caught up in it, and you too, my darling. I’ve dreaded it for so long. I worry about you constantly but at least you know how to look after yourself. Johnny is just a boy. I’ll never forgive myself if anything happens to him. Never.
Spears sighed again, then banged his fist down hard on the table. Damn him! he thought. He looked back at the letter.
Try to keep him out of trouble, won’t you? I know you have all the other men to look after, but with you to watch over him at least he might have a chance. The thought of little Johnny being confronted by those evil Nazis makes my blood run cold.
She ended the letter by telling him how much she was missing him, more than ever. She wondered where he was, what he was doing.
When I’m out in the fields, or lying in my bed at night, I dream of the future, my darling Tom. A future that will be shared with you, and a time when there is no more war.
Spears looked forward to that day too. When the war was over, he had already made his mind up that he would leave the army. More than anything in the world he wanted to be with Maddie, to look after her properly and to raise a family together, not drag her to godforsaken army camps or to far-flung corners of the Empire. No, he would buy a small farm, somewhere near the Yorkshire coast, with the sight of the sea and the green of the moors. Ever since Maddie had told him that she had joined the Land Army, it was a fantasy he had clung to – one he had not shared with a living soul.
God only knew whether he would survive the war – whether they would ever get out of Cassel – but Johnny Hawke’s arrival, it seemed to him, had lessened the odds of that future being realized, and he resented him for that. He could not help it. Before Johnny had turned up, Spears had had one person to look after, one person to keep alive, and that was himself. Yes, he had a responsibility to all the men, but that was not the same thing. But since Johnny had turned up, his eager face smiling with excitement, that had changed. And while Tom Spears reckoned his own odds of survival were better than most, he could not say the same for a sixteen-year-old straight out of training.
Tom Spears rubbed his eyes, sipped his Calvados and then folded the letter and put it back in its envelope. Brooding would not help, however. The lieutenant was right: he should get some kip. He took himself into the sitting room, lay down on an old settee and closed his eyes.
He hasn’t got a chance, he thought to himself. Not a damned chance.
10
SHATTERED DREAMS
Sunday 26 May, around one o’clock in the afternoon. Half of 1 Section lay beneath the apple trees in the orchard, the warm early summer sun bearing down upon them, so that they had shed their battle blouses and rolled up their shirt sleeves. The five men had been stood down from picquet duty half
an hour earlier, swapping with the other half of the section, and had wasted no time in preparing some food and tea. Rations had been officially cut by half the day before, but the platoon was better placed than most to supplement the now meagre supplies handed out by B Echelon. Hebden and a few others had organized regular milking teams, while one of the beasts had been slaughtered and its skinned and gutted carcass now hung in neatly sliced sections in a shed at the back of the farmhouse.
Now, Hawke was serving up large chunks of beef that he had fried and roughly hacked into five individual slices, along with a slab of what Hebden called his ‘finest Yorkshire pudding’ – a concoction he had made with fresh milk, some flour from the mill and a couple of eggs he had found under the chicken shed, and then fried, rather than baked, on the Primus.
‘There you go,’ said Hebden, a large grin on his face, ‘Sunday best. A meal fit for kings: steak, Yorkshire pud and a cup of char. What could be finer?’
‘A glass of beer wouldn’t go amiss,’ said McLaren.
‘And some gravy,’ said White.
‘Never happy, are you?’ said Hebden. ‘What a miserable lot.’ He took a bite of his beef and Yorkshire pudding and rolled his eyes in mock ecstasy. ‘What d’you reckon, Johnny? I think we’ve done ourselves proud.’
Hawke grinned. ‘I agree, Bert. I’ve not had a finer meal since I set foot in France.’
‘Since last Monday, then,’ said Drummond. Everyone laughed.
‘I meant since leaving England,’ said Hawke, ‘and probably before that, now I think about it.’
‘You know what?’ said Hebden. ‘Between us we’ve got quite a lot of skills, haven’t we? I mean, I know we’re all regular soldiers, but most of us wouldn’t be if it weren’t for the war.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ said McLaren. ‘I’ve been in seven years.’
‘All right, you excepted, Corp,’ continued Hebden, ‘but I grew up on a farm, Wainwright in Three Section used to be a butcher – he made a good job of that cow, didn’t he? Chalkie was a builder, weren’t you, Chalkie?’
‘A brickie really. I couldn’t do plastering or anything like that.’
‘Actually, now I think about it,’ said McLaren, ‘I used to work in a garage before I joined up. Four years I did. In a little garage out on the Harrogate Road.’
‘Whereabouts?’ asked White.
‘Potternewton. It was a great little place. A bit cramped but you got to work on all sorts: cars, motorcycles, trucks. The lot – although it was bikes that I liked most. The boss was all right too, and there was another lad who I’d been at school with. We had quite a laugh really.’
‘Why aren’t you in the RASC, then, Corp?’ asked Drummond.
‘Because I thought that if I joined the army I should be a proper soldier in a proper regiment.’
‘So what made you join the army in the first place, Corp?’ asked Hawke.
‘Because I was young and stupid,’ grinned McLaren. ‘I was getting a bit restless and sick of cars and being covered in oil all the time. I thought I’d like to see something of the world. To get away.’
‘But you could still be a mechanic if you had to be?’ said Hebden.
‘Course,’ said McLaren. ‘I’ll have you know I could strip an engine and put it back together by the time I was Johnny’s age.’
Hawke glanced at McLaren.
‘Just making a point, Johnny,’ said McLaren. ‘Blimey, anyone would think you were a bit sensitive about your age or something.’
The men laughed again and Hawke felt his cheeks flush.
‘Anyway,’ said McLaren, ‘did you have time to have a job before you joined up, Johnny? Got any skills we should know about.’
‘No – not really,’ said Hawke. ‘I did have a job after school, though. I worked at a textile machinery factory in Leeds.’
‘Why d’you end up there?’ asked White.
‘My stepfather was foreman there. He got me the job. I hated it.’
‘So you thought you’d join the army instead,’ said McLaren.
Hawke nodded. ‘Pretty much.’ He wondered whether he should say more, but something made him go on. ‘My father used to be in the army. Or, rather, he was in the last war.’
‘Like everyone else,’ said White.
‘What happened to him?’ asked Hebden. ‘If you don’t mind me asking?’
‘He died before I was born,’ said Hawke. ‘He was gassed at Passchendaele – only it took a few years to kill him.’
‘Living in Leeds can’t have helped,’ said White. ‘God knows, the air’s bad enough there.’
‘It’s worse in Bradford,’ said Foxton.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Hebden. ‘My old man avoided it, being a farmer, but I know there was a lot of lads from the village didn’t make it back.’
‘Jack Ibbotson’s dad was killed in the last war too,’ said McLaren. ‘He doesn’t talk about it, though.’
Hawke wondered whether to tell them about what his father had done, and the hero he had been. But then Hebden said, ‘But you do have skills, Johnny,’ and Hawke looked at him quizzically.
‘Cricket,’ said Hebden. ‘You’re a good cricketer, aren’t you? Play in the leagues.’
Hawke smiled bashfully. ‘I don’t know that you’d call it skill.’
‘Course it is,’ said Hebden, then, looking at the others, said, ‘He’s already played for Kirkstall firsts last summer. Got a fifty and two five-wicket hauls too.’
‘It wasn’t much,’ Hawke mumbled.
‘Stop it, Bert,’ said McLaren. ‘You’re embarrassing the lad.’
‘I’m just saying he’s obviously got some talent.’ He clapped Hawke on the back. ‘You’ll have to play for Yorkshire one day, Johnny. When this is all over.’
‘Would you want to?’ asked Drummond.
‘Of course he would,’ said McLaren. ‘What a stupid question, Charlie. More to the point, do you think you ever could, Johnny?’
Hawke looked sheepish. ‘I don’t know. It’s a big leap from playing in the Yorkshire League to playing for the county. I’m not sure I’ll ever be good enough.’
‘And now there’s this ruddy war,’ said McLaren. ‘Still, we’ve all got to have dreams.’
It was a dream Hawke had cherished ever since first falling in love with the game as a seven-year-old. Ever since watching his first match at Headingley. He had Uncle Richard to thank for that.
‘And he lives right next to Headingley,’ added Hebden, as though reading Hawke’s thoughts.
Hawke nodded.
‘Oh, well, of course he’s going to love cricket, living right next door to one of the world’s finest cricket grounds,’ said White, then added, ‘What about you, Bert? What’s your dream? What do you want to do when this is over?’
‘I don’t know. Probably go back to the farm. I like making things, though, so maybe I’ll become a furniture maker.’ He smiled. ‘Yes, that’s what I’ll do. That would be a respectable and worthwhile way to spend my life.’
‘That’s another one,’ said McLaren. ‘Another skill in the platoon.’
‘A skill that would need honing,’ Hebden smiled.
‘What about you, Chalkie?’ asked Hawke.
White shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I can’t think that far ahead. I love football, but I could never make it as a professional.’
‘I want to play for Sheffield United,’ said Drummond. ‘That’s my dream. Don’t get me wrong, Johnny, I like cricket well enough, but for me it’s always been football. Bramall Lane, not Headingley.’
‘Are you any good?’ asked White.
Drummond shrugged.
‘That means he is,’ said McLaren. ‘Come on, don’t be modest, Charlie.’
‘I think I might be all right,’ said Drummond. ‘At least, I nearly had a trial anyway.’
‘That’s amazing, Charlie,’ said Hawke. ‘I
knew you were a United supporter, but I didn’t realize –’
‘Hang on a minute,’ interrupted Hebden. ‘You nearly had a trial? Why didn’t you, then?’
‘I joined the army. You see, I didn’t think I was going to get one so I took the King’s shilling and then the letter arrived after I’d already gone to Pirbright.’
‘Why didn’t you do a runner?’ asked White.
‘I thought about it, honestly, I really did. But it would have got me in all sorts of trouble, and if they knew I’d run away from the army I thought they probably wouldn’t take me anyway.’
Hebden shook his head in wonder. ‘Blow me, Charlie. How long have we been together? You kept that one quiet.’
‘Bit of a dark horse, isn’t he?’ said McLaren.
‘To be honest,’ said Drummond, ‘I try not to think about it too much. It’s too depressing. What might have been.’
‘What position did you play?’ asked Hawke.
‘Midfield,’ said Drummond, then he grinned. ‘I once kept a football off the ground for two hundred and fifteen kicks.’
‘Really?’ said Hawke, impressed. ‘Maybe you’ll get another chance, Charlie.’
‘Maybe,’ said Drummond. His brow knotted. ‘We’ve got to get out of this place first and then win the damned war.’
‘I think I prefer dreaming,’ said Hebden.
‘But that’s all it is, isn’t it?’ retorted Drummond. ‘A dream.’ He sighed. ‘I can’t tell you how often I wish I hadn’t ever joined up. Or that this stupid war hadn’t ever started.’
‘But then you wouldn’t have met us,’ said Hebden. ‘And that would have been a tragedy.’
Everyone laughed, and Hawke thought how glad he was that he had joined 1 Section, with men he already liked to think of as friends – Hebden and Drummond in particular. He couldn’t imagine the platoon without those two.
They were quiet for a moment as they finished their meal. A bee buzzed lazily nearby, while house martins chirruped as they darted in and out from the eaves of the barn roof and swirled around the sky above the farm.
Dunkirk Page 9
