Remembrance

by Theresa Breslin

  Maggie was annoyed at herself. To be fooled so easily and for so long had probably lost them any chance of finding him. Because of her lack of thought Alex might be dead, or lying somewhere in a hospital not unlike this, his face wearing that half-crazed battle-weary appearance.

  Many of the wounded Maggie nursed had that look. She had come to an understanding that it was more than just the pain they suffered. These men had images and memories in their heads that they couldn’t dislodge. She would reason to herself that if she could pull their minds away for even a short time then it should be beneficial. So she tried to supplant their dark thoughts with some other. She would chat and tell them about herself and her home, describing her father’s shop, the village and the hills beyond.

  She was attending to a wounded man, Robert Ashley, a captain in the Essex Regiment, and mentioned her father’s name being over the shop door, when he suddenly said, ‘Dundas? You said Dundas?’

  Maggie nodded.

  ‘I met a soldier called Dundas. He was with the King’s Own Scottish Borderers … in July 1916 it was … he died beside me in a shell-hole on the first assault on the Beaumont Hamel ridge.’

  Maggie’s hand ceased tucking in the sheet. She stood completely still without straightening up. ‘My brother was killed at the Somme in July 1916,’ she whispered. ‘He was in the King’s Own Scottish Borderers.’

  Robert Ashley put his hand over hers where it rested on the bedcover.

  ‘I am very sorry,’ he said.

  ‘What was it like?’ she asked him. ‘Was it awful?’

  He looked away from her down the ward, as if not seeing the rows of beds with the injured men and the orderlies moving around.

  ‘I don’t remember,’ he said.

  And she knew that he lied. That there was a great and terrible deception being acted out … Maggie shook her head. She would not be part of it.

  Their eyes met. ‘Tell me,’ she said.

  ‘It was a living hell,’ he answered her quietly. ‘Unbelievably so. We might as well have sent a visiting card to let them know the exact time of our arrival. The wire on our side was ordered to be cut days before the attack to give a way through, and some of these paths were marked out with coloured ribbon for us to follow. Boards were laid down over the front trenches so that the men at the back could rush forward. The Germans couldn’t help but notice it. And they must have seen all the build-up of supplies and troops in advance. Our heavy bombardment didn’t crush the enemy; they were dug in too deep, and when it stopped, they knew we were about to attack. As we came across they were waiting for us. Their machine-gun fire brought us down in lines as we advanced.’ He passed his hand over his face. ‘The Inniskilling Fusiliers were first over the top, and your brother’s battalion followed them in. A flare went up from the other side to launch their counter barrage, and in the confusion it was read as a signal from our troops that some of them had taken a position. We were sent in at about nine o’clock in the morning and had to climb over these two battalions, dead and dying, to try to get through. When the remains of the Essex got to their wire it had hardly been damaged by our guns, and that’s where the rest fell.’

  Maggie felt as though she had been struck across her heart. ‘Oh God,’ she said. ‘Oh God.’

  Robert Ashley went on slowly. ‘I took two bullets in the leg and crawled into a shell-hole. Your brother was there. He was smiling. He thought we were winning and he was proud that he had done his bit. I didn’t tell him otherwise. I gave him some water and talked to him, but he was dying. I’m so sorry,’ he said helplessly. ‘There was nothing more I could do. A medic had been to him, and given him morphine, so he wasn’t in pain. He slipped away quietly.’ Robert looked at Maggie directly. ‘Truly he did. I promise you. Like a baby falling asleep.’

  Maggie’s eyes and heart were full. She was glad to know that her brother had been resolute and brave. To know that he had died thus, and not choking on the dreaded poison gas, or withering with a gangrenous wound. That he had had such a companion by his side made it so much easier to bear.

  ‘This is tough for you,’ said Robert Ashley.

  Maggie smiled at him. ‘It’s … it’s so good to hear that he had someone with him when he died. He was fortunate that it was you.’

  ‘I wish I could tell you more,’ he went on. ‘Oh, there was one thing. Near the end, he mentioned someone’s name. I thought it must be a fellow soldier or a mate of his from home. Just before he slipped away, he said “Charlie” soft like, as if it was someone special.’

  Maggie waited a full hour for Charlotte to come off duty. She watched her approach before Charlotte saw her. It struck her how contained Charlotte was, how much her demeanour had changed since the earlier times when she had known her. Maggie remembered the day on the bridge when she had gone to tell Charlotte of John Malcolm’s death. How thin Charlotte’s bones had seemed as she had held the taller girl in her arms. And how, since then, her youthful energy had been replaced with a more subdued manner.

  Charlotte straightened a little when she saw Maggie and said a cheeful ‘hello’.

  What a torture it must be for her, thought Maggie, who lived with her own pain each day. How strong she was to bear it without complaining. She gripped Charlotte’s arm. ‘Come with me,’ she said. ‘There is someone you must meet.’

  By good fortune Robert Ashley was sitting alone by his bed when they arrived. Maggie sat Charlotte down in a chair beside him. ‘Captain Ashley, this lady was a very good friend of my brother’s. I know that she would very much like to hear about his last moments with you in the shell-hole. Will you tell her exactly what you told me?’

  Then Maggie left, closing the door quietly behind her.

  Chapter 35

  IT WAS ALMOST eleven o’clock in the evening when Maggie, walking with another nurse, Mary Gardner, towards their quarters in the château, saw the soldier standing underneath one of the plane trees which lined the driveway. As they passed he spoke her name softly.

  ‘Maggie?’

  ‘Francis!’ Maggie’s delight, instant and un-contrived, caused Francis to tremble in relief and joy.

  ‘I’ve only got a few hours … can you spare any time?’

  Maggie spoke to Mary Gardner. ‘I won’t be too late,’ she said.

  Mary Gardner laughed. ‘Be as late as you like, love,’ she said. ‘I’ll leave the lavatory window open and put a pillow in your bed just in case.’

  ‘I only called in to say hello,’ said Francis. ‘There is an attack planned. We are making the final assault.’ He grimaced. ‘I suppose, more accurately, I called in to say goodbye.’

  Maggie put her hand to her mouth. It was his demeanour more than the finality of his words which alarmed her. His eyes were hollow, as though he had blanked out feeling and thought and was now living with nothingness. She was terribly afraid.

  ‘Don’t look so worried, Maggie—’ Francis broke off as he began to shake, his whole body surrendering to violent spasms, head rolling and limbs jerking.

  Maggie grabbed his hand. ‘Let’s find somewhere.’ She glanced around, and realizing that she carried the key to the supplies hut, half supported him there. ‘Here, sit down.’ By the moonlight through the window she rummaged among a bundle of blankets and made a space for both of them to sit on the floor.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said more calmly.

  ‘You should not apologize for being afraid of death,’ said Maggie.

  ‘It is not my own death that holds me in terror. That would be such a release. It is all the others.’

  Maggie recognized his deep trauma. She had seen it before, but in all the rush on the wards the nurses had little time to spend to ease the minds of the wounded men. It was the physical side they concentrated on. They had to. Men would die if they didn’t. But you did your best to lift their spirits, patting hands and joking with them. And there were the ones whom, you went back to and sat with during your free time, to help them through their rough patches. The mo
re serious cases they never saw. Men diagnosed with nervous debility were removed as quickly as possible. Maggie knew at the beginning of the War some had been shot for cowardice, and even now if they could be patched up and sent back they were.

  Maggie did not wish to reduce Francis in any way by her behaviour, but talking through this seriously with him seemed an inadequate response.

  He was still shaking badly as they sat down, and his voice when he tried to speak came in ragged gasps of broken sound.

  Maggie remembered her parents’ reaction to the telegram telling them of John Malcolm’s death. Her father scraping his chair back from the table, and then folding in upon himself, unable to get up. Her mother rising quickly to go to him. Standing beside his chair, she took his head in her hands and turned his face towards her womb to press him close. He had put his arms around her waist, and she had rocked him, patting his head over and over, saying, ‘Hush, hush, now. Hush, hush.’

  Maggie turned to the trembling man by her side, reached out her arms, and pulled him against her. ‘There now,’ she said quietly. She slid further down with him among the blankets so that they were lying side by side. ‘Lie quiet here for a bit,’ she murmured, and she cuddled him against her own body.

  After a while the racking sobs stopped and the juddering in his limbs quieted. As she held Francis close and comforted him, Maggie felt something stir physically within her. She drew back a little to look at his face and see if he could be somehow aware of this without her having spoken.

  He was asleep. His breathing shallow but steady, his eyelids still.

  Finally Maggie slept too, lying on the rim of consciousness, listening like a mother for a sick child in the night. But when, near to morning, she awoke and looked into his sleeping face her own breath quickened again and she ached to kiss him. She contented herself by stroking his cheek gently to awake him.

  Francis wakening, saw Maggie’s face and thought he was dreaming. Even as he reached out in his dream and touched her cheek, he was only obliquely aware of how vivid this dream had become, and it was not until she spoke that he realized she was real. And then he wept for it being real, as had he been dreaming he could have prolonged this wished-for state, but now in reality he would have to say farewell and leave her.

  Maggie seeing this, and thinking it to be his terror at returning to the Front, thought her heart would break. Her mind desperately seeking a solution she whispered, ‘I could speak to one of the doctors. He would prescribe complete rest. You would be excused duty and—’

  Francis gave a shuddering sigh and put his finger to her lips. ‘No, no. I am not afraid to go back. It is the pity of it all that overwhelms me from time to time. And seeing your beautiful face beside me as I awoke serves to underscore all the horror.’

  Maggie felt her throat contract. No-one had ever before said that she was beautiful. When she was small her father had called her his ‘bonnie lass’, but ‘bonnie’ was not ‘beautiful’, with all its overtones of sophistication, power and permanence. Now, as previously her mind had been drawn to this man, she felt her body warming, and she leaned to him.

  Francis sighed again. He put his hands on her shoulders and made a little space between them. ‘We must be sensible,’ he said softly.

  ‘I don’t feel very sensible at the moment,’ Maggie whispered and put her head against his neck.

  ‘I know,’ said Francis, ‘I know,’ and he stroked her hair for many minutes until there was no more time left for either of them.

  Chapter 36

  AS FRANCIS RETURNED to the Salient, the depleted 11th Battalion of the Durham Light Infantry was regrouped to the 19th Battalion. Alex, Corporal Eric Kidd and those soldiers of the 11th that remained from the struggle around the Menin Road were to have respite leave in Poperinge before travelling by train, bus, and lorry to the Somme.

  Alex knew that the main reason he had survived the battle zone around Ypres was Corporal Eric Kidd. The older man had minded him ever since they had arrived at the Front. And Alex also knew that it was more than just his life that Eric was concerned about. The Corporal was troubled by Alex’s reasons for joining up.

  ‘Revenge sorts nothing, son,’ he said, when Alex eventually told him why he had enlisted. ‘Your brother is dead. If you kill all the Germans in the world, he’ll still be dead. Get revenge out of your head, and make room for your heart to grieve.’

  On the journey down to the southern part of the line the men talked of their part in the ongoing action in what the officers were calling the third battle of Ypres. Alex had always imagined that being in a battle would be a definite thing. Commanders would lead at the front, and everyone would know exactly what was happening. He had thought almost that he would be able to watch the action as well as take part. He had not envisaged the mess, the chaos, the running and shouting, the unbearable noise, and the overwhelming awfulness of it. He had been part of the great push that was still going on, and had no clear awareness of what was actually happening. It was his first experience of an attack and he had hated everything about it. There was no excitement, no joy of marching forward together to defeat the enemy, only a dull tense pain of dreadful anticipation in his gut and then an explosion of gunfire and confusion. On his first engagement a man had fallen and died right in front of him, and when Alex had stopped and bent over to see if he needed help, Eric had grabbed him by the collar and dragged him away.

  ‘Stretcher-bearers will get him, son.’

  ‘No they won’t,’ said Alex. The truth of what he had said sinking into his consciousness as he spoke. Throughout the fighting the bodies just lay there and eventually decomposed or disappeared into the mud.

  There were newspaper reports which the men talked about. People were saying that ‘their boys’ were beginning to win through. Alex had no idea of what ground they had gained. If anybody had asked him where he had fought, he would not have known.

  * * *

  Francis did know. Through his reconnaissance work he was aware of every intimate atom of earth which made up the sodden torn-up ground. He pored over the aerial photographs studying the nuances of shape, size, shadow and tone. And what he did not know, he imagined.

  He wrote to Maggie:

  Francis’s insistence on being given an active role eventually led to him being attached as an intelligence officer to the Canadian Corps of the Second Army who were to cross the valley of the Stroombeek and attack Passchendaele on the 26th. Near the end of October he was given notice to go forward.

  Maggie took the small card which was folded inside Francis’s letter and recognized her young brother’s handwriting.

  Maggie put the card in her apron pocket. This news would have a mixed reception at home. Her mother and father would welcome the news that Alex was still alive, but it also told them that he was in the direct line of fire. She would try to find out which regiments had been in Poperinge recently and see if any of them matched up with the towns where the London train stopped on its journey from Edinburgh. Given time she would trace her brother’s movements, although her enquiries would now have to wait until the winter campaign ended. At the moment Maggie was concerned for Francis. She reread his letter with that ominous last sentence:

  Carrying his maps and latest intelligence reports, Francis made his way forward to join the Canadian Division. His waking nightmares made it hard for him to distinguish between the real and the unreal, and at times on his passage to the front line he was unsure whether he was dreaming or actually seeing the raw horror that the land beyond Ypres had become. The front line was merely joined-up shell-holes which the Canadians fought for one by one as they crawled up to the place known as Crest Farm.

  On 10 November the Army finally gained their last objective. Beyond two German pillboxes at the top of a gentle slope Francis unpacked his equipment to plot the co-ordinates which would confirm that they had arrived at the village of Passchendaele. Except that no ruined steeple, flattened house or derelict hut remained to define its presence
. The place as such was now merely a map reference. Francis stood with his cartographer’s stylus and began to mark down the degrees of latitude and longitude when he was suddenly aware that the lives of thousands of men had been sacrificed in order to bring him to a location which did not exist. Francis looked around him and began to laugh.

  And found that he could not stop.

  SPECIAL ORDER OF THE DAY

  BY FIELD-MARSHAL SIR DOUGLAS HAIG, K.T.,

  G.C.B., G.C.V.O., K.C.I.E., COMMANDER-IN-

  CHIEF, BRITISH ARMIES IN FRANCE.

  To ALL RANKS OF THE BRITISH ARMY

  IN FRANCE AND FLANDERS

  Three weeks ago today the enemy began his terrific attacks against us on a fifty-mile front. His objects are to separate us from the French, to take the Channel Ports and destroy the British Army.

  In spite of throwing already 106 Divisions into the battle and enduring the most reckless sacrifice of human life, he has as yet made little progress towards his goals.

  We owe this to the determined fighting and self-sacrifice of our troops. Words fail me to express the admiration which I feel for the splendid resistance offered by all ranks of our Army under the most trying circumstances.

  Many amongst us now are tired. To those I would say that victory will belong to the side which holds out the longest. The French Army is moving rapidly and in great force to our support.

  There is no other course open to us but to fight it out! Every position must be held to the last man: there must be no retirement. With our backs to the wall, and believing in the justice of our cause, each one of us must fight on to the end. The safety of our homes and the Freedom of mankind alike depend upon the conduct of each one of us at this critical moment.

  D. HAIG,

  F.M.,

  Commander-in-Chief,

  British Armies in France.

  General Headquarters,