The Black Mountains

by Janet Tanner

  “Very well, Rupert,” Kessey said, although she later remarked to Donald that she would have it out with Alfred one of these days.

  When the service was over, the mourners followed the coffin into the churchyard, where the sun, shining fitfully from behind heavy black storm-clouds, cast a rosy glow on the weathered old tombstones, and the mound of earth beside the newly dug grave. The tragedy of young life cut down in its prime hung over them all, and as the Vicar intoned the time-hallowed phrases, there was hardly a dry eye or a throat that did not ache with tears.

  “Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery …”

  Marjorie, looking at the elm coffin that appeared too small to hold her friend, was remembering the times they had giggled together over silly, girlish things. In spite of the life she had led, the spark of fun had never been quite extinguished in Becky. She had never been “ full of misery.”

  “He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay …”

  That held special meaning for Winnie, who was almost too heavy with grief to hold her head up. If only Rebecca could have remained a child, none of this would have happened! she thought.

  “In the midst of life we are in death: of whom may we seek for succour, but of thee, O Lord, who for our sins art justly displeased …”

  “Forgive her her sins,” prayed Alfred. “For her sins are my sins. She could not help herself—it was born in her, with my blood. And the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children.”

  The coffin was lowered, the handful of earth scattered upon it, and as Alfred raised his head, across the open grave he saw the portly figure of Rupert. For a moment, the two men’s eyes met, and their hatred sparked. Then Rupert, flushing guiltily, turned away, and went to walk back towards the path where his mother and father were waiting.

  Alfred, however, was too quick for him. As the mourners moved respectfully away, he pushed through them and confronted Rupert face to face.

  “How dare you come here!” His tone was low and angry. “I thought I’d seen the last of you!”

  “Uncle!” Nervous and embarrassed, Rupert looked around him. Most of the mourners were out of earshot, but Rebecca’s friend Marjorie Downs was uncomfortably close by. If she wanted to listen, she could do so without doubt. And by the look on her face her curiosity had obviously been aroused.

  “Well, now you are here, I’ll ask you the same question I asked you the other day: Where did you get that evil stuff? I shan’t rest until I know, Rupert! And Dr Froster wants to know too.”

  “Uncle, people can hear you!” Rupert protested, and Alfred, with a quick and furious glance in Marjorie’s direction, drew him to one side.

  They stood between the gravestones arguing, until Winnie, who had seen what was happening, ran across the grass and caught urgently at Alfred’s sleeve.

  “Alfred, please!” she begged “Don’t make a scene here. I couldn’t bear it, with Rebecca…” She broke off, her eyes going to the still-open grave, and the tears overcame her once more.

  Alfred looked from one to the other, undecided, and Rupert snatched his opportunity. “She’s right, Uncle, it’s not decent!” he said, sliding past him.

  “But don’t think you’ve heard the last of this!” Alfred shouted after him.

  Alfred and Winnie walked back towards the gate, and the waiting carriages, while Rupert and his parents, who had seen the exchange and did not want to be involved in any unpleasant scenes, took their car and drove back to Bristol. And as Rupert sweated and trembled on that homeward journey, he ironically realized that the conscription papers would be the only thing to take him from this living nightmare.

  If they don’t send for me soon, I’ll volunteer, he said to himself.

  But he knew that wherever he went, and however hard he tried to justify himself, it would not be easy to forget what he had done to Rebecca.

  A WEEK LATER, while Charlotte was washing up the breakfast things, Harry came running into the scullery with a letter from the postman.

  “Look, Mammy, look at the envelope! What is it?”

  Charlotte looked, and caught her breath. The International Red Cross! Oh my God, not Fred too! she thought. As she hesitated, she heard the soft thud of stockinged feet running down the stairs and Jack came through the door, his face eager.

  “Did I see the postman outside? Is there anything for me?”

  Charlotte shook her head. She knew what it was Jack was hoping for—the results of his Oxford Senior.

  “There’s nothing for you today, Jack,” she said, but she could not hide the nervousness that was making her heart pound and her knees feel weak.

  Jack came further into the scullery, looking at her anxiously. “What’s up, Mam?”

  She tossed her head impatiently, attempting to adopt a casual attitude. “I don’t know, Jack. There’s a letter here from the Red Cross in Germany. I haven’t opened it yet. It’s addressed to your father, but he won’t be in until dinner time, and …”

  Jack’s face grew serious and he stretched out his hand for the envelope. Mam had seemed to cope so well with the shock that Ted was missing. But since she had heard about Rebecca, it seemed to have hit her all at once. Coming home from the funeral, he’d looked at her face and seen, for the first time, an old woman. Now, as she stood uncertainly with the letter in her hand, he had the same impression.

  “You want me to open it, Mam?” he said.

  “Would you, Jack? I don’t think I…”

  “Give it here.”

  He ripped open the envelope, the tension unbearable. Then a small, guttural sound escaped him, his face creased, and softly at first, then louder and louder, he began to laugh.

  “What is it?” Charlotte cried. “What does it say?”

  “It’s our Ted, Mam!” Somehow he controlled himself, catching at her arms and swinging her round. “ He’s alive!”

  “What?” she gasped.

  “He’s alive! It says so here. Wounded in the foot, neck and shoulder, shell-shocked after being blown into a shell hole, but alive! Crikey, it’s a miracle he wasn’t drowned! Those shell holes are full of water, most of them, they say!”

  “But where is he now?” Charlotte asked.

  “He’s a prisoner of war, in Germany,” Jack said, studying the letter again.

  Charlotte covered her face with her hands. She could not, at that moment, have sorted out her emotions one from the other, much less identify or describe them. She only knew with a soaring lightness that Ted was alive when she had thought he was dead, and that, God willing, she would see him again, touch his bright hair, laugh at his silly jokes, scold him for swearing unnecessarily.

  “But the photo,” she said at last. “ Poor Becky’s photo that was in the News of the World—it had to be him carrying it! Oh Jack, do you think they’ve made a mistake? Is it our Ted in their prisoner of war hospital?”

  “Course it is, Mam. They wouldn’t write to you if they weren’t sure. And they never did tell you officially he was dead, after all. Missing was all they’d admit to.”

  “But with all the thousands that was killed… Jack, I can’t believe it! I’m afraid to believe it!”

  “Well, this is good enough for me, Mam. And you know what it means, don’t you? Ted’s a prisoner—he’ll be out of the war until it’s over. He won’t have to go back in the trenches.”

  Charlotte nodded, her eyes filling with happy tears. It was more than she had dared hope for, and even now she was almost superstitious about giving way to too much relief. But neither did she want to think about sad things, like Rebecca, who had died for nothing, or wonder whatever Ted would say when he came home and found out what had happened. She wanted nothing to spoil her glorious relief.

  Then, with a shrug, she blinked the tears away, becoming the old Charlotte once more. She went over to the mantlepiece and took her purse from where it was propped up beside the clock.
>
  “Here,” she said briskly, taking out some loose change and handing it to Jack. “ Go down the shop and get some cigarettes. I’m going to get a parcel off to our Ted straight away. If I know him, he’s most likely dying for a Gold Flake!”

  BOOK THREE

  Jack

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  At the end of August, Jack Hall went off to join the Royal Naval Air Service, and Hillsbridge buzzed with the news. Everyone knew plenty of boys in the trenches, and one or two sailors besides. But for a local boy to become a pilot was something worth talking about.

  “He always did think he was better than anybody else,” Evan Comer grumbled, using his good arm to raise his pint in the bar at the Miners Arms. He had never forgiven the Halls for the beating they had given him.

  “Good luck to ’un, I say,” Stanley Bristow said loudly, and then, in a whisper, “I should keep your voice down if I was you, laddy. His father’s up at the bar waiting to be served.”

  Evan coloured, looking furtively over his shoulder, and when he saw that James was by the bar, he downed his beer hastily and called good-night. James probably hadn’t heard him, but he didn’t want any further aggravation from the Hall family.

  “How’s your Jack getting on?” Stanley asked James when he pulled a chair up to the table where they were sitting, but James was non-committal. Privately he was embarrassed by the fact that Jack was doing something different from the sons of all the men he knew, and Jack’s talk of a course in drill and discipline, after which he would be going on to a training station, seemed all very vague to him.

  “An officer, is he?” Hubert Freke pressed him, and James tried to hide his reply behind the foam on his beer.

  “Well, yes, I suppose he is. But it’s no good asking me about his aeroplane, or where he’s supposed to be going when they’ve learned him the way to fly,” he said flatly, and to the disappointment of the others. Stanley Bristow, sensing his embarrassment, quickly changed the subject to Ted, the concert parties of the old days, and the likelihood of Ted, at this very moment, leading a sing-song in the prison camp. That was of interest, too, of course, but what they wanted to hear about was Jack and his aeroplanes!

  It was almost as bad for Charlotte. People were always stopping her in the street to ask about it, and Martha Durrant, who had never bothered to be very friendly towards her next-door neighbours, suddenly decided, they might be worth some of her attention after all.

  “This war’s gone to Martha Durrant’s head,” Charlotte said to Peggy, and it was true. Martha was always busy organizing some fund-raising event or other, or marshalling people to knit or sew for the soldiers, and lately she had been seen hob-nobbing with Caroline Archer.

  The alliance made Charlotte vaguely uneasy. She had never quite been able to forget that Caroline might know her secret, and with Martha so anxious to parade her affinity with Jack and his family, there was always the awful possibility that Caroline might not keep it to herself. But it was no good to worry too much, Charlotte thought. She had enough on her mind without adding that.

  But not all of her thoughts were depressing. At the beginning of September, Dolly came home pink and excited, to introduce them to her sweetheart, Cook’s nephew, Eric, who was in the Marines.

  “I think he wants to talk to you, Dad,” she said to James, and they all made a great play of pretending not to know what she meant until the front-room door had closed behind them. Then Dolly turned to Charlotte, bubbling over. “ You know what he wants, I suppose, Mam.”

  “I can guess,” Charlotte said with a smile. “ We’re going to lose you, is that it?”

  Dolly giggled. “ Well, not just yet. I don’t want to do anything in a hurry. But Eric keeps on so, and I thought it wouldn’t do any harm to get engaged.”

  “Oh, Dolly, I am glad, truly I am!” Charlotte hugged her. “But with this war going on …”

  “I know, Mam,” Dolly said, her face going serious. “ It’s awful, isn’t it? Sometimes I think everybody I know is going to be gone before it’s over. And I don’t want to be an old maid.”

  Charlotte said nothing. She only hoped Dolly hadn’t been swept off her feet by the handsome uniform. It could happen so easily, and the boys would look quite different when they got back into their everyday working clothes. But for the moment this was to be an engagement only, with no date set for the wedding. And Dolly was a sensible girl—both her daughters were in their own way. Flighty and full of fun they might be, but when it came to making decisions about their future, both had their feet planted firmly on the ground. Amy was just the same. She could charm the birds out of the trees, but she always had an eye on the main chance, and Charlotte thought she would not hesitate to wave good-bye to her present sweetheart if someone with better prospects came on the scene.

  It was strange really that, while the girls should be so level-headed, the boys should be so much at the mercy of their emotions. Not only had Ted fallen in love, body and soul, first with Nipper and then with Rebecca, she was sure that Jack could very well go the same way when at last he opened his eyes for long enough to notice a girl. And Jim, without a doubt, totally worshipped Sarah. Only Harry and Fred were different. She glanced at Harry, absorbed in building a tower with some wooden blocks Dolly and Eric had brought for him, and smiled to herself. She didn’t envy the girl who tried to rule him! As for Fred, he was himself, and always would be.

  “I had a letter from Fred this week,” she said to Dolly.

  “Oh, did you? How is he, Mam?”

  “All right, I think. He said he’s got a bit of a gyppy tummy, and he wondered if he might be going down with this dysentery. But if he does, at least it’ll mean they’ll pull him out of the lines until he’s better. So I’m living in hopes.”

  “Oh, Mam, how can you say that?” Dolly scolded. “ He joined up to fight, after all. And you know what they say out there—if a shell’s got your name on it, it’ll find you. I mean, look at our Ted. By rights he ought to have been killed several times over. But he wasn’t. It wasn’t meant to be.”

  “No,” Charlotte said, and wondered why she was suddenly full of foreboding.

  “Is there any more news, Mam?” Dolly asked, changing the subject.

  Charlotte gave herself a little shake. “Well yes, there is, Dolly. You’ll never guess what Rosa Clements has done.”

  “No, what?”

  “Gone off to Bristol to work as a conductress on the buses or the trams, I’m not sure which.”

  “Rosa has?” Dolly repeated, surprised. Rosa had always been so much a country girl, and it was difficult to imagine her in the city.

  “Well, somebody’s got to do it, with the men all off at the war,” Charlotte said, and she didn’t add that she, too, had thought it odd that Rosa, of all people, should have chosen to do her bit in Bristol.

  They heard the front-room door open, and James and Dolly’s Eric came out, both grinning. “ Well, Dolly, it looks as if I’ll be taking you up the aisle on my arm pretty soon then,” James said, and Dolly ran to hug him.

  “Oh, Dad, did you say yes?”

  “Well, of course, I did,” James said drily. “What good would it have done for me to say anything else?”

  They all laughed again, Eric swung Harry up into the air, and for a few minutes, the war seemed far away. Unfortunately, at that very moment, it was a great deal nearer to touching them again than any of them realized.

  WHEN Jack had finished his initial course in drill and discipline, he moved on to a training station on the south coast. And there, after less than four hours’ dual instruction, he took the Longhorn into the skies for his very first solo flight.

  As he climbed into the open cockpit of the flimsy little aeroplane, his heart was thumping wildly, and he was certain he would never be able to remember all he had been told.

  The controls were simple enough, it was true—four, or five dials on the dashboard and a joy-stick. But there were so many other things to remember—aerodynamics,
meteorology, a whole new language for a whole new world.

  “Watch out for the reservoir, chum!” one of the older pilots called out to him jokingly, and he knew what he meant. More than one novice had stalled his engine and ditched in the cold, grey expanse of water that lay just outside the perimeter of the airfield.

  “I’ll try!” he called back, sounding more cheerful than he felt.

  “You’ll do better than that, lad!” his instructor yelled at him over the noise of the engine. “And no silly tricks, either. This Longhorn’s precious to me. I want her back in one piece!”

  Jack gave him a nervous thumbs-up, and then he was off, his heart in his mouth as he gathered speed and rose slowly in the sky like a giant bird. Only when he had cleared the hangars did he relax. As they fell away beneath his wing tips, his nervousness disappeared, and in its place was a tingling exhilaration that ran through his veins like sparkling wine. Beneath him the road was a streamer of light blue-grey, around him the air was still and cold. And he was flying—flying! For all too short a time, he soared and banked, gaining confidence all the time, then it was the moment to bring her down again, and some of his apprehension returned. The landing field looked so small! But, somehow, miraculously, he did it.

  “How did I do?” he called, easing himself out of the cockpit once more, and his instructor just laughed. “I wouldn’t like to see you have to get away from an enemy aircraft yet Hall. But at least you’ve brought her down in one piece!” he joked, and Jack knew that, for a first attempt, he was pleased with him.

  “Go and have a hot drink to warm yourself up,” he went on.

  “Yes, it’s cold up there, isn’t it?” Jack said, slapping his hands around himself, and the instructor snorted.

  “Cold? You don’t know what cold is yet! Wait till you’ve flown in the winter with the drippings from your nose freezing on your lips! It’s no joke up there for brass monkeys then, I’ll tell you!”