Easterleigh Hall at War

by Margaret Graham

  Mr Harvey entered from the corridor; perhaps he’d been there for some time. She watched him walk over to them in his stately fashion, his shoulders back, his demeanour as calm as usual. He said, ‘May I assist you, Captain Richard.’ It wasn’t a question. He armlocked Brampton and moved him towards the door, while the captain smiled and followed, treading firmly now, saying, ‘Look after Ver for me, Evie, if you wouldn’t mind.’ It was the first time they had shared the use of Ver.

  ‘This way, Your Lordship, up the steps with you,’ Mr Harvey said. ‘Geoffrey is waiting with the car for you in the garage yard, but there’s time for Captain Richard to have that little word, probably within the automobile, I suggest.’ It clearly wasn’t a suggestion. Evie realised that it wasn’t only Captain Richard of whom she was proud, it was this wonderful elderly man too.

  Lord Brampton stopped as they reached the door, and shouted, ‘This isn’t the end.’ He sounded close to tears.

  ‘May I suggest that you are just overtired, and in need a bit of a rest? Perhaps a lie-down in a darkened room,’ Mr Harvey said, propelling him into the boot corridor.

  ‘You’re dismissed, do you hear, damn you Harvey. Ouch.’

  ‘Just a tweak of the arm, Lord Brampton, it helps things along.’

  Ver vomited again. Mrs Moore sighed. ‘It’s a good sign, bonny lass. Means the baby is strong.’

  Ver groaned. ‘How long will this go on?’

  ‘It’ll run its course,’ Mrs Moore soothed. No one knew if either woman meant the baby or the situation.

  Evie took Veronica to her bedroom, calling in on Lady Margaret in the facial injuries suite and asking her for a moment of her time to keep Ver company, if she wouldn’t mind. She wouldn’t. Evie returned to the kitchen. Maudie came from the scullery, saying, ‘I didn’t know Roger had hurt you?’

  ‘He was a fool and wanted what I wouldn’t give.’

  Maudie crossed her arms. ‘Is this what happened to Millie, then?’

  Evie shrugged. ‘In a way, I suppose. He charmed her, made her love him and had free use of her. I warned her but she wouldn’t listen, and she was by no means the first.’

  Mrs Moore had removed the kettle from the hob at last, and was pouring tea into the mugs and pushing them towards Evie and Maudie. Joyce and Enid joined them, hurrying in from the corridor where they’d been hiding. Maudie asked, ‘Does she love Jack?’

  ‘Oh, I just don’t know.’ Evie’s thoughts were chasing about in her head. Maudie took her tea into the scullery, saying as she went, ‘How can a father beat his son like that, and lift a hand to his daughter?’

  Evie just shook her head, fearing that the man would never change, fearing what this would mean to them all. Mrs Moore eased herself on to her stool. ‘Anyone would think we didn’t have a luncheon to serve. Evie, sort out these dumplings please. Enid, the vegetables need to go in the casseroles, and Joyce, the apples. Chop chop, the enemy is on our back.’

  Evie looked at the clock. It was eleven forty-four. Had their world changed in just three quarters of an hour? Were they to close down?

  Grace straightened, checked the transfusion tube, and stroked the corporal’s hand. He was unconscious but might feel the comfort. He’d been washed, but grime and the stench of war still clung to him. He needed blood before surgery. Her back ached but she was pleased to be back at base camp, because at least last night she’d been able to change her uniform, and shower. Here the guns were loud, but not as loud, and though the ground shuddered from the effects of the barrage it didn’t throw up dirt and shrapnel. Here it was bugles she heard, not whistles indicating that soldiers like this poor boy were scrambling out of the trenches into the mouths of the guns. Never had she thought she would be so close to the Front. Could she bear to be again?

  She held the corporal’s hand. He stirred. She soothed, ‘It’s all right, you’re safe.’ He relaxed, still unconscious. Yes, he was safe, and so was Jack. Thank God. She touched the telegram from Evie which had at last reached her, brought down by Angie, who was replacing her at the casualty clearing station, such was the rush and shortage of orderlies.

  Outside, trucks ground their gears, a horse neighed. The tent seemed to ooze damp, but of course it did, for the rain was unceasing. A letter had arrived too, with the news of Veronica’s pregnancy. Grace smiled as she checked the transfusion, and the lower-legs blood loss. When would they all refer to her by her title, Lady Veronica? Perhaps never? Perhaps at the end of all this? But would it end? If so, how? Would any of these young men be left alive, let alone whole?

  For now, none of that mattered, nor the ache in her legs, her back, her neck, nor the blisters on her heels from boots that had rubbed as she rushed around the aid station, treating the minor injuries, and sending others on to the casualty clearing station. Jack was safe; Tim had his father, Millie her husband.

  ‘Penny for them, or should I say a dollar?’ It was Slim, standing too close to her. ‘Maybe I can guess. He’s safe and perhaps you’re thinking we can go to the estaminet to celebrate?’

  The corporal groaned. ‘Hush, you’re safe,’ she soothed again. ‘I’m tired,’ she told Slim. ‘There’s a lot of work to do.’

  He moved to the foot of the bed, checking Corporal Young’s chart. ‘You said you couldn’t meet with me until Jack was safe. He’s safe, Gracie. Can’t you let me in?’

  She stayed by the transfusion stand and could feel the telegram in her pocket and knew what she had really known all along, and her pride in Jack grew with each word she said. ‘He’s safe for now, but he’ll fight, like our Evie with that damned Brampton. Our Jack will carry on fighting. He’ll make their job difficult, and he’ll escape, or die trying. That’s our Jack. So I can’t come to the estaminet to celebrate, because he’ll never be safe until this war is over, or perhaps not even then, if he goes back in the mine. I’m sorry, Slim, really sorry. You’re a lovely man and a wonderful doctor.’

  ‘You don’t mind?’ His voice was gentle.

  She smiled, holding the corporal’s hand, because he was awake, but talking to Slim. ‘Of course I mind, but I wouldn’t have him any other way.’

  He said, ‘I’ll keep trying. You’re a special woman, Gracie, and you deserve better than to go through life alone.’ He left. Grace stared at the tent opening. Alone? The thought chilled her, but then she touched the telegram again. With Jack alive in the world, she wasn’t alone.

  Chapter 9

  Northern France, behind German lines, late August 1915

  IN A FIELD not too far from Lille, Jack, Simon, Charlie and three of the Lea End lot, Tiger, Dave and Jim, hunkered around the empty can a German guard had tossed to them, and which they’d suspended from a makeshift tripod over a weak fire made of sticks they’d collected. ‘Dawn’s too bloody early this time of year,’ Charlie grumbled. Around them everyone was doing the same, on grass that was dry, and flattened by the prisoners, who slept beneath the stars. A few had tents, a few were in the barn, but that comfort was confined to those who were sick. When the water was passably hot they tipped in the camouflage coffee, which was burnt barley, and let it brew.

  The dawn chorus was the usual rattle and roar of the guns, even two kilometres behind the lines. The star shells, used by both sides to spot wiring parties in no-man’s-land, had ceased with the dawn.

  Simon nudged Jack. ‘What d’you reckon we’ll be doing today, Jack?’

  ‘Whatever our masters tell us, but what you lot won’t be doing is eating the crusts you should have kept for your five-course breakfast, but which you ate last night, again, before slipping between your linen sheets and wool blankets.’ The men hooted. Si grunted, ‘Chance would be a fine thing.’

  Dave poked the fire with a stick, watching it smoulder, before ramming it into the ground. ‘Should have been born an officer then, laddie. They’ll be waking up between sheets that their batmen will have washed, dried and spread with rose petals, won’t they, Jacko boy?’

  Jack dug into his pocket and brough
t out his bread, so hard it could have doubled as a hammer. He soaked it in his coffee, then shared it out. ‘This is the last time,’ he warned. Charlie muttered, ‘You say that every time. Doesn’t your stomach lining stick to itself at the end of the day then, Jack? Mine hurts.’

  Dave cuffed him, and gave him half of his small piece. ‘That’s because you’re a growing lad whereas we’re just canny raddled old men.’

  Si laughed, cramming his piece into his mouth, and licking his fingers. ‘Speak for yourself, bonny lad. I’m in me prime.’

  The Feldwebel, who spoke a little English and had worked as a waiter on the Strand, approached. Jack asked him where they were to go today. Gerhardt looked around, eased his rifle on his shoulder. He was nearly sixty and relieved to be too old for the front line, he’d told them. ‘The dye works again. You break up the machinery, legally this time, Jack, so you won’t end up punished for sabotage. It must all be in bits. No use, no more. They will watch you close, in case you try to get to your lines again.’

  Simon said, ‘What about work in the field party? Did you tell them I was a gardener, not a basher, like these pitmen?’

  Dave looked at him and frowned. Gerhardt shook his head and leaned forward. ‘You must not speak of pitmen, Corporal. The mines and salt mines are not places to work, and if it is heard that . . .’ He walked on.

  Jack kicked Si. ‘You need to keep your mouth for eating because if we go, you’ll go, Si. They think you’re one of us. Those mines are in Germany, and then how do we escape? Come on, we’ll be late for roll call.’

  Simon flushed. ‘I am one of you.’

  Dave stood, drowning the dregs of his coffee before swilling his cup out with water from the bucket. ‘Then act like it, you daft beggar, and it’s not the bloody first time we’ve told you. I’m sick of hearing about your gardening, your need for the soil. We live, eat and sleep on the bloody soil, whether it’s wet, dry or indifferent, what more do you want?’

  After roll call they marched to the factory, and again they bashed apart perfectly good machinery for scrap metal to be transported back to Germany to make more guns. The concept stuck in their throats and they worked as slowly as they could but still their backs were near to breaking, and their heads close to bursting, but they were safe. The thought of all that was happening not too far from them, beneath the shells and the machine guns, made Jack determine to find a way back, somehow.

  Turnip soup was waiting for them as evening fell, or was it mangel-wurzels? Even Simon didn’t know but at least it wasn’t maize soup, which tasted like paraffin. No matter how hungry Jack was, he could never finish it.

  Every day he, Dave and Charlie scanned the wire entanglements which surrounded the field. They did the same that evening. Every day they were alert on the march to and from the factory, the railway yard, or wherever they were to work, for any escape opportunities. Only one had occurred, and it was Gerhardt who had clubbed Jack to the ground, saving him from the uhlan’s lance. It had earned him a kicking, and solitary for a week in the pigsty.

  No further opportunity had presented, so the most he and Dave had been able to do was tip coal out on to the tracks after derailing one of the carts, which was easy enough with a piece of pig iron. The first derailment had earned Jack and Dave a beating and two days’ loss of bread for their group. No one had minded, because others had shared their rations. The same thing happened the second time.

  Jack’s ripped skin from the barbed-wire incident was long healed; his shrapnel was either lying still or had been eased out. It was the same with the others. They were hungry and exhausted, and because they moved billets constantly they had received no mail or parcels, so they didn’t know if their relatives thought them dead. It was this that kept some awake at night.

  All week they bashed apart the machinery and on the evening of 28th August, thirty of them, including Jack, Simon, Dave, Frank, Danny and Jim, were called to stand out at the front and herded off to one side, guarded by several uhlans. They were told they were moving on. Jack noticed that all but Simon bore the blue scars of the miner, and swallowed his anger at his marra’s big mouth. Charlie stepped forward out of the ranks, panic in his eyes. He called, ‘Ask them to take me, Jack.’ Gerhardt came abreast, his rifle across his chest, pushing Charlie back.

  ‘Jack,’ Charlie pleaded. Jack called, ‘I suspect you’ll be better here, bonny lad.’

  Dave nudged him. ‘Poor wee bairn, let him come, we’ll take care of the little bugger. We can’t leave him, he’s your bloody shadow, you know he is now the captain’s gone. It might not be a pit.’ Jack took a moment, then sighed, and stepped forward to salute Uberleutnant Bauer. The man was standing in front of the hundred prisoners, watching the proceedings as though they were specimens in a jar. ‘Permission to speak, sir.’

  The larks were singing above the fields. How strange these birds were, somehow impervious to the guns, which seemed muted this evening. Somewhere a lamb bleated, because it was far enough from the front line for there to be fields which contained something other than prisoners. God, he was so tired, so hungry. He mentally shook himself.

  Uberleutnant Bauer was nodding at him. ‘Carry on, Sergeant.’ He had been at Cambridge University studying some sort of science, so the story went, and his English was impeccable. Jack said, ‘Permission to include Private Meadowes, sir.’

  ‘Ah, the one who called out?’

  Charlie stepped further forward. ‘Private Meadowes reporting, sir. I’m part of them, sir.’

  Bauer tapped his swagger stick against his leg. His gaze swept the troops lined up in squares of twenty for ease of counting, then back to Charlie. ‘You are young and are not strong. Where your friends are going, you need that strength. You should choose to stay, Private Meadowes.’

  Charlie stood ramrod straight. ‘I choose to go, sir. I am stronger than I look.’ Jack started to shake his head. ‘No, Jack, I don’t want to stay here without you all.’

  Bauer seemed to be looking at the larks, watching as they swooped. Jack followed their movements too. The lamb bleated again. Bauer looked for a long moment at Charlie, then raised his voice. ‘I need one of the thirty to step back into line.’ Behind him, Jack heard Simon step forward, then someone from B Company marched quickly back to the line. The moment was over, and Jack wondered what he would have done if Simon had tried to duck out of a situation he had caused. He wanted to smash the bugger.

  Bauer strolled across to Jack, coming close, his voice no more than a whisper. ‘Our young friend is your responsibility now. Protect him well and perhaps you’ll get him home in one piece. I pray so, and that we all survive. It is a ridiculous situation, do you not agree? And perhaps tell your young gardening friend that he talks too much, so now he too is bound for the salt mines in Germany, though you would perhaps have gone anyway at some stage. Blue scars are like a badge, sadly, Sergeant Jack Forbes.’ He nodded, looked down at his immaculate boots. ‘It was my decision to include Corporal Preston, I fear that he has not half the internal strength of even this boy, Meadowes. You will need to be on your guard, my friend, with that one. His thoughts are seldom far from himself, not quite the sort I’d want for a friend whether I was man or woman.’

  Bauer moved on, his hands clasped behind his back, his swagger stick under his arm. ‘Carry on, Sergeant,’ he ordered Gerhardt. Jack stepped back. Had Simon heard? He didn’t care, because they were moving back from the lines, making it more difficult to escape. He saw that Dave was thinking the same, and cursing Simon under his breath.

  They travelled in cattle trucks, but this time, however, there was more room, and stops for the emptying of latrine buckets. They travelled for days, it seemed, and they slept, Charlie tight in with his marra group, for that was what Jack realised they had formed. They were not just friends, they were to be pitmen, and marras. They would watch one another’s backs, they would take one another’s loads, and because Simon was the love of Evie’s life, he would be enclosed within their group. What did Br
ampton have, in his comfy cosy camp, that came close to that?

  They disembarked near the Hartz mountains, miles from the front line, into pure air devoid of the crash and grind of guns, with towering peaks and searingly blue skies. Here there were wooden houses with balconies, flowers hanging from them. How the hell would they get back to the front line?

  ‘Bloody salt mines,’ the men cursed as they marched along the roads. The people, thin and tired, looked at them warily. Simon was quiet, but the men ignored him. Dave marched alongside Jack. ‘Makes you thirsty, I expect, all that salt.’

  Jack shrugged. ‘I expect you’re right, bonny lad, but doubt it’s as hard as coal.’ He didn’t know, and what he didn’t know frightened him. Would it be white, friable, easy? Would they be shovelling, not hewing? Simon marched beside him. ‘I’ve told you before, and will tell you now I’m right sorry. Me and my bloody great mouth. Jesus, Jack, I’m right sorry, man.’

  Jack slung an arm round his shoulders, and pulled Simon to him. ‘Don’t go on and on, Si. We’ve all got gobs on us. We’d have ended up here anyway, and you might still get to a garden.’ If he forgave him so would the lads, and he was too bloody tired to do anything else.

  Simon grinned. ‘Aye, maybe you’re right. But let’s get through this day first.’ He pulled away. ‘What say you, young Charlie? One day at a time, eh?’ Charlie was grinning as Dave joshed him about something. ‘Who knows, I might get some rabbit snared here. Better than potato-peel soup?’

  They arrived at a small town at eight in the evening. The sun had gone behind the mountains and there was a chill in the air, even though it was still August. What would the winter be like? Would they bivouack in fields? If so, they’d bloody well freeze. The guards who were, like Gerhardt, too old for service, marched them to a building which it became clear was an old school.