by Jess Smith
Rachel clasped two hands on her sister’s shoulders and answered, ‘Listen to me, our mother knew how I hated the life, stuffed into a low-roofed tent, waking in the morning with spiders in my hair and earwigs under my armpits. Stinking of sweat, day in, day out, not washing until the warmer weather permitted—’ Before she could continue, Megan shouted, ‘You refused to wash in the cold water of the burn! Frost or not, my body smell was washed away. Creepy-crawlies only lick dirty hair, mine was clean. You never tried to live the old ways, that’s your trouble. But never mind that—Nicholas is your baby, big Rory’s grandson and my blessed nephew, and he sits with love in his wee eyes for the lady woman. That’s unspeakable.’
‘You’ll judge me, I can’t help that, but the poor woman is living in misery. Her man, like mine, has been killed, and the bairn has given her hope to go on. The poor soul was suicidal until his wee happy face brought joy into her life. She has promised me a new life in America. Said if she brought up my baby as her own, he’d want for nothing, and neither would I, because I’m going with her as companion and nursemaid to Nicholas. He also has a nanny. Where in our meagre existence could anything happen like going away from this miserable place, where a drunkard grandfather might teach my bairn his ways? No, Megan, I have not given up a tinker life, I’ve totally buried it, and God grant me the health to enjoy America with my son. I’ll watch him walk a rich man’s way. But let’s not part with bad feelings, at least wish me God speed. Please, sister, for old time’s sake.’ Rachel’s arms were outstretched.
They’d not always been close, but since Annie’s death the pair had been inseparable. How would she cope alone? What if Bruar failed to return, leaving her to grow wizened before her time, seeing to the campsite and two lost causes? Megan walked into the welcoming arms, and as the two sisters embraced, each knew it would be for the last time.
Mrs Simpson put a comforting arm around Rachel’s shoulder as they watched Megan hurry out of sight.
As she passed each familiar tree and hill, where she and Bruar had spent many a happy hour, her young head filled with thoughts. Thoughts firstly of love, then, heaven forbid, of losing that precious love, brought a surge of fear which gripped at her heart. She clung to hope like a weak dog burying his bone so prowling strays wouldn’t steal it. Tears welled in her eyes as she called to her husband somewhere far across the sea. ‘Without you, my man, I am useless, like a three-legged rabbit or a one-winged dove. Night brings dark shadows that haunt me with ghosts of black futures. Now that Rachel has left me, I am so alone. Watch your back, and whatever you do, keep safe. Oh, that I had the power to sleep in your thoughts, my dear, dear one.’
SEVEN
From the back of a trundling lorry he stared out at the long snaking road, winding its way through misshapen rubble, the remains of family homes that had once been filled with parents, old folks and children playing.
Every so often an abandoned dog would howl and mourn in unison with a screaming woman. Perhaps the body she’d stumbled on was her husband’s. He may have been ploughing a furrowed field, hoping that soon the noise of battle would leave his land. Tomorrow, maybe, it would all be over, left at peace. Perhaps that was a vision he’d kept until that fateful blast.
Bruar closed his eyes at the sight of another battered torso; metal helmet nearby, the decapitated head intact. Crows had already eaten the eyes. ‘Black-winged scavengers,’ he remembered Aunt Helen used to say, ‘they were designed for such a task.’ She would usually add, to frighten his infant mind, ‘The red seer said that a time was coming when the crows of the sky would feast upon the dead of the land.’
If ever prophesy had come to pass, then here it was before his eyes, unfolding in graphic detail. As his thoughts darkened, he pulled his wet tunic collar under his chin to cover his exposed throat. When such devil-painted artistry first spread itself before him, it brought a newly consumed plate of broth from his stomach pit. But a belly has no memory, and now he could stand a lot before it made any difference; he was conditioned to carnage.
Arras in France saw his first steps of war; his virginal battle. Marching at the rear of the 51st Highland Division, he watched how stealthily death took his prey. Seventy proud Highland pipers played into the hungry jaws of the enemy, drowning a mighty roar of artillery until only one kilted musician was left standing. Earlier their crescendo of earth-shattering sound stirred young recruits into battle; a battle that lasted three days and bravely held the town, but at what a cost!
Amidst bombs and dead bodies, Bruar felt compelled in the aftermath to retrieve the silent bagpipes, and lay them by the sides of the fallen pipers. He’d no idea what set belonged to which piper, but it only seemed right that each should not go into the other world without their beloved music. Officers called him a damn fool, but to him, a Highlander, it seemed only proper to salute the pipes.
Time stopped during the battle of Arras, but not death; he was as active as he’d ever been, piling up the corpses. Bruar shivered and thanked God he was spared.
During a march to Ypres, his battalion merged with a small division of Cameronians, and it was then he discovered the fate of his only brother. Familiar as he was now with death, the details were not important; only the fact that it took him quick was something to be thankful for. After Arras, remnants of the brave 51st were attached to other regiments; he found himself amid English lads, the King’s Liverpools.
A screech of shell fire brought him back to the present, and his bumpy journey in the transport lorry. The shelling halted the convoy for a short while. When it was deemed safe again, a shout to continue came down from the top of the column, and for the next stretch of dusty miles his thoughts wandered home. He saw his young wife and imagined reaching out to touch and kiss her. How beautiful she was! He prayed that she’d never witness scenes such as these, hoped when he got back they’d spend hours in the purple heather just talking. He wanted to tell her that sometimes, when night approached, with hundreds of Very flares illuminating the battle sky, he’d call to her saying that the heavens of Europe had their own Northern Lights. The transport vehicles would also be a talking point. She’d never seen a lorry—cars, yes, but not monsters that roared and billowed smoke. He had loads to share with her when he got home—if he got home.
A loud explosion far off turned the sweet thoughts sour. He opened his eyes to the sight of another piece of burned flesh, a horse this time. An innocent beast doing chores now lay sprawled and twisted around the cart it had been pulling, torn by man-made hurricanes of unimaginable force, its grave dug by the power of the bomb. The sight of the animal cut through his thoughts and he cursed the war over again.
After what seemed an eternity the lorry came to a grinding halt. Fed up, tired and coughing incessantly, the driver shouted, ‘Journey over, get off, boys.’
The bone-weary soldiers jumped down from the mud-spattered vehicle, glad to be back on solid ground, and were lined up for inspection. The driver repeated his orders in case any lad had fallen asleep, but the lorry was empty.
From within a busy group of men a sergeant stepped forward and rapped orders. ‘Follow me, boys, into your trench for the night. Tuck is being served at the Ritz.’
All eyes turned to a massive pot, boiling away, filled with God alone knew what. It was covered by a khaki tarpaulin; a stink from it crowded their nostrils. They were starving, though, and soon bellies were filled and satisfied.
Entering in single file, they each found a spot in the cold damp earth. Some had capes, while others shared them. A voice called in the dark, ‘That’s an hour passed, Jerry will be finished his supper and wanting to play.’ No sooner said, when a squeal of explosives followed by a blinding flash sent everyone downwards. There was a moment of silence, then the screams of pain. Bruar’s column was so tightly packed together they couldn’t get room to use their arms. Above them, two medics suddenly appeared, shouting, ‘Stay where you are, the line has been breached further down.’ Someone enquired, ‘How many?’
<
br /> ‘Too fucking many.’ This was always the answer given.
Bruar felt a hand on his back; he turned to see a ginger-headed man who said, ‘Some mother’s poor wee laddies. Cannon fodder, games for the fireside generals. I’m Sandy, what do you call yourself, laddie?’
In the half darkness he whispered back, ‘Bruar. You’re a Highlander; which part?’
‘Wick.’
‘A Caithness man.’
He’d acquired a friend. Through the sleepless night, both spoke for hours, exchanging tales of mountains, sea cliffs and the Scotland of their birth.
When at last dawn crept over the eastern horizon with fingers of wispy grey fog curling around trees and barbed-wire fences, it became clear to the emerging soldiers that this enemy would not be beaten without a hefty loss of Allied life.
‘Get this mess cleared, we move out at six o’clock!’ snapped a weary corporal.
The ‘mess’ had, until the night before, been young boys, some no more than sixteen, who had never thought beforehand that another army would feast upon their flesh; marauding rodents. Fatally injured soldiers lay in pools of blood; they too were hastily rolled aside to add extra rations to the rat’s larder. War was terrible, and Bruar for once agreed with Megan’s parting words—it was no place for those of tinker breed.
The early sun failed to penetrate the battle fog, which was just as well; it would only add more horrors to the scene. By six o’clock they were on the move.
‘Where’re we going?’ Bruar asked his mate, Sandy.
‘I don’t know, but wait on me, I’ve my lassies to collect.’
He was the signaller for his troop; the pigeon man. Soon both lads were making time pulling a cart of about thirty birds; these were essential in carrying messages from one part of the front to another.
For the next few months, adrift in a sea of kakhi-clad men, they stayed together, darting from one nightmare scene to another, each watching the other’s back. In lighter moments they’d pretend that the Jerries were Vikings; they would scream out, ‘May the bog choke the life from you, Jerry!’ This brought laughter from listening comrades, and the odd ‘Bloody stupid Scots’ from Taylor, their Sergeant Major. These humorous moments made the madness bearable. Wherever they took bayonets in their hands, it didn’t matter; there were different places but the same scenario, they had to survive, nothing else. Survival was what held the British Army together, a deep bond of comradeship.
This comradeship between soldiers is reckoned by scholars to go all the way back through history, as far back as the Romans, for example. However when a spoke enters a spinning wheel, that bond can break. It is not only enemy fire that can disturb a tight-knit unit; it can come from within the soldiers’ own ranks. Captain Rokeby, a judge in civilian life, was a powerful spoke which almost ripped the life from Bruar and Sandy.
This is what happened.
After several days of hard slog, marching through the grape-growing slopes of the Loire Valley in France, their platoon of sixty was to the rear of a column of hundreds, heading from the death fields of Flanders.
Old men, women and children stopped filling baskets with grapes and waved at the dusty hordes passing through their land. Bruar slowed to watch them, as Sandy groaned at the state of his empty stomach. He curled his sore knuckles round the oiled shafts of his pigeon cart and flexed painful muscles, cursing at another bump in the road. ‘This lot sit in their straw boxes, and them with plenty wing power could easy fly above us, but instead I’ve to push these bisoms for miles. Breaking my back, this is.’
Bruar didn’t respond; a young waif-like female had caught his eye. She was running on bare feet towards the soldiers, crying, ‘Bullee, bullee, you give me beef?’
She had the same colour of eyes as Megan; her hair, black and curly, bouncing around her narrow shoulders, held him spellbound.
‘Stewart, get fell in.’ Taylor, like a mother hen, was watching every man, counting the rifles sticking from the bulging green Bergen packs each man carried on his back. They held sleeping sacks, food if any, socks and a handful of field dressings in case of injuries. But there was only one essential item in a soldier’s bag—ammunition. It weighed a ton and buckled the knees of the weakest, scrawny men among them.
‘Don’t get close to the natives, now lad.’ Taylor took several strides to reach Bruar and repeated his orders.
Bruar fumbled with his heavy rucksack and lied that his bayonet was loose, requesting permission to fix it.
‘Three minutes lad, be bloody quick,’ The SM hurried off to check his men, aware they’d not eaten all day, and as an army marches on its stomach, the setting sun worried him.
Bruar stood down, and instantly the Frenchwoman was at his side, pleading, ‘Please give, you have bullee, yes. I give you this.’ She pulled from behind her back a small jute bag and opened it to show two dusty green bottles. ‘See, fine wine for the beef, I ask please.’
‘Oh, I see, you think I have food. Well, I’m sorry, lassie, but there’s nothing.’ He held out empty hands and gestured with shrugged shoulders. She lunged at his rucksack, thumping at it in sheer desperation. His heart ached as he watched her, crying and hitting out at the foodless bag.
She saw by his gaunt face and deep-sunk eyes that he spoke the truth. ‘Take please, mon ami, for you, for liberty, for freedom, for France.’
He held the bag she pushed at him. A measly ‘thanks,’ was all he could muster.
Dejected and helpless she ran off on blackened feet. He felt ashamed, although he could take no personal blame for the war that had made her beg or turned her peaceful country into a landscape of hell. It was futile, but feebly he called after her, ‘I’m real sorry, this isn’t my fault.’
Two tiny children ran out from behind some vines, hands outstretched, crying ‘Mamma’. She hurried them away without a glance back. Why had she chosen him? Perhaps her husband was dead, or maybe in uniform like him. Her proud family brought to the point of hiding, sneaking around like foxes. It was unlikely they’d meet again, yet an overpowering longing grew in him to see them fed; warm in a bed with a roof over their heads. Sickened and hungry he joined his mates.
Sandy whistled loudly. In seconds his silence at the signaller’s side was as loud as any bomb.
‘Best forget and think on your own bonny lassie back home. War takes more than soldiers,’ the signaller reminded him, then added, ‘We’ll soon be lousing. Now cheer up, I’ve a surprise for you.’
Night thickly spread its darkness around and the halt was sounded. ‘Sorry, boys, but the bloody supplies took a pounding this morning. The word is, no rations until tomorrow. Best chew on grapes if you find them, but don’t let Rokeby know, because to leave your post is forbidden. He’d issue orders to fire at sparrows, if they flew too close.’ Taylor finished with, ‘At ease, men.’
‘Bloody grapes, what good is that to hungry men? Marched the whole day and no food, to hell with that!’ Sandy was spitting fire. Bruar patted him on the arm and said, ‘Rations will be here when we wake—surely you can wait till then?’
‘Listen, pal, every man has been carrying his own bodyweight on his back, but on top of this damn rucksack, I’ve had a cartful of pigeons. If food doesn’t pass my lips soon I’ll be shot for cannibalism. Keep your eye out for Rokeby, I’ll show you that surprise. Firstly get a fire on, I’ll sort these ladies.’
Bruar felt his hair crawl at the sight of Sandy’s wide-eyed expression. It didn’t take much thought to work out what was coming next. ‘Man, you can’t be thinking on killing them, that’s the King’s birds!’
‘There mine tonight.’ Sandy rammed a fist into the doo boxes, and in no time three throttled and silenced birds lay limp on the ground. Bruar watched in amazement as a stick was pushed inside each naked fowl, while a heap of feathers lay around Sandy’s feet.
‘Start a fire, the quicker we get these birds cooked the better. The King has more birds than he can count—trust me, he’ll not miss these. Anyway, they had da
maged wings and were no use. Hurry, man, I’m starving.’
Bruar threw his tinker skills into overdrive; he dug a hollow, a ring of pebbles at its rim. In his hands he rolled a ball of dried grass, lit it and soon tiny flames spurted and a fire was born. Around them others were doing the same. Surely they would attract little suspicion, and have the time to cook some desperately needed supper.
Over an embankment they positioned the cart; concealed from the others they warmed themselves and pit-roasted the pigeons. Rags were added to smother the delicious aromas.
Fat crackled on the roasting birds, and though Rokeby could appear at any minute, the acids building in their guts were stronger than any fear. They were starving, and the birds smelt like a heaven to die for.
‘What we need to complement our meal, my half-bred tinker, is a nice wee claret!’
‘I have the very thing!’ Bruar fumbled with his rucksack, and retrieved two green bottles. ‘The finest from the Loire Valley,’ he said, popping out the corks with his teeth and spitting them in the fire.
Sandy’s eyes almost left their sockets to perch on his blackened cheeks. ‘Well, well, a dark horse. Where did these come from?’ He gently caressed the bottle. ‘Come to me, my love!’
‘The lassie, remember the thin wee soul I met on the road? The poor thing was desperate for food, two little bairns to feed, my heart sank. You know we’d nothing, bur she gave me these “for France”, she said.’ The bottle slipped from his hand as he told his companion how much she resembled Megan.
‘Listen, lad, we can’t do anything about wars. Old armchair generals cause them, and they have the say on who lives or not. But never mind that, let’s get on with something more important than any war, a damn good feed. God knows it might be our last! Lift your bottle and drink to Scotland!’
