Flora promised to send word as soon as they knew where Rab was being held. A week ago, Flora had written a scrawled note of triumph. Asquith had issued a statement in the Commons, condemning the military authorities for defying pledges to Parliament and ordering that conscientious objectors were not to be sent to France. The commander-in-chief was not to issue any death sentences without the consent of the Prime Minister.
Emmie hurried round to the MacRaes with the news. Helen gasped with relief, but Jonas was troubled.
‘But we don’t know where the lad is - so how do we know he hasn’t already been sent - already executed?’
Emmie shuddered at the thought. She found it impossible to settle to anything, forcing herself for Barny’s sake to do mundane chores and blot out fearful thoughts. Yet each day she awoke with a feeling of dread. She could just about pay the rent on the flat with Tom’s army pay, but the prices of foodstuffs and clothing were soaring and she worried that she would have to give up the flat.
Daily she joined the queues outside the co-operative store or the butcher’s, ignoring the sidelong looks and the whispered comments. Emmie knew what they said behind her back.
‘Fancy her ganin’ to help the conchies in Gateshead, with her man in the army.’
‘I heard she had a fallin’-out with the Currans - that Louise won’t give her the time o’ day.’
‘Strange lot, the MacRaes. Not surprising she’s a bit wrong in the head, growing up with that lot.’
‘Rab MacRae’s been arrested, you kna.’
‘Heard he was a German spy.’
‘No, he’s just a conchie.’
‘Hung for taking part in the Irish rebellion, I’d heard.’
‘She might be a spy, an’ all.’
‘Mind you, you’ve got to feel sorry for her, with her lad away to the war.’
Emmie carried on as if she did not hear their whisperings and wild gossip. There was so much rumour and misinformation flying about like the April wind that she was surprised she had not been ducked in the pit pond as a witch. Yet she knew most of these women; had sat and sewed clothes with many of them for two winters running, and she knew they were good at heart. They only repeated the propaganda in the censored press or the tale-telling of outsiders. No one in the village was openly hostile to her. It was only when she took Barny into Blackton to search for flour for bread or sugar to make rhubarb jam that she felt threatened.
Peter had his nose bloodied by a youth in Blackton when he discovered he was the brother of a conchie. The local vicar and many of the businessmen were staunchly pro-war. It was a village dominated by the Oliphants and Hauxleys. People would ask her if she was the woman who leafleted for the conchies and wasn’t she the one who got her picture in the paper outside Rab MacRae’s tribunal? With Barny at her side, Emmie thought better of arguing back and hurried on her way. Was it possible that this was the same town where they had rallied for peace less than two years ago? To Emmie it seemed a far-off age of innocence, when Louise had been her friend, dear Sam was still alive and Rab was preaching peace and Utopia.
Barny, a talkative, deep thinker at nearly four, was beginning to ask questions.
‘Why are those women angry, Mammy?’ he puzzled on their way back from Blackton on a day in late April. ‘Will Daddy be back soon? Why is he fighting? Grandda says he’s got to fight. Uncle Jonas says fighting’s bad. Is Daddy being bad, Mammy?’
‘No,’ Emmie answered, ‘he’s not bad. But Uncle Jonas is right that we shouldn’t fight.’
‘Why is Daddy fighting?’
Emmie felt at a loss to explain. ‘Because he thinks he’s doing the right thing.’
She walked on briskly, Barny half running to keep up.
‘Who are the Hun?’ he asked suddenly.
‘Don’t call them that.’ Emmie was sharp. She saw his startled look and slowed down. Putting a hand on his curly head of hair, she said more gently, ‘It’s a daft word they use for Germans. We’re fighting a war against Germany - but lots of Germans are like us, ordinary people who don’t wish us any harm. We should be trying to talk to them, not fight.’
Emmie smiled at his wondering face. Some people would accuse her of treason for the things she tried to teach her son. But she would not have him growing up a militarist like the Currans. Barny’s generation would inherit a world at peace, the one that so eluded hers.
They walked on hand in hand. At the turnpike, they paused for breath and Emmie sat Barny on a stone wall to rest his small stout legs. He swung them out in front.
‘Daddy fights you, doesn’t he?’ Barny startled her with his question.
‘Why ever do you say that?’ she asked, staring at him.
‘Cos he hit you and you fell down,’ Barny said solemnly.
Emmie gulped. She had hoped Barny had forgotten the incident. It was the first time he had ever mentioned it. She felt a wave of shame that her son should have witnessed such a thing.
‘Daddy didn’t think what he was doing,’ she excused Tom, ‘didn’t mean to hurt Mammy. He was very sorry after.’ She pulled the little boy close and kissed his head. ‘He won’t do it again.’
Together, they toiled up the steep hill into Crawdene. Helen was looking out for them at the end of China Street, beckoning them towards her. Emmie waved and shouted a greeting. Barny ran towards his favourite ‘aunt’. But there was something about the distracted way Helen ruffled the boy’s hair while regarding her. Helen’s face was tight with strain.
‘Come back to ours for a bit, pet,’ she said, glancing away.
‘What’s happened?’ Emmie asked in alarm.
But Helen would not say. Emmie followed her hurrying aunt along the street, heart thumping. When they got inside the cottage, she saw that Jonas was there in his dirty work clothes, gripping the mantelpiece as he stared into the smouldering fire. He turned. His harrowed expression made Emmie’s legs buckle. She clung to Helen.
‘Tell me what’s happened? Is it Rab?’
Jonas just stared at her, his craggy, whiskered face as rigid as a death mask. Helen let out a half-sob.
‘Letter came this morning,’ she whispered.
‘A telegram?’ Emmie croaked.
Helen shook her head. ‘Letter from Rab. Written on his last night…’ Her voice faltered. ‘There’s one for you too. Sent it here…’
Jonas stirred. He picked a letter from the mantelpiece and handed it to her as if it scorched his fingers.
She could not take it - did not want to know - yet yearned to know.
‘His last night?’ she croaked. ‘Then he’s - dead?’
The question settled over them like fetid air. Jonas’s broad shoulders heaved in a shrug or a wordless sob.
Helen shook her head. ‘We don’t know - all we have is this - no one’s told us anything—’ She broke off.
‘Who’s dead, Mammy?’ Barny piped up.
His voice galvanised Helen.
‘Haway, bonny lad,’ she cajoled, ‘let Mammy alone for a minute. We’ll look for a bit bread and jam.’ She nodded for Emmie to go. ‘I’ll bring him up-by in a little while.’
Emmie gulped at her stoicism. She snatched the letter from Jonas, unable to meet his pained eyes, and rushed from the cottage. Stumbling aimlessly along the street, she was overwhelmed by the need to get away. The enclosed streets pressed in around her, the watchful gaze of neighbours; the brooding, clanking pit, indifferent to their fate.
Stuffing the letter into her coat pocket, she turned and headed down the lane towards Oliphant’s Wood, then skirted round the village and climbed the fell. Buffeted by the wind, she pressed on to Blackton Heights and Lonely Stones. Only then did she stop, heaving for breath, and crouch down in the heather. With her back pressed against a cold ancient standing stone, partially sheltered from the cutting wind, Emmie took out the letter and opened it with shaking hands.
My dearest Emmie,
This is the hardest letter I have ever had to write. General Haig has requested my
presence before a firing squad tomorrow. I should be flattered that he thinks it as important to kill me as the enemy! I have written to Reverend Charles and Dr Flora - there’s a canny padre here who knows the vicar. He won’t convert me, but given a few more hours I may convert him to the cause of peace! I’ve written to Mam and Dad and Peter. It’s easy to write to them because I can tell them what they already know, that I love and respect them and am grateful for teaching me the creed I have always lived by - love, peace and international brotherhood.
But you, sweet Emmie, live in ignorance of my feelings for you. For I have never spoken of the deep regard in which I hold you. I have watched you grow up, flower into a beautiful woman full of vitality and love for others. You have held your counsel when I and others have said hurtful, hot-headed things, yet you have spoken out and acted bravely when it counted.
Proudly, I have watched you grow into a radical for the women’s cause and for peace. You do not do so in any faddish way, to provoke and shock those around you, as the likes of Sophie O. do. Such people blow hot and cold like the seasons, but you carry on supporting the cause even when those around you turn on you and despise you.
I admire you for your loyalty - must confess to a touch of jealousy over your loyalty to Tom. What did he ever do to deserve it? That, I will never understand, Emmie.
But it is watching you with Barny that fills my heart to overflowing. You and the wee lad are like the best of companions, so happy in each other’s company. You are the most loving of mothers. I picture you often, sitting in my kitchen, Barny on your knee as we discuss the newspaper. The looks that pass between you are pure delight. If there is a God, then it must in part be female, a mother, a cherisher of children.
Look how you have made me wax religious in my final hours! No doubt this will be chalked up as a victory to the padre. But, Emmie, it gives me comfort to know that, whatever happens in this war, you will have Barny to see you through it. One day, when he is older, tell him how fine a lad I think he is.
Emmie, forgive me for unburdening my thoughts to you so late in the day when there is nothing either of us can do about it. But I have to let you know how much I care for you, have always cared, ever since the day I brought you up from the town clinging to my back. Do you remember how we recited poetry? I found my soulmate that day, had I but known it.
I should have told you how much I loved you when I returned from Glasgow, heartsore, only to find my grief vanish in the face of your thirst for life, for love. You taught me how to feel true lasting love. I should have told you how much I loved you when Curran started courting you, never thinking you would ever marry the lad. I should have told you how much I loved you when you helped me with the Messenger, leafleted around the village, risking the wrath of the Currans for your beliefs. I nearly told you how much I loved you that time in the park before my tribunal, but my courage failed.
Yet I do love you, Emmie, with all my being. I love you because you are strong and courageous and bonny and loving. I will always be grateful for the day I was sent to fetch you from Gateshead. I embrace you now, in my mind’s eye, and wish above all else that I could embrace you in the flesh, even just the once. We will not meet in the next world, because I only believe in this one. But you will live on and continue the struggle to bring about a better one, and that gives me courage to face tomorrow’s dawn. You, dearest, will see the new dawn of socialism, for it is coming. It may be coloured crimson with the blood of the thousands who have died for it, but it will come. Our crimson dawn, Emmie.
Farewell.
Your loving comrade, Rab
Emmie sat, stunned, her cheeks stinging from tears dried by the cold wind. This was everything she had ever dreamed of hearing from Rab’s lips. Why had he never told her? How had she never guessed his feelings, when her own were so strong? Yet she had never confessed her deep love for him and now she never could! She read the letter again, poring over each sentence, thrilling at the words, yet in agony over them. They mirrored her passionate feelings for him; conjured up the moments of shared joy that she cherished too.
‘Oh, Rab! My darlin’, darlin’ Rab!’ she cried out.
How long had he really felt like this? Perhaps it was just the rantings of a condemned man, clutching out for comfort in his final hours. Yet Tom had guessed. What irony that her husband had been the one to recognise the love between her and Rab, when they had tried so hard to deny it.
Tom! Emmie’s heart jerked with renewed guilt. Only now could she admit to herself that she had chosen the wrong man. She did not love Tom, though she had tried hard enough. For a time she thought she loved him, was flattered by his attention and possessiveness, wanted to grasp the love and security he offered, because she believed them impossible with Rab. What a fool she had been! She had nothing left in common with Tom - except Barny.
When she thought of her son and the things Rab had written about him, she wept anew. Barny was the most precious person in the world and Rab had acknowledged that. He was not jealous over her love for her son, as Tom was. For the first time she saw clearly how Tom craved love, demanded that she and Barny love him first and foremost. Tom was always anxious that Barny adore him, the way he never could his own father.
Yet, Emmie had to admit that if Tom was capable of loving anyone fully, it was their son. And for that reason she would stay with him. Even if Rab had lived and returned, she knew she was bonded to Tom for the sake of Barny.
Numbly, she folded the letter, tucked it safely away and stood up. The wind nearly knocked her sideways. It roared around her, snapping like a beast. The plantation below, which cosseted the Heights, sighed and moaned. She felt the first icy drops of a late spring hailstorm. The weather seemed to speak her desolation. Her Rab was gone. Somehow, she would have to carry on as he had willed her to do. Pulling up her coat collar around her frozen ears, she set off home.
Chapter 26
For two weeks the MacRaes mourned the death of their son. They were treated warily around the village. A few came to offer condolences and sit with them, many avoided them, as if their pacifism might be contagious. Emmie spent much of the day with Helen, hardly able to stomach the lecturing of the Currans.
‘Bad blood will out,’ Mrs Curran observed, with a timorous look at her husband.
Barnabas nodded. ‘It’s God’s punishment for MacRae’s atheist ways.’
She wanted to shout Rab’s words at them; that God was like a mother, a cherisher of children, not a vengeful punisher of peacemakers. Their narrow-minded religion sickened her and she stopped taking Barny to chapel. She was tired of the minister exhorting them to bear the privations of war with a good grace and praise God for the valiant men fighting to free them from ‘Junkerdom’.
She rounded on the Reverend Mr Attwater at the chapel door. ‘And what are we reduced to here in England if not Junkerdom?’ she challenged. ‘A country where the military decide who lives and who dies; where workers cannot change jobs without permission of the bosses. Why aren’t you preaching peace, Reverend, like it says in the Bible? Thou shall not kill!’
She was filled with a new rage and took no heed of the Currans’ outrage at her public rebuke. Being with the MacRaes was her only comfort. Jonas kept up their spirits with news gleaned from the ILP that they were not alone in their struggle. News leaked out of Germany that a large peace protest had taken place on May Day in Berlin with many arrested.
‘See!’ he declared. ‘International socialism is not dead and buried. Our comrades are still out there and bearing the same burdens as we are.’
Then, one day at work, Jonas dropped the forge bellows and keeled over. He was taken by horse-drawn ambulance into Gateshead. Emmie walked to the hospital to glean news, leaving Barny with an anxious Helen. Jonas had suffered a stroke. He could not move his right arm and his speech was slurred.
‘He may well recover,’ said the distracted doctor. He was elderly, called out of retirement to help in the overcrowded hospital. ‘Best to nurse him at
home.’
Emmie decided to stay the night at the Settlement before returning with Jonas. She thought it strange the Oliphants had sent no message of condolence to the family; then it occurred to her in horror that they may not have heard of Rab’s death. There were so many restrictions and delays, news may not have filtered through to her friends. There had still been no official word on Rab’s execution or burial.
As she made her way to the Oliphants’ flat, she found the once tranquil quad had been dug up and planted with vegetables.
‘Emmie!’ Charles cried, looking up from his desk. ‘Dear girl. What a coincidence. Flora set off this afternoon for Crawdene with the news. But perhaps you’ve already heard.’ He stopped, taking in her black armband. ‘Emmie, what’s happened? Who’s died?’
She stared at him in confusion, touching the armband. ‘Rab,’ she whispered.
He frowned. Stepping towards her, he took her gently by the arm and steered her into a chair. ‘Rab? You’ve been told he’s dead?’
Emmie nodded, her eyes stinging with tears. ‘We had letters from him - written on his last night before they - before he was - shot…’
‘Oh, Emmie,’ Charles said, his corn-blue eyes full of compassion, ‘no one was shot. The Prime Minister intervened at the eleventh hour. We’ve been trying to find out for a fortnight where the COs have been taken. Yesterday, we heard that some of the men returned from France are in prison near York.’ He squeezed her hand. ‘One of them is Rab.’
Emmie was stunned. She could not take it in. ‘He - he’s in prison?’ she gasped. ‘Not dead?’
‘No, not dead,’ Charles insisted. ‘That’s what Flora was coming to tell you - tell his parents that we finally had news of him. We had no idea you thought him dead. My poor girl. And Rab’s parents - how appalling!’
‘But they sent his letters,’ Emmie said in confusion. ‘Rab said he had written to you too.’
Charles shook his head. ‘We never received it.’
Emmie gulped. ‘He thought he was going to die.’
Charles nodded. ‘Right up till the last minute Haig was determined to make an example of some of them. They must have gone through hell.’
THE GREAT WAR SAGAS: Box set of 2 passionate and inspiring stories: A Crimson Dawn and No Greater Love Page 25
