A Girl in Wartime (7 page)

‘Who's it from?' she asked stupidly.

‘I don't know, love,' her mother said mildly. ‘It's your letter.'

But when had she ever had a letter from anyone? They were usually addressed to Mum or Dad, usually Dad, and they were usually bills. If her sisters needed to get in touch, they popped round, being only streets away. So would her friends.

The envelope had an English stamp and postmark. There was also a printed name on the left side: ‘The
London Herald
Newspaper'.

Excitement shot through her, which was instantly dulled by a defensive reaction. A letter finally telling her that she was not suitable for any situation at the paper. What had she expected? Putting it to one side she took up her knife and fork and began to eat her meal that suddenly seemed to have no taste in it.

April 1915, somewhere in France

It was the smell that hit Albert first as, along with this new intake, he and Ron clambered down into the already crowded, narrow trench that in the half-light of dusk could be seen zigzagging endlessly into the distance.

They'd been brought by bus, ordinary London buses that to his mind made the fighting at the front almost farcical. But not for long as, alighting at their billets four miles behind the lines, they could plainly hear explosions of shellfire and see the flashes even from this distance.

Given just time to deposit the belongings they didn't need and gobble down a long-awaited if meagre meal, the new intake formed up to march towards the shellfire. Albert's heart was thumping, his stomach going over the nearer they got, knowing his brother felt the same, knowing that each man in their company felt the same, though no one said anything, looking straight ahead as they marched, faces set. All that travelling, on top of a four-mile march past fields of winter mud that had once been ripe for crops, they had been almost glad to reach their destination, relieved to find a temporary lull in the gunfire.

Passing through the ruins that had been the fine town of Ypres, Albert had become aware of a strange odour that seemed to hang in the air.

‘What's that smell?' he'd whispered to Ronnie beside him. ‘Can you smell it?'

Ronnie had nodded, keeping his voice down. ‘No idea. Ain't never smelled anything like that before. Gas d'you think? Hope it's not.'

‘At least we've got gas masks. No one had any gas masks earlier on. Some say they'd piddle on their handkerchiefs and put that to their noses – that's supposed to stop gas getting inside a bloke.'

‘Shut up and eyes front!' came a harsh command from behind. They shut up and looked to their front, glad to be finally halted. The smell had become even stronger as they'd neared their destination.

‘Smells like something died,' Ronnie muttered. ‘Dead horses?'

But no one answered as something other than dead horses dawned in the mind of every man, their expressions tightening as they clambered down into the already crowded trenches that seemed to go on and on. Albert followed the rest, the clinging smell coming up to hit him, making him want to gag. He was to discover its source the next morning. But tonight he slept, worn out, half-sitting for want of room, hardly out of his kit before his eyes closed. Ronnie was already snoring despite the occasional explosion of enemy shelling. Neither realised how lucky they were that no one would be ordered over the top tonight and they could rest.

Waking up stiff and parched as dawn came up, Bertie peeked over the parapet in the half-light and finally began to make out strange humps dotted here and there across the churned-up mud. As the light grew, he saw they were bodies, unretrieved bodies. Horrified, he asked why of the thin air.

‘You can't go out there collecting 'em, sonny,' answered a gruff voice behind him. ‘More than your life's worth with Jerry lookin' on. Try doin' that and you'll end up joining 'em.' The sergeant smiled sadly at his stunned expression. ‘I know, son, they deserve to be buried, decent and proper like. But who's gonna do it, and what's the point? They don't know they're dead and gone to heaven, sonny, so what's the point getting yourself killed just to get 'em back?'

Without waiting for Albert's response he moved on.

Ronnie groaned himself awake and stretched his cramped limbs. ‘What'd he want?' he asked. To which Albert muttered, ‘Don't know.'

Waking up had brought the return of the smell: the poisoned and burnt mud mingled with that cloying stink of rotting corpses. The odour of men crowded together in a narrow space had another smell all of its own: controlled fear, body sweat; control deserting a man, a bowel emptying itself unexpectedly, and stale vomit of those who, on the last onslaught over the top, had seen the limbs or the head of a comrade blown clear from his body, a man cut clean in half. These stricken witnesses did not weep, but they had a special look of their own. There was a vacancy about them, in their stare, in their silence.

Hastily, Albert turned to peep again over the parapet at the churned-up stretch of mud, interlaced with barbed wire and pitted with shell craters. News reports at home bore no resemblance to seeing it first hand as they had marched.

‘Christ!' Ronnie had cursed when they'd been first ordered down into the trench, which was narrow and already crowded. Albert had not replied – couldn't. That single word exploding from his brother's lips said it all. Minutes later his boots and several inches of puttees had disappeared under the muddy water, despite the duckboards. As he lifted one foot clear, a man already there, squatting on some firing steps, had grinned up at him.

‘Wouldn't bother, mate. You'll get used to it.'

‘Used to this?' Bert had shot at him, too shocked to grin back. ‘Pigs couldn't get use to this!'

The man stopped grinning. ‘Then fuckin' don't. Anyway you'll soon be dead, so don't fuss your fuckin' self about it.'

So saying he'd got up to plough his way further along as the intake of raw young soldiers piled into the trench in the dark.

The only relief Albert had felt was that everything had been relatively quiet – none of the bombardment he'd been expecting, just the occasional crack of rifle fire that seemed to come from a distant direction. He was knee deep in mud and water. He'd turned to a staff sergeant who'd been busily getting this new intake to move along. ‘How do we stay dry, Staff?'

The man hadn't even glanced at him. ‘You don't. Don't have time to worry about that – been under bombardment for days. Bit of a lull now. Keep your heads down, cos it'll probably start up again at some time or other. Them over there's forever takin' pot shots at us.' With that, he'd moved on.

A young lieutenant who was coming up to Bert from the other direction had explained in a quiet, cultured voice, ‘There are a few dugouts that are relatively dry back there where they lay down the wounded. Some manage to get a wink or two of sleep there when they can.'

‘Where do the others sleep?'

The man had given a weary smile. ‘When you're under fire, old chap, you sleep standing up the second it ceases. Cat naps. One hardly realises one's drifted off. Beneficial in its way, I suppose.' With that he had turned back the way he'd come.

Now fully awake, Albert thought of the lieutenant, a cultured voice amid the coarse cursing of working-class men waking up, stiff and sore from lying awkwardly.

But he thought more of something to eat as he took a swill from his water bottle. How did men eat in this place? Moments later he found out. Someone coming along, keeping his head down, poured a thin gruel into the mess tin he had hurriedly found and held out. It wasn't half bad and he gobbled it down, feeling a little more satisfied as he stowed away the empty mess tin.

At that moment, the bowels of hell seemed to break loose as a terrific bombardment opened up from somewhere behind the German lines, which, he realised, were hardly more than fifty yards away.

Instinctively he ducked and cowed against the running wet walls of the trench he was in, grateful for its cover. Lying beside him was his brother, Ronnie, swearing like the devil. The noise was deafening, yet he could hear himself saying over and over, ‘Keep us safe, dear God, keep us safe!'

Further along the trench, a deafening explosion sent sandbags and mud up into the air, knocking him off balance. It could have been no more than sixty feet away. A few minutes later, although it seemed an eon, the bombardment ceased as suddenly as it began. Men were running to where the shell had exploded. Bert automatically ran with them, as much as mud and water allowed, Ronnie close behind. Anyone who had been in that spot would have stood no chance.

What met him was devastation, bodies, parts of bodies, strewn in what was left of this section of trench, half-buried by collapsed walls and sandbags, the wounded crying out in pain, others lying inert, unaware of a leg or an arm gone or dead. He felt his stomach heave.

‘Don't just stand there, Lance-Corporal!' bellowed a voice behind him. ‘Get that body out the way so the wounded can be got out, before someone bloody well falls over it! And look lively!'

Controlling his heaving stomach, Bert glanced to where the sergeant had indicated to see the young lieutenant with the nice accent.

He looked exactly as if he was asleep, one arm lying casually across his stomach, the other arm across his chest, eyes gently closed. He was stone dead. Blood oozed from where a piece of shrapnel had penetrated his right temple, no doubt lodged deep in his brain. He couldn't ever have known what had hit him. Bert found tears had begun to cloud his eyes and run down his cheeks. He continued to regard the graceful recline of the dead man, a man that just a few minutes ago had been—

‘Stop gawpin' like some silly bugger!' The sergeant's voice boomed in his ear. ‘Make yourself bleedin' useful. You and that soldier there, get that poor sod out the way—'

‘That soldier's my brother,' Albert cut in idiotically as the sergeant pointed to Ronnie, who stood transfixed, eyes wide, face frozen by shock.

‘I don't care if he's bleeding Beelzebub himself!' the sergeant grated. ‘Both of you, drag the poor sod out of the way so's we've got room to get the wounded somewhere. And you two …'

He turned on a couple trying to help others clear the wounded. The men were half-dazed, like Albert and Ronnie, having only fifteen minutes ago arrived with the new intake.

‘Get that soldier there into the dugout. Leg's gone so take it easy with 'im – if he ain't bled to death by the time you get 'im to first aid. And you other two …' He turned abruptly to his original quarries. ‘Stop playing silly buggers and get on with your job!'

As Albert obediently took the dead lieutenant's shoulders, Ronnie the feet, and they lifted the body tenderly as if the man might still feel discomfort. He had a strange thought that suddenly made him want to laugh, if it hadn't been so very sad. ‘Here endeth the first lesson.'

But he didn't laugh. Instead, the tears streamed down his face. They weren't for himself. They were for the well-spoken young man whose life had been swept away. Had he lived, what would he have been? A lawyer, a doctor, a teacher, a professor? Who knows? Yes, indeed, here had ended Bertie's first lesson, his first day at the front.

But this was not the time for thinking. Thinking could send a man crackers. It was a lesson he was going to have to learn pretty sharp.

Yet the thoughts ran like ghosts through his head: how many more months would this death and destruction last before the war ended? And in any one of those months he or Ronnie could be injured, crippled for life, even killed. It didn't bear thinking about. And it was not something he or Ronnie could ever put into their letters home.

That evening, the letter had lain unopened on her pillow.

‘Ain't you going to read it, then, love?' her mother had asked as Connie put it to one side to get on with her dinner before going out for the evening with some friends.

‘Later,' she said offhandedly. ‘I know who it's from. It don't matter.'

‘But it looks official, love. It says the
London Herald
.'

‘I know.' Connie had shrugged. ‘A job I went after ages ago but they said I wasn't suitable. It's just a letter confirming it, that's all.'

With a drawn-out ‘Oh' her mother had gone off into the kitchen to make another cuppa, leaving Connie to slip the unopened letter under the pillow on her bed.

When George came in from wherever he'd been, he would go directly up to his room, having it all to himself since his brothers left home. It seemed rather unfair that she still had to put up with the parlour alcove with only a curtain for privacy. A girl needed privacy. A man didn't, not all that much anyway. But if – when – her brothers came back on leave, they'd need a place to stay.

But each time Connie thought about George having this space of his own, coupled with the fact that he was still not in uniform, it filled her with contempt.

This evening, wearing a new skirt she had made – one that followed this year's new fashion influenced by the war, being much wider round the hem now and shorter by several inches, giving more freedom to walk normally – she had met Cissie and Doris for a jaunt up the West End. Hating to spoil their enjoyment, she'd forced herself to be bright and cheerful. Besides, had they noticed her low spirits, she would have had to explain why she was feeling down, and she didn't want to go into detail on the failed interviews. But now she was home.

Alone in the parlour, having washed her face clean of face powder at the kitchen sink and cleaned her teeth, she undressed slowly, got into her nightie, turned down the gas lamp and clambered into bed. Mum would be first up in the morning, waking her with a cup of tea. She'd be obliged to dress quickly, concealed by the curtain, before Dad came down. All so easily avoidable and again she felt a twinge of annoyance towards her eldest brother.