Easterleigh Hall at War (6 page)

He said, ‘You've no idea how blessed you will be by some soldier out there. Keep at it, keep making them, trench foot is a bastard and blisters are harmless but bloody painful. I have a feeling our mother would be doing exactly the same. Do you still miss her?'

Ver smiled at him. ‘Always. She died too young, and she'd know that we knit because we're so worried, all the time. Grace writes to us from her VAD perspective and here we live amongst some of the results. But then again we don't
really
know. We can only imagine. What more can we do for you all, dearest Aub? How do you get through it?'

He sipped his tea. ‘Do you remember Saunders, my old tutor? He always talked of the River Somme, which is Celtic for tranquillity. He'd fished it. Said it was a slice of heaven. I think of that. One day, I'll go, when this is over. But in the meantime, Ver, there's a sense of it here, tranquillity I mean. It's partly because Father's absent.'

‘Partly?'

He said nothing more but looked into the servants' hall again, seeing Evie, the tilt of her head, the frown of concentration. Then it was time to go. Ver walked with him through the great hall and down the steps to where the taxi waited. Roger sat in the front, the luggage in the boot. Auberon said, ‘It seems better with Richard, Ver.'

‘Aub, I love him. It's as though everything is beginning to settle. He drives me to distraction with the repetition, but it is improving. Evie's father and Tom Wilson, the blacksmith, are making him false limbs for when Dr Nicholls says his stumps can cope. Simon's father helps too. It's wonderful. We're all working together and the mood is good, but then of course there are times when we have to telegraph a relative with the worst news. We send telegrams to the enlisted men's families too, though the army doesn't. Did you know that, Aub? Their families have to wait for letters and it can take weeks.'

Auberon could not bear to hear more. He kissed her hand. ‘Be happy, Ver. You and Evie look after one another. I will try and see Grace Manton if I can. You must write, please, if you can spare some time. I love to hear news of you all.'

He hugged her then, looking over her head towards the house, and the old stables, but Evie had not come.

He turned, opened the car door, and at last Evie's voice rang out. She was standing at the entrance to the stable yard. ‘Mr Auberon, be safe, be lucky.' The dogs rushed at him, barking. He stroked them. They tore back to Evie.

He took a moment, and when he could be sure his voice would be steady he called, ‘Thank you, Evie. I will bring your Simon safely home, and Jack, if I possibly can.'

She waved. ‘And you, you come back too, bonny lad.' Then Mrs Moore shouted, ‘You'll catch your death, lass. Come in here this minute.' Evie waved again and disappeared.

He and Veronica laughed, and then he left. Yes, he must bring Simon back, because Evie's happiness was everything to him, and at last she'd given him the marras' farewell.

As Ted drove down the drive Auberon wondered if his father would ever accept that he employed a Forbes as his cook. Probably not, so Evie must continue to be known on the books as Evie Anston. How absurd it all was.

THE NORTH TYNE
Fusiliers were in deep reserve, well to the west of Rouen, after a winter that was supposed to have been quiet as far as the war was concerned. Some bloody hope. Jack and Simon took a last puff on their roll-up stubs before tossing them away, each pulling the strands of tobacco from their lips. The strands clung, as though reluctant to follow their brethren on to the damp ground where the stubs hissed, then died. The men leaned back against the door to the barn, out of the wind, shoving their numb hands into their pockets, watching the reinforcements right wheel, left wheel and everything in between. They'd been recruited after Kitchener's
Your Country Needs You.

‘Well the bugger isn't far wrong there,' Jack muttered to himself, eyeing the tumbling dark clouds barrelling over the old oaks, and the village a kilometre distant, hearing the distant sound of shells. The road running between here and there and onwards was busy with lorries that churned through the mud, men marching in single file, carts carrying shells, and ambulances.

‘What's that you say?' Simon tipped back his cap, and shook his head at the training troops.

At least the rain had stopped, for now. Winter had been a bugger, not just because of the noise, the crash and groan of shells, the snipers, the forays, but it was the day-in day-out sheer bloody misery of the the snow-drenched trenches, worse if you slid off the duckboards, so you pretty soon learned not to. Even when they were in the second line it had been little better, huddled in disintegrating billets with shells plummeting down just to keep them alert. Here, in deep reserve, none of them had rid themselves yet of the sense of chill, though they'd been here for almost a month. At least the Auld Maud pit had been bloody hot.

Jack jerked his head towards the men who were kicking up mud and spray on the field Captain Bridges had commandeered along with the billets. Bloody luxurious they were too, as they all had roofs and walls without holes. ‘I was just thinking we need this lot of buggers, bonny lad, good, bad and indifferent though they are. But they'll not be up to proper fighting scratch for a while, and likely be dead before they have a bloody chance to be. Look at the roads, crawling they are, like a bloody ant run. There's something brewing.'

Captain Brampton appeared around the corner and called, ‘You've your sunshine face on again this morning then, Sergeant?'

‘Just telling it as it is, sir.' Jack shuffled upright, saluting. Auberon had just been made up from Lieutenant and for a moment he and Si had wondered if it would go to his head. It hadn't. ‘Stand easy for God's sake, Jack,' Auberon told him. ‘Well, let's do our best to look after this lot when we move up to the front, if we move up, especially the Lea End crowd. You've done well, Jack, put them through hell and back again, which I feel you enjoyed to the full?'

They all laughed. Auberon continued, ‘Now I'd pit them against any Glaswegian or Canadian company, let alone the Huns. So let's blow the clouds away, and find that little Mr Happy I know you have hiding somewhere.' Auberon grinned at both men and walked across to Captain Bridges who was conferring with the company sergeant major, kicking up spray and sinking into the muddy field until he reached the duckboards.

Jack slumped back against the barn, smiling in spite of himself. By, those buggers could fight like heathens, but he and Si had known that way back when they'd fought them while sea-coaling. ‘That was a grand barney on Fordington beach that day, wouldn't you say, bonny lad?'

Simon knew exactly what he meant. ‘Aye, what a damned fool Parson Manton was. Our Evie says he can't cross the road safely, so high are his thoughts, so how he fancied he'd trot along the beach, Bible in hand, and convert that drunken lot, God alone knows. The only result was always going to be a ducking. Would have done for him an' all if you and Timmie hadn't led the charge to send 'em packing, and then gone in after the fool.' They were watching as the two captains stood together now, discussing something. Perhaps they were on the move again? Jack hoped not, but then touched Evie's package in his pocket. Well, perhaps it wouldn't be the worst news.

Simon continued, ‘Not done a lot of that, have we, charging I mean? But we're pretty bloody good at hunkering down in trenches and shell holes and getting better at keeping our tippy-toes dry, and trench foot away, and our heads whole. So, are you taking that package to Grace Manton, man? You can't keep putting it off.'

Jack stared at the Lea End men who came from beyond the Sidon pit, and even from beyond Hawton and Easton collieries, as they made fours. Their marching was neat, very neat. It had taken a few goes behind the barn with his fists to show them the error of their ways but yes, the buggers were far from the pregnant camels they had been. In fact, Auberon was right, they were the best of the bloody intake bunch. They put him in mind of the Canadians. Nobody's yes men, but fighters to the last man. He just had to make sure his Lea End men lived long enough on the front line to be as safe as they could be. They'd make their own luck. Yes,
his
men, dammit.

Simon was laying tobacco along his cigarette paper, which he then rolled, licked and lit, blowing the smoke up into the wind. ‘You've been carrying the damned package about for months. How it survived Ypres, God knows. Get a grip, man, and give me some peace from our Evie's letters. Just let me tell her you've delivered it, please, or do I have to get on my knees in this mud?'

He made a show of getting down until Jack hauled him upright. ‘Give it a rest, Si. I'm going'

Simon shook his head. ‘Why she didn't just send it to the woman, I don't know. They're friends after all and most things get to where they need to be by the postal service, for Christ's sake. Women? I just don't understand them.'

‘You never used to swear, young Si. Your roses wouldn't like it, so think on.' Jack started to walk away, but stood to attention, throwing a salute as Auberon ambled over from Captain Bridges, flagging him to a stop. ‘Surprised to see you're still here, Jack. Shouldn't you be on your way? Please give Miss Manton my best wishes, and Ver's, though I expect they're in regular contact. You deserve a few hours off camp, you've worked damned hard.'

Jack threw a look at Simon. ‘Thank you, sir. Corporal Preston did his little best with the men too.'

Auberon laughed. ‘You heard that then, Corporal? Faint praise, but praise indeed.'

Simon stood to attention. ‘I heard it all, sir. How'd you manage to get him to agree to shift his arse and get the package to where it should be?'

Auberon laughed, and tapped the side of his nose. ‘Bumped into a friend of Ver's who is also one of the Very Adorable Darlings and asked if they had a Grace Manton. One gets so tired of letters from home asking if Jack's delivered the wretched thing. My sister doesn't seem to understand that the VADs are a movable feast and could be anywhere, and what's more there's a war on and we actually have more important things to do than fulfilling Evie's wishes.'

Simon shrugged. ‘Don't tell her that, or we'll all be buried six foot under.' Captain Bridges was standing watching the new intake again, as the sergeant major yelled at them to get a bloody move on.

Auberon laughed. ‘Wouldn't dream of it, Corporal. But miracles happen, and this VAD said that Miss Manton is here, or as near as dammit, just a few miles or so away, near the railway station at the camp hospital. I suggested to Jack yesterday that I find and ask this particularly attractive VAD to deliver the package but our Jack refused, wanted to make sure it reached her himself. I daresay that was one of Evie's directives. So I was denied a reasonable excuse to make contact with the most recent apple of my eye.'

Jack listened to the pair of them behaving like little girls. Daft buggers. Around them bugles played. It would be the same over at the camp hospital as the nurses skidded along the duckboards, just as the men did here.

He let them light up yet more cigarettes, and blow the smoke away across their shoulders, saying nothing. Why should they know that he always knew just where Grace Manton was, because he asked every nurse or VAD he came across.

Auberon wagged a finger at him. ‘Why are you still here? Surely you've remembered I suggested sixteen hundred hours in my message to Miss Manton, at the
estaminet
, but she has officer status and you have not, so sit at the back where you are unlikely to be seen, there's a good lad. And think about taking a commission as Bridges suggested. We'd all support it.'

‘What, and have to buy my own bloody uniform and mingle with the bosses?' Jack retorted.

Auberon laughed. ‘Not sure the bosses are ready for it, but he'd look good in long boots, wouldn't he, Simon? Then you could have his stripes and before we knew where we were we'd have you buying your own uniform too. Just a short step to you two running the ruddy war, each with a batman like Roger.'

They all laughed. Jack said, ‘Over my dead body.'

‘Highly likely, Jack.' Auberon's tone was dry, their laughter was loud. They seemed to do a lot of it, but not deep down.

The
estaminet
was well over an hour's walk, Auberon had said, or he could grab a ride on the ration lorry. Jack refused. Why meet sooner than they had to? ‘Once there,' Auberon said, ‘you'll see a narrow road that leads from the square, dominated by the church. It leads to Le Petit Chat.'

Auberon shrugged when Jack asked if there actually was a little cat. ‘You'll have to wait and see, and for God's sake, man, get there, give the package over and only after that may you head for the cellar at Rogiers'. Yes, I know you can get good beer there, but it's as good at Le Petit Chat, I've tried both. Bear in mind that I'll tear your stripes off myself if you retreat before hand over. Just give us all some peace from home, there's a good lad, and let's be done with it.'

Jack made his way to the exit, passing the Lea End lot who had been dismissed and were scrounging amongst the tents and stores, looking for hand-bomb-making material no doubt, to supplement their personal armaments: jam tins, bits of metal and screws, and fuses, all of which Aub and he knew from experience worked a treat. Soon, the rumour was, the factories back home would come up with something better, but who had time to wait?

He took to the road, thinking of war, not his meeting. It was easier. And another thought came to him. Those Lea End buggers could certainly throw, bowling out the Newcastle recruits within minutes at the winter cricket match. It had earned them beer from Captain Bridges. Not a good move because Jack and Simon, plus Eddie and Frank, who had come out in a January draft, both hewers, had had to round them up and herd them back to their billet and sit on them till morning, or have a raging fight on their hands, not to mention the whole lot on a charge.