Heart of War (73 page)

Cate went into the passage and picked up the telephone ‘Hullo, John.' He stopped short, realising that John might be calling because they'd received bad news about Boy.

His brother-in-law's voice was jubilant, happier than he had heard it for nearly a year now – ‘Boy'll be home on the 26th, Christopher!'

‘Wonderful!' Cate exclaimed.

John's voice was not so cheerful – ‘If nothing happens in the meantime, of course.'

The two men worked side by side down the field under a hot sun, their scythes sweeping in long, slow strokes, the blades whirring as they bit into the stalks of the green grass and the purple clover and the white moon-daisies. Behind each man, a woman, working with a rake, spread the cut grass to hasten drying. The men were wearing white shirts, sleeves rolled, and old straw hats, the older a Panama with a pink Leander band round it, the younger a stiff straw with the orange and black band of the Wellington 1st XV. The women wore pinafores of blue or green with deep bonnets, the ribbons tied under their rounded chins, for they were both young. Sweat ran down the faces of all four.

Hard work, Boy Rowland thought, but he was glad the horse-drawn mower had broken down, for he was enjoying the steady thrust and pull of his muscles, the ache of them reassuring him that he was alive, as surely as the sweet smell of the grass and the stirring of it in the breeze. And it was going to make hay for his father's cows, the serious Friesians in the next field, some of them peering over the hedge like heavy inquisitive young women, at the workers.

The scythe blade struck down the sweep of grass instead of felling it. Boy straightened and reached round to the whetstone in its leather case on his belt in the small of his back. His father straightened simultaneously and did the same. Their eyes met. John said, ‘Sure you're not tired, Boy?'

‘Not a bit, Father.' He passed the stone up and down the blade. ‘I was just thinking, this is good work … I'd never get tired doing this.'

‘You would,' his father said seriously. ‘We can do it without you, you know. Helen's a good scythes man.'

Boy glanced round at the taller of the two young women. She looked up from her raking, ‘Better than you,' she said with a grin.

‘I'm out of practice,' Boy protested. ‘You've been doing this for …'

‘My third year,' Lady Helen Durand-Beaulieu said. ‘But I didn't do much scything the first year. One of the men was still here then.'

‘We'll have a competition, after the war,' Boy said, bending again to his work. After the war … the remark fell into the still, summer air, and lay, silent, dormant, waiting.

A thrush and two blackbirds worked along the hedge, their song trilling and rising with the morning. A family of rabbits watched, nibbling, from the warren at the far end of the field, only scuttling into their holes as the scythers came close, turned and started back up. Half-way down the hedge, on that side, a picnic hamper held glasses and a jug of fresh lemonade, covered with a cloth. They stopped and drank, all four, when they came to it. Carol Adams, big bosomed and ruddy, her plump face shining with sweat, stood closer to Boy and said, ‘Let me take the scythe for a bit, Boy.'

‘I'm all right,' he said. He liked her … he liked all the farm girls, these two and Frances Enright and Joan Pitman, up in the barn now. It was like being lord of a little harem, though of friends, who happened to be women, who sounded and acted and smelled different. What music their voices were, so sweet in his ear! … Carol had managed to stay close to him ever since he'd come home, though today Lady Helen was raking for him. He thought that if he wanted to he could seduce Carol, and go back to France at least knowing what it was like to make love to a woman. She seemed – well, it was an ungallant thing to impute to a young lady, but she seemed hungry … her eyes and mouth telling him of desires that were not in words.

‘Back to work,' his father said, and they took up scythes and rakes and again bent their backs, and worked, as the sun climbed to its zenith. Then John said, ‘It must be nearly noon, Boy'; and Boy glanced at his wrist watch and said, ‘Two minutes past.'

They shouldered rakes and scythes then, and walked together up the field, through the gate, into the lane, and up toward High Staining. ‘We'll get it done this afternoon, Mr Rowland,' Helen said. ‘Especially if I can take over from Boy.' She looked at him with her head cocked, her lips parted.

‘That's a da … dashed insult,' Boy cried. ‘You'll be pooped by tea time.'

‘You think I'm just a poor weak woman?' Helen said. ‘Race you to the house!'

‘Done! Ready?' He walked up level with her.

‘Hey!' his father cried. ‘Give us that scythe and rake. You can't run carrying those. It's dangerous.'

They handed the tools over, and Boy said again, ‘Ready? … You'd better have a start, Helen.'

‘Rats!' Lady Helen said. ‘Steady? … Go!' She flew off, her skirts billowing, her feet flying, her heavy boots pounding on the flinty surface of the lane. Boy was slower off the mark, then ran with all his might … but did not gain on her. The house was two hundred yards away … one hundred … he was still three paces back … how did she do it? She was holding up her skirt with one hand now, showing her knees. He drew up to her shoulder and with a last pounding effort up the drive reached the front door two paces ahead of her. They leaned there, gasping, face to face. Words came into Boy's head … See? … I told you so … You are a weak woman after all, aren't you? He said nothing. Their eyes were nearly level, for she was tall – and now they met, and locked. Boy saw her face changing, slowly falling into a deep calm, the teasing flirt gone, the effort of the work and the race erased. He knew that his own face was changing the same way. His lips parted, as hers did. Surely she would at last look down, away … but no they stared and stared into each other, seeing deeper and deeper. At last she sighed a long sigh and whispered, ‘Boy,' and he said, ‘Helen.'

A moment later she said lightly, ‘I would win if I took my skirt and petticoat off.' Then his father and Carol Adams came, and they went into the house for lunch.

Boy sat alone with his father in the study, a glass of port before him. His father had forsworn wine until peace should be declared, obtained by whatever means. His mother and the girls were in the drawing room. The two were alone – for the first time, Boy thought, since he came home on leave.

‘I don't know how long this lull will last,' Boy said. ‘There'll be another big push soon. The only question is, where.'

‘Not on the Somme, I pray,' his father said. ‘The ground there is already sodden with our young men's blood … I do not understand why we have to attack, Boy, if attack is so costly,
in the face of machine guns and barbed wire. Why can we not let the Germans attack, and destroy them as they seem to be destroying us?'

Boy stared into the red of his port glass. Why not? It was hard to explain. He hated and feared those ‘pushes' as much as anyone, but he believed the war could not be won by the defensive alone. He said, ‘It's the second stage of an attack that is the difficult one, for the Germans as much as for us. We can break into each other's front and even reserve trenches – but by the time we're ready to break out and through, they've had time to bring up fresh troops. If only we could fly a division or two right across the trenches and land behind them … or perhaps the tanks could do it … though how well they can function when the weather breaks for the winter, I don't know. I saw a good many stranded in shell holes and even ordinary fields and brooks last winter. We need more of them, too, I think – many more. And now these damned strikers and conchies are stopping or slowing down production of them, and other things we need.'

He realized then that he was talking about one of his father's peace efforts; he would be hurt … well, he would have to be. There were the facts.

His father said sadly, ‘We are trying to save your life, Boy, and the lives of thousands – millions – like you … young men of all the warring countries, who must be saved to become the husbands and fathers of the future … the artists and inventors, the poets and painters and diplomats. We simply can not go on as we have been. That's why we pacifists do what we do.'

Boy said, ‘We must go on, Father. We're not afraid. I mean, of course, we're afraid. It's hell, out there, a lot of the time. But we aren't going to let anyone beat us. If they can stand it, so can we.'

‘There seems to be no middle ground,' his father said. ‘I can see only the ruin, and you can see only the defeat, as you would call it.'

‘Did you go to that big Socialist Convention in Leeds last month?' Boy asked.

His father shook his head. ‘No. We have some socialists among us in the No Conscription Fellowship … a strong influence, in fact … but the movements are quite distinct. They are anti-militaristic, we simply want peace … How are
the French doing? Our military contacts – we have some in high places – tell us that the main reason for a British offensive now is being given as the need to keep the French in the war until the Americans have had time to organize and take a real part.'

‘I should think that's true,' Boy said. ‘The censorship doesn't let much come through, but it's obvious the French offensive in the spring was a complete failure. We all knew where they were going to attack, and what they were planning to achieve. General Nivelle told everyone – including the Germans, of course … After that, silence. But we heard in the
estaminets
, from men on leave in Paris and Rouen and Amiens, that whole regiments mutinied … a whole division, even.'

‘We've heard that, too. Your grandfather told me.'

‘We heard that one regiment was formed up in a square and then massacred by its own artillery, for refusing to obey the order to advance.' He shrugged, ‘Most of us hate the French – all the men see is the overcharging, the profiteering, the typical French selfishness – but there's no doubt the French have had a very hard time … they lost a million men in August, 1914, alone … then there was the Aisne, Champagne, Verdun. So we'll have to bear the brunt now.'

‘Where do you think our attack will be?'

Boy laughed shortly. ‘We've tried the Somme, Arras, the mining area round Loos … there's only the Salient left – Ypres.'

His father said, ‘I pray that we pacifists can have some effect before the battle is joined, if only to force the generals to take greater regard of their men's lives.' His tone changed suddenly – ‘We're having a difficult time over all this, Boy – your mother and I. We … we …'

Boy said awkwardly, ‘I understand, Father. I don't … I can't agree with you, but I still … love you, both.'

John said, ‘We are both thinking of you, in our own ways.'

‘I know.'

‘But … we are drifting apart … there is a chill between us where there used to be warmth. I don't know what we can do.'

Boy was silent. At last his father said, ‘Shall we join the ladies?'

John and Louise Rowland lay side by side in the high bed,
propped up on pillows. The windows were open and the sounds and smells of the summer night wafted in over them, reassuring them that they were in England. Tonight, as for many nights, they had not heard the guns from France. Now, though he was speaking to his wife, John kept listening for them to herald the offensive his son had told him must be coming. Then the guns would speak, and be heard here in Kent.

He said, ‘Boy only has two more days with us.'

His wife said, ‘I know. And Naomi's out there, too, now.'

‘They won't let the women get into any danger,' he said, adding – ‘At least, no more than the rest of us. The Gothas drop their bombs everywhere.'

She said, ‘Carol's fallen in love with him.'

‘With Boy?'

‘It isn't real love, either. It's – you know – sex.'

John said uneasily, ‘Well, I don't think anything can happen with so many other people about all the time.'

‘She'll find a place and a time, if he gives her any encouragement,' she said ominously. ‘Remember what happened with Fred Stratton.'

‘I remember,' John said, vividly recalling Carol Adams's thighs clasped round Fred's back, when he was foreman here, and the look of ecstasy on her face – ‘But I really don't…'

‘He's
in love with Helen,' Louise said. ‘And she with him. And neither of them know it.'

‘He's hardly seen her, except at work, and …' John began.

‘They've known each other all their lives,' Louise said.

‘And now, well, war makes life seem very short to all the young people. Fires don't smoulder now – there isn't time – they burst into flame. We'd better be careful.'

‘If it's true,' John said. ‘It would be very suitable, I should think.'

‘For us, perhaps,' she said. ‘All we want is for Boy to be happy. And if he is ever going to take over High Staining, he couldn't choose a better wife than Helen. But Lord and Lady Swanwick have other ideas, I'm sure.'

John considered a while – ‘You are probably right about that … But Boy may not be in love with Helen at all. He has been flirting with all the girls since he came home on leave – in a nice, proper way, of course. They all love him, a little, I
think – even Frances. Why shouldn't they?'

‘It's Helen for him, and he for her, you mark my words,' his wife said. ‘Put out the light now, please.'

Stella Merritt and Dr Charles Deerfield sat next to each other in deck chairs at the edge of the cricket field. The bulk of Walstone Park rose beyond the pitch, for Walstone's village team was playing, as they did twice every summer, on the Earl's own pitch, fallow deer watching from the deep, the grass beautiful to look at but uneven to walk on or bounce a cricket ball accurately on. The Earl and Countess and two score other spectators stood or sat on benches and deck chairs round the boundary lines or outside the marquee that had been put up for the game, another score under the giant elms beside the marquee. Lady Helen Durand-Beaulieu was there with her sister Lady Barbara, and two more of the High Staining farm girls – Frances Enright and Carol Adams. On Stella's other side there was an empty chair, where Betty Merritt, her sister-in-law, had watched the first hour of the game; after that she had excused herself. Stella wondered, not for the first time, how much Betty suspected about the relationship between herself and Charles Deerfield. She put the thought from her mind – it didn't matter; nothing mattered except escaping from this torture.