Out of the Blue (11 page)

‘Then I was sent away and saw less of her, but since most of our training was on the Downs near
Shoreham and around Surrey or Aldershot, I could get back now and again. Neither of us heard from Frank. I would call on his
people and they’d say all was going well with both brothers, that the farm was coming on and so on,
but never anything personal.

‘Then we entrained for France and the debacle of Loos, our introduction to war. Lost almost all my friends. We had leave
afterwards while the battalion re-formed. Seven days’ home leave. I’d get only another ten in the next three years, though fortunately I didn’t know it at
the time. It was odd, I couldn’t settle; grateful to be home but restless. I saw Maud only once
during that week. Don’t mind me telling you all this personal stuff, do you? Don’t
usually talk about it.’ He raised his thick white eyebrows.

‘Not at all, sir, I’m very interested.’ It was different music now, slower, waltzy stuff. They were probably dancing toe to toe, holding each other close.

‘I proposed to her. We were walking by the Medway. I hadn’t intended to – maybe there’s something about walking by water. I think I was also
more shaken by Loos than I realised. I was going back three days afterwards and probably thought I’d never see her again.
It didn’t make sense from any rational or practical point of view but the heart has its
own seasons, they say.’ He was turning the lighter over and over in his hand, slowly. ‘Maybe
it was also, sub-consciously, a way of staking a claim on the future, acting as if there was one, even though I
didn’t believe it. Maybe that’s why she said yes, too. It just came out, you see. We’d been talking about the gardens at Swaylands,
of which Lady Dudley Gordon was doing some rather fine water colours, and there was a pause, and I heard
myself say, “I love you, Maud, and what I’ve been wanting to say all this time is, will you marry
me?” It just came out. My voice broke as I said “I love you”. I didn’t say anything else. I just stopped
walking and looked at her. I was so surprised I’d said it. I think she was too.’

The colonel paused. The music went on. The pause was long enough for Frank to feel it was time he asked what happened next, when the colonel
resumed.

‘She looked at me and said, “Yes.” That was all, for a while. We just stared at each other. Then she said, “I must tell Frank.” I said, “Would you like me to?” She said,
“No, it must come from me.” Then we linked arms and continued our walk.’ He smiled. ‘Very tame by modern standards.’

‘What happened next?’

‘Anyway, I got your father’s address from his family and Maud wrote and told him. For a while she didn’t hear – actually, we were married by the time
she did, which meant another seven days’ leave for me. My people weren’t happy about it, of course, but the war produced a rash of hasty
marriages and they were so worried they might never see me again that they went along with anything I wanted. When your father did reply it
was heart-breaking, even for me. It made me feel worse, though I never regretted marrying Maud. I was deliriously happy.
That never changed. I just hope she felt the same.’

There was another pause.

‘Frank, your father, had ridden forty miles on horseback to pick up the letter at the nearest post. He hadn’t written before, he said, because he didn’t want to until
he could say, come and join me, the farm is ready, I’ve built the house, let’s start a new life. That plain silver band he made was meant as an engagement ring, only
he never told her. God knows what she really felt. She didn’t say at the time – I was in France – and she showed
me the letter only after he was killed.

‘Anyway, Frank joined the Canadian Army shortly after getting her letter and was soon commissioned, rightly. I don’t know whether
he met and married your mother before he joined or after but it must have been about the same time. I
don’t know whether she even knows about Maud. Has she ever . . . ?’

‘Not as far as I know.’

‘Some time later – after you were conceived, obviously – he was sent to England for further training before France. It was then
that he applied for secondment to his old regiment. That was accepted and he was posted to us in the line to take over D company, there being yet another
vacancy. I had no idea of this until one night when we were in support I was sent from A company to take over as second-in-command D company, which was in the line.
Another vacancy. Neither of us expected to see the other there, me because I’d no idea he’d
come over from Canada, him because he assumed I was still with our old Territorial battalion.

‘This was in the midst of Operation Michael, the German Spring Offensive of March 1918, their last throw before
they collapsed in the autumn. Things were pretty desperate, we were falling back, falling back night and day
and pretty soon we were back in trenches we’d taken in 1916. Exhausting, confusing and dispiriting, especially when we’d make a stand,
hold our position and then have to abandon it because the units on either side gave way or were wiped out. We did better than most, partly because we were one of the first to adopt defence in
depth – just one company forward with the rest deployed farther back so that we weren’t all obliterated by the initial assault. That was
what happened when you held the line in strength, with all companies forward and just one in support. The first intense barrage combined with the initial shock
troops cut swathes through the forward positions and then you had nothing behind to stop them when they broke
through.

‘It was a wet night when I reported to D company dugout, rain like stair rods and mud you just can’t imagine until
you’ve been in it. It took me nearly two hours to cover about three quarters of a mile, in full kit, of
course, slipping, sliding, soaking, getting stuck, getting un-stuck, wrong turns, collapsed trenches, all in pitch dark. There wasn’t much going on,
fortunately – the odd shell or nervous machine-gunner – but it wouldn’t have made much difference if there had been. It was the
elements, the elements and conditions that were the worst thing for most of us. You arrive cold, wet, tired
and hungry. You don’t start your battles fresh, you’re on your knees. People don’t realise.

‘When eventually I reached A company and was directed to company headquarters someone mentioned Captain Foucham but I was too exhausted and dulled to take it in, just thought I’d misheard. I knew his predecessor had been killed and that there was a replacement but didn’t know who. The dugout
– really just a hollowed-out bit of trench with a canvas flap – was lit by a single candle on a table made of ammunition boxes. Seated on another ammunition box, hatless, tunic unbuttoned, smoking and looking at an old trench
map, was your father. I saw immediately that it was him but it was a few seconds before he recognised
me in my helmet and with all my clobber and covered in mud. We just stared at each other without speaking
and now for the life of me I can’t remember who was the first to speak or who said what. Funny
isn’t it?’ The colonel shook his head. ‘I know we shook hands and each said something about
what a surprise and not expecting to see the other and each gave an account of how we came to be
there. Of course, there was a third person in the dugout – Maud – but neither of
us mentioned her. In moments of great surprise or shock we reach for the ordinary, don’t we? The banal, the everyday, the practical, the obvious.
That’s what you cling to while you re-adjust.

‘And then there really was someone else in the dugout, Hobbs, the company runner. And then briefing and introductions and
finding somewhere to dump my kit and everything else and in no time you’re immersed in mundanity, the endless mundanities of trench life, or family life or working life or whatever you’re doing, the Duke of Wellington’s one-damn-thing-after-another of it all
that fills our hours and prevents us thinking about where we’re going. Just as well, perhaps.’

Seeing Frank take out another cigarette, the colonel pushed the lighter across to him. There had been no music for a while now. Frank imagined them talking to
each other, becoming intimate.

‘We never did talk about it, the obvious subject. There was never time for the personal, too
much going on, and when you weren’t busy you were sleeping, or trying to. We were never alone, anyway,
apart from the odd half-minute. But there was an unspoken understanding that sometime we would. And we were not estranged. We
simply resumed from where we left off before he went to Canada, as if we were on an extended poaching expedition on old Johnny
Wooding’s land. We made a good team, your father and I, always did. Knew each other so well we didn’t need to
explain. But that was also what worried me, you see, more than the Maud business. I sensed he knew my secret
and I was terrified it would come out. As it did, very soon it did.’

The colonel paused again, looking at Frank as if expecting him to know. ‘Your secret?’ Frank asked.

‘My fear. My secret fear.’

There was another pause. ‘But everyone’s afraid, aren’t they? I am. I’m sure all the guys are, every time we go up.’

‘Of course, of course, you take that for granted and get on with your job. So long as you keep going, just do your job and
keep going, you’ll be all right. There were cases of shell-shock but they were understood and accepted, couldn’t be helped. What
I’m talking about is another level of fear. Incapacitating fear, when you’re paralysed, lose control of your body, want to go on but your
legs won’t move. It hadn’t happened to me by then but I knew it would, I’d seen it in others
and I knew it would come to me one day. And that made me more afraid, afraid of my own fear.
That was my secret and I lived in a perpetual funk because of it.’

‘I know what you mean.’ Frank surprised himself. It came out so easily. He heard himself saying
it without having intended it, like the colonel’s proposal.

‘You do?’ The colonel stared. It was impossible to tell whether he was recalling his own feelings or assessing Frank’s. ‘When it started I
thought it was shell-shock at first. It was following the retreat from Vadencourt – withdrawal, I should say, a fighting withdrawal, the
Eighth Battalion never broke, not once. First symptom was the shakes. Nothing unusual about that, most of us did at some time or other.
It was just like when you get an eyelid that goes on the blink, you get this trembling in your vision and think everyone else can see it, but they don’t. But with me there was something else. I
couldn’t make myself stand upright, even when I knew it was safe. I crouched all the time and flinched at the slightest noise or unexpected movement.
Embarrassing, you just hope no one else will notice. Then one day your father asked me to lead a raiding party that night
across to the German lines to nab a Hun prisoner or two. Not his idea – came down from Brigade via Battalion HQ. They wanted live evidence for
their theory – hope – that the offensive was running out of steam, that the Germans were pretty well as exhausted as we
were and wouldn’t be able to maintain momentum much longer. They were right, as it turned out.

‘Not that he asked me directly. It was just after stand-to – you know, that dreadful hour before dawn when you’re at
your lowest ebb and everyone has to rouse themselves to be ready for a dawn attack which hardly ever comes. I was on the fire-step in number one platoon’s
position, crouching of course, though I could just see into no-man’s-land through some nettles and churned-up earth. Unknown to
me, Frank came along the trench behind me, inspecting positions. He put his hand on my shoulder and I winced and shrunk myself, my head
between my knees, immediately, uncontrollably.

‘“It’s all right, it’s only me,” he whispered.

‘When I opened my eyes I saw he was smiling but it was a kindly smile, not a mocking one as it might have been. Because I know what he saw: a frightened, furtive
little animal, paralysed by fear from a mere touch on the shoulder.

‘He put his hand on my shoulder again. “It’s all right, Ken, it’s all right, don’t worry.” He spoke as if to
a child or pet. “I wanted your advice about something. Come and see me when we stand down.”

‘Well, it turned out he wanted me to recommend someone to lead the raid. It was to be an all-volunteer job, like most of our raids, and he
wanted to let the best candidates know first. Neither of us knew the company well, of course. When I said I would he
looked at me for a long moment, the candlelight flickering on one side of his face. It was not just Maud who was our unacknowledged
companion now but that frightened little animal. “Are you sure?” he asked.

‘“I want to,” I lied. In a way I did, I wanted to show him I was more than just that little
animal. I also thought I was going to die anyway so better get it over with before the extent of my funk was discovered. The
only other surviving platoon commander was pretty badly knocked up, having been in the front line longer than I had, and it
wasn’t fair to ask yet more of him. He was killed the following day, as it happened. Trench mortar.

‘So I led the patrol out that night. Eight of us, all volunteers, divided into two snatch parties and with Sergeant White as my
second-in-command. We didn’t have to cut holes in the wire – there wasn’t any to speak of by then,
retreat being so fluid. We just crawled out in two parallel groups, close enough to communicate.

‘We didn’t know how far we had to go, of course, because we had only a rough idea where the Hun were and the ground
at night is always very different to the topography you think you remember from the day. The odd flare or star shell went up from
both sides and then we had to freeze, face down in the mud. You feel so hideously exposed in the glare which seems to last for ages. My
buttocks quivered so much I was afraid they might be visible to the enemy.’ The colonel laughed and coughed. ‘Curiously, I didn’t feel frightened just
then. Tense, of course, anxious, but concentrated on getting the job done. I’d left my fear behind. Or so I thought.

‘When the last flare was fading I made myself raise my head a fraction. I saw the outline of a helmet about thirty yards
ahead. It didn’t move and could have been a corpse but it looked upright and we knew there
was a network of old supply trenches in that area. When the flare had died completely I crawled over to where I reckoned Sergeant White must
be and tapped him on the leg. Turned out not to be his leg and not a living one, either. But I found him soon after – or, rather, he found me. Turned out I’d crawled ahead of him and he grabbed my foot,
which was a bit of a shock. Thought it was the dead chap at first.’ The colonel laughed and coughed again. ‘Anyhow, we agreed to
carry on forward until one of us saw something close enough, in which case he’d shout “Now!” and we’d all get up and rush them. I crawled
back to my team and passed the word that it was likely to be soon.