The Black Mountains (23 page)

A few more steps, and he could see he was right. His heart came into his mouth with a jolt. Something must be wrong! Remembering his fleeting anxiety for his father, he began to run.

Urgently he flung the door wide, to find the family in the kitchen. Mam was standing in front of the fire, her skirts catching the warmth of the dying embers: Jack was on the settle; and Fred leaned against the table. They all looked so serious that Ted, already half-expecting the worst, asked in a low voice, “Dad?”

They stared at him blankly.

“He's not …” He broke off, unable to form the words, and Charlotte shook her head impatiently.

“What's your Dad got to do with it? He's gone to bed as if nothing had happened. It's our Fred, causing all the trouble.”

“Fred?” he repeated, not understanding.

“Yes. Your brother here. He's just told us he wants to go and join the army. He thinks he's going off to fight in this bloody war!”

Ted stared, and the room seemed to sway around him. Rebecca was forgotten now as he looked at his brother, the most peace-loving one of the family.

“
Fred
does?” he repeated.

And their silence told him it was true.

During the night the fog turned to rain. Charlotte, lying awake, heard the first soft flurry against the window, and felt her anger dissolve into despair.

Rain. It rained ceaselessly in Flanders, so they said. It rained day after day until the battlefields were seas of mud and the trenches were awash. And the men and boys fought and died thigh-deep in the sort of mess in which you wouldn't leave a dog—if you had an ounce of humanity in you …

She rolled over, staring into the darkness and seeing in her mind's eye a composite picture of all the stories she'd heard of the Front rolled into one.

No Man's Land seemed to her to be an extension of Farmer Bert's ploughfield in November—dark, bumpy, barren and wet as far as the eye could see. The trenches were the ditches at the side of the lanes where she'd taken the children for afternoon walks, deeper, perhaps, and more roughly dug, but cleared of dead leaves and branches as they were when they'd been prepared for February Fill-Dyke. The barbed wire would look much the same as the makeshift barrier they put up to keep the cows out of the allotments; the poppies would be the same vermilion silk as those that dotted the railway embankment in high summer. And the makeshift ambulances taking the wounded away to field hospitals would be not unlike the coal carts that jolted injured miners from pithead to home along rutted roads.

The guns, she found more difficult to imagine, though recalling a firework display she'd seen during the coronation celebrations, she wondered if they lit the sky in the same way, accompanied, perhaps, by a tearing, echoing crash like the thunderclap that ended a summer heat-wave, and smaller, more distant explosions like the crackers they put on the railway lines in foggy weather. But from the reports that came back, France was worse, much worse, than she could ever imagine.

And it was to this living nightmare that Fred, her son, was going, to this hell that was painted not in the scarlets and golds of eternal flame, but in the mud-browns of trampled earth and the greys of a rain-heavy sky, a purgatory permeated by the damp cold that chilled bone deep and scattered with the the mutilated bodies of the wounded and the dying.

Pain rose in her throat like bile, bitter and sickening.

Why? she asked herself. Why, when men were coming in droves to look for jobs in the coal-field and so avoid the conscription that everyone said would be made compulsory if the war didn't end soon, should Fred want to volunteer? It didn't make sense. If he was out of work, it would have been different. If he was doing a job that had nothing to offer the war effort, perhaps she could have understood. But in times of strife even more than in times of peace everyone knew coal was vitally important to keep things moving, and the well-known poster with Kitchener pointing his finger and proclaiming “Your Country Needs You” might apply as much to a miner as to a soldier. In Fred's case, it might be even more apt to think of it that way, for he was a good carting boy and knew nothing of soldiering.

She'd tell him that in the morning, she thought, but even as she grasped at the straw of hope, in her heart she knew it would do no good. Already she'd tried every argument she could think of, since Fred had come home with this tomfool notion in his head, but they'd all gone in one ear and out the other. He'd simply leaned against the table, shaking his head in disagreement, steadfastly refusing to be drawn into a heated argument. That was Fred all over, of course, quiet, slow to anger, immovable almost, but it made it all the more ludicrous somehow that he should be the one who wanted to go and fight the Hun.

She had put that to him, pointing out how he hated fights and quarrelling and how, even as a little boy, he'd tried to keep the peace between his brothers.

“But that don't mean I can't do what I think is right,” he had replied evenly. “ Besides, I don't know why you'm so keen to keep me down the pit. It don't seem long ago you was keen to keep me out of it!”

Charlotte had been unable to answer. To her, it seemed a lifetime ago, something she had worried about in another world. For what was a chafed back and raw knees compared to limbs blown off by shell-fire?

Now, her thoughts aching in her like physical pain, she shifted restlessly, and the movement disturbed James. He turned over, coughing in his sleep, and a new wave of helpless anger swept over her.

How could he sleep at a time like this? Didn't he care? When Fred had come in and told them what he planned to do, James had seemed unmoved. And when she'd begged him to reason with Fred, he had only said that the boy must do as he thought fit.

But even as she silently accused him, she knew it was not true, and she found herself wishing she could be more like him, accepting things instead of fighting them, being resigned to what could not be changed.

Impulsively she turned to him, curling herself around his back. Although he was asleep, she seemed to feel his quiet strength, and there was comfort in the warmth of his body. She lay her face against him, wishing he would wake and hold her. But he did not, and she closed her eyes, willing herself to be as calm as he was.

Tomorrow was another day. In the morning everything would seem different.

But in the morning, nothing had changed. Fred was still determined to join the army.

Just to make things worse, later in the day she heard news of two more Hillsbridge casualties—Ern Eyles, one of Sergeant Eyles' sons, who had died of wounds received in the last days of the Battle of Ypres, and Evan Comer, who had lost an arm and a leg in an explosion at an ammunitions dump.

Ern Eyles she heard about while she was shopping, but it was Dolly who told her about Evan. She arrived at the kitchen door in a terrible state, having just heard the news from Evan's sister, who had made it her business to call on Dolly up at the house and imply that it was all her fault.

“It was terrible, Mam,” Dolly said, her lip quivering. “She said if I hadn't finished with Evan, he'd never have thought of volunteering.”

“That's nonsense, Dolly!” Charlotte said sharply, shooing Harry out to play in the rank with his hoop and stick. “ You can't live your life worrying about what other people will do. You didn't want him, and that's all there is to it.”

“But she said …”

“Never mind what she said. Nobody made him go off to war, least of all you.”

“But she's right. Mam, don't you see?” Dolly said miserably. “ If I was still going with him, he'd have stayed here. Now he's lost an arm and a leg. He'll never play football again. And whatever you say, it is my fault.”

“Then why is your brother going—he hasn't been let down by anybody,” Charlotte remarked harshly, and this upset Dolly even more.

But when the boys came home, Dolly's tears worked where Charlotte's plans had failed, and Fred agreed to leave signing on until after Christmas, although he refused to be put off altogether.

“Oh well, maybe the war'll be over by then,” Charlotte said. “It's going a bit quieter, according to the newspapers.”

BUT SHE was wrong. Any lessening of activity was only the lull before the storm, and ten days before Christmas, the war came to England. The German battle cruisers that had carried out the abortive raid on Great Yarmouth six weeks earlier came back to the attack, and more than a hundred civilians were killed in Scarborough, Whitby and Hartlepool.

“I've never heard the like!” Peggy said, coming in to talk to Charlotte about it. “ In one place, a family of eight was completely wiped out—their dog and canary as well!”

“I read about it,” Charlotte said. “Was that the house where they found the cat asleep and unharmed under the washing copper?”

Peggy nodded. “I think it was. But think of it, it could have been you, and the children, and Nipper, all gone, just like that!”

When Peggy had left, Charlotte kept thinking about it. If innocent people were being killed in their own homes, perhaps there
was
a point to the boys going to fight. She just wished it weren't Fred, and she knew Peggy felt the same. Colwyn was almost recovered by now, and would be home for Christmas, but after that he would be sent back to France. No one knew where it would end.

It was then that Charlotte decided this Christmas, at least would be one her family would remember.

HILLSBRIDGE MARKET was usually held on a Saturday, and it brought the town to life from early in the morning until late at night.

Inside the big, stone-built market hall were three avenues of wooden-wheeled stalls selling everything from cabbages to cockles, ribbons to bird-seed. There were some stalls outside too, in front of the George, and on the other side of the road on the forecourt of the Miners Arms, but they were outshone by the wagons that never missed a market day—Dr Quilley, the Indian Quack, selling pills, potions and cure-alls in a jar, and Dr Rainbow, his partner, pulling teeth in full view of the appreciative on-lookers. Then there was Smasher, the chinaware man, throwing cups and saucers into the air so that they smashed to smithereens on the pavement. People clustered round, laughing and cheering, calling him mad, but Charlotte always doubted whether he was as silly as they thought. The tea-sets he disposed of in this way were only “seconds,” she suspected, and he always did a roaring trade as a result of his antics.

Later in the day, with shoppers still thronging around the stalls, the Salvation Army band would arrive and form a circle outside the George to play their rousing music and roar out the hymns, while Leah, a small, stout woman in bonnet and tunic, tried to persuade reluctant shoppers to put a copper or two into her collecting bag.

At teatime, the fair that wintered each year in the yard behind the market house would open, and the young people would troop along to ride on the roundabouts and the cake-walk, throw rings at the hoop-la, or try their luck at the coconut shy. On quiet afternoons, the fair folk would let the children ride free on the amusements, and one afternoon Amy had come home with her gloves worn out because she had stayed so long on the cake-walk, holding on to the rail while the floor bucked beneath her.

When darkness fell, the yards would be lit by carbide lamps and gas flares, and it was usually ten or eleven o'clock before the stalls were wheeled away and the last shoppers drifted homeward.

This week, however, with Christmas Day falling on the Friday, market day had been brought forward to Christmas Eve.

Understandably, it was busier than ever, with gypsies selling holly and mistletoe and a queue at Farmer Brent's stall for butter and cheese that wound half-way down the market hall.

As she pushed her way through the crowds Charlotte was glad she had been able to bribe Amy and Harry into staying at home, promising them a bag of bulls-eyes on her return. She could understand them wanting to come, but they would have delayed her dreadfully, hanging on to her bag, insisting that they stop and look at everything. Besides, she had a few things to get for their stockings.

Money was tighter than ever this year since her job at the County Stores had come to an end, but she managed to run to some small sweet oranges and a bag of nuts for each of them, and some teething rings for Alex, her grandson.

She had just finished her shopping and was crossing the forecourt of the George when she became aware of a commotion behind her. She half-turned, but as she did so someone cannoned into her, almost knocking her over, and making her spill fruit and nuts from her laden bag all over the pavement.

It was a hobbledehoy who had been stealing apples from one of the greengrocery stalls as a decoy—now, while the angry trader chased him, his friends were filing their pockets from the unattended stall.

“Ruffian!” Charlotte shouted after him, but no one was taking any notice, and fuming with annoyance, she stopped to retrieve her scattered shopping from the pavement.

“Here, I'll help you.”

To Charlotte's surprise a girl stopped and croupied down beside her. She was young and pretty, but Charlotte did not know her.

“Those boys want their backsides tanning!” Charlotte said tartly. “I'd do it, too, if they were mine. Big as they are it's the only way to teach them respect for law and order.”

“That's right, Mam, you tell 'em!”

It was Ted's voice. Charlotte straightened up, and as she did so she caught sight of the girl's face. Surprise was written all over it, and recognition. The young girl had turned pink from the neck of her high-buttoned coat to the sweep of her brown hair!

So she knew Ted! Well that wasn't surprising, and she wouldn't be the first girl to have fallen in love with the good-looking boy in the concert party. But as she turned to Ted, Charlotte saw the girl's expression mirrored in his own. Clearly he hadn't realized who she was until she looked up, and now they were staring at each other in a way that made her feel like an intruder.