The Shadow of War (41 page)

From the outside, Blair Atholl Castle on Christmas Day 1914 looks much as it has always done. With fresh, thick snow on the ground and no overnight visitors to spoil the virginal blanket on the drive, the white stucco walls blend perfectly with the landscape of the estate and the glens all around. Only the grey slates of the conical roofs of its turrets and its many windows break up the pure white panoply.

But much has changed at Blair. It is the quietest Christmas celebration in living memory. The pipes and drums of the duke's private army, the Atholl Highlanders, are silent. Many of its men have volunteered for the army; as for the rest, the duke has asked them to stay away. There will be no piper playing from the battlements today. There have been too many deaths in France of men from the estate and the local community. Although not yet in mourning, the duke is sure that his middle son, Lord George, ‘Geordie', is dead.

More bad news arrived at 6 p.m. on Christmas Eve, courtesy of a willing young lad who brought the telegram from the village post office in the middle of a snowstorm. After spending several weeks at Blair recovering from his infected leg wound, Hamish returned to his regiment in France, the Cameron Highlanders, early in November. However, his company did not see action until 20 December, when he led them in an attack on German positions at Givenchy, near Ypres. The attack was a success and the German trench was
taken. But late that night, while reconnoitring his defences with a small patrol, he was ambushed. Two of his men were killed. The telegram was brief and to the point.

Regret to inform, Major Lord James Stewart-Murray, 1st Battalion Cameron Highlanders, taken prisoner, enemy forces, Givenchy, 20 December 1914. Whereabouts unknown. Reported unharmed and safe.

Kitchener.

The old duke, having been locked away with his mistress in her cottage in Glen Tilt for most of the winter, had dragged himself away to host Christmas lunch for his immediate family. Already desperately morose about Geordie, the telegram from the Ministry of War was too much for him and he immediately took to his bed, refusing all visitors. Lady Helen decided that she had no choice other than to send for his ‘lady friend', Mrs Grant, who promptly took him back up to her cottage. He was in tears as he left.

There will not be the usual houseful of guests at Blair this year; there will be none of its renowned gaiety, and certainly none of its notorious debauchery. Lady Helen has given most of the servants the week off. She has invited her friend from Edinburgh, David Tod, and Bardie and Kitty have travelled up from England. Lady Dorothea, ‘Dertha', and her husband, Harry Ruggles-Brise, who is still recovering from his shrapnel wounds, have also arrived from England, but only late last night, delayed by the snow.

So the family gathering is just six. They have all risen late and taken a very sombre breakfast, coming to terms with the news of Hamish. They decide to exchange presents before lunch and then to sit down together for the best Christmas fare Blair Atholl's vast estate and fine kitchen can muster. There will be beef, goose and turkey, all Blair meat, and the vegetables will be those grown on the estate and in the
kitchen gardens and greenhouses. Mrs Forsyth, the butler's wife who runs the kitchen with a rod of iron and is never addressed by any other name, even by her husband, has made the stuffing, pudding, cake, mince pies and sorbets.

It is also agreed to plunder the cellar for the 7th Duke's favourite Bollinger and three bottles of 1900 Château Petrus, the finest vintage in a generation. Bardie asks Forsyth to bring up some Monbazillac for pudding and a Grande Champagne cognac for the men with their cigars. He means to ensure that some kind of Christmas cheer comes to the Stewart-Murrays, even if it has to be induced by alcohol.

Bardie says grace before lunch and asks everyone to think of Geordie, in the hope that he has managed to survive, of Hamish, hopefully not too cold or miserable in a German prisoner-of-war camp, of poor old Father, heartbroken about what has happened to his family, and of Evelyn, about whom nothing has been heard for some time.

After Bardie has finished, and the servants begin to serve lunch, Lady Helen produces a surprise.

‘Amidst the gloomy reports, I have some good news. I have just received a letter from darling Evelyn.'

She begins to read as, for the first time since they arrived, everyone is able to smile.

Dearest Father,

I have taken a little cottage in the woods near Spa. Very quiet here, no hint of fighting. My rooms in Malines are just about in one piece, but the damage is extensive. Like the rest of the town, windows are gone, blinds are rags, china smashed to dust, furniture in splinters. I doubt I will ever return.

But I am well, and my faithful companion is so kind to me.

Please send my love to all at Blair at Christmas,

Evelyn

David Tod offers a thoughtful response.

‘All of us here, safe in Scotland, let us give thanks.'

‘Hear, hear!' is the response from everyone.

Harry Ruggles-Brise, shifting uneasily in his chair as his shoulder injury makes him wince, makes polite conversation.

‘So, Kitty, what have you been up to?'

‘Well, I go to London on VAD business once a week. But it's a long way from Blagdon; it's a bit of a bore, really.'

‘Blagdon?'

‘Blagdon Hall, Matty Ridley's home. He's a Tory MP and Colonel of the Northumberland Hussars –'

Bardie breaks in and takes over Kitty's account.

‘Kitchener is still bothered about the east coast and has ordered me up to Northumberland at the beginning of the month.'

‘With the whole of the Scottish Horse?'

‘Yes, three battalions of us. Wouldn't let even one battalion go to France.'

‘Bloody stuff and nonsense! There's no possibility of a German invasion. I don't often agree with Churchill, but in that respect, he's spot on.'

‘Harry, strictly on the QT, I spoke to Kitchener the other day. Churchill and Lloyd George are cooking up a scheme to launch a spring offensive in the Dardanelles to get the
Central Powers
fighting on another front. He told me he's earmarked the Horse for the campaign.'

To the annoyance of the two soldiers at the table, who cannot understand how an Edinburgh merchant with a part-time line in sculpting can possibly have an opinion about war that is worth listening to, David Tod offers his view.

‘A wise strategy, it seems to me. If there's a stalemate in France and Belgium, another front makes sense.'

Bardie shrugs off David's opinion.

‘Whether it does, or it doesn't, is neither here nor there. I'll
leave that to Kitchener and French. But if it gives my boys a chance to fight, then I'm up for it.'

Harry then chips in.

‘I have to say that, although Churchill has some military experience, he has never been in a position of high command; after all, he's a bloody politician, for God's sake! And now we've got that odious little Welshman sticking his oar in.'

Helen draws a line under the conversation.

‘Kitty, Dertha, shall we withdraw?'

The three ladies of Atholl settle in the drawing room. Unbeknown to the men, who are happily drinking cognac and smoking the finest Bolivar Cuban cigars, Helen has secreted a bottle of Bénédictine, her favourite tipple, under her chair.

‘Ladies?'

An increasingly intimate conversation ensues as the liqueur bottle empties. Eventually, Kitty's relationship with Bardie comes up.

Helen is blunt.

‘So, Kitty, how have you persuaded Bardie to keep his trousers on?'

‘I haven't. He can do what he likes with his trousers. But now we're on an equal footing, which means other men's trousers are within my compass once more.'

Dertha is impressed.

‘Well done, Kitty. I'm pleased to say that I don't think Harry has the imagination to stray. What about you, Helen, are you going to take the leap with your sculptor? He seems very sweet.'

‘I think I might. Father will be upset, but he's now got other things on his mind …' Helen's eyes fill with tears. ‘Everything is changing. What will become of us?'

Kitty takes the question to another level.

‘I worry for Bardie and for the family. When he inherits the title, will it mean anything? Old Europe is dying, and I
fear Old Britain is dying with it. All those men being slaughtered at the Front! Will the survivors come back and accept the world they left behind? I doubt it. You know I don't agree with the suffragettes, but do we really expect to deny working men the vote when they're dying in multitudes for a country they have no say in running?'

Dertha is shocked.

‘Really, Kitty, you sound like a communist! Harry says, if we give everyone the vote, we will be under socialist rule within five years.'

‘He may be right. But it may not be possible to stop it happening. And it may not be right to do so.'

Helen is less shocked than Dertha, but is still surprised.

‘Kitty, you sound just like David; he says much the same. You should go into politics.'

‘Perhaps I should.'

The conversation gradually becomes less and less erudite, the mood more and more solemn, until Christmas Day 1914 at Blair Atholl ends in a drunken haze. Everyone fears for the future and knows that the carefree days of the past are probably gone for ever.

At the stroke of midnight, after consuming the greater part of a bottle of Glenmorangie, the 7th Duke of Atholl cries himself to sleep in the arms of Mrs Maud Grant in her modest Glen Tilt cottage.

A British Army field hospital in one of the most dangerous zones of the Great War is not an ideal setting for a Christmas celebration. Neither are the hospital's celebrants in the best of spirits. Many are badly wounded, some are dying; all would rather be anywhere else. Back in the trenches with their
mates, no matter how wet and cold, would mean that at least they are fit and well. Home would be perfect, but they know that is not going to happen.

In addition to those with war wounds, there are plenty of men with infectious diseases, respiratory problems and a growing number with an ailment the doctors are struggling to define. Some call it ‘nervous fatigue', others call it ‘mental exhaustion' and a few – those of less generous spirit – call it ‘malingering'. The latest description, which attempts to relate it to its most obvious cause, is ‘shell shock'.

The milder cases wander around aimlessly in a world of their own, their eyes lost in the ‘thousand-yard stare'. The worst cases find corners in which to hide, where they shiver and convulse like sick dogs. Some shout and scream, and a few become violent and have to be restrained. In fact, Surgeon-Captain Noel Chavasse has insisted that Brigade assigns a squad of infantry to the hospital to help with recalcitrant patients.

Because ‘hospital' is ‘
hôpital
' in French, it has not taken long for the field hospital in Poperinghe's old lace mill to be called ‘Pop-Hop'.

Sadly, Christmas Day did not start well at Pop-Hop. Two men died of their wounds on Christmas Eve, and when Margaret arrived for duty early on Christmas morning she found the night staff searching frantically for a missing man. A Coldstreamer from Berwick, he talked the night before about not being able to bear the thought of Christmas. Already missing his left arm, he had been told he would have to lose his right because gangrene had set in. He was found an hour later in an outbuilding. He had cut the wrist of his offending arm and bled to death.

The doctors, nurses, auxiliaries, orderlies, stretcher-bearers and ambulance drivers are all exhausted, but they are trying hard to make the day as enjoyable as possible for the sick and injured.

Hywel Thomas, his hand in a sling, is doing sterling work, helping men eat and drink and talking to them to boost their morale. His new purpose in life has given him a vitality that inspires many of the patients and is also often a boost to the demoralized staff. His reconciliation with Bronwyn has grown stronger by the day, and they have helped one another come to terms with the loss of their brothers.

Hywel's reinforced glove has arrived from London and Captain Chavasse allows him to wear it for an hour a day when his sling and bandages are removed to clean his wound. He is fortunate that his hand has remained free from infection and that he has good movement in his thumb and some feeling in his index finger. His glove is a very simple but clever device. An extra-large, officer's black cavalry glove, it has been reinforced by sewn-in, bendable copper rods that allow Hywel to position his fingers to help him secure the barrel of his rifle.

Thoughtfully, Desoutter Brothers have also sent the other glove of the pair. He wears both when he is practising holding his gun outside the hospital, as it means that he gets the same feeling in both hands. He is soon christened the ‘Black-Handed Assassin' by the other patients. Understandably, he is impatient to fire his rifle, but Captain Chavasse has expressly forbidden it for the time being and insists that he only rests the rifle gently on his injured hand.

Major Hesketh-Prichard has visited Hywel twice to discuss the training programme for the army's new School of Sniping. On his second visit, he brought Hywel's new serjeant's stripes with him which, much to Hywel's amazement, also included a crown.

The major explained.

‘We thought we might as well make you a colour serjeant, as you may well be teaching other serjeants how to shoot!'

‘But, sir, I've only just turned twenty.'

‘I shouldn't worry about that! There are shave-tail
officers younger than you who are on the front line leading thirty men.'

‘Well, thank you, sir.'