A Postillion Struck by Lightning (17 page)

“Oh dear!” said Lally, in a very low voice. “So many; so many poor souls.” She took us both by a hand and we started to walk slowly among the white crosses looking at the names; just things like F.J. Jones, and a number and the name of the regiment and sometimes the date. But what was awful was just where it had Unknown written. Just one word. And we all wondered who they were and of course no one would ever come to see them, because they were unknown, and no one put flowers there.

Amy had a handkerchief to her face but she was peering about her and for once she looked quite nice and not irritating.

“I wonder what to do?” she said worriedly. “There are so many, so many, and I don't know where I'd begin.”

Lally said: “You go over to that fellow who's weeding there, I expect he belongs to the place and he'll tell you. I imagine you have to look under the O's”, she said, giving Amy a little push.

Amy looked doubtful, but she opened her bag and took out her phrase book where she had marked some pages for “Asking Directions”, which she had shown us in the bus, and nervously walked up to the man who was busy weeding and when he looked up at her we all got quite a start because he only had half a face. She started to read from her book and then we heard him speak to her in real Cockney and he laughed and said he was English and what could he do for her? Well, it was a big relief, and presently, scratching his head, he took her off up one of the long grassy paths far away from us. My sister was very silent. The bunch of poppies was getting a bit droopy, and we both felt rather miserable in that quiet place with so many white crosses shining in the sun.

Lally cleared her throat and told us to cheer up. “Goodness me! You look a couple of miseries I must say! You ought to be very
happy that you're both here on such a lovely day as this, because all these poor men here died just so that you could be walking about in the sun without a care in the world. They wouldn't think you were very grateful if they could see your miserable faces, now would they? You see what it says on top of that big stone cross there? Their Sacrifice Was Not In Vain. So just you remember that. And show your manners.” She was really quite bossy, but it was only because she was feeling sad too, and didn't want to show it.

“What shall we do about Amy?” said my sister for something to say, and Lally said we were to leave her be so that she could find her brother in peace. “It's a private thing,” she said firmly. “So now let's go and see if we can find Miss Cavell.”

Just then, another wounded man came along and was very nice and said that he came from Herne Bay, where Lally had once spent a holiday, but he shook his head and said he didn't know a Miss Cavell. She wasn't here, he said, not as far as he knew, which was a bit disappointing. He took us all over the place and we saw some quite big graves with weeping angels and stone pots on them, but there was no one called Miss Cavell. So Lally suggested that my sister should put her flowers on one of the “unknown” graves, just as a sign of respect for the dead. And before they died themselves.

“Amy must have got it all a bit muddled,” said Lally. “And no one could really blame her because this was a very Trying Day for her.”

My sister put the poppies on the grave rather nervously as if someone would tell her not to, but the man from Herne Bay was very nice and said that quite a lot of people came and did that and that later on he'd try and find a little jar to put them in; he said there was probably one in his shed. Then he asked me if I would like to see something very fine, and when I said I would, he limped away up a long grassy path to a big box thing. Well, it looked like a box. It was standing at the head of a very tidy grave, and it had a glass cover. Inside the box was a beautiful uniform jacket and a cap with gold braid all over it, and the jacket had a lot of medals and buttons. It was all a bit faded by the sun, but even so it sparkled. But it looked sadder even than the crosses, all empty, and the man from Herne Bay said that it belonged to a French General or someone and that his wife had asked for it to be like this.

“Won't last long,” said Lally cheerfully. “The moths have been at it already, not to mention the wet.”

The man agreed and said the winters there were really cruel but he thought that I'd be interested. And in a way I was. But I didn't feel particularly happy about any part of the day really. It all had a Holy and sad feeling and it was so quiet and still that not even a bird sang. Suddenly we saw Amy walking alone down the little sloping path. I think she had had a good cry, for her eyes were rather red and so was her nose, but she was making a little wavering smile as she came across the rows of crosses to us, and had put her phrase book in her bag. The man with the wounded face wasn't there any longer, so I suppose she'd found the grave and he'd left her to be private too. We all sat down on a stone seat, and waited for her to reach us, after we had said goodbye and thank you to the Herne Bay man.

It was quite nice to sit down, and the stone seat was hot in the sun, but Amy was soon standing beside us pushing her handkerchief into her pocket.

“Do you want to come and see him?” she asked.

It was just another grave like all the rest. A white cross and his name, Peter Eric O'Shea, and a number after it.

“What does Cpl mean?” asked my sister, and Amy said that he was a Corporal and very clever. “Is he really under there?” said my sister, and Amy said she hoped so. “As long as I know
where
he is, it doesn't feel so bad,” she said with a sigh. She stood for a long minute looking out over all the crosses which surrounded us like a white sea. “Oh the grief, dear God,” she said sadly. “Oh the grief and the terrible waste of it all.”

And then we started off silently down the path towards the gates with the cross on the top. We kept a bit behind the two of them, looking at the names and numbers and regiments, but just as we got near the bottom, I saw Amy's head bow down and Lally slipped her hand into Amy's arm and lifted her own head high. We walked down the road quite far behind them, scuffing the dust into white clouds all round us.

There was no one to tell us not to.

I was sitting under the elderberry bush up by the privy, which was where I always went when I wanted to have a good “think” with no one to disturb me, and Lally stuck her head out of a window, shook a rug very hard over the sill, and called down: “Don't sit there like yesterday's loaf, with a shopping list as long as my arm on top of the copper and a ten shilling note, and don't forget the change. Also take the milk-can, should you see Mr Mitchell and get me a pint and a half and a small pot of cream which we'll have with the gooseberries.” She slapped the rug a few more times against the flint wall, covered the garden in dust, and went back in. She always seemed to know exactly where I'd be when she wanted me, which was very aggravating.

“I'll come too,” said my sister, pulling on her Hate. “I'll bring a bit of sugar for the pony if we do see Mr Mitchell, and if we don't I'll eat it myself.”

We collected the milk-can, the list, the ten shilling note, and started off down the field to the gully. It was quite a long way to the village, easily two miles, so I was pretty sure that I wasn't going to have much of a “think” that morning, which was a pity. Because something was just beginning in my head when Lally called me.

The poppies were nearly all over, and so were the buttercups; the long high hedge running down the field beside the gully was thick with Queen Anne's lace and Campion. Summer, as Herbert Fluke would say, was getting a move on. But the sun was still high and hot, and the Downs fat and green, like the bellies of horses, rounded against the sky, glossy and rippling where the wind ruffled through the thick summer grasses.

“You've got a mood on,” said my sister after a bit of a silence.

“I was just having a ‘think' when Lally yelled about this, and now I can't remember what it was that I was thinking, that's all.”

She was skiffling along in the white dust of the path kicking empty snail shells about.

“Was it about something lovely?”

“No. Actually. It was about a Play.”

“Oh! That!” and she lost interest. She always did. The moment
I even said the very word she lost interest and went off on her own. This time she started picking a spot on her chin. I slapped her hand and she got such a shock that she dropped the milk-can and it rolled and clattered down the path and the lid flew into the hedge.

“Look what you've done! Just look! You stupid fool!” She was furious because I had shocked her, not because she'd dropped the can, and she went scrabbling about in the grasses collecting all the bits together. I went on down the hill and heard her clonking along behind me.

“It's all full of dust and leaves and things, and you could have hurt me doing that! Hitting a person and giving them a fright. I might get something terrible on my chin now and it'll be all your fault.”

“You're not supposed to pick spots, you know that.”

“I wasn't picking it. I was feeling it.”

“Same thing.”

“It's not the same thing. Now I might get ringworm just because you're in a mood.”

I didn't answer her, but started to run a bit so that she had to hurry to keep up with me. As I got to the old iron gate into the main road she suddenly made a terrible noise and I thought she might have been bitten or something because she was standing quite still just clutching her skirt with her face all screwed up.

“What's the matter?” I called.

“You're vile! You're vile!” She dropped the can into the grass and started patting her stupid skirt with both her hands. “The sugar lumps!” she wailed. “I've lost them … you made me … you made me when you hit me. They've gone. Now I can't feed Daisy. You're vile!”

I slammed the gate and crossed the road and left her there yowling away. But by the time I had reached the little bridge over the stream where we caught roach, she had got to me, all puffing and breathy, mumbling away about her rotten old sugar. I was glad she hadn't been bitten because I really did like her very much when she was being all right, but when she wasn't, like now about the sugar, I didn't at all. So I just started whistling and took no notice. It was the only thing to do, because I had completely forgotten what it was I was thinking about up there under the elderberry.

Mitchell's cart was standing in the shade just as we got to
Sloop Lane. It had two big wheels and was painted yellow and black, and had a big silver milk churn on top with brass letters spelling out MITCHELLS DAIRY—NEW MILK all round it, and silver ladles hanging in different sizes to measure the milk. We got the pint and a half and the cream, and my sister told the stupid fat pony all about the sugar, and Mr Mitchell said he couldn't change a ten shilling note, and what did I think he was, the Bank of England? and he'd get it next time around. So we went on into the Market Square and over the cobbled road to the grocers.

Wildes was in the middle of the square, next door to the Magpie Inn and opposite Woods the Butchers. It had two bulgy windows with lots of little panes of glass, and a front door painted black with golden letters over the top spelling the name.

Inside it was cool, and dim, and smelled of bacon and paraffin, and fresh bread. On one side was a counter with tins of tea behind and barrels of apples and dried peas and corn and walnuts in front of it. On the ceiling hung dustpans and brushes with wooden handles, rat traps, lavatory rolls threaded like beads on loops of
string, and bunches of enamel mugs and saucepans which jingled and jangled in the wind when you opened the door.

On the other side was another counter with the scales, big brass ones with all the weights sparkling in a row from very big to very small like the Three Bears; and there were big blocks of butter, and white tubs of lard, and slabs of bacon and legs of ham hanging from the beams just above your head. It really was a very nice place indeed, and there was always such a lot to see that we never minded waiting about while Mr Wilde checked off the things on the list and stuffed them all into the shopping bag. At the very end of the shop, past all the barrels of apples and dog biscuits and things, there was another counter with a wire cage thing over it. This was the Post Office and Miss Maltravers, who played the organ, sat behind it looking like a ghost-lady with her wispy hair and white sleeves over her frock to keep it clean. She was always scribbling away at something, or weighing a parcel, or licking a stamp. She was very busy indeed.

“There is some post for you if you don't mind taking it up and saving the van a journey,” she called, and slid something under the cage at us. “One's a postcard from your mother in France, says she's having a lovely time and they'll be home on Sunday, God willing, and the other's something for Miss Jane from Debenham & Freebody, a catalogue by the look of it, which seems a long way to go for a coat when Seaford is on the doorstep.”