The Carpenter's Children (14 page)

Though Aaron’s tone was contemptuous, Ernest was silently thankful that the white feather of cowardice had come too late to accuse him; it was something he’d been dreading.

Violet Munday went chalk-white, then red as she burst into angry tears.

‘It’s young Pascoe, that damned Jew, who’s put him up to this!’ she sobbed. ‘
I
could see how the poor boy was worrying, and now here he is, my own
gentle, sensitive boy going to fight in a senseless war that nobody wants, except for that wicked old kaiser, damn and blast him! Curse him!’

Yet even Violet could sense that Ernest’s mind was set, and no amount of persuasion or protest would change it. It was Tom who had to bear the brunt of her tears and reproaches, and he let it wash over him, not mentioning his own fear.

Grace was unexpectedly upset at her brother’s change of mind, and somewhat regretted repeating the graphic accounts of trench warfare she’d heard at the manor. Her work among the injured had brought the war into focus for her, and she now saw it as cruel rather than glorious; and now that her own brother was being inexorably drawn into it, she felt its dark shadow spreading over all their lives.

‘Oh, Ernest, I hope you’ll be sent to the Dardanelles rather than those dreadful trenches of France,’ she said, clinging to her brother’s arm.

But slowly the news came through that the Gallipoli landings had been an utter fiasco, with heavy loss of life among British, Australian and New Zealand troops. The Turks had proved stronger and better prepared than expected, and were on their own familiar hot, dry terrain. It was said later that more Allied lives were lost to dysentery than to enemy action.

Late August sunshine slanted across the kitchen wall as Mr and Mrs Munday sat down to a ‘high tea’ of cold boiled bacon, bread, butter and seed cake.

‘Very nice, Mother,’ said Tom, carving them each a slice. ‘You can always tell Yeomans’ bacon from any other, his pigs are properly looked after.’

‘Don’t call me “Mother”, you know I don’t like it. And I haven’t put the mustard pot out,’ she said, getting up and going to the cupboard. ‘I’d better mix some fresh.’

Tom sighed. Her reaction was fairly typical these days, he thought, no matter how hard he tried to sound more cheerful than he felt.

‘Little did we know this time last year that all the children would be leaving us,’ she said as she sat down again, and Tom nodded, knowing that it was
Ernest she missed most, her son who was in Turkey with a second landing of troops on the Gallipoli Peninsula, four months after the costly April fiasco, from which lessons had been learnt, so they said. Tom was at a loss to know how to encourage her. At fifty Violet was still a handsome woman, though the anxieties of the past year had etched a network of fine lines around her eyes, and her mouth drooped when in repose.

‘Ah, but Isabel’s a happily married woman, and our naughty little Grace is doing good work at the manor,’ he reminded her. ‘We mustn’t forget that, Vi.’

‘Not such good work in bringing home horrid stories from that place,’ she answered sharply. ‘If it hadn’t been for her repeating every far-fetched tale she heard, for Ernest to pass on to Pascoe, he might still be here with us now!’

‘He’d been turning it over in his mind for some time now, Vi. Sooner or later he… they’d have decided to go.’

‘There I must disagree with you. My boy was put under pressure by that Jew Pascoe, and don’t try to tell me otherwise. Not an hour of any day goes by without me remembering Ernest and praying for his safety,’ she said, pouring out tea for them both, and refilling the pot with hot water. ‘First we had to see him off to Aldershot, and then after less than a month he boarded that troopship at Southampton,
and I haven’t had a quiet moment since.’

Tom reflected that he found 47 Pretoria Road much
too
quiet without their son and daughters, but refrained from saying so; it was his duty to hide his own natural fears for his son, because she needed his help to bear her burdens.

Grace Munday, now sixteen, was feeling aggrieved. She had been banned from the three wards, all because that spiteful cat Nurse Payne had gone
tittle-tattling
to Lady Neville.

‘She says I spend too much time talking to those poor men,’ she grumbled to Flossie. ‘Anybody with half a heart can see that they need cheering up, and where’s the harm in having a bit of a joke? Or singing them a song?’

‘Yeah, they don’t ’alf say nice things about yer, Grace,’ said Flossie, whose only contact with the men was at mealtimes, when she helped with serving and clearing away; Grace had been forbidden even to do that.

‘She’s got a downer on me just because she’s past thirty and with a face to turn milk sour,’ Grace continued bitterly. ‘Fancy telling Lady Neville that I’m a shameless flirt! I could tell her ladyship was trying not to laugh, even while she was telling me off. I bet old Payne-in-the-backside wishes somebody would flirt with
her
!’

Flossie giggled, but thought Grace should keep
out of Nurse Payne’s way for a while. ‘I wouldn’t ’alf miss yer if yer was sent away. It’s bad enough sayin’ goodbye to Mister Cedric again.’

Cedric’s wound had healed, and he had been discharged by the army surgeon as fit for duty. Not to the blood-soaked fields of France, but to join the reinforcements sent for a second strike at the Turks at Gallipoli, the first invasion having failed. Grace wondered if he would come across her brother and Mr Pascoe on the warm shores of the Dardanelles. She sighed, having heard no more of Nick, swallowed up among the thousands facing death at the front.

Isabel’s thoughts were also of her brother, from whom she received little news; her parents wrote to pass on the scanty information they heard. Turkey seemed such a long way off, and she had never even heard of the Gallipoli Peninsula. Her life at Bethnal Green and the parish of St Barnabas’ was full; every day brought news of some new hardship among the crowded slums, and a fair number of the young men had gone to enlist in preference to working locally for a pittance which would have to mingle with the family income. Isabel discovered that when sons went off to join the armed forces to fight a war, poor
families suffered just as much anxiety and heartbreak as the better-off.

The September evenings were drawing in, and curtains were being closed as Isabel made her way back to the vicarage. Some curtains consisted only of sacks or sheets of newspaper, and Isabel pictured the cheerless scenes behind many of them.

As she had expected, Mark was out, and the thought came to her that a baby of her own would make a big difference to her life – but then of course she would not be able to teach or visit in the parish, not unless she was willing to expose her baby to all sorts of infections. No doubt Mrs Clements would gladly offer her services as a baby-minder, but what was the use of such idle dreaming? Mark had decreed that there must be no babies until after the war, and by then she might be many years older…

After making tea and toast, Isabel sat down with a copy of
The Woman’s Book
, given to her by her mother, and full of advice on household management, cookery and home nursing, including the care of babies and young children. Feeling tired, her eyelids began to droop, and the book fell to the floor. Presently she was awakened by a strange, pulsating, humming sound which grew louder and louder, until suddenly there was an enormous explosion that shook the ground. Outside people began to run to and fro, their excited voices raised in amazement and fear. The front door opened, and Mark rushed in,
calling out, ‘Isabel! Isabel dear, are you here?’

She rose to greet him, and he clasped her in his arms and held her while another ear-splitting explosion occurred, and a man’s voice was heard calling out.

‘Get back indoors, everybody! It’s one o’ them bloody airships – get inside!’

‘It’s a Zeppelin!’ screamed a woman. ‘We’re all going to be killed!’

In fact forty people were killed and many more injured by the first Zeppelin raid on London, and the damage caused by the bombs dropped between Tower Bridge and Euston was considerable. People looked up as searchlights illumined the dark sky, catching the airship in crossed beams. A crackle of artillery fire caused its crew to turn it round, dropping their last bomb near Liverpool Street Station, blowing an omnibus to pieces. A huge fire broke out in a warehouse which smoked and smouldered for days. The terror of the Zeppelins had recommenced, and London was the chief target; its citizens gazed in horror at burning buildings and the havoc caused by damaged gas and water pipes.

Isabel’s parents demanded that she should return to the safety of North Camp forthwith in the face of such danger, and Mark reluctantly agreed, saying that he had no right to keep her in Bethnal Green. But Isabel Storey had her own ideas about where her duties lay, and she absolutely refused to go.

‘We were forced apart for two years, Mark,’ she said, ‘and we are never going to be parted again.’ She thanked her parents for their concern, but told them she was staying in London, like the king and queen.

‘Now I shall have a daughter to worry about as well as a son,’ wailed Violet Munday. ‘And heaven only knows where he is and what’s happening to him, we never hear any news – oh, Ernest, Ernest my poor boy!’

Nine-year-old Devora Pascoe’s world had been turned upside down, and there was no one but her sister Greta, three years older, to whom she could turn in her bewilderment. Her mother worked in the Everham offices of Schelling and Pascoe, trying to take the place of both her son Aaron and his friend Ernest; she always seemed tired and cross these days, and could not speak of her son without emotion. The two sisters knew that they should be grateful to their Aunt Ruth and Uncle Abel Schelling for taking them in, but this house was dark and old-fashioned compared to the lovely home they’d left behind in Elberfeld and might not ever see again.

Both girls had been sent to Everham Council School, but Greta was in a higher class than Devora, and they were struggling to speak English more fluently – and to understand their teachers who sometimes spoke too quickly for Devora to
follow, so that she fell behind on subjects like history and geography; arithmetic was the same as in German, but written down in a confusingly different way. They were excluded from scripture lessons and the daily school assemblies because of their religion, and were the only Jews in the school. There was no synagogue in Everham, but once a month they accompanied their mother, uncle and aunt to London where they could celebrate the Sabbath with their father and brother Jonathan who still lived in Tamarind Street. And London had now become a dangerous place where horrible Zeppelins came through the air in the night and dropped bombs that killed and injured people and destroyed buildings.

And worst of all, their much older brother Aaron had been sent far away with the army, and they’d had no news of him; he might even be dead, and they dared not even speak his name to their mother, or her face would harden and angry tears came to her eyes.

‘How should
I
know where he is or how he is?
I
never sent him away! And speak in
English
, Devora, we don’t want to be mistaken for Germans and sent to an internment camp! If you don’t use it, you’ll never learn anything. You’re in
England
now!’

Yes, they were in England, strangers in a strange land, like their Israelite ancestors –
Jews
!

When half-term was reached, their Aunt Ruth had an idea.

‘You know that Aaron had a very close friend called Ernest Munday who worked here with him and went with him to fight the Turks? Ernest was a good, serious young man, and his parents must be missing him as much as your mother misses – as we
all
miss Aaron. I know where the Mundays live in North Camp, so shall we go and visit them on Friday afternoon?’

The girls agreed, and accordingly they boarded the horse-drawn omnibus with their aunt; she made her way to Pretoria Road and stopped at Number 47. A woman came to the door in answer to her knock, and stared at them blankly.

‘Good afternoon, Mrs Munday. I’m Mrs Schelling, and these two young ladies are Aaron Pascoe’s young sisters, Greta and—’

‘Good God, is there news? Have you heard from – from Aaron?’ demanded Ernest’s mother,
wide-eyed
. ‘Does he speak of Ernest? Tell me, for God’s sake!’

‘No, Mrs Munday, we haven’t heard from them, but—’

‘Then why are you here? What have you come for? What do you want?’

‘Only to meet you, Mrs Munday, and share our – our thoughts with you. Can’t we comfort each other in our distress?’ begged Mrs Schelling, recognising
the suffering behind this woman’s ungracious response. ‘May we come in and talk with you for a little while?’

‘Talk to
you
? When it was Aaron Pascoe who took my son to… Why should I…? Oh, go away!’ Violet Munday started to close the door, but suddenly she sagged against the door-frame, her face chalk-white. Mrs Schelling stepped forward quickly and caught hold of her.

‘She’s going to faint, Greta – help me with her. Go and find a chair, Devora.’

Mrs Munday found herself lolling on a chair in the little entrance hall, supported by a strange woman she didn’t know. ‘What’s happened? Why are you here?’ she moaned weakly.

Mrs Schelling was at a loss as to what to say, but the thought occurred to Devora that this woman was like her mother, both sad and angry at the same time. She forgot all about correctness, the discretion that Jews were taught to observe when dealing with Gentiles, and stepped forward, putting her arms around the woman and speaking softly in her ear.

‘Don’t send us away, Mrs Munday. We only wanted to meet you because you’re Ernest’s mother, and we’re unhappy too, about Aaron and his best friend.’

Violet Munday focused on the little girl’s anxious face, and tears filled her eyes. Mrs Schelling and Greta stared in surprise as Devora’s embrace was clumsily
returned, and Mrs Munday muttered something unintelligible through her tears.

‘Don’t cry, Mrs Munday,’ said Devora, touching her face gently. ‘We’ve all got to be brave, so we mustn’t cry.’

And in that moment Violet’s bitterness against Aaron and his family began to melt, for it was impossible to hold a grievance against this child. She released Devora and stood up rather unsteadily, but in command of herself.

‘I suppose I’d better put the kettle on,’ she said, avoiding Mrs Schelling’s eyes. ‘Do you, er, drink tea?’

So when Tom came home in mid afternoon for a tool he needed from the shed, he found the visitors still there, drinking tea and praising Violet’s apple pie.

How can we write home? he silently asked himself. What could we tell our families about the voyage in the overcrowded troopship with the poor, terrified horses, and the constant threat of German submarines? How could we describe the landing in darkness at Suvla Bay, and the stench that came to meet us before we went ashore and has filled our nostrils and throats ever since, from the thousands of bodies left after the failed April invasion? How might we tell them that our regimental headquarters is a dugout covered with corrugated iron, doing
duty as meeting room, mess room and restroom, approached by a maze of curving trenches? That our adjutant, stick-thin and with a week’s growth of beard, practically sleepwalked out of the dugout to greet us and tell us we were badly needed? How can we write of the scorching heat, the flies, the
never-ending
boom of gunfire? And the warning sign of hoof marks and footprints four inches deep, baked hard in the clay until the autumn rains come again?