The Storms of War (20 page)

Celia sat there, stared. The words were in her mouth.
I went to see Tom’s family. They showed me his letters; he seems happy too.
She looked at her father, his dark eyes ringed with wrinkles, trying to will him to read her thoughts:
I know! He is doing well.
And the painful thought that struck her when she lay awake in bed at night: that he was happier with the army than he had been with them.

She had thought it had only been her who wanted more from life. She had never really thought that he might wish to be more than a servant. She looked at Thompson and Jennie now and thought: but what else could they do? Surely they were happy? Hers was the kindest family to work for.

Celia’s thoughts were wandering. She could hear her father speaking about the hardships people had suffered: that the German waiters who had been dismissed by the London hotels had ended up sleeping in the parks and depending on the Quakers, so most of them were happy to be in Crystal Palace, because at least they had a roof over their heads and regular meals. Verena was complaining about how impossible it was to keep Stoneythorpe in condition since the servants had left. She promised to bring Michael’s letter next time and then started to talk about the war, asked how long he thought it would last. Rudolf shook his head, told her she should not, not there.

‘Celia.’ Her father’s voice. ‘You are sad! Don’t be.’ She shook her head, feeling guilty that she had been thinking about servants and Tom rather than her father. He waved his hand. ‘Look at all these people. Waiters, tailors, musicians, language teachers, me. There are even a few gentlemen just here on holiday. How can we be a threat? Now that everything has died down – and England is nearly winning – well, how can they want to waste money keeping us? I guarantee that in three weeks or so, we will all be set free – and most of these gentlemen will be on a boat back to Hamburg.’

‘Really?’ Celia felt a swell of panic. How could they tidy up
Stoneythorpe in time? They would have to get someone in to clean and do the ivy. She clutched Verena’s hand, trying to signal to her. Rudolf would be furious if he returned and saw how they had let it slip.

‘And you, Celia?’ he said. ‘Are you keeping up your studies?’

Celia nodded. ‘Of course, Papa. I am reading a lot.’

‘What have you been reading? Tell me. We are only given the Bible here.’

Mansfield Park
, she wanted to say. And
Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility,
and when they had finished those, they would start again, she supposed.

A bell rang and a man stood at the front and told them all it was time to go.

Rudolf smiled. ‘You can tell me next week. You will come again?’

‘Of course!’ Celia nudged Verena.

The bell rang again. They said their goodbyes and were flurried out of the place with the rest of the women, some of them still weeping. The gates slammed behind them.

‘I am so tired,’ said Verena. ‘I could lie down here and sleep.’

Celia stared at the traffic hurrying past. ‘I don’t know how to find a cab.’ All the other women were walking down the road, towards the train station, she supposed. ‘Let’s walk.’

Verena shook her head. ‘Just hail one. You know you can.’

Celia had no idea how to do it. She stared at the traffic, held out her hand, until finally a passing man offered to help her. He flagged one down and handed Verena in.

‘What were you two ladies doing there, if you don’t mind me asking?’

‘Visiting unfortunates,’ said Celia, swiftly. ‘We come from the Church.’

She sat back against the seat, her head flooded with thoughts. To distract herself, she stared out of the window. There seemed to be hundreds of signs demanding men for the army. Another as they halted made it clear that the Ritz Carlton did not employ any waiters of Austrian or German descent.
Check their passports,
someone had scrawled underneath.

‘The minute we get back, we will have to start on the house,’ she said. ‘We will have to find someone to do the ivy.’

Verena nodded, eyes closed. ‘And the spring clean. If only they would give us a proper
date
for when he will come home.’

‘He said three weeks. That’s all we have.’ To reverse months of neglect in three weeks? They would be like dolls on a top, running fast. Celia knew she should feel joy that her father was coming home, but her heart was full of panic. He could not see what they had let Stoneythorpe become. And if he was on his way back because the war was finishing, perhaps Michael would be too. She thought, with crushing shame, what Tom would say if he saw the house as it was now. He loved how Rudolf was always improving it, adding to the building, spending money on it.

‘We have let it get into a sad state, Mama.’

Verena’s eyes were still closed. ‘It will not take us long to tidy it once more. Jennie and Thompson are very capable.’

As they drew close to Waterloo station, the entrance was blocked by a crowd.

‘You might have to descend here, ladies,’ the driver said. ‘I can’t see a way through.’

‘But what are they all doing? Is it some kind of demonstration?’ Verena asked.

‘I’d say it was about the news.’

‘What is it?’ Celia asked. The only news she’d seen was that there was nothing happening on the Western Front.

‘My last passenger told me. It’s only just come through. Hundreds dead at sea, they are saying. He’s a brute, that Kaiser.’

‘What’s happened?’

‘One of our ships full of passengers sunk at sea by the Hun. Mothers and babies, children, the whole lot. Terrible.’ He turned and gazed at them. ‘It was mere fighting before. But now it’s war.’

Verena looked shocked. ‘A passenger ship? There must be some mistake.’

‘Clear as day, ma’am. There will be riots once it is known. Looks
like it’s getting that way already. You ladies should stay away from the Huns in that place. They don’t deserve your mercy.’

‘We will descend now, thank you,’ said Celia, staring at her mother’s face, which was stricken with horror. ‘No need to help us, thank you.’ She jumped down, handed her mother and took her arm, fumbled in her bag for money. ‘Now,’ she whispered, ‘we are going to have to walk through them. We must keep very quiet so we can catch our train. Come.’

Verena gripped her arm tightly. Celia thought of vulture’s claws, then told herself how cruel that was. She held her mother close and they set off through the crowd. People were shouting about how Germans were evil, child-killers. ‘Don’t look at them,’ she hissed. ‘Keep looking forward. Don’t listen.’ She kept her gaze fixed ahead, not looking at the angry faces of the men and women around her, trying to think about how they would arrange the cleaning of the house, which room would be tidied first.

They were almost on the other side when Verena froze. Celia turned and saw her staring into the face of a man. He was youngish, dark – and he was reaching a hand out for her. ‘Who are you, madam?’ he was saying. ‘Are you new to London?’

Verena, glassy-eyed, was mesmerised. ‘Mama!’ Celia hissed. ‘Mama!’ Verena did not turn. Celia seized her hand and pulled her forward. ‘What were you thinking of?’ she spat, panicked, as they reached a clear space in the station.

Verena looked at her dizzily. ‘He seemed familiar.’

‘Would you have told him our name?’ Celia heard the fury in her own words and thought better of it. People would stare. ‘Come on. Let us find the ladies’ waiting room.’ A news boy was putting up a board on the wall next to them:
HUNDREDS DEAD IN THE IRISH SEA.

The ladies’ waiting room was deserted, apart from an old woman crocheting something in pink. Verena gripped Celia’s hand as they walked in.

‘Perhaps we should go to Germany?’ she said. ‘Don’t you think? When Rudolf and Michael come back and the war is over, we should go to live in Berlin.’

Celia sat down. ‘Our lives are here. We aren’t German.’

Verena shook her head. ‘No, I’m decided. That is exactly the right idea. We should go to Germany. We cannot stay here. When Rudolf returns, we will set off. What do you think, Celia, a new life? A fresh start?’

‘Papa loves Stoneythorpe. He loves
England
.’

‘We can find a more beautiful house.’ She looked sideways at the woman, still intent on her work. ‘It is true, Celia. We are not welcome here.’

‘Once England has won the war, that will change.’

Verena sat looking calmly ahead. Celia stared at the woman’s pink crochet. She thought of Hilde and Johann in the Black Forest, great piles of black bread and butter, how she imagined Berlin. Perhaps it would be better there.

In the mercifully empty train carriage on the way home, she thought more about Germany. By the time they had got into the cab to come to Stoneythorpe, she was sure. They should go, at least for a couple of years. They could persuade Emmeline and Michael too.

They drew up in front of the house. Celia jumped down and again handed Verena out. She looked back at the driver and saw him staring. She followed his gaze. There, scrawled across the drive in front of them, in red paint, just as in August, was the word
DROWNED!

Verena turned to her. ‘See, I told you so. I am going to start packing.’

‘But who could be writing these words?’ asked Celia. ‘Twice over. And how did the news get here so fast?’

‘I do not care!’ said Verena. ‘We will not be staying long enough to find out.’

A week later, a letter arrived from the government. Verena and Celia had been in Verena’s room, packing her gowns, when Jennie brought it up to them.

The letter regretted to inform them that Rudolf de Witt had been reassessed and was to be moved from Crystal Palace to
another secure location, where they would be unable to visit. Verena threw it on the floor, burst into tears. ‘I will not believe it,’ she said. ‘I will not!’

A few days later, a letter came from Rudolf himself.
Since the sinking, we are all under suspicion,
he said.
I am told I will not be able to write to you again.

Verena was already in bed once more. The packing, half finished, was still strewn around the room. ‘Read to me,’ she said to Celia, tears running down her cheeks. ‘Read to me.’

Loos, France, September 1915

Forty men were crouched over, sitting on hay bales and planks of wood, talking in low voices as they fiddled with what looked like empty jam tins.

‘Anything I can help you with, sir?’ said a lance corporal, appearing at his side.

‘I just came to look,’ said Michael. ‘What are they doing?’

‘You don’t have any matches on you, do you, sir?’ Michael shook his head, untruthfully. ‘Well, the Krauts have top-hole grenades. We are improvising. We stuff our jam tins with small pieces of metal, hobnails and the rest. One of the men even persuaded the farriers to cut up old horseshoes. Then you put in two pieces of gun cotton, the detonator and the fuse at the other end. Simple.’

‘Ingenious. Very ingenious.’ Michael gazed at them, wishing he could paint their calm, their sense of purpose, looking for all the world like a ladies’ church group knitting quilts for poor children.

‘Quite so. A good soldier can throw one thirty yards, so they are useful when the boys can’t get close enough to shoot into the trenches. We’ll be sending them down to you soon. The only problem is getting them lit when it rains.’ He held one up. ‘Let me show you.’ He brandished a stick. ‘Pretend this is a match.’

Michael stared at the jam tin nestled in the man’s hand. He would have to take it. The man expected him to. He reached out a finger. It shook. The man saw, and in a split second had drawn back his own hand. ‘Let me do it for you, sir. This stick here is a match. You hold the end against the head of the fuse. In one quick go, you strike the edge of the matchbox along the fuse. Then – fast – you have to throw it that very minute.’

‘Very clever indeed. Really very so.’ Michael held out his hand. ‘Would you let me try with your stick?’

The man’s eyes narrowed. ‘Of course, sir. Perhaps outside.’ He moved towards the door, nodding at another man as he passed. Outside, under the sun, two birds pecking at the ground, he held the grenade and matchbox out to Michael. ‘Take it carefully, sir.’ There was fear in his voice.

Michael reached out, took the grenade. It was curiously warm in his palm. He watched it shake in the quiver of his hand, but objectively, as an observer might.
Nervous man lights a grenade.
If it were a picture, that was how it would be. ‘Might I have the stick?’ He took it, then stared at the tiny fuse protruding from the tin. It could have been a stray string on a jumper. He touched the stick to the fuse, watching the man quiver a little as he did so, the smile on his face painfully forced. Then he brought the matchbox down. His hand was shaking so much that he had to cup his palm to keep it from falling. ‘And that is all I need to do?’

The man nodded. ‘Quite. That is all you need to do. I could take it back if you have finished with it, sir.’

‘So it makes it cleaner, this type of thing. No more hand-to-hand?’

‘Quite so, sir. Now, may I take it from you?’

Michael did not give it back. He held it up high, gazed at it. That was all he needed to do: hold a match against it, then the box, hurl it away. In his hand, he had the means to destroy perhaps ten men, more if they had ammunition with them. They would all be dead. He stared at it – then looked at the man. ‘Thank you.’ He passed over the grenade. The man’s face shone with relief. ‘I shall be sure to pass on your lesson to the men. Good day.’

‘Good day, sir,’ said the man, clutching the bomb.

Michael walked away, back straight, knowing he was being watched. He could do it. He could light a grenade and throw it. Easy. After all, a battle was what they were waiting for, wasn’t it? Nearly a year now of nothing but holding the line, repairing the trenches, endlessly cleaning their guns, occasionally going out on investigatory parties. Soon it would be their chance to fight.

*

‘Time for the rum,’ Bilks was saying. ‘That’s it, Andrews, as much as you want.’ The silver flask glittered in the sun as Andrews lifted it. ‘Remember, if we were working down the mines, Mr Lloyd George wouldn’t want us to have it. One perk of the job.’

Bilks was very fond of his rum flask, polished it with his handkerchief with any clean water they managed to find. Michael shook his head when Bilks offered it to him. He didn’t think an officer should. It was for the men. He and Bilks were leaning against the trench together. Michael had received the orders on a wire. They were clear enough, pretty confident. Walk forward, slowly, following the barrage.

He sat back against the sandbags. There was a pause in the shelling and the birds were singing up a storm. They were often even louder after a night of shelling – protesting, Michael supposed. ‘Swallows,’ said Bilks. ‘That’s what they sound like to me. I used to be keen on birds as a boy.’

Michael put his head up and stared across towards the German position, searching for the last group of men to have been sent over, smoke from the shelling blurring the view. ‘I can’t see a thing.’

‘Shouldn’t put your head up like that, sir.’

‘Well, what choice do we have, Bilks?’ He scanned the ground in front of him again. If you shut your eyes and listened, it could have been a farmer’s field once more, echoing to the singing of the birds. A skinny-looking rabbit sprang up nearby, looked around and hopped away.

‘Could do with that for dinner.’

‘Put your head down, Bilks. We don’t need both of us to get killed.’

Around him were twelve men: Weaver, Andrews, Long, Pie, Wood, Mills, Cook, Ebbots, Porter, Brown, Baker and Tiller. Sometimes he looked at the list of his men in front of him and thought: why did no one bear the surname Soldier, or Fighter? Why were they all Cooks or Butchers or Bakers, when all a man could do here was fight? The command through the wires had
been to expect to embark on the German positions at eleven a.m., coffee time at home. At training, they’d said all attacks would happen first thing. He presumed they were trying to catch the Germans unawares.

Long, Pie and Baker were carrying grenades. Michael looked at Baker’s jam tin. ‘You’re sure you know how to light that thing, Baker?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good.’

He put his head up again. The people at home who thought of the Western Front probably imagined it as something very heroic. Instead, just piles of sandbags, looking for all the world like rubbish dumps, scrubby land in between them dotted with dank puddles filled with bullets, guns and debris, and then the mess of wire on sloppy poles, cows bent over it, farm implements caught up. Just along from them were the foundations of a bombed house, a bit of wall around what was once a garden. Last night, on lookout, he had spotted one rose bush still straining upward, barely touched by the fighting. Now he could see nothing at all, just smoke and what might have been hundreds of men.

‘Sir!’ said Bilks. ‘Come down.’

Michael had passed a poor night. It had been impossible to sleep as the barrage came over. And now they were waiting for the signal to go. The men were growing restless, their packs hanging heavy on their backs. Michael supposed they were being held in reserve. They were to advance towards the Germans, take their position, lob in the grenades and move forward to attack. So many others had gone in front that the way would be clear.

‘Why can’t we get started, sir?’ said Pie. ‘The old-timers always have to have first go. There’ll be nothing but cleaning up to do when we get there.’ He was clutching one of his beloved souvenirs, a German army badge he had stolen from a body at the field hospital.

‘We must accomplish any duty bravely,’ Michael said, knowing he sounded stiff.

He had scanned their letters before they set off. Wood, Baker
and Andrews had told their sweethearts about the next push, so those he held back. Most of the letters were straightforward enough, but Andrews’ he hated reading. The man was always fretting about whether his girl, a mill worker called Betty, was off with an old flame who worked at the docks. He’d almost cried on Baker’s shoulder when the last lot of leave was cancelled – as leaves usually were – because they needed every man.

‘Still no word, sir.’ Bilks shrugged. ‘All right, men, you know the drill. Keep going forward. And don’t stop if a man falls down. The stretcher-bearers will come for him. Walk, always walk. Now, have you all got your gas helmets?’ They nodded. ‘Remember the orders. Keep them close.’ They were horrible hoods that made them look like khaki ghosts, soaked in disgusting stuff. He could never see out of the tiny window, dreaded the day when they’d have to go over the top with them on.

Michael guessed their packs must weigh about sixty pounds. Back home, he supposed, people imagined a platoon as a group of swift-moving men, not a cluster of little turtles stumbling over the grass carrying sandbags, water bottle, mess tin, rations, ground sheet, ammunition, cardigan, rifle – and knife and fork. He often wondered about that one: why did they need a knife and fork? They could eat biscuit and bully beef with their hands. But then if they did, that would make them savages, he supposed. Here they were, Kitchener’s army, out in France earlier than most of the others, following behind the regular army, barely thought able to do the job. When they had first arrived, the BEF laughed at them, told them to get back to the farm, hissed and thrown bottles. They were still here, though. The proper army went forth and they followed, cleaning up.

He heard the shrill of whistles and shouts as other men went over the top. He stood, leaning his back against the cold earth of the trench, told himself not to cry out.

‘That’s it,’ said Bilks, as the whistle blew down the line. ‘Here we go!’ They clambered out of the trenches as best they could. Baker propped himself up on a ladder. Then they began walking forward.

‘Not too fast, Baker!’ shouted Michael, for the man was moving ahead. He had expected a barrage of firing, but there was little. Instead, their way was blocked by the bodies of men already fallen, and the wounded trying to crawl into the shell holes. ‘Come forward!’ he shouted. ‘Keep going.’ A leg was in front of him. Where was the rest of the body? How could he continue?

The sky flashed and the shattering light of artillery shells exploded. ‘Move forward if you can.’ Bilks shouted it again. ‘You’ll be safer once we get to the German trenches.’
Don’t stop.
There was an animal screaming somewhere, Michael thought, a cow, probably. The gunfire strafed over their head. He could hear a whizz-bang shooting above, landing somewhere behind them. Screams rose behind him. Bilks was next to him. ‘Throw off your pack, Bilks,’ he said. ‘We’re targets.’ The smoke was so thick he could barely see.

They advanced to the wire. Michael looked ahead and there were dead men hanging from it. It had not been cut. The shells had been on target, but they had just covered the thing with mud. It was impossible even to make out the trench. ‘Take cover!’ he ordered. Bilks shouted it behind him. He dived for a shell hole, shallow. The ground was soft under him as he lay, eyes closed, waiting for the machine-gun fire over his head. After a while, he reached down and touched flesh. He was lying prone over another man’s body, the pair of them in a cross shape, his stomach on the other man’s. He groaned, dipped his face into the dirt. Then he felt a soft wetness spreading over the front of his jacket. He knew what it was: the man’s stomach had burst, either side of his webbing. Oh God. What the hell were they going to do? Walk into the wire and try to climb over it? Impossible. No orders came. He presumed the commander was dead.

‘Sir.’ He heard Bilks’s voice. ‘The men need orders, sir.’

Michael watched another shell hit the wire in front of them, sending the soil around it exploding into the sky, pitching a body into the air. He felt the warmth of the man’s stomach spread over his jacket. It was hopeless.

‘Retreat,’ he said. ‘Tell them to retreat.’

‘What?’

‘You heard me. Tell them to keep their grenades, just in case they need them.’

‘Retreat!’ shouted Bilks, loud enough that the Germans in the trenches could have heard. ‘Back, every man. Go low, keep cover. Don’t leave your grenades, retain.’

Michael fell back into the hole. One minute, he told himself. He would wait there for one minute, then emerge with the men. Bilks would take them forward and he would join them. The sounds passed over him. He put his hands on his forehead. Stoneythorpe came into his mind, Celia walking towards him, smiling.

A barrage of artillery and rifle fire exploded above him. Michael looked up, and realised that Bilks had gone. He could not say how much time had passed: five minutes, fifteen, an hour? He crawled forward. A hand seized his arm. ‘Please.’ It was a tiny private, no more than sixteen, surely, his face half blown away. ‘Help me!’ He could barely speak, only whisper.

Michael propped his head up and looked back. The young man had lost a leg by the look of it. His uniform was a bloody mess. ‘I can’t …’ Michael began. And then he hated himself for it. ‘Come on, then. Quickly.’ There wasn’t time to look for the leg either. He hauled the boy up on to his back, ignoring his moans, and began to crawl across no-man’s-land. ‘We’ll get there,’ he mumbled. ‘Don’t worry.’ The gunfire continued overhead. The boy screamed as a shell landed nearby. ‘Don’t worry,’ Michael repeated. ‘I’ll get you back. What’s your name?’

‘Glass, sir.’

‘Where are you from, Private Glass?’

‘Devon.’ One of the soft ones, that was what they said. The toughest soldiers were from the hardest cities: Newcastle, Manchester, and London’s East End.

‘Nice beaches there?’

‘Very.’

‘Think of those, won’t you?’ They crawled forward through the fog. Another bomb landed. Glass groaned and bucked on his back. ‘Stop that,’ shouted Michael over the gunfire. ‘You’re not
making it any easier.’ He caught a stone with his leg and realised his knees were swollen with pain. Glass was slipping to one side. ‘Hold on,’ he said. Then he had a better idea. He got the man’s belt and tied it around his hands, then looped them over his neck. He hauled the string from his pocket and lashed it around him, Glass on to him. The man was only groaning now, a low, hopeless sound. ‘Not long now,’ said Michael, trying to sound cheerful, and ducked down back on to the muddy ground.