The Storms of War (46 page)

Only a month later, and Stoneythorpe was quite changed. Nearly all the soldiers had gone home or to other hospitals; just a few remained, the cases that Matron said could not be moved, the few she had a soft spot for, who, she said, were gentle boys not suited to hospitals in town. The dining room was theirs once more. Celia decked it with garlands of ivy and holly brought in by Jennie from the village, Emmeline standing at the bottom of the ladder, ordering her to put it higher and arrange it better.

They were planning a big Christmas party for the men remaining. Rudolf had even pondered inviting the village, but Verena shook her head and told him the idea was impossible. Perhaps, she said, perhaps in the future they might consider it. Once real life began again. Celia had shivered with shame, for she agreed with her mother; even though the war was over, the village still wouldn’t come.

When Celia woke – late, like the daughter of the house rather than a nurse – she walked down into the hall and smelt baking. Mrs Rolls and Beryl, the new kitchen maid, were making mince pies in the kitchen. There wasn’t enough sugar or butter or fruit for a Christmas cake, so they were having a kind of Victoria sponge, made with a ground-down sort of flour. Celia felt almost faint at the thought of it. She hadn’t eaten cake since she had had tea with Jonathan, and then she had been so hungry that she had wolfed it down too quickly; probably bread and cheese would have done as well. This cake, she vowed, she would really enjoy.

By mid-afternoon, she was caught up in the bustle of it all, carrying the plates of food upstairs and setting out the decorations as her mother instructed. It would be their first proper Christmas since the dreadful one in 1914. The year after, it had been an
empty day, when Verena had risen for an hour and they’d sat in the parlour together, unable to think of anything to say, Verena declining to play snap. They had spent the Christmas of 1916 together at Stoneythorpe, a week after Michael’s funeral. Mr Janus had talked a lot of how he didn’t celebrate Christmas because he thought it an instrument of repression of the poor, and that had been welcome to Celia, for she had been moving through a long, dark tunnel after Michael and could not see how she could ever escape it. The next year had been jollier: she had travelled up from Stoneythorpe to spend the day with Emmeline, and Jemima had come round with three pies, and a bar of chocolate given to her by a grateful soldier in her ward. Jemima had refused to listen to Mr Janus, and had sung ‘Hark the Herald Angels’ so loudly that the people in the flat downstairs banged on the ceiling. She had told Celia that 1918 would be quite different, that the new year would see a new world of peace.

Tom had been wrong. It didn’t seem as if the war was coming back at all. The Germans had kept to the treaty and the soldiers had started to return home. Celia thought of them, thousands of them, living together, sleeping in the same holes, protecting each other, dragging each other through the mud. And now they were separated, thrown back into the world, sent back to live different lives, alone, isolated. She couldn’t imagine seeing Warterton, Fitz or the rest again, what they might talk of other than old times, and you weren’t supposed to talk of those any more.
Look to the future,
that was what the newspapers exhorted.
We need to begin again and forget.
She imagined the last soldiers left out there in France, coming back over the mud, past the abandoned tanks and guns, staring at the places where they had once fought – which now had to reflower, grow houses, trees, people again, the spots where a hundred men had fallen becoming a vegetable patch, a children’s playhouse, the site of a home.

She told herself it was her own fault, not the war’s, that her thoughts were so out of place. The newspapers and magazines were telling everyone how to celebrate: deck all the rooms with pictures of the King and General Haig and hang curtains to celebrate red,
white and blue. There were patterns to show the children how to make St George and the dragon out of newspaper. Celia stared at the recommendations. When she’d thought of peace it had been all about things going back to how they were. She could not have imagined that they might not change back, that London would still be bombed and men still blinded or lamed, the things they had put up with because of war still remaining.

By early afternoon, the table was laid. Captain Campbell was practising on the piano and everyone was ready. Tom was out in the garden, directing two soldiers digging up the statues and ornaments. She went out to join him. She padded over the frozen ground and towards the bent figures. Tom waved at her, and she smiled back.

Since that night after the end of the war, they hadn’t come out to the rose garden together. He had avoided her, she admitted to herself sadly. He was always polite to her, friendly even – but he didn’t want to talk to her, tell her anything, not any more. He rested, walked, read like all the other patients, seemed more eager to talk to Lloyd than her.

Mrs Cotton and Mary came to visit most days, and Celia avoided them. When Matron asked if she could escort them to Tom’s bed, she said she was indisposed. That wasn’t always far from the truth. She found herself feeling tired and unwell, a little weak. She told herself it was low spirits, a heartsickness that she knew many others were suffering after the war.

At six o’clock, Thompson lit the candles and Mrs Rolls brought up the last of the food. Captain Campbell sat down at the piano. Thompson passed round glasses and then came around with wine, and Rudolf stood up. Celia remembered his habit of speaking for hours in the old days, waited.

‘Merry Christmas!’ he said, his voice low and wavering. ‘To a new year, 1919!’

They held up their glasses. ‘To 1919!’ Their voices all sounded so sincere. Celia felt ashamed of her doubts.

By eight o’clock, she was dancing in the arms of a patient called Peter, who had only just learned to walk again. Emmeline was
swaying with Mr Janus. The whole hall was waltzing: Mrs Rolls and Sarah danced together, Thompson whirled Jennie. Rudolf and Verena stood by the side, smiling. ‘It is my birthday ball,’ Celia said to the soldier. ‘I am having my birthday ball after all.’

‘What?’ he said. ‘Sorry, miss, I can’t hear much. Bomb at Ypres.’

‘Nothing!’ she shouted back.

He whirled her around. They stopped to catch their breath. She laughed, just because she could. A voice behind her. ‘May I?’ She looked up, and it was Tom. ‘May I have this dance?’

‘Of course!’ She flushed red.

He put his arm on her back and they began to dance. She felt his hand through her dress, struggled to force her feet to follow his. She glanced away, too shy to look into his eyes. ‘Tom,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry about Papa.’

‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘Let’s not talk about it. Not today.’ He gave her an expert turn around a nurse dancing with a soldier.

I love you,
she wanted to say.
I don’t care about any of it.
Instead she said, ‘The war is definitely over.’ He smiled and held her closer.

The door slammed open. Captain Campbell stopped playing, and they all turned. A tall, dark-haired man stood there. He wore a smart suit and carried a black and silver stick. He looked astounded by the scene in front of him.

‘Arthur!’ Emmeline screamed. She ran across the room to him, threw herself into his arms. Celia stared. It was him – taller, more handsome, richer. Arthur.

‘Good evening, everybody,’ he said, his voice as loud and commanding as ever. ‘How’s tricks? Just back from Paris and I thought I would drop in.’

‘You’ve been away for so long,’ Emmeline said.

He laughed. ‘Doesn’t look like too much has changed. Even the old piano is still in decent nick.’

Verena was crying.

‘Don’t be sad, Ma. I am back now. And’ – he turned to the pianist – ‘I don’t wish to stop the party. Carry on, dear fellow. I will dance with my beautiful sister here. Even if she is – as I see – a married lady.’

Captain Campbell lifted his hands, not quite sure what was going on, looking at the family for confirmation. ‘Please go ahead, Captain,’ said Rudolf across the hall. Campbell swooped down on the keys and began playing once more. Arthur whirled Emmeline around, her skirt flying out, and all the other couples began to follow suit. Tom let go of Celia, and another man, Captain Wood, took her solemnly in his good arm.

‘It is my birthday ball,’ she said again.

Captain Campbell pounded out ‘Shine on Harvest Moon’ and they all danced on. Behind them, the door drifted open, letting in splashes of light from the lamps in the hall. Celia smiled at Wood, the dancing partner she barely knew. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Tom, standing there, watching.

December 1916

Tom pushed his rifle up into the mud. He could not see a thing through the early-morning mist. If he heard a command to shoot, he would not have the faintest idea what at. The men either side of him were looking ahead, although God knew at what. It was his bet that there was no one there. After all, that was what they had told them in the first place. Entirely deserted of Germans, even the trenches. And then they had gone into that trench and the story had been different. After four days of having turpentine rubbed on his chest for the gas, here he was, back at the empty front line, with a group of men he didn’t know. Michael was still in the field hospital, he supposed. He’d asked to visit him, but they’d told him it wasn’t allowed. He’d see him soon, he hoped. They couldn’t send them to different battalions now.

He had a new gun, one he didn’t much like. He rather missed his old one. He had looked after it for two years, after all, spent more time on it than on himself – although admittedly, keeping a rifle clean and dry was easier than doing the same for a man. Guns didn’t get trench foot, that was for sure. He had laid out the ammunition, polished it on a groundsheet, taken up the grease and rubbed it over the whole thing, getting right into the cracks. Then bayonet ready at his waist, one cartridge in the chamber, cocked, safety catch on, ready to go over. He had decided his was a lucky gun. It seemed to have kept him safe until now. Secretly, not telling anyone, he called it Celia – sometimes Cordelia if he thought anyone might hear. Some German had the thing now, probably kept as a souvenir, or passed to HQ as a sort of curiosity, and he had this new gun, which he supposed had been the possession of
some poor devil who’d died. It really wasn’t up to the standard of Celia; you could tell the chap who’d had it hadn’t looked after it very well. Perhaps that was why he’d been killed.

‘Cotton!’ An officer was standing above him. ‘You’re needed.’

Tom wrinkled his brow. ‘I was told to wait here, sir.’

‘Yes, but now we need men. Orders from HQ. Quick smart.’

Tom nodded and scrambled up out of the trench.

‘What is it, sir, another raiding party?’

‘Come along with me, Cotton.’ The officer ushered him forward. A group of fifteen or so men were waiting by a barn. ‘Right, chaps, we need riflemen. You all have your guns?’ They nodded. It was a rhetorical question, really; of course they would have their weapons, or they would be court-martialled. They trotted after him down a path, through some farmland, until they came to a large field flanked by hay barns.

‘There’s been a German spy found out here in our uniform, chaps,’ said the officer. ‘Awful thing. Very clever man, English so perfect you’d think him one of ours. He stole a lot of secrets, passed them back to the enemy. We think he gave information about our plans for the Somme, resulted in many casualties on our side.’

There was an intake of breath. The officer continued, telling them about the horrors the men had undergone. Tom watched him speak. Cutting the wire, he thought; you could have done that and you didn’t. The Germans didn’t need to pass on intelligence.

The officer commanded them to arrange themselves in a line, fiddled them backwards and forwards until he was happy. He shifted their feet around with his hands.

‘Now, check your guns for ammunition. All set?’

‘Yes, sir,’ they chorused.

‘When the spy comes out, he will stand in front of you.’ The officer stepped to the side of the spot he’d indicated, too superstitious to stand there, Tom supposed.

One of the barn doors opened and a figure came out wearing a British uniform, a brown sack over his head. Two military policemen held his arms. He was stumbling, staggering against them.
Tom felt a painful pity. Surely this was hardly fair, fifteen of them against one. The chap next to him was trembling, he could feel it. He wanted to put out his hand to him, but didn’t dare.

The man came closer. An X was painted on a white handkerchief stuck to his chest. He was crying, a muffled, pleading cry that Tom couldn’t bear. He’d spent two years listening to grown men cry, of course, weeping into their pillows, calling for their mothers. But nothing like this: a hopeless cry, like a dog begging to die.

‘Guns raised,’ called the officer. He stepped back as the military policemen pushed the man into place. Tom raised his gun. He would shoot the other way, he vowed, past the prisoner. The officer was too close for him to fire at the floor. If he shot at the man’s foot, would that only be worse, prolong the agony?

A bird sang as it flew overhead. Tom wanted to pull it down, gather it to him and say:
Why can’t we stop?
It soared on.

The military policemen lifted the sack from the man’s head. Tom noticed first that he was wearing a gag – that was why his cry had sounded so odd – and a blindfold. Then he saw the rest of the face and knew.

‘Sir,’ he said desperately, turning, grasping the officer’s jacket. ‘Sir, that’s not a spy. He’s English. That’s my corporal.’

‘Ready!’ shouted the officer. The military policemen were adjusting the positioning of the second handkerchief, the blindfold, marking the man’s forehead with an X like his heart.

Michael stood there, knees wobbling, tears pouring from under his blindfold. He was hiccupping, shaking, with his hands tied behind his back.

The officer brushed Tom off, like a fly.

‘Raised!’

‘Sir, we can’t.’ He tugged hard on the man’s jacket. ‘We
can’t.’

The officer’s face was blazing with fury. ‘Stop this, Cotton!’ He lowered his voice. ‘He wouldn’t lead his men over, like a weakling.’

‘He was ill.’ Tom’s mind flashed with the sickness and horror he had felt when Michael had told him in the trench that Rudolf was in prison. He had kicked the wood in fury, knowing that Michael
was looking at him in confusion, not caring, wanting to say, there and then,
You don’t understand. I’m more like you than you think!

‘Cotton, he is a coward. Now if you won’t do it, we’ll find men who will. Think what you’re doing to those around you. They think they’re executing a spy. How will they feel if they hear this?’

Tom hung his head. He could hear Michael crying.

‘Do you want to be shot next?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Well get back in line, raise your gun and fire.’

Tom nodded, shuffled back to his place. The nervous man next to him glanced at him. One further along the line was staring at him, angry at him for delaying things.

Michael was trembling, his shoulders wobbling. ‘Keep still, prisoner!’ called one of the policemen. Tom prayed, desperately that Michael hadn’t heard his voice.
Oh God.

‘Prepare!’

Another bird careened overhead. Could something happen, anything that might stop it? General Haig or the King appearing and demanding they stand to attention? A wild horse running through them? Tom held his gun, his fingers shaking.

The command came. Tom squeezed the trigger, pulled back, fired.