A Song in the Night (69 page)

Rosie had only half heard him. She was still thinking back to her day out with Beth.

“
Chant – du – Rossignol …
“ Ciaran began, his pronunciation awkward. “This looks like Bethy’s writing.”

Rosie looked up. “What did you say?”

Ciaran was holding a wedge of manuscript sheets in his hand. “It’s a piece of music –
‘Chant du Rossignol’
or something. But it looks like Beth’s handwriting to me.”

Rosie straightened. “It
is
Beth’s handwriting! I wondered where
that
had got to. She was composing it for
you,
Kitch. She told me about it a while back. It was meant to be a surprise for you, but I guess she died before she ever finished it.” Rosie looked over at the shabby little case from the bookshop. “Did Beth ever show you the soldier’s diary she found – written by a guy in the First World War – Sam his name was? Well, seems he put together this little tune too.
‘Chant du Rossignol – Song of the Nightingale’
. He had a bit of a thing about nightingales – nicknamed them all Rosie, would you believe?” She gave Ciaran a moment to comment on the coincidence but soon realised she probably wasn’t making much sense. “Anyway, Beth took a liking to the tune. Felt she could do something with it. Said she was gonna work on it, y’know, fill it out a bit. She wanted to give it to you as something to remember her by.” Noticing her brother’s face, she broke off. He was staring forlornly down at the manuscript in his hand. She leaned over and touched his shoulder. “Maybe you’ve done enough for today. Let me tidy this stuff away for now, eh? We can tackle a bit more some other time.”

Ciaran nodded, still staring down at the papers in his hand. Pulling together the pile of music sheets from the bed, Rosie went to put them back into the case. Her eyes were momentarily drawn to an old newspaper lining the bottom of it. In a moment of curiosity, she lifted it out to take a look. But the newspaper was instantly forgotten the second she saw the array of objects hidden underneath it. Especially one of them. She gave a low whistle as she reached in and took out an old brass tin.
‘Christmas 1914’
read the inscription on its lid. Rosie had never seen it before, yet she recognised it immediately. She hurriedly replaced the music scores and shut the case. After tidying away the other stray items in the room, she made a tentative request. “Mind if I take this tin to have a look at, Kitch?”

At that moment Ciaran was in a world of his own. Then he looked up and gave her a weak smile. “She did this for me, you say? Bless her … she never mentioned a word of it.”

“Like I said,” Rosie began softly, “it was supposed to be a surprise. She was intending to give it to you herself, but in the end everything happened so suddenly.”

Ciaran got up and walked towards his keyboard. “I’ll give it a go on here. But there are quite a few parts to it, Ros. Wonder how she managed to do all this without me twigging.”

Rosie held out the tin again. “Before I leave you to practise, could I take this to have a look at?”

But Ciaran was miles away. Without even looking up, he gave an affirmative gesture and started to hum his way through the notes. Clasping the tin gratefully, Rosie left the room.

It was clear the tin had been through hard times. The brass was dull and tarnished but, despite a few dints here and there, Rosie could still make out the embossed words on its lid – and the profile of a woman’s face.
Princess Mary no doubt,
she mused as she eased it open.
Now inside here, if I’m not mistaken, there should be …

And there it was. A small, black New Testament, inscribed with gold lettering. The one from which Sam had read scriptures to the dying Welshman. She pulled gently at its top cover in an attempt to remove it from the tin. But as she worked it loose from its position, her eyes fell on something else sandwiched beneath it.

____________

Come on – pick up!
Rosie drummed her fingers agitatedly on her mobile as it started to ring out. After a few moments Jonathon’s voice sounded at the other end.

“Hello …
Rosie?
”

“Hi, where are you?”

“I’ve just arrived up at the churchyard. Thought I’d do a spot of tidying up while the weather’s good. Are you okay, Rosie? You sound a bit flustered.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Look – have you started work yet?” She was struggling to contain the urgency she felt.

“No. Like I said, I only just got here.”

“Good, then hang on. I’ll be up there in a few minutes. You’re not gonna believe what I’ve found … .”

Without another word, she clicked off her phone. Ten minutes later she arrived at the churchyard to find Jonathon sitting on the bench waiting for her. His head was tilted back and his eyes were closed as he faced towards the sun. Rosie couldn’t help noticing how brown his arms looked against the white of his tee shirt, or how his fair hair was now streaked with flashes of pale blond.
Some folk would pay a fortune for highlights like that,
she thought ruefully, trying to ignore the effect he had on her. She coughed to signal her arrival.

“Hi Rosie. So what’s all this about then? I’ve been racking my brains trying to come up with ideas. You sure know how to leave a guy in suspense.”

Rosie flopped onto the bench and smiled mysteriously. Putting a hand into her bag, she pulled out the tin and waited for Jonathon’s reaction. For a split second nothing registered. Then a look of recognition dawned on his face. He reached out and took it from her. “
Sam’s tin …!
Where on earth did you find this?”

“It was in the bottom of the old case the bookshop man gave Beth – d’you remember me telling you about it? That was where Beth first found the diary. She never mentioned the tin though. Guess she can’t have realised what it was. She must have brought the case up when she came to Yorkshire. I’ve just been in Ciaran’s room helping him go through some of her stuff, and suddenly there it was – with Sam’s tin hidden away at the bottom under an old newspaper.” She looked down at the tin lying in Jonathon’s hands. “
Someone
was determined to keep it safe. I very nearly missed it.”

Jonathon opened the lid. “Hey, the Welshman’s New Testament too!”

Rosie smiled. “Yeah. But that’s not all. Take a look at this.” She reached into her bag again and pulled out a letter. “This was in the bottom of the tin – squashed under the Bible. Talk about a tight fit.”

Jonathon took the letter from her. It was not in an envelope and was written on several thin sheets of paper which had been folded in half, then in half again. Both sides of each page had been used, and judging from the severity of the fold marks, it was clear that the document had been compressed in its hiding place for some considerable time. Rosie nudged him. “Go on, read it. I already have.”

Carefully smoothing out the pages, Jonathon looked down at the tiny pencilled writing.

Royal United Hospital, Bath, September 14th 1917

My dearest Em, at last my war is over. I find myself here in England, and never has our land looked more beautiful to me. I’ve been told that I cannot return to the fighting. I’ve been shot up quite badly, and though I shall recover in time, the doctor tells me that I’ll always walk with a slight limp. But I’m not going to complain about such a small thing. I’ve kept all my limbs, which is more than can be said for so, so many. I can still hardly believe that I’m alive. That I’m here, in our beloved England, surrounded by English sights and sounds, quieted by soothing English voices. Knowing that I’m safe, in one piece … that I never have to go back to the line again. I can only hope and pray that for the sake of those still out there – for you especially, my dearest, bravest girl – this war will end soon.

There’s something I need to tell you, Emily. At the moment I find myself separated from my diary. It’s still in my bag, wherever that may be. But I’ve been heavily impressed to commit to paper an account of something that happened to me a month ago, during the early morning hours of August 17th.

On the night of August 16th, we were preparing to make an attack on Glencorse Wood. I think, if truth were told, most of us were sick with fear at the prospect. The reports we’d heard about recent attempts to capture the place were dismal. Though estimated casualty figures varied, the general story was the same. The Germans had got the place well and truly covered, and it seemed there was little chance that any of us would get out alive.

It’s a strange feeling, Em, to be so utterly trapped in a thing. To know you have no choice but to go forward; to know that in going forward you will probably never make it back. In reality that’s been the situation all the time we’ve been out here, but somehow it really came home to me that night. I felt quite depressed about it all. Of course Boxer, being Boxer, noticed my unhappy state. We fell into a little chat and he began to remind me of some of the things he’d told me in the many times we’d talked before. As he spoke, I found myself wishing I could have just a little more time. I knew deep down that I wasn’t ready to die, not in the way Jimmy had been. I sensed something wasn’t right, and it troubled me. But the night hours marched on with no regard for my disquiet, and I couldn’t shake off the feeling that each one that passed was bringing me closer to my end.

As the time for jump off drew closer, I remember suddenly hearing a nightingale begin to sing. It seemed strange to hear one so late in the year. I wondered if perhaps she was singing to comfort us. Did she know our fate even more surely than we did? Was she singing our requiem? I shared my forebodings with Boxer. He made some characteristically calm reply. How I found myself wishing I could be more like him.

At dawn the first wave of infantry went over. We were in the second wave and were due to follow on shortly afterwards. Just before we went, Boxer clapped a hand on my shoulder and said a prayer for me. We left from Jargon Trench (if indeed you could call it a trench) and as soon as I saw the scene ahead, it seemed to me that we were running straight into the jaws of hell. Up in front we could see men dropping down everywhere – just dropping like little birds from the sky. I confess I felt sick with fear, but my legs kept moving, albeit with difficulty. Parts of the ground were so cloggy with mud it was impossible to go at any speed. The noise was absolutely terrible. We were being shelled, bombed, machine-gunned; they were throwing everything they had at us. Though our gunners were hitting back, I for one had all on to keep my nerve as we headed into the carnage. At one point I remember Boxer shouting to me to keep to his left. Not understanding his instruction, I complied without further thought. Shortly afterwards, however, I understood the reason for it. Just ahead of us I saw four men go down, one after the other, and it was then that I realised they’d been shot at from some position towards our right. I knew in that moment that we were the next targets in line and that Boxer was trying to shield me. Despite the deafening noise and the terror of the situation, I suddenly found myself praying. As I remember, it wasn’t the most eloquent of prayers, Em. I just cried out to God and begged him to spare us …

The next thing I recall was seeing Boxer fall to the ground. He called out to me, but just as he did, I took a hit myself and then I was on the ground too. As I lay there, I struggled to turn so that I could look over at him. I could see he was trying to tell me something, but when I saw the blood coming out of his mouth I knew he was done for. Then a terrible pain began to grip at my hip and thigh. It grew so intense that I thought I would pass out from the agony of it. But no such relief came. I lay staring across at Boxer, wondering how long it would take for death to claim me too. Boxer was quite still now, his eyes open but vacant, a bright stream of blood oozing from his mouth. ‘Oh God,’ I found myself saying, ‘it’s all over. Boxer’s dead and I am dying. How I wish you could have been that Field Marshal he spoke of. But it’s all over now. It’s all over … .’

I have never felt despair like I felt in that moment. A terrible darkness seemed to clutch at my soul and I began to weep. Was this the beginning of death? Or was I slipping half-dead into hell? I hardly knew. But all around me I could hear the whistle of steel and the screams of men, and I knew that hell could not be much different.

How long I lay like that I cannot say. I tried to close my eyes to lessen the pain, but somehow that made the thing more fearful. As the minutes crawled past, my agonies grew worse, and though my heart was terrified to die, I knew I had reached the limits of my endurance. Even as I sensed my own life ebbing away, my ears were filled with the groans of my dying comrades. It was more than I could bear. Feeling totally without hope, I began to pray for God to take me.

Though the daylight had taken hold now, the sky was still thick with smoke from the firing. From my position on the ground I tried to look around me. It was then that I perceived two figures emerging out of the grey haze. They looked like stretcher bearers but had no stretcher with them, and they seemed to proceed across the boggy terrain with little trouble. At first they appeared to be advancing in my direction. But as they got nearer, I realised that they were not coming towards me but towards Boxer. When they reached him, one of the men bent down and picked him up in his arms as though he weighed no more than a feather. Then, without further ado, they began to walk away. A sudden desperation gripped me. Surely if they could rescue Boxer they could rescue me? Perhaps they hadn’t noticed me. I cried out after them but my voice seemed to make little impression on the terrible noise all around. My anguish grew. More desperately I cried out again. It was then that the second man turned and looked at me. He was not the man carrying Boxer, you understand, but the other fellow. He looked at me with the most piercing eyes I’ve ever seen. ‘Please …’ I begged him, ‘please help me.’ But he shook his head. ‘It is not your time,’ he said. And then he reached down and touched my forehead.

Emily, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to describe the feeling that went through my body in that moment. A lightning bolt could not have hit me with more force. At once my blood was set on fire. Yet, with each pulsation of my heart, I felt its heat begin to cool my wounds until I could almost forget my pain. Not understanding, I lifted my head to glance at the man once more, but he had turned to leave and did not look at me again. I watched as they began to walk away – the first man carrying Boxer in his arms, the second treading slowly behind him. I did not take my eyes off them until they disappeared from sight, and then I lay there for some time, still staring in that direction, wondering what on earth to make of it all. After a long while I tried to turn my head again. But when I looked towards the spot where Boxer had been lying, I was shocked. His body was still there. Immediately I noticed his eyes. They were closed now and on his face I saw the faintest smile. My own forehead was still burning from the stranger’s touch and still the blood in my veins made my limbs tingle.