Keepsake (40 page)

‘William, please do be still!’ Crossly, Etta interrupted her conversation to shove him from her lap, rubbing at her shin.

‘I’m sorry, Mother, my shoes are biting me.’

She conceded with a sigh that they did need replacing. She and Aggie then conspired to involve themselves in some
juggling, Celia’s shoes being passed to Edward, the latter’s to his younger sister, who gave hers to William. But it was still painfully evident that their mother would have to buy at least one pair and she sighed again – more of her precious funds gone astray. ‘Well, Celia, it seems you are to be the lucky recipient.’

Alexandra was unimpressed. ‘But she had the postcard! I need new ones too.’

‘You’d
like
new ones, but those still have plenty of room in them,’ reproved her mother.

‘It’s not fair! Celia always gets –’

‘No!’ Turning to her eldest daughter, Etta said briskly, ‘Come along then, we shall go to town before it gets too busy.’

In the hope of some small treat the others begged for inclusion. Their grandmother invited Etta to leave them with her.

‘I see little enough of them as it is,’ replied Etta. ‘They can carry the shopping and make themselves useful.’ First, she made herself useful by taking the breakfast pots to wash, though Aggie knew from experience that these would have to be re-done to remove all the stuck-on crumbs that Etta, in her careless fashion, left on them. Everything about Etta was surface deep; everything except her love for Marty. Bearing witness to the girl’s suffering all these months, Aggie had come to recognise that now.

‘Can you fetch me a length of braid to fancy-up that dress stuff I bought?’

‘Yes, it is a bit cottony, isn’t it,’ denounced Etta.

Aggie darted a sharp look at her daughter-in-law, saw that she was teasing over a recent remark by Joan, and elbowed her laughingly as she leapt up to fetch payment. ‘To hell with your cheek!’

Etta laughed back, indulging the fondness that had sprung up between the pair of them of late. ‘Oh, don’t bother about cash, it’ll only be a few pence.’

‘That’s my reason for wanting it, so’s to get rid of this blasted ten bob note thing that the ould fella drew in his pension and fetch me some proper money.’ Aggie used forefinger and thumb to brandish the new red banknote with a look of distaste.

Sharing another chuckle with her mother-in-law, Etta took the note and went off into town with her children, feeling much happier now that Marty had replied, however brief his words. The town centre was reached in five minutes. There they set about comparing the price and style of children’s shoes in each window, a sluggish sun finally emerging through a blanket of cloud and drawing forth the scent of horse dung and motor oil from the busy granite setts. Uplifted to know that Father was well, they chattered all the while, Etta occasionally laughing at some childish joke, between muttering at the expense of such small shoes and moving on to the next window.

William sought to help. ‘You can have some of my money if you like, Mother.’

His siblings brayed with laughter, but his mother bestowed a fond smile. ‘Why, you are a generous boy.’

‘I must have quite a sum in my moneybox now.’

Etta raised an eyebrow at this news. ‘You have a moneybox?’

‘Yes, I keep it at Granny’s under the stairs where no robbers can find it. It’s very clever, you drop your coin through a slot then twist a knob and it falls in.’ Then he frowned. ‘I’m not sure how you get the money out again, Granny only showed me how to put it in.’

‘Yes, I’ll bet she did,’ muttered Etta, half-annoyed, half-amused as she realised he meant the gas meter.

She was still shaking her head and sighing over Aggie’s deception when she rounded a corner and came face to face with her mother.

There was no diplomatic means of escape for Isabella, who looked in turns anguished and aloof as she remained
stock-still before her daughter. Etta, too, was unnerved, trying to decipher the expression in her mother’s eyes as the latter struggled to decide whether to stop or to go. It had been ten years since either had set eyes on the other. What did one say?

Though obviously stunned, Isabella was first to recover her voice, offering a polite, ‘Good morning. What a coincidence, I’m only in York overnight…’ With those few stilted words a decision seemed to have been made, Isabella gesturing with a gloved hand to the female servant who carried her parcels and ordering civilly, ‘Run along, Susan, and I shall meet you at the hotel.’ Not until the maid had safely gone did she continue the awkward conversation with her daughter. ‘I almost didn’t recognise you, Henrietta.’

‘Hardly surprising.’

Isabella flinched. ‘You look…well.’

‘As well as anyone, with this terrible business.’ Though Etta’s eyes were levelled dispassionately at the other, her heart thumped as she was plunged back to childhood.

Isabella smiled in woeful agreement, and left the next words to her daughter.

‘I expect John…?’

‘Yes,’ said Isabella quickly, ‘your brother is already in France. A captain in the East Yorkshire Regiment. We’re very proud…’ Realising the implication of these words she allowed her voice to trail away.

Etta nodded, watching her mother struggle to maintain the dialogue, unable and unwilling to help her, the pair of them standing there blocking the pavement whilst irritated shoppers milled around them. The once dark hair at Mrs Ibbetson’s temples was now streaked with grey, and, though still a handsome woman, she looked frailer than her daughter remembered.

Without Marty given so much as a mention, the two women briefly discussed the war, though only in terms of the latest newspaper reports and how long it would last.

The children soon grew bored, Celia twanging the elastic of her little sister’s hat, snapping it against her chin and making her cry, at which point Etta looked down testily and shushed them.

‘Where are your manners? Mother’s speaking.’ Since living with Aggie they had become quite harum-scarum.

Isabella too looked down at her daughter’s companions, apparently noticing them for the first time, though in fact she had been darting unconscious little glances at them throughout the conversation. ‘And these are your children?’

‘Yes, your grandchildren.’ There was a defiant edge to Etta’s reply as she mopped Alexandra’s eyes. Taking little enjoyment from the look of guilt she had inflicted on Isabella’s face, she named them individually, then instructed, ‘Say how do you do to your grandmamma, children.’

First came confusion. ‘But Granny’s at home,’ pointed out the youngest.

‘You have two grandmothers,’ Etta patiently told William. ‘Everyone has two sets of grandparents.’

Still confused, they offered a greeting to the smiling, elegant lady in the grey silk dress and large hat.

Isabella inclined her head graciously, conveying interest. ‘Are you come to town for a treat?’

‘No, new shoes,’ replied Alex, whose tears had quickly dried.

Isabella misunderstood, thinking that all were to be shod. ‘But surely that is a treat? My, aren’t you lucky children?’

At this Etta said scathingly, ‘Oh no, just Celia, I’m afraid. The others must wait.’

After a piteous glance at the shoddy footwear, the little girls’ grandmother smiled down at them and said, ‘Still, you have very pretty dresses.’

‘Made from one of their mother’s cast-offs.’ Etta could not resist this gibe. ‘It was difficult enough to afford things before the war, but now…’ She shook her head in disgust.

Somewhat appalled, Isabella immediately reached into
her purse and offered money. Etta did not reach for it but merely held the giver’s eye. ‘To appease your conscience, Mother?’

Dismayed, Isabella blurted, ‘Many a time I wanted to write to you, but your father forbade it.’

When Etta simply gazed back at her coolly, making no move to take the coin, Isabella replaced it in her purse. Then, as an afterthought, she took out one of smaller denomination and sought Etta’s permission before handing it to one of the children, similarly rewarding the others.

‘Thank you, Grandmamma!’ They grinned up at her delightedly.

‘What charming little dears,’ murmured Isabella, hardly daring to look her daughter in the eye. ‘Very beautiful. I regret that it’s taken so long for me to meet them.’

Still hurting from reopened wounds, Etta said, ‘It was of your own choosing, Mother.’

Isabella glanced away to the unfamiliar faces that eddied round them. ‘If only the matter was as simple as you make out.’

‘It was perfectly simple to me.’

Isabella’s focus returned. ‘But then you were always so much braver than I.’ Unable to cope with the condemnation in her daughter’s eyes, she tried to mask her own emotions by saying with a tentative smile, ‘I should like to get to know them now, if it’s not too late. I was just about to take morning tea. Would you care to come?’

Made suddenly aware by the grunts of passers-by that she and her children were blocking the footpath, Etta made as if to be on her way. ‘We’ve still to find some shoes. Besides, I hardly think Father would approve.’

‘He won’t know, he’s away shooting. Come to my hotel – we could purchase the shoes beforehand – I’d be delighted to buy them all a pair.’

In no uncertain terms, Etta drew the line at this.

Her mother acquiesced, but persisted with her invitation
for them to dine with her. ‘Please, I should like it very much.’ There was a genuine plea in Isabella’s eyes.

Etta studied her mother, then looked down at her children, so loved and cherished by their parents. Part of her wanted to lash out at her mother for robbing her of similar experience, but a growing maturity advised that she should not inflict her own bitter opinions on her offspring, should not deny them this opportunity to learn of their heritage, even if they never saw Grandmamma Ibbetson again. ‘Well, if you’re certain it will cause no difficulty for you…’

Isabella shook her head vigorously. ‘Come, my dear!’ Smiling, she held out gloved fingers to one of the little ones.

And Etta, seeing how naturally Edward accepted his grandmother’s hand, nodded to convey permission to the girls and watched them skip happily to the shoe shop.

The shoes, plus the feast of biscuits, cakes and ice-cream that followed, were to provide a topic of conversation between the children all the way home. Regarding the meeting with her mother as a never-to-be-repeated fluke, even though Isabella had promised to keep in touch, Etta tried to discourage any talk of when they might see their other grandmother again, saying they should be content with the one they had. ‘And better not to mention it when we get home, Granny Lanegan will be most upset if you keep prattling on about it.’

‘She can go with us too!’ declared Edward.

‘It’s not for you to make the invitation,’ scolded his mother.

‘I’m sure our other grandmamma wouldn’t mind. She’s very –’

‘Desist!’ warned Etta sternly. ‘I shall hear no more about it. Give me the pennies Grandmamma Ibbetson gave you and I’ll keep them in a safe place.’ She held out her hand.

Hoping she would have to issue no further warning, Etta was slightly concerned over what they might say when they
got home. But as it turned out, Aggie was in no mood to take notice of any childish prattle, and neither was Etta when the news was conveyed. Mrs Gledhill had received a telegram that announced her son Albert’s death. He was the first soldier in the street to die.

He had thought himself afraid of Etta’s father; he had thought himself afraid of the drill-sergeant; but he had never known the true meaning of fear until he had come to this place. It was a landscape of rolling hills, steep river valleys and woods; it could have been England, but for the fact that across that wide and gently flowing river were thousands of men who wanted to kill him.

It was halfway through September. Only two weeks after landing in France they had been plunged into vicious fighting, which continued to-date. Marty considered himself an experienced soldier, fit and ready to take on any comer, but his reactions here were not so slick as in rehearsal. The years of instruction obliterated by terror, he could only point his rifle and keep pulling the trigger until his finger was numb, in the hope that he would hit the enemy. His comrades spoke benignly of the Germans, just shrugged and said they’re just like us, but Marty felt no such kinship. He loathed them with all his might for what they were putting him through; rejoiced to see them blown to bloody fragments by his gunners. Yet still they came…

Orders were to grab the crossing places from the German rear guard, then move against the steep escarpment on the northern bank eventually to seize the road at the top, but this did not compare with taking an exercise field defended by one’s fellow soldiers. No matter how much screaming
and baring of teeth and stabbing of bayonets into straw-filled sacks, it could not have prepared them for the blood that spilled from real men, nor for the hazardous bombardment of hostile artillery and shrapnel that filled the air with banshees; nor for the machine-gun bullets that sprayed the river meadows on both banks; nor for the revulsion of being daily spattered with the flesh and fat, brains, splinters of bone, the excreta of bowels and undigested stomach contents of one’s comrades as their number was savagely whittled from a thousand to two hundred.

Nor, when the river had at last been breached to even more grievous loss, did their minds and bodies gain relief, for, pinned down by the relentless onslaught, they could only attempt to secure a footing, the Germans launching counter-attacks at every hour of day and night so that one could barely catch a wink of sleep amidst the incessant alarms and the flares that lit up the sky. They could only wait for the barrage of hate to subside.

Even the weather conspired to hamper their frantic attempts to scoop out places of cover. Cold and miserable, it had begun to rain hard three days ago. The ground was now churned to a quagmire as Marty and those around him, drenched to the skin, struggled to carve their entrench-ments under hostile fire, the parapets toppling as soon as they were built, desperate hands slapping and plastering and shoring up the walls with sandbags. Within a matter of days the corridors were flooded with six inches of mud and eighteen inches of water. Any relief that the rats had eschewed these waterlogged conditions and departed to higher ground was short-lived, for the absent lodgers were replaced by frogs and beetles and even more repulsive slugs that slithered about the walls, occasionally tumbling to land on Marty’s face, making him feel as if he were buried alive. And in this stagnant cesspit, beneath a pall of cordite and the stench of rotting carcasses that no amount of chloride could disguise, under a never-ending torrent of rain, Marty
was forced to eat and sleep as best he could, his feet almost crippled from the wet and cold, the one consoling thought being that even if all valiant attempts to gain ground had, so far, been unrewarding, then the Germans too had been repulsed in their aims.

Another grey dawn arose, the tension of the night relieved by the usual staccato burst of machine guns and rifle fire. Exhausted from lack of sleep, stiff from being huddled on a ledge to avoid the cold water, Marty could barely keep his eyes open. He did not actually recall cleaning his rifle, though he must have done for it had passed inspection and he was now eating breakfast flavoured by the tang of gunpowder. At least one could expect a brief peace whilst the Germans ate theirs, if not for long. Whilst he was assigned to the repair of the parapet, which had yet again capsized, others employed pumping equipment, though this was of little use for the water would soon seep back to its own level. Covered in slime from head to foot, the wind cutting through his wet shirt, he grimaced and applied his weight to the wall of sandbags, hoping they would stay where he had fashioned them into the mud. Achieving temporary success, he tottered and skidded his way back along the trench to attend to more personal tasks. He had received another despatch from Etta, incurring a pang of guilt that he had not even had the time to think about her, let alone write, his only thoughts being to keep himself and his comrades alive. He devoted his mind to her now, but it was pointless trying to write back in this downpour, the paper would turn to mush in no time. However, he could read her words over in his mind. Wiping the cold rain from his face, he was contemplating this when he heard a plain-tive Yorkshire voice.

‘Can somebody help me? I’m stuck.’

It came from the far side of the parapet. He trained narrow eyes on the lance corporal with whom he was sharing a cigarette, Ged Burns, one of the few old pals who
had survived, who was teetering on a plank nearby, his face and clothes like those of everyone else, caked with mud and gaunt from the horrors of war. ‘Did you hear that? Stick your head up and have a look, Ged.’

‘Er, I don’t think you’ve quite got the hang of this regu-lation lark, Private Lanegan. It’s me what gives the bloody orders.’ Ged cast a sarcastic eye at others who crouched nearby, and, repossessing his cigarette, took a leisurely drag.

Marty gasped at his companions. ‘He’s a proper little Napoleon Bonaparte since he got that bloody stripe.’ And directly to Ged, ‘You only got the promotion ’cause there’s no bugger left.’

There returned a denigrating laugh. ‘And what does that say about you?’

Marty conceded this was true. Some of his jocular efforts to make life bearable had been misinterpreted by his officers; they obviously did not regard him as serious enough to take command. But, for once, his ambitions to further himself could not have mattered less; his only objective being to stay alive.

The disembodied voice came again. ‘Please,
please
help.’

Marty was about to scramble to his feet, but the lance corporal handed back the cigarette, bidding, ‘Oh, stay there you idle sod, I’m nearest.’

The periscope giving no clearer view, Ged clambered onto the fire step to risk a cautious look over the top. His observation was curtailed by the crack of rifle fire. He fell back with a splash, a hole in his forehead from which emerged thin runnels of red that crazed the mud-daubed cheeks for an instant then stopped. A group clustered round his supine form, revolted by the horrible gurgling that continued to emerge even though Burns was stone dead. Despite all the carnage he had witnessed, Marty found that he could still be shocked, and he stared down with racing heart into the sightless eyes of his friend, watched the heavy rain sluice the blood from his face, experienced an inner
conflict of guilt and relief that it was not himself lying there, before being overcome by a wave of futility. Whilst others stretchered Ged away, he took a long drag of the cigarette, used his toe to flick mud over the fragments of skull, then turned to attend the disembodied voice, and asked in flat tone:

‘Are you still there?’

‘Not from choice,’ came the quivering reply.

‘What’re you doing?’

‘Went out to mend the wire t’other night, got separated and couldn’t find me way till it got light – but me feet have gone down this ’ole and they’re wedged tight in t’mud, I can’t pull ’em out.’ There came the sound of frantic squelching. Then, ‘Oh Christ, I’m up to me knees now!’

He sounded terrified, but those on the other side of the wall were unable to help him.

The voice was unfamiliar to Marty, but then the majority of those around him were strangers now since his own regiment had been decimated, his CO and most of the company commanders dead, along with three-quarters of the men, he and the survivors from other battalions being rounded up to form this new unit. ‘What’s your name, chum?’

‘Salmon.’

‘I thought there was something fishy about him.’ To try and staunch the horror he was still experiencing over the death of his friend, Marty could not resist a bad joke to his companions. If one did not laugh, one was done for.

‘Ha bloody ha,’ came the unamused voice.

‘Well, sorry, Fishy old chum,’ said another, ‘you’ll just have to keep your head down till after dark.’

‘I can’t stay here for ten bloody hours!’ The victim must have tried to free himself again for there came another rifle crack.

‘Salmon?
Salmon?
’

‘I’m still here,’ whimpered the voice to the group’s relief.

‘Just keep still, he’ll think he’s done for ye,’ urged Marty.
‘We’ll get to you as soon as we can.’ And he went back to his cigarette.

Hours passed, he and the others offering the occasional word of encouragement as they squelched about their business, reassuring the trapped man after each bombardment. Hot rations were brought up but there was little that could be shared with poor Salmon, who by midday sounded thoroughly demented for he shrieked at every burst of fire.

Marty rammed a lump of bread onto the end of his bayonet and called, ‘Prepare to receive rations, Fishy!’ Taking his rifle by the butt he slid it up and over the parapet and, straining against the wall of sandbags, tried to lower its bayonet as best he could in the supposed direction of Salmon. ‘Got it?’

There was no reply.

‘Salmon!’ Marty had seen horses drown in these conditions; he feared the worst.

‘Hang on, nearly – got it!’

‘Jeez, I thought you’d swum away for a minute.’ Issuing a note of relief, Marty quickly withdrew his bayonet to see that the bread had been taken.

Salmon gave tremulous thanks, and despite being half-paralysed with terror managed a quip as he kept his head down and gnawed at the bread. ‘Is there trifle for afters?’

‘Better – a lump of fruitcake.’ This was Marty’s own, sent to him by his mother, but sharing it was the least he could do for a comrade. Transferring it in the same manner was difficult, and it slipped from bayonet to mud before reaching Salmon. However, there was a more positive addition. ‘Your sniper friend seems to have gone, least he hasn’t taken advantage of me handing this over, so we might be able to get you out earlier than planned.’

But the sniper had only been having games with them, allowing Salmon to relax a little before landing a bullet half an inch from his elbow that had him squealing for assistance and trying to camouflage himself by wriggling
into the mud like a crab. From then until nightfall they were forced to take it in turns to feed and to reassure him, passing him titbits on the ends of their bayonets whilst his demeanour became gradually more uncontrolled. Only when darkness fell could Marty and another slither over the parapet with their shovels and dig him out. His trembling body was eased through the morass and carried to safety, this at least lending those involved some satisfaction in this hellish place.

In due course they were on the move, though making slow progress, their route impeded by roads clogged with mud, shells dropping all around them, strafed by the Germans from their seemingly impregnable position in a line of trenches along the edge of the woods that crowned the slope. The greater part of the week was passed in bombardment and foiling counter-attacks, again to heavy loss. Eventually they reached the comparative safety of higher ground and, once ensconced in a wooded area, they took cover and awaited fresh orders. A shower of hail, a shower of shrapnel: each made similar noise as it came rushing through the trees. Relieved to have escaped the deadly effect of the leaden variety, Marty uncurled and looked about him, studying the ravaged branches, and saw what appeared to be a shrivelled monkey’s ear, attached to a piece of fur by which it dangled from a twig. Knowing it for human, he stared at it in fascination as the raindrops hit it, causing it to rotate and jiggle.

And then it was onwards again, he and his fellows despatched in small groups up the wooded slope, the fighting chaotic as they ran from tree to tree, friend shooting friend in the panic-fuelled bid to stay alive. A village intervened. Breaking from the woods, Marty and his group set off at a crouching run along streets littered with corpses from both sides, dashing from ruined cottage to blood-spattered shell-hole, firing at those who fired upon him.
Then, suddenly, Germans were looming up before them, lunging with bayonets. Too close to shoot the one that came at him, Marty whacked the blade aside with his own rifle, struggling briefly, brutally, before stabbing the enemy and moving on to another, and another, and another…

Amidst brave deeds and ugly combat, their trial was victorious, the village was taken and on Sunday a break in the clouds permitted them to attend their sodden clothes, though the sun was too feeble to be of much use. It was just as well, for the rotting corpses smelt bad enough as it was. Haunted by the loss of his own humanity, his hands yet sticky with blood, Marty sought out a patch of sunlight and re-read his wife’s last letter before making an attempt to reply, the first real opportunity he had had. But what to say apart from that he missed her? He couldn’t tell her of the awful things he had seen, nor of the constant nightmares, nor the expectation that any minute he would die. He longed to have closer contact with her – not just in body but in spirit, longed with all his being, was consumed by the funny little things she used to say and do, cursed the stupid imma-turity that had led him to run away and so be in this position now, and prayed it was not too late to put things right.

Not long afterwards, the Hun, too, seized advantage of the more clement weather, launching a counter-attack, and again at dusk. The night filled with the roar of express trains. And so it went on…

Mrs Gledhill’s son was to be the first of many. Less than two months after the declaration of war, long lists of casualties began to appear in the newspaper, amongst them many from Marty’s regiment. Now, every time Etta saw a telegram boy in the street she held her breath until he had pedalled by her door. But even though he might be past, the fear and danger were not, for talk had it that instead of being over by Christmas the war might go on for much longer.