Made in Myrtle Street (Prequel) (38 page)

The chaplain was sympathetic but had his own struggles as he tried to preserve a state of grace for vast numbers of British, and occasionally German, deaths. He told Liam that there had been many Christian martyrs who had fought for freedom and justice and they couldn’t just walk away, especially as, at last, the war seemed to be turning in favour of the Allies. However, he reminded him of the importance that the Church placed on the family and the duty that he owed to his wife and children.

Liam had a wailing in his mind that could not escape. When, in his darkest moods, he tried to draw strength from thoughts of his wife he would see her loving grey eyes and he would look for repose in them but they would suddenly be the frightened blue eyes of German boys. Then faces would pass in front of him like the pages of a book. Dark brown faces with shining, passionate eyes; arrogant faces with snarling mouths; pale, white faces with burning hatred in their eyes; haughty, superior faces with steely, disdainful eyes. They had all wanted to kill him first.

***

29 Myrtle Street

Cross Lane

Salford 5

Great Britain

20th May  1918

Dear Dad,

Thank you for the birthday postcard and the present from you and Mam. I am eleven now and I don’t feel much different but Mam said that I am allowed a more grown up dress because I am going to be a young lady soon. Well she actually says that I am a bit of a Madam sometimes, so I suppose that means the same thing.

Dad, what extra things was you allowed to do when you were eleven? Mam said that you were working on the cattle market when you were eleven. Apart from doing my scholarships there’s nothing else that is any different for me because I still have to go downstairs on the tram, I still have to come in for seven o’clock and our Edward won’t let me play cricket with them in Ordsall Park because he says that I’m too young. So what is the point of being more grown up when the only extra thing that I’m allowed to do is to take our Mary to Sunday School?

When I was playing tops in Billy Murphy’s back yard there was a horrible, horrible crying noise from next door’s yard. I was playing tops because you had asked me to go and see him and he has made a top with all patterns on that he has done with different colours of paint out of his shed. It’s really brilliant because when you whip it really hard it goes nearly white. So we got a ladder and climbed up to look over the wall and the man next door was holding some little parcels wrapped in bits of cloth under water in a white bucket. When he saw us he said that he was doing some washing, but the parcels were squeaking and the cat was sat on the lavatory roof crying. Billy said that we should go and tell the police because he was murdering the kittens but his Mam said that perhaps he was just seeing to some rats. I helped Billy write a letter to his Dad. He hadn’t sent him one because he said his Mam wrote and told him everything.

I am good at keeping secrets because I never told anybody, apart from Mam. When I heard Mrs Willoughby telling Mrs Jones about the butcher and the woman who reads palms on Trafford Road, Mam said that I had to keep that a secret and I never told anybody apart from Amy, who is my best friend so that is alright, and you because you are my Dad and you are in France.

I am working hard at school, but we just want you to come back before anything happens to you. Some of the girls at school have Dads who have been killed and I feel a bit frightened when it happens. They stay off school for a bit, which isn’t bad, but after a few days you know that something terrible has happened to them and one of the girls now has all sores on her hands. Mam is missing you as well, and sometimes I hear her crying at night. She says that she has had a bad dream but it’s always more if your letters haven’t arrived. My friend Amy says that we should write to the King and ask him to talk to their King and tell them to stop fighting because our Edward said they belong to the same family. I think it might be better to write to their mother so that she can boss them into stopping.

Our Edward has been chucked by his girlfriend because there was a butcher’s boy from Weaste who had a nicer bike. There is a girl in the top class at Sunday School who told me that she likes him but our Edward said that she is too old because she is nearly sixteen. I think that he is frightened of her because he won’t go down her street now.

Come back soon. Mam says that perhaps I can have another rabbit when you come home.

Love

Laura

***

Sailly

France

14
^th
June 1918

My Darling Pippin,

It was so nice to get your letter this morning and it was just in time because we are moving out of this place tomorrow. We have been doing some training here for the last few days and some young lads have joined us from England. One of them comes from Turner Street where your Grandma lives. Things are looking a bit better over here now. The Germans had a big push at the end of March and took a lot of territory but now we are pushing them back. Everybody is feeling more hopeful now. The Germans seem to be getting a little bit weaker so maybe it won’t be too long before it is all over.

Darling, if you and your Mam get the chance to make some cakes for the men over here they would be very much appreciated. The food is not too bad but it is mostly tins of bully beef and some potatoes or dried biscuits. Occasionally we have a stew or perhaps a bit of tripe. The Army can’t buy anything locally because the land is so devastated by the shelling that there is not enough food for the local people.

It’s very sad when you see the villages. There were lots of beautiful old buildings but now they have been so badly damaged that it will be impossible to restore most of them. I don’t know how the people will go on when all this is finished because the heart is being ripped out of their communities. I am just glad that this hasn’t spread to England. I know things are a bit hard in Salford but we have a better chance of building our futures than the poor people over here.

I was trying to remember what I did when I was eleven and I think that, like you, there was not much difference to when I was ten. I already had a little job on the cattle market and met lots of interesting people. I went to school and I played a lot of football. Your Aunty Sarah used to make me help her to do the washing on a Saturday morning. She used to light the boiler in the cellar and I would pound the clothes in the dolly tub. She used to crack me round the ear if I did it too hard because she said that I would tear them and then I would have to learn how to do stitching. The trouble is that I was always in a hurry so that I could go and play football. I don’t remember feeling any different either. When you are nine then eleven seems very old but when you get to eleven it doesn’t seem much different. Because the change is so gradual you don’t notice it yourself but I haven’t seen you much in the last four years so I know that there has been a big change. I know, both from your letters and from the photo that your Mam sent me, that you are growing up to be a lovely young lady and I am very proud of all of you.

I was sorry to hear about the girls at school who have lost their Dads but I am trying very hard to stay safe and hope it will not be too long before I am home. If you see your Mam looking very sad then put your arms round her neck and give her a big kiss from me. Tell her that the kiss fairy has been with a special delivery from France. Please be brave, my little angel, and pray to God that this terrible war will be over soon so that we can all be together again.

Love

Dad

Chapter 16

Serre 22nd August 1918

The Lancashire Fusiliers had been involved in intense fighting for almost two days and they were tired to the point of dropping. The heat during the day had been oppressive and the Germans had responded to the Allied attacks with massive artillery bombardments, including thousands of gas shells. But the British and New Zealand troops in the area were enjoying a level of success in taking the fight to the larger German army that they had not seen for years and they were now anxious to drive home this advantage.

They were elated to see the enemy retreating slowly over the land that they had taken four months before and the Germans were paying a high price in casualties. It had taken almost three weeks for the Allies to push them back only four miles but their attack was gaining momentum and they were keen to maintain the impetus. They had waited so long for this moment to arrive that they did not want to let it go and desperate tiredness was held back by adrenaline.

The counter attacks from the Germans had been massive and destructive but the British soldiers were not to be denied. They had repulsed every assault and held all the line that they had gained apart from a patch of high ground known as Beauregard Dovecote. The building that had housed the doves had long since gone and all that remained were the mutilated trees that had once surrounded it.

The Dovecote had no aesthetic merit whatsoever but it had a great strategic importance. It stood on a hill overlooking Miraumont – a small town garrisoned by the Germans as a part of their line which followed the direction of the River Ancre down to Albert. The Allies needed to control Beauregard Dovecote so that they could push through to Miraumont but the Germans were determined to hold on to it.

In a heroic assault on the previous afternoon, the soldiers of the 1/7 Lancashires had taken the Dovecote as a part of the gains made along the whole line. At 2.30am that morning, however, the Germans had launched a thunderous artillery bombardment along the whole of the Allied front around Serre which lasted for almost two hours. In the ensuing counter attack, the British troops had been overwhelmed and the Dovecote was regained by the Germans.

At 8.30am there had been another massive counter attack launched by the Germans. They were trying to regain sections of the line but they had been repulsed with huge losses. Four machine gun posts had been placed in forward positions and, as the enemy troops attacked in waves, they were taken in enfilade fire by the Lancashire soldiers. Eventually, two hundred German troops were forced to give themselves up to a New Zealand Division.

Later that day, the Germans mounted another attack but once again they were thrown back. The enemy had suffered heavy losses during these counter attacks and the Allies had retained all the ground that they had gained with the exception of the Dovecote.

Now the British soldiers were reinforcing their lines, bringing up supplies and ammunition, and desperately hoping that they would get a few minutes to snatch some sleep. Later Frank Williams, now a Lieutenant, came and told them that they would be going with two companies of the 10th Manchesters, a Battalion formed in Oldham, to retake the Dovecote.

‘What a team, eh,’ Liam observed. ‘Salford and the roughyeds. The Boche will soon be running down that hill.’

Williams went over the detail of the planned attack with great care and pointed out the routes that each platoon would take and the various places that they knew were being used by the Germans for machine gun emplacements. Over the last year, the approach to an attack had evolved to recognise the circumstances and weaponry of this current war. The British had also learnt some important lessons from the Germans including the concept of the storm troops and they had introduced them with devastating effect.

Now, the philosophy of attack was of small, responsive units which, whilst working within an overall plan, enjoyed a much greater degree of local control. The soldiers could react more quickly to situations as they developed on the ground and they worked effectively as part of a team.

Edward was to lead a platoon that would approach, with the other Salford groups, up the left side whilst the Oldham men would go up on the right. They were given the exact positions of their first and second objectives and zero hour was set at 2.30am the following morning.

***

Edward didn’t get any sleep. He was coughing badly and it was worse when he lay down. The hot, still days had not allowed all the gas to clear and they had unwittingly come through pockets of it. He lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. The warm smoke was soothing.

He felt apprehensive about the attack that they were about to launch because he knew that they would be approaching from a lower, exposed position. He did, however, feel confident in the team that he had around him. Big Charlie had proved himself to be a brave, stalwart friend and support with an uncannily accurate talent for throwing grenades.

Liam’s courage was unquestionable. He was tenacious and determined in attack but the constant, good humoured banter in stressful situations that, in the past, had so often helped to reduce the tension, was now missing. He had, alarmingly, issued a challenge, once this show was over, to the athletic giants of the New Zealand Division for a game of rugby. On another occasion, after drinking in an estaminet in a small French town, he had told a fresh faced young officer who had enquired as to the whereabouts of the toilets, to join the group of men who were sitting on the stairs. When, finally, his turn came, the nervous young man was shocked to discover that he had been waiting in the five franc queue for the services of one of the establishment’s ladies.

Although Edward knew that he could rely on Liam implicitly when they were in any action, he worried deeply about the dark, thunderous gloom that he withdrew into as soon as they were away from the front line. Liam now never wrote to his wife, whom he loved to the point of worship, but for whom he felt himself unworthy. Whenever the rest of the men received mail, Liam would disappear and Edward knew, from the smell on his breath, that he had been drinking.