Regret to Inform You... (29 page)

‘Please sir, mother says will you come quickly to Mrs Smith. She's very ill.'

It was a summons that would not have surprised Arthur any time over the past two years. How the elderly, bedridden parishioner had clung on to life many could hardly imagine. ‘I'll come with you, my love,' Eleanor immediately said. ‘Harry, please run and tell your mother that we will be there in just
a
few minutes.' Arthur dashed upstairs, gathered two printed papers and returned to his wife in the hall. Together they left for Meadow Way, where they found Liz Smith's front door open; on entering they found next-door neighbour, Judith Johnson, waiting for them to arrive.

‘Nurse is upstairs; I'll pop up and tell Liz you are here.' Eleanor had always realised what a capable lady this mother of eight children was, not least shown by her care for Ruby and the way she had brought up a strong lad with Willy's character. Judith soon reappeared, beckoning to Arthur to go up. Eleanor judged it appropriate to stay downstairs for, apart from anything else, she knew from many visits that the old lady's small room allowed little space for visitors.

The comforting, though grave Nurse Betty Hazlett turned to Arthur: ‘She is very weak, Vicar. Bless her; I don't think she will be with us for very long at all.'

Arthur turned and gently touched Liz's arm; tears rolling down her careworn face, a desperate sadness had overtaken her features. ‘Oh, Vicar, I think she really is leaving us this time. I wish young Fred was here; they love each other so much.'

Arthur thought of this cruel side of war: a separation that kept Fred from where he would want to be. He remembered all the times he had sat in this room and read to old Mrs Smith, often wondering what her early life had been like. He knew how much daughter and mother cared for each other amid all their hardships and how they had seen Fred go off to war with a shared fear in their hearts. He knelt by the bed and held the old lady's hand. Spoken prayers struck him as slightly meaningless at this time. He could only wish her to pass away painlessly. But, perhaps, through the haze of approaching death, Martha Smith could still hear as he quietly spoke the words of the twenty-third Psalm. Then he remembered her love of Walter Scott and spoke a little from his schoolboy memories. He suddenly realised all sign of a pulse had stopped; he turned
and
nodded to Betty Hazlett. She understood, leant down and confirmed her lack of pulse. Liz Smith, too, understood. She wiped away her tears, took a deep breath, bent down, gently placed her hands on her mother's shoulders and kissed her forehead. Never was a deeper love more evident.

‘Vicar, will you just say that psalm again and then lead us with the Lord's Prayer.'

A little while later Arthur Windle and Nurse Hazlett went downstairs. The nurse spoke to Eleanor and Judith: ‘Liz wants a few minutes alone with her mother. Her mother's death may have been long in coming, but the sadness and grief will be as strong as ever. Perhaps Fred will be able to come home for a while.'

Arriving at school the next day, the children already knew about the parcels for the troops' scheme. After lining up in their four classes, they went into the largest classroom, which doubled up as the hall, where they saw the large sheet on which Miss Small had painted: “Send help to our brave men”, alongside a painting of a soldier. When the headmaster announced that they were all to be involved, excitement abounded and after he explained and the tasks were allocated, the normal silence following an assembly was broken with a happy buzz. Even the sternest teacher would have allowed this change from the normal routine: certainly Mr Watts, Miss Small, Miss Picton and Miss Jackson did.

The previous day, another name had been added to the list in St Mary's porch, making fifty-two altogether. Each name was written on two slips of paper, one given to a young child, the other to a senior pupil. Each soldier would then receive a picture with just a sentence from the younger one and a proper letter from the other. A perfectly handwritten letter would be expected from the top class; Rita Small told them, ‘Nearly all the men came here, so you can tell them which class you are in, what you have been doing and what you like best about
school.'
The younger children were told to draw a picture of the school or, if they wanted to, of the village pond or green. A few asked to draw pictures of their families, requiring help to write the names below the carefully drawn figures. As Miss Mary Jackson went round to see what her children were doing she stopped at Ruth Chapman's desk. ‘What a lovely picture of your family, Ruth. Have you got the right number?'

‘Yes Miss, fourteen.'

‘But you told me last week that you had seven brothers and three sisters. So with you and your mother and father that makes thirteen, doesn't it?'

‘No Miss, ‘cos mummy had a baby yesterday, but I don't know what to call him.'

The older children had an additional task, as they had to copy a letter which would be delivered to every home in the village encouraging support for the soldiers.

The response was remarkable. The next day children arrived with handkerchiefs, socks, small towels, sugar, tea, hairbrushes and combs. Within a week there were tins of meat and sardines, soap, jam, shirts and underclothes. Not all the clothes were new, but they were all beautifully clean and carefully ironed. Somerville's the ironmongers and Harry Groves the confectioners and grocers, found their sales rising steeply. If Violet Rushton knew things were being purchased from her store for the soldiers she deducted twenty per cent from the cost. More trips were made to Steepleton to get a greater variety of items; the “Rusfield Rocket” was more popular than ever. Arthur became worried that some families might be denying themselves much needed products, but Eleanor reassured him by saying that villagers were happy to make sacrifices.

Pauline Richards and the headmaster's wife, Rosie Watts, formed a group that met in a small room at the school to knit socks, gloves and scarves. ‘They'll be needing them in
the
really cold weather,' Pauline had mentioned; enough to start off the group. Some of the older girls in the school spent time unpicking second-hand woollens that were brought along and rolling them into neat balls. Something that was clearly needed for the men was cigarettes. A few pennies were enough for ten and it was agreed that a packet had to go in each parcel. A weekly family penny became the unofficial rule and the number of packets that could be afforded grew. A carton of fifty packets unexpectedly arrived at Miss Rushton's shop, but she would never relay the source. Eleanor learnt of this gift the day after Jack Mansfield had called in to see her husband about tidying up the churchyard.

Violet Rushton's store space became filled. She and Robert Berry, along with half a dozen older children spent time organising things into piles of similar items. By the end of the fourth week, Violet and Robert agreed that the time had come to organise the goods into piles for the individual parcels. Already three more parcels were needed, making fifty-five. Meanwhile, Ruth Chapman had written in the fourteenth member of her family: Reginald. All were satisfied.

Some had realised that the cost of posting the parcels, although some wartime concessions had come in, would amount to a goodly sum. It was here that young postman, Peter Woods, had worked hard. Living and based in Steepleton, he had called at shops in the town virtually begging for money. Together with a collection among all the postal and telegraph workers, enough was raised and it was Major de Maine who had made enquiries about the correct addressing system. A week later, Sparky Carey's pony and cart, together with Violet Rushton and Robert Berry, left the village for Steepleton with all the addressed parcels. By this time Violet Rushton's store already had a few donations for next time.

Whilst Eleanor was clearing up after a little cooking late that evening, Arthur went upstairs to his small room. He read again the verses from St Matthew that had inspired the food
parcels,
then went to the cross, knelt and prayed: ‘Bless all those who are faced with danger in this terrible time of war. Guide me to do your will at all times, forgiving me for my many sins.' He was silent for several moments before adding ‘Amen'.

As they retired to bed that evening, tired but happy at how well the parcels project had gone, Eleanor and Arthur rejoiced in the second good news of the day. In the morning, Peter had delivered a letter to Arthur from Mary Smith that she would come down to visit her sister. In the wake of Liz's sadness at losing her mother, Arthur had managed to get Liz to agree that he should contact her sister. The address was nine years old, but clearly it was the right one.

‘I know we're tired darling, but not too tired are you?' Arthur and Eleanor clasped each other in delight. Their lovemaking was as passionate as ever.

T
HIRTY-SIX

September 1915

‘No one seems to have any bloody idea what we're doing here,' Albert Jones muttered to Jammy Carey. ‘We just seem to go on waiting.'

Jammy, a little more thoughtfully, replied: ‘Seeing all the extra troops arriving, I guess we're going to mount a big assault.' From the trench they could still see bodies lying out in front of them, stuffed dolls tossed aside; others had already been buried. They looked on the ill-kept graveyard which had once been called countryside. Further on they had seen men hanging on the tangles of barbed wire, killed even as they tried to cut through in the attempted advance five days earlier. There had been two gaps where engineers had cut through, preceding the race to overrun the enemy trench, but before they had got a dozen yards the Bergmann machine guns had sliced through them. Their bodies were beyond reclaim until any later advance.

The two Rusfield men had hardly been separated since arriving in France a year earlier, but after the first four months had only occasionally heard word of any of their other village mates. Boney had thought that as all were with the Suffolks they would stay together. ‘But,' as Jammy had said, ‘war's not like that. It's not organised, it happens, it's bloody chaos.'

After
Le Cateau, came the fighting near Ypres, then the cold of Wytschaete, Givenchy and Bellewaerde. Names heard without meaning, without making sense. Words that did make sense were cold, rain, gunfire, mud, rats, “go now” and expletives which deserved no translation. Now for their night job, it was their turn, twenty of them for tonight's shift. Boney knew that when he had first come to this desperate place, he had heard the name Loos. He just couldn't believe that men were lying uncared for and unburied. Maybe he had volunteered, for some form of a burial must be given.

Three nights ago they had started. In groups of four they set off for where they had seen the bodies lying. Sergeant Crosbie was their leader and a Welshman who volunteered the name Taffy, the fourth.

‘Is this what we really expected when we volunteered at Steepleton: undertakers?' muttered Jammy.

‘Five minutes,' the sergeant now warned.

Faces charcoal blackened, gloved hands, filthy, flea-ridden and desperately tired, Boney suggested they were well dressed for the job. ‘It smells right too. I suppose it was right us using the gas, but we might have made sure the wind was blowing the right way.'

‘Either that,' interjected Taffy in a lilting accent, ‘or made sure the gas masks fitted properly. I didn't know whether to suffocate in the mask or take it off and be gassed.'

‘OK, up the ladder and over. Keep close to the ground. There's a little light from the sky so we should be able to see what we're doing, just hope the bloody Germans can't.' The same words each night. This strangely equipped quartet had noted the instruction of their sergeant: to go towards a cluster of bodies thirty yards ahead, slightly to their left.

Christ, the ground was rough to crawl along. How important the extra strappings round the knees. Boulders that had been thrown up by shells, potholes and heaps of stones. Still, their crawling bodies might be further hidden by the
very
obstacles they crawled round. Both Jammy and Boney had realised on their first night of this macabre job – was it three nights or a lifetime ago? – that the Sergeant had uncanny sight. Asked why, this east Londoner had replied: ‘Stepney is famous for its carrot fields!'

The secret, if there was one, was to keep so low to the ground you felt more like burrowing through it. ‘Keep yer arse down,' their leader reminded them before they set out. ‘You don't want a bullet there or you might let out a give-away noise!'

No talk now, eerily quiet. The slightest noise was dangerous with the German trenches no more than two hundred yards away. They would have lookouts, as they knew that the British might well mount an assault before long; unless they were commanded to go forward first. The four knew of the endless barbed wire draped in every direction, a fearsome deterrent to men from both armies. So many times in the past few months, Boney and Jammy had moved forward, only to be repelled and end up back in their starting place. Boney had smiled when he saw his mate write on a piece of paper left in the trench they were leaving in order to attack, ‘Don't worry, I'll be back!' How right he had been.

Three bodies here, all touching. How many days had they been here, or was it weeks? They all knew the drill. Boney moved to the upper part of the unknown soldier's body, felt round his neck, fingers touched the all-important disc. ‘Get that, whatever else,' they had been told. This one may have slipped over the man's head, but don't risk that. Parts of bodies had been known to become disengaged. A quick snip of the cutters and it was free. A fumble and into the bag that he had round his neck. Make sure it was safe. He knew that somewhere there were loved ones who at least deserved to know that their man was dead.

To his left there was a shallow dip; judging by the loose soil in the bottom it was the result of a shell. From his bag,
Boney
pulled a hand trowel. He had seen people back home using such a tool for planting seedlings; what a sickening role it was now playing. As soundlessly as possible, he scooped out a further few inches. Taffy and Jammy were extending the same shallow, each from their side. Sweat poured down their faces. Soon, each felt a touch; Sergeant Crosbie indicating that it was enough. Each pulled or gently pushed a body into the extended shallow. The corpses lay side by side.