The Loom (13 page)

There had been a stalemate for days on end and the men were bored and restless. Yet going over the top was the most terrifying thing of all. He had just had word that they were to be given the signal in half an hour. The men had had their tots of rum. Stephen smiled grimly under the brim of his hat. It took more than rum to get some of the men over. He could see Darkie Hammond at the end of the trench. Leah had told him that her brother was going to join up, so he’d not been too surprised that he was in his Company. He’d made himself known after he’d gone through the list. Darkie had been embarrassed at being singled out so Stephen hadn’t lingered over the introduction.

He stamped his feet to get the circulation going and risked a peep over the trench. The grim scene made Dantes Inferno look like Paradise. And only a few days ago he’d been at Jessica’s dinner party, all toffed out in tie and tails. Jessica had been livid with him, from all accounts. He’d drunk too much and been belligerent with it. He wasn’t usually aggressive when intoxicated, but that night something had come over him. Some kind of perversity had taken over, anger at the world or some such thing, which had played itself out in irking his mother. He remembered telling an important member of Cabinet he was an old goat and didn’t know what the hell he was talking about: something to do with the war.

He’d sent a letter of apology the next day at Jessica’s urging. Jessica had also tried to pair him off with Penelope Grentham, a lovely girl but too horsey for his liking.

He’d woken with the worst hangover he’d ever had!

There was a piercing whistle. They’d been waiting for it, bayonets on rifles, helmets firmly in place. Like one body the first lot of men heaved themselves from the trenches and met vicious enemy fire.

Darkie was in the second lot. He managed to get over and ran with his head down for the nearest shell hole; a bomb exploded next to him and he went deaf for a few minutes. The night was darker than the mine, lit briefly by the detonation of shells, by the fire from enemy guns, by the Very lights raking the blackness. Hell couldn’t be worse he thought as he peered over the hole and waited to make his next run. Men were running and screaming, being blown to bits; or wounded and hanging on the treacherous wires, which sprouted like a profusion of spiky cactus.

Jumping, running, scrambling over fallen trees and shell-holes, always hampered by the sucking mud, Darkie attempted (vainly), with the remainder of the men, to gain the ground they’d lost the previous week. He had lost Arthur somewhere in the mad scramble over the trench. Another bomb landed close and Darkie saw the head sliced of a lad on his right (it hadn’t been Arthur, he was pretty sure) as neatly as if it had been done on the guillotine. Men were being mown like blades of grass, the shells turning the ground into a graveyard of mud.

Darkie crouched in another shell hole. He yelled and dashed out of it as a soldier was cut completely in half as he heaved himself over the top. The momentum carried the lower part still running over the edge, like a chicken without a head. The upper torso toppled back into the hole.

Darkie forced himself on. Terror was not only a word, now. He was filled with it, saturated. It seeped from him like a poison. And the rain came down. The rain came down, turning the shell holes into death traps.

Stephen was lying awkwardly, his leg bent painfully under him. The teeming rain almost filled the hole and water was now up to his neck. He could feel it lapping against his chin. He’d been in and out of conscious for what seemed like hours and if he didn’t get help soon it would be the end. The pain in his leg was getting worse, although the freezing water must at least have a bit of a numbing effect, thank God!

He tried to drag himself out of the hole, but this was suicide. He was a sitting duck. He quickly slithered back in, screaming in pain when he moved his leg. Men were dying all around him. Their screams pounded at him, never ceasing. The bombing was relentless. He peered over the top a few times. The last time he’d seen a rat eating a human leg. He let himself back into the hole with a moan. He hated rats! The gas was a problem, but he’d managed to get his gas mask on. That’s what finished a lot: the gas settling in the holes.

The order had been given that they were to proceed to a place called Westhoek, wherever that was. It could have been on the moon as far as Darkie was concerned. In fact this whole damned madhouse looked like another planet. And he was tired, so tired and even with the noise of the bombing, the sniper fire, the fear of it all, Darkie felt that he could quite easily have dropped on the ground and fallen asleep. Even with the din, he just had to sleep!

But again they were off, and he crouched over at a run towards the nearest shell hole offering the only cover. Darkie made a dive into it as a shell whistled by. He winced. That had been too bloody close. It woke him up though. As he landed in the hole an agonized yell made him scramble to the other side. The water was so deep he almost had to swim. In the glare of the Very lights, he saw the brim of a hat slowly sinking beneath the murky water. He waded back over on his knees and quickly lifted the person under the hat so that his head was above water. He lay there for a time, panting and completely exhausted again, the body now lying almost on top of him and whoever it was, moaning continuously. Now what, he thought, blinking the rain out of his eyes. It was hard enough to save your own skin without someone else’s as well.

Darkie lay holding the comatose form above the water. He couldn’t leave this poor bloody sod here! There was nothing for it but to try to hoist him on his back, climb out of this bloody hole and probably get shot for all his trouble. He began to rid himself of some of his equipment, only keeping his rifle, then pulled and struggled to get the dead weight on his back. He weighed a bloody ton did this one! It’d be a miracle if he made it, a bloody miracle. He stood up in the hole with the body on his back.

***********

‘
Will you give over; I’ll fall, I will.’ Miss Fenton’s elocution lessons were temporarily forgotten as Leah clutched the’ top of the library ladder and looked down fearfully at the gleeful face of Raymond Townsend.

‘Give over or I’ll fall,’ Raymond mimicked in a high falsetto, giving the ladder another shake.

The ladder wobbled precariously. Leah glared down at the top of Raymond’s thick brown hair. He was a devil, a real devil, always up to something or other. Every one kept out of his way if they could, but he’d a habit of turning up, seemingly out of nowhere and up to his usual tricks.

He’d been warned about his silly jokes and she’d heard Mr. Townsend yelling at him only yesterday and threatening to send him away again. But he’d still put a mouse in her bed last night and she’d nearly screamed the house down.

People had come running from everywhere, even Mr. Townsend. She’d felt embarrassed causing such a commotion over a mouse, but she couldn’t abide anything wick like that.

She was definitely fed up with Raymond Townsend, and here he was
again.
He must have seen her walk into the library and thought, ho ho here’s another opportunity.

He was still shaking the ladder, making her feel dizzy. She was like her mother and hated heights and it had taken all her courage to climb up. But she’d wanted one of the books on the top shelf and had willed herself to do it. Now she wished she hadn’t because, sure enough when she did something she shouldn’t things went wrong, although Mr. Townsend
had
said she could borrow any of the books in the library.

He’d caught her browsing through one only last week. She had just finished mending a small tear in one of the curtains. She put the book back hurriedly when he walked in.

‘Like books do you, Leah,’ he said. She nodded.

‘Like reading a lot, then?’ she had nodded again and Mr. Townsend’s friendly attitude made her relax.

‘Oh, yes, I love it. Miss Greer, my teacher, used to lend me books all the time and I’d go to the library as well.’

‘Good, good. Like to see a person read. Feel free to borrow any of these.’

She looked at him in surprise, a smile lighting her face. It altered her. She was always so quiet, creeping around the house like a ghost so that George had hardly noticed she was there. He wasn’t even sure of her name. Lisa, Lina; no Leah, that was it.

‘
If you’re sure that would be all right?’ she said.

‘Yes, yes, quite sure.’

So she’d taken his word and it had been like heaven having that store of books. They all liked reading in her family, and it was wonderful to be able to take one up to her room and read in bed before she went to sleep. That was sheer luxury! A room
all to herself
,
with a carpet
and a bed
all to herself as well
and sitting up reading, nice and cosy with a hot water bottle at her feet. She was getting into the Bronte novels now and had just finished Jane Eyre, which she absolutely loved. Now here was this demon, spoiling the whole thing for her. She should have known.

Raymond was still grinning at her maliciously from the bottom of the ladder. Just look at the skinny kid, she was scared to death, he thought. He gave the ladder another shake.

‘
Anyway, what’re you do in here? Servants aren’t allowed to read our books.’

Leah shifted her weight cautiously. Her leg was going numb from trying to stay on the ladder.

‘
Your dad said I could.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ Raymond said. ‘Anyway, why do you want to read, you’re only a servant? Shouldn’t you be in the kitchen, cooking or washing pots and pans or something?’

Leah looked disdainfully down on the cocksure face below. Her fear had subsided a little and she felt indignant.

‘For your information,’ she replied as haughtily as she could in an exact replica of Miss Fenton’s voice, ‘Some servants actually
like
to read. It’s not the priority of the rich, you know.’

Raymond looked surprised. Cheeky! How dare she talk to him in that tone? She didn’t seem scared of him either, now. This annoyed him. ‘Well, you can come down this minute or I’ll tell Mother, then you’ll be in for it.’

‘You’d better let me get down or
I’ll
tell your
Dad
,’ Leah said emphatically.

Raymond eyed her calculatingly. ‘I said to get down, didn’t I, so come on.’

Leah didn’t like the look in his eyes. It would be just like him to shake the ladder when she was off balance. If only Raymond hadn’t come back so soon from staying with his friends in London. It was nearly the end of the holidays and he could have gone straight back to school from there. But evidently they hadn’t wanted him in London either and who could blame them. If it hadn’t been for him and Gertie Wicklow she would really have loved this job. But as her mother always said there was always a fly in the oitment.

She really loved Miss Fenton, who had decided that she was going to make something of Leah and had started by giving her speech and deportment lessons after work. Leah hadn’t minded, although she’d felt strange at first, ‘right plummy’ she’d told her Mam and they’d all gone into hysterics when she acted the fool in her posh accent, with a loud rendition of ‘Burlington Berty’.

‘I hate Gertie Wicklow, though,’ she said when she’d finished and they’d all wiped their eyes.

‘Aye, I knew her mother,’ Emma said. ‘A right nasty ‘un she was as well.’

‘What’s she look like,’ Janey said.

‘See that plate.’ Leah pointed to the white plate on the table. ‘That’s better looking. And you remember Ned Beasely? Well, she’s meaner than him.’

‘She must be lovely,’ Janey said. They all laughed again. She missed that though, having a good laugh. They didn’t seem to do that much in this house. Sometimes Maud could be funny, but not like at home.

She
was
trying to improve herself, though. Sometimes it was hard with
certain
people calling her uppity and trying to be something she wasn’t. How could you better yourself when people said that to you?

It seemed to annoy Gertie more than anyone and she was always trying to put her down and never had a nice word to say to her until Maud had got to the end of her tether and told her to stop. And here she was again with that young devil annoying her as well. She decided that she’d better get down or she’d be on the ladder all day. She turned around to descend.

‘
Just don’t sh,’ she began and got no further. The ladder moved under her and she felt herself suddenly falling. She screamed, then was thrown sideways and landed with a thud on the side of a wing-backed chair, hitting her head on the corner.

Stephen heard the crash as he limped painfully across the hall. His leg was still sore even after five months of convalescence. The doctors were optimistic that it would heal completely, in time. He hoped they were right. He was sick of limping around, not able to ride. He’d been lucky though; damned lucky. If it hadn’t been for Darkie Hammond he’d be dead now.

The scream made him forget his pain for a moment. He hurried across the hall and into the library. I should have known, he thought when he saw Raymond.