The Lost Soldier (32 page)

“That’s Valley Farm,” Nick said pointing. “I often walk that way home from here.”

Rachel looked down on the house that had been the childhood home of both her grandmother and great-grandmother. There was nothing warm or welcoming about the long, grey house and she shivered.

The sun disappeared behind a bank of rolling cloud now and the wind swept across the open hillside, biting through her fleece.

“It looks a pretty bleak place even now,” she said, pulling her jacket more closely round her. “Imagine what it was like eighty years ago.”

“A hard place to make a living,” agreed Nick. “Do you want to go down?”

“Yes, I want to see if I can pinpoint where Molly’s picture was taken; and I want to take some photos of how it is today. I’ll take one from up here.” She took her camera out of her pocket and took her picture, then suddenly swung it round on Nick who was sitting on the stile laughing at Wombat’s antics and took another.

Nick laughed. “That won’t come out,” he said. “Wombat was moving.”

They followed the path down the hill and on to the track that led to the farm gate. The gate, which stood open, was a modern galvanised one, with the name Valley Farm propped up beside it. There was a muddy Land Rover parked in the yard, and on the far side was a modern milking parlour. There was the sound of the milking machines and they could see the cows still waiting to be milked in an enclosure beyond the yard. Clearly the farm was still a working farm. Rachel snapped off a couple of pictures and then Nick took the camera from her and said, “Stand by the gate there, and I’ll take one of you.”

Rachel stood in the almost identical place to Molly, and as he looked at her through the view finder, Nick wondered if he were being fanciful when he thought he caught an echo of Molly’s face in Rachel’s.

“Do you want to go in?” Nick asked as he handed he back the camera.

Rachel looked at the old house and shivered again. “No,” she said, “No, I don’t think so.”

“Well then, I think we should be making tracks,” Nick said. “We’re going to get wet.”

Rachel looked up and saw that he was right. The sky had darkened and she could feel the spatter of rain on her face.

“Come on,” he said. “I’ll take us the quickest way.” He started off down the lane, Wombat prancing at his heels, and Rachel followed him, wishing she had worn her parka and not her fleece. Halfway down the lane they reached a stile and Nick led the way over into the field beyond. It was raining hard now, and the wind was driving the freezing drops against them so that they had to keep their heads down as they walked into it. Another stile, another field and then a track and Rachel found they were on the road leading into the village. Houses stood on the left and it was in through the gate of one of these that Nick took her now.

“Come in and get dry,” he said, “it’s another half mile to your car, I’ll drive you there in a minute.” He opened the front door and Wombat dived between his feet into the warmth of the house. Nick stood aside to let Rachel in, and drenched as she was she was pleased to get indoors.

“Take your fleece off,” Nick said as he closed the door behind him, “and I’ll hang it by the boiler. Want a cup of tea?” He reappeared from the kitchen and handed Rachel a towel. “Here,” he said, “dry your hair.”

Rachel glanced in the small round mirror that hung on the wall and saw that she looked like a drowned rat, her dark curls clung damply to her head and she could feel the water dripping down her neck. She took the towel and rubbed her hair.

“Thanks,” she said. She plucked at her clammy shirt collar and Nick grinned at her.

“You’re soaked,” he said. “Go upstairs and have a shower. I’ll put a dry shirt and sweater out for you to go home in.” When Rachel hesitated he gave her a little push and said, “Go on. First on the right upstairs. I’ll make the tea while you’re up there.” When she still hesitated he grinned and adding, “I won’t come and ravish you, promise!” he pointed to the staircase and said, “Go!”

It was a long time since Rachel had been given such a direct order, but she slung the towel round her neck and climbed the stairs. When she stepped out of the shower elegantly attired in the towel, she peeped out on to the landing. There in a neat pile were a shirt, a sweatshirt and some tracksuit bottoms. She pulled them into the bathroom and moments later went downstairs with Nick’s clothes hanging off her, but warm and dry.

Nick looked up as she appeared in the kitchen and laughed. “Oh, very fetching,” he said as he handed her a mug of steaming tea. “Here come inside, I’ve lit the fire.”

He led the way into his sitting room, and gestured to an armchair at the fireside. “Get yourself warm,” he said, and flung himself down into the chair on the other side of the hearth.

“Thanks for the loan of the clothes,” Rachel said, “and for the tea. How do you know my car is parked half a mile away?” she suddenly shot at him, and he laughed at the abruptness of the question.

“Saw you leaving it there this morning,” he said.

Rachel looked at him across the rim of her mug. “So our meeting on the hill wasn’t as accidental as it seemed,” she said lightly.

“No, well, I just thought you might like the company on your walk.” Nick seemed entirely unfazed by the question: “And anyway, Wombat said he wanted to go.”

“I see, so it’s all your fault, is it, dog?” Rachel said prodding the recumbent animal blissfully asleep on the hearthrug. “What a coward your master is to blame you for his decisions!”

“Oh no,” said Nick cheerfully, “I’d already made my decision, he just encouraged me in it.” He paused and, looking at the girl dressed in his clothes, curled up in a chair by his fire, asked, “Do you mind?”

Rachel appeared to consider for a moment before answering, “No,” she said, “I was very happy to have Wombat’s company.” She finished her tea and stood up. “I must go, it’s the office Christmas drinks tonight.” She looked out across the rain-swept garden to the winter dreariness of the allotments beyond. “I see you look out on the famous allotment patch,” she remarked as she realised what she was seeing. “Those new houses will be looking straight over your wall.”

“So they will,” Nick agreed mildly, “but I hope to have moved from here before they’re built.”

He drove her to where she had parked her car and she switched cars clutching a carrier bag with her wet clothes in it.

“I must return yours to you,” she said.

“I’ll come and collect them after Christmas,” Nick replied. “I’m off tomorrow, to spend Christmas with my mother.”

When she got home there was a text message on the mobile.

Happy Christmas, Rachel. Keep in touch.

Wish there had been a bit of mistletoe in my house.

Rachel smiled at this, and on impulse zapped him a return message,
So do I.

It was the day after Boxing Day before Rachel finally settled down to look at the letters in the biscuit tin. She had spent Christmas with her grandmother as she always did and they had passed a quiet three days together, eating their Christmas dinner, going down to walk along the front at Belmouth, watching television and talking. Rachel heard a little more of Gran’s childhood, her heart aching for the motherless girl. She told Gran about finding the graves in the churchyard, and Rose said she too had found them when her grandmother finally died. She had added Jane Day’s name and the text.

“I didn’t love her,” she said, “but I knew she’d have been a different woman but for my grandfather.”

“And Molly? Your mother?”

“I let her rest in peace. My life had moved on.”

The three days were also punctuated by text messages from Nick.

Force fed turkey… it was stuffed… so am I

Mistletoe here. Wish you were!

Wombat pining for a decent walk. Sends licks!

If I c another mince pie will burst

Play station good fun, pity not mine!

Drink Thursday? Castle?

How did you get into my brain like this?

Rachel sent flippant replies to all but the last. That one she couldn’t answer, either flippantly or seriously. Indeed, she could have asked him the same question. Nick had been resting in the back of her mind ever since she had left him in Charlton Ambrose on Thursday, a comfortable presence, undemanding, but there. She had been wondering why he had texted her, rather than rung her, but with the arrival of the last message she realised it was easier to drop throw-away lines like that into a text message. There was no pressure to answer them, they could be answered or ignored without awkwardness on either side. For the present she ignored it, and Nick receded to his position on the perimeter of her mind.

When she got home on Wednesday afternoon, Rachel lit the fire, drew the curtains against the early evening dark and at last settled down to read the letters in the tin. She opened both packets and discovered that not all of the letters to Molly were written by Tom. There were several addressed in different handwritings. She laid them out on the table by date from the postmarks, taking letters from both piles, so that she would read them in the right order and the correspondence would flow.

She wondered how Molly had possession of the letters she herself had written to Tom. Had they been returned to her when he had been killed? She had looked up both Freddie and Tom on the war graves’ website and so knew what was officially known about their deaths.

Freddie had died on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. According to the website, Captain Frederick George Hurst 1st Battalion Belshire Regiment (Light Infantry) killed in action on 1st July 1916 aged twenty-four.

Captain Hurst was the husband of Heather Mary Hurst of The Manor, Charlton Ambrose, Belshire. He is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial, Somme.

Private 8523241 Thomas Carter 1st Battalion Belshire Regiment (Light Infantry) died on 1st August 1916 aged twenty-three.

Buried at Thiepval Memorial, Somme.

There was a picture of his gravestone with his name, regiment and date of death. No other details. No mention of family. No mention of Molly.

So Rachel had discovered when each man had died, but she also knew that most of the men commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial had no known grave. Had Freddie simply been obliterated, buried in the mud of no-man’s-land? Clearly he had been killed in the bloodbath that was the first day of the Battle of the Somme, when sixty thousand men had been wiped out in one day. Had Tom been in that battle, too? Rachel wondered. It was likely as they were the same company, but it was possible that he wasn’t there for some reason. Obviously he had survived the carnage of the day and had died of wounds or been killed at some later stage in the battle which had dragged on for three weary months into October. Whatever had happened to him, the letters he had received from Molly had been sent back to her, and were there for Rachel to read.

Having sorted the letters into chronological order, Rachel opened the first, addressed in black ink in a strong and spiky hand. It was postmarked October 1915. It was from Sir George, sent after he had discovered Molly had left home without permission.

Sunday 31st October

Dear Molly Day

I was most displeased to discover that you went to France with Miss Sarah without your father’s knowledge or permission. That was an extremely wrong thing to do, and I am as angry as he.

I have had a letter from the Reverend Mother about you. She says you are making yourself useful out there and that she needs you to stay. My daughter also says that she needs you, so, I won’t insist that you come home. Whilst you are there I will be paying your wages to your father.

If you need money in France you may apply to my daughter and she will consider what is necessary.

Yours truly George Hurst Bt.

Rachel read this through and wondered if Molly had replied to it. What would she have thought of her entire wage being paid to her father? She looked back to the relevant part of the diary, but found no reference to the matter. Having made her decision not to go home, Molly seemed to have put family matters out of her mind.

The second letter was dated 20th November 1915 and came from Harry’s mother. It was the reply to the one Molly had written to her aunt when Harry died, the “
most difficult letter I’ve ever had to write
”. It was the letter of a simple country woman who had lost her son and it brought tears to Rachel’s eyes.

20th November 1915

Dear Molly

Thank you for your letter telling me about Harry. We had the telegram from the king of course, but he did not tell us all the details. I am so glad Harry was brought to your hospital. Did they know where you were? Thank you for his last message, it was a comfort to know he was thinking of us. I told your mam and dad that God must have put you there to be with my poor boy when he was dying. Your mam has been very kind. It must be very strange working in a hospital where no one speaks the King’s English, I think you are a good girl to go, even if not everyone round here thinks so. We are looking forward to you coming home to us.

Your Uncle Charlie sends his best and so do I

Your loving Auntie Vi

Rachel slipped the letter back into its envelope and took the next. This was the first from Tom, written in pencil on a piece of lined paper that looked as if had been torn from a notebook.

Friday 7th January

My dear Molly

I can’t believe it is only two days since we left the hospital. We have returned by bus and are in billets at present. Not sure when we shall be going back to our company.

I have put your name on my pay book as next of kin, which I can do now we are going to be married.

I hope you are keeping well and not working too hard at the hospital. My arm is getting better all the time, not much pain now, and I shall soon be back to normal.

I am not very good at writing letters, my dear Molly, as I have never written one before. I can’t tell you much anyway or the censor will cross it all out. But I can tell you that I have never met a girl like you before and that I love and miss you very much. It makes all this war business bearable to know you will be waiting for me at the end of it.