Hawkes smiled when he heard Letts reply, “Oh, do leave off. You’ll talk your own arse off if you’re not careful.”
Both Letts and Carter were gone now, buried in no-man’s-land during a cease-fire, their names and the location of their remains recorded in the battalion diary so that they might be recommitted to the earth in a ceremony when the war ended. But they lived on in his mind and in the words he struggled to form. Hawkes was still dotting the paper with his pen when Knowles came into the tent and stood to attention. He closed the notebook and pushed it to one side, pulling a map towards him.
“Sergeant Knowles, very good inspection this morning. Good show.”
“Sir!”
“At ease, Knowles.” Hawkes paused and looked up at the man before him. “I’ve received a report regarding suspected limited enemy movements to the west, and I want to know more about what’s going on.”
“I can send a couple of men on a recce, sir.”
“No, I will go myself, and I’ll take Brissenden with me.”
“Brissenden, sir?”
“Yes. He’s a farmer, used to looking at the land. I don’t want to take an office boy.”
“Right you are, sir. Shall we get a horse ready, sir?”
“No. We’ll both go on foot.”
Knowles left, and Hawkes turned back to his notebook and opened it.
Forty-five minutes after leaving camp, Edmund Hawkes and Tom Brissenden reached several acres of woodland. They had spoken little on their way to a location pinpointed on the map Hawkes now held in his hand. They were on one side of a narrow ribbon of trees and wild shrubbery when they heard voices in the distance. They dropped to their haunches, then onto their stomachs, their guns pointed in the direction of the sounds. The language was German.
“How many do you see?” asked Hawkes.
“Four—not mounted. Christ, they’re taking chances, coming out this far.”
It was a random thought that came to Hawkes, a conceit that entered his mind and left in a fraction of a second. If Knowles were there, he would have given Tom Brissenden a dressing-down. They’re taking chances coming out this far—what? he would have said between gritted teeth, as close to Tom’s ear as he could. Hawkes knew Tom Brissenden would have then repeated the comment again, adding the “sir” he’d omitted. And Hawkes was well aware that the Tom Brissenden of old didn’t care to address anyone as “sir”—and especially not the likes of Knowles.
“They’re taking chances all right, but what are they up to?” asked Hawkes.
“They’re just doing what we do—probably seeing how far they can come towards the camp without being picked off,” said Tom.
“They could be a mapping crew.”
Tom nodded. “Getting a read on how much ammo they need to destroy the camp, I reckon.” He paused. “See, they’re unpacking equipment. Yet they’re sitting ducks—Christ, they’re brave.”
“So are we,” said Hawkes.
“What do we do? As soon as we move, I reckon they’ll know we’re here—and there’s more of them.” Tom didn’t wait for an answer. “If I take the two on the right, you could get the other two.”
“We’d be lucky to hit a couple of bloody cows at this distance. If only they were a bit closer. Discretion might be the better part of valor,” said Hawkes, his voice even lower.
Tom looked sideways at Hawkes. “You don’t want to kill them any more than I do, eh?”
Hawkes shook his head. “I’ve lost count of the number of my men I’ve seen killed, but I’ve also seen enemy soldiers dead in their trenches or sprawled across barbed wire. I’ve seen photographs of a wife and children spilling out of a German’s pocket into his insides, which were outside him at the time. No, I don’t want to kill them. But I don’t want them to kill us either—if they targeted the camp, it would be a catastrophe.”
Tom looked at Hawkes, then back at the German soldiers going about the business of war. “Right then, Captain Hawkes. According to Sergeant Knowles, the Germans reckon we’re using machine guns, when it’s only the standard-issue Lee Enfield. Because it’s so bloody quick.” Tom positioned his rifle, stock tight into his shoulder, and pulled back the bolt. His hand appeared not to change position, so swift was his movement as he pulled back the bolt time and again, firing four shots in quick succession. Each bullet hit its target. The German soldiers fell one after the other, dead almost before they’d heard the shot that killed the first man. Hawkes felt heavy and rooted, as if he were being buried, the earth thick upon his chest. At once he was aware of Tom pulling him up by the arm. “Come on. Move, Captain Hawkes. We don’t know how many more might be behind them.”
Edmund Hawkes and Tom Brissenden made their way back to the camp, keeping close to the tree line, crouching at every sound and both feeling easier as they neared the camp boundary. As soon as they returned, Edmund Hawkes summoned Knowles and made his report. He commended Tom for his quick thinking and courage at a crucial moment, and ensured his name would be mentioned in dispatches to superior officers. His report confirmed earlier intelligence and made recommendations for increasing security. What Hawkes did not know, as he completed his report, was that by mentioning Tom Brissenden’s bravery and quick thinking, to say nothing of a dexterity with a rifle that should have singled him out as a marksman, he had made the farmer even more of a target for Knowles. Instead he felt pleased at his generosity towards Tom, and tried not to think of the farm that would have been his, had it not been for a dilettante grandfather. Nor did he think of the wife he coveted. Today had confirmed something he had suspected, that Tom Brissenden was the better man. He sat back in his chair and took out his notebook again. He began again. To The Armaments Maker.
Dear Kezia,
We’re now back in camp for two weeks. What they don’t tell you when you first enlist, and what you can’t imagine, is how boring this soldiering business is, and it’s even more tedious when we go up the line. It can get busy now and again, but not always for long—sometimes I feel like a rabbit, doing not much in my hole until I have to go out, and then all I do is run in case that fox gets me. I don’t often feel as if I’m going to get the fox.
So, we’re bored and we’re hungry. It’s not too bad here, but in the trenches you can get a bit peckish, especially because we’re cooking for ourselves in mess tins. Did I tell you, they even give us these recipes in our soldiering manual? You have to be a genius to work out this one—it’s what they call Plain Stew.
“One man prepares two rations of meat—his own and that of his rear-rank man. The rear-rank man prepares the onions and vegetables, and passes it to the front-rank man, who adds them to the meat, together with a little flour, salt and pepper. The rear-rank man then prepares potatoes for himself and his front-rank man, and places them in the mess-tin, with sufficient water and a pinch of salt. Thus in a kitchen of eight mess-tins there would be four mess-tins containing meat and four containing potatoes.”
I copied that for you to have a bit of a laugh. As Cecil says, we’re all a bit rank here, so no one knows who should be doing the cooking.
Tom reread his news so far and wondered if it would be wise to let Kezia know he’d been a bit hungry—what with her being able to cook nice dinners, it might make her feel bad about it. He didn’t want to waste paper—ink and paper were at a premium—so he crossed out “we’re hungry” and wrote above the line “fed up with the same food.” Just another little white lie. He thought it wouldn’t hurt to keep in the bit about being peckish, because everyone gets peckish now and again. And it would make her laugh, telling her about the mess-tins. He continued the letter.
What we really miss is good white bread. I reckon the army only thinks of calories in and calories out, so we don’t always get anything you would recognize as food you’d get on a plate at home. It makes us miss home comforts all the more. There’s a lot of the lads who are quite put out by not getting proper bread. We’re given this stuff called biscuit, which I reckon is more like that h
ard tack they give sailors. And when I say there are lads who are put out, I mean they are getting very angry, with some wondering why they enlisted in the first place, to not have decent bread. At least I have your cake.
Talking about biscuits, Cecil, my mate, he was sent a tin of Huntley and Palmers biscuits by his wife, which was very nice indeed, but no one gets cakes like you send to me, Kezzie. The cake I received yesterday was spicier than the last one, so I reckon you put a fair bit of something in there—was it nutmeg? Or cinnamon? You probably sneaked in more of whatever it was than usual, but I didn’t mind. I had to fight the other lads off—they’ve become used to getting a slice of your cake or tea bread. You said you weren’t much of a cook when we were first wed, but if the cake’s anything to go by, well, you’re a diamond. I miss you, Kezzie.
Tom finished the letter with questions about the farm, and put the letter in the envelope while imagining his wife in the kitchen, or her garden. He thought of the sweet smell of her hair when just washed, and the fragrance of lavender that seemed to linger on her skin. He imagined her drawing an iron across the linens, and setting the table, and his mouth watered as he envisioned the breakfast laid out, with freshly baked bread and butter churned on the farm. He kissed the envelope and placed it in the military post.
As had become his custom, Edmund Hawkes was the first reader of Tom’s letters home. He skipped through other mail from his men to home—letters that asked after Spot the dog, or if Dad was still busy with his racing pigeons, or whether Granddad had won any money on the horses lately—and then lingered over a letter from Tom to Kezia. On some occasions he felt as if he had found love by proxy, though he was a little disconcerted by the almost-eloquence of Tom Brissenden’s declarations of affection for his wife. He had thought Tom a much more simple man. At other times Edmund Hawkes felt like a voyeur, one of those men who paid to look through a small round glass in nighttime Soho, men who kept their heads down to avoid recognition, who wore their jacket collars pulled up, and who would give up a few coins to press an eye to a hole as if looking into a kaleidoscope—yet there was no cavalcade of color, just a few moments’ worth of excitement to be had while watching a woman reveal herself layer by layer by layer. Silk and lace and bare skin. But he felt a little less guilty when he read this letter, for it contained important information. It seemed his men were restless, though not mutinous. And with good reason, he thought. As an officer, when in camp Hawkes enjoyed a hearty breakfast, a satisfactory luncheon, and a commendable supper, with wine. There was never a shortage of port or brandy. He could rest easy—well, easier than the men—on most nights. Even the officers’ more personal comforts were of a better quality—a little more time with a cleaner girl at a different kind of estaminet.
His men wanted bread. Good bread that smelled of a bakery at home, and not rough brown biscuit. He had seen men cluster around Brissenden just to hear a description of Kezia’s cooking, or taste a morsel of her precious cake. Now he read the letter again, and knew what he must do. He would provide that most basic of staples for his men. He would go into the town and place an order with the baker, and he would bring to his men enough pure white crusty bread, bread thick with the fragrance of yeast and sugar, so that each man would remember that lovely bread from Captain Hawkes dripping in gravy or with a layer of cheese mounted upon it, and the flavor and fullness of this gift of bread would linger long after the men had marched up the line again. Up the line and over the top.
Chapter 14
No one can be more trying than the person who continually gives way to low spirits, going about with a martyr-like expression.
—THE WOMAN’S BOOK
Thea wrenched the Rover into gear and pressed down hard on the accelerator. Her arms felt filled with cold lead in her heavy coat, while the engine groaned and shuddered as she maneuvered the ambulance along a rutted road towards the casualty clearing station. Though all but ignored by the British powers-that-be, the Rathbone Brigade had been welcomed with open arms by men and women working in the blood-soaked aid posts and casualty clearing stations. Thea ground the gears home again, doubling the clutch and using every ounce of her strength to pull the vehicle over to pass a line of soldiers marching up to the forward lines, their throaty songs lingering on the sleet-drenched terrain.
“I should have stayed at school. I should be in front of a class of nice little well-fed children, keeping my head low and out of sight. I should have stood my ground to support the pacifists. I should not have run away.” Thea spoke aloud, as if to hear her own voice imbued her with strength. Men called out to her as she passed.
“Give us a lift, love?”
“Need a mate beside you?”
“How about getting in the back with me, darlin’?”
“You’ll be lucky,” she yelled back, her voice barely audible, so the soldiers saw only the movement of her mouth, and laughed all the more. At least she’d made them laugh.
The ambulance rumbled past, and soon she was out on the open road, but with another column ahead. This time it was a Gurkha regiment, returning from the front. The noise of the engine dulled the sound in the distance, but she leaned sideways, her head half out of the door so that she might hear. The men did not sing a marching song. There was no resounding “Tipperary” but instead a refrain that seemed to adhere to the very air around her. It was a lament voiced in their native tongue, a song that perhaps echoed a longing deep in the heart, and it pulled at her as surely as if she understood each word in every fiber of her being. These men yearned for home, craved something familiar—she could feel it. Tears began to fall down her cheeks, which she wiped away with the back of her hand, already blood-smeared from an earlier run. She was exhausted, and in the depths of her fatigue, she felt her acute sense of injustice rise up, a renewal of the anger that had led her to risk her freedom fighting for suffrage, and then for peace. What is happening? Why wasn’t this terrible war being brought to an end? Why weren’t the politicians, the leaders of these countries, sitting at a table right now, locked in a room and not allowed to come out until they had brought to a halt this boulder of death rolling down a hill unchecked, crushing everyone caught in its path? Was this how all wars went on?
Thea turned the steering wheel hard to the left and circled at the rear of the casualty clearing station. Using two hands to pull the gear lever into reverse, she then backed the ambulance close to the tent, where wounded would be loaded onto tiered wooden trestles for her to take to the hospital. The shelling was so close, she felt her insides shake with every thud, with every explosion.
“Oh, good, Miss Brissenden,” said the senior nurse who greeted her. “You made fair time since the last journey. I’ve eight men, two acute with internal wounds, three amputees and some heads, one facial. We have to get them all in somehow. I can’t spare a nurse, otherwise I would send one with you.”
“I’ve never had a nurse back there yet, Sister. I’ll just plough on through and do my best to keep everyone as comfortable as possible. Let’s strap them in to the extent that we can—the holes and ruts in the road are worse than ever this morning. The horse artillery went through with more ammunition for the front, and they’ve churned everything up.”
“I’ve seen them—even the gun carriages are moving at full gallop,” said the nurse. “Both horses and men seem fearless, though we’ve got a surgeon back there who calls them the arse hortillery. All in good heart though—they’re heroes, all.” She gave a half laugh, an embarrassed response to her use of soldiers’ language. “Brissenden, I should tell you—there’s a German boy in this load.”
Thea nodded. “That’s perfectly all right, Sister. He probably didn’t really want to be here either.”
The sister looked at Thea. “Be careful, Brissenden. Keep those thoughts to yourself, or you will find yourself back in England—and on a charge of sedition. I don’t know that conditions in Holloway Prison would be any better than this for you.”
Thea met the sister’s eyes, f
eeling the old fear rise again. She swallowed. “I apologize, Sister. I’ve just seen a bit too much today, I suppose.”
“No more than anyone else here has seen, and a lot less than most of my nurses in the past twenty-four hours. Now then, let’s have these poor blighters loaded up and get you on the road. I expect to see you back in about two hours then, perhaps three. Is your colleague on her way?”
“I expect so—I passed her, so she’ll have a quick cuppa and slice of bread and jam, then turn around. I daresay I’ll go by her again. Do you have some hot water to top up my flask?”
The sister nodded and reached to take the flask from Thea’s hands. “Oh, my girl, your fingers are frozen. Your charges will be on the ambulance and ready to leave in ten minutes, once they’re all in. Come on, let me warm your hands—it’s not the best remedy, but it’s the quickest. Steep them in water with Epsom salts, then make sure you dry them properly and put on some Vaseline jelly—you don’t want chilblains.”
Thea followed the sister, who she suspected might not have been much older than herself, yet some of the strands of hair that had come free from her cap were grey, and there were lines around her eyes. The tent flap was pulled back, leading into an area where nurses poured hot water from large pitchers into enamel bowls, then ran back into the main operating tent. An orderly came through with two more steaming pitchers. The nursing sister poured a shallow measure of hot water into a bowl, and added a handful of Epsom salts. She nodded to Thea, who dipped her hands into the water, and at once felt an exquisite pain as her fingers began to thaw, accepting the heat. She lifted her hands from the water, then lowered them again. She wondered if the sister intuited that she had not been able to feel her fingers for most of the journey, and she hadn’t realized herself that she was frozen.