‘I expect you do get a lot of time to talk to one another,’ observed Rosie.
‘No, miss, I mean chatting is getting together round the brazier and delousing.’
‘Oh my goodness!’
‘You can run a taper up the seams and then scrape ’em out dead, but you might burn the stitches, so you got to watch out. Or you can dig ’em out and crack ’em, with your thumbnail. If it’s icy you can turn your shirt inside out and let ’em freeze.’
‘I used to send Harrison’s Pomade to Ash,’ said Rosie ‘He was always asking for it.’
‘Funny stuff, that. You rub it on, and the little blighters come running up the seams and out at your neck, and you have to catch ’em as they pop up out the top.’
‘Lifebuoy soap,’ said Rosie. ‘At Netley we use Lifebuoy. The lice can’t take it if you rub it along the seams.’
‘Really, miss? I didn’t know that.’
‘I’ll give you some before you go. I’m sure we’ve got some in the kitchen.’
‘That’s very good of you, miss.’
Rosie went and called down to Millicent, and then she returned to her armchair. ‘You were telling me what’s good about it.’
Hutchinson fell silent for a second, and then said, ‘Sometimes you can turn bad things into good things. I mean, the rats are something terrible. Bloody terrible. Millions of ’em, all huge, like this –’ he stretched his hands apart – ‘and they run over your face at night, and they nick your food no matter how you try to hide it, and they even eat the candles after lights out. I swear those rats know how to open an ammo box. But it’s damn fine, excusing me, miss, to go on a rat hunt. You block up all the holes with cordite, all except one hole, miss, and then you light it, and when they come rushing outta that last hole, you whack ’em with a trenching tool, but you mustn’t whack ’em with a rifle butt ’cause they break, and then you’re in big trouble, and sometimes when it’s quiet you take a potshot at the ones between the lines, and it don’t matter if you miss because the bullet’s going in the right direction to catch a Boche if you’re lucky. Those rats eat the corpses, miss, which is why they get so huge, and that’s one reason why we hate ’em, and they eat out the bodies inside and then they live in the ribcage, millions of ’em, all squeaking. And I’ll tell you something else, miss. Rats is cannibals. Throw ’em a dead one and they’ll strip it.’
‘We get rats in the cellar sometimes, and now that we’ve got chickens we’ve got them at the end of the garden too,’ said Rosie, so overwhelmed by this information that she had no sensible response to it. Millicent entered, and Rosie told her to find some Lifebuoy soap, and wrap it for Corporal Hutchinson. She took a moment to inspect the guest, and their eyes met. Millicent felt her heart leap in her chest, and he perceived her shock. He gave her a little wry smile, and nodded his head almost imperceptibly. She went out and leaned against the wall beside the door, before scurrying away to find the soap.
Hutch resumed his monologue, as if the chance to talk had liberated his tongue at last.
‘Sometimes the Gonzoubris are right nice to us, the French ones, not the Dutch ones. The Dutch ones want the Huns to win, but no one gets told that at home.’
‘Gonzoubris?
‘The locals, miss.’
‘Why on earth are they called Gonzoubris?’
‘Search me, miss.’
‘I’m sorry, I interrupted you.’
‘You can’t get salad because the Gonzoubris all have pet rabbits,’ continued Hutchinson. ‘They don’t eat it themselves. They just give it to the rabbits. If you want salad you have to crawl around at night and nick it from the bunnies. And the local beer’s complete muck.’ He paused. ‘There was a sweet little girl, though. Can’t tell you how sweet she was, a proper little darling. She’d come and sell us vegetables. But in the end she was got by a shell. Couldn’t even find the bits. That was sad, that was.’
‘I hear the men talking to each other in the hospital,’ said Rosie. ‘They don’t often tell me anything. A lot of what they say is hard to follow. It’s like a different language, you know – crumps, whiz-bangs, woolly bears, archie, flaming onions, moaning minnies, sausages, coal boxes. Of course they explain if you ask. But they don’t tell me what it was really like. I glean it from what they say to each other.’
Millicent came in once again, this time bearing a plate with four scones on it. She glanced at Hutchinson coquettishly as she left, and he caught her gaze, smiling at her.
‘Corporal Hutchinson?’ said Rosie.
‘Yes, miss?’
‘Please can you tell me what a death yell is?’
Hutchinson put down his tea and wiped his brow with his sleeve. ‘It’s like nothing you ever heard,’ he said at last.
‘Yes?’
‘It’s the scream of a man who’s already dead, but he just keeps screaming.’
‘Already dead?’
‘First time I heard it, it was a man who got a bullet and it took the back of his head off. You know, when a bullet gets tired it starts to tumble, and that’s the worst kind to catch. He was dead, no mistaking, but he kept up that yelling. It was the worst thing I ever heard. I heard it two or three times since. You don’t want to dream about it night-times, I can tell you.’
‘How awful,’ said Rosie, blenching.
‘It’s a pretty stiff order, miss. You know what bothers me, miss? What really upsets me? It’s the horses.’
‘The horses?’
‘It’s terrible, the way they scream. I counted once, miss, at the roadside, a place we called Suicide Corner, and I reckoned there’s a horse killed for every two men, give or take. It’s awful, miss, you can’t help ’em in a gas attack ’cause you’re trying to get your own mask on and how do you get a mask on a horse that’s in a panic, even if you had one? And what use is a mask when it’s mustard gas and they’re just one big horrible blister? And you’ve got no stables so they freeze all night and they’re all covered in ice in the morning, and when they get shelled you can’t hide ’em and there’s guts and legs everywhere, and they don’t understand what’s happened, they’re still trying to stand up on legs they haven’t got. And you know what, miss? When you can’t talk to your mates you can always talk to a horse. That’s what the blokes do. They go and tell the horses how bleedin’ frightened they are, and that way they don’t have to tell anyone else. And those horses, miss, they ain’t Boche or British or Froggy. They’re just horses, they don’t know a damn thing about the Kaiser or the bleedin’ King of the Belgians. They’re innocent, not like us, and they’re out there being cut to pieces and slogging their guts out and not understandin’ any of it.’ Hutchinson paused and looked out of the window. His lips were working, and Rosie could see that he was fighting back tears. ‘I’m sorry, miss,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to go on about it.’ He fell silent for a minute, wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, and added, ‘I always used to work with horses, before, when I was a kid. A lot of ’em ain’t very bright, but they’re lovely, you know, inside. My dad was a drayman.’
Millicent came in bearing a cake of soap wrapped in brown paper. She presented it to Hutchinson and let her fingers rest briefly in the palm of his hand. She held his gaze for just a moment, looked down coyly, and then offered to fetch more tea.
After she had gone out there was a long silence, and then Rosie asked, ‘Do you happen to know the Reverend Captain Fairhead?’
‘Yes, of course, miss. He was good when Yank died. He’s good when anyone dies. There’s two types of padre. There’s the kind that comes forward into the lines, and there’s the kind that don’t. Captain Fairhead’s up with us quite a lot, miss. Have you ever heard of Woodbine Willy, miss? Well, Captain Fairhead’s that kind of padre. He’s little but he’s tough. He’ll take over from a stretcher-bearer when one gets knocked down, and he don’t give up.’
Mrs McCosh came in, and stopped abruptly when she saw her daughter alone with a strange man. His uniform reassured her slightly. Corpor
al Hutchinson stood up, and Rosie introduced them. ‘Mama, this is Corporal Hutchinson. Corporal Hutchinson, this is my mother, Mrs Hamilton McCosh.’
Mrs McCosh held out her hand in a somewhat regal fashion, and the corporal was slightly baffled as to what to do with it. He took it lightly in his own and gave it a small shake. ‘Delighted, I’m sure,’ he said. Sensing Mrs McCosh’s froideur, he turned to Rosie and said, ‘Well, miss, I’ve told you everything I came to say, and a little bit more besides. I’d better be on my way.’
‘Please don’t let me keep you,’ said Mrs McCosh.
At the threshold, Rosie asked, ‘When do you go back?’
‘On Monday, miss.’
Rosie took his right hand between hers and looked into his face. ‘Do come and see us again when you’re home next. And thank you for coming and telling me about Ash. I’ll pray for you.’
He was visibly touched, and hardly knew what to say. ‘No one’s ever said that to me before,’ he said finally. ‘That’s a first, that is. By the way, miss, I wanted to thank you.’
‘Thank me? What for?’
‘Bein’ a VAD. You girls, all the men love you. We couldn’t manage without. I thought you’d like someone to say it.’
As he was making his farewells, Millicent took the opportunity to emerge from the top of the stairs that led down to the kitchen, bearing a dustpan and brush, in case any crumbs had been left on the floor. He said, ‘Goodbye, Miss Millicent, and thank you for looking after us so well. I’m very pleased to have made your acquaintance.’
Their eyes met and she said, ‘Good luck. Out there.’
Hutchinson felt his feet carrying him through the door without his consent, and Millicent suppressed the urge to go out after him.
He strode towards Mottingham Station, repeating ‘Damn, damn, damn!’ to himself, and Millicent went back down to the larder and rested her forehead against the cool white wall. It was the first time that she had ever met a man who had affected her in quite this way. She felt something like hunger, and the weakness that accompanies it.
After Hutchinson had gone, Mrs McCosh, who, despite her husband’s strictures, had not found any real war work, nor even looked for any, but had had many Belgian ladies to tea, said reprovingly, ‘My dear, you should not let such men into the house. I will not have it. I hope you didn’t let him use the sit-upon.’
‘Such men? Mama, whatever do you mean?’
‘He is very obviously common. His speech is uneducated, he has an accent, he is probably from some ghastly place like Sheffield, and he carries himself in an ungentlemanly fashion, and he’s probably something perfectly frightful like a Primitive Methodist. I will not have such people coming to this house and bringing down the tone of it, and I will not have you associating with them. We – you – have a certain reputation to conserve, a certain position in the world.’
Rosie raised her eyebrows in a manner that her mother rightly construed as insubordinate. ‘That was Ash’s best friend, and he came here to talk to me about Ash.’
‘Best friend? He isn’t even an officer!’
‘Mama! Ash wasn’t an officer! The HAC is a regiment of gentlemen rankers. None of his friends would have been officers. They must have thought he was a natural gentleman or they wouldn’t have taken him on. And Corporal Hutchinson’s not from Sheffield, he’s from Walthamstow.’
‘Gracious me!’ exclaimed Mrs McCosh. ‘This all just too bad for words. He’s not even from a place I’ve heard of!’
Rosie went to fetch her bonnet, and as she put it on she said, ‘Honestly, Mama, you’re enough to turn anyone into a raging socialist.’
‘How dare you? What a perfectly dreadful thing to say! And where are you going?’
‘To the church, Mama. Corporal Hutchinson returns to the front on Monday, so I am going to pray for him.’
‘I don’t like you wandering off on your own like this. It is quite uncalled for. A young lady doesn’t go out on her own. You should take one of your sisters. Who knows what might befall you? God listens just as well in your own bedroom, you know.’
‘I’ll be back in time for tea,’ said Rosie, ignoring her mother’s strictures. There would be other women in the church, and she liked to be with them, all of them either heartbroken or anxious. Praying together was better than praying alone, whether God listens or not. Mrs Ottway had lost one of her sons in Mesopotamia, killed when a horse had panicked and bolted with a limber. She might say the Lord’s Prayer with Mrs Ottway.
She had a choice. In the end she walked across the golf course to Holy Trinity, even though it was a bit further than St John’s. There was always the chance that her father might be playing a surreptitious round instead of attending to his work in London, and it would have amused them both if she had caught him out. Sometimes, too, one came across a lost ball in the rough, and he was always delighted to be presented with it. Once she had been walking past a rabbit hole when a ball had been suddenly ejected from it, an amusing little miracle, whose recollection had always made her smile.
37
Millicent (2)
I waited ’til Miss Rosie stopped praying before I knocked. I always knew when she was praying because she made these muttering sounds and you could just hear it if you put your ear to the door, and then you heard her wrapping that Virgin and putting it back under the bed.
I went in and said, ‘Pot of tea, Miss Rosie,’ and she said, ‘I didn’t ask for one, Millie,’ and I said, ‘No, nor you did, but I thought you might like one,’ and she said, ‘You’re turning into a mind-reader.’
I didn’t know how to bring it up and so I didn’t say nothing but I just sort of lingered there, and then Miss Rosie said, ‘What are you waiting for, Millie?’ and then she said, ‘Why are you blushing?’ and I said, ‘I’m all sort of confused, miss. I’m all of a doodah.’
‘Confused, Millie? All of a doodah? Whatever about?’
I didn’t know what to say, and I was right embarrassed, and then she said, ‘I did notice, you know. I’ve never seen anything so obvious. His name is Corporal Leonard Hutchinson, and he was my fiancé’s best friend at the front.’
I said, ‘Oh no, he’s not at the front. Oh cripes.’
Miss Rosie said, ‘They don’t all get killed.’
‘Sometimes it’s worse,’ I said. ‘I seen ’em, all blind and burned and things. It’s horrible, miss.’
‘I know,’ she said, ‘I look after them every day at Netley.’
‘Excuse me askin’, miss, but will Mr Hutchinson be comin’ back here?’
‘I’ll try to make sure that he does, Millie.’
I said, ‘Thank you, Miss Rosie,’ and she said, ‘You know you can’t carry on working here if you get married?’ and I said, ‘Who’s talkin’ about getting wed? And anyway, this war’s changed everything round, hasn’t it? Nothing’s normal any more, is it, miss? I mean, a lady like you workin’ in a hospital and lookin’ after young men like that, that didn’t used to be usual, did it? And now it is,’ and she said, ‘We can’t look ahead any more, Millie. Thank you for bringing the tea. It was very thoughtful of you.’
‘That’s what I like about you, miss,’ I said. ‘You’re always thanking me and there’s many that don’t, not naming any names,’ and Miss Rosie laughed ’cause she knew who I was meaning. In them days Miss Rosie and the master were the only two what treated me like I had feelings like a human.
‘We all get taken for granted sometimes,’ said Miss Rosie.
38
Two Paschal Letters
1
Dear Miss McCosh,
You will I am sure excuse a hurried note but I did want you to know that I shall be thinking of you at Eastertime and praying that the Resurrection joy may be yours in all its fullness. Your dear one will be very near to you, and the certainty of it at Eastertide is beyond all description. I am sure that all our stricken hearts will be really comforted. May God’s Blessing and Comfort be yours through Jesus Christ Our Saviour and Risen God.
With very kind regards, yours very sincerely,
H. V. Fairhead, CF
Passed by no. 1900 censor
2
The Grampians
10 April 1915
Dear Reverend Captain Fairhead,
Thank you so much for your recent letter at Eastertide. I must say I am astonished that you are able to keep up such a rate of correspondence when by now you must have attended hundreds of deaths. If you are writing to every bereaved family at the same rate as you are writing to ours, then yours must be a life entirely without sleep. I would beg you not to deplete yourself with overwork.
You may know Corporal Leonard Hutchinson, who was my fiancé’s best friend. I met him recently, and he spoke very highly of you.
I do know how busy you must be, because I am now working at the Victoria Military Hospital at Netley, in Southampton, as a VAD. Everybody calls it Spike Island, or ‘Spikey’ for short. The work is gruelling and relentless. One sees and hears such truly ghastly things that it is sometimes hard to keep control of one’s own sanity, a whole universe is too small to contain the tears that one could shed, and I know that if our chaplains wrote as frequently and conscientiously as you do, they would very quickly be exhausted. I cannot but think that your friendship and bond of brotherly love with Asbhridge must have been unusually intense for you to be so preoccupied by his death in particular, when you have to deal with so many, and when you have been so grievously wounded by the loss of your own dear sister.
I would be most honoured and grateful if you could find the time, when next on leave, to call in and see us. I would wish to meet with you and converse in person. There is much that I would like to discuss with you. There are soldiers in the hospital who tell me the most extraordinary things. I have, you may rest assured, clung most tenaciously to my faith – how else could I have survived? I would otherwise have died of heartbreak and loneliness – and despite the hideousness of what is being done to the lives and bodies of our beautiful young men, I cling also to the faith that Ashbridge died in a worthy cause. The death of your poor sister in an attack from the air, explicitly directed at civilians, proves that we are confronting a terrible evil, and have no choice but to do so. I know that Ash would never have thought that it was vain to lay down one’s life at a time like this.