Kitabı oku: «The Child Left Behind»
The Child Left Behind
Anne Bennett
This book is dedicated to my sister in lawKathy Flanagan, with love and in memoryof my brother Shaun, who tragically diedon 5th March 2009 RIP.
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Title Page
Dedication
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
THIRTY
Author’s notes
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
By the same author
Copyright
About the Publisher
ONE
Finn Sullivan couldn’t understand his family. They had been aware of the rumblings of an unsettled Europe and so why were they surprised when Britain declared war on Germany on 4 August 1914? When the news filtered through to them, via the postman, in their cottage in Donegal, Finn’s eldest brother, Tom, went to Buncrana, their nearest town, and bought a paper so that they could read all about it.
‘England has declared war on Germany because they invaded two other countries,’ he said as the family sat eating their midday meal.
‘Well, if that’s about the strength of it,’ his father, Thomas John, remarked, ‘it’s a wonder that no one can see the irony.’
‘What do you mean?’ Finn’s brother Joe asked.
‘Well, isn’t that what England has done to us?’ Thomas John said. ‘They invaded us, didn’t they? Who rules Ireland now?’
‘Not the Irish, that’s for sure,’ Biddy, Finn’s mother replied. ‘It’s England has us by the throat.’
‘Aye,’ Thomas John said, ‘and that means anything that involves England automatically involves us too.’
‘You mean the war?’ Finn asked.
‘Of course I mean the war, boy. What else?’
Finn coloured in anger. He hated being called ‘boy’ by his father now he was over eighteen.
‘So you think there will be call-up here?’ Joe asked.
‘Don’t see how we will get away without it,’ Thomas John said.
‘Maybe they are hoping for volunteers,’ Tom said. ‘After all, young Englishmen are volunteering in droves. The recruiting offices are hard-pressed to cope with the numbers who want to take a pop at the Germans. So the paper says, anyway.’
‘And why would Irish boys volunteer to fight for a country that has kept them down for years and years?’ Thomas John demanded.
‘The carrot that they are holding out might have something to do with that,’ Tom said.
‘What’s that?’ Joe asked. ‘Have to be some big bloody carrot, for I would not volunteer to lift one finger to help England.’
‘The paper claims that the government will grant Ireland independence if they get Irish support in this war.’
‘Let me see that,’ Thomas John said, and Tom passed the paper to his father, who scanned in quickly. ‘That’s what it says all right, and I don’t believe a word of it. To my knowledge, England has never kept any promise it has made to Ireland and the Irish. For my money they can sink or swim on their own. We will keep our heads down and get on with our lives. It’s no good seeking trouble. In my experience it will come knocking on the door soon enough.’
Finn couldn’t believe that his father thought their dull, boring lives would go on totally unaffected by the war being fought just across a small stretch of water.
To Finn, war was new and exciting. He knew that in the army no one would look down on him because of his youth and no one there would call him ‘boy’.
He didn’t share these thoughts, but when his young sister Nuala came in from her nursemaid’s job at the Big House and was told the news later, she noted the look on Finn’s face and the zealous glint in his deep amber eyes, and she shivered and hoped that her impetuous brother wouldn’t do anything stupid.
War dominated the papers and Finn read everything he could about it. After the first weeks there were pictures of the first troops to go overseas waving out of train carriages, all happy and smiling. They would soon kick the Hun into touch, the papers said, and be home by Christmas with the job done. Finn looked at the pictures and ached to be there amongst them.
The following Saturday morning, he tripped getting up from the milking stool and spilled half a pail of milk over the straw on the floor of the byre. Thomas John, suddenly angered by the mess, gave him such a powerful cuff across the side of his head that it knocked him to the floor, although he had never raised his hand to any of his children before.
No one helped Finn to his feet and he was glad, because he would have hated his brothers to see the tears he brushed away surreptitiously.
‘Don’t worry about it, Finn,’ Tom said quietly as they walked back to the house. ‘You know Daddy’s temper flashes up out of nothing and is gone in an instant. He will be over it in no time.’
But I won’t be, Finn thought, but he said nothing.
When he set out for Buncrana later that morning with Tom and his mother, he was as angry as ever. This anger was increased as Biddy took out her purse as they pulled into the town and, dropping some coins into Finn’s hand, told him to go to the harbour and buy some fish for their dinner.
Finn never got to the harbour, however, because as he turned down Main Street he heard a military band and saw the line of soldiers at the bottom of the hill. In front of this company was a tall officer of some sort, in full regalia, and so smart, even the buttons on his uniform sparkled in the early autumn sunshine. He held a stick in his left hand.
Suddenly the band behind him began to play and the officer led the soldiers up the hill to the marching music, the beat emphasised by the young drummer boy at the front. The officer’s boots rung out on the cobbled street, the tattoo of the soldiers’ tramping feet completely in time.
Shoppers and shopkeepers alike had come to the doorways to watch the soldiers’ progress. As they drew nearer, though, Finn was unable to see the officer’s eyes, hidden as they were under the shiny peak of his cap, but his brown, curly moustache fairly bristled above the firm mouth in the slightly red and resolute face.
Finn felt excitement swell within him so that it filled his whole being. Tom, brought out of the Market Hall to see what was happening, saw the fervour filling his brother’s face and he was deeply afraid for him, but the press of people made it impossible for him to reach Finn.
And then the company stopped, and while the soldiers stood to attention the officer talked words that were like balm to Finn’s bruised and battered soul, words like ‘pride’, ‘integrity’ and ‘honour’ to serve in the British Army, whose aim was to rid the world of a nation of brutal aggressors. The army would crush the enemy who marched uninvited into other counties, harassing and persecuting innocent men, women and children, and they would deal swiftly and without mercy to any who opposed them.
Many, he said, had already answered the call and now he wished to see if young Irishmen had what it took to join this righteous fight. He wanted to see if they felt strongly enough for the poor people of Belgium and France, their fellow human beings, who were prepared to fight to the death for freedom. Any who felt this way should step forward bravely.
At the time, freedom and liberty were what many Irish people longed for, and so those words burned brightly inside Finn. And if he were to join this company, like he saw more than a few were doing, then Ireland would gain her freedom too; wasn’t that the promise given?
His feet stepped forward almost of their own volition and he joined the gaggle of young Irish men milling around, unsure what to do, until the company sergeant came forward to take them in hand.
‘Finn, what in God’s name are you doing?’ Tom cried. He had broken through the crowd at last and now had his hand on his brother’s shoulder.
Finn shook him off roughly. ‘What’s it look like?’
‘You can’t do this.’
‘Oh yes I can,’ Finn declared. ‘You heard what the man said. They need our help and if enough Irishmen do this, Ireland will be free too.’
‘This is madness, Finn…’
‘Now then,’ said the sergeant beside them. ‘What’s this?’
‘I want to enlist,’ Finn said firmly. ‘My brother is trying to prevent me, but I am eighteen years old and the decision is my own.’
‘Well said,’ the soldier told Finn admiringly. He turned to Tom. ‘As for you, fine sir, you should be ashamed at trying to turn your brother from what he sees as his duty. As he is eighteen he can decide these things for himself. It would look better if you were to join him rather than try to dissuade him.’
Finn shot Tom a look of triumph, then said rather disparagingly to the sergeant, ‘Tom can’t join just now, for he has an urgent errand to run for our mother.’ And he dropped the coins their mother had given him into Tom’s hand. ‘I’m going to be busy for a while, Tom, so you must get the fish for Mammy.’
He turned away before Tom could find the words to answer him and followed behind the sergeant to find out what he had to do to qualify to join the battles enacted on foreign fields not that far away.
If Finn were honest with himself, he had joined more for himself than for anyone else. He was fed up being pushed around, barked at to do this or that because, as the youngest boy, he was at the beck and call of everyone. Yet he couldn’t seem to do anything to anyone’s satisfaction and he never got a word of thanks.
Even if he expressed an opinion, it was often derided and mocked. His father in particular seemed have a real downer on him, and then to knock him from his feet that morning for spilling a bit of milk—it was not to be borne.
According to the army he was a man and could make a decision concerning his own future. He was pleased when he saw that his best friend, Christy Byrne, had enlisted too. They had been friends all through school and they were of like mind. Both lads wanted excitement and adventure and were sure that the army could provide it.
By tacit consent, Tom never told their mother what Finn had done. Later that day Finn looked at his family grouped around the table eating the fish Tom had bought in Buncrana. He loved his father, whose approval he had always sought and seldom got. He loved his elder brothers too. He saw Tom was nervous because he knew what Finn was going to say and he hated any sort of confrontation and unpleasantness. Joe, on the other hand, was eating his dinner with relish, totally unaware of the hammer-blow Finn was going to deliver, and Nuala was at work. He wondered how his mother would react. She was often so bad-tempered and unreasonable, about little or nothing, and sometimes no one but his father seemed able to please her.
Still, he knew he had to get the announcement over with. There was no point in beating about the bush. ‘I joined the army this morning,’ he said, as soon as there was a break in the conversation. ‘I enlisted,’ he emphasised, in case there was any doubt. ‘I’m in the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, and I am to report in the morning.’
Biddy and Joe sat open-mouthed with shock, but Thomas John leaped to his feet, his face puce with anger. ‘Are you, begod?’ he snapped, thumping his fist on the table. ‘Well, you are not. You will not do this. You are just a boy yet and I will accompany you tomorrow and get the matter overturned.’
‘This is the army, Daddy, not school,’ Finn said loftily. ‘And I am not a boy any more, not in the army’s eyes. I signed my name on the dotted line of my own free will and there is not a thing anyone can do about it.’
Thomas John sat back in his seat defeated, for he knew that Finn spoke the truth.
‘But why, Finn?’ Biddy cried out.
‘I am surprised that you can ask that, Mammy,’ Finn said, ‘for nothing I do pleases anyone here. And I began to ask myself why I was working my fingers to the bone anyway for a farm that one day will be Tom’s. I shall have nothing, not even a penny piece to bless myself with, because it seems to be against your religion to actually pay us anything like a wage.’
‘Finn,’ Biddy rapped out, ‘how dare you speak to me like that? Thomas John, haven’t you a word of censure for your son?’
Thomas John, however, said nothing. He knew he no longer had any jurisdiction over Finn, whom he loved so much, though he was unable to show it. Well, it was done now. The boy had stepped into a man’s world, only he had chosen a dangerous route and Thomas John knew he would worry about him constantly.
His brothers had a measure of sympathy for Finn, although Tom expressed concern for him.
‘Why worry?’ Finn said. ‘They say they fight in trenches, and a French or Belgian trench, I would imagine, is very like an Irish one, and those I am well familiar with. And if I pop off a few Germans along the way, so much the better.’
‘You don’t know the least thing about fighting.’
‘Neither do any of us,’ Finn said. ‘We’ll be trained, won’t we? And after that, I expect I’ll be as ready as the next man to have a go at the Hun. And there’s something else, Tom. They say the French girls are very willing. Know what I mean?’
‘Finn!’ Tom said, slightly shocked. ‘And how do you know, anyway? Just how many French girls do you know?’
‘God, Tom, it’s a well-known fact,’ Finn said airily. ‘Don’t get on your high horse either. A fighting man has to have some distraction.’ And Finn laughed at the expression on Tom’s face.
Much as he could reassure his brothers, though, Finn dreaded breaking the news to Nuala when she came home. He had missed her when she began work, more than he had expected and more than he would admit. She had always listened to him and often championed him. She did the same that day in front of her parents, but later she sought Fin out in the barn.
‘You will be careful, won’t you, Finn?’
‘Of course I will. I have got a whole lot of living to do yet.’
‘Will you write to me? Let me know that you’re all right?’
‘I will,’ Finn promised. ‘And I will address it to you at the Big House. That way I can write what I want, without worrying about Mammy possibly steaming it open.’
Nuala nodded. But she said plaintively, ‘Finn, I don’t think I could bear it if anything happened to you.’
Finn looked into his sister’s eyes, which were like two pools of sadness. He took hold of her shoulders. ‘Nothing will happen me. I will come back safe and sound, never fear. And it’s nice to have someone even partially on my side as I prepare to dip my toe into alien waters.’
‘I’ll always be on your side, Finn,’ Nuala said. ‘You know that.’ She put her arms around her brother’s neck and kissed his ruddy cheek. ‘Good luck, Finn and God bless you.’
The next morning, Tom told his father he was going with Finn as far as Buncrana. When Thomas John opened his mouth as if to argue the point Tom said, ‘He is not going in on his own as if he has no people belonging to him that love him and will miss him every minute till he returns.’
‘As you like,’ Thomas John said. ‘But remember that the boy made his own bed.’
‘I know that, Daddy, but it changes nothing.’
‘So be it then. Bid the boy farewell from me.’
‘I will, Daddy.’
Tom watched his father and Joe leave the cottage for the cow byre before going to see if Finn had all his things packed up.
Finn was ready and glad that Tom was going in with him and Christy, for his insides were jumping about as they set off up the lane.
‘This is real good of you, Tom,’ he said.
‘Least I could do for my kid brother,’ Tom replied easily.
Christy was waiting for them at the head of the lane and the two boys greeted each other exuberantly and then stood for a few moments to look around them at the landscape they saw every day. The September morning had barely begun. The sun had just started to peep up from behind the mountains but it was early enough for the mist to be rising from the fields. In the distance were rolling hills dotted with sheep, and here and there whitewashed cottages like their own, with curls of smoke rising from some of the chimneys, despite the early hour.
Finn knew soon the cows would be gathering in the fields to be taken down to the byres to be milked and the cockerel would be heralding the morning. Later, the hens would be let out to strut about the farmyard, pecking at the grit, waiting for the corn to be thrown to them just before the eggs were collected, and the dogs in the barn would be stretching themselves ready to begin another day.
It was all so familiar to Finn and yet wasn’t that the very thing that he railed against? Didn’t he feel himself to be stifled in that little cottage? Maybe he did, but, like Christy, he had never been further than Buncrana all the days of his life. As he felt a tug of homesickness wash over him he gave himself a mental shake
Christy was obviously feeling the same way for he gave a sigh and said, ‘I wonder how long it will be until we see those hills again?’
Finn decided being melancholy and missing your homeland before you had even left it, was no way to go on. He clapped Christy heartily on the shoulder.
‘I don’t know the answer to that, but what I do know is that joining the army is the most exciting thing that has ever happened to me.’
Christy caught Finn’s mood and he gave a lopsided grin. ‘I can barely wait. People say that it’s all going to be over by Christmas and all I hope is that we finish our training in time to at least take a few pot shots at the Hun before we come home again.’
‘I’d say you’d get your chance all right,’ Tom said as they began to walk towards the town. ‘And maybe before too long you’ll wish you hadn’t. War is no game.’
‘Sure, don’t we know that,’ Finn commented. ‘When we decided to join up, we knew what we were doing.’
Tom said nothing. He knew neither Finn nor Christy was prepared to listen, and maybe that was the right way to feel when such an irrevocable decision had been made. The die was cast now and it was far too late for second thoughts.
Finn and Christy were part of the 109th Brigade, 36th Division, 11th Battalion, and they began their training at Enniskillen. The recruits had all been examined by a doctor, prodded and poked and scrutinised, and both Finn and Christy were pronounced fit for the rigorous training.
They were fitted with army uniform which Finn found scratchy and uncomfortable, but the discomfort of the uniform was nothing compared to the boots. He had been wearing boots most of his life, but the army boots were heavy, stiff and difficult to break in, even though route marches were undertaken on an almost daily basis, often carrying heavy kit.
Finn couldn’t see the point to some of the things that the recruits had to do and he wrote to his family complaining.
There have to be proper hospital corners on the bed sheets each morning, as if anyone cares. And there has to be such a shine on your boots that the sergeant says you will be able to see your face in them. Now what is the use of that? Unless of course we are supposed to dazzle the enemy with our shiny boots and will have no need to fire a shot at all.
And the marching would get you down. We are at it morning, noon and night, and I have blisters on top of blisters. The tramp of boots on the parade ground can be heard constantly because we are not the only company here.
Finn was looking forward to target practice with rifles, which he anticipated being quite good at. Both he and Christy, the sons of farmers, were used to guns.
However, Finn had never fixed a bayonet to a rifle before, nor screamed in a blood-curdling way as he ran and thrust that bayonet into a dummy stuffed with straw. He did this with the same enthusiasm as the rest, though after one such session he told Christy he doubted that he could do that to another human being. ‘In war you likely don’t have time to think of things in such a rational way,’ Christy replied. ‘They’re not going to stand there obligingly, are they? They more than likely will be trying to stick their bayonets in us too.’
‘I suppose,’ Finn said. ‘God, I’d hate to die that way, wouldn’t you?’
‘I’d hate to die any bloody way,’ Christy said. ‘I intend to come back in one piece from this war, don’t you?’
‘You bet,’ Finn said. ‘And at least when we are in the thick of it, they won’t be so pernickety about the shine on our boots.’
‘Yes,’ Christy agreed, ‘and if I looked anything like our red-faced sergeant, and had that pugnacious nose and piggy eyes, I wouldn’t be that keen on seeing myself in anything at all, let alone a pair of boots.’
‘Nor will they care about the way the beds are made,’ Finn said a little bitterly, remembering how the sergeant, angry at the state of his bed one day, had scolded him with his tongue in a manner that resembled Finn’s mother in one of her tantrums. And then he had not only upended his bed, but every other person’s in the hut too and Finn had had to remake them all.
He had been so keen to join up because he was fed up being at the beck and call of his father and brothers and was never able to make his own decisions. In the army he soon found it was ten times worse and a person had practically to ask permission to wipe his nose, and he realised that he had probably jumped from the frying pan into the fire.
It soon became apparent as 1914 gave way to 1915 that this was no short skirmish, and soon, with his training over, Finn would be in the thick of it. The family always looked forward to his letters, which arrived regularly. He wrote just as he spoke so it was like having him in the room for a short time.
In early January he mentioned he had a spot of leave coming up.
I won’t make it home as it’s only for three days so I am spending it with one of my mates. They say we’re for overseas afterwards, but no one really knows. I can’t wait because it is what I joined up for. Bet we’re bound for France. Them French girls better watch out. Ooh la la.
The tone of Finn’s letter amused Tom, Joe and Nuala, but it annoyed Thomas John, who said the boy wasn’t taking the war seriously enough.
‘God, Daddy, won’t he have to get a grip on himself soon enough?’ Tom said.
Biddy pursed her lips. ‘War or no war,’ she said, ‘Finn has been brought up to be a respectable and decent Catholic boy, and I can’t believe he talks of women the way he does. Of course you get all types in these barracks. I just hope he doesn’t forget himself and the standards he was brought up with.’
Joe sighed. ‘Do you know what I wish? Just that Finn keeps his bloody head down. That’s all I want for him.’
‘Don’t speak in that disrespectable way to your mother,’ Thomas John admonished.
‘I’m sorry,’ Joe said, ‘but really, isn’t Finn’s survival the most important thing?’
‘Anyway,’ Tom put in, ‘it’s likely this is the way he copes. He’s probably a bit scared, or at least apprehensive.’
‘Doesn’t say so,’ Thomas John said, scrutinising the letter again. ‘According to this he can’t wait.’
‘Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he? Joe said. ‘That’s how he was: always claiming he wasn’t scared, even when we could see his teeth chattering.’
‘None of this matters anyway, does it?’ Nuala said, her voice husky from the tears she was holding back. ‘All this about how he feels and the words he writes in a letter. I agree with Joe. All I care about is that Finn will come home safe when all this is over.’
‘That’s all any of us care about, cutie dear,’ Thomas John said gently. ‘We just have different ways of expressing things. Didn’t know myself how much I would miss the boy until he wasn’t here. He would irritate the life out of me at times and yet I would give my eyeteeth now for him to swing into the yard this minute, back where he belongs.’
By the end of April, Finn and Christy’s training was complete, and they were ready and anxious to take on the Hun. In Belfast on 8 May they were all paraded in front of City Hall before the Lord Mayor and were warmed by the cheers from the watching people.
How proud Finn felt that morning as he donned the uniform he now felt he had a right to wear. He had got used to the scratchiness of it and thought, as he looked in the mirror, that he had seldom been so smart. His dark amber eyes were sparkling; in fact his whole face was one big beam of happiness, though his full lips had a tendency to turn up at the corners as if he were constantly amused. He had polished his buttons and belt, as well as his sparkling boots, and his peaked cap sat well on his head as his dark brown hair had been shorn by the army barber.
The whole battalion moved together as one, their boots ringing out on the cobbled streets and their arms swinging in unison. Finn could seldom remember feeling so happy.
‘This must be it now,’ he said that night to Christy. ‘Surely we will soon be on our way to France.’
However, it was July before the troops were on the move again, and though they crossed the water, once on dry land they found themselves in England, not France, just outside a seaside town called Folkestone.
The camp was called Shorncliffe, and situated on a hill, from where, on a clear day, the outline of France could be seen. One of the men lent Finn his field glasses, and Finn was startled to find he could actually pick out the French coastal towns and villages.
‘Brings it home to you just how close it is,’ he remarked to Christy. ‘Here, see for yourself.’
‘Course it’s close,’ Christy answered, taking the glasses from him. ‘We wouldn’t hear the guns if it wasn’t close.’ And Christy was right because the distant booms could be heard quite distinctly. ‘They are making sure that they won’t reach here, anyway,’ he went on. ‘Look at all the destroyers out at sea. Searching for torpedoes, they are.’
‘Aye,’ said Finn. ‘And those new flying machines are doing that too.’
‘I’d like to have a go in one of those, wouldn’t you?’ Christy asked.
‘Part of me would,’ Finn admitted. ‘It looks exciting all right, but I think that I would be too nervous. I would rather ride in an airship. They look safer somehow.’
Christy stared at him. ‘You’re a soldier and we are at war, man,’ he said, ‘in case you have forgotten or anything. You shouldn’t be bothered that much about safety.’
‘War doesn’t mean we can throw all caution to the wind,’ Finn retorted. ‘We’re here to fight the Hun, not throw our lives away.’
‘And I think fighting the Hun will be no picnic,’ Christy said. ‘Look at those poor sods being unloaded from the hospital ships in the harbour.’
Finn took a turn with the glasses and he too saw the injured soldiers and felt his stomach turn over with sympathy for them.
At last, in October, the orders to move out came. Finn was glad to go. Camp life had been boring, the only distraction the favours of the camp followers. Initially Finn and Christy had been staggered by how far the girls were prepared to go. At the socials in Buncrana, even if the girls been semi willing to do more than hold hands, they were overseen by anxious mothers, often belligerent older brothers, and of course the parish priest, who endeavoured to do all in his power to keep marauding young men and innocent young girls as far from each other as possible. That girls might be even keener to go all the way than they themselves were had been a real eye-opener to Finn and Christy. These girls often took the lead, and that again was strange, but Finn was more than grateful that they knew what to do, at least in the beginning. However, he soon got the idea and readily availed himself of what was on offer, like most of the other men.
Finn was glad to be on the move. Bedding girls, pleasant though it was, was not really what he had joined the army for. Whatever awaited them in France, he told himself as he marched alongside Christy that autumn morning, so early that it was barely light and icy damp air caught in the back of his throat, he was well enough trained to deal with it.
Despite the inclement weather and the early hour the people of Folkstone lined the way, cheering and waving, wishing all the soldiers well.
The autumn winds had set in by the time they reached the harbour. The relentless waves crashing against the sides of the troopships made them list drunkenly from side to side as the soldiers climbed aboard.
As they pulled out into the open sea, Finn looked back. ‘Look at those white cliffs,’ he said to Christy. It was a sight that neither of them had seen before.
‘That’s Dover, that is,’ one of the British Tommies remarked. ‘By God, won’t them cliffs be a great sight to feast your eyes on when we have the Krauts beat and we are on our way back home again?’
Christy agreed. Finn didn’t say anything at all because he was too busy vomiting over the side. Nor was he alone. He could only be thankful that the crossing was a short one.
TWO
Once across the Channel, Finn soon perked up. He was surprised by the landscape, which, even in the murky gloom, he could see that the fields were as green as Ireland. The region itself, however, was as unlike craggy, mountainous Donegal as it was possible to be, for the whole area was so flat that he could see for miles. Now he understood the reason for fighting in trenches.
‘At least we are in France at last,’ he said to Christy, ‘though my family probably think I have been here this long while.’
‘Why should they?’
‘Well, I thought when we were paraded in front of City Hall that time that it was embarkation for us and so did they. I could tell by the tone of the letters they wrote, urging me to keep safe, keep my head down and stuff like that.’
‘Didn’t you put them right?’
‘I tried to, but the censor cut out any reference to my location, which means most of the letter was unreadable. Point is, to tell you the truth, I feel a bit of a fraud.’
‘Why on earth should you?’
‘Well, we joined up not long after this little lot started,’ Finn said, ‘and yet, for all our training, we haven’t seen hide nor hair of the enemy. Yet look at the injured we saw getting unloaded at Folkestone.’
‘I heard they’re saving us for the Big Push.’
‘What Big Push?’ Finn cried. ‘And how do you know that when they tell us nothing?’
‘One of the chaps at Shorncliffe overheard a couple of the officers talking.’
‘And where is this Big Push to be?’
‘He didn’t catch that.’
‘Well, I hope it comes soon,’ Finn said, ‘otherwise I will feel that I have joined up for nothing.’
‘You told Tom that was the most exciting thing that had ever happened you,’ Christy reminded him.
‘It was,’ Finn said, ‘but it all falls flat when nothing happens.’
‘Well, something is happening now,’ Christy said consolingly. ‘Let’s see where we end up tonight.’
The family, back in Buncrana, did think Finn had been involved in the battles in France for some time and hadn’t been able to make head nor tail of the letter he had sent telling them where he really was. In the newspaper they read with horror of the machine guns that could rip a platoon of soldiers to bits in seconds and the new naval weapon—the submarine that floated below the water.
They’d been horrified by the bombs that had landed on innocent people in the coastal towns of England in December 1914. And that wasn’t all, for in May of 1915 they read about air raids on London from something called a Zeppelin.
Unfamiliar words and places became part of the Sullivan language as 1915 unfolded, words like Gallipoli and Ypres and the Dardanelles, and the battles in these places and the terrible casualty figures. One hundred and twenty-five thousand Irish had volunteered for war, and by the summer of 1915 some of those whose bodies had not been left behind in a foreign field began to arrive back on Irish soil. People were shocked to see many of the young, fit men who had marched off return with missing limbs, blinded, shell-shocked or wheezing like old men, their lungs eaten away with mustard gas.
Each day, Thomas John woke with a heavy weight in his heart, waiting anxiously for the letters that told them that Finn was still alive.
Finn’s letters to Tom and Joe were in a different vein altogether. Remembering his time in Folkstone he described the camp followers offering a man everything for a packet of cigarettes, and he couldn’t help boasting about it all to his brothers, who had thought him a young boy the day he had left home. This would show them he had become a man. Finn knew they would think he was talking of French girls but he couldn’t help that. He couldn’t mention where they had been for the censor would cut it out and so he just wrote,
You scoffed at me, Tom, but you wouldn’t scoff now, for these girls that hang around the camp are wild for it, if you get my meaning. God, I didn’t know what I was missing when I was in dear old Ireland and the Catholic Church had me seeing sin in even thinking about a girl. I wonder what they would do to me now, when it doesn’t stop at thought. If I was ever daft enough to confess it, I would spend the rest of my life in prayer, I think.
Tom folded up the letter with a smile. Finn was sowing his wild oats right and proper, a thing not even Joe had ever had the opportunity to do. He was glad, though, that his young brother had something else to focus his mind on sometimes, ‘distractions for the fighting man’, he had described it before he left, and God knew distraction of any sort had to be welcomed because the death toll continued to rise. It was estimated that as many as 250,000 men had died by the summer of that year. In Ireland there were many Masses said for those serving overseas, or for the repose of the souls of those who hadn’t returned, and Tom’s constant worry about Finn was like a nagging tooth.
The soldiers camped that first night at a place called Boulogne-sur-Mer, not far from the coast. However, the following morning Finn and Christy were part of a sizeable section that was detached from the original company and marched off without any indication of where they were heading or why.
Once they had set up camp beside a wide and very picturesque canal, overhung with weeping willow trees, and had a meal of sorts brought to them, which mainly consisted of bully beef and potatoes, they were free until reveille the next morning.
‘Fancy going into the town and having a look about the place?’ Christy asked Finn.
‘Hardly much point is there?’ Finn replied. ‘We might be better hitting the sack. We’ll probably be off tomorrow before it’s properly light.’
‘No, I think we’re set here for a while,’ Christy said.
‘How the hell d’you know that?’
‘Well, I was talking to one of the other men here and he told me that he had volunteered to be a machine gunner,’ Christy said. ‘Apparently this town, St-Omer, runs a school here to teach them, and I don’t suppose you learn to be one of them in five minutes.’
‘No,’ Finn conceded.
‘And they’ve set up a cookhouse,’ Christy went on. ‘The meal was at least warm. Anyway, he said that there are some mechanics here as well, and they will be working in the repair shop because it’s the major one in this area. He told me they send the broken stuff down by canal.’
‘Yeah, but I have no wish to fire a machine gun and neither of us is a mechanic,’ Finn said. ‘So what are we doing here?’
Christy shrugged. ‘Can’t answer that. The general neglected to discuss all his plans with me,’ he added with a grin. ‘Now are we going to explore the town tonight, or have you a better idea?’
‘No, not really,’ Finn said. ‘And if we are here for a bit, it would be better, I suppose, if we could find our way about.’
So, side by side, the two men left the camp and crossed over the bridge into the town, noting the strange-sounding street names. They tried pronouncing them and pointing out the little alleyways between the buildings.
‘I don’t know if this is typical of a French town or not,’ Finn commented, ‘but I bet you that it’s a thriving place in the daytime when all these shops are open.’
‘I’d agree with that,’ Christy said. ‘And I’d say half as big again as Buncrana.’
‘Rue Dunkerque,’ Finn read out the road name as they turned into it.
The night was still and quiet, and there were few people about. Their boots sounded very loud as they tramped along the cobbled streets.
‘Rue must mean road,’ Finn said. ‘God, we’ll be speaking French like natives if we stay here long enough.’
Christy laughed. ‘I doubt it. I think I’d have to get by with sign language and gestures.’
‘I know the type of gestures you’ll be making,’ Finn said, giving his friend a dig in the ribs. ‘And they do say the French girls are very willing.’
‘Have to go some way to beat those trailing around the camp just outside Folkstone, I’d say,’ Christy said.
‘Yeah, but we can have some fun finding out, can’t we?’
‘Don’t you ever think of anything else?’
‘You can talk. Are you any better?’
Christy didn’t answer because just then the road opened on to a square ringed with shops, closed for the night, and bars, which were open. There was a large building on one side of the square, looming out of the darkness, and they went forward to have a closer look. In the light from the moon they could see arched pillars holding up the second storey, and Christy said he thought he had seen a dome on top but he wasn’t sure in the darkness. The name was written in the archway over the main entrance.
‘Hôtel de Ville,’ Finn read. ‘Least I think that’s what it says.’
‘So it’s a hotel then?’
‘Maybe not,’ Finn said. ‘Probably “hôtel” means something different in French. I mean, it doesn’t look much like a hotel, does it?’
‘No,’ Christy agreed. ‘Not like any hotel I ever knew, anyway.’
‘I’d like to see it in the daylight,’ Finn said.
‘Well, until you can do that, we can always try our chances of getting a decent pint in one of those French bars,’ Christy said. ‘I have a terrible thirst all of a sudden.’
‘Don’t think you stand a chance,’ Finn said. ‘People say they drink wine in France.’
‘Not all the bloody time, surely,’ Christy said. ‘Anyway, you can please yourself but I am going to see if any of these places serves anything at all that’s drinkable Are you coming?’
‘Course I am,’ Finn said. ‘It isn’t as if I’ve had a better offer.’
The next morning, Finn and Christy were assigned as porters to help the medical corps with the wounded that came into St-Omer on the troop trains. For some of these soldiers, the town was just a clearing station and they were later sent on to the coast and taken to Britain. ‘Like the poor sods we saw off-loaded at Folkstone,’ Finn whispered to Christy.
For others, though, from Canada, Australia and New Zealand, St-Omer was the end of the road, and the sight of those wounded young men sobered Finn. For the first time he experienced the nauseous smell of blood in his nostrils, the putrid stink of scorched human flesh and the repulsive odour of festering wounds. Though the sights and smells shocked him to his very soul, he never allowed himself the luxury of being sick for too many were relying on him.
He wasn’t pleased then that after a week he and Christy were among those taken from hospital duty. They were told to report the following day to the BEF Headquarters, also in the town, where they were to be employed as temporary batmen to the officers stationed there.
‘Playing nursemaid to a crowd of toffs,’ Finn said disparagingly as they were leaving the hospital. ‘At least here I felt I was doing something useful.’
Christy was more philosophical. ‘One thing I have learned in my time here is that you do as you’re told, when you’re told. Anyway, we might find this is all right, especially if the officers are the decent sort.’
‘Huh…’ Finn began, then suddenly jabbed Christy in the ribs. ‘Will you look at that,’ he said softly, jerking his head to the other side of the street. ‘Isn’t she the most beautiful girl you’ve ever seen in your life?’
There were two girls walking with a man Finn presumed to be their father. At Finn’s words, the elder raised her head and their eyes locked for an instant. Finn, his heart knocking against his ribs, lifted his cap and grinned broadly. The girl lowered her eyes, but not before Finn had seen a tentative smile touch her lips and a telltale flush flood over her cheeks.
Her father, striding in front, was not aware of this, but the younger girl sneaked a look to see what had caught her sister’s attention and smiled innocently at the smartly dressed British soldiers.
Christy watched them go and then said with a shrug, ‘She’s all right, I suppose.’
‘All right?’ Finn exclaimed. ‘She is just magnificent.’
Christy laughed. ‘Well, Finn, however you feel about her you’ll never get near her. If you want, there’s a couple of fellows billeted with us who could fix us up.’
However, just the day before the young soldiers had been warned off that sort of encounter by their sergeant major who told them camp followers were often riddled with diseases that they could and did pass on to the soldiers. ‘If you don’t believe me,’ he’d said, ‘see the men always waiting in line for the doctor.’
Finn had talked to these men and been horrified to learn what their symptoms were. Remember we were told women like that can leave you with more than you bargained for.’
‘That never bothered you before.’
‘I didn’t know before.’
‘I think that I might be willing to take a chance on that if we’re here for very long,’ Christy said.
‘You do as you please,’ Finn said. ‘But I think I will leave well alone.’
‘Oh, you good little Catholic boy,’ Christy said mockingly. ‘Wouldn’t your mother be proud of you?’
‘Shut up, you,’ Finn said, giving Christy a punch on the arm. ‘Anyway, whoever that girl is, I’d give my right arm just to talk to her. I wouldn’t think of her that way.’
Christy fairly chortled with mirth. ‘Course you would,’ he said. ‘That’s how any man thinks of a woman—and a bloody fine soldier you would be with your right arm missing.’
The next day Finn got his wish to see hôtel de ville by daylight because the BEF Headquarters were next to it. He found it even more imposing now. The arched stone columns were ornately carved and the windows on the first floor were also beautifully arched, some with stained glass. Above it all was a blue-grey dome with a clock atop that.
‘That’s far too posh to be just a hotel.’ Christy said, and Finn agreed it looked like a really important building.
‘Maybe we’ll get to find out,’ he said. ‘Just now, though, I suppose we should go and meet our new bosses.’
The two men really seemed to have fallen on their feet. Finn’s officer was Captain Paul Hamilton. He was a tall man—half a head taller than Finn, who wasn’t considered short—and stood straight as a die. He had a full head of hair though the brown was shot through with silver, as was the moustache above his full lips, but his eyes looked kind enough and he greeted Finn and told him that he had been a soldier all his life. Christy’s officer, Captain Leo Prendagast, was a younger man, and clean shaven. Neither was a particularly hard taskmaster and both were fairly free and easy with the young soldiers.
Increasingly preoccupied with the girl that had so entranced him, Finn was all fingers and thumbs on his first day as Captain Hamilton’s batman and didn’t seem to hear when the captain spoke to him.
In the end Hamilton said with irritation, ‘Sullivan, is anything the matter? You seem very distracted.’
‘No, sir. Sorry, sir.’
‘And you have such a dreamy expression on your face that I suspect you maybe in love,’ the captain continued.
Finn bent his head to hide the blush, but he was too late and Hamilton burst out, ‘By Jove, that’s it, isn’t it? I’ve hit the nail on the head. You’ve fallen for someone.’
‘Oh, no, sir. Nothing like that,’ Finn said rather forlornly. ‘I have just seen a girl I think is so very beautiful. She was with a man I presumed to be her father, but I haven’t spoken to her or anything.’
‘So you don’t know who it is you’ve lost your heart to?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Describe her to me,’ the captain commanded.
‘Oh, sir, she is just wonderful,’ Finn cried. ‘She has dark hair and it hangs down her back and it rippled and shone in the autumn sunlight, and she had a pert little nose, and her eyes set her face alight, and her blushes only make her more attractive.’
Hamilton laughed gently. ‘You have got it bad,’ he said. ‘Did you take any notice of the man?’
‘Oh, yes, sir,’ Finn said. ‘I took particular note of him because I couldn’t see how he had fathered such a good-looking girl.’
‘He wouldn’t win any beauty contest then?’
‘No, sir,’ said Finn with a chuckle. ‘He is quite tall and portly, and he has a fine head of hair though it is steel grey, but his face has a sort of forbidding look about it. His eyes look almost hooded, his nose is long and his mouth wide, though not much of it could be seen because he sported a large moustache that was as grey as the hair on his head.’
‘Now,’ said Hamilton, ‘a word of warning. You steer well clear of that girl and you can take that look off your face, man. I was young myself once and I know what it is to yearn after a woman who is unattainable—and believe me, Gabrielle Jobert is as unattainable as they come.’
‘Gabrielle,’ Finn breathed, thinking the name suited that lovely creature so well.
Hamilton nodded. ‘I am pretty certain that is who she is from the description that you have given me of her father. Pierre Jobert is an unpleasant and ugly kind of character and he rules those girls—even his wife, Mariette, so it’s said—with a rod of iron. I have seen that for myself. The girls are seldom out alone and what he is protecting them from are the lusty British soldier boys strutting about the place. Lay a hand on Miss Jobert, and her father, in all likelihood, would tear you from limb to limb.’
‘Believe me, sir, I mean her no harm,’ Finn muttered earnestly.
‘Of course you do, man,’ Hamilton said. ‘What you would really like to do is take her out for a tumble in the nearest available cornfield.’
‘No, sir.’ Finn was shocked.
‘Then you are not the man that I took you to be,’ Hamilton replied. ‘I recognise the feeling running through you well. The point is, Sullivan, frustration doesn’t bode well in a soldier. You have to have your wits about you on the battlefield. There is no place there for mooning over a girl you have a fantasy about.’
‘No, sir.’
‘Isn’t there another you can take up with?’
‘I was warned not to touch those girls, sir.’
‘Not the camp followers, no,’ Hamilton said. ‘But there might be others in the town not so well guarded or regarded, who might welcome a dalliance with a soldier. Believe me, when you have a real live girl in your arms you will get over this fixation on Gabrielle Jobert.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Finn said. He knew, though, no matter what he said, he wouldn’t go looking for any girl in the town. When a person has seen perfection first-hand, he is not likely to settle for second best.
‘Anyway,’ Hamilton went on after a while, ‘Jobert may be no oil painting, but I have it on good authority that he just happens to be the best baker in the town and so that is where I want you to go now. His shop is on Rue Allen and his name is above the shop, along with the word “Boulangerie”, which means baker. See, I have written it down for you, and I’ve written down what you must say too.’
‘Bonjour. Avez-vous une ficelle?’ Finn read out.
‘Not bad,’ Hamilton said approvingly. ‘Off you go then. I want that bread today, not tomorrow.’
Once out in the streets, Finn’s pulse quickened at the thought that he might see Gabrielle again. She might even serve in the shop. He deliberately hadn’t asked the captain if she did, because he guessed, by the amused smile on Hamilton’s face, that he had been waiting for him to do just that.
Gabrielle did serve in her father’s shop. Just to be near to her caused Finn’s heart to thump almost painfully against his ribs. His mouth was so dry that he wondered if he would be able to speak. He didn’t want to hand the piece of paper over as if he were a deaf mute. He had practised the sentence on the way so that he wouldn’t make an utter fool of himself and he continued to practise as he stood in the queue waiting to be served.
Though she made no sign, Gabrielle was only too aware that he was there. She couldn’t understand her attraction to the young soldier, who she could tell by his uniform served in the British Army, but she studied him surreptitiously as she served the other customers. He wasn’t as tall as her father, or as broad, but he looked fit, and his shoulders were well muscled. He wore no greatcoat that day and he looked so smart in his khaki uniform. His boots shone and his putties too were spotless.
He had removed his cap when he entered the shop and stood twisting it between his hands nervously. Gabrielle saw his hair was dark brown, his eyes were encircled with long black lashes, and his brow above them was puckered as if in concentration. Then the last customer left and the shop was empty except for Gabrielle, her mother and Finn. The mother turned to Gabrielle, said something to her and walked through to the back. Then Gabrielle faced Finn and smiled as she said, ‘Bonjour, Monsieur. Vous desirez?’
Her voice was just as melodious and charming as Finn had imagined it would be, and though he hadn’t understood what she said, he assumed that she was offering to serve him and so he replied, ‘Bonjour, Mademoiselle. Avez-vous une ficelle?’
Gabrielle clapped her hands in delight. ‘Très bon,’ she said, and added in an accent that totally bewitched Finn, ‘Very good, but we can talk in English, soldier, if it is easier for you.’
‘That’s fantastic,’ Finn cried. ‘I am so impressed. I never expected…’
‘Most of the townspeople speak only French,’ Gabrielle said, reaching for the bread he had asked for. ‘And they have never seen the need to learn other languages, but my maternal grandmother was half-English. She lived with us until she died, and though she spoke French most of the time, she spoke in English to me and my sister, Yvette. She always said learning another language was a good thing. It has been so useful now with so many English-speaking soldiers in the town.’
‘I can well imagine that,’ Finn said, taking the bread from Gabrielle. Their fingers touched for a brief second and a tingle ran through Finn’s arm.
‘Will that be all, soldier?’ Gabrielle asked.
Finn wanted to say no, say he wanted to stay and talk, but he was mindful of the captain’s warning about the girl’s father. Also the captain would be waiting for the bread, so he said regretfully, ‘I’m afraid it is, so I must say goodbye.’
‘Oh, not goodbye,’ Gabrielle smiled. ‘We are sure to meet again. Shall we say au revoir?’
Just the way that she said it and the way that she was looking at him was causing Finn’s heart to flip over and only willpower kept the shake out of his voice as he said, ‘Au revoir it is then.’ He left the shop and floated on air all the way back to Headquarters.
Every day that week, Hamilton sent Finn to the baker’s and every day he was increasingly charmed and bewitched by Gabrielle. He was surprised that she never seemed to hear the thump of his heart in his breast at the sight of her.
On Saturday, on his way to the baker’s, he had to weave his way through the crowded market that was held in the square in front of the hôtel de ville, which Captain Hamilton had told him was the town hall. Produce of every description was piled high on carts, barrows and trestle tables, and it reminded Finn of the Saturday market at Buncrana. It was a day such as this that he had stepped forward to enlist in the British Army, and for a moment he thought of them all at home and a wave of homesickness took him by surprise.
As he was making ready to return to his company on Saturday evening, he asked if he had leave in the morning to attend Mass.
‘Should have guessed you were a Catholic,’ Hamilton said.
‘Yes, sir,’ Finn said. ‘I didn’t get to go last week because we were just so busy transporting the wounded, but I thought—’
‘You thought that as all you are doing is attending to my creature comforts, you feel justified in leaving me to my own devices and attending to your immortal soul, is that it?’ Hamilton asked with a wry grin.
Finn wasn’t sure whether he was angry with him or not, though he knew that he was often sarcastic, so he said hesitantly. ‘Well, sir, it’s just…You see, sir…a Catholic is expected…’
Hamilton decided that he had enjoyed Finn’s discomfort long enough. ‘I am joking, Private Finn Sullivan,’ he said with a broad smile. ‘I wouldn’t like to be held responsible for you committing a sin by missing Mass and so if you make my breakfast, then you are free for the rest of the day.’
‘The whole day, sir?’ Finn said delighted. ‘Thank you, sir.’
In their brief forays through the town, Christy and Finn had decided to attend Mass at the cathedral, Notre Dame des Miracles, which was on Rue des Tribunaux towards the edge of town, and so the following day they made their way there. The cathedral was an imposing building, built of grey brick and approached up a set of stone steps.
‘It isn’t all that big, though, is it?’ Finn said. ‘I always thought that cathedrals were bigger places.’
‘How many cathedrals have you seen, then?’
‘Well, not that many,’ Finn replied with a grin. ‘None, in fact.’
‘Exactly,’ Christy replied. ‘Anyway, things are probably different here. Let’s go and have a look anyway.’ As they ascended the steps he said, ‘One of the lads in the mess was telling me about some tale of the shoes left on top of the tomb of some saint or other in this church.’
‘A patron saint of shoes?’ Finn asked incredulously.
‘No, you dope.’ Christy said. ‘Parents who have children with walking problems pray to him and leave shoes on his tomb.’
‘Was he having you on?’
‘Don’t think so.’
‘Well, it’s a very odd thing to do,’ Finn said. ‘I can’t wait to see that for myself.’ He opened the door as he spoke and stepped inside.
The cathedral was very beautiful. It was held up by gigantic pillars, and many flickering candles illuminated the elaborate golden screen above the ornate altar, while autumn sunshine shone through the domed stained-glass windows bathing the interior in shafts of vibrant colour.
Finn spotted, among the tombstones set around the edges of the church, the gilded tomb of St Erkembode, a collection of shoes of all shapes and sizes lining the top. The strains of the organ began and the two soldiers hurriedly entered a pew. But then all the beauty and splendour of the cathedral mattered little to Finn as he had spotted the Jobert family just two pews in front of him.
After that, he went through the Latin responses in an almost mechanical manner, anxious to get the Mass over and done with so that he could gaze on Gabrielle’s beautiful face once more. Her family were taking Communion ahead of Finn and Christy so that they were going to the rails as she was returning. Her eyes met Finn’s and once more she gave him that shy, tentative smile before bending her head over her joined hands.
Finn felt his heart skip a beat. Her smile was so wondrous he thought as he kneeled down at the rails to receive Communion; it was just as if she had bestowed a gift on him.
When the Mass was over, Finn led Christy out of the side door, knowing that that way he would be out before the Joberts, as people would probably mill on the steps outside the front door, as they did in most churches.
Christy, who hadn’t noticed the Joberts in the congregation, was surprised by the unseemly haste in which Finn was leaving, and a bit annoyed. He wouldn’t have minded taking a look round as the church emptied, and as they reached the alleyway the side door opened on to, he said, ‘What’s your hurry, Finn?’
Finn didn’t answer but continued to move up the alleyway, from which he could see the main doors of the church without being observed himself.
‘So what are we now hanging about here for?’ Christy said. ‘We should head back, shouldn’t we?’
‘In a minute,’ Finn said, because he had seen Gabrielle framed in the doorway and his heart had started to turn somersaults.
Christy followed his gaze and sighed. So that was it. Finn and his fixation on the Jobert girl. ‘You are heading for bloody trouble, if you ask me.’
‘Well, I haven’t asked you,’ Finn said. ‘Weren’t you the one that said soldiers should take risks? And this is the time to take them, because you are a bloody long time dead.’
At that moment a group of chattering girls, running round the corner at speed, almost cannoned into him. There was a flurry of apologies before Finn realised that one of the girls was Gabrielle’s young sister. He saw that Gabrielle was now out of church and on the steps beside their parents, who were in conversation.
Yvette Jobert recognised Finn at the same time and bobbed a little curtsy. ‘Bonjour, Monsieur.’
‘Bonjour, Mademoiselle,’ Finn replied, raising his hat.
The girls giggled at Finn’s response and the sound drew Gabrielle’s attention. She turned and, spotting her sister, came towards them. When she saw Finn and Christy she coloured bright pink before turning to her sister and speaking sharply to her in French.
‘Don’t scold her,’ Finn said. ‘We only greeted one another, that was all.’
‘That is enough,’ Gabrielle said. ‘Believe me, if my father caught her near a soldier, let alone talking to one, he would be very angry.’ There was a pause and then she added, ‘Let us hope that he hasn’t noticed our absence.’ And then turning to include Christy she said, ‘I bid you au revoir, gentlemen.’
‘Au revoir, Mademoiselle,’ Finn replied, his voice slightly husky with emotion.
He watched her stride back to her parents with her chastened sister trailing behind her.
‘See. Do you want it spelled out any more clearly than that,’ Christy said. ‘Even to stand near you is a sin in their father’s eyes, so your fantasy will just have to stay a fantasy. Now let’s go back to the camp and get something to eat before I fade away completely.’
THREE
Finn was so agitated by seeing Gabrielle that he found it hard to settle down when they got back to the camp and after dinner in the mess he decided to go for a walk, though the early promise of the day being a fine one was false. The sky was now gun-metal grey, with a nip in the air that showed winter wasn’t that far away.
‘Are you coming?’ he said to Christy.
‘Might as well,’ Christy said good-naturedly. ‘Though, God knows, you are the Devil’s own company. Let’s walk into the town and see if a few drinks will put a smile on your face.’
The canal was a busy thoroughfare through the week because as well as carrying produce in from the farms, it transported broken military equipment. On Sunday, however, the water was quiet and still, and the ground the other side of it was a carpet of fallen leaves. Finn was morosely kicking them in front of him when suddenly, coming down Rue de Dunkerque, Finn saw the two Jobert girls dressed in the matching blue coats, bonnets and muffs that they had worn to Mass, and they were alone.
At Mass he hadn’t dared look at Gabrielle directly; now, as he drew nearer, he noticed just how fetching she looked in the bonnet that framed her pretty little face, and the blood ran like liquid fire in his body as he said with a smile, ‘Bonjour. May I say how very fine you both look?’
‘We cannot speak to you,’ Gabrielle said with a panicky look around her. ‘If word was to get back to my father, it would be too terrible to contemplate.’
‘We mean you no harm,’ Finn said.
Before Gabrielle was able to answer, Christy added, ‘I hope you didn’t get into trouble for speaking to us this morning.’
‘No, neither of us did, thankfully,’ Gabrielle said, ‘but only because my father was unaware of it. But to tarry here is madness, and if word got to my father, my mother would be in trouble too.’ And so saying, she pulled Finn into the relative shelter of a large weeping willow at the water’s edge.
Finn looked at her in puzzlement. ‘Why?’
‘Because Maman is supposed to guard us,’ Gabrielle said almost bitterly. ‘You see, my father retires each Sunday not long after dinner because he has to be up in the early hours to put on the ovens to bake the bread. My mother is supposed to accompany us on our walk, but she is tired from working in the shop all week.’
‘She usually has stomachache too,’ Yvette said.
‘Yes,’ Gabrielle said. ‘Our poor mother is plagued with indigestion and it is always worse after a Sunday dinner, for all she eats so little of it. Anyway, I am seventeen years old. I can look after myself, and Yvette too. My father would like us both locked up in a dungeon with him as the gaoler. But we must go now. I’m sorry.’
‘We could meet you in the jardin public,’ Yvette said. ‘We normally go there anyway when the weather is fine. We only came here today because Gabrielle thought it was going to rain.’
‘Yvette, what are you suggesting?’ her sister scolded.
‘Nothing,’ Yvette said.
‘We can just meet to walk and talk together,’ Finn said hopefully.
‘Come on, man,’ Christy said irritability. ‘You must see that this is crazy.’
Strangely it was Christy’s words that lit the small flame of defiance in Gabrielle’s soul. What was wrong with walking and talking with two respectable young soldiers far from home, and Roman Catholic soldiers, no less? Some of her old school friends were engaged to be married, despite the war that had taken many young men away. It was no shame now to walk arm in arm with a British soldier about the town and she had seen many who did. They were, after all, allies of the French, and if she was to agree to meet with them again Yvette would be with her as her chaperone.
If her father got to hear, she decided, then she would deal with it, though she felt a little icy finger of fear trickle down her spine at the thought because her father’s rages did frighten her. And yet she knew that if ever she was to have a life of her own, she had to learn to stand up to him.
‘Yvette is right. We could meet at the jardin public next Sunday, if the day is a fine one.’
‘I think you are both courting danger,’ Christy said. ‘Anyway,’ he turned to his friend, ‘doesn’t it depend on whether we have time off or not? We are in the army, unless it has escaped your notice, and our time is not our own.’
Gabrielle shrugged. ‘If you cannot come, there is no harm done,’ she said. ‘If it is fine Yvette and I will be there at about half-past two. It is what you English call a park,’ Gabrielle said, ‘and it is at the other side of the town, not far from the cathedral where you were this morning. Do you think you could find your way there?’
‘I think so.’
‘Well then, wait at the bandstand,’ Gabrielle said. ‘You will have a full view then of the main entrance. We will not come over to you or acknowledge you in anyway but make our way to the woodland further in. You wait a few minutes and join us there.’
She saw Finn’s eyes open wide in astonishment. She grabbed hold of his hands and he felt the tingle from her touch run all through his arms as she said earnestly, ‘Believe me, I am not being overdramatic. This—oh, what do you call it?—this subterfuge is necessary to protect us both.’
‘All right,’ Finn said, reading the fear in Gabrielle’s eyes. ‘It will be done just as you say.’
‘You’re a fool, Finn Sullivan,’ Christy said as the two girls left them.
‘You can only say that because you have obviously never felt this way about anyone,’ Finn said as he watched them walk away.
‘No, I haven’t,’ Christy said. ‘And I’ll take care to see that it stays that way. Seems like a mug’s game to me. Now, are we going for this drink or not?’
The following Sunday afternoon the sky was overcast, the air felt cold and there was a bristling wind. ‘I hope we’re not too late,’ Finn said to a reluctant Christy, as they hurried towards the park.
‘How could we be?’ Christy answered. ‘We set off from the camp at two o’clock sharp and it doesn’t take more that fifteen minutes to walk here—less at the pace you set.’
‘I just wanted to be sure we were on time.’
‘What you want is to have your head examined,’ Christy commented wryly. ‘But we have already gone down that road and you don’t listen to reason. Now settle yourself. If they have decided to come out today, despite the fact that it would be far more comfortable to sit by their own firesides, they’ll be along shortly. If there is no sign of them in about fifteen minutes or so, I am going to find myself a nice warm bar somewhere and have a drink, and you can please yourself.’
‘They’ll be here,’ Finn said firmly. ‘I’ve been almost daily to the shop. If Gabrielle wasn’t going to turn up for some reason then I’m sure that she would have found some way of telling me.’
He had been very careful to try to keep his excitement in check that morning when he served Captain Hamilton his breakfast, but he was unable to keep the smile from his face.
In the end, Hamilton said, ‘What the devil is pleasing you so much, Sullivan?’
‘Nothing, sir.’
‘Something damned well is,’ Hamilton snapped. ‘You’re grinning like a Cheshire cat. Got a fancy for a woman or what?’
The blush that flooded over Finn’s face gave Hamilton his answer and he laughed. ‘So that’s it, you sly horse. Glad to see that you have taken my advice and got over Gabrielle Jobert. I hope the girl you’re seeing is a decent sort.’
‘Oh yes, sir.’
Finn knew that the captain would be singing a different tune entirely if he had been aware who he was waiting for that bleak Sunday afternoon. He might easily have him transferred back to his battalion, and in disgrace too. Gabrielle wasn’t the only one who wanted the liaison kept secret.
A few minutes later, from his vantage point on the bandstand, he saw Gabrielle and her sister cross the road and enter the park. They didn’t approach, or even look in his direction, but followed the path round, and Finn thought five minutes had never passed so slowly before he could set off to meet up with them. ‘Bonjour, Mademoiselles Jobert,’ Finn said as he approached them.
He spoke to them both, but his eyes were fastened on Gabrielle and when she blushed Finn thought she was more beautiful than ever.
Yvette laughed. ‘My name isn’t Mademoiselle Jobert. I’m just Yvette and my sister is Gabrielle.’
‘And I am Finn Sullivan,’ Finn declared, as they began to walk on through the trees. ‘And this is my friend, Christy Byrne.’
‘Well, I am very pleased to meet you both,’ Gabrielle said. ‘I was surprised to see you at Mass last Sunday and then again this morning. I don’t recall ever having seen a man from the British Army at Mass before.’
‘Well, although I am in the British Army, Christy and I are from Ireland,’ Finn said. ‘And that, like France, is a Catholic country.’
‘Ah, yes,’ Gabrielle said. ‘I wondered what the accent was. I couldn’t quite place it.’
‘We are in the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers,’ Finn explained. ‘We have a fair few Catholics in our regiment.’
‘Then I am surprised there were not more soldiers at Mass,’ Gabrielle said.
‘Well, there are other churches in the town and Mass at different times,’ Finn pointed out. ‘But probably some, now that they’re away from home, will risk their immortal souls for a few extra hours in bed.’
‘Besides, only a relative few were sent here for special duties,’ Christy said.
‘And what are those special duties, soldier boy?’ Gabrielle asked with a coy smile.
Finn gave a quiet chuckle as Christy said, ‘We look after the creature comforts of the officers at the British Headquarters, for the moment at least.’
‘And what do you both do in your spare time?’ Gabrielle asked.
‘Well, our free time is governed by the officers we are assigned to,’ Finn said. ‘When we are at the camp some of the lads might be playing football, others will be playing cards or dominoes or reading, and I would probably be cleaning my kit and especially my rifle, lying on my bed sleeping, or writing letters home. It’s pretty boring, really.’
He smiled at her and then in the bantering tone she had used, he asked with a sardonic grin, ‘And what do you do with your free time, Mademoiselle Jobert?’
‘I really don’t have much free time,’ Gabrielle said, ‘what with serving in the shop and helping my mother. Sunday is my one free day and then we love to go for a walk.’ She grinned mischievously at Finn and added, ‘I find it a most agreeable pastime.’
‘And so do I,’ said Finn.
Gabrielle’s eyes met Finn’s and she saw the yearning in them that she knew would be mirrored in her own. For a split second it was as if time had stood still and they were alone. Everyone else had ceased to exist.
Then Finn tore his gaze away. His heart was banging and his mouth felt unaccountably dry. He knew then that he loved Gabrielle Jobert heart, body and soul, although he had not touched her and he barely knew her. None of that mattered.
What did matter, though, was that he was a soldier from a country at war, who any moment could be ordered away. He wondered whether it was wise to begin any sort of relationship with this wonderful girl or whether it would be kinder to her to nip it in the bud. Yvette’s voice brought him back down to earth, saying how brave she thought all the soldiers were.
He was unable to answer straightaway and he was grateful to Christy, who said, ‘I don’t know whether either of us have earned that title or not, Yvette, for we have yet to meet the enemy, though we joined up last year and have done months of training.’
Yvette’s eyes were puzzled as she said in surprise, ‘Do you want to fight then?’
Finn had recovered himself sufficiently enough to say, ‘It’s not the fighting for fighting’s sake that I regret, but when my brothers write that there are boatloads of injured Irish boys arriving home just now, and I am here high and dry and never near a bullet, it makes me feel a bit of a fraud.’
‘I can understand you feeling that way,’ Gabrielle said, ‘but I am very glad you came here for a time.’ Again there was that attractive flush to her face that caused Finn’s heart to beat faster as she asked, ‘Do you think me very forward?’
‘Why should I?’ he asked.
‘It’s not seemly for a woman to speak of such things.’
Yvette suddenly walked ahead and Gabrielle knew that it was to give her and Finn some privacy. Christy, seeing the way the wind blew, followed Yvette.
Finn continued, ‘Of course it’s seemly. Yvette sort of suggested we meet today and if you hadn’t agreed then I would probably never have plucked up the courage to ask you myself. I would consider it too presumptuous.’
‘What is this word, presumptuous?’
‘It means not my place to do that sort of thing,’ Finn said. ‘For one thing, your father owns a shop and I am a common foot soldier, and then you are French and I am Irish, and you are still very young.’
‘And how old are you, Finn?’
‘Nineteen,’ said Finn
Gabrielle laughed, but gently. ‘Such a great age,’ she said with a wry smile. ‘And prepared to lay down your life for France and Great Britain. That you have not done this yet is not the point. You will when the time comes and in my mind that makes you a great man.’
‘There really is nothing great about me,’ Finn said. ‘I am very ordinary.’
‘In my eyes you are great and so you must indulge me in this,’ Gabrielle said. ‘This town has been flooded with soldiers for over a year now, and of all nationalities, helping to fight in this terrible war, and never have I had the slightest desire to get to know any of those soldiers better, though I had plenty to choose from. What I am trying to say is that the way I behaved towards you is not the way that I would normally behave. I would hate you to think that I have approached other soldiers, because you are the only one. That first day I saw you standing there with your friend, I don’t know what happened to me. It was just as if you had reached across the road and laid your hand upon me.’
‘Oh, Gabrielle…’ Finn breathed. He had the urge to clasp her to him and kiss her long and hard, but their relationship was too new and tenuous for such intimacy yet. So he dampened down his ardour sufficiently to be able to say, ‘I too felt that certain pull between us, but any day I may be forced to leave this place. Maybe after today it would be better if we do not meet again.’
Gabrielle stopped walking. ‘If you hadn’t been in the British Army and sent to this town then we might never have met anyway. I know that we are on borrowed time. When you are gone, the memories of what we shared, even for a short time, will warm me and I will never regret a minute of it, I promise you.’
Finn was not convinced. ‘Are you sure?’
‘I have never been surer of anything in my life.’
‘All right,’ Finn said. ‘We will do it your way. Now let’s walk on because I can see you shivering with cold.’
Gabrielle hid her smile. It would be far too bold to say that it wasn’t the cold that had made her limbs shake, but the nearness of Finn beside her, but she did walk on quicker and they caught up with Yvette and Christy.
Then Gabrielle said, ‘We must leave you here till we meet again.’
‘So soon?’
Gabrielle nodded. ‘I am afraid so. My mother could not see the attraction of coming out today at all. Last week, although the rain was only drizzling after you left us, Yvette and I were soaked by the time we reached home. All week our mother waited for us to go down with colds, or worse, and she didn’t want us to venture out at all today.’
‘She didn’t forbid you?’
‘Maman never forbids,’ Gabrielle said. ‘She says we have enough of that from our father.’
‘And we do,’ Yvette put in grimly.
‘She’s right,’ Gabrielle said with a smile. ‘Our father is a very hard man and so Maman is more gentle with us, but she did ask me not to stay out too long and so I really must go now,’
‘So, when will I see you again?’
‘As I said, Sunday afternoon is the only time that I’m free.’
‘They will be the longest seven days of my life,’ Finn said. ‘And yet my time isn’t my own either, though at the moment at least most of my evenings are free.’
‘Till we meet again then,’ Gabrielle said, and she stood on tiptoe and kissed Finn on both cheeks in the French way, and laughed at the look on his face.
Later, as he and Christy made their way into the town, Finn acknowledged that the captain was right. If he was honest with himself, what he really wanted to do with Gabrielle was roll her in the first available cornfield and show her how much he desired her. Not that he would ever even hint at such a thing. He would not debase her in that way.
He felt that he had been reborn, that his life before had been sterile and meaningless, and he knew that at that moment he wouldn’t change places with anyone in the world.
The following week, when Finn met Gabrielle in the park he went alone. Christy had to work, although he admitted to Finn that he hadn’t tried that hard to get the time off. ‘I value my hide more than you obviously value yours,’ he said. ‘Anyway, last time I was hanging about like a spare dinner.’
Finn could see his point, but there was no way he was passing up a chance to see Gabrielle and so he set out the next Sunday, which was dry and fresh, though extremely cold.
When Finn joined them in the woods, Yvette moved on ahead to give them privacy and Gabrielle smiled as she said, ‘You may hold my hand if you wish to.’
Finn was only too happy to do that. ‘But we must walk quickly lest you get cold,’ he advised.
Gabrielle hesitated. There was an urgency about their time together rather than a normal courtship, when she could invite Finn to the house and walk out openly. And so, though she wouldn’t normally have admitted such feelings on such a short acquaintance, she said in a voice barely above a whisper, ‘Don’t worry about me being cold, for I feel as if I have a furnace inside me, just because I am near you.’
Finn’s heart soared with happiness, and he pulled her closer. ‘Ah, Gabrielle, those words fill me with such joy. Now tell me about yourself. I want to know all about you.’
Gabrielle smiled as she told him about her life in the small French town not that unlike Buncrana, where Yvette went to school and she herself helped in the shop.
‘Your eyes cloud over when you speak of your father,’ Finn said. ‘Are you so afraid of him?’
‘Yes,’ said Gabrielle. ‘Sometimes I even think that I hate him because he is so intractable and stern. I can’t see when he is going to give me some freedom and allow me to live like other girls my age. Even dressing me in the same clothes as my sister is his way of controlling me further. No seventeen-year-old girl wants to dress in clothes that suit her sister, who is four years younger. We are never allowed out alone and apart from Mass the only time we go into the town is when we are being bought clothes by my father, and then he escorts us. That is where we were going that first time that you saw me in the town. We were on our way to buy winter coats and dresses.’
‘I think his character is well known amongst the townsfolk,’ Finn said. ‘My captain warned me not even to try speaking to you.’
‘Finn, he is suffocating me,’ Gabrielle said. ‘And how could we help being drawn to one another?’
‘I didn’t think things like this happened.’
‘I’ve read about it in romantic novels,’ Gabrielle said. ‘I was never allowed such books, but when I was at the school, the other girls would have them and I would smuggle them home.’
‘Your father isn’t the only one we have to be worried about, though,’ Finn said. ‘I think if the Army knew of this they’d probably post me somewhere else.’
Gabrielle shivered. ‘I know one day that this will happen anyway. But I want these stolen moments with you to last as long as possible.’
‘And I do,’ said Finn.
‘If my father was a kinder, softer man,’ Gabrielle went on, ‘I could probably feel it in my heart to feel sorry for him because he is a baker, like his father and grandfather and great-grandfather for generations. He wanted sons to follow on from him and all he got was two girls.’
‘Surely it is not too late,’ Finn said. ‘He may yet have sons.’
‘No,’ Gabrielle said. ‘My mother was damaged giving birth to Yvette. There will be no sons for my father. She feels that she has failed him.’
Finn could understand only too well what a blow that would be. Farmers felt the same about sons. They often wanted a fine rake of sons to ensure continuity on the farm and yet only the first son inherited. On the death of the father, the others, who had often grafted all their lives, had to then make their own way in the world, and yet to have no sons at all would be hard on any man.
‘My father says that Yvette and I will have to make good marriages,’ Gabrielle continued. ‘What is even scarier, he keeps hinting that he has someone in mind for me already. Isn’t that a dreadful thought?’
‘It is indeed,’ Finn said. ‘Surely your husband is your choice.’
‘He should be,’ Gabrielle said. ‘But six days a week I am either in the shop with my mother, or else in the bakery with my father. I see no one but customers, and apart from going to Mass my only outing is a walk with my sister on Sunday afternoon if the weather allows. We go to bed at half-past eight,’ she added contemptuously. ‘What sort of time is that for a girl of my age?’
‘Well,’ said Finn, ‘we don’t keep late hours in the country, with cows to milk early, but half-past eight seems ridiculous. Why have you to go to bed at such an hour?’
‘Because my father goes at that time so that he is up before dawn to light the ovens,’ Gabrielle said. ‘When he goes to bed, we all have to go to bed. Even Saturday night, when he goes into the town himself, as the bakery is closed on Sunday, he still wants us in bed at the same time. We stay up a bit later with Maman, but not too long, for she would get in trouble if he found out and we are never sure when he will be in.’
‘I can understand how frustrating you would find that,’ Finn said.
Gabrielle went on, ‘In the summer with the windows open I can often hear the sounds of merriment in the streets below and sometimes I long to join in and meet up with people my age. I could easily, for there is a tree just outside my window I could climb down. I wouldn’t dare, of course, because Father would be bound to find out. Sometimes, though, I am so restless and the room so stuffy I have climbed into the branches of the tree to feel the breeze on my face. I always wait until Yvette is asleep to do this.’
‘You must be careful that you don’t fall.’
‘Oh, no, it is a safe old tree.’
‘You must keep safe always,’ Finn said in a voice made husky with emotion. ‘I would hate anything to happen to you.’
‘My dear, darling Finn…’ Gabrielle said softly. Then she added, ‘Just think, if I hadn’t met you almost accidentally and we had set up these meetings, we would never had got to know each other.’
‘That is a dreadful thought,’ Finn said. ‘Because I am sure that I love you. If there was no war on, then I would take you away from here and we could get married.’
‘And I would go with you anywhere,’ Gabrielle said.
‘I don’t feel I have the right to ask you to wait for me till the war is over, though,’ Finn said, and a frown creased his forehead.
‘Why ever not?’ Gabrielle asked.
‘Well, you are young and—’
‘Haven’t you listened to a word I’ve said?’ she demanded. ‘I know what it is to love someone and that someone is you. I will wait for you as long as it takes. All I ask is that you come back to me safe and sound and I will go to the ends of the earth with you if you ask me to.’
‘What of your father?’
‘He can plot and plan all he likes, but he cannot make me marry anyone if I refuse, and I promise you with all my heart that I will only ever marry for love, and my love is you, my darling, Finn.’
Finn kissed Gabrielle that day when they parted, but though it was on the lips it was a chaste kiss. His desire for Gabrielle was mounting daily but he knew that he had to proceed carefully. She was pure and innocent, and totally without any sexual experience. He was convinced of her love for him, though, and that was all that mattered. As long as he was stationed in St-Omer, he would let nothing come between them.
Finn had reckoned without the weather. The next day was the first of November and it arrived with torrential rain that fell in sheets day after day, driven by bone-chilling, gusty winds. Eventually, the camp field resembled a quagmire, the air they breathed seemed moisture-laden, the beds were damp and all the men found it hard to sleep deeply, however tired they were. Everyone was in low spirits, worn down by the constant grey skies, the steadfast drip, drip, drip of the relentless rain and the raging wind that hurled itself at anyone who stepped out of the minimal shelter of the drenched and billowing tents.
Those like Finn and Christy, who worked in the Headquarters all day, were considered the lucky ones. Never was Finn so glad of his greatcoat, though it was usually sodden each morning by the time he got to the Headquarters, and he would leave it steaming before the fire he made up for Captain Hamilton.
The first Sunday of November passed and then the second. Finn was desperate to see Gabrielle again though he didn’t know how it was to be achieved. It was torturous now when he went into the bakery, or caught sight of her at Mass.
The third Sunday loomed with no solution, and he knew that as the winter really took hold, the weather would probably get considerably worse before it got any better. It might be weeks before he could see Gabrielle. In fact he could be marched away before he got the chance at all. He knew he would go clean mad if that happened
Christy knew what was eating him and coming upon him one evening in the mess tent, staring miserably at a mug of tea, he said, ‘You’re mad if you have developed more than a mere fondness for Gabrielle. You’re a soldier, for Christ’s sake.’
‘I know that,’ Finn spat out. ‘I know it’s not sensible, but it just happened. And now with this bloody weather I don’t know if I will ever see her again. We need somewhere where we can be alone.’
‘Oh, is that all?’ Christy said sarcastically. ‘Ten a penny, places like that are around here.’
Finn’s eyes blazed. ‘Bugger off, Christy!’ he yelled, leaping to his feet.
‘Now where are you going?’
‘For a walk,’ Finn snapped. ‘On my own.’
‘It’s dark, man.’
‘Yeah, well, I’m not afraid of it,’ Finn said, pushing off Christy’s restraining arms, and he set off into the night.
It was like pitch, for the rain had eased to a drizzle that ensured there was no moon to light his way. Sounds from the camp trailed after him, growing fainter as he turned away from that and plunged into the darkness.
His eyes did adjust slightly, but not enough to stop him slipping in the mud underfoot. He heard the ground sucking at his boots as he slurped and slopped his way through thick and glutinous slurry, or slid into quagmires where he nearly lost his boot on more than one occasion. He went doggedly on, however, knowing that he needed no company that night and especially not people trying to cheer him up.
In the end, though, he was thoroughly chilled, wet through and more miserable than he had ever felt in his life before, and he decided to go back. And then, in front of him, rising out of the darkness he saw a building. He didn’t recognise it, but he decided to investigate and he made his way over cautiously.
It was built in a hollow, which he didn’t see in the dark night and he nearly went head over heels as he approached. He didn’t know whether the place was occupied or not. It could well be, and the people in bed. He lit one of the matches he kept in the inside pocket of his tunic and by its light could see the building was very dilapidated. But that signified nothing, he thought as the match burned down to his fingers and he dropped it. He crept around the sides until he came to the front door.
There was no sign of life at all, no irate farmer appeared to challenge him and no dog erupted barking from the barns. He risked another match and in its light he saw the single-storey building had a sort of battered, neglected look about it. The door was slightly open and hanging on one set of hinges, and Finn knew the place was deserted.
Another match showed him that the odd dark shapes in front of the house were trees, and past those he saw there was a wooden bridge over the canal, which ran by the side of the house. He wanted to jump for joy because he had found the perfect place for him to bring Gabrielle.
He turned and made for the camp as quickly as he could. He would say nothing to her until he had looked inside the house and he intended to do that as soon as possible.
That night Finn hardly slept and he was up hours before the bugle call. Everyone else slumbered on as he struggled into his damp clothes. This time he took a torch, for it was still dark.
He went quicker with the torch playing before him, but still the house was a fair way from the camp.
He pushed aside the ill-fitting door, stepped inside. He was not surprised to see the whole place was dust-laden and festooned with cobwebs, nor was he surprised to hear rats scuttling away. The air smelled musty and sour, but there was no sign of the roof leaking. He crossed to the fireplace. There were ashes in the grate and even kerosene in the lamp on the mantelshelf above it.
All right, he thought, so it isn’t a palace; it is in fact a very Spartan house, but it has four walls, a roof, and a grate where I could light a fire.
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