The Angel of Mons - Chapter seventeen

Seventeen

His eyes moved from left to right and back, dark images reflected on their watery surface. His grey face hung un-kept and unshaven. He held his head to one side and scanned the photograph, which he clasped in his unsteady hand.
George reached into the top draw of the desk in front of him and without looking he pulled out his father’s magnifying glass. He smiled and his eyes opened wide as he recognised the young faces grinning out of the picture at him. Their uniforms new and smart, a little to large for them perhaps. George wished he was with them. He found it impossible to believe that they were gone. He felt deep in his soul that they would be together again. George wondered how long he would have to wait. He wondered why he had waited so long already.
He could not remember the last time he’d had a chance to work his way through the photograph box.
George found pictures of him and Graham during the many holidays they had enjoyed together over the years, taken by a helpful waiter or brief acquaintance. He stared at his own image and thought to himself that he looked old even then, even during the thirties and the forties.
George lifted a large envelope from the bottom of the box and put it on the desk in front of him. He pushed the box to one side and placed his head on his hands, looking through his thin grey fingers at the brown ceiled envelope below.
He held his hands in front of his face and watched them tremble. He had not opened the envelope since 1919. George had been here before. Staring at every line, every mark on the envelope, but every time, he had returned it unopened to the dark depths of the box. This time however something inside him felt different. At last he felt the need to know. He lifted the envelope and shook it gently. He knew it was still in there. There was no where else it could be.
George pushed his chair back and walked across the room to the drinks cabinet watched closely by Bully who sat attentively by the fire, scratching his ear with his hind leg. George shook the empty gin bottle opened the cupboard and pulled out what was left of the single malt.
He winced slightly as the fiery liquid hit the back of his throat. He limped back and sat down once more at the desk. He took another gulp and once again lifted the envelope. Reaching across the desk he lifted his father’s letter opener. He paused for another moment and then, suddenly, he ripped viciously at the brown paper, tearing it roughly across the top. He reached in with his fingers and pulled out a photograph and another smaller envelop and dropped them both, face down onto the desk. The envelope which was marked and yellow around the edges, contained the letter his father had written to him before he had died. George had never read it.
He pulled out the carefully folded sheets of thin white writing paper and began to read the note he had not looked at since the day it had been handed to him by his mother in his fathers study in all those years before.
“George, I am happy for you to be reading this as it means you have come through this terrible war and are now at home where you belong safe and sound.
“I am so sorry that I was not able to say goodbye to you in person and to tell you that I am so proud of you and everything you have achieved.
“I had a feeling something was not right with me two or three of years ago, but said nothing, as I knew there was nothing I could do. In many ways I considered myself lucky being able to access medicines to help keep away the pain.
“Look after your mother and your brother for me. But most of all George look after yourself and those who you will know and love in later life. If you have a chance to keep the name going then all very well, but to me the most important thing would be to know that you are happy and content and that you need never worry about anything.
“When you first went away I prayed that you would be spared and said in my prayers that I would be happier to go myself than have to read a telegram saying that you have been taken.
“I have seen so many families broken and left hollow as news came through about their brave sons. And it greaves me so to think that there is nothing that I can do to help.
“It may sound odd but I am happy to be fighting my own little battle. My own little war; though I have to say that it is one which I know I can never win.
“Think of me fondly as I have always done of you since your very first day. And please do me the honour of a thought and perhaps even a mention at special times and occasions.
“Who knows one glorious day, we may be reunited, but until then be alive, be free and be happy.”
George smiled through the tears. He lifted the sheets to his nose and for a moment he wondered if he smell that smoky warmth he enjoyed so much on the occasions as a child he was allowed to sit close to his father.
He took another sip from the glass and turned over the photograph which lay on the desk in front of him. George bit his lip and his eyes opened into a glowing smile. The tears dried and suddenly his face took on a look of calm quiet contentment. He reached out with his fingertips and gently touched the image of a small boy of around three years old in a straw hat and sailors uniform sitting on the lap of a bright, smiling young woman. “Hello Boy, hello Lizzy,” he whispered, his voice breaking slightly as he spoke.
George held the picture close and examined every tiny detail. He looked at every fold in the fabric of the clothes they were wearing. He looked into the image of the eyes, he tried to stare beyond the surface and into their very souls, to try to imagine their thoughts at that moment, on that day. He tried to imagine how they smelt, and what they said next. He wondered if he looked long enough and hard enough that perhaps they would move, just a fraction just the tiniest movement.
He lifted the picture and walked across the room to his brothers’ favourite chair and sat by the burning coals. And as the warm glow of the fire and the sound of its gentle breathing roar in the chimney filled his senses, George began to drift in his mind. He closed his eyes and tried to take himself back to when they were with him and when he was happy.

When at last in March 1919 George was allowed to return home he found the village he had left much changed. He was discharged as an injured soldier, an invalid which meant that he was pensioned off, guaranteed an income for the rest of his days. He wasn’t even twenty five years old.
So he filled his days hobbling round the house and occasionally making his way painstakingly into the village where he would sit under the great budding branches of the oak tree watching the old men going about their business alone on the farm, working it would seem every hour god allowed them. George often wondered if they worked for the good of the farm and their animals, or if they worked to forget. Either way they laboured and as the weeks rolled by the fields began to show new shoots and he felt himself once more slowly but surely beginning to rediscover the cycle of nature. He began to become used to the thought that he would see the harvest collected and that he would be alive the following day. He wondered at that time if such realisation was an indication that at last the war really was over.
He noticed how the older men who had lost their sons looked at him. Their eyes were empty, distant and although their faces smiled and their greetings were warm, George knew that they would have given anything to have ‘their lad,’ standing in his place.
In many ways George found this difficult to bear and during the early time back in Albury, he spent many hours questioning himself about why it was he had been spared. He found that he was struggling to come to terms with the complexities of peace. In the army, all he had to do was survive. The future was the next moment, or a few days leave. Now, for the first time in as long as he could remember, he needed to plan and he had to do it alone. There were no orders to follow, no one telling him what he had to do and when it had been be done by. His time was his own and he no idea what he wanted to do with it.
His mother was not in good health when he reached the Gables. He noticed a frailty in her that surprised him and shook him to the core. Her strength, her selfish determination and single-minded presence were gone. He found her unsure and lacking in confidence, forgetful and nervous.
When she greeted him she had held him and wept, he could feel her trembling. It felt as though she would never let him go. She hung on as if her very life depended on it as if she would fall away or as if he may disappear if she relaxed her grip for even a moment.
She had admitted that she missed Graham terribly and wished that they could all be at home again, just as they had been before the war. Graham had been called up shortly after his eighteenth birthday. He had undergone extensive training in England and as a result of his academic achievements and his father’s professional status had trained as an officer, finally passing out as a Captain in October 1918. He was posted and arrived in France on the fourteenth of November where he was sent immediately to the front line where he helped supervise the rebuilding of defences and assisted in the processing of prisoners. Graham wrote home regularly and seemed to enjoy his time in occupation as part of the victorious army.
George was sitting under the oak by the pond one bright but cold Saturday morning when he saw the young child run across the road toward the pond. He was carrying a long thin stick in his right hand which became tangled in his short bare legs causing him to stumble slightly. The child was laughing and George could hear the sound of his happiness echoing across the water and off the farm buildings all around. It occurred to him for a moment that it had been a long time since he had heard the sound of a truly happy child. Although a little shabby, the boy was dressed well, comfortable and warm. The sleeves of his coat were turned over to make it fit and his buttoned shirt had no collar.
“What did you do in the war Sir? My dad died,” announced the small boy as he approached . George looked into his dark eyes which remained fixed on his. He noticed two small patches of freckles on each side of his face that were joined by a tiny line that ran across the bridge of his nose. There was something familiar about the child but at first George could not place it.
“What’s your name?” whispered George who frowned at the boy as he wondered if perhaps he had seen him before.
“Peter sir, Peter Jackson.”
George’s body stiffened slightly and then he leant forward. The young Peter stepped back, his mouth open his eyes slightly startled. Realising his reaction had frightened the child; George held out his hand and touched him on the shoulder, gently rubbing his tiny arm. “I know your mother,” he said quietly looking over the child’s shoulder. The boy stepped back, stared at George for a moment with big wide eyes, his body began to tremble and he turned and ran toward the Jackson’s farm.
A minute later when George looked up, the child was back, standing next to a woman, her face was a little white, tired but full of life. She wore a white blouse and dark brown skirt, which hung, just below her ankles. She bit her lip. The boy was half stepping forward and half-hiding behind her, holding onto her skirts staring at George like an inquisitive puppy on a lead.
Liz sent the boy back to the farm and walked around the pond. Without saying a word she sat down next to George. She stared at first at the still water and then at George and then back to the water.
“He thought perhaps you were his father back from the war,” she said quietly, “he doesn’t understand.”
“So is he dead, his father?” asked George who in an instant wished there was a way he could grab the words and silence them before she heard them and before she felt the hurt they contained.
“Ypres last year,” she said coldly. As she spoke, a cool breeze rustled the leaves of the oak above and George shuddered, as if a cold finger had been run down his spine.
“I’m sorry Liz, I didn’t mean to judge you.”
She turned and he could see the child’s features in her beauty. She bit her lip hard, white forming in the flesh around her teeth. She leant over and threw her arms around George who could feel her tears as they ran warm and plentiful down his neck.
“He doesn’t know George. We have a faded picture of Peter, and he thinks…..” She hesitated and pulled away from George, she looked into his eyes, hers questioning, her head shaking slightly.
“I won’t say anything Liz, you have my word. Do you know it seems silly but I thought I could almost see something of Peter in him.”
They sat together in silence for a while until Liz turned to him and smiled softly. George felt his heart quicken. She squeezed his hand and looked deep into him he could almost feel her thoughts inside his head.
He looked up, distracted by the sound of a motor car as it popped into sight, the engine whining and gears grating. It drew up outside the Greyhound and a young man in a long leather jacket stepped down and raising a pair of large leather goggles onto the top of his cap, he hurried into the pub without noticing George and Liz who for the sake of appearances had moved apart slightly.
“Come on,” said George as he stood awkwardly, arched his arm toward his hip and began to walk toward the church. She held his arm tight and walked with him.
“Your leg, will it get better?” She asked quietly.
“In time perhaps, a little,” he replied.
The thin cold sun was above the church as they approached the gates. George hesitated slightly, his face showing the pain from his injured leg. Liz held his arm tightly and smiled at him when he paused and rested, placing his weight on his good leg. He nodded his head toward a stone seat in the entrance to the church and arm in arm they made their way passed the memorials of the sons and daughters of Albury, those who had in the main lived and loved, and died warm in their beds as was once had been the manner of things.
Liz sat next to him her large dark eyes looking first to the pitted gravel path which led to the church and then at George. It was as if she were struggling with a question. Something she wanted to say but was unable to form, to put into the right words. George could feel the warmth of her body against his and whenever she turned to him he felt a deep yearning, a need to hold her tight forever. He felt a light tingling run through him which was like the warmth of life itself, but cold and frightening all at the same time.
Three weeks later, George’s Mother had wept as she watched him polish his shoes in the kitchen. She wore a long purple dress with matching jacket and a broad hat. George remembered the ornate embroidery that ran around the jacket and many small buttons which fastened it tight. She said she was happy for him, but George was not so sure.
They rode in a car hired from Tring, down the hill to the village where George asked the driver to stop at the Greyhound. He kissed his mother on the forehead and told her he would walk round to the church and would see her there.
He felt the cold of the autumn in the air and could smell the heavy white wood smoke, that swirled lazily from the chimneys, sliding from the roofs and across the pond.
It was so quiet.
In the bar, the fathers of his friends had gathered in their Sunday best. They sat with their beer and their memories. Mr Jackson greeted him with a quiet smile and a friendly nod and those with their backs to the door turned and in silence raised their glasses to him.
In their eyes and in their faces George could see the features of his friends. Their strengths and fears were alive in their father’s. But how wrong it was thought George. He should be with his friend’s mourning the leaving of the generation from before. He should be recognising the traits of the old generation in the new, not those of the lost generation in the old.
George sipped his brandy and shook hands with all the men, thanking them in turn for coming.
Five minutes later they marched, in time in a broad line past the pond with its chattering ducks and rustling reeds passed the shop up the road to the church. And as they marched they sang quietly, ‘Tipperary,’ and George thought of their sons before them. And tried to imagine that they were there marching with him again.
The gathering of around fifteen people, most in the autumn of their lives and one, the boy at the very beginning huddled around the alter staying close together, the warmth of their breath visible in the cold darkness.
Above them as if in judgement His Sons image stood as it always had. George looked up into the painted eyes and thought for a moment that the gathering of dust and the coldness of the light had perhaps etched an extra line into the furrowed brow.
As she arrived next to him and lifted the veil, George was full of the memories of those few years before when the church had been full of youth and light and hope, back to a time when it seemed there was nothing to fear. He thought of the laughter and the dancing and wondered if it had really happened at all.
Liz looked up at him and smiled. Her eyes fixed on his and her delicate hand reached across to his arm which she held tight and trembling. George consciously straightened his back and raised his chin, running his finger around the tight card collar of the stiff starched shirt. His mother had suggested he wore his uniform, but he had placed his hand on her cheek as a grandfather may a child and smiling, he had slowly shaken his head.
The boy moved forward and stood with his mother in spite of the efforts of Grandmother Jackson who was trying to hold him back. George smiled at him and winked. The child looked up through the dark eyes of his mother from the face of a stranger and smiled a gappy grin back.
The flowing of the clergies poetic voice was interrupted only by the occasional cough and by the happy cooing of the boy who seemed to hang on every note of the vicars delivery, eyes wide head swaying gently from side to side.
George looked across at Liz who stared forward her eyes fixed on the priest, unblinking. Her lips moved occasionally as if the words he spoke were travelling through her without her knowing. It was then that George noticed a tiny chain of tied and woven into her hair. Identical as far as he could recall to the chain he had given her before her marriage to Peter, before everything.
A thin ray of light beat through the stained window and seemed to wipe away the frown from the Sons forehead. And George felt his heartbeat fast and his throat tighten. He looked toward the heavens and trembling took a long deep breath.
The party emerged into the thin grey light and the bells struck up filling the scene with a cacophony of joy. Liz held his arm tight as they walked among the headstones down the path to the road.
George was distracted by the familiar sound of wood and metal on gravel and stone, the rhythm of horses slow and deliberate. And then he saw Peter’s father standing on his finest carriage with red wheels painted fresh for the occasion. He reached down and helped the couple and the child on board and with a gentle flick of the rains the cart lurched forward, throwing George back onto the bench seat at the side.
As they made their way the short distance to the Greyhound George pulled out his wallet. He opened it and pulled the daisy chain from the pocket. Liz looked up at him and smiled, she reached into her hair, took the fresh chain, gently kissed it with her thin pale lips and held it on her palm for George who placed it with the other.

The fire cracked and dragged George unwillingly back into the dark winter of his life. He found himself once more sitting in Grahams large arm chair, alone as if he had woken from a deep sleep. He made his way slowly across the room his leg sore and his back bent. He let Bully out into the back garden and stared at the darkness which was punctuated by curtain covered lights from the surrounding houses. It occurred to him that he did not even know the names of many of his neighbours.
George pulled the guard over in front of the glowing amber’s and shivered slightly as he left the warmth of the living room and made his way down the narrow dark hall accompanied closely by Bully who had taken to sharing his unheated bedroom. George dreaded the lonely cold and unpredictable night that lay ahead of him.