Leah Fleming - Remembrance Day

Essie paused at her scrubbing when she heard the wall clock strike twelve. ‘Lord have mercy on our boys, wherever they may be and give courage to their folks at home,’ she prayed. Then she carried on rubbing over the flags on her hands and knees until she saw the shadow fall over her and a pair of size ten boots in front of her nose. The polish on his toecaps made her stomach turn over. She looked up. ‘I’ve done it, Mam. Took the King’s shilling. I’m off to war!’ he announced, grinning as if it was something to rejoice about.

‘Oh, Newton Bartley…whatever for? What’ll yer dad say? He needs you in the forge.’

‘No he doesn’t. He’s got Frank to pump the bellows. When I told them my trade, they nearly bit my hand off…asked if I could ride and I leaped on one of their hosses in one jump to show I was not kidding. It’ll be the Artillery or Engineers for me. I might get to work with hosses in the cavalry…I won’t be in the front line but doing what I’m good at. Don’t cry…I’ll be back.’

Essie couldn’t hide her tears. ‘Oh, I wish you hadn’t…but I’m that proud of you, just the same. At least they won’t send you abroad until you’re nineteen.’

‘I told them I was eighteen and a half,’ Newt confessed.

‘Well, you can just go and untell them. If you don’t I will. You’re not eighteen until next March. Don’t be in such a hurry to wish your life away.’

‘It’s my life. I hate it when people eye you up and down in the street for not being in uniform. There’s loads of lads joining up together. The colonel’s been up and down the streets checking who’s joined up. I think one of us should go.’

‘But not to please him. Yer dad has already chewed off his ear when he poked his head round the smiddy door. He told him someone had to keep the wheels turning and machinery in fine fettle and the farmers’ hosses on the trot. That’s war work too. The colonel went red in the face and stormed out but yer dad got the last word on’t matter.’

‘I’m not going to please anyone—or the lassies, before you start—but ’cos I sort of have to…to prove to meself that village lads are tough and reliable and stand up for what is right. Don’t be mad at me; I’ll write to you.’

‘You’d better had, young man. When will you tell yer dad?’

Newt looked sheepish. ‘Not yet a while. I’ll wait until he’s cooling off. I don’t fancy breaking the news with him with a hammer in his hand.’ He grinned and Essie wanted to hug him, her first-born, the daft happorth! He had that stubborn mule Bartley streak in him, a devil to shift. Selma had it too, but Frank was more her own makeup, sensitive and feeling. Essie shivered, knowing this blessed war had just crept through her front door and stolen a son.

Angus and Guy stood in Otley Street outside the Drill Hall in Skipton sizing up the queue, the bustle of lads coming in and out, the giggling girls hanging around the gates waiting for their chaps to come out smiling, waving papers.

‘Come on, don’t hang about,’ Guy said. ‘Let’s get it over with, we’ve not got long.’

‘Not so fast,’ Angus grinned. ‘We can have some fun here. I’ll go in first and you wait outside…’

‘What for?’

‘You’ll see.’ Angus disappeared through the arched door while Guy looked to see if there was anyone he recognised. Mother would rant and rave when she found out what they were doing but if they waited any longer the war would be over. Angus reappeared, grinning. ‘Your turn, give your initials and wait and see.’

Guy stepped inside and joined the queue. He felt conspicuous in his striped school blazer. He stepped up to the table where the Sergeant Major looked up at him with surprise.

‘What’ve you forgotten, lad…changed yer mind? Let’s be havin’ you! Next.’ He ignored Guy and looked to the boy behind.

‘Sir, I’ve come to enlist,’ Guy offered.

‘Oh, aye? You can’t do it twice, laddie. I’ve got you on the list already. Next!’

‘That’s not me,’ Guy said.

‘I’m not deaf dumb and blind…stop wasting my time. See this joker out!’ A soldier made to manhandle him out of the door. So that was Angus’s little game.

‘Thanks a bundle! They wouldn’t take me…’

‘Don’t you think it’s better if only one of us goes? Poor Mama will have a fit,’ Angus offered.

‘Don’t be so stupid! You’re the one who ought to stay at home, not me.’ Guy dragged his brother back into the hall. This time there would be no monkey business. The Sergeant looked up as they both saluted and roared, ‘Well, I’ll be damned! A right pair of jokers, we have here! We’ll soon wipe the smile off your faces…’

Selma was busy supervising the junior knitting bee when the noon bell tolled. The children rose, put their hands together and offered a silent prayer. Soon the dinner break would start and she must make sure the knitting was well away from spills and sticky fingers. They were attempting mittens for soldiers. Some of the girls were experts already with knitting needles fixed to their belts, but her boys were all fingers and thumbs even though everyone was taking it as seriously as any eight-year-old could.

The autumn sun beamed down through the high arched school window, dust and chalk motes sparkling in the light, no sound but the clacking of needles and squirming clogs on wooden boards. Barbara Finch had just been sick again and sent home though the smell of vomit and sawdust was still in the air, as was the stink of someone’s dirty socks, but for once her thoughts rose above her own knit one, purl one to those afternoon walks with Guy…

How many Sundays had they met in secret now? How she longed for that precious moment when she stepped onto the secret path, through the iron gate up onto the scar to avoid the usual Sunday strollers and Sharland scholars, her heart beating fast, anticipating the moment when Guy would step out onto the path ahead of her as if by magic and she could drink him all in, those long striding legs, the sway of his hips, the moment when she caught him up and he looked down at her, inclining his head as if he was appraising her for the first time, smiling with those bluest of eyes, holding out his hand, his long fingers grasping her hand with such warmth and tenderness as they held each other in such a gaze that made Selma feel dizzy. It was as if the whole world stopped for those precious hours when they could lose themselves in each other, holding hands like any courting couple but always with one eye on the horizon in case they were discovered, hands separating as they drew close to the village to go their different paths. Sometimes Guy left Jemima tethered close by and they took turns to ride and walk up to the far ridge from where they could see the whole valley spread out before them.

Last week Guy sat staring out over the hills. He’d just heard that one of his school friends had been killed while on training with live ammunition. His name would be the first Sharlander to go on the Roll of Honour but not the last. Both of them sensed that this war was changing lives for ever and Selma felt a flash of fear that this was only the beginning of things to come. They sat under the shelter of a huge piece of granite rock; an erratic, Guy called it.

Selma noticed how when she talked to him her voice softened and her vowels rounded and deepened away from broad Yorkshire, taking her cue from his own refined accent. They were reading from his pocket Palgrave’s Golden Treasury.

‘You read so well and with such meaning like an actress,’ Guy said.

‘I’ve never been to a proper theatre,’ she confessed.

‘Then you must go…perhaps to Bradford or Leeds on the train.’

‘I don’t think so…we don’t go to those places.’