In Distant Fields Read online

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ Harry muttered, his confusion now turning to anger. ‘How can it matter where I went to school when it comes to joining the army?’

  ‘I do not make the rules, son. My job is to see they are obeyed. To the very letter. The regiment what you wish to join has very strict rules as to whom it may recruit and admit, and grammar school boys and lesser are not included. But don’t let that put you off, son. There are plenty of other regiments – fine ones too. Here’s a list of the county regiments, for a start, and if you want I can go through them with you, and mark your card.’

  Harry took it but didn’t bother either to read it, or to ask for guidance. He simply stuffed it in his pocket and, excusing himself, left the room to wander the town until he could see the sense in what he had learned: that while the army, in its munificence, was quite happy to take you into its ranks and throw you on the sacrificial pyre, certain members in its serried ranks would rather not have you fighting and possibly dying anywhere near them if you had been unfortunate enough to go to the wrong school.

  He found such prejudice almost impossible to believe, even after a couple of bottles of the local strong ale taken in a pub not far from the recruiting office, where several young men were busy arming themselves alcoholically in order to have the courage to present themselves for recruitment. They were local boys, for all the world like so many of the young men working at Bauders in the house or in the grounds, young men of open countenance and seeming high spirits, well-built lads with strong hands and limbs, some of them good-looking, others plain, but all of character, all of them what his father would call ‘sons of the earth’, many of whom Harry knew would soon be returning there to be buried, perhaps full of lead and shrapnel.

  While he sat watching them laughing and joking, as they sank their pints until it was generally decided amongst them that they had drunk enough to go and take the King’s shilling, it was as much as Harry could do not to go and bang on their tables, send their pint pots flying and tell them all they were going to waste their young lives – that it simply wasn’t worth it, that much as they would be flattered and cajoled into joining some glorious old regiment, all they really were – young men like them – was cannon fodder; more bodies to make up the numbers, another half-dozen lads to fall among the other twenty-five thousand at the next siege, or in the next battle.

  But of course he didn’t do any such thing. He just sat drinking his beer in the knowledge that when it was finished he too would find his way back to the recruiting office, re-present himself and seek advice as to which of the local regiments would take him, which one would accept a lowly grammar school boy, which one could find it in themselves not to mind what your social rank might be as long as you could swell its numbers and willingly go to your death with the best, and the worst, of them.

  ‘Wavell?’ the examining medical officer called to him from the door to his surgery. ‘If you would be good enough to come back in here, please?’

  Harry put down the magazine he’d been reading, wondering why he had been asked to stay in the waiting room, rather than be given a quick and clean bill of health like the half a dozen young men who had gone in before him. Silently he joked to himself that he might yet again have chosen another wrong regiment, whose MO had only just discovered Harry hadn’t been to either Eton or Harrow, or at the very least Winchester.

  ‘Now then, young man,’ the medical officer said, ‘I’m afraid it’s not good news.’ He cleared his throat. ‘You’ve failed.’

  ‘I beg your pardon, sir?’ Harry returned. ‘I’ve failed what? I don’t quite understand.’

  The officer sighed, tapping Harry’s papers into order on his desk. ‘I mean you have failed your medical,’ he said sadly.

  ‘I can’t have done.’

  ‘You just have, let me assure you – you have.’

  ‘There must be some mistake,’ Harry said grimly. ‘This is some kind of a bad joke. First of all I can’t join the regiment I wanted to join, and now—’

  ‘It isn’t a bad joke, Wavell,’ the officer interrupted kindly. ‘Alas. Although I have to say normally when I fail men they all but jump for joy, but it seems you really want to fight.’

  ‘Why else do you think I’m here, sir?’

  ‘Mmm. Well, you’re certainly not like most of the others I’ve examined today. Mainly they’ve been too drunk even to take off their shirts without help. They’re the traditional type of recruit – the ones who wake up to find themselves in uniform. However, much as I’d like to pass you for your sake – not mine – alas I cannot, because you have a problem with your heart.’

  ‘My heart? There’s nothing wrong with my heart, doctor. If there was anything wrong with my heart—’

  ‘I’d be one of the first to find out, young man. It’s one field I happen to know rather a lot about, and you have what is known as a murmur. And any young man who has anything even remotely wrong with his heart, I fail. Those are my orders.’

  ‘There is nothing whatsoever wrong with my heart, sir. If there was I wouldn’t be able to do half the things I undertake, let alone all the things I do,’ Harry protested. ‘I’m as fit as a fiddle.’

  ‘You have a heart murmur, Mr Wavell,’ the doctor replied, consulting Harry’s forms. ‘It won’t kill you, it won’t incapacitate you, not unduly. But it will have to be monitored regularly in case of deterioration. When I say it won’t kill you, it won’t, not under normal circumstances – but war isn’t what we regard as a normal circumstance and under the stresses and strains of battle, even the stresses and strains of training for battle, you might suffer a sudden deterioration, or to put it another way, some sort of heart attack, and my instructions are not to pass anyone with this sort of weakness. The army does not consider it worth spending money on any soldier who will not return their investment in full.’

  Harry stared at the doctor and the doctor regarded him back just as unequivocally. It was obviously a time for rules, and Harry had just been on the receiving end of two of them. Not socially good enough for a top regiment and not physically sound enough for an ordinary one. He had begun the day in high hopes, proud of himself for having the courage to go and enlist at a time when it appeared, due to recent heavy setbacks, that the war was not going to be as easy nor as short as initially hoped, and confident that he was well and truly up for the hard training he knew he would have to undergo in order to make a good infantryman. Now he had failed on two counts, the second one not even allowing him the alternative of choice that his first failure had permitted.

  ‘So what now?’ he asked the doctor after he had heard the full details of his medical condition. ‘Isn’t there anything I can do?’

  ‘Plenty, I imagine, if you’re that keen, which you obviously are, Mr Wavell. There are all sorts of auxiliary jobs, you know – ambulance driver, stretcher bearer, medical orderly. Even useful and important jobs in civvy street. So don’t worry – your determination to help won’t go to waste, young man. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an awful lot of young men to examine.’

  ‘How long does it take to train to be a doctor?’ Harry wondered suddenly.

  ‘Too long, Mr Wavell,’ the doctor replied with a frown. ‘You want to be a doctor?’

  Harry nodded. ‘How long does it take to train?’

  ‘Far too long. A minimum of five years, in peacetime. But in wartime …’ He stopped and regarded Harry. ‘You’re obviously very determined, which is admirable, I can see that, but what I can’t see is you having enough time to qualify as a proper doctor.’ He stopped again. ‘We’re going to need all the ambulance drivers we can get. And stretcher men. And orderlies. If you’re prepared to undertake any of those duties they require very little training.’

  ‘I see. Well – if you think that’s what I should be doing—’

  ‘I think it’s what you could be doing. It’s not up to me to say what you should be doing.’

  ‘Of course,’ Harry said. ‘Thank you. I think that’s
good advice. Thank you.’

  ‘Have a word with the chap at the desk in the office out there. He can steer you in the right direction. And – good luck.’

  Harry nodded and left, his spirits partially restored after his disappointment. He might not have the enemy in his sights directly, but he did have something positive now at which to aim; and if that was the only way he could help in the war then he would just have to give it his very best effort.

  Cecil Milborne slowly descended the staircase, watched all the way by Maude, who was standing in the hall.

  ‘You’re in uniform, Cecil,’ she said, in her surprise stating the obvious.

  ‘Goodness me,’ Cecil replied, staring at himself. ‘So I am. I wonder how that happened.’

  Maude looked at her husband and wondered at his ability to be sarcastic even at this point in their lives.

  ‘Is there a particular reason, Cecil?’

  ‘I imagine even you, blessed though you are with only a tiny intelligence, can work out why I should be wearing my uniform, Maude.’

  ‘Aren’t you a little old to be thinking such things, Cecil? They are asking for the services of men between eighteen and thirty.’

  ‘I am a reservist, Maude, remember? And now is the time for men such as I, trained officers, experienced in the field, to put themselves forward for active service. There are many men of my age all ready to go. Personally, I simply can’t wait to have a go at the Hun.’

  ‘I can understand that, Cecil,’ Maude sighed. ‘You are, after all, something of an expert at having a go.’

  Cecil eyed his wife with his usual practised malevolence.

  ‘Show them a thing or two,’ Cecil said, checking his appearance in the hall mirror, ‘our so-called sons. Hughie busy enjoying himself in America and Bertie idling about the place as usual. Show them a thing or two to see their father off first. I’m taking the matching bays with me – be just the thing. And I’ll find myself a batman en route no doubt – don’t see any problem there. Odd, having to take off without one’s valet, but then ever since the declaration, Werner is nowhere to be seen.’ He turned his face to one side to check his profile now he had put on his officer’s cap. ‘Another good thing about uniform, Maude,’ he added. ‘Makes one look even younger.’

  ‘Werner’s gone back to Germany, Cecil,’ Maude said, eyeing him. ‘You can hardly be surprised. Cheeseman has always been convinced your valet was a spy, and that whenever he said he was at the cinema he was actually spying on the local camp at Wynorth.’

  Cecil now checked his other profile. ‘Wouldn’t have learned very much at that camp, Maude, except perhaps some new English swear words, and a most odd recipe for bully beef.’

  ‘He left yesterday evening. I thought Cheeseman would have told you. He slipped away when you were up in town, seeing to whatever you had to see to.’

  Maude knew perfectly well that Cecil kept a mistress in London, and could not have cared less.

  ‘Plenty to do when one’s off to war, Maude,’ Cecil told his mirror image. ‘Sort of thing you wouldn’t understand. Goodbye, dear. I’ll keep you posted, don’t worry.’ He nodded to his wife and made for the door.

  ‘I hope you have a good war, Cecil. If there is such a thing.’

  ‘Course there is,’ Cecil assured her. ‘Long as you know what you’re doing.’

  So Cecil departed to fight his war, and Maude returned upstairs as Cheeseman opened the front door to allow his master to go out to the waiting car.

  Maude closed her bedroom door and, going to her yellow satin Regency chaise longue under the window, watched Cecil being driven off. As he went she realised she might not see him again. And while it was an odd thought she found it was not a deeply distressing one. In fact, she found it to be quite a relief that he had gone. How very different it would be if she had to say goodbye to Bertie or Hughie, but then she put such thoughts from her head, knowing that, like everyone else’s children, if needs be, her sons must do their duty.

  Sadly, she was not able to dismiss the thought for long.

  ‘I suppose you know what I’m going to say, Mamma,’ Bertie said to her that night at dinner. ‘It’s inevitable really.’

  ‘I have absolutely no idea, Bertie darling,’ Maude replied, feeling the blood chill in her veins. ‘No idea at all.’

  ‘Don’t pretend, Mamma,’ Bertie said seriously. ‘Papa thinks the army won’t have me and I won’t have the army, but that just isn’t so.’

  ‘There is time enough for this sort of talk, Bertie, in the future,’ Maude replied. ‘Not now. Besides, we are not going to be looking at a war of any great length, so I understand – which no doubt is why your father saw fit to take himself off.’

  ‘I don’t like to disagree, Mamma, but the signs are the very opposite.’

  ‘I do not believe so, Bertie. The Expeditionary Force landed in France without a single casualty – and Japan is almost certain now to come in on our side.’

  ‘Mamma, the Germans have taken Brussels with hardly a shot fired, Namur has fallen without any sort of a fight and the Allies have had to withdraw from the Meuse.’

  ‘We have held Mons, Bertie. It isn’t all doom and gloom, do you know?’

  ‘The Germans are preparing to drop dynamite on our ports and our cities, Mamma,’ Bertie insisted. ‘This shoot is not going to be over by Christmas by any means, and I simply have to enlist. No, please don’t look at me like that – and don’t say anything. This is something I have to do – like everyone else has to.’

  ‘Bertie—’

  ‘Hughie will be back from America as soon as he can arrange it – he cabled me, which was decent of him. I couldn’t look him in the face if I don’t do this, I truly couldn’t.’

  Maude stared at Bertie. He looked so thoughtful and now, it had to be said, suddenly so mature.

  ‘Of course, Bertie,’ Maude said after a moment. ‘You know, I was going to find all sorts of reasons why you couldn’t and you should not join up.’

  ‘Of course you were.’

  ‘But I see it differently now. You have to be part of this, you simply have to be – otherwise after it’s all over you’ll feel you have been on the outside of it, and you won’t belong to your generation. I understand that.’

  Bertie smiled at his mother and put a hand on one of hers, once more wondering how on earth she had managed to stay married to his father.

  ‘I shall enlist tomorrow, and if all goes well I gather I shall have to go to London and then almost immediately to camp to begin my training. But when finally I get sent over there, is it all right if I take Scrap? He could be rather useful, I imagine. I understand a lot of chaps are taking their dogs – the sporting ones that is. And Scrap, being trained to the gun, won’t mind at all, even though he’s a half-and-half.’

  ‘Of course you must take your dog, if that’s allowed.’ Maude fell silent, regarded her food, and took a small mouthful.

  ‘With you all gone,’ she said finally, ‘I shall have to find myself something to do. I certainly can’t sit here and twiddle my thumbs.’

  ‘Of course you will find something, Mamma,’ Bertie replied, looking at his mother. Just as she had seen a new look in his eyes, her younger boy now saw a new look in his mother’s eyes. It was as if she had been freed from a long prison sentence, and at last she could see the gates opening, the green of the grass beyond, the sun playing on the sea, and a sky that had suddenly lost all its clouds.

  ‘I knew you were going to tell me what you have tonight, Bertie,’ Maude said. ‘I knew it.’

  ‘I imagine you did, Mamma,’ Bertie replied, once more putting a hand on one of hers. ‘Otherwise why are we having – my favourite – roast chicken, sausages and masses of bread sauce?’

  It had all seemed to happen so quickly. One minute they had all been thinking the troubles in the faraway Balkans would all blow over, thanks to an endless succession of treaties, and the next moment it seemed as if most of the world was at war. Or, as the Duchess
put it to Partita and Kitty, ‘If our politicians hadn’t made so many treaties we might still have been at peace.’

  Even then, as the BEF, as it quickly came to be known, left the southern shores of England, a small under-rehearsed army of men sent to the docks in army lorries with no one to wave them off or to wish them well, there was still hope, however faint it might appear, that once the Kaiser saw that Britain meant business, the King’s cousin would come to his senses and pull in his military horns. Yet the very opposite had happened. Seeing the size of the force Britain had sent to teach him this so-called lesson, the Kaiser simply laughed at what he called his cousin’s ‘pathetic little army’.

  So now, as the Duke and Duchess of Eden supervised the clearing of all treasures and valuables from Bauders, prior to it being prepared as a hospital for recuperation, even the small hope that the war would at least be short had faded, and John and Circe, like so many others with sense, prepared for a long campaign.

  ‘Even Hawkesworth’s gone to offer his services,’ John told Circe as they took a break from supervising the storage of all the fine furniture and paintings, silver and other items safely in a wing of the castle. ‘Told him he’s far too old, but he’s determined to be of some use, though I have to say, my dear, I shall not be too sorry if they send him back here, marked unwanted. If this place is going to be run efficiently we need his effort, so it’s not as if he won’t be doing his bit, do you know?’

  ‘We shall have to keep some of the servants, John,’ Circe replied, collapsing in one of the few remaining good chairs. ‘And gardeners and groundsmen. We can’t just let the place go to ruin.’

  ‘We certainly can’t let the farmland go neglected,’ John agreed. ‘Going to need all the food stuffs we can grow.’

  ‘They’ll make provision, surely? The government?’

  ‘If they get their thinking caps on in time, I imagine they will. If the chaps have got any, that is. Thinking caps. Then there’s the matter of the horses,’ John added, unwilling though he was to broach one of the subjects closest to his heart. ‘In the meantime, I say—’