In Distant Fields Read online

  But while there was sad news about her husband there was good news about Bertie, who had not only survived the horrors of the latest battle but had apparently distinguished himself and was now in line for an MC. When she learned the news Maude found it all too difficult to possess her soul in patience until they could see each other again. Meanwhile, Elizabeth and she clung to Pug’s letters, unable to quite believe that he had somehow remained unscathed, as had Scrap, and the two hunters.

  * * *

  I cannot tell you all how ineffably drear it is staring at the same old roots and branches of these wretchedly blasted trees and the same vast potholes in the ground. Some say we’re oh so lucky to be in a safe salient, if there is any such a thing, which I have me doubts! But I say socks to that – give a chap a new vista and a new set of blasted trees to stare at before he loses his marbles! I’m not complaining because I’m still here, and where you read how many who ain’t any more, you must get down on your knees and thank the Lord above us. We have the odd flurry of activity every so often. We rush out, shoot a few trees, and rush back again – only joking – we actually took two Hun trenches last week with no losses, only to lose them again two days later with one loss. Seems Jerry can’t stand his land being took – soon as you take a yard he comes and snatches it back and yells That’s Mein! (Good joke, eh?) Other things happen too, like just along the line from us there are some Taffs, a fine bunch of lads who’ve seen a fair bit of fighting so far (lucky devs) and they got moved up closer to the fray a few days ago. It was the most amazing thing because someone said a lot of them had been in a choir or somesuch – although I think that’s a bit of guesswork – but I do know why and so would you if you’d heard them up the road. All the way back we heard them – and that’s a fair old way. It was a beautifully still day with what little breeze there was blowing our way – and we saw them, marching off with rifles slung and they were all singing – not like our rum bunch who can hardly sing the National Anthem so as you’d recognise it (you should hear them after dark sometimes – groan). These Taffs were amazing. They were singing ‘Men of Harlech’ and that other one – ‘Bread of Heaven’? No – ‘Guide me, O Thou Great Redeemer’ to give it the proper name – and they were singing in this magnificent harmony. It just filled the air. I cannot describe what it was like. One of the men – one of the hardest men I’ve ever met and one you’re very glad is on your side! – he was sitting there with these tears running down his stubble. He wasn’t the only one. Up the road they went – and they ran into fire – maybe an ambush – I don’t know what – and yet they were still singing – or so it seemed. This is a very rum business, this business of war.

  Anyway, enough for now. My love to everyone – especially you Bethy, and Mamma.

  Your devoted

  Pug

  There was news about Tully too – more news about the state of his injuries after Jossy had learned that he had been hit.

  ‘And lucky to have survived and all,’ he told Partita and Kitty when the three of them were catching up on the news with Jossy in the old tack room. ‘Good thing is he’s not lost no limbs – least not yet, though they think he might have a bit o’gas gangrene in one of his legs. We’ll see. He says t’medics are A1 and should have medals – and I must say I agree, havin’ been to see him – and don’t ask me ‘bout London because I’ll only tell you – except for that hospital. But I think he’s done with scrappin’ now. Leastways I ‘opes so. Now there’s only young Ben to fuss me head about.’

  ‘And how is Ben, Jossy?’ Partita wondered. ‘Last heard of, he was doing great things with some gunners or other, was he not?’

  ‘He is that, Lady Partita,’ Jossy said. ‘And just like Tully now, he’s doin’ his bit, he’s seein’ to the ‘orses.’

  ‘Tully seein’ to ‘orses? Some things never change,’ Partita remarked, as they walked back to the house.

  ‘Thank heavens,’ Kitty said, adding with a smile, ‘the more things that don’t, the happier we will all be.’

  ‘Nice day, Mamma. No one we know in the lists this morning,’ Partita told Circe a little later.

  Circe continued filling in patients’ records without looking up. She was all too aware that Partita and Kitty were in the habit of keeping the morning newspapers from her until they had read through the lists for themselves, just in case. It was quite touching really, if a little exasperating, because she knew they were only trying to protect her, that they didn’t want her perhaps finding out about Gussie that way. Really no point in telling them it was quite unnecessary; she would always know if Gussie was dead. A mother always did know about her children without being told.

  ‘How long when someone’s missing, Papa, before they presume – you know – that the person is not coming back?’ Partita asked her father the following week when he returned to Bauders for what he was in the habit of calling ‘a bit of a refill’.

  ‘Indeterminate, I am afraid, Partita,’ he replied, carefully folding over his newspaper to study the accuracy of the war reportage. ‘I am inclined to think they gallop at it. Son of a friend was reported missing the other week, then declared ‘presumed dead’ about a week later, only to be found to be still alive when a member of his family noted from his bank statements he’d just cashed a cheque the week before. Dash of a thing! He’d been taken prisoner and needing some things, cashed some money. Fair enough, but the WO still haven’t made his survival formal, even though the family have had a letter from the poor chap from some camp or other. So all in all, no real answer to that, my dear. How long’s a piece of string really.’

  ‘You’re thinking there’s still a chance that Peregrine may be alive, aren’t you, darling?’ Circe wondered, looking up from her knitting, an art at which she now quite excelled, turning out socks and gloves by the half-dozen every week.

  ‘Don’t see why we should abandon all hope,’ Partita replied. ‘And it’s funny really, because I had this dream last night – a really strange one.’

  ‘Do tell.’

  ‘Other people’s dreams?’ Partita smiled. ‘Best way to put your audience to sleep.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Circe said. ‘Look at us rabbits.’

  ‘Rabbits?’ Kitty wondered.

  ‘Family for all ears,’ Partita told her. ‘All right. Very well. See what you make of this. I dreamed Valentine was putting on a play but it wasn’t here. In fact it wasn’t in England at all. It was in this big white room that looked like a hospital ward except it wasn’t, because all the people in the beds weren’t in the beds but sitting on them, or lying on them, all fully dressed. Not in uniform, but in all sorts of costumes. Then Valentine was there and they all clapped him. He was completely disguised in some sort of dusky makeup and pirate clothes, would you believe? And he opened this trap door and Peregrine popped up – as someone would on a stage – and he was carrying a big heavy bag on his back that turned out to be coal. I know that because he asked me if I’d like some coal, and I said yes – more than anything. Then there was Harry, somewhere completely different, toting some sort of klaxon in a large bus that had a Red Cross on the side and he leaned out and shouted that everything must be written down – don’t ask me why – but he kept insisting, shouting everything! Everything! Then Peregrine got on the bus, paid Harry a fare and waved at me through a window.’

  ‘What an extraordinary dream,’ said Kitty, after they had all listened in silence. ‘I wonder what it means?’

  ‘It could mean that Peregrine is coming home,’ Partita said, trying to sound as off hand as possible. ‘Or not – I don’t know.’

  ‘Always stumped by dreams myself,’ the Duke remarked, ‘what they’re trying to tell us – because they must be trying to tell us something – and where all the people come from. All these people one dreams up. You end up wondering who the devil they all are, really you do.’

  ‘So let’s just keep hoping, shall we?’ Circe said. ‘And praying. I still have every hope.’

  ‘Not like Peregrin
e’s mother,’ Partita said gloomily. ‘I hear she’s now gone into official mourning.’

  ‘Then she’ll have to come out of it, won’t she,’ the Duke stated, returning to his newspaper, ‘when young Peregrine comes marching home.’

  At the end of the following week a letter addressed to ‘The Lady Partita Knowle’ arrived from abroad, not from any of the usual correspondents but in a hand that no one recognised.

  ‘It could be from one of our guests, I suppose?’ asked the Duchess.

  ‘It’s not what Al used to call a “greeny” – an uncensored letter – and it’s not been through the censor either. In fact, it hasn’t a military mark on it. So it must be from a civilian.’

  ‘Abroad?’ Kitty wondered.

  ‘I know,’ Partita said, looking deliberately mysterious. ‘It’s an ardent admirer, someone who doesn’t wish to be known!’

  ‘Well?’ Circe demanded after Partita had opened the letter and was seen to be staring at it in some amazement.

  ‘It is actually anonymous,’ Partita told her. ‘Signed “A wellwisher”.’

  ‘I wonder what this wellwisher wants?’

  Kitty looked from Partita to the Duchess. ‘It must be from one of the patients, surely?’

  ‘Looks like it’s someone who’s off his chump,’ Partita replied. ‘It’s all just gibberish.’

  At first it appeared to be just two pages of absolute nonsense, yet it was all carefully set out in backwards-sloping writing and set in paragraphs as if it all meant something.

  ‘Which it obviously does not,’ Kitty put in, confirming the thought expressed by all three of them. ‘So I suppose it’s some sort of a joke.’

  ‘D’ you think so?’ Partita wondered, taking the letter back to study it closely. ‘Because I don’t. Why would anyone go to the trouble of writing pure gibberish as a joke? Or even as an offence? If they wanted to be rude they’d just be rude, as it’s anonymous; or if they wanted to be funny, there’d be some point. But for someone to send an absolutely pointless letter can only mean one thing – that it has a point, perhaps an important one.’

  ‘So what do you think, darling?’ Circe wondered.

  ‘I think,’ Partita said slowly, examining the letter even more closely, ‘I think it’s in code. Not only that – I think it is written in the dot code.’

  They all looked at each other excitedly, while Partita fetched a pencil and pad from a desk, before explaining what the code was, and how it worked.

  ‘Almeric taught me about codes years ago, and so did Perry,’ she explained. ‘Al learned it at Eton from a master who’d served in the Boer War and used to use it in his letters home. Apparently, some spies somewhere or other belonging to some country or other – Russia, I think it was actually – used it all the time till we cracked it. It’s very simple – even simpler than the substitution code, you know – rot thirteen?’

  ‘I have no idea what you are talking about, darling,’ Circe laughed. ‘Not a clue, and I’m quite sure Kitty doesn’t either.’

  ‘Letter substitution is the schoolboy’s code really,’ Kitty explained. ‘Rot thirteen, for instance, is called that because you rotate the alphabet by thirteen – that is, if you want to write the letter A you write N, thirteen letters into the alphabet. So Partita would be – let’s see …’

  Kitty took a pencil and began working out the rot thirteen code for ‘Partita’ while Partita smoothed the gibberish letter out on the table before her.

  ‘Kitty’s right, Mamma. That’s absolutely so about the substitution code, but this is infinitely more subtle and not easy to crack if the sender has done his work properly.’

  ‘Partita would be CNEGVGN. Cnegvgn. Very Russian.’

  ‘I’ve always wanted to be called Cnegvgn. What you do is you write your message by concealed dots, the dots being the full stops. Because it’s that complicated it’s best to keep the message short or else you have to write pages of rubbish – or something – so then you look for the dots and you join them up so …’ She showed them what she was doing, tracing full stop to full stop. ‘Until you get some letters. Comme ça.’ She stared at the letter in front of her, the expression frozen on her face.

  ‘What’s the matter, Tita?’ Kitty asked. ‘What have you got?’

  ‘P, so far,’ Partita said slowly. ‘The letter P absolutely, see? Then S then A, then an F, then over the page – an E.’

  ‘P – S-A-F-E, P is safe?’

  ‘Peregrine is safe? It has to be. Perry is safe!’

  ‘Peregrine is alive?’ Circe stood up, her hand to her chest. ‘Perry is safe?’

  ‘It has to be, Mamma,’ Partita answered. ‘What else could “P is safe” possibly mean?’

  ‘Is that all it says, Tita?’

  ‘Isn’t it enough? Peregrine is safe!’

  ‘But who sent it, darling?’ her mother wondered. ‘Who could possibly know this and who would know to send it in code, and why?’

  Partita thought for a moment, then returned to the letter to examine it for further clues. ‘I’ll tell you who sent it,’ she said. ‘Someone called V.’

  ‘V?’ her mother said, already there. ‘But—’

  ‘Who else do we know whose name begins with V?’ Partita demanded. ‘Only Valentine!’

  ‘Valentine? But how could Valentine possibly know that Peregrine is safe? He couldn’t possibly know. Isn’t he meant to be doing some theatricals for the troops somewhere or other?’

  ‘Yes,’ Partita said slowly. ‘Perhaps that’s exactly what he’s doing.’

  The three women stared at each other, all of them gradually seeing the debonair Valentine in a rather different light.

  Peregrine’s survival could not be confirmed, although none of them could resist clinging to the idea that he would soon make a miraculous reappearance. Nothing more was heard until out of the blue a postcard arrived for Partita.

  Couldn’t get in touch before and apologies. Had a good run but luck ran out just as I thought I was home and dry. You wouldn’t recognise me now – unshaven and jolly grubby – and you wouldn’t have known me then – ba eha nf zvare!

  ‘On run as miner,’ Partita translated. ‘That’s the rotation one.’

  ‘So why does he need to use a code, when the rest of it is written?’ Circe wondered. ‘Or is he just playing games?’

  ‘You’ll understand when you hear the rest of it,’ Partita assured her.

  If you could get round to sending a parcel? Need shaving kit, warm clothes (really warm!) and some provisions if poss. Send to given address below – my new hotel! Miss you all and you most of all, P.

  ‘Where exactly is he staying then?’ Circe wondered with a frown. ‘He’s staying at some hotel?’

  ‘Peregrine’s joke, Mamma,’ Partita said, handing her the postcard. ‘He’s in an officer’s prisoner of war camp.’ Partita turned away. Perry was alive. It didn’t seem possible. She was going to write and explain her so-called engagement to Michael Bradley as soon as she could. She would make a splendid joke of it. Something to amuse him over the next dreary weeks.

  ‘But he’s safe,’ Kitty wrote to Harry.

  The wonder of it all is not only is he alive, but he is unharmed and safe. We’re all sure he’s absolutely furious at getting caught and we’re all dying to know the details, but of course he can’t write to us about it without giving the game away – so we shall have to POSIP, as the Duke has it. Possess our souls in patience! But you can imagine the relief all round, now that we know bar some sort of accident of the fates, as it were, nothing should befall him before the end of the war. Partita is walking on air, as you can imagine, but of course, being Partita, she says nothing. When she writes to him, which she does almost every day, she shows him no mercy, and he rags her back no end – but then that’s how it’s always been with those two. It’s quite touching, because it’s obvious that they are gradually coming to realise that they mean more to each other than just friends. I am sure of it.

  Any news
about you having some leave? They seem to be working you dreadfully hard – or is it you working you? I suspect the latter, knowing you, Harry, but do try and find a little bit of time off to come and see us all here. I know you have vitally important work to be done and we must come down the list of priorities, but if you came up here, it would give us all a chance to catch up with your news. I do miss you – of course we all do – but I should dearly love to see you, and hear at first hand about what you have done and what you are doing.

  You asked me for a recent photograph and although I don’t think it’s a very good one (Tita is not the very best of photographers!) I mean, it was such a sunny day and I had my hand over my eyes (q.v.) and squinting almost into the sun but Tita thought it was what she calls ‘v. natch’, so that’s the one you’re getting. Sorry! Write soon – I love your letters.

  Kitty

  Harry read and reread her latest letter, lying on his iron bed back in a tent behind the newest clearing station. The last time he read it through before turning in for the night he stared at the last line and mentally edited it, dropping the ‘r’ from ‘your’ and cutting the word ‘letters’ altogether.

  After which he kissed her new photograph, smiled at the beautiful girl laughing back at him, hatless with hand shading her eyes and her dark hair seemingly being blown by a summer breeze, before carefully placing it in the pocket of his shirt, the side nearest his heart.

  Allegra had long since won Sister over to her side, much against the senior nurse’s better judgement, who up to now had always considered that all girls from Allegra’s sort of background, when it came to nursing, were little more than dilettantes. But Allegra had held fast, working hard at both her duties and her studies, and now proved herself to be a valuable member of Sister’s dedicated team.

  ‘Have we heard any more from our young man?’ she asked Allegra one night when they were sharing a well-deserved cup of tea. ‘When last heard of he was on the Ypres salient, was he not?’