She’s been pacing the floor, worrying as usual. On the move soon?’ he asked.
Angus slouched down in the nearest armchair. ‘Something like that…going down to Wiltshire for more outdoor stuff. How about you, Guy?’
‘Still stuck up north, worst luck.’
‘Be patient, the two of you. It’s no picnic in France,’ Charles butted in,handing Angus a glass of brandy.‘No shifting those Huns from their defences…bit of a stalemate all round.’ He tapped his nose. ‘But you didn’t hear it from me. You two are better off here for the time being, believe me.’
‘So what’s it really like? We’ve heard some tales as how they are firing gas shells at us now.’
‘Shush! Don’t let Mother hear you next door. Don’t worry, we got the measure of them. Mask drill is the only way. You’ll find only the battle teaches you about war. One battle is worth two years’ training. But make sure your men get used to covering their faces. Discipline and drill, that’s the ticket! Two can play at their dirty game. We’ll give them a dose of their own medicine soon enough. Come on then, time for bed, young man. Your mother’s got a morning of culture lined up for you both and then I’ll meet you for lunch. I’ve got things to do for Lord Kitchener tomorrow. He asked after you both. He still remembers you in short pants.’
Guy noted his father had changed the subject, but he was tired and Angus looked done in. ‘Good night.’
Guy lay listening to the noise of traffic outside, so different from the sounds of the barracks or the near silence of Waterloo, where there was only the rattle of trains in the night and the owl hooting in the ash tree. He felt restless after all that talk about gas masks and shells.
They were kipping down in the dressing room on officers’ camp beds in the flat.
‘You all right?’ Guy called to his brother. He didn’t answer at first.
‘Do you ever wonder if we’ll get through this in one piece?’ Angus said eventually.
‘I don’t think about it much, do you?’ Guy replied.
‘It all seems a bit unreal, all the stuff in the training manual. What if I forget half of it?’
‘You won’t. That’s why they drill us to make sure it’s second nature. I don’t suppose there’s time to think in the thick of it,’ Guy added.
‘I wish we could have a rehearsal and try it all out first, get used to the noise and the smells, don’t you think? Exercises and manoeuvres are all very well but I don’t want to make an ass of myself in front of my men. I’ve never seen a dead man in battle. What if I funk it?’
‘Any more headaches?’ Guy asked; a coded reference to Angus’s fitting episodes.
‘No, fit as a fiddle. I reckon it’s all behind me now, thank God. I don’t fancy missing the show now it’s really getting going. Can’t wait.’
Guy hoped his brother was telling the truth. But still he was uneasy.
You’re getting as bad as Mother, Guy mused. Enjoy this family time. Only God knows when we will all meet up again.
The Bartleys were enjoying having Newton home and Frank returned to the fold from his barracks, resplendent in their uniforms. Essie was fussing over them, while Asa muttered he could do with a hand in the forge.
‘If I’d known they were coming together I’d’ve done some more baking,’ Essie said as she beat sugar and butter into a bowl to make a sponge cake for the school concert that evening.
‘I’d like to make some cinder toffee,’ Selma asked. ‘So we can sell it for the Princess Mary’s Soldiers’ Fund. The boys can take some back with them.’ She was so glad to see her brothers back, all the family together. Aunty Ruth and Uncle Sam were coming on the train from Bradford. It would be like old times. If only her father would cheer up and not bang around muttering to himself.
He’d taken Frank’s leaving as a desertion. Selma’d never seen him take on so. Now he mumbled, ‘I doubt it’ll be a picnic out there…I’ve got a bad feeling about it all. It just don’t seem right to be fighting other Christian folk. How can the Lord be behind the both of us? It don’t make sense. Frank’s nobbut a milksop with hardly hair on his chest yet, but I’m the last one as any will listen to in this house these days. He should be here by my side, learning his trade.’
‘Now don’t go on, Asa, getting yourself worked up about what can’t be changed,’ Mam was quick to silence him. ‘Don’t spoil their leave. I’m so proud of the both of them.’
‘But they don’t know what they’re letting themselves in for. They’re too young to be let loose on the battlefields. Now I’m wondering if I ought to volunteer myself to keep an eye on them both.’
‘At your age? Don’t be so daft. You’ve got your work here.’ Selma heard fear in her mother’s voice.
Alone in the kitchen, she pulled out the little iron pot they kept for toffee making, gathering the ingredients, measuring the butter and sugar, bicarb of soda at the ready. Everything was spick and span for Aunty Ruth’s visit, brasses shining, fire high, table laid. Having company to visit was a highlight, war or not. There was always a welcome for an honoured guest.
She smiled, thinking of Guy’s last letter filled with his trip to London, the shows and musical concert and visit to an art gallery. His world was so different from her own. They didn’t have to scrimp and save for every little treat. Lady Hester bought whatever took her fancy but Selma wouldn’t swap her family for his starchy one any day.
Tonight her little pupils were going to bring the house down with their drilling and marching antics. The school hall would be packed out and she would be showing off her soldier brothers in uniform. Marigold Plimmer would be making eyes at them; all fluttering eyelashes and simpering little laughs at their jokes but for once, Selma would not begrudge them this attention.
She would write to Guy describing all the details of the fundraising concert and the latest news from West Sharland.
Dearest Guy, she composed in her head, wondering what he looked like in his smart uniform. Are you coming home for Christmas or staying in London? Will we be able to go riding on Jem again? I’m busy with my pupils, dressing them up like soldiers, but I can’t get them to march in step. Frank and Newton are here. I do miss you…Then the smell of burned sugar hit her nostrils.
Frank and Newt were laughing in the doorway. ‘Dolly daydream, wake up, your pan’s on fire!’
Liquid toffee spurted over the pan top. The mess was everywhere. Frank went for the water jug and before she could stop him he flung it on the mixture and it exploded in all directions, splattering the range, the clean tablecloth, every nearby surface.
‘What did you do that for, you dozy brush?’ Selma yelled. She cried tears of rage, trying to wipe up the gunge. The molten toffee was solidifying fast.
In the end it took hours, scouring bits of toffee off the floor and the walls, the boys laughing at her all the while. She was furious with them but most of all herself. What would Mam say about that sickly smell of burned sugar, and her wasting all that precious food? And all because of Guy…
Ever since then just the smell of burned sugar or caramel transports me straight back to that afternoon. There should be an orchestra playing in the background, a soundtrack to such special moments as these. How can a scent open the floodgates of memory to a time and a place so fixed in your heart when your history was in the making?
If only we’d known how precious those few evenings were in the autumn of 1915, when we all gathered for a singsong round the piano, walked over the Ridge to watch the last of the autumn leaves painting the trees, me arguing with my brothers, as we always did about whose turn it was to do the washing up? Then I stood on the platform of Sowerthwaite station waving them off as if we had all the time in the world, as if our lives were secure and unchangeable.