THIRTY
THREE
18th September 1917
18th September 1917
During the
short time he had been in the town, George had quickly realised just how out of
place, and what a novelty his uniform had proved to be to the curious
inhabitants. Almost everyone who saw him turned at the sight of the upturned
hat brim. A few people stopped and stared for a moment or two before carrying
on their way. It quickly dawned on him that if he was to blend into the
background of the town he needed to discard his uniform and wear the ‘civvy’
clothes he had purchased the previous day.
Back in his
hotel room, he unfastened the parcels of clothes which had lain during the
night on the floor by the small wardrobe, and laid them out carefully on the
bed, which had been made up by someone during his short absence after
breakfast. Though it was now almost midday the room felt little warmer than
when he had risen. So, discarding his uniform, he rapidly re-dressed in his new
suit of clothes. Fastening the final button on his jacket, he stepped in front
of the mirror in the wardrobe door and admired the new look. He smiled at the
reflection and turned slightly to one side to examine the length of the jacket.
Placing the hat on his head he felt that he could now pass for one of the local
men of the town, and picking up his walking stick, went downstairs into what
passed for the reception desk area. The barman from the night before was
working behind the desk and looked up as George stopped in front of him.
'Yes sir,
can I help you?' he asked, then stepped back half a pace as he recognised the
face under the hat. 'Well', he said, 'I hardly recognised you.' He smiled at
the altered appearance standing before him. 'You do look smart sir,' he said,
then added quickly
'Not that
the uniform didn’t look smart you understand, it’s just a surprise to see you
in normal clothes sir' he flustered. George grinned back at him.
'Think I will pass for a man from Bolton then?'
he asked.
'Oh yes, no
doubt about it sir' the barman said. 'Very smart, very dapper. Off somewhere
special today are you?' George brushed an imaginary piece of lint from his
sleeve.
'No, nowhere
special' he said glancing up at the man. 'Just off to look up an old friend who
I met in hospital in France,' and turned to walk out of the door.
He stepped
off the front doorstep and onto the pavement where he rested for a moment
looking up at the sky, enjoying what he hoped would be a new found anonymity. There
was a large stone cross set in the middle of the road outside the hotel. He
stepped out into the road and read the inscription which was carved into a
plaque on the base, informing him that this was the Market Cross and that a
cross had been there since the thirteenth century. George was impressed as he
realised that this town was far older than anything which he had heard of, or
seen in Australia.
He crossed
back to the pavement and adjusted the collar of his coat. The sky was grey with
some small blue flashes of sky, but still threatening to rain at some point
later in the day, perhaps. There was no traffic coming along the road so he
stepped off the pavement and crossed to the far side of Bradshawgate. He walked
on slowly along Deansgate, towards where Jack, the Policeman, had told him he
could find a tram to the Iron Church; somewhere on a street called Bridge
Street. As he walked slowly along the street he was struck by the noises of the
street in comparison with the relatively quiet town of Weymouth where he had
been staying since the middle of August that year. His stay at Chickerell Downs
camp had lasted from the nineteenth of August until he had taken off by train
for the north a few days ago. For just over a month he had used his age, and
powers of persuasion, on the medical officers, to allow him to make this trip. After
hearing the story he told them about the young woman he had met in Sydney there
was no real obstruction to him, providing, they said, that he kept in uniform
all the time he was away from camp, and carried the leave pass which had been
issued to him. Having left the camp and having agreed to this instruction, he
felt a little uncomfortable now to be walking along the streets of Bolton out
of uniform, and sporting a complete new outfit. It did feel good though, and as
he strode out painfully along the pavement he grew to admire the new buildings
he saw along the sides of the streets.
It seemed
that most of the people he saw on the streets were laden with shopping bags
full of foodstuffs and vegetables. What men there were, were elderly, and
almost uniformly dressed in jackets of a scruffy appearance with large flat
caps perched on their heads. The other men in suits all sported similar
headwear to himself, a brimmed hat or bowler. It struck him as strange at first
that most of the people on the streets were women with young children and old
men, until he realised the implications of what the war had meant to this town.
All the young men were in the forces and serving abroad. How many would return,
he wondered. The sombre thought brought home to him the enormity of what the
war meant to the country. It wasn’t simply the effort which had been made in
Australia to refill the regiments depleted by the war, with men like himself,
who had joined up after Gallipoli to serve in the second Australian Brigade.
His leg was
beginning to hurt again, so he stopped to rest his back against the wall of a
tall building. He looked around and saw it was the Manchester and County bank, so
a gilded signed in a curved window above the front door told him. Across the
road, and further down the street, Williams Deacons Bank and the Bolton Bank
were close to each other. Directly across the road was a large impressive stone
built building with a statue of Britannia on top of it. 'Very grand' he said to
himself. After a few moments rest he carried on the few feet to the edge of the
street at the junction. He glanced up at the street sign placed between the
first and second floors of the building close to the edge of the street.
Mealhouse Lane, it proclaimed. Across the road a similar sign on the opposite
side of the junction told him that this was Bridge Street. The name struck a
chord in George’s mind. It formed part of the directions which Jack the
Policeman had given him to find a tram to take him to The Iron Church. A little
painfully he walked to the edge of the pavement and looked down the hill to the
bottom of Bridge Street and saw the tram stops which Jack had told him of, were
down at the bottom of the hill on the left hand side and at the side of a high wall.
On top of the wall and set back from the front of it appeared to be a very
grand building with large arched windows set close to the roofline. It was
thronged with people coming in and out of large double doors which he could
just make out from where he stood.
His leg was
starting to become more painful, and together with the dull nagging insistent
pain in his lower back he decided that the trip to the church would probably
wait until tomorrow. He weighed up the options available to him. Apart from the
railway station and the road from there to the hotel he knew nothing about the
town, other than what he had learned from the young woman in Sydney. He glanced
at his watch and saw that the fingers on the face were confirming what his
stomach had been telling him for the past thirty minutes, it was time to eat. He
looked up and down the length of the street and immediately saw that almost
directly across the road from him was a public house, The Three Crowns. The
front
door was set to the side of a wide double bow window
made of leaded glass panels, and the door was open. Crossing the road he went
in through the door and down a narrow wood panelled corridor leading into a bar
area. He stopped to look into the bars. To his right was a quiet room with just
two people seated at a table against the far wall, whilst to his left was what
appeared to be a crowded ‘public’ bar. He decided that the public bar would be
too full of curious people once he opened his mouth to speak, so he made his
way into the bar on his right, and selected a seat by a round cast iron table
along the corridor wall to sit himself down. The couple across the room raised
their eyes and looked at him, then dropped them again. She was staring at the
wall behind George’s head with a blank gaze whilst the man at her side buried
his head in a newspaper. The pair were poorly dressed but appeared well fed. In
their mid to late fifties they had all the appearance of having been together
for many years. The silence between them was telling. George sneaked occasional
glances at the two of them and hoped he would never become like them. 'Dead but
not buried' he thought to himself. Occasionally her eyes moved around the room,
dropping now and again to take in George’s fine new clothes, then moved off back
to the wall. In her empty gaze she occasionally saw something and her mouth
moved silently, forming words which never made it past her lips. A barman
appeared behind the bar which served both of the rooms on the ground floor of
the pub. He sported a full set of mutton chop sideburns with a flourishing
handlebar moustache on top of a wild unkempt head of dark brown hair. He looked
at the table with the couple at it then across the room at George.
'What can I
get you?' he called out to George.
'Can I have
a pint of light and bitter?' he asked. The barman looked at him quizzically.
'From London
are you?' he asked. George was taken aback at the question.
'No,
Australia. Why?'
'Only get light
and bitter in London' he said grinning. 'Try a pint of bitter instead. Better
for you than mixin’it like that.' George nodded his head in acceptance of the
suggestion and the barman bent to pick a glass from under the counter and
placed it beneath a copper tap set into the bar top. As he pulled the pint he
looked over the filling glass at George. 'Long way from home aren’t you?' he
asked. The pint was almost full. The barman lifted the pint glass slightly from
the spout and expertly filled it to within a fraction of an inch of the rim. He
placed it carefully on the bar counter.
'That’ll be
seven pence,' he said. George rose from his seat at the table and painfully
walked around the table and across the room to the bar. The expression on the
barman’s face altered when he saw George limping. 'Aw, sorry mate. Didn’t
realise you were wounded?' he said. George grimaced a little at the pain in his
back. 'Yes, got it in France last year. Still not right yet. Still, it’s not as
painful as paying seven pence for a pint is it?' he said smiling, as he placed
a shilling on the bar top. 'Have one for yourself' he said to the barman,
pointing at the coin.
'Well,
that’s very kind of you sir' he said sliding the coin off the bar top into his
hand. He watched for a moment as George struggled to lift the pint glass with
his free hand.
'Hang on a
minute sir,' he said, 'Let me get it for you'. As George looked up the barman
disappeared from the bar and suddenly appeared in the doorway to the room. He
gently took the glass from George and stepped back to allow him to get back to
the table, then placed it down on the table top in front of him. 'There.' He
said, 'Anything else you want, just give me a shout'. George looked up and smiled
at the round friendly face.
'Thanks
mate' He paused for a moment. 'Don’t suppose you do food in this hotel do you?'
he asked. The barman shook his head.
'We’re only
a pub, 'he replied. 'Don’t have any rooms, just sell beer and spirits, that’s
all.' He noticed George’s face fall at the news. 'Hang on a second. Let me see
what the landlady will do for you. She don’t normally do food, but I’m sure
she’ll make something up for you.' He turned and left the room. George lifted
the glass and drank deeply from it. The beer was warmer than he had
anticipated, but full of flavour. He like it.
His eyes
locked on the couple across the room from him. Judging from their intimacy and
behaviour they were man and wife. They stared at him occasionally, curiosity
written in their eyes. George put the glass down on the table and smiled at
them.
'That was
worth waiting for' he said. The couple glanced at each other; neither of them
said a word. Finally the man broke the silence. 'Australia you said,' he asked.
George nodded his head.
'Melbourne' he answered. 'Been in France where
I picked this up' he tapped his left leg gently with his walking stick. 'Spent
some time in hospital there and then they sent me over to England for a bit of
rest.' There was a silence in the room as the man looked awkwardly sideways at
his wife. The wife’s eyes fell to the table and her lips pursed into a thin
line. The man looked gently across the room into George’s eyes. 'We lost our
lad in France' he said quietly. 'Bin there a couple of months. A place they
call Wipers in Belgium, so we were told. Blown up by a mortar, they said.' Quietly
his hand snaked slowly sideways along the underside of the table until it found
that of his wife. He grasped it gently. She held onto it tightly squeezing her
eyes shut but unable to prevent the silent tears suddenly plumping out onto her
cheeks. 'Suppose a mortar's a bit like an artillery shell isn't it?' He added. George
did not reply, feeling any further information would not help the grieving
parents feel any better.
George knew
of the town which the English troops called Wipers, though fortunately he had
not been involved in the fighting there. The first time the English lads had
seen a signpost with the name of the Belgian town written on it they struggled
to make out the correct pronunciation. Few, if any of them, had been educated
beyond the age of twelve in their local school, and certainly none of them had
studied French. When they had seen the word Ypres painted or inscribed on a
wall or roadside sign, they did their best, and came up with the pronunciation
Wipers. George remained silent for a moment. He felt that the room had suddenly
became too small for three people. 'I’m really sorry,' he said eventually. 'A lot
of lads got it there.' The woman sniffed loudly and released her husband’s
hand. Fiddling in her coat pocket she eventually withdrew an off white
handkerchief and dabbed at the tears now flowing down her face. Her head went
lower and started to nod almost in convulsion. George said nothing, and after a
few moments the woman stopped, leaving a dead silence in the room, interrupted
by just the noise of the odd vehicle passing by outside on the road. After a
moment George moved off his seat and walked across the room to sit himself down
at the side of the distraught woman. He placed his arm gently around her
shoulder and she glanced up at him, tears still forming in her eyes. She slowly
dropped her head onto his shoulder and took his hand in hers. George looked
across her head at the barman who had returned to his position behind the bar. His
lips opened to say something, then closed again as he judged the moment to be
wrong, and knowing that anything he could say would do nothing to help. The two
of them sat side by side for a few minutes until George gently lifted himself
off the seat and detached his hand from hers. He stood and silently went back
to sit at the table opposite. The woman looked up at him across the room. 'Thanks
love' she murmured, 'That were a kind thing to do.' George nodded silently and
lifted his glass to his lips again. An embarrassed cough from the barman alerted
George to his presence. 'Sorry to disturb' he said, 'The landlady says you can
have some bread and cheese what she’s got, if you want. There’s creamy or
crumbly.' He added. George had no idea what he was describing. 'What’s the
difference' he asked. The barman grinned. 'Creamy is stronger than crumbly' he
said, 'Both good though. Made a few miles outside Blackburn, so it's probably good.'
George though for a moment then said,
'I’ll have
the creamy'
'Right you
are then, coming up.' The barman disappeared.
'Where were
you were injured then?' the man opposite asked quietly, then added, 'What
battle was it I mean'.
'The Somme'
George replied, 'A place we called Mucket Farm. Got shot in the leg and then
old age took over' he grinned wanly. 'As though a bullet wasn’t enough I went
down with some sort of rheumatism in my leg and back. Bloody killing me it is.'
He shot a quick glance at the woman who by this time had raised her head and
was looking at George. 'Sorry love, ‘scuse my language.' She nodded silently and
smiled a thin smile at him. George looked out of the window to his right. The
leaded glass was painted with the name of the pub, and above it clear glass
allowed him to see part of the roofs of the buildings opposite and above them a
blue uncluttered sky, uncluttered that is apart from a thin haze of smoke from
the numerous chimneys which the cotton mills belched forth every day.
'Looks like
the weather is clearing' he commented. The man followed his glance.
'Maybe, ' he
said, 'It’ll either rain or go dark before morning though,' he quipped. George
grinned at the man and silently raised his glass to his lips again.
The door to
the room opened and the barman came in carrying a white plate bearing a large
piece of cream coloured cheese, a few large pickled onions and two thick pieces
of white bread. He laid the plate on the table in front of George and placed a
knife and fork down by the side of the plate. 'Hope you enjoy it' he said. 'So,
how come you are out of uniform them?' he asked. George took the knife and cut
a slice of cheese from the wedge on the plate. 'Got shipped over to England a
couple of weeks ago to a hospital in Weymouth and managed to wangle my way to a
bit of leave, so thought I'd see a bit of the country. Never been out of
Australia before so thought I might try and see a bit more of the world than
the mud of France. I was in Egypt before we got shipped over to France, and
when I get back there they are going to demob me. Too old you see. Turned forty
in June. Too old.' He popped the slice of cheese into his mouth and turned to
cut a piece off the bread.
'Blimey,
that is too old isn’t it?' the barman said.
'Surprised
you got in in the first place'
'Pulled a
few strings,' George said, 'Sometimes wish I hadn’t bothered now.' He added
ruefully. The barman nodded.
'I’ll leave
you to enjoy your food then,' he said and turned to leave the room. George
turned to him and raised his hand.
'What do I
owe you for this' he asked indicating the plate with his knife. The barman
shook his head and grinned.
'Landlady
says it’s on the house. Least she can do she says. It’s a first if you ask me'
he added glancing over his shoulder to look through the bar. 'Normally tight as
a fishes backside, she is.' He closed the door behind him as he left the room. George
continued to eat on in silence, aware that the woman across the room was once
again looking blankly at the wall above his head, alone in her own private painful
world.
The man
across the room coughed, trying to attract George’s attention. 'So how long
have you been over here then?' he enquired. 'If you don’t mind talking about it
a bit,' he hastily added.
'No mate, I
don’t mind' George said, coughing on a piece of the bread. He took a drink from
his beer and then replaced the glass on the table. 'Enlisted in 1915 and left
after my training for Egypt. Came on the Empress of Britain. Real nice boat
that was, until we got put onboard' he grinned. 'Nothing like a few thousand
Aussies to make a mess of a fine boat like that, can’t be helped though. Not
built for that number of passengers.' He paused to remember the Canadian
Pacific ship with its blue and white superstructure and two large funnels
belching smoke all the way from Melbourne to Cairo. 'Almost as soon as we
arrived in Egypt though, a lot of us fell ill. That’s a really unhealthy place.
Some blokes went down with something called Meningitis. Never heard of it until
a couple of mates went down with it.' He paused then added. 'I got mumps. Funny
isn’t it. When you are a kid you throw off something like mumps and measles,
but believe me, when you are an adult, well, it ain’t funny'. I was in dock for
a few weeks with that then we got shipped over to the south of France, a big
port place called Marseilles.' He paused and pointed his knife at the man.
'Now that
was a stinking place, believe me.' He took another piece of cheese. 'This is
good grub you know,' he said. 'Don’t get cheese like this in Australia, it’s
different.' The man smiled proprietarily. 'Best in England they say is
Lancashire cheese' he said proudly. He waited impatiently for George to finish
his meal. 'So, what happened then? If you don’t mind me asking' he eventually
said.
George
paused to swallow the last piece of bread then picked up the last onion between
two fingers. 'Got sent to the Somme' he said quietly, and popped the onion in
his mouth whole. There was silence for a moment then the husband said,
'Government
Ale. Like gnat’s pee' he said and tried to smile, but it turned inside out and
became a grimace. George looked at him, 'What do you mean?' he asked. The man
lifted his glass to indicate the beer.
'It’s been
watered down since the war started. Not like it used to be'. George nodded and
turned his head once more to the window. Again there was a solid silence,
broken only by the muted sounds coming from the rear bar at the back of the
pub, sounds cut off by the bar and half wall between them.
The woman
looked at George briefly then cast her eyes down to the table with its two
glasses of half finished beer. Her right hand reached up to the table top and
gently drummed a silent tattoo on its surface. She hummed a tuneless song to
herself then stopped. As she stopped, her head inclined slightly towards her
husband, she said something to him quickly. George caught the movement of her
thin lips parting slightly but could hear nothing of what she said. The words
slid silently from the corner of her mouth, and then she was quiet again. The
man’s eyes lifted to George, then down again to the newspaper in his hand which
he had folded in quarters. 'Aye' he said to her almost under his breath, and
carried on reading. The woman reached for her half pint glass and lifting it to
her lips, emptied what was left into her mouth. She looked across the room at
George, her mouth opened to say something and then changed its mind and closed
silently. She looked down at the table studying it closely for a moment,
drawing a pattern in a ring of beer on the table top. George felt a terrible
premonition that she was about to say something which he didn’t want to hear.
He stared intently out of the window, not wishing to engage again with the
unhappy couple, it was just too uncomfortable. The noise from the public bar at
the back rose in laughter for a moment then dropped again to its muted
quietness. His attention on the sky outside the window was distracted by a
movement from the woman. Her fingers once again drummed its noiseless rhythm
against the table. She coughed gently and her hand went from the glass to her
mouth to stifle the slight noise, and then back to her glass. Her eyes suddenly
came to life with a dim glow and she looked directly at George, who feeling her
direct glance returned it.
'When you
see the telegram boy coming, you know right away what it is' she said softly. 'You
see him on his bike coming along the street. All the street sees him coming and
they all know what it is, you know. A lot of people in the street with lads
have had the same telegram, so they know what it is don't they? and you know as well' She paused to take a
deep breath and seemed to remember something else. 'Before the war, if anyone
died in our street, well, the whole street closed their curtains on the day of
the funeral and for the laying up beforehand. The body was laid out in the
coffin in the parlour for anyone to come and pay their respects. Anyone who
wanted, not just family, but friends and neighbours as well. And they would all
come, all their workmates as well as the friends from the club or whatever.'
She took another deep breath. 'It’s different now. There’s so many of them, and
they don’t send their bodies back do they, so they can’t have a laying up, can
they? They can't bury them can they? It’s not the same now, it just seems to go
on and on, the grieving. There’s no end to it. You think you have seen the last
of your friends and neighbours then another one comes in to say their sorries
an' that, but it just rakes it up again, doesn’t it?' George nodded silently in
agreement.
'When you
think you’ve stopped crying you try to get on with doing normal things, you
know, your washing and housework and things, but it’s strange you know. All
around you outside the house you know life is going on normal like, but inside it’s
not normal is it? You don’t feel normal. You know nothing’s going to be normal again,
is it? You feel like shouting at people in the street to tell them that they
shouldn’t be doing whatever they are doing, but should stop and feel as sad as
you do' Her eyes dropped from George to the table and a final tear fell onto
its beer polished surface. She wiped absently at it with a finger as she
continued. 'But I suppose they all have the same feelings as we do don’t they? They’ve
probably all lost somebody as well.' George could find no words to say which
would not result in him shedding the same tears; he could feel them welling up
in his chest. The husband took her hand in his, and as he did so George was
aware that the man’s shoulders were gently shaking and tears were falling onto
the table alongside those of his wife. The man reached into his pocket and took
a large white handkerchief from it and blew his nose noisily. George rose from
his seat by the table and stepped forward to the couple mourning at the pub
table.
'There’s
nothing I can say what hasn’t been said. Nothin's goin' to make it better is
it?' he murmured quietly. 'I’d best be going.' He placed his hat on his head
and then reached out to touch the woman on her shoulder. 'I’ll say goodbye
then' he said. The couple looked up at him and smiled and nodded their goodbyes
as he turned and walked out of the pub.
Deansgate was bathed in a thin sunshine as he walked back to the
Swan Hotel. Someone had moved the clouds and a late summers afternoon had
arrived. 'She was right' George said to himself. 'Nothing has changed.'
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