Chapter 12
Swagger stick clamped under his arm, Beddowes drops a heavy bundle of papers onto the table, knocking over my beer in the process.
The bottle spins across the surface, foam bubbling from its neck, before falling to the floor and shattering.
My gaze snaps from the broken fragments of glass to the captain’s smug face.
‘That was bought out of Private McCormick’s own pocket,’ I seethe, and immediately regret the words.
‘What a thoughtful gift.’ Beddowes arches an eyebrow. ‘And two bottles as well. How very... cosy.’
‘I always buy two bottles, Captain,’ Danny says as he carefully picks up the shards and drops them in the empty fireplace. ‘I’m a bit of a clumsy git, you see, and so I like to have a spare bottle in case of any stupid breakages. You know how it is.’
Beddowes’ lips tighten into a bloodless line. ‘The colonel might find this boy humorous, Wraxall, but I’m afraid his wit is lost on me.’
‘Very likely,’ I mutter.
‘However, I shouldn’t like the poor fellow to be out of pocket,’ the captain continues, dragging his wallet out of his greatcoat. ‘What did that beer cost you, my lad? Come along, a centime or two is nothing to me.’
‘Put your pocketbook away, sir,’ Danny says evenly. ‘There’s nothing in there that I want.’
Beddowes laughs, a high, mocking sort of titter. ‘Come now, no need to be proud. You’ve got the look of the workhouse about you, right enough. Name the price.’
‘Four hundred quid.’
‘What?’ The captain’s smile falters. ‘If this is another of your jokes—’
‘Showpeople never joke about the posh, sir,’ Danny informs him. ‘Four hundred quid is what I earn a year working our rifle gallery. So believe me when I say a bottle of beer isn’t going to bankrupt me.’
‘But... but-but that’s more than a gentleman’s income!’ Beddowes blusters.
‘Is it?’ Danny wonders. ‘Well, thank the Lord I ain’t a gentleman then.’
It’s difficult to keep a straight face but somehow I manage it. Still, it feels important to divert Beddowes’ baffled rage away from Danny. ‘What is all this?’ I ask, gesturing at the hundreds of letters and field postcards stacked in front of me. ‘I don’t believe I’ve been assigned censor duty.’
The sly grin spreads again under that sorry excuse for a moustache.
‘Captain Morstan has been taken ill. There’s no one else available and so, on my advice, the colonel decided to assign the task to you, Lieutenant.
All these letters home need to be read through and any inappropriate or strategically-sensitive passages erased by first thing tomorrow morning.
I need hardly tell you that this is an officer-only task.
’ Accusing eyes swivel in Danny’s direction.
‘So no servant assistance, please. That is, if the boy can even read.’
Now it’s Danny’s turn to flush red with anger.
‘Can’t this wait until we reach Albert?’ I ask. ‘Of course, I’m willing to go through all these, but we have a thirty-mile march tomorrow and it’s already getting late—’
‘Clearly not too late for you to consider joining your men at the local alehouse for whatever entertainment Private McCormick had in mind,’ Beddowes purrs.
‘Perhaps you ought to think of your duty before your... comforts? And of course, you wouldn’t want to disappoint all those wives and sweethearts back in Blighty, pining for news of their brave fighting Tommies?
I’m sure there’ll be some gentlemen waiting for letters too.
Fathers and brothers, I mean.’ The high tittering laughter returns. ‘Nothing unsavoury.’
I look from Beddowes to Danny. There’s a dark fury in his eyes, a simmering sort of anger that has balled his hands into fists.
Fortunately, the captain isn’t looking in his direction.
When Beddowes does turn back to him, a transformation occurs.
Blinking hard, Danny unclenches his fists and the fury dissolves from his gaze.
It’s a startling thing to witness. I can see the effort it takes, the sheer force of will, to push away the anger that has almost overwhelmed him.
An anger that I would have said was completely alien to the man I’ve come to know.
‘That will be all, Private,’ I say.
Danny flinches. He looks at me, flustered and blushing, as if ashamed. ‘Sorry, sir?’
‘You can go and join the others. Give them my compliments and say that I expect you all to be in bed no later than twenty-two hundred hours.’
‘Sir, if I could just—’
‘That will be all, Private.’
‘But maybe if I stay, I could help with—’
‘You heard the captain. This is strategically-sensitive work. You have your orders, now go.’
This time there is no hurt in his eyes. I think he now understands the game that must be played.
In any case, Danny snaps me a sharp salute and, head down, passes out of the room.
A moment later, we hear the creak of the villa door.
Despite the windows being shuttered, I turn my head to follow the hollow tread of his boots in the street outside until, at last, the echo fades away.
‘Interesting boy,’ Beddowes says, bringing me back to the room.
‘From what he said, I assume he must be some kind of gypsy. I suppose that would explain his impertinence: these travelling people have never respected authority. I remember when I was a boy seeing my father, and some of the men he used to hunt with, chase a band of pikies off the village green. It was quite the caper!’ Beddowes guffaws.
‘The huntsmen rode their horses right into the gypsy camp, trampled all the tents and used their whips to beat the beggars silly. Gave the devils a good fright, I can tell you. Never saw ’em on the green again. ’
‘How brave of your father and his friends,’ I say, unable to disguise my disgust. ‘I hope they at least left the women and children unwhipped.’
Beddowes turns a vinegary glare on me. ‘I’m sure they did. Although sometimes with vermin, it is difficult to tell the young from the old, the male from the female.’
‘Especially when you’re mowing them down on horseback,’ I nod.
‘I dare say.’ Beddowes strokes his moustache with a bony finger. ‘Yes, a most interesting boy. I shall be keeping a close eye on him.’
His tone almost sends a shiver along my spine.
Whereas Lieutenant-Colonel Gallagher has always reminded me of something you’d find squatting on a lily pad, Beddowes is more reptilian.
A smooth, almost docile malevolence that waits patiently for its moment to strike.
Yes, that’s how I see them: the toad and the snake.
And now it feels important to divert the serpent’s gaze from Danny.
‘What’s going on here, Captain Beddowes?’ I ask. ‘All these fresh recruits and weaponry flooding into the Somme. And why was the colonel up in étaples meeting the top brass? If there’s a plan for some kind of push, then I think all returning officers ought to have been briefed.’
He looks startled. ‘Why? What have you heard? If there have been loose lips, then I must inform the colonel at once.’
‘No one has told me anything. But I do have eyes.’ I point towards the shutters, imagining the vast encampment of men and artillery currently occupying the fields outside the village.
‘This isn’t just a resupply of manpower and artillery.
Anyone who has spent more than a day or two at the Front can see that this constitutes a major build-up. ’
I can tell by his haughty expression that I’ve offended him. Of course, Beddowes has never spent more than an hour in the trenches, and only then in Gallagher’s company during a routine inspection of the troops.
‘You can think what you like, Wraxall,’ he snaps at me. ‘But keep your mouth shut, especially around that little gypsy friend of yours.’
‘I know my duty. At least, I thought I did. Why is Gallagher so interested in my drawing?’ I ask, again hoping to divert his interest from Danny. ‘Has it got anything to do with the build-up? If I’m to be involved in any specific way, then I ought to—’
He crosses the space between us and bumps that silver-topped stick against my shoulder.
‘Listen to me, Wraxall: you might have that silly little bauble of a Military Cross to hang off your tunic, but memories tend to fade rather quickly these days. I wouldn’t count on it to save your hide if you get into trouble.
And this inquisitiveness of yours is the sort of thing to do just that.
’ He leans in and whispers: ‘Inquisitiveness and other failings, perhaps. I know very well what you public schoolboys get up to. Now, I should get on with those letters, if I were you.’
I sit alone at the table for several minutes after he leaves, tapping my pencil against the woodwork.
Those innuendos and sly comments. Beddowes isn’t stupid.
He senses there’s a connection between me and Danny.
A connection I’m not entirely sure either of us understand ourselves just yet.
Yes, I am attracted to him, and not only physically.
He is clever and kind, empathetic and generous.
I really don’t know if Danny has any similar feelings for me.
From little words and gestures, I think it’s possible.
But it is always dangerous to make assumptions, and I remind myself that we have only known each other a couple of days.
Still, it’s Danny’s face that continues to haunt my thoughts as I work through the letters and field postcards.
Danny’s smile, his cheeky grin, the little looks that set my heart racing at the memory of them.
I try to focus on my task. I score out passages and tear away pages – soldiers accidentally referring to troop movements or criticising their superiors – anything that could affect morale back home or give away vital information if it fell into enemy hands.
But all the while, as my eyes skate over expressions of love and good cheer, homesickness and bravado, I think of the boy with the chestnut curls and clear blue eyes.
In many ways, he is very different to Michael. In many ways, he is the same.
I glance up only to greet Captains Loreburn and McCallister, my bunkmates for the night. Trudging into the villa, they toe off their boots, collapse onto the cots and are soon snoring. I think about how I snapped at Danny when he mentioned the spare bed. What was I thinking?
My lamp starts to sputter, spilling trembly shadows across the remaining letters. I shake the thing. Empty. I suppose I’ll have to search the place for more oil. Yawning, I pull out Grandpa’s watch – almost twenty to ten – and glance into the inky darkness of the hall.
‘To hell with it.’
I need to be near him. And so I turn off the lamp and head as quietly as I can out of the house.
The late summer sun is finally setting and now only a thin rind of failing light illuminates the cobbles.
Still, I have a good memory for streets and landmarks and it doesn’t take long to find my way back to the square.
As I walk, I notice the overgrown gardens, the weeds breaking through pavements, young trees sprouting from sewers.
Nature is resurgent here, as if by breaking apart the brick and concrete of this insignificant village, she is taking revenge on a war that has obliterated so many of her fields and pastures.
I arrive in the square breathless, my heart racing.
I told Danny to make sure everyone was in bed by ten.
What if I’ve missed him? I scan the darkened buildings before catching a glint of light seeping through a crack in a doorway.
The tavern is tiny, little more than a shack, an unreadable sign creaking above the entrance.
As I approach, I can hear the sound of men singing along to the jangled tune of an old piano.
I open the door, ready to step inside, when over a sea of heads, I catch sight of him.
He stands with one arm draped lazily across the top of the piano, his face more alive than I’ve ever seen it.
‘There I was, waiting at the church,
Waiting at the church, waiting at the church,
When I found he’d left me in the lurch
Lor’, how it did upset me.
All at once, he sent me round a note
Here’s the very note, this is what he wrote...’
The whole host of men – maybe forty of them packed in that cramped saloon – join in with the chorus:
‘Can’t get away to marry you today,
My wife won’t let me!’
Laughter erupts and I quickly step back into the square.
My heart is hammering. Something about how Danny performed the number – the breezy femininity of it, the womanly attitude as he threw out his arms to the audience.
His voice sounded just as captivating as it did earlier today when he calmed Ollie with his song, but the sight of him like this has unsettled me.
The door creaks shut. I don’t think anyone noticed my presence.
They were all too caught up in the show.
It’s as I’m turning away from the tavern, my hands trembling a little, that I notice three men standing in the shadows of an alleyway.
The last defiant glare of the sunset falls upon them and I recognise the baker.
He seems to be negotiating some kind of deal with two British soldiers – Privates Percy Stanhope and Robert Billings.
Cash is handed over and the soldiers reach for a small square package held by the baker.
Probably cigarettes, chocolate, or some other contraband.
Only the baker seems dissatisfied with the money offered and they begin to haggle.
I lower my head and move on. I don’t have the energy for an interrogation; let the poor sods enjoy their little luxury while they can.
All I feel in this moment is the need to be as far away from Danny as possible.