“But the Colonel promised,” I said. “And his wife did too before she died. She said she wanted Mother looked after. And the Colonel said we could stay on in the cottage. Mother told us.”
“Your mother reminded him of that,” Molly replied. “And d’you know what he said? He said it had never been a promise as such, only his wife’s wish, and that anyway the war had changed everything. He was making no exceptions. Charlie has to join up or we’ll be out of the cottage at the end of the month.”
We sat there holding hands, Molly’s head on Charlie’s shoulder, as evening fell around us. Molly was sobbing quietly from time to time but none of us spoke. We didn’t need to. We all knew there was no way out of this, that the war was breaking us apart, and that all our lives would be changed for ever. But at that moment, I treasured Molly’s hand in mine, treasured this last time together.
Suddenly, Charlie broke the silence. “I’ll be honest, Moll,” he said. “It’s been bothering me a lot just lately. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to go. But I’ve seen the lists in the papers — y’know, all the killed and the wounded. Poor beggars. Pages of them. It hardly seems right, does it, me being here, enjoying life, while they’re over there. It’s not all bad, Moll. I saw Benny Copplestone yesterday. He was sporting his uniform up at the pub. He’s back on leave. He’s been a year or more out in Belgium. He says it’s all right. ‘Cushy,’ he called it. He says we’ve got the Germans on the run now. One big push, he reckons, and they’ll all be running back to Berlin with their tails between their legs, and then all our boys can come home.”
He paused, and kissed Molly on her forehead. “Anyway, it looks like I haven’t got much choice, have I, Moll?”
“Oh Charlie,” Molly whispered. “I don’t want you to go.”
“Don’t worry, girl,” Charlie said. “With a bit of luck I‘ll be back to wet the baby’s head. And Tommo will look after you. He’ll be the man about the place, won’t you, Tommo? And if that silly old fart of a Colonel sticks his lousy head in our front door again when I’m gone, shoot the bastard, Tommo, like he shot Bertha.” And I knew he was only half-joking, too.
I don’t believe I even thought about what I said next. “I’m not staying,” I told them. “I‘m coming with you, Charlie.”
They both tried all they could to dissuade me. They argued, they bullied, but I would not be put off, not this time. I was too young, Charlie said. I said I was sixteen in a couple of weeks and as tall as he was, that all I had to do was shave and talk deeper and I could easily be taken for seventeen. Mother wouldn’t let me go, Molly said. I said I’d run away, that she couldn’t lock me up.
“And who’ll be there to look after us if you both go?” Molly was pleading with me now.
“Who would you rather I look after, Molly,” I replied. “All of you at home who can perfectly well look after yourselves? Or Charlie, who’s always getting himself into nasty scrapes, even at home?” When they had no answer to this, they knew I’d won, and I knew it too. I was going to fight in the war with Charlie. Nothing and no one could stop me now.
I’ve had two long years to think on why I decided like that, on the spur of the moment, to go with Charlie. In the end I suppose it was because I couldn’t bear the thought of being apart from him. We’d lived our lives always together, shared everything, even our love for Molly. Maybe I just didn’t want him to have this adventure without me. And then there was that spark in me newly kindled by those scarlet soldiers marching bravely up the High Street in Hatherleigh, the steady march of their feet, the drums and bugles resounding through the town, the sergeant major’s stirring call to arms. Perhaps he had awoken in me feelings I never realised I’d had before, and that I had certainly never talked about. It was true that I did love all that was familiar to me. I loved what I knew, and what I knew was my family, and Molly, and the countryside I’d grown up in. I did not want any enemy soldier ever setting foot on our soil, on my place. I would do all I could to stop him and to protect the people I loved. And I would be doing it with Charlie. Deep down though, I knew that, more than Charlie, more than my country or the band or the sergeant major, it was that toothless old woman taunting me in the square. “Y’ain’t a coward, are you? Y’ain’t a coward?”
The truth was that I wasn’t sure I wasn’t, and I needed to find out.
I had to prove myself. I had to prove myself to myself.
Two days later, two days of parrying Mother’s many attempts to keep me from going, we all went off together to Eggesford Junction Station where Charlie and I were to catch the train to Exeter. Big Joe had not been told anything about us going off to war. We were going away for a while, and we’d be back soon. We didn’t tell him the truth, but we told him no lies either. Mother and Molly tried not to cry because of him. So did we.
“Look after Charlie for me, Tommo,” Molly said. “And look after yourself too.” I could feel the swell of her belly against me as we hugged.
Mother told me to promise to keep clean, to be good, to write home and to come home. Then Charlie and I were on the train — the first train we’d ever been on in our lives, and we were leaning out of the window and waving, only pulling back spluttering and coughing when we were engulfed suddenly in a cloud of sooty smoke. When it cleared and we looked out again, the station was already out of sight. We sat down opposite each other.
“Thanks, Tommo,” said Charlie.
“For what?” I said.
“You know,” he replied, and we both looked out of the window. There was no more to say about it. A heron lifted off the river and accompanied us for a while before veering away from us and landing high in the trees. A startled herd of Ruby Red cows scattered as we passed by, tails high as they ran. Then we were in a tunnel, a long dark tunnel filled with din and smoke and blackness. It seems like I’ve been in that tunnel every day since. So Charlie and I went rattling off to war. It all seems a very long time ago now, a lifetime.
I keep checking the time. I promised myself I wouldn’t, but I can’t seem to help myself. Each time I do it, I put the watch to my ear and listen for the tick. It’s still there, softly slicing away the seconds, then the minutes, then the hours. It tells me there are three hours and forty-six minutes left. Charlie told me once this watch would never stop, never let me down, unless I forgot to wind it. The best watch in the world, he said, a wonderful watch. But it isn’t. If it was such a wonderful watch it would do more than simply keep the time — any old watch can do that. A truly wonderful watch would make the time. Then, if it stopped, time itself would have to stand still, then this night would never have to end and morning could never come. Charlie often told me we were living on borrowed time out here. I don’t want to borrow any more time. I want time to stop so that tomorrow never comes, so that dawn will never happen.
I listen to my watch again, to Charlie’s watch. Still ticking. Don’t listen, Tommo. Don’t look. Don’t think. Only remember.
“Stand still! Look to your front, Peaceful, you horrible little man!” …“Stomach in, chest out, Peaceful.” …“Down in that mud, Peaceful, where you belong, you nasty little worm. Down!” … “God, Peaceful, is that the best they can send us these days? Vermin, that’s what you are. Lousy vermin, and I’ve got to make a soldier of you.”
Of all the names Sergeant “Horrible” Hanley bellowed out across the parade ground at Etaples when we first came to France, Peaceful was by far the most frequent. There were two Peacefuls in the company of course, and that made a difference,