Regret to Inform You... Read online

  Copyright © 2015 Derek Jarrett

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Matador®

  9 Priory Business Park,

  Wistow Road, Kibworth Beauchamp,

  Leicestershire. LE8 0RX

  Tel: 0116 279 2299

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.troubador.co.uk/matador

  Twitter: @matadorbooks

  ISBN 978 1785894 879

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Matador® is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

  There are over 100,000 World War One memorials in the UK.

  Perhaps there should be a memorial to those at home who suffered for their loved ones fighting and dying abroad.

  It is to these millions that this book is dedicated.

  ‘I will weep when you are weeping;

  When you laugh, I’ll laugh with you.

  I will share your joy and sorrow

  Till we’ve seen this journey through.’

  - Richard Gillard, Hymn ‘Brother, Sister’.

  The Servant Song ‘Brother, Sister let me serve you’, Gillard, © 1977 Universal Music – Brentwood Benson Publishing (Admcapitolcmgpublishing.com/UK&Eire Song Solutions.org www.songsolutions.org) All rights reserved. Used by permission.

  The Six Young Men

  John Atkins (Jack)

  James Carey (Jammy)

  William Johnson (Willy)

  Albert Jones (Boney)

  Abraham Richards (Racer)

  Frederick Smith (Fred)

  Part One 1912

  Part Two 1914 – 1919

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  Part One

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  Part Two

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  FORTY-TWO

  FORTY-THREE

  FORTY-FOUR

  FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  PROLOGUE

  Thursday, 15 January 1874

  The pall of smoke rose slowly. Dark grey below, becoming ever paler until it was lost in the powder-blue sky. It gave no clue as to its origin, but a fire of great intensity must have been the cause. Whilst at first appearing becalmed, it provided the only movement on this windless and sweltering day.

  The cause had to be a good distance away, for much closer was the lush green of trees stretching in every direction. So dense was this green that it could only be a tropical forest. No sound came from this forest, but perhaps the animals had been warned of the distant blaze and fled.

  Nearer, the soaring trees gave way to land that had been cleared; a red carpet of soil, littered with occasional tree stumps and rocks. Whilst nothing save the gentle ascent of this pall of smoke was moving, and that only slowly, a closer look showed two signs of activity, but only just. On one of the tree stumps, a bird; grey-brown above, buffy-brown below and with a predator’s beak. It was gazing as if with troubled eye, towards a larger being close to the ground. As eyes adjusted to the dazzling sunlight, a human figure, hardly crawling over the bare ground, would have been recognised. This figure was also in brown, but that uniform was filthy, blackened and torn. The man, for assuredly it was just that, edged forward, clawing his way onwards. The buzzard moved closer.

  That movement saved the man: a soldier grappling to stay alive, a man whose actions were to hugely affect his son, at that time but a young child.

  Part One

  1912

  ONE

  Morning, Friday, 22 March

  From the gentle, tree-covered slopes, the village was little different to others in this part of rural Suffolk; the small clusters of cottages, the soaring church spire and occasional human movement were unremarkable. As one got closer, it became apparent that many of the cottages were in need of repair: old thatch or broken tiled roofs and peeling paintwork. The narrow streets, where carts and horses vied to make the rutted impression, wove their way between the cottages. Given such an expansive landscape, it was surprising that the clusters of homes were so tightly packed: perhaps to protect each other from winter gales that occasionally swept up from the not too distant river.

  Such was Rusfield, once a bustling scene, at least during the sowing and harvesting times when there had been employment for villagers wielding hoe, dibber and scythe. However, since many fields had been bought by a distant brewery, machines had taken over and many from generations of agricultural workers had been pressed further into a state of poverty.

  To the west of the church could be seen the village school, a beacon of hope both when it was built thirty-five years earlier and now to the present generation. Families were large with many of the two-up, two-down cottages giving slim comfort to their large numbers. Some teenagers had learnt enough to move to one of the nearby towns where there were demands for builders and clerks; some to London where the urban sprawl gave opportunity, the workforce returning each Saturday afternoon. A few of the more ambitious, along with some who felt they had nothing to lose, had just migrated to Canada, two as far as New Zealand.

  Apart from the church, few substantial buildings could be seen. The red-brick school and nearby schoolhouse, from which Peter Meadows and his wife would shortly be leaving, were partly obscured behind towering elm trees. Similarly, part hidden by the bare trees, was the decade-old Methodist chapel, which had replaced the former wooden structure. To the north of the village, and sensibly half-hidden by a dip in the hillside to catch the best hours of the sun, was the one large house, its mainly timbered walls and high, grey-stone chimneys clearly announcing a Tudor origin: the manor. To the south-east a substantial farmhouse and finally, a light-bricked, many-windowed and pleasant house near to
the church: the vicarage.

  The land around the church was owned by a Cambridge college, one of the reasons that make church history a fascinating story. St Mary’s had stood since the eleventh century, its many additions and alterations almost hiding its Norman foundation. Coinciding with the final year of George II’s reign, a priest was appointed to work among the people of Rusfield and four adjacent parishes, but a few years later he became poorly and the kindly bishop had removed the responsibility of the other four parishes from him: so it remained. The house was splendid in its fine Georgian style. With the realisation that parish priests might have large families, six bedrooms were included along with two studies and three living rooms.

  The bedrooms had never been fully used, as the most productive incumbent had a mere three children and the current vicar, the Reverend Arthur Henry Windle and his wife, were childless. He had moved to be curate to the Reverend Charles Gulland twenty-one years previously, becoming its sole occupant when appointed as the vicar two years later. Any thought of moving to a grander church was counterbalanced by his unexpected feeling of comfort in working in this poor village. Undoubtedly, his delight in subsequently marrying the lovely, vivacious, much younger Eleanor had added greatly to this feeling of contentment. He could never stop counting his good fortune in taking a service at Wensfield, a village some four miles away, when he had first seen the beautiful Eleanor Brown. Whilst he later asked for God’s forgiveness in having such feelings towards her in the midst of a morning service, he had been immediately enchanted by her looks, from her long black hair and her high cheekboned face to her elegant bearing. Such beauty, above all a gentleness, that reminded Arthur of a Vermeer painting he remembered from his student days.

  On this Friday morning in late March, they were breakfasting in the room overlooking the attractively created patio in their large garden. The room was high ceilinged, light and comfortably furnished, as Eleanor, whilst thrifty, was a splendid homemaker.

  ‘It is, of course, this evening that we’ll be at the school hall for Peter’s farewell. He really has achieved great things and I’m sure many of his old pupils will be there,’ Eleanor ventured.

  ‘Indeed,’ her well-groomed, fair-haired husband replied, ‘I hear there is to be something of a pleasant surprise for him, well deserved. After the shambles that I believe surrounded the former master, Peter has really moved things on. It’s hard to find anyone who speaks ill of him and we’ll be very fortunate if the new man achieves as much.’

  ‘I need to go round to the school at five o’clock to help set things up when the other teachers are making sure that Peter’s out of the way.’ A slight sound from outside the room caused her to pause. ‘Is that someone at the door?’ she asked.

  Arthur moved his plate to one side, stood up, revealing his full height of over six feet and moved into the elegant hallway. He returned a minute later carrying two letters.

  ‘One for you, my dear, and one from the bishop’s palace. I wonder what this is about.’

  He sat down, took out his reading glasses, opened the letter using a spare knife from the table and read. A slightly quizzical look appeared on the face of this forty-four-year-old priest.

  ‘What is it my dear? You look troubled?’ Her husband passed Eleanor the letter which surprisingly asked, or rather told him, to see the bishop the following Thursday, just six days away. The precise hour should be agreed with the bishop’s secretary although late morning was clearly suggested. A communication from the palace was not uncommon; what caused Arthur some puzzlement was that it was personally addressed and signed by the dean, rather than one of the many cathedral secretaries.

  ‘Maybe,’ suggested Eleanor, ‘he’s going to put forward a change for you, my dear. Certainly all that you’ve done here deserves recognition.’

  ‘Would you like that?’ repeating a question he had often asked her.

  ‘I’m not sure. I know that with all the sadness you suffered in your early years here you might have once been pleased to move, but times change. I like the village. What of you?’

  ‘I should only follow the best way of serving God. I’ll just have to wait to see and find out what the bishop wants.’

  TWO

  Evening, Friday, 22 March

  Rarely were the streets so alive with villagers, least of all an evening with a slight drizzle in the air. March had been a wet month and following on from an unusually snow-stricken winter, the weather was a constant point of discussion among the villagers; but not tonight, as other thoughts were uppermost in Rusfield. Glimmers of light showed as doors opened and people set out on the short journey to the school along one of several ill-lit and poorly-surfaced streets.

  Coming out of one of the cottages in Meadow Way, the sprightly Judith Johnson looked back over her shoulder and called out to her son, ‘Keep an eye on Ruby, Frank.’ She knew that of her entire family, she and Ray worried most about dear Ruby. Some villagers called her simple, but her mother thought of her as innocent, sometimes lacking judgement for her own safety. Ruby was a girl who had always loved being held close, all right with her siblings but a worry to Judith now that her daughter was fast developing into a pretty, young woman.

  As her neighbour emerged from next door, Judith commented to her, ‘We shall miss him. He seems to have been here for ever.’ Her own seven children, including Ruby, had all come under the sound instruction of the schoolmaster, Peter Meadows. ‘My kids always knew where they were with him.’

  Liz Smith nodded in agreement as she joined Judith. ‘Aye, you’re right. I once thought he was harsh, but he was right.’ Liz Smith had only the one child, of Fred’s father she never spoke. The two neighbours took the short walk across the village green, quickly merging with the flow of villagers coming from Bury Way and Pond Street. There were many exchanges of cheerful greeting, all knew each other well. Approaching the well-lit school they went through the open double gate, along the short, stony path and entered the small, wood-panelled lobby opening into a well-lit room from which much chatter could be heard.

  Major Sebastian de Maine, chairman of the school governing board, welcomed everyone. He was some sixty years old, slightly balding and wearing his customary thin-framed spectacles. ‘Although what he really knows about the school and the children beats me,’ commented Susannah Jones. ‘He made sure his kids didn’t come here, but went off to that posh school in Norwich.’

  ‘Their loss,’ responded her fair-haired and tall friend, Pauline Richards. ‘They couldn’t have done better than come here to find out about life and to set them up. Both of mine got good jobs when they left here.’

  As they moved into the largest classroom, which also served the 130 children as a hall, they were surprised at the number of people there. The high room with beamed ceiling was painted a pale blue and displayed colourful pictures ranging from animals of the world to charts with handsome styles of writing, clearly examples for the children to copy. The early arrivals were sitting on chairs or ink-stained desks, the later ones standing near the back. The ever-elegant Olivia Atkins, attractive, almond-eyed and admired by all the bachelors and many other men in the village, smiled at the latest arrivals and moved nearer to the corner to give more space. A few minutes later a hush descended as the schoolmaster, his wife and governors, all holding a position of some importance in the community, walked on to the improvised stage. A little clapping from someone near the front, a number suspected it to be one of the teachers, started more enthusiastic applause. Sebastian de Maine was smartly dressed with high collar, regimental tie and lightly-checked waistcoat and matching suit, although a close look showed the latter to be slightly worn. He held up a hand, an obvious call for order.

  ‘Tonight, good people, we are gathered to thank the one who has given many years to our community. Our school opened in 1876 and of the intervening thirty-five years, our schoolmaster has been in charge for twenty-seven. He has ruled it well and that so many of you are here tonight is a measure of the high reg
ard in which we hold him.’ (Applause) ‘He has made us proud of being able to send our children here.’ (Slight guffaws were apparent at his use of the words ‘our children’).

  Peter Meadows and his wife, Audrey, the only female occupant of the row of low chairs, looked a little embarrassed. The passing of years had treated them well. Peter had been appointed when he was an enthusiastic thirty-eight-year-old, and that enthusiasm, along with his charming smile and good looks, remained. His wife, who had done so much good in the village to support her husband, also retained both her health and attractive looks. They would be sorely missed as they moved to the West Country to be near their two children and three grandchildren. Now, the end of March, they would be settled in to their new home by Easter.

  The clapping, joined by some cheers from the back of the hall, greeted the schoolmaster as he hesitantly rose from his chair, nodded and smiled. ‘My many thanks to our school chairman, Major de Maine, and to all of you who have come along this evening. I am amazed to see so many here, thank you for coming. I remember my first visit to Rusfield when I was appointed to this school. Is it possible that it’s twenty-seven years ago? That was a special and proud moment. Any progress that we have made in that time has been due to our splendid staff.’ He gave a special nod at Miss Rita Small, a lively and squat figure in the front row who had been at the school for all but two of his years. ‘There are so many to thank, but I must make special mention of our vicar; you have been so supportive as has your dear wife since she came to the village.’ He spoke clearly and swiftly, recalling some of the traumas that the school had been through, like the fire in two classrooms some eight years previously, and of many joyful times.

  ‘Miss Small asked me earlier this evening what had been my proudest moment. There have been many, but let me remind you of a very special one that all of us share in feeling so proud. Remember that wonderful day in March 1908?’ There were many nods. ‘Our football team had been strong for the previous two or three years, but in the Michaelmas term of 1907 and the spring term of 1908, they reached amazing heights. It was on that glorious Friday evening, 20 March 1908, four years ago almost to the day, when they won the Three Counties cup.’