As the Crow Flies Read Online Free PDF Page B

before telling Charlie to report back to the chap with the three
white stripes.
    Charlie
found himself waiting in another queue before coming face to face with the
sergeant again.
    “Right,
lad, sign up here and we’ll issue you with a travel warrant.”
    Charlie
scrawled his signature on the spot above where the sergeant’s finger rested. He
couldn’t help noticing that the man didn’t have a thumb.
    “The
Honourable Artillery Company or Royal Fusiliers?” the sergeant asked.
    “Royal
Fusiliers,” said Charlie. “That was my old man’s regiment.”
    “Royal
Fusiliers it is then,” said the sergeant without a second thought, and put a
tick in yet another box.
    “When
do I get my uniform?”
    “Not
until you get to Edinburgh, lad. Report to King’s Cross at zero eight hundred
hours tomorrow morning. Next.”
    Charlie
returned to 112 Whitechapel Road to spend another sleepless night. His thoughts
darted from Sal to Grace and then on to Kity and how two of his sisters would
survive in his absence. He also began thinking about Rebecca Salmon and their
bargain, but in the end his thoughts always returned to his father’s grave on a
foreign battlefield and the revenge he intended to inflict on any German who
dared to cross his path. These sentiments remained with him until the morning
light came shining through the windows.
    Charlie
put on his new suit, the one Mrs. Smelley had commented on, his best shirt, his
father’s tie, a flat cap and his only pair of leather shoes. I’m meant to be
fighting the Germans, not going to a wedding, he said out loud as he looked at
himself in the cracked mirror above the washbasin. He had already written a
note to Becky with a little help from Father O’Malley instructing her to sell
the shop along with the two barrows if she possibly could and to hold on to his
share of the money until he came back to Whitechapel. No one talked about
Christmas any longer.
    “And
if you don’t retum?” Father O’Malley had asked, head slightly bowed. “What’s to
happen to your possessions then?”
    “Divide
anything that’s left over equally between my three sisters,” Charlie said.
    Father
O’Malley wrote out his former pupil’s instructions and for the second time in
as many days Charlie signed his name to an official document.
    After
Charlie had finished dressing, he found Sal and Kitty waiting for him by the
front door, but he refused to allow them to accompany him to the station,
despite their tearful protest. Both his sisters kissed him another first and
Kitty had to have her hand prised out of his before Charlie was able to pick up
the brown paper parcel that contained all his worldly goods.
    Alone,
he walked to the market and entered the baker’s shop for the last time. The two
assistants swore that nothing would have changed by the time he resumed. He left
the shop only to find another barrow boy, who looked about a year younger than
himself was already selling chestnuts from his pitch. He walked slowly through
the market in the direction of King’s Cross, never once looking back.
    He
arrived at the Great Northem Station half an hour earlier than he had been
instructed and immediately reported to the sergeant who had signed him up on
the previous day. “Right, Trumper, get yourself a cup of char, then ‘any about
on platform three.” Charlie couldn’t remember when he had last been given an
order, let alone obeyed one. Certainly not since his grandfather’s death.
    Platform
three was already crowded with men in uniforms and civilian clothes, some
chatting noisily, others standing silent and alone, each displaying his own
particular sense of insecurity.
    At
eleven, three hours after they had been ordered to report, they were finally
given instructions to board a train. Charlie grabbed a seat in the corner of an
unlit carriage and stared out of the grimy window at a passing English
countryside he had never seen before. A mouth organ was being played in the
corridor, all