Easterleigh Hall at War Read Online Free PDF

her call, ‘I’ve slipped a package into your pack. Have a look and deliver it when you’re in France.’ He just waved again.
    Jack felt the gravel and snow shifting beneath his boots, heard Evie add, ‘Be safe, be lucky.’ There goes the pitman’s prayer, he thought and it works as well for a soldier. He dragged in deep breaths, but all he could smell was France. He reached the road, turned left and almost immediately right, down the rutted lane with its iced puddles, and the deeper snow drifted up against the hedge. The gate was snow-crusted, and looked much like Evie’s Christmas cakes, if you stretched the imagination a mile. It screeched as he shoved it open, the snow banking up behind it.
    The churchyard nestled several fields away from the Hall, but was still in the grounds. It was the Protestant village church, and there was no way his mam would have had Tim laid to rest in chapel land. At the time of the funeral Jack had objected to Timmie being buried on Brampton land, but where else was there?
    The snow had almost covered the many footprints that led the way to Jack’s brother. He added to them, knowing he could have found his way blindfold. He reached the grave, it too was cloaked in snow. He stood looking down, and when he could speak he said, ‘Well, bonny lad, I forgot what a fine spot it is here. Quiet. Bit of birdsong, and there’ll be violets in the spring. You’ll be liking that. It’s a damn sight better than being tossed into them great graves with a mass of others with no birds, just bloody artillery blasting overhead. Remember you thought you’d heard a cuckoo in February, or was it earlier? Bloody great pigeon, wasn’t it?’ He stopped talking, feeling his voice shake.
    He looked back at the church where the burial service had taken place and he and Millie had been married, in that order, with Parson Manton presiding. ‘Well, lad, what else could I do but marry her after she had been brought to us by Evie to have the bairn? Better than the workhouse by a mile. Millie named him after you, and that helped Mam, it did. So, as I say, what else could I do and what the hell does it matter?
    â€˜Aye Timmie, it’s all a bit of a bloody mess, wouldn’t you say? Your lead soldiers were simpler, bonny lad.’ He surveyed the landscape: the hills that hid Easton’s Auld Maud pit, the Stunted Tree hill. He slung off his pack, hunkered down and wiped the headstone clean of snow. He traced the words chiselled by Da: Timmie Forbes 1897–1913.
    â€˜At least you’re with your lead soldiers and your marra.’ He nodded hello to Tony, who lay beside his family’s lovely lad. He liked to think they were riding Galloways, the pit ponies they had loved, across fields in another world, not this crazy one. ‘Bad was it, Tony, man? But they brought you back from the Marne to the Hall. You wanted to smell bacon the night you were dying, our Evie said. So she cooked it for you and you died with your mam by your bed. I thank whatever bloody idiot thinks he’s God, for that. So much bloody life left unlived for you two, eh. Perhaps the rest of us can live it for you if . . .’ He stopped.
    At the base of the gravestones, jam jars held holly. The water had frozen but not cracked the glass yet. Jack had sworn he would not, but he cried, brushing the snow from both graves, until his hands were red, wet and numb.
    He took a lead soldier he had bought in Southampton from his pocket and placed it by Timmie’s jam jar. ‘Not like the ones you painted, but it’ll last even if I don’t. But look, Timmie, I have to tell you something, it’s difficult and I’m not sure what you’ll think, but I’m finding it hard to carry the hate for the Bastard’s whelp any more. I know, I know, lad, but I think that the cart that killed you would have run away in any seam, on any slope. I punched him in the