Easterleigh Hall at War Read Online Free PDF Page B

front line when he stopped me going to find Mart’s body, but he let it go when he could have had me shot. It was then I felt . . .’
    He waited a moment, wanting permission to let go of the hatred he had felt for Auberon, but knowing he was bloody daft to expect a voice to boom out and give it. He patted the headstone one more time, and rose, hauling up his pack, wiping a freezing wet hand across his face. The wind was getting up now. Had Timmie understood? ‘We’re not marras, you know, me and him, but we’re something. Perhaps it’s just that we’re soldiers? I call him Auberon now, in private. Not a lot of the bosses allow that.’ He looked down at the grave again, and left, saying once more at the gate, ‘Aye, we’re something.’
    He marched quickly, turning at the Cross Trees crossroads, glancing at the middle spruce, which was where they’d hung highwaymen not that long ago. An hour later Jack reached the turn-off to the beck, where he and all the local bairns had dammed the stream to create a pool for swimming. He checked his watch. Why not, he had time? He hurried along the track, slipping through Froggett’s ploughed fields to cut off the corner. Last time he’d been here, with Evie, there had been a kingfisher. Did it still come in the summer? Why not, there were still trees – here. ‘Why not’ seemed to be something he said too often.
    He slipped through the gate on to the path and along the bank towards the dam, and remembered the feel of the water on coal-slecked skin when they were older and coming straight from the pit. He could feel the plunge into the dam, then the calm of the sky as he lay on his back watching the clouds scudding, the tug as Mart took him underwater, the bugger. He laughed. Aye, he’d been a bonny bugger all right. He reached the beck, picked up a stone and tossed it into the water. ‘For you, lad.’ Another stone. ‘For you, Timmie,’ he whispered. Another. ‘For you, Tony.’ One more, for Grace. God keep her safe. He watched until the ripples died, squatting on his haunches. He stayed, and stayed, rising at last when his legs hurt and his back ached. Aye, it was beautiful here, Evie was right. She usually was.
    He made for the road again, his boots muddy, his puttees too, damn and blast it. He walked into Easton, past the parsonage. He would not look, he had promised himself he would not, but of course he did. The windows were dark, but they would be. Parson would be on his rounds and the parson’s sister, Grace, was nursing in France. It was as well. He marched on, facing front. Ahead and around were the conical slag heaps, seething and fuming, the winding engines glinting in the sun, and over everything hung the smell of sulphur. Now he was really home.
    Lieutenant the Honourable Auberon Brampton watched from his bedroom window as Evie waved to Jack’s departing back. Her shawl had slipped and one end was trailing in the snow. She would be shivering. Behind him Roger opened the door from the dressing room. Auberon turned. His valet was in his private’s uniform and had therefore metamorphosed into his batman once more. ‘I have your clothes ready, sir, and your boots have a high gleam.’
    Auberon nodded. What a bloody silly way to fight a war, with gleaming boots, and one’s servant alongside to cater for one’s needs, and what a servant. He tried not to let his distaste show, remembering the stories he had heard from below stairs. He dressed quickly, allowing Roger to brush his shoulders, spotless though they were. His uniform belt was buffed. Had he used spit as well as polish on this, likewise the boots? The thought of going to war with Roger’s spittle accompanying him was so utterly bloody ridiculous that he had to walk to the window and look out again, or laugh in the harsh manner that overwhelmed him all too often. It was all so damned surreal. He pushed