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damage to his foot was mitigated by careful scissorwork to his shoes, home-made incisions in the leather that eased the pressure on his scars. He managed to walk without a limp.
    But he was twenty-one and at last the master of his own destiny. He now had more than enough money to pay his own way to Canada and rejoin his family. No one and nothing could stop him.
    The British Army had other ideas.
    My grandfather was sent to Ireland to fight the IRA. He had absolutely no interest in joining another shooting match after somehow surviving the Western Front, and bitterly resented his new posting.
    Ireland was in turmoil. After the failure of the uprising in 1916, elections two years later saw the establishment of the Dail Eireann–the first underground Irish Parliament. By the time Geoffrey’s troop ship was crossing the Irish Sea, the war of independence was in full flow. It would be another two years before the Anglo-Irish Treaty recognised partition.
    The reluctant soldier wanted to be in Ontario, not the Emerald Isle. Granddad chafed at the dreary routine of guard duty and patrol, and constantly badgered his superiors to find out when he would get his discharge papers. Later thatsame year, 1919, he was told. And with that he had to be content.
    Weeks and months passed with agonising slowness, but at last the day came. It was to be a Sunday. My grandfather’s final assignment for King and Country would be the weekly Church Parade. He wound on his puttees for the last time and marched with the others down the main street of the little town they garrisoned. After morning service they went as usual into the wooden hut next to the church to take tea and cakes, served by the staunchly pro-British local ladies. On this last Sunday, as Granddad said his goodbyes to the smiling women, he suddenly felt deeply uneasy. He couldn’t work out what it was, but something was definitely not right.
    He went outside, lit a cigarette, and tried to think. Then it came to him. All morning, he realised, ever since leaving barracks, he’d had a sense of being secretly watched. He couldn’t explain it and later, as he packed his kit, handed in his rifle and ran to catch the boat train to England, he forgot all about it. He was done with the army and the army was done with him. Soon he would be travelling a lot further than France or Ireland.
    My grandfather never claimed he’d had some kind of premonition that his friends would shortly be gunned down in cold blood. Later, he thought some kind of sixth sense had whispered to him that day. He believed that an IRA reconnaissance unit had probably been keeping them under surveillance as they marched to and from church, and he had been subconsciously aware of it.
    A few weeks later, Church Parade was far from routine. AsGranddad’s mates marched into town, they were walking towards ambush and death. The IRA had set up a machine gun in the hedge opposite the church. They waited patiently for the British to move well into range. Then they delivered their savage rebuke to the hated occupiers.
    If my grandfather had spent many more days in the army, they would probably have been his last on earth.
     
    Geoffrey settled his affairs in Shawbury and in September 1919, nearly eighteen months behind schedule thanks to a combination of the Kaiser and the IRA, he finally boarded a ship bound for Canada. It was a departure touched with sadness. He and his Aunt Sarah had become very close over the years. He appreciated the way she had tried to console him in the terrible months after he was left behind, and she had been a quiet but staunch ally in his determination to leave Kiln Farm and find his family again.
    Sarah had been sick with anxiety while Geoffrey was serving in France. Soldiers who came back alive from the trenches were precious, almost hallowed beings and it must have grieved her greatly to see him leave again so soon. But she knew he had to go.
    My grandfather’s emotions can only be imagined as