‘At last!’ Norah came into the kitchen waving a letter. Every day since Bernard and Roy had left, she had watched out for the postman and this morning her persistence – it could not be said to be patience – had been rewarded.
She tore open the envelope and sat down in Len’s chair to read it.
‘Are they all right?’
After a moment’s pause whilst Norah finished reading it for herself, she said, ‘I’ll read it to you:
‘Dear Mam, Dad, Ma and Boy,
Well, here we are at last with a few lines to you. We are both well and are in Belton Park, near Grantham. We believe we’re the first service battalion to be raised after Lord Kitchener’s call for volunteers. Now that’s something to be proud of, isn’t it? The other lads are all great and we’re having a lot of fun, though the training is hard, but not for me and Roy. We’re a couple of tough nuts! Things are improving now, but when we first got here there were no uniforms or rifles for us. Target practice was with air guns. Of course, we’re well used to them, as you know, so me and Roy were “top of the class”.’
‘They sound as if they’re enjoying it all, as if they’re on holiday,’ Ma sniffed. ‘Have they forgotten what it’s all about?’
Norah sighed. ‘Ma, from the beginning, all these young men seem to think it’s a big adventure.’
‘Maybe they haven’t seen the papers about the defeat at Mons and the pictures of the wounded like we have,’ Ma murmured.
Norah nodded and said quietly, ‘That was when it started to come home to me, Ma, exactly what they’d let themselves in for.’
The two women stared at each other.
‘And that’s what Boy has gone into, an’ all.’
Norah jumped up. ‘I’ve got to try and find out about him. I’ll do what you suggested. I’ll go to the hall. I’ll go this very minute before I lose me nerve.’
‘Ivy,’ Norah, sitting in the kitchen at the hall, addressed the cook, ‘do you think the mistress would help me?’
Ivy Bentley eyed her visitor sceptically. She’d heard all about the shenanigans over William and if she were truthful – which she always was – she couldn’t really decide whose side, if sides there were to be taken, she was on. But one thing she did know; she did not approve of how William’s brothers had treated him.
Rotund and bustling, she made a cup of tea and set it down in front of Norah. Sitting down herself with a sigh – it was a relief for her aching feet to have an excuse to sit for a few moments – she said abruptly, ‘’Pends what it is, Norah.’
‘It’s young Harold. He’s disappeared.’
Ivy was about to ask sarcastically if he was hiding somewhere covered in yellow paint and feathers, but one look at Norah’s distraught face silenced the remark. ‘How do you think the mistress could help you?’
‘We think he’s gone to enlist. He went with the boys the first time but they made sure the recruiting officers knew his age.’
‘And now you think he might have gone back on his own?’
‘Yes. I’ve asked at the Drill Hall and then young Jake took me up the hill to the barracks, but the answer was just the same. They can’t – or won’t – tell me anything. They did say they haven’t a record of him going to either place, but one officer suggested he might have gone to Newark to enlist in the Sherwoods.’
‘But he’s underage, Norah. No one should take him.’
‘I know,’ Norah said bleakly, ‘but that doesn’t stop them. There’s a lad we’ve heard of in the village who’s got in and he’s only a few months older than Harold.’
‘Did he go to Newark?’
Norah nodded miserably. ‘We reckon Harold must’ve been talking to him and maybe that’s what gave him the idea.’
‘But how do you think the mistress could help?’
‘She’s got influence. She could write to the authorities and point out his age. He should never have been accepted.’
‘But you’re not sure that he has been, are you?’
‘No, but – where else can he be?’
‘Mm, I see your point.’
The two women sat in silence, each busy with her thoughts. At last Ivy said, ‘I’ll send young Sarah to see if Mrs Maitland will see you, but I don’t hold out much hope that she can do much.’ She smiled wryly. ‘Even Mrs Maitland can’t tell the army what to do.’
Ten minutes later, Norah was again explaining her dilemma to Henrietta.
‘I’m willing to try, Mrs Dawson, but I’m very much afraid that, if he has enlisted as you think, it’ll be too late.’
‘If only he’d said something, we could have let him go with Miss Pips and Alice if he’d wanted to be involved in some way.’
Henrietta raised her eyebrows. Even now, no mention was made of William. It really seemed as if, for his family, William no longer existed.
‘What does his father say?’
‘The same as you’ve just said, ma’am. That if he’s joined up, they won’t release him.’
‘I’ll do what I can, Mrs Dawson.’
That evening Henrietta discussed the matter with Edwin and together they composed a letter addressed to the Commanding Officer at the Newark Recruiting Centre. It was sent the next day, but a week later a terse reply was received stating that Harold had indeed enlisted in the Sherwood Foresters and was already at basic training camp. Henrietta went herself to break the news to Norah and Ma Dawson.
‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Dawson.’ She seemed to address both women who bore the name ‘Mrs Dawson’.
‘You did your best, ma’am,’ Norah said flatly. ‘Thank you for trying.’
‘If only young Peggy had told us what she knew earlier,’ Ma said harshly, ‘we might have been able to stop him.’
‘You can’t blame her, Ma. She was being loyal to Harold. But, at least,’ Norah said, trying to smile at Mrs Maitland, ‘we know for certain now where he is.’
‘Although they’ve accepted him,’ Henrietta said, trying to comfort the two women whose anguish was written plainly on their faces, ‘they’ll realize his youth and perhaps they won’t send him overseas for some while.’
Norah nodded, but could not speak now. Instead, she clung to the hope that Mrs Maitland was right. Maybe he wouldn’t be sent to France yet, maybe not at all.
The subject of their concern was, at that moment, enjoying himself in a way he’d never have thought possible. He was in the company of men who treated him as an equal, who called him by his proper name, either ‘Harold’ or ‘Dawson’, and who even admired him for his skills.
‘By ’eck, Dawson, tha’s a fine shot for a young ’un,’ a volunteer like himself whose name he’d learned was Jim Leatham, remarked. ‘Where did tha learn to shoot like that?’
Careful not to give too much away about himself, Harold grinned and said, ‘I grew up in the countryside. My brothers taught me to shoot.’
The older man guffawed. ‘Teach tha to do a spot of poaching, did they?’
Harold frowned. ‘No. Our village owes its livelihood to the estate. We wouldn’t do that to Mrs—’ He clamped his mouth shut, afraid that already he’d said too much.
‘Where’s tha from, then?’
Harold grinned. ‘Now that’d be telling, wouldn’t it?’
Smiling knowingly, with his head on one side, Leatham eyed him. ‘I’d say tha’s a Lincolnshire yeller-belly.’
Harold’s jaw dropped and before he could stop himself he asked, ‘How’d you know that?’
‘It’s the accent, lad. It’s a dead giveaway.’
‘Where are you from, then?’ Harold asked, trying to divert attention from himself.
Jim Leatham puffed out his chest. ‘Yorkshire. The biggest and best county in the British Isles.’
‘Lincolnshire’s not far behind you, mate. I learned that at school.’
‘Aye, well, you’re right there, lad. I’ll give you that. Now . . .’ he leaned closer to Harold and dropped his voice – ‘you stick with me, young ’un, ’cos if I’m not much mistaken, tha’s underage.’ He tapped the side of his nose. ‘But we’ll say nowt about it, eh? Us northerners must stick together.’
Harold grinned. ‘Thanks.’
‘I don’t reckon they’d boot you out anyway, ’specially as you’re such a fine shot, but they might hold you back from the rest of us when we get sent over there. Mind you, I don’t reckon any of us are going anywhere yet. They’re sending the territorials afore they let us loose on the enemy.’
‘D’you think so?’ Harold was crestfallen. He wanted to get ‘stuck in’.
‘Sure of it. So, it’s just a lot of marching and shooting and bayonet practice for us. But it’s not a bad life, is it, lad?’
‘It’s a great life. I reckon I’ll sign on as a regular when it’s all over.’
Leatham’s smile faded. He patted Harold’s shoulder and his voice was a little husky as he said, ‘Aye, lad, that’s a good idea. You just hold on to that, eh?’
The older man did not add, ‘if you come back’. He guessed the young boy, who shouldn’t even be here, had been caught up in the patriotic fever to enlist. Perhaps others in the village where he lived, maybe even his family – the brothers he’d spoken of – had volunteered and the young lad had felt left out. No doubt over the coming weeks, in snatches of conversation, he’d find out. Leatham felt – rather than knew at this moment – that Harold didn’t really understand it all, but he did. At least, he knew a little of what they had to expect if and when they were sent to the front. He’d read the papers about the bloodbath at Mons at the end of August and the battles that were going on this very minute.
Breaking into the man’s thoughts, Harold asked, ‘How come, if you’re such a proud Yorkshireman, you’ve joined the Sherwoods?’
‘Ah, now, that’d be telling.’
Harold grinned. So, he thought, he wasn’t the only one with secrets.