It was no treasure chest, iron box, or padlocked case. No pirate’s gold or magic lamp. It was so small, so covered in plaster, so camouflaged in the mess of white dust and wood fragments now littering the room, Sanders was not sure what it was as Tom gingerly blew plaster dust off it, holding it at arm’s length.
Lars was still searching with a torch in the cavity they had made in the wall, poking with the hammer. Rhys, hair powdered in dust, though not nearly as covered as Lars and Tom, moved the tablet, phone, and paper tray on the desk for Tom to set down what he held.
Using his fingertips, as if the object would fall apart, Tom blew again and eased it onto the wood surface. Sue, Amanda, Rhys, and Sanders crowded around to look.
It was a package, wrapped in brown paper and tied in string, with some sort of message or address written upon it that was so faded and dirty it could not be read. The whole bundle was smaller than a shoebox, fragile and brittle with age, nibbled by mice, looking as if it would disintegrate at a touch.
Tom looked around to Lars, who was shaking his head as he gave up trying to find anything else. He stepped over to them at the desk.
Tom pulled open the twine and unfolded one side of the paper. Inside rested further papers and smaller bundles tied with more string. Some loose, some together, all fragile and dry, but in better shape than the outer package.
Carefully, Tom lifted each little stack from within the wrapping. He set these out in rows on the desk to form a neat collection of letters, postcards, paybooks, a tiny sketchbook, three small diaries or notebooks, and a few other loose items like cap badges, dried flowers, old coins, gold rings, stamps, a trench watch, and more.
Most of the envelopes appeared to be addressed, though few sealed. As if the men who had written them meant to add something more before they were sent off. A handful of letters and postcards had already been post marked—messages received from home and kept safe.
Tom, with the other five around him, stood for a moment only gazing down at the rows of memories and long vanished lives. He looked up, finding Sanders and holding his gaze. One by one, the others also looked to Sanders.
He ought to have gone to bed after all.
“They should be handled as little as possible.” Sanders cleared his throat. “The papers have been exposed to temperature fluctuations, acids, and outside contaminants for one hundred years. I no longer keep archival gloves. Some handling must be done, all the same, if we are to go through them and find information that could lead us to being able to returning these histories to their creators’ descendants. Perhaps we could sort through them in proper morning?”
Raised eyebrows and startled expressions met this last remark, even the three who’d been through airport travel and were now here without a break.
“No...” Sanders sighed. “We’ve come this far.”
He walked around Tom and Lars to pull out the office chair and sit with the bundles. Tom gently pushed them toward him with his fingertips, trying not to touch them.
“I recommend we take pictures along the way,” Sanders said. “We can sort the items by name wherever possible and photograph all the names and addresses we can find. It will take a good deal of research to find out who they belong to these days.”
Tom nodded. Rhys and Amanda produced phones for pictures. Sue was beaming as if Sanders had just solved the murder case.
“Tom?” Sanders glanced at him and Tom left the room.
Sanders lifted the first envelope, holding it for a picture, then gently sliding out a folded letter and photograph.
Tom returned from their bedroom with the reading glasses in their case and Sanders thanked him. He slid on the glasses, unfolded the letter with a light touch, and read.
“‘August, 1918. Dearest Martha. It’s more than a rumour now. We’ll be home before the New Year or my name’s Dot. Keep your eyes and ears open on your end, pet, but don’t forget you heard it first from our ‘reserve line’ in Switzerland. I dare say we could all be invalided home before the final shells fall. Word is the Jerries are fleeing east like rabbits before the smoke. No one in Germany is counting internees managed by the Swiss just at the moment, are they? How’s Baby B? Keeping her mum company until we’re back together? Last I saw of our B she could fit in my two hands. Can you believe it’s been eighteen months since the leave? Lucky we had that much before the capture, but all the same, it was a blow to learn the Jerries were even less charitable about granting a leave pass to a hard working junior than our own Brass Hats. These Swiss fellows are a real treat, positive silk slippers compared to Jerry’s camps, but hardly any more leave. What’s a chap to do? I know what; we’ll win this war and come home for good. How’s that sound? I couldn’t be there for the first, but I’ll be there for her second birthday, Martha. I’ll be there any minute. You just keep one eye out the window for me.
“‘One last thing. I’m sure you’ve heard from the Red Cross that the Spanish Flu is in Switzerland. I don’t want you to worry about that, and do you know why? It would have to ride a fast horse to catch us. Every officer here is doing well, many recovered fully from whatever had them invalided out of the camps in the first place. We’re healthy and never been in higher spirits as we see that big light on the horizon. You hear people around here fretting over it. Some of the younger officers especially without the constitutions or the right sporting spirit to see through just a bit longer. If you catch wind of the same sour views on your end, pet, don’t let them go to your head. I certainly don’t.
“‘Photograph of yours truly with best pals, Nathaniel Aiken and George Easton, the latter, standing on the right, is solely responsible for keeping up the morale and spirit of this whole inn for the year past and more, as he was here before me and one of the first ever sent out. Captain Easton runs this house, Martha, if anyone wants to know. And he’s the chap who’ll be seeing every young officer here home safe and with his sanity and his temper still accounted for, I can assure you. See you soon, pet. With all my love, Bobby.’”
The photograph was passed around while Sanders opened a third letter sheet which had been folded behind the first two and the picture.
“‘September, 1918. Dearest Martha. The mail has still not gone out and some of the chaps are growing restless, putting together letters and cards in a box in Easton’s room, as if he’s taking up collecting. Every man here knows Captain Easton gets any and all important matters seen to and sorted quicker and in better humour than any ten men we ever met. So a natural precaution, you see.
“‘I’m adding this second to my own letter to advise you not fret and worry yourself over this influenza affair. Yes, the men are rattled at it showing up in town and Aiken and one of our maids at the inn seem to have come down with it, but I assure you we could truly be no better placed than we are. We’re strong, we’re fed here and in more fresh air than you could dream about, and we have first rate doctors overseeing the men still recovering from injuries at the front already. We could not be better placed if we tried.
“‘Yes, there may be sickness, but we’ll be all right, pet. This won’t change a thing in our reunion—speaking of dreams. You keep on watching out the window for me and give Baby B a kiss from Daddy.
“‘See you soon. With ever more love, your devoted husband, Bobby.’”
Sanders replaced the sheets with the photo and set this envelope aside to start sorting who was who.
Next was a bit of string tied around half a dozen postcards depicting colourised photos of the Swiss Alps, Geneva in 1910, a small village, the inn itself in 1914, and other landscapes.
Sanders read and replaced them in order in a second stack beside Bobby’s.
“‘Dear Mother. Everyone says it will all be over soon. Even Rickman says so, and he’s no laugh on any day. I’ve a stack of cards for you of the views out here. Pretty lucky men in wartime, don’t you think? Love, Harry.’
“‘Dear Mother. There’s some sickness going around, which I’m sure you know, but I expect we’ll be all right up here. Lieutenant Aiken took to bed with chills, but I feel right as rain and steer clear of anyone with so much as a frog in his throat. Love, Harry.’
“‘Dear Mother. How are Lucy and the twins? Does Constance still call around? These long days waiting do get the wind up like anything. Easton keeps the peace, but it’s a rough life when everyone’s worked up now over a sickness. Love, Harry.’
“‘Dear Mother. I’m quite well, so there’s no need to worry. It seems Aiken was the only one to catch it. Newman has a cough, but Newman always has something out of sorts. It will all be over and done soon enough. Love, Harry.’
“‘Dear Mother. Even in such splendour as our current surroundings, a man longs for home. And we shall have it. All the men are saying so. We’ll be home soon, Mother. Home. Love, Harry.’
“‘Dear Mother. Unrest plagues our inn. Bobby Pryor has taken sick, along with Seymour. I keep out of doors. In the mountain air beside the beck, there is no room for sickness or sorrow. I pray to see you before another season has changed. Love from your son, Harry.’”
Gradually, they sorted through the stacks. Tom compiled a list of names, then subheaded each with names and towns of relations wherever known. Amanda and Rhys took photographic records. Lars cleaned up some of the mess while he listened. Sue stood at the back of the office chair and Sanders with her eyes closed.
The rest of the cards and letters were much the same. Sent to wives, mothers, fathers, children, siblings, or friends. Some detailed aspects of life at the inn, or reminisced about details of life at home they missed. Some talked of political matters and the wish for a quick end to the war with the Germans retreating and the Americans finally acting in force. Very few spoke candidly about fears of the sickness, or any sense of irony that, just when all the men were sure they would be home any time, they could be struck down by a disease. The most forthright letters seemed to be the few addressed to brothers or friends rather than parents or wives.
They flipped carefully through the little sketchbook, revealing scenes of the mountainscapes, of the inn from the inside before the remodel, rooms they could sometimes recognise and sometimes not, of the village and laid tables or tennis balls and rackets beside officer’s boots.
Of the three journals, one was nearly empty. Only the name and address of the owner on the inside, and a few scribbled dates and entries. Also some photos, a letter, dried wild flowers, and a Swiss franc. These things were meant for a wife in Manchester.
The other two belonged to Lieutenant John Rickman and Captain George Easton. Easton’s own journal contained photos and a letter at the front addressed to his wife. Rickman’s was entirely unadorned. Only a slip of paper was stuck in the front, written with a faded message in pencil:
Easton,
It is a comfort to write and find some sorting and soothing to my own thoughts. It stops here though, as I have advised you. I shall make use of this book as long as I may, until I must burn it. As I also advised you yesterday, I can already feel the sickness settling into a head pain and fever in my blood. If I should become incoherent with fever, I trust your word you shall remove this book from my possession and destroy it.
Thank you. You have been an honourable man and a great friend through these often tortured months of waiting for all our freedom. I wish you a swift return home to your family, Captain. No one deserves it more.
Your friend,
Lt John Rickman
This thin book was densely written, the long cursive scrawl hard to read, even by the standards of all the other old fashioned hands which Sanders had been carefully reading through. It suggested this Rickman had written down his thoughts in great haste and Sanders decided to come back to it.
He picked up the other small book, the one from Captain Easton, and read aloud the letter tucked inside the front cover, then skimmed over the rest, catching several passages from the diary.
When he finished with Easton’s, he read Rickman’s in the same way, skimming and reading out one or two entries a month or pausing over something that caught his eye. The handwriting was such that he struggled early on, but soon found a flow in this book as well, all while Tom, Sue, Amanda, Lars, and Rhys listened.