I suppose we all have our secrets. There are many things we keep to ourselves – things we don’t want to bother others about. I’ve always kept the past locked away and hidden – though seldom out of mind. My generation doesn’t talk about a lot of things.
I’ve always boasted about being the same age as the century itself. But unlike the century, I don’t know how long I’ve got left. Not long now. That’s why I’ve written down my full story for the family. Of course, I don’t suppose my confession will make much difference to anyone … but it will to me. I need to set down what I’ve lived with all these years. It’s time to put the record straight. Even so, it will have to wait until after my death before anyone finds this part of the record. I still can’t admit to what I’ve done.
I was sent back from the war with no more than a piece of paper stating ‘UNFIT FOR SERVICE – BLIND’. Because of ‘the swap’, I was assumed to be Private Freddy Ovel – who must have suffered delayed blinding after the gas attack. I didn’t tell anyone differently. As far as everyone thought (apart from Gordon), Giles Hoadley had been shot for cowardice – with all the disgrace that brought.
I assumed that if I told the truth, I’d end up back in prison, or worse. The crime of being found guilty of cowardice was most shameful then. I was also full of guilt. After all, I was responsible for Freddy’s death and I should have stopped them shooting him. Yes, I was in no mental state to think straight, so I went along with the lie that I was Freddy Ovel. It was easy to speak just like him.
They sent me to a country house in Suffolk, which had been turned into a military hospital. Most of us were blind or lame and learning how to cope. It was a struggle and many of us were in a bad way – but at least we’d come back alive.
I still had Freddy’s last request to attend to, so I asked them to let Daisy know where I was. She came to see me shortly after giving birth to dear little baby Alice. We were both very emotional and I couldn’t bring myself to tell her the truth. She was convinced I was Freddy and was overjoyed to see me. You have to remember she hadn’t seen him for months and she’d been warned that, like all returning soldiers, he would be a different person. I still had facial injuries and wore dark glasses, but she even said I hadn’t changed as much as she’d feared. She wanted us to get married quickly and secretly.
So yes, I married Daisy. I felt the Ovel family had suffered enough with Harry’s death, so if I filled Freddy’s shoes, not only would I save everyone’s pain but I could become the twin I’d always wanted to be. Maybe you think I was deceitful and dishonest. I guess I was – but you have to remember the absolute shame of being told her beloved had been executed. People could be very cruel to such families. So I did as Freddy asked and I looked after Daisy and little Alice, loving them as my own. Eventually we had a baby ourselves when Peter was born, and we lived happily for many years. We ran a successful business together – a sweet shop and tobacconist next to a cinema (till the next war came).
Only Gordon knew the truth and, even if the flu epidemic hadn’t so cruelly claimed him after his return, he would have said nothing, I’m sure. His was such a gentle innocence – and yet he was one of the lions … lions led by donkeys.
My sister Maud would probably have discovered the truth if she hadn’t had enough worries of her own. During the war she was struck down with polio and was too ill to notice any marked change in her younger brother. She spent the rest of her life in much pain and needing crutches to walk.
I never met the Squire or his wife again. They apparently referred to Giles Hoadley as ‘that terrible cowardly wretch who ran away to the war and got his just deserts.’ They were even heard to say that it was most inconvenient as they had to rewrite their will.
I could live with that.
As for Ma, dear Ma … I think she knew the truth all along. In her final illness, I sat by her bed and spoke softly into her ear, uncertain if she could hear me. She opened her eyes, squeezed my hand and whispered, ‘A mother knows her sons.’
There is no mention of either Frederick Ovel or Giles Hoadley on any memorial or plaque. It’s as if anyone executed (Freddy was far from alone) never existed. The awful truth is, had I joined up as ‘son of the Squire’, I would have been enlisted as an officer and Freddy would still be alive. That is my everlasting guilt and why I’ve lived as a fraud to this day. You have to realise that, in my lifetime, revealing these secrets would still cause a scandal and be too much to bear for my family. But, most of all, bearing the name of my heroic brother has given me strength to go on. You see, mine had been such a sterile childhood, while Freddy’s was rooted in the fertile earth of family love – the richest soil of all. And that’s where I’ve always wanted to belong, too.
Freddy was a remarkable person. He had little education, yet he was wiser, kinder and more gifted than I shall ever be. Had he lived, who knows what he would have achieved?
Today I was taken to the cottage again where we were born. From there I walked along the brook to what used to be the hay meadow where Freddy and I once played. I stood very quietly on the hill, a breeze sighing among the poppies, and I listened to the distant song of a skylark as I spoke to Freddy again – all about another world … far beyond the fields.