The question of place and date was easily disposed of. Zoe said she could not envisage anywhere but York, and as they were both keen to set the seal of legality on their relationship, the date was set for a Thursday in the middle of September.
It left little time for the final detail of other arrangements, and Zoe’s mother was both furious and panic-stricken. September was always a busy time, and how could she possibly leave the business at such short notice? There would be clothes to buy, a wedding dress to arrange, and other essentials such as flowers and a reception. ‘Although how on earth you expect me to organize that, from here,’ she had wailed to her daughter, ‘I really do not know!’
Stephen sent a bouquet of flowers to his future mother-in-law by way of apology and reassurance. Leave everything to me, said the enclosed card; which she might not like, he thought, but at least she could absolve herself should the arrangements be less than she expected. Zoe’s father, however, had been far more amenable. ‘Use your discretion,’ he had said when they met at his home by the Thames at Sunbury, ‘and just send me the bills.’
While Zoe did her best to organize her work and a certain amount of shopping in London, Stephen returned to York to enlist Joan’s help. Delight at his news was not spoiled by thoughts of Marian’s celestial standards. ‘Well,’ she said firmly, ‘we’ll just have to make sure we don’t let the side down, won’t we?’ And with that she set about making enquiries as to a suitable venue for the reception.
She had a surprising number of friends and acquaintances. Stephen had not realized the extent of her connections until she announced that an old friend from her ATS days, who lived in a glorious Georgian mansion just outside the city, would be willing to place her home at their disposal. ‘She does it regularly, for charitable functions,’ Joan explained, ‘and always uses the same firm of caterers. And I can vouch for their excellence. I don’t think we could do better.’
‘You’re a wonder,’ he declared, kissing his aunt roundly. ‘It sounds just right.’
And it was. Meeting Joan’s friend and viewing the house the week before, he was able to assure Zoe that even her mother would be impressed. ‘It’s a beautiful old place with a long drive and fabulous windows. You’ll love it. And the trees in the park are just beginning to turn – we should get some great photographs.’
Leaving his flat for the use of Zoe and Polly, Stephen moved out the afternoon before, to stay with Mac and Irene at the old family hotel on Gillygate. Mrs Bilton, it seemed, could not have been more thrilled; feeling a certain proprietorial interest in this forthcoming marriage, she insisted upon giving Stephen the best room, the large double that fronted Gillygate, with its own private bathroom. Across the corridor, Mac and Irene had an excellent view of the ramparts. The next morning, serving breakfast, she was quite fluttery with excitement, fussing over Stephen like a mother as he tried, without much success, to eat.
While Mac tucked into an old-fashioned English breakfast, and Irene’s brown eyes sparkled with laughter, Stephen picked at scrambled eggs. In honour of the occasion, Mac had trimmed his beard, which transformed him from rampaging Viking to distinguished Rear-Admiral, especially once he had changed into his best uniform.
In Stephen’s room he complained long and loudly, however, about the necessity for it. ‘If I’d known square-rig was the order of the day, you bloody con-merchant, I’d never have agreed to be best man!’
‘Oh, do be quiet, Mac,’ his wife ordered as she reached up to brush his jacket. ‘I’ve not seen you looking so smart in years.’
She turned to Stephen, who was struggling with the top button of a new white shirt, and managed to fasten it for him, watching through the mirror as he anxiously adjusted his black tie. ‘For goodness’ sake, relax. Zoe’s not going to bite you!’
‘No, but her mother might,’ he declared pessimistically as Irene held out his jacket.
She laughed. ‘You’re not marrying her mother.’
‘I’m pleased to know that.’
He stood still while Irene brushed away a few clinging specks of dust, fastened his jacket and glanced in the long mirror. Hair neat, no shaving cuts, tie in a perfect Windsor knot, and the old uniform looking as good as ever. Brass buttons gleamed, gold braid shone against the near-black doeskin, and after almost eight years, it still fitted perfectly. Just as well, he reflected, since there would have been no time to have another made, and the uniform had been a specific request from Zoe.
Irene handed him his cap with its starched white cover, and as he brushed at the gold oak leaves on the brim, he stared for a moment at the anchor of the Merchant Navy badge. Remembering that other anchor, the one that held when it was so vital, Stephen felt his tension miraculously lift. He was here and very much alive, and today, he realized with heartfelt gratitude, was the first day of the rest of his life.
Glancing up, meeting Mac’s eyes, there was a sudden flash of understanding between them. On an impulse, they embraced, brief emotion finding release in laughter as Irene hugged them both and, with a long, happy sigh, stood back to look at Stephen.
‘Oh, Robert Redford, eat your heart out! You look so good, I could marry you myself!’
‘That’s the best offer I’ve had all day,’ he grinned, kissing her warm cheek. ‘And I must say, you look pretty tempting...’
‘Now just a minute,’ Mac interrupted, taking his wife’s arm, ‘I’m supposed to be the best man here!’
They went out, laughing. About to close the door of his room, Stephen turned, on the impression that someone had called his name. It was so clear, he even went to look in the adjoining bathroom; but no one was there. A shiver touched his spine as he remembered Robert Duncannon and his Elliott forebears, and he was aware, as he had been on his first visit to this house, of links stretching back into the past. Then he glanced round, noticed that the long windows were slightly open, and he told himself that what he had heard was no more than a man’s voice, rising from the street. But it had sounded so close...
He shrugged and went downstairs. Mrs Bilton was waiting in the hall. She kissed his cheek and wished him luck, and said that she would follow them in a few minutes: she wanted to see Zoe and congratulate them both as soon as the ceremony was over.
They went on foot to the Registrar’s on Bootham, causing several female heads to turn during that short walk. Mac’s mutterings of discontent were echoed, as soon as they arrived, by Johnny, who was waiting for them on the steps.
‘Jesus, thank God you’re here – I’ve only been waiting five minutes, and already three people have stopped to ask me the time of the next bus!’
‘You’re a lying hound, Walker – and you look smarter than I’ve ever seen you, so stop complaining!’
‘Let’s get inside,’ Mac muttered, ‘we look like the three bloody musketeers, standing here.’
‘You’re enjoying it,’ Irene declared, linking arms with Johnny, ‘and I’m having the time of my life.’
During the next ten minutes, the other guests assembled, Stephen effecting a few introductions while they all waited for the bride. Pamela arrived with her husband and Joan, and a moment later Zoe’s mother came in with a tall, distinguished man in a dark suit. She seemed unusually tense and flustered, and Stephen had a panic-stricken moment wondering what could have gone wrong; but hard on her heels came Polly, all smiles and vibrant colour. She shot him a beaming smile and a discreet thumbs-up sign, which enabled him to breathe again, and immediately made a bee-line for Johnny. They seemed quite taken with each other, he thought, remembering the laughter of the evening before...
Moments later, alerted by a sudden hush, all such considerations vanished.
Holding her father’s arm, Zoe seemed to drift towards him, layers of silk and chiffon stirring as she crossed the room. The dress was of a style and material reminiscent of the early twenties, but looking at her, Stephen was reminded of one of her own illustrations, Titania, perhaps, or the Spirit of the Rose. Her hair was as fine and flyaway as the chiffon bandeau she wore, sunlight catching a skein of tiny flowers nestling amongst the curls. He had always known she was beautiful, but in that moment she was breathtakingly so; had his life depended on it, he could not have spoken.
With an effort, he tore his eyes away, placed his cap on the Registrar’s desk, and took hold of Zoe’s hand. She was trembling, and that surprised him. He glanced down at her and met a tentative smile that immediately restored his confidence. Squeezing her fingers, he felt a responding pressure as the Registrar cleared his throat to begin.
The ceremony was short; within minutes it seemed all the formalities were complete and two single people had been joined as one. They stared at each other in happy amazement until a nudge from Mac reminded him that he was supposed to kiss the bride. Almost hesitantly, he bent his head, but Zoe flung her arms around his neck and hugged him, and in the joy of that embrace, Stephen swept her off her feet and swung her round, his kiss raising cheers from the gathered company.
‘We couldn’t have done that in church!’ she said with a giggle as he set her down.
‘Start off as you mean to go on,’ he replied, and kissed her again.
The reception was a great success, the guests few enough to limit the need for constant circulation; before long, the wedding breakfast had become a party.
Afterwards, Zoe’s mother was almost effusive in her praise, raising a dry smile from Stephen only as she intimated that she had not thought him capable of organizing things so well. But James Clifford’s compliments were unalloyed by any such qualification. And he said, succinctly, that he liked Stephen’s friends. It was tantamount to a seal of approval.
Zoe nudged Stephen later, pointing out Marian and Joan deep in conversation, and said that his sister Pamela had seemed both friendly and sincere when they had spoken earlier.
‘Don’t let this go to your head,’ Stephen told her, ‘but Pam actually confessed that she likes you...’
‘So she might accept me, yet?’
‘She might indeed,’ he said warmly, squeezing her waist. He glanced at his watch. ‘I hate to break up the party when they’re all getting on so well, but it’s time we were shedding all this finery and getting on the road.’
Zoe ran her fingers beneath the soft doeskin lapels of his jacket. ‘That’s a shame,’ she said, ‘because I must confess to rather liking you in that uniform. I think it’s incredibly sexy...’
He chuckled. ‘Go on – get up those stairs.’
They emerged, some twenty minutes later, in clothes that were considerably more suited to travelling, to find that their presence had scarcely been missed. For a moment they were both tempted simply to creep away, but Mac drew everyone’s attention, demanding to know, unless it was a state secret, where they were going for their honeymoon.
‘We’re going to France,’ Zoe said brightly, glancing up at Stephen.
‘To look at a few vineyards and chateaux, and sample the food,’ he added with a disarming smile.
For some reason, no one seemed inclined to believe them. He had to produce the ferry tickets, Hull to Zeebrugge, before anyone was remotely satisfied, yet even then an air of suspicion lingered.
‘I know,’ Johnny declared, ‘you’re going for a dirty weekend in Amsterdam – Canal Street and naughty things by candle-light!’
‘No, we’d have taken the Rotterdam ferry for that,’ Stephen said, keeping his face straight.
Zoe’s father erupted into laughter, while his ex-wife looked faintly shocked.
A few minutes later, Marian said wistfully to Stephen, ‘I thought you might have taken Zoe to the Caribbean?’
‘Oh, not at this time of year – the weather’s appalling. Hurricanes, you know. No, Zoe and I have a taste for something a little closer to home. France will suit us fine.’
‘They didn’t believe a word of it,’ she said happily as the Jaguar took them out of sight and hearing.
Grinning, Stephen changed gear and let the car pick up a little speed. ‘Well, they wouldn’t have believed the truth, that’s for sure. Anyway, we didn’t tell any lies.’
Her smile broadened and broke into laughter; glancing at her, Stephen was caught again by her beauty and high spirits. She looked so lovely when she laughed, all he wanted to do was kiss her. Laughing at himself, he turned his eyes back to the road. ‘Can you imagine...’ He shook his head, unable to finish the sentence.
‘They’d have thought us so eccentric!’
The idea continued to amuse them all the way to Hull.
The cabin was small but beautifully fitted out, and with its own tiny bathroom; the only drawback, as far as they were concerned, being the single, tiered bunks.
‘Ah, well, never mind,’ Stephen muttered, inspecting everything with an expert’s eye, ‘where there’s a will, there’s a way...’
‘You’ve got a one-track mind,’ Zoe observed as he reached for her.
‘Are you complaining? Or even surprised?’
She laughed. ‘No.’
‘Good. Because,’ he informed her between kisses, ‘this is our wedding night, and despite the... somewhat... cramped conditions... I’ve always had this erotic fantasy about...’
But he never did manage to tell her; banged heads and elbows and snatches of conversation from cabins either side, reduced them both to near-hysterical laughter. In the end they gave up in favour of drinks and dinner.
The wine was good, the food forgivable, and the lounge bar had a resident pianist. He was charming, and played requests. Stephen and Zoe decided that perhaps ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,’ ought to be their song; it was that kind of evening, with a calm sea shushing past and stars appearing in the twilight. They even took the requisite stroll along the boat deck.
But it was chilly and they told each other that it had been a long day.
Ensconced in that narrow lower bunk, holding each other close after making love with more urgency than finesse, it seemed to strike them both, very suddenly, that they were married.
Raising her left hand to his lips, Stephen kissed the palm and the base of her third finger with its pair of slender rings. ‘So tell me, Miss Clifford – how does it feel to be Mrs Stephen Elliott?’
Pushing back the short, damp curls from his forehead, Zoe’s pretty mouth curved into a smile. ‘I think the word, Captain Elliott, is loved – and amazingly secure…’
‘I’m glad,’ he whispered, ‘because I do love you, so very, very much.’
‘I know. And I love you. I always will.’
That word, always, seemed neither strange nor impossible on her lips. It seemed to him that love in the Elliott family was like that.
Zeebrugge at eight in the morning was a gloom of rain drizzling from a leaden sky, and streams of cars with glaring headlights, their drivers fighting through to factories and offices for a day on the treadmill.
‘God, I couldn’t do this every day,’ Stephen swore as he dodged traffic, searched for the right lane, and struggled with the initial strangeness of driving on the other side of the road.
‘Never mind, you don’t have to,’ Zoe observed equably, a map on her knee. ‘Just think, most of these people couldn’t bear to do what you do, either.’
‘Look, spare me the philosophy just now, darling, and tell me what road we should be on.’
‘Keep following the signs for Ostend.’
It was simple enough, dual carriageway to the seaside town of Ostend, with the Jaguar nicely eating up the miles, then south on a minor road to Dixmude, towards Ypres and Armentieres. Their plans were flexible, the main idea being to follow Liam’s footsteps from Flanders down to the Somme, and back to Flanders again for 20th September.
The 70th anniversary of Liam’s death was also the 70th anniversary of the Battle of the Menin Road. They had been warned that the town would be busy that weekend, so had booked their hotel in advance; but for the rest they were easy enough, content to take choice and chance as it came. They had Michelin guides with maps, a book of battlefield tours, and even an ancient guide, complete with photographs, that Stephen had found amongst the books in the trunk. Published in 1920, it had Robert Duncannon’s signature scrawled across the flyleaf.
Zoe had invested in a waxed jacket and green wellies in case of mud and bad weather, while Stephen had boots and sea-boot socks, and said his old Burberry would have to do. They were both rather looking forward to tramping through woods and across ploughed fields in the rain.
As they turned inland the weather improved, the sun struggling through a hazy autumn mist over countryside that, to their joint surprise, appeared not unlike the Vale of York.
Bypassing Ypres, the first town they came to was Poperinghe. Parking the car off a cobbled market square, after lunch they found themselves wandering round, rather as Liam once did, and being drawn towards Talbot House. The tall, white town house, where a British chaplain called Tubby Clayton had set up a home-from-home for weary and distressed troops, was now a place of pilgrimage for battlefield travellers.
When Stephen and Zoe called, the door was open to visitors and a friendly young man with perfect English invited them in. He explained how the Everyman’s Club had come about, and what a refuge it had been in the darkest days of the war. The garden was still there, and the chapel beneath the rafters, its chairs and the little altar ready for the next service. Below it was the study, with its instruction to ‘Abandon rank all ye who enter here.’
There was a sense of peace and solace in that room, and, affected by the knowledge that Liam had been there, at what was probably the lowest point of his war, neither of them wanted to leave. But it was late afternoon, and both Stephen and Zoe were aware of sudden fatigue, a need for baths and rest and a quiet meal before turning in for the night. They found a comfortable hotel just off the square which provided all their requirements.
Pouring the last of the wine as they finished their meal, Stephen said: ‘You would say, wouldn’t you, if you didn’t want to go on?’
‘Of course I would. Why, don’t you?’
‘Oh, I want to go on, no doubt about that. It’s just…’ He broke off, drank some more wine, and finally shook his head. ‘This afternoon – you were on the verge of tears a couple of times, and so was I. It made me think that – well, there’s going to be a lot more of it, and we are going to be sad, maybe even very upset at times. Is this a good idea for a honeymoon? I know it’s what we said we’d do, but there’s no shame in changing our minds – we could motor on down to the Cote d’Azur, if you’d prefer...’
‘And come back another time?’
Stephen nodded, toying with his glass. He saw her eyes darken before she glanced away, watching diners at other tables, waiters passing.
‘I know what you’re saying,’ she said at last, ‘but no, I don’t think so. We talked about this, didn’t we, before we finally decided. And if you recall, we both had it in mind that this was what we needed to do, honeymoon or not.’ A sudden smile dispelled the shadows. ‘We just decided to get married first.’
Relieved, he clasped her hand across the table. ‘So you want to carry on?’
‘Yes, I do. I think we have to.’
‘I’ve just remembered,’ Zoe said as they reached their room, ‘I had a letter before I left London. Can’t think how I forgot to tell you,’ she added, glancing up at him with an ironic grin, ‘unless it was that wedding we attended the other day...’ She fished in her capacious shoulder-bag and produced, with a flourish, an airmail envelope bearing the Southern Cross emblem of Australia.
‘The farm’s gone – most of it, anyway. But the old house and the bungalows are still there, in a few acres of land, and guess what? The family still own it.’
‘You’re kidding.’ He took the envelope and opened it, scanning the contents quickly before settling down to read properly. The writer was a Mrs Laura Maddox, widow of David, son of Lewis Maddox’s elder brother. She was sixty-seven years old, and remembered Uncle Lew and Aunt Gina very well. In fact, since her husband’s death some six years previously, she had moved into their old bungalow, leaving the farmhouse to her son and his wife.
Although she was not sure exactly what it was Miss Clifford wanted to know about the old lady, Mrs Maddox felt she could say without fear of contradiction that Aunt Gina had been one of the kindest people it had ever been her pleasure to know, and much missed after her death in 1973.
‘… Lord knows how old she was. In her eighties, I’m sure, but she always kept her age a secret. Bright as a button, though, right up to that last week or so. Then she suddenly failed, like old people do, and got a bit muddled. She took a chill that turned to pneumonia, and died at the end of September. Uncle Lew went in 1949. Nice old bloke he was, frail when I knew him, but always had a joke for you, in spite of being a sick man. She was a nurse, though, looked after him and did a lot of good for the folks round here, especially between the wars. Delivered I don’t know how many babies, people always sent for her before the doctor. Uncle Lew said if it hadn’t been for her, he would have given up years ago.
‘Lew and her brother were best friends in the war, and I seem to think he worked here before that. She had a lovely picture of him on the mantelpiece, a nice portrait photo taken in uniform. I still have it, couldn’t bear to throw it away, but I don’t think it would interest anybody else. If you would like it, I could send it on, you being related to the other brother...’
Stephen looked up at Zoe, who was standing over him, and his happy smile gave way to appreciative laughter. Her luck was phenomenal, and he would have been hard pressed to say which touched him most: the fact that yet another of her shots in the dark had reached its mark, or the contents of that letter from Mrs Maddox.
On balance, he thought, drawing Zoe close against his shoulder, it was the latter. Knowing that Georgina’s marriage had been a happy one, that she had gone on to enjoy a long and apparently fulfilled life, eased much of the tragedy attached to her affair with Liam. Louisa and Robert, he felt – and Edward, too – should have been able to rest in peace, knowing that.
But what of Liam? The more Zoe told him, and the more he thought about it, the less Stephen understood. Having come to accept Liam Elliott’s presence in their lives, and his inescapable influence, it was increasingly apparent that in his case, the term, at rest, was simply not applicable. Zoe’s experience that day at the hospital served only to underline it; yet belief and understanding were still miles apart. It was one thing to acknowledge Liam’s power, to look back and realize that all his efforts so far had been to the good; but it was quite another to chart a definite pattern and to see what it meant.
Part of it, they were both convinced, was to do with themselves, in the love they shared, and the resolving of problems which had remained outstanding for more than seventy years. That sense of things coming right was almost overwhelming. And yet somehow, questions still remained.
Whatever else Liam was trying to say, the only way to understand it was to be open to him, to subdue logic and reason, and give him access to instinct. As far as either of them could tell, that was the way in which he worked best. So however hard reason might argue against subjecting themselves to the sadness of this journey, instinct said to carry on.
Next morning they were on the road shortly after nine, heading directly south for Bailleul and the area which had been the training ground for most of the troops arriving in France. Driving between hedges along narrow country lanes, it was possible to ignore the broad new swathe of autoroute over to the left, and to imagine Liam seeing this rich farmland for the very first time.
The villages had a sleepy, timeless atmosphere, as though nothing much had changed in the years between, and it was easy to pretend that nothing had. Within just a few miles, however, they had a rude awakening to reality. The string of hamlets and small towns that followed the meandering River Lys towards Armentieres started to blend into one, with industry crowding out what farms and fields remained.
Stephen had no desire to be embroiled in the maze of a busy city centre. On a sharp decision he turned away from the river and the factories, along a less busy but much narrower road that seemed to serve a string of farms and hamlets. Here, at last, in a flat land divided by hedge and fence, was it possible to visualize the lines of waterlogged trenches, barbed-wire entanglements and the sandbagged ruins of barns and houses. Somewhere along here had been the front line; in the region of this road Liam had spent a couple of months with his company of machine-gunners, learning to cope with the mud and the rats and the terrifying moments, learning to live with the deadly business of war.
They followed the road back to Estaires, and thence in a meandering curve away from the industrial areas of Bethune and Lens and Arras. Liam’s route south had been via St Pol and Doullens, and that was the way Stephen intended to go. It was an unexpectedly beautiful drive, past shorn wheatfields and woods ablaze with the first tints of autumn. Having lunched early, they stopped again at a wayside cafe just after four, and then continued south into Picardy.
On the Michelin map, Zoe had marked all the villages mentioned by Liam in his diary; they stretched in a broad, horizontal sweep either side of the main road between Doullens and Amiens, from the wide valley of the Somme near Abbeville in the west, to Albert and the valley of the Ancre in the east.
The distance was perhaps some thirty miles, which was, Zoe thought, a lot of marching, particularly after the stress and exhaustion of battle. Much easier by car, she decided, even while they debated which route to take; but Stephen said it had been a long day, even in the comfort of the Jaguar. He thought it advisable to head directly for Amiens and a bed for the night.
The following day, after a morning spent motoring through a wealth of tiny villages, Stephen and Zoe arrived in Albert at lunch-time. The basilica with its massive red and white brick tower was visible for miles, the sun glinting from the gilded Virgin and Child which crowned it. It was easy to see what a gift that had been as a marker for enemy artillery; so easy to cringe at the thought of shells landing with such accuracy in the square below.
There was a cafe in the square; sitting at a pavement table in the warm September sun, Stephen wondered whether it was the same estaminet where Liam and Robin had met in the summer of 1916. In a sentimental gesture, he ordered two beers, and while they were waiting for the omelettes et frites, he gazed up at that massive edifice across the way, comparing it to the postcard reproduction of a 1916 photograph. The battered church with its famous statue poised like a diver had been completely restored; so well that it was hard to believe that it had not always looked so solid. The town held no pretensions to grandeur, but they walked its streets before driving out to Fricourt, where Robin Elliott had survived the carnage of July 1st.
Nestling in a dip of those rolling chalk downs beyond Albert, the village was a pretty enough place in an attractive setting. But viewing the field of combat from the Green Howards’ memorial was horrifying. Beyond the wall of the cemetery lay a small field, bounded by a dense copse of trees to the left and a low ridge which curved from the right. At most, the ridge, which now bore a line of modern bungalows, was no more than a hundred yards away, a twelve-second sprint to a fit young athlete keen to gain his objective. In that field the young men of the 7th Battalion had been mown down by the score as they attempted to take the German guns.
Zoe shivered in the sun, knowing that what had happened here had, that very same day, been repeated along a front that extended for eighteen miles.
Stephen left a small wooden cross, bearing a scarlet poppy and his grandfather’s name, by the granite memorial. Robin Elliott, as much as the men who died here, had been a victim, too. Thinking about all those ordinary men, the clerks and the labourers, artists, miners and scholars, it seemed no more than an echo of his thoughts to find that someone else had written in the visitor’s book: ‘There are no politicians buried here…’
A short distance away was the German cemetery, as neatly kept but bleaker, somehow, lacking the gentling effect of flowers. Simple black crosses, set amongst trees, looked out from higher ground over the battlefield. Here and there an arched stone, bearing a Star of David, marked the last resting place of a Jewish soldier. In the light of that other war, a mere twenty years later, there was a dreadful irony about that.
Through a drift of fallen leaves they made their way back to the car. With a deep sigh, Stephen picked up the maps and guides, and made quite a show of studying the various routes to Pozières. Zoe looked out over the battlefield and said nothing at all.
He turned the car, going back the way they had come, through the village and right towards Becourt. By that deserted roadside lay another cemetery, row upon row of white headstones against a stubble field, with woods, gold and green, crowning the rise beyond. Within a few hundred yards, where the road curved into the next village, a large white crucifix stood at the junction of two cart tracks, one leading into the wood, the other skirting it, leading to open fields above.
‘This must be Becourt Wood,’ Stephen said, looking again at the enlarged map from the battlefield guide, ‘and that track, if I’m not mistaken, must lead to “Sausage Valley” – or “Gully” as the Aussies called it.’ He glanced at Zoe and she smiled. ‘Do you want to walk?’
‘Better get the welly boots,’ she replied, stepping out of the car. ‘I’ve a feeling that chalk uplands, after rain, will be greasy and muddy.’
She was right; and Stephen knew that it would take more than these few days of fine, sunny weather to dry out the ploughed fields that rose gently to either side. In scarves, sweaters and jeans they walked hand in hand along ‘Sausage Gully’. Hugging a raised hedge part of the way, the track swept up the centre of that shallow bowl before curving away to the left, towards a crown of trees and shrubs that Stephen thought might be close to the village of La Boisselle. Straight ahead of them, a slender stand of trees indicated the village of Contalmaison, while beyond that, according to the map, lay Pozières.
Distances were deceptive, and the stiff climb to La Boisselle took longer than they thought. They were both breathing heavily by the time they reached the crest. What struck each of them with equal force was the time it had taken to climb one side of that shallow valley, and the absolute exposure. There were no hedges to conceal them from watchers on that horseshoe ridge, and it seemed fair to assume that any hedges pre-1914 had been grubbed up or blasted out of existence long before the Australians arrived. There had been trenches, of course, but still, to traverse that place in journeys to and from the forward line seemed hazardous in the extreme.
Looking back the way they had come, in the midst of those recently ploughed acres, it was possible to see white lines meandering across the earth, and large white patches, roughly circular, that marked the position of old craters and shell-holes. After seventy years, there was something faintly chilling about it, as though the earth itself was determined to keep its own memorial to those bitter days. More chilling still was the little pile of rusty, unexploded shells propped against a stone where the track became a road.
‘Seventy years’, Stephen murmured, ‘and they’re still digging them up.’ He looked down, and amongst the bits of chalk spotted a shrapnel ball, a heavy lead pellet the size of a child’s marble, just one of the hundreds packed into every shrapnel shell, designed to burst in mid-air like deadly rain. Weighing it in his palm, he imagined it biting through tender flesh, breaking bones with the force of its impact...
He slipped the small thing into his pocket, joining Zoe as she rounded the shrouding line of shrubs at the crest. There before them stood a wooden cross, right on the lip of a massive crater, the size and depth of which took Stephen’s breath away.
So this was the crater of La Boisselle, blown by mines before the Australians arrived, part of the British attempt to dislodge the German forces from their position on the ridge. Once, there had been trenches here, and deep dugouts; the rest had gone, but the crater remained, a deep well in the chalk, some sixty feet deep.
Stephen gazed into it and fingered the tiny lead ball in his pocket: from the large to the small, the opposing forces had tried everything to annihilate each other. Little had been achieved, barring the waste of a generation; and the land continued to tell the story.
A car with British plates drew up before the cross, the occupants two middle-aged men in overcoats. They smiled and nodded, looked up at the memorial, and down into the crater, and proceeded to walk the rim. Watching them for a moment, with a blustery wind sharpening the air, Stephen and Zoe debated what to do. The village of La Boisselle was a couple of fields away down the asphalt road, with the arrow of the Bapaume Road immediately beyond it. Pozières was perhaps another two miles. In the end, neither of them wanted to walk that distance along a main road, and as the afternoon was drawing on, it was decided to return for the car.
Zoe’s research into the action at Pozières made clear that nowadays there was little to see beyond a single main street, the Australian Memorial, and the base of the old windmill beyond the village. With a glance at his watch, Stephen decided that there was still enough daylight to do that before returning to their hotel in Amiens for a well-deserved dinner. So, a look at the rebuilt village, a visit to the Memorial, and back to Amiens for the night.
Old photographs reprinted in a modern account of the battle, revealed that Pozières had been a singularly plain French village of mainly single-storied houses, hugging the Roman road to Bapuame. Its gardens and orchards, according to the old maps, were all to the rear.
Nothing seemed to have changed. Driving up the hill from the direction of Albert, the village appeared as a short stretch of unpretentious dwellings, the kind of place to drive through, at speed, on the way to somewhere infinitely more interesting. Talking to Zoe, Stephen did just that before realizing where they were. As luck would have it, he slowed and stopped by the old windmill. Again, it was so modest as to be hardly noticeable. Along a strip of mown grass, a white path led to a flat memorial stone and the rough mound where the windmill had once stood; the old concrete fortifications were now sunk into the ground.
How many lives had it cost to take this place? Stephen did not know, could not even guess; but with its commanding view of the countryside to the north and east, he could understand why the Australians wanted it. From there it must have been possible to see the German guns.
At the other end of the village, by ‘Fort Gibraltar’ – a bramble-covered mass this time – stood the obelisk erected to the memory of those men of the 1st Australian Division who had fought so doggedly and endured so bravely throughout three long years of war in France. There was a plaque naming the legendary places of those engagements, from Pozières to Passchendaele, and a dozen more between Bullecourt and the Hindenburg Line. Above it, bronze against granite, rose the rising sun emblem with its imperial crown and curl of motto beneath, striking and instantly memorable.
Zoe called it a brilliant piece of design, but there were tears in her eyes as she said it, and Stephen knew she was thinking of Liam in this place, and trying not to weep.
In the west the sun was setting in a hazy, azure sky; to the north, a lilac mist wreathed the woods of Thiepval and its huge memorial, while night clouds gathered over Pozières. All around were the gentle slopes of cultivated land, a sense of peace accentuated by the twitter of birds settling down for the night, the murmur of a passing car and a distant buzz from a home-going tractor. It was hard to believe that this place had been obliterated, reduced to a naked, barren, ash-strewn heath; that earth and sky had been riven, night and day, by the constant thunder of the guns. Hard to believe, until the eye caught the glimmer of light on tall crosses between the trees, until the number of cemeteries were counted.