Anyway, here’s your dinner. I’ve never cooked duck before, and once I’d plucked it, I thought it didn’t leave much meat on the bone for anyone to get their teeth into. I was wondering what to make the stuffing with, and remembered I’d bottled some plums. So I brought a jar from the larder, and tipped the fruit into a bowl, keeping the juice to one side in a jug. I picked out the stones from the plums—you should see my stained fingers—then I went out to my kitchen garden to have a look. Being as it’s been snowing, there isn’t much to find at this time of year, but I snipped a sprig of rosemary—you can always depend upon rosemary, it’s hardier than some. I’ve grown a few other herbs from seed in pots on the windowsill in the kitchen, so I cut off a little oregano—it’s from Italy. I chopped up the herbs and added them to the plums, then I ran some old bread through the meat grinder to make crumbs, and added a handful to give a bit of body to the stuffing. Finally, I thought almonds would go well with it. I bought a couple of ounces when I was in London, so I chopped them, not too small, then put them in too, and added half an onion, sliced really small, and stuffed the bird. I put it in the roasting pan, the one with the lid, and poured on the last of the sherry—I’ll treat us to another bottle soon. I’d already rubbed the bird with butter, so the juices and sherry and the butter all together made the kitchen smell wonderful. The dogs even pawed the door to get in, and you know they respect their place and would never do that as a rule . . .
Kezia thought of the collies settled on a blanket in front of the stove in the kitchen. She would have to get them used to sleeping outdoors again before Tom came home. Composing the meal she would have cooked for Tom made her stomach growl. Soon she would go to the kitchen, but not yet.
Roast potatoes and parsnips were the best vegetables to go with the duck, and I thought you’d also like some of those peas I’d dried in summer. I’m glad I laid out all those roots—the potatoes, the parsnips, carrots, beets, and swedes set apart on newspaper—because there is not a scrap of mold anywhere, and the same with the apples and pears, although I bottled some and dried some too, so we have plenty to keep us going.
The dinner came out better than I’d even hoped, and the gravy, which was made from the juices of the meat and the syrup from the bottle of plums, with a little browning and some flour to thicken; well, the gravy was just like you always say you want it, not too thin, not too thick, but enough to make the bird go down easy.
Now, then, knowing you’d be full from the cake, I made you applesauce with fresh cream and a bit of cinnamon for your pudding. I know you always said you didn’t care for cinnamon, but it keeps a cold at bay, and just a little brings a good flavor to an apple. Try it, Tom, close your eyes and try it all.
Kezia set down her pen and pressed her hands to her eyes, feeling the tears run through her fingers. She turned aside so that they would not fall on the still-drying ink. She thought of the vegetables she’d tried to preserve, but had instead fed to the pigs because they were mold-ridden and ruined, and her poor attempts at drying the peas, which at least she’d been able to put in a broth, and tried not to taste the mustiness. But Tom would not know. She wouldn’t want to spoil Tom’s picture of home.
She picked up her pen, shook it onto the blotting paper to get the ink running again, and continued.
Keep that cake in the tin, my dear Tom, so it will last you a few days, and try to wrap something around it, so the damp doesn’t get in now the wax seal is broken. I believe the sweetness will give you something extra down in your feet when they get you marching up and down the parade ground! I’ve been thinking about the tents and I hope they’re not too drafty. Mind you, Mrs. Pontin told me that her boy wrote that he’d been billeted in a farmhouse with big fireplaces, so perhaps you have too. I’ll think of you sitting by a nice blazing fire.
Edmund Hawkes was deep in the dugout, in what passed for officers’ quarters in the trench. A series of joists and load-bearing piles held the ceiling and the walls in place, though the ugly headache-inducing smell of mold and fungus, death and rats—so many rats—was inescapable, remaining there even when he went out into the trench, even when it was almost overpowered by cordite, but never quite—always lingering in his eyes, his nasal passages, his throat, so the smell became the taste and the look became the taste, and the taste, always, seemed to be of decaying corpses.
He sat at his desk, upon which a map had been rolled out earlier. A runner had brought orders and a new, freshly printed map of the battlefield. Here it was, all planned by a man in a warm room with not a grumble in his belly—another run over the top, another try for the opposite trench. How long had they been here, in this trench—moving back and forth? Was it days? Or weeks? There had been no respite in between, no comfort at the house, and no solace from the fact that he had brought back some three out of every five men. It was like poker, like roulette, like a gamble at the races; a game of who would run, who would jump, and who would fall. Then begin the wager again—replenish the field, add to the pack, put the chips on the table, and start the wheel spinning. Cannonade ends at oh seven thirty, one and a half minutes for the smoke to clear, then blow the whistle and off they go. And let’s see who I can bring back alive, thought Hawkes, amazed at his own survival, at the fact that he still had arms, legs, a brain, that his guts remained inside him.
He lifted the letter and began reading a second time, or was it a third? Letters to the soldiers were not sealed, nor were those from soldiers home to Blighty. But this was the letter he’d waited for, the handwriting he recognized when the post was delivered. He would check enveloped post first, then hand the sack to Knowles to distribute the mail; the letters, the cards, the packages of Wright’s Coal Tar Soap, tins of Ovaltine, of Huntley & Palmer’s digestive biscuits and Oxo cubes, brown-paper-wrapped parcels of socks and of chocolate; the food, he knew, might be filled with weevil by now.
I’ve been trying something different with the gravy lately. I put some bottled damsons and pears through the meat grinder (I had to be careful in case the juice went everywhere), and when they were all nicely mashed, I fried onions, which I added to the mix. Then I stirred up a gravy and poured it all into the saucepan together. At first it looked a bit lumpy and not something you’d want, but then I added some hot water to thin it out, with herbs and just a tiny bit of spice, and brought the lot to the boil while whisking at the same time. It was hard work, but it turned out perfectly—in fact, I was thinking of sending the recipe up to one of the women’s monthlies, because this gravy goes very well with liver, which as you know, I don’t even like to touch as a rule, but I know you like it and this new gravy does wonders for the meat—makes it good enough for a rich man’s supper, especially with roast potatoes, parsnips, and peas.
Hawkes imagined the meal, imagined himself sitting in the farmhouse kitchen, saw himself smiling as Kezia served the sweet gravy-drenched liver, and the parsnips and peas, and then pouring more gravy over the roast potatoes, and he felt himself watching her, leaning forward with his table napkin and dabbing some of that rich fruit gravy from the side of her mouth, and he wondered how it would be to kiss that mouth, and how he might taste the fruit on her tongue, and how she might kiss him back and lean forward, and how the dinner might be abandoned, how he might take her into his arms and into his bed, and how they would come to that meal later, still hungry for the love of each other.
“Sir!”
Hawkes turned with a start. “Oh, Knowles, yes, here’s the mail. Just wanted to check one or two, just in case. As you say, you never know. Anyway, it’s all satisfactory, you can take it to the men now.”
“Yes, sir. And the orders?”
“Of course. Could you find Lieutenant Markham for me? Bring him back here, and we’ll look at the maps. Watches at dawn tomorrow morning, artillery at seven, and we’re off at oh seven thirty. Right?”
“Right, sir.” Knowles lingered.
“Is there something else, Sergeant Knowles?”
“Private Brissenden’s
letters—find anything, sir?”
“They can be collected and delivered, as with all the men. I will continue to monitor them, but I see no issue with the content—we cannot judge what a man faced with death almost every day might say to his wife, and her to him, knowing his predicament.”
“I don’t reckon she knows anything about the predicament, sir.”
“Not my place to judge, but I would say that not many of our loved ones at home know anything much about our predicament, Knowles, which is probably just as well. Now then, Lieutenant Markham, in ten minutes, here, both of you.”
“Sir!” Knowles saluted Hawkes.
The salute was acknowledged in kind, but once the sergeant had left, Hawkes turned his thoughts to Kezia, to the woman sleeping under his tree, resting her head against the roots. And he remembered how he could have lingered there, watching her, for a long time. He yearned to have Tom’s place at the table, not the lonely dining room each night, with servants to clatter plates, china dishes, and silver chargers, to be at his beck and call. He wanted to eat food cooked not from duty, but from the heart.
“What’ve we got here, then? A letter for Private Gravy from his little wife at home. Here you are, Gravy. No nice cake this time.” Knowles turned to the other lads. “Amazing, ain’t it, that Gravy’s wife manages to bake him a cake, and I bet your old mum or your wife can’t get hold of a pound of flour, or the eggs, or butter.” He passed the letter to Tom and went on along the line, keeping up his line of dialogue. “Makes me wonder, it does, what Mrs. Gravy might be up to, to get things special.”
Tom felt the anger rise in his chest, and made to step forward. Cecil put up a hand to block him, even before he moved.
“Steady, Tom. Steady up,” said Cecil, his voice low. “He’s goading you, so let him go on his merry way. Remember what I said, toe the line and keep your nose clean. He’s got it in for you—and if it hadn’t been you, it would’ve been me, or one of the other lads. Hold on, don’t bite, and just read that letter from your missus and tell us what she’s cooked for you this time.”
Once the sergeant turned the corner, the men clustered around Tom.
“Come on, what’s on the table, mate?” said a voice from the back, and in the front of the gathering, a younger soldier, a boy some years from manhood, watched Tom as he removed the letter from its envelope.
“You hungry, lad?” asked Cecil.
The boy nodded, and pushed back his helmet. “Not ’alf. Go on, read us the dinner.”
Tom cleared his throat and began halfway down the page, changing some of the words as he went on.
“Seeing as I’d used fruit in the gravy—which as I’ve said, really brought out the flavor of the liver, and did away with that bitterness the meat can sometimes hold—I thought I should give you something quite different for your pudding. Well, I’d never made a soufflé before—it always seemed so much trouble—but I thought it was time I made my peace with the recipe. It’s just as well you weren’t in the kitchen, because I know your fingers would have been in the bowl for a taster before I’d poured the mix into a tin for cooking. In fact, cooking with chocolate gave me another idea for gravy, so—”
“What do you think this is—effing storytime?” Knowles had returned to shout his orders. “Atten-shun!”
The men came to attention. Tom felt his heart leap in his chest, and with a swift movement crumpled the letter into his pocket.
“You can all get back to your posts toot sweet, or haven’t you noticed there’s a war on? The bleedin’ Hun are having a party over there while you’re all listening to Private Gravy go on about the liver or duck or whatever it is he’s having for his bleedin’ dinner. Quick march! And I’ll be along the line to check those shining rifles, so make sure every barrel is fit to blind me.”
The men scurried back to their positions. Knowles came close to Tom, as close as he had ever been.
“You know what I’m going to say, don’t you, Private Gravy?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yes, sir is right. And what am I going to say, Private Gravy?”
“You’re watching me, sir.”
“Too bleedin’ right I’m watching you. Now then, I want a volunteer to go out on sentry duty tonight. Not just standing-on-the-fire-step sentry duty, but a bit of time-out-there sentry duty. Lovely starry night it is for it. And who do you think should be my volunteer?”
“I’m sure I don’t know, sir.”
Knowles mimicked a schoolboy voice. “I’m sure I don’t know, sir.”
Tom remained still, his eyes looking past Sergeant Knowles.
“Well, let me give you a little clue, Gravy, being as you’re so nice and warm and filled up with a good dinner inside you, and you know what duck means. You, lad, are on sentry duty. I’ll be along after the stand-to, to tell you when to go over, all right, Gravy?”
“Yes, sir!”
Knowles nodded. “You’ll have a bit of string on your leg. I’ll give it a yank when it’s time to find your way back—that’s if that sniper over there don’t find you first. Thank your lucky stars I’m not sending anyone out on a raiding party tonight. Bit too clear. Now, then, you’ll want to get that there rifle shining like the moon, because I’ll be back in a minute to inspect it. Thought I’d give you a minute or two to get going with a bit of cloth. Back to your post, Gravy, on the double!”
Tom saluted and marched two steps to his position, where he began to clean his rifle, an almost impossible task in the front-line trench, part of which had collapsed earlier and had been hastily rebuilt with sandbags and an old brass bedstead brought up from a supply trench. But when he was sure Knowles was well away, Tom took out another letter, this one from Thea. He would not have known that Edmund Hawkes read his letter from Kezia, or that the officer had, in his hurry to find a letter to Tom from his wife, missed an envelope bearing Thea’s return address. There was only one page, half filled with writing, and in that moment, looking at her distinctive strong hand with large letters looped together, Tom felt a chasm open in his heart. The weight of love in Kezia’s pages seemed to shine a light on the shallowness of Thea’s message, as if she had nothing to say to him, and he wondered how they had come to this division, though at the same time he suspected he knew—Thea felt left out. In fact, Tom knew she had always felt as if she were something of an outsider, and though he had tried, in his way, to make her feel less so—even in boyhood—it was easier to pretend that everything was all right with Thea. And she would never have spoken the truth of her feelings anyway. Instead she allowed her frustration to emerge in a bitter comment or in something she did—or, more likely, didn’t do. She can’t even bother to write a decent letter, and she was a teacher! thought Tom.
Dear Tom,
I thought I would let you know that I am leaving for France tomorrow, so you won’t be the only Brissenden over there. Father would still say you were the brave one though, wouldn’t he? My training has more or less finished, but we will be doing more once we’re at the hospital. I was going to say that perhaps I’ll see you, but I hope I don’t because I’ll be driving an ambulance, so you won’t want to think about seeing me.
I’ll tell you all about Christmas with Kezia’s parents when our paths cross again. Kezia and her father are so tight, I’ve never known two people discuss so many subjects in such a short time. Not only that, but when I look at them together, I can see Kezia in her father. But Kezia’s people have always been good to me, and to you as well, so I think a lot of them. Reverend Marchant is a military chaplain now, though I don’t think he’ll be in France. He wears a uniform, and keeps on at the church while he’s back and forth to the camp on the town recreation ground.
In any case, I’ll write when I can.
Your sister,
Thea
Night drew in, and as Knowles predicted, it was a clear midnight-blue sky above. Cecil mentioned something about it being like a Vincent van Gogh. Tom had no answer for him. He had no idea who this Vincent
was, with his—what did Cecil say? Starry Night? Soon Knowles came along the trench, which was quieter now that most of the men were bedded down, though few would sleep more than a snatched few minutes here and there. No one wanted to die in their sleep, set upon by an enemy raiding party, or with a shell landing on them. You had to stay awake, listening, ready to move. Knowles poked Tom in the ribs with the business end of his gun and marched him to the fire step. Though there were only a few men in the trench, Tom felt as if they were watching and waiting. Only a fool or a young too-curious soldier new on the front line was stupid enough to put his head above the parapet, but here he was, sent out into the night on sentry duty. He wondered if Edmund Hawkes knew about this—or was he tucked up in the officers’ dugout, toasting tea cakes and drinking tea that tasted like tea? At that moment, Tom longed for the burn of his rum ration bathing the back of his throat.
“Up you go, Gravy, and mind your noddle. That Hun ammo can go straight through your helmet—it makes you wonder why they bother to give ’em to us.” Knowles grinned, then looked around him. “Unless any of you lads not kipping want to go too, I reckon you should pay attention. Them of you whose time it is for forty winks had better take it, and them of you who’s on watch, well, you’d better watch!”
Tom set one sodden boot on the next rung on the ladder, then the next and the next, keeping his head down as much as he could, his chin almost on his chest. Scraping against the soil, he crawled out of the trench. A few shots came from the German trenches, but they were without target, a discharge of ammunition meant to bring terror into the hearts of the enemy. The evening hate, the lads called it. Dawn would bring the morning hate. Behind him, Tom knew his muckers would be doing some shooting hate of their own. He just hoped they aimed high.
“Don’t you worry, Gravy, I’ll keep an eye on you. We’ll tug you back in time for you to get some shut-eye before the show tomorrow.” Knowles seemed almost cheery.