Echoes of Yesterday Read online

  About the Book

  It was June 1916 when Sergeant Boots Adams of the Royal West Kents, together with his men, was billeted on the Descartes farm in Northern France. It was a short break from the turmoil and horror of the trenches, and Boots and his men, in return for their free billeting, were to help the farmer in his fields. It came as something of a surprise to discover that the land was being managed by a young French war widow, Cecile Lacoste and, to the distant sound of guns, a brief wartime friendship flared between Boots and Cecile. The friendship was cut brutally short when, once more, the West Kents were called back to the trenches and Boots suffered an injury that was to take him home to London, to Sammy and Chinese Lady, and all the valiant cockney friends of Walworth who were to help him through the darkest period of his life.

  It was to be many years before Boots’ friend, Miss Polly Simms, visiting the old battle haunts of France, stumbled once more upon the Descartes farm, and the memories of the past were rekindled.

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Part One: The Sound Of The Guns

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Part Two: The Reckoning

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  About the Author

  Also by Mary Jane Staples

  Copyright Page

  Echoes Of Yesterday

  Mary Jane Staples

  To Jewelene Epps Jones of Covington, Georgia, a Southern Lady of grace and charm.

  PART ONE

  THE SOUND OF THE GUNS

  Chapter One

  On the morning of the first Sunday in June 1916, a battalion of the Royal West Kents, out of the line, arrived by train at the town of Albert in Northern France. Albert had come under heavy shellfire during the shifting battles of 1914, and was notable for the fact that the damage suffered by its magnificent Notre Dame church had left the statue of the Virgin and Child hanging perilously high. But it had not fallen, and was still miraculously in place. Not that the West Kents had come to look at it. As far as miracles were concerned, the only one they were interested in was that which would bring the war to an end at noon and put them on their way home to Blighty ten minutes later.

  The train came to a stop. The doors of its freight waggons slid back and the men of the trenches showed themselves, khaki-clad, tin-hatted and battle-hardened. They were, for the most part, as lean as winter’s grey wolves, a mixture of old sweats and tried and tested volunteers. The old sweats, the regulars, had fought at Mons and belonged, therefore, to that legendary army of artillery gunners and infantry sharpshooters known as the Old Contemptibles. The volunteers were young men who had enlisted soon after the outbreak of war in August 1914, and in surviving until now had become very much like old regulars themselves.

  NCOs jumped down from the waggons to regulate the detraining of their platoons. Sergeant Robert Adams, known to his family and friends as Boots, a nickname that had been attached to him in his infancy, landed on his feet, straightened up and took the rifle that was handed down to him. His laden pack on his back, he slung the rifle, an army man’s best friend, and gave the order for C Platoon of A Company to leave the waggon. Down the men came, two or three at a time.

  ‘What’s holding you up, Corporal Parks?’ asked Boots of a slowcoach. Just twenty, Boots looked as if he had come of age years ago. But then they all looked older than they were.

  ‘I’ve got trouble, Sarge,’ said Corporal Freddy Parks, who had joined up at the same time as Boots. Both sometimes wondered how it was they were still alive. ‘I’ve mislaid me gaspers.’

  ‘Had ’em nicked, you mean,’ said Boots. ‘Well, hard luck, Percival. Get down.’

  ‘Some mate you are,’ said Freddy, engaged to a girl he’d met while at training camp in Maidstone, and accordingly given to asking heaven to keep him all in one piece. Down he came, still minus his packet of Woodbines. ‘And would you mind remembering I ain’t Percival?’

  ‘Button undone, Corporal,’ said Boots, and Freddy examined his jacket. ‘No, not there,’ said Boots, face straight, and poor old Freddy was mug enough to examine his flies. Even a corporal in the West Kents could be stuck on a fizzer for being improperly dressed. Freddy, however, found himself in proper regulation order.

  ‘Oh, you bleeder, Boots,’ he said.

  Boots’s lurking smile surfaced. The West Kents were in a cheerful mood, knowing they were out of the line for a while and heading for billets.

  ‘Don’t want you looking undone in the middle of Albert,’ he said, and began to go to work on his platoon. There were old sweats among them, men who had been in the regular Army for years, but had such long crime sheets that promotion always passed them by. They made up for that by acquiring an astonishing amount of illegal perks, including such things as chickens, young porkers and French housewives. The latter, of course, were more borrowed than acquired, the borrowing on a short term basis and agreeable to all concerned. Such men regarded Boots in much the same light as baby’s water when he was given three stripes, and did their artful best to figuratively stand him on his head and make him feel he wasn’t yet out of his nappies. Boots, however, had his own kind of wiliness, and, moreover, he was never lost for words. The old sweats didn’t take long to recognize he could teach their grandmothers to suck lemons, and that he had the makings of being one of their own kind, apart from his gorblimey stripes.

  The station became alive with assembling companies, and the battalion’s officers appeared. Major Harris, a regular who had advanced since Mons from sergeant to officer commanding A Company, stopped to observe Boots lining up his platoon in his own kind of way, which always embraced exchanging repartee with his men. Other sergeants achieved order by bawling. Major Harris’s eyes, as bleak as Cornish granite, held the faint and unusual light of a smile.

  ‘Sergeant Adams.’

  ‘Sir?’ Boots advanced and saluted. Major Harris noted the foward tilt of his tin hat. It shaded his eyes, and there was always something to look out for there. Major Harris had known Boots since their days at the training camp in Maidstone, when he himself had had a few months in Blighty after being wounded at Mons. They were old adversaries, but that didn’t diminish Boots’s respect for his commanding officer, or change Major Harris’s opinion of Boots as a man and a soldier. He had it in mind to recommend Boots for a commission before the arrival of autumn, if they both survived the next battle. One was coming, Major Harris knew that.

  ‘Sergeant Adams, what d’you know about farming?’

  ‘About milking cows and so on, sir?’ said Boots.

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Well, sir,’ said Boots, ‘since cows have never done me any harm, I can’t see myself insulting them with my ignorance. Live and let live, that’s how I feel about cows.’

  ‘That includes French cows, I suppose,’ said Major Harris, expression impassive. The station was swarming with noisy infantrymen and barking NCOs, and only the Major and Boots seemed to be conducting themselves quietly. ‘
Well, if I know you, Sergeant Adams, it’s a cert that if there’s any milking to be done you’ll conscript volunteers. The point is, A Company’s billets will be at Descartes Farm, and it’s another cert the farmer will be asking favours of what he’ll see as available labour. You and your platoon will go along with what the Army expects, co-operation.’

  ‘Not a bad way to pass the time if the weather stays like this, sir,’ said Boots. The June day was warm and sunny. ‘I think there’ll be a few blokes willing to help, as long as the farmer doesn’t ask them to shake hands with his cows.’

  ‘Anything else, Sergeant Adams?’

  ‘Nothing, sir, except would you know if there’ll be any French dairymaids in the offing?’

  ‘In the what?’

  ‘Offing, sir. Some of the men might fancy carrying their buckets for them.’

  Major Harris hardly batted an eyelid.

  ‘Sergeant Adams, get your platoon ready for a two-mile march,’ he said.

  ‘Two miles, sir?’

  ‘Two too many for C Platoon?’

  ‘They haven’t got a lot of faith in French miles, sir.’

  ‘Hard bloody luck,’ said Major Harris, and strode off.

  ‘What’s cookin’, Sarge?’ asked an old sweat as Boots rejoined the platoon.

  ‘Cows,’ said Boots.

  ‘How the bleedin’ Murphy d’you get a cow in the pot?’

  ‘Chop it up,’ said Boots. ‘Form ’em in fours, Corporal Parks, we’ve got some marching to do.’

  It wasn’t long before the battalion began the march, which first took it through the war-damaged town, Major Harris at the head of A Company, and Boots alongside C Platoon. The long column of Tommies, hobnails ringing on the cobbles, aroused only a passing interest in people used to the comings and goings of British troops. In the south-east, German guns rumbled as their batteries laid down a barrage along the sectors held by the extreme right flank of the British Fourth Army and the corresponding left flank of the adjacent French Sixth Army. It sounded as if the Germans suspected the enemy had a Sunday surprise cooking up, and were warning them off.

  All sectors of the Somme salient had been relatively quiet of late, but Boots, in common with the rest of the battalion, had a sure feeling another major Allied offensive was being planned. And they all shared the belief of the disillusioned, that the Jerries already knew everything about it. The Jerries always did, while the French and British High Commands always thought otherwise. However, the Allied generals bore the resulting losses bravely, consoling themselves with the knowledge that the misfortunes of war wouldn’t affect their retirement pensions. At least, that was how Boots saw it, and so did Major Harris, a born soldier presently existing in utter disgust at the way regulars and volunteers were being used as cannon fodder.

  The rumbling sounds of the far-off guns travelled with the marching West Kents, who took little notice. There was rarely complete silence all along the front stretching from the Belgian coast to the border of Switzerland. It was a monstrously long front, ravaged by destruction, and ugly with desolation and trench systems. All the same, being out of the line and heading for rest billets around the farms outside the town, was something for the West Kents to savour.

  With his platoon marching at ease, rifles slung, Boots thought of home.

  Chapter Two

  In the East Street market in Walworth, South London, the Sunday morning shoppers were in search of bargains. Old ladies in granny bonnets, who could still use a vigorous elbow to get to a stall, were in lively evidence. They knew that Sunday mornings were the best times for bargains, war or no war, for what was on offer in the way of fruit and vegetables was often the last of the week’s produce. By noon, anything that was left would be going for a song. Then there were the stalls that only appeared on Sunday mornings, stalls that sold knick-knacks, gold watches – some hopes – old books and comics, magical household cleaners, domestic pets, herbs, and miraculous remedies for all kinds of ailments. The latter were readily bought by the kind of people who believed anything a market quack would tell them or anything that was printed on a label. Such medicines were about as effective as sugared water, and as harmless. It was belief that convinced a purchaser a cure was taking place.

  Housewives with families to feed came looking for consumables that were in short supply. The Germans and their U-boats had a lot to do with short supplies, and the general opinion of Walworth people was that Kaiser Bill ought to have something chronically painful done to him for the way his U-boats kept sinking British merchant ships. Some of these ships were laden with frozen meat and tinned food, like corned beef. Corned beef was a boon to families who found they could only get enough meat for one really decent meal a week. It wasn’t that the Government had issued ration books yet. They simply saw to it that butchers and grocers were rationed, and so the butchers and grocers, of course, had to ration their customers. And the rampaging U-boats made matters worse. The prevailing opinion was that it was bleedin’ criminal for so much good food to finish up at the bottom of the sea, where even a shark couldn’t open up a tin of corned beef.

  Mrs Maisie Adams of Caulfield Place off Browning Street, Walworth, met a neighbour on her way to the market.

  ‘Morning to you, Mr Blake, nice weather we’re havin’,’ she said.

  ‘Weather’s all right, Mrs Adams, I ain’t saying it ain’t. It’s this ’ere war that’s gettin’ my bleedin’ goat,’ said Mr Blake, driver of a coal cart.

  ‘Beg your pardon, Mr Blake?’ Mrs Adams, known to her family as Chinese Lady because she had amber eyes and had once taken in washing to augment her meagre income, showed slight reproof. Chinese Lady was of all things respectable, especially on the Sabbath. ‘I think you’re forgettin’ what day it is.’

  ‘Yer’ll ’ave to excuse me French, Mrs Adams,’ said Mr Blake, ‘but that there German Kaiser is fair upsettin’ me, and Sundays don’t make no difference to me feelings. Like I said to me missus, he’s a gorblimey perisher.’

  ‘You can be sure ’is sins will find him out, Mr Blake,’ said Chinese Lady, a slim woman in her fortieth year. She had a firm bosom, a straight back and an upright walk. All these features characterized her proud air of respectability. Walworth women set great store by respectability, and it showed in their clean doorsteps and the way they carried themselves, never mind that their best Sunday hats might be in pawn along with a husband’s Sunday walkers. ‘That man’s sure to go to purgat’ry,’ she said, ‘what with his submarines and his zeppelins.’

  ‘I’d ’ang ’im meself, Mrs Adams, if I ’ad the chance,’ said Mr Blake.

  ‘Well, I’m a God-fearin’ woman,’ said Chinese Lady, ‘but if his hanging should come to pass, I wouldn’t want to miss it, so knock me up on the day it does.’

  ‘Eh?’ Mr Blake, plain-speaking though he was, blinked and coughed. He didn’t go in for knocking ladies up, and Mrs Blake wouldn’t have let him, anyway, not unless he could get past her rolling-pin. ‘Beggin’ yer pardon, Mrs Adams?’

  ‘Yes, don’t forget,’ said Chinese Lady, and went briskly on her way to the market. In pre-war times she would rarely have gone there on a Sunday morning. She would have been preparing a roast dinner, for however hard-up she and her family were, she always made sure there was a roast on Sundays. They’d been hard-up ever since her soldier husband died a martial death on the North-West Frontier ten years ago. As the widow of a soldier killed in action, she didn’t get much of a pension. Boots, her eldest son, said governments always took a poor view of soldiers careless enough to get blown to pieces by the enemy, so the widows had to suffer for the vexation caused. What, said Chinese Lady, a war widow like me? Oh, they’ll be hoping you’ll save them money by passing on at an early age, said Boots. Oh, they will, will they? Well, I’ll show them, said Chinese Lady, I’ll do me level best to live to a hundred. Good idea, said Boots, that might make them give you a rise when you’re eighty.

  Boots was with his regiment somewhere in France now, and Chine
se Lady hoped he wouldn’t be as careless as his late dad and get himself in the way of a shell. Tommy and Sammy, her other sons, were too young to join up, thank goodness. Her daughter Lizzy, poor dear, was suffering on account of her husband Ned being in a military hospital in Middlesex. He’d had his left leg amputated following a battle in Flanders. Lizzy was expecting her first child, and Chinese Lady had insisted on having her at home instead of being all by herself in the house she and Ned were buying in an avenue off Denmark Hill, Camberwell. No expectant young wife ought to be on her own in times like these. Lizzy, in fact, had returned to her old home gratefully, and was able to visit Ned twice a week, on Wednesdays and Sundays.

  As soon as Lizzy moved in, Chinese Lady went round to the town hall to ask about rations for the baby. Mr Tupper, the clerk in question, said rations for the unborn, missus? Never mind about being unborn at the moment, said Chinese Lady, I know more about these things than you do, Mr Tupper, I happen to have had four unborn babies that were all born later. But all the while they were unborn I needed food for two, didn’t I? Well, Mrs Adams, I’ll admit you’ve got a point, said Mr Tupper, but there’s nothing in the regulations about rations for children not yet born. Don’t talk so disgraceful, said Chinese Lady, the council’s got a bit of Christian sense, hasn’t it? There’s my daughter’s soldier husband with a leg off and my only oldest son fighting for the council and the country in France. And there’s me a war widow trying to make ends meet. So I don’t want to hear about any regulations, only about a bit of Christian sense, which ought to be able to supply a form that’ll tell me grocer and butcher I’ve got an extra mouth to feed.

  Mr Tupper said unfortunately he didn’t have the authority. Well, get some, said Chinese Lady, I don’t mind waiting for five minutes. Mr Tupper had a sensible Christian think about the situation, then said that as her daughter’s husband was convalescing at home with her, he at least was entitled to a fair share of what was going. Chinese Lady, about to say that Lizzy’s husband was still in hospital, suddenly realized a bit of the desired Christianity was floating about, so she grabbed it and said oh, yes, I forgot about that, Mr Tupper. Let’s have his details, said Mr Tupper.