Passing Danny the milk, I ask: ‘There’s one thing you never told me last night: how did you finally come to accept who you are?’
He sighs. ‘It was an old friend of my mum’s. Lady Laura Labelle.’ Grinning, he shakes his head. ‘Not a real lady. At least, not in the aristocratic sense. The name on her birth certificate was Alfie Makepeace, but among her friends she always went by her stage name.’
‘A female impersonator?’ I say. ‘Like in pantomime?’
He hesitates. ‘Yes and no. That was her trade and she was famous for it, second only to old Dan Leno when it came to treading the boards as a pantomime dame. But whereas after the show, Dan would take off his wig and frock and become Dan again, Laura reallywasLaura, even when she wore men’s clothes. It’s why I always thought of her asher, neverhim. Anyway, she’d visit me on the fair pretty regular and we’d talk about my mum and the old times, and gradually she got me to open up. Said she’d always known who I was and that it was nothing to be ashamed of. That there’d been people like us all throughout history, and that we’d still be around right up till the final curtain was brought down on the human race.’
Danny smiles and grips my hand. We go on eating in silence for a while, enjoying this sliver of peace while we can.
‘So was it all for nothing?’ he asks suddenly. He’s broken the last piece of his bread into crumbs and is feeding morsels to the sparrows who have returned from their morning forage. They mob around his boots, fighting and pecking at each other. ‘All that work, all the risks we took, just for our reports and warnings to be ignored by those two morons. What was it for, Stephen?’ He spreads his hands, dusting off the last of the bread. ‘What’s any of it for?’
I might have had an answer for him once. The rules, the protection of civilisation, the defence of a sane world. But when sanity is brushed aside simply because a plan has been made and it would be too much effort to alter it now, then there is no answer. We are all just quarrelsome birds squabbling over scraps.
‘Oi oi, lock up your daughters, it’s Lieutenant Wraxall and Private McCormick!’
We shift guiltily apart on the bench and glance over our shoulders. Barrelling through the French doors come Taffy, Spud, Robert, Percy and the rest of the platoon. I sigh and stand up as they all stagger to a halt on the terrace and offer their salute. I tell them to stand at ease, then give a nod, and like a gang of overexcited schoolchildren, they begin pulling off their uniforms and tearing across the garden, making for the deliciously cool waters of the shell crater. I look at Danny and see my sadness reflected back at me.
The time we’ve enjoyed together here is over.
The remainder of the day passes mostly in rest and recuperation. Danny and I hadn’t slept much last night and so we too catch up on some much-needed rest. Only now two floors of the villa separate us, me alone in the attic, Danny on a cot downstairs with the other men. Throughout the afternoon and into the evening, I lie on the bed we shared and hold my sketch of him above my head. The broad smile, the freckles bridging his nose, the close-cropped curls, the sweeping planes of his body. It’s a good likeness and therefore too dangerous to leave lying around. Only I can’t bring myself to destroy it. Not completely. Instead I go to my writing case and, taking the India rubber from one of its drawers, begin to erase Danny’s features. Just enough so that, if anyone chances upon it, he won’t be recognised and I might claim that I sketched some Greek or Roman statue from memory.
It hurts my heart to do it – to obliterate that face I love so much – but I know it’s for the best. When a knock sounds at the door, I answer hoarsely, ‘Yes? Come in.’
Captain Jackson steps into the room, his intelligent gaze moving slowly around the attic, from bed to chair to window to writing case, until finally it reaches me. He looks tired, worn down by the march out of the trenches.
‘Good evening, Lieutenant.’
I salute. ‘Evening, sir.’
He nods and I stand at ease. ‘I’ve just heard from HQ that we are expected to pitch up in a place called Briquemesnil tomorrow. A lorry will collect us at dawn. Not entirely sure what it’s all about, but I suppose it has to be connected with the push.’
‘No rest for the wicked,’ I say drily.
‘Thenwemust be very wicked indeed.’
The captain gives a wry smile and turns to go before hesitating, his palm planted against the doorframe. When he speaks again, he doesn’t turn back to face me. ‘Did you and Private McCormick enjoy your evening?’
A flush of heat spreads across my face. ‘Sir, I’m not sure—’
‘Don’t sound so frightened, Lieutenant,’ he says softly. ‘I... I believe you may have heard some of the stories they tell about me? The hero of the Marne who fought like a tiger and marched back under machine gunfire to save one of his men. Sergeant Peter Greenway, all caught up in barbed wire and certain to die. Rescued by his commanding officer and carried back to the British line like a babe in arms.’ He grips the doorframe tight. ‘Peter died a year later in a casualty clearing station at Ypres. Pneumonia. An enemy I couldn’t save him from.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I murmur.
‘He was my...’ Jackson’s head sags. ‘He was my Danny, Stephen. My world. So please believe me when I tell you, you don’t have to be frightened of me.’
There’s a flutter at the hole in the ceiling. The sparrows have returned to their nest in the rafters.
‘Thank you, sir,’ I say.
The captain nods and closes the door behind him.
32
23rd June
I stand on the terrace of the chateau at Bécourt, the evening hot and heavy with cloud, and wait for the show to begin. Perhaps the last show I will ever see.
It’s been a wearisome few days with hardly any rest for my platoon. The morning after their arrival at the villa, we were picked up by an asthmatic army lorry and ferried miles behind the line to a clump of fields in the commune of Briquemesnil. Here we were to rehearse the big push and our ‘inevitably successful’ capture of Montauban, the German-occupied village that lies directly opposite us. A rough replica of the enemy trench, of the heavily fortified village beyond, its roads, its church and houses had been cut out of the turf. For hours on end, we went through the plan of attack – how separate waves of men would play their part. We would be among the first to go over the top and it was our job to capture the German Front line. Other battalions would follow, passing over us to secure the second and third line of enemy defences. Eventually we’d be relieved by yet another wave and then, whichever of the platoon had survived might return to our trench for rest and any necessary medical treatment.
