Page 39 of These Old Lies
Ned remembered his commanding officer passing on the word from down the trench lines and then squeezing Ned’s shoulder as if to be reassuring, when they both knew it was nothing of the sort.
“It’s his suit I’m wearing, isn’t it?” Charlie’s voice sounded distant to Ned, even though he knew the man was only a few feet away.
“I don’t think he would mind. He would have liked you.”
“I like his choice of nightclubs.”
Ned looked around and Charlie shrugged. “The matches were still in the pocket.”
“He always lived wild. I thought for sure he would be kicked out of Harrow. The letters from the headmaster seemed to be near daily for a while, but he managed to charm enough people to keep his place.”
Ned lifted his fingers to trace the name in raised metal. “A body was never recovered. We couldn’t have brought him home in any case, but my parents insisted on a funeral service. I shouldn’t have been allowed to come home from the front, but Father pulled strings. Then he said he could arrange a transfer for me to General Hull’s personal staff. Would you believe I refused? Mother had buried her baby son that morning, and then she begged at my feet for me to not go back. And I refused.” Ned was nearly yelling.
He didn’t know if it was at himself for being so stubborn, the world for its judgement of him, or his mother for asking in the first place.
“You brought me chocolate.” Charlie’s words shook Ned out of his reverie.
He had picked up the chocolate just before getting on the train in London. Standing in the shop, eyes grainy from weeping, desperately clinging to the memory of the man who made him forget the horror of death. A man with a North London accent, who smelled of mud and sex and sweat and life, who didn't believe in anything Ned had been taught was worth dying for, but who still fucked Ned back to life when Ned thought he was suffocating to death.
“Did you know how hard it was to find the bars without any nuts or fruits? Nearly missed my train.”
A hand reached out from behind him to touch his shoulder, a gentleness that unleashed the memories that haunted him.
“Francis loved politics. As a child we would take him to see Father speak in the Lords, and Francis would be fixated. This gangly boy who couldn’t see over the railing in the gallery, spending hours watching old men debate obscure trade laws. He had a place to read politics at Oxford. He never even got to attend a lecture.” Ned’s voice started to break, the emotion that he’d never been able to face coming to the surface.
“I at least got that; three glorious years at Oxford, punting up the Isis, climbing the college walls after dark, reading in the Bodleian until my eyes hurt. Debating all night and then wandering the cobblestone streets and thinking we’d solved the problems of the world. Meeting brilliant, witty minds. You think Sophie and Freddy make you laugh? They are absolute babes in cribs compared to what you find in Oxford. I was surrounded by the most amazing men, all with ambitions and dreams, who wanted to create a better world, a world worthy of the poets and the artists. And you know what? They are all gone. Oliver was shot down somewhere over France, and Christopher went down with his ship in ’15. Albert and William were both lost in the fields of the Somme. Simon survived, but his mind didn’t, and Mark killed himself a few years back, whether from the nightmares or the pain of where his jaw used to be, we’ll never know.”
Now that the words were coming out of Ned, he didn’t know how to stop them.
“I miss them all so goddamn much. I want to laugh at Francis’ jokes again. I want to learn about new books from Oliver, and gossip about William’s latest romantic conquest. I told you I would rather drink champagne than rage because, if I start to even think about what I lost, the gun is already at my temple. To try to do anything with a purpose again is to remember that I don’t have a single childhood friend that made it to 1917. Not even my babybrother…” This time his voice did break. “It was Francis who called me Ned, and I called him Frank. Our private joke.”
He couldn’t carry on. What was the point of even trying to put grief into words? As silence descended on them, Ned began to burn with shame. He knew well that Charlie had lost friends. How could Ned have the audacity to whine to him?
Ned heard Charlie move and wondered if he was leaving Ned alone with his ghosts, disgusted by his selfishness. Instead, he felt Charlie kneeling beside him, sharing his homage to the boy-child who died as a man before he got to be one.
Charlie began to speak so softly that Ned could barely hear him. “Francis, Frank, I hope you have peace where you lie. You should know we didn’t leave you behind, even if we couldn’t bring your body to a grave. I wish your brother could have brought you chocolate instead of me. Also, thank you for giving him such an excellent nickname, really top-shelf work there.”
Charlie put his hand in Ned’s as he continued to speak. “In death, you can keep secrets of those of us still alive. So I’ll tell you something we could never speak of if we were sipping port together in the library. I love your brother. And I know he loves me too. I wake up beside him and wonder how I could ever be with someone so brilliant. I don’t know if in life you would have understood what is between us, but in death I like to believe you are happy for him. I promise you I will look after him, honour him as he deserves.”
Ned bowed his head and let the tears fall. Damn the glorious man.
14 All’s Quiet on The Western Front
Laventie, February 1917 / Charlie
Flanders really did seem to have miserable weather all twelve months of the year. Although each season brought its own unique hell, the winter months were particularly awful. The cold and damp got into your bones, and no fire ever seemed to burn hot enough to feel warm again. No Man’s Land, with its endless waves of bomb craters, took on an extra lifelessness. Even the mud seemed slimier.
And if the winter in Flanders was bad, night duty in February was the absolute bottom of the barrel.
Charlie was feeling pretty passionate about this conclusion as he stood in his guard post, looking out into the darkness towards the German lines. Snow had started falling an hour ago, big fluffy flakes that stuck to his jacket and eyelashes. All in all, it hadn’t been a bad trip up to the front. Only a few light skirmishes and fired shots, both sides engaging in the minimum actions required to maintain appearances to their respective higher-ups. Still, Charlie would have preferred not freezing his arse off in the guard station with another four hours left to go.
He was wondering if he would ever feel his toes again when he heard a familiar, precise voice speak behind him. “Anything to report, Corporal Villiers?”
Charlie smiled. Ned was back. They hadn’t seen each other in over a month. Ned had been on leave in Blighty, and Charlie hadn’t been sure when he would return. Sudden leave home seemed odd to Charlie, but maybe that was how things worked when you were an officer whose father had a title.
Not knowing who else might be around, Charlie stood up straight and tried to look serious. “No, sir. The enemy is all tucked into their beds tonight.”
“Good.” Ned moved to stand beside him, staring out towards the frozen fields of mud, taking an officer's wide stance, arms held behind his back.