A Time Since Passed

A Time Since Passed

A Great War Novel

By

William Andrews

A Time Since Passed

Copyright © 2015 William Andrews

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Smashwords Edition

The information, views, opinions and visuals expressed in this publication are solely those of the author(s) and do not reflect those of the publisher. The publisher disclaims any liabilities or responsibilities whatsoever for any damages, libel or liabilities arising directly or indirectly from the contents of this publication.

A copy of this publication can be found in the National Library of Australia.

ISBN:  978-1-742845-75-3 (pbk.)

Published by Book Pal

www.bookpal.com.au

Cover Art by Jim Hodges

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http://www.darkcorners.com.au

https://www.amazon.com/author/williamandrews

This novel is dedicated to the

memory of

Mr & Mrs Langley, whom I

knew… and to the Unknown

Soldier, whom the world does

not.

For the millions of lives lost in

the War to End All Wars, as well

as in each one that followed.

Only the dead have seen the end of war.

-   Plato

A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.

-   Joseph Stalin

The quickest way to end a war is to lose it.

-   George Orwell

Everyone who goes to war loses their life in some way.

-   George Negus

Civilisation is hideously fragile… there’s not much between us and the Horrors underneath, just about a coat of varnish.

-   C.P. Snow

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone

Silence the pianos and with muffled drum

Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

-   W. H. Auden

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

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

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

Poor Albert Jones was standing under the supporting beam when it snapped.  He was directly beneath it as it gave way.  The roof of that section fell on top of him, along with several hundred tons of earth.

Harry Beckwith was Albert’s colleague down in the pit – and his best friend.  Harry was working close enough to see the collapse, far enough away to escape with his life yet too far away to help his mate.  Not that he could have done anything to save him.

Albert had been a big man, as huge as any miner Harry had gone underground with, and he’d had a heart and a sense of humour as immense as his size.  While other miners had clowned around with ‘ferret legging’ competitions – putting the wriggling furry creatures down their trousers – Albert’s party trick had been lifting pit ponies on his shoulders.

As broad as they were, his shoulders had not been strong enough to prevent the collapse from crushing his frame under an avalanche of rock and soil.

In the long months that followed as he convalesced, the guilt ate away at Harry in the same way that cancer had devoured his mother.  When it finally came time to leave the hospice, the young man packed his brown suitcase, headed straight out of the gates and down to the railway station.  He immediately left Nottingham and returned southwards.  He went home.

Harry had survived life as a miner largely unscathed, at least physically, unlike his best friend.  As the old miner’s saying went, any day spent above ground was a good day.  He intended to live the remainder of his life to the fullest by adhering to that sensible adage. 

He resolved one thing, and knew only one certainty as to what his future life held.

Every day above ground was a beautiful thing to be savoured.  Most of all, Harry vowed never to venture underground again.

CHAPTER ONE

Harry Beckwith strode to the wicket with the confident air of Gilbert Jessop.  His father had always extolled the apparently infinite and heavenly virtues of the Grand Old Man – Dr. W.G. Grace – but Harry had never seen him play.  He had seen Jessop teach the Australians a lesson at The Oval with his imperious batsmanship, so Harry preferred to model his own style on The Croucher.  He might not be able to swing the willow with quite the impudent grace and power of Jessop, but by God he could walk out to bat like him.

Harry didn’t like to play tentative draw shots, preferring instead an approach that was all aggression and skill.  Such wild behaviour would flummox his old man, who had always advised him to play the long game, but today belonged to Harry, not his father.

It was a glorious late summer’s day.  The entire summer had been glorious; there was scarcely another word for it.  The warm air was languid, the lazy atmosphere heady and intoxicating.  Early August was revealing not the slightest hint of the approaching autumn.  The breeze was still warm, the grass sweet-smelling, the fields of Kent bursting with wheat and barley.

Not only that, it was the Bank Holiday weekend.  Let the harvest wait for a couple of days – the entire village was enjoying a well-earned holiday from the backbreaking labour of its daily work.

Harry took a middle- and off-stump guard and adjusted the straps of his leg guards before settling over his bat.  His father often complained that his technique was wrong, that he stooped too low and his back lift wasn’t straight enough – but if it worked for Jessop…

His father liked to point out that it had only really worked for Jessop once, twelve years ago, but that was the time when the young, impressionable Harry had been at the ground.

Harry Beckwith was tallish for a miner and slightly built for a farmer, with thick black wavy hair and a handsome face that had not yet been ravaged by the arduous toil of occupations.  He looked a fine figure of a man, striding out to the crease and surveying the field like Wellington overlooking Waterloo on the eve of victory.  At least, that was how he felt. 

He considered himself a very lucky man indeed.

Harry stood six feet and never stooped, except at the batting crease.   He possessed a lithe, strong body – every muscle toned and sinew taut from hard physical labour.  He had the rare ability to swing the bat laconically, seemingly without much effort, yet end up bludgeoning the hard red leather ball to the boundary like it had been smote by a demon.  Compared with farm work, he reasoned, batting wasn’t too hard.

His face, in contrast, was soft and sensitive. His blue eyes shone, languid and penetrating.

Sarah had been his sweetheart since before either of them had understood the emotion of love.  As children, the pair had been next-door neighbours and had walked together to and from school, talking of everything and nothing.  Harry had always adored Sarah – and now he was about to marry her.

 There would be no cloud of shame or hint of recrimination attached to the ceremony.  The preparations for the wedding had been a hurried affair, but only because the pair had been blissfully reunited upon Harry’s return from the North and had decided to wait no longer.  Sarah was still a virgin and had saved herself for marriage to Harry, as he had remained chaste for her.  Neither of them had even entertained the merest thought of anyone else.

Sarah had ventured to Nottingham and visited Harry in the convalescent home, convincing him to return.  She had travelled up from London alone on the train, Harry’s father having seen her off at Paddington.  Upon seeing her, Harry had worried more about her safety on the rail journey than he had considered his own while trapped down the pit.  It had not been difficult for Sarah to persuade him to come back.

The plan had been originally for Sarah to follow him to Nottingham upon the completion of her studies, for them to marry and settle up there.  Harry had been adamant that the pay was good and that his prospects were excellent, but Sarah had only acquiesced because of the depths of her long-nurtured feelings for him.  Secretly, she could not understand why anyone would want to exchange the tranquil blue skies above the fields of Kent for the grimy, claustrophobic, lung-clogging coal seams of Nottingham – where he never saw the sun and was below God’s green earth from morning until night.  She had not wanted to raise her children to follow that life.

The problem, of course, had stemmed from Harry’s acrimonious relationship with his father.

Bill Beckwith was a good man, who had taught his son to be hard-working and kind-hearted.  He was, however, terribly proud.  He had disapproved of Harry’s decision not to study in London, and to decline the opportunity to make something more of his life and use the sharp mind with which he had been blessed.

His son’s stubbornness and unwillingness to see sense had hurt Bill keenly.  He had forbidden Harry from working on the farm with him, and refused to allow any of the neighbouring farms to take him on either.

Harry said his father had forced his hand, left him with no choice but to leave and travel so far away in search of work.  In truth, the pair had simply not been able to communicate since the death of Harry’s mother when he was thirteen.  There had been no more trips to The Oval after that.

Now Harry was twenty-two and had come home like the Prodigal Son.  Sarah had gone to Bill with the intention of pleading for the father’s forgiveness of Harry and to beg him to let Harry work the farm.  Neither had proved necessary.   His father had been ready to reconcile, having been deeply worried about his son’s health, and had prayed to God for his recovery – something he had not done since losing his sweet Elisabeth.  A formerly devout man, Harry’s father now found it difficult to attend church and sing in exaltation to the glorious deity who had stolen his wife from him.

Now Bill Beckwith applauded the sporting prowess of his only son with genuine and unrestrained pride, as Harry cut the first ball he received for four over cover point.  He was facing the opposing eleven’s best bowler, a fearsome lightning-quick left-armer. Bill patted his future daughter-in-law on the arm gently and said, Harry’s a better player than I ever was.  He should play for England.

Sarah smiled warmly and affectionately in response.  All was well in the world – their world, at least.  Her sweetheart and his father had settled the differences they had held for so long, since losing a wife and a mother.  In the autumn she would marry her beloved and raise a family. 

All was perfect.

They heard the approaching disturbance of the brass band long before it rounded the bend, marched up the lane that ran alongside the village ground and arrived through the gates.  The clamorous cacophony boomed in the heady summer air like a volley of cannon fire, the strident marching rhythm unmistakably military.

Harry was taking strike. He tried to block out the disruptive noise; however rousing and pleasant it was to listen to, it disturbed his concentration at bat.  He found those confounded leg-spinning googly deliveries almost impossible to pick at the best of times.  If he wasn’t careful, he would suffer the ignominy of being bowled by the opposing side’s captain – who was a mediocre trundler at best and who brought himself on to bowl far too often.

The rather rotund captain appeared to be a man who enjoyed the lunches in the pavilion a little too much.  He set off from his bowling mark and approached the wicket like a wardrobe rolling down a hill.  Harry steadied himself, his eyes not leaving the ball in his opponent’s pudgy hand.

Crack!  The slow bowler dropped one far too short and Harry pulled it successfully over mid-wicket to the boundary, sending the ball crashing into the fence that separated the playing field from the players’ pavilion.  The bowler glared fiercely at Harry, who returned his finest smile.

There were cries of I say! Jolly good show! and Fine shot, sir! to be heard from the multitude of men in the crowd wearing straw boaters.  From those wearing bowler hats, flat caps or even knotted handkerchiefs on their heads there came a more restrained response, the sound of polite applause.  Harry tried not to focus on those watching him, but concentrate on the next ball.  Harry’s eye was in and he was surely headed for a big score.

But then, suddenly, the next ball did not come and no one was watching him any longer.

The arrival of the brass band, it seemed, had not put the bowler off his game.  The clamorous kerfuffle stopped the game entirely.

Harry Beckwith never faced another delivery.

Harry noticed the banners even more than the pounding martial music.  The thumping sound of the band and brilliant colours of their standards contrasted strikingly with the rows of dull khaki figures marching onto the oval.  The game was disrupted, but in the hubbub and commotion, only the stuffy old men in the members’ pavilion muttered in protest.

The break in play turned out to be a permanent one.  In a display of pedantry rather indicative of English cricket enthusiasts, the scorer eventually marked Harry’s innings down on the scorecard as ‘Not Out’ – once it became evident that the match had been inadvertently abandoned due to circumstances unforeseen.

A fevered murmur spread through the recently placid and contented Bank Holiday crowd like a tropical contagion:  War!  War in Europe!

Great Britain and the Empire had declared war on Germany in defence of Belgium’s neutrality, which the duplicitous Hun had cruelly defiled to launch an attack on France.  That was the gist of it, not that it mattered.  Britain was at war, which was all that seemed to be important, not the details.

One old geriatric fellow who almost seemed aged enough to remember the Napoleonic battles chuntered cantankerously to himself, bemused as to why England would ever enter into a conflict to defend the Belgians – let alone the blasted French!  If he had raised a good point, no one was listening to it.

The purpose of the sudden appearance of the 1st Kent Rifles Regiment, with marching band in tow, now became obvious.  They were an on-the-spot recruitment party, enlisting men into the Army to become part of the British Expeditionary Force headed for France.  The soldiers would not leave until their ranks were replete, swelled to bursting with eager young patriots.

A burly drill sergeant with a magnificent waxed handlebar moustache barked out a crisp order and the assembled sea of khaki transformed itself into two long, immaculate lines with perfect parade ground precision. 

An officer emerged from the group, took up station next to the sergeant, and gave the rows of soldiers a cursory inspection. A growled instruction from the sergeant major and the assembled men snapped stiff salutes in unison, which the officer returned. 

A hushed, expectant pause followed, and then the officer spoke to the mass of bewildered and excited onlookers.  His voice had a natural, undeniable tone of command.  The dashing captain captured attention easily.  He incited all the chaps of service age to join up.  Mothers, wives and sweethearts, keen to feel a sense of pride in their breasts for their gallant loved ones, provided what little urging and encouragement was needed.

Within an hour, every fit male in the village had enlisted.  The church – situated next to the cricket ground – pealed its bells enthusiastically, calling upon every man in the parish who was not at the ground to rush to the oval and join up for the honour of God, King and country.

It was a stirring spectacle.  There was cheering, singing, even the waving of Union Jacks.  A chap was leading a rousing chorus of ‘God Save the King’.  The regimental band joined in soon thereafter.    

Harry was swept along in the fervour of war fever like everyone else.  He found himself kissing Sarah on the cheek, and then running to stand next to his father in the recruitment queue.  He still wore his cumbersome leg guards; in his haste to take part he had not bothered to remove them.

The unruly, clamouring mob that had already been accepted to ‘take the King’s shilling’ puffed out their chests and attempted to form lines.  They stood to attention as best they could manage.  Harry and Bill Beckwith waited their turn with anxious anticipation.

The surly sergeant major assessed the hopefuls in line before they reached the officer.  He tapped the elder Beckwith on the shoulder, summoning his attention.

The age limit is thirty-five, he said in a matter-of-fact tone, his voice resonant with authority.

I’m forty-four, but I’m fit.  A farmer all my life, like, countered Bill.  He hid his desperation as best he could, but knew the implications of this exchange all too well.  Refusal for service meant being separated from his boy – perhaps forever – when he had only just found him again.

The non-commissioned officer’s stern look softened, if only for a moment.  He glanced between father and son, seemed to interpret correctly the worried expressions exchanged between the pair.

Listen, I’m sorry, mate, he whispered apologetically in Bill Beckwith’s ear, at a volume that did not betray the falsity of his ferocious façade to the other assembled recruits – the younger ones, who would be accepted into the regiment to fight.  You might well be strong and fit enough, but you’re not needed.  It’ll all be over by Christmas, you mark my words.  The captain won’t bend the rules for you, I’m afraid.  There’s no point.  Just stay on the land where your lad can find you when he comes home in six months.

The middle-aged man eyed the sergeant carefully, uncertainly.  Are you sure?

You mark my words, the other man repeated with genial reassurance, home by Christmas.  Fritz is all bluster, no stomach for it.  Not like John Bull.

Head bowed in resignation, Bill turned around to face his son.  You’ll want me to watch over Sarah, Harry.  And the harvest has to be fetched in.  I’d just be a silly old bugger in the Army, but I’m needed here.

Harry Beckwith smiled benevolently, aware of the gist of the conversation that had just taken place even though he had not overheard the content.  Don’t worry, Dad.  I can take care of myself.

Mind that you do, son.

With a firm, manly handshake, the pair bade each other a goodbye unencumbered by useless words. 

Bill Beckwith watched his son walk off to do his bit.  The lad already seemed to be marching in step with the others.  Then the father returned to the pavilion disconsolately, his feigned light-heartedness worn like a transparent overcoat.  Sarah embraced her devastated father-in-law to be, watched intently by her fiancé from twenty yards away.