Lovely War(94)

There were those words again: “take out.” Like something one does with a sack of rubbish. Hazel looked at the grinning, gummy, chubby-cheeked child at her knees, playing building blocks, and at the sober-faced young man seated at the table. Once he was you, she told little Frankie silently. What dread experiences must one face in order to speak so casually of killing?

May you never face them, little one.

But her prayer went unanswered. Frankie is a man now. Private Frank Mason Jr. of the Suffolk Regiment. Stationed in Algeria, bravely fighting the Nazis, just as his father fought the Germans before him.





HADES


     James’s Answers—June 15, 1918





THE FOG IN James’s head and the fog over the trenches blended together. At last the mist parted.

“There was a Jerry with a grenade launcher,” he said slowly. “I got him.”

Mrs. Mason sat very still now, with her eyes closed.

“And another, taking aim at me. Frank got him.”

Mrs. Mason flinched, as if she’d felt the impact of the bullet.

Hazel found herself holding her breath. What was this nightmare her James described? This hell faced by her sweet boy who could cry at the loveliness of a symphony orchestra?

The kettle began to shrill. Little Frankie emitted an ear-piercing imitation. Adelaide poured it, through a cloud of steam, over the tea leaves in the strainer, and into the china teapot.

“The fog was thick,” said James. “We were on the ground. A Jerry took aim at Frank.”

“The bastard!”

Hazel covered little Frankie’s ears.

“But he didn’t get him,” James explained. “I shot that Jerry, too, before he could.”

The kettle clunked back onto the gas stove. “Then who did?”

Hazel’s heart bled for Mrs. Mason. She already knew how this sad tale ended. She was just searching to find its villain.

“I don’t know,” said James faintly. “Some gunner from a couple of miles away.”

Adelaide’s handkerchief found its use again.

“When I shot the German trying to kill Frank,” James said, “Frank was so surprised that he jumped up tall, from where he’d been lying down.” He swallowed hard. “Just in time to catch a shell right in the chest.”

Silence fell over the kitchen. Adelaide wrapped her arms around her middle, as if to ward off the missile, finding to her surprise that there was a baby there to protect too.

“Boom!” squealed Frankie, capsizing another tower.

Adelaide jumped. “Not now, child!” she cried. “Can’t you tell Mummy needs to think?”

Frankie blithely ignored the scolding, as well-loved children usually do. Hazel busied herself with a novel creation: a double tower, two blocks wide. Frankie quickly got on board with this plan. Build and destroy, build and destroy. This game never grew old.

“Do you mean to tell me,” Adelaide asked James, “that if Frank had stayed down, he might be alive today?”

“I’m so sorry.” James’s voice cracked. “I told him not to come up top. ‘You’ve got a wife and a kid,’ I told him. ‘Stay down.’ But he wouldn’t let me go up alone.”

Adelaide seized his hands. “No more would my Frank’ve done so, and that’s the truth.”

James’s chin drooped. “I’m so sorry.” His body shook. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Adelaide cast a despairing look at Hazel. What should I do?

“I wish it had been me,” James said. “He should’ve come home to you.”

Adelaide Mason poured out a mug of tea for James. “Now, don’t say that,” she said. “It doesn’t work that way, and you know it.” She winced, and rubbed her pregnant belly. “This one’s a boy too, or I’m daft. He’s a kicker, just like his big brother.” She smiled. “They’ll be swimmers, like their dad. He was a fish. Always wondered why he didn’t join the navy.”

She poured mugs of tea for Hazel and herself, and a tiny cup that was mostly milk and sugar, with a spot of tea, for Frankie.

“Can I ask you, James,” she said softly, “whether you think Frank suffered any pain?”

James sat up a little taller. “None,” he said. “I’m sure of it. It was so very sudden.”

She plied the kerchief and wiped her nose. “That’s a blessing, ain’t it?” Her voice squeaked as she tried not to cry. “I’ve had long nights to imagine him in every kind of suffering.”

Frankie grew tired of blocks, so Hazel found a dog-eared children’s book and began softly reading to him. He plopped his chunky self right down upon her lap.

“Did they bury him, then?” Adelaide asked.

James’s body stiffened. “I don’t know,” he whispered. “After that I . . . lost consciousness for a long time. I spent a good deal of time in hospital. In neurasthenic wards.”

Hazel closed her eyes and silently wept. Frankie prodded at her to continue the story. This was why the letters had stopped.

“I think it’s likely,” James said, softly, “that there wasn’t much to bury.”

The widow winced and looked away. It was unspeakable.