Harvest of War (10 page)

‘Yes, sir. I've finished the last painting and I feel that there is no more I can say in the form of pictures, at least for the time being. And now that spring is here there is bound to be a new campaign. I can't lurk here while other men are fighting and dying.'

‘From what I hear you haven't exactly been lurking, as you put it,' the general said with a quiet smile. ‘You seem to have spent as much time up at the front as you have in your studio. Not that I am criticizing. The results speak for themselves.'

‘But I've been there as an observer,' Tom said. ‘I haven't shared the danger, or the discomfort, for more than a few days at a time.'

‘Well, your desire to return to that danger and discomfort does you credit, and I'm not going to break my promise. But there is one thing I want you to do first.'

‘What is that, sir?'

‘I want people back home to see your pictures. I want them to know the reality of the conditions out here and what is being done and suffered in their names. I've spoken to one or two people who have more expertise in this area than I do and as a result I have been able to arrange for your work to be exhibited at the Albemarle Gallery. I want you to go back to London with the paintings and make sure they are hung to their best advantage. After that, you will be free to return to your unit. Happy with that?'

Happy!
Tom struggled to find words. To have a one-man show at a prestigious London gallery was something he had never even dreamed of. He swallowed hard. ‘Yes, sir. Very happy indeed. Thank you.'

‘Good.' Rawlinson got up and stretched himself. ‘There's a train leaving for Calais the day after tomorrow. I've arranged for a special truck to be attached to accommodate your paintings. After that, I've organized onward transport to London. That gives you two days to get all the work crated up ready. All except one picture. I want to buy that from you. It's the painting of this place. I'd like to have that as a souvenir. I don't know what you normally price your work at, but I've made out a cheque.' He took out his pocket book and handed Tom the slip of paper, made out for a sum that almost made him gasp aloud. ‘Is that acceptable?'

‘Oh, yes, sir! Very acceptable. More than generous, in fact.'

‘Good. And once the exhibition is over you will be free to sell the rest of the work at whatever price you and the gallery owner feel is appropriate. Now, can you be ready in time? Have a word with the quartermaster. I'm sure he can find you a couple of chippies to do the work and provide whatever you need in the way of timber, etc. Can you do it?'

‘Yes, I suppose so.' Tom had a feeling that it would be a close thing, but it must be done somehow. ‘Yes, of course.'

‘Right. You can travel with the pictures. I'll get the adjutant to make out the necessary dockets. Take a bit of leave while you're over there. Will two weeks be enough for what you need?'

Once again, Tom was at a loss. He had no idea how long it took to set up an exhibition, but he felt he could not ask for more.

‘That's settled, then.' Rawlinson nodded affably. ‘Send my picture down to me, will you? I shall enjoy looking at it in moments of stress. Nice to feel that something worthwhile has come out of this shambles.'

Two days later the crates containing the pictures were loaded on to a lorry to be taken to the railhead. Tom looked back as they drove away and experienced a sudden flood of gratitude. For nearly six months he had been spared the worst horrors of the war, but it had been a time when his emotions had swung from one extreme to the other. There had been days, painting in the airy room at the top of the chateau which had been given to him as a studio, when he had ceased to hear the distant, perpetual thunder of the guns and had been possessed by a sense of the rightness of his situation; that he was at last doing what nature, or God, intended him to do. Then there had been times, venturing up to the front to sketch new images of the conflict, when he was consumed with guilt. Once, when he was packing up his gear to return to the chateau, a fellow officer had remarked scathingly, ‘Off back to your funkhole, are you?' The remark had stung and lingered in Tom's mind long after he had forgotten who said it.

He had seen Ralph three times over the six-month period. Twice he had managed to catch up with him when his battalion was in reserve billets behind the line, but he had been distracted and on edge, drinking heavily and unable to sustain a conversation for longer than a minute or two. But then Ralph had been given forty-eight hours' leave and had come to find him at the chateau. There was no spare accommodation, so they had shared a room and, for the first time since the incident with the boy, Louis, they recaptured some of their old schoolboy comradeship. Tom had reconciled himself to the idea that Ralph had desires which he would have been only too happy to satisfy, but that he had been cast in an idealized role that made any thought of that impossible. Ralph loved him like a brother, and that would have to suffice.

Ralph had admired the pictures and said with a grin, ‘I knew I was doing the right thing.'

‘You engineered this, didn't you?' Tom asked. ‘But how did you manage it?'

Ralph tapped the side of his nose conspiratorially. ‘Old boy network. ‘Nuff said?'

Now, heading away from the chateau, Tom wondered if he had been a fool. Probably he could have strung out the painting for another month or two, and by then there would have been another ‘big push' which would bring the final victory. Everyone said it must come this summer. But he knew that if he had done that he would have felt diminished in his own eyes, if not in the eyes of the world.

The crates were loaded into the goods van, which had been attached to the troop train, and Tom settled himself in a First Class, Officers Only compartment. His three companions, who were all considerably higher in rank than himself, talked among themselves and seemed to regard him as an interloper. Used to the snobbery of the regular army, Tom opened a magazine and ignored them.

The train was half way to Calais when it jolted to a sudden halt and whistles began to blow all along its length. ‘Enemy aircraft! Take cover! Take cover!' Tom grabbed his tin hat and peered out of the window. There was a roar and a German Fokker biplane skimmed low over the train. Tom could see the pilot and in the rear cockpit the gunner, sighting his machine gun. White puffs of smoke blossomed around it from the anti-aircraft guns mounted on a flat truck at the rear of the train. Then came a rattle like heavy hailstones as bullets swept the train from front to rear. Tom ducked back sharply and joined the other officers crouched on the floor of the compartment. They heard the plane's engine scream as it pulled up at the end of its traverse, then the increasing noise as it returned for a second sweep. This time there were no bullets, but two explosions rocked the carriages.

As the sound of the plane's engine faded away a new cry went up. ‘Fire! Fire!'

Tom leapt out of the compartment and ran back towards the rear of the train. The German pilot had dropped his bombs with remarkable accuracy, presumably thinking that the closed truck at the rear contained weapons or other items of war material. They must have been incendiaries, because the whole truck was ablaze. Men were swarming round it with stirrup pumps but Tom could see at once that it was pointless. There was nothing he could do but watch as the work of six months, the pictures that might have established his reputation, went up in smoke.

When the fire had been put out the train proceeded on its way and Tom went with it. There seemed little point in doing otherwise. By the following day he was in London. Standing on the platform, surrounded by ecstatic scenes of returning servicemen being greeted by their loved ones, he was undecided about where to go. There was no reason to stay in town, now that he had no exhibition to arrange. He had the telephone number of the gallery owner in his diary, so he went to a phone booth and called it. The man was aghast at the cancellation of the plans and seemed more concerned with his own loss than with Tom's, so Tom brought the conversation to a rapid conclusion.

He still had to decide where to spend his leave. His house in Cheyne Walk was let for the duration and the prospect of checking into a hotel did not appeal. He reminded himself that he had not seen his parents since he'd finished his officer training, over a year earlier. He had not enjoyed that leave and his heart sank at the thought of repeating the experience, but he felt duty-bound to make the effort. So he crossed London to Marylebone Station and took a train for Denham. It was late April and the beech trees were flaunting their new green leaves, while the understory was carpeted with white wood anemones. Watching the scenery slip past, Tom was possessed by a wave of nostalgia for boyhood wanderings and reminded that his childhood had not been entirely bleak. He hired a pony and trap at the station to take him to the Hall and as they drove through the gates he was struck by the air of neglect. Weeds were growing up through the gravel and the lawns were untrimmed, and as he drew closer he saw that the paintwork around the window frames was peeling. He knew labour was short, because of the war, but he was surprised that things had been allowed to deteriorate to this extent.

The door was opened by Lowndes, the family butler, and Tom was shaken to see how much he had aged since his last visit. He could never remember him being a young man, but now his hair was completely white and the hand that held the door open shook slightly. Tom had not given any warning of his arrival, which perhaps accounted for the expression of something close to alarm that crossed the old man's face when he recognized him.

‘We weren't expecting you, sir. Sir George is in London, at his club, but Her Ladyship is upstairs in her boudoir. If you'll wait in the drawing room, I'll tell her you are here.'

Tom thought of the scenes he had witnessed at Victoria station, but reminded himself that he had not let anyone know he was on his way back, so he could scarcely complain that no one had come to meet him. Nevertheless, he could not dismiss a lingering feeling that even if he had told his parents it would not have made a material difference. He went into the drawing room and stopped short. Above the mantelpiece an oblong of unfaded wallpaper, edged by a line of dust, stood out starkly.

Tom swung round to address the butler's departing back. ‘Lowndes, what's happened to the Stubbs?'

The old man turned back, his shoulders drooping. ‘Sold, I believe, sir. A matter of paying off a gambling debt.'

Tom drew a deep breath. So, his father's gambling addiction was getting worse, apparently. He felt sorry for the old butler, who had served the family for so long. ‘Thank you, Lowndes. That is all.'

When the man had gone Tom looked around the room and quickly realized that the painting was not the only thing missing. Two smaller watercolours had vanished, as had a silver rose bowl and a Chinese vase. He began to see the room as a stranger might and noticed that the furniture was dusty and the carpet worn threadbare in places. His sense of disquiet deepened.

Lowndes returned. ‘Her Ladyship asks you to go up, sir.'

No rush to embrace the returning soldier here, then! Tom climbed the stairs and found his mother sitting at her embroidery frame in a room cluttered with examples of her work. Cross-stitched cushions were heaped on every chair, pictures were thrown over the backs, table runners and bell-pulls were scattered on every other surface. The evidence, he saw for the first time, not of a hobby, but of an obsessive escape from reality.

His mother looked up from her work but did not put down her needle. ‘Good afternoon, Thomas. I hope you are well.'

He walked over and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Well enough, Mother, thank you. And you? How are you?'

‘Oh, much as usual. Have you eaten? Would you like some tea?'

‘Later, perhaps.' He tipped some of her work off a chair and set it close to her. ‘Mother, I want to ask you something. Did you know that the Stubbs painting has been sold – and some other things as well?'

She bent her head closer to her sewing and answered indistinctly, ‘I believe your father needed some money. He owed it to some bookies.'

‘He's still gambling, then. How bad is it?'

She shook her head. ‘I don't know about these things.'

Tom reached out and took her hands, stilling the obsessive movement of her needle. ‘When was father last here?'

‘I . . . don't remember. It was Christmas, I think. Yes, there was a party . . . a lot of noise.'

‘A party! Up to his ears in debt, and he's still throwing parties! And he hasn't been down here since then?'

‘No, I . . . I don't think so.'

He leaned closer, gripping her hands, forcing her to look at him. ‘Mother, how bad are things really? You must have some idea.'

She closed her eyes, as if trying to shut out a thought. Then she said, almost in a whisper, ‘John Standing was here the other day. He wanted to talk to me about selling off some land. He was saying something about the bank, and a mortgage. I told him there is nothing I can do. Your father is the only one who can deal with these things.'

Tom sat back and took a deep breath. He knew Standing, the estate manager, for an honest, sensible man. If he was worried enough to want to sell land, affairs must have reached a critical state. He looked at his mother, seeing her now not as the cold, unloving figure of his childhood but as a pathetic woman who had shut herself off in order to escape from an unhappy marriage. He patted her hand. ‘Don't worry. I'll see Standing in the morning and then I'll go up to town and talk to father.'

At a meeting the next day with the estate manager and Mr Featherstone, the family solicitor, Tom was made fully aware of how desperate the situation was. His father had mortgaged the estate to fund his alcoholism and his gambling and now the bank was threatening to foreclose on the debt. Bills for wine and groceries remained unpaid, staff had been dismissed and for those that were left wages were months in arrears. And to add to that there was the unknown amount that might be owing to bookmakers.