Barbed Wire and Roses Read online

  Another teacher, middle-aged and sombrely dressed in a grey skirt and cardigan, stopped to watch him read it, then exchanged greetings. She guessed he was Australian by his interest in the plaque.

  ‘Come and see the playground,’ she invited with a friendly smile, and went with him to the rear of the school where there was an asphalt court with basketball hoops. Behind this area was a sign whose vivid lettering created in Patrick a sudden frisson of emotion. The sign was huge, in English, and it read: NEVER FORGET AUSTRALIA.

  The teacher, conscious of his astonishment, told him that in the district there were streets named after his country. There was deep affection here for Les Aussies. Many tourists came to visit. Perhaps he was a tourist?

  Of sorts, he replied, and explained that his grandfather had fought here in 1918.

  ‘Then he was here, when the Australians recaptured the town!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘Yes. He kept a diary, and one of the last entries was about this place.’

  ‘Did he…’ the teacher hesitated, searching for the right word, ‘survive?’

  Patrick shook his head. ‘He was killed soon after. Perhaps here. As far as we know.’

  She looked puzzled. ‘As far as you know?’

  ‘It’s so long ago in the past. And we can’t find any records.’

  ‘There will be some, somewhere.’ She was a kindly woman and eager to help. ‘Here in Villers-Bretonneux you should visit the Australian Memorial and the cemeteries. I’m sure you will find news of him.’

  At the cemetery Patrick found an immaculate garden with trim lawns and perennial flowers. White headstones were set in neat formation, like the shades of young soldiers on an eternal parade. People of all ages walked among the graves, pausing to read names, to admire the garden and floral tributes. The place had the ambience of a lovingly created outdoor cathedral. Even the lawnmowers and the click of pruning shears seemed muted.

  Patrick saw there were many nationalities buried there: the names, rank and army numbers with distinguishing national emblems on the headstones bore witness to this. But by far the majority of them carried no identification at all, just the same brief words: ‘A Soldier Known To God’.

  The repetitive phrase became an irritant; he felt the phrase deceptive. How could God know them? If He did, how could He have allowed them to die so young? But even as he thought this, other familiar words came unbidden to his mind:

  They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old, Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

  He took out a sepia photograph of his grandfather, one his mother had found in a discarded family album. Stephen Conway was in uniform, a new recruit looking both shy and proud, a youth barely twenty who would never reach his twenty-fourth birthday. Which means he’ll always be younger than me, Patrick thought. Perhaps it was possible in this peaceful place to feel the truth of that well-worn epitaph.

  He climbed the stone steps of the memorial tower to gaze at the view. Fertile fields extended as far as he could see, and he knew from his guidebook that all of them had once been ravaged battle-grounds. There was an almost surreal feeling to his realisation that somewhere down there, perhaps in those very tranquil farmlands in front of him, his grandfather had fought to help regain the village, and according to the diary, had been ordered to remain with his unit to repel the fierce German counterattacks that followed. And if so, this was probably where he had died.

  Patrick stood there for a long time thinking of this, thinking that if he was the least bit religious he would have managed a prayer. He took one last look at the view. It was so utterly serene, yet down there eighty-two years ago a ferocious artillery barrage had presaged a German assault to retake this village, and the Australian battalions, worn out and deserving a rest, had been called back to bolster the line. Somewhere in those frantic days Stephen’s death had occurred. It seemed to fit. There was no exact date on either of the letters of sympathy that Granny Jane had received. But in mid-1918, which the guidebook stated was the period of a major counterattack, the diary had abruptly ended. Without even looking at it Patrick could clearly remember the last entry:

  Exhausted. Each week is worse than the last. If Pozieres was hell, Passchendaele Ridge was worse, and this one numbs the mind. Now all our battles seem to merge into each other. Our battalion is in a bad way, down to about 200 men, and that’s barely a quarter of what it should be. We’re starting to feel the British Command are pushing us into scraps their own troops don’t want. Soon there won’t be an Australian Corps. There won’t be enough of us left. And we’re so damn tired.

  This talk of what great fighters we are, what heroes, and how not even machine guns can stop us, is such rubbish. We’re not heroes, and of course the bloody guns can stop us. Pozieres cost us badly, so many men, so many good mates. Even cost me my stripes back then… demoted to private because I upset a pompous English major who hates ‘colonials’. It could have been worse. A lot worse. At least I managed to stay for those few stolen days with M.L. There was such a shambles after we took the town that I got away with it, and no one found out.

  But I was mad to leave. I wish I’d stayed with her. That’s what I should’ve done. Now all I can hope for is some rest, some peace and quiet away from this carnage, and if we get out of here one day soon we can all go home.

  After he descended from the tower, Patrick spent several hours carefully reading the memorial walls. Stephen’s name should be there, he knew that. On this shrine were supposedly inscribed all the names of the Australian soldiers killed in France whose bodies had not been recovered, and who had no known grave. According to the records, there were eleven thousand of them. But eventually he had to concede defeat. Stephen Conway was not listed among them.

  A friendly tourist guide, an elderly Englishman with whom he had struck up a casual conversation, suggested he should try Belgium. Less than two hours drive away was the town of Ypres.

  ‘Go to the Menin Gate,’ he advised. ‘It’s the biggest memorial of all. There are names there, thousands of names. So many, and so young. It’s a heartbreaker, that place.’

  NINE

  A gendarme’s whistle shrilled, and his raised arm brought the evening traffic to a standstill. Crowds of tourists were gathered in expectation. Patrick could hear Australian accents among them, then a silence fell as a squad of uniformed buglers, white gloves holding their silver trumpets, played the haunting notes of ‘The Last Post’. In the hush after the final chords came the familiar words of the ode to the fallen: ‘At the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them.’

  An old man cleared his throat and a young woman wearing jeans and a T-shirt found a tissue to discreetly dab her eyes. It was astonishing, Patrick thought, how the people of Ypres regularly observed this act of homage every day of the year. And rare that the tribute had been sustained for generations. The respectful quiet lingered until the policeman released the traffic, voices began to comment on the ritual, and the evening’s progress to bars and restaurants resumed.

  The simplicity of it moved Patrick. He stood alone when most of the crowd had gone, looking at the vast monument and its illuminated panels with what seemed like an endless list of names carved there — fifty-five thousand soldiers, all without a known grave — having learnt with incredulity that this space had proved insufficient to accommodate the names of all the missing dead. Those who built the great memorial had seriously misjudged the numbers, and another thirty-five thousand names had to be inscribed on another shrine at the nearby cemetery of Tyne Cot.

  Earlier he had spent time carefully studying the names in both places but again found no mention of Stephen Conway. He was beginning to wonder how many more there were like his grandfather whose papers had gone astray; young soldiers unlisted, unburied and seemingly unknown, even to God.

  The same woman who had dried her tears during the tribute was also still there, gazing at the floodlit ramparts of the Menin Gate. Patrick was about to leave, unsure
whether to try the hotel restaurant or find a bar first and then a place to eat. He had just decided his hotel was the easier — it would mean an early night — when she produced a camera from her shoulder bag and approached him.

  ‘Would you mind awfully?’ She held it out. ‘I’m afraid it’s one of those new-fangled digitals that you just point and click.’

  Patrick assured her it was no trouble. He took several photos of her and handed back the camera. She thanked him, turned as if to move away, then hesitated.

  ‘If you’re alone,’ she said uncertainly, ‘I mean, I don’t suppose you were thinking of having a drink?’

  ‘I was just contemplating it,’ Patrick said.

  ‘I was contemplating if I could ask such a question! But I don’t fancy a bar on my own.’

  She was English, home counties by her accent, he thought, and he placed her in her late twenties. She had auburn hair, green eyes and scattered freckles. An engaging smile replaced her initial diffidence.

  ‘I’d say a drink sounds just the shot,’ Patrick said in reply, smiling.

  ‘Are you Australian?’ she asked.

  ‘Rumbled,’ he said, ‘every time I open my mouth. And you? London?’

  ‘Fulham. But I grew up in Kingston. Surrey,’ she added.

  ‘Anywhere near the river?’

  ‘Yes. Do you know it?’

  ‘I used to. When I dropped out of uni in Oz, I spent a year working at the old Thames studios, on the lock at Teddington.’

  ‘Heavens!’ she exclaimed with surprise that animated her face. ‘We were almost neighbours. Until I was eighteen I lived nearly opposite. Our house had a view of the studio — well, really a view of the car park, with all those posh cars.’

  ‘Not my posh car,’ Patrick said. ‘A bashed-up Renault bought for a hundred quid. It broke down once a week.’

  They exchanged names; hers was Claire Thomas, and they went to a nearby tavern filled with people who had also been to the Menin Gate. An assortment of nationalities, a melange of languages and accents were in chorus discussing the ceremony.

  ‘It reminds me of a performance,’ Claire said amid the hubbub. ‘Interval at the National Theatre, with everyone analysing the play.’ She sounded as if she was offended. ‘But it’s not a play, and they weren’t actors. They were kids, some not old enough to vote, persuaded to go and die for King and Country. I found out a great-uncle of mine was only sixteen! Can you imagine?’

  ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘Invalided out before his eighteenth birthday, lungs affected by mustard gas. And apparently ill for the rest of his life, poor man. I just wanted to come and see this place, because he fought here at Ypres and Passchendaele. It was an awful battle, but of course they were all awful.’

  Patrick explained his own quest. ‘My grandfather died in the last year of the war but we can’t find out where. My sister and I are on the case, but not getting very far.’

  It was hot and noisy in the overcrowded bar. They took their drinks outside and discovered a courtyard where seats were improvised from old wine barrels. The summer night was humid, but the lack of decibels was a relief. They found it easy to talk as strangers often do, knowing they were unlikely to meet again.

  Patrick spoke freely of his family: his mother coping with life on her own after forty years of marriage, his sister Sally in her new beachside apartment, and his wife the film director.

  ‘Any children?’ Claire asked, and regretted the question almost as soon as she spoke.

  There was a slight pause before Patrick replied. When he did it was an oblique answer. ‘My Italian father-in-law complains we only make films, not babies.’

  Claire changed the subject. She asked about his sister and Patrick relaxed, telling her about Sally’s view of rolling surf along the coastline that was so spectacular.

  ‘Sounds wonderful. Do you love the beach?’

  ‘I grew up on one. Christmas holidays could never be too hot or too long. Sal and I loved the water; we spent the summers in it like a pair of dolphins.’

  ‘You sound fond of her.’

  ‘Very. Just the two of us, only a year apart.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ Claire said gently. ‘I never had siblings. I was just a spoilt brat who spent a lonely childhood inventing companions like your sister. But I had a great mum who’s still my best friend.’

  When he smiled Claire felt she’d made a lucky choice with her camera at the memorial. With his untidy mop of blonde hair and good physique, she could readily imagine Patrick at home on a beach.

  ‘Are you here for long?’ she asked.

  ‘Till the end of the week,’ he replied. ‘And you?’

  ‘Leaving tomorrow. On the Eurostar from Lille.’

  ‘The channel tunnel? I hear it’s the way to travel,’ Patrick said. ‘No fog delays or engine troubles,’ he added with feeling.

  ‘So we seem to be ships that pass in the night, if I can mix my metaphors,’ Claire said. ‘In a few days you’ll be home in Oz. Back to the Olympics.’

  ‘No, I fly to London at the end of the week. I’ve got some meetings there.’

  After a leisurely dinner they walked back to the Pension where she was staying. They crossed the cobbled square. Both had enjoyed the accidental evening; neither wanted it to end.

  ‘Did you know,’ Claire said, ‘that centuries ago this place was a thriving city-state? According to my Internet research.’

  ‘Been Googling?’ he asked.

  ‘A fetish,’ she admitted. ‘Before I travel, I swot like mad on the net. I arrive stuffed with vast amounts of information and a strong feeling I’ve already been there. And please don’t say I should save the cost of the fare, because friends are always telling me that.’

  ‘But you have to check out Google’s data in person. Besides, it’s a way to meet new people.’

  ‘Like Australians.’ She laughed.

  ‘Like Australians,’ he agreed, ‘who come from down-under and need to know these things. About Ypres for instance. Tell me what else the Internet said.’

  ‘“Wipers”, most soldiers called it because they couldn’t cope with the pronunciation. It was the trading centre of Flanders, a prize for invaders, and always a battleground. Fought over by the French, the Spanish and Dutch. But in 1917, what the others couldn’t do, the Germans did. Their guns destroyed the place. All the wonderful mediaeval architecture reduced to rubble.’

  ‘But cleverly rebuilt.’

  ‘Yes, the Europeans are good at reconstruction. With so many wars they’ve had enough practice.’

  ‘I’m glad you ignored your friends and came here,’ Patrick said. ‘It not only brought me up to speed on “Wipers”, but it would’ve otherwise been a lonely evening.’

  They reached the Pension. Claire hesitated, unsure whether to offer her hand or her cheek. Before she could decide Patrick asked how she would reach Lille station in the morning.

  ‘A mini-bus is part of the package,’ she told him.

  ‘I want to see Lille,’ he ventured. ‘Could you give the mini-bus the flick and I’ll drive you?’

  ‘Sounds good to me.’ She smiled and kissed him on the cheek before she went into the hotel.

  The next morning he watched as the sleek train slid away from the station and it left him on the platform feeling lonely. In an hour and a half she’d be in London, with the arrival of the Eurostar at Waterloo Station. ‘The French are upset about the name,’ she confided while they waited, ‘the defeat at Waterloo was not Napoleon’s finest hour. Being met by the sign Waterloo as the train arrives puts them in a bit of a tizz. They consider it a classic example of l’arrogance d’Anglaise.’

  Patrick would miss her appealing smile, the freckles and her flippancies.

  He headed south from Lille, taking the motorway again to the Somme towns. Today was his fourth day, and he’d begun to realise the impossibility of the task he had set himself. There were no answers here. The huge memorials and the neat cemeteries had
been a gift of love and compassion for the young dead; it was an irony that after the Great War families could not afford to visit them, for the price of a pilgrimage in those days to mourn their sons was beyond most people.

  Now, eighty years on, there was a generational gap. Youth and middle-age both came to venerate family members that none had known. Grandfathers, great-grandfathers: they were young men whose faces were faded photographs in family albums. It was good their descendants came and laid flowers — it was even fair that a tourist industry had been established from it; in today’s packaged travel that was predictable. Battlefield towns that had suffered attack now underwent a different invasion: hotels, restaurants, private homes offering B&B, as well as museums and tourist guides, were all making a living from the influx. He had no argument with that.

  It was the massive lists of names that daunted him. He felt unable to comprehend the naivety of the thousands of eager boys and men who’d rushed to a European war so far from their homeland. A great adventure, his grandfather had written in the pages of his diary, and stated how anxious they were, training in the sands of Egypt, that they might miss the fun.

  Whereas the British officer class of the time, Claire told him from her research, considered the war a kind of hunting party; live Huns to pursue instead of frightened foxes. It was characteristic of her, the way she could switch from mischievous banter to sombre reflection. She’d read about an English captain of the Royal Dragoons who had declared: ‘I adore the war. It’s like a great big picnic.’ The captain’s picnic had ended violently in the mud of Flanders a few months later.

  By now, he thought, she would be through the channel tunnel, and in the Kent countryside. It had been a nice evening; he had a feeling it need not have ended, but perhaps it was as well. Despite their promises to meet and their exchange of details — he had her email address and a phone number in Fulham, she had the name of his hotel in Bayswater — Patrick was uncertain if there’d be time for meetings. Or if it would be prudent. Yet while thinking that, he wished he could’ve taken her to hear the schoolchildren sing Waltzing Matilda in Villers-Bretonneux. That rare moment was his abiding memory of the days so far. He would go there once again in the morning, have coffee in the cafe, and listen to the kids.