The First of July(45)

FOREIGN OFFICE STATEMENT,

AUGUST 4, 1914





CHAPTER FOURTEEN


Benedict, England, September 1914


BENEDICT HAD NOT NOTICED THAT autumn was coming until he leaned out of his bedroom window on that last day. It was a hazy, golden morning: swaths of cobwebs on the vicarage shrubbery, the thick grass damp and the leaves of the horse chestnut edged in rust. The view had been the same as it had every year of Benedict’s life, but the certainties of those earlier autumns had now been put aside. It had been a difficult weekend at home, yet he had felt elated by the tension, as if the distance between him and his family was widening and in that breadth was freedom. His father had been perplexed, angry, and then, obviously, frightened. It was enough that the small, safe world in which he lived had been threatened by good German Protestants, now that his only son—whose musical accomplishments had made him so proud, whose place at the cathedral was something he thanked God for, daily, in his prayers—was throwing away all he had achieved.

“There won’t be any organs in the Army,” he had said. “You won’t be able to practice, you know. All this God-given talent thrown aside. What kind of a soldier do you think you’ll make? Do you think this is God’s purpose for you?”

And so it had gone on: the pointless conversations in the cold study after church, his father’s insistence that they pray together for guidance, and later, at tea, his mother clinging to him as if his death was certain. As they walked in the yard over wet yellow leaves, his sister had given him a rueful smile and a little squeeze of the arm.

“Do you know when you’ll be going?” she said.

“I’m volunteering with Theo. It was his idea.”

“Of course. It has the feeling of one of your friend Theo’s grand schemes.” But there was light observation, not harshness, in her words. “What is he escaping this time?”

“Gloucester. Organs. A woman called Agnes Bradstock. God, for all I know.” He laughed, as he only ever did with Lettie. “Or for all God knows, I suppose.”

“Miss Bradstock? The bishop’s daughter? Goodness.” Now she too was amused. “He’ll need to be sure to be sent overseas. India, at the very least.”

“We’re planning on joining the artillery. I can’t ride a horse; I think I’m seasick, so no Navy. The Gloucesters were a possibility, but Theo is desperate to get his hands on machinery. A big gun would do. It seems somehow… .” He paused to think just what it seemed. “Better. More important. It seems more important now, to me, to be useful, and I think I might be quite a good gunner.”

He also wondered whether it would be easier to fire at targets he didn’t have to see.

“I’m glad you will have a friend with you,” Lettie said. “You can watch out for each other. And who knows, you may just do a bit of training in a camp and then come home, war over, and even if you aren’t awfully good at shooting, you’re bound to be the best at marching. And very handsome in uniform.” After a long pause, she added, quietly, “I wish I could go too.”

He surprised both of them by reaching out and holding her close for a second, yet feeling, deep down, that there was a terrible dishonesty in the gulf between what she thought she knew and loved about him and what he knew about himself.

Theo was delayed in returning because of some unspecified crisis at home, so Benedict went alone to the Army interview, accounted awkwardly for Theo’s absence, given that Theo had actually fixed the appointment, and emerged from an office in a camp near Salisbury to find he had signed various papers and was now, subject to a medical, a second lieutenant in the Royal Field Artillery. A junior officer in Kitchener’s New Army.

“Well done, young chap,” said the interviewing major. “We need more like you. First class.”

He was to await a letter of confirmation and further instructions, allowances for uniform and so on—the major waved a hand as if Benedict knew what was involved, and the sergeant major standing behind him clearly did, as he nodded approvingly.

Benedict hoped Theo’s training would still start at the same time as his, but at least the school of gunnery wasn’t far away. The major, a cheerful middle-aged territorial, came around the desk and shook his hand enthusiastically. “Do your best by us and we’ll do our best by you. Ubique. The regimental motto. You’ll know what it means.”

“Everywhere.” Benedict wondered if it was a test.

“Ha. Right. But for you, my boy, mostly the firing ranges on Salisbury Plain.” It was obviously a joke he used a lot.