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1916–1917

Lily’s diary, October 1916

Life has changed for us since this terrible war started. No one talks any longer of it being over soon. We were naive, I think, to imagine it could ever be over by Christmas.

Edward takes the train every day to work at the Ministry of Agriculture, and Connie and I help out at Chiverton Hospital. It is hard work, and often distressing. I find I am not very well suited to bandaging the men’s wounds; Connie has the stomach much more than I. But I can sit and listen to their stories. Many of them suffer terribly with their nerves. I understand their pain very much, even if I cannot imagine their experiences. At first I thought I could be no good to them, but happily I find I can help.

When war had come Edward was grateful that Harry was still too young to fight. He had hoped, initially, that the war would be over before he was old enough to join up, but since he’d turned eighteen, Harry had been desperate to go and do his bit, but Lily kept begging him to stay. And the stories that came back from the Front were growing ever more desperate. Though Edward wanted Harry to do his duty for his country, he was under no illusion as to what that might involve. And when Connie brought home George Forrester, one of the convalescent soldiers whom she’d met in Chiverton, Edward fretted for her future happiness.

It is clear to me that Connie is very much in love with George, who is a fine and upstanding young man, whom on discovering his own parents are dead, we have happily taken under our wing, he wrote in his diary. In former times, this would have been a source of great happiness to me. Loath as I am to lose my daughter, I can only rejoice if she has found a man who can make her as happy as Lily makes me. But I fear her happiness may be shortlived. George will soon return to the Front, and who is to say what will happen then?

But seeing how Connie flourished and sparkled in George’s presence, his love bringing her a confidence and happiness he had never before seen in her, Edward could not deny his daughter. When, one sunny evening, the young lovers emerged, radiant and shining from a tryst in the sunken garden, Edward immediately knew the question George was going to pose him, as well as the answer he would give.

‘George is returning to the Front shortly,’ said Connie, ‘so we will wait until his return to marry. After all, the war cannot go on forever. He’ll soon come back to us.’

His brave, pragmatic, sensible daughter. How little any one of them understood how necessary those qualities would be in the coming months.

Edward was sitting at his writing desk, looking out of the window one sunny day in July, when he espied a small figure toiling up the hill on a bicycle. As the figure grew nearer, he recognized the boy who delivered telegrams and his stomach plummeted.

At first, he recorded in his diary, I thought the telegram might not be for us, but then the boy climbed off his bicycle and turned down our path. I knew the telegram would be for Connie. I couldn’t bear to think of her going through the heartache so many other families had endured. I leapt to my feet to get to the door before Connie did, but I was too late …

Edward flung open the door of his study to see Connie standing pale and motionless, the door still held open for the boy, who was now making his way back down the path. She clutched the telegram to her breast. Her breathing was laboured, but she stood so still, she might have been a statue. Seeing her father, she mutely held the telegram towards him.

‘George?’ he said gently.

‘Missing, presumed dead it says,’ said Connie, a slight tremble in her voice the only sign of emotion. ‘That means he might still be alive.’

‘Of course,’ soothed Edward, privately thinking it very unlikely, as he held his daughter in his arms. ‘We mustn’t give up hope.’

Lily came in from the garden just then, holding a spray of freesias she’d picked. Seeing Connie in her father’s arms, she gave a slight scream of ‘No!’ Lily had come to love George as another son, but Edward suspected the fears she’d had for his safety were somehow bound up in her fear that Harry, too, would ultimately go off to fight.

Connie laid herself against Edward’s chest, not saying anything, and Lily came over and hugged her daughter close, in an uncommon sign of affection. She looked at Edward with tears in her eyes. ‘Why?’ she said. ‘Why poor George? Why poor Connie?’

But Edward had no answer for that. He wished he could wipe away Connie’s pain, the way he had wiped tears, and patched up wounds, when she was a child. Now there was nothing he could do, and he watched helplessly as Connie moved away from him and stayed, staring mutely out of the window all that day and the next. She couldn’t be persuaded to eat, or sleep.

‘Why doesn’t she cry?’ Lily said. ‘I couldn’t stand to be so silent and still. I don’t think I could bear it, if it were me and you. And if anything ever happened to Harry …’

Her voice broke off and she looked away. Edward, knowing how real and vivid the fear of losing Harry was to her, took her hands and caressed them. ‘Harry will be fine,’ he soothed, ‘and Connie is grieving in her own way. We should let her be.’

But even he was astonished when, on the third day after receiving the telegram, Connie rose as normal, and started to write letters to anyone and everyone who might possibly know what had happened to her beloved George. As the weeks went by and George’s name had still not turned up on the prisoners’ lists, Edward tried to prepare his daughter for the worst. But stubbornly she wouldn’t listen, staying up late at night, wearing herself to the bone, reading and writing letters till she was hollow-eyed and quite thin. Edward worried that she was making herself ill, but if he tried to tell her to ease off, she would look at him blankly and say, ‘I have to do this, for George. Until I know for sure.’

And the day eventually arrived when she finally heard from George’s commanding officer.

Dear Miss Handford, the letter read,

In response to your request for further information in regard to George Forrester I can now be sure of the following.

On the night of --- July the ---- Platoon were engaged with the enemy for the duration of twelve hours. During this time several men witnessed George in the thick of the action, but no one reported any sighting of him after 0600 hours. It was said that he fought with exceptional bravery.

In the course of the battle we were heavily outnumbered, and the retreat was sounded. But half the platoon was caught behind enemy lines, and of those we know, a substantial number to have been captured. For the rest we must assume the worst.

After nightfall a daring group was able to make a hazardous escape over the river. But sadly, George was not of their number.

Although George’s body was never found, I have to conclude that he perished in that battle in the early hours of the morning of June --- Rest assured that he died a hero.

Yours …

Connie put the letter down, and for the first time in months her facade crumbled.

Lily and Edward both caught her as she fell, and Lily gently took her up to bed.

This wretched war, Edward wrote in his diary, when will it ever end? I fear so badly for Harry. He keeps saying he wants to enlist, and though I know it will break Lily’s heart, I also know he wants to do his duty. How can I stop him from doing what he believes to be right?

Lily’s diary, September 1917

Today Harry left for the Front. He looked so noble in his uniform; I declare he was the most handsome young man there. But oh! He looked so young. Too young to be going off to fight. I cannot bear it. He was so cheerful and jolly as he left, giving me a hug and a kiss and promising to write soon. He thinks it is all one big adventure. His father and I know so different. And as I waved him off, trying to fight back the tears so he could not see them, I was overcome with a cold terror. I feel as I did all those years ago when I lost my babies. I have let something precious slip through my fingers. What will I do if I never see my beloved boy again?