FRAGILE LIVES

by Richard Banks

Despite her husband's disapproval Mrs Gipson opened the front door of their terraced house and placed her chair on its tiled doorstep. “It was wide enough,” she said, she wasn't stopping anybody getting in or out. “What can be the objection?” Mr Gipson said she knew perfectly well what the objection was. “People don't do that here. This is Eastbourne, not Wapping. In the old house, there were so many fleas in summer that nobody stayed indoors, but Eastbourne's not like that, it's better, that's why we moved here. We've got a back garden with grass and flowers. Why don't you sit out there?” Mrs Gipson replied that she preferred the front. The greengrocer's cart was coming and she didn't want to miss it.  Anyway, she could hear the guns more clearly in the front. She wanted to hear what Fred was hearing and if she looked down the road at Mr Cox’s newsagent’s shop she was also looking in the direction of France where the fighting was. She knew that because Mrs Pennyfather told her so; she had an atlas and compass that proved it.

         Mr Gipson suppressed a snort, drew sharply on his pipe and retreated indoors. Unlike his wife he was doing his best not to think about the war. Although a man of limited imagination he knew what was happening in France was no ordinary battle. A war in another country you could hear in England, it was unbelievable. A louder than usual bang rattled the front windows and sent him scurrying through the back door to check the glass in his cold frame. On finding it undamaged he began to double dig a flower bed that yesterday he had cut from turf. Its oblong shape reminded him of a grave; he wished he had dug it round.

                                                    

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In France, a mile north of the Somme river, a soldier was also digging, his

 excavations widening a communications trench between the front line and a medical post. Like his father, he was trying not to think about the war. If he was to remain sane he had to fill his head with other things: thoughts of home, of football matches he had watched or played in; of the Kings Head on a Saturday night -  if only he could stay alive. For six days the allied guns had pounded the German trenches. When they stopped, the infantry would be ordered to advance into no man's land, a frontal assault at walking pace on the enemy line; if the barrage was not successful, if enough Huns survived to man their machine-gun posts, what then? These thoughts he kept to himself. For now, the men were cheerful, hopeful of a decisive breakthrough. There was talk of the war being over by Christmas, but then that had been said before.

         He had joined the West Ham Pals in 1914, at the start of the war, with four lads from the same football team eager to see action before it was all over. The Pals were mainly West Ham supporters. It was rumoured that the club's center forward, Syd Puddefoot, was also a Pal but they later learned he had opted to see out the war in a munitions factory. Nevertheless, there were several part-time pros in the battalion, as well as a hundred or more good amateurs from local leagues. In between the fighting, there would be some decent matches to be played. His best friend, Joey Pennyfather, from four doors down, had squeezed a football into his kitbag; beneath his tunic, he had taken to wearing his football shirt. It was his lucky shirt he said, and so far it hadn't let him down.

         Tomorrow they would be transferred up the line to another unit with five other men. An officer told him to write a letter to his missus before he left but what was the point of that? Four years into an unhappy marriage he and Connie were glad to be apart. He would write to Mum, but not now; he had work to do, a kit bag to pack.

 

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Mr Gipson reached across the bed and turned off the alarm clock. It was not until he was in the scullery, washing at the sink, that he realized that the only sound outside was the cooing of a pigeon. He returned to the bedroom where Mrs Gipson was putting on her dressing gown. “It's over,” he declared, “the guns have stopped, the battle must be over.” Mrs Gipson asked if they had won, and Mr Gipson replied, more sharply than he intended, that he didn’t know, how could he know. He would have to buy a newspaper like everyone else. He dressed hurriedly and brought a Daily Mail in Cox’s shop, but the news was little changed from yesterday. Something big was happening, but, as yet, there was nothing about it in the Mail. He wondered if the Mirror had more. Mr Gipson returned home, pushed the newspaper through the letterbox, and hurried off to his work. Old Bill, his foreman, read the Mirror, he would have a borrow of that.

       Mrs Gipson drew back the curtains from the front bay windows, and through

the translucent weave of her net curtains watched her husband walk briskly back up the street. She wondered why he hadn't come in and said something? Was it bad news? She snatched the newspaper from the mat and took it into the back room where there were no net curtains and the sun streamed in through french windows. She read the first two pages and wondered how so many words could tell her so little. She dressed and took up her position outside on the front doorstep. If there were casualties, and there must be casualties, telegrams would be sent. Her view towards the High Street included the Post Office. There two boys in tall hats and navy blue uniforms with shiny buttons waited for the messages they would deliver by bicycle. The double doors of the Post Office opened inwards as if by themselves and the first customers entered. The telegram boys wheeled out their cycles, placed them in the rack outside the sorting office window, and retreated indoors.

         At a quarter to ten Mrs Pennyfather stopped by on her way to the shops. She had received a letter from Joey that mentioned Fred. They were still together, still playing football. Indeed judging from Joey's letter there was more football going on than fighting.  Mrs Gipson smiled and then groaned as one of the telegram boys approached the cycle rack and fetched down his bike. Mrs Pennyfather hastened to reassure her. “Don't worry, Ethel, he's not going to the likes of us, only officers' families get telegrams. It's the brown envelope through the post that goes to us. The boys will soon be back, safe and sound, you mark my words. One big push and it will be all over by Christmas.” Mrs Gipson smiled again and pretended to be comforted. Why was it always Christmas? she thought.

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Lieutenant Shaw finished another letter and reflected on the disaster of the

previous day. The Generals had promised it would be so easy, that the artillery bombardment would kill every last German, that the men had only to saunter across no man's land to take possession of the opposing trenches, but the Bosche were still there, waiting with their machine guns to decimate the infantry that walked towards them in lines as vulnerable as ninepins.  “Follow the flash,” he had shouted, meaning the flash on the back of his collar, “follow me,” and he had led them like lambs to the slaughter.                                                                                                                                  

         He wondered why he had survived when so many had not. He consoled himself with the thought that there would be many other opportunities to die. For now, his duty was to write to the families of the dead, expressing his condolences, assuring them that their sons and husbands had died bravely for their country. Most had. He wrote saying that they had not suffered, that death was instantaneous, a bullet through the heart. What else could he say – that they had died in agony while others had been blown to pieces?

         He made himself a mug of tea and begun another letter. This one was to the wife of a Pvt Frederick Gipson. He had not known Gipson, he was one of seven men reassigned to his Company on the final day of the bombardment. No one knew much about him. The few details he had gleaned would have to be used carefully, skilfully; mixed with the usual platitudes his letter must console, bear testimony to the how, where, and when of Gipson's death. What he would not say in his letter was that an artillery shell had landed near Gipson erasing one side of his face, detaching an arm and propelling it into the fetid sludge of a crater where it was later discovered with his helmet and identity disc. But this had not been the cause of death; Gipson's body bore witness to an earlier intervention.

         Death had been instantaneous Lieutenant Shaw would write for the tenth time that day, a bullet through the heart. For once he knew this to be true.                                                

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Two days had passed since the arrival of form B104-82B, a printed letter with handwritten insertions. It was addressed to Fred's wife but as she had now left the Gipson household for her parents' home in Enfield, Mrs Gipson had no hesitation in opening it. As far as she was concerned there was only one Mrs Gipson, the other one, 'the imposter', had deserted her post. The letter was

in a brown envelope as Mrs Pennyfather said it would be, and Mrs Gipson picked it up off the mat

 

with a hand so tremulous she could hardly open it. When she did, she had only to read the first few words to know that Fred was no more: 'It is my painful duty to inform you,' it began, 'a report has

 been received notifying the death of... ' Below in neat, upright lettering was written Fred's name, number, and rank, the name of his regiment, a date, and the words 'killed in action'. She forced herself to read on, two paragraphs of unbroken typescript about 'the disposal' of Fred's personal effects to next of kin. At first, this seemed insignificant, a bureaucratic footnote but in the horrid, dismal days that followed, Fred's possessions in France assumed the importance of religious relics. On his departure, she had given him a bible, a small shaving mirror, and a cigarette case. Fred's body she would never see might never know where he was buried but these few precious objects she was determined to have. Accordingly, she had written to the War Office stipulating that Fred's effects be sent to herself and Mr Gipson.                           

         On the day the letter was sent, another arrived in the Pennyfather household informing them that Joey was 'posted as missing'. But, as Mrs Pennyfather said, this did not mean that he was dead. “If he was dead the form would have said so, but it didn't. Anything might have happened: he might be wounded, captured, or separated from his Company. In the confusion of battle, mistakes were made, mistakes that had soldiers killed or missing only for them to return home safe and well.”  She knew this to be true, she had read it in the papers. Mrs Gipson listened patiently, not knowing whether to pity or envy her. The chances that Joey was alive were slim, but at least she still had hope, even a small sliver of hope was better than none.

 

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Having shared tea and sympathy with Mrs Pennyfather, Mrs Gipson returned to her house where the front room curtains were closed and a wreath hung limply from a nail hammered into the door. As she entered the darkened hallway, a rectangle of light from the open door illuminated a single envelope. She picked it up from the mat and took it into her back parlour where the curtains were open and normal life, as far as it existed, was allowed to take place. The letter was addressed to Connie. As before, Mrs Gipson opened the envelope with a perverse relish that suggested she was exacting a minor act of revenge. Inside she found Lieutenant Shaw's letter. For a few moments, she thought it might contain something unexpected, something wonderful, a miracle. Then her eyes took in the first line, 'it is with the deepest regret that I write concerning the death of your husband.' Her dejection mingled with the hope that had preceded it. Poor man, she thought, how many of these had he written? So hard it must be to write about fallen comrades, men he knew and commanded. But how well had he known Fred? The answer came in the next sentence: 'While your husband was with us for only a short time he was held in the highest regard by all who met him, his quiet, dedication to duty an example to us all.' Mrs Gipson briefly considered these words and angrily rejected them. Fred had never done anything quietly in his life and as for his dedication to the cause that had long been replaced by bitter disaffection. Clearly Lieutenant Shaw knew next to nothing about Fred, may never have spoken to him.

         Mrs Gipson crumbled the letter into a tight ball and sent it hurling across the room, but even as she did so she realized that she would have to read it to the end; Mr Gipson would want to read it; surely there would be something in Lieutenant Shaw's letter that was worth reading. She knelt down beside it and tried to smooth out the creases against the yellow linoleum that covered most of the floor. The words, 'shot through the heart' caught her eye. This she believed because she needed to, she thanked God he had not suffered. The letter concluded by saying that Fred had been buried in woodland behind the reserve trench, a hymn sung, prayers said.

         Mrs Gipson took the letter back to her chair. On reading it a second time she discovered a final paragraph that had previously escaped her attention. 'As you will be aware,' wrote Lieutenant Shaw, 'your husband was a member of the Eastbourne Falcons football team who, I am told, play their matches at Compton Place in the South East Sussex league. The officials and players of that team will, no doubt, wish to know that at the time of Private Gipson's unfortunate death he was wearing a Falcon's football shirt beneath his tunic. I hope it will be a consolation to yourself that he died in a battalion closely associated with our national game, among comrades who shared his passion for all things football.'

         Mrs Gipson stared incredulously across the room into a mirror that reflected Mr Gipson's garden. It was wrong, the letter was wrong and she had the proof! At least she thought she had the proof. It would be in Fred's wardrobe in the drawer at its base. At first, she could not find it, then, as if by magic, it was there, the red and white stripes of his football shirt. She hugged it to her black mourning dress as though the evidence of her eyes was not enough. She needed to feel it, smell it, check the label on which she had written his initials. This was Fred's shirt, not the one on the dead soldier. He was still alive, she told herself, but why hadn't the mistake been discovered and she informed? Was it too late to expect another letter? For now, all she could be certain of was that the dead soldier wasn't Fred, another Falcon to be sure, but not Fred. She tried to remember their names. There were four: Joey, Mrs Warner's two boys and another lad they called Birdy. One was already dead, one discharged with the shakes, another wounded. Was the wounded man back at the front? She thought not. That left Joey. The dead soldier was Joey. Poor, dear Joey - but not as dear as Fred. For now she would say nothing, do nothing. It would not be her who snuffed out Mrs Pennyfather's hope. Soon all might be clear: the effects of the dead soldier would arrive or further letters received. Until then they could both go on hoping.

         Mrs Gipson drew back her front room curtains and saw the sun creep out from behind a cotton wool cloud. Almost without thinking she was out through the front door and standing at the gate reveling in the mundane normality of a warm summer's day. The sunshine-filled her with optimism that Fred was still alive. He might soon be home, she thought. After the battle he would surely be given leave; even now he might be on his way home. At the station end of the road she could see a khaki uniform among the varied hews of civilian passengers.

         As yet the soldier was too far off, no wider than a match, but if he did not turn left into Park Road he must continue on towards her. Mrs Gipson reached into her pocket where her glasses were. She raised them to her eyes, but the soldier was gone.    

 Copyright Richard Banks