April 1917, 3.45 am.

 “Stretcher bearers!” There was a prolonged blast on a whistle, and smoke was billowing over the parapet around tangled barbed wire looped like ivy. Splintered tree stumps were silhouetted under his helmet rim, and rifle shots ripped sporadically into sand bags. In the dug-out duck boards floated just visible under the ice-white magnesium glare over the abyss. Despite the prevailing horror of smoke and cordite, in his mind’s eye, he was holding his sweetheart Aggie in the bluebell wood. Her sister Milly and mother were in town. Gossamer mist wreathed her curly hair and eyelashes. For the first time he kissed her lips and the softness was cherry blossom. Shelling thwacked the chalk ridge but he could think only of her.

Private Montgomery Sydney Ashton, aged 18, 143 Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps and the other lads, Walter, Alf and Taffy went over the top with the stretchers while yet another shell-fountain burst upwards when the howling maelstrom erupted again, as shock waves zipped through the earth beneath their feet. Electric sparks flashed violet. Some shell holes were dangerously chest deep in water.

4.45am. 

The counter attack reached the enemy lines but had been driven back. A ghoulish glare washed over the black craters and pools of slush. When they reached the crater the flare was fading and they could not see anymore. It was useless to grope about in the swampy darkness so deciding to retire back to the line they turned and started the climb back. Haste was impossible, because their boots were sucked back into the quagmire. Every step was a nightmarish effort. More shells whined through the soft darkness into the ridge, heaving in the breaking explosions. The flare spread magnesium ice white light over the mud slopping around before them.

Out of the darkness a bullet must have torn a hole in his trousers. Something like warm water in his boot. Blood? Walter and Taffy stretchered Ashton the remaining ten yards back to the relative safety of the line. 

He had been taken by moonlight in a horse-drawn cart behind the lines. There were waving lamps and torches. Under the moonlight giant, skeletal hogweeds loomed. 

In a ‘forward’ dressing station faces peered down at him. The tent was redolent of lingering chloroform. He began to pick out the makeshift central line of tall wooden poles on which hooks had been drilled to secure dim swaying oil lanterns. Stained white sheets were suspended on wires running between the poles to divide up the hospital into primitive, temporary sections

The noise had deafened him and Ashton could no longer hear the whirring descending shells. Inside the tent paraffin and candle tallow fumes made him choke. Ashton had not been classified or registered but laid on the stretcher in some kind of holding location while most urgent cases were seen to. It must have been a canvas army tent, because he sensed the billowing sides being slowly sucked in and blown out like respiration. Only, in his mind he was not in a cart but in the bluebell wood behind the white house with his sweetheart Aggie. Her sister, Millie and Mother were in town. There was mist in her curly hair. Her skin was soft as cherry blossom. The trees were just coming into leaf as they placed the rubber mask over his face.
 

*

April 15, 1917 

A week ago Joyce, the school caretaker, had knocked on Miss Silver’s door to demand a pay increase. Miss Silver had said it was impossible, given the constrained circumstances of the nation and the school.

The hall smelled of lilac floor polish, sweat and plimsolls. Aggie was about to leave school. Because of wartime austerity the flowery curtains had been taken down and reused as blankets. 

From the side aisle Joyce leaned on her brush, watching Miss Silver mount the scuffed wooden steps and stood behind the lectern to begin the assembly.

    “It has been another terrible winter in the service of King and our country.  Some of you have chosen to continue with your education and some may already have secured positions in service, in commerce, in the professions and possibly abroad.” Miss Silvers paused, sharply drawing breath, stretching out her hands so fingers and thumbs just touched lightly at the tips.

   “In little more than three months you will have left West Bay and set out on your own. The fact is simple, because of the war it is a tragic and inescapable fact. I have to tell you today that only a small percentage among you will be fortunate enough to find a suitable husband. Marriage is probably going to be only a possibility for one in ten of you girls seated with so many men killed in action. I have to say, girls that you cannot really expect to marry and have your own family. Let us look forward to a brighter future. There are many new opportunities for girls and young women at the dawn of a fresh new spring.”

Joyce, fingering a cigarette packet in her overalls’ pocket, noticed Miss Silver’s dark frown as she and the Senior Mistress left the hall, and row by row the girls began to leave the hall. Joyce flicked the broom under the seats.
 

*

April 1920

Wounded but survived. One of the lucky ones. Ashton with a huge grin posing for a picture on Aggie’s left. How pleased his mother looks resplendent in her pink silk frock and lace-trimmed hat. There is laughter in Aggie’s eyes, and when he kissed her the softness of her cheek was like cherry blossom. 

He has splashed out on a new grey pin stripe suit. Afterwards there would be ham, chicken, blancmange and trifle, and he was holding the little baby proud as punch feeling ready for a pint of best bitter, but Aunt Pat might have a sherry. The off-shore breeze would gently stir the trees.