Night it was and the light of the thinnest crescent moon shone clearly
from a sky peppered with stars. It wasn't Hallowe'en weather at all; the
night should be dark and electric. As Ashley went through the
lytch-gate the old Yew made a dark shadow against the sky, highlighting
the contrast with the row of fresh white stones; fourteen of them.
To some, the graveyard might have been a frightening place, but not
Ashley. Many of his friends were here, after all, and most of the
memories were good ones. Here was Peter, whose awful puns had kept
them sane, waiting to go up. It wasn't really a short-cut to the
Williams' house, but he owed it to his friends to stop by, on this, of
all days.
Richard, whose jacket had always looked .like a dishrag, no matter what
he did. And Douglas, the Squire's son, who had tried so hard to be one
of the lads, finally buried with them.
Hallowe'en. The eve of the days when the dead are welcome. Putting
aside the thought of so many lives squandered for a few yards of Cabbage
Patch, Ashley was momentarily presented with a flash-back of them all,
together, in the Rose on that last leave. What a night that had been;
the memories of laughter and loving flooded back: Beltaine 1917, that
last leave. He held the memory for a moment, then mentally shrugged,
turned and walked on. At least, he thought, the little line of graves
was spared the ignominy of carved reference numbers which allowed
visitors to find their way around the larger graveyards at home and
abroad.
The cottage was bright and inviting. John Williams had, in some sense,
been lucky. A stray shell from a French gun had cost him his left leg
from the knee down, and that had been that. Morbid laughter at his ill
luck had been the only defence their shredded psyches had allowed - they
hoisted a round of drinks and bade him on his way to convalescence in
England. Of course, it was true that he'd missed all the fun; by the
time he returned to Shrawley there was no shortage of cottages to rent,
or young girls to marry.
Ashley knocked the door and was let in. As was the custom on this night
and for the next two, there were places set for the deaf as ell as for
expected and unexpected guests. He sat, thinking fondly of absent
friends, and hoisted a large one, as did so many on this Halowe'en of
1918, with the war almost at an end, four years of slaughter for
nothing. The battalion wiped out, on a single day that Ashley had been
lucky, said some, to survive.
Jenny, lovely Jenny, had been a fine catch for John, and he for her.
There might be little call for jewellery as yet, but the locksmithing
would tide them over ell enough and soon there would be celebrations
a-plenty. And, if little Miriam, sleeping soundly in the crib was not
John's child, why even in more normal times there would have been no
shame. Ashley, with an empty glass in front of him, noticed a charm
almost completed on John's workbench - a silver half-moon enclosing an
amber bead.
He wished them all well, but it was time to take his leave. It never
did to become maudlin, and although the dead were welcome, too great an
attachment served no-one other than ill. Besides now he had another
call to make; to suggest to the old colonel that a copy of a good luck
charm from the trenches was just the gift for a squire's wife. After
all, Ashley thought, he had his daughter's future to provide for, if
ever she was going to be able to
visit his grave at Paschendale.
