The Children's Book

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They will outlast us. This is their domain.

And when I die, my spirit will pass by

Through Sulphur Avenue and Devil’s Wood

To Jacob’s Ladder along Pilgrim’s Way

To Eden Trench, through Orchard, through the gate

To Nameless Trench and Nameless Wood, and rest.

*These coloured identity disks are worn by the Australian soldiers who fought at Thiepval.

53

Basil and Katharina Wellwood had an unhappy war. There was a huge upsurge of anti-German hatred. Katharina’s friends and acquaintances ceased to call on her or to invite her to gatherings to roll bandages or knit for the British soldiers. The fact—insofar as it was known—that their son was a conscientious objector also cast suspicion on them. Their country neighbours were as venomous as their city ones. They were anxious both for Charles/Karl and for Griselda. Basil was also concerned for Geraint Fludd, who was his substitute son in the City. Geraint was somewhere with the big guns. He wrote occasionally—reasonably cheerfully from the Somme, more grimly as his guns crawled through the mud in Flanders. General Ludendorff ordered the German army to retreat to the Siegfried Line in February 1917. Word came back to Britain of his “Operation Alberich,” named for the Nibelung who had abjured Love as he clasped the stolen Rheingold. Operation Alberich scorched the earth, hacking, burning, poisoning wells, slaughtering cattle and poultry, leaving nothing that could be used by an advancing army, French or British. A woman spat at Katharina in the street. Servants gave in their notice. Katharina, already thin, grew thinner.

The letter came. It had a Red Cross and was addressed to “Basil and Katharina Wellwood” in the Quaker style. The Friends’ Ambulance Unit, it said, was greatly saddened to have to report that their friend Charles Wellwood was missing, and must be presumed dead. His courage had been exemplary. He had ventured into parts of the battlefield where many stretcher-bearers feared to go. He had brought in the wounded, English and German, had dressed their wounds and spoken to them with true gentleness. He had appeared indefatigable. He had been much respected, and would be much missed, by his fellow workers and by those whose lives he had saved.

“He is only missing,” said Katharina, in a thin, exhausted voice. “He may come back to us.”

“I don’t think the writer of that letter thought he would,” said Basil. He said

“We have the letter he gave us, to be opened, if—if he died.”

“But he may not be dead.”

“Do you want to leave the letter unopened?”

“No. No. I think it would be right to open it.”

They were afraid of opening it. It would not simply contain assurances that he had always loved them. That was not like Charles/Karl, who knew they knew he loved them. The letter contained a secret they might not want to know.

My dear father and mother,

If you read this I shall be dead. I hope I shall have saved other lives before losing mine. You will know that I thought of you steadily, with great love and gratitude, not least for your letting me go my own way, and live a life of study that you would not have chosen for me.

There is a secret I have kept from you. I have a wife, whom you have never met. Her name is Elsie, and she finally agreed to marry me because I was going away. We were married by Frank Mallett in St. Edburga’s Church. We should have told you, and shared this with you, but there was no time.

Elsie is the sister of the potter, Philip Warren. She is a student teacher and I would have hoped, if I had lived, that she could study more widely and deeply.

I am asking you both, with loving apprehension, to go and find Elsie, and take care of her, as my wife. She is very independent, as you will see, and taking care of her is hard, as I have found, myself.

She is not from our “class.” I believe profoundly that this has no real importance. She—more practical—does not believe that you would want to accept or acknowledge her, for this reason. I have more faith in you—in both of you—than that. She does not know you, as I do. You are honourable, and generous, and just, and you will see her for what she is, as I do.

I end with love, again. I have no wish to die, and hope I may come home, and burn this letter, unread.

If not—please forgive me, and please look after Elsie.

Your son

Charles/Karl.

It was a week before they set out, in the Daimler, with an elderly chauffeur, for the cottage at the end of Dungeness. Basil had the idea that they should stop at Frank Mallett’s vicarage, and ask him what he thought of this Elsie. Katharina said this would be unfair, from which Basil inferred that she expected to think ill of the young woman. They did, in fact, drive through Puxty, but the vicar was not home, and Dobbin was away on war work on the land. So they drove on, into the only English desert.

On the outskirts of Lydd they were stopped by sentries as they passed the army camp. They could indeed hear the artillery, practising on the range amongst the shingle and blown bushes. This was a military zone, said the soldiers. They must state their business. They could hear the guns. It would be best to turn back.

Basil was by nature inclined not to reveal his business. He said he had private business with a lady in the cottage, along the Ness. His hauteur annoyed the soldier who said he would need a permit to drive in these parts, these days. Basil said he was visiting the schoolmistress, and the sentry said the army had taken over the school and the teachers had moved out of the zone.

Katharina showed them the letter.

“Our son is dead, this letter tells us. We have found the schoolmistress is his wife. We must see her.”

Katharina’s accent was more suspicious than Basil’s hauteur.

“How do we know you’re not spies? You sound German.”

“I am German. I have lived in England most of my life. I think I am English but that is no help. Please let us go