The Fallen Kings

Book 32: Morland Dynasty

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

Genres: Historical Fiction

Synopsis

1918: German troops flood back from the Eastern Front for an all-out assault in France, before the Americans can join the war. The under-strength British retreat, and for the first time the real possibility of defeat comes home to a shocked nation. At the front, Bertie struggles to bring his battered battalion out safely, while at home Jessie, secretly carrying his child, knows that sooner or later she must face her family's censure. At Morland Place, Teddy braves local opinion to bring German POWs to work on the land, little knowing how close to home the consequences of his decision will strike. And the terrible news arrives that Jack has been shot down. Men are falling, each one the King of someone's heart. For the Morlands, only love, faith and compassion will keep the family safe until the longed-for days of peace . . .

Release date: March 3, 2011

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 592

Sample

January 1918

It had been grindingly cold all day, and now in the afternoon a fine snow had begun to fall. It gathered on the shoulders
of the King’s greatcoat and the crown of his uniform cap as he came along the line, his breath clouding as he spoke a few
words to each man. Coming face to face with him, Bertie could see specks of snow glistening in the royal beard, and thought
of the jewels worn in the beards of certain tribal leaders he had known in his Indian days. But the tip of the royal nose
was unromantically crimson, and the small blue eyes were watering. Hazebrouck was not where anyone would have much wanted
to be that day.


The aide at the King’s shoulder murmured Bertie’s name and handed him the medal. The King slipped it onto the hook ready in
Bertie’s lapel, offered a leather-gloved hand and said, ‘Good show. Jolly good show.’


The handshaking went on rather longer than was natural, for the King kept glancing sideways at the official cinematographer,
bobbing about adjusting his focus, to see if he had finished with the ‘shot’ – as they were all learning to call it in these
publicity-conscious days. The man finally straightened up and said, ‘Thank you, sir,’ and the King let go of Bertie’s hand
with an appearance of relief. Then, seeming to feel he had been ungracious, he smiled at Bertie and said again, but with emphasis
this time, ‘Jolly good show,’ before hurrying indoors with his suite behind him.


The room in the town hall, prepared for the reception, was rather shabby, but at least it was warm, with a big wood fire under
the vast marble fireplace. A couple of oil stoves, placed unobtrusively in corners, were adding their distinctive smell to
the principal odour of wet wool and cigarettes. Bertie was glad to note there were refreshments: a heartening profusion of
sandwiches, and coffee, which, though weak, was made from real coffee beans and not the mysterious ersatz they had been consuming in the trenches (rumour said it was made from ground roasted acorns). The King was at once surrounded
by various dignitaries, civilian and military, and Bertie hurried to secure some of the bounty before the official mingling
should begin. If the war had taught him nothing else, it was to grab food when you had the chance.


The other guests – a mixture of men from the two services, who had all come to receive their decorations and be photographed
for the public benefit – had had the same idea, and there was a certain amount of grimly polite jostling at the buffet tables,
and a potentially embarrassing emptying of the rest of the room. Bertie found himself elbow to elbow with an airman, a short,
fair, jolly-looking youngster, who grinned at him and said, ‘Haven’t been in a scrum like this since Winchester. But you don’t
see sandwiches like this every day. My God!’ His tone became reverent. ‘Is that real ham? I don’t think I’ve had anything
but bully in a sandwich since I got in.’


‘Grab me one while you’re at it,’ Bertie urged. The ham sandwiches were just beyond his reach.

The airman slapped a couple onto Bertie’s plate and yielded his place to the hungry behind him. Backing into an open space,
the young man found himself more or less at eye level with Bertie’s new decoration, the rather modest-looking bronze cross
on its claret ribbon, which lay next to the prettier white enamel cross of the DSO on Bertie’s chest. He raised his eyes and
said reverently, ‘The VC? My God, you’re Major Parke! I’ve heard all about your stunt, sir – taking a trench from the Hun single-handed. Jolly good show! It’s an honour to meet you, sir.’


Bertie found his hand being shaken with a vigour that made him feel rather old and tired. ‘You’ve done pretty well yourself,’
he said, nodding towards the youngster’s Military Cross.


The lad looked down at it with enormous, almost astonished pride, but said in the accustomed throwaway manner, ‘Oh, it’s nothing,
really. They have to give ’em to someone, y’know.’ He grinned up at Bertie. ‘The chaps in my squadron say I got it for flying
with my tongue stuck out. I do that when I’m concentrating – ever since school days.’ He demonstrated the frown of purpose
with the tip of the tongue just protruding. ‘They say it’s bloody brave of me because I’m bound to bite it off one day.’


Some others who had managed to load their plates drifted up and there was an interval of pleasant, professional chat between
the munching, before the approach of the royal party broke it up. A steward nipped in and relieved Bertie of his crockery
just as the King reached him, ungloved and coatless now, and with Bertie’s CO, Colonel Scott-Walter (the men called him Hot
Water), among the figures at his elbow.


‘This is something more like, eh, what?’ the King said genially. ‘Damned cold out there. Sorry about that palaver outside,
but the publicity wallahs say the public like to see medals being given out of doors. Reminds ’em what it’s all about.’


‘Quite, sir,’ Bertie said, since some response seemed to be required of him.

The King looked at him quizzically. ‘Hard to sound sincere when you know there’s a camera pointed at you. So I just want to
say again, jolly good show! The Queen and I read about what you did, and we’re full of admiration. Absolutely splendid – best traditions,
and so forth. You’re an example to us all.’


‘Thank you, sir,’ Bertie managed to say, while longing for decent obscurity or, failing that, a sack to put over his head.
His natural modesty was whimpering in the pit of his stomach.


The King extended his hand again, and Bertie shook it – small, dry and surprisingly hard, it was – and bowed.

‘Congratulations, Colonel,’ said the King.

Bertie straightened, feeling the crosses on his breast thump back into place. A significant nod and slight cough from Scott-Walter
warned him that it had not simply been a lapse of memory on the King’s part.


‘Sir?’ Bertie said.

The King was smiling through his beard, his eyes twinkling as he enjoyed Bertie’s moment of surprise, but it was Scott-Walter
who elucidated. ‘You’ve been promoted to lieutenant-colonel, Parke.’


‘And not a moment too soon, from what I hear,’ the King interjected.

‘You’re to take over the battalion,’ Scott-Walter went on. ‘I’m going up to Brigade.’

‘The poor man’s bewildered,’ the King said, chuckling.

Bertie found his tongue at last. ‘Thank you, sir.’

‘Don’t thank me,’ the King said. ‘There are tough times ahead, and we need the best men for the job. Sir Douglas said to me
that he wished he had a hundred of you. They’re going to put that in the newspaper report.’


Praise from Haig, from the C-in-C himself ? Embarrassment could go no further. It was fortunate that the party moved on just
then, leaving Bertie with Scott-Walter and a red face.


‘Don’t look like that,’ Scott-Walter said. ‘It’s good for the regiment, this sort of thing. And for the battalion’s morale.
The men are exhausted, but stunts like this keep their spirits up, however much you may dislike it.’


‘I’m not cut out to be anyone’s hero,’ Bertie said. He felt a fraud, because the mad dash under fire that had brought him
this distinction had been carried out in the conviction that he would not survive, so he had felt no fear – and in his book, if you felt no fear you could not, by definition, be
said to have displayed courage. Courage was being afraid and still doing whatever it was, as he had seen his men do over and over. They were the brave ones.


‘Well, we’re all proud of you,’ said Scott-Walter, ‘so you’ll just have to find a way to live with it.’

Bertie smiled at that. ‘But congratulations to you, sir, on getting the brigade.’

‘Buggins’s turn,’ Scott-Walter said, with a shrug. ‘Pat Cordwainer’s gone up to Corps to replace Darcy, and I’m next in line.’

Now he was a colonel, Bertie noted, these high-ranking officers had become unadorned surnames in conversation. ‘What’s happened
to General Darcy?’ he asked.


‘Gone back to Blighty. Heart condition.’

‘So everyone moves up one seat?’

‘Not in your case,’ Scott-Walter said sharply. ‘Your promotion is more than deserved – and long overdue. If you hadn’t insisted
on keeping a company command, you’d have been a colonel long before now. But you can’t play with the soldiers any more, Parke.
We need good men at the top – good soldiers, what’s more. We’ve lost all too many of ’em.’


‘I know,’ Bertie said bleakly. His dearest friend Fenniman, with whom he had served since the war began, had been killed last
year.


Scott-Walter laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘We all miss Fen. He was a damned fine soldier – and a good egg. He kept us all
in spirits at Battalion HQ.’


The last words he had written to Bertie had been a joke. It seemed that with Fenniman’s death, laughter had gone out of his
life – and it was laughter that had always enabled them to get through the war, with all its ghastliness.


Conversation ceased as the King took his departure, and when he was gone, there was a general movement towards reclaiming
caps and greatcoats and getting back to units – except for a small hard core of cheerful younger officers who felt unable to abandon the buffet tables while there
was anything left on them. Bertie and Scott-Walter walked out together to wait their turn in the porch until the CO’s car
arrived. Dusk had come and the weather had closed in while they were inside: the snow was falling thickly now.


Scott-Walter sniffed. ‘Smells a bit warmer to me. What do you think?’

‘The wind’s gone round,’ Bertie confirmed. ‘But this snow looks like settling in.’

‘It’s lying, too. There’ll be six inches by tomorrow if it keeps up.’

They were glad to get into the car, and Scott-Walter was not too much of a warrior to scorn a rug over their knees.

‘So what next, sir?’ Bertie asked.

‘For you, a spot of leave,’ the CO said. ‘Comes with the decoration. You can go straight off tonight if you like. I’m staying
with the battalion for a couple of weeks more, just to tidy up some things, so you’re not needed.’


‘Thank you, sir,’ Bertie said. ‘And when I come back, what then?’

‘It’ll be retraining for the battalion – the reinforcements should have arrived by then so they’ll need bedding in.’

‘Do you know how many we’re getting?’

‘Not the foggiest. Not enough, I’d be willing to bet. Why in God’s name we keep six hundred thousand trained men in England
instead of having them sent here I can’t imagine. The last I heard, the prime minister agreed on ninety thousand being sent
out for the entire BEF.’


‘But—’ Bertie protested. It was a ridiculously small number, far less than was needed.

‘I know, I know. I’ll fight for our fair share, you can depend on that, but how we’re supposed to do the job if we’re starved
of men …’ He shrugged. ‘One good thing – I’m told we’re getting a fresh batch of Pioneers out. Mostly coolies, I understand, but who cares as long as they know how to dig a hole?’


‘We’re going to be doing a lot of digging, then, I take it?’

It was well known all through the army, though it hadn’t been officially announced yet, that the government had agreed to
take over another section of the line from the French. Their defences were always badly maintained, and taking over from them
meant a great deal of hard work to bring them up to scratch. But more seriously, without adequate reinforcements from home,
it meant more of the line would be held by the same number of men, thinning out the army and weakening the cover.


Scott-Walter offered cigarettes – ‘Turkish. The memsahib sent them out. God knows where she found ’em. A bit stale, but it
makes a change from gaspers’ – and they both lit up. ‘It’s going to be a different sort of war for the next few months,’ he
continued. ‘We know the Germans are going to attack. They’ve got all the extra men coming down from the Eastern Front, now
the Russkies have collapsed, and they’re going to want to make a big push before the Americans come in. We’re not in a position to attack them. But if three years of trench war have taught us anything, it’s that it’s easier to defend than attack, so the idea is to
hold on and let ’em wear ’emselves out. Then, when the Yanks are ready, we counter-attack and roll ’em up.’ He took a deep
draw on his cigarette. ‘That’s the theory, anyway.’


There were plenty of things wrong with it, but such matters were not in the hands of lowly colonels. ‘Do we know when Fritz
is coming?’


‘Haig says March, around the fifteenth. The French think the Boche’ll move earlier. But they can hardly start anything before
March, given the weather and the state of the ground. And the Americans won’t be ready until May or June. Which reminds me
– when you get back, after battalion training there’ll be brigade training. We’re going to have a battalion of Doughboys brigaded
with us, to give them experience. The officers particularly.’ He shook his head and sighed. ‘If only Pershing had agreed to let us use his men as reinforcements,
we could have given the Boche a damn good hiding last year. As it is, Gerry’s been let off the hook.’


Bertie nodded. It had been a grave disappointment to everyone that the Americans had insisted they would only fight as a discrete
army, under their own officers. You could train a civilian to be an adequate soldier in a matter of months – and the American
volunteers were strong, healthy and hugely enthusiastic – but to train an officer took much, much longer. The first Doughboys
could have been in the line last summer if they had been seeded around the Allied units. The determination to keep themselves
separate came from the top, from the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Many young Americans, eager for the fray, had sidestepped
the whole issue by enlisting in the Canadian Army, and many more had become airmen and were serving with the RFC and RNAS.


‘If we’re going to hold to a defensive role for the next few months,’ Bertie said, ‘I take it a lot of the training will be
in defensive techniques?’


Scott-Walter tapped the ash precisely off his cigarette into the ashtray. ‘You’ve put your finger on the flaw, of course.
In three years of trench war we’ve always been the aggressors. It will be a whole new trick to learn – and we won’t have very
long to learn it. But you can put all that out of your head for now. You’ve got two weeks of leave ahead of you, and you might
as well enjoy it. God knows when you’ll get away again. Any idea what you’ll do?’


Scott-Walter had heard some rumour that Parke had had trouble at home, though naturally he would not wish to pry into that.
Parke’s little boy – only son, he believed – had been killed in an air-raid last year, shocking thing; and hadn’t there been
something about the madam doing a bolt afterwards? Probably awful rubbish – these rumours usually were – but there might be
something in it. It was a fact that Parke had not seemed quite so merry and bright lately.


‘Oh, I’ll go home,’ Bertie said vaguely. ‘See to a few things.’


Scott-Walter nodded, and looked out of the window at the lowering sky and whirling snow. ‘Pity about the weather. Not much
hope of enjoying yourself out of doors. Trouble with the army – they always want you to be fighting when the weather’s good.
I haven’t had a club in my hand since – oh, must have been the autumn of ’fifteen. Play golf at all?’


‘No, sir,’ said Bertie. ‘The closest I ever got to it was polo.’

And suddenly he had a vision, like a lightning flash in the mind, of his old place in India, up in the north, with the Himalayas
an eternal backdrop; of the dazzlingly clear air and the crystal sunshine, which made the blue of the sky and the green of
the foliage seem almost unnaturally intense. He remembered his bungalow, and the rough little curly-tailed dog that had adopted
him, and how it used to hunt crickets in the grass, and lie at his feet on the verandah of an evening when the servant brought
his sundowner. He remembered the polo ground in Darjeeling, the thwock of mallet on ball, the lithe, muscular body of the pony beneath him twisting after it, and the polite clapping of the shantung-clad
ladies in the shade of the members’ pavilion. For a moment his mind stood bewildered by the contrast with the scene beyond
the car window. How in God’s name had he got from there to here?


Scott-Walter had been talking, and now stopped as he realised Bertie wasn’t with him. ‘I say, you look as though you’ve seen
a ghost,’ he said mildly. ‘What were you thinking about?’


Bertie turned to him with an effort. ‘Oh, just life in general.’

‘Tricky chap, Life,’ said Scott-Walter, wisely. ‘Just when you think you’ve got a grip on him, you find yourself flat on your
face with a bloody nose.’


* * *

Bertie’s wife Maud had bloodied his nose pretty effectively last year when, after their son had been killed by a Gotha air-raid,
she had told him she blamed him for the boy’s death, and went away to live with relatives in Ireland. Even then he had supposed
she would come back eventually, perhaps when the war was over, but a few months later she had written to say that she wanted
to marry someone else, and asked him for a divorce.


It was hard to accept that the man she now preferred to him was John Manvers, a fellow horse-breeder he had known in India,
a business colleague of her father. Bertie had liked and trusted Manvers so much he had felt glad that he would be ‘keeping
an eye on’ Maud while he, Bertie, was away at the Front. He had been pleased, when Maud went to Ireland, to know that Manvers,
who had recently quit India and bought an estate in County Wicklow, would be on hand if she needed help or comfort. Well,
comfort it seemed Manvers had offered. Now Maud wanted Bertie to do the decent thing and allow her to divorce him; and he
supposed he would have to go along with it. Nothing was to be gained by trying to keep an unwilling wife, and certainly no
gentleman could be so ungallant as to divorce his wife, no matter how culpable she was.


But he discovered that what he really wanted to know was how culpable Maud had actually been and, even more than that, why it was she preferred Manvers. And why Manvers, whom he had always thought one of those happily donnish individuals content
to live their lives without womenfolk, had succumbed to Maud and to no-one else. So it seemed, now he had his leave, that
to Ireland he would have to go, inclement weather and wartime railways notwithstanding.


The journey was tedious, the trains dirty, the Irish Sea inhospitable. Bertie felt himself cut off as much from the indomitably
cheerful soldiers all around him, who were going home on leave, as from the civilians – mostly poor-looking and either elderly or accompanying young children – whose purposes he could not guess. But at least as he travelled westwards
it grew warmer, and Ireland was snow-free. It was as he remembered it, intensely green but very wet, and with a particularly
Irish wind that seemed to be able to drive the cold rain into your face whichever way you were facing. In Dublin he was overtaken
by the longing for a large fire, a hot bath and a comforting dinner, and he abandoned the last part of the journey. Cold and
weary, he took refuge for the night in the club that was affiliated with his own in London, and excused himself from ploughing
on to Wicklow by sending a couple of telegrams announcing his intention of visiting on the morrow.


The club dining-room was crowded, and the waitress asked him if he would share his table with another member, a request he
was not churlish enough to refuse; but his involuntary companion turned out to be a very pleasant artillery officer on his
way home to Clonmel. They got on so well over dinner that they ended by repairing to the drawing-room to drink a couple of
large whiskeys and blow a cloud together. They had a very satisfying talk that started, inevitably, with the situation in
France, passed via field guns to field sports, and settled at last on horses, where it kept them happily occupied until the
witching hour. Major Callan also very usefully knew of a place where Bertie could hire a motor-car, which would make the journey
to Rathdrum much less of a trial. They parted with hearty handshakes and the usual promise to look each other up after the
war, and Bertie went to bed feeling much warmer in all senses, and better primed to face the next day.


The Carnews, Maud’s cousins, lived on the outskirts of the village in a large, modern house with all the appurtenances of
middle-class comfort: stone gateposts, a gravel sweep, extensive shrubberies, and a large glass conservatory on what would
be the sunny side of the house if it ever stopped raining. At the back there was a tennis lawn, stables, and a coach house converted to a garage. The Carnews were a cheerful,
hospitable family. Carnew père – by name Harold – was a shipping agent with an office in Wicklow. There were two energetic, tennis-playing daughters of
marriageable age, another of around twelve who lived for horses, and a boy of eight, as well as a grown son, the subject of
great pride, who had just joined the army and was hoping for a transfer to the RFC when he had finished his basic training.


Into this ménage Maud had inserted herself without difficulty: she had stayed with them before, and Bertie knew they would
have been brimming with practical sympathy over the loss of her son. What he didn’t know was what his reception would be –
whether Maud had told them that Richard’s death was his fault (which it wasn’t) or that she wanted a divorce; and if she had
told them the latter, whether she would have portrayed that as his fault as well.


But the door was opened to him by the bouncing seventeen-year-old (Jean? No, Joyce), who beamed and shook his hand and used
it to pull him eagerly into the house. ‘Come in, come on in! You’re lovely and early, Cousin Bertie. We didn’t think you’d
manage to get here before luncheon, what with the trains the way they are. Ma! He’s here! But is that your motor? No wonder
you’re early, then. Is it yours? It’s not an army car. Did you drive yourself ?’


A servant arrived in the hall, belatedly and indignant – ‘Don’t be opening the door like that, Miss Joyce, before I’ve the
chance to get there. Haven’t I told you before? What will people think of us?’ – followed by Carnew mère, a plump, smiling, bespectacled little woman, who grasped Bertie’s hand, just released by her daughter, and cried, ‘Bertie,
there you are!’ as if she’d been looking for him everywhere.


‘Hello, Annie. How are you?’ Bertie said, kissing the offered cheek. Obviously Maud had not said anything to make him unwelcome,
which was a relief.


‘He came in a motor,’ Joyce informed her. ‘That’s how he got here so quick.’


‘We asked the station master at Wicklow to let us know when you got in, and put you in a taxi,’ Annie explained. ‘We’d have
sent our motor for you, but Harold has it and he’s over to Waterford today, and there’s not another thing in the village,
if you believe me, what with the war and everything.’


‘Everything got requisitioned,’ Joyce said. ‘I’ll ring Mr Hook, Ma, and tell him he can stop looking out.’ And she bounced
away.


Annie, who had been helping Bertie out of his coat, handed it to the servant and said, ‘But where’s your bag? Is it in the
motor?’


‘I’m afraid I can’t stay,’ Bertie said.

‘What – all this way, and not stay?’ Annie cried, in great consternation. ‘Not even one night?’

‘I have to get back,’ Bertie said, apologetically but firmly. If he stayed, they would expect him to share Maud’s room.

‘Oh, it’s a shame. Maud will be so disappointed. This wretched war! Well, if it has to be … Mary, tell Cook that he’s here
for luncheon after all, and to have it ready as soon as possible.’


‘I know, I know,’ the maid grumbled, brushing the rain off Bertie’s coat with irritable movements, ‘and I suppose you’ll want
the sherry sent in right away? Anyone’d think I have five pairs of hands.’


She went away, and Annie, who had started for the sitting-room, turned back and took Bertie’s hand again. ‘Ah, Bertie, it’s
good to see you, and I’m as sorry as I can be about your poor little boy. What a terrible, wicked thing! Those Germans ought
to be made to pay for what they’ve done.’


‘How is Maud?’ Bertie took the opportunity to ask.

‘Poor soul, she’s doing as well as can be expected. Indeed, she’s remarkably cheerful most of the time – but, then, she always
was one to keep her feelings to herself. I think it all came over her last night when your telegram arrived, though – she looked quite shocked and white for a minute. But she’ll
be glad to see you. Come on in the sitting-room, everyone’s there.’


‘Everyone’ consisted of the nineteen-year-old Margaret, tall, curly-haired and bonny; twelve-year-old Phyllis, with large
round glasses and long plaits down to her waist; eight year-old Benedict, who was far too angelic-looking to be other than
a holy terror; an elderly half-sister of Harold’s known as Aunt Sarah, who lived with them permanently; and a Labrador, a
foxhound puppy and two terriers.


And Maud. She stood up as Bertie came in and, through the clamour of greetings, questions and explanations that poured over
and around him, she regarded him in still silence, like a rock in a torrent. He had not seen her since May. She looked different
– thinner and paler, though that might have been simply the contrast with the robust and rosy cousins, and somehow prettier.
She had been a handsome girl and had grown up into a polished, enamelled kind of beauty, but now he found that it seemed to
have softened into a more conventional attractiveness. She was dressing her hair differently, he decided, trying to puzzle
it out; and her clothes were less formal. Instead of one of her severely cut, fashionable costumes she was wearing a lavender
silk blouse and a dark brown tweed skirt. He had never seen her in simple skirt and blouse before. It was as if she had dressed
down for the country, but she never did that – or never had in the past. The looser style suited her. It made him think for
some reason of a tight rosebud unfurling its petals into flower.


She met his eyes quizzically, but though she did not smile, he got the impression of happiness from her – or contentment at
least.


‘Bertie,’ she said, and her voice came to him clearly through the babble. ‘It’s good to see you.’

He stepped across to her, avoiding underfoot dogs, Benedict and Aunt Sarah’s knitting wool, which had rolled off her lap and across the carpet, and when she held out both hands,
he took them and stooped to kiss her. He felt her lips tremble against his cheek, and took the opportunity to whisper into
her ear, ‘I take it you haven’t told them anything?’


‘Of course not,’ she whispered back.

He was glad not to find himself pariah. It made it possible to get through the family gathering, the sherry, and the noisy
luncheon that followed before Annie said, with elephantine tact, ‘Now, Maud, why don’t you take Bertie into the conservatory
to look at the orchids?’ and prevented any of the children from offering to accompany them. As the dining-room door closed
behind them, Bertie heard Phyllis wail, ‘But I wanted to show him the stables. I bet he’d rather see horses than those dull
old orchids!’ and Annie’s reply, ‘They want to talk pr