Read My Dear I Wanted to Tell You for Free Online Page B

Mrs Waveney. I’ve joined up. If you’re lucky, I’ll get killed. Nothing to worry about then, eh?’
    He grinned at her boldly, then turned and sauntered away. That’s done it. If I ever could of, I couldn’t ever now.
    Could have , Riley.
    He posted the letter to his parents as there wasn’t time to get up there.
    *
Dear Nat,
I’ve gone to join in the war. I am taking a Tale of Two Cities with me to put me in the mood for France and fighting but I don’t know if there will be much reading. I’ll write to you again.
With love from your foolish boy
Riley Purefoy
    He didn’t put, when I’m a soldier back from the war I’ll be a proper man, not the type to enjoy the touch of another man after four tots of whisky.
    He didn’t know you weren’t meant to put ‘love’.
    *
Dear Mum and Dad,
I’ve been thinking and I think you are right about art being a bit nancy, so I am joining the army and will be in France soon, Doing my Bit as they say in the papers. I am sorry not to say goodbye but they are sending us off for training (I think I am going to need quite a lot of that) immediately so there’s no time really. Tell the little ’uns they had better be good while I’m gone and I’ll bring you back something nice from France for Christmas, from your very loving son who hopes you’ll be proud of him, yours faithfully, Riley Purefoy
    Now is it ‘faithfully’ or ‘sincerely’? Sir Alfred had told him once – ‘faithfully’ if you’re using the name, ‘sincerely’ if you’re saying ‘Dear Sir’. . . or is it the other way around?
    He couldn’t remember. He put ‘yours faithfully’, because he felt more faithful than sincere.

Chapter Four
    Flanders, October 1914
    ‘Where are we, then?’ Purefoy asked Ainsworth, as they clambered off the train.
    ‘Not a fucking clue, son,’ said Ainsworth. Ainsworth was from Lancashire, not a big man, steady. He was older. He had a wife and kids at home, and if you pressed him, which Purefoy had, once, he’d admit that he’d joined up because it seemed the right thing to do. He didn’t say it in a tough way. He built railway carriages for a living and had been sent to the wrong regiment by clerical error. He didn’t mind. Purefoy liked him. He liked his moustache, his accent, his deep voice, and his imperturbability.
    The existence of Ainsworth in some way made up for the unexpected appearance of Johnno the Thief, or Private Burgess, as he was now called. He had caught Purefoy at once with his playful, knowing eyes, and said: ‘Aye aye. What you running away from, then? Upper classes spat you out again, did they?’ His head was thrust forward, as if everything were done on purpose, by his design.
    Tall trees lined the road. Grey slates clad the rooves of the town. Horses ambled by. All around them soldiers like themselves were assembling, standing about, clunking through the rain, heading east. The Paddingtons took their turn in the formation, waited, smoked, and finally hitched their packs on to the bus to set off over flat ground, past square-built farms round courtyards full of muddy ducks, houses with their long wet thatched rooves sagging down, as it were, to their knees, like the muddy hems of drooping petticoats. ‘I’m tired already,’ remarked Ainsworth, cheerfully. ‘Don’t know how we’re meant to get through a whole war.’
    Several of the men laughed. The sergeant major yelled at them.
    Ainsworth started humming a little tune.
    Then they were there: Pop. Getting off, the boys clanged softly with kit, and stared. Most hadn’t seen the country before. A boy called Bowells pretended to faint at the lush smell of pigs. Narrow-eyed Couch made – as usual – a point of not being surprised. The others had made a game of his professed cynicism. Only a few of them knew it was because he was under age. His devotion to soldiering was exemplary.
    ‘Smells like Ferdinand,’ said Bowells. Ferdinand was from Wiltshire. He’d come up on the train to