Read WC02 - Never Surrender for Free Online Page B

assumed that he had gone off to fight like all the rest. It was an impression his father had done nothing to dispel. It wasn't a lie, not at first, but it had taken root and grown to the point where his silence screamed of falsehood. But what was he to do? Admit the truth and lose the respect of all the Mrs. Parnells in his congregation, just at the time they needed him most?
    Or lose his self-respect, by admitting that every time he looked at his son he was reminded of Jennie and everything he had lost, and acknowledging that, in spite of a lifetime of faith and duty, he still couldn't cope? He'd spent three years in a tunic constantly spattered with blood and he'd survived, yet inside he felt ... a coward. Which is why the word had sprung so easily to his lips and been hurled at his only son.
    "Our young men are like the Apostles," he told them. "Sent out to follow in the footsteps of Our Lord and to cleanse the world from sin. May the Holy Spirit be with them, too."
    A chorus of 'amens' rippled through the congregation. The sun shone through the south windows into the nave, filling the church with warmth and comfort. He hoped it was an omen.
    "And let us take the words of Our Lord as our message today, when he said: "I am going away and I am coming back to you." Coming back to you. Jesus passed through many trials and tribulations, but he came back to us as we pray with all our hearts that our loved ones shall. May the Holy Spirit be with them, to bring them courage in all they do and victory in their task. May the Lord comfort them, keep them in His care and deliver them from evil, fortune is the kingdom, the power and the glory .. ."
    As he offered the sign of the cross and bade his flock to stand for the next hymn, his mind went back to the map on the board. He'd noticed there were no battle fronts or lines of trenches marked on it, not like last time, just the outline of a chunk of northern France and Belgium. But that was understandable, he decided. The Reverend Chichester, like so many others, concluded that the BEF was probably advancing too fast for the cartographers to keep up.
    The morning had burst forth most gloriously, filled with bird-song and with the aroma of fresh spring grass still carried on the breeze. The clouds stood high and like gauze an excellent day for cricket, Don thought, or some other game the Germans were no good at.
    The old brewery in which the 6th had landed turned out to be rancid, full of pigeons and other pestilence. The task of transforming it into a Casualty Clearing Station was Herculean, and to be finished by the end of the day, they were instructed. They set about their labours with hoses and mops, encouraged by both the barks of their NCOs and the strengthening sun, while around them the local inhabitants carried on with their lives as they had always done: the milk was delivered, post collected, the children sent off to school as if war were no more than a distant rumour. And so it seemed. As the day drew on the men in Don's unit began to relax; there had still been no sign of the enemy. Perhaps Hitler had thought better of the whole idea.
    The news was brought to them while they paused for their first brew of the afternoon.
    "Right, then," the sergeant announced. Tack it all up again. We're moving."
    "Where?"
    "Back."
    "But, Sarge, I don't understand, we only just got here .. ."
    "If you had been meant to understand, matey, God would have made you a general instead of a bleedin' nursing orderly. So let's just agree in this instance that the Almighty knows a half-sight more than you and jump to it. We move out. In an hour."
    "We haven't had a single casualty," Don complained, bemused.
    "And you'll be the first, Private, if you don't get off your backside .. ."
    A wasted day. Grand Old Duke of York stuff. Yet Don found consolation. The fresh orders suggested there was an alternative plan. They were moving back towards the defensive positions they'd spent so long constructing. That