Chapter 1
Edmund Fitzhugh plunged through sea of people in Lime Street train station, buffeted on all sides by the sharp elbows of strangers. As quickly as he could, he slipped out of the crowd up against a wall and looked up at a large blackboard that had train arrivals and departures written on it in white chalk. Lime Street station was a large glass and steel construction, though not as big as Penn Station in New York where he had been two weeks ago. Lime Street had that same airy feeling inside of it, which made Edmund’s ears feel hollow. The air was a raw mixture of oil and cement and old clothes. He looked at a large clock sitting on top of a post. The next train for London was in fifteen minutes. Nothing for Halton. He looked down from the board and surveyed the giant open and crowded lobby until he spotted the ticket windows. An old man wearing a leather visor sat behind the bars squinting at something in a small black book. His hair was wispy and white and stuck out of his head in several directions at once.
Edmund walked across the marble floor and approached the window. The man didn’t look up. Edmund cleared his throat. “Hi, yes. I need to get to Halton,” he said. The man lifted his head from his book and surveyed Edmund for a second.
“There aren’t any trains going to Halton.” The man stared at Edmund over his glasses.
Edmund looked back at him and felt a knot growing in his stomach. “Well, can I get a ticket to somewhere near Halton?”
The man continued to eye him. “You a Yank?”
“Yes, I am.” Edmund nodded.
The man continued to look at him. Then he continued. “Well you’ll have to take the 11:45 to London. It stops once at Aylesbury, and, let me see…” The man pulled out a large printed placard and followed his finger halfway down the sheet. “Ah, yes. That one stops at Wendover, which is closer. You’ll have to find your way from there though. It’s a couple of miles walk.”
“That’ll be fine.” Edmund said, relieved. “I’ll take one ticket.”
The man looked at him over his glasses again. “One ticket, what?”
There was a pause and Edmund felt he had done something wrong. “For that train…Please.”
“One ticket, thank you.” The man corrected him. He emphasized the words, thank you. “Don’t you Americans have any bloody manners?”
“Sorry.” Edmund said.
“That will be two pounds forty.”
Edmund pulled out the folded over notes in his pocket, and held out three of them to the wispy-haired man, who sighed heavily but efficiently before taking them. The man handed Edmund back some coins along with a ticket.
“Make sure you give this to the ticket taker when he comes by. Otherwise they will throw you off the train.”
“Thanks,” Edmund said, and took his ticket and turned around and tried to figure out where he was supposed to go. He turned back around. “Where…”
“To the right, through the gate onto Platform Three. And good luck. I think you’ll need it,” the man said loudly.
His face reddened as he felt the people in the next line looking at him, and he turned and walked through the gate to the side of the ticket booths. He read the black metal numbers overhead until he found the right platform. The train was already sitting in the station, hissing and belching steam. Edmund found a conductor and asked, “Is this the train to London? Stops in Wendover?” Edmund thought he should say ‘thank you’ at this point, but it just didn’t seem to fit.
“Yes, sir. Leaving in ten minutes.”
Edmund walked toward the rear of the train until he found a car near the back. He stepped up into the open door and turned down the corridor, waddling with his suitcase out in front of him until he found an empty compartment. He tried to pull the door open, but it wouldn’t move. A man walked up behind him and stood, unable to get past. Edmund tried the door again, but it still wouldn’t budge.
“Pull the latch,” the man said impatiently.
Edmund looked hard, and then, seeing the small finger latch for the first time, he squeezed it backward and the door slipped open with a bang. “Thanks. Sorry,” he said to the man who just snorted as he bustled down the corridor. The small berth had bench seats facing each other which were covered in dark red diamond-patterned fabric. There was a single grimy window that looked back out onto the platform. Edmund lifted his suitcase into one of the luggage racks that were perched over the seats and sat down facing the front of the train. The compartment was stuffy. He looked out the window and watched people beginning to walk quickly towards the train. The conductor was consulting a pocket watch.
“All aboard!” the conductor shouted. After a moment, the engine made a loud hiss, issued two short bursts from a whistle, and the train lurched forward. Edmund was praying that nobody else would come in. Quickly, the train pulled free of the platform and station with its soaring glass and iron ceiling, and out into the train yard with a multitude of tracks and sections of train cars on sidings. It all looked greasy and dirty. The train yard gave way to the hobnail areas that surrounded Liverpool; row after row of houses, all looking grimy and dark. Children played in the streets, but he only got fleeting glances at them as the train picked up speed. Suddenly, the door to his compartment banged open. A white-haired man in a black coat was holding it.
“Here we are, my dear,” the man said, looking back down the corridor. A gaunt woman, also in black, came through the doorway. The man stepped in behind her, and slid the door closed. He looked at Edmund. “Don’t mind if we share, do you?” Edmund looked back over and smiled and nodded.
“Thought we were going to have to move on to another car,” the woman said. “This train is mostly full.” Edmund nodded and smiled again and then turned back to the window. The rowhouses changed to single houses with yards in between, and then gardens, and then fields. Soon it was mostly open spaces dotted with ancient-looking farmsteads. The fields were all neatly squared off with hedgerows and stone walls. The man and woman, who looked to be about the age of Edmund’s parents, were sitting next to each other in the opposite corner of the compartment talking quietly.
After a few minutes, Edmund reached into the breast pocket of his coat and pulled out a small bundle of papers, letters mostly, tied with a blue ribbon. The first item was a small photographic portrait of a young woman. Penny Tate. His Penny. She was smiling and looking down at a bouquet of flowers held in her lap. With his finger he gently touched her forehead, tracing the line of her wavy hair down the side of her face.
Edmund laid the bundle, with Penny facing him, against his chest. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. In a few moments, the loud clacking and rumbling of the train faded away, and he was standing once again next to Penny under the stars. Both were wearing long coats and gloves, and he could see the white clouds of her breath mingle with his in the damp cold. Lights from the windows of Penny’s house cast long golden rectangles onto the dark grass, and he could hear the din of the Christmas party suddenly snap quiet as Penny shut the door behind them.
Edmund and Penny walked across the yard and through the white picket gate which glowed against the dark trees beyond. They stepped down onto a gravel path.
“Our boat house and dock are here. Father keeps a motorboat to go out on the river, and sometimes out into the Bay, but only when it is calm. It is a Hutchinson, which is supposed to be nice.” Penny said this last statement as a question. “Maybe when it gets warmer, father can take all of us out in it.” She paused and glanced quickly up at Edmund. The moonlight glinted off her eyes. “Would you like to see it?”
“Sure,” he said, watching Penny step up onto the dock and walk out to the door to the boathouse that sat on the left. Edmund followed, taking his eyes off of Penny and looking out at the water. The full moon was reflected brightly in a shimmering path of light on the river that flowed east into the Chesapeake Bay. An electric bulb in a small cage hung off a post at the end of the dock.
“Let me find the light.” Penny stepped into the boathouse and after a moment, yellow incandescent light spilled out of the doorway and out of a window. Everything else around him now seemed darker. He stepped forward into the light. “Daddy keeps it covered to protect the finish. Birds nest in here sometimes.” Penny leaned out over the edge of the floor of the boathouse, and as she held on to the side of the boat, it swayed gently. Water lapped the pilings beneath them. He watched Penny’s outstretched body leaning forward. The tarp covering the boat was caught on the bow, and Penny was having trouble pulling it off. As she tugged harder, the boat began to push away from her and she leaned more precariously over the side. Edmund reached out his hand and grabbed the side rail of the boat through the tarp and steadied it and pulled it back towards them slightly.
“Here, let me help you.” Edmund said and stepping closer to Penny, he lifted the tarp from underneath, brushing against Penny’s side as he did. She took a half-step back away from him, and he flipped the tarp free and uncovered the front of the boat.
“That did it!” Penny stepped forward and ran her gloved hand over the glossy smooth mahogany. Edmund did the same. “Isn’t it beautiful?” She pulled back the cover a little more to show the seats and the brass trim and the mahogany steering wheel. “Daddy sold the sailboat last year and got this one. It can go really fast, it feels like you are flying over the water when it hits on all sixes. But it can really knock you on your backside when the water is a little choppy.” Penny looked down, suddenly embarrassed after she said this. After a moment, she added, “Last summer we hit the wake of another boat crossways, and my brother fell right over the side.” Edmund laughed, and Penny looked up at him, holding his eye for a moment. Penny’s gaze turned back toward the boat, and she rubbed her hand on it slightly. Edmund was looking at Penny’s face, and he thought she could feel him staring. She looked up at him again and neither said a word for a long moment. Then Penny dropped her eyes and smiled.
A loud whistle split the boathouse, and Edmund awoke with a jerk. Penny’s face vanished. The bundle of letters fell onto the floor of the compartment. He looked around for a moment and remembered where he was and quickly leaned down and picked up the bundle and put it back in his coat.
The man sitting across from him was looking at him closely. “Back from the Front?”
It took Edmund an awkward moment to answer. “Going to it, actually.”
“You’re an American,” The man stated.
“Yes, I am.”
“The United States is not in the War. What are you doing?”
Edmund paused for a moment. He had not had to explain himself to anyone yet. “I’m getting off at Wendover to meet a pilot at Halton and then heading over to France.” The words felt strange to him. That was truly the extent of what Edmund knew.
“Oh, you are one of the American pilots.” The man said. Edmund thought briefly about correcting him. He was a mechanic, not a pilot. But the man quickly continued. “At least some of you are involved. You know,” the man leaned forward as if to say something in confidence, “the war is going badly.”
“That is what I understand.”
“So when is America coming to help?”
Edmund paused again. “I don’t know.” He realized how little attention he had actually paid to the war when he was home.
“Our son,” the man began, the woman looked away, “was killed early on, at the Marne.”
“I’m sorry.” There was another awkward moment. Edmund didn’t know what else to say. But the man was not looking at him anymore.
“Yes, well. Went out doing his duty though. Went over the top. Never came back.” The man was looking at the floor, and the woman’s eyes began to water. “And that’s that,” he said, and looked out of the window. Edmund was not sure if he should say anything more, so he turned and looked out of the window also, and the three of them rode on in silence. He imagined that their son was roughly his own age.
“Tickets please.” The door of the compartment banged open and a uniformed older man stood in the threshold. The man sitting opposite Edmund held out two tickets and the conductor lined them up together and punched a hole through both. He handed the tickets back and held his hand out to Edmund without really looking at him. Edmund quickly reached in his coat pocket and pulled out everything in it. He sorted through until he found the ticket and handed it to the man, who punched it and handed it back.
After a long while, the man leaned over and said to Edmund, “Wendover is coming up. Next stop.”
Edmund looked quickly out of the window, then turned back to the man. “Thanks,” he said. He half stood and pulled his suitcase down from the luggage rack and placed it on the seat next to him. His stomach lurched uncertainly as he stood and twisted. He sat and looked out of the window again. The landscape was still mostly farmland, with occasional modest stone houses scattered here and there. The train slowed, and Edmund looked through the window in the compartment doorway and the windows on the other side of the narrow corridor. The train crawled to a stop. A large white sign with black lettering read “Wendover.”
Edmund stood and looked at the man and woman opposite him. They were looking at him. “It was nice meeting you.” There was a pause. “I’m sorry about your son.”
The man quickly looked down, “Yes, well…” After a pause, he looked up at Edmund, “You watch after yourself.” He turned and looked out of the window. The woman continued to look into her lap.
“I will.” Edmund turned, unlatched and slid the door open, and made his way down the corridor and out of the train.
Quill Pen Scratchings 