“The Laceys received conflicting stories about how Matt was killed. Jack thinks he went over the top, was killed by a machine gun, but his body could not be recovered immediately. If it was lying out there in No Man’s Land, it probably was hit by artillery shells and blown to bits. This created all kinds of problems for his mother because she got it in her head that Matt had been taken prisoner. But when the Laceys got a letter from the Red Cross, saying they had eyewitness accounts that Matt had in fact been killed, Lady Lacey went into such a deep depression that Sir Edward talked her into going to a sanitarium for a rest. Jack’s positive Reed’s depression was inherited from his mother.
“Tom Crowell died on July 1, 1916, and is buried at the Heilly Station British Cemetery. He was one of 20,000 killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. They went over the top and were mowed down by machine guns. Jack said very little about his brother. He was able to talk about Beth’s brothers, but when it came to Tom, he just couldn’t do it.
“As for Jack, when the war first broke out, so many men signed up that there was a shortage of skilled workmen. They had to cull the ranks for coal miners, steel workers, engineers, and other highly skilled workers. When Jack went before the registration board, they told him to stay in school because there would be a need for more engineers and mechanics down the line. At The Tech, he and the other engineering students had to practice digging frontline trenches, and the officials invited civilians to go through them so they could get the feel for what ‘the boys’ were experiencing in France and Belgium, which, of course, was total b.s. because the Tommies were living in filth with rats running everywhere because there was so much death. In January 1916, Jack was called up, and after he had finished his basic training, they got married, and Beth’s parents never found out. When Jack went home on leave in 1919, Beth told her mother she was going to marry Jack, and Lady Lacey didn’t object. Jack and his brother used to call her the dragon lady, but with all that happened during the war, the fire had gone out of her. Another reason why Lady Lacey didn’t pitch a fit was because so many of the men who would have been Beth’s suitors had been killed. Those guys tended to go into the Army as line officers, and their casualty rate was disproportionately high. It was Jack’s father who had fits.
“This is what Jack told me. ‘You have to keep in mind that my father referred to the Laceys as ‘our betters.’ Servants were downstairs; our betters were upstairs. My father was an intelligent, capable man, but that was his view of the world until the day he died. My mother and Beth had a good relationship, but until the very end of his life, my father just could not relax around Beth. He never addressed her by her name because he didn’t know what to call her.’
“Jack and Beth were married at the church in Crofton like it was the first time, but Jack wasn’t home for good yet. In France, he was assigned to a Graves Consolidation team. They had to disinter bodies that were scattered all over Northern France and rebury them in these large military cemeteries. If possible, the consolidation team marked the grave for the graves registration team, but a lot of them ended up with headstones that said ‘Known Unto God,’ including, possibly, Matt Lacey. It was worse than any job he had during the war. He said, ‘When you’re in war, you know shit’s coming down the pike, and you’re prepared for it. But once the guns go silent, you come out of that hard shell that’s been protecting you. I had terrible nightmares the whole time I was assigned to Graves Consolidation.’
“To be closer to Jack, Beth worked in a French hospital. She spoke French like a native, and they needed all the nurses they could get since the French took even more casualties than the British. After the war, Jack went on to receive his master’s degree in engineering, and in the early ’20s, he took a job in India building railroad bridges. He was very complimentary about Beth and how she adapted to wherever they were living, especially considering how she was brought up at Montclair. Everything Jack told me was voluntary,” Rob said. “I asked him questions about his career, but anything personal, he told me without me asking.”
“Did he say anything about the younger brother after the father took him out of school?”
“Yes. Reed was an orderly in a medical unit in Boulogne where the wounded waited for ships back to England. Jack took a belt of scotch and went quiet before finally saying, ‘When the Germans broke through our lines in the spring of 1918 near Amiens, every man who could hold a rifle was thrown into the fight, including me and including Reed. We held the line until reinforcements arrived from England, but it was over for the boy. They sent him home to a hospital called Craiglockhart near Edinburgh where he was treated for shell shock.’ Jack couldn’t continue, so we changed the subject.”
After thinking about all Jack had told him, Rob said, “Everyone has their breaking point. The difference is most guys recover over time, but it seems that after Reed went to the front, his mind snapped, and he never came out of it.”
Chapter 18
I arrived home from work one evening to find my landlady waiting for me inside the front door, and in a voice that clearly showed her disapproval, Mrs. Dawkins informed me that I had a “gentleman caller.”
I was carrying a brown bag full of Spam, Lorna Doone cookies, and Wonder Bread for the family. On payday, I tried to bring home something that was either unavailable or in short supply. For the first time in its history, including wartime, Great Britain had found it necessary to ration white flour. After Mrs. Dawkins saw what was in the bag, her attitude softened.
“I’ll get a pot of tea going, and I’ll bring you in some biscuits. Go see what your visitor wants.”
When I opened the sliding door to the family room, I immediately recognized my gentleman caller, even though I had never met him before.
“Maggie, I’m James Crowell.” Handing me a large manila envelope, he said, “My mother wanted you to have this, and I decided to hand deliver it. After hearing all about you over the Easter holiday, I thought I should at least introduce myself since we both live in London.”
Other than James Crowell being a couple of inches taller than his father, he looked so much like him that I felt as if I was seeing Jack when he was in his twenties.
“Do you have time to stay for tea? My landlady has a pot brewing.”
“That would be wonderful. My wife and daughter stayed behind with my parents for another week, and I don’t like going home to an empty flat.”
Carrying a tray with a teapot and Lorna Doones, Mrs. Dawkins gestured for us to go across the hall to the front parlor. I was being admitted into the holy of holies, and without Rob. After setting the tray down, she offered to “pour out.” I was finding this whole scene to be rather funny. It was obvious Mrs. Dawkins was trying to get an idea about who James was and whether Rob had some competition.
“The boys will want to listen to their shows on the wireless, so you can visit in here.” Standing behind James, Mrs. Dawkins pointed to her ring finger and then to James, who was wearing a wedding band. I gave her a nod to let her know that James wasn’t going to be able to put anything over on me.
“I am so glad to finally get to meet you,” I told James. “I’ve heard so many stories about you and your beautiful wife, and I spent a lovely afternoon with Julia.”
James talked for a few minutes about his daughter and how she had started crawling and was getting into everything before the conversation finally worked its way around to a discussion of his childhood in India.