AN- Apologies for the delay.. If you're still reading then I think maybe it's best if you re-read at least the last chapter so you remember what's going on! Sorry.
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1916
Luke, Jimmy and Tommy are talking in low voices as make my way down the trench towards them.
"Is it true?" Luke asks as I approach.
I nod and sit down heavily. Jimmy groans and rubs his hand across his face.
"Two days before we go over the top again." I say softly. "That's if the grenades don't get us first."
We've been bombarded heavily these past four days, at a huge loss of men. From what I heard today, there's no plan to replace those we've lost before the next attack.
"I suppose because we've lost so many men to grenades, the obvious answer is to send the few of us that's left to fight them. Why not finish us all off." Jimmy mutters bitterly.
"We've got a new officer." I add, sharing the information I've just been given. "The last attack went so badly that the other fella has been moved on somewhere else."
"Who is it?" Jimmy asks slowly, obviously thinking of Pige and how bad the last attack really was.
"Don't know." I shrug, grabbing a stale biscuit from the pack they'd just been sharing. "He hasn't arrived yet, but he can't be worse than the last one."
"They're all as bad as each other." Luke spits. "More than happy to send us to our deaths while they sit there in their comfy tents and order us around like pawns on a chessboard."
Jimmy leans in and begins to talk to Luke lowly. I stare down at the small, inadequate fire before I realise Tommy is leaning towards me.
"Harry?" Unless he's talking to Jim, he always sounds nervous. "Can you help me write a letter home?"
"Of course." I smile softly.
Tommy is from an extremely poor background and can't do much more than clumsily scrape the letter T to sign his letters off.
"I just want to write to my Ma." His mouth twitches downwards.
"No problem." I smile, holding a damp sheet of paper to the tiny fire to dry it slightly.
"Can I have some?" Tommy asks gesturing towards the paper.
I hand a sheet dry sheet towards him and watch and his cold red fingers numbly grip the pen. At first his fingers are stiff and it takes a while before they shape themselves around the pen and his hand moves quicker.
In the past few weeks since he joined our odd little gang, we've discovered that our little Tommy may not be able to read or write, but he has an unusual talent for art.
He can use anything, the cheap pencils we are expected to use, even a snap of charcoal and he can create something beautiful with it.
Luke commissioned him to do a sketch of a naked woman to hang in the dug out where we sleep. It increased Tommys popularity amongst the other soldiers no end.
Jimmy stole him a fountain pen from the officers tent and this was greeted with the usual adoration from Tommy.
I'm broken from the spell of watching Tommy draw by a loud roaring laugh from Jimmy. Tommy's mouth tilts upwards at the sound.
Jimmy, surrounded by flares and mud is laughing heartily at whatever Luke has just said and it strikes me that although Jimmy is sensitive, he is incapable of being unhappy. He could adapt to anything. It's not natural to him and whatever situation he is in; he has to find the positivity in it. Perhaps this is why we friends. We are so opposite that perhaps we need each other to counterbalance.
"Come on." Luke grins cheekily round at us. "Let's go see if there's a card game. I'm on watch later, might as well stay awake all night."
"What are you drawing Tom?" Jimmy smiles and leans towards him, his huge body pressing against Tommy's slight one. Luke leans forward and grabs the picture, holding it up to the small light.
"Bloody hell you're talented kid." He smiles affectionately. "Why have you drawn Jim more clearly than the rest of us? Do you fancy him or something?" He grins devilishly.
"Leave the kid alone." Jimmy laughs, ruffling Tommys hair. "Reckon you're jealous of my little mates skill."
"It's not finished." Tommy jumps up and grabs the paper awkwardly.
I notice the dull flush of his cheeks and the reddening tips of his ears.
Something is forming in my head. It has been for a long while now, but I don't have the words for it.
"Come on." Jimmy's huge frame dwarfs Luke's thin one against the light of the fire.
"I'll catch up with you later." I say softly. Tommy who still has scarlet crawling up his cheeks, mutters that he wants to write home to his Ma. He glances at me nervously before turning his attention back to his picture.
It's growing dark so, unwillingly, I extinguish our small fire. It's awful to be cold, far more awful to give enemy guns a clear target in the dark.
I sit quietly, my eyes flicking to Tommy's thin face and wild tufts of hair in the occasional light of the flares. Although it's too dark for him to draw, his eyes remain fixed down at his picture. There's an oddly guilty expression on his face.
Finally the flares stop. Further down the trench gunfire starts but we don't move. We sit there the in silence and the dark.
I'm thinking of something I'd almost entirely forgotten.
When I was about 14 or 15, a rumour reached the manor. It a was scandal, spoken of in only hushed terms. Usually the new cook considered herself above the rest of us but this was so scandalous, so juicy, that there was no one else she could discuss it with but the rest of the servants.
Two men, a few villages away, were living together as man and wife.
I remember my utter confusion at this. I thought about it for long hours and decided I didn't believe it. It played on my mind until one afternoon I finally mentioned it to Evie whilst we were fishing.
She had laughed and told me perhaps I should look to Oscar Wilde, my favourite author at the time. I still didn't understand and Evie explained what little she knew further, although she seemed to know barely more than me.
I remember asking her, awkwardly, how a man could know another man in that way. This was what I didn't understand. I understood, though hadn't experienced, how a man and women laid together. I didn't understand how it could not be so.
Evie shrugged. Evidently she didn't know either, but she merely said;
"I don't know either. Does it matter? Love is love Harry. Who are we too tell who should love whom? Is love not the most pure thing in the world, no matter who it is between?"
These thoughts swam through my head as I looked at little Tommy, nervously glancing at me in the light of flares.
I have never been a religious man, but neither have I considered anything different to the world as I knew it. Beyond that one story, I've never thought deeper on it.
"Harry." Tommy's voice came from the darkness at barely a scratch.
"Yes?"
There was a long pause.
"I'm bad aren't I? I'm wrong."
Tommy's voice caught over the words.
"No." I said quietly.
"You know my secret don't you?" He whispered in agony. "You're so quiet. You're always just quiet and watching... You're so different to everyone else, you're not like Luke. You see everything but you never talk."
"Tommy..." I trailed off. I didn't understand so I couldn't think what to say. In my pocket was a small bottle of whiskey Luke had procured for me and pulled it out, taking a long swig before handing it to Tom, taking his half smoked cigarette in return.
We passed the drink between us for a while before I spoke again.
"I'm fond of you Tommy. I don't understand how you feel, but I'm not saying it's wrong. Who am I to judge you? I've never been perfect. I've killed men, watched men die. I've let love slip through my fingers." I pause, inhaling on the cigarette.
"Even before I came here, there was a man I would gladly of killed with my own bare hands. Tell me, how can I say you are wrong when all you've ever felt is love? I may not understand it but it seems to me that love is love. And I'd rather a thousand men loved one another than watch another thousand men kill one another as I already have. I don't understand, but give me love over hate any day Tommy."
I hear Tommys soft breathing in the darkness between us.
"You should know, Jimmy isn't.. He doesn't... Well. He loves his Ellen and I daresay he wouldn't understand this-"
"I know." Tommy utters softly, terrified.
"You must never make it obvious to anyone Tom." I say harshly. "But if it's unrequited love you feel I understand. Trust me I understand that."
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AN- Sorry for so long without updating.
Just a couple of things, firstly, I wrote this last night but oddly enough, today the British government released Turings bill. Alan Turing worked for the British government and saved literally millions (no exaggeration) of lives as a code breaker but was shamed, prosecuted and ruined for being homosexual.
Today is a landmark day over here; Turings Bill was passed with pardoned all those (and there we so very many) who were disgraced and prosecuted during the wars for being gay. So sad that it's taken 100 years but a it's good, long campaigned for day for Britain today and an odd coincidence for my story!
Also, my own hero, the person I love most in history and am obsessed with, Oscar Wilde, was included in Turings Bill and pardoned.
Far, far too late, his conviction destroyed him and robbed us of enjoying more of his beautiful talent. As a Wilde obsessive it's very bittersweet.
But what a wonderful day for Britain.
My gran, an Irish Catholic in the 50s had to ask her husband what a homosexual was as she didn't understand it and even after he'd explained.
She honestly though he was teasing her and didn't believe it was real as nothing in her life in a small town had given her meaning to comprehend.
Now she fully supports LBGT rights, but there was a time she couldn't comprehend it at all and hadn't even heard of it. Harry isn't supposed to be stupid or ignorant, he just genuinely would not have been exposed to gay relationships as they had to be hidden for so many years.
We've come a long way 💛💙💚💜❤️
Eek sorry for the super long authors note! ❤️❤️