Read Online Lord of the Nutcracker Men by Iain Lawrence - Free Book Online
Authors: Iain Lawrence
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“Then I'll lose all hope for the boys of Cliffe,” he said. “I'm too old to struggle anymore. If no one has come forward by Christmas, I shall resign from the school.”
He tucked his bandages round the broken stems, and his voice turned slow and sad. “I should miss the classroom,” he said. “Apart from the garden, it's all I have. But nonetheless, my mind is made up. It's a matter of principles, Johnny.”
I felt rotten inside. But I couldn't possibly admit to what I'd done if it meant staying for a year in Cliffe. I was going home when the war ended; I was going home at Christmas.
“Principles are taking men to the front,” said Mr. Tuttle. “Principles sent Agamemnon marching against Troy. Without his principles a man has nothing; he
is
nothing. Even a dog, after all, has principles.”
At last he turned me free. He squirmed out from under his bushes, and stood with the last tattered bandages dangling from his fist. He told me to go along home, and not to worry about his roses. “If they last the winter, they'll last forever,” he said.
In my hurry to leave, I nearly gave myself away by slipping through the tunnel in his hedge. But I stopped intime, and circled around his wall to reach the footpaths that would take me home.
The sun was setting, the autumn days already short. Darkness settled in the hollows of the path, in the bushes along its sides. An owl hooted at me, then fluttered away like a shadow.
I passed the ruined cottage and came to the cemetery. The barren old trees bowed over the graves like mourners, their tops nodding in a breeze that came from the river, over the marshes. Behind them, on the farmhouse balcony, stood a figure all in black, veils and shawls fluttering in the wind that smelled of mud.
It was Mrs. Sims, in her mourning clothes, and she was looking down at the little graveyard between us. The mounds of leaves banked against the tombstones looked like freshly dug graves. In the shadows and the growing darkness, I thought I saw them moving.
I stood behind a scrag of bushes. Mrs. Sims turned on the balcony, leaning forward with her hands on the railing. It was me she was looking at, trying to pick me out among the branches and bushes.
Then I heard a slithering sound, and the leaves moved again. I gasped with a sudden fright, then laughed when a cat appeared among them, a white-and-orange tabby that stretched and shook itself.
I started walking again, and Mrs. Sims lifted her head. The black clothes swirled around her, and she looked like cold Mr. Death standing up there.
C HAPTER 8
November 18, 1914
Dearest Johnny,
I went over the top last night, and I'm quivering in my boots this morning to think what a narrow escape I had. A lieutenant chose your old dad and two other chaps to launch a little raid against the Hun, the sort of nuisance thing that keeps him on his toes. We smeared our faces with blacking and set off at midnight. Over the parapet we went, one by one, armed with wire cutters and little bombs.
It was the strangest feeling to come out of the trench and start across no-man's-land. What a sense of freedom and of horror! To leave all the lads behind and go alone through the mud—Johnny, I don't know how to tell you. To feel a breeze on my face for the first time in nearly a week—it was indescribably lovely. But the place was dreadful, and so utterly black that it filled me with fear. I think I knew how a bird must feel to leave the nest for the first time, to flutter through air that can't seem to hold him.
All the men that I'd glimpsed each day at dawn and at dusk, those poor souls who seemed to be sleeping, still lay exactly where they'd been when I first arrived at the front. Islithered past them, on toward the wire, and—it's strange to say—they seemed a bit like friends of mine. In their sightless eyes, I felt a comradeship with them. There they lay, with no purpose, it seemed, but to shelter me with their bodies.
A star shell burst. Its
“Then I'll lose all hope for the boys of Cliffe,” he said. “I'm too old to struggle anymore. If no one has come forward by Christmas, I shall resign from the school.”
He tucked his bandages round the broken stems, and his voice turned slow and sad. “I should miss the classroom,” he said. “Apart from the garden, it's all I have. But nonetheless, my mind is made up. It's a matter of principles, Johnny.”
I felt rotten inside. But I couldn't possibly admit to what I'd done if it meant staying for a year in Cliffe. I was going home when the war ended; I was going home at Christmas.
“Principles are taking men to the front,” said Mr. Tuttle. “Principles sent Agamemnon marching against Troy. Without his principles a man has nothing; he
is
nothing. Even a dog, after all, has principles.”
At last he turned me free. He squirmed out from under his bushes, and stood with the last tattered bandages dangling from his fist. He told me to go along home, and not to worry about his roses. “If they last the winter, they'll last forever,” he said.
In my hurry to leave, I nearly gave myself away by slipping through the tunnel in his hedge. But I stopped intime, and circled around his wall to reach the footpaths that would take me home.
The sun was setting, the autumn days already short. Darkness settled in the hollows of the path, in the bushes along its sides. An owl hooted at me, then fluttered away like a shadow.
I passed the ruined cottage and came to the cemetery. The barren old trees bowed over the graves like mourners, their tops nodding in a breeze that came from the river, over the marshes. Behind them, on the farmhouse balcony, stood a figure all in black, veils and shawls fluttering in the wind that smelled of mud.
It was Mrs. Sims, in her mourning clothes, and she was looking down at the little graveyard between us. The mounds of leaves banked against the tombstones looked like freshly dug graves. In the shadows and the growing darkness, I thought I saw them moving.
I stood behind a scrag of bushes. Mrs. Sims turned on the balcony, leaning forward with her hands on the railing. It was me she was looking at, trying to pick me out among the branches and bushes.
Then I heard a slithering sound, and the leaves moved again. I gasped with a sudden fright, then laughed when a cat appeared among them, a white-and-orange tabby that stretched and shook itself.
I started walking again, and Mrs. Sims lifted her head. The black clothes swirled around her, and she looked like cold Mr. Death standing up there.
C HAPTER 8
November 18, 1914
Dearest Johnny,
I went over the top last night, and I'm quivering in my boots this morning to think what a narrow escape I had. A lieutenant chose your old dad and two other chaps to launch a little raid against the Hun, the sort of nuisance thing that keeps him on his toes. We smeared our faces with blacking and set off at midnight. Over the parapet we went, one by one, armed with wire cutters and little bombs.
It was the strangest feeling to come out of the trench and start across no-man's-land. What a sense of freedom and of horror! To leave all the lads behind and go alone through the mud—Johnny, I don't know how to tell you. To feel a breeze on my face for the first time in nearly a week—it was indescribably lovely. But the place was dreadful, and so utterly black that it filled me with fear. I think I knew how a bird must feel to leave the nest for the first time, to flutter through air that can't seem to hold him.
All the men that I'd glimpsed each day at dawn and at dusk, those poor souls who seemed to be sleeping, still lay exactly where they'd been when I first arrived at the front. Islithered past them, on toward the wire, and—it's strange to say—they seemed a bit like friends of mine. In their sightless eyes, I felt a comradeship with them. There they lay, with no purpose, it seemed, but to shelter me with their bodies.
A star shell burst. Its
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