Billy Boy by Liam Foxx - HTML preview

Epilogue

I awoke and the light hurt my eyes the fog had gone and it was morning the young soldier Billy Lamb who had told me his story was gone as were the other people who had been stood on the station. The last thing I remember was Billy Boy finishing his story and then the shape of a train pulling up at the platform ghostly in the fog, then all of a sudden the station master was there. Then the band of pain squeezed my head and I’m sure I heard Billy Boy say. “Goodbye Johnny my story is important and must be told you are important to me don’t forget”, and the words trailed off. The pain was so bad now that I could no longer see and seconds later I must have passed out and I awoke damp and cold with no one about. I stood up but my legs were a bit shaky to say the least I looked at the station and could see that it had not been used for years the building was dilapidated and there were no railway lines just grass and overgrown brambles. I walked back into the ticket hall and saw the holes in the roof the advertising signs on the walls were rusted and covered in green growth and most of the brown and green tiles were missing. I walked towards the front doors which hung off their hinges at different angles and then outside to where my car was still parked taking in the village of Heskett as I did so. I noted that the village was in the same state of repair as the station and it must have been abandoned some time ago why I have no idea maybe the railway link was closed in the 60s by Beecham and the hamlet just faded away with no easy way to get to the major towns and cities. I was still in a state of shock by what had happened but I walked the village street looking at the ruins that used to be houses and cottages and thinking no wonder I couldn’t get any help last night. I turned around and went back to the car like the station this was a ghost village where no one liver any more I knew that I must get somewhere and try to make sense of what had happened.

I opened the car and climbed in putting the key in the ignition and turning it the engine turned over and roared into life I put it into gear and doing a quick turn drove out of Heskett and listened as my sat-nav now started to talk to me again. As I drove along and got onto a B road heading towards Blackburn or so I hoped I thought about the extraordinary story of young William Lamb. I knew that it was something that I had to put into print so that people would know just what he had been through I knew hardly anything about the First World War but I would find out when I had finished the travel articles. Then with the money from these to sustain me for a while I would sit down and write the story I had been told and try to check up on William Lamb. But then I thought it was pretty strange that I could remember every bit of the story but I couldn’t remember what happened after the lad had finished telling me the story. How I managed to drive on to my first place of call without having an accident was beyond me I just could not work out what happened, sure people see ghosts but not people like me. Then there was the whole station thing was it some kind of stopping point for lost spirits or was it something else and who or what was the station master it was driving me round the bend. But I knew that I hadn’t ended up in Heskett by mistake that something had caused me to end up there and at that time in particular so I could met the young soldier but it was also something I couldn’t tell anyone. I mean who would believe that I had been lured yes that was the word lured to the village and the station and given an insight into a long gone world it had to be the soldier or some higher being working for his benefit.

In the end I finished the articles and started my research into the First World War before I started to write Billy Boy’s story and what I found both thrilled and amazed me. During my research I managed to find out that William Lamb had signed up under age and had indeed served on Gallipoli and in France. But it was after I checked into his fiancé Helen that the really jaw dropping part of this whole story came home to roost and the most fantastic part of this was that the same Helen that Billy Boy loved was my great grandma. I researched amongst records and other institutions and found out that after Billy Boy had died Helen had big falling out with her mother and came south to London. She never married but had a little girl called Wendy who turned out to be my grandmother it was after this that I looked at some old letters and photos that my mother had been given to me in a box when I was orphaned. There were letters form my mother to my father but more than this there were some letters from my great grandmother Helen to her daughter Wendy I sat down and read these. They had on the envelopes to be opened after Helen’s death I took the first one out and started to read it Helen had written it as a story like Billy Boys. How she had fell madly in love when still quite young and that the boy who loved her was also very young and how they had consummated that love and Wendy was a symbol of it. That her father had never known her being killed in the Great War before her mother and he could be married and how she had fallen out with her own mother because of a letter that had been written to William for that was Wendy’s fathers name. Helen had moved south with little Wendy and for social reasons had told people that she was a widow which I suppose to all intents and purposes was true. She had never forgiven her own mother for what she had wrote to her fiancé and had never returned north although her father who was relatively well off had settled a trust on her.

I had to look at the letter again everything that Billy Boy or should I say my great grandfather had told me on that station platform was true rite down to the letter he had received from Grandma Helen’s mother. I read on as she described that Wendy’s father William had been shot for cowardice in the war but that he was never guilty of this and that someday it would be proven, and Helen would be able to rest with him for all eternity. She went on to say that it was this that had caused the rift with her mother well this and the fact that her mother had been intercepting letters from William and not posting hers to him in the hope that they would forget each other. But she told Wendy that she would never have forgot William nor he her they loved each other so deeply that when she found out what had happened she thought that she was going to die. If it hadn’t been for Wendy she would probably have killed herself so great was her loss and the circumstances of it but their love was the reason that she never married for there would never be another one like that. When she had found out that she was pregnant she had gone to her mother for help and it had been agreed that she would go away and have the baby. People were told that she had Tuberculosis and that she had been removed to a sanatorium to get well and this was how her mother had managed to control the mail between her and William. She had managed though to find out what happened as a fiend of Williams a S/Sgt George Drew had brought her his last letter and his locket, ring and cigarette case which she now passed on to Wendy. After reading what William had said she confronted her mother who didn’t deny it so Helen left straight away for London taking her child with her.  

Here she had managed quite will with the trust her father had set up and money she had been left from her best friend Rosie Moffat. She had worked as a nurse and brought up Wendy people thinking that she was a war widow and never asking any more questions. She exhorted Wendy and her grandchild never to think badly of William because like she had said he was no coward in fact if anything he was a hero who had been promoted on the battlefield for bravery. It was only the General’s looking for scapegoats to the carnage of the Somme that had led to William’s trial and this was nothing more than a mockery. I looked at the letter in my hand and a shiver went through me again reading my great grandmother’s writings I could look on her with the same affection as Billy Boy had done. I put the letter to one side and picked up the other one that was there it was quite grubby and worn now with being handled frequently but this was the letter that Billy Boy had written and given to George Drew to give to Helen. I knew what it contained so I put this to one side as well and looked in the box I took out a silver cigarette case and opened it sniffing the inside which still smelled of long gone tobacco. Then I took out a single gold band and knew this was the ring that Helen had sent to Billy Boy to pledge their love for one another and tears began to form in my eyes. I then came to a locket which I opened seeing inside it a lock of midnight black hair and a photo of an absolutely stunning young woman who I knew was my great grandmother Helen. Studying the photo I realised why Billy Boy had loved her so much she really was beautiful and had strength to her jaw that shone out and radiated strength I also realised why that bastard Tommy Smith didn’t want to let her go.

I picked up another letter this one felt quite stiff and when I looked inside there were some photo’s  I put these to one side for the moment and opened the letter which bore a coat of arms at the top. I started to read it and realised that it was from the Countess Yvette and that she had written it and given it to George Drew to be passed on to Helen it told all about the village giving a place for Billy Boy’s burial in the cemetery there. The countess told how she had befriended Billy Boy in his last days but I already knew all this and so I skipped ahead and read the invitation that she had sent to Helen saying that anytime she wanted to visit the grave she would stay at the Château as a guest of the countess. She also said that she had included some photos that she had taken to familiarise Helen with the village and also Billy Boys grave and that she hoped that she liked the spot they had picked for his last resting place. I put the letter down and picked u the old photos the first one I held up showed a very austere woman dressed in black but you could see that she was every inch an aristocrat by her face and jaw line her eyes also looked quite piercing even on an old photo. I had no doubt that this was the Countess Yvette I put the photo down and looked at the next one that showed the Château of Saint-Marianne-Angléy where Billy Boy had been executed. I went on to the next photo that showed a lone grave near either an oak or beech tree with a simple wooden cross at its head which bore a plaque but I could not read it no matter how hard I tried. I put everything back and set about my task of writing my great grandfather’s story telling it exactly how he had told me and when it was finished I knew that it was good. I presented it to a publisher who snapped it up and I made the best sellers list taking the number one spot but I was fully involved and committed to right the wrongs of that long ago war. But before I took up the gauntlet on behalf of my great grandfather and men and boys like him who were shot for very little reason I knew that there was a personal pilgrimage that I had to make and so I set off.

The sun shone brightly as I strode through the village street of Saint-Marianne-Angléy breathing in the smell of the new morning air and scented flowers that danced on it. I had stopped the night with the Count whose name was Francoise at the Château Saint-Marianne-Angléy the Count had offered to take me to my grandfathers grave but I think he realised that this was a trip I had to make alone so he gave me directions. I walked out of the village and up the hill I could see the gates of the cemetery coming into view and I walked up to them entering into a well tended graveyard. I could see the big oak at the top of the cemetery standing like a sentinel and I made my way through the other graves to it. As I got up to it I saw that it had changed from the photo the wooden cross had gone and the heap of soil was now an edged in bed of very white marble chippings which held a vase of freshly cut flowers. In place of the wooden cross there was now a marble angel with a plaque at the base on which was inscribed ‘Here lies the body of William Lamb who was murdered by his own side on……’ then under this an epitaph ‘Judge not less ye be judged’. I had tears in my eyes as I read these words and realised that the Countess had stuck to her promise and that my great grandfather’s grave had been looked after and I knew always would be. The view from here took in the countryside around and I knew that Billy Boy would have liked it I sat down under the Oak tree and thought about Billy Boy and Helen and about there love and unselfishness. I must have dozed because when I awoke the sun was beginning to set but I was at peace and I knew I had fulfilled what my great grandfather had wanted me to do and that was to prove he was no coward but the proper fight would begin when I returned to Britain. I stood up and walked down the mound from where the Oak tree stood I had reached the gates nearly and something I don’t know what made me turn to look at the grave again. In the fading light I saw a young soldier in uniform and by his side a stunning young woman in a lilac dress they lifted their arms and waved at me and then the soldier saluted me as I stood there with my mouth open the woman blew me a kiss and then they were gone. I walked out of the cemetery and down the lane and tears ran down my cheeks as I knew that my great grandfather and grandmother had been reunited for eternity and because of writing his story they could now rest in peace with together the stain removed from his soul.