The Child Left Behind Read Free Page B

right to wear. He had got used to the scratchiness of it and thought, as he looked in the mirror, that he had seldom been so smart. His dark amber eyes were sparkling; in fact his whole face was one big beam of happiness, though his full lips had a tendency to turn up at the corners as if he were constantly amused. He had polished his buttons and belt, aswell as his sparkling boots, and his peaked cap sat well on his head as his dark brown hair had been shorn by the army barber.
    The whole battalion moved together as one, their boots ringing out on the cobbled streets and their arms swinging in unison. Finn could seldom remember feeling so happy.
    ‘This must be it now,’ he said that night to Christy. ‘Surely we will soon be on our way to France.’
    However, it was July before the troops were on the move again, and though they crossed the water, once on dry land they found themselves in England, not France, just outside a seaside town called Folkestone.
    The camp was called Shorncliffe, and situated on a hill, from where, on a clear day, the outline of France could be seen. One of the men lent Finn his field glasses, and Finn was startled to find he could actually pick out the French coastal towns and villages.
    ‘Brings it home to you just how close it is,’ he remarked to Christy. ‘Here, see for yourself.’
    ‘Course it’s close,’ Christy answered, taking the glasses from him. ‘We wouldn’t hear the guns if it wasn’t close.’ And Christy was right because the distant booms could be heard quite distinctly. ‘They are making sure that they won’t reach here, anyway,’ he went on. ‘Look at all the destroyers out at sea. Searching for torpedoes, they are.’
    ‘Aye,’ said Finn. ‘And those new flying machines are doing that too.’
    ‘I’d like to have a go in one of those, wouldn’t you?’ Christy asked.
    ‘Part of me would,’ Finn admitted. ‘It looks exciting all right, but I think that I would be too nervous. I would rather ride in an airship. They look safer somehow.’
    Christy stared at him. ‘You’re a soldier and we are at war, man,’ he said, ‘in case you have forgotten or anything. You shouldn’t be bothered that much about safety.’
    ‘War doesn’t mean we can throw all caution to the wind,’ Finn retorted. ‘We’re here to fight the Hun, not throw our lives away.’
    ‘And I think fighting the Hun will be no picnic,’ Christy said. ‘Look at those poor sods being unloaded from the hospital ships in the harbour.’
    Finn took a turn with the glasses and he too saw the injured soldiers and felt his stomach turn over with sympathy for them.
    At last, in October, the orders to move out came. Finn was glad to go. Camp life had been boring, the only distraction the favours of the camp followers. Initially Finn and Christy had been staggered by how far the girls were prepared to go. At the socials in Buncrana, even if the girls been semi willing to do more than hold hands, they were overseen by anxious mothers, often belligerent older brothers, and of course the parishpriest, who endeavoured to do all in his power to keep marauding young men and innocent young girls as far from each other as possible. That girls might be even keener to go all the way than they themselves were had been a real eye-opener to Finn and Christy. These girls often took the lead, and that again was strange, but Finn was more than grateful that they knew what to do, at least in the beginning. However, he soon got the idea and readily availed himself of what was on offer, like most of the other men.
    Finn was glad to be on the move. Bedding girls, pleasant though it was, was not really what he had joined the army for. Whatever awaited them in France, he told himself as he marched alongside Christy that autumn morning, so early that it was barely light and icy damp air caught in the back of his throat, he was well enough trained to deal with it.
    Despite the inclement weather and the early hour the