“I’ve been thinking about our future,” George said.
“Bored with me already are you, Mr. Mallory?” she teased. “And to think we’ve only been married for a few months.”
“Terrified of losing you would be nearer the truth,” George said quietly. He felt her body stiffen. “No one knows better than you, my darling, just how guilty I feel about not joining my friends in France.”
“Have any of those friends said anything to make you feel guilty?” she asked.
“No, not one of them,” admitted George. “Which only makes it more telling.”
“But they know you’re serving your country in a different way.”
“No one, my darling, can exempt themselves from their conscience.”
“If you were killed, what would that achieve?”
“Nothing, other than that you’d know I’d done the honorable thing.”
“And I’d be a widow.”
“Along with so many other women married to honorable men.”
“Have any of the staff at Charterhouse joined up?”
“I can’t speak for my colleagues,” replied George, “but I can speak for Brooke, Young, Bullock, Herford, Somervell, and Finch, who are among the finest men of my generation, and who haven’t hesitated to serve their country.”
“They’ve also made it clear that they understand your position.”
“Perhaps, but they haven’t taken the easy way out.”
“The man who climbed St. Mark’s Basilica could never be accused of taking the easy way out,” protested Ruth.
“But what if that same man failed to join his comrades at the Front when his country was at war?” George took his wife in his arms. “I understand how you feel, my darling, but perhaps—”
“Perhaps it would make a difference, George,” she interrupted, “if I told you I was pregnant?”
This joyful piece of news did delay George from making a decision, but soon after the birth of his daughter, Clare, the feelings of guilt resurfaced. Having a child of his own made him feel an even greater responsibility to the next generation.
George continued to teach as the war dragged on, but if didn’t help that every day he had to pass a recruitment poster on his walk to school, showing a young girl seated on her father’s lap, asking, Daddy, what did YOU do in the Great War?
What would he tell Clare? With each friend George lost, the nightmare revisited him. He had read that even the bravest of men could snap when going over the top and facing gunfire for the first time. George was sitting peacefully in his usual pew in the school chapel when he snapped.
The headmaster rose from his place to lead the morning service. “Let us pray,” he began, “for those Old Carthusians who have made the ultimate sacrifice by laying down their lives for the greater cause. Sadly,” he continued, “I must add two new names to that growing list. Lieutenant Peter Wainwright of the Royal Fusiliers, who died at Loos while leading an attack on an enemy post. Let us remember him.”
“Let us remember him,” repeated the congregation.
George buried his head in his hands and wept silently before the headmaster added the second name.
“Second Lieutenant Simon Carter, who many of us will fondly remember as Carter minor, was killed while serving his country in Mesopotamia. Let us remember him.”
While the rest of the congregation lowered their heads and repeated, “Let us remember him,” George rose from his place, bowed before the altar and marched out of the chapel. He didn’t stop walking until he’d reached Godalming High Street, where he joined a queue of young men standing in line outside the local recruitment office.
“Name?” said the recruiting sergeant when George reached the front of the queue.
“Mallory.”
The sergeant looked him up and down. “You do realize, sir, that under the terms of the new Conscription Act, schoolmasters are exempt from military service?”
George took off his long black gown and mortar board, and threw them in the nearest wastepaper basket.