Downton Abbey 1926

Episode 10 Chapter 5

Thursday November 11, 1926. Armistice Day

Thomas

"Blimey. As if one weren't bad enough."

Thus spoke Mr. Barrow on the morning of November 11 as he backed out of the kitchen he had only a moment before strode into with confidence. The cause of his consternation was the sight of two short, plump, red-haired women hard at work kneading bread. Mrs. Clarence Philpotts, Mrs. Patmore's sister Kate, had come to mark Armistice Day at Downton.

"That's Mr. Barrow," Mrs. Patmore said, glaring at him. She had heard what he said.

"Waste of a pretty face, that is," Mrs. Philpotts pronounced.

Thomas withdrew. He had enough on mind without going a few rounds with Mrs. Patmore in duplicate. Armistice Day was always a trial. He would attend the ceremony at the cenotaph as he had the year before. It was both expected of him and an obligation he felt himself. As for the pageant …. Bloody Mr. Molesley. Wasn't this day difficult enough without stirring up more memories?

But he wasn't an anonymous member of staff anymore, one who might slip into the shadows and not be missed amidst the ranks of servants. He was the butler of Downton Abbey. That had obligations of an entirely different sort, ones he'd only gradually begun to appreciate now that he held the position. Thomas had always thought Mr. Carson so involved in village matters because he had grown up on the estate. That certainly played its part, but it seemed that there were expectations incumbent upon the butler at the Abbey as butler at the Abbey. Like it or not, Thomas had to play every aspect of the role he had so long desired. And that meant attending a village function that chilled him in his bones.

In the butler's pantry, his eyes fell on the incongruous item on his desk. There between the wide ledger and the accounts book, beside his inkwell, was a folded piece of heavy felt. Thomas picked it up, drew back the material, and stared at the ribbons and the two medals attached to them. He had a right to wear them. He had volunteered in 1914 and he had seen a number of campaigns on the Western Front, though, as a medic, he had not brandished a rifle in any of them. There was no shame in that. He had served a necessary function and he knew, for having been there, just how necessary it was. The revulsion he felt as he pinned the medals to his chest came from a different source altogether.

Mr. Molesley, Mr. Dawes, and Miss Baxter

There was standing room only in the school hall as the Downton community gathered for the school pageant on the afternoon of November 11, 1926. The ceremony at the cenotaph had taken place at eleven o'clock and the crowd had dispersed for lunch. Now, they were gathered again.

"I'm not at all surprised," Mr. Dawes said. He was beaming. As headmaster of the Downton Village school, he had taken a chance on Joseph Molesley and hadn't that turned out well! Any event that brought the school children and their families and the greater community together was, in his eyes, an achievement. And it was all down to Mr. Molesley.

Mr. Dawes, Mr. Molesley, and Miss Baxter were standing at the front of the room, just below the platform on which the pageant would unfold. Behind them, in the wings off-stage, the fourteen children in Molesley's class were bustling about, readying themselves for the performance.

"Are you nervous?" Miss Baxter asked. She was. She had encouraged Mr. Molesley – he would say she had inspired him – and she had confidence in him, too. But the size of the crowd awed her.

Molesley considered. "No," he said carefully. "The children have prepared and they've done well. They're ready. And I…," he met her gaze, "I feel it's the right thing. Thank you," he added solemnly.

She responded with a self-deprecating smile. "Your father's here," she said.

Of course, he was. William Molesley missed nothing that went on in Downton Village. And this, after all, was the work of his son. Molesley spotted his dad halfway down the middle aisle, chatting with some of the villagers.

They all looked out at the sea of faces. His Lordship, Her Ladyship, and Lady Mary had places in the front row. Scanning the crowd, Molesley picked out Mr. Branson and his daughter right at the back and the man's presence made him smile faintly. Molesley was fiercely proud of the village school where himself had discovered a love of learning, but he knew His Lordship aspired to greater things for his own grandchildren. Yet Mr. Branson had defied this expectation, as he had so many others, and worked hard to bring his daughter up as a child of the world, rather than of a class. Molesley admired him for it.

More important on this day were other families, the people whose loved ones were at the centre of this pageant. Molesley had done his best to ensure that his pupils were appropriately respectful, but you never knew how people would react, even when they had given their permission. Well, he would soon find out.

Mary

She hadn't wanted to come to the pageant. Duty compelled her presence at the morning ceremony, but only family pressure had brought her to the school. Of course, Papa and Mama believed in supporting every local endeavour, and God knows she had attended her fair share of such events, prepared to shoulder her share of the responsibility. But this one had a personal impact and she would rather have skipped it altogether. But then Henry had chimed in, too, which she didn't understand at all, as he wasn't even from Downton and could not have the intimate connection with the local stories that the Crawleys possessed. He had insisted and she had given in, perplexed by his enthusiasm.

And now he hadn't even shown up himself. Mary kept looking over her shoulder, scanning the crowd. Where was he?! Nor could she find Tom and he had promised to bring George, along with Sybbie. Could she rely on neither of them?

Robert

Robert had taken centre stage at the cenotaph earlier in the day with his usual sense of discomfort on such occasions.

"I didn't serve," was his annual lament.

"You served in your own war," Cora reminded him – again. "And you are acting here as the Earl of Grantham, the leader of this community, not as the individual Robert Crawley. Your presence adds dignity to the occasion."

He bought the argument because it was the foundation of the system into which he had been born, but he did not feel it. This did not prevent him from rising to the occasion and acting his part, however.

He had the same reservations about opening the pageant and the same rationalizations offset them. Public ceremonies were a spectacle that served to bind the community together, to infuse common purpose and identity. The presence of royalty, on larger occasions, or the local aristocracy on these smaller occasions, lent gravity to the circumstances. And so, when Mr. Molesley called him up, Robert stood and moved to his position on the platform with the measured stride that in its very deliberateness helped to amplify the solemnity of the occasion. The vast hall went silent as he looked out upon them.

"My friends. This morning we honoured those who served and those who fell in the Great War as part of the national observation of this day of mourning and remembrance. We did it with a formal ceremony and with words that found echoes across thousands of communities in this country. The event this afternoon is of a different sort, humbler perhaps but at least as meaningful to us all. We have come to a pageant organized and performed by the children of Downton to honour those men, too many men, who left our village in those four terrible years of war never to return. It is fitting that we should know them by name and know their stories. And it is fitting that it is children in our community who should tell us these stories for theirs is the generation that must carry forward our remembrance and ensure, in the remembering, that the laying down of their lives in the 'war to end all wars" was not in vain."

He stood still for a moment and then withdrew. He had held the public eye long enough on this day. This was the children's hour.

The Pageant

In the quiet that followed His Lordship's speech, the lights dimmed and went out. Then there was movement on the platform as a line of children shuffled into a place. There was the scratch of a match and then a single candle burned, illuminating a child's face, a boy's.

"Jack Carter," he said. Then he tipped his candle and lit the one of the person standing next to him, a girl.

"Edwin Poskitt," she said. And she tipped her candle. And along the circle that ringed the stage, the procession went on and thirty names, the twenty-nine on the war memorial and the thirtieth, the one on the plaque on the wall, were intoned.

Lawrence Elcot.

Robert Kearns.

Oliver Black.

Kenneth Freer.

Martin Elcot.

Cyril Ratchford.

Walter Hare.

Joseph Severs.

William Barker.

William Mason.

Arthur Welford.

Sidney Elcot.

Walter Black.

Percy Rymer.

Owen Ratchford.

John Marshall.

Vivian Smith.

Dennis Fortis.

James Alderson.

William Livsey.

Edward Wise.

James Canby.

Tom Barker.

Gilbert Rymer.

Vincent Taylor.

Rupert Turnbull.

John Robinson.

Archibald Philpotts.

Thirty was not such a large number in the abstract. But the platform was ablaze with the light of thirty candles and as a visual representation of Downton boys gone forever it seemed a very high price indeed. And then, in one swift movement the candles were all blown out and the hall plunged into darkness once more. And then there was another scratch and a single candle glowed once more. The girl holding it stepped forward.

"Edwin Poskitt always wanted to be a soldier. When he were a boy, he played out the battles that were happening in South Africa with his chums on the moors, leading his troops to victory every time. And when he were old enough, he joined up. That were in 1911, before the Great War. Edwin were a professional soldier when he marched off in August, 1914, among the first to go, as part of the 1st Northamptonshire, 2nd Brigade, 1st Division, Major-General Lomax's command. He only ever had time to write one postcard to his mum and dad and sister Sally. His mum still has it. She'll show you if you ask. It were a shot that killed him, as he defended the canal against the German Army at Mons. And now he lies, not here in the graveyard at Downton with some, but in Saint Symphonium Cemetery in Belgium, a country he'd almost never heard of before he gave his life there for its freedom. Edwin Poskitt was the first lad from hereabouts to die in the Great War."*

The girl stepped back, tipped her candle toward that held by a boy who had stepped forward. For a moment, two flames glowed. Then the first went out and there was only the boy. "Oliver Black and Walter Black were twins and they looked exactly alike. Only their mum could tell them different. They always did everything exactly the same. Even their homework at school. They joined up in October, 1914, after the harvest were in, and went to France, where they met a girl they both wanted to marry." The Blacks died together, too, at Passchendaele in 1917, and never came home. Their bones lay somewhere in Flanders Fields. Their names were inscribed on the Menin Gate, side by side.

And so it went.

Dennis Fortis wore spectacles but proved a first-rate sniper. He died in a field hospital in France. His body came home to Downton.

Edward Wise had been a talented musician and singer. Everyone on the Downton estate knew him. When he drew out his fiddle on a Saturday night at the pub, everyone crowded in to hear him. He played at the local fairs. His fiddle went with him to France and when it was destroyed in an artillery barrage, he took his anger out on the Germans the next time he went over the top, leading a breach of their lines. He traded the cigarette ration of four companies in his division for a new instrument. It came home with his body, in the third month of the battle on the Somme.

For the most part, the students appeared and withdrew smoothly, the speaker lighting the candle of the next up, and then blowing out their own and fading into the dimness. There was only one moment of confusion, where things got mixed up, and then it got resolved and the next boy along stepped up. His lit candle illuminated an earnest face.

"Archibald Philpotts," he said clearly "All the other lads spoke of today, we all know them. But Archibald Philpotts is a mystery amongst us. He were not from Downton, but dear enough to some here for His Lordship to put up a special marker. This is what the marker says:

Pve. Archibald Philpotts

Lancashire Fusiliers

Died February 5, 1917

Aged 19 years.

That doesn't tell us very much. I know only a little more. He volunteered. He were part of General Kitchener's army. He were on the Somme. And he were only 19 years old, only seven years old than me. Even though we don't know much about him, he deserves to be remembered along with all our Downton lads, because he was someone's son and brother and nephew. I don't have a story to tell about him, so I'll recite a famous poem instead:

In Flanders Fields, the poppies blow

Between the crosses row on row

That mark our place

And in the sky, the larks still bravely singing fly

Scarce heard amidst the guns below

We are the dead

Short days ago, we lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow

And now we lie in Flanders Fields.**

We don't know where Archibald Philpotts lies, exactly. But may he rest in peace."

Then three children stepped forward at once and three candles illuminated the platform. There were two boys and a girl. They took a different approach.

"Lawrence Elcot."

"Sidney Elcot."

"Martin Elcot."

There was a particular and poignant stillness in the hall. Everyone knew the pain of war, but Mrs. Elcot had lost three sons, all of her sons.

"I'm the oldest," said Lawrence, "and I'm the responsible one. Eh, Sid, stand up straight. Marty, watch you don't burn the place down with that candle."

Sidney, played by the girl, glared and then faced the audience. "I'm the middle brother and I'm charming. I could make a turnip smile."

Martin waved his candle around in defiance of his "older brother's" direction. "I'm the youngest and I'm the cleverest, eh? A thing ain't been made that I can't fix."

And so it unfolded, with each "brother" speaking in turn.

- "We'll be home by Christmas, Mum. Before you even know we're gone."

"Bring you some of that French per-fume, Mum."

"Betcha there ain't a thing over there in France that we can't make better 'ere."

- "We got good officers. They're training us up proper. I just got promoted to corporal."

"There were these three French girls at the station and I got a kiss from all of them, Mum. What would you say to a French daughter-in-law?"

"Golly, Mum, them Frogs do have better artillery guns. I ain't seen anything bigger. Going to take one apart if I get the chance!"

- "It's not that bad, Mum. We're well dug in and it hasn't rained much at this end of the line. Thanks for the socks. They make all the difference."

"It's a good thing they got me here, Mum, else no one'd ever be laughing. But you know me, nothing's ever happened that I can't make a joke out of."

"The ever-lasting mud jams up every single gun, but your son here, the genius, cleans 'em up right quick-like. I hardly gets to put my head over the trench, 'cause I'm so busy cleaning everyone's rifle for 'im."

- "Well, it weren't over by Christmas, 1914. Or 1915. I couldn't tell you about 1916. See, I went down on the Somme. Not on that first most awful day. It was on one of the awful days that followed, about the 48th awful day. They got me to a field hospital, but it weren't no good." Lawrence blew out his candle.

"I can't find nothing to laugh at about that," Sidney said soberly.

"They tried to fix him, Mum. It seems there are some things can't be fixed," Martin added.

- "I remember hearing stories, when I were a boy, about the sea, about how it could swallow a man up. But the sea's got nothing on the mud of Ypres. They say I got clipped with a bullet and then fell in the mud. No man was coming out of there." Sidney blew out his candle.

"The laughter's gone out of my life with Sidney, Mum. How're we ever going to learn to laugh again?" Martin stepped forward. "I really thought I was going to make it, you know? I mean, could it really go on forever?" The boy paused. "It was at Cambrai. When I saw that … that big steel thing, that tank rumbling up from our lines, I knew we were going to win. Who could battle that? But I wasn't going to be there to see it. It were a shell that got me." Martin didn't blow out his candle, but put his hand over it to block its light and stepped back to where the next pupil had stepped up.

At that point, there wasn't a dry eye in the house. But there was still more to come.

A girl stepped up next. In one hand she held her candle. The other clutched the hand of the smaller child who stood beside her. Then Mary Andover began to speak.

"William Mason came in off the farm to work at Downton Abbey. What he cared about most were his dad, his sweetheart Daisy, horses, and his country. He could've been a groom, he loved horses that much and he were good with them. Or a concert pianist, who could play Bach and Mozart, or give a tune for them downstairs at the Abbey to dance to. He were a footman at the Abbey, but he aimed higher. And when he put on a uniform, he wanted nothing more than to serve his country with all his heart, and then to come home to Dad and Daisy. And he did, though not quite as he planned."

With that, Mary lowered her candle and illuminated the face of child by her side. It was George Crawley. He carefully took the candle from her. Holding it with both hands before him, he faced the audience and began a recitation.

"William Mason saved my Papa, Captain Matthew Crawley. At Am – ie – ens on August 8, 1918, they went over the top together. They'd done it before, but this was the last time. In all the noise, William Mason heard a shell. He threw himself in front of my Papa. They were both caught in it. And they both came home to Downton. My Papa lived because of William. William died because he saved my Papa. Without William, I wouldn't be here. Thank you William, for my Papa's life and for my own."

Rupert Turnbull spent his childhood doctoring the animals around his family's home on Winslow farm. One time he found a dog that'd been run over by a wagon wheel and carried the animal home. He'd gotten himself an apprenticeship at the vet's over in Thirsk, but joined the medical corps when the war broke out. His parents were heartbroken, but not at all surprised, when he died rescuing wounded men from the no man's land before the British position at Pozieres. His dog lay by his graveside in the Downton churchyard for a month complete.

The parade of names ended, appropriately, with Jack Carter who died at the end, Downton's last casualty in the final push. He was wounded on November 9 and died the morning of November 11, only minutes before the war in which he had given his life ended.

Once more the line of students filtered across the stage and once more the litany of names was read. Then, with 30 candles burning bright, the children blew them out at once and the place went dark.

Thomas and Daniel

It was the story of the medic that did it.

Thomas had reached the steps outside the school before the tears came and then they came in a flood he had known on only a few deeply emotional occasions – Lieutenant Courtney's death, Lady Sybil's death, Jimmy Kent's accusation. There was no stemming the tide once it had begun and few refuges where he might linger while it ran its course. So he stood there uncertainly at the top of the stairs, wondering what he was to do. In the street there were a few villagers who had not come to the pageant and it would not do for them to see the butler of Downton Abbey in such a state. He gulped, feeling lost. He was only dimly aware of the door opening and closing behind him and then a firm hand on his elbow.

"Thomas."

It was Daniel and Thomas gasped in relief, though the appearance of his friend did not diminish the outpouring of his grief. Daniel did not speak, merely indicating by touch that Thomas should move, guiding him down the steps, across the school yard, and through the gate. And then they cut kitty-corner across the green to the church yard and through the wrought iron gates of the cemetery.

Yes! The church yard with its slopes and monuments would shield them from the views of passersby. It was also a place, there among the dead, where the public display of grief was acceptable. And there was no one else there.

Thomas leaned into Daniel's supportive arm. "You're missing the show," he choked out, though he was very glad this was so.

"I've honoured the dead enough today," Daniel said calmly, and with his free hand he dug in his pocket and produced a handkerchief. Thomas clutched at it. He had his own, starched and clean, in his breast pocket, but had forgotten all about it.

"Can't think why I'm blubbering on like this," Thomas gasped, more than a little shaken by the extent of this outburst, and alarmed at giving way to his emotions before anyone, even a friend.

"Can't you."

They stood close together, face to face, Thomas with his head down, wiping his eyes with his sleeve. He hazarded a glance at the other man. Daniel's coat was open, as though he had thrown it on quickly. The look on his face was one of concern. Thomas found it encouraging.

"It takes me back," he said.

"Of course, it does," Daniel agreed, his voice kind. "I hadn't thought to see you at the pageant."

Thomas understood what he meant. After dismissing Molesley's work so contemptuously, it was something of a surprise that Thomas should show up for it. "Thought I'd look in," he muttered.

Then he cleared his throat and straightened up, trying to pull himself together. "I try not to think about the war. I've got it locked up in the corner of my mind and I'm pretty good at keeping it there. Every once in a while, though…." He paused, coughed, cleared his throat. "You?"

"I had a different kind of war. I won't say I wasn't scared, but it wasn't the trenches." Daniel exhaled. "You must have known some of the men talked about today."

"All of them," Thomas said hollowly. "Not well, most of them. But …." Why had he gone to the pageant when he struggled so hard to keep the war at bay? And why had he crumbled in the face of the stories he heard? Had he not known the stories before? Some better than others. William. Throwing himself in front of the blast to protect Mr. Matthew! But … were they not all heroic, if not in specific actions, then merely in their steadfastness? They were all frightened. And they stood fast. Not he.

It had been a desperate moment. He'd been terrified and not just for a moment but for days, weeks. Months. The prospect every day of facing that again…. For years now, whenever he'd thought about it, he'd congratulated himself. He was alive. He had escaped. He was relatively unscathed. And with a lifetime's experience of self-justification behind him, it had almost always been possible to quell that other thought.

Coward.

The pageant had crushed his complacency. He'd never claimed to be a hero, just a survivor. But that wasn't the whole story. He was no better than Molesley, really. Molesley, who he had contemptuously dismissed. But they weren't so different, were they? Telling tales. But Molesley had told his in a vacuum. No one was depending on him. Thomas had let people down in saving his own skin. That ate away at a man.

"I didn't want to die," he whispered.

"Of course not," Daniel said. It was an affirmation. Who would?

Thomas's chest heaved. He looked everywhere but at Daniel. "I did something." He'd never told anyone. He couldn't tell anyone. Certainly not Daniel. It didn't matter that Daniel hadn't served in the trenches. He'd had his own horrible experiences. And he didn't run from them either. When you told people things, you couldn't take them back. They were out there forever. And they changed how other people looked at you. If he told Daniel, if he took that risk, he might lose everything they had built this far. That wasn't very much, not yet. But it had potential. A confession might destroy that. Thomas hesitated.

But then another memory intruded. It was one of the lowest points of his life. He was being let go from Downton without a reference because Jimmy … Jimmy … had threatened to tell, had told on him to Mr. Carson and threatened to go to the police. He had been afraid for his future, sure. Jobs were hard to come by for veterans, positions in service impossible without a reference. And Jimmy had done this to him. The betrayal magnified the fear. Then Mrs. Carson – Mrs. Hughes as she had been then – had come across him and extracted the tale from him, as only she could. He'd had to tell her who he was, who he really was, and then what he had done that had started everything. And she hadn't blinked.

Daniel put a hand on Thomas's shoulder, tightened his fingers over the muscle there. "You don't have to tell me anything, Thomas."

Thomas wavered. Concealment was always his first option. But that was because he trusted no one. Every time he'd reached out, his hand had been slapped back. He'd learned to be wary. But … were not confidences the only way to build trust and intimacy? Tears came again. He was frightened in a very different way.

"I'm afraid," he said in a low voice, an admission in itself that he'd never made to anyone.

"We're friends."

"We won't be."

Daniel's hand slid around the back of Thomas's neck, a more supportive, more intimate gesture. He ducked his head in more closely to Thomas's. "It's your call, Thomas. Maybe you should sleep on it and tomorrow…."

Thomas's head snapped up. "I wasn't wounded. Not by accident, anyway. I … I set myself up to be shot so that I could get out of there. I …." His face contorted but he couldn't tear his gaze from Daniel. He had to know.

It was hard to tell in the rapidly diminishing light, but Thomas felt more than saw Daniel's reaction. There was no recoil, no quick withdrawal of the hand on his neck. Instead, it tightened, drawing Thomas in. And in another moment, he found himself enveloped in Daniel's arms, wrapping his own arms around the other man. And he was sobbing again. In relief.

* Author's Note 1: St. Symphorien Military Cemetery, Belgium. Remains from the battle were initially buried in local church cemeteries. St. Symphorien's was established in 1916 and both British and German soldiers re-buried there.

** Author's Note 2: This is an incomplete version of In Flanders Fields, the poem written by Dr. John McCrae, from Guelph, Ontario, who scribbled the lines during a lull in the Second Battle of Ypres, May, 1915.

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