Listen to the Moon by Michael Morpurgo
“It’s to you as well,” she replied, handing me the letter at last. As I was reading, I could hear his voice in every word.
My dearest Martha, my dearest Merry,
Since I last wrote, I am afraid things have not gone too well with the regiment or with me. We were putting up a good enough fight, holding the Germans back around Mons as best we could, but there always seemed to be too many of them and too few of us, and the worst of it was they always had more men, and more horses and guns too. Big guns. There was nothing for it. We had to pull back. No army likes to retreat, but we did so in good enough order, and I know the men are still determined and in good heart, despite all the reverses and all the terrible losses we have suffered. They will stand now and hold their ground, I am sure of it.
Unfortunately though, I am no longer with them. I have been luckier than many, far too many. We have lost so many fine and brave young men, no more than boys some of them. A few weeks ago I was wounded in my shoulder, shrapnel it was, and it broke my bone. They took me out of the battle and, after a couple of days in a field hospital in France, they have shipped me back to England, to a rather grand old mansion like many you see on Long Island, but grander still, which they have transformed into a military hospital for Canadian officers. It is not too far from London, and is called Bearwood House. Isn’t that a strange and extraordinary coincidence? I am lying in a hospital in England that goes by the very same name as our cottage in Maine. In so many ways this place reminds me of our holidays there. I look out of my window and see great trees, and at night I can often see the moon riding high through the dark clouds. I sing to the moon and I listen to the moon, as I promised. I hope you do too, Merry.
We have a park where we sit when it is sunny – which is not very often, I have to say – and a lake with ducks that cruise about as if they own the place, very much as they do on our lake in Central Park. So, eyes open or eyes closed, I can imagine myself back at home in New York or in Maine. There are many Canadian officers here, so I am among friends. I must count myself a very fortunate fellow.
I am comfortable enough now, and well cared for, although I find I cannot use my left arm at all. How lucky I am that it was not my right shoulder. I can at least write to you. They tell me that in time, when the wound is healed and my bone is mended, I shall make a full recovery. So with a bit of luck I shall be back at the Front with the men in a month or two. But, for the moment, it is good to be out of it for a while. It is quiet here, and peaceful, so very peaceful. I wonder if there is anything in the world more beautiful than peace.
I long to see you both again, and think of you often, of your dear faces, of Old Mac and Aunty Ducka, our home in New York, of the trees and ducks in the park, and the rocks we climbed, and the rides we had there on Bess and Joey, and the little black squirrels – they are all grey here in England – of the cottage in Maine and the seashore, the fishing and the sailing we did together there, all the old familiar things. How happy we were before all this. But I have to be over here, you know that.
Merry, keep practising the piano, and not just the Mozart piece even though, as you know, I love it the best. Groom Bess and Joey well each morning and pick out their hooves before you go riding. And remember to tighten Joey’s girth properly – you know how he blows himself out just to fool you. I like to think of you riding out with Mama in the park – you both look so very fine on horseback. I can see you now walking by the lake, and stopping by our favourite bench. Do you remember, Merry? That was where I first read you The Ugly Duckling, and there would be ducks all around our feet sometimes, and listening too when they weren’t quacking.
Dearest Martha, dearest Merry, do not worry about me. All will be well. Be sure, we shall in time win this war, and then I shall be home, and we shall be together again.
Ever, with my fondest love to you both, and to Old Mac and Aunty Ducka too. You are all dearer to me than you will ever know.
Papa
“Oh, Merry,” said Mama, tearful again now. “Why did I listen to him? I told him when he went to England that we should go with him, to be near him. But oh no, he wouldn’t hear of it. He can be so obstinate sometimes, your papa. ‘You have to stay home in New York, where it is safe,’ he said. ‘The war is being fought at sea too, you know,’ he said. ‘It is far too dangerous for you to cross the Atlantic. There are enemy submarines out there, warships. And, after all, Merry has to go to school, and she has to do her piano lessons. When all’s said and done,’ he said, ‘it’s best you stay in New York, and stay safe.’ Oh, why did I listen to him, Merry? Why?”
I remember only too well the arguments before Papa went. There had been so many of them, so much begging and pleading, first that he should not go at all, but then, if he really had to, that he should at least take us with him. But he was determined to go, and equally determined that we should stay. Mama and I went down to the docks that day to see him off together. I may not have wanted him to leave, but in my heart of hearts I was so proud that he was, so proud to see him looking grand and smart and neat in his uniform. Even his moustache looked neater. And he stood taller in it somehow too. I remember how he held me to him on the dockside that last time, remember the words he whispered in my ear.
“And be good to Mama, Merry. Don’t be a nincompoop with her.” I loved it when he called me a nincompoop, or a ninny. It’s what he always said when he was trying to tick me off, but he always said it with a smile. I loved being ticked off by Papa, and loved the smile that went with it. “Whenever I see the moon, Merry,” he went on, “I will think of you and sing our Mozart tune. You do the same, so that whenever we look up at the moon, wherever we are, we shall listen to the moon, and hear one another and think of one another. Promise me.” I promised, and I kept that promise too. And watched him walk away, with that long, loping stride of his.
How often afterwards did I look up at the moon and hum our tune, how often did I listen to the moon and think of him. I kept that promise.
That day when the letter came, I crouched down in front of Mama and took her hands in mine. “Silly old school, silly old piano lessons,” I told her. “You were right all along, Mama. We shall go. They have schools in England, haven’t they? And they’ve got piano teachers over there too, and probably a lot less whiskery than Miss Phelps. Let’s go, Mama. We have to go. We can’t just leave Papa alone in hospital. Didn’t he say how much he wants to see us? It’s his way of telling us to come, I know it is.”
“Do you think so, Merry? Do you really think so? What about the house, and the horses? I mean, who’ll look after everything?”
“The same people who look after everything all the time, Mama,” I told her. “When we go up to the cottage in the summer, doesn’t Old Mac see to the garden and the horses, Mama? He loves the garden, and he loves Joey and Bess to bits, you know he does. And they love him too. And while we’re up in the cottage in Maine, having a grand time sailing and fishing and picnicking and all, doesn’t Aunty Ducka keep everything in the house just fine? We have to go, Mama. Papa wants us. He needs us.”
“You’re right, Merry,” said Mama, holding out her arms to me and hugging me close. “It’s decided then. We shall go to England and see your papa as soon as possible.”
We sat down that evening and wrote a letter back to Papa, writing alternate sentences as we often did in our letters to him. It ended with me writing in capital letters,
WE ARE ON OUR WAY, DEAREST PAPA.
It took several weeks to arrange passage across the Atlantic. At school, when it became known I would be leaving soon, and going to England, most of my friends and teachers seemed more put out than sad, the teachers warning me how unwise and reckless it was to go anywhere near Europe these days, “with that terrible war going on over there”. They’d been the same when they heard Papa had joined up and gone to France the year before.
“Surely he doesn’t need to go,” said my teacher, Miss Winters, who seemed more upset than anyone by it. “I mean, after all, Me
I tried to explain Papa’s decision to join up to her as he had explained it to me: that all his old school and college friends from Toronto, in Canada, were going, that although he had lived and worked for some time in America, he was Canadian through and through, and proud of it. He belonged now with his friends, he had told me, with the boys he grew up with. If they were fighting, he should be too. He had to go. He had no choice.
Miss Winters had always been most vociferous in her opinions, something I had always admired in her, and she was again now when I told her I would be leaving school and going over to England. “Well, I’ve got to say what’s in my heart, Merry. I think it’s just plain wrong, I really do, you going off and leaving us all of a sudden like this, and you doing so well in your lessons. Your reading and your writing too are coming on so well, and they have never been easy for you, I know. You going like this, it’s a crying shame! Don’t get me wrong, Merry, I know why you and your mama think you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do, we all do; and believe me, we’re mighty sorry your papa got wounded over there. But truth be told – and there are times you have to tell the truth as you see it, as you feel it – I don’t think your papa should have gone over there to fight in the first place. I mean, what does all this fighting, all this killing and wounding, ever achieve? It’s no way for civilised folk to sort out right from wrong. Never was, never will be. I can tell you one thing for certain sure, Merry, we aren’t going to send our American boys over there to France to fight in that war, not if I have anything to do with it, that’s for certain sure.” For certain sure was one of Miss Winters’ favourite expressions. “I want you to promise me one thing, Merry,” she went on. “Once your papa’s all well again, you’ll come right back here to New York with him, where you belong, and finish your education with me. You hear me now?”
She was near to tears by the time she’d finished. I liked Miss Winters a whole lot. All my life I’d had difficulties with reading and writing. Every other teacher I’d had, sooner or later, lost patience with me, because I couldn’t read properly what was up on the blackboard or in school books like the others could, because I would take forever to write my letters and words, and even then they weren’t right. All this only made things worse. Everything would go haywire in my head, letters and words would jump over one another, jumble together, and I would panic. I was often accused of not paying attention, of being lazy and stupid.
Miss Winters though had always explained things carefully, helped me through my difficulties, and given me time to think, to work things out. She was full of encouragement. “Your writing and reading may not be the best, Merry,” she told me once, “but you play the piano wonderfully well, and you draw like an artist, like a true artist.” She had a way of making me feel good about myself, about my drawings and paintings in particular. And she was the only teacher in the school who really meant what she said, who wasn’t afraid to show her true feelings. We’d often hear her voice tremble and break with emotion, especially when she was reading Longfellow’s poems. She loved those poems so much, which was why, I guess, we did too, most of us. Compared to her, the rest of my teachers were all so stiff and proper and buttoned up. Goodbyes with them were all very formal. Miss Winters though hugged me tight and long, reluctant to let me go. “God bless, Merry,” she whispered in my ear. “You take care, you hear me.”
Of all my friends, I knew it was only Pippa I’d really miss, Pippa Mallory. She had been my best friend since the very first day at school five years before, probably to the exclusion of any other close friendship. She was the only one who had never once teased me about my reading and writing, who had not, at one time or another, made me feel stupid. We had been almost constant companions, always in the same class at school, sitting beside one another whenever we could, walking home together, skipping through the leaves, stomping through the snow, feeding the ducks on the lake in the park, going riding, going out boating. She’d come with us to Maine most summers. The hardest thing I had to do before I left was to break the news to Pippa that I was leaving, that I had to go to England to see Papa in hospital, and so I wouldn’t be coming back for a while, not till the war was over. She hardly left my side after I told her. She never spoke about my leaving. She was the only one who never tried to persuade me I shouldn’t be going, who just seemed to understand that I had to, and left it at that.
On the last day she never even said goodbye. When the time came, she couldn’t bring herself to speak and neither could I. We stood there by the school gates, two best friends so used to telling one another our deepest secrets, revealing our highest hopes, confiding in each other our most terrible fears, and now we couldn’t even find the words to say goodbye. We stood in awkward silence for some moments. In the end she handed me an envelope, then turned from me quickly, and ran off.
I opened the letter. It read:
Dearest Merry,
Come back, please come back. Write me. I love you,
Your best friend for life,
Pippa
I called after her: “I will come back, Pippa! I promise! I will!” But she was gone. I don’t think she ever heard me.
I WALKED THE LONG WAY HOME that last day, as downcast as I’d ever felt. It wasn’t so much that I loved school particularly. I didn’t. I was simply used to it. It was my world, a part of me, and I did fear deep down that I might not be coming back, that I might never see Pippa or Miss Winters ever again. I remember it seemed to me like a parting of the ways, from one life to another, from the known to the unknown. As I walked, I was filled with an aching sadness, but I didn’t cry, which I found strange, because I cried easily. I think perhaps I must have been too sad for tears. Wandering through the streets, with the traffic and people all around me, I was feeling utterly alone and apart. It was as if I had gone already, as if I didn’t belong here any more. No one noticed me: I was invisible, a stranger in my own city, already gone, already a ghost.
At home Mama and Old Mac and Aunty Ducka were still busy packing. It was all they seemed to have been doing for weeks. But now, many of the trunks and cases were there in the front hall. We really were going. We had our last supper together – Mama, Old Mac and Aunty Ducka and me – where we always had it, at the long, shining table in the dining room, polished religiously every day by Aunty Ducka. In the centre of the table stood the two silver pheasants, glittering in the candlelight, and the four silver candlesticks, all of which Aunty Ducka kept polished too, and which she always lit for supper. Papa’s place was laid too as usual. Mama wanted it that way, she said, so it should be ready for him on the day he returned.
We hardly spoke. Aunty Ducka kept sniffing and dabbing her nose and her eyes with her napkin, which I could see irritated Mama. Old Mac cleared his throat from time to time, just to break the silence, I think. Unlike the rest of us, he did try and make some conversation. “I hear she’s a fine ship, Martha,” he said, “just about the biggest there is, and fast too. Someone told me she holds the Blue Riband – that’s the prize awarded for the fastest ship across the Atlantic. Four red funnels, with black tips. I’ve seen her. She’s very smart, quite magnificent. Huge. Massive. Not another ship like her. And comfortable too, luxurious, by all accounts.”
Mama was too preoccupied to be listening. She kept worrying about what they might have forgotten to pack. She wasn’t eating either. “Ducka, are you sure you put in my grey coat with the frogging? I told you, I’ll need it in the fall. And my peacock dressing gown, I must have that with me. And what about the photograph album? We’ve forgotten the photograph album, I know we have!”
“It’s in, Martha,” Aunty Ducka told her, “I wrapped it up and packed it myself. It’s in the smaller trunk. I promise you, Martha, everything is in. And I put your peacock dressing gown right at the top,
“Are you quite sure, Ducka? You are liable to forget things these days, you know.”
“Quite sure, Martha,” Aunty Ducka replied. She was used to Mama’s anxiety, and her petulance too, and was endlessly patient with her. But I could see Aunty Ducka wasn’t coping at all well with the thought of us leaving the next morning, which was why she left the dining room in tears some moments later.
“What’s the matter with Ducka?” Mama said, quite unaware, as she often seemed to be, of Aunty Ducka’s feelings. Aunty Ducka adored Mama, and did everything for her, and always had done, but Mama hardly ever seemed to notice her. She was inclined to take both Uncle Mac and Aunty Ducka for granted. She wasn’t ever unkind to them, not as such, and certainly not intentionally, she couldn’t be. Mama wasn’t like that. But she was thoughtless, even a little offhand sometimes, and I could tell it hurt them when she was, Aunty Ducka particularly.
I went out after Aunty Ducka and found her sitting at the bottom of the stairs, her head in her hands. I sat down beside her. “You’re not to worry so, Ducka,” I told her. “We’ll be back before you know it, all of us will be: Mama, me. Papa too. You can’t get rid of us that easily.” She broke down sobbing then, and leaned her head on my shoulder. It was a strange moment. I thought of how often I had been upset and crying, feeling wretched and miserable about this or that, and how I had come to sit down on these very same stairs, and of the number of times Ducka had come and sat beside me, putting her arms round me and hugging me till the tears stopped. Now here I was, doing the same for her.
“You will be a good girl, Merry, won’t you?” she said through her sniffling. “Don’t you go being any trouble to your mama. And keep your feet dry. I hear tell it rains almost all the time over there in England, in that London place. Don’t you go getting yourself all wet through and catching a chill, will you now?”