49

23rd September 1918

Dear Mrs Owens,

It is my sad duty to write to you to inform you that yesterday your husband died of wounds he sustained in battle on the 18th of September. I cannot effectively convey my absolute sympathy for you or my own grief at his loss. I can assure you that he suffered very little. I visited him on the 20th. I had hoped that the same valour and fortitude that Lieutenant Colonel Owens always demonstrated in battle would serve to pull him through. I am frightfully sorry that this was not the case.

He was an entirely impressive officer. I held him in the highest esteem. A born leader for whom his men would do anything. Indeed he was brought back from the battlefield by a plucky private who clearly worshipped him. Lieutenant Colonel Owens was leading most gallantly against the Hindenburg Line when he was hit. As you can imagine, he bravely persevered in advancing until he could go no further. In every way he was a marvellous fellow and you have the very sincere sympathy of the whole battalion in your great loss.

I return to you his personal effects that were found in his quarters and on or about his person on arriving at hospital.

Yours sincerely

C. H. Horn, Field Marshal

Vivian thought of the silver sporting trophies on the mantelpiece in the Owenses’ London home. Now packed up in a trunk somewhere, she presumed. His boyhood and youth finished. All finished.

‘I must send a telegram to Lady Owens.’ Mrs Rosebend nodded. There was nothing to say.

Vivian turned to the boxes of belongings. They had returned his clothes; jumpers and socks that she recognised as she’d knitted them herself. She thought it would have been better if they’d given them to some other poor man to wear to keep warm. Another winter was coming. They had returned his books; no poetry or novels, but weighty tomes on military history and impressive global engineering feats, bridges, canals, tunnels and such. The books smelt damp; there was green mould on one or two. She opened his Bible. There was an inscription declaring that it had been awarded to Aubrey Albert George Owens in the Year of Our Lord 1900, on the occasion of his ninth birthday, by his Dear Mother and Father. She felt a surge of anguish; she hoped they’d bought him a train set too. There were receipts, bills and letters. If he had once kept these artefacts carefully, the soldier who had packed them had been less fastidious. They were thrown together in a jumble and as a consequence were torn and creased. She also found his shaving kit, wristwatch and wedding ring, a photograph of his parents and one of Mabel that she had sent shortly after their daughter’s birth. She had sent out a more recent image; she wondered where that might be. His possessions seemed small but familiar and she felt huge relief that they were so. She needed to believe she had known him after all, as much as he had wished to be known.