PHOTO PROMPT © Björn Rudberg
Winter of 1914, we made a parcel for Albert – a block of Ma’s sherry-soaked Christmas cake, two packs of Woodbines, a bar of Fry’s chocolate and a hat she’d knitted herself.
‘He’ll need summat warm over there.’ She carressed the stitches, brown and thick as our Albert’s flop of hair.
I hadn’t told her what I’d heard whispered down the pub – the ankle deep water, the bodies lain still and stiff in No Man’s Land till bombs turned them to Flanders mud … the rats.
She slipped a card in too, signed ‘your loving Mother’.
‘That’ll warm him.’ I tried to smile.
Written for Rochelle Wisoff-Field’s Friday Fictioneers. See the pic and write a tale. Visit Rochelle’s site to share and to read the other stories.
Notes
Woodbines – at the time, a popular brand of cigarettes mad by the Wills tobacco company here in Bristol. Cigarettes helped with morale in the trenches and were also used as currency.
I was going to use the brand name Five Boys chocolate but didn’t quite have the word count. Five Boys was made by Fry and Son – another Bristol company – and was famous for the image on the front of the wrapper, see below.
