Listen to the Moon. Michael Morpurgo

      I REMEMBER I WAS PLAYING PAPA’S favourite piece on the piano when Old Mac brought the letter in. Old Mac was Papa’s uncle and had always lived with us in the house, along with Aunty Ducka who had been my nanny and nurse. She had looked after me all my life, taught me to sew, to make bread, and to say my prayers at night. She had looked after Mama too before me, when Mama was little. I called her ‘Ducka’, apparently, because she was the one who used to push me in my pram down to the lake in Central Park to feed the ducks every day. So Ducka I called her, and Aunty Ducka she became to everyone else too after that. And Old Mac had taught me how to fly kites in the park, and skim stones, and look after the horses and saddles. The two of them looked after just about everything else as well – house, stables, garden, our every need. Life could not have gone on without them.

      I hated my daily piano practice, especially scales, but Mama had ways of persuading me every time.

      Threats: “You will not be allowed to go out riding unless you practise first.”

      Bribery: “Play well enough, Merry, and you can go for a ride afterwards.”

      Or blackmail. Since Papa had left for the war, it was Papa she often used to blackmail me into doing my daily piano practice: “Your papa will be very disappointed in you, Merry, if you have not learnt your pieces by the time he comes home. Remember, Merry, you promised him you’d practise your scales every day.”

      The trouble was that it was true, I had promised him. But I still did not like Mama reminding me of it, and I most certainly did not like her sitting there watching me either, which was why I was sulking that morning as I played my scales, with as little application as possible and no enthusiasm whatsoever, just so she would know how I felt.

      The routine was always the same with Mama. She’d stay in the sitting room with me until I had played my scales three times without hesitation or mistake. Only then would she let me play what I wanted. I rarely played the pieces that my music teacher, Miss Phelps, had told me to. First of all I didn’t like her, as she was so unsmiling and severe. She frowned all the time, and had very thin lips, and several long brown whiskers growing out of the two moles on her chin. And the pieces she told me to practise were either too difficult for me or I didn’t like them – one or the other, or usually both – which was why, as soon as I’d done my scales to Mama’s satisfaction that morning, I decided not to play my practice pieces at all, and instead began playing my favourite Mozart piece, ‘Andante Grazioso’.

      Papa loved it. I loved it too, because I thought it was the most beautiful tune I ever heard, because I could play it well, and because Papa loved it as much as I did. He would stand behind me sometimes, and hum along as I played. He always called it Merry’s tune, which was why I was reminded of him every time I played it. I could almost feel he was there with us in the room that morning, his hand resting on my shoulder, even though I knew he was far away at the war.

      I missed him so much: seeing him coming down the path, loping like a giraffe, home from work, leaping at him, making him catch me and hold me, his deep voice in the house, sitting on his lap, his moustache tickling my ear, and listening to the gramophone with him, our games of chess together by the fire in the evenings, his footstep on the stairs coming up to say goodnight to me, reading The Ugly Duckling to me in bed. I only had to play our tune, his tune, to feel he was back home and with me again.

      As I played, I forgot my sulking, forgot Mama was there, and lost myself entirely in the melody, and in thoughts of Papa. I was aware of Old Mac coming in with a letter for Mama, and leaving moments afterwards, and paid little attention as Mama read it. But then she started up suddenly out of her chair, hand to her mouth, choking back her tears. At once I dreaded the worst.

      “What, Mama?” I cried, rushing over to her. “What is it?”

      “It’s from your papa,” she said, recovering a little by now. “It’s all right, he’ll be all right. He’s been wounded. He’s in hospital, in England, somewhere in the country he says.”

      “Is he bad? Will he die, Mama? He won’t die, will he?”

      “He says we’re not to worry, that he’ll be up and about in no time.” She was reading fast, turning the page, but saying nothing.

      “What’s he say, Mama? Can I read it? Please?” I asked. But she was hardly hearing me.

      “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