A Rose In Flanders Fields (27 page)

‘Tell me about Kitty,’ I said. ‘About both of you, I mean. She never mentions your family, but I get the impression your parents didn’t want her to come out here?’

‘They didn’t,’ he said around a mouthful of bread. He took the spoon from my hand, and dug into the jar for more honey. ‘They blocked her application to join the ambulance corps.’

‘They must have been worried,’ I said. ‘My own mother wasn’t overly pleased when I told her I was leaving.

‘That’s not it. They were delighted when I joined up, told anyone who would listen about their brave son, the army officer. Different matter for Kitty, she was earmarked for marriage to some ghastly oik Father had picked out for her. It’s not just one-sided, they can’t bear each other. This lad has nothing to him, but his father and ours are in business together.’

‘But why would your father try and persuade them to marry?’

‘To ensure the business stayed in both families I suppose. Rather an old-fashioned way of looking at things, but that’s Father for you.’ He licked the spoon and then, as if the honey had sweetened his temperament as well as his bread, he adopted a pompous tone. ‘No, Katherine, you will
not
be running off to chase soldiers around France, you will stay here and marry Alistair, and then spend the next few years popping out lots of little Alistairs.’

My hand tightened on my mug, and his mood changed again as he realised what he’d said. I cleared my throat. ‘But she came anyway.’

‘Thanks to Archie, yes. I gather the girl who came out with you at the start left to marry?’

‘Yes, Boxy. Barbara, I mean. I met her during training. She’s the one who suggested we set up alone. She married a very sweet man from the flying corps.’

‘Good for her. Well, as you know, Archie and I go a long way back. He was home on leave and came to visit, knew I had completed my training and was heading out soon. He heard Kitty complaining about what Mother and Father had done, and so told her about you needing a new partner.’

I looked at him narrowly. ‘You do realise then, she probably only came out here because it was Archie who’d told her?’

‘She’d have found a way anyway, somehow. As I said, my sister’s a courageous little thing.’ His voice choked a little on that, and he fell silent for a moment. Then he went on, ‘Archie made it possible for her, after Mother and Father put the brakes on her formal application.’ He gave an odd, proud little smile. ‘She did the Red Cross training under the pretence of looking for a position on home soil, it was the only thing that stopped her getting pulled out from that too.’

‘You’re right, she does have enormous courage. She carried on working after…well, after. Right into the small hours.’

There was another quiet moment while we considered just how much fortitude and dedication that must have taken, then Oliver sighed. ‘Thank you for telling me, Evie. It must have been hard for you.’

‘Harder for you to hear it.’

‘Look, even if she does name him, it will be her word against his. He may only be a private but he’s general staff, and they tend to stick together.’

‘We have to try, at least.’

He nodded. ‘I’ll go and see the CO as soon as I get back. It’s frustrating as blazes though, I know a couple of the lads who’re on the Blighty leave list, and they’d be happy to swap, for a price.’

‘Why don’t you ask them?’

‘Easily done, for local leave, but not for overseas. Those passes are like gold dust, and I imagine the top brass don’t want to turn them into currency. No, honesty’s the best policy if we don’t want punishment duty, or even pips taken off.’

‘It’s a pity Colonel Drewe isn’t here, he’d be bound to understand. Will you tell your acting commanding officer why you want to go?’

‘I don’t think that’s a good idea. It’ll raise more questions than we can answer, and cause a hullabaloo that might frighten Kitty into keeping quiet. I’ll just say it’s a family emergency. Throw myself on their mercy.’

It made sense, and I nodded and started packing away tea things. ‘Then I suggest we go back now, the sooner we get this arranged, the better.’

In the early hours of the following morning, midway through a particularly gruelling night, Anne ushered me up from the cellar to snatch a ten-minute break. She set water on to boil to take back downstairs, and then went to the doorway, where she lit up a gasper and pulled on it with almost frantic haste. I pretended not to notice the tear tracks on her cheeks; sometimes, no matter how hardened you like to think of yourself, something will get through to you and tonight seemed full of those somethings.

I sat down at the kitchen table, pen in hand once more. There was blood on my coat-cuff, the blood of someone’s son, husband, brother…and the knowledge that there might be another driver or nurse somewhere with the blood of my own husband on their sleeve gave me a familiar sick feeling. I had lost track of where he was in the cycle of rotation between trenches, and it occurred to me that I wouldn’t even know if he was currently operational. I made up my mind to write to Barry again, to ask him to let me know when they might be given a day, or half a day’s leave, and to try and get over to see Will one more time before our marriage fell apart altogether.

But this letter was for Lizzy. Although I had written regularly since joining up, she had been right in what she’d said; I was trying to protect her unnecessarily, and it was insulting both to our friendship and to what she herself had been through. It was time to put that right.

My dearest friend,

I write to you now in a moment of rest during a long, dreadful night, and although I have been here over two years I cannot ever remember seeing such carnage. I have kept my letters to you light, not wanting to add to your burden of worry and grief. You have been through so much, Lizzy, and almost lost your life, and I have never been in such danger as you have, never risked anything so selflessly for someone I love.

Tonight I feel helpless and small and weak, and I am ashamed of it. Our boys have been gassed halfway to hell, many of them died in the ambulances, but a few lasted until they reached the cellar before succumbing. It’s pitiful, and agonising to watch; bronchitis in the blink of an eye, the fluid rising in their lungs until they drown and die. There were also casualties from the shells that carried the gas, of course, and tonight there seemed to be so many more than usual. Perhaps because the Tommies were exposed as they ran, trying to escape what they could see all around them. These have been taken to the clearing stations but too many of them will go no further and there will be many, many funerals in the next few days. It’s endless, Lizzy, and I am heartily sick of it.

I can see you now, reading this, and I know you will have tears in your eyes, but I also know you will have an angry set to your expression because I am the same. I can barely see for crying, but at the same time I feel as if I could walk out into No Man’s Land myself and take Fritz by the scruff of the neck. I’d shake him ’til his teeth rattled and he cried for his mother!

I must stop writing now, I feel I have poured enough grief into your life. Please forgive me for that, and I promise I shall be back to my old self very soon.

Pass on my kindest regards to your mother and Emily, and the twins, to Mrs Adams and the girls, and, most importantly, to darling Kitty. Tell her again how sorry I am? She will not hear it from me.

Take care of yourself, and I hope you hear from our much-missed Mr Bird very soon.

Your ever loving

E.

I had just finished addressing the envelope, and slipped it into my coat pocket, when the world blew up.

Chapter Seventeen

The impact sent me staggering against the table in sudden, hideously bright silence. A second later the noise came back into the room and I felt as if my head would burst with it. I heard and felt the deadly whisper of glass shards, most unable to penetrate the thickness of my great coat, but some sliced the skin of my face and neck.

The table crashed over and I hit the floor, and through the thunder all around me I heard the scream, ‘Cellar, Davies!’ Numbed, I tried to remember the training we’d had for just this situation, but all I could do was duck my head and wrap my arms around it. I felt someone grab my arm and looked up to see Elise, blood streaming down her face from a nasty scalp wound. Somehow I stood up, and as Elise urged me towards the cellar I saw a prone figure by the front door and recognised Anne, half-covered in fallen masonry.

I took a step towards her but Elise tugged me on. She was crying but she was, at least, thinking straight. ‘Leave her!’

‘But it’s Anne!’ My own voice sounded muffled, as hers did. She sobbed harder but pulled me to the cellar door and pushed me down the steps.

‘We’ll go to her later, she’ll need us in one piece.’

In the relative safety of the cellar I tried to imagine how I’d feel if it were Kitty I’d left alone up there, and I silently raged at myself for letting Elise pull me away. But deep down I knew she was right. Anne was likely already dead, and there would be others who would need Elise and me when this was over. If we survived.

Another shell hit nearby, but this time the cottage itself was spared. I felt blood soaking into the collar of my coat, and raised my hand, dreading what I would find. Elise caught at my fingers before they could touch my neck, and lowered them away; I couldn’t see her expression properly, the only light we had was from flickering fire, but I could see her shaking her head.

‘Leave it, sweetheart,’ she said. ‘We’ll get you fixed up soon.’

Worried now, I grew more aware of the stinging pain in the side of my neck, but I blinked hard and tried to focus, instead, on the job in hand. The gassed soldiers lay struggling for breath, their nails a livid blue in the peculiar, sinister light of the fire that consumed Number Twelve above us, and despite the oxygen pumps I knew there was little that could be done, beyond trying to ease their passing.

One by one they died, and the shelling around our little cottage seemed less important every time a poor, frightened boy fixed his blinded eyes where he thought mine might be, and choked his last. After two and a half years of watching men die in appalling numbers, this terrifying yet wearyingly hopeless night had reached a part of me I thought I had been strong enough to protect.

The explosions died away. Now I could hear voices outside, water hitting the burning rooms above us, crashing masonry and wood as people broke through the newly created barriers to our cellar, and low sobs as Elise gave herself over to the grief of losing her friend. They would have been closer than sisters, I knew that; our work here made friendships both more important, and more fragile, than anything we had known before, and while we were aware of the risks to ourselves, somehow that was easier to reconcile than the loss of someone with whom we had shared our most terrifying, and our most triumphant, moments.

I felt closer to Elise than I had ever done, and was moved to hold her as she wept, surprised when she let me do so. There was a dull pain in my shoulder and I remembered crashing to the floor as the windows blew in, it was a wonder I had only suffered a few cuts and a bruised arm. The voices came closer, and then I heard a shout.

‘Misses? Answer if you can, are you badly hurt?’

‘No!’ I shouted back.

‘Two survivors down here,’ Elise called, adding to me, ‘You have some glass that needs taking out but you will be fine, I promise.’

‘I’m so sorry about Anne,’ I said, and she hitched another breath. With the fire put out there was no more light, but I felt her nodding just before she stood back. Then the cellar door crashed open and flashlights swept the small, death-filled room.

Two soldiers descended hurriedly, first-aid boxes in their hands. A light played over my face and I flinched. ‘It’s nothing, some glass,’ I gestured vaguely, then frowned. ‘Can you hear that?’

A deep, gurgling sound was coming from above our heads, culminating in a harsh crack, and in the split second it took us all to recognise what was happening, the soldier had seized Elise’s hand and mine and dragged us to the steps. The next moment part of the ceiling had fallen in, and water was gushing through, drenching the corpses that lay wrapped in their blankets, briefly bringing the covered features once more to life as the rough wool moulded to the shape of the man beneath.

Then hands were on my back, pushing me, and Elise and I were stumbling up the steps and out into the acrid, smoke-filled rooms above. Elise ran to where a soldier was gently covering Anne’s face with his coat. She fell to her knees, heedless of the rubble, and I turned away and hoped she would be able to forgive herself one day, but I doubted it. No matter that she had been right, that she had more than likely saved both our lives by dragging down to the cellar, she would forever be tortured by the knowledge that Anne might have been alive after all, and might have been saved.

Outside, I looked around at everyone rushing to put out smaller fires, and to find survivors, and the strength just left me. It was startlingly sudden, as if the will to remain upright simply ran out of my legs and out through my sodden shoes, and was trickling away into the churned mud in the yard. I sat down, drew my knees up to my chin and laid my forehead on them. My hands clutched the ground either side of me, scooping up the dirt and squeezing it through my fingers, taking strange solace in the sharp stones that scraped my skin, and the confirmation the pain gave me that I was alive.

‘Miss?’

I looked up to see one of the doctors from the dressing station. ‘I’m all right.’ There was an odd wooziness in my voice, as if I’d drunk too much wine.

But he crouched down beside me, his voice gentle. ‘No, my love, you’re not. Come with me.’

I sat quietly in the makeshift dressing tent, wearing only my trousers and a blanket wrapped around my upper body that left my shoulders bare. A tense-looking nurse worked quickly, picking slivers of glass out of my hair, and some from my face, and then stepped back to let the doctor through. He didn’t speak at first, but looked at me from several different angles as the nurse dabbed at the thin trickles of blood that ran down my arm.