A Rose In Flanders Fields (28 page)

At last he nodded.‘I think it’s safe.’

I still had no idea what was going on; I was numb, in limb and in mind, and the stinging of the glass cuts was a faraway feeling, on skin that didn’t belong to me. The nurse eased me back to a lying position, and I grew frightened all over again as the doctor leaned over me. I felt another sting, lower in my arm, and a moment later I was drifting, pleasantly light-headed but still conscious. I felt a tug midway down the right side of my neck, but no pain. The doctor closed his eyes briefly and stepped away, and the nurse took over again.

‘What are you doing?’ I tried to say, but it came out as an exhausted mumble. A hand on mine drew my attention away: Archie. I felt trembling relief at the sight of him, and his smile reassured me.

‘You’re talking gibberish as usual, darling,’ he said, ‘but you’re going to be fine.’

‘Oh. Good.’ I closed my eyes, feeling safe for the first time in too long, and drifted away.

When I awoke Archie was still there. I had been moved to a place I didn’t recognise, away from the main tent and into what looked like a recovery area. I ran my tongue over fuzzy teeth, unsticking my lips. I tried to move my arms, but one of them was strapped tightly to my side, and I had been dressed in a clean shirt. My head felt heavy and filled with wool. ‘What did doctor do?’ I asked, when I had loosened my mouth enough to speak. The hope that they might have spotted my shattered tooth and removed it while I was under anaesthetic, was quashed by a quick investigation with my tongue that resulted in a stabbing pain in my jaw.

‘You had a piece of glass stuck in your neck,’ Archie said. ‘There was concern, for a while, that it might catch your carotid artery, and that when it was removed it’d be all up for you. But I told them you were made of sterner stuff.’

Despite the jokiness of his words, I went cold. I had been walking around, tending the gassed men, and at any moment I might have moved the wrong way…Archie saw my face, and whipped a bowl beneath my chin. I obliged by heaving up the little I had eaten and drunk since that endless night had begun, and he sat, patient and unflinching as I wiped my aching mouth with the back of my hand. ‘You’ll likely have some pain in your shoulder for a while,’ he said, when I had finished. ‘The doctor said your trapezius muscle was damaged so you’ll have to rest up.’

‘Does that mean I’ve got a Blighty one?’ I asked with a little smile, and he smiled back.

‘I’ll write the ticket myself. But aye, in all seriousness, I think you should go back for a little while. Perhaps spend some time with Lizzy. And Kitty, of course.’

Kitty! I sat up, ignoring the little roll of nausea at the sudden movement, and caught at Archie’s arm. ‘I have to speak to you, where can we go that’s more private?’

‘You can’t go anywhere,’ he said firmly. ‘Sleep first, then I’m sure someone will be very glad of this bed once we’re certain your blood pressure is stable again. We’re already arranging passage back to England.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘My CO clearly rates you girls highly, I’ve been given an overnighter, just to drive you to Calais and see you onto the ferry. We can talk then.’

‘No, it has to be now,’ I insisted, ‘it’s really important, it’s about Kitty and…you know.’ I looked around but there were too many people within earshot. ‘Give me a piece of paper and I’ll write it down.’

His face had clouded the moment I’d mentioned Kitty’s name, and he gave me a scrap from the notebook in his pocket, and a stub of pencil. With a shaking hand I wrote:
K positive, suspect driver.

His expression darkened further as the first part became clear. ‘Oh, poor Kittlington. She must…’ Then he frowned. ‘The general staff driver? Drewe’s man?’

I looked around again, hoping for privacy, but the sight of the tall officer whispering urgently with the agitated girl was proving too interesting to the others recovering in the small confines of the tent. ‘I don’t know his name,’ I murmured. ‘And I don’t know for sure it’s him. We have to get Kitty’s word before we say anything; he can’t have the chance to build a defence.’

‘Potter, if it’s the bloke I think it is. Look, I’ll ask around a bit, but meantime get some rest and I’ll be back to pick you up in the morning.’

In fact morning was already creeping in through the small, glassless windows, and with it the beginning of yet another unforgettable day.

Chapter Eighteen

Number Twelve was irreparably damaged. Flooded and unsafe, it sat glaring at those who came close, as if ready to bite down on any adventurous soul who dared breach its walls. Those walls were already crumbling though, there were no windows left at the front of the house, just jagged teeth set into the frames, with blackened points where they had been scorched. People moved about, coughing and throwing glances our way, initially curious, then sympathetic, then dismissive.

There was no hope of collecting any of our things from there, whether personal or medical supplies, and Elise and I silently linked hands and turned away. As I did so, the realisation of what I’d lost hit me, and I began trembling, superstitiously fixated on the paper rose, as if to lose it would be to lose Will. I let go of Elise’s hand and, ignoring her shout of alarm, began walking quickly towards the cottage.

The doorway was barely an arm’s length away when I felt a hand seize my still-sore left arm and pull me to a stop. ‘Miss, you can’t go in there!’ The voice was a friendly, London-accented one which I found comfortingly casual, but when I looked into the sergeant’s face I saw only firm resolve. He’d been tasked with making this place safe while the dead men were lifted free, and that did not include allowing hysterical women to barge through, putting themselves and others at risk. But he didn’t understand, how could he?

‘I have to get something. A black box. It has…vital paperwork in it.’

He pushed his helmet back and scratched his head; he seemed to be wavering. ‘What paperwork, and which room is it in?’

Seizing on this slight fracture in his determination, I forced myself to stay calm. If he thought it was merely something personal he would shut down again. ‘I can’t possibly tell you the nature of it,’ I said importantly, but with a twinge of guilt. ‘If you’d just let me go into the back room, the bedroom, I’m sure that part of the cottage was less badly damaged.’

‘It may well be,’ he said, ‘but to get to it you have to go through the front. I can’t allow it.’

‘But –’

‘Describe it to me, I’ll go.’

I stared. ‘You, you said it’s too dangerous,’ I stammered. This wasn’t what I wanted; the cottage was audibly groaning with loose timbers, and while it had seemed exactly the right thing to do to go in there myself, I couldn’t let this earnest young man put himself at risk for something of value only to me.

‘And you said the paperwork was vital,’ he reminded me, a little impatiently. ‘Time is short, Miss, do you need the box or not?’

I needed it. I needed it so badly it hurt, just to see the rose, to feel Will’s soul wrapped in its grubby paper heart…

‘No,’ I said at last, and the word came out of my mouth cracked and hollow-sounding. The soldier studied me for a moment, then let go of my arm.

‘Then you ought to leave. This is no place to be hanging around now.’ His voice was gentle enough, but his words, said of this place that had been more of a home to me than Oaklands for so long now, sounded cruelly dismissive. I nodded and turned away. The soldier watched as I returned to Elise’s side and then, satisfied, returned to his duties.

Elise and I walked to the ambulance. The only one we had left now was the one I’d recently brought back from Kent, but I didn’t have to worry about how to bring the second new one back now after all; I’d be able bring it myself, when I returned from my convalescence. Elise climbed behind the wheel, and as I prepared to swing in beside her I tensed with a fresh rush of determination.

‘Wait here,’ I said, and ran quickly around to the back of the cottage. The movement jarred my shoulder and I swallowed a little grunt of pain and slowed, waiting for the nausea to subside. To my frustration the tiny window of the single back room was closed, and there was still glass in it – which boded well for the condition of the room, but I’d risk further injury breaking in. I glanced around. Lumps of broken masonry were plentiful and I bent down, picking one up and hefting it in my left hand while I checked which side the latch was on. We’d never opened this window, not even in the summer, and I had no idea if the latch even worked. It might have been painted over, rusted in place, anything.

Nevertheless, standing here would not resolve anything. I hit the window hard, turning my head away at the last second as the glass shattered. Eyeing the shards that stuck jaggedly out of the wooden frame I remembered Archie’s face when he’d told me about the danger I’d been in last night. I felt the sting, too, of the healing cut in my other arm. More broken glass. I swallowed, suddenly reluctant to put my hand through and fumble for a latch that might not even open.

‘Miss!’

I turned; the sound of the window breaking had brought the fair-haired sergeant I’d spoken to before, and he rounded the cottage now, glaring at me.

‘I have to get that box,’ I told him, and raised the rock ready to hit the glass again, to remove some of the sharpest pieces. But before I could strike, he’d taken it off me.

‘Look at the window.’

I looked. I wasn’t a chunky build by any means, but even I would never have been able to squeeze in through there, even without my arm strapped.

‘I’m sorry,’ the soldier said firmly, but not without sympathy. ‘Your friend’s waiting. You ought to go.’

I nodded, and didn’t say any more, but walked to the ambulance and climbed wordlessly aboard. The rose was gone; my precious memento of that magical time when Will and I had been forever and invincible. Gone. Once the cottage was demolished, the box would be buried under rubble and smoke-ruined rafters, it would absorb the rain until its contents were swollen and unrecognisable, and if, somehow, it survived and someone were to stumble upon it, they would see only a twisted piece of old newspaper – they might even unravel it in a moment of historical curiosity, and the last remnant of that gloriously simple, joyful day in the market place would be destroyed.

No. Not the last. I dragged in a breath, and forced myself to count my blessings: Will was still alive, that was number one and the most important. And although Kitty’s life was going to be twisted into a new, unknowable shape, she was being cared for. All those I loved were currently safe –it was the best I could hope for, given the peril in which so many of them lived every single day. I had survived two terrible attacks in a very short time, and I was being taken care of by a man who loved me. That I didn’t love him back didn’t seem to matter just at that moment; it was enough to know there was someone here who knew what had happened and who was as passionately relieved as I was that I was still here to tell the tale.

Will, Archie, Uncle Jack, Lawrence…all of them might be taken at any moment, one minute warm, breathing, loved and loving, the next moment gone forever. What was a piece of paper next to that?

Elise and I were both thankful we had kept so many layers of clothing on against the night chill, at least we had those to walk away in. My right sleeve, the one with the dark splash of blood on it, was empty and pinned up, and since I couldn’t button my great coat, nor fasten the belt one-handed, it flapped open, both annoying me and letting the wind wrap itself around my body and keep my teeth chattering.

The letter to Lizzy was still in my pocket, and I realised I would never send it after all; it had been cathartic to write, but would have been selfish to share such poison. I would soon be able to talk to her, and if our conversation led around to the way life was out here, that was one thing, but to let her open a letter with the anticipation of pleasure, and have her life darkened by it instead, would have been unforgiveable. Besides, she had enough to worry about with Uncle Jack.

Elise drove us both to her Red Cross station, where Archie would collect me to take me to the ferry. Despite my arguing that I was perfectly well, I couldn’t deny my neck and shoulder were giving me a great deal of pain now the morphine had worn off, and I would be of little use either as a driver or as a nurse until the muscle healed. Since I had nothing to pack, I spent the afternoon performing light duties, one-handed, wherever I could.

‘Captain Buchanan to see you,’ a hurried-looking VAD told me, and I put down the newest consignment of gas masks I had been unpacking. Outside, Archie stood looking uncomfortable, and kept glancing at the staff car behind him. I looked there too, steeling myself for the sigh of Potter, the driver, but instead I saw Oliver, white-faced and agitated.

I looked defiantly up at Archie. ‘Yes. I told him.’

‘I told you not to, Evie! Look at him!’

‘I had to.’ I lowered my voice. ‘He’s the only one who might be able to persuade Kitty to come forward and get that driver away from other vulnerable girls.’

‘He’s told me he’s going to talk to her,’ Archie admitted.

‘She’ll listen to him.’

I had expected anger, but Archie’s discomfort was puzzling. ‘There’s a problem. Oli hasn’t been out here long enough, and can’t get on the Blighty list.’ He paused, then shrugged. ‘But, since Uncle Jack sanctioned my earlier trips under military business, I can. I wasn’t going to take it, didn’t feel entitled. But I have just under a week.’

‘Well, that’s no good, you were the one person she couldn’t bear to be told about it,’ I said with some heat. ‘She’ll be mortified, and deny everything …’ It clicked then, and I stared at him, horrified. ‘You’re going to let Oliver go in your place? Archie, even
he
said you could lose your commission over this!’

‘For heaven’s sake pipe down! I’m not transferring my pass. Listen. When I come to pick you up Oli will be with us, ostensibly just to spend a few nights in Paris. When we get to the ferry, he’ll take my papers and become me.’

‘He looks nothing like you!’

‘They never look, not really closely, and you can’t tell hair colour. A bit of mud on the photo, and some creases, and as long as they’re satisfied he’s British, and you can’t get more British, let’s be fair, he’ll be waved on. Too many people for them to worry.’