For King and Country (31 page)

‘That purple colour will fade. It’ll not look so bad in a few months. I’d better not stay long, somebody’s bound to see us.’

He offered her his arm. ‘No, they’re not. And I thought I’d seen the last of you a couple of weeks ago, so you’re not getting away that easy, now. Away, and let’s
have a stroll round the boating lake.’

‘But there’ll be other people there.’

‘It’ll be pitch black before long, and then nobody’ll be able to see us. Come on, you can tell me how you’ve been, and how they’re all going on at home.’

‘If you mean your mother, she’s all right. She’s not all that fond of me, though. Why didn’t you tell me it was her told you to get out of it – to desert?’
she asked him, her voice low.

‘Why should I? That was the turning point, but it was still my own choice. I could have said no, so I’m not going to make her an excuse for anything I’ve done.’

‘Too proud.’

‘Aye, if you like. Too proud. And I thought the same way as her anyway. Three lads is enough of a sacrifice from one family. Let some of these buggers who make money hand over fist out of
wars send some of their sons to the slaughter for a change. I’d had enough of it.’

‘Oh, Will,’ she sighed.

‘Oh, Will nothing. As soon as I got that letter telling me our Henry was dead I started to turn it over in my mind, how I could get loose. The safest, easiest way is to wait until you get
your leave and then forget to go back, but there wasn’t a cat in hell’s chance o’ that. Nobody was getting any leave, although some of us had had none for a year. We were told
nothing, but you’d have had to be blind not to see they were getting ready for the finale, what with all the work that was getting done behind the lines.’ He paused, staring into the
water, jaw clenched.

‘Why, go on, then,’ Sally prompted.

‘Oh, aye,’ he said softly, his voice no more than a murmur. ‘They were getting ready for the final showdown, no doubt about that, what with railways being laid, and water
supplies, and everybody working to get the roads right, and ammunition getting piled up, and everything else going on. And they were expecting plenty of wounded, that was plain to see. There were
half a dozen casualty clearing stations got ready that I know of, and as many ambulance trains to start shifting wounded out. And they’re not small undertakings, you know. They’re like
hospitals on wheels, man, there’s even carriages used for operating theatres, fitted out with everything. Oh, yes,’ he emphasized, ‘they were expecting some bloody carnage. And
the cages that were getting built for prisoners, they were preparing for a good harvest of them, an’ all.

‘Well, the Germans must have got wind of something, because the first week in August – the nights that we were getting the attacking units together – they started sending gas
shells over, one after the other. Then we heard they’d raided a couple of units near Morlancourt, and gained about eight hundred yards. They took over two hundred prisoners, an’ all. It
would have been a sight better for me if I’d been one of’em.’

‘Might have been a sight worse, an’ all,’ Sally said. ‘I’ve heard they sometimes kill the prisoners.’

Will snorted. ‘Not only them. There’s plenty of that goes on, on both sides. Anyway, the night after that they started a heavy bombardment and they managed to destroy a quarter of
our tanks, with zero hour fixed for twenty past four the next day. Not a good omen, I thought.’

‘So that’s when you deserted.’

‘No. I was there with the rest, waiting for the attack.’

Sally shivered. ‘It must be terrifying.’

‘Something like that. Keyed up. It’s a funny feeling. Your stomach’s a knot of nerves, wondering what you’ll be running into when the whistle blows, wondering whether
there’ll be one with your number on waiting for you. Not so much terrified, a really intense feeling.’ He dropped his arm, and taking her hand, gave it a gentle squeeze. ‘I
can’t describe it, except it’s more like that feeling men get about women than anything else, something like wanting a woman and knowing she’s here, and thinking she might let
you, just might . . .’

Sally flushed, but did not withdraw her hand. ‘Might what?’

A sudden tight squeeze on her hand felt like an electric shock. ‘You know what! It’s that same life-or-death feeling. You could call it excitement, but it’s a sort of calmness
at the same time, with your heart going boom, boom, boom, but quite steady, and your eyes and ears wide open, everything alive, you’ve never felt so alive. I don’t know how anybody
could understand it, unless they’ve been there in that silence waiting for zero hour, getting the guns into position, listening to the drivers whispering to their horses, maybe hearing a
stray bullet whistling overhead, or a shell. Waiting and listening, and keeping silence, knowing that a few yards away other men are probably doing the same thing, as intent on your destruction as
you are on theirs.’

But she did understand it, she’d felt a pale shadow of that same excitement, and gave his hand a return squeeze, quite unconsciously. He pulled her close.

‘Aye well, our guns opened up, my eardrums nearly burst, the earth shook under our feet, and we could see nothing but smoke and flames, and the men in front. Lucky for us there was a mist.
That helped us, and our artillery held the German guns off. It was amazing. We were over their front line in a morning, and the amount of prisoners we took, I couldn’t believe. And they
seemed only too happy to give themselves up a lot of them; they must have been even more sick of the war than us. It was a cakewalk, and I thought, if this goes on, it can’t last much longer.
They were surrendering in droves, giving the officers plenty to do, and that’s when I beat it. I thought: aye, well, the Burdetts have done their bit now, and more besides, so I got out of
sight, and as soon as it was getting dark, I was off. As luck would have it, there wasn’t much of a moon, so I got as far as I could while I could see enough. I started again as soon as there
was enough light to see by the following morning, because I knew I wouldn’t dare travel in broad daylight, and I was just setting off when I just about fell over a dead Australian.

‘Well, it all went through my mind like lightning. I thought, if I get caught, and court-martialled for deserting during a battle, I’m certain to get shot, and if that happens, I
want it to be as somebody else. I didn’t want to bring any disgrace on my mother, and I didn’t want to risk them doing her out of her pension, either. And there was this dead Aussie in
front of me like the answer to a prayer, because it doesn’t matter what they’ve done, everybody knows the Australians can’t be shot, regardless. So I swapped his rig-out for mine
– ugh, and when I came to pull one of his boots off, his foot came off with it, but never bother, we’d got so we weren’t all that fussy in France. When you’ve drunk water
out of shell-holes you’ve seen rats swimming in, and you know they’ve been feeding on corpses, well . . . anyway, the boots were all right, nice soft leather, and not too tight either.
I hesitated a bit about taking the necklet with his dead meat discs; I wasn’t sure I wanted to be identified as anybody in particular. But then I thought that unless you get your head blown
off you can’t very well lose them, and not having them might look even more suspicious, so I took them, and I remembered his name. Then I thought if I’ve got the discs I might as well
have his papers, and I had no hesitation about his money, and then I was off, but I can’t have gone ten yards before . . . Bang! I got my bloody face cracked open and that was the last I knew
until I woke up on the ambulance train.’

She raised her hand to touch that crater that was once an eye and a cheekbone, and held back, saying nothing for a moment, and then, ‘It’s nearly dark now.’

‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Darkness, the refuge of criminals and fugitives.’

‘And lovers,’ she said. ‘You mind the start of that poem, Will?’ she asked.

‘Aye, I do,’ he said, ‘and the end:

She lifted her face to his, and very gingerly touched that dread disfigurement. ‘The bludgeonings of chance! Oh, Will, how could you have believed I would give you a white
feather?’

‘How could you have believed I was a coward?’ She bowed her head, and felt a pain tightening in her throat and round her heart. ‘We know each other better now, I
hope.’

Bundled up against the biting cold with layers of underwear beneath her dress, wearing a cardigan, thick coat, and scarf on top, and a woolly hat pulled around her ears, Sally
walked through Jesmond Dene. In early summer, when she’d come up from the hospital to spend a rare free hour or two here she’d thought there could be no more beautiful spot on earth.
And then the August Offensive had crammed the hospitals with casualties, putting paid to afternoons off for a time.

Now a glittering layer of frost covered boughs of naked larches, walnut and tulip trees, the leaves of the yew and holly, and the mosses and ferns on the stony outcrops either side of the
Ouseburn. She’d intended to follow it no further than the old watermill and then turn back, but the air smelt so fresh after days indoors, the day was so bright and crisp, the place such a
delight that she walked on, despite the cold chilling her cheeks and fingers, and in defiance of all warnings of dire consequences should she stay out too long, outrun her strength, and get frozen.
The dene breathed enchantment; it held an atmosphere of magic, and the cold was as nothing. She was too drunk with love to feel it. She felt as if she were walking through a fairytale, a wonderland
where miracles might happen. ‘That arm’s got to heal,’ she muttered to herself. That arm must heal. It was the only stumbling block, the only barrier to his escape. She heard a
sharp
tik
and glanced up to catch the white wingbar and undulating flight of a hawfinch, a rare sight. It couldn’t hurt to go on for a few minutes, maybe as far as the ivy bridge,
and then turn back, but oh, if only Will were out of that ward and here with her, to love it all as she did, to share the pleasure of it.

At the bridge she stood for a few minutes lost in reverie, gazing at the waterfall and the deep pool at its base. She’d walked too far, and she’d be exhausted before she got back.
Better make a start.

‘Sally! Sally!’ Little Kit Lowery was running towards her, his bright hair glinting in the sun. He slowed to a walk as he neared her, and behind him she saw Dr Lowery striding along,
with his wife hurrying at the rear. Her heart sank. If only she’d been alert enough to spot them all while she still had a chance of escape. She was glad to see Kitten, and could have
suffered his mother, but the prospect of a meeting with Dr Lowery again turned her stomach. She’d have given anything to avoid it, but no escape was possible, and so she forced a smile.

‘Why, Kit, you’re running! You must be feeling a lot better.’

Kit was breathless and hesitated a few feet away from her, suddenly shy.

‘I know I am,’ he said. ‘But I was in hospital a long time, Sally.’

‘I know. I kept looking for your number in the
Chronicle
, and I was that glad when it started to say ‘improving’. But what are you doing here?’

‘It’s my birthday! But did you really, Sally? Did you look for me?’

‘I did. And your cousin sometimes told me how you were getting on.’

‘I was fed up of the hospital. I’m very bucked to be out of it. Doesn’t the frost make everything look lovely?’

Two laughing eyes looked into Sally’s, and the pleasure on his face would have compensated her for the loss of a thousand nights’ sleep. He hadn’t changed towards her in spite
of that awful scene, and the thought that she’d been there when he needed her elated her.

‘It does! Away then, my canny lad,’ she exclaimed, throwing her arms wide. He hurled himself into them and, lifting him off his feet, she span him round. He seemed scarcely heavier
than he’d been over a year ago, but she lacked the strength she’d had then, and sobered by the approach of his parents, she put him down.

‘It’ll soon be Christmas, Sally!’ Kit’s voice was full of excitement.

‘Why this is only the first Sunday of Advent, so we’ve a while to go yet, bonny lad.’

‘You seem to be doing very well at the hospital, Sally,’ Dr Lowery hailed her. ‘I’m very proud of my protégée. Of course, I always knew you’d make a
first-rate nurse.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, without enthusiasm.

‘You’re convalescing from the ’flu, I hear. But your mother lives in Annsdale, surely.’

‘She does. But I’m staying with a friend of my sister’s for a day or two. She only lives a few minutes walk away.’

Four eyebrows uplifted slightly as Dr and Mrs Lowery took in the news. ‘In Jesmond? Your sister’s friend, living in Jesmond! What a coincidence. Beatrice has cousins in Sanderson
Road,’ said Dr Lowery. ‘Perhaps they know your sister’s friend. What’s her name?’

‘They call her Brewster. Miss Brewster,’ said Sally.

‘
Miss
Brewster. Where exactly does she live?’

Sally described the place.

‘A maiden lady, living among the industrialists, and the shipping magnates, all the most respected citizens of Newcastle! And she’s your sister’s friend!’ Dr Lowery
exclaimed, not attempting to swallow his surprise.

But Mrs Lowery’s interest appeared to have faded with the realization that Sally’s acquaintance was a mere spinster. ‘No, I don’t think we know her,’ she said.

Dr Lowery’s brows creased in puzzlement. ‘Miss Brewster lives with her parents, I daresay.’

‘No,’ said Sally. ‘She lives alone, but I don’t think she mixes much, apart from going to St George’s on Sundays. But I’m surprised to see you in Newcastle,
Dr Lowery.’

‘The practice, you mean? I was lucky enough to get a locum for a couple of days, no easy matter these days, but Kit wanted to spend his birthday at his aunt’s, and we gave in. We
indulge him rather too much, since his illness.’