Home Sweet Home (40 page)

The sound of ships horns sounded from Southampton Water, heralding the arrival of the
Chetril
, the ship carrying the men imprisoned by the Japanese Empire, a country now occupied by the victorious allied forces.

It sounded as though every ship, boat and even the ferries that crossed to the Isle of Wight were saluting the arrival of the troop ship and the men Lord Mountbatten had called ‘the forgotten army'.

For a moment, Ruby thought she was looking at a huge grey wall gradually closing in from the seaward side of the dockyard shed. The smell of oil-filled exhaust and the sound of the ship's engines and that of the tugboats filled the air.

A great roar of applause went up from the waiting throng as the gangplank was heaved up to the ship's side and an army of men, who had seemed to be just lurking around, unmistakably German or Italian prisoners of war, went into action, handballing kitbags and other luggage at the same time as the first men began to walk down the gangplank.

Tables had been set out immediately in front of the gangplank where stern-looking ladies and bespectacled gentlemen sat complacently until reams of paper were placed in front of them, lists of the very particular passengers the ship had brought home.

Somebody nudged Ruby's arm. ‘If he don't come looking like a lost dog down that gangplank, you can ask them sitting there if he were definitely on board. That's why they're there – in case the men don't recognise us or we don't recognise them. It's been a long time, me ducks, ain't it!'

The woman who had relayed this advice wore a hat that looked as though it had been sat on. But her eyes twinkled with joy. Judging by the few iron grey curls showing from beneath her hat, she was waiting for her son.

Ruby nodded, smiled but found she couldn't say a word. Her mouth had been dry enough before; now it felt as though her throat had closed up.

Finally, she found her voice. ‘I thought I'd know what to say, but now …'

The woman, her chin just about reaching Ruby's shoulder, nudged her again.

‘Don't you worry, my lovely! You and your young man won't need words. I'm right, ain't I? It is your sweetheart you're waiting for?'

Ruby responded that indeed it was.

‘Guessed it,' said the woman. The way she chuckled and winked made Ruby blush.

The men continued to pour down the gangplank, like an unending tide of ragged scarecrows. Not that their clothes were tattered and torn, more that their clothes hung on their bodies as though they were made of twigs with very little flesh at all.

On seeing those first men alighting from the ship, Ruby felt a great tide of emotion sweep over her. They were so thin, their skin tautly stretched over faces that had only a short time ago been so young. They looked like men grown old before their time.

At first she told herself she was mistaken. ‘No. It's just an illusion.'

Various excuses came to mind, such as the possibility that a few had been very ill and that was why they looked like nothing much more than walking skeletons.

As the unloading continued, she reached a very much more startling conclusion.

With the exception of the ship's crew, the men unloading the kitbags, and the sudden appearance of medical staff helping the more disabled down the gangplank, all the returning men snaking down on to the quay were alarmingly thin.

More and more poured off the ship like a tumbling torrent. Excited chatter, shrieks of delight, tears, the crying of children, some quite terrified of a father they barely remembered, a father whose body had been better covered with flesh and without the intense haunted expression that these men had.

Ruby held on to the top of her hat as she craned her neck and scanned the surging tide of men. There were so many; not only that, she couldn't help allowing her gaze to settle on the haggard appearance of one man, the staring eyes of another, the injured, the disabled, the men with bandaged heads, truncated limbs …

A cold shiver ran down her spine. What if Johnnie was injured? Could she cope with that? She thought she could but didn't know for sure.

The telegram he'd sent had mentioned little more than the name of the ship and the estimated time of arrival. It had been sent on US army services notepaper and had been terse and to the point. At the time, she'd thought it all he needed to say: he was coming home. He expected her to be here. That was all there was to it. Had she been right to believe that? After all, she'd had just the one postcard from him during his period in captivity. So why a telegram? Why not a decent-length letter telling her what he'd been through and his plans for the future, his future, their future?

It seemed to take hours, but eventually the tide of abused humanity being unloaded dwindled to a trickle.

A feeling of the utmost disquiet flooded over Ruby even though her eyes still searched the remaining men coming ashore, most of whom were sick and being assisted.

The crowd that had surged forward to welcome their men home was slowly dissipating. A few women, including the pregnant woman she'd spoken to earlier, stood asking the people with the lists to check and double check why their men were not on board.

‘My dear,' she heard one of the women at the tables say to the woman expecting a baby. Placing a reassuring hand on the young woman's shoulder, she got to her feet, her voice dropping to not much more than a whisper. ‘I'm sorry.'

Ruby saw the young woman's shoulders slump before she turned away. Ruby caught her eye.

‘Your husband. Is he not coming home?'

The young woman's eyes were tear-filled. She shook her head. ‘He embarked on the ship but died on his way over. They brought his body back. I have to make funeral arrangements.'

She looked down at the ground, her hand on her belly. A furtive, sad smile chanced on her lips then was gone. ‘Who'd have thought it? There was I worrying myself sick about explaining what had happened, and there was him lying dead on board. Two days ago, they told me.'

She bit her bottom lip as she had earlier, though this time it wasn't because she was feeling nervous, almost terrified at having to explain herself, but because she was disappointed.

‘This war,' said Ruby, shaking her head. ‘Is there anything I can do to help?'

The young woman shook her head. The handkerchief she'd dabbed her eyes with was screwed up in her fist. ‘I'll just go ahead and have the baby.'

‘Is there somebody else? I mean, the baby's father …?'

She shook her head, at the same time averting her eyes. ‘No. I didn't see who it was …'

Ruby sensed her shame and was about to ask her whether she'd told the police that she'd been raped, but didn't get the chance. As though suddenly aware she was telling her troubles to a stranger, the woman excused herself and hurried off. Ruby watched her go, thinking that not all the casualties of war happened on the battlefronts.

‘Can I help you?'

It was one of the women sitting at the table. Ruby was aware of the ship's manifest in front of her. In peacetime, a manifest listed the cargo on board a ship. At the end of a war, on this particular ship, it listed the names of men.

‘Corporal John Smith,' said Ruby, her heart in her mouth. An expensive tortoiseshell fountain pen clenched between finger and thumb traversed the first sheet of paper, then the next, the next and the next. Finally she shook her head before suddenly saying, ‘Ah, yes.' She looked over her shoulder at the gangplank and the tall metal side of the ship. ‘It doesn't seem as though he was on board.'

‘Who are you looking for, Mrs Risdon?' said one of the bespectacled gentleman sitting along from her.

‘A Corporal John Smith. The only one I have here has been ticked off as having disembarked.'

‘That's right,' said the man. ‘His wife enquired what deck he was on and precisely what time he was getting off.' He jerked his head up. ‘Are you another relative?'

Speechless, Ruby stared at him. ‘His wife? You must be mistaken.' She almost burst out laughing in disbelief. Johnnie didn't have a wife. He didn't have any family. He didn't have anybody – except her!

She heard the woman say something about her being rude as she rushed away. Married? John was married?

Why had she come? She felt her face reddening and her eyes smarting as she headed for the exit and the railway station. Johnnie had lied to her! She'd thought he was different from the other men she'd known. Apparently he was not.

Memories of the short time she'd had with him came back in drifts of doubt. There had been occasions when he'd been apart from her for quite a while, times when she'd had to use another driver or drive herself. His excuses for those occasions had been offhand, either because he couldn't be bothered to talk about them, or because he didn't want to own up to anything. They'd always been about the army wanting him to be somewhere else, driving important people around. Damn him! He'd lied. He'd gone home to be with the family he said he didn't have.

Tears threatened, but she steeled herself to keep them at bay. She wouldn't break down. She had to be strong and on this occasion for nobody else except herself. An aura of aloof indifference always helped at times like these. All the same, she couldn't help feeling humiliated.

At the back of her mind, the spectre of her first serious beau, Gareth Stead, loomed sneering and large. When he'd let her down, she'd vowed never to get involved with anyone ever again. To a great extent she'd succeeded in that, at least of late. There had been a Polish flyer, Ivan Bronowski, whom she'd dallied with, but she'd found out he was married. It hadn't really occurred to her at the time that she was waiting for Johnnie to come marching home, like the song said, but the fact was that she had waited for him. He had never fawned over her or told her how much he loved her, or even attempted to like dancing just because she did. He had always been his own man with his own opinions – not always ones she'd agreed with – but something about his challenging manner had met something similar in her.

His features, as well as his attitude, were still easily called to mind.

She didn't stop hurrying until she was finally on the platform where the train would pull in to take her home, or at least as far as Bristol. From there she would get a branch line train to Oldland Common Halt. On checking with a porter, she was told she had at least two hours to wait.

‘The war might be over, but we've a long way to go until we get back to normal,' he said to her in a sullen voice.

Waiting gave her time to think and try to lick her wounds. Every thought was accompanied with a vision of Johnnie, his sharp features and mocking eyes, the half-sneer on his lips that it seemed at times he was trying to control. Over a period of time, she'd reached the conclusion that he'd wanted to smile at her and declare how much he cared, but had held himself back. It seemed that she'd been wrong. Could it really be that he was married, and that was the reason he'd held back? Men would do anything to get their own way. She'd said so herself, but still she found it hard to believe.

There was the moment in the field close to the railway station, of course, but that was the only time they had allowed their physical desires to get the better of them.

By the time she was on the train heading north, she had still not come to terms with how she really felt. The carriage was crowded and she found herself squashed into a corner, surrounded mostly by demobbed service personnel and those still in uniform, all intense and overly happy, laughing, singing and talking as though they hadn't done any of it for years.

For the most part, Ruby kept to herself, occupied with her own thoughts. Anger and affection seemed to be fighting a pitched battle inside her head. She wanted to scream; she wanted to cry. She also wondered whether she should have waited, perhaps got those people to recheck their lists.

‘Cheer up, love. It might never happen.'

The naval rating had dancing eyes and wide wet lips. She could tell he was a bit tipsy and trying to get even tipsier, if the beer bottle he had in his hand was anything to go by.

Ruby merely smiled at him and looked out of the window at the fields, cows and cottages huddled around a village church. She didn't want to get into conversation with anyone, least of all a single man looking for fun following his time at war.

‘Oh dear. Looks as though it already has happened. Is that right, love?'

Even though her ignoring him had bordered on rudeness, he wasn't put off. A few people got off at the next station, leaving room for him to move closer. It didn't help trying to move closer to the window. He found space to sit beside her. His boozy breath was close at hand.

He took a swig from his beer before trying his luck. ‘Are you spoken for, sweetheart?'

‘Yes. I am.'

‘Just my luck. All the prettiest girls are.'

She didn't look at him. At this moment in time, she was thinking she never wanted to look at another man again.

To her great relief, her would-be beau got off the train at Taunton, his place taken by yet more service personnel, soldiers mostly and as tipsy as the sailor. Those that were sober sat gazing out at the passing scenery, their eyes glistening with emotion. They were the lucky ones, the men who had made it: they were still alive.

When they finally arrived at Bristol, Temple Meads Station was as busy, if not busier, than the other stations where men had alighted and got on the train, all eager to be on their way home.

Vast clouds of steam from the locomotive billowed upwards to the glass roof where, trapped, it promptly billowed its way back down again.

Masses of people alighted from the long line of railway carriages and Ruby was jostled and pushed from all sides.

Women waiting on the platform shrieked, cried and shouted before throwing their arms around their loved one's neck. Everywhere among that heap of humanity were islands of couples hugging each other more tightly than they were ever likely to again.