The Fleethaven Trilogy (87 page)

‘Esther.’ Beth’s voice came gently, flat and unemotional. Kate turned and saw her standing just behind them. ‘Leave her to me, Katie love. You go and – help.’

Kate eased herself from her mother’s grasp and Beth took her place, putting her arm about Esther and holding her close. Never taking her gaze from the heap of rubble, Esther clung to Beth and the two women stood together in silence watching and waiting . . .

They found the landlord first. He had been standing behind the bar when the bomb had come whistling down. With seconds to spare, he had dived under the counter of the bar and, though cut and bruised, he was still alive when the rescuers dug their way to him. The workers continued and more helpers arrived from town. Gently they removed the rubble brick by brick.

‘There’s someone here. Oh, no . . .’

Kate glanced back towards her mother and Beth. She saw Esther start forward, saw Beth hold her back. Kate saw Beth’s lips moving and knew she was talking softly, soothingly to Esther. ‘Wait, just wait, Esther. They’ll – tell us.’

They had found Tom Willoughby – and Robert Eland.

‘They wouldn’t have known much about it.’ The doctor, who had been one of those to arrive from town, tried to comfort them. ‘It would have been very – quick.’

Esther had her arms about Beth, who stood looking down at the lifeless form of her husband. ‘Poor Robert,’ Beth murmured. ‘He didn’t deserve that.’

‘No – no, he didn’t. He was a good man.’ Esther patted her arm. Now it was she who must comfort Beth.

The search was continuing and Esther was leading Beth away to her own cottage, while still glancing back anxiously over her shoulder at the devastated building.

Something made Kate glance towards the Hump. ‘Mam!’ she shouted, and pointed.

Jonathan was standing on the Hump gazing at the horror before him. Esther gave a sob and ran towards him, her arms outstretched. She flew into his arms and clung to him, babbling her relief.

Then, as she told him what had happened, Kate saw her stepfather and her mother go back towards Beth. Jonathan put his arm about Beth and kissed her cheek. Together he and Esther took her to her home.

Kate found that tears were running down her cheeks. ‘Here, love, you tek a rest – now ya dad’s okay, I shouldn’t think there’s anyone else in here, is there?’

Kate shook her head. Everyone was accounted for now. The police constable mounted his bicycle. He had the unenviable task of going to Rookery Farm to inform Tom’s sister-in-law, Flo Jenkins, of his death.

And Danny, Kate thought. How would they tell Danny? No one knew where he and Rosie had gone on their brief honeymoon. What a dreadful homecoming! Then another thought struck her; a thought that left her sweating with fear for what might have happened.

If Danny had not been on honeymoon with Rosie, he might well have been sitting in the corner of the pub playing dominoes with his stepfather and Tom Willoughby.

‘You must come to the funerals, Kate, if you can get leave,’ her stepfather said firmly.

Kate bit her lip. ‘Dad – I feel so awful now that I didn’t come to Danny and Rosie’s wedding.’

‘What’s done is done. But don’t make it worse by staying away again.’

It was the worst moment in her life when she stood in the church and looked across at Danny; worse even than when they had found out the truth of their relationship, and that had been bad enough.

She felt sick and wanted to run out, away from them all, out to the end of the Spit. But she was obliged to stand there and watch Beth’s white, strained face and see Rosie being the one to take hold of Danny’s arm; Rosie comforting Danny when it should have been her, Kate. The longing to step across the aisle and put her arms about him was so strong that she swayed for a moment and had to grip the back of the pew in front of her to stop herself moving towards him. She felt her stepfather’s anxious eyes upon her, and she bent her head in the pretence of prayer so that he should not read the expression in her eyes, for she knew her feelings must be plain for all to see.

The congregation knelt in the final prayer and when they rose and began to move out of the church, Kate remained where she was, on her knees, her head bowed, her hands covering her face. She sensed the coffin being carried out first, and knew that the Eland family were following, Beth, Danny – and Rosie, for now she was Mrs Eland.

She felt a light touch on her shoulder and Jonathan’s whisper, ‘We must go, Kate.’

Slowly she stood up and turned to see Danny going out of the church, one arm around his mother, the other around Rosie.

He did not even glance back at her, and in that moment, Kate had never felt so lonely in her life.

‘Will Beth want us at the graveside?’ Kate heard her mother whisper to Jonathan as they hesitated outside the porch, their glances going towards where the three figures stood near the freshly dug hole in the churchyard.

‘Yes,’ Jonathan said firmly and took Esther’s arm. ‘Come along. You too, Kate.’

The coffin was lowered into the ground and Danny bent to scoop up a handful of earth and scatter it on to the lid. As he straightened up, across the grave his glance met Kate’s.

For an instant, the years fell away and they were again two children standing beside Matthew Hilton’s grave, the man they now knew had fathered them both. Yet the man they were burying this day had been more of a father to Danny. Poor Danny, she thought, he must have so many conflicting emotions churning inside him, and she wasn’t making it any easier. This was not a day for bearing grudges.

The interment ended, and as they began to move away, Kate saw her mother go to Beth’s side and take her arm. Together, the two women walked away down the path. Jonathan was speaking to Rosie and, taking her chance, Kate went up to Danny and laid her hand gently on his arm.

He turned swiftly and gripped her hands. ‘Kate,’ was all he said, but it was enough.

They walked together down the footpath, following the others. She heard him sigh and looked up to see his gaze upon the black-coated figures of his mother and Esther Godfrey ahead of them.

‘Strange, isn’t it, how those two come together in times of sorrow and yet they can’t bring themselves to speak to one another ordinarily?’

Kate was silent. She could have said, ‘I know how they feel!’ She had made a tentative gesture of reconciliation towards Danny, but even now, Kate admitted guiltily to herself, she could not bring herself to speak to Rosie Eland.

Back at camp it was a little easier, but letters from home renewed the pain.

‘
Rosie’s living with Beth until after the war and when Danny comes home, the Good Lord willing, the Squire has promised him the tenancy of Rookery Farm, now that poor old Tom has gone. Miss Jenkins has moved into the town – she didn’t want to try to run the farm on her own . . .
’

So Kate was kept informed of all the gossip and news from home by her stepfather. Her mother was no letter-writer, but always sent messages via Jonathan. ‘
Your mother says
. . .’ littered every page and Kate would smile fondly as she read the latest instruction from home.

She sat with the letter in her lap and stared out of the window of the hut. So Danny and Rosie would one day live at Rookery Farm, God willing, as her stepfather said, that Danny came through the war. He would work the land he had once dreamed of farming. He would live there with his wife and he would raise his children; all just as he had planned, just as they had planned together so long ago. Only now, his wife was Rosie and not Kate.

She sighed and got up from her bed. It was time to drive one of the lorries taking the crews out to dispersal. The camp had been buzzing with anticipation all day, and Mavis and Isobel expected to be on duty through the night.

‘It’s something big,’ Mavis had told her. ‘They’re concentrating on the ports and the Rhineland. Night after night, they’ll go on – as long as the weather holds.’

At East Markham, they’d be getting ready too. Maybe at this very moment, Danny was climbing into his aircraft, squeezing himself into the rear-gunner’s turret.

Kate closed her eyes for a brief moment and groaned aloud. Tears squeezed themselves from beneath her eyelids. Despite everything, she loved him still. ‘Dear Father in Heaven, keep him safe,’ she prayed. ‘Bring him back, just bring him back.’

‘C
O wants you – and the car – his office – two minutes.’ ‘I’m on my way.’ Kate scrambled off the bed, pulled her skirt straight and rammed her cap over her long hair, tucking up the stray strands as she ran towards the CO’s office.

As she came breathlessly to attention in front of his desk, she noticed at once that Philip’s handsome face looked almost grey with fatigue – and something more. His jawline seemed hard, clenched almost, as if he were trying to conceal an anger, and yet at the same time there was an infinite sadness in his blue eyes; today there was no sparkle, no hint of mischief in them.

‘I have to go home urgently. Er – family illness,’ he said, his voice tight. ‘Can you drive me to Lincoln to catch the train?’ Suddenly, he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk, dropping his head into his hands, his shoulders slumped. ‘Oh Kate – Kate! How I wish . . .’

For a long moment there was silence in the room. Kate bit her lip uncertainly. An overwhelming longing to comfort him made her start forward, her hand fluttering towards him to touch him, but in that instant she remembered just who he was and where they were.

‘Sir,’ she prompted gently. ‘Your – your train?’

He lifted his head and looked up at her and, for a long moment, their gaze held. Then he sighed deeply and rose slowly as if his limbs were leaden. ‘Let’s go,’ he said flatly, without a shred of enthusiasm in his voice.

As she saw him on to the train, he said. ‘I don’t know when I’ll be back, Kate, but I’ll try to send word for you to meet me.’ He looked at her oddly for a moment, opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it again. Suddenly he clasped her hand briefly. ‘Take care of yourself while I’m gone . . .’ Then he turned swiftly away from her, leaped on to the train and slammed the door behind him.

Kate was thoughtful as she walked out of the station. His behaviour was puzzling. Mavis had said he was married and yet Philip seemed to avoid mentioning his wife and children – if, indeed, he had any. But if he had been called home on compassionate leave – a man in his position – then someone close to him must be seriously ill.

As she walked along the platform, she saw two women in WVS uniform setting up a trestle-table with a tea-urn, cups and saucers. She looked closely at them but they were strangers; Miss Ogden was not one of them this time.

Outside the station, heavily protected by sandbags piled up either side of the entrance, she moved towards where the staff car was parked. She hesitated. There was no need for her to rush back to camp. Officially, she was off-duty now that she had driven Philip to the city to catch his train. She wouldn’t be missed for an hour or so. Kate bit her lip and glanced up the hill towards the cathedral standing sentinel over the city sprawling down the hill beneath it. Almost without her making a conscious decision, her steps took her up High Street and through the Stonebow. As the road began to rise she took a turning to the left in the direction where she believed the school was. All the time she’d lived in Lincoln she had never ventured anywhere near.

It was time to lay to rest a few more ghosts from her childhood.

She stood before the place where the school had been and gazed at the ruins before her. On either side the buildings, though damaged, were still standing. It looked as if the school had received a direct hit.

A woman came trudging up the hill, carrying a heavy shopping basket, a child dragging at her skirt.

‘Excuse me . . .’ Kate began.

The woman looked at her with tired, defeated eyes.

‘Do – do you know what happened to the school?’ Kate nodded towards the demolished building. The woman glanced in the same direction. ‘Bomb fell on it,’ she explained, rather unnecessarily, Kate thought. ‘Awful, it were. My old man’s an air-raid warden. Several girls and three teachers were buried. He ’ad to dig ’em out.’

‘Were they . . .?’

‘Dead? Oh, no – only the headmistress was killed. T’others were hurt, like, but they’ve got over it.’

‘How dreadful!’ Kate murmured automatically, but she was thinking, ‘Miss Denham is dead.’

‘Oh yes,’ the tired woman was finding new vigour in her recounting of the event, now she had an interested listener. ‘A lovely woman, she was, the headmistress. All the girls loved her . . .’

‘Loved her? Miss Denham?’

The woman’s gaze was mystified. ‘Who? Who did you say? Don’t know no Miss Denham. No, the headmistress was called Miss Ogden!’

Kate gasped. ‘Oh, no!’

‘Knew her, did you?’

Kate nodded, sick at heart. Immediately she felt contrite, ashamed of her moment’s fleeting glee at the thought that Miss Denham had been killed. Now she was being punished for her uncharitable thought for unkind Fate had taken the woman who had shown her genuine kindness.

Kate continued up towards the cathedral. In the peaceful atmosphere she knelt in prayer for Miss Ogden. Outside again, she walked back down Lindum Hill in a daze, hardly knowing where she was going. Then she found herself in a street she knew very well. In the nine years she had lived in the city she had walked along it hundreds of times to and from work. Kate smiled and quickened her pace.

The door opened upon Peggy. She stared at Kate for a moment and then gave a squeal of delight.

‘Kate! I hardly recognized you in your uniform . . .’ Peggy flung her arms round her and gave her a swift hug, then stood back, holding Kate by the arms. ‘Let me look at you. Oh, you do look smart.’ Excited as a young girl, Peggy almost dragged the laughing Kate through into the back room. ‘Mother, look who’s here!’

Although she passed hurriedly through the front room, there was still time enough for Kate to notice its tidiness with a stab of disappointment; not a paper pattern nor a length of fabric to be seen – not even a stray pin. When she stepped through into the back room, she saw why. Mrs Godfrey was sitting near the fire hunched in her chair.