The Promise (35 page)

Just that was bad enough, Belle, but then he dug up all the old stuff about Kent’s trial, all of it slanted to make you look bad. Then finally he said that there was evidence that you continued to work as a ‘lady of the night’ in Paris right up until you came home to England and married Jimmy.

He was implying, though he didn’t say it in so many words, that this was why you wanted to go back to France.

Garth of course ripped up the paper and informed the man who had brought it in that it was pure fantasy. We telephoned Noah, and he said we can’t sue Blessard and his newspaper for slander because he hasn’t made it up, it’s true, all he’s done is tell it in a way which isn’t sympathetic towards you.

Noah said we must maintain a dignified silence and then it will all blow over, but though the regulars in the bar don’t appear to believe a word of it, I’ve been cold-shouldered by women in the sewing circle, and I don’t feel able to go there any more.

I’ve hardly been out the door because of it. I can’t bear to think people are whispering about you. I think we may have to sell up and move away. But we can’t do that now, not with the war on, things are tight everywhere, and Garth says if we go that will make us look guilty. We both agree though that you should stay away for now. You could go to Annie’s, I suppose. I went to see her to tell her about it but she was her usual chilly self, more concerned with her business than about you.

Oh dear, Belle. This is such an awful thing to have to tell you, so unfair too when you are far away and I can’t hug you and promise you it will all turn right soon. That man Blessard needs stringing up, but Garth can’t touch him without further trouble coming our way. That nice policeman Mr Broadhead is on our side, he’s already told a couple of gossips that it’s vindictive rubbish and they should be ashamed of themselves for believing it. If only there were more people like him.

Write soon, and keep safe. You and Jimmy are in our hearts and thoughts all the time. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news when you must already be so sad. I can’t bring myself to tell Jimmy about this, he’s got more than enough to deal with just now.

Your loving Mog

Belle felt as if a trapdoor had opened beneath her and she was falling into a dark pit. She had put Blessard out of her mind when she left England, and she hadn’t for one moment thought he would trouble her again. How stupid was she? He’d just been biding his time and waiting for an opportunity to present itself. And Mrs Forbes-Alton had given him that opportunity.

Bad as it was that people were talking about her, it was Mog she was really concerned for. She had worked so hard to gain respect in the village and now she was afraid and demoralized.

Belle felt that this was a punishment for her wrongdoing.

Somehow she managed to get through the day without breaking down, but when she got back to the hut that evening, Vera was waiting expectantly.

‘Was Captain Taylor cross with you?’ she asked.

‘I didn’t go and see him. I’m not going home,’ Belle said.

‘Why? Is it Jimmy?’

Sally and the other two girls were changing, and they all looked round at her.

Belle inclined her head towards the door. She could barely contain her tears and she didn’t want the other girls to see her break down.

Vera came out with her and they went and sat on a bench by one of the wards.

‘Well, come on, tell me,’ Vera said impatiently. ‘Is it because Etienne’s coming to see you?’

‘No, it’s nothing to do with him,’ Belle said. ‘Mog said I must stay away because of some nasty gossip about me.’

Vera looked puzzled and that made Belle see she’d blundered. She should have made out that Mog was ill, anything other than the truth, because now she would have to explain.

‘I was involved in something awful when I was much younger,’ she said. ‘Someone has dug it up and spread it around.’

It had been easy enough to tell Miranda about her previous life because of what they’d been through together, but although Vera had travelled all the way from New Zealand to work here, she wasn’t exactly worldly. Belle told her only an abbreviated version of the story but she couldn’t prevent herself crying.

‘I don’t suppose you’ll want me as a friend any more,’ she sobbed. ‘I thought it was all behind me, and I’d made up for it by working in the hospital back home and coming here. But I was wrong, wasn’t I? Fallen women can’t be repaired; I suppose that’s why I couldn’t resist Etienne.’

Vera put her arms around her and held her tightly. ‘I am shocked,’ she admitted. ‘I’d be lying if I said otherwise. But what astounds me is that you’ve been through all that, and yet you somehow managed to remain such a good person. And of course I’ll still want you as a friend; all this has done is reveal more depth to you. A weak person would just have crumpled up, let themselves become a victim for ever more. You fought back and I admire that.’

The sun was setting and it was growing chilly, but Vera didn’t suggest they went inside, she just continued to hold Belle and let her cry.

‘I understand about Etienne now,’ Vera said softly. ‘And other things about you that I’ve often wondered about. When you first arrived with Miranda I thought you were two of a kind, girls from good families who wanted to experience something outside your pampered little world. Sally made a couple of sarcastic remarks about you that suggested you weren’t out of the top drawer. Not being English, I wouldn’t recognize that straight away. But what I did see, very early on, was that you were the one with the heart, the guts and the drive. I liked Miranda, but you were the one I really wanted to get to know. You remind me of some of the women my mother knows, the pioneers who came out to New Zealand and built a good life for themselves on nothing but hard work and determination. You’ll be all right, Belle. You are made of the right stuff. Whatever life throws at you you’ll deal with it.’

‘That’s a nice thing to say.’ Belle sniffed back her tears. ‘But thanks to my past I’ve messed up Mog and Garth’s life. And what about Jimmy? What will I do to him?’

‘You can’t be responsible for everyone’s happiness,’ Vera said. ‘My mother said that a few years ago when her sister was having a hard time and expected Ma to sort it for her. Maybe you will discover Jimmy is the only man for you, maybe you won’t. Mog and Garth might find they’ve got to move somewhere else, or it might all blow over. One thing we ought to have learned from this war is that we can’t predict anything. It’s just destiny.’

‘You are very wise,’ Belle said.

‘I’m also very cold,’ Vera said. ‘So let’s go and see if there’s anything to eat in the canteen and get some cocoa.’

Chapter Nineteen

‘The one good thing about being really busy is that there’s no chance to brood on things,’ Belle said to Vera as they snatched tea and a sandwich between runs to the station.

It was the middle of the night. The hospital trains ran at night now because of fear of them being bombed. German bomber planes targeted railways to break service and communication lines, and they had no scruples about blowing up the sick and wounded. So now the ambulances went out in the darkness, without lights, which made the job even harder on the bad winding roads.

It was also raining yet again. People were saying it was the wettest, coldest summer on record, and Belle, who remembered stifling summer nights in Seven Dials as a child, and the steamy heat of New Orleans, wouldn’t argue with them.

Vera’s freckled face broke into a grin. ‘Hard work might suit you, but I’d like time to wash my hair and write letters home,’ she said. ‘I know I look a fright, and Ma will be getting frantic if she doesn’t hear from me soon.’

Belle guessed she looked a fright too; she had long since stopped caring about her appearance. ‘I don’t know what to say in letters any more,’ she sighed. ‘I can’t bring myself to write that it’s raining again and we wade through puddles to reach our ambulance. I’ve said that all too often before. The food here is as bad as ever, we never get time off, that’s also as dull as ditchwater and another repeat. The only difference with the wounded now is that there’s more mud on them. They might like to know at home that the death toll at Ypres isn’t as high as at the Somme, but I can’t bring myself to even think of men drowning in shell holes, let alone write about it.’

The third battle of Ypres had begun on 31 July, preceded by a fifteen-day bombardment in which four million shells were fired. The noise of the guns was so loud it was said they could be heard in England, and at the hospital it sounded as if they were being fired only a few miles away.

News got through that on the morning of the 31st the weather was dry, although the ground was churned and pockmarked by two years of shelling. By all accounts the infantry, along with a hundred and thirty tanks, made good progress towards the Gheluvelt Plateau, south-east of Ypres. It was considered important to gain this ground from the Germans because its slight elevation gave good observation over all the surrounding lowland.

But then during the afternoon the Germans counter-attacked with such heavy fire that the leading BEF troops had to flee, and in addition there was a sudden torrential downpour which turned the already soggy ground to the consistency of porridge. More divisions continued the assault, but it rained solidly for the next three days. Lines of communication were broken, men drowned in shell holes, tanks sank into the mud, horses and mules floundered, and at that point General Haig called a halt to the offensive.

The total casualties, including the French soldiers, were guessed to be around 35,000, and it was reckoned that the Germans had suffered a similar number.

The first wave of wounded arrived on 1 August, and each day since the numbers had steadily risen. Belle couldn’t be sure whether Jimmy and Etienne were still alive, just as Vera didn’t know about her brothers. They had to make themselves believe that no news was good news.

But the stories the wounded were telling about the conditions at Ypres were the stuff of nightmares. These wounded were the lucky ones who had managed to stay out of the water-filled shell holes until they were picked up by stretcher bearers. Some of the badly injured told how they had tried to pull a friend out of the mud, only to see him slither back deeper into it and disappear.

While Belle, Vera and the other drivers had no real understanding of the bigger picture and what Haig’s battle plan was, it appeared to be as pointless as the battle of the Somme: enormous casualties to gain a few yards, only to lose those yards later in a German counter-attack.

At the field stations and in the hospital trains, the nurses had made huge efforts to clean the mud off the wounded and get them into hospital blues, but even so, many men were still caked in mud on arrival at the train station. This was why Belle and Vera had no time for washing their own hair or writing letters, because as soon as they got the last of the wounded to the hospital, they went to the wards to help out there too. The regular wards were full to capacity and dozens of large tents had been erected for the overflow. Many of the doctors and nurses had stayed on duty for forty-eight hours at a stretch.

‘Captain Taylor wants us both driving the men with Blighty tickets to Calais tomorrow,’ Vera said as she gulped down her sandwich. ‘Reckon that means there’s even greater numbers coming in on the trains.’

‘Well, I expect we’ll be the last to know. But we’d better get back to the station now. No peace for the wicked.’

‘You haven’t mentioned you know who lately,’ Vera said as they walked back to their ambulances.

‘I try not to think about him,’ Belle replied. ‘But I’m not very successful.’

Vera put her hand on Belle’s arm and squeezed it, her way of saying she sympathized. ‘Let’s buy a bottle of something in Calais tomorrow and get roaring drunk when we get back. It might take our minds off the people we love for an hour or two.’

Belle thought about Vera’s suggestion as she drove to the station. David was half asleep; like so many of them he too was helping out in the wards during the day. Everyone at the hospital was worn out, not just from the long hours they worked, but from the unremitting horror they saw daily and to which no end was in sight. She and Vera weren’t alone in having people they cared for at the front; almost everyone had someone there they were concerned about. Then there were their families back home struggling with food shortages and being bombed, anxiety for those in France and wondering if life would ever return to how it had been before the war.

Mog’s letters had become very different since Blessard’s remarks about Belle in the press. There was no gossip in them any more, instead she wrote about making jam and bottling fruit, or going out on a Sunday with Garth to the country. She tried so hard to sound cheerful, but it was quite apparent that she had withdrawn into herself.

Guilt ate away at Belle, for her past which had cast such a cloud over Mog, and for her infidelity to Jimmy. He wrote as often as he could, but there was weariness in his letters too. As for Etienne’s, his unfailing optimism that one day they could be happy together was often frightening because Belle knew any happiness with him would only cause others misery. She had said in all her letters back to him that it could never be as simple as he believed it was. All he would say in reply to that was that he was prepared to wait, however long it took.