The Silver Locket (21 page)

Since autumn, he had changed. The sullen, sulky boy had disappeared, and although he sometimes scowled or grimaced, he was more often happy and contented.

Or was he complacent?

He had Rose where he wanted her, he knew how much she loved him, so would he move on to some other challenge now? There were scores and scores of pretty nurses, and they would all like Alex, all be enchanted by his lovely smile and fathomless dark eyes.

‘I don’t want to leave you.’ There, she’d said it and he could scoff and grin.

‘I don’t want you to go. But I’ll write every day.’

‘It won’t be the same.’

‘Of course it won’t.’ He shrugged, and Rose thought bitterly that his awful childhood must have made him stoical – had taught him to accept, not to rebel. ‘When I get some leave, I’ll come and see you.’

‘I won’t be able to get away, because those trains are prisons. We live on them, and we’re not allowed to leave unless we go in pairs. I’d never be able to slip away and slip back on again – the damned thing would move off and leave me stranded.’

‘We’ll find a way,’ said Alex.

‘
You
might find someone else.’ Rose felt the tears well up behind her eyes and threaten to spill over. ‘I sometimes think all this must be a dream.’

‘Then we’re both asleep,’ said Alex, softly. ‘Rose, there’ll never be anyone but you, and so you must be careful. I don’t want to hear about you falling off a foot-board, or getting squashed between two moving trains.’

‘I’ll be careful. Alex?’

‘Yes?’

‘I – I’ll write to you.’

‘I know you will, and I’ll write back. Rose, what’s the matter?’

‘Nothing.’ Rose reached for her clothes. ‘I must be going. Elsie can’t manage by herself and Norah’s sick again, so I’m on shift at eight.’

‘Rose!’ The train was waiting at Amiens, and Maria had obviously been looking out for her, for now she hopped down nimbly. ‘It’s wonderful to see you! How did you get here? By rail from Belancourt, or did you find a lift?’

‘I got a lift.’ Rose blinked back the tears that were threatening to spill over. As she’d watched Alex drive away in the battered vehicle that belonged to his CO, she’d thought her heart would break in little pieces.

‘Come on board, I’ll show you round.’ Maria was relaxed and cheerful, in the highest spirits. ‘This is the best ambulance train we’ve got,’ she went on, proudly. ‘You can’t imagine how much things have changed! We’ve got proper bunks for all the men, the nurses have a bedroom each. The kitchen is all modern, and we’ve got ample room to stow supplies, so we’re not always falling over boxes.

‘We leave at ten o’clock tonight. I think we’re going north. There hasn’t been a battle, but I believe they’re taking lots of punishment up there.’

‘I see,’ said Rose, who didn’t care where she went.

‘Rose?’ Maria finally noticed she was quiet. ‘You don’t have much to say for yourself.’

‘I’m tired.’

‘Poor Rose. Well, Judith and Fiona will soon be back from town, and then we’ll have some supper. You’ll like them, Judith is a scream, she can mimic anybody. You should hear her take off Sister Glossop! Rose, what
is
the matter?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Then why are you so gloomy?’ Maria looked at Rose and frowned. ‘It – it isn’t Phoebe?’

‘It’s not Phoebe.’

‘Then who is it – a man?’

Rose nodded miserably.

‘There are problems?’

‘Yes.’

‘He’s married?’

‘Yes.’

‘But you’re fond of him?’

‘It’s more than that, Maria.’ Rose began to cry. ‘I l-love him more than anything!’

‘Then I hope you’re being very careful,’ said Maria.

‘I’ve been reckless from the start. But it doesn’t matter, because I
want
his child.’

‘Oh, Rose!’ Maria shook her head. ‘What does he say about it?’

‘I haven’t told him yet.’

‘You idiot, he’ll have to know! You can’t cope on your own, and you–’

There was a clatter of boots and suddenly two bright-eyed nurses jumped on to the running board outside the kitchen window. They started making faces through the glass.

‘You got that kettle on, Maria?’ mouthed a pretty redhead.

‘You better have!’ went on a tall brunette. ‘I’m as dry as the Sahara desert, and my flipping feet are killing me!’

Alex was trying to stick a plaster on a brand new gash on his right hand when Michael Easton came into the dugout, looking as if he’d eaten bitter aloes.

‘Sir?’ he muttered, and Alex could see how much it cost the baronet’s heir to call the bastard
sir
, ‘Major Gethyn says he’d like an urgent word with you.’

‘Alex, my dear fellow, you’re our man for night patrols.’ The major was scowling at a sheet of orders. ‘Those machine gun placements opposite – awful nuisance, doing frightful damage to morale. We need you and your chaps to take them out.’

‘This evening, sir?’ asked Alex, who’d meant to write to Rose, whom he was missing like a body part – which he supposed was not surprising, since she’d made off with his heart and soul.

‘If it’s not too bright.’ The major sniffed. ‘I know there’s a full moon, but the forecast reckons there’ll be cloud. I leave it up to you, but don’t wait until the cows come home. I want those buggers sorted out.’

After stand to arms, the cloud banked up. Alex thought he might as well go out, and so he chose a sergeant and another officer, told them to bring as many grenades and bombs as they could carry, then set off.

The gunners weren’t exactly opposite. Finding a position from which they could lob their bombs, then hope to make it back to the British lines, involved a half mile slither across a stinking swamp, cutting through a section of the wire, then skulking past some bombed-out houses, which Alex knew might well be occupied by German snipers.

‘Almost there, sir,’ Sergeant Norris murmured, as they picked their way in freezing darkness past a house, then crouched behind a garden wall.

‘Sergeant, you stay here,’ said Alex. He had skirted round the wall and could now see their target. ‘David, we’ll go in and get them panicking. Norris, when you hear the first explosions, throw the heavy ones for all you’re worth, then get off home to bed.’

Leaving the sergeant and the bombs, Alex and Lieutenant Richardson slithered on their stomachs through the mud, grenades hung around their waists and slung on bandoliers from their shoulders.

They got so close that they could hear the Germans talking. Alex turned to his companion, signalled he should wait, and then inched forward, pulling out the pin of a grenade.

As he threw it, orange fire lit the night behind him. He turned to see a sheet of flame enveloping Lieutenant Richardson, and Sergeant Norris running like a crab towards the stricken officer. Machine gun bullets threw up sprays of mud and splintered ice.

‘Get the bombs off him!’ Alex rolled Lieutenant Richardson in the stinking mire, pulling at his belt and tugging at his bandoliers, trying to get them off before the grenades he carried all exploded.

David Richardson was badly burned. His clothes were charred black shreds, his hair was gone, and strips of skin hung from his back and face.

Alex dragged his own jacket off and wrapped it round the shivering lieutenant. ‘David, I’ll be back,’ he promised. ‘Come on, Sergeant Norris. We’re going to blow those sods back to their mothers in Berlin.’

Alex hadn’t written for three whole weeks, and now Rose feared the worst. She’d offered God all sorts of deals. Alex could have found another woman, could have even had some sort of grand reunion with Chloe, if he wasn’t wounded, wasn’t dead.

Then, one morning, she had a premonition of disaster. ‘It’s all so pointless,’ he had muttered. When she’d asked if he was frightened, he had said – what
had
he said? She could not remember.

But if he’d climbed out of a trench one day, walked off and kept on walking, when they caught him he’d be shot.

A fortnight later, she finally had some post. She realised he must have written several dozen letters, but they’d all gone astray. She didn’t recognise the writing on the bulky packet, but supposed it was some army clerk’s. So where was he, in hospital? Or in some army prison and awaiting execution?

It was even worse than that.

The cutting was from
The Times
. ‘Captain Alexander Stephen Denham, 3rd Battalion, Royal Dorset Regiment, died of wounds on February 26,’ she read.

Rose stared down at the letters.
‘I’ll probably get some leave next week,’
he’d written on one he hadn’t finished,
‘so I’ll get a lift to Amiens and hope I can see you.’

Henry Denham wrote that he’d received all Alex’s things, and found Rose’s letters in his pack
. ‘I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings,’
he continued.
‘I didn’t know you and Alex were so close. My dear, please come and visit me when you are back in England. I’d like to give you some of my boy’s things.’

Henry had sent her all the letters she had written to Alex. Creased and folded and refolded, stained with damp and tattered at the corners, read and read again, they all smelled of dirt and mould and blood.

When Maria came to look for her, Rose was in so much pain she couldn’t speak. She couldn’t hear, she couldn’t see, for a mist has risen and she couldn’t grope her way out of the shrouding horror.

‘Let’s get you to bed.’ Rose was aware of somebody undressing her, of tying back her hair, of tucking her between the sheets. Somebody was giving her a drink of something bitter, making her swallow small, reluctant sips.

When she woke again, Maria was sitting on her bed. The train was due to leave at six, and Rose knew she couldn’t stay there, taking up a nurse’s precious quarters. If she couldn’t function, she would have to let them find someone to take her place.

What would she do then? How would she survive the night, all alone and feeling as if she’d been stabbed through the heart?

‘Rose?’ Maria had brought black coffee. ‘I’ve arranged for you to spend the night in Rouen.’

‘I’m staying here with you.’

‘Rose, you’re in no fit state–’

‘Don’t you understand, I
need
to work!’ Rose met Maria’s startled gaze. ‘It’s either that or lose my mind.’

Rose got up and dressed, plaited her long, dark hair and twisted it into a chignon, and then she went on duty with the rest.

‘I’m not the only one,’ she told herself, as she moved on down the rocking train, charging carrel tubes, adjusting splints, applying poultices and fomentations.

As she cut off muddied, bloodied uniforms with enormous shears, as she helped the doctor clean then stitch a jagged wound or staunch a flow of blood, she smiled and soothed and murmured words of comfort.

Cheerful, diligent, efficient, that night someone else was occupying Rose’s body. She was in another place and in another time, and far away.

Chapter Thirteen

‘You’re only one of thousands,’ Rose told herself repeatedly, as she tried to batten down the pain. ‘Every minute of every day, some poor woman gets a telegram. They loved their men as much as you loved him.’

‘They couldn’t have done,’ her other self replied.

She worked every shift she could, but sometimes she was forced to take some rest. Then, as she lay sleepless, the bad thoughts came crowding in.

‘It’s your fault he’s dead,’ they whispered. ‘You knew it was wrong, and that you’d both be punished. You killed Alex Denham as surely as if you’d stabbed him through the heart. Why don’t you kill yourself, and make an end of it?’

But she knew she couldn’t kill herself. If she did, she’d be a murderess, as well as all the other awful things. This new life inside her was her inheritance, her last precious gift from him and, although she didn’t know how she’d cope alone and friendless, she was determined she would find a way.

She thought of Alex’s mother, who had done her blundering best for him. But she would not rely on men. She’d go back to England soon, and find herself a job. She’d say she was a widow. She would have the baby, and then work for them both. They would be a little family.

The trains went back and forth, thundering through the night at breakneck speed towards another scene from hell, then trundling slowly back to bases in the towns or on the coast with yet more loads of pain and misery.

Rose started to get heartburn, backache, morning sickness that went on all day. The sweet, rotting smell of wounds made her feel nauseous, and often she would have to go and vomit secretly in buckets already full of blood-stained dressings.

The buttons on her dress began to strain to meet around her middle, her breasts were swollen and her ankles puffy, so her boots were much too tight.

One March evening, as they sped east towards another casualty clearing station to collect another crisis load, Maria found her sitting in the kitchen, staring through the glass at the black night.