Women and War (28 page)

As she sang her eyes found Richard's. The room was crowded but she was singing to no one but him. When she finished the applause and the calls for more were deafening but Richard moved in front of her holding up his hand for quiet.

‘Perhaps Tara will do us the honour of singing for us again some time but for tonight, sadly, we must let her go.'

He took her elbow, steering her towards the door. As it closed after them she turned to him, smiling.

‘Thank you! That was an inspiration. I didn't know what to do. I could hardly be rude to the CO, could I?'

Richard smiled back. ‘Glad to have been of assistance. He's had a little more to drink than is good for him. Normally he's a perfect gentleman.'

No, she wanted to say – you are the perfect gentleman. The only real gentleman I've ever met – the only one I want to meet.

The night was warm and still. In the undergrowth the crickets chirped, a constant symphony. They walked close together but not touching and Tara was sharply aware of his bare arm swinging just a few centimetres from her own.

Outside the door of her hut they stopped.

‘Tara, I'd like to see you again,' he said. After all her hopes, all her plotting, the directness of it took her breath away. ‘I know there's not a great deal here on offer – no theatres, no restaurants, no civilization – but maybe we could find a way to make up for that. There are some quite pleasant walks and …'

Suddenly, ridiculously, Tara was laughing, the mirth bubbling up in her though she scarcely knew why. For a moment Richard looked shocked then he too was laughing.

‘Oh, I'm sorry,' Tara said when at last she controlled herself. ‘There's nothing funny really. It's just the thought of grand opera or something out here in the middle of nowhere. And when I started to laugh I just couldn't stop …'

‘Stay just as you are, Tara.' His voice was low now, vibrant with something that was certainly not laughter. ‘Keep everyone's spirits up while this damned war lasts.'

She looked at him sharply but his face was in shadow.

‘Tomorrow, then?' he said.

She nodded. ‘ Yes, I'd like that.'

He touched her arm lightly. ‘ Go in now. Get some sleep. You must be exhausted.'

‘Yes,' she said. ‘I am.'

But she knew that she was far too excited to sleep. She waved until the darkness swallowed him up then leaned against the corrugated wall of the hut, hands pressed over her mouth as the happiness welled up within her.

I'll never sleep, she thought. Not for hours and hours – not now. I'll only keep everyone awake with my tossing and turning. I think I'll go for a little walk.

That was how she had come to find herself back in the clearing, scene of her earlier triumph, deserted now yet still seeming to echo softly with the music, the laughter and the applause. Tara stood at the very perimeter remembering and relishing every moment. And the pleasure in the memory was heightened because of what had followed.

Richard! Oh, Richard! He noticed me! He asked me out! We laughed …

With the joy bubbling in her she began to laugh again. Soft happy laughter blending with the sounds of the night! Then the laughter died in her throat as a twig cracked in the undergrowth behind her.

What was that? She half turned towards the sound and thought she heard the thick grass rustle. Holy Mother, what was it – someone standing there watching her? She stood motionless, listening with every fibre of her being. Nothing. Just the chirping of the crickets. She turned back and something brushed her face making her cry out before common sense intervened. She put up her hand and caught at a horn-shaped carob pod a few inches from her cheek.

Her breath came out on a shuddering sigh. You are crazy, Tara Kelly. You have had too much champagne and your imagination is running riot. Time to go back to your quarters and try to get some sleep.

As she turned back to the clearing the foliage rustled again. Her nerves screamed a warning – too late. Before she had time to react or even register, something all enveloping like a blanket or coat was thrown over her head and a body lunged at her. Tara screamed but the coat stifled the sound. Blindly she hit out, struggling and fighting, and for a moment she and her attacker swayed and stumbled together. Then Tara's foot caught, she lost her balance and fell heavily, her attacker on top of her. With a sickening crack the soft base of her skull smashed against the exposed root of a tree and Tara knew no more.

The clattering whirr of a fan interspersed with the insistent mewing cry of a baby awoke her. She came slowly through the layers of drug-induced sleep, opened her eyes to a blindingly sharp pain and quickly closed them again.

‘Tara – are you awake?'

She squinted, trying to cut out as much light as possible. Sister Kate Harris was bending over her, her freckled face anxious.

‘Yes,' Tara said. The effort made her mouth hurt – lips, gums, teeth, chin.

‘How are you feeling?'

For a moment Tara did not answer. She lay still, assessing. There was not a square inch of her body which did not hurt. It had been like this every waking moment for the last three days, but without doubt it was the constant headache which was the worst.

‘Terrible,' she said. ‘And that fan – it makes such a racket. It's making my head throb. Can't you turn it off?'

‘If I do you won't be able to stand the heat in here,' Kate said.

Tara moistened her lips. They were dry, so dry, but the spittle made them sting again. ‘I can't win, can I?'

‘No,' Kate said cheerfully. ‘ Now you know what it's like to be a patient.'

Tara rolled her head on the pillow. There was nothing to see but a wall of canvas. She was in a corner of the tent ward reserved for maternity cases but they had partitioned it off to give her a modicum of privacy.

‘How long have I been asleep?' she asked.

‘Hours. Captain Allingham has looked in at least three times to see you. And – not so pleasant – the officer investigating came again hoping to find you awake.'

‘Oh.' Tara shuddered. She knew what that meant. More questions. And she knew none of the answers. They were all lost in that terrifying blackness between the struggle in the bushes and waking up for the first time to find herself in the tent ward. Somewhere between she had been raped and beaten. But she could remember nothing – only the vaguest of impressions. In some ways it was more disturbing than clear and painful memories would have been. To know she had been used and abused and to be able to recall nothing about it. ‘ Who was it? Who did this to you?' they had asked her when she first emerged from the blackness and she had only been able to whisper: ‘I don't know. I don't know!'

At first they had not believed her. ‘Don't shield him!' they had said. And later, when her denials became distracted, they had tried new avenues. What impressions had she gained? How tall was he? Did he speak? Had she smelled anything identifiable? Felt his hair, his face? Did he have a moustache or was he clean shaven.

‘I don't know! Why won't you believe I don't remember anything?' she cried. But she knew they would not give up easily and in the half world where she drifted between sleeping and waking she tried to answer the questions.

In vain. Trying to remember simply made her head hurt and she could recall nothing. Again and again she returned to the moment when she had heard the bushes rustle, trying to fill in some other detail – a smell or sound – but there was nothing. And the moment when the coat had gone over her head was a jumble of impressions so confused as to be useless. How did she know it was a coat? they had asked her. She had not even been able to answer that with any certainty. Because it was heavy material, perhaps, or because she had felt the buttons or smelled the rubberized fabric. Did she remember feeling the buttons? No. Then how did she know it was not a groundsheet, such as many of the audience had brought to sit on for the concert? That was more likely, surely; in the Dry no one would be wearing a rubberized ovecoat.

Wearily she agreed. But it did nothing to help identify her attacker and that was one of the nastiest aspects of the whole grim business. It could have been anyone.

Anyone, she thought, and there was a sick hollow sound even to the word itself. Anyone. It could have been a vagrant, of course, but most of those had been rounded up by the provosts. It could have been someone from one of the other camps in the area, someone who had been at the concert, perhaps, and been incited by her performance and their own sexual frustration. But why should anyone hang around in the clearing? Wasn't it more likely he was from 138 – someone who had been in the officers' mess, perhaps, and who had followed her back to her quarters? It was a sickening thought. Alibis would be checked out, she guessed, uniforms examined. But unless the culprit could be found Tara would spend the rest of her service looking at this man and that, wondering – Was it you? Could it have been
you
?

Tara moistened her lips again and Kate noticed.

‘Would you like a drink?'

‘Mm. Yes. Oh – I feel so thick …'

Kate bent over her, then straightened, a smile playing about her mouth. ‘ Oh-oh – here he is again!'

‘Who? Not the provost …?' Tara turned her head on the pillow, following Kate's line of vision. ‘Oh – Richard!'

He came around the tent flap, bending his tall frame, and suddenly she was overcome with self-consciousness.

‘She's awake now,' Kate said, and to Tara: ‘ I'll leave you for a while. But I won't be far away if you want anything.'

Richard sat down beside her bed leaning over to examine her face.

‘I must look a fright,' she said.

One corner of his mouth lifted. ‘A bit. But nothing that won't mend.' Then a shadow darkened his eyes. ‘ You still haven't remembered anything?'

‘No! I keep telling them … have they asked you to ask me now?'

‘Oh no. I'm the one who got most of the questions thrown at me.'

‘You?'

‘I was the last person to see you before …'

‘But that is ridiculous!' she tried to lift herself but a sharp pain in her ribs made her fall back again. ‘Surely they don't think …'

‘I hope I have convinced them that I am not that sort of animal. It doesn't alter the fact that I feel responsible.'

‘Responsible? Why?'

‘I should have made sure you were safe. I can say I'm sorry, Tara, but it doesn't help now, does it?'

‘You don't have to be sorry!' she struggled to form the words with lips that refused to work properly. ‘I'm the one who should be sorry if they suspected you. I was the one who went wandering about in the middle of the night. If I'd gone straight in it would never have happened.'

‘Don't!' He took her hand, stroking the scratched skin with his thumb. ‘I know we have been trying to bring back the memory – we want to get the beast who did this to you. But the medical evidence is that you were probably unconscious from the moment your head struck the stone and it is my opinion that it's only distressing to you trying to remember. I think now that what you should do is try to forget.'

She laughed bitterly. ‘That's not going to be easy. Especially when I hurt all over.'

‘No, but it will get better – and quite quickly now. It's superficial damage only. That is not what concerns me.' He paused and Tara saw the anxious, faraway expression in his eyes as his mind raced over other, less tangible effects. ‘I'll make it up to you, Tara, I promise,' he said.

You don't have to. She almost said it – the words were there; hovering on her lips. But the look in his eyes stopped her.

When had anyone ever looked at her like that before – with so much caring, so much compassion, so much
love
? Oh, she had seen desire often enough, and lust. But not tender concern – never that. Now his eyes were a fire at which she could warm herself, surrounding her with: a glow which took away all her pain, made her forget every moment of shadowy horror.

I would go through anything –
anything
– to have him look at me like that, she thought.

The drugs were beginning to take a hold again, dragging her back into muzziness. But sleep held no terrors for her and the last thing she was aware of before drifting back into unconsciousness was his thumb, still stroking the back of her hand.

When she was fit enough to sit out for a few hours Colonel Adamson came to see Tara.

‘Bad business, m'dear – shocked us all,' he said, compressing his large frame onto the economy size ward chair. ‘And I'm afraid to say we are no closer to identifying the culprit. I'm of the opinion that we can safely lay the blame with one of the camps – so damned many around here – but every line of enquiry seems to draw a blank.'

Tara nodded. With her returning strength, she was beginning to be glad the enquiries had proved fruitless. It was disconcerting not to know who her attacker had been, of course, but an identification now would mean going over the whole ghastly episode again, more questioning – and worse. If there was a court martial she would be called to give evidence. Tara knew all about trials. The defendant was not the only one to find himself in the dock, the victim was on trial too. And there was plenty in Tara's past which would not stand up to interrogation. Already there were those who, like Anastasia Bottomley, murmured that Tara Kelly had only got what she had asked for. Let a good defence counsel loose on her past life and she would be finished at 138 AGH.

‘I'm afraid, m'dear, this sort of thing is one of the scourges of war,' the CO went on. ‘When men think they may be about to die it can have an unfortunate effect on them. But let us not talk about that any more – let's talk about you. I expect you would like some leave when you are fit enough – go home and have a good rest.'