A Girl in Wartime (16 page)

He wasn't sure if he'd yelled out or not. Ronnie hadn't appeared to have heard or seen anything in the chaos of the charge. Moments later they'd been forced into a retreat as men fell all around, an officer frantically signalxling back those on their feet but staggering almost to a halt. Hope of gaining the enemy line was utterly dashed; common sense had been the officer's only option.

Ronnie, seeing all that blood, had been in a panic when they'd finally tumbled back into their own trench, demanding to know how bad it was and what should he do to help. But a medic had taken one look at the wound, grinned and nodded. ‘You were bleeding lucky there, son,' he'd muttered as he pointed him in the direction of the first-aid field tent. ‘A bit further right, you'd have had your chips – hearts and bullets don't mix, y'know.'

To Albert's disappointment – in a way – he'd merely undergone first aid; his wound was stitched and bound, and he had been pronounced fit enough to return to his post.

Had the bullet gone deeper, smashed the bone to smithereens, he'd have been sent back to the field hospital for a while to escape the madness of war, the soul-shaking reverberations of shell blasts, that wall of rifle fire, death and pain all around.

It might even have meant the arm having to be amputated and he'd have been sent home invalided – safe at last, who knew? Except that he'd have been forced to leave Ronnie behind in this hellhole, and that he didn't want.

He thanked his lucky stars his was no more than a flesh wound. Six months here, so far he'd been lucky, so damned lucky. Thousands and thousands had been killed just in that short time.

‘You all right?' Ronnie opened his eyes to ask as he slipped back down into the trench beside him.

‘I'm fine,' Albert answered, sliding down to a sitting position beside his brother. But Ronnie had closed his eyes and was already snoring again.

Taking advantage of a lull in the fighting, most were dozing, legs out-stretched or tucked beneath them, their heads cradled in some muddy niche in the trench wall where it felt most comfortable. They were miles away in dreams of home, no doubt, and loved ones, others lost in a precious letter from wives, sweethearts, parents back home; or absorbed in writing to them, lost to the war for a while.

He thought of Edith and began searching his kit for a bit of paper and pencil. Crouched over a scrap of paper, stub of pencil in hand, one knee crooked to support his letter, oblivious to those next to him, all of them packed so closely that to try to walk even a short distance meant stepping over legs and hunched bodies.

Edie wore his engagement ring and wrote almost daily, letters filled with love and concern, though half of them were so delayed they often came in one batch and he was never sure which to start on first. They lay now all together in his kit, went with him into battle. Men were sent over the top in full kit and it always felt to him as if she was with him; her love shielded him from harm.

Even so he looked forward to those couple of weeks away from the front line, men given this break now and again to rest up and regain their sanity. Without it a man could go mad. There were some to whom that actually happened: they just went crazy, did daft things, their bodies shaking from head to toe; some who shot themselves in the foot looking to be invalided home; some who went berserk and attacked their officers or just stood staring about them with wild eyes, ignoring orders; some who just stood up and walked away. Such men were caught, arrested and, so it was said, shot as deserters.

He just hoped this flesh wound of his would be the only one he would ever get; he prayed – he who'd never been one given to praying – that when this war was over, as it had to be one day – it couldn't last for ever – that he be returned whole to Edith. There were times just before being sent over the top that he would glance at Ronnie and see his lips moving and know that he too prayed.

He prayed Ronnie would come out unscathed in this war, that he'd continue to have good luck smile down on him, just as Albert felt it was smiling on himself at this moment while, his arm bandaged, he bent over his letter of love to Edith. Before too long they'd hopefully be granted a few days' leave and sent home to rest. And he intended to enjoy that to the full with Edie.

Tenth of December, Connie's birthday. Being a Friday she was at work. Tomorrow Mum had planned a little family get-together for her.

Her parents had given her slippers first thing this morning – not a huge present, but most things were hard to come by with all the shortages these days. Unless of course you had pots of money – then you could buy any luxury you fancied. But for ordinary people such things were out of reach.

Today she and Stephen were having midday lunch together. He had wanted to take her to dinner this evening but Mum and Dad were expecting her home. Stephen wouldn't be at her party because she'd so far not told her family about him – something made her cautious: his age, hers; he an editor, she nobody, really.

He still saw her home, dropping her off a few doors from where she lived so that he could kiss her goodnight properly while the taxi's engine throbbed noisily as it waited to bear him away.

He said he loved her and his kisses did linger but no more than that; they might as well have been mere friends. He'd never spoken of his previous marriage or of his deceased wife since his first mention of it, nor of having any relatives. Connie felt it best not to probe but where his past life was concerned, he sometimes seemed to be like an island in the middle of an empty sea. He had a flat but had never asked her there.

Nor could she ask anyone at work about him, for he seemed to prefer to keep his private life to himself, especially where his previous marriage was concerned, and he certainly seemed to want to keep their relationship quiet as well. Yet he was attentive to her in his own way. Passing a florist on the way to lunch he had slipped in, telling her to wait outside, and had emerged with a bouquet of pink chrysanthemums for her, saying, ‘Happy Birthday, Connie.'

Now in the little restaurant he pushed an expensive-looking red velvet box across the table towards her.

‘Happy Birthday,' he said again as she stared at it. ‘My real birthday present to you. Hope you like it. Open it, Connie.'

Her hands fluttered excitedly, as she did so, and she gasped as she pulled out the lovely silver bracelet that was nestling inside.

No one had ever bought her anything so beautiful, and so obviously expensive. The outer edge was inlaid with a curved leaf design; it glinted and shone. She had never seen anything so gorgeous.

‘For me?' she cried stupidly.

‘Who else?' He laughed. ‘Look on the inside.'

She lifted it from its box and peered at where he'd indicated. There inscribed were the words,
All my fondest love, Stephen
.

Fondest love! Not undying love, not enduring love. Like a gift from a friend or a relative. A little of her joy dissipated but she smiled and said, ‘Stephen, you shouldn't have done that – this must have cost a fortune. It's so lovely.'

‘Glad you like it,' he said quietly. ‘It's given with more sentiment than it says there.'

And looking up across the table, she, who had the gift to fathom what a person was feeling, read deep love in his eyes, and with a huge leap of her heart, she knew she was his. She had to be.

Head bent, busily sorting out some bits of filing, Connie looked up to see Stephen standing at her elbow. She hadn't heard him approach. But then the office was always so noisy.

‘Sorry, Connie,' he blurted as she started. ‘I'm disturbing you.'

‘No,' she said as her heart did a tiny leap of elation. These days it happened every time he came near. She wished it wouldn't, yet she also wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

‘Everything all right?' she asked needlessly.

‘Yes … Fine.'

He seemed edgy. She heard him clear his throat nervously. ‘Christmas not far off now,' he began. ‘I'm told we need something to cheer our readers up.'

The second Christmas of the war, with still no end in sight. She knew what he meant about people needing to be cheered up. But how did one do that when there was nothing to cheer up about?

‘I had a talk with Mathieson,' he said, ‘and he agrees we need to interview a few people having a good time – if we can dig up any.' He gave a wry smile. ‘Get a few pictures if we can. Only on this occasion you're being asked to go out without a photographer, maybe just an interviewer, to depict people being happy, or trying to, depending on which way you look at it. It might make a good scoop. A photographer might end up making people look self-conscious. But no one will realise what you're doing … you know what I mean, Connie? And afterwards …' He paused and she heard him draw in a deep breath, letting it out slowly as if to control some inner conflict. ‘Have dinner with me? We need to talk about your sketches before they go to print – go over things very carefully, because God knows, there's little enough to cheer anyone up these days.'

That was true – there was always dire news of the fighting on the Western Front, and from Turkey as well, and it did nothing to raise one's spirits; the food shortage was growing worse by the day despite rationing; wives were being widowed, children being orphaned, and families bereaved by the thousand; in every street more than one window, often several, with curtains drawn, each announcing a loss. The total of men being killed in these last three months was some two hundred and fifty thousand, that on top of the thousands killed this year alone.

Mum had received letters from Albert and Ronald saying they were both well and hoping to get leave before Christmas. At least letters were being delivered and loved ones getting them within a few days – the authorities were making sure of that. Reading Ronnie's letter had panicked them all when he'd said that Albert had got a wound in his arm, but it was only slight and he was fine.

Even so it had made them worried. Next time the wound could be worse, much worse. On top of that there was still talk of military conscription, of married men being put on a register. Both Elsie and Lillian worried for their husbands. They would get into a terrible state every time the question was raised, but now they were slowly coming to terms with the fact that they might have to survive without their men. What else could they do? And Dorothy was putting on a brave face, and trying not to get in anyone's way. She had only a few months to go, and was blooming, the sickness of the first three months long gone.

One thing, the zeppelin raids seemed to have given up; the last one had been in early November with none since. It should have helped to make people feel better – but enough to be cheerful? Connie wasn't all that sure. There was no guarantee they wouldn't start up again – a dreadful experience with war brought to the very door of ordinary people, civilians being bombed from the skies – that was something no one could ever have visualised a year ago.

There had seemed no end to it – those incredibly long, slow-moving, cigar-shaped craft gliding low, almost majestically, terrifying those on whom they'd dropped destruction. Large guns were brought over from France, mounted on the back of army trucks and shook the area, but the zeppelins just glided on like monstrous predatory ghosts.

But Connie couldn't forget the faces of those whose homes were totally destroyed, whose loved ones had been injured or killed. Sent out to sketch what she saw, those faces still played on her mind and at times haunted her. She'd find herself waking from sleep to lie there in the darkness, feeling the dream still with her: the stark faces, eyes a simmering mixture of grief and outrage. Even children in this war had become victims. A war on children – how could an enemy be so callous, uncaring? It was nothing short of pure savagery, worse than beasts, newspaper headlines, even hers, proclaimed in outrage, her sketches printed alongside to add weight. Mathieson swore it sold more papers.

War seemed to have turned ordinary people into beasts too. Just before the zeppelin raids had ended so abruptly, Connie had been with a group of others – it hadn't escaped her attention that people needed to watch, whether out of self-preservation or in the desperate hope that no bomb would drop in their area – when a zeppelin, caught in searchlights, had suddenly burst into flame. It was reported later that a new kind of bullet had done the job. As it had slowly descended, burning from end to end, those around her had broken into yells of triumph, not one with any sympathy for those burning to death inside.

Stephen Clayton's voice brought her back to the present. ‘Our Mr Mathieson keeps on about the way you catch an expression – says it's quite uncanny. But you look all in lately. Is it worrying you? We can talk about it over dinner this evening.' There came a pause. She saw him catch his lip with his teeth. Then he added, ‘If you want to – talk about it, I mean.'

Eyes were the window of the soul, it was said, and it was true – eyes could shine with hidden amusement, hidden disdain, or even hatred without the lips ever moving; could dim, turn blank, become dull with despondency, fill with anguish, despair, disgust, no matter what their owners strove to conceal.

Over dinner his clear blue eyes seemed to be devouring her even though his conversation was concentrated mainly on business. He was concerned for her even though their talk was of when she'd be sent out to record people enjoying themselves. Connie felt her heart swell with joy that he loved her enough to be concerned for her well-being.

February 1916

As Connie came in from work, taking off her snow-covered shoes, her mother handed her a letter. ‘It's George,' she said. ‘Been arrested for fighting.'

‘For fighting?' Connie's tone raised in incredulity.

‘In the street – arrested for causing a disturbance, it says.'