Broken Rainbows (6 page)

‘Just a small brandy, sir. Thank you.'

‘Lieutenant Schaffer is organising a party for the town,' Anthea announced as her father poured modest measures into two goblets.

‘A sort of thank-you for putting up with us,' Kurt drawled, as he searched his mind for an excuse to escape from the dining room – and Anthea.

‘A party would be a most welcome gesture. Things have been rather bleak around here since the war started.'

‘People have so little to look forward to,' his wife agreed. ‘Just sherry for Anthea and myself, dear.'

Mr Llewellyn-Jones filled two smaller glasses with sweet sherry and handed them to the maid to pass down the table to his wife and daughter. Standing in front of his chair, he lifted his goblet in a formal toast. ‘To the Anglo-American alliance and the demise of Hitler.'

Kurt rose to his feet and touched his glass to his hostess's and her daughter's. ‘And Britain's fair and hospitable ladies,' he added with an insincere smile.

‘You're welcome to join us in the drawing room to listen to our wireless, Lieutenant Schaffer,' Mr Llewellyn-Jones offered.

‘Thank you, sir, but I have to drive into town to check that the troop quarters are ready for the morning.'

‘I could show you the way,' Anthea broke in eagerly.

‘I wouldn't want to put you to any trouble, Miss Anthea.'

‘It's no trouble. No trouble at all.'

‘And such a good idea,' Mrs Llewellyn-Jones purred. ‘You certainly had a problem getting your bearings this morning. It's even worse in the blackout.'

‘I'll get my coat.' Anthea was out of the room before he could make any further protest. He stood and waited in the hall, cursing the impulse that had led him to accept Mrs Llewellyn-Jones's offer of a billet. Perhaps he should have taken the colonel's advice after all. If he'd gone into one of the chapel vestries he might have been plagued by the presence of the men, but at least his free time would have been his own.

It was past ten o'clock when Bethan finally finished her paperwork. Packing the completed forms into her nurse's bag she turned off the lamp, left the study and felt her way through the blacked-out hall to the deserted kitchen. Switching on the light, she lifted the hob cover on the range, put the kettle on to boil and prepared for a long wait because Maisie had damped down the coals for the night. The mixed fragrances of food and the warmth of the room closed comforting and familiar around her as she settled in her rocking chair listening to the silence. Only when she was certain that the house was quiet, did she reach into her pocket for Andrew's letter. Taking a knife from the .drawer she slit open the gummed section and began to read.

My darling Beth,

Today is the second anniversary of the day we arrived in this camp …

Checking the date, she discovered that the letter had taken only three and a half as opposed to the customary four months to reach her.

Needless to say all of us ‘Dunkirk veterans' are even more depressed than usual. It's exactly two years, two months, one week, four days and five hours since I last saw, kissed and touched you. Every morning I open my eyes, hoping that
this will be the day that will bring the news that I can finally come home to you and the children. Sometimes, I think it's the uncertainty that's the worst. Criminals are better off than we are. At least they go into prison knowing their sentence. They can scratch a calendar on the wall of their cell and tick off the days. If only I knew that it was going to be one, two or six months longer. Surely to God it can't be another year!

I tried to cheer myself up this morning by imagining the journey home. Packing my bag. (About thirty seconds' work. If anyone had told me before the war that a man could survive with so few possessions I would have laughed at them.) Travelling through Germany in a real train instead of the cattle wagons that brought us here. Walking across the French docks and up the gangplank of a boat without a guard pointing a gun at my back, fighting for a chair inside rather than out on deck, sailing to Dover; getting on another train, arriving in London, picking up presents for Rachel and Eddie as I cross from Victoria to Paddington – that's if there are any toys in the shops to be bought – or even any shops left after the bombing. Do you realise I don't even know what sort of things they'd like?

I've seen Rachel holding dolls and teddies in the photographs you've sent me, but what kind of new one would she choose? Does she prefer dolls with black or blonde hair? Big ones, or little ones? And Eddie? Does he like toy cars yet, or does he prefer playing with lead animals and farmyards as Mother said I did at his age?

Paddington – sitting on the train – a corner seat if I'm lucky, looking out of the window at the countryside, reading off the towns as we pass through the stations, everyone taking me closer to you. Changing trains at Cardiff – I went through the whole rigmarole, step by step, even down to checking whether or not I needed a shave in the men's room while I waited for the Pontypridd and Rhondda Valley train. Pacing up and down the carriage while we passed through the local stations. Running down the steps from the platform into Station Yard to be first in the queue for a taxi. Driving up the Graig hill to Penycoedcae, seeing the house bathed in early morning sunlight and overshadowed by leafy trees – I always imagine arriving on a bright summer's morning, I have no idea what I'll do if the war ends in winter.

You sitting with the children on the lawn, you look up …

Bethan started guiltily. She hadn't had the heart to write and tell Andrew that there was no more lawn. Every inch of garden had been dug up by her, her father and Maisie in the months after Dunkirk when food rationing had really begun to bite.

…
will you be wearing essence of violets, the perfume I remember from the day I left? And your hair? Do you still roll it under at the nape of your neck? It's difficult to see from your last photograph because of the hat. In my daydreams you're always wearing the dark blue frock you bought for that last Christmas we spent together in 1940.

Then I open my eyes, look around and realise that I am lying on a straw mattress on a hard, wooden bunk; one of sixteen built in four tiers in a cramped compartment no bigger than my mother's larder, set in this overcrowded wooden hut and likely to be here a while longer. I dare not even hazard a guess as to how much longer lest I go raving mad.

After reading this I realise that I'm suffering from yet another dose of acute self-pity. Don't worry, it's not terminal, or fortunately for us, contagious. For every depressed prisoner, or ‘kriegie' as the German guards call us, there's always one who can muster a modicum of optimism to cheer the rest, and because we have to do all our own housework, cooking, washing, cleaning and in my case, nursing as well as doctoring, we have plenty to keep ourselves busy.

What I can't understand is how a woman, any woman, has time to do anything other than housework. It seems to take us the best part of half a day to collect food from the XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Bethan stared at the lines obliterated by the censor's heavy pen. Guessing that Andrew had mentioned the rations the Germans allowed them in addition to the Red Cross parcels, and suspecting just how scant they might be, she read on.

XXXXX and make lunch. And no sooner have we washed our tins and pans than it's time to start on supper.

In my free time I attend as many of the classes my fellow inmates have organised as I can. I'm learning languages. It's quite a little United Nations here between the Canadians, Australians, South Africans, French, Poles, Dutch XXXXXXXXXXXX and ourselves. We have a choir, but when I tried to join, the conductor unkindly diagnosed me as tone deaf. On that point, my love, he agrees with you. The drama group I wrote you about goes from strength to strength and they've finished building the theatre at the back of the church. We have a reading club (which would greatly appreciate any spare books no matter how old or decrepit) an art group, and even I've been roped in to run first aid classes. I've also taken up carpentry in the hope that it will help me with those odd jobs you keep threatening me with. So you see, I am busy if not happy. But then I could never be that again without you and the children.

I realise that you are facing problems too, my love, and from my father's last letter I also know you're working as many hours as there are in a day and night. He said that he and Doctor Evans couldn't manage without you. I feel so bloody useless locked up in this cage. All I want is to be home with you, working, helping, living but most of all loving. I really can't see that keeping thousands of men penned up in compounds all over Germany is contributing to the war effort of either side.

There I go, moaning again. Please, whatever else you do, don't worry about me. Food is no longer a problem since the Red Cross parcels started coming in regularly, and we are supplementing those by cultivating vegetable gardens between the huts. My swedes, cabbages and turnips have to be seen to be believed, Rachel could probably play with them in her dolls' house, but they are growing every day. I only hope that none of us will be here in the autumn to harvest our crop. Our hopes have risen since the XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX you see – news gets through even to us. Some of the gamblers are even taking bets as to when the first Yank will arrive.

Bethan smiled as she wondered at the censor's command of English, didn't he know the English nickname for Americans?

Thank you for the photographs of the children. You can have no idea how much they mean to me. I have pinned them alongside my bunk, starting with the one of you and Rachel I had in my wallet when I was captured, and carrying on with the ones you have sent every month since.

I have missed out on their entire babyhood and all of your pregnancy with Eddie, years that I will never be able to recapture. I only hope that when we are finally together again, there will be other children. What do you think? Could you give up caring for half the town after the peace treaties have been signed and settle for just our family and me?

I love you, Beth, and miss you every waking moment. I look forward to the night when I can close my eyes, because then you are with me. You haunt my dreams. Do you ever think of those magical, peaceful hours we used to spend alone together in our bedroom before going to bed? I do, constantly. I will be with you again the moment the war is over, I promise. Take care of yourself and the children until we can be together again.

All my love

your Andrew

PS: I'm sure you know, but just in case you didn't, Mother and Father write regularly. I am so glad you seem to be getting on better with both of them.

Bethan found it difficult to set aside her irritation at Andrew's habit of always finishing his letters with a PS about his parents. And as if that wasn't enough, there were the plans he was making for both of them after the war. Plans centred around a third pregnancy and her return to domesticity.

Knowing she was being unfair didn't quell the ugly thought that he intended to make up for missing out on Eddie's babyhood by replacing him with another child. He loved her and missed her and the children, but then he had nothing else to think about. Would he miss them as much, or write as often, if he'd been incarcerated somewhere more interesting than a wooden hut in an all-male prison camp in northern Germany?

Two and a half years was a long time. She knew she had changed. Become confident and assured enough to confront Mrs Llewellyn-Jones – and win. The woman she was now bore little resemblance to the shy, uncertain, newly qualified nurse Andrew had courted and married. Would he recognise her, or more to the point want her, once he became acquainted with her new independent personality? Could she make room for him in her life again? Did she still love him?

She hated herself for daring even to think otherwise. But their life together seemed such a long time ago. Almost as though it had been lived by someone else. Why couldn't she concentrate on the happy times and weave those memories into their future instead of the problems they might or might not encounter if they were ever reunited?

Doubts crowded in on her as she set aside the letter and spooned cocoa into a cup. There were so many things she couldn't forget, no matter how hard she tried. The death of their first child a few months after his birth, a tragedy that had almost destroyed her and their marriage. Andrew's selfishness that she had always attributed to his mother's doting upbringing; never deliberate, always thoughtless, but as capable of wounding as if it had been.

Gingerly touching the side of the kettle and deciding it was hot enough, she poured water on to the cocoa powder. Returning to the rocking chair, she began to read again, this time trying to imagine Andrew as he had been when he'd written the letter. He had changed too. Just as increased responsibilities had lent her confidence, being imprisoned had sapped his. He would never have committed thoughts like these to paper before the war. Then, his emotions had been something to joke about, not reflect on in a letter.

He so obviously needed to believe that nothing had changed. That everything would be exactly the same as when he'd left, including her, frozen in time to the extent that she'd be wearing the same dress, hairstyle and perfume. Was he secretly afraid, like her, that their marriage wouldn't stand the test of years of separation?

Lifting the cup she glanced up, and almost dropped it in surprise when she saw David Ford standing in the doorway.

‘I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you. I assumed everyone was in bed.'

‘I've just finished some paperwork.'

‘They make civilians do that too?' His tone was dry, but there was a spark of humour in his eyes that she hadn't noticed when they'd spoken earlier.

She held up her cup. ‘Would you like some cocoa?'