Daisy had been sitting rigid, but now, as if she had suddenly turned into a rag doll, she crumpled, her mouth emitting a wail which frightened Kitty to death.
Her heart thudding, Kitty sank down beside her friend and without a word took Daisy in her arms, rocking her as she would a little bairn. After a few moments Daisy clung to her, sobs shaking her body and the tears rolling down her cheeks. While she held her Kitty caught sight of the words on the telegram which had fallen on to the kitchen table. It was several lines long, but the only words which registered on her were ‘. . . regret to inform you that soldier Thomas Appleby serving with the Durham Light Infantry has been killed in action . . .’
Outside, there were all the normal street sounds, children playing, voices calling, the barking of a dog somewhere in the distance, but inside there was only the sound of Daisy’s agony. And the telegram on the kitchen table.
Chapter Twenty-nine
In the first week of October the Allies broke the Somme front along ten miles, but Daisy, along with tens of thousands of other women whose loved ones would not be coming home due to this disaster of strategical misjudgement, felt no pleasure in the hollow ‘victory’. Kitchener’s army had found its graveyard on the Somme, but not only men perished with it. There perished also the zest and idealism with which nearly three million Englishmen had marched forth to war.
Daisy returned to work just a couple of days after hearing the news of Tommy’s death, feeling she would go mad if she had to stay in the house another minute. Every nook and cranny held memories of her boy; she kept seeing him sitting at the kitchen table agonising over his homework or racing down the hall to answer the door. At times she thought she even heard him call to her. Phil, Joe and Jimmy’s families had received similar telegrams on the same day as Daisy - the four had enlisted together, fought together and died together - and at times Daisy thought her heart would crack wide open with the pain of it all. It didn’t help her torment that she had heard nothing from William for the last little while either, and such was her state of mind that she had lost nearly half a stone in the last weeks, causing a worried Kitty to remark that she looked as though a breath of wind could blow her away.
Her anguish drove her to arrive at work very early in the morning and leave hours after everyone else had gone; everyone except Mr Newton, that was. He had been marvellous, supportive and understanding but not over-fussy. And then, in the second week of October, Daisy received a telephone call. It sent her dashing to the train station, bound for London, without even bothering to go home to change.
A few hours later she was standing in the private rooms of Mr Mark Baxter, an eminent medical consultant, her nerves stretched to breaking point but a light in her eyes for the first time in weeks.
‘Miss Appleby? I’m pleased to meet you.’ Mr Baxter was small and rotund with the same sort of gentle voice his secretary had had when she’d spoken to Daisy earlier in the day on the telephone. They had already shaken hands, and now he said, ‘Do sit down, I won’t keep you long, but I wanted a word with you before you see Captain Fraser.’
He was alive, he was safe! Injured, but safe. Oh, William, William. His name had been a refrain in her heart sung in time with the wheels of the train all the way down to the capital.
‘Now I ought to make it clear Captain Fraser only arrived here from France yesterday, before that he could not be moved. To put it bluntly he would not have stood the journey. I understand from my nursing staff that Captain Fraser was under the impression his family had carried out his wishes and let you know what had happened, but this is apparently not so?’
Daisy shook her head.
‘Dear, dear.’ The surgeon shook his head but said no more on that matter, beyond, ‘My secretary had a word with him and put him in the picture about that when she went along to say you were coming. Now, as for his condition . . . You will find him somewhat changed, my dear. There is an element of shell shock which can be distressing for the uninitiated, although Captain Fraser’s is manifesting itself more in nightmares than anything else. Badly fractured arm, broken ribs, wound to the head - all of which will heal in time.’
Daisy waited. There was more to come, she could tell.
‘The worst injury occurred to his right leg. I’m afraid it had to be amputated below the knee.’
Daisy swallowed. ‘How has he taken that?’
‘Remarkably well. Of course he has seen others a great deal worse off than him.’ Mr Baxter paused. ‘Yes, a great deal worse off, but that does not always count for anything in these circumstances. He’s been made aware that science is progressing in leaps and bounds in the realm of prosthetic limbs, and with the positive attitude he seems to have I’m sure to all intents and purposes he will be the same as ever he was. Certainly his mobility will not be affected too severely.’
‘So he will be all right, in time?’
‘Yes, Miss Appleby, he will be all right in time.’ The consultant smiled. ‘And I am sure with you beside him his recovery will be all the more swift. Your first reaction was concern for how the patient is coping, and from where I am sitting that is always a good sign.’
‘But surely everyone who has a loved one in these circumstances reacts the same?’
Mr Baxter didn’t say anything for a moment and then his voice was flat when he said, ‘You would be surprised, Miss Appleby. You would be surprised.’ It became considerably brisker as he continued, ‘One last thing. I presume you are unaware of the part Captain Fraser’s batman played in all of this?’
‘Josiah Kirby?’
‘I don’t know the fellow’s name, only that he was reported to have acted with great bravery. Sacrificial bravery. At the last moment, when he must have realised death was imminent, he apparently shielded the Captain’s body with his own. Undoubtedly saved his life.’
‘He was . . . ?’
‘Oh, yes. More or less a direct hit according to eye witnesses. Threw himself on top of Captain Fraser and took the full force of the blast. We aren’t sure how much the Captain understands of this, but we feel it is best for details to be divulged gradually. Patients in Captain Fraser’s condition do not always understand that their mind, as well as their body, has been affected.’
She had to see him. She had to see him now.
Mr Baxter seemed to read Daisy’s mind because he rose to his feet, saying, ‘I will get Sister Clark to take you along. He is in a ward with other surgical cases; we find this best rather than separate rooms although I am aware the Captain could afford it. It’s all a matter of morale, you see. They help each other to come to terms with the mental conflict.’
‘Thank you.’ Daisy, too, rose to her feet, her face pale and her eyes enormous. She wanted to hold him, to tell him it would be all right now he was home and the war didn’t have a hold on him anymore. But it did, it did have a hold from what Mr Baxter had said, in his head. But they would work it out together. Whatever it took, she would make him well; mind, soul and body.
She hadn’t been aware of Mr Baxter pressing a bell but he must have done because when the door opened and a fresh-faced, middle-aged nurse said, ‘You rang, sir?’ he nodded, saying, ‘This is the Captain’s young lady, Sister. Perhaps you would be so kind as to take her along to the ward?’ And to Daisy, ‘The Captain is under Sister Clark’s care and there is none better in the whole of the hospital.’
Sister Clark smiled primly before saying, ‘Would you come this way please?’ but once outside in the corridor she seemed to unbend a little. ‘Mr Baxter’s secretary didn’t let on that you were actually coming today, we thought it would be a nice surprise for the Captain that way.’
Daisy nodded, saying, as though she hadn’t just spoken to William’s doctor, ‘How is he?’
‘Eating and sleeping most of the time. I consider those two of the best medicines. Physically he is very weak, of course, but that it is to be expected. In himself . . .’ The sister paused, turning to look at Daisy. ‘In himself he is experiencing something which I think he finds harder to come to terms with than the loss of his leg. Most of the men are like that. They seem to think shell shock is some kind of weakness rather than a psychological disturbance of the brain resulting from exposure to what they have seen and heard and had to do. They speak sometimes in their nightmares . . .’ The sister shook her head. ‘What a world we live in, Miss Appleby, that it could send good, honest, decent men to such depths.’
Daisy said nothing. They had just reached the ward doors and although her whole body was sweating her mouth was dry.
‘But he has something to aim for, unlike some of the poor souls in here,’ the sister continued softly as she pushed open the doors. ‘Hasn’t he, Miss Appleby?’
It was a question not a statement; the expression on the woman’s face declared this although her tone had been even.
Daisy’s answer came promptly and with her whole heart. ‘Yes, he has.’
‘That is what I thought.’ The sister smiled, and for a moment Daisy glimpsed the real woman beneath the uniform and thought William was indeed lucky to be under her care. ‘Third bed on the right. We draw the curtains round them at this time of the afternoon to encourage a sleep after lunch. It works . . . mostly.’ Sister Clark pointed down the row of cubicles before giving Daisy’s arm a gentle pat. ‘And good luck with the children’s home,’ she added quietly. ‘He told me all about it last night when he awoke with one of the nightmares. I think it is only the thought of what he can do in that realm that is helping to make sense of all the madness he has been through.’
A reply was clearly not expected. Daisy smiled, leaving the sister at the door to her small glass-walled office just within the entrance to the ward and walking quickly to the set of curtains the woman had indicated.
He was lying with his eyes closed when she stepped inside. That William was aware of someone’s presence became apparent when he said, his tone irritable, ‘If Sister has sent you to check my temperature or blood pressure, Nurse Pearson, you can forget it. And before you ask, I do not want anything.’
‘Well, shame on you then, Captain Fraser, with me having come all the way from Sunderland.’ Daisy hoped her voice hid the shock she’d felt when she had seen him lying so still and grey-looking, the cage over his right leg telling its own story.
‘Daisy?’ He sat up in bed with enough force to make himself wince and bite down hard on his lip, but then she reached his side. He pulled her down on to the stiff linen coverlet with his good arm, his strength belying his infirmity. ‘Daisy . . . oh, Daisy! My love, my love. I didn’t know you were coming today.’
‘William, darling.’ She couldn’t say more, he was kissing her until her head swam.
It was a good few moments before he drew back a little, his eyes roaming over her face as he murmured her name again and again. He touched her mouth with a hand that was shaking. ‘I didn’t think I’d ever see you again. Out there, on the battlefield, I was sure my time was up.’
For a moment she thought of Tommy, her mother’s heart crying, Oh, my boy, my boy, but she couldn’t tell William about that now.
Daisy’s lips trembled as she said, ‘Oh, darling,’ and now it was she who held him close, seeing the large patch of red skin where shrapnel had sliced his scalp raw with a feeling of painful love and tenderness.
‘I’ve been such a fool, Daisy. I don’t think I fully realised how much time I had wasted until I thought it was the final parting.’
‘Both of us, darling. We’ve both been fools.’
‘No, not you, never you.’ He kissed her again before he said, a smile touching his pale lips, ‘Call me darling again. I like it.’
‘Darling, darling, my precious darling . . .’
When they next surfaced, William’s lips reluctantly leaving hers, he said, ‘I wouldn’t have made it but for Kirby, you know. He came for me, wouldn’t take no for an answer, and it cost him his life. And at the end--’ He stopped abruptly, shaking his head before he said, ‘Do you know . . . what he did when the shell hit?’
‘Yes, darling. Mr Baxter told me.’
‘They think I can’t remember. I
couldn’t
remember but I heard two of the nurses talking when they thought I was out of it. Why do you think he did that, Daisy? He must have known he was going to die.’
‘Perhaps he thought losing one life instead of two made sense. And he cared about you and your father very deeply.’