Cousins at War (17 page)

Afterwards, he walked her home, thankful that there was no communal lobby at Rubislaw Den where he might make a fool of himself but she turned into the open gateway to one of the large houses in
Queen’s Road – the gate and the railings had been taken as part of the war effort – and dragged him into the shadows under the mature trees in the garden. ‘I’d like
you to kiss me goodnight properly this time,’ she whispered holding her face up to him.

Her lips parted as his met them – a sign that Alf had done some groundwork – and the devil suddenly broke loose in him. Viciously forcing her mouth farther open with his tongue, he
was dismayed by a familiar ache in his loins which increased when she pressed her body against him but when he tried to pull away, she clung to him like a limpet, ‘Don’t stop now, Neil.
I know you want me.’

His body would not let him deny it, and he thrust her from him in anger – at himself as much as at her – whirling out of her hold. In a brooding silence, he accompanied her to her
door then strode off without looking back.

Before he reached home, Neil had decided not to issue any further invitations to either of his cousins. With Queenie, he could easily get carried away and tell her he loved her and if Olive went
on the way she’d done tonight, he might do something he would regret for the rest of his life. He’d be better with the floozies he used to pick up, who were only out for one thing and
expected no commitments. He could take his pick of them and devil take the hindmost.

He was laughing when he went home and his father looked up smiling, ‘Olive must have been in good form.’

Neil exploded. ‘Bloody good form. She’s a praying mantis, d’you know that?’

Joe’s smile broadened, ‘You’d better watch her, though. If you start anything there, you’ll be a goner.’

‘You don’t need to tell me that.’

In the girls’ bedroom, Queenie said, ‘Neil was late in.’

‘He took Olive home,’ Patsy didn’t want to discuss Neil’s association with Olive; she knew how Queenie felt about him and the poor girl had been hurt enough already.

Queenie, however, persisted with her questions, ‘You said he didn’t like her.’

‘He couldn’t let her go home in the blackout on her own.’

‘I feel sorry for her. It must be awful going out with a boy who doesn’t like you.’

Patsy snorted, ‘Don’t feel sorry for Olive, she has a hide like a blinking rhinoceros. Remember last New Year, how she said she’d be my sister-in-law one day, even though
Raymond and I both told her Neil didn’t like her? I don’t think she was ever really in love with Alf and it wouldn’t surprise me if she wore Neil down one of these days.’
The distress in the other girl’s eyes made her qualify this, ‘No, I’m sure she won’t, for he knows her. He can see through her.’ Patsy had meant to console Queenie
with this last remark, but she could see that her cousin had not been taken in.

Olive was annoyed at herself. She should have stuck to her original plan and played hard to get but she’d been jealous of Queenie. She had wanted to show Neil that she
was still in love with him, to kindle a love in him, but she had only put him off. She would be more careful in future but it would be best to leave Miss Ogilvie under no misapprehension as to his
intentions. Queenie might think she stood a chance with him and she was pretty enough to be a serious rival. Neil belonged to her, Olive, and no chit of a Londoner was going to take him from
her.

‘I’m bloody freezing,’ Alf Melville pulled his greatcoat up round his ears. ‘No bugger could survive out here in this.’

Neil shifted his hip round a fraction, ‘And a groundsheet’s not much to have between your arse and the ground.’

‘Two weeks of this and I’ll be black and blue all over and frostbitten into the bargain,’ Alf sighed. ‘Why didn’t they wait till summer before they did this? They
might have known what it would be like in February.’

The friends were taking part in a training scheme on the Yorkshire Moors and not relishing it. They had been told to work their way round behind the opposing side’s main party in twos or
threes, and that they’d have to sleep where and when they could. Alf and Neil had found a ramshackle barn on the first night which afforded them at least some shelter from the weather, and
the hay-strewn floor had not been too uncomfortable apart from the awful smell that rose from it. They had shared this dubious accommodation, and their rock-hard biscuits, with the barn’s
sitting tenants, a colony of rats. For the next few nights, they had huddled on the lee-side of a tree or a bush, anything which would give a little protection from the biting north winds, but
their present position was barren of anything except stones. They had been too tired to go any farther and had flopped down on the open ground near a crossroads.

Both young men had drifted into a light doze when a great bang, somewhere to their left, jerked them wide awake. ‘What the hell . . . ?’ Alf’s voice quivered with
apprehension.

‘It sounded like a bomb,’ Neil muttered.

‘It couldn’t have been a bomb, there hasn’t been a plane.’

Fearfully, they sat up, all hope of sleep gone now, and in the next minute they heard a faint crack as if a twig had been snapped underfoot. ‘Somebody’s creeping up on us,’ Alf
whispered. ‘What are we supposed to do if it’s one of the other side?’

‘We don’t let them surprise us,’ Neil hissed, but a torch was shone on them before they could stand up.

‘You there,’ a voice boomed, ‘your leg’s been blown off.’

‘Nobody’s been near us,’ Alf protested.

‘Not you – him! The blues let off a thunderflash, and that stands for a shell, and I’m an umpire, and I say his leg’s been blown off.’

A label, to that effect, was attached to Neil’s coat. ‘What happens now?’ he asked in bemusement.

‘Wait there and an ambulance’ll come to pick you up.’ The umpire went to hunt for more, unsuspecting, maimed soldiers.

Alf took out a tin of cigarettes saying, as he handed one to Neil, ‘You’ll be out of this caper, you jammy sod.’

Neil brightened, ‘Thank the Lord for that.’

He stood up when they heard the ambulance, but one of the stretcher-bearers shouted scathingly, ‘Lie down, you stupid bastard. You’re not walking wounded if your leg’s
off.’

Neil lay down and waited to be lifted on the stretcher. ‘I feel a right twerp,’ he told Alf, as yards of bandaging was wrapped round the ‘bleeding stump’.

‘Where are you taking him?’ Alf asked.

‘To the school. All casualties have to stay there till the exercise is finished. Meals there, beds there.’

Alf gave a low, hopeful groan, ‘You’d better take me, as well. I think I’ve got a bit of shrapnel in my arm.’

The ambulance driver turned to him impatiently, ‘You’ll be getting a boot up the backside if you don’t shut up.’

‘No more hard tack, no more bully beef,’ Neil chanted, as he was carried to the ambulance.

Alf retaliated by giving a reversed V-sign which Neil did not see in the darkness, then stood up to search for another companion with whom to share the remainder of the night.

There was a great deal of hilarity in the ambulance as it bumped its way to the local school – one of the ‘casualties’ lifting his head to say, ‘We’re on to a cushy
number here’ – and even more when it arrived and they were shuttled in one by one, still on stretchers. But they soon settled down on the comfortable camp beds that had been provided
for them, pulled up the army blankets and slept the sleep of the just.

In the morning they were given a cooked breakfast, then left to lie in comfort, a welcome break after tramping the moors for the past few days. Neil had time now to think about what he had
learned while they had been at Queensbury, a village on a hill between Bradford and Halifax. He had heard of the Marquis of Queensbury of course, whose rules were still being used as a bible in the
boxing world, but it had never occurred to him that it was a real place. They had been told that they would be there for four months, two weeks of which would be a hardship course, carried out
under battle conditions. Rumours had abounded – someone had heard from someone else who had got it from someone in the village – that all the men on previous schemes had been sent
overseas shortly afterwards, and they were ready to believe that, otherwise what was the purpose of the exercise?

Most of the soldiers, Artillery and Ordnance Corps combined, were pleased at the prospect. The volunteers had volunteered for this alone and had been bored by having to while away their time in
preparation for it; the regulars had been waiting to prove their skills in the martial arts they had been taught and had never had a chance to use properly; only those who had wives and children at
home were less than thrilled at the prospect of being sent to a foreign country.

Although it could mean that he wouldn’t see Queenie for a long time, Neil was delighted because the quicker they got stuck in against the enemy, the quicker the war would end. Wherever
they were sent, they were prepared to fight to the death and if it meant his death . . . he would have given his life for his country. He didn’t feel morbid about it for it was a risk all
servicemen took, and the letter in his pocket would let Queenie know how much he had loved her.

The rattle of the lunch trolley made him sit up. Breakfast had been quite good, but it hadn’t filled the vacuum caused by not having had a decent meal for days, and he was looking forward
to this. Poor old Alf would still be eating survival rations he remembered, a little guiltily, but Alf wouldn’t have cared if it had been the other way round, so why should he? He
hadn’t asked to be one of the injured, he’d just been lucky. He hadn’t told Alf how he had been inveigled by Hetty into taking Olive out when he was home, nor that she had been
writing to him again, for his pal would likely have said it was the price of him.

As the empty dishes were being collected, one ‘patient’, a proper wag, remarked, ‘What price the ruddy Dorchester now? And we’ll be here for eight more days.’

This set some of them off singing, ‘In eight more days and seven more nights, I’ll be out of the calaboose, eight more days and seven more nights, they’re going to turn me
loose.’

The school was far removed from being a prison, run more on the lines of a proper hospital and they all blessed the umpire for having chosen them as victims. Neil did think occasionally about
Alf – still engaged in the ‘war’ against the blues, and facing the bitter elements with his usual dry humour and stoicism disguised as complaints – but this was the life and
he would enjoy it while it lasted.

A few weeks passed before Olive found an opportunity to talk privately to Queenie. The Potters were visiting King Street one Sunday afternoon, and Joe suggested that they all
go out for a walk. ‘It’s the first sunny day there’s been for ages. I know it’s cold, but it’s not that bad.’

Everyone agreed to go except Queenie. ‘I’ve some notes to write up for tomorrow, and I need peace to do it.’

This was Olive’s chance; ‘I’ll stay with you and give you a hand if you get stuck with anything.’

Hetty gave a laugh, ‘Olive’s not keen on walks, that’s the only reason she’s staying behind.’

‘Queenie won’t mind.’ Gracie shepherded the others out in front of her and turned before she closed the door. ‘Make a cup of tea for yourselves, you two, if you want
to.’

Olive waited until her cousin fetched her books from her room and spread them out on the table, ‘I believe Neil took you out when he was home?’

It didn’t occur to Queenie that the question was anything other than friendly, ‘Yes, to the Palais.’

‘Are you expecting him to take you out again next time?’

Still unsuspecting, Queenie said, ‘I hope so, I enjoyed it last time.’

‘It was the last time for you,’ Olive’s top lip curled in a sneer.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that you’ll say no if he asks you out again. I’m not having you interfering between us.’

Queenie remembered then what Patsy had said about Olive’s attachment to Neil but objected to being spoken to in such a manner. ‘If he asks me out, I’ll go,’ she
retorted.

Olive tried another tack, ‘You’ll be wasting your time. He loves me and he said he only took you to the Palais because he was sorry for you.’

‘That’s a lie.’ Anger made Queenie defiant. ‘He told me he was glad I wouldn’t be going back to London because he’d never see me and he . . . kissed me before
we came upstairs.’

‘A cousinly kiss, because he felt sorry for you.’

‘It wasn’t cousinly, it was . . .’ Queenie stopped.

‘It was what?’ The words came out like a whiplash.

Goaded into utter indiscretion, Queenie shouted, ‘He took me in his arms and kissed me like . . . it was a proper kiss.’

Olive’s face was livid now. ‘It’s you that’s telling lies! Neil wouldn’t . . . you don’t know what a proper kiss is.’

Queenie knew that she had the upper hand. ‘Yes, I do. It’s long and loving, and he was hugging me against him and . . .’

‘You must have led him on.’

‘He didn’t need to be led on. He wanted to kiss me and he wanted to do more than that.’ Queenie had gone over and over it in her mind and had realised why Neil had stopped.

Jumping furiously to her feet, Olive shot out her arm and swept everything off the table. ‘You stupid little bitch! I wish you’d never come up here. Nobody wants you!’

To avoid showing how much this hurt, Queenie bent down to retrieve the scattered books, papers and pencils, but Olive continued, doing her utmost to upset her cousin as much as possible.
‘Patsy hates having to share a bed with you, and Gracie and Joe have to pretend they don’t mind keeping you but they do, only you’re so . . . dense you can’t see it. Neil
wouldn’t have asked you to the Palais unless Gracie had told him to take you out of her way for a while.’

In spite of the cruel things Olive was shouting, Queenie was determined not to give way and spread her textbooks out on the table, laying each one down as if she’d nothing else on her
mind. Her studied serenity incensed Olive even more. ‘You’re living in a fool’s paradise, Queenie Ogilvie! You’re the . . . biggest fool I’ve ever seen.’