Shadow on the Land (21 page)

If Matthew’s mist was lifting, she certainly didn’t feel it, but then she wasn’t even thinking about it when something happened that did take it away.

‘Thanks, Alan,’ she said, as she took her baskets and bag from the young man who had just held open the door of the jeep. ‘Did you enjoy yourself?’ she asked, as he hopped up into the driving seat.

He beamed at her.

‘Yeah, great ma’am, great. It was fun,’ he added, as he bent forward to the ignition.

‘Hold on, Alan, what about Mrs Cook?’

‘Sorry, I forgot. She said to tell you she was getting a lift with Ross to see her sister. She said she’d get the bus back home tonight.’

‘Oh, of course. She told me she could always get a lift after a picnic because Ross has to take my friend Dolly to Dromore and that’s where her sister lives,’ she explained, settling back in her seat, as he set off up the steep slope at Millbrook, somewhat later than the other vehicles who were distributing children and colleagues after a ‘March hare’ picnic.

‘How are you settling in Alan? Are you
very
homesick?’ she asked after they’d turned onto the Banbridge Road.

‘Well ma’am, it was bad at first,’ he confessed. ‘I’d never been away from home till I went to College last Fall. But there are some great guys here. And we have to
win
this war. We just
have
to,’ he declared, with a firmness that surprised her in one so young.

‘Yes, we do and the big push is getting nearer, don’t you think?’

‘Oh yes. It has to be this year. Hitler’s on the run, but he’s not finished yet. We’ve got to finish him off before he does even more harm,’ he announced, so vigorously that the jeep wobbled on the bumpy road.

‘How
are
all your family? Your brother joined up, didn’t he?’

He glanced at her very briefly, a smile on his face. He was about to reply when a tractor came racing towards them, an elderly farmer looking wide-eyed, his hair flying, his mouth working.

Emily grabbed the door frame to steady herself as the jeep wobbled precariously. They slithered round a sharp corner and with a squeal of brakes just managed to stop behind an Army lorry which had swerved and skidded. It now lay on its side, on their side of the road, straddled across a low wall, its engine running, its wheels spinning in the air, a smell of petrol growing stronger by the moment.

‘Oh my Gawd,’ exclaimed Alan. ‘Are you all right, ma’am?’

‘Yes, I’m fine, but we’ve got to turn that engine off if no one else does,’ she replied, as she kicked off her only remaining pair of high heels and reached into her bag for the flat leather shoes she wore with trousers for playing games.

They ran round to the front of the lorry and looked up at the driver’s door. It was out of reach, even for a tall young man.

‘Alan, bring the jeep round. Park it as close as you can and we’ll try climbing up from the seat,’ she said quickly, measuring the distance.

She heard a movement from the back of the lorry and hoped that some of the party were jumping down unhurt, but before she could look, she saw
the jeep approach and stepped aside, so that Alan could swing it into place.

‘Can you do it?’ she asked.

‘I’ll try.’

He was stepping up into the open window frame of the jeep and struggling with the heavy door above him.

She stood on the seat behind him and held on to his belt to steady him as he opened the door enough to get his hand in and turn off.

She breathed a sigh of relief as the throbbing stopped, but the smell of petrol remained.

‘Will the door stay open?’

‘No, it’s too heavy.’

‘Can you wind down the window before you close it again?’

‘Shure.’

He wound down the window and lowered the door back into place. She released her grip on his waist and he stepped back down into the jeep beside her.

‘Could you see if the two in the cab were hurt?’

‘No. They’re right against the far door on top of each other. One might be Hillmann, but I can’t tell.’

‘Right,’ she began, taking a deep breath. ‘Listen hard. Go back to Millbrook. Ask for two First Aiders and the big box and Jimmy Elliot. Bring them back
instantly
. Tell the Mill Manager, or either of the two grey-haired ladies in the office, that we
need the Fire Brigade with indoor extinguishers and a full team. And a carload of First Aiders as well. Ask them to ring the camp, the hospital and the police. Don’t
you
do it, I need you here. Can you remember all that?’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said, as she stepped down from the jeep. ‘But what about you?’

‘I’ll do what I can here. Hurry, but be careful,’ she warned. ‘A lot depends on you.’

He crashed his gears as he reversed, but as she glanced down the empty road after him, she saw he was picking up speed. She turned her attention to the drip of petrol. She’d hoped it would ease when the engine was turned off, but it hadn’t.

It took her a few moments to rub away the mud and see exactly where it was coming from, the junction of a pipe with the petrol tank itself. She had a sudden vision of the young Dutch boy who had put his finger in the dyke to stop the leak. That wouldn’t be much good with a leaking pipe.

She took off her pretty floral scarf, wound it as tightly as she could round the source of the drip, tied the ends and moved out from under the vehicle into the hot and dazzling sunshine which had made the day feel like summer.

She found herself face to face with a bemused young man.

‘Gee ma’am, what happened?’ he asked, looking all around him.

‘Don’t know yet, Don, but I need help,’ she said briskly. ‘Can you walk fifty yards or so?’

She wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t concussed, but she’d have to risk it.

‘Go that way,’ she said pointing towards the town. ‘Stop all traffic. Let nothing come this way unless it’s the police, or ambulances, and keep
them
well back from the truck. If it’s locals, tell them they know the diversions. If it’s not, send them back into Banbridge and tell them to ask anyone.’

He nodded and looked easier.

‘Don, are there boxes of ammunition in there?’

‘No, ma’am, we send it separately. We just have standard issue,’ he said, indicating the belt he wore.

‘Great,’ she said. ‘That’s good news.’

She walked with him to the back of the truck and found three more young men helping a fourth to struggle down.

The rifles were the biggest problem. And that’s what had caused the injuries. All four of them had cuts on their faces where the collision with the wall and the sudden rotation had thrown them against each other.

‘You three, go and sit back there under that tree,’ she said quietly, as she saw blood trickle down their cheeks.

She pointed to a tree some twenty yards away and was grateful to catch a glimpse of Don firmly established in the middle of the road some distance further on.

‘Drink lots of water, but
no
smoking,’ she went on. ‘Help is on the way. Ross, give Lance your rifle to look after and help me climb up into the truck,’

‘Ma’am, you can’t go in there,’ he protested.

‘I can if you give me a hand up.’

But when she managed to use the wall and Ross’s hand to get high enough to see properly, she realised there was nowhere she could stand. Her way was blocked with tangled bodies trying to free themselves from the arms and legs of colleagues and the bench seating from the right-hand side of the vehicle which had sheared away with the force of the impact.

The wall was only about six feet high, but just as it was an obstacle for her to climb up, so it was a hazard for injured young men to get down, burdened as they were with rifle and ammunition belt.

She was just about to ask Ross if he had any ideas, when Alan drew up right beside them. To her delight, Jimmy Elliott sat in the front seat and both the senior First Aiders were in the back, the big box between them.

‘Wonderful,’ she said beaming at them all. ‘Perfect timing, Alan. We can use the jeep like we did round the front. I’ve sent three young men to sit under a tree,’ she explained to the First Aiders. ‘Head injuries,’ she added briefly, exchanging glances with both women as they got out and humped the heavy box between them.

‘Jimmy,’ she said smiling at him, ‘Poor boys, very hurt. Can you carry them down to Mrs McMurray and Mrs Donnelly to make them better.’

‘And bandage them?’ he asked eagerly, smiling down at her.

‘Yes, bandage them,’ she said encouragingly. ‘But we must get them all safe first, mustn’t we?’

He nodded vigorously as Alan nudged the jeep right up against the wall and bridged the gap between the lorry and the ground.

Jimmy was now able to reach over and lift anyone close by. Emily had to smile at the look on Alan’s face as he watched Jimmy carefully step back into the jeep, steady himself and then carry a shaken figure to the ladies who worked under the tree as easily as if it were a young child.

When space permitted, Emily was able to go in. The least injured, now able to move more freely, she asked to stay and shift to the right so as to keep the vehicle in balance.

They lay there willingly enough as she, Don and Alan helped move the more seriously injured to where Jimmy could lift them and carry them away.

It was only when Emily smelt a new and unfamiliar smell that she stepped back down into the jeep and went to see what was happening. To her delight, she saw Robert Anderson emerging from under the lorry. She was about to go and speak to him when she found her way was blocked by a
large and familiar figure. It was the officer who had once interviewed her at Rathdrum after the theft of dynamite from the quarry.

‘Mrs Hamilton?’ he asked, his face grim as he recognised her.

‘Yes.’

‘I am told that you are in charge of this operation. By what right have you closed the Public Highway?’

Emily took a deep breath, thought of the young men still trapped in the truck, probably the most seriously injured of all. She looked him straight in the eye.

‘Section 372 of the Highways Act. Hazardous substances. Protection of the Public. I’m sure you’re familiar with it, but you might like to move back in case this lorry explodes. Now, if you don’t mind you are in my way.’

With that, she stepped past him and ran over to Robert Anderson, who stood watching her, an inscrutable look on his face.

‘What about the petrol, Robert?’

‘You’re safe enough now. One of those young men must have had a wee scarf in their pocket. Did the trick for just long enough.’

‘Must go, Robert,’ she said with a quick smile. ‘This is the hard part.’

Three young men still lay against the left-hand wall of the truck, badly injured, one was having difficulty breathing, the other two almost certainly
had broken ribs. In the driving compartment, Captain Hillman had hit the windscreen and was still unconscious but had been rescued by the Fire Engine team as soon as his driver had come round, stuck his head through the open window and called for help.

No sooner had Jimmy carried out the three most seriously injured soldiers than two ambulances arrived from Banbridge and two doctors, one from Dromore and one from Seapatrick along with them.

Emily watched as Jimmy carried each of the young men into the ambulance and laid him down gently on a stretchers. She turned away and went back to the jeep still standing by the empty truck to ask Don and Alan if either of them had any water left.

She was leaning against the side of the jeep drinking water from Don’s water bottle when Chris himself came striding toward her.

‘Emily, you’re hurt,’ he said anxiously.

‘No, I’m fine, just a bit exhausted,’ she replied, as Don and Alan slipped away and left them together.

‘There’s blood all over your hands and face.’

‘Not mine, Chris,’ she said shaking her head, ‘Someone I held perhaps.’

He shook his head as if words failed him completely and took from his pocket a muddy, smelly, but recognisably once-pretty, floral scarf.

‘How the hell did you know about the fire risk?’

‘I read about it somewhere,’ she replied, smiling up at him.

She looked at him and thought what a dear friend he was and how familiar his face had become. It seemed so particularly clear in the sunlight, a large, square face, the eyes a deep, dark brown, full of compassion and resolution.

How fortunate they were to have such a good friend.

To Emily’s delight and Chris Hick’s great surprise, the departure date for his regiment was set for mid-April, just at the point when a new group of young men would have been arriving. So, unlike many of his brother officers, awaiting their instructions on a daily basis for the movement of the 300,000 troops now present in Ulster, Chris had some three weeks notice. It meant that the current group could complete their training, that almost all of those injured in the accident at the end of March would be fully recovered and that there could be one more dinner together at the Castlewellan Road Camp.

It was an evening none of the three would ever forget. Sad, because as friends they were to be parted, anxious, because the possibility of meeting again was so uncertain, and yet at the same time, joyful. The waiting time was over, the hour had come. The huge number of troops in Northern Ireland was but a small part of the three million men now assembled
ready for the invasion of Europe and the camp was buzzing with a barely concealed excitement as Emily went down to the mess to say goodbye to the last group of young men for whom she had baked cookies and talked of home.

Chris had warned her that someone would be sure to make a speech, but nothing prepared her for the generous words, the deafening cheers, or the stack of boxes, gifts for herself and her four helpers. Most of all she was touched by the presentation of a silk scarf, more beautiful than anything she had ever possessed, and a small gold brooch with the insignia of the regiment entwined with flowers.

Back upstairs, in Chris’s office, he produced a velvet-lined box with a more masculine version of her brooch. The same insignia, but larger and bolder, it was inscribed with the words,
James Elliott, for services to the wounded, 31 March, 1944
.

‘Oh Chris,’ she said, tears springing to her eyes, ‘this will make him so happy. He’s been a different man since it happened, hasn’t he Alex?’

‘We all need to be valued, don’t we?’ Alex replied, with a small smile, as he watched Chris move to open a drawer in his desk.

To Alex’s surprise, he saw Chris pick out a familiar, worn, but very clean, floral scarf which he let fall on the desk in the small space between the well-anchored stacks of papers.

‘Cleaned up well, Emily, didn’t it?’ Chris asked.

She stretched out her hand to pick it up, amazed that a scarf, already years old, could look so presentable after what she’d done to it. But Chris closed his large hand over it before she could pick it up.

‘If you don’t mind, Emily, I might just need this again,’ he said, putting it back in the drawer.

Upstairs, in the room Emily had come to love so much, they were greeted by the ten lieutenants. Tonight, for the first and only time, there was no need to try to remember the new names or to ask where their home was.

Since that evening back in June 1942 when they had first stood in front of the impressive marble fireplace, Emily and Alex had met young men from almost every American state and she no longer had to refer to the atlas in the sitting room to make sure she was not confusing Michigan with Minnesota, nor Memphis with Minneapolis. The map of North America had become as familiar as the layout of her own garden, for there had been Canadians too originating from almost every province, including the young man from Saskatchewan, who had come via Boston and who’d proved to be her own nephew.

‘Chuck, how are you?’ she asked, as she found Captain Hillman smiling down at her. ‘Is it healing well?’ she asked, glancing up at the neat bandage on his left temple.

‘Doing just grand, but it still looks a bit like raw
meat,’ he said laughing. ‘I thought a decent bandage would be easier on the eyes.’

There was a lightness about him tonight she was sure she’d not seen before, though since the morning he’d sat at her kitchen table, she’d found him easier to talk to and more forthcoming.

‘Ma’am, I owe you,’ he said soberly.

‘You do?’ she asked, not quite sure what the phrase might mean when said by an American.

‘Yep. When I came here I was as touchy as bedammed,’ he began. ‘I was shit scared anyone would find out my grandfather was German and my mother Italian. But you sorted that out,’ he went on. ‘You showed me, ma’am, that it doesn’t matter who your parents were, or where you came from, or what you had to do to stay alive, or earn a living. It’s what you are
now
. And that’s something you can do
something
about. Not very easily perhaps in time of war, but even then you can try.’

Emily beamed at him.

‘I’m so glad I helped a bit, Chuck. Sometimes, I get frustrated that there’s so little I can do when there’s so much needs doing.’

He shook his head slowly.

‘Never think that, ma’am. You’ve been one of the best things this side of the Atlantic,’ he said glancing round the well-lit room, full of talk and gentle laughter. ‘And not just for me.’

Everyone felt it when the last regiments left and the roads were suddenly empty and the airbases silent. For Emily and her friends, there were no more picnics, specially arranged dances or social events. The children stopped chewing gum and no longer talked with North American accents.

The quarry closed, the need for building material to repair runways now ended. The rain washed away the dust on the adjoining hawthorn hedges and with the sunshine and warmth of May wildflowers began to colonise the abandoned spoil heaps.

Emily missed her young men and was glad to have plenty to do in the garden. With no weekly baking for the picnics, Mary Cook now had extra butter and bread to sell, so she and Emily found a neighbour with a pony and trap and drove each Saturday to the W.I. market in Banbridge.

If life was quiet and less busy in the town itself, it was not the case elsewhere. In the absence of news, the newspapers speculated wildly, ran stories about spies, and left their readers only too well aware that the last thing they wanted was for
anyone
to know what was going to happen, when it would happen, and where.

The tension grew week by week and day by day until finally, switching on the wireless on a lovely, fresh June morning, after a night of rain and wind, Emily heard the news the whole world had been waiting to hear. Allied troops had begun landing in
Northern France at 6.30 a.m. that very morning.
Operation Overlord
was a secret no longer. The invasion had begun.

Throughout June, wetter and far more unsettled in Ulster than May had been, there was but one topic of conversation. The coast of France became as well known as the country roads from Banbridge to Castlewellan or Dromore and French beaches, now renamed Utah and Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword, as familiar as Tyrella, or Newcastle, or Dundrum.

Emily thought of her
boyfriends
when she and Alex went to the cinema, saw landing craft pour out of ships and young men wade chest deep in the sea, their rifles held above their heads. She gazed in amazement as she watched a Canadian regiment going ashore in similar fashion but carrying bicycles. Later, when the Mulberry harbour was put in place, they watched the trucks, dozens and dozens of them, the same trucks once so familiar on their own country roads, drive off bringing more troops and more supplies to support the bridgeheads.

The cost was inevitably high, but the landings had gone well, better than could have been hoped, except on Omaha. The bridgeheads had been taken and in the weeks following the battle of Caen, she added new words to her vocabulary like salient and bulge and pincer movement, as the armies began to
sweep northwards following the line of the coast.

There were those who said it would all be over by Christmas, but Alex shook his head and said no.

As the summer turned to autumn, day after day there was good news, the newsreels now showing lively pictures of one city after another being liberated. Cheering crowds waved. Pretty girls kissed the welcome arrivals, or the new arrivals kissed the pretty girls. Yet more groups of German soldiers marched across the screen, hands on head, weaponless.

But the news was not all good. Casualty figures were high and from June onwards, V1 rockets fell on London by the dozen, all around the clock, creating devastation and anxiety. Each mention of a V1 made Emily think, with a bitter jolt, of the top floor flat near Waterloo Station. Cathy and Brian would never be forgotten, but such a sharp reminder of the manner of their death would always cause a stab of pain.

As the autumn deepened and the warmth of summer finally disappeared, Emily accepted that one more year was dipping down into winter and yet one more struggle against cold and shortages of all kinds.

If anything, the winter of 1945 was colder and more dispiriting than the preceding ones. As Emily sat reading her Sunday paper in a chill and dank
February, she noted the now familiar warning to cut down consumption of gas and electricity.

‘Alex, listen to this,’ she said, doubling the paper over to read the bottom half more easily.

‘
Ice-bound coal trains and road transport, and unprecedented strain on gas works and power stations – those were the consequences of the recent abnormal weather. It will take time for coal stocks to recover from the effects of these conditions
… Have you had a notice to cut down?’ she demanded.

‘Oh yes,’ he said wearily, ‘Read on down. We got that one in from the Ministry of Fuel and Power last week.’

‘But we haven’t had abnormal weather,’ she protested. ‘It’s always as cold as this in February and we haven’t had any snow yet.’

‘But they have in Scotland and the North of England,’ he explained. ‘The snow has been very bad there and the Ministry announcements are sent out to the whole country.’

‘
Only the most drastic economy will enable war production to be carried on at full pressure
,’ she continued. ‘Can
you
economise, Alex?’

‘No,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘Apart from the lights in the corridors and the main office, the machines either run or they don’t. We can make our own power or we can use electricity, it’s six of one and half a dozen of the other as far as scarce resources are concerned.’

‘Oh Alex, how long. How long will it be?’ she asked, her tone as weary as his had been.

He put his newspaper down and looked across at her. It was not like Emily to let it get on top of her.

‘Have you seen the cartoon on Page 3?’

‘Hadn’t got that far.’

‘Have a look,’ he urged, with a small smile.

Emily studied the cartoon.
Welcome Adolf
was obvious enough, but it took her a few moments more to make sense of the open Visitor’s Book, the two porters with horns and tails and the dark tunnel leading underground. There were some goose-stepping soldiers in the background and a notice at the entrance to the tunnel, ‘
Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here
.’

She paused, looked at the caption and then read it aloud: ‘
He shouldn’t be long now
.’

‘Do you really think it won’t be long now, Alex? I’m afraid I think I might give out.’

‘No, you won’t,’ he said, reassuringly. ‘Things
are
moving now, really moving. The Americans are heading for the Rhine and the Russians for Berlin. It
is
only a matter of time. Remember Carrie’s letter.’

Emily smiled and put her paper down.

‘Yes, love. I’m sorry I’m having a bad day. Would you like a cup of tea? And we do have some cake.’

‘Cake? How did you manage that without your boyfriends?’ he asked, a twinkle in his eyes.

‘I’ve found a new one,’ she said, teasing him,
before she closed the sitting-room door firmly behind her to keep the heat in.

The gas pressure was so low it was going to take ages to boil the water. She set up the tray, cut them each a piece of cake and found the kettle still hadn’t even started to sing.

She pulled out a drawer in the dresser and struggled with a large, awkward folder of letters. It was bulging and she knew it needed sorting, but she found it so hard to throw away letters from friends. She leafed through until she found the most recent one from Carrie Hicks.