Shadow on the Land (7 page)

He nodded slowly, his lips pressed together.

‘You know I’m an engineer, don’t you?’

‘No, I’m sorry,’ she apologised, ‘I know I should be able to tell from your insignia.’

‘Not important, ma’am,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘but I think I might be able to help out. I’ve got materials and my boys need real work, real problems to solve, not just exercises. Why not textile machinery? It’s all part of the war effort, isn’t it?’

Alex left them after a lively half hour over coffee and cake.

‘Board Meeting at six,’ he explained, as he stood up.

‘Can’t appear in dungarees,’ he added, looking down at Chris. ‘War or no war, it has to be a suit. Most of my fellow directors are accountants or solicitors and they come straight from work.’

‘I sometimes have that problem too, Alex, but there’s not many top brass around here at the moment. I can still wear fatigues.’

‘Emily, I need advice and perhaps help,’ Chris began, as Alex closed the sitting-room door quietly behind him.

‘These boys of mine are homesick. And how can I blame them when I’m homesick myself?’ he went on, with the open smile she found so endearing. ‘I don’t need to tell someone like you about morale. It’s critical. We don’t know how long it will be before we see action, but if morale is low we get illness, a poor response to training and high casualties when we do go into a frontline situation.’

Emily nodded.

‘I read about the Midwest Giants and the Kentucky Wildcats playing baseball up in Belfast in July. I loved the names,’ she said, laughing. ‘But I guessed that was to try to keep up spirits,’ she went on more soberly.

‘Yes, it was and I hear baseball at battalion level has been a great success too. Sport is always good. And so are the dances up at the camp, or in the town, or even in that lovely hall where we met at Millbrook. People have been great helping us to find places for the boys to meet girls. The trouble is, Emily, my engineering boys are younger than many of our fighting troops. Some of them were only in first year at college. I think what they’re really missing are their kid brothers and sisters.’

‘Ah … yes. I hadn’t thought of that.’

‘I didn’t catch on till I saw some of our boys making paper aeroplanes for some of the canteen
ladies’ little lads that have to come up to the camp after school. That little group were just in a world of their own.’

‘So, the problem is how to get your boys together with families with younger children,’ she said thoughtfully.

‘That’s it, Emily. I can provide transport and any food you need …’

He broke off as he saw a great smile light up her face.

‘Brownies,’ she said. ‘Aren’t they a favourite form of cookie with Americans?’

‘Yes, they are. But proper brownies are home-baked. I’m afraid they wouldn’t travel.’

‘They wouldn’t have to,’ she said smiling happily. ‘There’ll be no problem finding children. The primary teachers and the churches can help, but your boys need some home-cooking. They need little presents to give to the children they meet. Do you think your wife could provide me with a cookery book? And have you got a copying machine on the base? I can think of at least four other women who’d bake each week if they could get the ingredients.’

‘Emily, you are wonderful!’

‘Don’t say that Chris, till you see if I can deliver. But I do have some ideas.’

‘That is
very
obvious,’ he said, shaking his head and looking relieved. ‘I’ll contact home right away
and get a requisition in for the sort of stuff you’ll need. That’ll be no problem at all.’

There were two more attempts to blow up machinery in the course of September, both at Ballievy, where the damaged countershaft had been repaired within days of Alex’s meeting Chris at Millbrook. The devices used had not been very effective, no one had been hurt and repairs were done speedily by a party of Chris’s young lads. Nevertheless, anxiety over who was causing the damage affected everyone, from Alex and the Directors and the whole staff at Ballievy to the managers and senior men at the other three mills who could easily find themselves the next target for sabotage.

‘What did the police report say, Alex?’ Emily asked, as they walked out into the flower garden after supper one pleasant evening at the beginning of October.

‘Not a lot,’ he replied, reluctantly, looking around him at the fallen leaves splashing colour on the grass path.

Leaves from the huge chestnut that dominated the vegetable garden had blown over the hedge and now lay pink and gold among those carried down from the avenue, the still-perfect golden globes from the limes.

‘Do you want to try and forget all about it, love?’

‘Wish I could.’

Even after all these years, there were times when Emily didn’t know what to say to him, and couldn’t guess what he was thinking. His face gave her no clue, though the set of his shoulders told her how low he was feeling.

They moved slowly down to the end of the garden and stood looking out at the mountains, the air fresh and full of the smells of autumn but not yet edged with chill.

‘How did the picnic go?’ he asked abruptly.

‘Great. It was an enormous success,’ she said turning towards him. ‘Chris was delighted. He said he hadn’t had as much fun in years. Rounders on the beach. Rides in jeeps. Three-legged races. His boys made up take-away presents with sweets and biscuits … and chewing gum. Not sure how popular I’ll be with the mothers over that, but never mind. Kids love it.’

She looked at him closely as he turned his gaze back from the far mountains.

‘Alex, are you missing Johnny? Are you worried about our children?’

‘Guilty as charged, ma’am, as our friend Chris would say,’ he replied, with a ghost of a smile.

‘Good. That’s splendid,’ she said, slipping her arm round his waist.

‘What’s good about it?’ he asked, looking startled.

‘Only that now I know. What about that saying
you learnt long ago:
A trouble shared is a trouble halved
. Why do you think I work so hard, Alex, baking and cooking and arranging the Sunday visits and so on? I miss Johnny and the girls and Ritchie too. I’d go mad if I hadn’t something useful I could do, people I needed to phone or write to. Mary Cook to talk to when I go for the milk. Do you give yourself time to go and talk to anyone these days, even Robert, or any of the managers?’

Alex dropped his eyes and looked sheepish.

‘Maybe, love, we’re homesick too. Homesick for the life we made for our family and the life we all had before the war. But if we accept that we are, perhaps we could do something about it. Why don’t we ask Chris to come for a meal one evening?’

Alex said nothing. He just nodded.

But Emily saw the way he looked when they walked back to the house and she offered him a cup of coffee. Loneliness had been such a part of Alex’s life for such a long time, he still didn’t know when that was what he was feeling. Nor did he remember there was any comfort to be had.

With the eyes of the world on a Russian city on the Volga no one in the Banbridge area had ever heard of before, November unrolled its chill and fog over the low green hills and mountains of County Down. Young men in uniform crawled though ditches and slithered over stone walls as if these impediments were of as little moment as the cushions and pillows which Emily and her friends spread out on the floor of the Recreation Hall at Millbrook, to provide an obstacle race for lonely college boys, the temporary steeds of excited children already looking forward to the tea and cookies which would follow their games and races.

These were not the same young men who had played rounders and given jeep rides along the beach at Newcastle when Major Chris Hicks first enlisted Emily’s help. Those young men, now trained to bridge gorges, mend tanks, throw up defensive works and support the fighting men had been despatched
to North Africa with the Winnipeg Rifles, one more of the many groups to be seen tramping the roads round Banbridge developing stamina between bouts of practice on the rifle ranges and assault courses.

Their departure one chill, misty afternoon had brought Banbridge to a standstill and struck a blow to Emily’s good spirits in a month she had always dreaded, the month in which her own mother had died after a long illness, the chill and misty weeks when, year after year, all her bright plans seemed to fade with the dankness of the weather and her energy to ebb away in sympathy with the shrivelling of the daylight hours.

‘I’m afraid it’s champ again tonight, Alex,’ she began apologetically as he came into the kitchen, wisps of cold moisture clinging to his dungarees. ‘There was a big tailback when I was in town this afternoon and I couldn’t get across the road to go to Quails.’

‘And when have I ever objected to your champ?’ he replied. ‘You can save the coupons like you did for Jane’s birthday and we’ll have another roast when one of them comes home.’

‘It was Chris’s regiment, Alex,’ she continued. ‘Some of the lads spotted me and waved. I didn’t see him, but he’d have been up front wouldn’t he? So it looks as if he’s gone. He always did say he’d not get much warning. He’d be off one day and
Goodbye
would only be a note in the post,’ she ended sadly.

‘Well, I have
good
news for you.’

‘You have?’

‘Yes. Chris phoned me this morning. He hasn’t gone. He’s staying. Top brass think
his contacts on the ground
are so valuable they want him to go on training here,’ he explained, raising his eyebrows. ‘So his boys have gone, but there’ll be a new lot arriving at the end of the week. He’s got a few days breather till they land, so he phoned to ask us to come up and dine at the camp tomorrow evening. His new officers are flying in ahead of the boys. Full regalia,’ he said, teasing her, as he saw relief and pleasure spread across her face. ‘And don’t tell me you’ve nothing to wear.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ she replied, pretending to be cross. ‘If Scarlet O’Hara can make a dress out of the curtains, why can’t I?’

‘Which curtains had you in mind?’

‘Oh Alex, I’m only joking,’ she responded with a little laugh. ‘I’ve a perfectly nice dress. I just haven’t worn it since … oh goodness … I can’t even think when the last time was. Perhaps it was Cathy’s twenty-first. Something like that’

‘It
is
good news, Emily,’ he said, dropping down wearily on a kitchen chair, as she lifted the lid of the saucepan and gave the champ another stir to keep it from sticking. ‘I’d have been as sad as you if he’d gone. He’s a good-hearted man and great company and he’s taken a weight off
my
shoulders with the
repairs he’s done for us. I’d have been waiting still for that work on the countershaft if I’d had to
go through official channels
, as the saying is.’

Emily smiled, glad to hear him admit his own feelings for their friend and delighted by the unexpected prospect of a night out.

‘Will we take our supper to the fire, Alex?’ she asked, seeing the lines of tiredness in his face. ‘I lit it a wee while ago and it’ll be blazing up nicely by now.’

‘Why not?’ he replied, standing up and struggling out of his dungarees. ‘If we’re dining in style tomorrow night, we can have it in a bowl tonight, can’t we? Easier than a plate on your knee.’

‘What a good idea. I’ll heat a couple of bowls. I never thought of that.’

The phone rang just as she was pouring hot water into what Jane always called the ‘Daddy Bear’ bowls, the biggest ones they had.

‘I’ll answer that,’ he said quickly. ‘You serve up,’ he added, as he disappeared into the dark hallway.

The champ smelt good as she spooned it into the warm bowls. She had to admit to herself it always did. They had their own scallions from the garden and there was always butter to put in the well at the centre, for Mary Cook had bought a device with a rotary beater which was proving most successful at producing small quantities without the use of a churn.

She laid the tray on the kitchen table, went into the larder to pour glasses of milk and came out just as Alex returned.

‘I’m sorry, love. It
is
bad news this time.’

He waited till she put the two glasses of milk safely down on the table with a shaking hand and then went on.

‘Ritchie was killed this morning. It was his second solo flight and his plane crashed and went on fire …’

It was Alex who put small logs on the dying fire and insisted that she sit there while he reheated their abandoned supper.

‘We’re entitled to cry, Emily,’ he said, his own face pale, his eyes red. ‘But we’ve got to keep going. Both of us. Whatever happens. Now be a good girl and say you will for I can’t do it by myself.’

She nodded, knowing that if she spoke, the softness in his voice would bring the tears pouring down again.

She wiped her eyes again after he’d gone, shutting the door behind him because of the cold air gathered in the unheated hall and stairwell. It felt as if she was living in a small, safe space, warm and comfortable, while all around her there was death and darkness and cold and destruction.

One woman weeping by a bright fire and hundreds of thousands of young men lying dead
in Stalingrad, Russian and German locked in a desperate struggle for a city. A crucially important strategic point on the Volga to the German generals, yet a place where people once lived and loved and had a life and were now caught up in a devastating battle. How many millions of women would weep in the cold, chill winter days ahead? How many hearts would break for young men like Ritchie, so full of life and energy.

‘Stop it, Emily,’ she said to herself quickly, as she became aware of small sounds from the kitchen and heard the electric kettle being switched on. ‘You must not let yourself think of them. You must not disable yourself with grief.’

Suddenly and totally unexpectedly, she thought of a May evening. Beyond the window, the water of Millbrook’s reservoir paper calm, two swans and five fluffy cygnets moving across its perfect surface, marking it with smooth grey lines like a pencil marks on a sheet of paper. Chris Hicks was looking down at her, as if he understood something about her she hardly understood herself.

‘
Holding the world together for someone, no doubt, as my wife does for me
.’

He was right. However good, or clever, or wise, there were things a man had difficulty in doing for himself. But if he had someone to help, someone to hold the world together for him, then his own courage and wisdom would flow and he would
return the gift in his own way. Through action, like Chris and Alex, or in other ways she had not thought about. But before they could act, they needed to be given that gift of being held.

She heard the kitchen door close, wiped her eyes again, blew her nose and ran her fingers through her hair. She even managed a small smile as the sitting room door opened and he came back in with a tray.

He had his back to her as he put it down on the low table between them, but when he picked up the coffee pot and moved to set it down on the hearth to keep warm, she saw his face had lost its look of bleak desolation.

‘If you eat up your nice supper, I’ll pour you a cup of Chris’s coffee,’ he said, as he sat down opposite her, a Daddy Bear bowl in one hand, a fork in the other.

‘Thank you for my supper,’ she said, picking up the other bowl which now steamed gently. ‘And especially for coffee,’ she added. ‘And for being honest. You
are
right. We have to keep going. We just have to. But we don’t have to pretend it’s easy.’

Emily woke early next morning, her eyes flicking open in the completely dark room. She’d hated the darkness when the blackout first went up, for they’d always slept with the curtains drawn back. Even when there was no moon there was usually starlight and however bad the weather, there was always the
outline of the window and some pale light reflecting from the mirror of her dressing table, or the pictures on the walls.

In the darkness, she had felt trapped, suffocated. She’d struggled to adjust, but finally, when she could bear it no longer, she’d plugged in a smiling green gnome with a red hat and bright sparks of light for eyes that had once been used for Johnny. After a few weeks, she found she was forgetting to switch on, but she never moved the green gnome from the floor on her side of the bed.

‘Ritchie,’ she whispered, as she turned on her side and stretched cautiously, unwilling to wake Alex a moment earlier than necessary.

No more Ritchie. No more tramping feet on the stairs as he and Johnny went up to Johnny’s bedroom to work on a model aircraft kit they’d bought by saving up their pocket money or their holiday earnings. No more Ritchie eating as if he were half-starved, leaping to his feet with a
thank you
and an offer to wash up, or to carry the laundry baskets to the clothes line. Never again. Gone. Flown away. Beyond the bright blue sky.

At the thought of Heaven, she shivered. There would be a funeral, a service, a eulogy from the local minister. Yards and yards of pious reassurances that the parting was temporary and it was all part of God’s plan. Would he tell her Stalingrad was part of God’s plan if she asked? No wonder Alex didn’t believe
any of it. She wasn’t sure she’d got much belief left either though she noticed that she’d never stopped praying. Not that she ever got down on her knees by her bed like her mother had taught her to, but often enough over the kitchen sink or the ironing board, she caught herself asking for strength, remembering all her family and naming her friends. Even if it was only to say silently to herself, ‘God keep them safe,’ she probably prayed most days.

‘God help his poor parents and all like them,’ she thought, as the strident ring of the alarm clock shattered the silence.

She would have to phone Ritchie’s mother, of course, and perhaps visit her. But it would be proper to phone first to see what the arrangements were. And Johnny would have to be told before anyone else in the family.

She offered Alex the one remaining slice of bacon in the larder with a fried egg and soda bread, but to her surprise he said ‘no, just tea and toast as usual.’ They ate their breakfast in silence, exchanged a few words over ringing Johnny’s Training Camp and the timing of their evening engagement. They parted with a brief hug that had something of desperation about it.

It was only half past seven and still pitch dark as she peered out of the kitchen window to pick up the tiny glow of hooded headlights as he drove out of the garage and headed down the avenue. Tuesday,
the 10th of November, 1942, it said on the calendar when she turned away from the window and stared at the pattern of squares outlined in black, the numbers blocked solidly in red.

When she finally gathered herself to make the call to Ritchie’s home, she found herself speaking to a most unfriendly woman who said shortly that her sister couldn’t possibly talk to anyone, the funeral would be private, and besides, she didn’t know when it would be. Emily offered the usual condolences, got off the line as quickly as possible and found her hands shaking as she put the phone down.

After that, she was even more uneasy about ringing the Training Camp at Greencastle. Their number had been supplied to parents with strict instructions that it was only to be used in emergencies. It was certainly not available for contacting any of their trainees.

‘Greencastle Camp. Please state your business.’

Emily nearly dropped the receiver. The voice, so cold and so distant, sounded positively ethereal. She listened in a kind of trance as the voice, female it seemed, repeated the message exactly as before.

She’d have to do better than this.

‘I’d like to speak to my son’s Commanding Officer,’ she said with a confidence she most certainly did not feel.

‘About what, madam?’

‘About the death of my son’s closest friend in a similar training unit to yours.’

There was a click and silence.

Emily stared into the black mouthpiece and noted the tiny beads of moisture where her warm breath had condensed on the stone-cold plastic. There were radiators in the hall. Hugh Sinton had installed them before the turn of the century when Rathdrum House had been one the first in the district to have central heating. But Hugh had run the radiators from his own gas plant, which burnt coke. There was no coke available for domestic use any more.

She shivered and was about to put the phone down when a voice startled her.

‘Good morning, ma’am. Maybridge here. Can I help you?’

‘Yes … yes, that would be very good of you. My name is Hamilton, my son John is with you.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘I’m afraid I have bad news for him. His closest friend, Ritchie Johnston, was killed yesterday. His plane crashed on his second solo flight.’

‘I take it
you
knew this young man, ma’am?’

‘Oh yes. The two were inseparable. He was in and out of our house all the time.’

‘Then may I offer you
my
sympathy. This is very hard on you, as much as it may be on John.’

Tears sprang to her eyes once again. The accent
was upper class and English, yet shot through with a gentle warmth which she found it hard to believe. Johnny and Ritchie would have made fun of it, of course.