Authors: June Gadsby
‘I’m embarrassed to be found out,’ she said, smiling bashfully. ‘Yes,
Captain Craig, I was talking to someone … someone I am driven to talk to from time to time. It keeps me sane.’
Alex’s mind was racing on wheels, trying to remember whether he had ever seen Grace fraternizing with any of the soldiers in the unit. Was she indulging in some kind of liaison? He knew so little about her. She wasn’t the kind of woman who spoke of her private life. Affairs were inevitable for a lot of people, married or single, when they were separated from those whom they loved by a war and the death and destruction that surrounded them. They lived for the moment, in the knowledge that each day might be their last.
‘Oh?’ He regarded her, his head to one side; it obviously disturbed her, for she threw her hands in the air and issued a long, loud sigh.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll confess.’
‘Confess?’ Alex’s stomach lurched. He didn’t think he was going to like what he was about to hear.
‘Yes, Captain … Alex …’ Grace glanced from left to right and then behind her as if checking that nobody was within hearing distance. ‘You may not understand, but … I was talking to God. I talk to him all the time. I have to, you see. I really have to.’
‘Oh, Grace I didn’t mean to pry, but …’ Alex took a step towards her but she held up a hand, warding him off.
‘Captain Craig!’
There was a shout from the hospital tent as a commotion broke out. Alex gave Grace one last apologetic look, then rushed to see what was happening. As he ran through the ward towards a group of patients and nursing staff grappling together in a heaving, grunting, shouting mass, a pistol shot rang out. The group fell apart. Alex pushed through and found a man standing over the young German soldier, his gun still smoking in his hand. There was a spreading red stain in the centre of the boy’s chest.
‘Sergeant Forbes!’ Alex called out, trying to keep his voice steady. ‘Put down your weapon.’
Forbes remained rigid for a moment, then his shoulders hunched and his chest heaved as he tried to control his anger.
‘Drop the gun, man!’ Alex repeated the order and the weapon fell with a dull thud to the ground where a nurse quickly stooped to whisk it away.
‘Dirty Jerry bastard!’ Forbes resisted hands that tried to pull him away.
‘What happened here?’ Alex demanded and there was a stony silence. ‘What?’
Grundy stepped forward and put himself between Alex and the
sergeant, giving the man a push so that he was obliged to step back.
‘Anybody see what happened?’ Grundy asked.
‘It was the cigarettes.’ A young nurse with frightened eyes spoke up at last. ‘Sergeant Forbes found the German helping himself to his cigarettes … he accused him of stealing … you know, told him to put them back.’
‘And?’ Alex fixed the girl with a stern eye and she winced as if he had hit her. ‘What then?’
‘Nothing, sir.’ The nurse looked close to tears. ‘The German looked puzzled. He still had the cigarettes in his hand when Forbes shot him. Look …’
They all looked and there was the packet of cigarettes in the dead soldier’s hand. Alex retrieved them, turning them over and over.
‘He nicked them from me!’ Forbes spat out. ‘Rotten thieving Nazi!’
‘The cigarettes, Sergeant, would seem to be German. Since when have the British Army been issued with German cigarettes?’
‘He didn’t have any rights. He shouldn’t have been here among decent folk, nicking things like the filthy bloody pig that he is …’ Forbes surged forward again, but this time was successfully restrained.
Alex stood over him, squeezing the offending packet of cigarettes to a pulp in his hand, wishing it was the fellow’s neck.
‘This man whom you call a Nazi, was a boy of eighteen, serving in the German Army. The war was not of his making. Like all of us, he was hoping to go back home to his family. For Christ’s sake, Forbes, he had no eyes! He couldn’t see.’ With a sound of disgust, Alex threw the remains of the cigarettes in the sergeant’s face. ‘You’re on Standing Orders, Sergeant. Get out of my sight.’
Alex expected him to protest loudly, but Forbes went as meekly as a lamb.
‘What about the German lad, sir?’ Grundy asked.
‘Give him a decent burial, Grundy. Make sure you keep his personal belongings. One day his family will be glad to have them.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Right.’ Alex drew himself up, pulled in a gulp of soured air and returned the gaze of the group of patients and medical staff that had assembled around him. ‘We’re moving out at dusk, ready or not. Let’s get sorted out, shall we?’
Mary was worried about Iris. For a few days now she had seemed
lethargic
and reluctant to chat, which was not at all her usual behaviour. At first, Mary wondered if her friend might be sickening for something.
There had been a few cases of gastritis in the camp, probably due to unclean water. Iris, however, claimed that there was nothing wrong with her.
Today, Gaston had brought word that thousands of troops were being lifted off the beaches around Dunkirk. He had spoken briefly to Iris, who was always uneasy in the Frenchman’s presence, then he had strolled over to Mary’s table, now under a canvas awning since the weather had taken an uncharacteristic turn for the worse.
‘
Bonjour
, Gaston.’ She greeted him with a smile and got a flash of white teeth in return, but then the muscles of his face tensed up again and his eyes regarded her darkly.
‘
Comment vas tu
, Mary?’
‘
Ça va, et toi
?’
They often lapsed into French when they were together. Mary couldn’t help wondering whether Iris resented her ability to speak so well in Gaston’s mother-tongue, for it gave them a certain amount of intimacy. Mary’s rapport with the Resistance worker had been good, after the rather shaky start, though she did not personally find him physically attractive. On the other hand, she had caught Iris watching the man when she thought she was not being observed, a faraway expression on her face.
‘I have asked Iris to drive into Rennes with me. It is not far. There are supplies to be found for the camp.’
‘I thought the shops in France were empty these days,’ Mary said, leaning back in her chair and watching the rainwater form a cascade as it ran from the canvas in glistening streams.
‘
Ah, oui
! But there are ways and means to obtain anything, for a price.’
‘The black market, do you mean? Yes, we have that in England too.’
‘Do you hate the black marketeers for making money while their people starve?’
Mary shook her head uncertainly. ‘I’m not sure what to think about it. We’re all struggling to survive this war the best way we know how. The hardest thing to understand is the selfishness of those who have plenty, but who don’t share it with those in desperate need. But then, it’s too easy to sit in judgement.’
‘That is true. None of us knows what forces people to act the way they do. When I was young …’
He stopped suddenly, glanced at her, then at the rain. Mary knew he had been about to reveal something very personal about himself. She raised her eyebrows and waited, but he just smiled and shrugged and slapped the table between them.
‘It is not important. In a very short time, Mary West, you will be back in England and you will soon forget Gaston Frébus. You … and
chère
Iris. Does she have a good life waiting for her?’
‘I hope so, Gaston.’ Mary watched him as he got up and stretched; like everyone else he looked tired and old beyond his years. ‘Do you have a family back … wherever you are from?’
He smiled wistfully at her and she thought there was a moist
glistening
in his eyes, but it could have been a trick of the light.
‘Not any longer. My mother, that’s all. The others …’ He gave a shrug that spoke volumes.
In the circumstances, Mary felt that it would have been indiscreet to probe further. Gaston was a very private man, doing a dangerous job. Death must stalk him routinely, wait for him around every corner.
‘You’re wrong, you know, about us forgetting you,’ she called out after him as he stepped out into the rain. ‘I certainly won’t. And neither will Iris.’
He gave her a weary wave and walked away, his feet being sucked down by the mud at every step. Across the central reservation, where they had danced and sung around a barbecued wild boar only last night, she could see Iris climbing into Phoebe. She saw how her friend watched Gaston as he approached, and then Mary knew what was troubling her. Iris was in love with the short, grizzly Frenchman, which explained the number of times she had seen them walking together, or talking with heads bowed over a cup of tea.
No fraternizing, indeed. Such an impossible rule. How could any of them put a halt to love once it attacked such a vulnerable organ as the human heart? She was happy for Iris, although a part of her, the sensible part, could not believe that there was any likelihood of the relationship having any kind of ‘happy ever after’ ending.
Mary heard the van’s throaty cough as Iris started the engine, then it was moving off in a cloud of exhaust fumes. She mused on what kind of supplies Gaston and Iris would come back with. Or was it just an excuse to spend some time together away from camp? She didn’t mind. Let them have this small pocket of happiness in the middle of wartime mayhem, she thought.
But Mary’s musings came to an abrupt end when she suddenly saw a group of Polish soldiers heading her way, heads bowed under the beating rain, feet jumping and dodging the puddles as they came for the day’s English lesson.
The small convoy carrying Alex, patients and staff came to an abrupt halt. They were sandwiched between the vehicles of an RACO army field workshop that had come successfully through enemy lines all the way from Belgium. Now, the order to halt was given, even though they were still a few miles from the coast.
Alex, sitting up front in the unit’s only remaining staff car, with Private Grundy and Sister Forsyth, felt the tension growing as it spread down the line. Behind them, ambulances, full of injured soldiers packed like sardines, were queuing up. And not so far behind the straggling column the horizon was a mass of black smoke-clouds with shells going off and gunfire echoing through the evening air, making the ground vibrate beneath them.
In front of them the sky was full of flames, rising high. They could feel the heat, hear the crackle and the occasional dull explosion.
‘What the hell…?’ Alex was half out of the car, but Grundy jumped down before him.
‘I’ll see what’s going on, shall I, sir?’
Before Alex could stop him, the orderly was running down the column to the leading vehicles. Beside him, Alex felt Grace give an involuntary shudder. Throughout the whole journey she had remained silent, her hands clasping and unclasping in her lap. He reached out and gripped her wrist, noticing how cold she was, despite the warmth of the summer night.
‘Are you all right, Grace?’
‘Yes … yes, I’m fine.’ It was such a small, weak voice and not at all the voice of the strong-willed, efficient nursing sister he had come to know.
‘We’re all a bit jittery,’ he said with a sympathetic smile. ‘Soon be over now.’
He could see Grundy sprinting back to the car. The orderly was breathless by the time he skidded to a halt, but he looked excited, so it had to be good news rather than the bad they had expected.
‘It’s all right, sir. The fires are ours. Brits and Canadian, so I’m told. They’re demobilizing all the lorries and the cars and setting fire to the fuel. The Jerries are just behind us, but the beaches are only a mile away. Anyway, we’ve got orders from the Beach Master to get the ambulances through to the wharf. Most of the troops have gone ahead on foot. They say there are columns of them stretching right up from the water’s edge.’
‘All right, Grundy.’ Alex nodded with a wry smile. ‘Let’s not waste time. Get these ambulances moving.’
‘Yes, sir!’ The orderly grinned broadly and did his mock salute, which he had picked up from a Canadian airman they had treated for burns. The airman had had one good finger remaining on his right hand, with which he insisted on saluting as best he could.
It was a matter of minutes before they reached the quay where the wounded were to be picked up by the bigger rescue ships. There were good-hearted grumbles and a few groans as the walking wounded stepped down from the ambulances, some of them supporting or
carrying
the more severely wounded.
‘Come on, you lazy lot.’ Grundy’s voice could be heard over the mumble of hushed voices. ‘On yer feet, them as can. Them as can’t … crawl! You’re used to that, aren’t you?’
‘He’s a good man,’ Grace Forsyth said at Alex’s side.
‘None better,’ Alex replied, then gave her a curious look. ‘I thought you didn’t like him.’
‘Maybe I’ve had reason to change my mind,’ Grace said, then rubbed her hands up and down her arms with a shiver.
Alex nodded and studied the lines and the shadows on her face. She had become very thin over the last few weeks, and yet she had never fallen down on her duties. He liked her a lot, but there was always
something
he felt she was hiding from him, something mysterious lurking in those dreamy, faraway eyes of hers.
‘Organize your nurses, Sister.’ He gave the order, but the tone of his voice was gentle.
‘Yes, Captain Craig.’
By the time the command came down the line to start towards a grey hospital ship cagily docking, they were ready. And none too soon, for there was a growl of plane engines and a squadron of German Stukas came screaming over their heads, strafing the beaches and the quay with bullets.
Whole columns of men dived for cover as sand and sea were scuffed up in explosive bursts. Some of the men did not get up again. All Alex could do was watch helplessly and thank God for those who remained unharmed. He could see, mirrored on every face, the turbulent emotions that were going on in his own heart. The hopes, the fears of the men around him, and excitement mingled with terror.
‘I’ll bring up the rear, Captain Craig, sir,’ Grundy shouted in his ear.