His gut instinct was to hide, but the pain exhausted him and he couldn’t move. His breath came in shallow gasps and even that cost too much effort. All he wanted was sleep. As sounds and smells receded, his sightless world slipped into oblivion.
‘See what I mean, Nurse,’ the woman told May. Her face hot and flushed, the mother was at her wit’s end and looked exhausted. ‘Little monkey… he does this every time he feeds. Sucks for a few minutes then falls asleep.’
As May sat beside the mother on the bed helping her to breastfeed, her tired mind only half listened. She sorely missed getting letters from Richard but then, hadn’t he told her not to worry as he didn’t know when he’d next be in touch? She smiled fondly at his afterthought in a recent letter. ‘Out of sight doesn’t mean out of mind as you are with me always.’
‘It’s no laughin’ matter, Nurse.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry. My mind tends to wander at this time so early in the morning.’
‘Don’t apologise, lass. It’s me. This bairn’s turned me into a grump. This is me fourth and I’ve never had this trouble feeding before.’
The blackout curtains were drawn back and early morning sunlight streamed through the tall window behind the patient’s bed.
The mother turned a distressed face to May. ‘I don’t know what I’m ganna do when I’m home the morra if it takes him this long to feed. I won’t get anythin’ done.’
The little tinker, May saw, had gone into a rosy-cheeked sleep and nothing would wake him.
‘He thinks I’ve got all day.’
Sister Turnbull, doing her early morning round came to stand at the side of the bed.
‘I’ll show you how it’s done.’
She flicked the pink sole of the baby’s right foot with her forefinger. Startled, the baby opened his eyes, his contented little face crumpled and he started to howl.
‘That did the trick.’ Sister went on her way.
The mother, with a look of distress, clutched the baby to her chest.
When May’s shift finished, she didn’t want breakfast – she only wanted bed and sleep.
Collecting her letters, she sifted through them as she made for her room. There was one from Maureen’s mam – who still kept in touch – and a postcard from Mr Talbot informing her of his new address as his son-in-law had taken over the farm and he’d moved into the village.
As she saw the handwriting on the last letter, she gave a sharp intake of breath.
A letter from Richard.
She raced to her room, removed the cumbersome uniform hat, undid the press studs on her collar and reclined on the bed.
She tore open the envelope. A cry escaped her as she scanned the first line.
My darling, I hoped you would never receive this letter because it means I have gone from you.
As if all the blood had drained from her body, May went limp with shock. She didn’t want to read any more. She wanted to pretend this letter had never arrived.
Yet, she knew she had to read on.
I’m sorry, sweetheart. After all you’ve been through I didn’t want to put you through this. I’ve written your name and address on this letter so whoever finds it will post it to you. I’ve carried the letter in my battledress pocket to make sure you had something of me on the day I died because my last thought will be of you, sweetheart. Know that I have no regrets because some people go a lifetime without finding a love like ours. There again, I do have one regret: that I won’t see our child. I love whoever it is already and know that you will be the most wonderful mother. I’m so thrilled we made the child together, it has made my life complete.
May, I love you with all my heart and I’ll be watching over you. You are stronger than you think and will survive this. Please, please get on with your life. I want you and our child to have the very best, even if that does mean you find someone else.
You deserve to be happy, kiddo.
What more can I say, except you have shown me how to live life to the full and the last few months were the happiest I’ve known. Thank you with all of my heart.
God bless my darling.
Your Richard xxx
Tears streamed down May’s cheek, dripped off her chin and wet the hand that held the letter. A spot in her throat hurt like hell.
She sat up and bunched her hands, her nails digging into her palms till they hurt. She couldn’t do this. The heartache was unbearable. She wanted to scream, break something, run until she was exhausted.
She collapsed back on the bed. As she lay there, a thought came and she knew exactly what she had to do. Etty was the only person who would understand.
* * *
They sat either side of the kitchen table. Trevor had taken both of the children out for a walk and so they had the place to themselves.
In the silence, Etty turned to face May. ‘Don’t you want it verified that Richard is—’
‘Dead. No. Richard put that letter on his person as he would want me to be one of the first to know if he… didn’t make it.’
‘Don’t you want to know the details of his death?’ Etty persisted.
‘That would mean getting in touch with his parents. And all they will ever know is that Richard was killed in action.’
The pair of them lapsed into silence.
Then Etty spoke. ‘It’ll take a long while but you must do as Richard says and get on with your life. That’s what you’d want if it was the other way around.’
May sniffed.
‘What a man! To express how much he loved you so eloquently.’
May sniffed harder. ‘How… can I go on?’
‘People say take one day at a time but it’s not that easy.’
‘What then?’
‘I’d say take one minute at a time and if you survive without crying then try for two.’
‘Etty, it kills me to think what he went through when folk thought him a coward.’
‘You changed his life, remember?’
‘And he changed mine. But I thought we would be together forever.’
‘He’ll be forever in your memory.’
‘I want more. I want him here. I’m never going to love again. It hurts too much.’
‘You know that’s not true. You’ll love Richard’s child growing inside you. Believe me, there will be a lot of joy and happiness in the future. Only… it takes time.’
The tears came again and Etty, rising from her chair, moved around the table and hugged her tight. May cried and cried, great shuddering gasps that made her shoulders heave up and down and her stomach muscles hurt.
When, finally, the tears had finished, May sat bolt upright and held her face in her hands.
In her mind, she heard Richard’s deep and rich voice, his measured words. He would ask what she wanted to do.
May blew her nose on a handkerchief.
‘I’m going to make Richard proud. I don’t know how… but only I can sort me life out. I’ll think of a way to bring up this bairn and give Derek a home too. Other mothers that have lost their loved ones do it… so why not me?’
A knock came at the door. Etty went to answer it.
A voice came from the doorway, a voice May couldn’t distinguish. She went into the passageway to investigate.
Ramona Newman stood there, dressed head to toe in black. Her face drained of colour, she looked pityingly at May.
‘Trevor met Mrs Newman in the street,’ Etty explained, her expression uncertain. ‘He told her about your loss.’
Ramona gave a nod. ‘And if you’re going through half the pain I am, lass, then I’m sorry for yi’.’
May didn’t know how to respond. She wasn’t ready to face folk yet. She couldn’t handle sympathy.
‘I haven’t come to dole out sympathy.’ Ramona must be a mind reader, May thought. ‘You’ll get plenty of that and I know from experience it does nee good.’ She moved along the passage towards May. ‘What I’ve come about is practical matters. Mr Newman’s explained about your offer to have
your old job back in exchange for lodgings. Well… I accept. He also told us about the bairn you’re carrying. I’ve been thinking. After it’s born you can stay on if you want.’
There was an imploring note in her tone.
She went on, ‘I’ve come to like having Derek around and I don’t want to go back to livin’ like before. Just Mr Newman and me.’
‘Mrs Newman, I—’
‘That’s another thing. From now I want yi’ to call us Aunt Ramona.’
29
He was on a hospital ship, the nurse told him.
A babble of male voices sounded and the smell of disinfectant wafted in the air.
‘How bad are my injuries?’ he wanted to know.
The nurse hesitated.
‘You came around for a time in France and the doctor assessed that you were blinded and had lost your memory. Your chest needs an operation as does your right leg.’
‘Do you know how I was injured?’
He heard rustlings and then felt the nurse’s warm fingers on his wrist as she took his pulse. ‘Probably a shell blast. That would cause loss of sight and memory.’
‘How did I get here?’
‘A Frenchman, a Monsieur Dubois, it says here in a letter in your notes.’
From her voice, he imagined her to be young and from the southern counties.
‘Monsieur Dubois is a farmer. He took you to a doctor in the nearest town who had you transferred to a hospital at base area where you were assessed before boarding this ship for the journey home.’
Home. What a wonderful word – but where was home?
The nurse continued. ‘The doctor left a letter to put in your notes so you’d know the history of when you were found.’
‘This letter… does it say if anyone else was around when I was found?’
‘According to what it is says here, there was just you. Monsieur Dubois’s son found you on a track at the side of their land. You were in a bad way and the son took you for dead but when he realised differently, he carried you back to the farmhouse.’
‘Where was this?’
‘On the outskirts of a village in Normandy. According to the doctor’s letter, Monsieur didn’t want to take any chances of a soldier being found on his property by the Germans. Mr Dubois destroyed your dog tags and uniform and dressed you in his son’s clothes. So, soldier, we don’t know your identity.’
‘We know I was in the army?’
‘It would seem so.’
‘I’ll write and thank both Monsieur and the good doctor.’
Then he remembered he was sightless.
‘Where am I now?’
‘On a ward below deck with double tiers of bunks. You’re on a lower but don’t attempt to get up.’
Knowing how weak he felt, the warning was unnecessary. His mind was blank. He couldn’t recall who he was or where he came from.
‘Nurse.’ His mind sharpened. He must ask the question. ‘Will I be able to see again?’
‘I honestly don’t know.’
‘Where will they send—’
‘I have to go.’ Her voice travelled from a distance.
‘Thanks. I appreciate your time,’ he called.
Unable to take it all in, he fell back against a pillow listening to life below deck. Nurses, orderlies, doctors, bustling about, calling to each other, and the strange thing was, it all sounded familiar.
As May helped Nurse Smythe get a bed ready for a patient from the labour ward, the level of noise from the mothers in the day room increased.
‘Good grief,’ Henrietta Smythe, a second-year nurse scoffed. ‘You’d think they were here for a holiday.’
The new batch of mothers had hit it off and tended to gather in the day room at every opportunity. They sat in dressing gowns and slippers, needles clicking, cups of tea on the arms of their chairs.
‘A word.’ Sister Turnbull beckoned to them from the office doorway.
When they were inside the office, Sister closed the door.
‘I won’t have you discussing patients.’ She glowered at Nurse Smythe. ‘You should take care what you say, Nurse. Indeed, this might be the nearest those women ever get to having a holiday.’
May was surprised, as Sister Turnbull, usually a stickler for rules, ran a peaceful ward and strictly no jollity was allowed.
‘Yes, Sister, sorry, Sister.’
Sister bristled. ‘Have you not seen the appalling conditions some of these women live in? Back-to-back houses with an outside toilet between goodness knows how many properties. Filthy, damp, dismal places with a coal fire they can’t afford to run.’
Sister Turnbull was certainly in a pickle and May wondered what had caused this unusual outburst. But she knew what Sister said to be true. She remembered Richard saying he wanted to help change things by building better homes for people. At the thought of Richard a tearfulness that seemed to hover permanently beneath the surface of late, overcame her. May blinked hard and concentrated on Sister Turnbull.
Etty had warned her this might happen but May had insisted she return to work. She’d told her friend, ‘I want to work my notice. I need to keep busy.’
Henrietta replied to Sister, ‘No, Sister, I’ve never been to that kind of area.’
‘Then it might pay, Nurse, for you to do a stint on the district. Perhaps then you’d learn not to be so flippant.’
Henrietta flushed from the neck and pouted as if she’d like to retort, but knew she couldn’t.
‘Yes, Sister.’
Sister Turnbull appeared to take a minute to collect herself.
‘Is the bed ready for the new admission?’
‘Yes, Sister,’ both nurses replied.
* * *
Mrs Watson was nineteen and this was her second baby.
‘I lost me other one, Nurse, from scarlet fever,’ she said, as May pulled screens around her bed. ‘Can I please have Pamela next to me bed? I don’t want to let her out of me sight.’
‘What a lovely name.’ May smiled. ‘Baby is in the nursery just now getting weighed but I’ll have a word with Sister…’
A noise from outside made May look out of the tall window behind Mrs Watson’s bed.
The drone of aeroplanes.
The Maternity ward had been built as an afterthought on the edge of the hospital grounds and all the windows had a scenic view of the moors in front and a golf course behind.
It was still light and, with no blackout curtains drawn, May could see two aeroplanes flying low in the blue sky and heading in this direction. Small for bombers, she recognised them as Spitfires.
‘Something wrong, Nurse?’ Mrs Watson’s voice sounded distant.
May tensed. She knew what a plane in trouble sounded like.
Galvanised into action, she tucked a blanket around Mrs Watson. As the scream of planes came closer, the faltering engine sounded terrifyingly low, as if it wouldn’t make it.
He’s making for the golf course, May thought.
There came an almighty thud that seemed to shake the very foundations of the building; for a split second the world stood still. May, fearing what could happen and with no time to think, threw herself down and covered Mrs Watson’s slight frame with her own.
A terrific explosion followed, then a sickening crescendo of breaking glass. As May looked up at the window, a large piece of glass, like a sharp knife, sliced the side of her face.
She passed out.
30
He awoke to a black world feeling woozy, some kind of block each side of his head preventing movement. He was in bed and didn’t know the time of day or where he was. It was terrifying.
‘All right, mate,’ a cockney voice above him said. ‘You’re safe ’n’ sound back on the ward. It’s important you don’t move yer ’ead.’
He croaked, ‘Water…’
‘Lord above, you can’t just now, mate.’
A wet cloth touched his lips.
He must have slept because when he swam back through the blackne
ss into reality again the wooziness was gone.
‘How are we today?’ a voice, female this time, asked.
Today?
‘How long have I been here?’
‘You were transferred to Moorfields hospital in London, remember.’ Her kindly, mature voice soothed him. ‘You’ve been down for an eye operation and you’ve bandages on your eyes that must stay on for six days. You’ll be groggy for a while, but you’ve slept through most of the effects of the anaesthetic.’
Some sort of funnel was inserted into his mouth and Richard sucked gloriously cold water. The dribble at the side of his mouth was brushed away with something soft.
As he shuffled his backside for a better position, he found he couldn’t move his leg and a sharp pain pierced his side.
He winced.
‘That’ll be your broken ribs, and your right leg is in a plaster cast in a hoist.’
It all started to come back. The treatment on the ship.
He heard a pen scribbling over paper.
Surprised, he remembered why he was here. ‘When will I know if I have sight?’
‘It can vary. We won’t know till the bandages are removed.’
More scribbling.
He tried to think of his name. Something – anything. He remembered the nurse who had read him the doctor’s letter on the ship, but alarmingly nothing before that.
Noises drifted into his disturbingly unseeing world. The clatter of dishes, voices, the rattle of wheels, smells – the aroma of fish, mingled with antiseptic.
‘I can’t remember who I am,’ he confided.
There was a pause in the writing. ‘Give it time.’
‘You’re a local hero.’ Etty held out the Gazette. ‘Here, the facts are all there.’
Days had passed and May was in sick bay in the Nurses’ Home. It consisted of a small ward, kitchen and a day room where visitors were allowed.
The two friends were sitting in deep comfortable chairs in the day room while Sister, with a disapproving eye, kept checking to see if her patient was overdoing things.
Our Last Goodbye: An absolutely gripping and emotional World War 2 historical novel Page 28
