The English Girl: A heartbreaking and beautiful World War 2 historical novel

by Sarah Mitchell

  The time has come to tell you that I can’t bear to share you any longer. The thought of you with Toby is simply more than I can take. We have both known, my baby, the day would come when our little paradise would have to end. It is the best and the cruellest stroke of luck that you are here in Norfolk. So close, and yet, my darling, still so far away. I shall love you always but agony though it is I must accept that you belong to another man and let you go…

  Opening her fingers, Viv allows the page to flutter to the floor and sinks slowly beneath the surface. As the bathwater closes over her head, she can feel her hair swirling long and black and the floating detachment of her limbs, but the rest of her sensations – the creaks of the old house, the sight of the pale pink wallpaper, the faint smells of supper – the hints and reminders of family life beyond the bathroom are obliterated. What if, she asks herself for the hundredth time, Alex didn’t have to share her with Toby? What if he didn’t have to worry about her being with Toby at all? Wasn’t it up to her to choose the man to whom she wanted to belong? Surely, Alex, now she understood him properly, though he might be too much of a gentleman to say so explicitly, was really asking her to choose him?

  Chapter Eight

  21 November 1946

  Fran’s stomach is reminding her it must nearly be lunchtime, when the sound of rapid footsteps from the corridor makes her lift her head at the exact same moment as Daisy. Before either of them can speak, a soldier strides into the room, his face ashen and wide-eyed. ‘Major Markham here?’ Daisy nods and, without breaking his stride, the soldier opens the door to the adjoining office, then pulls it firmly shut behind him.

  Over the top of the desk Daisy raises her eyebrows. ‘What’s all that about, I wonder?’ For a minute or two they both sit motionless, the pile of letters beside the typewriters temporarily forgotten, even though the only audible aspect of the conversation taking place on the far side of the partition is its rather frantic tone.

  ‘Perhaps a prisoner has escaped,’ Daisy whispers eventually. ‘It wouldn’t be very difficult to give the British soldiers the slip on the beach.’

  ‘Do you think so?’ Fran remembers her conversation with Thomas. ‘They don’t have any money, so I don’t know what—’ She breaks off as the connecting door bursts open and the soldier hurries out of the office without so much as glancing at them.

  A few seconds later Major Markham arrives by their desk. His face, Fran thinks, is even whiter than the soldier’s complexion, while his right fist is clenched around the pen he must have been writing with when he was interrupted. He coughs as if to get their attention, although both she and Daisy are already staring at him intently.

  ‘There’s been an accident, I’m afraid. A mine has exploded. One prisoner is on the way to hospital and the local doctor is coming here to attend to another. I’m needed at the hospital, so one of you must escort the doctor. I want a note of everything the prisoner says. Just in case’ – the major grimaces – ‘just in case some awkward bugger starts to ask questions later on.’

  There’s a moment of silence. Fran imagines Daisy’s horrified expression must match her own. Some awkward bugger probably means the Red Cross, or one of the people who writes to newspapers campaigning for all prisoners to be allowed home. She runs her tongue over lips that are unexpectedly dry. She can practically visualise the burst of flame in her mind’s eye, hear the crack of explosives. ‘How will the doctor understand the prisoner? Does he speak German? And how will we be able to take notes?’

  ‘Another prisoner, one whom I’m told speaks excellent English, is acting as an interpreter.’ Major Markham seems suddenly to notice that he is holding his pen. Uncurling his fingers, he ponders the item briefly before transferring the silver barrel to the top pocket of his jacket.

  ‘I’ll do it. I’ll go to the sickbay.’ Fran is on her feet before she has even formulated a conscious decision to stand up.

  Major Markham and Daisy regard her with surprise.

  ‘I mean, I don’t mind helping. That is, if Daisy doesn’t particularly want to go herself…’ Fran can feel her cheeks heating up. Nevertheless, she reaches towards the desk for a notebook and a pencil. ‘I happen to know the local doctor quite well. He’s called Dr Lavender, and because my father isn’t well he visits us regularly.’

  ‘Well, in that case…’ Major Markham glances at Daisy.

  ‘I don’t mind if Fran accompanies the doctor. I’ll carry on with the typing here.’ Daisy gives a small, dismissive shrug. ‘To be honest, I’m not terribly good with blood anyway.’

  * * *

  Dr Lavender is waiting on the far side of the gate, holding his familiar black bag. The soldier standing alongside him is the same one that came to the office, and on seeing Fran and Major Markham his shoulders drop with relief. He turns to Major Markham, ‘The doctor is very anxious to attend to the prisoner as soon as possible, sir.’

  ‘I’ve been hanging about a good ten minutes,’ the doctor interjects, ‘when I could have been treating him by now. If the British army will insist on using prisoners of war to carry out such dreadful work as clearing mines, the least it can do is ensure that when things go wrong, medical assistance is provided quickly.’

  Major Markham considers him coldly. ‘I can’t have someone coming into the camp without my permission. Besides,’ his expression becomes positively glacial, ‘it wasn’t so long ago that the man you’re so eager to treat would probably have thought nothing of blowing you, your good lady wife, and all of us standing here to smithereens.’ He pauses before nodding at the soldier. ‘Take Dr Lavender to the sickbay. Miss Taylor will go with you.’

  The soldier sets off across the grass. Adjusting his grip on the bag, the doctor walks beside him with a grim set to his mouth. Fran follows a little way behind. Until now she has only ever been to the block containing the camp offices and the meeting room. Although the prisoners could be seen climbing aboard trucks at the beginning and end of the day, or collecting items from the storerooms, she and Daisy never ventured as far as their sleeping huts or the cookhouse. ‘Best to keep to the office,’ Daisy said firmly, when Fran asked if she was allowed to look around the camp, ‘You don’t want to get in trouble for going where we’re not supposed to.’

  Now, close up, the curved roofs of the Nissen huts appear stark in the feeble November light, while behind them she can spy a rectangle of turf marked in paint with a net-less goal at one end. A recreation area, she supposes, not that anybody is likely to be in the mood for playing games again for quite some time.

  She shivers.

  In her haste she forgot her coat, and it’s too late to go back for it now because the soldier is already taking them through the doorway of the largest building on the camp.

  Fran hesitates, surprised. ‘I thought this was the cookhouse?’

  The soldier replies without turning around. ‘The sickbay is located here too. In a room at the back.’

  As their footsteps slap against the concrete floor, the doctor stares dourly ahead. He hasn’t spoken a word since the exchange with Major Markham, not even to acknowledge Fran. She is beginning to feel uneasy herself. The air inside the corridor is infused with the stink of cooking, something green and sour like cabbage or sprouts, and beneath the vegetables lingers the faintest but unmistakable trace of Dettol. Remembering Daisy’s comment about blood, Fran hopes fervently her assumption that Thomas is the English-speaking prisoner, the one tasked with translating, is correct. Otherwise, she will wish she never volunteered for such an unpleasant task.

  At the end of the passage, they turn left and come to a room with a barred window set high in the outside wall. Six metal-framed beds are arranged in two rows facing each other. All are empty except for the one nearest the entrance where a prisoner is sitting sideways on the mattress, bent almost double and clutching hold of his right arm. A second prisoner is crouched beside him speaking in a quiet voice with his back to the door, while another army soldier stands a little way apart.


  Dropping his bag on the floor, the doctor steps towards the bed. ‘I’m Doctor Lavender. I’m here to help you.’

  The injured man doesn’t respond. His overalls are charred along the entire right-hand side of his body, and on his forearm red, swollen flesh is visible, protruding between the tatters of fabric. Fran flinches. The stench of burned skin is much stronger than the smell of Dettol and she has to steel herself not to look away.

  ‘Could you please tell the patient…’ the doctor begins, but the second German is already translating, clambering to his feet as he does so.

  All at once he seems to freeze in mid-air. ‘The English girl!’

  Fran catches her breath.

  Thomas is gaping at her, visibly shocked.

  Dr Lavender follows his gaze. His brows furrow in confusion. ‘This is Miss Taylor. She works as an assistant to Major Markham. There’s no need to be alarmed by her presence.’

  Fran has time for the tiniest smile before Thomas wrenches his focus back to the doctor.

  ‘Would you please ask the patient what happened,’ the doctor says. ‘How close was he to the mine when it exploded?’

  Fran watches, spellbound, as Thomas interprets into hasty German, leaning near to the prisoner’s face and placing, at one point, a hand on his shoulder. The prisoner mumbles a reply and shakes his head. Thomas turns to the doctor. ‘He can’t remember much. It happened very quickly. One moment he was using the prod to search for mines and the next there was noise, a white light, and then…’ Thomas hesitates, ‘and then pain.’

  The patient murmurs something else.

  ‘He thinks he was as close to the mine as the door is now.’

  Doctor Lavender grimaces. ‘Right. Well. I’d better have a look.’ He takes a hold of the injured limb and begins to peel away the fragments of scorched cloth.

  With a start, Fran realises she is supposed to be taking notes. Quickly she snaps the lid off her pen and starts to write.

  * * *

  Some time later the doctor clicks shut his bag and regards his handiwork with a look of satisfaction. The prisoner’s arm is encased in white. The sleeve has been cut away and a bandage coils from wrist to shoulder while the right-hand side of his face gleams with a sticky, translucent cream. As Fran observed the doctor’s deft fingers, she couldn’t help but wonder about the other prisoner, the one taken to hospital, and how much worse his burns must have been. She was about to ask after him but then, above the doctor’s busy hands, she caught hold of Thomas’s gaze and immediately, shamefully, the room seemed to lift with sunshine and for a split second she forgot about the accident altogether.

  ‘We need to get you into bed,’ Dr Lavender says to the patient. He beckons forward the two army soldiers. ‘One of you each side of the prisoner and on the count of three lift him carefully. He mustn’t put any weight on that arm.’

  As the soldiers approach, the prisoner leans forwards and mutters something to Thomas. ‘He’s very thirsty,’ Thomas says. ‘He would like a glass of water.’

  ‘Of course. I should have thought of that before. Please fetch him one.’ Reaching for his collar, the doctor unfastens the top button of his shirt. ‘And while you’re at it, you can bring me a glass too.’

  While the soldiers link arms behind the injured man’s back, an idea occurs to Fran with the swiftness of a slot machine. Tucking the notepad into her jacket pocket, she clears her throat. ‘Actually, Dr Lavender, I haven’t drunk anything since breakfast myself. I think I’ll fetch some water as well.’

  * * *

  The instant they turn the corner outside the sickbay, Thomas plucks her sleeve. ‘You work here?’

  ‘Yes, in the office.’

  ‘You are here, every day?’

  ‘Every day during the week. Not on weekends.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me that before. When we met in the street.’ He is staring at her, incredulous.

  Because I didn’t know, she thinks. I didn’t know my whereabouts mattered to you. She swallows. ‘There wasn’t really enough time.’

  They have come to a standstill. His gaze feels like the heat of a spotlight. Dipping her head, she looks beyond him to the wall where the paint on the plasterboard is grubby and peeling. She pulls off a flake and rubs the fragment into a powder. Without lifting her eyes, she knows he is still watching her. ‘Don’t you have to fetch the patient some water?’

  He nods slowly.

  They walk along the corridor in silence. Just before the exit, Thomas stops again. ‘Wait here and I will bring you something to drink.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  There’s a bubbling, churning sensation in her stomach as if she were about to sit her school certificate again, or speak to a crowded room. She’s not sure she can actually drink anything at all, but Thomas has already vanished into a room on their right. Through the half-open door Fran has a glimpse of long trestle tables with benches underneath and cutlery in earthenware pots, knives, forks and spoons standing upright like bunches of silver celery.

  He returns a minute later and hands her a glass beaker.

  She takes the tiniest sip. ‘Where is everyone? Isn’t it lunchtime?’

  ‘Everyone is at work. They eat in the evening.’

  ‘No lunch? Golly, I’d starve!’ She attempts a smile, although she doesn’t feel in the least bit hungry, only a gnawing sensation of the seconds disappearing without being able to pause them or think how to use them best. She wonders whether to ask about the child in the photograph, the one that fell from his pocket, but the subject is too difficult to broach standing in a corridor, and does she, anyway, even want to know the truth? She gazes helplessly into the glass. By the time Thomas has fetched water for the patient and the doctor, she has still barely touched her own.

  ‘Do you want to drink that now?’ He gestures at her beaker.

  ‘I’ll bring it with me,’ Fran says, but the moment they begin the journey back she regrets the decision. Uncontrollably, it seems, her wrist is shaking, and with every pace she leaves a steady trail of drips behind her on the concrete.

  At the end of the passage, before they navigate the corner, Thomas touches her arm again.

  ‘Fran.’

  She halts, expecting him to say something. Instead, he simply gazes at her face. For a long moment, she feels the blue of his eyes ensnaring her like a net, until eventually she manages to gather herself and make herself walk into the sickbay as though nothing has happened.

  Chapter Nine

  1 December 1946

  The cold is like a clamp, holding everything stiff and still and turning the ground to iron. Already the winter mood seems ominous, as if the bitter weather is merely a precursor, a steely overture, the flexing of a muscle or two, before the time comes for a show of real strength. In the church Fran can see her breath vaporise as clearly as if she were puffing on a cigarette, and when she tries to wiggle her toes, they respond with the dexterity of the sausages frozen inside her mother’s icebox. She glances at June and the temperature dips still further. Not so very long ago, June would have been the one nudging Fran, making no attempt to disguise either her yawns or giggles at the vicar’s interminable sermons. Now her back is rigid, her face grave, and when Fran’s wriggling provokes an audible creak from the wooden pew, she swivels on the polished wood to shoot her sister a humourless stare.

  Fran makes a renewed effort to focus on the vicar. He seems to be saying something terribly longwinded about compassion and forgiveness, and it’s hard to concentrate. Apart from the arctic conditions, her head is full of thoughts which beat about like starlings; no sooner do they settle than the merest notion or recollection sets them flapping about again and the potential of calm is lost before it has even begun.

  Since the encounter in the sickbay she has seen Thomas twice. The first time shouldn’t count, not really, because they didn’t even have the chance to speak to each other. Yet she revisits the occasion repeatedly like a favourite gramophone record, although unlike the
gramophone she has learned to curb the speed of the memory to crawling pace and savour the encounter second by second.

  She had just arrived at camp and was wheeling her bicycle towards the office. All at once she realised the prisoner walking straight towards her carrying a crate of turnips was Thomas and watched his face break into a smile. Slowing her steps, she saw him do the same, as if they were both timing their momentum to stop at the precise instant their paths would interlock. The meeting was both so unexpected and engrossing that she wasn’t aware of Daisy’s approach until a hand caught her shoulder. ‘Fran! I’ve been calling and calling. Didn’t you hear?’ Linking her arm into Fran’s, she chattered on happily and didn’t appear to notice Fran’s gaze lock on Thomas or the rush of heat as he passed.

  The second occasion makes for an even richer source of reminiscence. It occurred only two days ago, on Friday afternoon. There was a rap on the office door and an instant later Thomas was standing in the entrance, explaining he had been sent to fetch the list of the new arrivals for the following week. The whole time Fran was locating the file her every movement felt weighted with significance, as if she were performing on stage in front of an audience of hundreds; and as she handed him the piece of paper the blueness of his eyes struck her so forcefully that she might have been seeing them for the first time. Unable either to look away or to speak, the seconds seemed initially to expand and then simply to stop altogether. It was Thomas who found his voice first.

  ‘Hello, Fran, are you well?’

  Fran nodded; her head too full of the sound of his voice to think of a reply. Although the air seemed static with possibility, she worried, for a moment, that the madness was unique to her. Perhaps the fact he had come to the office while she was on her own was simply a matter of chance? Searching for something to say, she started, ‘How are you? Have you had any news from your…’ when the word ‘daughter’ arrived and immediately died on her lips. She had tried to forget about the photograph, the possibility he had a child, and couldn’t believe the thought had almost slipped out. ‘Family,’ she finished with emphasis.