Lovely War

by Julie Berry

  “But now she doesn’t think so.”

  Maggie shook her head. “No. She doesn’t.”

  Hazel walked unseeing. “I guess,” she said slowly, “that’s what I’d been hoping, too.”

  APHRODITE

  Work—June 4–9, 1918

  JAMES WORKED ALL that week. Hazel practiced all week.

  The first few days at the recruiting office were misery. They had neither a job nor a desk for him, so he sat on a bench until someone produced a meaningless task. Hours dragged, and his attention roved. I’ll never see Hazel again.

  At the piano, Hazel rebuilt her strength and dexterity. She tried to focus, but one persistent thought derailed her: what could have happened that James won’t see me at all?

  Eventually the recruiting office found something useful for James to do. Sorting through draftee files and updating them with details from casualty lists. It was excruciating. Many of the casualties were lads he’d grown up with, or their older brothers, and in some cases, their fathers. Grief and sorrow everywhere.

  Sometimes, walking home, he heard strains of piano music wafting from the vicarage. It reminded him painfully of Hazel.

  On Saturday, June 8, 1918, the Germans launched Operation Gneisenau at Noyon-Montdidier, France, the fourth of their five great pushes in their Spring Offensive.

  On Sunday, June 9, 1918, James agreed to attend church with his family, but Hazel, stationed in the children’s Sunday school, never saw him, nor he, her.

  The gentle, elderly vicar prayed that the war would soon come to an end.

  HADES

  Let It Be Me—June 14, 1918

  JAMES SAT AT dinner with the family now. He smiled sometimes and talked about the day’s work.

  His sister thought, I know something nobody else knows.

  On Friday of that week, he went out for a walk in the evening with Bobby. They walked out of town a ways, to a woodsy ramble near a stream that James had always liked when he was young and which Bobby, ardent Boy Scouter, was crazy about. Evenings were long now, and Bobby brought his field glasses. He showed James various birds, and pointed out the names of trees and plants, and which were edible. James was impressed. This juvenile hobby had its uses. In war, if Bobby were separated from his squadron, he’d survive better than most.

  The thought of Bobby having to go to war socked James in the gut. He stopped walking. Bobby went on, watching a chipmunk through his glasses. Such a beautiful kid.

  James had held Bobby as a baby. Rolled balls to him, read him stories, taught him to walk, steadied the handlebars of his tiny bike. Bobby showed signs of young manhood on the near horizon, but he was still James’s baby brother.

  He saw Bobby’s burnt and blood-soaked body lying in the mud at the bottom of a trench.

  Let it be me, he told the sky. I’m damaged, but he’s free. Make me better, and send me back, so I can die instead of Bobby. He has a future. Send me back where I belong.

  APHRODITE

  Mangled Up—June 14, 1918

  BOBBY WANDERED OFF after the chipmunk. James waited, listening to birds whoop and chatter, then, knowing Bobby would find his way home, James headed back. He knew what he needed to do, and that would give his days purpose until he returned to the Front. He had one other item of business that he must attend to, and soon there would be an end.

  He turned toward Vicarage Road, nearly colliding with a young woman.

  “I’m sorry . . .” he began.

  “Hello, James,” said she.

  Four startled eyes, two pounding hearts.

  He swept off his hat and gazed down into her anxious, pleading eyes. He could barely see for the swirling riot inside his head.

  “Why are you here?”

  The words bruised. They came out like an attack. James immediately regretted them. He hadn’t meant them that way, not the combative tone, but it was too late. She stepped back and looked away. Then she raised her head proudly.

  “I came to see if you were alive,” she said, “and to be with you, if I could, to help you with your recovery, if you weren’t well.”

  The sight of him frightened her. He looked pale and thinner than in Paris. And he was changed. The sound of a distant automobile made him twitch and look over his shoulder.

  But he was still her beautiful James.

  She had never looked more glorious. He’d never seen her in a summer dress, with bare arms below the elbow, and bare ankles tapering into lightweight shoes. Her cheeks were pink from walking. Strands of hair had fallen loose from her coiffure and swayed in the evening breeze. The lavender sky was just her color. It wanted to wrap itself around her too.

  “What if I’d been mangled up?” he blurted out. “Lost an arm or something?”

  It stung to know what he was really asking was, What if you don’t love me enough?

  “Have you been mangled up?” she asked him.

  He covered his mouth with his hand. It was almost funny. Had he been mangled? In brain, but what of it? His hadn’t been a legendary brain to begin with. He’d seen true mangling. Laughter, as it so often did these days, flipped quickly into tears. He forced them back.

  He could see that he was hurting her, and it frightened him.

  “I’m sorry,” he told her. “I’m so sorry.”

  “For what?”

  For surviving.

  The answer would be pathetic, would sound like a desperate cry, and he had some dignity left, somewhere, so he didn’t say it. He replaced his hat, bowed, and walked away, trailing broken bits of himself, like bread crumbs, or blood droplets, in his wake.

  APHRODITE

  Ride to Lowestoft—June 15, 1918

  THE NEXT MORNING, early, Hazel arrived at the Chelmsford railway station. The Puxleys’ neighbor had brought her and her suitcase in his wagon. She purchased a ticket for a London train.

  James entered the station and boarded a train already in the stable. He didn’t see her.

  Let him go, she thought bitterly.

  But the seed couldn’t take root in Hazel’s heart. There he was, boarding that train, like One More Chance about to slip away.

  She struggled to drag her heavy case back over to the ticket window.

  “Can I change my London ticket to one for that train?” she asked the cashier, a balding and slightly oily person, neither through any fault of his own.

  “Where are you bound?” asked he.

  “Wherever it’s bound,” was her reply.

  The cashier’s eyes bulged. This was the most interesting thing to happen at the Chelmsford station for a month of Sundays. He changed her ticket.

  “You’re not chasing after that young chappie who just got on the train, are you?” he said.

  “That’s a rather impertinent question, don’t you think?” snapped Hazel. “Porter!”

  The cashier watched her go. “She’s chasing after that chappie,” he told his fellow cashier at the adjacent window. “I’d bet my week’s wages.”

  “I would too if I were her,” replied the other cashier, a spinster of a certain age. Women, in men’s jobs! The war, of course.

  Hazel boarded the train. When it pulled out, she rose and worked her way forward until she spotted James. He sat alone in a group of four seats and watched out the window. She barged into his section and sat down in the aisle seat facing his. If he tried to leave, she vowed, she would kick out a leg and trip him.

  If she didn’t manage to trip him, I would do it myself.

  He looked up soon enough, but not instantly, pausing just long enough that she wanted to scream. But discover her he did, and the surprise on his face was worth an extra train fare.

  He gazed at her, dumbstruck, for what felt like an eternity, then sank back into his chair, hid his face inside the bell of his hat, and began to laugh.

  Hazel didn’t know whether
to be relieved, or to swat his knees with her handbag.

  He said something, but through the felt of his hat, Hazel wasn’t sure what.

  “How’s that?”

  He removed his hat. “I said, ‘What am I going to do with you?’”

  “You’re going to talk to me,” she said firmly. “I think I deserve that much.”

  He couldn’t help it. He smiled at her, even if his face had forgotten how. She was angry, and so adorably angry, that he didn’t know what to do. That was undoubtedly a very patronizing thing to think, but it didn’t matter. Guilty as charged.

  The sight of his smile defrosted something in Hazel.

  “What do you want me to say?” James asked her.

  What indeed?

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “Where are you going?”

  “None of that,” she said firmly. “I asked you first.”

  “To Lowestoft,” he said.

  This was the last thing Hazel had expected to hear, not that she had any expectation at all. “Perfect day for a sunny outing at the beach?” she inquired.

  “Don’t be sarcastic.”

  “Just the place to get one’s mind off their troubles.”

  The look that passed across his face made her pause. She tried again in a gentler tone.

  “What brings you to Lowestoft?”

  He turned to look at her. “To see someone.”

  “Someone you met in France?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “A woman.”

  To Hazel’s credit, she did not become jealous. Baffled, though.

  “How long is it to Lowestoft?” she asked.

  “Two and a half hours, nearly,” he said. “Will you come with me?”

  She looked up quickly. “To spend the day with you?”

  “It doesn’t appear,” James said, “that I have any choice in the matter.”

  “You don’t,” she agreed. “But I try to seem polite.”

  He smiled, against his will, and shook his head. “You’re quite a girl, Hazel Windicott.”

  She met his gaze. “So a good friend once told me.”

  HADES

  What Adelaide Needed to Know—June 15, 1918

  THE RIDE WAS LONG. James watched out the window. Hazel’s attempts at small talk went nowhere. She hid behind a novel. She bought a bag of nuts and offered him some, which he declined.

  “You know,” she said, “you still notice all the grand buildings, in every town we pass.”

  He smiled. Just a little, but Hazel saw it. “Do I?”

  They settled into silence. At Ipswich, they left the train and waited for another. James helped Hazel with her luggage. Again they sat in a private booth, facing each other.

  “How is your friend?” he asked at length. “Colette.”

  “She’s well.” Hazel paused. “Well, and not well. You remember me telling you about Aubrey? My friend, the jazz pianist at Saint-Nazaire?”

  He nodded.

  “He went missing,” Hazel said. “The band shipped out, and he wasn’t supposed to go with them, but he vanished, and nobody’s had any word of him. But there was a murder of a black soldier at the base, and”—she gulped—“Colette is convinced he’s the one who was killed.”

  “Do you think he was murdered?” asked James.

  “I hope not,” Hazel said. “But if he’s alive, and he cared for Colette, why didn’t he write?”

  She realized her gaffe too late. She wished she could crawl under her seat and hide.

  “Perhaps he didn’t care as much as your friend thought.”

  Hazel’s face, she was sure, could light kindling wood. She dove back into the novel.

  “Was it spending time with Aubrey,” asked James, “that got you and Colette in trouble?”

  Hazel looked up sharply. “How do you know about that? In my letter, I said we’d quit.”

  He hadn’t read the letter but couldn’t admit it. “So you didn’t tell me the entire truth?”

  “Well, who told you?” she retorted.

  He was caught now. “Your supervisor,” he said. “Mrs. Davies.”

  Hazel half rose from her chair. “She what?”

  James glanced around, embarrassed. “She wrote to me,” he whispered, “when my letters piled up after you left. She said you’d been dismissed for entertaining soldiers after hours.”

  Hazel’s anger was no longer exactly adorable. “How dare she! Of all the nerve!” She whirled upon James. “And you believed her, is that it? Is that why you stopped writing?”

  “No,” he said simply. “It isn’t.”

  This left her deflated, then stunned. “Are you sure?”

  He looked out the window. “Very sure.”

  Hazel’s bitterness of heart was acute. It was almost funny. She’d grown excited, she realized, and hopeful. If Mrs. Davies had sundered them, an explanation could fix all. But if his caring for her had died on its own, nothing could ever fix that. She fished urgently around in her purse for a handkerchief.

  James saw the tears and knew he was the cause.

  The conductor announced the Lowestoft station, coming up. James gathered his things.

  Once more they collected the heavy suitcase and stowed it at baggage claim. James consulted a card in his pocket with an address, then studied a map. Together they set off.

  Half of Britain had decided to spend a sunny Saturday at the seashore at Lowestoft. Mothers and children, youths too young for war, and the middle-aged streamed off the train platform with picnic baskets. James and Hazel followed the crowd toward the waterfront until he turned onto a side street.

  James found the number he wanted, and Hazel wondered if she ought to stay at the gate. But James held the gate open for her, and as she passed through it, she caught once again that familiar scent of him, of clean, ironed cotton and spicy bay rum aftershave. It was humiliating, really, how much it affected her.

  James took a deep breath, approached the door, and knocked.

  A woman slowly opened the door.

  James knew the face, but the expression was unlike the image he’d seen. She was enormously pregnant, carrying a husky toddler boy on one arm.

  The child made James ache. That round, chubby face. He’d need a dad to play catch with and teach him to swim. James wanted to take the tyke in his arms. Or bolt for the train station.

  “Mrs. Mason?” he asked.

  “Who’s asking?”

  “My name is James Alderidge,” he said. “I served with your husband in France.”

  She clapped her free hand over her mouth and gasped. “Come in, come in, please.”

  Hazel absorbed this information in quiet shock. Frank Mason. The one he often mentioned to her in his letters. His closest friend at the Front. Dead. Gone. He must be.

  They followed her into the kitchen. It wasn’t tidy, and Mrs. Mason clearly felt ashamed.

  “I’m so sorry,” Mrs. Mason stammered. “What with the baby on the way, and this one wearing me out, I’ve been a bit slack. . . .”

  “Please don’t give it a thought,” murmured Hazel. She wished she could help by washing the dirty dishes in the sink, but it would multiply the woman’s embarrassment.

  “I’m Adelaide.” The young mother held out a hand to Hazel. “You’re Mrs. Alderidge?”

  Hazel blushed. “No, I’m a friend. Hazel Windicott.”

  “Your lady friend, then,” Adelaide told James. “How nice of you both to come.” She filled a kettle with water. “I’ll just get this heating up, and we’ll have tea, all right?” She glanced over at the corner, where the toddler was busy dragging all the pots and pans out of a cupboard. “Here! Frankie. None of that noise now, love. Go play with your blocks.”

  Little Frankie had no intention of giving up the pots an
d pans. Hazel sat on the floor and reached for the wooden blocks. She tried to interest him in playing, but the sturdy little lad ignored her, so she built a tower herself. Once she no longer appeared to care about Frankie’s attention, she had it in full. Before long they were at work, adding blocks in turn to the tower, and laughing when it fell. She realized James and Adelaide weren’t talking. She looked up to see the boy’s mother smiling, and James watching her intently, with a look she couldn’t place.

  Frankie, she thought, at last I’ve found you. A lad whose feelings are easy to read.

  “Your turn.” She handed him a red one.

  Adelaide Mason set out mugs for tea. “It was awfully good of you to come.”

  “Frank never told me you were expecting,” James said gently. “Did he know?”

  The poor woman’s face grew red. “He did.” She found a kerchief in her apron pocket. “Frank always did want a big family. A handful of sons to join him in the fishing business.”

  She began to cry. Little Frankie toddled to his mother, hid in her skirt, and joined in.

  “Poor little tyke.” She laughed between sobs. “He’s got a mama who cries more nowadays than her own baby does.”

  James watched little Frankie. The child wandered over to study him.

  “Hello, little man.” James managed a smile. “Shake hands?”

  Frankie wasn’t interested. When Mrs. Mason’s crying subsided, James addressed her.

  “Your husband was in my company, in my squadron,” he said. “I was a new recruit. He taught me how to survive in the trenches. I’d be dead a dozen times over if it weren’t for him.”

  They all heard the question percolating in the poor woman’s mind. Then why is he dead?

  “He was the kindest, most thoughtful man.”

  “He was that, wasn’t he?” Adelaide’s tears erupted again. “He never treated me like anything but a lady, and never acted like anything but a gentleman.” She blew her nose.