Harpers Heroes

by Rosie Clarke

  Marion was acutely aware that she had three of her loved ones serving in the armed forces. If Mrs Burrows could lose her brother-in-law, then Marion could lose one of her brothers or her Reggie. A cold shiver went through her and she caught her breath. It had brought the war very close and the mood was sombre throughout the store as the day wore on and the sad news spread. Tim Burrows was the first casualty of the people close to Harpers, but they all knew that he would not be the last to be lost in this awful war and it brought it very close to home.

  ‘Why should we have to do as she says?’ Becky muttered to Marion when they had a moment to spare from their work. ‘I’m as much Maggie’s friend as she is.’

  ‘Yes, you are her friend, but Maggie thinks of Mrs Burrows as her sister and if she and Mrs Harper think it’s best to send someone out there to tell her, then we have to wait until she knows.’ Marion looked at her hard. ‘Think how you would feel, Becky, if you heard that something had happened to Captain Morgan from a stranger.’

  Becky blushed and shook her head. Marion knew she wasn’t actually courting Captain Morgan, but Becky had told her that he had sought her out when he was last on leave in London. She’d been excited and Marion knew she’d invited him to Sunday lunch at home with her father and Minnie and he’d been writing to her for a while now. Marion could always tell when Becky had had a letter from him, because there was a glow in her eyes.

  ‘No, I shouldn’t like it very much,’ Becky admitted. ‘Do you think they will tell us when we can write?’

  ‘I am certain they will,’ Marion said. ‘You really shouldn’t even think of writing until Mrs Burrows says it’s all right.’

  ‘I suppose.’ Becky shrugged and went off to serve a customer with a scarf and a pair of white lace gloves. It was clear she was still resentful, but Marion hoped she would be sensible when she thought it over.

  Marion’s heart ached for her friend and she couldn’t imagine how awful it would be for Maggie. Marion had a big family and there was always someone needing something from her – but if she lost either of her brothers or Reggie, she thought she would want to curl up into a ball and die. Maggie had no close family and it would be even worse for her.

  Sally was in her office when Ruth told her that an Army officer had called to see her. She got to her feet and smiled as she saw who had walked in the door. He was wearing the uniform of a lieutenant in the engineers and looking very smart and handsome and healthy. It was her good friend Michael O’Sullivan – or Mick as he preferred to be called – and she hadn’t seen him for ages.

  ‘Mick! How lovely to see you!’ she cried and held out her hands to him. He took them and kissed her cheek. ‘How are you? Are the restaurants still busy? I’m sure they are. It is such ages since I saw you – and I’ve been thinking about you and wondering how you were…’

  ‘I’m doing fine, Sally darlin’,’ he said and grinned at her. ‘How are you – and young Jenny? I hope she’s still thriving?’

  ‘She’s beautiful,’ Sally told him. ‘But tell me – what have you been doing?’

  ‘This and that – mostly what I’m told,’ he replied with a grin. ‘Marlene gives me your news when she’s seen you – and I like to think of you safe here at Harpers…’ His smile dimmed. ‘It’s a terrible war, Sally, and I’m glad you’re out of it – and Ben too.’

  ‘He hasn’t been entirely out of it,’ she said and drew him further into the office. ‘Sit down and have coffee and let me tell you all about his adventures.’

  Mick nodded and allowed her to give him a comfortable chair. Over coffee and biscuits – chocolate ones this time – Sally told him all her news, ending finally on the sad circumstances of Tim Burrows crashing into the sea in his plane.

  ‘It’s sorry I am for the young lad and all of those boys. Too many of them are hardly out of school trousers before they’re lying in the ground.’ Mick shook his head over it and looked grave. ‘Wasn’t he courtin’ one of your friends?’

  ‘Yes, Maggie Gibbs,’ Sally answered. ‘Ben and I have been discussing it. We have to get the news to her somehow, Mick. Beth doesn’t want her to read it in a letter or hear it from a stranger. I’ve said I’ll find someone to take her the news if I can – but it’s so difficult for a civilian to get to the field hospitals on the border between France and Belgium. I don’t even know which one she’s working in.’

  Mick looked at her thoughtfully, then back at the closed door. ‘Now, don’t you be tellin’ anyone or you’ll get me shot – but I am bound that way very shortly. My chaps are in great demand over there, so they are. I can find out where she is and go and tell her myself, if you’d like that?’ His Irish accent was faint but charming and she smiled at him, drawn to him and grateful for his friendship, which seemed to surround her with comforting warmth.

  ‘Mick, could you?’ Sally looked at him hopefully. ‘I’ll have to ask, of course, but I know Beth and Fred would be grateful – and I’m sure Maggie will remember you. I’ve spoken of you to her so many times – and I could give you a letter from me.’

  ‘Sure, that will be the way,’ Mick said in his easy Irish manner. ‘I’ll take her anything you want – and give her your love.’

  ‘It’s so kind of you,’ Sally said and her eyes were wet with tears. Mick O’Sullivan was such a good friend to her. At one time she’d been aware that he cared for her, might even have fallen in love with him herself if she hadn’t met Ben. Mick had never pushed the boundaries of their friendship though, never stepped over the line, and she trusted him implicitly. ‘I can never thank you enough, Mick. I’ll ask Beth and Fred if they want to send letters too, but I know they’ll be grateful. When shall I see you again?’

  ‘I’ll call on you at home this evening. Much as I adore you, Sally – it is Ben I need to speak to – your husband is a great help to us in the engineers, arranging for deliveries of the right materials and making sure they get to us on time.’

  Sally nodded. ‘He’s in a meeting all day, but he should be back by seven this evening. Why don’t you have supper with us? It won’t be a fancy meal like they serve in your restaurants, but Mrs Hills will have something cooking for me when I get back.’

  Beth’s eyes filled with tears when Sally told her what Mick had offered. She gave her a quick hug, thanked her and then went down to tell Fred. He looked relieved and told her to thank Mrs Harper on his behalf.

  ‘She’s a busy lady and yet she always goes that bit further to help,’ he said. ‘We’re lucky to have her, Beth love.’

  ‘Yes, we are,’ she agreed and wiped the tears from her eyes. ‘I have to get back to the department – and I’m going to write a little note for Maggie.’

  He nodded and smiled, but the sadness in his eyes tore at her heart. He’d lost his youngest son and nothing could take away that pain.

  Mick spent half an hour talking with Ben in the front room while Sally cooked the vegetables to accompany the delicious beef and mushroom pie Mrs Hills had prepared for her earlier. She gathered it was about some supplies Mick needed shifted from one place to another, and as she went to summon them to eat, she saw them shaking hands and looking pleased about something.

  ‘Mick was telling me he’s doing well with his restaurants despite the war,’ Ben said. ‘He’s managed to source some good suppliers of game and fresh produce from Scotland and changed his menus to fit what he can source these days.’

  ‘I think we all have to do that,’ Sally agreed and smiled at Mick. ‘I’ve got a really fantastic range of Scottish plaids coming in this autumn and winter. One of the men I helped recently had good contacts up in Scotland and I was given preferential treatment.’

  ‘It’s not what you know, it’s who you know,’ Mick said and grinned at her. ‘And Marlene told me you’d worked a minor miracle for some of the wounded, arranging exchange visits of various specialists and consultants.’

  ‘It was just a matter of helping the staff with some organisation,’ Sally told him with a smile. ‘They are
so busy, they don’t have time to phone round the various hospitals the way I can – besides, it’s not just me, there are quite a few of us, each doing what we can. Rachel Bailey has started visiting on her half-day now and I know she’s very popular with the men. And I’ve found the new contacts I’ve made up and down the country very useful. I’ve found a wonderful new milliner and a small knitwear firm down in the Welsh valleys who have been looking to expand for a long time. The managing director – or rather his daughter, Gwyneth – told me that she’d been trying to build up the courage to contact us for ages and then a friend of the family told her that I’d helped get him the right treatment and she decided I couldn’t be too much of an ogress and came to London to see me.’

  ‘That range is very good quality too,’ Ben said and lifted his glass to toast her. ‘Shall we eat – that food smells delicious and I’m sure Mick is as hungry as I am.’

  ‘Yes, let’s eat,’ Sally said and laughed. ‘Ben knows I would talk business all night and you’re our guest.’

  ‘He’s right I am hungry and that pie does smell good,’ Mick said and smiled as Sally passed him three letters. He took them and placed them inside his uniform breast pocket. ‘I’ll see the young lass gets them, Sally. And I promise I’ll break the news to her as gently as I can.’

  16

  It was so much warmer now that it was almost May and summer here in France; it made everyone’s lives easier, despite all the hardship and the shortages. Maggie knew she felt better when the sun shone and Sadie was much recovered now, all memory of the coughs and chill she had in the early spring gone. They were becoming accustomed to the mud, which had dried into hard ruts now, and the sparse comfort of their huts. However, some of the patients didn’t do well in the heat. For them, lying on a stretcher for hours before being brought down the line to the hospital could be uncomfortable. Flies buzzed round the wounds and that annoyed some of the injured men, though those with the worst damage probably were aware only of the terrible pain.

  A few months back, a daring plan to resupply the field hospitals had ensured they had plenty of medical necessities for the past few weeks, but they were beginning to run low on certain things again and the strong painkilling drugs were rationed to those that had a chance of recovery once more.

  Maggie sighed as she saw the lorries beginning to come in with their cargo of severely wounded soldiers. Orderlies took the stretchers from the back of the lorries, farm carts, and the various vehicles the Government had commandeered to transport those that could walk with a bit of help. Once they had unloaded, they left immediately, because there was always another load of injured men to bring in. The transport went on whenever a lull in the fighting allowed the stretcher bearers to go in and recover men from no man’s land, that stretch of killing ground between the lines.

  The men lucky enough to recover sufficiently told the nurses their harrowing stories. Some wounded men made it back to their own trenches unaided, some leaned on friends, some were carried over the shoulder of a mate who refused to leave them behind – others lay on the earth and wept, their cries keeping the men in the trenches on edge as they waited for the chance to go in and fetch them back between bombardments. Still others were caught on the barbed wire the enemy had set up around their defences, screaming all night as they struggled to free themselves but were unable to get out, dying slowly of their wounds. Then the sound of a rifle would break the stillness of night and the screaming stopped. The sudden silence was a relief to those that listened, even though it meant another life lost.

  In the midst of sickness, filth and fear, death was sometimes your friend. Many a soldier carried a prayer book in his breast pocket and felt comforted to know it was there – because when the cold, rain, mud, heat, dust and stench of their lives became unbearable, the glimpse of Heaven offered in those prayers seemed to provide a way out of the nightmare. Only the strong and the angry never thought of death as peace. The strong scorned it and spat in the face of danger and the angry cursed the enemy and dreamed of driving their bayonets deep into the flesh of the men in the opposite trenches.

  ‘It’s the only way,’ one young soldier had told Maggie when she helped patch up a wound to his face. He’d been lucky enough to receive only a flesh wound and would make a full recovery in time. ‘I don’t want to be sent home, nurse – I want to kill the bastards that murdered my mates…’

  Maggie had nodded and smiled. She knew they were supposed to encourage that sort of attitude; it was what was required, because the men had to fight and the angry ones didn’t think of getting a Blighty wound or deserting. They were the first over the top, charging towards glorious revenge or their own deaths. The strong ones gritted their teeth and did what was necessary for King and country, and the weak ones lay shivering and shaking and praying it wasn’t their turn to die as they were ordered over the top. Now and then a very frightened soldier would refuse to climb the ladder to the top of the trench and, depending on the officer in charge, he would either be put on a charge of mutiny or sent over with a bayonet at his back.

  Maggie had heard it all from between the chattering teeth of the sick and dying. She had lost count of the young soldiers who had died as she gave them whatever comfort she could. Sometimes, they were the lucky ones. It was the others – those that would survive – that suffered so much terrible pain and agony day after day. Even when they had sufficient anaesthetics, the pain from surgery was almost beyond bearing. Sweating, with suppurating wounds, they lay in every available space, weeping and begging for their mothers. Maggie and the other nurses went from one to the next, comforting those they couldn’t help and treating those they could. Bandages were changed, drinks given, foreheads wiped and hands pressed. It was all they could do most of the time and for many of the men it was their smiles and a cheerful word that kept them going, giving them a tiny ray of hope.

  ‘You’re an angel,’ one of the men had told Maggie that morning as she held him so that he could drink a few sips of water. ‘When I get leave, I’m going to buy you the biggest box of chocolates you’ve ever seen, nurse.’

  ‘Oh, that’s lovely,’ Maggie had told him with a smile. ‘I shall enjoy those, Sergeant Johns.’ It had been hard to keep her smile in place but she’d managed it. Sergeant Johns was unlikely to go on leave again. She knew that when she went back on duty that evening, he would probably be dead, but she’d thanked him for his intended gift and held the tears inside.

  Maggie turned away from the hospital convoy and walked towards the little row of huts where she slept. She was tired and her back hurt and the ache in her heart was even worse. It was weeks since she’d heard from Tim. He hadn’t written and he hadn’t visited – both of which he’d promised he would do faithfully as often as he could, which meant he wasn’t able to do the things he’d said he would.

  Aware of a cold knot at the base of her stomach, Maggie tried to fight the knowledge that had been with her for a couple of weeks now. She had no way of confirming it, but the emptiness inside told her that Tim had gone. Her heart felt heavy with loss despite Sadie telling her she was imagining things – and she looked for a letter from England every day. If Tim had been killed, his father must know – so why didn’t he write? The not knowing and yet feeling it inside was killing her, eating at her guts, but tears wouldn’t come. Perhaps if she knew the truth…

  ‘Nurse Gibbs,’ the voice had a slight Irish lilt to it.

  Maggie turned and looked at the officer walking towards her. She recognised his uniform as the engineers, those brave men who were always first on the scene, building bridges, digging trenches and putting up the makeshift accommodation like her hut.

  ‘Please, may I speak to you for a moment…’

  Maggie felt the shaft enter her heart. She vaguely recognised the officer – his name was Michael O’Sullivan and he was a friend of Sally Harper’s. Sally had called him Mick and she’d liked him a lot, trusted him as a good friend. Now she knew why she hadn’t had a letter. Sally ha
d sent a friend to tell her.

  Here it was at last! The confirmation of what she’d known instinctively.

  Tears stung Maggie’s eyes and she waited for him to come up to her.

  ‘Nurse Gibbs – may I call you Maggie?’ He smiled at her and she saw the warmth in his look and the kindness. ‘Is there somewhere we can go for a cup of tea?’

  ‘It isn’t worth drinking,’ Maggie said and her voice sounded too harsh. ‘Please just tell me – it’s Tim, isn’t it?’

  His soft eyes looked at her with sympathy. The old Maggie would have collapsed against his chest, but she’d seen too much death. ‘Has someone told you? Sally thought you should hear it from a friend.’

  ‘No one told me, I just knew,’ Maggie said and her throat was so tight that the words were no more than a whisper. ‘Tim is dead… in the sea…’ She could barely see him for the tears she refused to shed. ‘Was it in the sea – do they know for sure?’

  ‘Tim was reported missing in action, but the wreckage of his plane was found in the sea and his body was recovered for a Christian burial at home. His funeral is this week, I understand.’ Mick moved towards her as she swayed, her head swimming as the force of her grief hit her. ‘I’m so sorry. I’m sure you can get leave, go home to be with your friends…’

  Maggie stared at him, numb with misery. Tim was gone. She wouldn’t see him again, wouldn’t have the chance to be his wife – would never know what it was like to lie in his arms. Why hadn’t they got married when he was on leave? Why hadn’t they spent the night in bed together? The regret was so strong that it tasted like iron in her mouth. She wanted to scream and shout, to protest that it couldn’t be true. It wasn’t fair! Why had she lost Tim? Why did she lose everyone she loved?

  Bitterness and pain swept over her. She turned away as if to leave, stumbled and almost fell. Sally’s friend stepped forward and caught her, holding her tight to his chest. She smelled a faint tang of musk, the wool of his uniform and something that was uniquely his; it was comforting and instead of trying to break free, she let him hold her as she suddenly let go and the tears poured out of her and she sobbed into his shoulder.