by Annie Groves
‘I’m ever so glad to see you, Katie. I think about you a lot.’
‘I think about you too,’ Katie told her truthfully.
They looked at one another.
‘Have you ordered tea?’ Katie asked her.
‘No. There’s that many people here, and the waiters seem that busy.’
Katie signalled to a passing waiter, who immediately came over to them.
‘We’ll have afternoon tea for two,’ Katie told him, waiting until he had gone to tell Jean, ‘And it’s my treat.’
‘Oh, Katie, I couldn’t possibly let you pay, not at the prices they charge here.’
‘Yes you can,’ Katie told her firmly. ‘Now tell me about Lou and her medal. I’m dying to hear all about it.’
Jean looked at her. ‘Well, of course, I will tell you, but first there’s something I want to say to you, Katie, and that’s how sorry I am about you and our Luke. I couldn’t imagine a girl better suited to him than you. There’s certainly no girl I’d sooner welcome as my daughter-in-law.’
‘Nor any family I’d more want to be a part of,’ Katie admitted to her, ‘but maybe that was part of what went wrong. Maybe I should have thought more about me and Luke getting on together and being a good match, and less about how much I wanted to be part of his family.’
Katie’s admission had been hard for her to make. It had been only recently that she had started to question her motives in wanting to marry Luke, after Gina had been talking to her about her own relationship with Captain Towers, and saying how comfortable she felt with his family, and now important that was, but how easy it was to fall into the trap of loving a man because one loved his family.
Gina’s comments had made Katie think more deeply about her feelings for Luke and his family, and to question whether she would have loved Luke so easily if she had not loved his family so much. And yet there were other times when she missed and ached for Luke himself so much that she could have sworn that she would have loved him for himself, no matter what his family were like.
‘I dare say you’ve met plenty of good-looking young men here in London,’ Jean probed.
Katie wasn’t offended by Jean’s question. She knew that it sprang from love–love for Luke her son, and love for Katie herself.
‘Not really.’
‘So you’ve not been seeing anyone then?’
‘Well, there is someone,’ Katie admitted, ‘but he’s just a pal really. My friend Gina is going out with his cousin so we double date when the men are on leave, from the navy.
‘You must have been anxious about Luke, with him being out in the desert. I hope he’s all right.’
‘As far as we know. Although with all that you read in the papers about Rommel we can’t help worrying. He hasn’t written to you or anything then, since … well, since … ?’
‘No, there hasn’t been any reason for him to. Not really. I’ve wanted to write to you to ask how he is, but I didn’t want anyone thinking … well, I didn’t want Luke thinking, that I was making a nuisance of myself or anything.’
‘Oh, Katie, you could never do that. I wanted to write to you but Sam didn’t think that I should.’
‘No … he’s right. It wouldn’t be fair to Luke. Tell me about Sasha. You haven’t mentioned her yet. Is she still at the telephone exchange?’
‘Yes, and Grace and Seb are still in Whitchurch.’
Jean picked up her cup and sipped at her tea, and then put it down again, her voice filled with emotion as she said, ‘Oh, Katie love, I do so wish things had worked out better than this, and you and Luke were still engaged.’
Katie couldn’t help it; her own eyes filled with tears as she shook her head and said quietly, ‘So do I, but it isn’t what Luke wishes or wants, and …’
‘Oh, there now, I’ve gone and upset you.’
Jean looked and sounded so upset herself that Katie felt obliged to forced a smile and insist that she was all right.
* * *
It wasn’t true, though. She wasn’t all right, Katie admitted to herself later, after she and Jean had said goodbye and Katie was on her way back to Cadogan Place. She would have to find a way to make herself be, though, otherwise she was going to end up filled with self-pity, and be pitied by others as well, as a girl who hadn’t got the backbone to get over a man who didn’t want her. That certainly wasn’t a picture of herself that Katie wanted to contemplate. Other girls went through the same kind of heartache, after all, and survived it. Some had to survive much worse, with the death of loved ones. Her heartache was nothing when compared with theirs.
What she ought to do was forget that Luke had ever existed or been a part of her life. And what was more, she should start doing it right from this minute. And she should start making a new life for herself as the Katie she now was, not the Katie who had been the fiancée of Luke Campion. She had both dreaded and wanted to see Jean, but now that she had done Katie realised that seeing herself through Jean’s eyes, as someone to feel sorry for–and that was how Jean felt about her, no matter how much she genuinely cared about her–had given her a much-needed jolt. She hadn’t liked knowing that Jean, and no doubt the rest of the Campion family, felt sorry for her; she hadn’t liked it one little bit. If she wanted others to stop feeling sorry for her then the first thing she had to do was stop feeling sorry for herself, Katie told herself firmly.
TWENTY-TWO
Lou felt dreadfully nervous. She was sure her hands were sweating, but she didn’t dare try even surreptitiously to wipe her palms on the side of her uniform skirt, not with so many steely official gazes fixed on the line-up of those King George was going to honour.
She was well forward in the queue, which was something of a relief. She would have hated to have been the first, but neither would she have wanted the long wait that would come with being at the tail end.
She had hardly slept, despite the wonderful comfort of the bed in the Savoy’s bedroom she had shared with Sasha, and it hadn’t really helped when both her mother and her sister Grace had told her over breakfast that they hadn’t slept either.
She was glad that her family were here to see her receive her medal from the King, of course, but at the same time she also felt worried in case she muffed something and let them down.
She had said as much to Sasha this morning when they had been alone together in their room, but Sasha hadn’t seemed to understand. Instead she had shrugged and told Lou sharply, ‘Well, I don’t see why you’re worrying. After all, all you have to do is walk up to the King when you’re told to, and then walk away when he’s given you the medal.’
It wasn’t quite as simple as that, though. For one thing, she had to bob a curtsy and then salute, even though she wasn’t receiving an exclusively military medal, because she would still be in uniform.
It had been Grace who had understood and helped her the most, taking her back to her and Seb’s room after breakfast, so that Seb, a flight lieutenant now in the RAF, could run a military eye over her uniform and generally put her through her paces, whilst Grace’s calm presence had helped to steady her.
Even though she had been told what to expect, nothing had really prepared her for the way she had felt when they had arrived at Buckingham Palace. Whilst her family had been taken to join the other guests, Lou had been escorted to a vast room with a high ceiling, all ornately plastered, the room filled with officials and also people who were going to receive medals, most of them wearing the uniforms of the mainly non-military war service they were with. There were nurses and firemen, WVS, ARP officials, and even a young messenger, along with a handful of people, like her, from the armed forces. A smart-looking Wren of around her own age was standing on her own, but when Lou looked across at her she lifted her nose in the air and turned away. Lou sighed. Everyone knew that the Wrens considered themselves to be a cut above everyone else. They certainly had the smartest uniform.
Not that any of the uniforms worn by those there to receive their medals could compare to
the magnificence of the dress uniforms worn by those members of the Household Cavalry, who had been on duty when they had arrived, or the guards outside the palace, in their red jackets and their bearskin helmets.
Young Guards officers, in scarlet jackets heavily laden with gold braid, dress swords at their side, looking vastly different from the men Lou was used to seeing in their army khaki, or their RAF or navy blues, stood out from everyone else.
The closed double doors opened to admit what Lou heard someone close to her saying was an ‘equerry'. Excitement and anxiety fizzed inside her tummy. Seb had told her that the equerries were sort of like sergeants looking after the King. A buzz of expectation followed by the silence of tension gripped the room.
Busy officials started to organise the formal presentation line. Lou’s throat went dry.
‘It shouldn’t be long now,’ Seb told Sam quietly. Sam was very much the head of his family and Seb certainly didn’t want to seem to be usurping his authority, but as he and Grace had agreed last night in the privacy of their bedroom, her parents weren’t accustomed to either London or the formality of this kind of occasion, so it made sense for Seb tactfully to do what he could to make the day go smoothly for them all.
He had certainly succeeded in getting them a front-line view of the proceedings, but that, as he had told Sam, was merely down to his uniform and the fact that he and Lou were both RAF.
They’d been entertained by a military band whilst they waited outside for the King to arrive and the presentation to begin, but Seb suspected that neither of Lou’s parents had been able to give much attention to the jolly martial music being played.
Grace felt so proud. Doubly proud, in fact: proud of her sister Lou, who was here to receive her medal, and proud too of Seb, who had so calmly stepped in and taken charge after their arrival in London, when it had become obvious how out of their depth her parents felt.
Of course she’d done her bit as well. After all, she’d been to London before. She and Seb had spent their short honeymoon in the city, and so when she’d seen that her mother was looking a bit overwhelmed by the luxury of the Savoy, the size of the city, and the realisation of just what an honour Lou was receiving and how grand the investiture was going to be, she’d suggested that she and Seb took everyone to see some of the city’s most famous sights.
What she hadn’t expected was that both Bobby and her father would want to visit Madame Tussauds Waxworks more than they wanted to see anything else. However, when Sasha had insisted that she wanted to go as well, Grace had given in and agreed that she and Seb would go with them, even though in reality Grace would much rather have stayed with her mother, who had flatly refused to go.
It was like she’d said to Seb once they were on their own, she loved her parents dearly, but they had never been out of Liverpool in their lives. It was different for her and Seb. The war was sending people all over the place, and Grace had felt both protective of her parents and just a little bit superior to them with her own knowledge of the capital and the confidence that being a nurse had given her. She and Seb had agreed that they must quietly and tactfully take charge of the family whilst they were here in London. She was so proud of Seb for the way he had managed things without in any way taking anything away from her father. She had seen too the grateful look her dad had given Seb when he had explained one or two things to him about how the investiture was likely to be organised.
‘If anyone should be getting a medal it should be people like you,’ Sasha hissed indignantly to Bobby as they stood together, Sasha at her mother’s side, and Bobby next to her, whilst her father stood next to her mother, with Seb and Grace next to him. ‘You’re in danger all the time, and you saved my life.’
‘Most bomb disposal sappers don’t live long enough to get medals,’ Bobby responded flippantly, and then wished he hadn’t when he saw how upset Sasha looked.
‘Well, it’s more like some of them,’ he amended quickly, ‘and only them as get a bit too cocky, I reckon, and don’t watch what they’re doing.’
‘Bobby, I do wish you were doing something else. Bomb disposal is so dangerous.’ Sasha forgot how irritated she had felt this morning with Lou, and all the fuss that was being made of her, in her anxiety for Bobby. She was proud of the work Bobby did, of course she was, and that was how she’d met him, after all, when he’d saved her life, but she hadn’t realised then how dangerous that work was and how many men died doing it.
‘You could ask for a transfer, couldn’t you?’
‘Not really. It’s only the married men that generally get transferred out, and then there’s often a long waiting list. And anyway, I like what I do, Sasha. Digging out bombs and making them safe, it makes me feel good inside, like every bomb is a bit of Hitler lying there waiting to hurt people, and when we stop it from doing that, it’s like we’ve given old Hitler a poke in the eye.’
‘I thought you said you loved me,’ Sasha told him emotionally.
‘I do.’
‘Then you should want to be safe so that I don’t have to worry about you.’ Sasha was close to tears.
‘See here, Sasha,’ he told her lovingly. ‘You don’t have to worry about me, ‘cos I was born lucky, I was. Look at how I met you. The best bit of luck I’ve ever had, that was, and no mistake. We’ve all got to do our bit, you know, and I dare say you wouldn’t think much of me as a man if I refused to put myself in a bit of danger every now and again.’
Sasha wanted to continue their discussion but Grace was leaning across their parents towards her, saying warningly, ‘Seb says that the ceremony’s about to start any minute now.’
‘Oh, look, Sam, there’s our Lou, third from the front,’ Jean whispered tearfully to her husband as those who were to receive medals came marching out of the palace to form neat lines under the eagle eye of what Seb told them was a regimental sergeant major.
‘Oh, Seb, it really is the King,’ Grace gasped, her eyes bright with pride and excitement as all those present in uniform, including Seb himself, stood to attention to salute King George as he and the Queen took their places ready to receive those about to be medalled.
It was a cool October day with a brisk wind, but no one in the courtyard seemed in the least bit concerned about the weather.
When the first two recipients had been called up to receive their honours, their medals pinned on and their hands shaken by the King, it was Lou’s turn.
‘Leading Aircraftwoman Campion.’ The stentorian voice of the official bounced round the courtyard.
She mustn’t think about anything else other than remembering she was a Waaf, and that she mustn’t let the side down, Lou told herself as she began to march toward the dais, shoulders straight, gaze fixed, her head turned toward the dais as she drew level with it, ready to salute and then stand firmly to attention in front of the King and Queen, and the Princess Elizabeth, who smiled directly at her.
There was just time for Lou to manage the small half-bobbed curtsy she had been taught and then the King was taking the Cross from the velvet cushion held by the official standing next to it, and saying in a kind voice to her, ‘Very well done indeed,’ as he handed the medal to her.
Then she was saluting again and stepping back before executing a neat turn and marching off to join the two who had been medalled ahead of her.
No sooner had she joined them than. Lou’s tummy began to rumble with hunger, reminding her that she had not been able to eat any breakfast. Such a waste, as well, when they were staying at the Savoy.
At last all the formalities were over and those who had been medalled were mingling with their families, whilst a military band played rousing music.
As Jean said to Sam later, when they were in their room getting ready to go to see the show Francine had got them tickets for, the best bit of the whole day for her–apart, of course, from seeing her daughter being presented with her medal by the King himself–had been when an RAF officer, a general, no less, Seb had told them, had come over to sh
ake Lou’s hand. Lou had saluted him ever so smartly and quickly, and the general had said to Jean and Sam that they must be very proud of her and that the RAF certainly were.
Then, as though that hadn’t been enough, it had only turned out that the general was related to the pilot whose life Lou had saved.
TWENTY-THREE
The thing is, well, there’s just no easy way to tell you this, but the truth is that I’ve met someone else. I know you’ll think badly of me for telling you whilst you’re so far away, in the desert, but I couldn’t live with myself if I wasn’t honest with you. Anyway, I dare say you’ll soon find someone else. From what I’ve heard there’s plenty of girls only too ready to throw themselves at a chap in uniform.
Katie put down the letter she was reading, her heart heavy with a mixture of discomfort and sadness. She knew that censoring the mail was important and necessary, but sometimes when she had to read letters like this one from a girl to her young man telling him that she’d found someone else, Katie’s own tender heart ached for the recipient.
Perhaps it was those words ‘in the desert’ that had made this letter touch home so much for her, but hadn’t she vowed that she would forget about her own past, she reminded herself as she neatly crossed out the reference to the desert.
‘Katie, might I have a word?’ The voice of her supervisor brought Katie’s head up.
‘It’s a private matter really,’ her supervisor told her as she drew Katie to one side of the space between aisles of desks.
‘In my role as the Chair of my local WVS Committee I’ve been approached by the American Red Cross to see if I can help find them some suitable young women to work as volunteers in various clubs they are setting up here in London to provide suitable recreational facilities for American servicemen.
