As she prepared more sandwiches for the counter she thought of him setting off on a mission, being handed his food pack by the girls in the American PX and hoped they were generous with what they gave him. If only she could see him, reassure herself he was safe. But letters would have to be sufficient for the moment. Busy serving teas to some of the lads, she found time to offer up a quick prayer for his safety.
This was echoed in the hearts of Ethel and Rosie. If Vincent lost his life in the chaos that was surely to come, Kate would be devastated. She was deeply and irrevocably in love with Vincent. Both friends also prayed for Baba, both loving him, only one allowed to say it aloud.
Besides the stores that had built up to feed the extra men, vehicles came and were quickly camouflaged against spying enemy aircraft with their all-seeing cameras. Lorries and amphibians, tanks and armoured cars and guns as well as boxes of ammunition were piled on to the fields around them in a widened area taken over by the war machine weeks before and fenced and heavily guarded.
From an airfield close by, bombing raids on the French coast were intensified and the crews came back for a brief rest while their planes were serviced and repaired, before being sent off again – their numbers made up from reserve crew arriving with frightening regularity, to replace the injured or the dead. Kate watched them taking off and landing and guessed the rest.
Long trailers were seen on the roads, blocking traffic and occasionally causing chaos. Rumours spread that they contained sections of bridges to be used when the Second Front opened. In fact the long vehicles, which bore the nickname ‘Queen Mary’s’, held planes, built to replace those lost in the daily air battles, something Kate tried not to think about.
An air of tension gradually changed to one of anticipation as the day – the date of which was still unknown to the men – approached. The place was filled to capacity and still they came. Serving them all was a nightmare of organization; with so many staff working they were falling over each other. Still the girls smiled and joked and laughed at the teasing as though they hadn’t heard any of it before. As May moved on, the men began to relaxed a little and the pianist began to attract a more interested audience around him.
It was at the end of May 1944 that the three girls planned to go and face Ethel’s parents, but without warning the camp was sealed. No post or deliveries of any kind came in or went out and no one was allowed to leave. Letters to and from home were held in abeyance.
So sudden was the closing of the camp that one local girl who had called to collect a handbag left behind when she had been moved a few weeks before, came in, greeted a few friends and was not allowed back out. She couldn’t even tell her parents where she was.
‘Stay out all night? My father’ll think the worst and he’ll kill me,’ she wailed, but to no avail.
One evening, fresh supplies were opened and, although they were officially off duty, having worked all that day without a break, the girls were called to help to prepare portable canteen packs for the men. Exhausted, they nevertheless worked almost throughout the night with no one uttering a word of complaint. The following day the task went on. No one said anything but they all knew that this was ‘it’. Today was the day we would invade Europe.
At midnight they went to bed and lay awake, unable to shut off their minds to what was going on just a few miles away. They heard the bombers and fighters flying over, the different engine sounds, some low and powerful, others high pitched and sounding impatient to be off, performing a kind of symphony in the night air. In the darkness Kate crossed her fingers and wished Vincent luck. With so many men on the move he was certain to be one of them – bombarding the enemy to make it safer for those on the ground, the vehicles moving forward and the men who were clearing the way.
The planes had all gone and the sound of low-geared engines filled the night air; they listened for what seemed hours, as the lorries and the rest moved out. The hands of the clock in the dim light seemed to crawl as line after line of vehicles left the fields around. There were few voices heard. Everyone knew exactly what was needed of them and the exodus was carried out steadily, effortlessly without a delay.
The girls tried to sleep, but long before they needed to, they got out of bed where they had lain fully dressed in case they were needed, and looked out of the window. The camp and all the fields around it were completely, eerily empty.
* * *
At midnight in a place near Caen, the gliders had landed the first of the Allied forces on French soil, their task to secure important bridges. Overhead, bombers rained down their destruction on to the German defences.
At home, as soon as the ships at the southern and eastern docks were filled with men and equipment they set out for France, the Americans going to the beach they called Utah, Canadians landing on Juno and the British on sections of the coast they called Sword and Gold.
On board ship on his way towards the coast of France, Wesley was getting food to the men on the heavily laden ship, ignoring the guns and the bombs that threatened them. More and more bombers and fighters flew towards the coast of Normandy. It was overcast, the planes droned unseen above him. Vincent was just one of hundreds aiming his bombs at his targets, battering the German lines. The powerful plane had been hit several times but the crew remained determined to do what was asked of them and help the infantry and ground troops below.
Some days later, Wesley’s ship was outward bound on its seventh voyage. When the ship was hit he seemed oblivious of the danger, he just followed the men to the first aid room, usually the mess room but used by the medics when needed, and stood ready to help the dedicated men with their heartbreaking work. When the call came to abandon ship, he stood back and allowed others to go before him, uncaring of his own safety, not from a heroic stance but because he really did not care what became of him.
They were not very far from the beach where the Mulberry Harbour was already in place, having been towed out in sections and fixed so that lorries and tanks could roll off the ships and up to the beach. He swam lazily towards it, rested for a while then went on to the beach.
Bombs falling, guns firing and the bodies of the dead and wounded made the beach into a hellish scene. He stopped to help the wounded when he could and directed the busy first aid men to where the more serious cases were, before heading to where the Naafi were already set up and offering char and a wad to those near enough to reach them. Wesley offered his services and was soon making sandwiches, unpacking chocolate and biscuits, carrying food and hot drinks and offering comfort to the men.
The noise was so great, between the loud crunch of bombs falling and the heavy artillery pounding close by, that he became deaf for a while, but presumed that it must be the same for everyone, so he carried on.
Explosions fell close to him at times and once or twice knocked him off his feet. Others were doing the same as himself, offering sustenance to the fighting men, and he went to uncover one Naafi assistant who had been hidden by the huge amount of sand that had rained down on him. The man, who had so narrowly cheated death, went back to the Naafi area and complained that the cups had been filled with sand and could he have replacement teas, and quick.
So it went on, the slow continuous crawl from the beach and on through villages and towns, in the days that followed. There was little sleep for anyone; once or twice Wesley began to feel delirious and, like many others, took a tablet to help him go on. His last thought, when he finally slept, was of Ethel, wondering vaguely whether she would perhaps be proud of him at last.
* * *
Once a beach head was established the security at the army camp began to ease. The guards were still cautious about who came and went, passwords were used and passes inspected with the usual thoroughness but, to everyone’s delight, letters came, plus a parcel from Rosie’s Nan.
They were all tired after the extra hours they had worked but hearing the news from across the Channel cheered them and the three girls began to replan their next leave.
Rosie wrote to her mother and to Nan, telling them both that she wanted them all to meet. ‘I don’t think Nan will agree,’ she told the others. ‘After losing her son, my father, she expected my mother to stay with her to offer comfort and share the grief, but instead she ran off and left me and Nan, to live with this other man. How can I expect Nan to accept her after all these years?’
‘Reassure your Nan that you love her best and she will always come first,’ Kate said. ‘Love is the answer to most things, you know.’
Ethel laughed. ‘Since you met Vincent the world is filled with love!’
‘Better than dragging hatred on and on and prolonging the misery.’
Rosie sucked the end of her pencil thoughtfully. ‘I think I’ll use that, it sound’s good. Prolonging the misery, eh?’
Ethel wrote to Baba, long letters telling him about Rosie’s mother’s unexpected return and about Kate and her love for Vincent. She said little about herself, it had been too long for catching up with how she felt, and besides, she didn’t know what he wanted to hear. No point making a fool of herself by telling him how much she had missed him if he hadn’t felt more than casual friendship. ‘The trouble with war,’ she said to Kate and Rosie, ‘is that everything gets too intense.’
‘What are you talking about now?’ Kate asked, but Ethel didn’t try to explain.
As the battle for the liberation of France continued, their weekend passes finally came through. Ethel was still undecided about whether she would go home. Hoping Kate and Rosie would agree, she suggested delaying it, insisting she wanted to stay in camp in case Baba arrived, but the others wouldn’t hear of it.
‘I can’t see Vincent, he isn’t free,’ Kate said. ‘So, I’m coming home with you. You have to sort this thing out with your father some time and better you do it before you see Baba, don’t you agree?’
‘I’ll come too,’ Rosie said. She sighed. ‘I can’t decide whether to go to Nan’s or meet my mother again. So, I’ll do neither.’ She sighed again. ‘If only Nan would agree to Mam coming there, we might have a chance of getting somewhere but Nan refuses to open the door to Mam, and Mam won’t go there without an invitation from Nan. So where does that get me?’
‘Come to stay with me,’ Kate said. ‘Invite your Nan and your mother and let them meet on neutral ground. Mam and Dad wouldn’t mind. It’ll be a bit of a crush though. I’ll ask them, shall I?’
‘Thanks, Kate. I might try that. But Nan’s house is big enough for Mam to stay there and keep out of Nan’s way if she wanted to.’ She smiled and said, ‘I can just imagine it, every five minutes one or the other would flounce off and shut herself away like an aged primadonna.’
‘Right. Next time we’re all off together, that’s what we’ll do, get them together somewhere and make them talk. Agreed?’ Kate said. ‘But this weekend is for Ethel and the mad dad. All right?’
Ethel didn’t tell her mother she was coming. Instead the three girls found inexpensive lodgings in the town and the following day, a Saturday, they went by bus and on foot to her home. Ethel didn’t walk straight in, too much had happened for her to feel able to do that. Besides, there was also the atavistic need to be outside, in the open, where she could run and make her escape! ‘If he starts,’ she warned her friends, ‘then I’m off and it’s every man for himself.’ She knocked and stood back with her friends and waited until the door opened.
‘Ethel!’ her brother Sid shouted, running forward to hug her. ‘Ethel, thank goodness you’ve come. Are you all right? Have you heard about Dad? Are you home for good?’ The questions shot from him, then he calmed down and invited them in.
The introductions were lost in the confusion of his welcome and Ethel left them and went into the small, overfilled living room. There, standing near the fire, shaking with emotion, stood her mother. Silently they held each other, tears flowing, while Sid beckoned to Kate and Rosie to follow him into the kitchen, where he began to prepare a tray of tea and toast with illegally obtained, delicious farm butter.
‘Sorry, Mam, but I couldn’t come before now. Today was hard enough. I couldn’t have managed without Kate and Rosie.’ Ethel struggled to hold back sobs as her mother held her at arm’s length to examine her and see how well she looked. ‘Sorry I ran away and left you to deal with it,’ she added as she slipped again into her mother’s arms.
‘Don’t apologize, love. The fault is with me. I should have done something to stop your father years before.’
‘Is he… is he here?’
‘Up in his bed and there he’ll stay until he dies.’ There was harshness in Molly’s voice for the first time, and the tears left unshed glistened in her eyes.
Sid came in followed by Kate and Rosie, and as the tea was poured and toast handed around, Ethel said, ‘I think I want to see Dad before I eat this.’
Sid followed her and she went up the familiar stairs and into the bedroom where her parents had slept all their married life. The big bed was empty, the room neat and orderly.
‘He’s in the box room,’ Sid said, and there was a hint of sadness in his blue eyes.
She peered around the door of the mean little room and stared at her father. She dreaded seeing those eyes glaring at her, so like Sid’s, but which frightened her as no others could.
His red hair had faded to grey, the skin had lost its angry redness. He looked smaller and his face had collapsed into softness, paler and thinner than she remembered. ‘Hello, Dad,’ she said, gripping her forearms to stop their shaking.
Sounds came from the man who no longer looked like her father. He didn’t look at her, presuming perhaps that the other figure standing beside his son was that of his wife. He pointed to a cup on the side table, tea that had gone cold. Sid went over to hand it to his father and help him to drink.
‘Mam does that,’ Sid told her sadly. ‘She’s still getting her own back on him for the years he misused her. Putting things just out of reach, deliberately misunderstanding him when he wants something.
‘She shouldn’t,’ Ethel said in a shocked whisper.
Her voice suddenly penetrated the man’s confused brain and he turned his head slowly and stared at her. The eyes were the same bright, angry blue. But behind them the man whom she had feared to face was no longer there. A stranger sat there, propped up by pillows and helplessly accepting the drink Sid was holding for him.
He moved his face away from the cup and stared, then realization showed in his expression. The one arm capable of movement waved in the air and his voice called out, unintelligable babble which Sid seemed to understand.
‘He’s telling you to go, to keep away from me.’
‘Why? Surely he doesn’t include you in his warnings about men?’ She laughed nervously.
Dai gestured pitifully towards a photograph of the family and painstakingly pointed to her sister. When she tried to make sympathetic remarks he silenced her with more wild sounds and pointed to Sid. Even Ethel recognized the word ‘evil’.
‘What does he mean?’ she asked, moving closer to her brother. This seemed to anger the sick man further, and again he pointed to the picture of Glenys then at Sid. Then, with a roar of rage, at her. Tears weakened the anger in his eyes and with an effort he pointed to them again. Glenys, Sid and then herself.
‘My God. He thinks you and Glenys… that you’re—’
‘He knows Glenys was your mother and believes I am your father,’ Sid said sadly. ‘Please believe me when I swear to you that it isn’t true.’
‘But why would he think such a thing?’
‘Let’s go downstairs, shall we?’
Leaving the distressed man alone in his comfortless and sparely furnished room they went down to join the others. Kate and Rosie were quickly included in the latest twist to Ethel’s story but they remained si
lent, not adding a word that would distract from the situation between Ethel and Sid and Molly Twomey.
‘You know about this?’ Ethel asked her mother. ‘That Dad blamed Sid?’
‘I do now. Sid and I discussed it and we decided that it was because, at the time of Glenys’s death, Sid said he was to blame for her having a child when she was so young. He meant he should have taken more care of her. Your father misunderstood. He was always one to think the worst of anyone, specially his family,’ she added bitterly.
‘Nothing any of us said made any difference. He wouldn’t listen to explanations or be persuaded to change his mind about what he believed was the truth. He preferred to blame me, you see,’ Sid explained. ‘He loved Glenys and coped better by convincing himself that I was the one responsible, that she was the innocent and unfortunate victim.’
‘I meant I used to see her kissing the boy and did nothing to warn her. I should have made sure she kept away from him.’
A feeling of dread enveloped Ethel and she was convinced she was going to be sick.
‘The boy’, the mysterious ‘him’ – Sid had said, ‘I should have made sure she kept away from him.’ She had to ask just one more question and she would know the true identity of her father, but dare she do it? Dare she say the words that could ruin her happiness? A fraction of a second and she would know whether he was a fool or a genius, a strong man or a weakling. Whether she carried some dread disease that would make marriage to Baba impossible and make her glad Duggie’s child had died. Did she have a father to be proud of, or someone whose name would make her keep the secret until she died?
‘Who was he, who is my true father?’ To her surprise the words came out strong and confident. She looked from Sid to the woman she had always called Mam. ‘Tell me!’
‘I don’t know, Glenys wouldn’t tell me,’ Mrs Twomey said.
‘You must have an idea,’ Ethel pleaded. ‘Please, I have to know.’ She looked at her brother.
An Army of Smiles Page 24
