by Annie Murray
‘The rest of them?’ Bob asked.
‘I don’t know.’ Laurie looked away. He watched two Spaniards a few yards away, apparently about to break into a fight. They looked like a pair of angry bulls, though emaciated ones. The camp still contained Spaniards who opposed Franco – that was what it had been here for, since the Civil War. Though Spain was neutral in this war, its sympathies lay largely with Germany and its camps were packed to overflowing with enemies of the Nazis.
Bob nodded, with understanding. ‘With any luck we will be out of here soon, and on the way to Gib. You got a girl – waiting, I mean?’
‘Yes. Hope so. She’s called Sylvia.’
‘Pretty name for a pretty woman.’
‘Oh, she is.’ It was lovely to talk like this, about a proper life, true and kind.
‘Keeps you going, doesn’t it? My lady’s called Jenny. She’s a real good ’un. She’s promised to marry me as soon as it’s all over.’
‘Mine too,’ Laurie said, though for a moment he felt a chill of doubt. In all this time, for the length of his silence – she was so lovely – would she have found someone else? He was appalled by the thought of the distress he must have caused.
‘It can’t come a moment too soon for me,’ Bob went on. ‘I’ve been mouldering in that hellhole prison in Figueras for the last three months.’ He stopped for a moment, shaking his head. ‘God knows what the Consulate was doing – took its damn time. Still, all you can do is be thankful no one put a bullet through your head.’ He looked at Laurie. ‘I didn’t see you there.’
‘No, I was banged up in Zaragoza. We were tripped up by a patrol, once we’d come over the border. But I was only there three weeks – well, I say only . . .’
‘Yes. Bloody. Not long now, though, with any luck.’ Bob Stevens stood up. ‘Going to see if I can scrounge a smoke from somewhere. Fancy a puff, if I can get it?’
‘You bet,’ Laurie said, raising his left thumb.
‘Right, you stay there. I’ll be back.’
1943–5
Fifty-Seven
January 1943
Rain fell and fell that morning, the wind driving it against the houses in forceful gusts. Sylvia waited all morning by the front window. He was coming. She knew he was in England – his flight from Gibraltar had come in yesterday and the telegram said he was coming home. She sat glued to the window as the water streamed down it.
‘Hey, dreamboat – want a cuppa?’ Audrey asked, looking in round the door, with Dorian balanced on her hip. She looked happy and excited, and he was full of beans as well.
‘Oh, please! And can you pop and spend a penny for me? I don’t want to miss a second.’
Audrey laughed. ‘He’s not going to walk on past when he arrives, is he? You won’t miss him.’
‘No, but I want to see him coming.’
‘Still, no can do, dearie. Only you can do that. But I’ll get the tea – not that that’ll help, in the circumstances!’ She put her head back round the door and said, ‘I’ll watch for you for a couple of minutes while you go, after I’ve made it.’
Sylvia smiled as her sister went off. The news that Laurie was alive, that he was out there in the world, instead of lying in an unknown grave, had transformed both families. Marjorie and Stanley were like people reborn; and, for her, life was once again full of love and hope, of a sense of the future.
Soon after the letter from the Air Ministry, which left them wondering where on earth he could be, a note arrived from Laurie himself. It was written on rough paper and in strange, cramped handwriting that deteriorated as it went down the page and didn’t look like Laurie’s at all. His signature was barely a scrawl. At the top, above ‘Dear Mum and Dad’, was written, ‘Miranda del Ebro, Spain’.
‘Spain?’ Sylvia looked up at Marjorie, who had brought the letter round, in utter bewilderment.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘Heaven only knows how he got all the way down there.’
Laurie wrote:
So sorry for silence, for worry – could not contact. I am all right, but injured, so difficult to write. Long journey here. Long story. Was arrested this side of the border – await release from camp, hope within week or two will be on way home. Please tell Sylvia. I am all right. Longing to see you all.
All my love – Laurie
How long they would have to wait hardly mattered. He was alive and he was coming back to them! During those weeks, after the first shock of surprise, they had had time to adjust. It took Sylvia some time before she believed it – really believed it. Once again she had to alter her whole view of her life, of how the future might be. Laurie, her best friend, her love, was alive. He was safe in Spain, and one day he would come home. It felt like tempting fate to believe it, but it was all she could think about. Everyone at work was agog to hear what had happened. Each morning she woke and her first thought was: Is it true? He’s really alive? And when she realized that it was, the whole day was flooded with light.
Ever since the letter arrived there had been an air of celebration across both houses. And now he was really coming home! Marjorie and Mom had made a banner, with Paul’s help. They had fashioned it out of an old sheet, but it was far too wet to put it out today, so Marjorie said that ‘WELCOME HOME LAURIE!’ would be displayed along the hall instead, even though it wasn’t quite the same.
‘It’s lovely to see the change in Marjorie,’ Mom said emotionally, soon after they all heard the news. ‘I really thought it was going to be the death of her.’
Instead of death, they had all been given new life.
The smell of soup was wafting along the hall and Mom was making noises about laying the table when, through the streaming windowpane, Sylvia saw a thin, blurred figure along the street. Her body began to pulse. Could it be? She leaned closer. There was something odd and lurching about the way the man was walking. For a second she thought she was mistaken. But the next moment she was tearing to the front door.
‘He’s here! Oh, he’s here!’
He was a few yards away. As she ran, she heard little sounds coming from her throat and the rain poured down, icy cold on her face. Seeing her, he stopped, flung his bag down and held his arms out. Just for a second she slowed, hesitating: the shorn head, the thin face. It was almost the face of a stranger. But then she saw his smile, his eyes as hers met his.
‘My girl,’ he said. And as she threw herself into his arms, they just held each other close, completely oblivious to the rain as it lashed down on them. For long moments they were silent.
‘I thought you were dead . . .’ Her sobs came then, cries of relief and joy from deep inside her. She kissed and kissed his face, his chest, his shoulders, any part of him that she could reach. ‘We all thought . . . Oh, Laurie, oh my lovely Laurie, you’re here – you’re really here! Don’t ever go away again.’
And he murmured her name over and over again, saying, ‘My love, oh my love’ into her soaked hair.
After a few moments they drew back to look at each other, and again she saw those eyes – Laurie’s gentle, kind, humorous eyes, which she had known all her life, gazing hungrily back at her. She drank in the sight of him. Both of them at the same time noticed the changes. She reached up and ran a finger along the deep mauve cut on his jaw, and he frowned, seeing the scattered scars on her face. Tenderly he touched the biggest one, in front of her left ear.
‘What happened to you?’ he said, appalled.
She took his hand and kissed his fingers. ‘You should see the other feller,’ she said. ‘Never mind that—’
‘Sylv.’ For a moment his face was anxious. ‘Just tell me . . . there’s no one else?’
She shook her head solemnly. ‘No, my love. Not even for a minute.’
He leaned to her, about to kiss her again, but she took his hand.
‘Come inside,’ she said. ‘Your mother needs you.’
As she led him to his house the door was flung open and Paul came hurtling out into the wet.
‘Laur
ie!’ he bawled. ‘Laurie, Laurie!’
And Marjorie followed, at a run in her apron, her face lit by utter joy as she caught the first sight of her beloved son.
Fifty-Eight
Sylvia was longing to spend every moment with Laurie, but she knew she must let him have some time with his family. Though overjoyed to be home, he looked ill and exhausted and needed sleep. But, come the evening, the two families gathered at the Goulds’ house. As Sylvia and the others trooped in – Mom and Dad, Jack and Audrey with little Dorian – Stanley Gould was cracking open bottles in the front room.
‘Come in – come and sit down!’ He waved a hand across the table, where there was an array of drinks and glasses. ‘A few tipples I’ve kept, in case of emergency,’ he said.
‘You old hoarder!’ Ted accused him, picking up a bottle of Scotch and gazing lovingly at it. There was a bottle of sherry as well and some ale. ‘Have you had this lot put away all this time? If I’d known, I’d’ve been round a hell of a lot sooner!’
Sylvia and Audrey exchanged smiles. There was an atmosphere of fizzing joy emanating from everyone in the room. Dad and Stanley were slapping each other on the back, Mom and Marjorie chatting excitedly. Paul kept clapping and making happy noises. It was longer than they could remember since they had heard such a joyous tone in everyone’s voice.
Laurie came down dressed in his own clothes now and looking more like his old self, except for his very short hair and the limp, which was very obvious as he came over to Sylvia. And he was so painfully thin. But, seeing him, her whole being leapt with happiness. They walked into each other’s arms and she drank in the feel of him holding her so tightly and kissing the top of her head.
‘You’re here,’ she said yet again, looking hungrily up into his face. It was still astonishing, and hard to take in. ‘You’re really, really home.’
Laurie grinned. ‘At last – it’s taken long enough.’
‘I just keep thinking I’m going to wake up.’ Tears came again and she wiped them away impatiently. Laurie stroked her shoulders. She pulled back and looked down at him. ‘What’s wrong with your leg?’
‘Oh, it got pretty smashed up. That’s why I couldn’t get out sooner. I had to wait until I could walk – after a fashion, anyway. They say I’ll have to have an operation on it soon; it’s set wrong.’ He looked at her concerned face and reached up to stroke her cheek. ‘Never mind – it’s just a leg. Could’ve been an awful lot worse.’ He leaned to look at her left cheek. ‘Mom told me: about the night you got caught in the raid. My God, if I’d known.’
‘That could’ve been a lot worse too,’ she said.
Laurie squeezed her arm. ‘They all want to hear everything about it. Come and sit next to me.’
They gathered round him in the front room, the blackouts drawn closed, the lights on and the fire lit, their glasses clinking. Sylvia looked round at everyone, choked with happiness. All she wanted was to sit here and capture this moment, gazing at Laurie next to her. He was so lovely, so familiar and now very grown-up. And for such a long time she had not expected to see him ever again. She felt an overwhelming tilt of emotion each time she looked at him. Every so often he turned to her, just as hungry for the sight of her, and they reached for each other. But when she held his left hand she could feel there was something wrong. It felt hard and stiff and slightly curled. She turned it over and looked at the tight, shiny skin.
To her questioning eyes he said quietly, ‘I picked up the fire extinguisher – in the plane. It was red-hot.’ He looked at his crabbed right hand. ‘This one’s worse.’
‘Oh, my goodness . . .’ She stroked his scarred palm. There was no point asking more now – he was going to tell them all.
Audrey sat holding Dorian on her lap. He was a beautiful little boy, with dark hair like Audrey’s and delicate features. When he first saw Laurie he gazed up at him with huge eyes.
‘He’s marvellous, Audrey,’ Laurie had said, rather shyly, and Audrey blushed with pleasure.
Now she tried to keep Dorian still, but he was so excited by being at the heart of this gathering that he fidgeted to get down and made frustrated attempts to move. Paul was fascinated by him and sat close by, making faces at the baby and laughing at his reactions, so that both were soon laughing at each other.
‘Quieten down a bit, Pauly,’ Marjorie squeezed his shoulder as she came to sit down, a glass in one hand. ‘He’s going to be off crawling soon, isn’t he?’ she said to Audrey, leaning down to stroke Dorian’s face with the side of her finger. Her eyes glowed with joy.
Stanley was pouring drinks for everyone. He passed Sylvia a glass of sherry. Sylvia sipped the sherry and began to feel warm and, if it were possible, even more contented.
‘I want to drink to my son.’ Stanley stood in the middle of the room, looking across at Laurie. Sylvia had never seen him so openly emotional.
‘Here, here!’ Ted added, raising his own glass. ‘Here’s to you, lad.’
They all drank to Laurie.
‘I won’t pretend to you, son,’ Stanley went on, as he took a seat. ‘We all thought you weren’t coming back. That you were . . . Well, that you’d gone the same way as your brother. And your mother . . .’ He looked at Marjorie, who was welling over with tears, but managed overjoyed smiles at the same time. ‘Your mother and I . . . well, I don’t know what to say. All I can say is that having you back, sitting here, is – I’m not one for talking about these things – but it’s the answer to a prayer all right.’ He raised his glass again. ‘There’s never been a better day. Welcome home, son.’
Laurie’s eyes were shining with tears as well. ‘Thanks, Dad,’ he said, his cheeks flaming red. ‘I’m just sorry I put you and Mom through so much worry. It was, well . . . it was how it was. There wasn’t anything I could do. But being home again with you, all of you,’ he pressed Sylvia’s hand, ‘it feels like a miracle. It’s the best ever.’
Marjorie got out of her chair and bent over him, laying her hands on each of her sons’ cheeks. ‘I just need to make sure I’m not dreaming,’ she said, laughing and crying at once. Paul was bouncing on his seat making excited noises, and she went back to her place and took his hand.
‘Here’s to you, son,’ Stanley couldn’t seem to stop raising his glass, and they all toasted Laurie yet again. ‘Now – let’s hear it. What took you so long, eh?’
They were kept spellbound for the next few hours. Apart from brief pauses while Audrey crept upstairs to put a sleepy Dorian down on Raymond’s old bed, for thirsts to be assuaged, bladders relieved or the fire stoked, they all sat listening, their eyes fixed on Laurie at the centre of it all, in the brown leather armchair. He sat forward, full of animation, and told them how he had made the journey from occupied Belgium after the crash, all the way to Gibraltar. Later on, as he confided more details to her, Sylvia realized that Laurie had spared them all a lot in the telling, that there were things he did not want his parents to dwell on. But he gave them the essence of it, and the essence was this.
‘The raid itself went off as planned, from our point of view,’ Laurie said. ‘The navigation went like clockwork. It was an awesome feeling, knowing there were so many bombers going that time.’ That raid on Cologne had been the first thousand-bomber raid on any German city.
‘When we were over Cologne, we could already see fires dotted about. The strange thing is, when you’re up there, you can’t hear a thing except your own engines and the air rush. You just see the fires and the flak and the searchlights, but it doesn’t feel real. Terrible, really, when a city’s burning down there . . . Anyway, we had turned back south-west and left Cologne behind. I didn’t see exactly what happened. It was either flak or, more likely, one of their night fighters had got us from below, but we were on fire: the port engine was burning. Our pilot, Wallace, radioed through that he was going to dive – sometimes that’ll put a fire out – and we raced right down, but it was still burning, so he did it again. We were down to about ten thousand feet by
then. For a minute everything seemed to be all right, but as we levelled up, suddenly it was everywhere, the whole thing full of flames – everyone shouting . . . I caught hold of the fire extinguisher, thinking I could do something. I didn’t see the state of my hands until much later – didn’t even notice.
‘Wallace insisted that we get out ahead of him while he tried to land. We got our landing packs on. Ron, the wireless operator next to me, got out – I saw him jump ahead of me. Sam Masters, the flight engineer, was behind me somewhere, I think. But I never . . .’ For a moment his voice cracked. ‘I didn’t see any of them after that. I was in the air. My parachute was on fire as I came down, and I remember panicking – it would mean I could be seen, like a blasted beacon, coming down. I remember hitting the ground, hard. That’s when I smashed up my leg. And I blacked out.’
Sylvia took a deep breath. She realized that her body had grown more and more tense as he talked. Glancing round the room, she saw her mother’s expression, tight-lipped and solemn. All of them were there with Laurie in their minds. Marjorie had her hands over her mouth, almost as if she was trying to stop herself crying out.
‘Where were you, son?’ Stanley asked quietly. He seemed in awe of Laurie since he had come home.
‘We came down somewhere outside Liège in Belgium. I came to in the dark sometime. My leg was in agony and I must’ve passed out again. Next thing I know, there’s a bloke leaning over me with a great big bushy beard. He went off and came back with another bloke and a ladder. They carried me on it – not far, just to a barn nearby. The two blokes were very decent, only I just couldn’t make out the lingo. They brought me a blanket, some bread and a hard-boiled egg and a bottle of wine. They kept saying something to me, and in the end I got it: I’d stay there till dark. God knows how I got through that day. I suppose the last thing I needed really was a bottle of wine, but I kept swigging on it, and most of the day I was out for the count! Which was for the best – except that when I woke up, I had a head on me like you wouldn’t believe!’
