by Lyn Andrews
Maggie’s initial reaction was of profound relief and she felt tears prick her eyelids. ‘Oh, Bertie, that’s great news! Thanks for coming to let us know.’
He nodded, handing the paper to Billy. ‘Agnes wanted you to know as soon as possible, before it’s all over the city. I’ll get back to her now, she’s still feeling a bit … stunned by it all. We’ll see you both later on.’
‘It’s over, Maggie. It’s finally over, luv,’ Billy said quietly as he scanned the lines of newsprint.
‘I thought I’d feel sort of … overwhelmed with joy and happiness but all I can feel is relief. Relief that I can stop worrying now, that there won’t be one of those damned telegrams arriving with terrible news about Eddie. We’ll be able to read a newspaper without feeling sick with apprehension and fear.’
Billy nodded sadly. ‘Sure, I’m relieved myself that it’s all over and there will be thousands who feel the same, but there will be thousands of homes where there isn’t much to celebrate.’
‘And poor Agnes’s is one of them, and Nelly Mitford’s,’ Maggie replied, wondering how they were taking the news. No wonder Agnes was stunned, she thought. Would they too be thinking of the day when the lads had all marched away? Jimmy, Harry, Eddie and Tommy, all of them so young, fit, full of patriotic enthusiasm and pride. Now only Eddie was coming back uninjured, although he had suffered and bore the scars. ‘What was it all for, Billy? Was it worth it? Any of it?’
Billy knew she was thinking of John Strickland and he remembered too the lads and men he’d served with at Jutland, all of whom had no graves but the sea. ‘I suppose there will be those who think it was. We have our homes, our freedom and our way of life, Maggie, but to my mind it was all bought at a terrible price. But at least now those who’ve been spared will be coming home – Eddie amongst them, and the girls too.’
Maggie brightened at his words. ‘Eddie has been so lucky, Billy, and our Alice can go back to her office job. I think she’ll have had enough of nursing.’
Billy smiled. ‘She did her bit for the war effort. They both did. But I suppose Mae will be going off to Boston.’
‘I know that Jimmy will be glad to have our Alice home and I think they’ve got a future planned together and I’m happy for them.’
‘And we may finally get to meet Lizzie,’ Billy added, thinking that he would see his son for the first time in years. Eddie was a man now, an impressionable boy no longer, not after what he’d been through, and he was proud of him. At least they had the shared experiences of battle and wounds if nothing else to build a relationship on. ‘But they won’t be coming home immediately, Maggie, the girls still have patients to attend to. It will be a while before they can organise the wounded and the troops and get them home.’
‘I know, but at least now we can all look to the future with some … hope, and we can look forward to a new daughter-in-law. I just hope her parents will be happy with her choice, but as our Alice said; the world is different now – people and their attitudes have changed.’
Billy put his arm around her. ‘They have, luv, and the best thing to come out of all the fear, misery and hardship – for me at least – is that I’ve got my wife, my family and my home back and they’re things I hold very dear.’
Maggie smiled up at him. All the long bitter years when she’d struggled on alone were in the past and now they could put the four years of war behind them and build a future together. ‘I know, Billy. We’ve got a lot to be thankful for now.’
It was a month later when they at last had the time to venture into the town. Mae and Alice and Lizzie had been kept busy, but the epidemic, although still claiming many lives, seemed to be losing momentum. Pip had been billeted in Boulogne helping to organise the first stage of repatriation of those American troops now deemed fit to travel, and to Lizzie’s delight Eddie had returned to the supply depot to aid Sergeant Walker, for animals and equipment had to be shipped back too.
The Tricolour was still above the door of the café but hanging limply now in the cold, damp December air. The appearance of the little group in the doorway was greeted with a cry of delight from Claude Clari and they were all embraced and kissed in turn, both Pip and Eddie looking a little embarrassed by this typical Gallic greeting and Eddie muttering something to the effect that he didn’t hold with being kissed on both cheeks by a chap. Of course Pip had visited the café as soon as he’d come back to the town but it was Eddie’s first visit since his return.
‘Champagne! It … you … have only champagne!’ Monsieur declared, still beaming as he disappeared to fetch it.
‘We’ll be in trouble if we go back tipsy!’ Alice laughed as they seated themselves around a table.
‘She’ll kill us. She’s stretching her generosity in letting us all out together as it is,’ Lizzie added, smiling at Eddie.
‘Still, it is a bit of a special occasion. We’ve none of us had time to celebrate properly and we haven’t been here together since Christmas of nineteen sixteen,’ Mae reminded them.
Alice shook her head in disbelief. ‘I can’t believe it’s that long ago.’
‘And so much has happened to us all in that time,’ Pip added, glancing meaningfully at Eddie, who nodded sombrely, both returning in their minds to all the dangers and horrors of battle, the hardships of the trenches and the friends they’d lost.
A silence descended on them all as Alice remembered the day Jimmy had been brought into the hospital and of how ill she’d been last month. They’d both come close to death. Mae thought sadly of her poor da and Harry and Tommy Mitford. Eddie wondered how he would get on with Billy when he finally got home but was resolved to at least give his father the benefit of the doubt. And then Monsieur returned with tall flutes and two bottles and corks popped, champagne fizzed and Monsieur Clari toasted them all. ‘Vive la victoire!’
‘And a toast to the future – all our futures!’ Pip added. ‘Vive l’avenir!’ he added for Monsieur’s benefit. ‘And to going home,’ he added, taking Mae’s hand.
She smiled happily. ‘And to Lilac Sunday in Boston.’
Although Liverpool Angels is a work of fiction, using the events, battles and offensives of World War One has required a degree of accuracy and therefore some historical research, and I am indebted to Graham Maddocks, author of Liverpool Pals: 17th, 18th, 19th & 20th (Service) Battalions The King’s Liverpool Regiment and Lyn Macdonald, author of 1915: The Death of Innocence and The Roses of No Man’s Land, whose works use the documentation (i.e. correspondence, diary entries and reports) of the soldiers, nurses, doctors, medics and drivers who served throughout that conflict and give us such an accurate insight into the conditions endured throughout those four terrible and tragic years. For any mistakes I sincerely apologise.
Lyn Andrews
Isle of Man
