The Lost Soldier

by Costeloe Diney

  Sir George grunted and turned back to his paper as if the matter were already closed.

  “So, will you think about it, Father? Can we discuss it again at dinner?”

  “My dear girl, there’s nothing to discuss. You can hardly imagine that I’d let a daughter of mine traipse off all alone to France.” He folded the newspaper and getting to his feet rested his hand lightly on her shoulder. “I’m out for lunch today, but will be home in time for dinner. Are you at the hospital?”

  “Yes, I’ll be there all afternoon,” replied Sarah. She sighed as he left the room, then helped herself to a piece of toast and buttering it thoughtfully, she planned her campaign.

  Molly came into the dining room in answer to the bell a few minutes later, and was surprised when Sarah pointed to a chair pulled clear of the table, facing her.

  “Sit down, Molly,” Sarah said. “I want to talk to you.”

  Molly perched awkwardly on the edge of the chair, and wondered what this was all about. “Yes, Miss Sarah?”

  Sarah looked at her, taking in the pale face and the strands of dark hair which had escaped from Molly’s cap, the rather skinny childish body, but the strong arms. She smiled at her and said, “How would you like to go to France, Molly?”

  Molly looked startled: “Beg pardon, miss?”

  “I said, how would you like to go to France? Remember the other day I told you I wanted to go and help nurse the wounded soldiers in France? Well, I have contacted my aunt and she has told me I can go and work in the hospital run by her convent.”

  Molly stared at Sarah, but said nothing, and Sarah went on, “They really are short of nurses out there, there are so many men wounded who need looking after, and I thought if I went, you might like to come with me.”

  Molly looked alarmed. “But I don’t know nothing about nursing, Miss Sarah. I ain’t done them exams what you have.”

  “I don’t think you have to worry about that too much, Molly,” Sarah said reassuringly. “ I doubt if I’ll be doing very much actual nursing either, but what they need are extra hands to do the cleaning and scrubbing. You know in a hospital everything has to be kept scrupulously clean so that there’s no infection.”

  Molly nodded dumbly, and Sarah laughed. “Let’s face it, Molly,” she said, “you’d be far better at that than I am, you’ve been taught how to do it.”

  “I dunno, Miss Sarah,” Molly said dubiously shaking her head. “I dunno.”

  “Are you worried about what your parents will say?” asked Sarah. “Do you think they’ll say you can’t go?”

  Molly’s lips tightened a little and she said, “It ain’t got nothing to do with them.”

  “Well, it might be, you know. You aren’t twenty-one yet, are you? How old are you?”

  “Twenty, but my dad won’t say nothing if Squire says I can go. If Squire says I can go, my dad won’t complain.”

  “Just think, Molly what an adventure it would be! We’d go across the channel in a ship and then my aunt has arranged for us to live in the convent and work in the hospital there.”

  “In a convent, miss? With nuns?” Molly looked scandalised. “I don’t know about that.”

  “You don’t have to be afraid of nuns, Molly,” Sarah said gently. “They are just women who’ve decided to work for God, and these ones do it by nursing.”

  But Molly was highly suspicious. She didn’t like the sound of Catholics in general, and nuns… well. She said nothing and looked uncomfortable, suddenly remembering that Miss Sarah herself was a Catholic.

  “I dunno, Miss Sarah,” she mumbled, and her eyes slipped away to her hands twisting in her lap.

  Sarah looked at her and considered what to say next. She needed Molly to be willing to go with her to have any chance of her father allowing her to go. If Molly were with her, she would not be traipsing all over France on her own. It would be perfectly respectable for her to travel with her maid.

  She lent forward and took Molly’s twisting hand in her own. Molly looked up startled, to find Sarah’s face close to hers.

  “Molly, I need you to come with me. My father certainly won’t let me go on my own, and I know I have to go. Will you come with me? Will you come with me as a friend and companion? Molly, we’ve known each other all our lives, and you’ve been with us in the house for six years. Shall we go on this great adventure? If we were men, not women, we’d be there already, wouldn’t we? We’d be doing our bit like everyone else. Think about it, Molly. Think about it and tell me later on. But I have to have your answer before dinner this evening, when I talk to my father again. All right?”

  Molly nodded dumbly, and getting up from the chair, bolted from the room.

  Oh dear, thought Sarah with a sigh as she watched her go, I didn’t handle that very well. She left the table and whistling the dogs, set out for a walk to clear her mind and to decide exactly what she was going to do.

  She spent the afternoon at the hospital, moving round the peaceful ward and following the quietly given instructions of the sister, and as she did so, she tried to imagine what it must be like in a hospital behind the lines, where there was no peace and quiet and where, it seemed, the wounded and dying lay side by side in rows on the floor.

  Molly was waiting for her when she got home. As Sarah removed her hat the girl touched her arm shyly and said, “I’d like to go to France with you, Miss Sarah, if Squire says we can go.”

  Sarah’s face broke into a dazzling smile as she said, “Molly, you’re wonderful! Are you sure?”

  Molly nodded and answered with quiet determination, “Yes, Miss Sarah, I’m sure.”

  “Have you mentioned the idea to anyone else?” Sarah asked anxiously.

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “Well don’t, not for the moment anyway. I have to talk to my father again this evening. If he sends for you, what will you say?”

  “I’ll say I want to go with you to France to help look after the wounded Tommies,” replied Molly.

  “He can be a bit fierce,” Sarah warned her. “You won’t let him frighten you, will you?”

  Molly shook her head. “No, Miss Sarah. The worst he can do is sack me, and then I can go anyway, can’t I?”

  Sarah had never seen Molly looking so determined, so positive, quite unlike the timid girl who had answered her this morning, and she wondered what had caused the change of heart. Still, that didn’t matter now, and Molly’s attitude to being sacked which was most unexpected, actually fitted in with Sarah’s own plans if her father still refused her permission to go.

  “I’m going up to dress for dinner now,” Sarah said. “Don’t worry about anything. I’ll talk him round, it may just take a little time, that’s all.”

  Sarah took extra care as she dressed for dinner. She knew her father liked her to look attractive, and though there were no guests coming that evening, he would appreciate the care she had taken, and she wanted him in a good mood.

  She had decided to say nothing until they had eaten the pheasants she had instructed Mrs Norton to have braised with baby carrots and onions from the garden. It was one of Sir George’s favourite dishes.

  “Father,” she began, “Pop, dear…”

  At the use of her childish name for him, Sir George looked up and said wryly, “No, Sarah, I shouldn’t think so for a minute!”

  Sarah laughed and he did too. “I know that wheedling tone of old,” he went on, “and I’m sure the answer is no.”

  “Well,” agreed Sarah, “I know it was this morning, but we didn’t really get a chance to talk things through, to discuss things properly.”

  Sir George put down his knife and fork and pushing his empty plate aside, looked at her across the table. Candles shone from the candelabrum in the centre, twinkling on the silver and glasses, and playing on the planes of his daughter’s face as she gazed at him earnestly. Flashes of red glinted in her smooth dark hair, and her dark eyes glowed in the candlelight, giving life and warmth to her face. He felt a surge of love shake him a
s he looked at her. She was so like her mother had been at the same age, the age when he, one of the most eligible bachelors in the area, had seen her in the County Hotel in Belcaster having tea with her mother, and instantly and irretrievably lost his heart.

  “There’s nothing to discuss,” he said now. “You are not going to go to France alone to nurse in a convent hospital.”

  Sarah gave him one of Caroline’s dazzling smiles. “No, indeed, Pop,” she agreed serenely, “Molly is going with me. So we shall be perfectly respectable, you see?”

  “Molly?” repeated Sir George incredulously. “Molly is? Molly, my housemaid?”

  Sarah nodded. “We will travel together to St Croix, and then we shall live in the convent and help in the hospital.”

  “But Molly doesn’t know anything about nursing,” began Sir George.

  “I know, but she won’t be doing any real nursing. Nor will I probably. We shall be another pair of hands to do what we can, to do what’s needed.” Sarah looked earnestly at her father. “They’re desperate out there, Pop,” she said quietly. “Read Aunt Anne’s letter.” She withdrew the letter from her bag and passed it across the table. Sir George took it and perused it in silence, then he looked up at her with pursed lips.

  “This makes me less inclined than ever to let you go,” he said. “It would be no place for a girl, gently brought up like you.”

  “Freddie was brought up in exactly the same way,” pointed out Sarah, “and he’s out there. Pop, just think what we should feel if Freddie were wounded and there was no one there to look after him; if everyone said, ‘It’s no place for a nice girl!’ Men are dying out in France. They’re dying because they need more nurses.”

  Her father sighed. “I know,” he said flatly, “but it doesn’t have to be you. Suppose something happened to you? Have you thought of that? Suppose you were injured, or caught some awful disease and died? Freddie is there, doing his duty. It is your duty to stay here and look after his home.” He got to his feet and as he reached the door turned and cried out in anguish, “I don’t want to lose both of you.”

  “If I were a man I’d have to be there and the risk would be the same.” Sarah said levelly, trying not to hear his anguish.

  “But you’re not,” her father said firmly and left the room.

  Sarah sat at the table staring at the door he had closed softly behind him, the very gentleness of its closing emphasising to her his restraint despite his anger, and for a moment or two she was tempted to give in and stay. Perhaps her place was with him. If she went, who would look after him? She looked up at the portrait of her mother looking serenely down from the wall, painted when she was little older than Sarah was now. Sarah’s memories of her mother were blurred at the edges. She had been young when her mother died trying to give birth to her younger brother, but she had always liked this picture of her, she seemed so calm, and despite the ghost of a smile playing at the corner of her mouth, there was strength in her eyes and determination in the tilt of her chin.

  “I think I have to go, Mummy,” she said aloud. Sarah had never progressed to calling her mother anything but Mummy, a little girl’s name for a mother trapped in time, forever young. “Aunt Anne says they could do with all the help they can get. We can’t just leave this war to the men.” The final part of her plan slipped quietly into place in her mind, and with a quiet sigh, she followed her father to his armchair in the library.

  6

  Molly Day had been planning to spend her precious afternoon off with her mother as she usually did. Her father would be working, and she and Mam could have a quiet time by the kitchen range with a pot of tea and a pile of griddle scones, dripping with butter. She only had one afternoon off a month, and she and her mother looked forward to it with eager anticipation. Today she finished clearing the lunch table and the washing-up in the kitchen in record time and then pulled on her coat and set out into the bright autumn afternoon.

  Her mind was still buzzing with the idea that Miss Sarah had put to her that morning, indeed she had thought of little else as she had spent the morning polishing the furniture in the drawing room. Her mind swung from one reaction to another. One moment she was terrified at the thought of travelling so far and with no other companion than Miss Sarah, and the next she allowed herself a sudden shiver of anticipation at the adventure of it all, to go to France! How would they ever manage, working in a hospital there?

  I don’t speak a word of French, she thought. I don’t know how to be a nurse! I’ve never been further than Belcaster, not even to London. I couldn’t possibly go.

  Then her thoughts swung the other way. I might be able to do something real for the war effort. I might help our brave men win the war.

  Her thoughts continued to tumble over each other, churning in her mind, excitement one minute, alarm the next, so that Mrs Norton had to scold her for not giving attention to the preparations for luncheon.

  As she walked home, Molly wondered if she should mention it to her mother; certainly not if her father was there, but Mam…? No, she decided gloomily, Mam would tell her father anyway, and it wasn’t worth a scene. Even so, as soon as she was in the lane which led out of Charlton Ambrose from the manor gate she felt better, almost light-hearted. She was away from the manor and work for a few precious hours. The amazing and completely unexpected suggestion Miss Sarah had made that morning could wait for its answer until later.

  The sun flashed fire from the turning leaves, and those already fallen rustled and crunched under her feet as, childlike, she kicked her way along the path. Climbing over the old stone stile, she took the footpath across the fields and up the hill towards Valley Farm where she had been born and brought up. As she crested the rise and looked down into the valley that gave the farm its name, she saw there was a thin column of smoke rising steadily from the kitchen chimney. The farm was grey stone, long and low, its tiny windows peering out from under deeply overhanging eaves, the slate of its roof mellowed with lichens and moss. It looked from here, Molly always thought, as if it were nestling into the fold in the hill, like a hen fluffing out her feathers and settling on to her eggs. To the right of the farmhouse was the yard, on two sides of which were the hay barn and the milking shed. Beyond, in the fields that crept up the other side of the valley, the cows munched contentedly on the last of the summer grass. A cart track emerged from the farmyard and wound its way along the valley floor towards the road that led from Charlton Ambrose to Belcaster. It dipped down through the hedgerows in places only to reappear further on, the only link for a horse and cart between Valley Farm and civilisation. Often in the winter a fall of snow, driven by the wind, could cut them off for days at a time, and digging their way out the length of the track was the work of a week or more. Now however, the track, curving its way, muddy and rutted but reasonably dry, provided easy, if bumpy, access to the main road, and Molly knew the hedges that lined it would be heavy with blackberries, just ripe for the picking.

  Molly wondered where her father was this afternoon. Sometimes from this vantage point she could see him working in one of the fields, but today there was no sign of him. She looked down at the house again and hoped he wasn’t indoors. He always came in for his supper before Molly set off back to the manor, but that was all she saw of him, and if she were honest, all she wanted to. It was Mam she came to see.

  She climbed the last stile and hurried down to the farm, where she was given an ecstatic welcome by Daisy and Ben, the two collies, as she entered the yard. She returned their boisterous greeting with hugs and cries of “Good dog, Ben! Hallo, Daisy pet! Good dogs! Good dogs!”

  At the sound of their welcome the back door opened and her mother came out. As always she was dressed in a wrap-around overall over her skirt and blouse, with a scarf tied up round her hair, but Molly, not having seen her for four weeks, noticed that she looked different… tired, well even more tired than usual, her face pale and drawn, her lips slow to curve into a smile of welcome.

  Molly reached
out to her, and they hugged briefly, a little awkwardly. Mam had never been one to demonstrate affection, though Molly never doubted that she loved her.

  “Mam,” she said now, “Mam, are you all right?”

  “All right? Course I’m all right, why wouldn’t I be?”

  “No reason,” Molly said hurriedly. “You just look a bit tired, that’s all. You work too hard.”

  “And who’s to do it if I don’t?” enquired her mother. “Quiet, you dogs.” At the sharpness in her voice, the two dogs stopped barking and wandered back to their kennels at the farmyard gate.

  “Come on in,” Mam said, and turning she led the way into the warm kitchen.

  Molly loved the kitchen. It was always warm, and the comforting smell of baking ever-present, part of the atmosphere even if it were not a baking day. The huge deal table stood foursquare in the middle, and there were rag rugs on the flagged floor adding splashes of colour and warmth. Windows looked out on two sides and through one the afternoon sun poured in, beaming on the polished case of the grandfather clock that ticked solemnly in the corner. The range was always alight, and on their afternoons together, Molly’s mother would open its door and they would sit before the open fire, enjoying its direct heat. Today the front was open already, the chairs drawn close for gossip, but sitting in one of them was her father.

  “Hallo, Dad,” Molly said a little uncertainly, taking off her coat and hanging it on the back of the door. “Why’re you here?”

  Her father looked up and glowered at her. “Why shouldn’t I be in my own kitchen?” he growled, and taking his pipe from his pocket began to fill it from tobacco in a twist of paper.

  “Oh, no reason,” Molly replied hurriedly, “I—I well I wondered if you was ill or something… not working I mean.”

  “Ill?” repeated her father. “No, I’m not ill. Your mam told me you was coming this afternoon, and I wanted a word with you that’s all.”