The Lost Soldier

by Costeloe Diney

  “Long enough,” Molly interrupted him abruptly.

  “How old are you, Molly?” the padre asked, ignoring her rudeness.

  Molly looked surprised. “Twenty,” she said. “Old enough to know my own mind, padre.”

  “Perhaps,” he conceded, “but not old enough, legally, to get married without your father’s consent.”

  “I’m sure he’d give it,” lied Molly.

  “Well, I suggest you get it, in writing, and then perhaps you could be married when Tom next has some leave. Though it isn’t encouraged, you know.”

  Molly had been very disappointed at the padre’s words, and she said to him defiantly, “I’m twenty-one in May, then we can get married without my father’s consent.”

  Tom had felt a certain measure of relief. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to get married, when he’d said to Molly that having a family was his dearest wish, he had not been exaggerating, but he also had no illusions as to his possible fate; he knew what he was returning to, and had a very real fear that Molly would be left a widow, or worse, landed with a cripple.

  “I’m putting you as my next of kin,” he told her. “That way if anything happens to me, you’ll be the first person they tell.” He gave her the address she should write to and promised to write to her in return.

  On Wednesday 5th January 1916, Tom Carter marched out of the camp among a squad of thirty others, all returning to their various regiments. Molly stood at the convent gate and watched them go. They were singing as they marched and Molly’s tears were not only for Tom and herself, but for all the men who were marching so bravely back into hell.

  2001

  15

  Rachel arrived at the offices of the Belcaster Chronicle next morning and made straight for Drew Scott’s office. Cherry said, “He’s very busy, Rachel. Is it important?”

  “It is to me,” Rachel said and with a sigh Cherry let her by. “I’ve a load of stuff for you this morning,” she warned her. “Don’t forget to pick it up on the way out.”

  Rachel promised, and went in to tackle Drew. He looked up and smiled.

  “Rachel, what gives?”

  Rachel took a deep breath. “Drew,” she said, “I’m on to something that will make an amazing feature article, even a series maybe, and I want to follow it up.” Briefly she outlined what she had discovered.

  The evening before she had read Molly Day’s diary long into the night. When she came to its end she was still curled into her chair, but was stiff and cold. She stretched her aching limbs, and peering at the clock, she saw that it was past one in the morning. She crawled from the chair and, with another stretch, put the notebook diary onto her desk. The diary of Molly Day, her great-grandmother.

  What an amazing story, Rachel thought as she considered what she had read. What an incredibly courageous thing for two women to do, to set off into a foreign country where war was raging, not as part of any recognised organisation, but on their own, to work in a convent hospital. As the diary unfolded their story, Rachel had read avidly, almost as if it were a novel unfolding a fascinating plot. She was longing to know what happened next. But the end was disappointing, indeed there was no proper ending. The diary stopped at the beginning of January 1916. So far Rachel didn’t know why it had come to such an abrupt end, all she knew was that the man whom Molly Day had loved had marched back to the front, and Molly had stopped recording her thoughts.

  Rachel looked at the packets of letters still lying in the biscuit tin. Maybe they would carry on the story. She didn’t know, but she couldn’t read them now, she was too tired. She would read them tomorrow… today it was already. She put the diary back into the tin and putting the tin into her desk drawer, went to bed. There was surely a story here, much more complex than that of two women setting off bravely to nurse in France.

  So far the diary had posed more questions than it had answered, and though she had decided she could read nothing more tonight and her head ached with tiredness, the things she had been reading in the diary spun round in her brain, keeping sleep at bay. She was fascinated by her great-grandmother, by how much she had changed and matured even during the short time in France which the diary chronicled; leaving behind the insecure and submissive housemaid of only elementary education and growing into the determined and efficient nurse, expressing herself ever more fluently. Faced with the rigours and stress of nursing badly wounded men, with the pain of watching some die, Molly must have drawn on a strength she hadn’t known she’d had. Gone was the wide-eyed girl who had been surprised to find there were trees in London, and in her place was the strong young woman who had stood and watched the man she had come to love, march back to the horrors of the front. Taken out of her natural environment, and treated with friendship and respect, faced with responsibility, Molly had overcome her uncertainty and grasped her own life with both hands.

  There was Sarah Hurst, too. Sarah seemed far more at home with the nuns than Molly would ever be, mostly because she shared their brand of Christianity, but also because she accepted the hierarchy of the convent more readily. Rachel was intrigued by how well Sarah fitted into the community, despite her occasional run-in with authority. Clearly she had a mind of her own—she was, after all, the instigator of their trip to France. Molly would never have dreamed of it. It was Sarah who had been determined to go and “do her bit”, and Molly was towed along in her wake. Sarah had appeared to change over the weeks covered by the diary too. She had taken the unusual step of treating her maid as an equal, not just suggesting it, but carrying it through, so that she and Molly had become true friends. In many ways this was more difficult for her than Molly. Sarah, however graciously, had been giving Molly orders for years, and to change their relationship so suddenly could not have been easy. Perhaps the sharing of the room, the rigours of the work and each being the only link with home for the other, may have contributed to their real and growing friendship, but Rachel couldn’t help wondering if it would withstand real difficulties, or a return to the rigid social strata at home. Then she remembered that, according to Cecily, Sarah had never come home; their friendship had never been put to the test.

  As sleep continued to elude her, Rachel had made a mental list of things she wanted do, there seemed so many leads to follow up from what she had learned. She slept at last, but when she awoke to the buzzing of her alarm next morning, she felt as if she had only just dozed off. A quick shower, followed by a banana and a cup of strong black coffee, revived her and sent her on her way to speak to Drew. She had come to a decision even as she slept, and when she awoke this decision was firmly established in her mind.

  When Drew had heard her out he said, “I can’t give you time to research this. Delve into its past if you like, Rachel, but in your own time. If you produce a good feature with an interesting angle, I’ll look at printing it in early January. Things will be slower after Christmas. Sorry.”

  Rachel took her courage in both hands and said, “I understand, Drew, but in that case I’d like to take some holiday.”

  “Holiday!” Drew stared at her. “In the run-up to Christmas? You have to be joking! Have you seen the list of stuff Cherry has for you today?”

  “No, not yet,” Rachel replied evenly, “and I won’t leave you in the lurch, Drew. I’ll cover today’s work and tomorrow’s, but after that I want time off. I am entitled, you know.”

  Drew glowered at her. “We have to get this Christmas edition out.”

  “I know,” Rachel broke in, “but if you’re honest, Drew, most of it is done already.”

  “I need you to follow up what is happening in Charlton Ambrose at present, not in the past.”

  “And I will,” soothed Rachel. “I promise, but after tomorrow there won’t be much, and next week’s paper is mainly small-time local stuff, it always is the week after Christmas.” She grinned at him impishly, “Let’s face it, Drew, even if a big story breaks it won’t be me who’s sent to cover it, will it!”

  This sally drew a reluc
tant laugh, and he said, “OK, I give in. From Wednesday. Two weeks, and this article had better be bloody good!” He waved aside her thanks and snapped, “In the meantime, get on to the planning office today about the Brigstock Jones thing. When does Mike Bradley meet with the planning office?”

  “Tomorrow, I think.”

  “Right, back on to him tomorrow after they’ve met to write a short update and then we’ll probably have to wait until after the New Year for anything further from them. Remember that the whole building trade will close down from Monday for two weeks over Christmas. That should also give you a chance to contact the various families concerned with these memorial trees before they do. I doubt if they’ll have anyone working on that over the Christmas period.” He gave her a wry smile, adding, “I assume that they feature in your research anyway.” When Rachel said that they certainly did, he wished her good luck and a happy Christmas. “But I’ll see you on Thursday at the bash in the Royal. You’re coming to that, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, I’ll be there,” Rachel said.

  When Rachel left his office Drew looked at the closing door and thought: That girl does have the makings of a really good reporter. She has the nose for a good story and is prepared to back herself.

  He could manage without her for a couple of weeks, and he let her go in the expectation that she would get her story and that it would worth waiting for.

  Back at her desk, Rachel rang the planning office and was told that the next meeting of the planners to consider applications wasn’t until the end of January.

  “Our planning meeting is the last Friday in the month,” an impersonal voice informed her, “so there will be no December meeting.”

  David Andrews was unavailable and Rachel had been put through to someone else who did not give his name.

  “But what about the planning application put in by Brigstock Jones for their development in Charlton Ambrose? I understood there was a meeting between them and Mr Andrews tomorrow.”

  “I’m sorry,” said the voice on the end of the phone, “we can’t possibly comment on individual applications. Mr Andrews is out of the office for the rest of the week, but the plans are on display in the council offices if you wish to inspect them, madam.”

  Realising she was going to get no further in this direction, Rachel thanked him and rang off. There was nothing to be learned from them until after Christmas, which meant the pressure was off. She rang Brigstock Jones, but neither Mike Bradley nor Tim Cartwright was available to take her call. There really wasn’t going to be a great deal of follow-up to the Charlton Ambrose story in the immediate future, except from her own point of view, but Rachel wrote a short piece saying that the question of the Ashgrove was still being considered and inviting anyone who had any information about the trees or those they commemorated, to contact the Chronicle. That should be enough to keep the story in the public eye until she could discover more.

  Before she left the Chronicle’s office, she took Henry Smalley’s history of St Peter’s Church from her bag and made photocopies of the pages which referred to the Ashgrove and its planting. With these pages safely copied, she could return the book to the rector. She wanted to go out to Charlton Ambrose again anyway. She looked at the list of things that Cherry had given her to cover and sighed—all very routine stuff, and she was dying to get on with her own research.

  She was just leaving the office for the magistrates’ court when her mobile buzzed, warning her that a text message had arrived and she paused to read it. She flicked to received messages and saw it was from Nick Potter. She remembered then his message from last night. She hadn’t answered it. This one said,

  Do U fancy pub supper 1 night? Thursday?

  Rachel considered. She did quite fancy having supper with him, but not on Thursday. That was the paper’s Christmas party. She tapped a return message. Not Thursday. Wednesday? The reply was immediate. OK. Suggest where?

  Rachel named The Castle in Belcaster. It was near her flat and she wanted to be able to walk. The reply buzzed into her phone. C U there 7.30.

  She smiled, pleased to have something to look forward to, and, had she known it, Nick was smiling too.

  When the court rose at the end of the morning session, Rachel decided to surprise her grandmother and scrounge some lunch.

  “Rachel, darling, what a lovely surprise.” Rose Carson had been about to go and have lunch in the communal dining room, but when Rachel arrived she changed her mind. “I’d much rather stay here and chat to you. I’ve soup, and bread and there’s cheese in the fridge. I’m glad you’ve come, I’ve got something to show you.”

  “What’s that, Gran?” Rachel asked as she laid the food out on the table.

  “I’ll show you after lunch,” replied Rose.

  As they sat eating, Rachel talked about the diary. “Did you read it all, Gran?” she asked.

  “Do you know, my dear, I can’t honestly remember. I certainly read bits of it. Have you read it all? You must have been up all night!”

  “Yes, I read it right through when I got home.” Rachel looked across at her grandmother. “It really is the most interesting thing,” she said. “It is a piece of social history. It gives a very clear picture of what went on in the convent and its hospital. The trouble is, it just stops. The last entry is 5th January 1916.” Rachel looked across at her grandmother. “It’s fascinating. Do you know, it mentions the death of one of the men who are commemorated in the Ashgrove? Harry Cook. Molly says he was her cousin. He died there, in the hospital. Cecily Strong told me that Mary Bryson was a Cook. She still lives in Belmouth. Her granddaughter runs the post office in Charlton Ambrose. That makes her some sort of cousin of ours, doesn’t it, Gran? If he was Molly’s cousin and Molly was your mother?” Rachel’s eyes were alight with pleasure. “I’ve no relations, other than you, Gran. Now I might find several, even if they are distant.”

  Her grandmother smiled at her, “So you might,” she said. “What else did you discover?”

  “I found out more about Sarah Hurst,” replied Rachel. “I still don’t know what happened to her. As far as Cecily Strong knows, Sarah never came home. She said she thought Sarah was killed when the hospital was shelled, but there is no mention of her as being among those who died for their country. As it was her father who put up the memorial, you’d have thought he would have included her too, wouldn’t you?”

  “Not necessarily,” said Rose. “It wasn’t usual to put women on to the war memorials, you know.”

  “But that’s appalling,” cried Rachel. “If she was killed by German shellfire while nursing in a hospital, she died for her country as much as any of the men did. You know what I think? I think the ninth tree is for her. I reckon her father had it planted afterwards, and then he and the rector pretended not to know anything about it, but dedicated it anyway. What do you think?”

  The old lady looked doubtful. “I wouldn’t have thought so,” she said. “I think if Sir George had been going to commemorate his daughter at all, he would have done it properly. Are you sure she died? Who told you she did?”

  “Cecily Strong, the old lady who set the cat among the pigeons at the meeting. She said that she was sure Sarah didn’t come back from France, but the bit about her being killed might be wrong, I suppose.”

  “Well, if she wasn’t killed she certainly wouldn’t have been included in the memorial,” said Gran. “There could be another reason why she didn’t come home. Perhaps she married someone out in France and stayed on when the war was over. One of her patients perhaps.”

  Rachel nodded doubtfully. “Perhaps,” she conceded, “but if that was the case surely she and the new husband would have come home at the end of the war. People in the village would remember that.”

  “Maybe Sir George didn’t approve,” suggested Gran.

  Rachel got up and clearing the plates into the sink, began to wash up. Gran wheeled herself over and picked up a tea towel to dry. “What you have to remember,” she said, “is th
at attitudes were entirely different in those days. Girls didn’t marry without their fathers’ consent, or if they did they were often cast off from the family for such lack of respect. The father’s word was virtually law within the family.”

  “Yes, I agree, but Sarah had already managed to get her own way about going to France in the first place. She seems to have known how to handle her father.”

  “To a certain extent perhaps,” agreed Gran, “but suppose she fell for a man from the ranks, not an officer, her father certainly wouldn’t have countenanced that.”

  “I doubt if she did that,” Rachel said. “Despite her treatment of Molly once they were in France, it is clear she was class-conscious before that.”

  “Maybe France changed her.”

  “Maybe,” Rachel agreed, “but I don’t think so. Somehow it doesn’t fit.” She emptied the sink and said, “I must go, Gran. I shouldn’t be here really, I’m supposed to be at St Joseph’s Day Centre Christmas party this afternoon.” She dropped a kiss on her grandmother’s forehead. “I’ll ring you in a day or two,” she said, “and I’ll be here on Christmas Eve. I’ll bring the diary and the letters with me and tell you how I’m getting on.”

  “Before you go, I’ve got something for you.” Her grandmother reached into her bag and pulled out a tired-looking envelope. “I suddenly remembered it after you’d gone yesterday.”

  Rachel took the envelope and pulled out a small photo. It was a sepia picture of a young girl standing by a gate. She had dark hair pulled up off her face and was wearing a summer dress with a flowery pattern on it. Beside her was a dog, and she was reaching down to it with one hand while smiling up at the camera. Behind her was the door of a house and what looked like a yard. Rachel stared at it for a long moment and then looked at her grandmother.

  Rose smiled and nodded. “Yes,” she said, “that’s my mother. That’s Molly Day.”