‘Oh, no.’ Marianne felt the all too familiar coldness in her breast at the arrival of more bad news. Bourdon Wood was where Albert had been wounded and so many of his comrades had been lost or injured, but this latest news was even worse. A massive German offensive had begun towards the end of March, so vigorous that they had broken the British line. It was only after the bitterest of fighting, combined with magnificent action by the Americans, Australians and Canadians, that the enemy attack had been exhausted and the conflict had died down again.
‘Albert, I’m so sorry,’ Marianne said with such sympathy as she absorbed the news.
Albert shook his head, eyes closed, and then his mouth curved in a bitter grimace as he looked at her again. ‘So perhaps this isn’t so bad,’ he said wryly, dipping his head towards what remained of his legs. ‘Without this, I’d probably have been dead this time along with the rest of them.’
Marianne didn’t know what to say. Her own blood ran cold at the same thought. At least Albert was alive. She dropped down on her haunches beside him and took his hand, for some minutes, neither of them saying a word.
‘It’s so wonderfully peaceful here,’ Albert murmured at length. ‘Makes it hard to imagine what’s going on over in France. And the poor country itself. When we were going towards Cambrai, the countryside was absolutely decimated. Villages reduced to rubble. No fields, not a blade of grass, just the occasional charred tree-stump to break the monotony. A complete ocean of black mud and water-filled shell-holes. God knows how many men and horses are buried beneath it all. I reckon they’ll still be digging up bones in a hundred years’ time. If this bloody war ever ends.’
‘Oh, Albert, it’s got to.’ Marianne’s voice quivered with conviction. ‘With the Americans fully engaged now, the Boche won’t be able to hold out for ever.’
Albert had been staring out over the moor, but now he turned to her with a wistful smile. ‘I know I’ve said the same thing myself, but when you get news like this, it shakes your faith. But in the meantime, it’s our duty to enjoy all this,’ he said, gesticulating around him. ‘It’s what our brave lads have given their lives for. And I shall be eternally grateful to your parents for giving me such a home.’
‘Well, after you saved Pegasus from the army—’
‘Didn’t requisition him, you mean.’
‘All right,’ Marianne conceded. ‘But after that, it was the least we could do for you. Besides, my father rather enjoys having another man in the house. It evens up the numbers.’
Albert gave a short laugh. ‘If you can call me that. But. . .’ He paused, chewing his lip. ‘I was thinking while you were out on your ride. Feeling so utterly jealous. Now that Captain’s been shipped back and you’ve so kindly allowed me to have him here, maybe I can do more than feed the faithful old fellow carrots. I have a knee on one side and a thigh on the other. Surely that’s enough to stay on at walking pace at least. Perhaps we could build a special mounting block of some sort. What do you think?’
Marianne swallowed hard, her eyes stretched wide. Her heart was brimming with admiration and pride in this strong, brave man whose courage, it appeared, had been no more scarred by his appalling experiences than, thankfully, had his handsome face. She had the feeling that even if he had been dreadfully burned as so many had, he would have found a way to overcome the horror of it.
‘Oh, Albert, that’s a wonderful idea!’ she grinned. ‘We’ll need to see what Elliott says, though, with that one leg refusing to heal properly.’ She didn’t use the word stump. It was somehow too brutal.
‘I don’t really care what Elliott thinks, much though I hold him in high regard as a physician. But I can’t see why I shouldn’t get back in the saddle. Captain’s such a steady animal. To be on his back again – well, I can’t tell you what that would mean to me. Just to go for short rides on the moor at a walk.’
Marianne felt she could keel over with happiness. Through all those dark weeks nursing Albert back to health, she had never dreamt that one day he would be determined to ride again. The intensity in his eyes reached down inside her, their love of horses an invisible thread tying them together, but was she ready to let it bind them forever? Her brain whirled in circles as she instinctively shied away from the confusion that Albert had unleashed in her. He had moved her heart in a way she wasn’t sure she was ready to cope with, and it made her feel lost and fragile.
The tears that trickled down Marianne’s cheeks glistened like silver pearls in the moonlight that shafted through the open window. The atmosphere was hot and sultry, and Marianne had tossed and turned, unable to sleep, until she had got out of bed and gone over to the window, her mind racked with the contents of the letter she had received that morning from Mary.
It was already common knowledge that a wave of influenza had swept through the troops and other personnel in the spring. Now though, in the height of summer, it had returned with vengeful force. The virus was spreading like wildfire, returning soldiers bringing it with them to their homelands, and countries all over the world were being infected. And it had become a killer. At its most vicious, it could take a life in hours. A virulent pneumonia, clogging the lungs with a thick, scarlet jelly, was a common, deadly complication. Blood could foam from the mouth and nose, some victims became incontinent, were taken by violent vomiting or bled from the ears. Skin turned blue with heliotrope cyanosis. Among the troops it was a worse killer than the enemy, and many saw it as another plague.
And Stella had died from it in a hospital bed with Mary at her side.
Dear, darling Stella whose stalwart heart had been twice the size of her petite form. Many of the FANY had been laid low in the earlier epidemic, as had Mary, and it was hoped this would have provided some immunity to this new, far stronger wave. But Stella had escaped the first round, and now the evil, vengeful strain had wrapped her in its demonic tentacles and taken her to her maker.
Marianne couldn’t believe her dear friend was dead. She could see Stella’s impish face as she mimicked Tanky or Charlie Chaplin with equal ease. Or serious, as she peered into the unlit night from behind the steering wheel, tin hat rammed down on her head. Despite all the air-raids, even the direct hit on the camp, the only serious injury to any of the FANY had been when Commanding Officer Pat Waddell had lost a leg in a collision with a train on a level-crossing shortly before Marianne had arrived in Calais. And now Stella was the first fatality.
Marianne tried to swallow down her grief, but the swelling in her throat was the size of a golf ball. She opened her eyes wide in an attempt to let her tears dry, and stared up at the full moon. It was crying, too, its tears falling in heavy grey clouds that drifted across the night sky.
Marianne shut her eyes as sadness overwhelmed her again and a brutal sob escaped her lungs. She let herself weep, her heart dragging in pain. At length, her sorrow grew tired but still she sat, motionless as a statue, gazing out of the open window over the moon-drenched moor.
She was just beginning to think that sleep might come now if she climbed back into bed, when something caught the corner of her eye in the direction of the stableyard. A thin mist was spreading over the sleeping moor, which struck her as slightly odd, although the atmosphere was humid and sometimes the weather over Dartmoor had a mind of its own. But as her nose twitched and wrinkled, she recognized a familiar, acrid smell. It wasn’t mist, but smoke.
Horror stung her to the marrow and for several seconds, she was paralyzed with shock. The horses of a more hardy type were out in the fields, but Pegasus, Captain and their one thoroughbred brood mare were in their looseboxes overnight. And dear Joe was asleep in the comfortable rooms over the tack-room since he had refused to move into the ‘big house’ itself.
Marianne’s brain sprang into action and she fled across the room and out onto the landing. ‘Mum! Dad!’ she screamed, barging into their bedroom. ‘I think the stables are on fire!’
‘What!�
�� They were both awake in a trice, rubbing the sleep from their eyes.
‘There’s smoke in the yard!’ Marianne called, but she didn’t wait for a reply. She was already flying down the staircase, her heart beating like thunder. Even in all her experience of the air-raids in Calais, she didn’t think she’d ever felt such panic. This wasn’t some foreign land torn apart by conflict. This was the safe haven of her home and it was under attack from one of the worst enemies possible amongst the bales of hay and straw.
She pushed her bare feet into her boots in the boot-room and shot open the bolts on the back door with shaking fingers. She scarcely gave a thought to Albert asleep in the morning room downstairs, which had been converted into a bedroom for him as try as he might, he couldn’t manage the stairs. Marianne knew that he would merely feel useless and alerting him would only waste time. She cursed the key that didn’t want to turn in the lock but after a moment’s fumbling, she was charging through the gate in the high wall that led to the yard.
She snatched in her breath, unsure for what was just a few seconds but seemed to her an eternity of tearing uncertainty. Smoke was billowing in a choking fog from the roof of the stable-block where orange flames were licking around the door. Thank God the stalls were empty, but all the buildings in the yard were of wooden construction and the fire could spread in minutes. She could hear Pegasus and the other horses stamping about their looseboxes in the adjoining block, their instinctive fear of fire triggered by the smell of smoke. But Joe was in equal danger and being a little hard of hearing, doubtless hadn’t been woken by the frantic neighing just yards away.
It was without further thought that Marianne picked up a stone and lobbed it at the small window to Joe’s bedroom. The glass shattered noisily, but what was a broken pane compared to Joe’s life or that of the horses? She yelled at the top of her voice and to her supreme relief, Joe appeared at the window.
‘Joe, the stables are on fire!’ she hollered at him.
‘On my way, maid!’ Joe shouted back.
Marianne didn’t wait for him but hurled herself across to the looseboxes. Fed by tinder-dry material, the fire had quickly taken hold of the stables and smoke was now seeping from the first loosebox. The prize mare inside was thrashing in panic, but dear Lord, ever since the theft two and a half years previously, the doors were always securely locked and Joe had the keys.
Marianne danced on the spot in an agony of frustration. But there was Joe, pulling up the braces on his hastily donned trousers, the bunch of keys in his hand. Hampered by the darkness and the veil of thickening smoke that was making his eyes water, Joe nevertheless had the padlock unfastened in seconds and Marianne dived inside while he went to unlock the other doors.
The poor creature inside was petrified. In the smoke-filled gloom, Marianne could see the whites of its wildly rolling eyes and its huge form reared up in terror, hoofs narrowly missing Marianne’s head. But a flickering red tongue was darting through the wooden wall from the stables next door. There was no time to find a sack to throw over the mare’s head to calm her, and as she reared again, it would have been impractical anyway.
‘Go on, girl!’ Marianne encouraged her, slapping her hairy rump, and the animal sprang out through the open door.
Outside, Joe was unlocking the other doors and while he disappeared into Captain’s box, Marianne flew into Pegasus. She need not have worried as he bolted outside where Seth and Rose had now arrived, hurriedly dressed, and were driving the loose horses into the drove that led to the fields. It was fully enclosed between stone walls, so while they couldn’t escape, the frightened creatures would be safe and could get some way from the burning buildings.
In moments, all the buckets had been collected. Working as one, the five of them – since Patsy had also arrived on the scene – formed a chain across the yard from the stables to the water trough, which thankfully was fed by a constantly running stream. Without a word, they began passing full buckets in one direction and empty ones in the other. Seth was dousing the looseboxes in water while Joe was using empty sacks to beat back the flames that were trying to take hold of the end wall. They clearly had no hope of saving the stableblock, but if they could stop the fire consuming the looseboxes and the other buildings in the yard, it would be something.
Smoke seared into Marianne’s throat and she feared for her father’s weakened lungs, but they had no choice but to tackle the blaze themselves. Eyes streaming, faces smeared with sweat and grime, they carried on valiantly, muscles and shoulders strained and aching, arms feeling as if they had been wrenched from their sockets. It was all so unreal, macabre, as their dark forms scurried about like ants silhouetted against the horrific incandescent glow from the burning stables. A crash resonated through the darkness as the roof collapsed, sending a shower of sparks into the night sky. Marianne prayed to God the fire would burn itself out and they could halt its progress by drenching the looseboxes in water.
She stopped for just a second to flex her shoulders and blinked through her stinging eyes. The gate to the terrace had been left wide open and she was sure she saw movement through her blurred vision. Surely dear Albert wasn’t trying to come and help? But, no. There was someone standing there, and Marianne’s blood froze as something flared brightly in the figure’s hand – and was then hurled inside the house.
Dear God Almighty! A torrent of fear and rage broke over Marianne as she streaked forward with a demented scream. Albert! Her heart kicked in her breast as she thrust the unsuspecting intruder aside with all her might.
‘You bastard, there’s someone inside!’ she shrieked as she careered down the passageway past the boot-room, leaping over the burning rag, nostrils flaring with the smell of paraffin. She skipped over a trail of little flames that danced along into the grand entrance hall where she yanked up a heavy rug and threw it over the threatening fire.
Sweat oozed from every pore of her filthy skin, and as the man came towards her, she became aware that she was dressed in nothing more than her flimsy nightdress. Her heart exploded with unleashed strength as she ran at him, but to her astonishment, he began stamping out the remaining flames.
‘Someone inside?’ he croaked. ‘I had no idea. I thought. . . .’
Marianne stared at him, dumbstruck, as he extinguished the fire he himself had started. In the strange dimness, he seemed grotesquely familiar, a devil rising from the forbidden abyss of hell. And then he disappeared out through the open door.
Marianne swayed on her feet, wanting nothing but to slump down on the floor. But she instantly found herself chasing after him, down the stone steps of the terrace, across the lawn and squeezing through a small gap in the thick hedge behind which the barbed wire fence had been cut. She felt the sharp points tearing at her flesh, ripping her nightdress, but she had to catch him. They raced across the rough ground to the road, but it was too late. A car was parked there with the cranking handle clearly left in place. With two vicious turns, the engine sprang into life and the villain leapt into the driver’s seat and was speeding away, leaving Marianne stamping her foot in frustrated fury as she couldn’t see to read the number-plate.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
‘Aw, thank the Good Lord!’
Patsy dropped down into a chair in the drawing room, something she had never done in her entire working life at Fencott Place. But this was momentous news indeed. Dense, low cloud might be enveloping the moor in a dank, grey mist on that miserable November morning, but it felt as if glorious sunshine was streaming through the glass of the French windows.
‘Is it really true?’ Marianne breathed incredulously.
‘Yes, look,’ Seth answered, clearing his damaged lungs. ‘It says here an armistice was signed at five o’clock this morning, and the war will end at eleven.’
‘That’s in two minutes,’ Albert said, consulting his watch.
Patsy suddenly jumped to her feet. ‘I must tell Joe!�
�� she squealed with delight, and hurried out of the room as fast as her rotund form allowed.
The remaining four adults looked round at each other, enshrouded in some tangled emotion none of them had words to express. It was over, the horrors, the crippling fear. They should be bursting with joy, yet they had lived with the war for so long, there was no room for relief. They shared instead a soul-weary emptiness.
‘It won’t bring them back, though, will it?’ Rose spoke at last, breaking the silence with a trembling whisper. ‘All those hundreds of thousands of men. Just boys many of them. Our Hal.’
No one answered her quavering words for some time, each enclosed in individual reflection until Seth gave the rasping cough that had dogged him ever since the fire.
‘No, my dear,’ he spluttered, fighting to bring it under control. ‘It won’t bring Hal back. Or Marianne’s friend, Stella, or Albert’s comrades. But we must concentrate on the good things. Artie, for instance,’ he reminded them, referring to Mary’s elder half-brother who had been badly wounded the previous Christmas. ‘He’ll never father children, but apart from that, he’s made a full recovery. Young Michael will obviously be repatriated and returned to the bosom of his family. Joshua and Philip were exempt from conscription because of their particular skills in farming and the huge increase in meat production they were achieving. Marianne returned to us unscathed, and Mary, we know, was safe when she wrote just a few days ago and the air-raids had long stopped. And without the war, Albert here would never have come into our lives.’ He threw a deep, warm smile in Albert’s direction that was interrupted by another coughing fit. ‘I think we should stand,’ he managed to croak, glancing at the clock.
They did so, each adopting a tall, attentive stance. In his wheelchair, Albert sat up straight, stiff-backed. When the clock struck the hour, Albert, Marianne and Seth, as an ex-army officer himself, instinctively raised their arms in salute to the numerous thousands who had made the ultimate sacrifice or whose lives would never be the same again. Marianne felt her throat tighten as her vision misted with tears. Opposite her, Rose’s face was a mask of grief.
Teardrops in the Moon Page 20
