War Girls

by Adele Geras

  Kate was embarrassed and shocked. She was ashamed that she had ever doubted him. She remembered his flustered, halting words when they had spoken on deck all those weeks ago. She had let him down; allowed herself to mistrust him just because others had. He had been too proud to defend himself, but surely she could have stood up for him instead of pretending it had nothing to do with her. He’s my friend, she admitted to herself. He looks after me. He’s a good man. And I let him down.

  They travelled on in silence, each of them too wrapped up in their thoughts to speak, no one looking at anyone else. Arthur pretended to sleep. After a while Charlie the Chuckler began to hum very softly to himself with more of a yawn than a singing voice. He lifted his hands as if they were an audience, encouraging them to join him in his singing. Donald nodded and began to sing along. Relieved, Kate hummed softly. Rowena Rumble’s beautiful contralto voice fluttered a low harmony. That left Arthur Poacher, still pretending to sleep, his eyelids flickering nervously. Charlie leaned forward and put his ear to Arthur’s mouth, and at last, still with his eyes closed, the deep, rumbling bass joined in.

  When they arrived at their venue they climbed out of the vehicle like people in a dream. Each of them had gone through their own private hell. Mechanically they prepared themselves for the first concert at the Front. For six weeks solid they had given two or three concerts a day, travelling miles between venues, sleeping in draughty huts and leaking halls, hostels and farmhouses, ancient châteaux and sometimes in the open air under a canopy of trees. They had seen unimaginable misery and boredom and pain. They were utterly exhausted. And yet they each had the feeling that this was what they had really come to do, that this near encounter with death and the men who faced it daily was the most important thing they had ever done in their lives.

  ‘Here we are again, our merry little band of troubadours!’ Charlie the Chuckler said as they unloaded their clothes, the minimal props, and lastly Little Peter.

  ‘Come on, little chap,’ the pianist said. ‘A few more tunes, a few more songs, and I’ll take you home again, eh?’ He rubbed the keys with his handkerchief. ‘Eighteen, my son was,’ he said, to no one in particular. ‘Brilliant pianist.’ And then he fell again into that deep and lonely silence that had always kept him apart from the others.

  Not far away, they could hear the crump, crump of firing. It was alarmingly close and persistent, impossible to ignore. Kate felt a slow, cold dread rising in her. So this was it. This was the sound of war.

  The concert hall had been prepared for them, and they waited, restless, keen to get on with the job. Within hours of arriving they were ready to perform. Peter Castleton played endlessly while the hall was filling up; it was as if he needed to lose himself and his thoughts in his music. The men filed in, while their fellows and the enemy fought for their lives within earshot. Kate stood next to Donald, waiting for her turn. She could see the sweat on his upper lip, the tremble of his hands.

  Charlie was on stage cracking his litany of jokes and impressions when the first shell landed so near that the hall shook. Nobody in the audience moved, but the members of the concert party froze in a silent terror. Charlie wiped his brow and carried on. Another shell. The tension on stage was like a tight skin, binding them, choking them. But still nobody moved, nobody spoke. Another shell. ‘Shut up!’ Charlie shouted. ‘You’re spoiling my punch lines.’

  There was a roar of laughter and applause. Peter sprang to the piano and began to play some ragtime. The four singers clambered onto the stage. They sang arias from Tosca and The Barber of Seville along with music hall songs. The audience joined in and for one glorious hour, while the sound of shelling was drowned out, it was as if nothing in the world mattered except the music.

  ‘Give them a solo, Kate,’ Rowena said, and they left her alone on the stage.

  She was wearing a red dress, her favourite. She knew she looked her best. She was aware of the intake of breath as she stepped forward. I am their sister, their daughter, their sweetheart, she told herself. They want me to smile at them, so they can smile at me. They want me to love them, so they can love me. They want me to be happy for them.

  She could smell cigarette smoke and sweat and candle grease. Outside, muted now, she could hear the spattering of gunfire. Sing. Sing for Fred. The ‘Gypsy Song’ from Carmen. How he would love that!

  When she had finished there was a long pause. Someone from the audience shouted, ‘Marry me, miss!’ and everyone cheered. She turned to look for Rowena to join her for the duet, and at that moment there was a thunderous shudder as though the whole building had collapsed around them. There were shouts of ‘Evacuate!’, the sound of chairs being pushed back, of people running, shouting.

  Kate felt a hand grasp hers. ‘Run!’ Donald shouted, and suddenly, as if she had woken up out of a nightmare, she ran, Donald limping at her side, out of the concert hall, across a yard that was grey with smoke and dust, and into the metal shed that was used as their changing room. The rest of the company followed them, except for Peter. Donald turned to run back for him, but Arthur Poacher barred the way.

  ‘Don’t risk it. He’ll be fine,’ he said. ‘Stay here, please, where it’s safe.’

  They all crouched down on their hands and knees, too frightened to speak. There were four gas masks in the corner. Four gas masks; six people. Donald grabbed one and held it out to Kate, but she shook her head. Rowena did the same. He dropped it back onto the floor. If they couldn’t all wear one, no one would. This is how close we have become, Kate thought. We are a family now. She crouched, eyes closed, her heart pumping like a wild, hunted beast, and waited for the unimaginable end to come.

  After all, there was no gas. The shelling stopped as suddenly as it had started. There was utter silence around them; the silence of exhaustion and relief; the silence of tense waiting.

  At last Donald pushed open the door of their shed. He stood with his arms akimbo, gazing out at the fog of dust, and then they heard him say, ‘The concert hall has been bombed. There’s nothing left of it.’

  ‘Oh, God. Peter!’ Arthur said.

  He ran towards the debris of the destroyed building, pushing past the soldiers who were trying to make it safe for rescuers. It was he and Donald who discovered Peter Castleton’s body. He had died lying under the little piano.

  ‘If you had gone for him, you would be dead too,’ Arthur said. He held out his hand. Donald hesitated for a moment, then held out his own. The two enemies shook hands in grim, grieving silence.

  ‘Bloody war. Bloody, bloody war. What the hell are we doing here anyway?’ Charlie moaned when he joined them. ‘I wish I was home.’

  ‘It could have been any one us. All of us,’ Kate said, her voice cold and tight with horror.

  ‘We don’t have to stay here, you know,’ Donald whispered. ‘I’ve told you, Kate. I’ll help you to get home, if you would like. I want you to be safe.’

  She shook her head, tears blinding her eyes. She thought of Peter running onto the stage to play the piano earlier that evening. She thought of the audience of soldiers singing with them, lustily, fearlessly, only hours ago. ‘No, I want to stay,’ she said.

  It never got easier. Without a pianist they had to sing unaccompanied, though sometimes at the camps there were musicians who could work with them till Miss Ashwell found a replacement for Peter. As they were driven from base to base, Kate gazed blankly out of the truck, watching the lines of young, fresh, eager soldiers marching towards the Front; seeing draggled lines returning from it, grimy, wounded, dispirited, hobbling like old men. One of the wounded soldiers turned his head towards the truck as they rumbled past. His eyes rested for a moment on Kate. She tried to smile, lift a hand; and couldn’t. She had seen too much of it, too many. The soldier looked away.

  Yet, wherever they went, they set up their stage and lights and met with the same grateful reception from men in dread of what tomorrow would bring, men who had lost their friends, men who were close to death. Kate sobbed herse
lf to sleep every night, and Rowena put her hand on her shoulder in silent support.

  ‘If I had a daughter, I would want her to be like you,’ Rowena said one day, after a concert. ‘Courageous. It takes great courage to do things when you’re afraid.’

  ‘Aren’t you afraid?’ Kate asked.

  ‘No. Just sad.’

  ‘It’s our turn to do the wards tonight, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is. These men here won’t be going home, any of them. It will be very hard.’

  ‘I know. I’ll come.’

  It was a pitiful task, to walk into the makeshift tent where the dying men lay, too ill to be moved on, fresh from the worst battle of their lives. The lamps were dim and flickering, giving the bandaged figures the appearance of ghosts. Some were lying completely still, eyes closed, waiting for the end to come. Others were groaning or shouting out in pain, but as soon as Rowena started to sing they fell silent, brought briefly back to a more beautiful place. There was no applause at the end, just a few gasped words of thanks.

  Rowena touched Kate’s hand. ‘Now you, dear,’ she said. ‘Your voice might be the last thing they ever hear.’

  Kate stepped into the middle of the tent and began to sing. There was no accompaniment, so she chose two simple songs from her repertoire. By the time she started the second, her courage had returned and she began to walk from bed to bed. It was the song she had used for the Christmas show at home – she hadn’t sung it since. ‘Silent Night’ in the middle of summer. Holy night in the middle of hell. Peaceful night in the middle of war.

  Now, in the listening silence, she could hear, very faintly, someone trying to hum a harmony. She moved towards the voice. A heavily bandaged man was lying on a bed, his face turned away from her. She broke off, suddenly and incredulously knowing the voice, rasping and painful as it was, knowing the harmony. He turned his head with great difficulty and opened his eyes.

  ‘Fred?’ she whispered.

  Could this white, haggard face really be his? But he was dead. Surely.

  Yet, hadn’t she hoped, hadn’t she known, that he was alive still? Wasn’t that why, without admitting it to herself, she had come here, in the hope of seeing him again?

  His hand struggled to touch hers.

  ‘Ssh!’ An orderly appeared beside her. ‘Don’t make him speak. Yes, his name is Fred. Do you know him?’

  ‘Fred,’ Kate murmured. She dared to touch his cheek. ‘But his plane was shot down.’

  ‘He landed in enemy territory. He’s been in a prisoner of war camp and escaped – only to get caught up in this. We brought him in yesterday, very badly wounded. He’s lost both his legs.’

  Kate sank onto the floor beside the bed, her face so close to his that it was nearly touching. ‘My sky dancer!’ she whispered. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

  ‘Surely this isn’t your airman?’ Rowena had come to stand behind her. ‘Oh, my dear child!’ She put her hand on Kate’s shoulder, briefly, and then she and the orderly left her alone with Fred.

  Kate hardly heard what she’d said; hardly noticed her going. She stroked Fred’s cheek and his eyelids opened. For a second there was a glimmer of light in his eyes, almost a smile, and then he closed them again and drifted into a peaceful sleep. Kate stayed there with him all night, holding his hand until he died.

  It was dawn by then. When Kate returned to the sleeping quarters, the members of the company were packing their things onto the truck, preparing to leave for the next camp, the next brave show. All the travelling was back towards Boulogne now, back towards home. Rowena had packed Kate’s bag for her, and helped her up into the van.

  ‘Are you all right, Kate?’ Donald asked gently. ‘Ready to move on?’

  She smiled at him weakly. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’m ready.’

  She leaned back against the seat as the driver started the engine and the vehicle made its bumpy way along the rutted track. The others had their eyes closed, weary with everything they had seen. She stared ahead blankly, seeing nothing except Fred’s gaunt face; hearing nothing but the rasp of his breath as he had tried to sing with her. She opened her case and took out her writing pad.

  ‘Dear Sadie’, she wrote. She paused for a long time. She had so much to tell her sister, but she didn’t have the words. Everything that she had experienced in the last few weeks felt as if it had been compressed into those last few moments with Fred. What was there to say, and how could she possibly say it?

  I saw Fred Sweeney. He died last night. So sad. He was a nice young man.

  Piercing the Veil

  by Anne Fine

  Piercing the Veil

  They were beginning to become a little testy with one another, Alice could tell. Of course, their manners stayed perfect. Nobody thumped the table to make the shining cutlery dance or the wax spill in torrents down the candlesticks onto the damask cloth. Nobody leaned too far across their fruit plate, keen to make a point.

  Still, they were arguing, and arguing hard.

  ‘It is a nonsense! And a dangerous nonsense too,’ declared her father.

  ‘If it’s such nonsense,’ Mrs Parry said, ‘how can it be dangerous? Mrs Short clearly believes she heard her dead son’s voice while she was in the garden, and she feels comforted. Where is the harm in that?’

  ‘False thoughts lead those who suffer down the wrong path,’ insisted Alice’s father. He ran an irritated finger round his stiff, white clerical collar as if to draw attention to the added weight of his opinion in the matter. ‘The only proper comfort lies in true Christian belief. And we, as Christians, do not believe our dead can speak to us, the living, from beyond the grave.’

  Mrs Parry persisted. ‘But grief’s such a stony, hopeless path. What does it matter if a few sad mothers find some ray of hope in trying to get in touch with the sons they’ve lost?’

  Alice’s father would have none of it. ‘Bah! Table rapping! Talking to the dead! It’s all a cheat, and a cruel cheat at that. This sudden plague of “spiritualists” are vultures preying on bruised souls.’

  Such confidence! As usual Alice found herself lowering her head as if to protect herself from the sheer force of his conviction. Had her father put aside all doubts the day he was ordained a minister? Did he never think he might, for once, be wrong?

  She trembled as his tone became more adamant. ‘Liars and charlatans! I’d have them fiercely drummed out of each house they enter!’

  Now grizzled Mr Pew opened his mouth for the first time. ‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘there has been too much fierce drumming over these last few months …’

  They all fell silent, thinking of recent battles and the ever-lengthening lists of dead. The words ‘Missing in Action’ seemed to be heard more often than the tolling bells. Alice recalled a school assembly only a few days before. There stood the pupils in their perfect rows while Mr Abbot read the names of boys who’d fallen in these last desperate autumn weeks of warfare. Most eyes stayed fixed on the floor. But Alice had glanced up and been astonished to see that, though Mr Abbot’s voice was barely faltering, tears rolled down his face. How odd! For all the village knew that, at the sale of work in aid of comforts for the troops, Lady Gilmond had given the most rousing speech, ‘while still crumpled in her hand,’ Mrs Parry said admiringly, ‘she had the very telegram that she’d been given less than ten minutes before, informing her that her beloved Edward had died of wounds.’

  Was Lady Gilmond stronger in the face of loss than Mr Abbot was with news of boys he’d only taught? Or had she gone home to weep as bitterly as Alice had when her own mother died? It was so hard to tell what people felt. Everyone was determined not to undermine the resolve of all those men on crowded troop trains trundling day and night through Alderley Junction. And more and more of them seemed to be on their way to the front.

  Two nights before, she’d heard her father stifle a bark of astonishment as he read his newspaper. From where she sat, hopelessly fishing for yet another slipped stitch in the sock she was knitting fo
r some soldier she would never meet, Alice took care to note the page. What had the Reverend Milner seen? The name of yet another man or boy he’d known? News of a further scrimping of the rations?

  As soon as he had left the room, she’d hurried over to scour the dense print. So far as she could tell, the only thing that could have caused his surprise was yet another slackening of the height rules for enlisted men. Now they were happy to make soldiers of those they would have spurned when this long war began.

  For such a change to have been made, how many must have fallen in between?

  Fallen … Mr Pew never failed to scowl each time he heard her say the word. ‘Fallen, indeed, Elise! More likely shot to pieces!’ (He was the only one to stick to her baptismal name after her father had so tactfully ushered in that tiny switch of sounds that turned the Germanic-sounding ‘Elise’ into the English ‘Alice’.)

  And he was scowling over their table now. ‘Vicar, you rail so passionately against these mediums and fakers. But you must admit that, if men talked more on this earth, no one would need to try to talk to those who’ve been blown out of it fifty years too soon!’

  ‘Hush!’ scolded Mrs Parry. She waved a warning hand in Alice’s direction. ‘Now we must thank this young lady for her delicious contribution to our meal, and let her get back to her handiwork.’

  Alice took this for what it was – a firm dismissal. But though the three of them might make her leave the room, they couldn’t stop her wondering. She’d never for a moment thought the restless dead returned to comfort those they’d left behind, and give them messages. Just like her father, she believed that was a nonsense. But Mrs Short had been so sure that she’d heard Peter’s voice behind her in the garden that she was not the least surprised to get the letter from the War Office. ‘It is my painful duty to inform you …’

  ‘Do you believe it?’ Alice had dared ask her friend Hannah. ‘Do you believe your mother truly heard your brother speak?’