by Ellie Dean
‘You go, dear,’ said Cordelia, clearly upset by Ron’s revelation. ‘I’ll get Bertie to drive me over when she’s feeling up to having more people around her.’
Fran was still looking puzzled as she shook her head, making her copper curls bounce on her shoulders. ‘I’ll stay and put Daisy to bed. I can get a lift from the General and pop over there tomorrow before I have to be on duty.’
Peggy sat squashed between Fred the Fish and Ron in the rather smelly van, her handbag clasped on her lap, her pulse racing as they rattled up the steep road and turned into the hospital driveway. She hadn’t been up here since Kitty had been a patient, but she knew Danuta couldn’t have been in a better place to recover.
She was tense, eager to see the girl, but trying hard not to imagine what might have happened to her to bring her here, for the last she’d heard of Danuta, the girl was in Germany, helping to rescue the Allied airmen who had been shot down – so it was unlikely she’d fallen victim to an air raid over here. But whatever the reason she was here, it was now her turn to repay the girl for her bravery, and to reassure and mother her, and provide the peace and love she’d need to recover.
Fred stayed in the van, and promised to wait for as long as they needed.
Peggy and Ron hurried through those familiar corridors, passing men and women on crutches or in wheelchairs, the remembered odours of boiled cabbage and antiseptic unavoidable.
Ron quietly opened the door, and after peeking in, stood aside to let Peggy enter.
Peggy’s heart was thudding as she tiptoed into the deeply shadowed room and approached the bed. She gave an involuntary gasp as she saw the bruises and bandages, and had to cover her mouth with her hand. ‘Oh, Danuta,’ she said softly. ‘Oh, my darling, sweet girl, what happened to you?’
Danuta opened her eyes – eyes filled with pain and the horrors she’d seen – and then she let out a sigh and reached up her arms to Peggy. ‘Mama Peggy,’ she whispered. ‘Mama, I come home to you.’
Peggy’s tears pricked her eyes as she tenderly held the girl to her heart. ‘I’m here, darling. I’m here.’
Ron quietly left the room. They didn’t need anyone but each other for now.
13
Burma
There had been skirmishes and ambushes from the moment they’d scaled that riverside cliff. The fighting had been fierce on both sides, and although they’d wiped out several rats’ nests of Japanese, some of their number had been killed or wounded.
However, despite this, Jim was getting a real sense of this strange and beautiful country into which he’d been thrust. Blue-hazed mountains soared above lush, jungle-clad valleys where hidden villages of bamboo huts lay by crystal-clear rushing rivers that fed into neat paddy fields. Unfamiliar bird calls were accompanied by the tinkling of tiny bells in ornate little pagodas bedecked in frangipani and smelling of burning incense, while saffron-robed Buddhist monks walked barefoot from village to village, and long-horned cattle cropped contentedly as white egrets hitched a lift on their backs to feast on the ticks and flies they found there.
The people were slender and brown-skinned, the men mostly bare-chested with a wide length of brightly coloured cloth wrapped around their waist to fall to their ankles. The women were elegant in their sarongs – or longyi – daintily modest in small white tops as they moved to some slow inner rhythm which made them almost glide along as they carried baskets of produce on their heads in the heat of the day. It all looked so peaceful, but Jim knew the Japs often hid out in those villages, bringing death, destruction, and often slavery to these gentle people who’d been caught up in a war that was not of their making.
The mountain range Jim and the rest of the long column had just negotiated led to a broad valley which ran for approximately forty miles north towards another precipitous mountain. This valley was almost entirely smothered in jungle except for a few scattered Burmese villages and the cultivated areas around them.
Morale was high amongst the men, for the time for games of hide and seek with the enemy was over, and the Chindits had been ordered to engage and drive out the Japanese in a series of ambushes, and make it impossible for them to use the area by destroying their communications, arms dumps and vehicles. It was what they’d trained for and why they’d borne the privations and effort to get here, so each man was ready and eager to get to work, bring the fight to the enemy and rout him once and for all.
The idea was to let the enemy know they were there in force, heavily armed and ready to fight, so they set off at a deliberately fast and noisy pace to intimidate the already disorganised and fleeing Japs. It would take three days to reach the end of the valley, where they would set up operations at the foot of the towering mountain.
As the long column of men, mules and horses progressed boldly along the single road that had been carved through the valley, Jim could see the villagers working knee-deep in the water of the paddy fields, bent at the waist beneath large conical hats woven from strips of bamboo as they planted the green shoots of rice. At the sound of their approach the villagers stopped and stared at them – first in fear, and then in awe, some of the dainty and very pretty girls shyly waving and smiling before they returned to their work, their babies secure in slings on their backs.
Jim rather fancied the hats, and could probably have purchased one for a few annas, but there was no time to stop, and it would just be one more thing to carry. The brightly patterned longyis the women wore were pretty too, and he wondered momentarily what Peggy would look like in one – and then dismissed the idea. The hats and sarongs suited this place and these people – and neither Peggy nor Cliffehaven were ready for such exotic things.
Having reached the end of the valley, their commander set up a temporary HQ, arranged for the first supply drop, and after a brief rest, ordered Jim’s column to attack the Japanese posts to the west which had been sighted by air intelligence. The idea was to keep the Japs occupied during the next three days of air drops but to avoid getting pinned down.
Jim, Ernie and Big Bert eagerly followed their senior officer in Indian file into the dense black jungle of a starless black night. Jim could hear the man walking in front of him, and the breathing of the man behind, the creak of mule harness and the clink of metal on metal – but although his night vision was usually very good, he was virtually blind in what felt like an endless void of utter darkness.
They were closing in on the co-ordinates given to them by air-recon, so they walked more slowly, alert and ready for action.
And then all hell broke loose at the head of the column. Explosions ripped through the jungle in great flashes of blinding light to rain dirt and debris down on him as stuttering bursts of gunfire opened up, the bullets zinging in from all directions as the Bren guns roared and shook the earth beneath his feet.
Jim dropped to his belly, firing into the jungle at the unseen enemy, trying to gauge by the flash of his gun where he was hiding, when a terrified mule broke free and almost trampled him in its crazed bid for escape.
Jim lobbed a grenade into the jungle and followed it up with a long burst of rapid fire, aware that the man next to him had slumped against him and was probably dead.
He swiftly reloaded and pumped more bullets towards the few flashes of light that were still coming out of the all-enveloping darkness, and then, as suddenly as it had begun, it was over.
The call for cease-fire went down the line and everyone slowly got to their feet to check on their wounded and mop up any surviving Japs who might still be lurking. Jim counted three dead, including the man who’d fallen beside him, and one of the mule handlers. The one wounded man would have to be strapped on horseback and sent back to the temporary HQ to be ferried out after the supply drops – how long he’d last was anyone’s guess, for he’d taken a belly shot, which usually proved fatal.
Jim breathed a sigh of relief when he heard Ernie and Big Bert talking nearby, and then took the dead men’s identity tags and handed them to his senior officer before c
overing the bodies as best he could in palm leaves and jungle debris. There was no time to dig graves, however shallow, but their final resting place would be marked as a co-ordinate on a map for those back at HQ, who would do the debriefing after the operation and inform the next of kin.
The men returned from the Japanese hideout to report no survivors, so after the padre had said a swift prayer over the makeshift graves, everyone gathered up their weapons and ammunition and continued their march, aware of the rattle of gunfire and the thuds of explosions in the distance. It was going to be a long three days, but Jim’s blood was up and he was ready for anything.
14
Peggy had spent an hour with Danuta, but for most of that time she’d merely held her hand and watched her sleep. She was glad the girl knew she was there and that no harm would come to her, but on her return home, Peggy had spent a restless night, worrying about her.
It had broken her heart to see Danuta looking so frail and small in that hospital bed, but despite what she must have gone through, there was still a light of determination in her green eyes when she spoke, which gave Peggy hope that she would pull through.
She opened her eyes, stretched and then turned to look at the photograph of Jim she’d placed on the bedside table the day he’d left for India. ‘I wish you were here, my love,’ she whispered. ‘I miss you so, and it’s been ages since I heard from you.’
He smiled back at her and she felt such yearning to hold him that it was almost a physical pain which she curled into beneath the bedclothes.
‘Mumma? Mumma wake now?’
Peggy swiftly pulled her emotions in order and turned to smile at Daisy, who no longer needed the sides up on her cot and had got into the habit of clambering onto the bed at Adolf’s first raucous crow. ‘Yes, darling, I’m awake,’ she replied, pulling her daughter to her and holding her soft, warm little body close, needing this loving contact to counteract her loneliness for Jim.
Daisy put up with this for less than a minute and then pushed away to slide back off the bed. ‘I hungry, Mumma. Want beckfist.’
Peggy’s precious moment was over, and she reluctantly got out of bed to glance at the clock and prepare for another long, busy day. The planes were noisy again, even at this hour, and her pulse beat a little bit faster in the hope that the invasion may have begun.
Yet, as she got herself and Daisy washed and dressed, Peggy wondered how on earth she was going to fit everything in today. She couldn’t afford to miss part of her shift again, and certainly didn’t want to let Solly down after he’d been so kind in giving her the job in the first place – but she was determined to visit Danuta at some point, for the thought of her being alone up at the hospital was just too much to bear after all the girl had been through.
‘I wish I still had my car,’ she muttered as she pulled a brush through her tangled curls. ‘It would make life so much easier.’ She had a fleeting hope that maybe Doris might lend her the Austin, and instantly dismissed it. They were barely talking, and after yesterday, she didn’t feel like going cap in hand asking for a favour, only to be shown the door with a flea in her ear.
Once she and Daisy were ready, Peggy looked in on Cordelia to see if she wanted help getting down the stairs. She was getting very unsteady on her feet, and Peggy constantly worried that she might take a nasty tumble.
‘I can manage perfectly well,’ Cordelia said rather huffily. ‘Please don’t fuss, Peggy. You have enough to do without running about after me.’ As if to prove the point, she headed purposefully for the stairs and, with one hand gripping the banisters, the other grasping her walking stick, she negotiated each stair with great care until she reached the hall.
‘Well, that’s not right,’ she said crossly. ‘Where’s my newspaper, and what happened to the early post?’
‘The paper boy must have slept in,’ said Peggy. She was still trying to get used to Cordelia not being at her best first thing in the morning when she’d once been so bright and lively. ‘Perhaps there’s no mail for anyone today,’ she added wistfully.
‘It’s simply not good enough,’ Cordelia snapped. ‘I can’t eat breakfast without my newspaper and crossword.’
‘We’ll just have to make do with the news on the wireless until it’s delivered,’ Peggy said placatingly.
‘I don’t like the wireless news,’ grumbled Cordelia. ‘It’s always so gloomy.’
Peggy bit down on a smile as she followed her into the kitchen to find that Sarah was just finishing her breakfast, and Ron was feeding Harvey and Queenie. The wireless was on, but there were still a few minutes to go before the eight o’clock news bulletin.
Ron frowned at Cordelia, who rather pointedly turned off her hearing aid and glared back at him. ‘What’s got into her this morning?’
‘No paper and no post,’ replied Peggy, settling Daisy on her cushion so she could reach the table.
‘There was some post,’ said Sarah quietly. ‘But both letters were for me.’ She put her hand on Peggy’s shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, Peggy. I know how much you wanted to hear from Jim and the others.’
Peggy felt a bit put out that she still hadn’t had anything from Jim – or, for that matter, from Anne or the boys, despite the fact she’d written to them nearly every day. ‘There’s no need to feel sorry, Sarah,’ she replied. ‘There’s always the afternoon delivery. Perhaps I’ll get something then.’
She watched the girl pull on her coat, ready for the long tramp over the hills to Cliffe, and was tempted to ask if her letters had come from Delaney – then decided it was none of her business. ‘It must be quiet up there now all the Americans have gone,’ she said instead.
‘It is a bit, and there’s talk that the Women’s Timber Corps will be moving to another site very soon. The forest at Cliffe has been thinned enough, and what’s left must be preserved to encourage new growth.’
Peggy stared up at her in confusion ‘But where would they go? And would you have to go with them?’
Sarah shrugged. ‘Nothing’s decided yet, but the possibility of Scotland has been mentioned.’
‘Scotland! You can’t possibly go all the way to Scotland,’ protested Peggy.
Sarah giggled. ‘I have no intention of doing so. This is my home now for the duration, and if they do move on, I’ll find work in another office in town.’
‘Well, thank goodness for that,’ breathed Peggy. ‘I couldn’t bear the thought of losing you.’
Sarah kissed her cheek. ‘The feeling is mutual,’ she murmured. ‘Now, I’d better be off, or I’ll be late. At least the weather seems to have improved a bit.’
Ron turned up the volume on the wireless just as Sarah was about to go down the steps to the basement, and as the announcer’s excited voice came into the room, she turned back and sat down at the table, making urgent winding signs to Cordelia to turn on her hearing aid.
‘Early this morning it was revealed that the German troops had been ordered to withdraw from the city of Rome, and to defend it against the advancing Allies outside the city’s walls. Despite dogged resistance from the Germans, the first American soldiers of the Fifth Army reached the centre of the city late last night,’ said the announcer.
The occupants of Peggy’s kitchen held hands in awed silence as he continued, his excitement clear in his usually calm and measured tone.
‘Rome is the first of the three Axis powers’ capitals to be taken and its recapture will be seen as a significant victory for the Allies and for Lieutenant General Mark Clark, the American commanding officer who led the final offensive.
‘The people of Rome have poured into the streets to cheer and wave and throw bunches of flowers at the victorious liberators who are even now parading through the city. The Romans also massed in great numbers in St Peter’s Square, to call on Pope Pious to give the victors and the citizens of Rome his blessing.
‘The Pope has now appeared on the balcony to address the throng and give thanks that the holy city of Rome with its irreplaceable treas
ures and ancient buildings has been saved from destruction by the agreement on both sides that the battle should be fought outside its walls.
‘First reports from the city say it has been left largely undamaged by the occupying German forces. The water supply is still intact and there is even electricity – recent blackouts are reported to have been caused by engineers reluctant to restore power for the occupiers. Most Romans remained in the city during the occupation and many refugees also fled there, consequently food supplies are now extremely short, so the Americans’ first task is to set up food and medical stations throughout the city.
‘In a broadcast from the United States, President Roosevelt welcomed the fall of Rome with the words, “One up, two to go.” But he gave a warning that Germany had not yet suffered enough losses to cause total collapse to the regime – and this seems to be borne out by a defiant statement from Hitler’s headquarters in which he said that “the struggle in Italy will be continued with unshakeable determination to break the enemy and forge final victory for Germany and her allies”.
‘The American military authorities in London have paid tribute to the British General Sir Harold Alexander, who has been in overall command of Allied forces in Italy, describing the campaign as daring, unconventional and brilliant.’
Peggy gathered up a bewildered Daisy and smothered her face in kisses as Cordelia and Sarah hugged. ‘I can hardly believe it,’ she breathed. ‘Oh, Ron, this is only the start of it, I’m sure, and once the invasion goes ahead it will be Paris next – and then Berlin.’
‘Aye, it’s a great victory, so it is, but don’t get too carried away, Peggy, girl. There’s a long way to go yet, and by the sound of it Hitler’s nowhere near ready to surrender.’
Peggy would not allow his pessimism to spoil her joy, so she clasped his grizzled face between her hands and gave him a resounding kiss. ‘Don’t be such an old grump,’ she teased. ‘The Allies are in Rome, the sun is shining and—’
