Sisters at War

by Milly Adams

  Eric and Bryony looked at each other, and then at the afterbirth, the cord, and the baby. ‘In a minute, when the doctor comes. You see, we don’t quite know what to do with the cord and all that. Just talk to him, let him hear your voice.

  ‘I’m just so tired,’ Catherine muttered.

  ‘Is that normal?’ Eric asked Bryony.

  ‘I’m not sure. Leave the baby and call the doctor again.’

  He started towards the door, and then there was the sound of a car hooting at Combe Lodge and wheels on the gravel leading to the cottage, where it skidded to a halt. Another hoot, and then the crash of the car door, and the front door of the cottage slamming back against the wall. Footsteps pounded up the stairs, then back down again. ‘Handwash,’ Eric and Bryony said together, grinning at one another. ‘Better than weeding?’ she asked Eric.

  ‘He’s a little belter,’ Eric said, touching the baby’s face. ‘You can hardly feel his skin, it’s so soft.’

  Catherine called, ‘He’s my little lad, you know, and I’d like to hold him.’

  She eased on to her back as the doctor swung into the room. ‘Must be something in the water, because all you pregnant women are at it today. Now let’s start to get this sorted, but first, Bee, would you telephone for an ambulance and we’ll get this little party off to hospital. Good job. Excellent job, and you didn’t cut the cord. My receptionist is new, she didn’t know to tell you.’

  Bryony said, ‘I’ve a farmer for an uncle. I just thought of the animals.’

  Catherine, who was by now holding her son, raised her eyebrows. ‘I’m going to call him Eric,’ she said.

  The ambulance came twenty minutes later and took both the women to hospital. Bryony and Eric tidied the cottage, and locked it, hearing Cissie calling outside the Lodge, ‘Where is everyone? Bee ain’t gone in the Tiger Moth again, has she?’

  ‘We’re here at Anne’s. We have some news for you.’ Bryony started towards the Lodge, and suddenly her legs felt weak beyond endurance. Eric caught her arm, saying, ‘Steady the Buffs.’

  She let him take her weight for a moment. He laughed quietly as they stood together on the path while Cissie sped towards them, her plaits flying, her dungarees grass-stained. ‘What? What did you say?’

  He let Bryony go and caught Cissie as she flew at him. ‘What, Bee?’ she demanded.

  They told her, and her eyes grew large. ‘A baby? And I missed it. Oh, please can I tell April? She’ll be home soon.’

  She scooted off, and Eric took Bryony’s arm again. ‘Time you settled into a chair, or went to bed.’

  Bryony laughed, ‘What about you? Quite an education, eh?’

  ‘Makes a change to gutting fish, or refitting an engine, and it so didn’t help to compare it with that, Bee. You know, seeing something born is magical. One minute he doesn’t exist, and then he’s here, living and breathing, and somehow he’s already a character. It might make a difference.’ He spoke almost as though to himself.

  She said nothing for a moment, not sure what he meant. He said, letting go of her arm, ‘I haven’t slept very well since Dunkirk. Daft, I know. I keep seeing and hearing stuff.’

  As they approached the back door, Bryony realised that her sleep had been untroubled since her hospital stay; all she dreamed of was the garden: the scent, the feel of the earth and the plants. Was that wrong?

  She said, holding him back, ‘Since my operation, my head seems clear of it. I wonder if we need something to shake us out of the pattern? I don’t even worry about Hannah so much.’

  He asked why Hannah hadn’t been evacuated and she explained, ending, ‘I’ll fetch her when I’m fit enough. I promised, you see.’

  April was opening the back door. ‘Are you two going to come inside and tell us all about it, or are you going to stay outside chatting like two old dears?’

  ‘It’s a boy, called Eric,’ Bryony said, entering. ‘After the assistant who helped deliver him.’

  Bryony and Eric laughed at April’s face, though Eric said, ‘Assistant, my Aunt Fanny. A seamless team, April, that’s what we were.’

  ‘Well, off you go, on to the terrace, and we’ll all have tea there.’

  She shooed them out, and as they headed along the path Eric said, ‘About Hannah. Why don’t we work on the Sunflower engine together so that when Adam comes she’s all set up? If he can’t be here, don’t worry, I’ll take you, because there’s no way you’re going on your own, Bryony Miller. The Germans aren’t ready for that sort of invasion.’

  They settled down on the terrace, where the sun was soft. ‘I need to put the tools away,’ she said, sitting bolt upright.

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, I’ll do it, and what’s more, we should wet the baby’s head. Let’s go out this evening, on me.’

  He was shading his eyes against the glare. She felt too tired, but restless as well, so why not. ‘It’s darts night at the pub, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, but you’re not a bloke so let’s go to Frank’s Restaurant. He caught some mackerel off the point today. They’ll be fresh and he does a good salad.’

  April came along with Cissie, who said, ‘Oh, mackerel, I don’t like bones, so I’ll stay here.’

  Eric and Bee shared a look. ‘Yes, you will, young lady. It’ll be well past your bedtime,’ he said. ‘But I’ll take you one day. I promise.’

  That evening, Adam telephoned Combe Lodge to speak to Bee, but April answered. The first thing he said was, ‘How is she?’

  ‘By she you mean Bee, she’s busy as per usual even though she’s had a second operation. She is home, and should probably be resting but today she was weeding the garden, delivering babies, and now she’s out wetting the babe’s head.’

  There was a pause. ‘What did you say? Another operation? Oh my God, poor Bee. But she’s all right? I was imagining . . . What was that about babies?’

  April could hear shouting and singing in the background. ‘Where are you, darling?’

  ‘On the quay, we’ve just come back but are off again first thing. Never a dull moment in this job, or rather quite a few, in between whiles.’ He sounded tired, and stressed.

  ‘What quay?’

  ‘Let’s just say, up north, beyond the border. Now, what operation?’

  ‘She had to have a pin put in and there was a fracture of the lower arm that they hadn’t noticed, but honestly, you know what she’s like. She’s been weeding the flower beds along the drive, and then today Catherine went into labour and the midwife wasn’t answering the telephone.’

  Cissie was hurrying down the stairs in her nightie. She reached the bottom and ran to April. ‘Is it Adam, is it, is it?’

  April smiled. ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘Adam, they delivered a baby and I haven’t wet my bed for ages,’ she shouted.

  April laughed into the mouthpiece. ‘Can you hear our extraordinarily loud-mouthed child who should be asleep?’ She held the receiver to Cissie’s ear.

  ‘Loud and clear, and that’s excellent news, Cissie. A dry bed? I’m really proud of you.’ Adam was laughing too. ‘But tell me again, Mum, about Bee.’ Cissie handed back the receiver to April, who heard the urgency in her son’s voice. ‘She’s really all right? And what’s that about the baby?’

  Cissie was leaning against April’s leg, yawning, as April said, ‘Yes, she really is. She’s taking it easy and we’re helping her to pace herself because she so wants to be ready when the ATA need her. We feel sure they will with the RAF losses and the need for new planes. And Cissie is right, they did deliver a baby. Catherine’s little boy.’

  ‘Catherine has called him Eric.’ It was Cissie shouting again.

  ‘Hush,’ April murmured, ‘I can’t hear Adam. Say again, Adam?’

  ‘Eric? Why Eric?’

  Cissie shouted again, ‘He’s taken her to Frank’s, for mackerel, but I don’t like bones, so I said I wouldn’t come. He said that was good, because I wasn’t invited.’

  April said into the silence. ‘Are yo
u there?’

  ‘Yes, Mum.’

  ‘Eric sorted out the Anderson shelter and then I suggested he give Bee a hand with the gardening, for which, I might add, he wouldn’t take pay. So he was on hand, to give a hand with the baby, if you get my meaning.’

  ‘So they’ve gone to Frank’s? But it’s darts night at the pub?’

  April sighed. ‘As Eric said, our Bee is not a bloke, Adam. She’s a woman, rather a beautiful woman, actually. Perhaps he’s realised that when you haven’t.’

  There was another silence. Cissie asked for the receiver, and into it she said, ‘I think he should join the new thing, you know, the Home Guard, because he can’t be a soldier or sailor with his foot. Then it will be nice, because he won’t be going away, like you. He’ll be here to help us and he can do his other work too. He said he’d help get the Sunflower engine running properly and take Bee to Jersey as you’re not here . . . I heard him. What’s that noise, Adam?’

  April took the receiver back and heard the pips. ‘Adam, Adam, be safe, telephone us when you can, and then you can talk to Bee, she misses you so very much.’ But she spoke into emptiness. They had been cut off.

  Chapter Twelve

  Scotland

  Adam replaced the receiver, but couldn’t somehow release his hand. Eric? Bee?

  Of course he knew she was a woman, but he just hadn’t been able to find the words, damn it, when he scribbled his note because his heart was being wrenched from his body at the thought that the worst might happen. It was then that the knowledge that Bee was everything in the world to him had burst upon him, together with the realisation that he had shrugged off the person who was his life’s breath. He had not slept while away, but had ached to know her fate. As they had gathered up the lost sheep of the convoy he wished he were there at her side, never to leave, making her live, and then keeping her safe for the rest of her life.

  And here she was, bloody waltzing off with Eric all the time he’d been half out of his mind with worry and grief.

  There was a knock on the glass of the telephone box. ‘Setting up shop in there, are you, Adam? Come on, old lad, enough of the sweet talk or I’ll be hoying you out and into the harbour.’ It was Geordie Gilchrist.

  Adam’s knuckles showed white. It was as though he needed to unpeel his fingers one by one until the receiver was as virgin as it should be. The damp imprint of a hand remained. Was that all there was of him in Bee’s life? Just an imprint? He leaned back on the door, opening it, hearing the gulls, the crash of the coaler, the singing from the pub, and feeling the wind. Well, when didn’t he feel the wind on land, or on the deck, or the bridge, as the waves surged and . . .

  ‘Bloody hell, man, what’s happened? Not Bryony? She’s not worse? Oh hell’s bells. You need a drink. She’s not dead?’ Geordie’s lips had thinned, and he shot a look at Mick, who was just behind him in the queue for the telephone. ‘Let’s get him into the pub, we can make our calls later.’ It was an order, but Mick was already slinging an arm over Adam’s shoulder.

  Adam said, ‘No, everything’s fine. Sorry lads, just a bit tired.’

  And yes, it was fine, because she was alive, Bee was alive. Now the relief drenched him, thank God, thank the Lord, thank the powers that be, she was alive. Then the relief was swept aside with such a wave of regret, pain and jealousy that he felt the ground beneath him shift. He staggered and thought he’d vomit.

  ‘Whoa,’ Mick said. ‘Steady, lad.’

  The men in the queue snaking towards the telephone box looked at one another, waiting to know what had happened. It was only then that they’d know what to do. Adam forced himself to grin. ‘Come on, let’s have that drink, and just stop propping yourself up on me, Mick, if you don’t very much mind.’

  Mick grunted, and slapped Adam on the back instead. ‘First pint’s on me, then you can stop the bullshit. We didn’t come down in the last shower so we know when someone’s telling porkies. Just tell us if she’s alive, and all right, now and we’ll wait for the rest.’

  ‘She’s alive, and all right. Very all right.’

  He heard his bitterness, and checked it. The queue was getting restless, and he gestured them forward. ‘Telephone’s free, lads. Sorry, just a bit . . . Oh, you know.’

  He walked away, wanting to be alone under the night sky, a northern sky that didn’t get dark until very late in the summer months. But being alone wasn’t an option, because Mick and Geordie caught up, and marched either side of him until they reached the pub. He was shoved inside, with Mick muttering, ‘Now we want to know the ins and outs, and then that’s an end to it, or you’re going to be a ruddy misery to have on board, and let’s face it, I want something to tut about, as my old lady says.’

  They were in the beer-heavy warmth, the dim gas lighting, the low beams hung with beer mats signed by trawler crews, and the raucous singing of men just back from patrol. Some clustered around the bar, with others jostling behind the two darts teams, one of whom seemed to be slinging a good hand. Thud, thud. A great cheer rang out as the Highland Laddie team won, to groans and curses from High Ground.

  Darts. His mother was right, Bee wasn’t a bloke, but he knew that only too well, so why the hell had he written on the back of the pub receipt that he’d take her to the pub on her recovery, when he’d really been almost sick with fear that she would die. Why the hell hadn’t he said what he had been thinking and feeling? What was the matter with him? Why hadn’t he written instead: ‘Get better and I’ll tell you how I worship the ground you walk on and once this is over I will never leave your side again.’

  But how did you tell that to your best friend, someone you’d grown up with, someone you couldn’t live without, because what if she hadn’t felt the same? Then he would have lost even that friendship.

  Mick shouted to the barman, his arm back around Adam’s shoulders, ‘Let’s have three beers poured, and a chaser, if rationing allows, and it had better bloody do. Move along, lads, make room for the big boys.’ The sailors did, shoving along the bench at the table by the window, taking their dominoes with them.

  Was Eddie still playing with Cissie on his leave? He didn’t need to, because she was good with figures, but she liked the game for its own sake. A dry bed, clever little thing, clever Mum and Bee.

  Geordie fetched the drinks. ‘Beer, no chasers,’ he grumbled. ‘Get this down you, Adam.’

  They drank in silence, and then he told them about her second operation, about Eric, about his note.

  Geordie spluttered on his beer. ‘You wrote what, you bloody idiot?’

  Mick grunted, ‘Well, I can see where the girl’s coming from. Why wouldn’t she choose a bloke who buys her mackerel over a pillock who takes her for a drink with the boys. You might just as well have said, the other boys.’

  Adam stared at the dregs of his beer. It looked like he felt. ‘Well, thanks for that, lads, I feel a lot better now.’

  Geordie wiped his mouth. ‘I reckon you should write her a proper letter, telling her how you feel, and get shot of this bastard, somehow. What’s he doing in civvies anyway? Black market, is he? Got a better deal going?’

  Mick was flipping his beer mat again and again. Adam longed to slam his hand down on it and rip it to shreds, just to stop him. Instead he said, ‘That’s the trouble, he’s a grand bloke, got a club foot but it didn’t stop him taking his boat to Dunkirk with us. Been my mate since for ever. Pure gold. He’s getting the Sunflower engine up to speed too, because she needs to fetch her sister from Jersey. I made a bloody balls-up of that too.’

  ‘You said earlier she was up for the ATA,’ Geordie said, checking the change in his pocket. ‘Time for another, methinks. My shout, then it’s you, laddie.’ He nodded at Adam. ‘Look, don’t fret, we’ll probably be sunk anyway, so just drink up and forget about it. But if we’re not, and if she’s fit enough for the ATA, she’ll be delivering the training aircraft to Scotland. Where are we? Scotland. So you’ll have time to get stuck in while the mackerel king is s
till in Devon. But there will be no dartboard, no drinks with the lads. Is that a deal?’

  The whole table laughed. Adam shook his head. ‘Get on with your dominoes and leave me to my mess-up.’ But yes, she would be flying up here, and Geordie was right, Eric wouldn’t. Suddenly all things seemed possible, just as long as Eric didn’t move things along quickly. Adam wouldn’t let himself even play with that idea, but joined in with the blokes as they drank themselves into hangovers.

  The next day, the coalies humped a never-ending flow of coal on board, and the supplies were ticked off as Adam checked the Oerlikon guns. All along the wharf the trawlers were preparing for sea again. As the day melted into evening the High Ground left harbour, one of eight fighting trawlers pitching and tossing into the rising storm. They set course, destined to escort an outbound convoy until it was beyond the normal danger zone for U-boats, not to mention Focke-Wulf Condors, and then they would turn about and rendezvous with an inbound merchant convoy carrying supplies to a beleaguered British public.

  They rolled and pitched throughout the night, Adam taking his four-hour watch with Leading Seaman Noddy Thompkins and Seaman Trout, who had never lived down his name. It was cold, wet and Adam’s head ached as badly as everyone else’s. Why couldn’t they drink without paying for it? At the end of his watch he pitched into his bunk and burrowed into the deepest sleep he had ever known, waking to a shake from Geordie. ‘Rise and shine.’

  The seas were huge, and the wind sounded like an express train. With dawn the wind eased, and somehow the trawlers were all in sight of one another. The hours passed and then a signal was picked up, reporting the torpedoing of a merchant ship fifty miles away. The skipper received orders to head for the position, together with their sister ship, the Mary Lou.

  They drove through seas that heaved, pulled and tilted the trawler, and rain that roared horizontally and stung like nails for the rest of the day and night. Adam liked the sheer blackness and nothingness of the night in a storm. It made the trawlers seem indomitable, even more singular, and reminded him of the Sunflower. For a moment he was glad that Eric was nurturing his beloved boat; she deserved it. But it should have been him. He stopped the thought because after the Sunflower would come Bee. And Eric had better bloody well not be nurturing her.