The Girl on the Beach

by Mary Nichols

  Julie’s hands were shaking as she picked up the telephone in the office and asked for the Kilbys’ number. The number of Hillside Farm and a message to ring Sergeant Cotton urgently had been left on her desk. That was all. Good news or bad, she had no way of knowing and she was a mass of nerves. The lines were all busy and she had to wait for what seemed an eternity before she heard Florrie’s voice at the other end of the line.

  ‘He’s safe, Eve. Alec is safe. We heard this morning.’

  ‘Oh, thank God. What a relief. But what happened to him? Was he shot down in the sea? Is he wounded? Is he coming home?’ The questions followed rapidly, one after the other.

  ‘He’s not hurt. He was dropped a long way behind enemy lines and has taken all this time to get back to his unit. Apparently he acted with commendable initiative and brought his whole stick safely back. He’s being mentioned in dispatches.’

  ‘That’s typical of Alec. Are they sending him home?’

  ‘We don’t know. Probably not immediately but you never know. He’s back with his unit, still in the thick of it and I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.’

  ‘Nor me. I’m doing both. At least now we know he’s OK.’

  ‘Yes. Mum and Dad are over the moon. Dad was down on the long meadow cutting hay when Mum got the news, and she shrieked loud enough to wake the dead and then tore out of the house to tell him. I’ve been trying to get a message through to you all day.’

  ‘There’s been no one in the billet to answer the phone.’

  ‘We’re celebrating with champagne. Any chance of you getting leave to join us? You never know, we might hear from Alec himself.’

  ‘I put in for it the day you left. I’ll try chasing it up. Oh, Florrie, you don’t know how relieved I am.’

  ‘Yes, I do. It’s been the same for me. But I knew he wasn’t dead. I just knew it.’

  Julie could hardly sleep that night. Alec was safe, but he wasn’t out of danger. She wanted him home, to touch him, to reassure herself he was in one piece. The waiting had been agonising, but it wasn’t over. It wouldn’t be over until Germany was finally defeated.

  Section Officer Murray was not as hard-hearted as she liked to pretend and, on being told the good news, granted Julie seventy-two-hours leave. Seventy-two hours was not long, but better than nothing. Throwing a few things in a rucksack, Julie caught a train to London where she would have to change to a West Country train for Andover. It was a clear day, warm and sunny, peaceful even. There was no hint of what was happening on the other side of the Channel, nor of the menace from the skies. The train was packed but Julie found a seat in a window of one of the rear carriages and settled down to read the Daily Sketch. Details of the invasion had been trickling through and were being recounted in front page articles. The early reports that all had gone according to plan were being amended, and some of the problems that had been encountered were being made public, though heavily censored. Most were tales of heroism and the successful taking of town and villages, and the stories of the many wounded who had been repatriated. But the reports did not belittle the difficulties ahead. The invasion was not going to bring a quick end to the war as many had hoped.

  She became aware that other passengers were peering out of the window in some excitement and she laid aside her paper to look too. Above their heads and a little to the left a flying bomb was keeping pace with them. It looked just like Florrie had described it, flying along on a steady course towards London. They could hear its steady drone above the noise of the train.

  ‘Keep going,’ someone said. ‘Please God don’t let its engine stop now.’

  ‘Someone will cop it, wherever it lands up,’ another said.

  ‘In an open field would be best.’

  ‘How does it know where to go?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  The engine driver could not have been unaware of it and he accelerated to get ahead of it, but that did not seem to work, so he tried to slow down, but still the menace was above them.

  ‘My God, the engine’s stopped,’ the sailor sitting opposite Julie shouted. ‘It’s going to come down on top of us!’

  There was a mad scramble as everyone flung themselves on the floor and put their arms over their heads. The train sped on. The next moment was chaos as train and bomb collided. The noise was deafening as the blast tore through the carriages, shattering the windows and buckling the metal like matchwood. Those in Julie’s carriage who had breath enough screamed as the front reared up and came off the rails and turned over, flinging them on top of one another in a tangle of legs and arms, suitcases, rucksacks, sandwich boxes, broken glass and splintered metal. It was followed by an eerie silence broken only by the hissing of steam from the overturned engine.

  Chapter Eleven

  How long she was unconscious Julie did not know, but she came to her senses to find herself pinned down by a man’s heavy body. He was clearly dead. Controlling her rising panic with a huge effort, she heaved him off her and tried to extricate herself. Beside her others were moaning, some screaming. She had no time to scream. She had no breath for it, and being trapped and not able to get out was like being shut in a dark cupboard. Her heart was pounding and all she could think of was getting out. There was a tiny patch of daylight. She managed to drag herself towards it. The hole was too small to crawl through. She put her arm out and waved her hand about in the hope that someone would see it and come to her rescue.

  ‘All right, miss, we can see you,’ a male voice said. ‘Don’t move or you’ll have everything down on top of you. We’ll soon have you out of there. What’s your name?’

  ‘Julie. Julie Walker.’

  ‘Right, Sergeant Walker, keep still until I come back or you might do more damage.’

  Sergeant Walker? That didn’t sound right. She withdrew her arm and looked at herself. Beneath the thick dust and black smuts, she was wearing a blue uniform jacket and there were three stripes on her arm. What had happened to her? She had gone into the air-raid shelter in a cotton dress and cardigan, but this was no dress and this was no shelter; it was the remains of a train. Had she died? It was a funny version of heaven if she had. Or perhaps she was in hell? She was still puzzling over that when the man came back.

  ‘Right, Sergeant,’ he said. ‘We’ve got some cutting equipment here, so move back as far as you can. Are there others in there with you?’

  ‘Yes. There’s one man dead that I know of, perhaps more. I don’t know. The carriage was full.’ She remembered that, so she must have been travelling. But why and where to? Was George with her? No, she had left him with Rosie. She had to get back to them; her friend would be worried what had happened to her.

  ‘Right, we’re going to start cutting now. If anything starts to shift, you yell out.’

  ‘OK, but hurry. Hurry.’

  The noise of the cutting equipment battered her ears as the hole was enlarged, and she was thankful when it stopped and she was carefully pulled from the wreckage and laid on the grass beside the track. Her rescuers went to extricate the others in the carriage, leaving her to take great gulps of air until her racing heart slowed. Above her the sky was blue, with one or two cotton wool clouds and no sign of the menace that had caused such devastation.

  Turning her head, she could see the extent of it. An engine lying head down beside the track, still hissing steam, the mangled first two carriages piled up on top of it, others lying like dead whales. Bits of wood, metal, glass and luggage strewn everywhere, and there were little pockets of fire in the grass caused by hot cinders. Worst of all were the bodies, some laid out in rows, others lying where they had been flung. There were wounded too, some unconscious, some stoically silent, others moaning, children crying. They were being cared for by Red Cross nurses and members of the Women’s Voluntary Service. A doctor was moving from one to the next. How had a street shelter turned into a train? It was a nightmare and she wished she could wake up. She sat up and tried ineffectually to brush the black smuts off her unifor
m jacket. It was a uniform, there was no doubt of that. Something very strange had happened to her.

  The doctor reached her and squatted down beside her. ‘Are you hurt, Sergeant?’

  The title still sounded strange. ‘A few cuts and bruises, nothing more. Where are we?’

  ‘Not far from Gillingham.’

  ‘Gillingham? How did I get here?’

  ‘You were on the train.’

  ‘Yes, but why was I on the train? I don’t remember getting on it. I don’t know why I’m dressed like this? I’m not in the air force.’

  ‘Aren’t you? Look in your pockets, Sergeant.’

  Julie unbuttoned her breast pocket and extracted a pay book and travel warrant. ‘They belong to someone called Eve Seaton,’ she said. ‘I’ve never heard of her.’

  ‘I think we’d better get you to hospital,’ he said. ‘You’ve obviously suffered a blow to the head.’

  ‘No.’ She struggled to sit up. ‘I have to go home.’

  ‘Where’s home?’

  ‘Bermondsey. I left my baby with a friend.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Today.’

  ‘Do you know the date?’

  Julie racked her brains. ‘It’s the seventh of September.’

  ‘What year?’

  ‘Year?’ she queried, wondering why he needed to ask that. ‘It’s 1940.’

  Many of the passengers, like Julie, had been reading newspapers when the bomb struck and the pages were drifting about along with all the other debris. He reached out and grabbed one. ‘Look at the date.’

  ‘June nineteenth 1944,’ she read aloud.

  ‘That’s right. That’s today.’

  ‘But I don’t understand. How can it be?’

  ‘I think you must have lost your memory. Now, are you going to let us take you to hospital to try and sort this out?’

  ‘No, I have to go to George. He’s my baby. I left him—’

  ‘In 1940,’ he said firmly. ‘Nearly four years ago.’

  ‘Oh, my God.’ She couldn’t take it in, she really couldn’t. The world had gone mad. But more important than trying to make sense of it was the desperate need to get home to George.

  He beckoned to one of the Red Cross nurses and spoke to her in an undertone, obviously telling her this patient was as mad as a hatter and must be transported to Bedlam. She waited until the nurse and doctor had moved on to other casualties, then scrambled to her feet and searched among the wreckage until she found a rucksack with the name Sgt E Seaton stencilled inside the flap, which she assumed was hers. It was torn but the contents were intact. A further search brought to light an air force blue shoulder bag which contained a diary for 1944 and a temporary ration card in the name of Eve Seaton. None of that mattered in her anxiety to go home to Bermondsey. Still dazed, she set off up the track in what she believed was the direction of London.

  ‘I’m being posted back to Cosford.’

  Pam stared at her husband in dismay. They had just finished their evening meal and he was helping her wash up. He had been trying to find a way of breaking the news ever since he came home and in the end had just blurted it out.

  ‘Oh, Harry, you can’t be. You’re needed here.’

  ‘I’m needed there too. They want me to take on the training of new wireless operators.’

  ‘Other people can do that.’

  ‘So they can, but I’ve been grounded again because of the number of missions I’ve flown. According to the CO I need a rest from flying ops.’

  ‘I’ll certainly go along with that, but can’t they find you a job here?’

  ‘Apparently not.’

  ‘What am I to do?’

  ‘What you always do, sweetheart. Stay here and look after the house and the little ones. You’ve got plenty to keep you busy and I’ll come home as often as I can get leave. It’s not that far to travel.’

  She was standing with her hands in the washing-up water, but was making no attempt to continue with the task. ‘Didn’t you tell Group you couldn’t possibly leave me and the children?’

  He smiled. ‘Darling, you should know better than that. You don’t argue with the group captain. He says I’m going and I go, that’s it.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow! But that doesn’t give us any time at all.’

  ‘What time do you need to stuff a few things in a kitbag? This is wartime, Pam, and we’ve been extraordinarily lucky up to now. Let’s be thankful for that.’

  ‘I am. I’ve always known how lucky I am, I just didn’t think of it ending.’

  ‘The war can’t last for ever. When it’s over we’ll settle down and never be parted again.’

  She laughed suddenly. ‘I’ll hold you to that, Harry Walker.’

  She was remarkably resilient, he told himself. He didn’t know why he expected tantrums – it was not her way and she had been living close to the airfield for years and knew the rules as well as anyone.

  They finished the washing-up and he put away the crockery while she took the bowl of water out of the back door and threw it on the garden in a wide arc. He watched her come back and grabbed her to kiss her.

  ‘I’m going to miss you and the children like hell,’ he said. ‘But I’ll write often, I promise.’

  She put a soapy finger on the end of his nose. ‘I know you will.’

  He brushed the bubbles off and kissed her again. ‘I’m a lucky man,’ he said. ‘Let’s go and listen to the news.’

  The news, read by Alvar Lidell, was mostly about the situation in Normandy where Caen had still not been taken. The Germans were determined not to give an inch if they could help it and were resisting fiercely. There was also a report of more flying bombs getting through and the frightening casualties, including one that had landed on a crowded train. ‘The Government is considering a new evacuation of children and mothers with babies,’ the newsreader said.

  ‘I’m glad we don’t live in London,’ Pam said, snuggling up to him on the sofa. ‘It must be awful.’

  ‘Is Sergeant Seaton with you?’

  ‘No,’ Florrie said, puzzled that Section Officer Murray should telephone her while on leave. ‘Isn’t she on the station?’

  ‘She was given seventy-two-hours leave.’

  ‘Then she’ll be on her way.’

  ‘I hope so. She left here yesterday morning.’

  ‘Yesterday? She should have been here by now. Where can she have got to? She’s not in trouble, is she?’

  ‘I don’t know. She was involved in an incident when the train she was travelling in was hit by a flying bomb. She had a few cuts and bruises but was otherwise physically unhurt, but she was very confused and the doctor who treated her at the scene suspected a brain injury. He was making arrangements for her to go to hospital, but she disappeared before he could do so. He saw her pay book and guessed she might have come from here. He rang to see if she had returned, otherwise we would never have known she was missing. I thought she might be with you. She told me that was where she was going.’

  ‘No, ma’am, we haven’t seen her.’

  ‘She’s not absent without leave yet, but if she doesn’t report back by tomorrow midnight, she could be in trouble.’

  ‘I think I know where she’s gone,’ Florrie said. ‘I’ll find her.’

  ‘Good. Report back the minute you have news. She must be got to hospital.’

  Florrie rang off and turned to her mother. ‘Eve’s gone missing,’ she said and explained what had happened. ‘My guess is that her memory has come back and she’s gone back to where she lost it.’

  ‘Where’s that?’ her father asked. He had just come in from supervising the land girls turning the hay on the far meadow, and was sitting in his rocking chair by the empty hearth, pulling off his boots.

  ‘Southwark. At least, that’s where she told us she’d been pulled from the shelter way back in 1940. Mum, do you mind if I cut my leave short? I must find her.’

&n
bsp; ‘No, of course not. It’s all this worry about Alec at the bottom of it, I shouldn’t wonder.’

  Florrie did not comment, but she was concerned on Alec’s behalf. Just suppose Eve had forgotten him … he would be devastated. Not only that, but supposing her past turned up an encumbrance, like the child she was supposed to have had? A husband even? While these things were forgotten and Eve was the Eve they knew and loved, they could be ignored. But if she had remembered …

  Julie stood in the street where her home had been and stared at the empty space. There was nothing of it left. The shared wall which had attached it to the Goldings’ house had been shored up with huge buttresses of wood. The rest of the neighbouring house had been repaired. There were clean curtains at its windows. She was shaking, not only with delayed shock from the train derailment but the thought that four years had passed since she had last seen George. And what about Harry, the husband she had adored? Had he made no effort to find her? Had no one missed her?

  As she stood there, it began coming back to her: pawning her wedding ring, leaving George with Rosie while she went to see Miss Paterson, hurrying home when the air-raid siren went and being conducted to the shelter. It was all a bit hazy after that. She remembered being trapped in a tiny space surrounded by rubble and choking on dust, and a voice saying, ‘All right, miss, we can see you. Don’t move or you’ll have everything down on top of you. We’ll soon have you out of there.’ They were the exact words used by the man who spoke to her after the train crash. That’s what had triggered her returning memory, she decided: the words, combined with the situation in which she found herself. It was as if there had been no time in between the two events, as if they were one and the same. But there had been nearly four years! Four years! What had she been doing in all that time? And where were Harry and George? That small square of flattened earth and the shored-up house were frightening; it was as if all she had been and known had been swept off the face of the earth, been deliberately obliterated and forgotten.