“Eh, you shouldn’t have bothered, lass,” he said, forcing a smile. “You’ll catch your death out here in the cold. How’s your patient?”
“He’s fine, he wants to thank you.”
“No need for that, I would have done the same for anyone.”
“Nevertheless, you should practise what you preach. Now come in out of the cold,” she chided.
The injured man had fallen asleep and she tucked his collar round his ears and briefly stroked his forehead as a mother would a sick child. Sitting by his side she gently pushed his hair away from his eyes. He murmured softly without waking.
Her name was Catherine Banner, she told him, and she lived with her parents in Deal, on the Kent coast.
“Have you always been a nurse, miss?” Thomas asked shyly.
She smiled. “Catherine, call me Catherine. No, only for a few months. I watched the wounded being brought ashore at Dover during a visit to a friend, and the next day I joined the Voluntary Aid Detachment as part of Kent’s care for the wounded. Father wasn’t at all pleased. I used to listen to the sound of the guns from my bedroom and thought I might be of use. I’m not qualified, but I do my best.”
“I’m sure you do, miss,” he said sheepishly. “I reckon you do a grand job.”
“They said I lacked the stamina for nursing at the front,” she smiled. “I tried as hard as anyone to fulfil my duties, but I grew tired so quickly, so they transferred me to a hospital in Folkestone.”
Inseparable, they spent the journey to Dover talking and chatting about nothing in particular. At first Thomas felt uneasy that someone as beautiful as Catherine would choose to speak to him, a rough, poorly-educated farmer’s lad from Yorkshire with only an inkling of manners. Yet he felt a warm glow spread through his body and for the first time in months he felt relaxed and the rewarding feeling of confidence eased his mind. He wanted to tell her about Archie, tell her that it was an accident and he hadn’t meant for him to die. He wanted to bare his soul to her and scrape his conscience clean. She would understand, he could see it in her eyes. When he turned to look at her the gusting wind lifted her hair revealing her slender white neck, he felt an overriding desire to reach out and touch her, to hold her in his arms.
“There, there they are,” she cried, grabbing his arm and squeezing, “the white cliffs of Dover. We are nearly home!”
His thoughts crashed from his mind. He smiled at her excitement and glanced down at her hand clutching his arm. She caught his glance and blushed. Quickly removing her hand she grabbed the ship’s rail with both hands. Disappointment cut into his heart. He cursed the moment he had looked at her hand on his arm, he wanted to feel her touch once more, but the moment had passed.
“You should see the moors on a fine day, lass, there’s a sight to see,” he said, and cursed himself for his forwardness towards her.
He wondered if men were allowed to make love to nurses, do the things he and Marie had done in the small French village. Most likely not, he reckoned, they’re too good to do bad things to, and he felt shame at his carnal thoughts.
“Perhaps one day I will,” she said, watching him from the corner of her eye.
His heart leapt and he felt a great tenderness towards her. The boat ceased to dip and roll in the angry sea, and the waters calmed like the small pond behind the church of St Luke in his village on the edge of the moors. Cautiously, he slid his hand along the handrail and placed it gently over hers. For a long moment she remained motionless, making no attempt to move or discourage the bond. He wanted to speak, to tell her how he felt, to tell her he loved her, but his mind froze and the words refused to enter his mouth. He bit into the side of his cheek and tasted the salty blood as she slowly pulled her hand away.
All along the harbour rows of ambulances with red crosses painted on the sides waited bumper to bumper with engines running to take the wounded away for treatment. Some would recover from their wounds and eventually be returned to the slaughter at the front; others, perhaps, would spend the remainder of their lives staring into a grate of burning embers, trying to forget the past. Whether, like Buster Matthews, they would ever master the art of playing the piano was debatable.
“Will you write to me, Archie?” she said, gazing up at him. “Visit me one day; you are a good man and I have enjoyed your company, and thank you for helping me.”
Thomas’s heart soared so high he thought he might stop breathing.
He watched as she wrote her address on a slip of paper. He wanted to hold her and kiss her, protect her from her own frailness. Then he remembered his previous thoughts – perhaps you are not allowed to kiss nurses. She stood on her toes and kissed him lightly on the cheek. Before he could respond, she disappeared into the back of a crowded ambulance.
Chapter Twelve
London
The address on his leave pass read No. 2 Frith Road, Leytonstone, East London. The clerk at HQ in France told him it was clean and tidy, and Mrs Tuttle, the landlady, served a good meal. Outside Victoria Railway Station he stared as far as his eyes would allow at the mass of buildings protruding upwards into the skyline like a set of uneven teeth in a huge mouth. The rumble of heavy cannon replaced by the discordant sounds of a busy city hummed in his ears, and the hustle and bustle filled his mind. People laughed as though they did not have a care in the world. Men dressed in smart suits with bowler hats walked arm-in-arm with ladies who wore tight-fitting gowns and dresses displaying slim waists and firm, accentuated bosoms. The sight of so many khaki uniforms astounded him and he recalled the forlorn haggard faces cowering in the trenches. Why were these men laughing and making jolly while others disappeared from the face of the earth under an exploding shell? None of it made any sense, and he turned away feeling confused and sceptical.
“Hop on the first bus to stop over there,” an elderly lady selling purple heather on a street corner said, pointing to a bus stop. “Ask the driver for directions, dearie, he’ll tell you where to get off.”
In Trafalgar Square he stared up at Lord Nelson, thinking it was a statue of the king. Slowly, the city began to fascinate him, teeming with life, a multitude of babbling tongues from all corners of the Commonwealth laughing and shouting, and recruitment posters plastered over walls showing the grim face of Lord Kitchener with a pointing finger, reminding the fainthearted that their country needed them. The brittleness of war was evident everywhere. Soldiers from all parts of the British Empire paraded in an array of uniforms in the crowded streets. For the majority it was their first time in a large city and London, the capital of the Commonwealth, had everything: women, pubs, clubs, sex and alcohol were all the requirements necessary for a fighting soldier waiting to go to war.
“Leytonstone?” the policeman outside Downing Street exclaimed. “You’re heading in the wrong direction, son, head up that way,” he said, and sent him along the Strand.
Thomas set off, in no hurry, his eyes darting like a camera taking in and storing all that he saw. Occasionally he stopped to look through shop windows at the numerous goods and wares on offer, and remembered the raggedy children in Leeds for whom he’d bought broken biscuits. He saw no such thing here, maybe people were richer in London. Women dressed in stylish tailored costumes with perky hats sitting jauntily on their heads paraded down the streets. More than one woman smiled at him as he passed by, and he blushed scarlet when two teenage girls blew him a kiss and shouted, “Hello, soldier boy, show us your bayonet!”
Halfway along the Strand he stopped to admire two magnificent shire horses harnessed to a brewer’s dray. Flashing polished brasses jingled and glinted, the leather harness shone in the low afternoon sun and the horses pawed the air and snorted down their noses, eager to be on their way to a nosebag of oats and to slake their thirst from the cool water in a waiting trough.
“I’m looking for Frith Street,” he asked the driver.
“Gawd blimey, General, hop on, I’m going that way myself, so I am,” he said, shovelling a pile of horse droppings
into a bucket and wiping his hand down his green smock. “On leave are you, mate? Well, you enjoy yourself. Tried to get in myself, I did, lost two fingers off me right hand, I did, first day I started work. Dropped a barrel of brown ale on them, didn’t I? Blimey, it bloody hurt, did a right bloody dance-and-a-half I did, to bloody Covent Garden and back. Army wouldn’t have me, said I couldn’t fire a rifle properly with half me fingers missing. Cor blimey, happy as a pig on a bacon slicer I was.”
Mrs Tuttle was a large woman with a strident voice to match and a heart twice her size. She wore her hair pulled back straight and tied in a severe bun with a length of black lace looped in a bow and habitually wiped her hands on her white pinafore before inspecting her fingernails. Her toad in the hole was to be the best he’d ever tasted, although he would never admit that to his mother. She had lost her husband in 1914 at Mons. His name was Archie too, she told him, watching with a satisfied smile as he demolished a plate of stew and dumplings and wiped the plate clean with a hunk of bread.
“You’re a corporal, are you? Well, you don’t look bleeding old enough to be in the army. That piece of cloth on your chest, that’s a medal ribbon ain’t it?”
“Not just any medal, Maud,” an elderly gentleman said, sitting in the corner reading a newspaper through a pair of pince-nez spectacles perched on his nose. “That’s the Military Medal, awarded for outstanding bravery in the field. Spotted it soon as the lad walked in; we’ve got a hero with us today, Maud, better look after him.”
“I look after all my guests, you should know that, Mr Nutt. Treat them all the same I do, always have done. Won’t have no conchies though, not bloody likely. My Archie did his bit, so can every other bugger; conscientious objectors they call themselves, bloody cheek, cowards they are, all of them,” she said forcefully in her jerky cockney accent.
Thomas shifted his thoughts back to the trenches. “I don’t know who told you that, Mrs Tuttle. Conchies, as you call them, are some of the bravest men on the battlefield. Medics and stretcher-bearers they are. They go out under fire unarmed and bring in the wounded,” he said, staring into her face. “Aye, half the British Army owe their lives to them men.”
“Well, that just goes to show we learn something different every day, don’t we?” she said with a sullen face, wiping her hands on her apron and inspecting her fingernails.
Next to the window overlooking the street she heaved her heavy frame into a rickety wicker chair, which, under the weight of her over-ample body, creaked and groaned in ineffectual protestation. Tensing, he held his breath, expecting any minute to see her sprawled on the floor kicking and cursing, knowing he didn’t possess anything near the necessary strength to lift her. Miraculously, and by the grace of God, the chair held. From her apron pocket she pulled out a charred briar pipe and with a stained finger tamped down a bowlful of golden tobacco, struck a match and sucked on the flame until the contents glowed red.
“Going out later to see the sights are you, Archie? Don’t blame you after what you’ve been through. I’ll tell you what, my Dilly will be home from work soon, why don’t you step out with her? She knows all the places, she does. She’s a good girl mind you, no hanky panky, and you can keep your hands off her ammunition pouch or you’ll have me to deal with. I know what you bleeding randy soldiers are like. I ought to, I was married to a bugger, God rest his soul,” she said with a throaty laugh, and disappeared behind a cloud of grey-white smoke.
There was no doubting Dilly Tuttle was a pretty girl: nineteen years old with doll-like features, slim, with curves where they should be, and aware of her body and the effect it had on men. Whenever she moved she would glance over her shoulder and catch Thomas watching her. It was a teasing game she played with him, and each time she caught him he turned red like a strangled beetroot and she giggled. She worked in Covent Garden as an accounts clerk in the offices of a local fruitier. With an engaging smile, she always blew her nose on a large buff-coloured handkerchief whenever someone made her laugh. Whichever way he looked at her, Catherine always remained uppermost in his mind and he kept his secret from everyone in the boarding house.
“I wouldn’t be seen dead with a man out of uniform, people will think you are a coward,” Dilly snapped at him when he suggested getting out of uniform and into civvies for once. “Look at you, Archie Elkin, a great strapping corporal with a medal. Half the girls in London will be after you when we step out together, you big handsome sod, you.”
At Piccadilly Circus he stared in wonderment at the Bovril and Schweppes advertisements lit up with electric lights, and when he told her he thought Eros was Robin Hood, she fell into an uncontrollable fit of laughter and pulled out the handkerchief to cover her face.
“You’re a case, you are, you’ve made my mascara run now, you have,” she giggled. “Come on, let’s have a drink, I need the toilet.”
She knew most of the pubs and small inns around Covent Garden. Smiling and laughing, she joked with everyone they encountered and happily introduced him as her soldier boy, with her arm linked tightly around his. Although a blackout was officially in place as a precaution against Zeppelin attacks, lights and oil lanterns illuminated the workmen unloading vehicles and carts laden with fruit and vegetables from the countryside.
“Look at it,” she said in a serious voice. “It’s not nearly enough to feed us in London, never mind the rest of the country. When I first started working here, Archie, they brought in ten times as much, in a good season, more. There are only the women left to do the work now, young middle-class women with nothing better to do all day than talk about themselves. They volunteer their services to work in the countryside assisting the farmers. They try their best I suppose, but most of them only want to work in the munitions factory – they get more money than you soldiers when they work a twelve-hour shift. Dangerous work, though, especially if there’s an explosion.”
When she finished talking, she smiled and watched him slowly sip his beer. “You don’t like drinking much, do you, Archie?”
“No, not much, it doesn’t agree with me.”
“Does it make you ill, then?”
“No, it makes me shrink until I’m only nine inches tall and my boots fall off,” he said with a grin.
“You silly sod, you’re making me wet myself,” she shrieked, stumbling towards the ladies’ toilets.
She warmed to him more by the minute, smiling at his shyness and continual blushing whenever he looked at her. In the short time she had known him a natural tenderness began to nurture inside her for him, and for a split second she hoped it might grow into something wonderful.
“What did you do to win your medal, Archie? Was it dangerous? You didn’t kill anyone, did you?” she said eagerly, leaning forward and clutching at his arm with both hands.
“Couple of thousand before breakfast, sometimes a few more – depended how hungry I was.”
“You’re a lying bugger, you are,” she shrieked, pulling out her handkerchief. “You’ve got a way about you, you have.”
***
On the fourth night of his leave he decided to spend some time alone. He found himself growing fond of Dilly, yet Catherine remained closest to his heart and he wondered if a man could love two women at the same time. When Dilly had pouted at being left behind, Mrs Tuttle said all men should spend some time alone. It helped clear their minds, seeing as a man’s brain didn’t have the capacity of a woman’s.
In a crowded bar opposite St Patrick’s Cemetery on Claremont Street he watched five young men wearing the uniforms of newly-appointed officers. Showing off and singing, they frequently gave way to raucous bouts of giggling laughter and sent the contents of their beer glasses slopping over anyone close enough to be a victim. He felt his temper rise. Why would they be drinking in a bar in the East End of London when men were dying in filthy trenches less than fifty miles away?
“Take no notice of them, son, they’re a bunch of actors doing a show over the road, they are,” the barman said, watching Th
omas fidget.
“Think the war’s a bloody show, do they, the stupid bastards?” Thomas said hotly.
“Settle down, mate, bit of humour never did any harm. Any one of them lads over there would be happy to buy you a beer every night of the week if you asked him. Most of them tried to enlist but got turned down on account of them being poofs.”
“Poofs?” Thomas said, creasing his forehead.
“Yeh, you know, iron hoofs, poofs.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“For Chrisssake, lad, they’re homosexuals, shirt lifters.”
“Shirt lifters? I still don’t know what you mean.”
“Whose bloody army are you in, lad? Whereabouts are you from anyway?”
Thomas frowned. “I’m from a small village in Yorkshire.”
“Yeah, and I suppose they’re short of an idiot at the moment, are they?”
“What do you mean, you silly bugger? You need to get your bloody head sorted you do,” Thomas said, feeling his temper beginning to get the better of him.
He pushed his way outside accompanied by a drunken rendering of Pack up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag. He’d never heard of poofs and shirt lifters before, and for a moment he felt sure they might be the nicknames of two British regiments he’d never heard of.
Outside, he hesitated and glanced up at the half moon drifting in and out of black wispy clouds and reflecting in the still puddles of rainwater scattered on the cobbled road. An old brown-and-white carthorse, with his head high and ears pricked, pulled an empty cart, the clip of its hooves echoing through the streets. The driver looked up and touched his forehead in a salute.
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