We'll Meet Again

by Lily Baxter

  Pearl clutched her dressing gown to her throat, taking a step backwards. ‘I’ll get Hannah; she deals with that sort of thing. Better take him through to the kitchen and give him something to eat and drink.’

  ‘There’s no need to talk about me as if I wasn’t here,’ Gerald said, with a hint of his old humour. ‘And I don’t need you girls to bath me, thanks very much.’

  Before Meg had a chance to reply, the kitchen door opened and a black shape hurled itself along the passage and skidded across the marble-tiled floor. Buster flung himself at her, jumping up and attempting to lick her face. It was impossible to remain serious with several stone of enthusiastic Labrador greeting her ecstatically and Meg laughed delightedly as she attempted to calm his exuberance. ‘Good boy, good dog.’

  Hannah appeared at the top of the stairs, her long grey hair hanging in a plait and her spectacles balancing precariously on the tip of her nose. ‘What’s all this commotion?’

  ‘Hannah, dear,’ Pearl said, clasping her hands as if in prayer. ‘We need your help.’

  ‘I can see that.’ Hannah came slowly down the stairs. She stopped in front of Gerald, looking him up and down. ‘Yes, well I can see you’re in a bit of a mess. Come with me, young man. You need a bath. Buster, you dratted dog – kitchen.’

  Eyeing her warily, Buster turned and fled.

  ‘He won’t do that for me,’ Pearl said, following him towards the kitchen. ‘Come on, Meg. We’ll have a cup of mint tea and you can tell me what’s been going on.’

  *

  Leaving Gerald being ruthlessly ministered to by Hannah and Pearl, with Buster adding sympathetic licks and much tail wagging, Meg walked briskly home. She was too elated to feel tired but she was worried that Nordhausen might have noticed her absence. No doubt he would delight in bringing her before Dressler for ignoring the curfew. But as she approached the main gates of Colivet Manor she was surprised to see that there was no sentry. As she walked up the sweep of gravel drive the unusual silence was a sign that the soldiers were out on duty to a man. Even more surprising, she could see Pa, Uncle Bertie and Aunt Maud sitting in deck chairs on the terrace like holidaymakers on the beach. As she drew nearer she realised that they were watching the planes that continued to fly towards France.

  Charles saw her first and waved. ‘Isn’t it a bit early for a walk, Meg?’

  She felt a hysterical laugh bubbling up inside her. She quelled it with a long draught of water from the carafe placed on a small camp table.

  ‘You should have worn a sunhat, Meg,’ Maud said, squinting at her. ‘Your hair looks like straw. What would Muriel say if she could see you now?’

  This time Meg did laugh, and seeing their astonished faces made it even harder to stop. She sank down on the warm stone step to sit beside her father.

  ‘Are you all right, Meg?’

  ‘Yes, Pa. I’m fine.’

  ‘You were out before curfew. Marie told me so.’

  ‘I know but it was worth it.’ Meg clasped his hand in hers. ‘Pa, I’ve got some good news for you.’

  Even though the Germans had thrown the prisoners out on the streets, Charles thought that it would be too dangerous for Gerald to return to Colivet Manor just yet, and Meg had to agree. She had gradually come to terms with her father’s youthful indiscretion. When he had tried to explain that his feelings for Marie had changed and matured over the years and that they in no way diminished his love for his wife, Meg was able to listen with a degree of empathy. Her complicated relationship with Gerald and her abiding love for Rayner made it easier for her to understand her father’s predicament. It was possible to love two people equally, but differently. She felt pity for all three persons involved in the emotional triangle. In some ways she thought that the bonds between her father and Marie should have been severed years ago, but they had their son to consider and for good or ill Marie had taken the decision to stay on and work for the Colivets. Meg could only imagine how difficult this must have been for her, and she was filled with admiration for Eric, whose patience and devotion to his wife had enabled him to live with a situation that might have driven lesser men to madness. With all this knowledge came understanding and respect for her mother, whose undoubted strength of character had kept her family together.

  The events of the past few years had changed them all, and Meg knew she had grown up. She was no longer a carefree girl. She was a young woman who had known hardship, loss and sorrow. She might never see Rayner again, but she knew in her heart that she would never love anyone else. The future stretched ahead of her, lonely and childless. She would face it somehow and she must get on with life as best she could. Her first task would be to pay another visit to Simone at the hospital and pass on the good news about Gerald.

  ‘I’m glad,’ Simone said, when Meg told her that Gerald was safe and well.

  Meg had not expected Simone to leap about with joy but she might have tried to look happy. As it was she was frowning and kept glancing at the nurse’s watch pinned to her breast pocket. ‘Yes, well, I thought you’d want to know.’ She was about to walk away when Simone caught hold of her sleeve. ‘What is it, Simone?’

  ‘I wasn’t going to tell you, because I wanted you to suffer as I did when Dieter finished with me.’

  ‘Tell me what?’

  ‘You thought I was a cold, unfeeling cow, I know you did, but I wasn’t. I loved Dieter even though I knew all along that he was simply out for a good time. Pathetic, isn’t it?’

  ‘No,’ Meg said, slowly. ‘Not at all. Love is like that sometimes.’

  ‘It was for me anyway. The bastard couldn’t get away fast enough when he knew I was pregnant. If you hadn’t taken me in I doubt if I’d be here today. I hate to think what might have happened to me because I simply didn’t care, but your kindness made me even more resentful of the Colivets.’

  Meg laid a hand on her shoulder. ‘You don’t have to say all this. It doesn’t matter now.’

  ‘It matters to me and that’s why I’ve got to tell you something because I know you love him.’

  Meg’s heart missed a beat. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘Your German. He’s here in the hospital.’

  ‘No. That’s impossible. You must be mistaken. He was sent away from the island. Pearl saw him board the troop ship.’

  ‘It was sunk by the RAF. The survivors were picked up by a German warship and brought back here. He was badly hurt and they didn’t think he would live.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ Meg hardly dare frame the question. ‘But he’s all right now? He is, isn’t he? Don’t look at me like that, Simone. Tell me the truth.’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  He was asleep. Meg stood looking down at his pale face, the skin drawn taut across his high cheekbones and thick crescents of corn gold eyelashes resting on bruised shadows beneath his closed eyes. The painful intensity of her relief almost suffocated her; she wanted to laugh and shout for joy, but at the same moment the urge to cry was almost overpowering. As if he sensed her presence Rayner’s eyelids fluttered and opened. ‘I knew you’d come.’

  She held his hand. ‘I didn’t know you were here or I would have come sooner.’

  ‘You’re here now. I’ve dreamt of this moment.’

  ‘You must go,’ Simone said in a low voice, glancing nervously over her shoulder. ‘If Matron catches you here there will be trouble.’

  ‘Just a few moments longer.’

  Simone shook her head emphatically. ‘No. I’ve done my bit and now you must leave.’

  ‘I’ll be back soon,’ Meg promised, bending down to kiss Rayner lightly on the lips. ‘Very soon, my darling.’ Outside the ward, she turned on Simone. ‘Why couldn’t you have let me stay just a bit longer?’

  Simone jerked her head in the direction of the matron steaming down the corridor at the head of a ward round. ‘Keep walking and don’t say anything.’

  When they were out of earshot, Meg caught Simone by the arm. ‘Now then, tell me everything. Why is he
here instead of the military hospital and what exactly is wrong with him?’

  ‘There were so many casualties, the underground hospital was full and in the beginning the doctors didn’t think he would survive his injuries.’

  ‘You could have let me know that he was alive.’

  ‘I’ve got to get back to the ward.’ Simone quickened her pace.

  Meg matched her step for step. ‘What exactly were his injuries?’

  ‘He had a broken leg and ribs, a punctured lung and pneumonia. He was in the water for hours before they picked up the survivors. Your German was lucky.’ Simone came to a sudden halt outside the women’s surgical ward. ‘I’ll be in trouble if I stay a minute longer.’

  ‘Is he allowed visitors? I must see him again.’

  ‘It’s a closed ward. No visitors for the Germans, and I can’t smuggle you in again.’

  Simone slipped noiselessly into the ward, closing the door behind her.

  That night, the sixth of June, they listened to the BBC newscaster informing them that the Allies had landed in France. Pip let out a whoop of joy that made everyone round on him angrily for fear that Nordhausen might be snooping about outside the morning parlour, but to their surprise and relief nothing happened.

  ‘At last,’ Charles said with a break in his voice. ‘The war must be coming to an end soon.’

  But as the days went by their optimism began to waver. The fighting, which had always seemed so very far away, suddenly came frighteningly close. The once quiet skies screamed with the engines of RAF bombers flying mission after mission to target St Malo. From the vantage point of her bedroom window Meg could see distant plumes of smoke. She could hear the muffled sounds of gunfire and feel the vibrations of the bombs falling. It was a tense time and the Germans appeared to be ill at ease.

  Meg said nothing at home but secretly planned her next visit to town when she intended to do whatever it took in order to see Rayner again. As soon as the opportunity arose, she set off early and, having reached the hospital, she walked purposefully through the corridors as if she had every right to be there. She followed a ward maid carrying a mop and bucket and waited and watched as the woman deposited her cleaning tools and her overalls in a room little bigger than a cupboard. When she left, dressed in her faded cotton blouse and patched skirt, Meg slipped inside and put on the discarded cap and apron, tucking her long hair out of sight. She picked up a basket of dusters and cleaning cloths and marched boldly to the ward where she had last seen Rayner.

  She could have cried with relief when she saw him. Her fears that he might have been moved were proved groundless. He turned his head as she entered the ward and she knew that he had recognised her, but she bowed her head and made a pretence of dusting the bedside locker of the patient nearest the door. Thankfully he lay sleeping, looking more like a schoolboy than an enemy soldier, and Meg flashed her duster around praying that he would not wake up. She moved on swiftly. There were just two beds separating them now. The soldier in the first bed grumbled at her for disturbing him, and the man in the next bed looked too ill to care what was going on around him. She moved casually to Rayner’s bedside, flapping the piece of cloth ineffectively over the locker.

  ‘You crazy girl,’ Rayner whispered. ‘You shouldn’t be here.’

  ‘I had to see you again.’ Meg abandoned the duster and pretended to fuss with the sheets so that she could move closer. She closed her eyes and breathed in the achingly familiar scent of him. ‘You’re looking better.’

  ‘Seeing you is the best medicine. But you must not come again, sweetheart. It’s too dangerous.’

  She brushed his hair back from his forehead. It had grown during his illness and the natural wave softened the chiselled outline of his face, giving him the look of a poet rather than a soldier. She smiled. ‘You can’t get rid of me that easily.’

  At that moment the ward door opened and a staff nurse bustled into the room. She stopped at the first bed to examine the patient’s temperature chart.

  ‘Go,’ Rayner said, squeezing Meg’s hand. ‘Go now.’

  Picking up the basket of cleaning materials, she glanced over her shoulder to make certain that the nurse was still occupied with her patients, and blowing a kiss to Rayner she hurried from the ward. It was surprisingly easy to replace the overall, cap and basket in the maids’ room and to stroll casually out of the hospital. Once outside she found that she was trembling from head to foot, but she had done it; she had seen him and she would do it again. She had to force her legs to move, one step at a time until she was walking briskly, heading homeward.

  After that day, Meg went to the hospital at least twice a week. She had only a matter of minutes with Rayner on each hazardous visit, but it was worth the risk just to see him, to speak to him and occasionally to touch his hand or on one occasion, when the nurse had left the curtains drawn around the bed, to snatch a kiss that was so full of longing that it physically hurt. She had the satisfaction of seeing his condition improve almost miraculously, so that after a few weeks he looked very much like his old self. She was almost caught out on several occasions when surprised by an early ward round or given a direct order by one of the nurses who took her for a genuine ward maid, but luck seemed to be always on her side. She existed only for her visits to the hospital. Afterwards, if there was time, she called in at the house on the Grange to see Pearl and Gerald, who had now recovered completely and was becoming bored, restless and grumpy.

  ‘You’ll have to speak to him, darling,’ Pearl said, taking Meg aside. ‘He’s talking about coming back to the manor or trying to get to France so that he can join the British Army. I can’t reason with him.’

  ‘I don’t suppose he’ll listen to me,’ Meg said, fondling Buster’s silky ears.

  ‘I’m afraid he’ll do something rash. You must try.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘In the garden. He works out there all the daylight hours. He says it gives him something to do.’

  ‘I’ll try,’ Meg said doubtfully. ‘Come on, Buster, let’s go and find him.’

  Gerald was at the bottom of the Tostevins’ large garden, hoeing weeds in between rows of straggly-looking cabbages and yellowing turnip tops. He looked up as Meg approached and grinned. ‘Meg, it’s good to see you.’

  She eyed him speculatively. ‘You look well, Gerald.’

  ‘I am, but I’m dying from boredom stuck here in town. I wanted to come back home but Mr Tostevin thinks that Dressler would have me locked up again.’

  Meg plucked a stray dandelion clock and twirled it between her fingers, watching the downy seeds float up into the still summer air. ‘He’s right. And Nordhausen is still around. He doesn’t bother me too much but I hate to think how he would be if you turned up again.’

  Gerald threw the hoe down onto the sun-baked soil, wiping his hands on the seat of his trousers. ‘Then I’ll have to think of something else.’

  ‘You won’t do anything silly?’

  ‘Pearl told you?’

  ‘Yes, and you mustn’t even think of it. If the Germans don’t get you the sea almost certainly will.’

  ‘I can’t stay on the island any longer. You know perfectly well why.’

  ‘You didn’t know we were brother and sister.’

  ‘Feelings don’t change overnight, Meg. At least when I was helping the saboteurs I was doing my bit to fight the enemy. I must try to get back to my regiment if I can.’

  ‘Is there nothing I can say that will stop you?’

  ‘I know you’ve been seeing him again. Pearl told me.’

  ‘I love him and I always have. But I love you too, just as I love David.’

  ‘I don’t want you to love me like a brother,’ Gerald said, bitterly, shoving his hands deep into his pockets. ‘That’s why I must leave the island, whatever the risk.’

  ‘How will you go?’

  ‘Simone has arranged a meeting with Hugh and Tom. I’ll know then.’

  Meg bit her lip; she knew t
here was no dissuading Gerald. He had the mutinous, stubborn look in his eyes that she had seen so often in Simone’s expression. ‘I still think you’re mad, but good luck anyway.’ She held out her hand but he turned away.

  ‘Goodbye, Meg.’

  ‘Don’t leave like this. Can’t we at least be friends?’

  ‘Not while you’re with him.’ Gerald hunched his shoulders and kicked a clod of earth so that it burst into a cloud of dust. He walked off in the direction of the house.

  Summer storms prevented Meg from going to the hospital for a few days and she worked in the greenhouses picking and packing tomatoes, none of which would get to market but would all go to feed the desperately hungry German Army. When she was certain she was not being observed, she hid a few of the smaller or misshapen tomatoes in a hole dug just outside the greenhouse; later she would smuggle them into the house. Food was even scarcer now that the sea links with France had been cut and the whole island, including the Germans, was on the brink of starvation. Meg had heard horrific stories about pets being stolen and killed for food and she was glad that Buster was safe in the town house, never allowed out except in the garden and then only when Pearl or Gerald was there to watch him. Being separated from Rayner, even for a few days, left a gaping hole in her heart, but she comforted herself with the fact that he was safe in his hospital bed. She would go and see him as soon as the last tomato was picked, regardless of the weather.

  News filtered through that the German garrison at St Malo had been captured by the Allied troops and the family celebrated quietly. The German officers were even more edgy these days and easily irritated. No one wanted to get on the wrong side of Nordhausen or von Eschenberg.

  Meg set off for the hospital unchallenged. There were no sentries on the gate and no need for a permit to leave the grounds, but the starvation diet had sapped her energy and walking any distance took a great deal of effort. She found she tired easily, having to stop every so often and sit down to rest. She was late arriving, and having changed into the maid’s uniform, she hurried to the ward but to her horror she found it empty and the beds stripped down to bare mattresses. For a moment, she stood dazed and uncomprehending. Only a few days ago this place had been a hive of activity with nurses attending the sick and injured.