Miss Hollington pulled out what looked like a form and handed it across the desk.
‘B104-83,’ read Midge. ‘It is my painful duty to inform you that a report has been received from the War Office to the effect that Private Timothy Smith was posted missing on 22 May…’
It was like the breath had been sucked out of her body. Tim dead? No! The words wriggled like worms in the sand. Missing. Missing, not dead. Of course he wasn’t dead. Tim couldn’t be dead. Death had taken Mum and Dad. It was impossible that Tim could go as well. She’d know if Tim was dead! Twins…felt things, didn’t they? Not that she ever had before, but surely if Tim were…hurt…she’d know…
Dimly, Midge was aware that Miss Hollington was still talking.
‘These letters are sent to the man’s next of kin. But when your uncle enrolled you he did not mention any relative called Smith.’
‘Timothy Smith is my brother.’ Was that her voice? It sounded small and far away.
‘Your brother?’ Miss Hollington cleared her throat.
‘According to your enrolment form, your brother’s name is Douglas Macpherson.’
Midge shook her head to clear it. ‘Tim’s my twin brother. He was too young to enlist. So he enlisted as a private under another name.’
‘Ah.’ The suspicion melted into sympathy. ‘My dear Margery, I am so dreadfully sorry. How wonderfully brave of him. You must be so proud…’ She broke off. ‘Of course that explains it. I assumed your brother would have to be an officer, and officers’ next of kin receive telegrams, not letters…’ She seemed to realise Midge wasn’t listening. ‘Margery? You will have to tell your aunt and uncle of course.’
‘Yes…’
Miss Hollington patted her hand. ‘Would you like me to inform them for you, my dear?’
‘What? Yes. Oh…yes.’
There was something wrong. Tim couldn’t be dead. She’d know if he were dead. There’d be an ache…an absence…
Something was wrong! Midge looked at the date on the form again: 22 May. She grabbed the letter from her pocket and scanned the date: 24 May.
‘Miss Hollington! That letter’s wrong!’
Miss Hollington stared. ‘My dear girl, what do you mean?’
‘Tim wrote me a letter two days after it says he went missing! It’s all a mistake. There have to be lots of soldiers called Smith,’ she added eagerly. ‘Someone else has died—’
‘My dear,’ said Miss Hollington gently, ‘I think it is more likely that your poor brother got the date wrong.’
‘But he can’t have! It was just after the truce! Tim was there! I read about the truce in the paper. It has to be a mistake.’
Miss Hollington looked troubled. ‘My dear, I would hate for you to keep hoping. I am very much afraid your brother is dead.’
‘He’s not dead!’
‘Of course he isn’t,’ declared Anne.
Ethel looked uncertain. ‘No, but what if it’s this officer who’s made a mistake with the date? What if he meant to write the 26th?’
They were in Miss Hollington’s private parlour, with its stuffed owl and tasselled curtains. A gesture, Midge thought, to the grief she refused to feel. Miss Hollington had even called Anne and Ethel from prep to be with her; had told the maid to bring them cups of tea and seed cake. Ethel had eaten the cake, while Anne made Midge sip the tea. But Midge couldn’t cry. She couldn’t mourn. Tim wasn’t dead!
‘If he’s alive he’ll write to you,’ said Ethel practically.
‘But what if he’s been taken prisoner or injured? That would be why they think he’s dead, because he’s not there! There’s lots of reasons why men go missing.’ Midge put down her teacup and began to pace around the Turkish carpet. ‘I need to talk to the men who were with him.’
‘Well, you can’t,’ said Ethel, picking up the last of the cake crumbs with her finger.
‘I hate being young!’ Midge cried passionately. ‘And I hate being a girl too!’
Anne and Ethel exchanged glances.
‘Darling, I wish we could help,’ Anne said.
Ethel hugged her, which was a bit like being hugged by a friendly gorilla but comforting. ‘We’ll keep hoping for you, lass. Keep hoping the poor lad is safe in some nice Turkish prison with his own harem.’
‘I don’t think Turkish prisoners get harems.’
‘Then we’ll have to send him one in a food parcel. There, now you’re smiling.’
‘Of course I’m smiling, it’s all a mistake!’ But inside Midge felt cold, as though the snows on Big Jim mountain had seeped into her heart.
She smiled through dinner too: Irish stew and spotted dick, with the lumpy custard the girls called ‘mouldy blanket’. Her smile had worn out, though, by the time they were sent up to bed. But she still refused to feel sorrow. She just felt empty, as though not feeling sad had used up all of her emotion.
Midge had thought that the pupils at an exclusive English girls school would be pampered, with rooms of their own, a maid to help them dress perhaps. She had discovered that the more exclusive the school, it seemed, the hardier they tried to force their girls to be. The fifth formers at Miss Hollington’s slept on the verandah, with just a thin wall and an open window between them and the English damp. At least, thanks to Miss Hollington’s respect for Anne—or for her title—the three had beds together.
Midge sat on her narrow bed to pull off her stockings. Bother, a ladder. She must have got it under the willow tree. Was it only this afternoon that she’d read Tim’s letter? But she couldn’t, wouldn’t, think of Tim. She had to think of ordinary things. The stain on the ceiling shaped like a sheep. The French exam tomorrow…
Anne lifted her candle and peered into the tiny mirror that was all Miss Hollington allowed her boarders. ‘Fourteen spots,’ she said gloomily. ‘Yes, that’s a new one by my nose. And that one on my chin—it’s not a spot, it’s a volcano.’
Midge shoved her stockings into the darning bag. She’d have to mend the ladder before she put them into the wash or it’d run even further. (Tim, she thought. Tim. And shoved the thought away.)
‘How many were there this morning?’ asked Ethel.
‘Twelve and a half.’
‘You can’t have half a spot!’
‘It was only a red blotch this morning. Now it looks like Mount Vesuvius.’
‘I think they’d go away if you stopped worrying about them,’ said Midge wearily, pulling her nightdress over her head.
‘Easy for you to say. You’ve only had four spots since the beginning of term. And Ethel’s only had one. A teeny one too. Which is simply not fair. She’s been raised on cocoa.’
‘You counted my spots?’
‘My life is ruled by spots,’ said Anne, pulling back the bedclothes and getting into bed. ‘You just don’t understand! They’re the first thing Mummy looks at when I come home each term. How can she present a daughter with spots? Four daughters successfully married off and now the last one has to get spots. I think she’d rather I ran off with a footman.’
The springs creaked as Ethel plonked herself down on her own bed. ‘But you don’t want to be presented.’
‘My dear, what else can one do?’ Anne tried to fluff a little life into the hard flat pillow. ‘One’s job is to look so totally ravishing that the marriage settlements are signed and sealed by the end of one’s first season so Mummy doesn’t have the expense of a second. Which means no spots.’ She glanced at Midge’s face. ‘Darling, forgive me. Here I am blithering on about my spots when you’re torn up about your brother.’
‘It’s all right,’ said Midge. She tried to smile. ‘I like the blithering. It takes my mind off Tim.’
Tim laughing that year he brought a jack-in-the-box back from school and she screamed when it leapt out at her. Tim’s face as he waved goodbye as the train carried her away on the first leg of her journey to England…
‘Lights out, girls.’ Miss Jenkins’ shoes clattered over the wooden floor. The shadows from her lante
rn swung back and forth across the walls.
Midge blew out her candle; listened to the puffs as the others blew out theirs too. Darkness descended as Miss Jenkins and her lamplight retreated down the corridor.
Night was the hardest time. Impossible not to think of home. Impossible not to think of Tim. Was he really in a shallow grave in that strangely named place, Gallipoli? No. Impossible. But impossible to lie here doing nothing too, when Tim…
‘Are you all right, darling?’ It was Anne’s whisper.
‘Yes.’
Tim had to be alive! What would she do without him? All their plans…Glen Donal was her world! Other girls dreamed of marriage and children, or even of going up to Oxford when they left school, even if girls couldn’t be awarded a degree. But all she wanted was Glen Donal. The mountains with their caps of snow, the air so sharp you could brush your teeth with it, the lambs’ tails dancing…
Even Anne and Ethel couldn’t understand.
She turned her face into her pillow to muffle her tears. It wasn’t fair! She was locked up here, knitting socks and studying verbs.
‘Midge?’ It was Ethel’s voice, a whisper in the chilly darkness.
‘What’s up?’ Anne sounded half asleep.
‘I just got an idea.’ Ethel was a grey bulk now, sitting up in bed.
‘Can’t it wait till morning?’ Anne said.
‘Maybe I’ll have forgotten it by morning.’
Anne rolled over and pulled her pillow over her ears. ‘Unless it’s a way to get rid of spots I’m not interested. Not till after breakfast anyway.’
‘Listen, clever clogs, I’m serious. It’s about the war. About us doing something. Something real.’
‘What?’ Midge wiped her eyes and peered across at Ethel in the dimness.
‘Just an idea, mind, so don’t go jumping at me like fleas on a blanket. But I wondered…’
‘Come on!’ urged Midge. Ethel had never had an idea in all the time she’d known her.
‘Well, I know you were joking about Carryman’s Cocoa, but I was just lying here and suddenly I thought, maybe that’s it. We take them cocoa.’
‘That’s your idea?’ said Midge blankly. ‘Cocoa?’
‘Listen up, will you? There are thousands of soldiers going through the railway stations over in France every day, and wounded coming back. And what is there for them to eat or drink? Nowt.’
‘She’s right,’ said Anne. She sat up and pulled her pillow onto her lap. ‘Those little stations only have a tiny café, if that. Nothing that can cope with thousands of soldiers.’
‘And if the trains are like the ones here, they’ll be waiting a precious long time for them. So this is the plan. We organise a—what’s it called? A buffet.’
‘Bu-ffay,’ said Anne.
‘Buffay then. A canteen. Over in France. Calais, maybe. And we give them a good thick buttie each—’
‘A sandwich,’ Anne translated for Midge. ‘Ethel, do try to speak the King’s English.’
‘And cocoa—something good and hot to line their stomachs. My da will pay for the lot of it and make sure we get supplies as well.’
For the first time since Midge had known her, Ethel’s voice had a note of eagerness and passion.
‘But why should he? Surely he’d never let you—’ began Midge.
Ethel snorted. ‘I could go sail one of those submarines for all my da cares. It’s our George he cares about, keeping him safe to run Carryman’s Cocoa in the future. And this’ll keep the newspapers off George’s back, and Da’s too. If anyone starts muttering, they can point to me over in France and the grand job Carryman’s Cocoa is doing for “our boys”.’
Midge was silent. Serving cocoa—it was a long way from nursing, like Aunt Lallie. No romantically holding a mug of water to a dying soldier’s lips, or striding onto the battlefield to bring back the wounded, or driving an ambulance through a hail of bullets. But Ethel was right. No one would let them go and nurse in France, not for years and years. But they might just let them do this. And maybe she’d meet soldiers over there who’d fought with Tim, or who knew someone who had. And even if no one knew anything about Tim at all—well, she’d be fighting in the same war as him and Doug. She’d be doing something. Something grander and braver than studying irregular verbs. Something for King and country!
‘Well?’
Midge lifted her chin. ‘You’re on.’
‘Anne?’
Anne hesitated, her pillow in her arms.
‘Come on, lass!’ Ethel said. ‘I’m offering thee a chance to get free of this place forever! Do you want to come or not?’
‘Of course one would like to. In another year, perhaps, when we leave school…’
‘Garn,’ said Ethel rudely.
‘The war will be over in another year,’ urged Midge.
‘And we’ll just have been stuck here learning how to walk with books on our head.’
‘They’ll never let us! It will never work,’ said Anne.
‘Then we’ll have to make it work.’ Ethel’s eyes glinted in the darkness, as though she could see it all.
Chapter 3
The Firs
Sussex
6 August
Dear Aunt Lallie,
Thank you for your letter about Tim. But I am sure that he is all right, that he has just been taken prisoner. It’s all a mistake! He sent me a letter dated AFTER he was supposed to be ‘missing’, you see. So I am sure we will hear from him soon. Uncle Thomas has also put an advertisement in The Times and The Guardian asking for anyone who may know anything to write to us.
I hope things are better at the hospital now. I wish I could help. In fact, I hope I will be helping the troops soon, just a little bit. My friends, Anne and Ethel, and I want to open a canteen for soldiers in France—NOT near the battle lines, just where we can give them a hot drink and something to eat at the railway station.
I know Uncle Thomas is my guardian now Doug is away, not you. But if he asks you, PLEASE will you tell him it’s a good idea? I am sure we can make it work—especially Ethel. It’s funny, Ethel never did anything much at school—everything bored her, even games. But she has been dashing all over the country with her father’s car and chauffeur these holidays, seeing how people run their canteens.
We really, really want to do our bit and make this work.
Your loving niece,
Margery
‘It will never work!’ said Uncle Thomas.
He was sitting at his desk in what was supposed to be his study. But because it got the best morning light of any room in the house, his wife used it as well. A silken knitting bag sat on one end of the sofa and a bag of dog hair at the other. The dog hair was one of Aunt Harriet’s projects. All over the country, women were combing reluctant dogs for their hair so it could be woven into light pyjamas for wounded soldiers who could bear no other weight on their shattered limbs.
Midge faced her uncle with determination. ‘But it will work! Mr Carryman—Ethel’s father—says he’ll arrange all the supplies we need. Please, Uncle. Anne is allowed to go.’
Privately Midge wondered if Lady George saw the canteen as a way of keeping her youngest daughter out of society till she was spot free. But she wasn’t going to mention that to Uncle Thomas. And perhaps, she thought, she was doing Lady George an injustice. Two wings of Anne’s home were being turned into a convalescent hospital and two of her daughters had brought their families home so that they could help run it. And Lady George had set up a committee to scrape linen for bandages and another to collect peach seeds for gas masks.
‘Anne’s parents say if she feels it’s her duty then of course she must go,’ Midge added.
‘That’s all very well…’ Uncle Thomas clearly felt that the world would be far more protective of an Honourable Anne than an unknown Midge Macpherson. He hesitated. ‘My dear, I know Tim’s death has been a terrible blow.’
‘He’s not dead! Just missing in action.’
‘Well
, yes.’ He bit his lip. ‘Margery, my dear, you just have to accept—’
‘Missing just means…well, missing! There was even that bit in the paper about the army making a mistake over a boy who was killed. You know—the Private Richards they said was killed in the 15th Battalion Tank Corps but it was really Private Jenkins in the 25th. And Smith is such a common name.’
‘Why he had to go and—’ began Uncle Thomas, then broke off as he saw the expression on Midge’s face. ‘Of course, one has to admire him. An example to us all. But—’
‘Uncle, please, please, let me go. There’s so much that needs to be done over there, and so few people to do it. And if anything should happen to me…well, there’s no one still here to miss me, is there?’
Uncle Thomas had the grace to blush. ‘We would miss you,’ he said.
But not like I was one of your own children, thought Midge.
‘It’s not as though it’ll be dangerous,’ she urged. ‘Nothing can happen to us at the railway station in Calais. We’ll be miles away from any fighting. And Anne and Ethel are taking their maids, so they’ll look after us. It’s only a short sail and a train ride away.’
Uncle Thomas was shaking his head.
She said desperately, ‘Uncle Thomas, they need help over there.’
He held up his hand. ‘I know they do. I…I had a letter from Michael yesterday.’
He picked up a piece of paper from his desk. Midge recognised Cousin Michael’s writing, the round letters of the schoolboy he had been till six months ago. She’d only met him once, but he still wrote to her, just like she was one of his sisters. Uncle Thomas looked down at the letter in silence for a moment, then he said abruptly, ‘Very well.’
‘You mean I can go?’
‘You may go. I will see if one of the housemaids will go with you. Gladys, perhaps. She’s steady. If the other girls have maids then you must too.’
‘And an allowance—’ began Midge.
He shook his head. ‘I won’t let you touch your capital. I owe it to your father to keep that intact till you’re twenty-one or married. But the interest—you’ll find that quite enough for your needs, I think. You’re a wealthy young lady, you know. Or will be. Perhaps if I called on Mr Carryman…Yes, I think that’s what I need to do.’ He hesitated again. ‘Will you be giving them fruit cake?’
A Rose for the Anzac Boys Page 3
