Kitty Little

by Freda Lightfoot

  ‘Then why couldn’t I do my bit?’

  ‘You’re a soldier, not an actor. You have no experience.’

  Reg cleared his throat and politely intervened. ‘Hrrmph. Captain Owen does have some experience, as a matter of fact.’

  Kitty glared at Reg. So it was Captain Owen now, was it, instead of the more formal Williams?

  ‘Indeed,’ he calmly agreed, his voice all affable charm and smiling bonhomie. ‘In civilian life, I did tread the boards a little. Even directed my own small theatre company for a short time, though sadly it was closed down and turned into a cinema. Which probably answers your first question as to why I was the one chosen to ‘wet-nurse’ you. Your choice of phrase, not mine.’

  Feeling increasingly wrong-footed Kitty bluntly informed him that had she ever been fortunate enough to own a small theatre, she would never have allowed such a terrible thing to happen. Cinema, she informed him loftily, was a passing fad.

  ‘If you say so.’

  The next twenty minutes were taken up by them all putting their shoulders to lifting the piano back up into the back of the truck. ‘Small it may be, but it ain’t light,’ Reg complained, as he did every time it was moved.

  ‘Then don’t get it out unless you have to. The roadside is not the place for a concert,’ Captain Owen warned, though he had said this so often, no one listened any more. They all climbed up alongside it, sitting with their backs to one side of the camion with their feet propped against the piano. Kitty closed her eyes, suddenly bone weary and desperate for sleep.

  ‘Ah, but your motives for performing are so much better than mine,’ came that persistent soft voice in her ear, as irritating as a bluebottle. ‘Taking art to the masses, isn’t that what you used to do? Very worthy. Even being here, in this Godforsaken place, speaks volumes for your charity. So noble of you. Not a sign of a lost lover anywhere. Whereas I’m in this dratted war because I must be.’

  Kitty bestowed upon him a narrow-eyed glare, wondering if there could be any sincerity at all behind his words in spite of the irony in his tone. She itched to hit back, to smack his arrogant, handsome face with the flat of her hand. Instead, she found herself leaning heavily against his shoulder, eyelids drooping, head nodding while she sternly informed him that tired though they may be, they were still perfectly capable of hard work. ‘My cast may have their problems - who doesn’t?’ she mumbled, already half asleep. ‘But bully-boy tactics would never work with them.’

  ‘Bully-boy? Is that what you think I am?’ he whispered against her hair. ‘I was merely voicing an opinion that there are one or two members of your team in need of a boot up the backside.’ He nudged her gently awake again and nodded in the direction of Tessa, who spent much of her time hunched in the cab, particularly when there was work to be done, and now seemed intent on stuffing half a dozen pink pills down her throat. Then over to Jacob, who had fallen instantly asleep, the neck of a whisky bottle protruding from his coat pocket, which spoke volumes over why he was snoring so loudly.

  Kitty groaned as she took in the significance of all of this. The same old problems yet again. Should she send Tessa home? She was clearly far from well and had spent much of last night on the latrine. Was the poor old boy getting past it, this whole trip too much for him? Perhaps it was too much for them all.

  Captain Owen said, ‘How about an audition at least? I may well have much to offer your little company, not least my renowned skills as a director, should you ever have need of one.’

  She would do no such thing, Kitty sharply informed him, closing her eyes and struggling not to let her head fall. She was both the actor-manager and director of the LTP’s, she curtly informed him, and would remain so, war or no war. Really, the barefaced cheek of the man left her gasping. Her head lolled and came to rest on the rough fabric of his greatcoat. It felt slightly damp but comfortingly solid. Pressed so close together in the crowded vehicle, how could she avoid it? Kitty could feel every muscle of his taut body and when he whispered in her ear to sleep, baby, sleep, the fan of his breath on her cold cheek was deliciously warm. No scent of soap or woody toilet water on this cold, wet day, but somehow still intoxicatingly masculine. She gritted her teeth, meaning to coolly inform him that the LTP’s would carry on just as they were, thank you very much, but sleep overtook her before she could.

  Dafydd Owen Williams transformed all their lives. They’d been stationed at the military theatre for a couple of weeks and during this supposedly settled period, everything had changed.

  He said he’d no intention of interfering in any way.

  She insisted that for all his cleverness, his undoubted enthusiasm for the theatre and winning ways, he rarely agreed with a single decision she made.

  He might consider himself a genius but she dubbed him as simply perverse.

  She addressed him frostily as Captain.

  He told her to call him Owen, as all his friends did.

  ‘Is that what I am?’

  ‘You could be.’

  As always when he made some remark that she couldn’t cap, Kitty would turn on her heel and walk away, head high, aware of his soft laughter following her.

  They were planning a music hall extravaganza to entertain the troops. Something special which they could perform first here, in the relative security of the military theatre and then with a few simplifications, take out on the road to the various rest billets. But they could agree about nothing.

  If Kitty asked someone to come on from stage left, Owen would shake his head and say stage right would be better. If she put in a new song and dance routine, he would dismiss it as tawdry or inappropriate. When she choreographed the traditional walk-down for the finale, he insisted it was old fashioned, or the stage was too small and the cast should simply stand in line to take their bow and sing the final number. Most infuriating of all, whenever his suggestions were tried, they generally worked well. Confidence began to leak from her like a drain, affecting her ability to make sound decisions and causing her to become ever more reckless.

  She’d received another letter from home, this time from Charlotte, which rambled on about Dixie’s tantrums and how impossible she’d become. Kitty grew more anxious by the day over her child, wishing she could pack her bags and go home this minute. She felt suddenly isolated and vulnerable here in France, working with this difficult man who she could barely tolerate while the rest of the cast seemed utterly captivated by him. Though even Kitty had to admit that he could be both charming and witty. When he took the time and trouble, that is. So why did he always manage to rub her up the wrong way? His complete self assurance of course. His arrogance. And for all he possessed considerable experience, Kitty remained stubbornly suspicious of his motives. He was still, in her humble opinion, a soldier, not an actor.

  ‘I’m the director and if you don’t do as I say, you won’t be in the show,’ she would sternly inform him.

  ‘And if you don’t start listening to other people’s opinions and stop taking stupid risks over where you put on these damned performances, then you’ll be back home in Blighty before you can say Tommy Atkins.’

  Instead of the devil incarnate, she had Dafydd Owen Williams constantly peering over her shoulder, watching and commenting upon everything she did. It was both infuriating and disconcerting. Despite his claims of being content to take second place, he certainly expected to be given a starring role in the production.

  ‘You promised you wouldn’t give me a small part, Kitty Little.’

  She still hated the way he used her name, almost as if it were false and simply a joke because of her tallness. Kitty had long since forgotten that was exactly the reason she’d chosen the name in the first place. ‘I believe Shakespeare said there was no such thing.’ But her rejoinder, however smart, hardly dented his arrogance one jot, nor wiped that devastating smile from his handsome face. He merely considered her solemnly, as if he could read every unsettling thought in her head.

  ‘Why can’t we work together prop
erly? What are you afraid of? That I’ll steal the show? Or perhaps that your company will follow my suggestions instead of yours.’ His face cleared. ‘That’s it, isn’t it?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘You’re afraid of losing the LTP’s.’

  ‘Rubbish.’ Kitty turned away, desperate suddenly to get out into the fresh air but he followed her, caught her arm and held her fast.

  ‘I would never do that Kitty. Even a blind, arrogant fool like me can see how important this troupe of travelling players is to you. Almost as if...’

  ‘As if what?’ She lifted her chin and met his gaze with blazing defiance. ‘It were my whole life? My lover, husband and friend. That has been said so many times. Do try not to be trite.’

  She saw compassion in his eyes now, and hated him for it. Then he gave her a little shake. ‘Wake up girl. Surely you don’t intend to spend your entire life wandering the countryside like a medieval minstrel. Don’t you have a dream? Once this dratted war is over, what then? Back to your village halls and schools? Surely there must be more to life than that.’

  ‘What we do is important.’

  ‘I know. But it’s only a beginning. You could do so much more.’

  It was true, she did have a dream. Once it had been to create a troupe of travelling players, to take the best of live theatre into ordinary people’s lives, to bring them entertainment and even some fun and laughter. Perhaps even at times to stretch their minds and make them think. Kitty thought she’d succeeded rather well. Once that had been achieved, she’d longed for a settled home for them all, a real theatre where they could grow and develop a secure future together. Archie had been a central part of that dream. She’d needed him to share it with her. Now that he was lost to her, it had all crumbled to dust.

  ‘For an army captain, you show far too much interest in other people’s lives. Let’s stick to business, shall we? I really don’t need you sticking your oar in every five minutes. Has that notion ever occurred to you?’

  He had the cheek to smile. ‘That much is obvious. But why is it so? Is your antipathy against Welshmen in general, or myself in particular? Or are you just frozen up somewhere inside and it would be a charity if an army captain started a small thaw.’

  Almost lifting her from the ground by the fierce grip he had upon her arms, Kitty was certain in that moment that he was about to kiss her, and dizzily wondered how she would respond if he did. She was so dangerously close that she could trace every fine hair above the curve of his upper lip, note every pale freckle upon his brow, and feel the hard outline of his body pressed against her own. In that instant, She found herself swaying and almost by instinct her eyelids drooped half closed. Then, quite abruptly, he let her go, his tone now matter-of-fact, almost brisk.

  ‘However, the needs of the show should come before any personal animosity, do you not think?’ and he strolled away, leaving her heart pounding, which put her in a snappy mood for the rest of the day.

  The Music Hall was a riotous success. Kitty brought the House down with Little Dolly Daydream. If her voice lacked the range of Suzy’s it certainly possessed greater strength, held humour and warmth and kept beautifully in tune; the kind of voice which actively encouraged the troops to join in and sing-along. Later she had them all in tears with a heartrending version of Because. Suzy, Jacob and Reg did a wonderful rendition of The Soldiers of the Queen. Tessa had them jazzing in the aisles with the Darktown Strutter’s Ball and Owen himself surprised them all by possessing a fine Welsh tenor voice which fairly lifted the roof when he sang Land of my Fathers.

  ‘You kept that under your damned tin helmet,’ Kitty said afterwards. ‘Why did we never hear you sing in rehearsals?’

  ‘Perhaps I too relish privacy. And we all have our secrets.’

  She considered him for a long silent moment, wondering what other secrets he might possibly have and whether he would ever be willing to share them with her. For all she knew, he might well have a wife and six children back home in Wales. For some reason the thought depressed her.

  After the show they enjoyed a noisy, jolly supper in which they all got rather squiffy, and then struggled to learn the foxtrot, the new dance which had become all the rage despite the war. It was the closest Kitty had come to happiness in months.

  Not surprisingly the mood grew more maudlin as the wine took effect, and the discussion more philosophical. Felicity wanted to know why they were fighting this damned war in the first place, and a lively discussion ensued as Owen and Reg struggled to explain, with the others chipping in with their own opinions. Something to do with ruling the seas and the Germans being jealous of the British navy. Kitty was unfortunately too sleepy to take it all in properly.

  ‘When will it end, that’s the point?’ she asked, in the midst of the debate.

  ‘God knows. Ending a war is always a damn sight more difficult than starting one. The Boche believed they could soon demolish our “contemptible little army”, Owen explained. ‘But they were wrong. They took too seriously the troubles in Ireland early in 1914, thinking that would lead to civil war and distract us.’

  ‘Or else mutiny in India would put us off,’ Reg put in.

  Jacob, hiccuping loudly, muttered something about strikes and rebellion at home.

  ‘That’s right,’ Owen agreed. ‘But none of it came about. And when the war got going proper, the Huns thought we’d be all alone; that the colonies would let us sink rather than run the risk of losing lives. But that isn’t what happened. They all came in with us. Canada, New Zealand, India, the whole lot of ‘em. And now with the introduction of conscription, we’ll beat them for sure.’

  Kitty was leaning forward now, her wine forgotten, taking in every word. ‘You’ve been on the Front Line, haven’t you, Owen?’ It was the first time she’d used his name and he blinked in surprise.

  ‘I have, yes.’

  ‘We’re reasonably safe here, miles from the Front. Cold, wet, hungry, uncomfortable half the time, true, but privileged. If I wanted to go home tomorrow, I could do so. The boys in the trenches can’t. I want to be with them. I want to see what it’s really like, to feel a part of this battle in every sense.’

  She expected him to ridicule her, to tell her not to be stupid and childish, that only men could face the horrors of the Front. But although he sadly shook his head, he told her that he understood perfectly why she felt that. ‘We all want to do more, to feel we’re doing “Our Bit”.’ He took a sip of his wine, wiped his mouth. ‘In the trenches there’s usually three or four of you, in a group. One sleeps, one makes some effort to keep the trench clean, dry and habitable with a mug of tea and what might pass for food every now and then, and deal with the rats of course.’

  ‘Rats?’

  ‘Catching them is proving to be quite a sport.’

  Kitty felt sick.

  ‘Where was I? Oh yes, the others stand on the fire-step and keep guard. Woe betide any Tommy who falls asleep on duty. At night when you put your head above the parapet it can be like watching a giant firework display. Strafe fire, flares, shrapnel raining down all around, the whole sky can be illuminated. You can feel very exposed, in spite of the battery of men firing steadily and methodically at the Hun. And then there are the firecrackers. Oh, you have to keep your wits about you for them, boyo. Watch out for each other at all times. And you have to listen out for Whistling Percy’s. That’s a type of shell that heralds its coming with a shriek. And the whizz-bangs that do just what they say. But if one hits too close you’d never hear another. I lost my best mate that way.’ He fell silent. Sipped at his wine some more.

  Kitty had never heard him talk so much. She didn’t interrupt. What was there to say? Platitudes seemed inappropriate and words of comfort impossible to find. She recognised the hard lines etched about his mouth now for what they were, raw pain which would no doubt ever be there. Nor did any of the others speak but simply listened, appalled.

  ‘Then there are sling bombs, hand grenad
es, trench mortar shells, anti-aircraft guns. It’s a very modern war, being fought in a very old fashioned way.’ He turned back to Kitty, purposefully fixing a smile to his lips as if to conceal this brief glimpse of raw vulnerability. ‘Your place is here, where you can lift the morale of war-weary souls seeking respite from death. You’ll be relatively safe here.’

  ‘I want to go, Owen. Just a fleeting visit will do. I want to feel the fear they suffer every day.’

  But he was adamant. ‘No entertainers are allowed anywhere near the Front Line, male or female. Though I believe Harry Lauder has been given special dispensation to do so. He’s coming out sometime during the next few months.’ Then he took her hands and held them firm and warm within his own. ‘War is a game. A dreadful political game, played by men in shiny uniforms many miles from the mere sniff of a gun. But it’s one that Tommy Atkins means to win.’

  A silence fell upon them all as they thought of all the men, some little more than boys, who had already lost the game, despite a valiant show of bravery on their part. Kitty had learned a good deal about the views of these gallant young soldiers. They believed they fought for a righteous cause. That they moved on from this mortal life to another, more glorious one. If they fell in battle, that was not the end but a beginning. To talk to them, to see that belief in action was a glimpse through the curtain of death into another dimension, one which was far greater than all they had known before. The thought put into perspective all Kitty’s foolish earthly fears and concerns. What did the failure of a girlish love affair count for, set against such sacrifice?

  ‘To victory,’ she said now, raising her glass.

  ‘To victory,’ came the echo around the table and as they drank, she smiled over the rim of her glass into Owen’s eyes.