After the War Is Over: A Novel

by Jennifer Robson

  “Not at all. We have common rooms, where we encourage the men to gather during the day, and they can be quite merry at times. But we’re also careful to keep things as quiet as possible. No slamming doors or sudden noises.”

  “In case one of them goes off his head?”

  She stopped short and glared at him. “No, Lord Ashford, in case one of them is unwillingly reminded of a horror he suffered and is forced to relive the trauma of that moment.”

  “I beg your pardon. That was insensitive of me.”

  “We do have some patients who are mildly psychotic, with conditions that may have predated their military service. They may see things that aren’t there, or hear voices. That sort of thing. But for the most part our patients are suffering from what a layman would term shell shock.”

  “Do you like working there?” he asked.

  “Do you know, no one has ever asked me? I mean, it’s not as if it matters if I like it. We all have to do our bit, and that’s that.”

  “But do you like it? Or do you ever wish you’d stayed with Miss Rathbone?”

  “I have moments when I ask myself why I decided to become a nurse. Why I volunteered to leave a job I loved and instead spend my life washing out bedpans and the like.”

  “So why did you do it?”

  “Why did you join up? Presumably because you wanted to do your duty and support the war effort. As did I.”

  “Fair enough. You still haven’t answered my question. Do you like it?”

  “Some days I do. Some days it seems worthwhile—when one of our patients is well enough to return to his unit, or be sent home. But then there are days when the sisters fault everything I do, Matron looks down her nose at me, the patients are all of them miserable and needing more attention than I can possibly give, and I hate it. I absolutely hate it.”

  “I don’t blame you.”

  “And I know that if a man is well, and sane, there is no earthly reason why he shouldn’t return to active duty—but I fear for him. It seems so unfair for a man to suffer so badly and then be thrust back into the thick of it. It . . . somehow it never seems right. But I suppose you would disagree.”

  “I don’t, you know. Life at the front is enough to drive a man mad. Even on the good days it’s a horror.”

  “So it’s as bad as I fear it is?”

  “Every bit.”

  “Which means that it’s even worse.”

  “Yes.”

  In that one word, Charlotte discerned a lifetime’s worth of horrors.

  “You said there are good days. What are they like?” she pressed on.

  “Do you mean a good day in the front lines, or when we’re on relief?”

  “At the front. What’s a good day like there?”

  “A day when we’re just holding the line?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s boring. Hours and hours of tedium, with the odd minute or two of terror thrown in to keep us on our toes. I spend nearly all my time in my dugout, back in the command trench, talking with my subalterns and NCOs. Matters of discipline among the men, orders from the brass hats, that sort of thing.”

  “So you’re not in the very front lines? The front trenches?” This came as a relief, for reasons she didn’t care to examine too closely.

  “I spend my days a few hundred yards back from the fire trenches, though I’ll come forward if needed. If I have time I try to be present while the NCOs inspect the men. I’d like to think it helps with morale, seeing me directly, although it’s hard to know for certain. It’s not as if I can walk up to one of them and ask.”

  “Why ever not? They’re under your command. Surely you can speak to them directly.”

  “My NCOs would fall in a dead faint at my feet if I did. I speak to my company sergeant major and the CSM speaks to the ranks. I mean, if one of them were struck down by a sniper in front of me I’d offer some words of comfort. But otherwise I’m meant to be as remote as God.”

  “Even the men you know? Lilly told me some of them are from the estate. From the villages near Cumbermere Hall.”

  “Even the men I know.”

  “That seems very odd.”

  “Is it? How different is it from your hospital? Do you ever address the doctors directly?”

  “Not unless they speak to me first. I talk to Sister if I have a concern, and she passes it on to Matron, who may then tell the attending physician.”

  “See? How different is that?”

  “I suppose you have a point. Is there anyone you can speak to informally?”

  “There are my subalterns, although they’re all boys straight out of the schoolroom. I think the oldest is only twenty-five or so. One of them barely has a beard.”

  “How many men are under your command?”

  “In theory there should be a hundred and forty men in the four platoons that make up my company. At present, thanks to the Somme, we’re at least a score short of the mark.”

  “One hundred and forty men live or die at your command?”

  “Only insofar as it reflects the wishes of the brigade HQ. But, yes, I suppose they do.”

  “Whom do you eat with?” she asked, fascinated by the picture he was drawing.

  “Eat with?”

  “Yes. Who sits at your table with you?”

  “When we’re on relief and well behind the lines, and we’ve an actual table in front of us, I eat with my subalterns. At the front? I sit on an upturned pail in my dugout and gobble whatever slop they’ve sent us before the sight and smell of it makes me sick.”

  “Some of the men at the hospital have talked about the rations. How horrid they are.”

  “If we get one hot meal a day we’re lucky, though ‘hot’ is a subjective term. ‘Not frozen solid’ is better. Most days it’s some kind of soup, always too thin, with bits of meat floating about. Usually horse. They serve it up in great vats that I’m sure they never wash. God-awful stuff. Sometimes there’s bread, which is just as bad. Moldy, or crawling with weevils, or both. Always stale. They ran out of flour in the autumn, you know. Sent us bread that was made out of dried turnips or swede or something equally revolting. It gave every last man in my company the trots.”

  “Is that all you have to eat? One meal a day? No wonder you’re so thin.”

  “They send us tins of soup and bully beef, too. That’s my lunch and dinner most days. I hack open the tin and eat its contents cold. Used to have a little Primus stove, but I could never get fuel for it.”

  “Where do you sleep?”

  “In my dugout. Sometimes it has a bed, but most of the time I sleep rough. At least I’m not out in the open.”

  “So that’s your life?”

  “That is my life. But only on the days we’re in the front lines. After about eight days or so they cycle us back to the reserve lines, where things are a little better. And we do spend some long stretches in relief, well back from the front. So it’s not an unending saga of misery and woe. You mustn’t think that.”

  “Where is your company now?”

  “On relief. Billeted in a village near the coast. It seemed quite pleasant, the little I saw of it before I came home.”

  “Is that where you’ll go when you return to France?”

  “Yes. We’ll have another week or so there, and then we’ll be given our marching orders. Did you know the men sing as they march?

  “‘This war will never end, never end, never end, this war will never end, till we’re all dead and gone,’” he sang, his voice a sweetly beautiful tenor.

  “Is that what you believe?”

  “Yes. If I believe in anything, I believe that.”

  “A war that has no end?” she asked, incredulous at his certainty. “How can that be possible? We’re all of us on our knees.”

  “Yes, but a man on his knees can get up again. That’s why it won’t end until we’re all dead. Or as close to dead as makes no difference.”

  “But the papers say the Americans are sure to become our all
ies,” she protested.

  “If the Americans have any sense they’ll find a way to remain well clear of this apocalypse. Ah, here we are.”

  She hadn’t been paying attention to their surroundings, so it came as a surprise to see Lord Ashford’s chauffeur and motorcar at the gardens’ boundary only a few yards distant.

  “May I offer you a lift home? I really am in no great hurry.”

  “That’s very kind. Thank you.”

  The motorcar was warm and welcoming and about a thousand times more pleasant a conveyance than the Underground train she’d have taken otherwise. It really was very thoughtful of him to have offered—

  “Aren’t you meant to be seeing Lady Helena now? You’ll be late if you take me all the way up to Camden Town.”

  “She’ll be fine.”

  “When was the last time you saw her?”

  “I can’t recall. Ages ago.” He looked out of the window, not seeming to focus on anything.

  “Surely she’ll be waiting for you. It seems most unkind—”

  “Would you like to know something?” he asked, turning to her. “All this year, before every new and hopeless attack, I’d sit there in the dark, in those empty hours before dawn, and tell myself that I ought to be thinking of Helena. Before Courcelette, Morval, the Transloy Ridges, I’d sit there and try to make myself care. Her photograph was in my tunic pocket, right over my heart, just where it was meant to be. And yet when I closed my eyes I could never see her face. Never. Do you wish to know whose face I saw?”

  Charlotte, who was quite certain she did not wish to know, shook her head vehemently, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  “The face that filled my mind’s eye as I sat and waited to die, over and over again—it was your face, Miss Brown. Yours.”

  “You mustn’t say such things.”

  “It’s the truth. And it isn’t likely we’ll see one another again. So why not be honest, just this once? Because you are the woman I think of, and you are the woman whose name will be on my lips when I die.”

  He cradled her face in his right hand, swept away a traitorous tear from her cheek, and smiled, a smile so forlorn and bleak that her broken heart was splintered anew. She knew what he was going to do, knew with a certainty that astonished her, but rather than pull away or protest she simply waited for him.

  His mouth fitted perfectly against hers, so wonderfully warm and tender, a balm for her fears, and for a moment, an instant, she was worthy of him, and he was devoted to her alone, and everything and everyone that had conspired to separate them simply fell away. She was his, his alone, and he would survive. Though millions died, he would survive, and he would come back to her.

  His tongue pressed against the seam of her lips, urging them open, and the feel of him inside her mouth, the scrape of his teeth against her own tongue, was so good that her toes curled in her boots and her gloved hands scrabbled uselessly at his shoulders.

  He pulled away, gasping, but rather than set her aside he drew her tight against his chest. His greatcoat was rough against her face, her back hurt from being twisted almost sideways, and her hat had vanished. She didn’t care.

  “We’re here,” he murmured against her hair. She turned her head a little, just enough so she might see out the window, and realized they were stopped in front of her boardinghouse on Georgiana Street.

  “Don’t rail at me,” he said. “Simply say good-bye.”

  How was she meant to speak after such a moment? She swallowed hard, sat up, found her hat and her handbag.

  How was she meant to go on?

  “Good-bye, Lord Ashford.”

  “Please—”

  “Edward, then. Good-bye.”

  “Good-bye, Charlotte. Adieu.”

  Chapter 23

  Cumbria, England

  September 1919

  Evenings were her favorite time of day. After supper, Edward would stretch out on the sofa in the sitting room, and she would curl up in the ratty old armchair, and by the light of the fire and a few kerosene lanterns they would read to each other, exchange reminiscences of Oxford, and generally keep each other amused.

  Some nights, when his head was hurting and he couldn’t read, and was too irritable by his own estimation to listen to any sort of narrative, he would ask her to sing. She had a fine memory for hymns, thanks to her childhood in the shadow of one of Christendom’s great cathedrals, and as the cottage had no gramophone or piano or any other way to make music, her rather feeble contralto would have to do. But he never complained or ragged her about it, and in fact seemed to rather enjoy her slightly off-key renditions of such old chestnuts as “All Things Bright and Beautiful” and “Christ Is Made the Sure Foundation.”

  They never spoke of the war, not after his confession the week before, and they studiously avoided the subject of what would occur at the end of her month’s leave. She had less than a week to go, really only four days left if she didn’t count her day of departure, and they really ought to speak of it. For what would he do once she returned to Liverpool? Would he stay on at Cawdale Cottage, either alone or with a servant to keep him company? Or would he return to London, where he had been so unhappy, and be thrust again into its glittering carousel whirl?

  She very much hoped he would stay on in Cumbria, if only for another few months, for he was still fragile, still in danger of a relapse as far as his symptoms of concussion were concerned. Even worse, she feared he might turn to drink if—when—it all became too much for him.

  She had done all she could; he alone would chart the path his life would take. And so she resolved to remind him that she was leaving, and that he would have to find someone else to take her place. She would tell him in the morning.

  They said good night at the top of the stairs, in front of their respective doors, as they did every night. She listened, as she always did, as he undressed and got into bed. She listened until he lay quiet, and only then did she allow herself to sleep. They’d had a good day. She hoped very much that he would sleep well.

  His screams woke her. Hoarse, pitiful wails that trailed away into sobs, only to be renewed with each indrawn breath. It was worse tonight, worse than it had ever been. Should she defy his wishes and go to him?

  She might be able to wake him, be able to break through the terror. Allow him to sleep again. So she wrapped a shawl around her shoulders and crossed the landing to his door. “Edward? Can you hear me? Are you all right?”

  But still his cries continued, rising and falling, his panic and desperation so acute that it pained her to listen. He was so alone. He ought not to be alone.

  Charlotte went into his room and stood by his bed. He had left the curtains open, and a ragged patch of moonlight fell across his face, laying bare his struggle against unseen captors and remembered agony. It felt deeply wrong to stand by and watch him, but she was wary of waking him too suddenly. The men in her hospital had often had nightmares, and she had learned not to startle them out of their sleep, else risk a blackened eye.

  “Edward, it’s Charlotte. Can you open your eyes? I’m here now. I’m at your bedside and I’m here.”

  “No no nonononono . . . mustn’t . . . mustn’t do it. Why won’t you listen . . . no, God no . . . don’t do it!”

  “Listen to me, Edward. I am here and you are safe. Open your eyes, now, and look at me. Listen to me.”

  “Oh, God . . . don’t do it . . . mustn’t . . . please let me go. Let me die.”

  He did open his eyes for a moment, but he was somewhere else, and if he saw Charlotte it was as another person entirely.

  Still she hesitated, fearful to approach him when he was so agitated. It was a terrible thing, watching him like this. He would be very unhappy once he awoke and discovered that she had been a witness to his distress.

  She sat on the edge of his bed and, holding her breath, touched his right forearm. When he didn’t flinch or otherwise react, she took his hand in hers and squeezed it tight.

  “Edward, look at
me. It’s Charlotte. We are at the cottage and you are safe. You need to wake up. Open your eyes and look at me. You need to wake up.”

  Again and again she explained where they were, that she was at his side, that he was safe. Minutes passed, perhaps a quarter hour or more, and finally, just as she was losing hope, he grew calm, and his breathing slowed. And then he squeezed her hand, opened his eyes, and looked directly at her.

  “I thought I asked you never to come in while I was like this,” he said accusingly.

  “I know. I’m sorry. It’s only that you were so upset, and you’d been calling out for so long. I couldn’t not come in.”

  “I might have hurt you. I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

  “No, not in the slightest. As soon as I took hold of your hand you began to calm.”

  “All the same, Charlotte . . . don’t do it again.”

  “You’re shivering. Shall I bring you another blanket?”

  “Won’t help. The cold goes bone-deep. Only thing that works is time. Will you stay awhile?”

  “Of course.”

  She sat on the bed and held his hand, but he couldn’t stop shaking, not even after she’d spread another two blankets over him.

  “If I were to lie next to you, on top of the blankets, would that help to warm you?” A month ago she would never have made such a suggestion, but she was desperate to go back to sleep, and for him to rest as well. “Your bedclothes would still be between us,” she added.

  “You’re very kind to offer. Are you certain? I do promise not to pounce on you. If only because I’m as weak as a kitten.”

  She stretched out next to him, making sure her legs were well covered by her nightgown, and tucked another blanket over them both. “Does that seem to be helping?” she whispered.

  “I think so. You’re like a furnace.”

  “Good. Go to sleep.”

  “Promise not to leave.”

  “I won’t leave. Sleep, now.”

  THE LIGHT WAS all wrong. Her window was to the right of her bed, but the first whispers of dawn were coming from the other side of the room. Her bed felt wrong, too, bigger and softer than she remembered. And ever so warm. It was heavenly to feel so warm.