A Girl in Wartime

by Maggie Ford

  Connie watched as he began to read as if against his will, and saw his expression begin to change to one of disbelief. Yet there was no pride in his face, not the pride he’d exhibit when he read letters from his other two sons – brave sons in France, still in the thick of the fighting.

  He was silent as he refolded the letter and quietly placed it back on the mantelpiece as if that was the only place for it. What his thoughts were, Connie could only guess. Surely from that anger and humiliation he’d felt over George’s refusal to follow his brothers into battle, which he’d seen as sheer cowardice, there had to be some sense of relief that he could hold his head up again. But all she heard him growl as he stalked from the room to his meal was, ‘Army medical corps, eh? Well, we’ll see,’ addressing no one in particular.

  Left with her own thoughts, she found herself wondering how her brother would fare. But she knew he would fare very well now he was free of the rubbish that idiot Wootton-whatever-his-name-was, had put into his head. Men like that shouldn’t be allowed, came the thought as she followed her father into the kitchen, from where the appetising aroma of stew was emanating. Maybe everyone was entitled to his own beliefs, so long as they didn’t inflict them upon others.

  But there were other thoughts on her mind. Half an hour from now, Stephen would be waiting with a taxi at the end of her road to take her to the theatre. She could hardly wait to finish her meal and be out of the house, and in the privacy of the taxi have him put his arm around her, bring her close while she savoured the warmth of his love for her.

  Connie saw Stephen every day at work, but Friday evening and weekends were theirs alone. Whether it was having dinner together or seeing a show or even wandering together in one of London’s many parks in the late summer sunshine, she dared to dream that one day she and Stephen would be married.

  But there always lurked a feeling that it was all too good to be true. She’d still not told Mum and Dad about him. They’d have a fit. Mum was always voicing a hope that one day soon her youngest daughter would meet a nice young man and stop gadding about with all those friends she had made at work, as Connie had led her to believe.

  The feeling was heightened by Stephen himself, his unexplained reluctance to take their love any further than a brief kiss goodnight, his arm around her in a taxi, or the occasional present that she kept hidden away from her parents. She tried to repress any memories of that strange evening in his flat, the way he had behaved.

  She’d been in his flat several times since, but it was always the same, Stephen holding himself back from her as though fearing to openly declare his feelings. And those photographs, despite her reaction that first time, they were still there. She wanted to bring herself to remark on them but somehow never could. So many times she wanted to ask him point blank just how serious he was he about her, wanted to refuse any more invites back here until he promised to declare that he loved no one but her. Sometimes his attitude towards her struck her as more friendship than love, yet each time she found herself unable to refuse to come here after an evening out.

  This evening, though, on his large comfortable settee, his arm around her, holding her closer than usual, their drinks on the coffee table before them being left where they were, untouched, her worries were too hard to ignore.

  He’d put a record on the gramophone, soft music adding to the tranquillity of the room. She loved the sensation that the feel of his arm about her brought, though often interrupted by the gramophone running down, making the music slow to a tuneless drone, compelling him to leave her to wind the handle, and shattering any romance there might have been.

  While he’d been winding up the gramophone she had been gazing across the room to the photos on the bureau and this time, as he returned to put his arm about her again, she drew away from him.

  ‘What the matter, my love?’ he said, a bewildered expression on his face.

  She was about to say, ‘Nothing’s the matter.’ Instead it seemed as if someone else was speaking for her. ‘How long have we been coming here, Stephen?’

  He was gazing at her as if not quite knowing why she was asking.

  ‘How long?’ she demanded again, trying not to let her tone sound brittle.

  He thought for a moment, still frowning, perplexed, she imagined. ‘A few months, I suppose.’

  ‘You suppose,’ she bit back. ‘I thought you’d have known exactly how long.’

  He was looking at her as if with no idea what she was talking about. Then he frowned, irritation beginning to seep into his expression. ‘Do you?’

  ‘Yes. Nearly seven months.’

  ‘So why the question?’ He was smiling now. But her lips remained tight.

  ‘The question is, Stephen, how long is this to go on, you bringing me here, the two of us sitting together, you starting to get passionate then all of a sudden drawing away. What is wrong with you, with all this?’ She swept out an arm to encompass the room, her voice rising, careless of what she was saying. ‘I never go any further than this room. I follow you into the kitchen – how marvellous! But your bedroom door remains out of bounds. After seven months, Stephen …’ She broke off, casting a glance around the room. ‘And another thing: these photographs!’ She wanted to add of your wife but instead she railed, ‘If you really loved me, Stephen, I would have seen your bedroom by now, after all this time us being together.’ Now she could say it. ‘And you would have put all these photos away, if you really loved me. So what is wrong with you, with us?’

  Each photo showed such an amazingly lovely woman that it made her feel dowdy by comparison. A young woman smiling confidently – one a holiday snap, another a studio portrait, another on the small corner table of her and Stephen, his arm about her shoulders, his other hand holding hers, they smiling into the camera – a happily married couple taunting her, the woman staring at Connie accusingly, she felt.

  He himself seemed blissfully unaware of his dead wife watching while he sat with his arm around her shoulder as they talked of their evening out, maybe a little about work, or telling her how fond he was of her, how he loved her. But all the time his dead wife would be looking on. It was more than uncomfortable, as if she was watching them disapprovingly.

  Until now she’d not had the courage to ask him to remove the photos. How could she? It was his home. But one question persisted: was he still in love with his wife, if only with her memory, and where did that leave her?

  Suddenly it was as if someone had thumped her on the back, forcing from her the words that had lain so long unsaid. ‘Stephen, how do you really feel about me?’

  For a moment he didn’t answer. During her outburst he had leaned a little away from her, just looking at her, and she knew that she had messed everything up. Now he would say it was time he was seeing her home and she would get up, unable to answer, and allow him to help her on with her coat. She would adjust her hat over her short hair and have him lead her to the door, hail a passing taxi and take her home in silence. Maybe he’d peck her cheek as he left her, saying he’d see her on Monday morning at work. Instead he sat simply looking at her, his face a mask. She had to say something.

  ‘How can you ask me back here, Stephen, and tell me you love me, yet you keep your wife’s photos on show?’ she said in a small voice. It sounded such a stupid question, like a plea uttered by a child. Yet she couldn’t help herself, her mind reeling, her words tumbling out. ‘Don’t you know how that makes me feel? It feels as if she is still alive and I’m … just your bit of skirt. I feel—’

  She wanted to say cheap but broke off, her heart thumping like mad, her eyes beginning to brim with tears. She watched as he got slowly to his feet, ready to coldly offer to take her home, she knew it. Instead he stood looking down at her. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said quietly.

  She was about to say in the coldest voice she could muster, ‘I’m sorry too,’ but he’d already turned away, going towards the sideboard.

  She watched him pick up the two photos, very gently, one aft
er the other, and lay them face down, just as gently, reverently, then go over to the small corner table and do the same to the photo there, again so gently and so reverently that a sudden sadness for him caught in her throat.

  Coming back to her, he stood gazing down at her. ‘Why are you crying, Connie?’ he said as if he could hardly believe it. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so used to them being there, I’ve never given it a thought.’

  That didn’t seem right. Of course he knew they were there. But he had moved closer to her, was reaching out, leaning towards her and, taking her by her arms, lifting her gently up from the sofa.

  ‘Please don’t cry, darling. It’s in the past. I’ve done my grieving. And I love you now. Maybe I don’t demonstrate it as much as I might, but you’re still so young and I’m that much older than you and—’

  ‘Eight years!’ she blurted out, her tears drying, her eyes challenging.

  ‘Nine,’ he corrected gently. ‘In December I’ll be nineteen,’ she countered stubbornly. ‘That makes eight! Why should age make any difference? And I love you, Stephen.’

  He looked at her for what seemed like ages while she returned his gaze, fearing to drop hers. It was then he said, very tenderly, lovingly, ‘What do you know about love, Connie? I mean, about making love?’

  She gazed up at him, shaken by his question. ‘I …’ she began, not knowing what to say to that.

  But he answered for her. ‘I imagine that, like all young women, even in their late teens, you are still an innocent. You feel love but you don’t know love – don’t know what it’s about. No man has ever touched you in that way, if you know what I mean. I have never touched you – for that very reason. But to be perfectly truthful, my love, I long to—’

  He broke off as though respecting her innocence, while she gazed back at him, not knowing what to say.

  She’d never been properly told about physical love. Married women kept that to themselves. She shared giggles with friends on the petting they’d sometimes enjoyed, but whatever else happened, that was private too. She’d never had any boy come it with her as some of her friends called it. Stephen would kiss her, had once eased her down beneath him only to lift her back to a sitting position, apologising profusely. And somehow she’d felt cheated.

  Now he was asking what she knew about making love. As she gazed up at him, strangely embarrassed, he smiled gently, his embrace tightening about her a little. ‘No, of course you wouldn’t. That’s why I feel I mustn’t take advantage of you, my darling. I love you. So very much. If you only knew how much. But I’d never take advantage of you. I want to marry you, Connie, if you’ll have me. As soon as you’re nineteen.’

  His arms had tightened around her. His lips touched hers and then began to press hard. Automatically returning the kiss, she felt that familiar twinge inside her and, as always, instinctively felt that this was the love she had for him.

  Suddenly he stepped away, releasing her as she tried to make the kiss linger. ‘Now I must take you home, my love. But remember, I love you more than anything. And I’m so sorry about the photos.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said, her heart leaping in happiness. He really did love her. He had asked to marry her. She had meant to accept his proposal, sudden though it was, but his kiss had taken her words of rapturous acceptance right out of her head.

  It was impossible to sleep. Stephen loved her, she was certain, he had asked her to marry him, but he had brought up their age gap. Was nine years’ difference really a stumbling block to their happiness?

  Then, as she lay staring into the darkness, came another thought: it could also be a stumbling block when Mum and Dad finally learned of the age difference between her and the man she had fallen in love with. Mum had often said, ‘When you meet a nice boy, Connie …’ no doubt visualising her daughter with some likely young chap. But Stephen was a man almost ten years older than her. Her parents would both be appalled. She could imagine their response: ‘When you’re forty, he’ll be almost fifty. No, love, find yourself someone your own age. There are lots of boys around here.’

  It plagued her and there was no one she could turn to. Maybe one of her sisters? Not Elsie, she’d scoff, rush off and relate it to Mum and Dad immediately. Lillian was more trustworthy: having been sworn to secrecy, she would delight in keeping it to herself until Connie found the courage to face them herself. She could trust Lillian.

  ‘Well I never!’ Lillian burst out on Sunday morning when Connie paid her a visit and, over a cup of tea and a cake, told her about Stephen and her fears about their age difference. ‘If you love him, I don’t think age would be that much of a barrier. Mum and Dad still live in the past but we live in a modern age and you can’t just give up on a bloke just because they don’t approve. It’s your life, Con. Just go in there fighting. They’ll come round.’

  Connie didn’t feel she was ‘going in there fighting’ but she’d gained a lot from Lillian’s advice and felt strong enough to face her mother and father.

  But not yet. Not quite yet.

  Chapter Nineteen

  November 1916

  Seven thirty a.m., a grey November day, hardly light. The artillery barrage had ceased.

  Orders shouted to fix bayonets, whistles blew the order to go over the top, men climbed out of trenches to begin moving across no-man’s-land towards the enemy. They moved at a slow pace – every man moved half-crouched, as if that were any protection here on fearfully exposed ground, their only cover the smoke from exploding shells.

  Gone was the lush grass of a peaceful countryside. Rain and shellfire had turned it to mud. Barbed wire, broken tree stumps, dead horses, bomb craters into which a man could fall never to get out again, slowly suffocated by the thick mud at the bottom, had done a complete job.

  Very aware of their exposure, as was every one of a hundred thousand or so soldiers, Albert and Ronnie negotiated the shell holes weighed down by seventy pounds of equipment: wire cutters, entrenchment tools, gas helmet, groundsheet – though why one needed that, Albert had no idea – sandbag, haversack, two Mills bombs and two hundred and twenty rounds of ammunition. Each man gripped his rifle, and each man gave the same silent prayer: ‘Please, don’t let my number be up yet.’

  The grassy meadows gone, churned-up mud clung to boots, impeding every step as each soldier had to drag each foot out by force. Barbed wire had barely been breached by the nightly barrage and had to be negotiated. Albert kept his eyes on the ground as he walked towards enemy trenches.

  Then the machine-gun fire opened up and men began to fall. Instinct told him to lie flat, take cover, but that was against orders. Orders were not to dig in but to advance, and this they had to do. He looked across to Ronnie. Ronnie was bent double, ducking and flinching at each close wizz of a bullet.

  ‘Dear God above – don’t let him be hit!’ Albert prayed.

  Few, he was sure, would come back from this advance. Officers too seemed to think so. Yet another attempt to gain enemy lines failed, just as previous attempts had. Officers now yelled orders to retire. A mad rush back, tripping over fallen comrades, no time to help them as machine gun bullets tore past, scoring hits in every direction. It was a relief as he and Ronnie fell down into the relative safety of their trench; men were being hit on the very act of leaping in, even as they breathed a prayer of thanks for deliverance.

  Albert uttered his own silent prayer of thanks. No one put thoughts into words as each man slowly got his breath back, not to dwell on the chance that the next advance might be their last. Trenches had become busy: the wounded tended, borne off to the field hospital just behind the lines, worst cases hopefully to be transferred for proper treatment later. The dead laid out, though most were out there still, it was said later some sixty thousand.

  Stretcher-bearers were already collecting as many wounded as they could, an unwritten truce honoured by each side not to fire on them. When some trigger-happy sniper did, it would raise a furore from both sides condemning such practice. Stretcher
-bearers for the most part were considered neutral, though they put themselves at risk of death each time. Brave men, Albert thought idly as he tried to settle his own jangling nerves, feeling suddenly dead tired. He looked around for Ronnie. No sign of him.

  He felt his heart give a jolt, followed by a sick feeling of panic. Where was he? He’d lost sight of him following the order to retire. But he hadn’t seen him fall.

  ‘Ron! Ronnie!’ His voice was urgent. ‘Ron, where are you?’

  ‘He’s okay,’ came a war-weary voice. ‘Your brother’s over there.’ The man jerked his head to where the trench turned a sharp corner. ‘But he don’t look too well to me.’

  A shell-burst overhead made everyone duck, but following the man’s directions, he saw his brother crouched in the corner. Making for him as much as the crowded trench allowed, he burst out, ‘Ron, you orright?’

  He saw him shake his head, heard him mumble, ‘Orright, just tired. Just wanna sleep.’

  ‘You can’t sleep. We could be ordered over the top again.’

  ‘I ain’t going.’ The voice was drowsy as if he was already drifting off.

  ‘What d’you mean, you’re not going? Are you hurt?’

  ‘Just get me pyjamas. Where’d you put ’em?’

  This wasn’t right. Albert shook him. ‘Get a grip, Ron. You’ve got to pull yourself together.’

  But all he got was, ‘Stop shaking me. I just need a good sleep. Where’s me pyjamas?’

  ‘Where you going to find pyjamas here?’ he tried to chide. No reply.

  He felt goose bumps run across his skin and shook Ronnie violently. The last few days he’d become aware of a blank stare in his brother’s eyes as if he was somewhere else.

  ‘Pull yourself together, Ron,’ he snapped now. ‘You just need some rest. We all need some rest. Write to your Dorothy, ask how your daughter is. Maybe it’ll stay quiet for a few hours.’

  No need to be told to sleep. Ronnie had already dozed off. Albert would try and do the same, sitting beside his brother. But sleep eluded him and instead he found a sheet of paper in his breast pocket and wrote to Edith. The field post office sent letters off the very next day after the odd word had been pencilled out by their officer in charge of the censoring. There were no more calls to attack but no real chance to relax and sleep with shells from their own artillery keeping up a continuous bombardment. The full-throated scream of their own shells passing overhead and the resounding explosions over enemy lines did bring a sort of lulling effect until they seemed to retreat into nothing, hardly heeded. Huddled in his greatcoat, Albert slept, his letter to Edith only partly finished, the one to his parents laid aside. Most men slept, except those on sentry duty.