A Girl in Wartime

by Maggie Ford

  He hadn’t even remembered falling asleep when he awoke to several men negotiating their way between the legs of the weary, bearing buckets of bread and hot soup from the kitchen bunker, the aroma waking men as instantly as if they’d been kicked.

  Fishing for his and his brother’s mess tins, he held them out as the cooks came abreast. Ronnie amazingly was still asleep, twitching and jerking every now and again as if in the midst of a disturbing dream.

  Albert gave him a shove. ‘Ron, wake up!’ he said as the two mess tins were filled and two big hunks of bread handed out.

  Ron stirred, groaned and opened his eyes. But what Albert saw made him go cold. Wide and staring, his eyes seemed to have no life in them, replaced with a sort of distant look as if he wasn’t in this world.

  Albert pushed the mess tin towards him. ‘Ron – eat this! You need to eat! Come on now.’

  The eyes slowly turned towards him but there was no real focus, no recognition. He seemed to be staring into the distance.

  ‘Ron, bloody wake up, will you. Soup – better ’ave it while it’s hot. And there’s bread to soak it up with. Good, eh?’ he said as if coaxing a child. But Ron wasn’t a child. A sense of horror flooded over Albert. He’d seen men like this after a bombardment. Shell shock – the words sent a shudder through him.

  Thinking back, there’d been indications of it after days under continuous enemy bombardment, but he’d assumed it to have been the normal reaction any man might display. But this was different.

  Putting the mess tins on a sentry step cut into the trench between the wood shoring that helped support the mud walls, he took his brother by the shoulders and shook him. He seemed to come out of his trance, jerking to a sitting position to stare wildly about. ‘We’ve got to go,’ Ronnie burst out. ‘This ain’t right. We ’ave to leave. I’m going ’ome!’

  Before Albert could stop him, he’d leapt up, knocking over one of the mess tins, and began to push his way along the crowded trench, tripping over men’s feet to angry shouts, their food almost knocked from their hands.

  Albert was after him instantly, yelling for him to come back. But Ron was already clambering up the roughly cut steps leading away from the lines and was quietly, purposefully walking off. Albert ran after him, up the uneven steps, yelling at him to stop.

  Someone caught hold of him, gripping him by the shoulder, but he shrugged the hand away, running several yards before managing to bring his brother down with a rugby tackle. Ronnie fell flat on his face and lay there in the mud, Albert on top of him. But now he laid quiet and unresisting as if all the stuffing had been knocked out of him.

  Someone was standing over the pair of them. ‘Deserters, eh?’ came a voice.

  Without letting go of his brother, Albert looked up to see an officer, a major, immaculately attired, standing with legs slightly apart, against one of which he was tapping a swagger stick rhythmically. He might have been on some parade ground, though fortunately for him the ground here leading away from the trenches sloped downhill, shielding him from enemy eyes.

  ‘Deserters, are we?’ he repeated as Albert got to his feet, dragging his brother up with him. ‘Decided to leave the rest of your comrades while they lay down their lives for such as you?’

  ‘Sir, not deserters,’ came a voice. ‘I told them if they wanted to shit to go well away from us in the trenches, while things are calm. There’s enough shit down there already and the latrine’s full, not been emptied, sir.’

  ‘Then what were they doing lying on the ground, Lieutenant?’

  ‘I saw this chap slip and knock his companion flat on his face. It is awfully slippery here, sir, the rain and slime, you know.’

  The major thought for a bit while the others waited. Horror had taken hold of Albert. If Ronnie gave the officer the look he’d given him a short while back, one of half-crazed vacancy, the major would know straight away what Ronnie had been about, walking away from the fighting as if he had nothing whatsoever to do with it. Shell shocked? A mind snapped? A balance tipped over the edge?

  The major thought for a moment, then an acid smile curved one corner of the thin lips. ‘An extra few bits of shit won’t make any difference, Lieutenant, I should imagine, to what’s already there. Send them back, man, and let them get on with their … business.’

  Pleased at his little pun, he touched his cap with his swagger stick, was smartly saluted in reply, and moved off to where a soldier was holding the reins of his horse just behind the shattered wall of what had once been a cottage.

  He’d totally ignored the two soldiers who’d scrambled to their feet and, with an effort, at least on Albert’s part, had come to attention and thrown up a salute. But the crackle of rifle fire a short way off caused the man’s measured steps not to be quite so measured as he hurried to his horse.

  ‘Thank you, sir, for not …’ Albert began as he hauled his brother up to stand alongside him, anxious that Ronnie’s face wasn’t showing any sign of his previous odd behaviour.

  The officer’s face remained a mask. ‘Get back to your post, Lance-Corporal,’ he ordered, his eyes trained on Ronald. ‘Take him with you and keep an eye on him. I’ll not see any man put up against a post and shot for a deserter if I can help it. Now pull yourself together, man – both of you!’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Albert said smartly, saluting while keeping a tight grip on Ronnie at the same time, in case he might let him down. Secretly he blessed the man for his understanding and quick thinking.

  Back in the trenches, he stood over Ron, who’d collapsed against the trench wall, shoulders hunched. He was still staring into space, his body jerking and twitching every now and again. Others eyed him too, having seen the signs of shell shock before – some with futile concern, others with little sympathy for a man with so little control over his fears.

  It hurt to the point of tears to know what others were thinking about his brother, and for the rest of the day, Albert kept a wary eye on him.

  It was late in the day when their own guns opened up on the enemy. Everyone knew it heralded only one thing. After an hour it stopped as quickly as it began. And sure enough, all along the line, orders were being shouted. Men stood up, took up their rifles, awaiting the order to fix bayonets. Albert hauled his brother to his feet, thrust his rifle in his hand and held the fingers tight about the stock, putting the bayonet into his other hand. When the order came he would help those trembling fingers to fix the thing in case Ronald let it fall.

  It was then he noticed the hands were not trembling any more. Ron’s expression was fixed, his jaw jutting, lips tight, eyes steady.

  There was no chance to heave a sigh of relief as the whistle blew. Men piled over the top, men who only this morning had seen comrades fall. It made no difference: each man was determined to give the enemy the full brunt of his fury, to give a good account for a slaughtered comrade.

  Ronnie seemed in full control of himself. But if it came down to hand-to-hand combat, what would Ronnie do? Two things would happen, Albert thought as he walked at the required steady pace towards the enemy lines. Either Ron would go hell for leather at the enemy, hacking, yelling, his lust for blood controlling him, or he’d drop his weapon and cower.

  He glanced over his shoulder. Ronnie was still there a step or two behind him. Please don’t have him turn and run, he prayed. He’d be a perfect target. Was that why they were always ordered to walk, not run? Was it a sort of stealth? But already there was the crack of rifle fire, then the rattle of machine-gun fire, and now shells bursting into countless bits of shrapnel – did it matter if one walked or ran?

  Some ahead of him, hardly visible through the now drifting smoke, had reached the barbed wire and forced themselves through the gaps a few at a time. In the night, brave men had wriggled out here to cut as much of the stuff as they could, often becoming targets themselves.

  Those in front of him were visible enough in the half light to become standing targets. Any minute the call would come to charge the enemy tr
enches. But it wasn’t happening. On every side, Albert could see men falling, so many men everywhere, falling to a storm of bullets. Officers’ voices were calling to retire, the commands high-pitched with panic that a moment ago had seemed so positive.

  He turned, saw Ronnie turn and begin to run. He ran too. Finally they were more of less out of danger, a few yards to their own trenches, to safety. Ronnie was just ahead of him.

  In the fast-fading daylight the world seemed to have gone mad: enemy shells had begun bursting everywhere, one landing just yards from Ronnie’s running figure. He saw his body leave the ground, becoming a semicircle in the air, then land. He heard himself cry out as more shells fell, though none quite as close. Ronnie had begun to writhe, to scream. Reaching him, he found his brother’s right leg had been shattered, the foot completely gone.

  Grabbing his brother’s shoulders Albert made to drag him the last few yards, but in the dash of those trying to reach safety, lost his grip to be borne along with them. Falling headlong into the trench, he turned to rush back out to get Ronnie but someone grabbed his collar.

  ‘You want to get yourself killed?’

  Albert fought the grip. ‘Me brother’s hurt! I’ve got to go back for him!’

  ‘No you don’t! You stay here!’

  Viciously twisting out of the grip, he clambered up to the trench lip. Enemy shelling had ceased. Everywhere he could hear cries of pain, cries for help, except from those already dead. Was Ronnie dead? In the gloom, he couldn’t see his body, but out of the darkness he could hear someone crying in pain and was sure it was Ron.

  ‘Help! Help me!’ There were so many cries, but he knew Ron’s voice well enough to know Ron was alive – he had to be.

  Crawling on his stomach Albert reached his brother, found his shoulders amid all the equipment and began to drag him back towards safety. It seemed to take an age, all the time Ron screaming with each jerk. Finally gaining the trench he fell in with his burden on top of him. This time there was no cry of pain. Ron was silent.

  In the fitful light of a flare someone, an officer, was staring down at the body. ‘This leg’s completely shattered. No good to anyone. Just one man when there’s hundreds out there – you going to rescue them all, soldier? And who told you to go out there risking your life for one man?’

  ‘He was my brother,’ was all he could say.

  The officer stared him in the face. ‘What do you mean, was? He’s just passed out, and just as well – going to lose that leg by the looks of it.’

  Standing up, the officer signalled to a couple of medics tending other wounds, and left Albert to it, shouldering his way through the battle-weary as if they were a crowded Trafalgar Square throng.

  Chapter Twenty

  In the middle of the family dinner a knock came at the door.

  ‘Oo the bloody ’ell’s that on Sunday dinner time?’ Connie’s father burst out, slamming his knife and fork down on the table, which was laid with its best cloth. ‘Bad enough ’avin’ to make do with the stuff they call meat these days for a Sunday dinner without someone interrupting it.’

  These days, the main dinner of the week was nearly always a family gathering, with what few seemed to be left: Lillian and Elsie and their children, both their husbands having been called up under the government’s need for more men, married or single.

  Now and again Connie’s grandparents would turn up – her mother’s mum and dad and Dad’s father – each bringing something from their larders. Food shortages were growing evermore grim with thousands of tons of shipping being sunk around Britain’s coast, and it was becoming good manners that anyone invited to dinner would contribute a little something.

  This Sunday there was only Connie’s sisters, and Dorothy with her baby, little Violet, on her lap. Ron’s letters were always full of how proud he was of her. He wrote to Mum too, saying she would never know how much he appreciated her taking his Dorothy in after her own mother had spurned her, calling her a slut and asking her what would their neighbours think, and saying that they would never forgive her for bringing shame on the family. The girl must have felt it deeply but always put a brave face on it, never ever mentioning them.

  That had turned Connie’s thoughts to her own dilemma – her and Stephen. Then had come that knock at the door. As her father got up to answer it, she had felt her body tense, as though those thoughts of hers had been a sort of premonition.

  As yet she’d not had the courage to tell Mum and Dad about her and Stephen. He’d asked several times if she had and when she shook her head, about to make an excuse that they weren’t ready for that yet, he’d playfully half-threatened to come here one day and tell them himself. That had been last Saturday. Things had begun to become serious between them, yet she’d still not seen the inside of his bedroom, but his couch saw perhaps as much of their love as the bedroom might have – or nearly as much.

  She was beginning to know what love really was as they lay together on his couch, Stephen kissing her, fondling her, until her insides screamed for him to complete what he’d begun. She would hear his breathing become excited, feel his body tensing, only to have him suddenly draw back from her, his voice laboured, saying, ‘Not yet, darling, not until we are married.’ It felt like a form of torture.

  Last Saturday she had become angry, asking, ‘When, Stephen? When do you intend us to marry?’ wishing she’d asked it gently as he drew back to sit up, his expression tight.

  He’d replied – ‘I need to buy you a ring – an engagement ring’ – only to spoil the sudden excitement that leapt in her breast. ‘But I don’t want you to wear it until we name the day.’

  ‘Why?’ she had demanded.

  ‘I have to ask your father for your hand first. That will mean revealing the difference in our ages. He won’t be happy, I know that. Any father would prefer to see his daughter marry someone her own age or very near it.’

  She knew what he meant. A nine-year difference was a lot to ask her parents to accept. After a while, when they got used to it and once they’d come to realise what a gentleman he was, maybe they would resign themselves to it. But she didn’t relish that first step – not the way her father was prone to bellowing at anything that displeased him. It meant nothing, she was used to it, he did no harm, but how would Stephen take it, he who’d been so well brought up?

  But last week, sitting in a restaurant, he’d jokingly threatened to knock on her door and announce himself as her lover. Then, as she gasped, her eyes flashing, he’d grown serious, saying that her parents would have to know eventually. Was this unexpected knock him carrying out what had seemed to her a light-hearted threat?

  Almost frozen to her chair while the others sat waiting with mild interest, she heard her father burst out, ‘Gawd ’elp us!’ A shocked pause, then, ‘Come on in … fer Gawd’s sake, come on in!’

  ‘Hullo, Dad. I’ve bin given some leave.’ It was Albert’s voice but it sounded so tired.

  Dad’s voice grew louder. ‘Whyn’t you let us know, son?’

  ‘Couldn’t. I’m sorry,’ came the reply. Father and son were now in the narrow passage. Connie felt faint from relief while still excited to hear her brother.

  ‘Why not?’ Dad asked, but there was no reply. Seconds later, he and Albert came into the room. Everyone was now on their feet, smiles of welcome falling away on seeing this gaunt figure standing there, his effort to smile at them frustrated by the heavy weight that seemed to have fallen on his shoulders.

  He was in uniform, clean and smart, but it was the expression in his eyes that Connie noticed first: a haunted look, coupled as it were with one of despair.

  She couldn’t help herself from bursting out into a string of questions before anyone else could gather themselves. ‘Albert – what’s happened? Where’s Ronnie? Is he all right? Has something happened?’

  Albert’s gaze centred on her was like someone beseeching help. Everyone else remained looking on in bewildered silence. When he finally spoke, his voice was tota
lly flat. ‘It’s Ron.’

  His mother gave a little scream. ‘Oh, God! He hasn’t been—’

  ‘What about ’im, son?’ his dad broke in, his hand sweeping out to hold his wife back as she made to rush forward. ‘Somethink ’appened to ’im? He ain’t—’

  ‘He’s all right,’ Albert said quickly, but his voice sounded utterly worn out, as if he could hardly believe his own words. ‘But he’s bin injured …’

  He broke off then began again, the words tumbling out in a rush. ‘Got himself a blighty one.’

  Everyone knew about blighty ones. It took a man out of the front line for good. It also spoke of being crippled for life: no good as a fighting man any more, flung out on the rubbish heap.

  ‘How bad?’ His father’s words could hardly be heard.

  ‘Bit of a leg wound,’ Albert answered, trying to let them down lightly. Then, taking a deep breath as he knew they’d have to know the extent of his brother’s injuries sooner or later, he went on, ‘Truth is his leg’s been smashed up pretty bad. He’s still in France. They’ve got him hospitalised there. They couldn’t save it – his leg. So they’ve had to … ’ad to amputate,’ he went on in a rush. ‘And there’s a bit of shell shock too – he don’t quite seem to know where he is.’

  Sunday dinner was forgotten, Mum was near crying and she crumpled into a nearby chair, her two daughters staring stricken-faced, their children bleating, disturbed by their grandmother’s reaction and not understanding what was going on.