A Girl in Wartime

by Maggie Ford

  Mum, keeping her own thoughts to herself, nevertheless ruled Dad for all his blustering. And so Connie realised that she would never be able to get anything over on Stephen, just as her father couldn’t her mother, and she loved him for that quiet strength, just as she honoured her mum for hers.

  Stephen suddenly lengthened his stride and she looked up at him to see he was holding his head high. ‘It’s damned freezing out here. I suggest we go somewhere warm for a hot cup of tea,’ he said briskly.

  She expected him to say, ‘Then I’ll take you home.’ Instead he said quietly, ‘Then, if you like, we’ll go back to my apartment – if you want to.’

  If she wanted to! Oh, yes she did so want to.

  It was wonderful lying in his bed again – their bed. But something else too, something she had never experienced in any of the times he’d made love to her. This afternoon, the miserable world closed out, she found for the first time how bringing love to its climax actually felt, and it was like no other feeling she’d ever imagined or would ever forget.

  Knowing enough to realise he was looking after her, he would leave her at the moment of his climax. So it was that he moved away from her as always, this time much sooner, leaving her bewildered, but moments later he was holding her to him again, reawakening her senses. And this time his embrace was more urgent than she had ever remembered. As always the joy of him being part of her was wonderful, but this second time it felt somehow so different. Something was happening, something strange, almost unbearable yet utterly wonderful, her body being engulfed by it. She could hear herself gasping, crying out as it swept through her whole body, from the very top of her head to the end of her every nerve and fibre. Finally they lay together, very still, out of breath.

  ‘Are you all right?’ He whispered the question.

  She nodded, then said, ‘Yes.’ Nothing more, but something had changed. Suddenly she felt herself a woman at last, knew this was what really formed babies. But he had guarded her against that, hence his moving away from her for a moment or two. Now she knew what making love was really like and it was marvellous.

  He brought her home early. Mum was surprised to see them, smiling, but Connie could feel her watching her. Dad of course noticed nothing, instantly engrossing himself in his Sunday paper, purposely it seemed, after a brief nod to Stephen. But she didn’t care any more. She and Stephen had been one, and would be again and again. And now she knew his nature was akin to her mother’s, she felt she had never felt as comfortable with him as she did now.

  Saying goodnight, he gave her a brief kiss by the open door before leaving. Her father was in the kitchen, she guessed, with his eyes on the two of them. She couldn’t wait for Monday to come, when she would sit at her desk, knowing that when she looked towards Stephen’s office, he, seeing her, would lift his chin, would smile, maybe lift a hand in a brief wave.

  After work he’d see her home, but first they’d go to his lovely flat, make love the way they had today, and her world would feel complete yet again. And soon they would begin to set a definite date for their wedding day.

  Just before she set off for work a letter arrived from Albert. It always brought mixed feelings: was he okay, was he ill, was he hurt? But he merely hoped everyone was all right; that he was; that he trusted they got his last letter; that he had got theirs and enjoyed reading it. His life out there was hardly mentioned, apart from wishing he was home, and that he was concerned as to how Ronnie was – was he getting better at all?

  ‘’E does seem a bit better,’ Mum said as she put the letter on the mantelpiece for Dad to read when he came home, ‘though I just don’t know. Dolly can read it when she comes out of their room. She’ll tell me what to say.’

  It was Dolly now, Dorothy such a mouthful. She was a tower of strength to Ron. Not that he was much improved: he was still a bag of nerves, twitching, still tending to gaze into nowhere, saying little, then having to fight a stutter, but the way she stuck by him was a credit to her.

  He was calm only when holding little Violet. Dolly couldn’t have given him a finer present in helping him towards recovery, though it never lasted long. He seldom came out of their bedroom in what had once been the front room.

  Leaving for work, Connie called out to them, ‘I’m off now. Bye, Dolly,’ getting a ready answer, then, ‘Bye, Ron,’ waiting for a while till she heard, ‘B-b-bye, C-Con.’ Ron’s voice was laboured, early mornings doing nothing for his recovery. She only hoped, prayed, Albert would never be sent home like that.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  May 1917

  It didn’t seem right being out here without Ronnie. Albert missed his brother terribly. He had mates, of course, but it wasn’t the same. Mates came and went, sometimes split up by these meandering trenches, some killed, some injured and borne away to a field hospital, he never laying eyes on them again.

  For all the time Ron had been with him, they’d never been split up. That was normal procedure for kin, for friends, even street neighbours. It helped morale, it was thought. Then Ron had got his blighty one, was back home on crutches, while he himself was still out here.

  Stealing frequent cautious peeps over the parapet for any movement from the enemy lines as he’d been ordered, in the process inviting a bullet if he wasn’t careful, was at least better than doing nothing. Doing nothing made him feel so utterly lonely – a feeling he just couldn’t get over. Still, dinner soon, dolled out in the usual haphazard way but helping to take his mind off loneliness despite the constant jostle of those moving around in the confines of a trench.

  It was May and had been raining all night; was still raining now with no sign of stopping; had rained yesterday and the day before. Any further back than that he couldn’t remember, each day melting violently into another. Water was above the wooden duckboards. Lots of soldiers had that rotting, stinking trench foot from constant immersion in water. It came right through the boots, the trousers always wet at least just past the calf, and one had to sit on firing steps or mounds of earth where shells had blasted away part of a trench, anywhere above the waterline. His feet didn’t feel so good either.

  Still, it was coming up to midday, and he could look forward to the usual meal, probably bully beef in gravy and a hunk of bread. It was filling and sufficient but after months of it, it was boring to the point of making a man feel weary just to look at it.

  If Ron had been here, the pair of them would have made light of it, made a joke out of it …

  ‘If you don’t like it, give it to the cat!’

  ‘What cat?’

  ‘Lieutenant Smithers’ cat. You’ve seen it – tucked down his trouser front. At least we hope it’s a cat.’

  Lieutenant Smithers, a bombastic little man, tended to scratch at his crotch from time to time whenever he spoke to anyone – a habit he probably wasn’t aware of – and there’d been some who had sworn they’d heard it meow, unless it was him trying carefully to break wind.

  But there was no Ron now to joke with about anything. As he waited for them to come along the lines filling mess tins and pouring draughts of water, he reached into his tunic breast pocket and drew out the letter Mum had sent him recently.

  It said she’d heard from George again. He was on the Somme, further south in France, and his job often entailed going out into no-man’s-land as a stretcher-bearer, collecting the wounded and taking them to a field hospital. It seemed that George, previously accused of being a coward, of being lily-livered, was now risking his life, expecting a bullet at any time, although there did exist an unwritten law between both sides that one did not fire on stretcher-bearers.

  Even so … George a stretcher-bearer at the front, in direct line of fire? Who’d have credited it? He felt a new respect for his older brother. The man had come up trumps after all.

  Albert’s thoughts changed course – when this war was over he and Edie would rent a nice little house, settle down and start a family. They’d got married on his last leave – January – a brief a
ffair with no wedding breakfast, no guests other than Mum and Dad, his sisters, Ron and Dorothy, Connie; they sat down to just an ordinary meal – no wedding cake though Mum, bless her, had managed to concoct something a bit special in its stead.

  There was just time to scribble a note to Edie before the orderlies arrived with the usual bully beef stew, to tell her yet again that he loved her so very much and could hardly wait to be with her, for always. He’d hand it to one of the orderlies, who’d post it for him, along with dozens of letters from other men.

  Holding out his tin he received his portion, hoping he’d have time to eat it. He became aware that the shelling had stopped, so used to it he was that he hardly noticed. But the sudden silence meant that in a few minutes whistles would blow, sending them over the top into that hell that never seemed to end.

  A hundred or so miles to the south George had worked through the night along the lines of the injured and dying at the field hospital, doing what he could to alleviate their suffering.

  It wasn’t much compared with what the doctors did but he worked hard and with all his soul. If he was going to do this right, if he was going to make up for his past misguided beliefs, he was prepared to spare nothing of himself; he worked long after others had done their bit tending the wounded. He was no medic; he had learned a little, but his job as he saw it was to stay beside wounded and horrified men in extreme pain, administering whatever aid and comfort he could while the doctors worked on the injuries: holding each man’s hand, his grip painful as spasms of agony darted through that patient’s frame. He’d often come away with fingernail marks embedded so deep into his own flesh that it bled.

  He thought of that first leave, the way his father had spoken to him after all that time spurning him, accused of being a son to be ashamed of, refusing to greet him as his own flesh and blood. His words: ‘Wonder you bothered to see us’ had still held animosity.

  Mum had intervened. ‘You look well. How are you, love?’ Neither of them referred to him now being in the forces or asked what he did.

  ‘I’m with the medical corps now,’ he’d supplied.

  His father hadn’t acknowledged that, but his mother had said, ‘We got your letter telling us what you was doing. It worried me, though, how safe you was. You said you was training before you went, but I thought medical stuff took years to study, but I suppose in wartime things is different.’

  She had gabbled on. Nerves probably. But what he’d really needed was to explain why he’d changed his mind about the beliefs he’d held. He’d turned to his dad. ‘About why I did what I did, fooling myself all that time and—’

  ‘Well,’ his father had cut in, his voice a deep growl. ‘Ain’t much to be gained going over old sores.’ His father’s words left George feeling like an intruder in his own home.

  His visit had lasted just as long as it took to drink the cup of tea Mum had made for him. Leaving, he’d tentatively held out a hand to his dad, who, to his relief, had taken it, not firmly, but had said, ‘Take care of yourself, then,’ which he felt meant more than the half-hearted handshake.

  Dorothy with her little daughter had joined them but his brother Ronnie hadn’t. ‘Still not able to face the world properly,’ she said, ‘but he says he wishes you well.’

  He’d never been back since, preferring to spend any leave he had in Paris, where he felt more at home these days. As for that chapel with its odd beliefs, he’d turned his back on that for ever.

  He had stopped writing to his parents. It was futile, he felt, but his sister Connie often wrote, telling him all the family news. She’d told him all about her and this Stephen chap – a friendly letter that he’d answered, wishing her well, and she’d replied saying she hoped he’d be at her wedding – she was the only one of the family who had ever understood him.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  June 1917

  Connie had been summoned to the chief editor, Desmond Mathieson’s office. It was beautifully furnished and had a clear view of St Paul’s Cathedral, its dome basking in the bright summer sunlight, catching her attention the instant she entered.

  Why she’d been summoned she had no idea, only that he wished to see her, and now she was filled with concern that he might be considering dispensing with her services now that the date of her marriage to Stephen had been set to November and the news had been leaked out. She’d had lunch with Stephen half an hour before but he’d not mentioned that Mathieson wanted to see her. Surely he would have known, being the editor in charge of his department.

  As she entered, Mathieson, who had been leaning back in his swivel chair like someone about to bestow a marvellous gift, had leaped to his feet and come round to conduct her to sit.

  ‘Please, my dear, sit yourself down,’ he chortled.

  He seemed so full of camaraderie that it couldn’t be the sack for her. Wondering what he wanted she let herself be helped to sit, after which he made his way back to his side of the large desk to seat himself in his own chair, all the while beaming across the desk at her.

  ‘I expect you are wondering why I have sent for you, my dear.’

  It couldn’t be to give her notice; he was too full of smiles for that. She was sure she had given the newspaper satisfaction during the time she’d worked there. It had always been an odd sort of employment and she’d been well paid for it, had even earned a rise only recently.

  Maybe he intended to talk to her about her coming marriage to Stephen. But that was months away yet, and would be a quiet affair anyway. After all, he having been married before, one shouldn’t make a big do of a second marriage out of respect for the deceased first wife, and she’d been content with that.

  Maybe he was thinking that she should leave the newspaper prior to the wedding. Before the war, women, once married, did not go to work, their task being to look after their husband, his house, and whatever children came along. It was no doubt that, despite him saying how indispensable her talent was to his newspaper, Stephen himself had no intention of her continuing to work after they were married, and why would she need to? He could give her all the things she’d never had – a nice house, a suitable allowance – something girls like her could only dream about.

  Mr Mathieson leaned forward, the fingertips of both his large hands touching to form an arch beneath his chin. ‘I understand,’ he began, ‘that our Mr Clayton and you have arranged your wedding for late autumn.’

  As she nodded he sat back in his chair, allowing it to swivel very slightly.

  ‘Well, my dear, I’ve not spoken to Mr Clayton yet, but felt I should speak to you first in order to see what you might think about a proposition I have in mind, being that it mostly concerns yourself.’

  She stared at him. For no real reason that she could find she felt a coldness creep below her flesh. Was he asking her to continue working for a good deal longer? Only this month, June the fourteenth, London had again been bombed after all that time of relief from attack. This time it hadn’t been German zeppelins but German aeroplanes that had attacked the city.

  Five days ago, in broad daylight, the East End had gazed up with wonder at the fine clean lines of the twin-winged aircraft, the German cross plainly visible on the tail and on each side of the fuselage. Someone had counted twelve aeroplanes; others said fifteen daring the barrage of anti-aircraft fire from the ground. But hardly had the realisation of danger gripped ordinary Londoners when the bombs had fallen. In an air raid lasting just fifteen minutes some hundred Londoners had been killed and four hundred injured; one bomb had fallen on a local school killing ten children – innocent kiddies who’d harmed no one; it was appalling. Another bomb had hit a train standing in a local railway station; there had been fatalities there too.

  Connie had been sent with two photographers to one of the scenes to record the parents of the murdered children. It had been distasteful and sickening; she’d returned feeling a nervous wreck but her sketches had been praised by Mathieson.

  She’d stood in his office r
eceiving his praise, seeing his broad smile of satisfaction, hearing him exclaim with a note of unconcealed triumph that this would double – no, treble – their readership. But she had felt no triumph in this gift of hers. In fact, his praise had left her feeling contempt for him. Even now, several days later, she was still unable to get the scenes out of her mind.

  Now, Mathieson was regarding her with a look of contemplation.

  ‘My dear,’ he began. ‘If you accept my proposition, I will see that your salary is doubled, all your expenses paid, and the paper will make certain that you come to no harm.’

  What was he talking about? She made to ask but he was already forging ahead. ‘It may mean you and Mr Clayton putting your wedding back to the beginning of next year, say January. As I have said, I will see you are well rewarded.’

  As she sat dumbfounded and a little bewildered, he leaned towards her as if to impart some wonderful news, elbows leaning on his desk, fingers linked.

  ‘I have an assignment which I think will be the pinnacle of your achievements to date. Since you came to us, the London Herald’s readership has increased unbelievably. I am very proud of you and extremely grateful. Sadly, once you are married, you will leave this company. But one last assignment is needed before you leave for good. And that will be in a blaze of glory and triumph, of that I can assure you, my dear.’ My dear! Not once had he used her name. ‘And I for one believe that the London Herald will remember your name for many years to come.’

  Then why wasn’t he using her name at this moment? She wished he would get whatever it was off his chest and she shifted in her chair. Noticing her impatience, he smiled. ‘Right, my dear, I expect you are wondering where all this is leading.’

  She was wondering, and growing more suspicious by the minute, There was too much being said for this, whatever it was, to be palatable.

  ‘Right, then,’ he continued briskly. ‘We have our war correspondents and photographers out in France and Flanders, and who are also making contact with those who have been hospitalised before returning to Britain. That is all very well, but others of the press are doing exactly the same thing. The whole of Fleet Street is at it. What we are looking for is a new slant, a crowd-puller if you like.’ He paused for a moment, then said, ‘This is where you come in, my dear. Your talent, your wonderful, exceptional talent, could help us increase our readership still further. What I am asking of you, my dear, is that we send you over to France. But nowhere near the front line, of course. You would be required to go round the hospitals, the wards, and sketch what you see, with your special talent for, shall we say, delving into the soul.’