Into the Darkest Day: An emotional and totally gripping WW2 historical novel

by Kate Hewitt

  In the month since D-Day, London had been hit worse than ever before; the Germans had begun launching V-1 rockets, buzz bombs known as doodlebugs that moved so quickly that anti-aircraft guns couldn’t be mobilized in time and people often weren’t able to take cover.

  Thousands of bombs had been dropped on London alone in the last five weeks, and it showed. The city looked worn down to the bone. With a clench of true fear, Matthew wondered if Lily had stayed safe.

  He checked into a small, rather shabby hotel near Piccadilly, reveling in a few inches of tepid bath water and a cup of tea the color of dishwater as if these were great luxuries. He went to Rainbow Corner for a hamburger and a beer, and then fell into bed and slept for sixteen hours straight, waking at midday to watery sunlight and a sense of unreality that he was no longer in France.

  It wasn’t until that evening that he took the Tube to Clapham, feeling unaccountably nervous as to what reception he might have. He hadn’t alerted Lily to the fact that he was returning to England, or that he had leave; he hadn’t been able to bring himself to write her at all, but now he regretted his reticence. What if she couldn’t get any time off? What if she wasn’t even there? What if—and this was surely the worst of all—she no longer felt the way he did?

  Yet how did he feel?

  Sometimes he wasn’t sure he knew.

  As he emerged from the Underground near Clapham Common, the rain had cleared, revealing a pale blue sky, the sun still bright above, even though it was nearing seven o’clock. The Common seemed peaceful, people strolling in the sunshine, enjoying the balmy weather, the respite from their troubles.

  Matthew had just turned the corner when he felt a prickling along his skin, an instinctive awareness, followed by a whistling sound he knew well, although it was usually accompanied by the distinctive wail of the air-raid sirens.

  With a sound like a thunderclap, smoke billowed up in the next street over, and it felt as if the very ground beneath his feet had rocked. The sirens started up, and the people near him began dodging for cover.

  Matthew whirled around, looking for shelter as another doodlebug landed another street over, and smoke clogged his lungs. He stumbled towards a doorway, one arm thrown above his head.

  He could hear the thunder of the bombs falling, just as he had before with Lily, and he closed his eyes tight against it all, half-wishing he was back in France. Then, after what could have been a minute or an hour, the all-clear sounded.

  Matthew straightened, lowering his arm as he blinked in a world that seemed muted, the air full of smoke and grit, the sound of police and ambulance sirens starting up.

  “Matthew!”

  He whirled towards the sound of his name, and, calling out again, Lily came, half-running, half-stumbling towards him. There was dust and grit in her hair and mud on her cheek, but she was safe and whole and in his arms, her slight frame shuddering against him as he pressed his lips to her hair.

  “I thought you were a ghost,” she choked out. “Or I was… I thought I must have died. I’d just come out of the Tube when it happened.”

  “We’re both alive,” he assured her as he kissed her forehead. Now that she was here, in his arms, he knew he’d been simply waiting these last five weeks to see her. To hold her. “We’re both very much alive.”

  She eased back to study his face, her eyes wide, her expression serious, her voice full of wonder. “How did you come to be here? How can you be back?”

  “I’m on leave. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to tell you—”

  “I didn’t expect letters, not with everything.” Even though Tom had written Sophie, or so he’d told Matthew once, when they’d come across each other in the canteen. They’d continued to avoid each other otherwise, Tom looking at Matthew with wary distrust whenever he saw him. “I knew you wouldn’t,” Lily continued quietly. “I understood.” And even though he hadn’t said a word about why he hadn’t written, Matthew felt that she did.

  “You’re safe?” he asked. “Your family?”

  “Yes, all safe. Not even a crack in a windowpane.”

  “Thank God.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Thank God.”

  They were quiet for a moment, holding each other in their arms, and then Matthew let go and they started walking towards Holmside Road.

  “Has it been very bad?” Lily asked, and even though Matthew knew she understood, he shook his head. He didn’t want to talk about Normandy, or the interrogations, or any of it.

  He reached for her hand and they walked silently towards her home, slowing as they came to a building that had been hit directly, reduced to little more than rubble and broken beams, with several people huddled around.

  “Can you help?” a man called, his voice hoarse with anxiety. “We need someone small.”

  Lily stopped, squeezing Matthew’s hand tightly. “Someone small,” she repeated, as if to herself.

  “To go down there.” A soot-faced man nodded towards a deep crater that had opened up in the middle of what had once been a house, a house just like Lily’s. “There’s a man stuck down there, he’s in a bad way. He needs help.”

  Matthew glanced at Lily; her face was pale, her chin tilted upwards. “How bad?” he asked.

  “I don’t think there’s much hope,” a man in a dark suit said quietly as he stepped forward. He held the battered leather medical bag of a doctor. “But I have some chloroform. We could ease his pain, at least. Surely that is our Christian duty.”

  It was only then that Matthew became aware of the piteous groaning coming from the dark pit; it sounded like a wounded animal, inhuman and awful, and he had an absurd urge to cover his ears.

  “But it’s too small a space for any of us,” the man finished with a nod towards Lily. “But I think you’d do, Miss, if you weren’t too scared. You look small enough.”

  “I’m not scared.” Lily’s voice trembled and her gaze darted towards the darkened hole. In one of her letters, Matthew recalled, she’d written about how much she hated small spaces.

  He took a step towards the house and saw just how narrow the hole was, barely big enough for Lily to fit her shoulders through. It was like a tunnel into hell.

  “She can’t go down there,” he said, sounding angry. What they were asking was outrageous, yet Lily was already undoing her buttons.

  “I can,” she said. “But not with my jacket on.”

  “Attagirl,” the man said approvingly, and the doctor began to prepare the chloroform, while Matthew watched helplessly. He did not want Lily to go down into that pit where such horrible moans were coming from, a place where he could neither protect nor comfort her, yet he knew she would not even think of refusing. She was gentle, yes, she always had been, but she was also strong. Brave, just as he’d told her she was. Here was the proof.

  Lily’s face was pale with determination as she slipped her jacket off and handed it to Matthew.

  “How will she get down there?” he asked, still sounding strident. “It’s too small for a ladder.”

  The man grimaced in apology. “We’ll have to lower her down by her ankles.”

  “What!” Matthew shook his head. “I wouldn’t even ask a soldier back in Normandy to do something like that.”

  “We’re not in Normandy,” the man replied grimly.

  Lily laid a hand on Matthew’s sleeve. “I’ll do it,” she said, and there was a note of quiet certainty in her voice that made Matthew feel ashamed.

  He nodded and stepped back.

  “I’m sorry, Miss,” the man crouching by the hole said, “I think you’ll have to take your dress off, as well. It’s going to be awfully tight down there, and we wouldn’t want your clothes catching on a bit of rubble and bringing the whole thing down.”

  Matthew opened his mouth and then closed it as Lily began to undo the buttons of her dress, while the men respectfully looked away. He took it from her; she was so pale and slight in nothing but her slip, freckles dusting her shoulders, the hollow of her throat mak
ing her seem even more vulnerable. A breath of wind could blow her away.

  “How do I do it?” she asked, and the doctor explained about the chloroform, how she should put a few drops on a cotton mask and hold it as close to the man’s face as she could, while trying not to breathe it in herself. She would have to grip the torch between her teeth.

  Matthew longed to protest, but one glance at Lily’s tense body, bristling with determination, kept him silent. He watched helplessly as she clenched the torch between her teeth and two men held her by her thighs to lower her down into the ghastly hole. He could not imagine what she was enduring.

  The next few minutes were an endless torture, worse than any Matthew had experienced in his five weeks in Normandy. He could hear the horrible moans coming from the hole, and then suddenly they stopped.

  Lily called out, and the men hauled her by the ankles.

  She spat out the torch, her whole body trembling as she began to retch helplessly.

  Matthew caught her in his arms as her body convulsed again and again.

  “I’m sorry,” she choked out. “His face… the smell…”

  One of the men patted her clumsily on the shoulder. “There’s nothing to be sorry for. You did brilliantly, love.”

  Still Lily continued to retch, doubled over, tears streaming from her eyes as she shook her head. “There’s nothing to be done for him,” she finally managed. “His face…”

  “Don’t think of it,” Matthew said, and she looked up at him, her eyes wide and dark as tears continued to stream down her cheeks.

  “I have to,” she said. “Can’t you see that? That man… he’s every sailor I’ve written a letter for.” A shudder went through her. “And that hole… it was as if I was in a submarine, as if I were going down into my nightmares, the things I try so hard not to see.”

  “Lily.” Her name broke from him and she buried her head in his shoulder.

  “I’m glad I was able to help,” she said fiercely. “I’m glad.” Her body convulsed again and he wrapped his arms around her more tightly. He didn’t think he could have loved her more.

  “Let’s get you home,” he said. “You need brandy and tea, and in that order.” She nodded and began to dress, her fingers trembling so badly as she tried to do her buttons that Matthew stayed her hand and did them himself.

  She looked up at him as he did the last one by her collar, and a tear slipped down her cheek. He caught it with his thumb as he leaned his forehead against hers, closing his eyes.

  “I must smell terrible,” she said in a shaky voice.

  “I don’t care.”

  She did, and he didn’t; he wanted only to stay there with her, to imbue her with his strength as she gave him her own. But they couldn’t stay; there was nothing more for them to do, as the doctor tended the wounded he could help and the man and his friends began clearing rubble. The man in the hole might already be dead.

  With his arm around her shoulders and her head nestled against him, Matthew drew Lily away from the wreckage and they resumed walking towards the safety of Holmside Road.

  As they turned onto the road, Matthew stiffened and Lily looked up, drawing her breath in sharply as she saw the rubble in the street, neighbors milling around aimlessly, looking woebegone and lost, as smoke spiraled into a darkening sky.

  “No,” she whispered. “No.”

  “Lily—” Matthew tried to catch her hand, but she shrugged him off as she started running down the street, heedless of the wreckage strewn about.

  Matthew chased after her, knowing before he came to the smoking ruin what had happened.

  A V-1 rocket had hit the house directly, so there was nothing left but a gaping hole, a mess of bricks and broken plaster. Matthew could not make out a single thing that had been left intact.

  Lily stood in front of her home, her fists clenching and unclenching.

  “Was anyone home?” Matthew asked a neighbor quietly; the woman stared at him with shocked eyes.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Carol’s usually home at this time. Richard, too.” She let out a choked cry and shook her head, her fist to her mouth.

  Matthew reached towards Lily as an ambulance turned onto the street.

  “Lily,” he said quietly. “Lily. Love. There’s nothing you can do here.”

  “Don’t say that!” Her voice rose savagely. “There must be. I helped that man. There must be something I can do.” A sob erupted from her then, and then another, and Lily fell to her knees on the pavement as Matthew put his arms around her and she wept.

  Chapter Nineteen

  ABBY

  Abby watched the car come up the dusty drive, just as it had done three weeks ago, only this time she was getting in it and driving three hundred and fifty miles to Minneapolis.

  Simon hadn’t told her much on the phone, only that he’d found another man from the 82nd Airborne, Guy Wessel, who now lived in a nursing home outside Minneapolis and remembered Matthew Lawson very well.

  “He said he’d talk to us. We might not find any answers, but he’s not too far away and I thought it was worth a chance.”

  And so Abby had impulsively, recklessly, agreed to accompany Simon. She wasn’t even certain why; whoever Matthew Lawson was, whatever he’d done, it surely wasn’t going to affect her own life all that much.

  Except, of course, it was, because her father was going to be furious, and worse, hurt. And maybe, Abby realized, that was why she was going, at least in part. Because she needed finally to live her own life; she needed to stop making everything she did an apology, hostage to her father’s feelings. And she needed her father to understand that.

  She’d left a note for him on the kitchen table, propped between the salt and pepper shakers, and a tuna casserole in the fridge. She’d felt both exultant and terrified as she’d closed the front door behind her, a bag in hand. It was too far to go and come back in one day, and so Simon had suggested they stay in a hotel near the nursing home, separate rooms, of course. Abby had flushed at that, and made no reply.

  Now Simon stepped out of the car, smiling in greeting, even though Abby saw an uncertainty in his eyes. She had no idea how things really stood between them, and she had a feeling he didn’t, either. A kiss, an argument, two continents.

  She pushed the thoughts away, not wanting them to take over.

  “Hey.” She came down the steps and Simon took her bag.

  “I’m glad you decided to come with me.”

  “I am, too.” Abby gave him a brief smile as he stowed her bag in the back and she slipped into the passenger seat.

  “How did your dad take the news?” Simon asked as he climbed into the driver’s side and then started back down the drive, leaving the farmhouse behind. Under the pallid sky, it looked empty and old, the paint peeling off its weathered clapboard. Abby gave it a fleeting look before twisting back around in her seat.

  “I don’t know. I left a note. Told him I walked Bailey.” Simon raised his eyebrows and she shrugged. “I didn’t want to get into it with him, to be honest, and I probably would have changed my mind.”

  “And you didn’t want to do that?”

  “No.” She took a quick, steadying breath. “We might not find anything out, and what we find out might not be important at all, but… I feel like I’ve been stagnating. I don’t want to, anymore. So this is my big moment of liberation.” She gave him a quick, teasing smile, trying to make light of the moment. “Kind of pathetic, isn’t it?”

  “Not at all.” Simon reached over and touched her hand briefly, barely more than a brush. “Not at all,” he said again quietly.

  They drove in silence down the country road Abby knew so well, the country road where Luke and her mother had lost their lives, although she hadn’t seen it happen. She didn’t want to think about it now. Then they were turning onto route 12, and then I-94 towards Minneapolis, cutting northwest across Wisconsin, leaving everything familiar behind.

  “Tell me about this guy,” Abby said as
the fields flashed by and she relaxed back into her seat. Willow Tree Orchards was far behind her now.

  “His name is literally Guy,” Simon answered with a laugh. “Guy Wessel. He was in the 508th with both Lawson and your grandfather, part of the 82nd Airborne.”

  “Is that all you know?”

  “I know Guy seemed quite close to Matthew Lawson. He spoke about him fondly, or at least it seemed so, in his Facebook message, and he’s happy for us to come and see him so he can tell us what he knows.”

  “But he might not know anything. Or at least, not much.” Abby felt both a needling sense of disappointment and a flicker of relief. Maybe it would be easier, if they weren’t able to find anything out. Don’t worry, Dad, there’s nothing there.

  Except, by her father’s own admission, there was.

  “He might not,” Simon agreed. “And then that might be it. A dead end.”

  “If so, it might be for the best.”

  “It might.” He didn’t sound convinced.

  “You’re going back soon, aren’t you?” Abby asked. It was early August, with the heat and humidity to prove it, the damp skies and stifling nights, the sudden thunderstorms. “You’ve already been here for nearly a month.”

  “My ticket is for this Wednesday. I have to get back for exam results.”

  Just a few days away. Had he even been going to tell her he was leaving so soon?

  Abby didn’t reply as she looked out the window at the familiar scenery—fields and an occasional barn, weathered billboards advertising everything from Mars Cheese Castle to one of the country’s biggest dollar stores.

  “What is it with Wisconsin and cheese?” Simon asked after a few minutes had passed, nodding towards a billboard with a photo of a rather tacky “cheese castle”, complete with a crenelated turret.

  “Wisconsin is the number-one cheese-producing state in America,” Abby told him with a smile. “It produces a quarter of the country’s cheese.”

  “Do you learn that in school?”

  “We recite it along with the Pledge of Allegiance.” Abby laughed at the expression on Simon’s face. “I’m joking. It’s just something you know if you live here.”