You'll Never See Me Again

by Lesley Pearse

  Reverend Masters, the vicar who often went to the camp to hold services, spoke of the dangers of blind hatred between nations. He pointed out that Carsten Frasch was an example of a man who had been a good soldier and a patriot, yet he’d found his way into many English people’s affections during his time here in England. He recalled his first meeting with Carsten, one day when he’d been called to the camp hospital to give the last rites to a soldier.

  ‘I was very moved to find that Carsten had volunteered to help in the hospital, willing to risk being infected himself, in order to care for men he often didn’t know personally. To him they were his comrades, and it was his duty to care for them.’

  Mabel heard some of the mourners complaining that Laithwaite was getting away with murder, as it appeared the crime was being swept under the table. She wished then she’d hit him harder with the wrench and killed him.

  It seemed the police couldn’t make up their mind if the crime came under the jurisdiction of the army or a civil court. Laithwaite was considered unfit to stand trial anyway, as he was thought to be insane. He’d been taken away to an asylum, and the farmer whose land lay next to Laithwaite’s was tending his animals and his crops. As for his wife, she was apparently still in the farmhouse alone.

  As Carsten’s body was lowered into the grave, and the Last Post was played on a bugle, the only thought in Mabel’s head was that this was God’s judgement on her for leaving Martin. She believed Carsten had been sent to her intentionally to show her just how terrible it is to love someone, and then to be left alone.

  But now, the realization that Clara, who she’d also come to care deeply for, was sick was like having a plaster torn off a wound. She had been immersed in self-pity, she’d barely spoken to Clara in the past three weeks, and she’d let herself go completely. Her hair was dull and in need of a wash, and she couldn’t remember when she had last cleaned her shoes, or even washed her dress.

  As soon as she’d tucked the hot-water bottle into bed with Clara and given her the aspirin and a drink, she went over to her cottage and dug out the dresses, aprons and masks she’d worn at the camp. She would sleep in the house until Clara was better. And she would make damn sure she recovered.

  As Mabel had discovered when she’d nursed at the camp, Spanish flu didn’t have a set pattern. Some victims went straight into the final symptoms, their skin took on the dreaded blue tinge, their lungs filled with fluid and they died. Others appeared to have nothing more than a bad cold for several days, then it suddenly grew much worse. Others might seem to be at death’s door, but they could wake up the next day feeling much better. Alongside these various manifestations there were other, less dramatic versions.

  What Mabel did know was that it was vital to get as much water into patients as possible, to keep them warm, and propping them up with pillows appeared to help the coughing and prevent their lungs filling with fluid. It was a peculiar disease in that it took young, healthy adults rather than children and old people. Mabel hoped, as Clara was in her forties, her age would help her recovery.

  For the next three days, Clara’s temperature soared, she was delirious, and her skin felt like she was on fire. Her doctor came, and gave Mabel some medicine for her, but he shook his head gravely as if he didn’t expect her to survive.

  But with or without his support, Mabel was determined Clara would pull through. She stayed in Clara’s room all night, dozing in a chair, so she’d be on the spot if needed. Every hour she lifted Clara’s head to make her drink. Sometimes Clara clenched her teeth together and the water dripped on to her nightdress, but that didn’t stop Mabel from trying. Clara went from being soaked with sweat to shivering with cold all the time. Mabel lost count of the times she sponged her down with cool water, put a clean nightdress on her and changed the bed sheets. Then, when she shivered, on went extra blankets and eiderdowns.

  Each morning that Clara was still alive Mabel counted as a battle won. Yet the war raged on; Clara’s coughing racked her body, the wheezing in her chest was terrible, and often she vomited stinking mucus. But to Mabel this had to be good, at least the infection wasn’t in her lungs. Yet Clara didn’t seem to know Mabel, she didn’t try to speak, and her eyes were blank.

  On the fourth day, Mabel went down to the kitchen. When she found the bread had gone mouldy, and there were no eggs or cheese, and virtually nothing left in the cupboards to make a meal, she burst into tears.

  She was exhausted from lack of sleep. She hadn’t been able to leave Clara even to make food, let alone go out and buy something. She had been surviving on tea, biscuits, the occasional chunk of cheese and an apple here and there.

  She could still make tea, as the milk was delivered, and there were plenty of apples, also the bottled plums. But she wanted a real dinner, with meat and vegetables. She needed a bath and a long night’s sleep.

  Looking out of the window did nothing to lift her spirits; the wind was so strong it had stripped the last of the leaves from the trees, and it was bending the bare branches down to the ground. She could see the old tree trunk that Carsten had used as a bench to chop logs and imagined him as he’d often been in summer, bare-chested, his blond hair shining in the sun, wielding the axe like it weighed nothing.

  Turning away from the window and biting back her grief, she realized she’d let the range go out – so even if she’d had something to cook, she couldn’t make a decent meal for herself.

  But the image of Carsten stayed in her head, along with his message to her. He’d never complained about anything. Always that wide smile, and the roaring laugh. And she knew now he was watching over her.

  ‘So stop feeling sorry for yourself,’ she said aloud. ‘Light the range and make a rice pudding, you’ve got milk. But first go and see how Clara is.’

  As she walked into the bedroom, she saw Clara’s eyes were open, and for the first time in days there was clear recognition.

  Mabel lifted Clara’s head and held a glass of water to her lips. This time, she drank deeply.

  ‘Good girl,’ Mabel said, as if her patient was a little child. ‘And can you tell me how you feel?’

  There was a faint smile. ‘I don’t know.’

  Mabel patted Clara’s cheek. ‘Well, while you are thinking on that one, I’ve got to light the range. Here’s the bell in case you need me.’ And she put the little silver bell on the bed.

  The misery she’d felt was replaced by joy as she went downstairs. It was possible, but not likely, that Clara could relapse. Anyway, she wasn’t even going to consider that possibility, and so she set to work to rake out the range with new vigour.

  When she went to the wood shed outside, the sight of a basket of kindling, chopped and ready for her, brought Carsten back into her mind again. There was a great deal more stacked up in a big box, just as the shed was full of logs. But he’d put this smaller amount into a basket, to make it easier for her to carry. Just another example of his thoughtfulness.

  That evening was the first happy one since Carsten’s death. Clara was on the mend; she felt able to use the lavatory, with Mabel supporting her, and said she wanted a bath too, but she wasn’t strong enough for that yet.

  She sat in a chair while Mabel stripped her bed and put clean linen on it, then Mabel brought her up a tray with a bowl of rice pudding.

  ‘We’ve got nothing left to eat,’ Mabel explained. ‘But as we had milk and rice, I thought of this.’

  Clara raised a small spoonful to her mouth, looking doubtful. But she ate it and smiled. ‘It’s lovely. I didn’t think I could eat anything, but this is perfect.’

  It was pure joy to see Clara eat the whole bowl, even though she struggled towards the end.

  ‘So now back to bed with you.’ Mabel took her tray away. ‘I don’t want you thinking you are completely recovered, because you aren’t. But it looks like you are on the mend.’

  Day by day, Clara grew stronger, until she felt fit enough to go downstairs and play her piano. As the happy music of Mozart w
afted through Willow Cottage, shutting out the sound of the wind and rain outside, at last Mabel felt they were both recovering.

  On the 11th of November, 1918, the Armistice was signed, and the war officially ended. But although there was absolute delight and relief that it was finally over, the celebrations were muted because the Spanish flu was still with them and increasing its number of victims daily.

  The press announced that fighting continued in some places in Europe, and reprisals from both soldiers and civilians were reported too. On top of that, husbands, sons and brothers were not expected back immediately.

  But it was the stealthy, invisible enemy of Spanish flu that distressed most people. You could be perfectly healthy at breakfast, and dead by supper time. The government were not helping the anxiety, either; no doubt they had the idea that admitting this pandemic was out of control would create mass panic. But everyone knew someone who had caught it, died of it, or even had it themselves and recovered, so they would all have preferred honesty to lies, subterfuge and smokescreens.

  For those like Clara and Mabel who read The Times , they knew it had spread worldwide now, and that the death toll was up in the millions.

  ‘I think we need to go away somewhere for a couple of days,’ Clara said, the day after Armistice Day. ‘Let’s plan something. We could go to London, or Bath. It will be fun. We’ll buy some material for a new dress each, buy new hats, and eat in smart restaurants. It would be lovely, especially if we go in December when all the shop windows have been dressed for Christmas.’

  ‘Umm,’ Mabel said. ‘Sounds wonderful.’

  ‘But there is something else we ought to do before that. We should write to Carsten’s parents and tell him how much he meant to us.’

  ‘Won’t it upset them more to know their son died at the hands of a German-hating farmer?’

  Clara shook her head. ‘I doubt his senior officer has told them the exact details of his death. Most likely he’ll have said something like “died in the line of duty”. We can ask about that. But I’m sure we can find a softer way to tell them about his death. A farming accident maybe? I’ll tell them about his work in the garden, and I can say how you nursed us both through the flu. We’ll tell them he was a son to be proud of.’

  ‘But they live in a little village, they won’t be able to read English. I know you speak some German, but not enough.’

  ‘Remember the English officer from the camp who acted as interpreter for the vicar at the funeral? I will ask him to translate our letter for us. He’ll get us Carsten’s parents’ address in Germany too.’

  Finding the words for that letter was the hardest thing either woman had ever done. Carsten’s parents would be grieving. They might be feeling as much hatred for the English as Mr Laithwaite had for the Germans. They might have assumed that their beloved son was safe as a prisoner of war and would soon be home with them, only to then get the news that he was dead, not from the Spanish flu – which, though tragic, could have happened anywhere – but while working on a farm.

  Captain Dale, the English officer who had acted as an interpreter, believed that the Germans would record Carsten’s death in general terms, as having occurred while carrying out his military duties. He also agreed with Clara that any parent would be needing to know more, as they had believed their son to be safe at the prison camp.

  ‘A farming accident sounds best,’ he said. ‘They are country people, so they will know harvesting machinery can be dangerous. Unless they write back insisting on the full details, it’s better for them to think he went quickly, out in the fields.’

  ‘To me that is as potentially horrible as being killed by a sniper. If I was his mother, I’d imagine him being gored by a bull or falling into a threshing machine.’

  ‘Perhaps, but for him to be murdered in anger with a pitchfork is far worse,’ the captain said. ‘We don’t want to put that image in his mother’s head, or the hate that provoked it. So talk about what he did in your garden, and when he helped in the sickbay. If you word it with enough warmth and genuine sorrow that he’s gone, she’ll take comfort in that.’

  But writing the letter was a lot harder than talking about it. Eventually, after many drafts, it was done.

  Mabel insisted they write that she and Clara were there as he died, having taken a walk to the farm to take some buns for him.

  ‘I’d like to know my son died with someone who cared about him there for him, offering comfort,’ she insisted. ‘And we can say that it was a quick death too, without going into details of how it happened.’

  Clara was doubtful, but she agreed it would go in the letter.

  They went on then to tell his parents about how he had tirelessly nursed the most seriously ill men in the camp and how, when he eventually caught the Spanish flu too, Mabel had nursed him in turn. They mentioned that his funeral had taken place at Fordington church with full military honours, and that the English soldiers were as sad at his death as his German comrades.

  ‘My housekeeper, Mabel, and I came to think of him as almost family,’ Clara wrote. ‘Each time we go into the log shed we see his work, with enough logs to see us right through the winter. The bench he painted blue, the flower beds that were so overgrown with weeds before he came, and the plums we’ve bottled, picked by him, all are reminders of his hard work, kindness and cheerful disposition. We miss him still and will never forget him. You can be very proud of your son.’

  After Captain Dale had translated the letter and Clara and Mabel had signed it, he intended to pass it over to the correct authorities for sending to Germany, just in case it was picked up by the censor.

  Mabel looked at Carsten’s home address written on the envelope. It was in a place called Crailsheim, a village near Stuttgart. She hoped that one day she might travel to Germany and go there.

  ‘That’s that now,’ Clara said as they left the camp to walk home. It was another raw, windy day. ‘I know it’s hard to think happy thoughts, Mabel, when your heart aches, and people are still dying like flies from that dreadful disease. The captain said they had another six deaths in the camp this week, and more still in the town. But we must try to look forward. So let’s go home, toast some crumpets on the fire and plan our little break.’

  12

  ‘I didn’t expect Bath to be so lovely,’ Clara said as they walked up Milsom Street, looking into the windows of all the fine shops.

  They had arrived by train on the previous day and booked into Meads Hotel in Great Pulteney Street, which Mabel likened to a palace as they had two adjoining rooms on the first floor, and their own bathroom. She couldn’t get over the grandeur; there was a huge chandelier in the hall, vast ornate gold-framed mirrors and thick carpets everywhere. The hotel even employed a man in white breeches, a green tail coat and top hat just to open the door.

  Their two rooms had sumptuous double beds and furniture that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the Palace of Versailles. Mabel was terribly worried about how much it cost, but Clara said she wasn’t to worry about that, as they needed a treat to celebrate the end of the war.

  Mabel loved that the bridge over the River Avon had little shops on it. Clara told her the only other one like it in Europe was the Ponte Vecchio in Florence. It felt very exotic and glamorous. But then so many places in Bath were like that: smart restaurants, jewellers with stock that cost a king’s ransom, beautiful shoe shops, and even ready-to-wear dresses, something Mabel had never seen before. Rich people used a dressmaker, and the poor made their own.

  Clara said she thought that ready-to-wear was the trend for the future. ‘Who wants to wait weeks for a new dress? And all that bother of going for fittings. I suppose for cocktail outfits, ball gowns and wedding dresses there will always be a need for good dressmakers. But for most women in a hurry, only wanting a day dress, why not sell them ready-made in shops?’

  The hotel had electricity, which could be expected, but it was a real surprise to find that an ancient city like Bath had electric tram
s and electric street lighting. But as Clara was happy to point out, it had always been the playground of rich aristocrats who came to take the healing waters, and the town still considered itself to be a cut above anywhere else in England.

  ‘We’ll pretend to be a couple of toffs while we’re here,’ she laughed. ‘Now let’s look for hats.’

  Two hours later, after having been into five different hat shops, the two women came out of Hermione’s Hats with a hat box each. Clara’s hat was crimson velvet, with a droopy brim pinned up on one side with a brooch. She had placed the brooch centre-forehead at first and Mabel mocked her, saying she looked like a pirate. The owner of the shop came forward and placed the brooch correctly, and suddenly Clara looked stylish and glamorous.

  Mabel, who was still concerned about mourning, was persuaded to choose a very dark green hat, also in velvet, which was perfectly correct for a death that had occurred a few years ago. It was almost a beret, only more generous, strikingly modern and youthful. The dress material she had bought earlier in the day was dark green shantung; she intended to have it made into a costume with a peplum-style jacket and a mid-calf-length skirt, as she’d seen on all the well-dressed ladies here in Bath. Her new hat would go well with it.

  ‘You’ve got to get out of this country bumpkin way of thinking,’ Clara whispered to her. ‘You are a very pretty young woman, and it’s such a waste. Now let’s get some lunch, and then we’ll look for more dress material.’

  They had gone back to their hotel to leave their shopping and came out again at six to look for somewhere to have dinner. They were on their way back towards the Pump Room, where they had seen a restaurant that looked inviting, when they passed a big sign outside a meeting hall on a street corner. The sign said: ‘Get in touch with your dear departed relatives tonight. Madam Coral Atwell, Psychic.’

  Mabel stopped dead to look at it, reminded instantly of Nora.

  ‘Would you like to go?’ Clara asked, looking at Mabel’s intent expression. ‘I know I would.’