‘I’m going to get you some more painkillers,’ she told him and after she had administered an injection he thankfully drifted off into a drug-induced sleep. Fortunately, his mother appeared at the door an hour later and after pulling the curtains about Jimmy’s bed to give them some privacy Kathy hurried away to see what could be done for the rest of the patients.
By the time she finished her shift at five o’clock she was worn out and downhearted.
‘How did your first day go?’ Sunday asked when she entered the kitchen some time later and Kathy promptly burst into tears.
‘Oh, Mum, those poor men! I know we read about what they suffer in the newspaper and hear it on the radio, but nothing can prepare you for actually seeing it. And they’re all so brave.’ She went on to tell her mother about Jimmy. He had died within an hour of his mother arriving, almost as if he had been waiting for her, and Kathy had cried unashamedly. It was such a waste of a young life, but Jimmy was only the tip of the iceberg. Thousands of young men just like him were dying daily and still there was no end to the war in sight. Still, she consoled herself, at least she was doing her bit to help now, and she still had her adorable twins to come home to. No one could stay sad around them for long.
‘Corporal Branning, get up this instant. What’s wrong with you!’ The officer standing at the end of Ben’s bed was rattling the iron footboard irritably, but Ben was almost oblivious to his presence as he lay there shaking. He was soaked with sweat and the officer soon realised that something was seriously amiss.
‘Get over to the hospital and ask one of the doctors to come over and take a look at him as soon as possible,’ he barked to the young corporal standing beside him. ‘And in the meantime, you’ll have to deal with the horses. He’s clearly in no fit state to.’
‘But, sir …’ The young man looked concerned. ‘I ain’t got the foggiest idea how to handle horses.’
‘Then learn!’
‘Yes, sir!’ The young man saluted and turning about he fled out of the hut.
Fifteen minutes later he was back with David in tow, but the officer had long gone about his duties.
‘It’s this chap here,’ he told David. ‘His name is Ben Branning.’
David started. ‘Ben Branning did you say?’ His mind was working overtime. Wasn’t Kathy’s half-brother called Ben? The one that had run off after stealing all Sunday’s money?
Pulling himself together he leaned over Ben and asked, ‘Are you feeling ill, old chap?’ But he didn’t really need to ask. He could see at a glance what the problem was. This chap had shell shock, or battle fatigue as they were now calling it. He was shaking convulsively, and his eyes were wide and staring so the only thing he could do was recommend that he be shipped home until – or if – he recovered.
‘Name?’
Somehow Ben managed to answer him. ‘B-Branning … Ben Branning.’
‘And where are you from, Branning?’
‘The Midlands … Treetops.’
David swallowed hard. Yes, it was him all right. He’d recognise him anywhere. The thief. The one that had ensured his wife-to-be had been turned out of her home. He had never been fond of Ben, even before he had stolen from Sunday. He could remember when he had first started to visit Kathy at Treetops how unwelcome Ben had always made him feel. But he mustn’t allow personal feelings to affect his duty so he told the young corporal behind him, ‘Go and tell the sister I shall be admitting him then arranging that he be shipped home, unfit for duty.’ At least he wasn’t lying there. From the looks of him he wouldn’t even be able to look after himself, let alone the horses. In this state he was neither use nor ornament.
Twenty minutes later Ben was lying in a hospital bed in a ward reserved for the men who were suffering from the same condition as him. Unfortunately, it could be some time before he was returned home for the physically maimed and injured had priority over the men suffering with mental breakdowns.
David visited him over the next couple of days as often as he could and although Ben was still far from well, with rest he did seem to recover slightly, to the point that he could answer questions and speak.
‘Don’t you remember me?’ David asked one day and Ben stared at him curiously. ‘We’ve met before.’
‘When?’
‘I’m a friend of Kathy Branning’s.’ David hesitated. ‘In fact, she’s my fiancée.’
Ben’s eyes stretched wide. ‘You’re engaged to Kathy?’
‘I most certainly am,’ David told him proudly. ‘And as soon as this damn war is over, we’re going to be married and I’m going to adopt her twins.’
‘Kathy has twins!’ Ben gasped.
‘She does, and they’re the most delightful, mischievous children you could ever wish to meet,’ David said fondly.
‘And how old are they?’ Ben forced himself to ask.
‘Hmm …’ David had to think. ‘They were four on the twenty-eighth of last month, I believe. They’ve just started school, as it happens. They agreed to take them a little early so that Kathy could get back to nursing.’
Ben closed his eyes and groaned deep in his throat. The children couldn’t be this doctor’s if he was speaking of adopting them and to his knowledge Kathy hadn’t had a boyfriend, apart from himself before he left so … No! His head wagged from side to side in denial. Surely Kathy couldn’t have been pregnant when he left? But then as he groggily tried to work out the dates everything fitted together. The children must be his, but why hadn’t she told him that she was with child?
Because you never gave her a chance to, you just used her, a little voice in his head said accusingly and burying his face in his pillow he began to shake again as it hit home what a total mess he had made of his life.
Chapter Forty-Three
Three weeks later, as Kathy read the letter that had just arrived from David, she began to tremble, and her hand flew to her mouth as panic set in.
Benjamin Branning, Sunday’s stepson, has just been shipped back to England suffering with battle fatigue. He was admitted to the hospital and when I saw him, I realised who he was.
If David had found Ben, would they have spoken about her? Would David have mentioned the twins? She had never told a living soul, not even her mother, who the father of the twins was, but if David had told Ben about them would Ben put two and two together and realise they were his? She had spent the first years of the children’s lives longing for him to come back and meet them and yet now she fervently prayed that he would stay away.
Taking a deep breath, she tried to calm down. Of course Ben would never dare to show his face here again. He would be too afraid of reprisals, surely? For all he knew Sunday could have reported him to the police and they could still be searching for him even now. She looked at the date on David’s letter. It had been posted over two weeks ago so Ben would likely be back in Britain now, in some hospital somewhere, she supposed. But what if he did come back? a nagging little voice asked.
‘Mummy … I’m clean now,’ Daisy’s voice floated to her from along the landing and bundling the letter back into the envelope she shoved it into her pocket and hurried to the bathroom.
‘Come on, sleepy head.’ Kathy smiled as Daisy clambered out of the bath and her mother dried her with a large, fluffy towel. ‘Thomas is waiting for your story and then it’s off to the land of nod for you two. It’s school tomorrow.’
Once Daisy was clad in a clean nightdress Kathy gave her a cuddle then bundled her along the landing and into the bedroom she shared with Thomas, who was already yawning.
Lifting the story book, Kathy began to read to them but before she had got to the end of the third page, they were both snoring softly so, laying the book down, Kathy smiled and tiptoed quietly from the room.
On the way downstairs she wondered if she should mention what David had told her to her mother, but then decided against it. It would only worry and upset her and that was the last thing Kathy wanted. Sunday was no spring chicken and Kathy didn’t want
to alarm her. For now, at least, she would keep the news as her secret and wait to see if anything developed from it.
It was a blustery, wet day at the airfield, and Livvy was having a cup of tea in the mess with Giles and the rest of the air crew that would be flying that day. ‘I wonder if the flights will be cancelled. The weather forecast is appalling, gusty strong winds and rain,’ Livvy remarked.
Giles shrugged. ‘I doubt it; we’re targeting an arms factory and a big airfield in Berlin today so it’s going to be an important raid from what our flight officer told us.’
Livvy bit her lip as she glanced out of the window anxiously. It was mid-October now and already the weather had turned, and the leaves were beginning to flutter from the trees. She could see the trees bending in the strong wind and shuddered to think of the pilots who would soon have to fly the large Lancasters that had recently been delivered to their site. The planes were enormous and heavy, and she knew that controlling them in such bad weather conditions made flying them all the more difficult.
Not that Giles seemed concerned. Over the last few weeks they had gone out together on a number of occasions when their time off coincided and although she hated to admit it to herself, she had grown fond of him to the point that each time he was out on a mission she would watch anxiously for his return.
Already the pilots were kitted out in their flying suits and Livvy, who would be one of the operators guiding them out of the base, was due at work in ten minutes’ time. ‘Take care then and have a safe journey.’
He grinned at her. ‘You bet. I’ll see you when I get back, if you’re not already tucked up in bed by then, that is. I can’t see us being back until very late tonight at the earliest.’
She nodded and headed out to the station where soon she was seated with her headphones on. From the control tower she could see the pilots walking across the runway and climbing into their planes and then she saw the great beasts shudder into life and watched as one by one they turned to point their noses down the runway.
‘Oscar Tango, get into position and prepare to take off,’ she told Giles over the radio when it was his turn. She knew exactly which plane he and his crew were in.
‘Oscar Tango to control, receiving loud and clear.’
She saw the plane begin to taxi down the runway before lifting to join the others. Soon the perfect formation of aircraft was nothing more than a dot in the sky.
‘Stay safe!’ she whispered to herself.
‘What was that you said, Livvy?’ the operator on the next table asked as she took off her headphones and Livvy flushed.
‘Oh sorry, Sylvia, I was just muttering to myself.’
Flustered and unable to shake off the deep feeling of foreboding that had settled on her, Livvy turned her attention back to the job in hand. Another crew should be returning from their mission any time now and the operators were holding their breath as they waited to see if they had all made it back.
By the time the planes reached Berlin a heavy fog had settled, which made flying as well as finding the right targets very difficult.
‘Do you think we should turn back?’ Giles’s flight engineer asked worriedly as he peered out of the cockpit. ‘I’m always afraid we might end up dropping the bombs on houses in this weather, be they German or not, innocent women and kids don’t deserve to die in air raids.’
‘Mission control would have instructed us if they wanted us to abort the mission, and anyway we’re almost there now so we may as well go and drop our loads then hightail it back home. I don’t know about you but I’m dying for a cuppa.’
The planes were all still flying in exact formation but suddenly Messerschmitts appeared from the mist and instantly the Spitfires that were flying behind the heavy Lancasters flew into action, guns blazing.
‘Christ, I reckon Drew in the next plane has just taken a hit,’ Giles’s navigator exclaimed as he peered out of the window. The plane was dropping behind and losing height and suddenly it dipped forward and started to nosedive towards the ground with one of its wings on fire.
‘I hope the chaps had time to eject,’ Giles said through gritted teeth as he steered sharply to the left to avoid a German plane. The next ten minutes were a nightmare, during which Giles saw another of their planes take a hit, as well as three of the German ones. At least the Spitfire pilots were doing a good job and according to the radio contact they were now above their target.
‘Fire!’ Giles screamed at his bomb aimer and seconds later the undercarriage of the plane slid open and the bombs went whistling towards the earth below. The explosion they caused as they landed was so loud the crew could hear it even at their altitude.
‘Job done,’ Giles stated grimly as he turned the nose of the plane. ‘Now let’s get the hell out of here.’
Suddenly there was a loud crack and as Giles looked to the side, he was appalled to see his navigator lying back in his seat with blood pouring from a gaping wound in his chest. The wind was whistling through the broken window, which made it almost impossible to keep the plane on course and then he noticed his left-side wing smoking before bursting into flames.
This is it, Giles thought as he pressed the eject button and offered up a prayer, and then he was hurtling towards the ground, and strangely, the last face he thought of before he crashed into a field, and darkness claimed him, was Livvy’s.
Chapter Forty-Four
‘Why don’t you go and get some rest?’ the radio officer told Livvy in the early hours of the next morning, but she shook her head. She had stayed on long after her shift had finished to see the planes return and now most of them were back. There were only four missing and the pilots who had already landed had told them that at least three had taken a hit. That meant there was still a possibility of one coming back, but would it be Giles’s plane? She had lost radio contact with him and some of the other planes when they were somewhere over Berlin early that evening and now she couldn’t rest until she knew he was safe.
Suddenly there was a low droning noise over the tower and the last Lancaster dropped into view before bumping along the runway to eventually come to a shuddering halt. Without thinking, Livvy flung the headphones aside and was out of her seat and racing out of the door and across the runway, only to come to an abrupt stop when a weary pilot, closely followed by his crew, climbed down from the cockpit.
It was Giles’s good friend, Will, and at the sight of her he hung his head.
‘Giles?’
He looked at her and shook his head at the question in her eyes. ‘Sorry, Livvy. He was flying right next to me when his plane took a hit.’
‘But didn’t he try to get out?’ There was panic in her voice now.
He nodded wearily. ‘Oh, he ejected all right, but I couldn’t see if his parachute opened or not. It was too foggy. I’m so sorry. He was a good chap was Giles.’
‘Yes … yes, he was,’ she said brokenly as she turned and blindly made her way back to her hut. ‘He was a very, very good bloke.’ She only wished now that she had taken the time to tell him so.
Cissie was cleaning the hall windows when something on the drive caught her eye and glancing up her heart sank as she saw the telegram boy furiously cycling towards her, his legs going like pistons.
‘Oh, dear God,’ she muttered as she looked towards the study door. John was in there with Sunday enjoying a cup of tea; should she fetch him? Deciding to answer the door herself she took a deep breath and flung it open.
‘Telegram for Mr John Willerby,’ the boy said and Cissie nodded, her heart in her mouth.
‘I’ll see that he gets it, son … thank you.’
The boy handed it over and flew off down the drive like the wind as Cissie stared numbly down at the brown envelope. Eventually she squared her shoulders, took a deep, shuddering breath and went to tap on the door.
‘Cissie, how many times have I told you, you don’t have to knock,’ John scolded gently, but then as he saw the envelope in her hand the colour drained from hi
s face.
‘I’m afraid it’s for you.’ Cissie held it out to him and for a moment it was as if he was frozen to the spot, but then he reached out and once he had taken it, he stared at it numbly.
‘Would you like me to open it for you?’ Sunday asked in a small voice and he nodded as he handed it over.
Shaking, she slit the envelope with her thumb and after hastily scanning the contents she looked at him, her eyes brimming with tears. ‘It … it says that Giles is missing in action, presumed dead … I’m so sorry, John.’
John nodded as his hand rose to his heart and then to their horror he dropped to the floor like a stone.
‘Cissie, run into the hall and call the doctor,’ Sunday said urgently as she fell to her knees beside John’s prone figure.
Cissie raced away and minutes later she was back with George close behind her.
‘Let’s get him through to the drawing room and onto the settee,’ George said, taking control of the situation. The women were obviously in such a tizz that they barely knew if they were coming or going.
With George holding John beneath his arms and Sunday and Cissie taking a leg each they somehow managed to carry John to the sofa and then Edith dashed away to fetch blankets and a pillow.
‘He’s still breathing,’ George told them. ‘I reckon the shock might have caused him to have a heart attack, but we’ll know soon enough when the doctor comes.’
It was twenty minutes before the doctor arrived, by which time John was semi-conscious again although he seemed disorientated and was unable to speak. They had all noticed that one side of his mouth had dropped, and George shared his concerns with his wife.
‘I reckon the poor devil has had a stroke; I don’t think it’s a heart attack,’ he whispered and Cissie nodded in agreement as they and Edith looked towards where Sunday was holding John’s hand and talking soothingly to him.
They all left the room as the doctor arrived and when he came out, having completed his examination, his face was solemn. ‘I’m afraid it is a stroke,’ he confirmed. ‘Poor chap. It’s no wonder after the shock he’s just had but now would you like me to have him admitted to the hospital? If I can find a bed for him, that is. I’m afraid the hospital is bursting at the seams at present.’
Time to Say Goodbye Page 25
