Tomorrow, Jerusalem

by Tomorrow, Jerusalem (retail) (epub)

He tilted his head, watching her.

  She was suddenly, inexplicably sorry for the impulse that had translated thought into speech without consideration. ‘Your – “Jerusalem”—’ She hesitated. ‘If the Zeppelins bomb London, as they did Antwerp, if the German armies smash Paris, if we retaliate in Berlin – what will be left?’

  He considered for a moment, his face serious. Only when he lifted his head did she catch the ironic and affectionate glint of laughter in his eyes. ‘Don’t worry about it, Sally,’ he said, ‘it’s a long-term plan.’ He paused for a moment. ‘It always was, I suppose. A dream. And when reality catches up with a dream—’ he tilted his head, drained the last of his wine, ‘—you shelve it. Put it into a pocket. Carry it about with you. But you don’t forget it. Now – come on, my lass. Off we go. You’ve an early start tomorrow.’

  He walked her back through a dockland that was as busy now as it had been at eleven in the morning. Beneath huge lights the ships still berthed, the tired, singing, swearing Tommies still staggered down the gangplanks, boots clattering, kit-bags bouncing on weary shoulders. Cigarette smoke drifted on the air, a snatch of song rose, ragged in the night. Displaced, homeless families huddled under tarpaulins, behind packing cases, or just slept, exhausted, in the open, waiting for a place on the journey to freedom. At the tall door of the warehouse they stopped. The cool air had cleared Sally’s head. She tilted her head to look at him. ‘Thank you, Ben,’ she said simply, ‘for everything. Without you—’ She stopped. Already the will-less, grief-stricken, despairing girl of those last weeks in Bruges seemed like a stranger. The grief was still there. It always would be, she knew, however deeply she managed to bury it. But she was alive again, bruised; confused and in pain – but alive. She lifted her head and smiled at him.

  He stood looking down at her, hunched into his greatcoat against the autumn chill. Then, in an odd, tender gesture that took her completely by surprise he lifted his big hand and laid it softly against her cheek. Still smiling she tilted her head a little, resting her face against the warm strength of the hand that cupped it. They stood so, unmoving for the space of a dozen heart-beats. Then he let his hand drop to his side, grinned lopsidedly and left her, striding into the lit night, not looking back.

  The last she saw of him was in the chill light of dawn the following day when, as the troop-ship slid into the grey, choppy swell of the North Sea he stood at the dockside, a solitary, bulky figure, greatcoat collar turned up about his ears, hands in pockets, watching her go. It was an image she carried with her for a long time.

  It came as a shock to remember, inconsequentially, as she gingerly descended the steep ladders to join Marie-Clare and the children that the war was only two months old. Already, she realized a little grimly, it seemed a way of life.

  III

  Charlotte Patten – she would not have denied it – was enjoying her war. Despite the constant scares about the possibility of German airships bombing British cities – there had been near-panic in London after the well-publicized raid on Antwerp – and despite the ever-lengthening casualty lists that were published in the papers each day, for her the world had come alive again. No one had been more surprised than she when Ben had announced his intention of volunteering at the outbreak of war; and hers had been just about the only voice not raised to dissuade him. After he had gone she had resisted firmly Hannah’s attempts to organize her into hospital work or to busy herself with the floods of refugees that were arriving in London. It was Peter, home for his first and so far only leave – embarkation leave before his posting to France – who had made the suggestion at which she had jumped. A small and not very fashionable club in the West End had turned itself, with War Office approval, into a staging post for young officers passing through London on their way to or from France. It so happened that the proprietor was a friend of Peter’s – and it so happened that Peter knew that he was looking for young ladies of impeccable background to serve tea, biscuits and sisterly care to these brave young men far from home and the support of their families. So it was that three times a week, and sometimes more often, she took her turn behind the tea urn in the small club room, where young men, self-conscious in their neatly pressed, well-tailored new uniforms and often looking no older than the schoolboys they had actually been a few months before, could relax for a few hours, read the papers, play billiards or the piano, write letters, do anything to distract their minds from the uneasy thought that in weeks, perhaps days, they would be leading men as inexperienced as themselves into battle.

  She was very good at her job, and she knew it. She always took especial care with her appearance, never missed the chance of a personal word, a sparkling, special smile. She would listen, endlessly patient, to any tale of woe, admire any photograph, boost any failing morale, ease, so far as she could, the pangs of homesickness. It pleased her that for a lot of these young men hers was the last womanly smile, the last soft and gentle voice, the last pretty face that they would encounter before finding themselves in the harsh male world of war. It pleased her too that none of them ever stayed for more than two days, most of them only for one; an endless stream of young, eager and mostly admiring faces, here today and gone tomorrow. It was better that way, she assured herself quite frequently; how foolish it would be in such troubled times to commit oneself to real friendship.

  She hurried towards the Bear on this October evening, her steps quick and neat; she prided herself on being one of the few women she knew who managed to walk elegantly in the hobble skirts that were still fashionable. One of the most dreary things about the war was that clothes were already beginning to disappear from the shops – indeed it was coming to be seen as positively unpatriotic to be seen in a new outfit – and those that were available were truly ugly, mimicking uniform, all unsightly straight lines and deadly dull colours. Ah well, perhaps tomorrow she would go through her wardrobe. Bron was good with her needle the odd remodelling here and there would make new out of old, and really she owed it to herself and to her young men. It was, after all, as much a part of the war effort to— she stopped short. She had reached the courtyard of the Bear, hoping to slip quietly up the rickety staircase to her own warm, feminine little room without being seen – Hannah had developed the most awful habit of buttonholing her to talk of advances and retreats, front lines and battles, for all the world as if she found such things truly comprehensible. The yard, however, was full of children; running, shrieking, laughing – though at least one was crying loudly and irritatingly – pushing, shoving. Charlotte stood watching them in horror, her hands to her ears to block the cacophony. She recognized none of them. They were foreign and they were rowdy. God in heaven, where had such an unruly crew come from?

  The door to the schoolroom opened. A voice was lifted sharply; a voice so immediately recognizable that Charlotte blinked in disbelief. At the brisk command the chaos died. The children, as if by magic, ordered themselves into a single file and trooped obediently to the door.

  ‘Sally,’ Charlotte said a little faintly.

  Sally looked over at her with a brief, distracted smile. She looked, Charlotte thought, worse than she had ever seen her, even in those far-off days of the soup kitchen. Her clothes were worn and dirty, her face haggard and sallow, her hair a bird’s nest.

  ‘When – when did you arrive?’

  Sally smoothed the wild hair from her forehead, cuffed with rough affection at a child who muttered something as he passed her. She was deadly tired. The journey had exhausted her. ‘An hour or so ago. I’m just getting the children settled—’

  ‘And – Philippe? – He’s with you?’

  For a moment Sally’s movements stilled. She took a tired breath. ‘Philippe’s dead,’ she said, unable to be anything but brutally brief.

  ‘D-dead?’

  The war, so far, had not touched Charlotte. The dead, the mutilated, had belonged to others.

  Sally nodded. Behind her in the schoolroom noise was rising again. ‘I’m sorry – I’ll ha
ve to go. I’ll see you later.’ She turned, stopped, turned back again, ‘Oh – I’m sorry – I should have told you – I saw Ben – yesterday – he’s fine.’

  ‘Ben?’

  ‘Yes. He’s very well and – he sends his love.’ Ben had done no such thing she realized suddenly. ‘Charlotte – I really can’t talk at the moment – they’ll tear the place apart if I don’t get them settled and fed. Ben’s fine – he came to get us in Bruges. It was very brave of him, I think. I’ll tell you later.’ She went into the room, shutting the door behind her. Through the window Charlotte saw her hold up her hands firmly, suppressing near riot.

  Very slowly Charlotte climbed the stairs to her room. She closed the door behind her, stood for a moment absolutely still, looking about her. The pretty room was warm and smelled of rose-water. Her cut-glass bottles and jars were neatly arranged upon the dressing table, their facets reflecting the flickering gas light, frilled pillows – pink, white, cream and gold – were banked upon the bed in apparently artless profusion. She slipped her cape from her shoulders, walked to the mirror, fussed for a moment with hair that needed no fussing. Then she turned, an oddly uncertain little figure, her hands clasped before her.

  Philippe? Dead?

  She had hardly thought of him for years. But – dead?

  Her eye fell upon the wardrobe. Briskly she walked to it and flung open the door. It was packed with clothes, hung neatly; silks, satins, velvets in a rainbow of colour. She began pulling them out, examining each one, tossing it on the bed. Oh, yes; Bron and her clever needle were all that was needed here.

  * * *

  A week after Sally and the children reached London the first battle of Ypres began, the first of the bitter, bloody clashes that were to be fought around this small, pleasant and until now peaceful Flemish city. The slaughter was savage as the British unsuccessfully tried to wrest the high ground – such as it was in this flat, almost featureless land – from the defending Germans. Within a week the merciless bombardment had churned the fertile farmlands – the water table a mere eighteen inches from the surface – into mud. In another week the complex and ancient drainage system had been completely destroyed and the fields were a quagmire in which men marched, fought, advanced, retreated, ate, slept and died up to their knees in mud. Towards the end of October, with no sign of any lull in the fierce fighting, the Belgian army, still in retreat after the fall of Antwerp, saved their lines and kept a foothold in the country for which they had fought so gallantly by flooding the lowlands around Nieuwport and taking refuge in the strip of coast thus protected.

  There was no news of Bruges, now behind enemy lines.

  On the last day of the month, at Neuve-Chapelle, the shrapnel shells that rained upon the Allied front line had been treated with an irritant; it was the first time a chemical weapon had been used in warfare.

  At home the casualty lists grew, and the streets were darkened for fear of the air raids that everyone was certain would come sooner or later. But morale was by no means low. The war could not possibly last – no one could stand for long against the might of the British Empire. The lion might be slow to wake – but once fangs and claws were bared, who could withstand them? Not the Hun, that was for sure. The lads were out there, weren’t they, rescuing the damn’ Frenchies who couldn’t look after themselves? They’d all be home – well, if not by Christmas, then certainly by the spring.

  At the Bear Sally’s arrival with her small refugees had filled every corner, every nook and every cranny of the ramshackle building. There were small pallets in the schoolroom and in the dining room, the beds in the dormitories were packed like sardines. The Pattens had already, predictably, taken in far more than their share of displaced people, most of them Belgian. Sally’s group joined an already established refugee centre, run – to Sally’s surprise and delight – as much by a newly confident Bron as by any of the family, all of whom had their own war concerns. She was ably assisted by two or three young Belgian mothers, who had fled with their children; Sally was delighted to see Marie-Clare and her little Louise accepted with immediate sympathy and understanding into the group. A shared exile, like a shared grief, she thought, must surely be easier to bear than a lonely one? For herself she was for now happy enough to be run off her feet helping Bron. While she worked herself to a standstill each day, fell dog tired into her bed at night she had no time for thought, no time for grieving. She and Philippa had been given Ben and Charlotte’s old room – a large, dark, wood-panelled room in the main building with a huge fourposter bed that she shared with her daughter. It had always been Ben’s room, and though Bron had done her best, the simple and austere masculinity of it defied all efforts to change it. Sally did not mind. The big old leather armchair that stood by the fireplace – empty now in these days of growing shortages – was comfortable, the colours of the worn rug glowed softly in the light from the small window; and in those moments when she needed to be alone it was a haven.

  Toby’s room was next door, a tiny room that had once served as a dressing room, but big enough to take a narrow bed, a table and chair and a wash stand. And though Toby was casual about it Sally knew how much it must mean to him to have a room of his own. He was still at school, still blazing his way through with a ruthless combination of charm and acute intelligence that was dangerously difficult to resist. His greeting to Sally had been affectionate and natural, he was never less than faultlessly polite; but still the barrier was there between them, and probably now would always be. She had long ago understood – though was far from accepting – that in winning Philippe she had lost Toby. One day, she consoled herself, when he was older, he would understand. For now she would have to be content with what he was ready to give.

  Just once, for the briefest of moments, the old relationship had glimmered through. On an afternoon of late autumn sunshine soon after her arrival at the Bear she had been unpacking the few belongings she had managed to salvage, among them a photograph of Philippe in a wooden frame that at some point in that difficult journey had split. Sitting on the bed, she had carefully extracted the precious picture, and had sat for a moment that was too long for her self control, looking at it. Inevitably the bleak tears had risen. Despite her efforts to block the memories she saw it all – that day in Kent when it had all started, the laughter in his eyes when he had proposed to her in the park, the steady love in his face as she had joined him at the altar, his joy in their child and in their life together. And the bloodstained, shattered wreck that the war had sent back to her to die. Raw grief rose again, and with it had come the helpless tears. She had bowed her head, burying her face in her hands, shoulders shaking, the sobs desperately muffled. Oddly, when she had felt the arm about her shoulders she had known it was Toby. Without looking up she had leaned to him, sobbing hopelessly. His arms had been fierce about her, his strong, young man’s hand had stroked her hair. For a moment he had rocked her gently in that age-old gesture of soothing and solace, as she so often had rocked him in his childhood terrors. ‘Don’t cry. I can’t bear to see you cry.’

  Had he really said it? Afterwards, in the confusion of her emotions and her tears she was never sure. The moment had passed. She had drawn away from him. And, picking up the photograph that she had dropped to the floor and setting it carefully upon the table, he had left her as quietly as he had come. Neither had ever mentioned the incident again; certainly it had made no difference to his attitude to her. He was bright, courteous, offhandedly affectionate even; and there was a wall as high as ever between them. She knew nothing of what he thought, or of what he wanted. He brought her neither his triumphs nor his sorrows, if he had any. She no longer knew what he truly felt or what he planned.

  He was, she was pleased to see, still a great favourite in the household; indeed he had succeeded in making himself as much a part of the family as she now was. Ralph took a personal pride in his protegé’s progress at school and was often to be found with him at the dining-room table, an arm about the boy’s
shoulders as he helped him with his homework. And as often as not where Toby was there young Rachel would be. He teased and tormented her, reduced her to fury and occasionally even to tears, lorded it over her in the patronizing, half-affectionate fashion of an older brother; she in her turn was always ready to hold her own against him. But like a small shadow she dogged his heels, and for a kind word or a casual, affectionate gesture she would forgive him anything. She was a strikingly pretty child, with a pale, flawless skin, a mass of glossy dark curls and brilliant blue eyes. Her nature was open and sunny and she had a temper like a firecracker; something of which Toby often took graceless advantage.

  She sat one day with Sally in the parlour, head bent over a pair of long knitting needles, her tongue held between her teeth as she concentrated furiously on her task, a tangle of khaki wool untidy about her feet.

  Sally laughed. ‘You’ll knit your tongue into that, young Rachel, if you aren’t careful! What are you making?’

  Rachel giggled. ‘A bala— whatsit. For a soldier.’

  Sally grinned. ‘Balaclava.’

  Toby looked up from the book he was studying. ‘Pity the poor soldier that has to wear that!’

  Rachel stuck her tongue out at him as far as it would go.

  ‘Rachel!’ The icy voice came from the door. Rachel jumped and deep colour rose in her face. ‘You’ve the manners of a tinker!’ Charlotte stepped into the room, her face rigid with anger and something very close to dislike. One of the needles slipped from the child’s fingers, sliding out of the stitches. The huge, brilliant eyes gleamed with sudden tears. Toby ducked his head and kept his eyes on the book. He had seen Charlotte’s temper let loose upon Rachel before. ‘Get upstairs to bed!’ Charlotte snapped. ‘At once.’

  ‘But – Mama—’

  ‘Don’t argue with me! If you want to act like a naughty baby you must be treated like one. Go!’