To Emily’s delight and Chris Hick’s great surprise, the departure date for his regiment was set for mid-April, just at the point when a new group of young men would have been arriving. So, unlike many of his brother officers, awaiting their instructions on a daily basis for the movement of the 300,000 troops now present in Ulster, Chris had some three weeks notice. It meant that the current group could complete their training, that almost all of those injured in the accident at the end of March would be fully recovered and that there could be one more dinner together at the Castlewellan Road Camp.
It was an evening none of the three would ever forget. Sad, because as friends they were to be parted, anxious, because the possibility of meeting again was so uncertain, and yet at the same time, joyful. The waiting time was over, the hour had come. The huge number of troops in Northern Ireland was but a small part of the three million men now assembled ready for the invasion of Europe and the camp was buzzing with a barely concealed excitement as Emily went down to the mess to say goodbye to the last group of young men for whom she had baked cookies and talked of home.
Chris had warned her that someone would be sure to make a speech, but nothing prepared her for the generous words, the deafening cheers, or the stack of boxes, gifts for herself and her four helpers. Most of all she was touched by the presentation of a silk scarf, more beautiful than anything she had ever possessed, and a small gold brooch with the insignia of the regiment entwined with flowers.
Back upstairs, in Chris’s office, he produced a velvet-lined box with a more masculine version of her brooch. The same insignia, but larger and bolder, it was inscribed with the words, James Elliott, for services to the wounded, 31 March, 1944.
‘Oh Chris,’ she said, tears springing to her eyes, ‘this will make him so happy. He’s been a different man since it happened, hasn’t he Alex?’
‘We all need to be valued, don’t we?’ Alex replied, with a small smile, as he watched Chris move to open a drawer in his desk.
To Alex’s surprise, he saw Chris pick out a familiar, worn, but very clean, floral scarf which he let fall on the desk in the small space between the well-anchored stacks of papers.
‘Cleaned up well, Emily, didn’t it?’ Chris asked.
She stretched out her hand to pick it up, amazed that a scarf, already years old, could look so presentable after what she’d done to it. But Chris closed his large hand over it before she could pick it up.
‘If you don’t mind, Emily, I might just need this again,’ he said, putting it back in the drawer.
Upstairs, in the room Emily had come to love so much, they were greeted by the ten lieutenants. Tonight, for the first and only time, there was no need to try to remember the new names or to ask where their home was.
Since that evening back in June 1942 when they had first stood in front of the impressive marble fireplace, Emily and Alex had met young men from almost every American state and she no longer had to refer to the atlas in the sitting room to make sure she was not confusing Michigan with Minnesota, nor Memphis with Minneapolis. The map of North America had become as familiar as the layout of her own garden, for there had been Canadians too originating from almost every province, including the young man from Saskatchewan, who had come via Boston and who’d proved to be her own nephew.
‘Chuck, how are you?’ she asked, as she found Captain Hillman smiling down at her. ‘Is it healing well?’ she asked, glancing up at the neat bandage on his left temple.
‘Doing just grand, but it still looks a bit like raw meat,’ he said laughing. ‘I thought a decent bandage would be easier on the eyes.’
There was a lightness about him tonight she was sure she’d not seen before, though since the morning he’d sat at her kitchen table, she’d found him easier to talk to and more forthcoming.
‘Ma’am, I owe you,’ he said soberly.
‘You do?’ she asked, not quite sure what the phrase might mean when said by an American.
‘Yep. When I came here I was as touchy as bedammed,’ he began. ‘I was shit scared anyone would find out my grandfather was German and my mother Italian. But you sorted that out,’ he went on. ‘You showed me, ma’am, that it doesn’t matter who your parents were, or where you came from, or what you had to do to stay alive, or earn a living. It’s what you are now. And that’s something you can do something about. Not very easily perhaps in time of war, but even then you can try.’
Emily beamed at him.
‘I’m so glad I helped a bit, Chuck. Sometimes, I get frustrated that there’s so little I can do when there’s so much needs doing.’
He shook his head slowly.
‘Never think that, ma’am. You’ve been one of the best things this side of the Atlantic,’ he said glancing round the well-lit room, full of talk and gentle laughter. ‘And not just for me.’
Everyone felt it when the last regiments left and the roads were suddenly empty and the airbases silent. For Emily and her friends, there were no more picnics, specially arranged dances or social events. The children stopped chewing gum and no longer talked with North American accents.
The quarry closed, the need for building material to repair runways now ended. The rain washed away the dust on the adjoining hawthorn hedges and with the sunshine and warmth of May wildflowers began to colonise the abandoned spoil heaps.
Emily missed her young men and was glad to have plenty to do in the garden. With no weekly baking for the picnics, Mary Cook now had extra butter and bread to sell, so she and Emily found a neighbour with a pony and trap and drove each Saturday to the W.I. market in Banbridge.
If life was quiet and less busy in the town itself, it was not the case elsewhere. In the absence of news, the newspapers speculated wildly, ran stories about spies, and left their readers only too well aware that the last thing they wanted was for anyone to know what was going to happen, when it would happen, and where.
The tension grew week by week and day by day until finally, switching on the wireless on a lovely, fresh June morning, after a night of rain and wind, Emily heard the news the whole world had been waiting to hear. Allied troops had begun landing in Northern France at 6.30 a.m. that very morning. Operation Overlord was a secret no longer. The invasion had begun.
Throughout June, wetter and far more unsettled in Ulster than May had been, there was but one topic of conversation. The coast of France became as well known as the country roads from Banbridge to Castlewellan or Dromore and French beaches, now renamed Utah and Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword, as familiar as Tyrella, or Newcastle, or Dundrum.
Emily thought of her boyfriends when she and Alex went to the cinema, saw landing craft pour out of ships and young men wade chest deep in the sea, their rifles held above their heads. She gazed in amazement as she watched a Canadian regiment going ashore in similar fashion but carrying bicycles. Later, when the Mulberry harbour was put in place, they watched the trucks, dozens and dozens of them, the same trucks once so familiar on their own country roads, drive off bringing more troops and more supplies to support the bridgeheads.
The cost was inevitably high, but the landings had gone well, better than could have been hoped, except on Omaha. The bridgeheads had been taken and in the weeks following the battle of Caen, she added new words to her vocabulary like salient and bulge and pincer movement, as the armies began to sweep northwards following the line of the coast.
There were those who said it would all be over by Christmas, but Alex shook his head and said no.
As the summer turned to autumn, day after day there was good news, the newsreels now showing lively pictures of one city after another being liberated. Cheering crowds waved. Pretty girls kissed the welcome arrivals, or the new arrivals kissed the pretty girls. Yet more groups of German soldiers marched across the screen, hands on head, weaponless.
But the news was not all good. Casualty figures were high and from June onwards, V1 rockets fell on London by the dozen, all around the clock, creating devastation and anxiety. Each mention of a V1 made Emily think, with a bitter jolt, of the top floor flat near Waterloo Station. Cathy and Brian would never be forgotten, but such a sharp reminder of the manner of their death would always cause a stab of pain.
As the autumn deepened and the warmth of summer finally disappeared, Emily accepted that one more year was dipping down into winter and yet one more struggle against cold and shortages of all kinds.
If anything, the winter of 1945 was colder and more dispiriting than the preceding ones. As Emily sat reading her Sunday paper in a chill and dank February, she noted the now familiar warning to cut down consumption of gas and electricity.
‘Alex, listen to this,’ she said, doubling the paper over to read the bottom half more easily.
‘Ice-bound coal trains and road transport, and unprecedented strain on gas works and power stations – those were the consequences of the recent abnormal weather. It will take time for coal stocks to recover from the effects of these conditions … Have you had a notice to cut down?’ she demanded.
‘Oh yes,’ he said wearily, ‘Read on down. We got that one in from the Ministry of Fuel and Power last week.’
‘But we haven’t had abnormal weather,’ she protested. ‘It’s always as cold as this in February and we haven’t had any snow yet.’
‘But they have in Scotland and the North of England,’ he explained. ‘The snow has been very bad there and the Ministry announcements are sent out to the whole country.’
‘Only the most drastic economy will enable war production to be carried on at full pressure,’ she continued. ‘Can you economise, Alex?’
‘No,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘Apart from the lights in the corridors and the main office, the machines either run or they don’t. We can make our own power or we can use electricity, it’s six of one and half a dozen of the other as far as scarce resources are concerned.’
‘Oh Alex, how long. How long will it be?’ she asked, her tone as weary as his had been.
He put his newspaper down and looked across at her. It was not like Emily to let it get on top of her.
‘Have you seen the cartoon on Page 3?’
‘Hadn’t got that far.’
‘Have a look,’ he urged, with a small smile.
Emily studied the cartoon. Welcome Adolf was obvious enough, but it took her a few moments more to make sense of the open Visitor’s Book, the two porters with horns and tails and the dark tunnel leading underground. There were some goose-stepping soldiers in the background and a notice at the entrance to the tunnel, ‘Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here.’
She paused, looked at the caption and then read it aloud: ‘He shouldn’t be long now.’
‘Do you really think it won’t be long now, Alex? I’m afraid I think I might give out.’
‘No, you won’t,’ he said, reassuringly. ‘Things are moving now, really moving. The Americans are heading for the Rhine and the Russians for Berlin. It is only a matter of time. Remember Carrie’s letter.’
Emily smiled and put her paper down.
‘Yes, love. I’m sorry I’m having a bad day. Would you like a cup of tea? And we do have some cake.’
‘Cake? How did you manage that without your boyfriends?’ he asked, a twinkle in his eyes.
‘I’ve found a new one,’ she said, teasing him, before she closed the sitting-room door firmly behind her to keep the heat in.
The gas pressure was so low it was going to take ages to boil the water. She set up the tray, cut them each a piece of cake and found the kettle still hadn’t even started to sing.
She pulled out a drawer in the dresser and struggled with a large, awkward folder of letters. It was bulging and she knew it needed sorting, but she found it so hard to throw away letters from friends. She leafed through until she found the most recent one from Carrie Hicks.
29 January 1945
My dear Emily,
How good it always is to hear from you. I never was one for writing letters until Chris went overseas, but you do encourage me. Perhaps there’s more to writing letters than I thought.
I’m so glad your parcel arrived safely and has been useful. After all you did for Chris and his boys, it’s a little thing to do and no trouble whatever. Please tell me honestly what you most need for next time.
I’ve heard from Chris only today and I know you’ll be happy to hear that he’s still in France. Having survived Omaha, he and what’s left of his last team have been attached to another regiment of engineers and they are engaged in rebuilding port facilities along the French coast. He says that even with Mulberry, with which he is very impressed, the volume of supplies needed in Europe now and when the war ends will be enormous.
I can say to you, Emily, if to no one else, that I’m so grateful he’s in France. Like your dear Johnny in Norfolk, he’s somewhat safer there than in other places he might be.
I was so delighted to hear the good news about Hank. My brother, who is an orthopaedic surgeon, says he’s familiar with the process you mention. It is sad, he says, that it takes a war to improve our surgery by such leaps and bounds, but it will benefit Hank and be some recompense for all the pain he has suffered and for his tenacity in the face of amputation. Jane must be delighted to know he will walk properly again, given time.
My little daughter can now write DADDY in very wobbly letters, but she can hardly wait to write them on a proper envelope. I still remember when Chris started sending her pressed leaves and flowers and drawing her funny faces and pictures. Actually, he’s rather good at drawing and I shall encourage him when he comes home … oh, Emily … I’m almost afraid to write those words. So many young men will not come home, including many of the ones you made so welcome.
But we must keep up hope. It does seem that at last the time is near, certainly in Europe, which must come first before we turn to the Pacific.
Please write again when you can. I think of you often in your very different environment and love to hear about your garden, your neighbours and your activities.
They help me to hold on to sanity in a world gone mad.
With love and good wishes to you and Alex,
Your friend, Carrie.
According to the newspaper, Hitler really was dead, Berlin was in the hands of the Allies and the German army was surrendering all over the place. But according to the BBC there would not be an announcement until tomorrow.
‘But that’s what they said yesterday,’ Emily complained, when Alex arrived home late and tired and as cross as his equable nature ever allowed him to be.
‘I wish Mr Churchill would get on with it,’ he exclaimed, as he struggled out of his dungarees. ‘He may not be quite aware of it, but you can’t just press a switch and turn off four mills at one go. Not even one mill at one go,’ he added as an after thought.
Emily laughed and gave him a hug.
‘I think we’re all like over-excited children who’ve stayed up too late,’ she said. ‘If something doesn’t happen soon, we’ll throw a tantrum,’ she said, as she bent down and put the casserole in the oven.
‘Come on, let’s go and walk round the garden while it heats up. With all those meetings I wasn’t sure what time you’d get back and I didn’t want it overcooked.’
He grinned sheepishly and followed her through the open back door, across the yard and into the flower garden.
‘Have you got your decorations up?’ she asked.
‘Oh yes, yards and yards of bunting. The women have been making it for weeks from spoilt cloth. There’s a bonfire ready too, down by the lake at Millbrook. There’s one at each mill, but Millbrook’s is enormous. There’s a huge effigy of Hitler on top, moustache and all. I’ve told Robert Anderson he’d better be on Fire Brigade duty whenever the announcement comes.’
‘And what did he say to that?’
Alex laughed, his good spirits restored by the sunlight of a fine May evening and the happiness of being home in his own garden with his wife at his side.
‘He just gave me a look.’
‘Any news from Jane or Johnny?’ he asked, as they made their way down the main path, the air full of the scent of hawthorn blossom mixed with the varied perfumes of garden flowers.
‘Yes, Johnny is off duty for whatever day it turns out to be, but he’s expected in Norwich. It’s the same girl he’s been talking about … it’s getting to be a regular thing, I think,’ she went on, laughing, ‘and Jane says she drew the long straw, so she’s off on the day, likewise, and she’ll go up to Dungannon if there are any buses or she can get a lift.’
‘Maybe Johnny will get some leave soon,’ Alex said thoughtfully.
‘That would be nice, but we mustn’t depend on it. As Carrie reminded me, there’s still the Japanese. He’ll be training pilots to go out there.’
‘No more rockets, Emily, no more bombs …’
‘Goodness, what was that?’ exclaimed Emily, as a series of very loud noises shattered the quiet of the evening.
Moments later they heard a bugle, then car horns and then drumming from a long way away. They ran down to Rose’s viewpoint and looked out over the summer fields, the shadows just beginning to lengthen as the sun dipped in a blue sky.
Beyond the river flowing placidly between green meadows, they could see a couple of cars stopped on the road. Beside them, tiny figures hopped up and down. They shouted and waved flags, banged a spanner on the spare wheel and sounded the horn alternately with blowing the bugle.
‘I think I know what that is,’ said Emily.
‘I think you’re right,’ replied Alex. ‘It’s come. It’s come at last.’