June 1944
Everyone at PW was gathered around the wireless set in the main office when Ruby arrived at work that morning.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Shhh,” Nell chided. “It’s happening. Our forces are landing in France.”
Ruby let her coat fall to the floor and rushed to stand close to the wireless.
“A new phase of the Allied air offensive has begun.” This sentence opened what was described as an extremely important warning broadcast in our European service this morning by a member of the staff of the supreme commander of the Allied expeditionary force. This new phase, the speaker said, will particularly affect people living roughly within twenty-five miles of any part of the coast. The supreme commander of the Allied expeditionary force has directed that wherever possible an advance warning shall be given to . . .”
“Emil, I want you down at the MOI this morning,” Kaz said. “Ring me with updates as often as you can. We just might be able to pull through a half-decent cover story by this afternoon.”
“Isn’t it better to leave the issue as it is?” Emil observed mildly. “How much more are we likely to know by this afternoon?”
“I’m not saying we should scrub everything,” Kaz said. “I’ll rewrite my editorial. Explain that we were going to press as the landings began, but will have a special issue next week. If we can find an image that’s strong enough for the cover, we can go with that, and link the cover image to my editorial. That way the issue won’t be stale-dated by the time it goes on sale.”
“What about a map for the cover?” Ruby suggested. “One with the landing sites, and graphics with as much information as—”
Kaz was shaking his head. “That’s fine for the interior, but not the cover. I want faces on the cover.”
“What can I do?” she asked.
“You and Nell can go through our photo library. See if we’ve any decent shots of Eisenhower. Even better if he’s standing next to Churchill or the king. Frank, you get on the phone with the agencies and see if anyone has shots from yesterday. Soldiers waiting with their kit, for instance.”
There was no time to talk or even think beyond the task at hand. Ruby and Nell spent the hours that followed paging through hundreds of contact sheets that dated as far back as the beginning of 1942, yet no matter how long they searched the pile of possibilities, what they unearthed remained disappointingly modest.
They gathered around the wireless again at one o’clock. The news was encouraging, at least in terms of what was being reported. Kaz, unsurprisingly, remained skeptical.
“We won’t know the truth of it for a while,” he insisted. “They’re not going to tell us about the casualties, not yet, but they’ve got to be significant. I’ve been to those beaches in Normandy. They’re flat and rocky and there’s nowhere to hide. What did Churchill say just now? ‘The fire of the shore batteries has been largely quelled’? Perhaps, but not before the landings began. God only knows how many men were killed before they set foot in France.”
They listened to the remainder of the reports, and then it was back to work for another hour. Kaz summoned them at two o’clock with the happy news that Emil had unearthed a series of photographs, taken the day before, of GIs waiting to board their ships for the first leg of their journey to France.
“They’re still being vetted by the MOI,” Kaz explained wearily, “but Emil is confident they’ll pass.”
It was just enough. They pulled a double-page spread from the front of the book and replaced it with Kaz’s editorial, several of the photos, and a map of the landings that Mr. Dunleavy had drawn. On the cover: a picture of an American soldier, his pack on the ground beside him, his eyes fixed on the far horizon.
“Well done, everyone,” Kaz pronounced. “I’m off to the printers. Go home and get some rest. Everyone except Ruby. I need you for a minute.”
She followed him to his office and watched as he rummaged through one of the drawers. Coming around the desk, he motioned for her to sit down, and then he held out an envelope.
“What is this?”
“I had a call from Uncle Harry last night. He was concerned about Bennett. You see, when Bennett is ‘away,’ as it were, Harry receives a card on the first of every month. It’s a form, really, that says he continues to be in good health, or something along those lines.”
“Harry hasn’t received this month’s card,” she said, her voice so calm that it surprised her.
“Nor the previous month’s card. And they’ve come like clockwork before. Each time Bennett has been away, doing whatever he does for months and months, the cards have come.”
“Do you think something has happened?” she asked, very glad that she was sitting and not expecting her legs to hold her up.
“I don’t. In the absence of any real proof, I refuse to accept that Bennett is injured or dead. But I did make him a promise, and I’m carrying it out now.”
Kaz placed the envelope in her hand. “He told me about the postcards before he left this last time. He asked me to give you this if they stopped coming.”
“What’s in it?”
“I don’t know, but you should probably read it in here. I have to go to the printers now, but I’ll be home tonight. You can ring me there if you want to talk about anything.”
He squeezed her shoulder, as if to warn her, and then he was gone.
My dearest Ruby,
I’ve thought of writing you such a letter any number of times, but something always stayed my hand—fear of saying too little, or perhaps of saying too much. And I was always certain I would come back to you, always, until today. In a few hours I will leave England again, and I cannot be sure that I will return.
I do not say this to upset or hurt you—quite the contrary. Only to prepare you, if you do receive news that I have not survived, for you have borne enough shocks already in the course of this long and terrible war.
You have been my friend, Ruby, and more than that, I think. You have been my North Star, my point of light in a darkened sky, the steadfast beacon guiding me home. (I beg your pardon for such poor poetry, but these are the words that come to mind as I leave you.)
If I were a braver man, I would have told you this to your face, your lovely face that haunts my dreams and blesses my waking hours. I so wanted to empty my heart and confess all, that last night when we sat in Vanessa’s kitchen after dinner at the Victory Café. I very nearly did.
I hope to return to you—I long for it more than anything—and yet I know it is unlikely. So I will say farewell, and I will thank you for your friendship and regard and, if I have not misjudged you entirely, your love.
All I ask of you, now, is that you be happy—do not look back and mourn what might have been. Go on and be happy and never stop writing, no matter what. Write your stories and discover the world, and if you think of me, think only that I loved you for you, you alone, you and nothing more. Only you.
Bennett
WHEN RUBY ARRIVED home, well past seven o’clock, it was to find Vanessa and Jessie preparing a late supper in the kitchen. There was comfort to be found in peeling potatoes and scraping carrots, and by the time they sat down to eat she felt calmer, if not happier. She would never be truly happy until she was certain Bennett was safe.
Their talk at dinner was light, for they needed a respite from the drama of the day’s events, but when the hour drew near to nine o’clock Ruby followed Vanessa into the library and stood by the wireless for the news. It began with the king’s address to the nation and the empire; and if his voice was rather more halting than usual, his message was all the more steadfast and determined.
“Once more a supreme test has to be faced. This time the challenge is not to fight to survive, but to fight to win the final victory for the good cause. Once again what is demanded from us all is something more than courage, more than endurance. We need the revival of spirit, a new unconquerable resolve.”
“Nicely done, once again,” Vanessa said, bending to switch off the wireless. “The dear man struggles so, but it does make you—Ruby? Whatever is wrong? Why are you crying?”
“This,” she said, and pulled Bennett’s letter from her cardigan pocket. “Kaz gave this to me. Bennett has disappeared. He’s had no news—Uncle Harry, I mean. He usually gets a postcard from Bennett’s work at the beginning of every month, but there’s been nothing for more than two months now.”
Vanessa read it through, and when she looked up again her eyes, too, were swimming with tears. “My darling girl,” she said.
“If only I’d told him how I felt. If only . . . I don’t know how I can bear it.”
“It was his choice,” Vanessa said, and she took Ruby’s hands in hers. “Obviously he has never said a word about what he does, not one word, but he did tell me, once, that it was his choice. He had no wife, no children, and his parents were dead. He said it was better for him to risk his life than a man with people who depended on him.”
“What about you?” Ruby sobbed. “He’s a son to you, and a brother to the girls. And what will Kaz do? First Mary, and now his best friend?”
“And you, my dear? Don’t you need him, too?”
“Vanessa, don’t. Please don’t.”
“There, there. I understand. I do. And I don’t think you should give up, not just yet. A few missing updates are not the same as a death notice. For now, I choose to believe he is alive—and I think you should, too. Focus on your work, just as he is surely doing—”
“And find my unconquerable resolve?” Ruby whispered.
“Yes. Just as the king said. Find your resolve, and it will see you through.”