Since the beginning of the year, though there was still a steady stream of men being brought to the hospital, it had been possible to keep pace with them. There had not been the sudden influxes of wounded like those which had come during the autumn, bringing the wards chaos and upheaval, and one ward was now devoted to the medical cases which arrived. Life settled to a slightly easier pace, though the hours were still long and the sisters still exacting. Sister Eloise had recovered from the bronchitis that had taken her off duty, and the ward was running much more smoothly since she came back.
Sarah and Molly had had their off-duty hour on occasional afternoons restored to them. Winter was beginning to lose its grip on the world, though the nights were still very chilly and the stoves in the wards had to be kept alight night and day. On their free afternoon, they still went to the village and ate cake at Madame Juliette’s, and the sight of a gentle greening in the trees and hedgerows lifted their spirits after the long dark cold of the winter. Wild daffodils struck bravely through the cold earth and there was the faintest heat in the spring sunshine.
Molly still went across to the convalescent camp for the Sunday evening service, and she saw the men that she had helped to nurse pass their medical board and pronounced fit for duty. Sent off to the station in Albert, they would march away from the camp in groups, heads high, uniforms clean, boots polished. Molly watched each detachment leave and wondered how many of them would see the end of this war, which seemed to be dragging on into eternity.
Sarah watched them go, and her heart wept within her, but she never shed an open tear. Over the months at the hospital she had toughened in many ways. She was no longer upset when taken to task for some failure by Sister Bernadette, she simply sighed and put right her mistake. Gradually she learned how to perform the tasks necessary in the day-to-day nursing of the men. She was not a natural nurse as Molly had turned out to be, but she drove herself hard and learned to cope stoically with the daily round in the ward; the pain of the men, both mental and physical, and her inability to alleviate it. She felt just as deeply about the men in her care, but she no longer took each death in the ward as some sort of personal failure. She drew strength from being part of the community, and though she still enjoyed leaving the convent for an afternoon, she found the routine that she now lived out strangely comforting. She and Molly still shared their room, and their friendship continued to grow. They were comfortable together, knowing each other so well. Like sisters? Neither of them had ever had a sister, so she didn’t know, but they were close, drawing strength from one another.
When the post came, Molly saved her letters from Tom to open in private. She never rushed to open his letters, she needed to be alone, so that she could conjure up his face and hear his voice in the words he had written. She would put the letter in her skirt pocket and keep touching it in delicious anticipation during the day as she went about her work in the ward, only slitting the envelope later in the privacy of their room.
When Sarah came up from the chapel this particular evening, she found Molly sitting on her bed writing her nightly letter to Tom, radiant with happiness. She positively glowed with it so that the moment Sarah walked in through the door she knew something had happened.
“Molly?”
“He’s coming to see me,” Molly cried to her in delight. “He’s got a seventy-two hour local leave pass.”
“Tom?”
“Oh Sarah! Who else? Of course Tom.”
“But where will you meet him?” asked Sarah foreseeing all the pitfalls in this that Molly was blithely ignoring. “Surely he won’t come here, to the convent? They won’t let him in. It’s not like when Freddie came. He was my brother.”
“I know all that,” Molly said cheerfully, “but we can meet in the village, or at the camp. He’ll go and see the padre, and so can I.”
“In the village?”
“When we go, you and I. It’ll be perfectly proper if you’re there too. We’ll just have tea and cakes at Madame Juliette’s like always.”
Sarah looked dubious. “I don’t know, Molly,” she began, “Reverend Mother…”
“Doesn’t need to know,” broke in Molly. “Sarah, we are talking about the man I am going to marry. He’s my fiancé.” Molly was pleased to use the word. “My fiancé. If we were at home now and he came to call for me on my day off, it would be perfectly proper for me to walk out with him. Why not here?”
“It’s different here,” Sarah said. “We have to live by the rules of the convent, we agreed to do that when we first came.”
“Well I didn’t have a fiancé when we first came,” said Molly obstinately. “Sarah,” she pleaded, “I have to meet him one way or another. We’ll have so little time together.”
Sarah sat down beside Molly and gave her a hug. “Don’t worry,” she said, “we’ll think of something. Perhaps I could explain to Aunt Anne that you are going to be married and she could speak to Mother.”
“I don’t want Mother knowing anything about it,” Molly said firmly. “She as good as told me that she’d send me away if I saw him again. If he turns up now she’ll know I disobeyed her and she may well send me away anyway.”
When the light was out, each girl lay in her cocoon of darkness considering what to do. Molly was planning ways she could slip away from the convent to meet Tom in the precious few hours they would have. She thought about the gate in the convent wall, leading to the camp outside. As far as she knew it was never locked as the padre and the doctors used it whenever they came over to visit the wards. When she came off duty, it would be easy enough to slip through the gate instead of going up to their room. If she chose her moment no one would see her, and no one, except perhaps Sarah, would miss her, and there Tom would be, waiting for her. She only had to persuade Sarah to cover for her if necessary.
Sarah was wondering what she ought to do in the situation. Should she allow herself to be drawn into this deceit? To be used as an illicit chaperone by Molly and encourage her to flout the convent rules, or should she stand back and let Molly get on with this on her own? If she did that there was almost no doubt that Molly and Tom would be caught out, yet if she connived at their meeting, she might be making everything worse for Molly in the long run. She was seriously concerned with how things stood between Molly and her Tom. The letters had come thick and fast, and Sarah knew that there was a new dimension to their relationship since Tom had left. She felt in her heart she shouldn’t be doing anything to encourage Molly in her infatuation with this man, but she could see how happy it made Molly and she couldn’t bring herself to destroy that happiness either.
“When does he arrive?” she asked Molly as they were getting dressed the next morning.
“He says the 26th,” answered Molly casually. “That’s Sunday.”
“And will you be going to the service at the camp as usual?” Sarah asked innocently.
“I always go to the service when I can be spared,” replied Molly with equal innocence.
“Let’s hope Sister Eloise can spare you then,” teased Sarah.
Molly stared at her dumbstruck. “ Oh Sarah, you don’t think that this Sunday, of all Sundays…”
“No, Of course I don’t, silly! I was only teasing you.” Sarah had decided that Molly going to church in the camp was the very best way of her meeting with Tom. The Reverend Kingston would be there, and so would a host of other people; it would be perfectly proper, and, more to the point, she, Sarah, would not be compromised in any way.
Molly waltzed through the next few days, her eyes shining. She wrote to Tom saying she would be at the evening service and would see him there. No other letter came from him and occasionally she was attacked by doubts. Perhaps something had gone wrong. Perhaps the leave had been cancelled. Perhaps they hadn’t been relieved at the front. Perhaps he’d been…. She forced aside such thoughts and imagined him, waiting at the gate to meet her when she crossed through, perfectly properly, for Sunday evening service.
Sunday finally arrived and for Molly every minute was an hour. She woke early; the day had finally come. She had been terrified that they would have an unexpected arrival of wounded so that she couldn’t be spared from the ward, but as the hours crawled by, this became less and less likely, and eventually Sister Eloise said, “You may go to your church now, Molly,” and with demure thanks, Molly slipped out of the ward to take off her apron and fetch her coat and hat.
The day had been a fine one, and as Molly crossed the courtyard, the sun was beginning to paint evening into the sky above the high, grey walls. She paused with her hand on the gate and looked behind her. There was no one in the courtyard, the ward doors were now closed against the creeping chill of the March evening, and the windows that overlooked the yard were dark and empty. There was no one to see her leave, or to see who was waiting as she closed the gate behind her.
He was there, looking as handsome in his uniform as she had ever seen him. For a moment they simply looked at each other. Each had been afraid that this magical thing that had grown and flowered between them might have mysteriously perished; that things would not be the same when they saw each other again. Would they find the person they thought they knew, or someone different; someone whom they had known once and remembered only hazily, or worse still had never known at all?
Would Tom still be the brave yet sensitive man Molly had nursed and comforted, or would he have changed, over the intervening months back in the trenches, become a stranger hardened by war? Would Molly still be the same beautiful young woman, that Tom remembered, her face eager and bright, her eyes lit with inner determination and strength?
Each searched the face of the other. Tom spoke first, his face breaking into a smile; he held out both hands to grasp hers. “Molly! Is it really you, my darling girl?”
His smile, lighting his face, drew an answering one and Molly gripped his hands tightly for a moment before she whispered, “Tom! It’s really you.” She slipped into his arms like a bird coming home to roost, and he folded them round her in an embrace that crushed the breath out of her.
She looked up at him as she had before. “I can’t breathe,” she murmured, and as he relaxed his hold a fraction, she slid her arms up round his neck and held up her face to be kissed. Some men passed them on their way to the chapel tent, but glanced away from a couple clearly lost in each other. Each man could imagine his own sweetheart in his arms, and walked on to the service his heart filled with envy at the lucky bloke who seemed to have his girl right here in France.
“We must go to the chapel,” Molly said at last, straightening her hat. “We can talk afterwards.” They walked through the camp, Tom tall and straight beside her, Molly’s hand on his arm. Molly knew an exhilaration she had never known before. Gone were all her doubts about how she would feel about this man once she saw him again. She looked up at him with pride in her eyes, a pride that was reflected in his, as he looked down.
At the service they sang the familiar hymns, joined in the Lord’s prayer and listened to the padre’s sermon, but neither had thought for anything or anyone but the other. They sat on opposite sides of the tent, as they always had, Tom among the men and Molly with the officers and nurses from the camp, but each felt as close to the other as if they were hand in hand, arm in arm. At the end of the service when the congregation mingled, Robert Kingston came over and said to Molly, “Well, Miss Day, I see you have your beau back from the front.”
“Yes, padre,” Molly replied.
“Good to see you looking so well, Carter,” he said, nodding to Tom before moving on.
As people stayed chatting, Tom and Molly withdrew to a corner. At first things seemed stiff between them, their conversation stilted and awkward, there was so much to say it was hard to begin, but when Tom said, “Oh Molly, it is so good to see you. I can’t believe I’m really here,” Molly felt tears in her eyes.
“I can’t believe it either,” she whispered. “I was so afraid that something awful would stop you coming, that you be wounded or killed in those days after you wrote. I couldn’t have borne that, Tom.”
“Well I wasn’t, see, so don’t you waste tears on what hasn’t happened.”
They talked for a while, but the tent began to empty and they couldn’t stay there any longer. Robert Kingston was watching them, and so they went up to him before they left.
“Goodnight, Mr Kingston,” Molly said. “I’m going back now. I’ll see you next Sunday.”
“Goodnight, Miss Day,” replied the padre. He nodded to Tom. “Carter.” Then he asked, “Where are you staying, Carter? In the village?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Tom. “I got a room down there.”
“Well, goodnight to you.” Then he added with a wry smile, “I’ve no doubt you’ll escort Miss Day through the camp to the convent gate.”
“Yes, sir. Certainly, sir.”
They spent their last few moments together planning how to meet again next day, Tom’s only full day.
“I’ll come out as soon as I get off duty tomorrow,” Molly promised. “Sarah and I sometimes get a couple of hours off in the afternoon so that we’re in the wards when the sisters want to go to chapel later in the day. Any time after noon. I’ll meet you on the track leading to the camp.”
“Will they let you out alone?” asked Tom, surprised.
Molly shook her head. “No, but Sarah will come, I know she will, and if she doesn’t, well, I’ll slip out through the side gate anyway.”
She carried away all his arguments and objections, saying at last, “Tom, we only have tomorrow. If we don’t see each other then, it won’t be for months.” He allowed himself to be persuaded and they held each other close as they kissed with a passion neither had experienced before.
“Now I’m definitely coming,” Molly said a little shakily.
Next day things did not go as Molly had hoped. Sister Eloise announced that there was a hospital inspection in the next few days, so she would need Molly all day to prepare. Molly stared at her dumbfounded for a moment and then just nodded and said, “Yes, Sister.” She started her work in the ward kitchen, but her mind wasn’t on what she was doing, it was racing furiously, hatching and discarding schemes that would allow her to meet Tom as they had planned. She had no way of getting a message to him, to warn him of a change of plan, but she was determined to see him once more before he had to go back.
Eventually she fell back on the simplest of her ideas. She would tell Sister Eloise that she was ill and have herself sent to her room. From there she would slip downstairs and away. Sarah would be the only person who would know she was not in her room, unwell, and surely Sarah wouldn’t say anything? All morning she worked with a distracted air, causing comment from Sister Marie-Paul, and eventually Sister Eloise said, “Molly, is something wrong?”
Molly produced a brave smile and said, “No, not really Sister, I…” she hesitated as if not liking to mention such things and then said softly, “I have my monthly, and this time the pain is bad.”
Sister Eloise was surprised at this confession, but as she had no reason to doubt what Molly told her, she asked, “Can you still work?”
Molly managed another brave smile, “Of course, Sister, but I will lie down for a while at midday.”
“You will not come for your meal?” asked Sister Eloise.
“No, I couldn’t eat, Sister, I would be sick. If I lie down for a little I will be better.” Molly surprised herself with how easily the lies came.
“Go now,” said the nun, “it is almost midday and I will send Sarah to you with a little food.” She handed Molly some aspirin. “These will help,” she said. “Tomorrow you will be quite recovered, hein? Stay in your bed. I will see you tomorrow.”
After that it had been remarkably easy. Molly went up to her room and got her hat and coat. She scribbled a note for Sarah, hoping that it would indeed be Sarah who came to see how she was. That’s a risk I’ve got to take, she thought as she left it propped on Sarah’s pillow.
Dear Sarah
I have to see Tom once again. I told Sister E. that I wasn’t well with my monthly. Not due back in the ward until tomorrow. Please cover for me. I will be back before it gets dark. This is the only time we have.
Molly
The Angelus was ringing as she crept down the stairs, after which the nuns would be eating. With all the sisters in the refectory, Molly risked using the front door. It was safer, she decided than crossing the courtyard where she might be seen from one of the wards. She closed the heavy door behind her and cut round outside the convent walls. Tom sitting patiently on a fallen tree beside the track and he leapt to his feet as he saw her.
“Molly!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t expect you yet.”
“Quickly, Tom. Let’s get out of sight.” She took his hand and hurried him down the hill and into a copse of trees that would hide them from any watching eyes at the convent windows. Once safely screened, they paused and Tom gathered her into his arms. “How did you get out?” he asked when he had kissed her. “Where’s Sarah?”
“No off duty today,” Molly explained. “I pleaded sick and am supposed to be in our room, lying down.”
“But you’ll be missed.”
“Only by Sarah, with any luck,” replied Molly. Going on bravely, she added, “and if I am, I am. It’ll be too late. We shouldn’t go to the village though.”
“We can’t stay here either,” Tom said. “Blokes from the camp often walk down through here on their way to the village.”
Molly thought for a moment and then said, “We’ll go along the river. There probably won’t be anyone down there.”
She led the way across the fields, skirting the village and ending up on the path that she and Sarah had walked so often in their early days at the convent.
The sun had been shining all morning, but now clouds were building in the sky, and a rising breeze fluttered and whipped the strands of the leaning willows and drew darting cats’ paws on the smooth-flowing water of the river. Tom and Molly noticed none of it. They sat in the shelter of one of the trees and shared the bread and cheese Tom had bought in the village, and talked. Not of the war at first, but of themselves and the future they planned together; the home they would make, the children they would have, their life as a real family. The perfect world, after the war, when the pain was over and the killing had stopped. The thought of this time, somewhere beyond their lives in the hospital and the trenches, brought them inevitably back to the present.
“There’s a big push coming,” Tom told her. “Everyone’s talking about it, there’s definitely something in the wind. They say it’s the push that’s going to end the war. Sweep the Germans out of the trenches and right back into Germany.”
“When?” cried Molly. “When’s this big push?”
Tom shrugged. “Don’t know. No one does, but it’s coming all right. We’ve had no rest even when we’ve been relieved at the front. We’ve been marching, carrying stores, digging trenches and training, training all the time we’ve been in billets, as well as the usual chores.”
“Training? What sort of training?” asked Molly.
“Some of our company have been trained with Lewis guns,” Tom replied. “Special courses teaching them to maintain and clean them. Fix them when they jam. They’re light, those Lewises, a bloke can carry and fire one on his own if he has to. We’ve all had rifle and bayonet practice. Men are moving everywhere, new trenches are being dug, sunken roads built to move stuff up the line out of sight. And all the time the old ones have to be repaired. It’s what we do most of the time when we’re up in the front line. Jerry shells us all day, then at night we have to repair the damage. Some of the older trenches cave right in.” Tom paused for a moment, thinking of the three stinking corpses that had been unearthed from the collapsed wall of the last trench he and his mates had been repairing.
“Christ!” Tony Cook had yelled leaping backwards as what looked like a stinking bag of rubbish fell out at his feet. It was only a decomposing arm with its hand still hanging off, sticking out from the stinking bundle that had told them what they had found. As they had mended the wall of the trench they had re-interred that body and the other two that were with it.
No need to tell Molly about that, he thought, and jerked himself away from the vision of the black-fleshed arm which had slid into his mind. “The wire in front has to be re-laid as well,” he told her. “Has to be fixed up so that the Jerries can’t come through on a raiding party. We go out after dark looking for holes and mending them.”
“And the Germans just let you?” asked Molly.
Tom shook his head. “Nope. But they’re doing exactly the same,” he said, “trying to mend what our gunners have flattened. Flare goes up, everyone freezes, snipers try and pick off a few and then as it gets dark again everyone gets back to work.”
“All for this ‘big push’?” asked Molly faintly.
“Definitely coming,” said Tom. “There’s men coming in from everywhere.”
An angry flurry of rain brought them back to the present and Tom looked up at the sky, lowering grey, filled with rain. “We’re going to get drenched,” he said. “We’ll have to go back, or at least find somewhere to shelter.”
“I know just the place,” Molly cried. She was determined that she wasn’t going back to the confines of the convent yet, for as she listened to Tom’s rumour of the big push and the carnage that must accompany it, Molly had come to a decision. Pulling Tom to his feet, she led him along the path. With their heads down against the wind and the driving rain, they battled their way to the old stone barn where she and Sarah had sat in the autumn to eat their picnics. Laughing, they ducked inside and collapsed amongst the last of the hay that was still stored there. Molly took off her coat and laid it down on the hay, and then Tom pulled her into his arms and they lay together, their bodies close, intensely aware of each other. As he kissed her and Molly returned those kisses, Tom tweaked off her hat and pulled the pins from her hair. It fell round her shoulders, framing her face, and he came up on his elbow to look down at her, his Molly with the shining eyes and the gentle, loving mouth. Even as he looked, she reached for him again, pulling him down so that her mouth could claim his, and he felt her hands pushing at his jacket, sliding in under his shirt to touch his skin.
“Molly!” His voice was ragged and he twisted away. Molly sat up and very deliberately began to unbutton her blouse. He watched as her fingers undid each small white button, as she slipped her shoulders free and shrugged her arms out of the sleeves. He made no move to touch her, but he ached in every inch of his body.
“Molly!” he groaned again, but Molly laid a finger to her lips and unhooked the waistband of her skirt. Without getting to her feet, she slid it deftly down her legs and kicked it free, away over the hay. Dressed only in her chemise she reached out and began the same deft work on his tunic and then the shirt underneath. As she slid the shirt from his shoulders, her fingers ran cool and softly down his arms and then across the skin of his chest. It was, at last, too much and he pushed her back on to the hay, his body hard against hers as he stroked the bare flesh above her chemise, as he pulled the white cotton away, up over her hips, over her shoulders, over her head, leaving her breasts naked and beautiful. He raised his head to look at her, and Molly put her arms up above her head, stretching like a cat, the skin smooth and taut across her breasts and belly. Tom put his finger on her cheek and from there traced a wondering line, circling each breast, touching each eager nipple before moving slowly down her body. The touch of his exploring finger made her quiver. In that moment she heard her father’s gruff voice saying, “Lovely little bubbies you’ve got, Moll,” and she stiffened. Tom looked sharply into her face, but when she saw the anxiety in his eyes she smiled up at him and relaxed again. The memory vanished and she closed her eyes, arching her body towards him. He knelt beside her, his hands wandering lingeringly over her skin until he came to the drawers that still covered her. His fingers came to rest on their waistband and Molly murmured huskily, “Tom. Don’t stop!” Her eyes flew open and he looked into them anxiously.
“We shouldn’t be doing this, Molly,” he said. “Not till we’re married. Not till you’re really my wife.”
Molly slid her hands down his body and played with the fly of his trousers. “We may never be married, Tom,” she said softly. “We have to face reality. You go back tomorrow and I may never see you again. You say there’s a big push coming. You may be killed and we’d never have known what it was to love each other properly, completely. If we never spend another hour together at least we’ll have had this. We’ll have shared our bodies as well as our hearts.” Her fingers, stroking him, aroused him almost beyond endurance. “I want you to make love to me, Tom, so that I can hold this moment to me on the bleak and lonely nights when you’re not there. If you love me, Tom, please make love to me now.”
“I love you, Molly, too much to be doing this to you, but I can’t help myself.” He lowered his head and as they kissed the last of their restraint faded away.
Later, as they lay side by side in the hay listening to the rain still pattering on the roof, Molly curled herself against him and sighed. “I love you, Tom,” she said. “I’ll always love you.”
The wind dashed a flurry of rain in through the open doorway and Molly shivered. Tom said, “You’re cold. You must get dressed. Look at the time, Molly, you’ll be missed.”
“I don’t care,” Molly insisted, but she took her chemise when he handed it to her and put her clothes back on. Tom helped her pin her hair back up with the few hairpins they could salvage from the hay, and then she set her hat on her head. Looking at his watch, she saw that the hours had fled and it was half past six. They stepped out into the rain and hurried back towards the convent. The heavy blanket of grey cloud made the evening dreary, and the wind was cold. They didn’t speak, just huddled together as they walked. When they reached the copse at the end of the track they kissed again.
“I’ll go in through the courtyard door,” Molly said. “It should be open. With luck nearly everyone will be at supper and I won’t be seen.”
“Will you be all right?” Tom asked. “You know I have to leave here at first light.”
“Yes, I know.” Molly was fighting to keep back tears. “I’ll never forget this afternoon,” she said.
“No more will I,” Tom said. “Look after yourself, my darling girl.”
Molly nodded and whispered, “You too.”
They walked quickly up the track to the gate in the convent wall, and with the touch of her hand on his, Molly went through without a backward glance. The courtyard was empty, the ward doors all shut against the cold wet evening. She pulled the gate closed behind her and was just starting across the yard for the door when the door to ward one opened and Sister Marie-Paul emerged carrying a bucket. She looked at Molly in surprise and said, “I thought you were ill.”
“I was, earlier,” Molly replied, “but I felt better and I thought a breath of fresh air would do me good, so I came down into the courtyard.”
“You don’t look ill,” remarked Sister Marie-Paul suspiciously. She had been annoyed when Sister Eloise had sent Molly to rest just because it was the time of the month. Didn’t they all have to contend with that? No one would have dreamed of even mentioning such a thing, let alone going to bed with it. She’d had to work an extra hour because Molly was sick.
“As I said, I feel much better now. Sister Eloise gave me some aspirin. They must have done the trick.”
Sister Marie-Paul sniffed and turned away to empty her bucket in an outside drain and Molly took the chance to scamper inside. Thank goodness Sister Marie-Paul hadn’t come out thirty seconds earlier and caught her actually coming in through the gate.
She gained the safety of their room without meeting anyone else, and with a fast-beating heart she threw herself down on the bed. The note she had left for Sarah had gone, so she must have read it.
Sarah had indeed read the note. When Sister Eloise told her, whilst she was having her midday break, that Molly wasn’t well, Sarah went straight upstairs to find out what was wrong. All she found was an empty room and the note. She read it through incredulously and then a second time with mounting anger. How could Molly do something so deceitful, so stupid and then worse still expect her, Sarah, to cover her tracks?
When she came up to the room at the end of the day she found Molly in bed. “How dare you!” she exploded. “How dare you, Molly Day? You break all the rules we’ve been asked to keep, you creep out in an underhand manner to have a clandestine meeting with a soldier you hardly know, and you expect me to cover it up for you. You expect me to lie for you. ‘No, Sister, she isn’t very well, but I’m sure she’ll be fine tomorrow. No, Sister, she doesn’t want anything to eat just now, I’ll take her a tray up at supper time. Yes, Sister she has been looking a bit peaky. Yes, Sister, I’m sure you are right, sleep is what she needs. Yes, Sister, she was fast asleep when I came down. Please don’t trouble yourself, Sister, I can look after her, you’ve enough on your hands.’ How dare you involve me in your tawdry little affair!” Sarah’s eyes blazed with anger as she stood looking down at Molly. “What have you got to say for yourself, you little slut? What have you to say to me?”
Molly felt the words hit her, battering her like hailstones, so that she almost put up her hands to ward them off.
“I’m sorry, Sarah,” she began, “but I had to go. There’s a big push coming, he may be killed…”
Her voice trailed away as Sarah interrupted. “Sorry isn’t good enough, Molly. I expected more of you than running out to a man like a kitchen maid…” She, too, broke off as she realised what she’d said.
“I am a kitchen maid, Miss Sarah,” Molly pointed out softly. “But that don’t make me a slut. I went to say goodbye to the man I’m going to marry. A man fighting for his king and country, for you and me. A man that’s maybe going to die.”
“Oh, Molly, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that,” cried Sarah dropping down on to her own bed. “But you shouldn’t have gone, really you shouldn’t. What Reverend Mother would say…”
“She isn’t going to know, Sarah… unless you tell her.”
“Why would I tell her now?” asked Sarah resignedly. “I’ve been lying for you all afternoon. I certainly shan’t be telling her now. Oh Molly, I’ve been so worried about you. Where’ve you been? Surely not to the village? Not to Madame Juliette’s.”
“No, we walked by the river and then when it rained we sheltered in the old stone barn, you know where we used to picnic?”
“Oh, Molly,” Sarah said, not knowing what else to say.
“Thank you, Sarah, for standing by me.”
Molly held out her hand and Sarah took it with a reluctant grin. “Don’t ever put me in that position again, Molly,” she said. “Has he gone back now?”
Molly nodded. Sarah’s burst of anger had at least served to deflect her thoughts for a moment or two, now she felt the tears pricking the backs of her eyes. “Yes, he leaves at first light. But next time we meet I’ll be of age and we’ll be able to get married.”
“What’s this ‘big push’?” asked Sarah and Molly told her what Tom had said.
“So I suppose Freddie will be in it too.”
“I suppose so,” Molly said uncertainly. “Well they’re in the same company, aren’t they? So he must be in it too. Tom says there are men being brought in from everywhere. A load arrived from Egypt the other day. I bet they notice the difference in heat.”
“I had a letter from Freddie, today,” Sarah said. “Heather, his wife, is going to have a baby. It’s due in September.” She looked bleakly at Molly. “He may never see it.”
“Now, come on, Sarah, this big push is going to end the war. Our boys are going to shove them Germans right back into Germany where they belong.”
“Those Germans,” Sarah corrected her absently.
“Yes, well those an’ all!”
They both laughed at that and when at last they put out the light and lay as always with their thoughts, it wasn’t very long before both had drifted off into sleep.
15th June
Dearest Tom
I got your last letter and am glad you’re safely back in billets, though it sounds as if you are very busy. I know you can’t tell me much because of the censor, but it is nice to know that you are safe. Thank you for the snap, you look very spruce!
I have some news for you, Tom, which I hope will please you, but may cause us a problem as well. It is difficult to explain how I feel so I’d better just tell you straight. You are going to be a father. I am going to have a baby. I know we planned to have children, but it will be difficult over here. I will have to go home, dear Tom and have our baby there. No one else knows yet, not even Sarah, as nothing shows and I am keeping well, thank goodness. I am sure that they are not handing out leave at present, but if you could manage to get 48 hours I could meet you somewhere and we could get married. I know you will stick by me, dear Tom, whatever happens, but I would like the baby to have your name, and this may be the last time we could get married for a while. Now I am 21 my father has no say.