When Polly walked through the swing doors of the post-operative ward, she stopped in her tracks on seeing two of the other patients by the side of Tommy’s bed. They had a wheelchair and were helping Tommy to manoeuvre himself into it.
When one of the injured soldiers, who was called Percival, looked up and saw her approaching, he put his finger to his lips and pointed to the bottom of the ward where the matron was standing with her back to them. She was listening to the laments of another injured soldier called Shorty, who, strangely enough, was anything but short.
Walking on tiptoes over to Tommy and his two accomplices, Polly whispered, ‘What are you all doing?’
‘We’re springing him from this joint,’ Percival whispered back with a convincing American accent.
‘Got to get a bit of fresh air,’ Tommy said, giving Polly a wink.
Polly looked at the matron, who was still standing with her back to them, and then down at Tommy, grimacing in pain as he hauled himself off the bed and into the wheelchair.
As soon as he’d done so, Percival started pushing the wheelchair around the bed.
‘Give it here,’ Polly whispered, grabbing both handles.
As the two young lovers made their escape, Percival shoved some pillows under the covers of Tommy’s empty bed and drew the curtain, just in time to see the matron turning away from Shorty.
‘Tommy wanted a bit of privacy,’ Percival said, nodding over to the curtained-off bed. He hobbled on his plastered leg back to his own bed, which was now devoid of pillows.
Matron was just heading over to check on Tommy when one of the other lads, who had one of his legs resting in the harness of a pulley, called her over.
She couldn’t help thinking they all seemed very demanding this evening.
‘Honestly, I can push myself.’ Tommy looked up at Polly. It hurt every fibre of his being to be so weak, which only added to his determination that he would not be like this for long.
‘That may well be,’ Polly said, looking over her shoulder anxiously, ‘but I can get us out of this “joint” faster.’
True to her word, she got them to the main entrance at breakneck speed.
An elderly gentleman saluted as he held open the main doors for them. Tommy returned the old man’s address.
Once out in the fresh air, Polly carefully pushed the wheelchair down the ramp and onto the shale pathway.
‘Made it!’ she declared.
‘Now, I can take it from here.’ Tommy put his hands on the wheels and pushed down hard, but the gravel was damp. The wheelchair only moved a few inches forward.
‘Let me,’ Polly said. ‘Just until we get around the corner.’
When they had made it a few hundred yards away from the main entrance, Polly stopped next to one of the wooden benches. It was dark, but they could just about see where they were.
Tommy looked up at the starry night and for a second was back on the lifeboat in the middle of the Atlantic. He wiped the thought from his mind.
‘What a wreck.’ He tried to make the words sound jovial, but he couldn’t hide the sense of wretchedness he felt at his present situation. ‘I thought I might be able to at least push myself in this damn thing.’
Polly caught his look of frustration in the light of the half-moon.
‘Tommy, it’s only Monday. On Saturday you could hardly sit up in bed, never mind get yourself into a wheelchair.’
‘I know, but I had a great plan for this evening,’ he said, causing Polly to chuckle.
‘Do tell me,’ she smiled. ‘I’m intrigued.’
‘Well, it’s been three whole torturous days now since I have had you back in my life,’ he said. ‘And during that whole time, I’ve not once had you to myself.’
Polly chuckled again.
‘I know. Every time I hold your hand, I can almost hear the matron tutting in her head. I’m sure she would ban any kind of physical contact if she could.’
‘I think she missed her calling as a chaperone,’ Tommy joked.
‘Every time I’ve given you a kiss goodbye, I’ve felt her beady eye on us.’
‘As well as just about every soldier on the ward,’ Tommy added.
They were quiet for a moment as a young airman on crutches passed with his sweetheart.
‘Which was why I wanted to be alone with you, just for a little while.’ Tommy looked at Polly. He had dreamed of the day when he would take her in his arms and press her body against his own and kiss her.
‘I so want to kiss you. Properly,’ Tommy confessed. ‘But I’m damned if the first time I do so is from the confines of a wheelchair.’ His voice was deadly serious, causing Polly to laugh.
‘So, does this mean I have to wait until you’re well enough to do away with the chair before I get to kiss my future husband properly?’ A smile played on her lips.
‘I just …’ Tommy hesitated, finding it hard to talk so intimately. ‘I just wanted to be able to at least stand and hold you in my arms.’
Polly was quiet. She understood. She could see how much it pained Tommy to be so incapacitated.
‘Do you remember that time when we danced by the riverside? We’d both been working late, and we were saying we hadn’t even been to a dance together or really on a proper date.’
Tommy nodded.
‘And you told me that we were going to have a “Make Do and Mend” date.’
Tommy had thought of that night many times while he was away.
‘And I asked you if you could hear an orchestra,’ Polly said.
‘Yes,’ Tommy laughed. ‘You said you thought it was playing the waltz, and I had no idea what a waltz sounded like, but I knew it was the kind of dance that was slow and I’d get to hold you.’
‘And you said to me in the best King’s English you could muster, “Would the lady care to dance?”’
For a moment they were both lost in the memory of what seemed like a totally different lifetime.
‘Well,’ Polly said. ‘I think you should close your eyes and pretend you are there now.’
Tommy closed his eyes.
‘And I want you to imagine that we’re dancing by the river and you’re holding me in your arms.’
Tommy could feel Polly’s breath on his face. He could smell her freshly laundered clothes.
‘And now that we’re dancing …’ Polly leant towards Tommy, her thick brown hair falling forward and touching the side of his face, ‘ … and you are holding me in your arms …’ she touched the side of Tommy’s face ‘ … you kiss me.’ She whispered the words. Then kissed Tommy slowly.
Feeling the sensuousness of her lips on his own, Tommy responded, losing himself in her touch, her smell, her taste.
They were lips he could kiss for ever and a day.
Finally they were able to feel the love and passion they had for each other. A love that had not dwindled in the time they had been apart, but grown. Their fervour for each other even greater due to their doubts that this moment would ever come.
Dr Parker walked slowly along the windowless white corridors.
He’d walked up and down these corridors so many times he could do it blindfolded, if necessary.
A few minutes earlier Mrs Rosendale had come bursting into his office in such a flurry he’d imagined there must be an emergency on the ward. When she had breathlessly explained to him that Tommy had ‘escaped’ from the ward without permission in a wheelchair and with his fiancée, he had suppressed a chuckle. And another when she had related the misdemeanours of Percival, Shorty and Private Jones. All three of them had, rather cunningly, Dr Parker thought, orchestrated the breakout.
He had reassured Mrs Rosendale that he would recapture AWOL Watts and bring him back immediately.
Dr Parker idled as he headed towards the hospital’s main entrance, wanting to give the two of them a little time together – but not so much that the cold autumnal air would be detrimental to the already precarious health of his patient. Tommy was still far from well and needed to be kept warm. With lots of rest and recuperation. Mrs Rosendale was already beside herself that Tommy was refusing any more medication. Dr Parker knew Tommy was still in considerable pain. He had been on morphine for quite some time. Ideally, he should gradually have been given lesser amounts so as to lessen the side effects of withdrawal. He had talked to Tommy about all of this, but he had been insistent. He wanted to get back to ‘normal’ as soon as possible.
As Dr Parker reached the main entrance, his thoughts, as they were wont to do, defaulted back to Helen. They’d spoken the morning after the air raid, when she had rung him at work.
As always with Helen, he could have chatted all day long. They’d had to break off their conversation when he’d heard his name called over the tannoy. She had asked about Tommy and he’d thought he’d caught a hint of embarrassment.
Realising just how much Helen still loved Tommy cut deep, as did the knowledge that his own love for Helen was doomed to be unrequited. They were friends. Good friends. God, he had been with her throughout her pregnancy and the trauma of her miscarriage. But they could never be anything more.
Helen created such a paradox of feelings within him. She was like an anaesthetic against the true awfulness of what his senses were assaulted with every day. She was his balm against the horrors of war’s cast-offs.
She also, however, brought pain.
A terrible ache of longing that he was sure would never lift.
Walking out into the fresh but cold October night, it took Dr Parker a few moments to adjust to the darkness. Turning left, he walked for a hundred yards before he stopped on seeing the two young lovers. They were sharing the tenderest of kisses.
Dr Parker couldn’t help but feel envious.
Why, oh why, did he have to fall so heavily in love with a woman whose heart belonged to another?
He started walking down the gravel pathway, coughing politely.