Those spring days were short-lived as wind and rain battered the coast. And then there was this awful war: blackouts, stumbling around in the dark, rationing and daily air raids. So when a letter came from Nelson, we couldn’t have been happier.
I met Jack at the station and we walked down to the cafe on the seafront. We ordered a pot of tea and some sandwiches because Jack said that he was starving. It was too cold to sit outside so we found a table that looked out over the sea. The window was all steamed up, so Jack took a hankie out of his pocket and wiped it so that we could see out. The sea looked angry and grey, bashing and splashing against the sea wall. The barbed wire all along the beach looked horrible. But inside the little cafe it was warm and cosy and, even better, we had a letter from Nelson. I opened it and we started reading.
Dear Maureen and Jack,
The first thing I want to say is that I’m OK, so you don’t need to worry. I’ve been injured, not badly, just enough to get me sent back to England for a while. Yes, I’m in good old Blighty with a shrapnel wound to my leg. You may be wondering where my sturdy tank was in all this. Well, I was walking at the time. A bunch of us were sent to check out a town when we were attacked. Some of the others got it worse than me but, thank God, we all made it back to camp alive. They are operating tomorrow to remove the shrapnel and then they are sending me to a convalescent home on the seafront in Hastings! Can you believe it? I’ll be just along the road from you and I will be available for visitors.
I hope that you are both well.
Can’t wait to see you, my friends.
Love,
Nelson x
Jack and I were grinning from ear to ear.
‘I can’t believe it, can you?’ I said.
Jack shook his head. ‘I don’t suppose we should be this happy to hear that he’s been injured, but it’s not serious and we get to see him.’
We held hands across the table; we were both grinning. We were going to see our friend.
We waited until we received the letter from Nelson letting us know that he had arrived in Hastings and that he couldn’t wait to see us.
The following Sunday, we got up early and made our way down to the Brighton bus depot at Pool Valley. I’d never been to Hastings, in fact I’d hardly been out of Brighton, except to see Daddy at Haywards Heath, so I was really excited as the bus made its way along the coast road. As we approached the town we could see that Hastings had had its fair share of the bombing.
We got off the bus and started walking back along the seafront. I took Nelson’s letter out of my bag. ‘We’re looking for Valerie House,’ I said. ‘Nelson says it overlooks the beach.’
We passed beautiful houses that had been badly damaged or were completely gone, just a pile of rubble where they once stood. One house had the side of it completely blown away. You could see the wallpaper, an intricate pattern of pink roses and green trailing leaves, and a perfectly intact bed standing against one of the remaining walls.
‘I bet when they chose that wallpaper they didn’t think that the whole world would end up looking at it.’
‘I bet they didn’t,’ said Jack.
‘I expect that when they bought it they were wondering whether it would go with the bedspread.’
‘Or the curtains,’ said Jack, laughing.
‘Sad really, isn’t it? It’s like ending up in the bottom of a smelly bucket.’
‘A smelly bucket?’
‘I’ll explain another time,’ I said.
‘I wonder why it’s called Valerie House?’ I said, looking at Nelson’s letter.
‘It was rumoured that an architect who designed a street or an avenue used to name the roads after his relatives,’ said Jack. ‘Maybe Valerie was his wife.’
Valerie House was a beautiful building on four floors. It was painted white, stained yellow in parts from the salty wind coming in from the sea. We walked up the front steps and rang the doorbell.
It was opened by a young chap on crutches and he grinned at us.
‘Visiting the poor, heroic wounded, are you?’
‘Nelson Perks?’ I said, smiling at him.
‘Ah, Nelson! He said he was expecting his friends. He’s in the garden, breathing in the sea air. I’ll take you to him.’
We followed the man as he expertly swung along on the crutches with surprising speed. He led us along a hallway to the back of the house and opened a door that led outside.
‘You’ll find him out there,’ he said, pointing down the garden.
Nelson was sitting in a wheelchair. One of his legs was extended out in front of him and he had a red and grey checked blanket draped across his knees. I called his name and his face split into the biggest smile. I ran over to him and put my arms around him. Then I stepped back and took in how pale he was and how thin but it was Nelson and, for now, at least he was safe and he was home.
‘Oh, Nelson, it’s so good to see you,’ I said.
Jack walked up behind me and knelt down by the wheelchair. ‘Sorry about your leg, old chap. Are you in any pain?’
‘A bit,’ said Nelson. ‘But I’m alive, so I can put up with a bit of pain.’
‘Are they looking after you well?’ I asked.
‘We’re all getting spoilt rotten by a bevvy of pretty nurses, how much better can it get?’
It became clear that Nelson didn’t want to talk about the war, so we told him all the news, even stuff we’d already told him in our letters. Like the cinema being bombed and the bomb that fell on the bookshop that never went off. I told him about how it had affected Peter.
‘Poor chap,’ said Nelson. ‘But it sounds as if he was a hero the day the cinema was bombed.’
‘Oh he was,’ I said. ‘He really was.’
‘It takes some people like that,’ said Nelson. ‘Raw young recruits too thin for their uniforms arrive on base and you don’t think they’ll last a week but they surprise you and end up becoming unlikely heroes.’
‘They say there’s a hero in all of us,’ said Jack. ‘I’m yet to find mine.’
‘Your day will come, Jack,’ said Nelson. ‘You don’t have to blow a man’s brains out to become a hero. You are going to become the biggest hero of us all, because you will be saving lives, not destroying them.’
‘Actually, Nelson, I’ve joined up,’ said Jack.
‘I had a feeling you might.’
‘Didn’t have a choice really.’
‘What regiment are you joining?’
‘I’m going as a combat medic, that’s all I know at the moment.’
‘Well, let’s hope that by the time you finish the training it will all be over.’
‘That would be good,’ said Jack. ‘For everyone.’
We stayed for about an hour and then one of the pretty young nurses walked down the garden. ‘Enough excitement for one day, I think,’ she said, stepping on the brake and turning the chair around.
‘You’ll come again, won’t you?’ Nelson called as he was wheeled away up the garden.
‘Next Sunday,’ called Jack.
‘Give my love to the others,’ shouted Nelson.
On the way home I stared out of the bus window and I thought about Nelson. I was glad that he was being looked after so well by the pretty nurses but it had made me feel not exactly bad inside but strange, maybe even a bit unhappy. Now, what the bloody hell was all that about?