Breckenhall Quarry, July 1914.
‘Will you go?’
‘Yes, if they call us.’
I shivered, despite the warmth of the day. The news from Europe was increasingly disturbing, and I could tell Mother was becoming more and more concerned about Uncle Jack. His letters had been scarce, and very short, but if it hadn’t been for those brief notes it would have been more worrying still. Now, though, my attention was fixed closer to home, and I looked sideways at Will, who sat with his knees raised and his hands drooped between them.
‘It may not come to it,’ he said, feeling the weight of my gaze, and turning to me. His eyes held mine and we both knew he didn’t believe that any more than I did.
‘If you go, I’m going to find a way to volunteer, too,’ I said. The words were out of my mouth before I’d realised I was going to say them, but the determination took hold nevertheless. ‘If all the boys join up, the girls will have to pitch in and take up the slack.’
He grinned. ‘I can just see you up to your elbows in pig entrails,’ he said, and threw a handful of grass at me.
‘Well, maybe not your job,’ I conceded, and returned the favour, hitting him squarely in the mouth with a lucky throw. While he spluttered and spat out the grass, I lay back and stared up at the sky, wondering how something as perfect and clear, and such a beautiful, rich blue could be looking down on a world so full of uncertainty and fear.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said, and something in his voice made me raise myself onto my elbows again.
‘What? You sound nervous.’
‘Not nervous exactly. It’s just…with what’s probably coming and all, don’t you think –’
‘Yes.’
‘You don’t know what I was going to say!’
‘Yes I do.’ I smiled and sat up all the way, slipping my hand beneath his knee to link my fingers with his, and said it again, slowly. ‘Yes. I do.’
He returned my smile, and the tension left him. ‘Well then, now you’ll have to tell your mother.’
‘No. I mean, yes, I will, but I’m going to tell her afterwards. I can’t give her the slightest opportunity to put a stop to it.’
‘How on earth will you keep it from her? The vicar at Breckenhall is bound to say something.’
‘Then we won’t marry in Breckenhall. We’ll find somewhere further away. I hope Uncle Jack comes home in time, he’d be pleased to give me away.’
‘Even to me?’
‘Especially to you,’ I said. Jack Carlisle would take one look at Will and me together, and not a single question would pass his lips about suitability or income. And if I asked him to leave it to me to tell Mother, he would do it. ‘I’ll find somewhere with a discreet minister, and we can set a date for sometime before Christmas. That’s bound to give us time, and maybe the Kaiser will call off the show and leave Russia alone, and it will all come to nothing.’
But just two days later, on the first day of August, Germany declared war on Russia. The news came over the radio that, in order for them to remove France as a hindrance, they had asked for permission to move their army through Belgium, and, while the world listened with bated breath, Belgium held her ground and refused.
‘But what does that mean?’ Mother fretted. ‘For us?’
‘It means that, if the Kaiser doesn’t withdraw his army, we’re going to have to go in and make him,’ I said. I felt quite sick and, despite my calm words, I was having a great deal of trouble straightening my thoughts to really understand what it all meant.
‘Why do we have to do it?’ She glanced over at Lawrence, and I could see the worry on her face. ‘It’s got nothing to do with us, surely?’
‘Evidently it’s to do with a treaty made back in the 1830s,’ I said, not adding that it was Will who’d told me about it. ‘Perhaps the Germans will withdraw when they realise what they’ve done, and that they can’t win.’
But of course, they hadn’t. Our government sent an ultimatum that was ignored, and by eleven o’clock on the night of the fourth of August, we too were at war.
To begin with, nothing seemed different. The sun still shone; night and day still came and went; people still went to work, only now their expressions slipped too easily from cheerfulness to shadowed fear. But gradually the little changes that were happening all over the country began to make themselves felt in everyday life. Shops closed as their owners answered the call to arms; the government put out a further call, for one hundred thousand volunteers, and Will joined the reserves. I tried to hold on to the common belief that the war would be short-lived, maybe even over before Christmas, but it seemed more and more evident now that this would be a protracted struggle, and that our men were being sent into a special kind of hell; the thought of Will joining them made me break into a cool sweat and pray constantly for the war to end before it was too late.
One afternoon in late August, Will met me at the quarry with an unusually sombre expression, and his face was pale. I saw immediately what he held, and my breathing sharpened into something painful.
‘When?’
‘Tenth of September.’
‘Oh, God. Oh, God, Will…’
He seized me roughly and pulled me to him with a strange, sighing sob. All the enthusiasm when he’d spoken of joining up, of doing his duty, of protecting the innocent, had fled as we held each other, and I felt him shuddering under my fiercely gripping hands. It made the way he finally squared his shoulders and stood straight all the more courageous in my eyes; he was not naïve enough to think he was riding into glory, the shining hero of the tale. He understood some of what he was going into, and he was terrified, but he would still do it.
‘I must marry you before I leave,’ he said, and touched my face. ‘I must.’
I thought quickly. ‘We’ll go to Gretna. Mary will be a witness, and you must find one too.’ I spoke fast, hoping the trembling in my voice wasn’t as obvious to him as it was to me. My mind was not on weddings, though, it was on the letter I’d been mulling over for a week or more, applying for a post with the Red Cross, and I hesitated no longer; if Will was going overseas in defence of another country, I could do no less in defence of his own.
Gretna, Scotland, September 1914.
‘This is Martin Barrow,’ Will said as he drew me into the little sitting room. ‘He’s taking my place as Markham’s apprentice, once … well, once I’ve left.’
‘Very nice to meet you, Martin,’ I said.
He shook my hand, a tall, earnest-looking young man with a friendly face. ‘Miss,’ he said. He glanced at Will, and then back at me, and to my surprise he looked a little shamefaced. ‘I’d have joined up too, if I could,’ he said, and it was only when he limped over to close the sitting room door that I realised why he hadn’t. I wished he didn’t look so guilty over it, but it wasn’t my place to presume how he felt, I might have read him wrong.
I gestured to my own companion. ‘This is Mary Deegan, ,’ I said. ‘I understand you’ll be travelling back to Breckenhall together on the same train.’
The two nodded to each other, and as Mary went over to introduce herself properly, Will slipped his arm around my waist. ‘I can’t believe we’re doing this,’ he said, nuzzling my ear.
‘And I can’t believe I haven’t told Mother,’ I said, and sighed. ‘I know she’ll take it badly but it’s not you, it’s…’
‘It’s what I’m not,’ Will said, but he didn’t sound resentful. ‘Darling, I know all that, let’s not go over the same old ground. Not today.’
‘Come upstairs, Evie,’ Mary said, coming over. She was smiling and I glanced past her at Martin, who was trying to pretend he hadn’t been staring after her. ‘Let’s get you changed.’
I kissed Will lightly, our very last chaste kiss as single people, and followed Mary up the winding hotel staircase to the little room above. I looked at the bed nervously and felt my insides do a slow roll, but there was excitement there too, heightened by the memory of his breath on my skin.
My dress was quite simply cut, but when I’d first tried it on I knew that, of all the glorious and expensive gowns I’d worn in the past, this one was the one I would keep forever. Mary had made it from some ivory lace I had found in Breckenhall market, and since she was the only person, other than Uncle Jack, who I’d told about the marriage, I knew it had been made with pleasure and secrecy, which gave it a feel of something very personal. And tonight I would remove it in front of my husband. That nervous roll came again and I took a deep breath to calm the shaking that had suddenly seized my fingers and knees; would I please him, after all this time of waiting and anticipation?
Mary helped me dress and I wished, with a familiar sweep of sorrow, that Lizzy could be here too. In my mind I could hear her amused voice teasing me about how excited I was, and I could see her long dark hair tumbling out from beneath her hat as she tried, yet again in vain, to tidy her appearance before Mother saw her. It was too painful to think of what she might be doing now, and although I hated myself for doing so I tried to put her to the back of my mind and concentrate, instead, on this perfect day.
‘Promise me you won’t tell anyone,’ I said to Mary, for the hundredth time.
She nodded. ‘I do promise, Evie, you know that.’
‘Not even Lizzy.’ It seemed my friend would not stay in the back of my mind after all.
‘Of course, if you say so, but why haven’t you told her yourself? She’d be so happy for you both.’
‘I wanted to, but I can’t. If someone reads the letter before it reaches her, and passes the news back to Oaklands, it will hurt Mother all the more.’
Mary finished off the simple garland I wore around my head, and straightened the short veil. ‘I won’t say anything, not until you’re able to. It’s not my place anyway.’
‘Thank you.’ I touched her arm gratefully. I’d made up my mind to tell Lizzy as soon as Mother knew, but the trouble was I had no idea when that would be. That I had been lying to her was the worst part, but it had seemed necessary at the beginning, and the longer it went on the harder it had become to stop. Now she would be devastated, not only at my deceit, but also at the fact that she had been excluded from her only daughter’s wedding.
‘Please give me a moment alone,’ I said to Mary when we were satisfied with my appearance, or in my case, almost satisfied. Mary stepped outside and I went to my suitcase and withdrew a small black box. Carefully I opened the lid and took out a battered, black and white paper flower, which I lifted to my lips and kissed before twisting the stem around the belt of my dress. It lay against the beautifully cut lace, incongruous and grubby-looking, and I knew I’d been right to wait until Mary had left the room; she would have tried strenuously to convince me not to wear it, and I would have resisted, and we would have wasted a good deal of time – time neither Will nor I could spare now.
I stepped out through the door, holding my small bouquet against my waist to hide the rose, and only moved it aside when I drew level with Will. The movement drew his eye downward, and then he looked back at me and there was deep and complicated emotion in every line of his face. He kissed his own finger and touched it to the half-uncurled petals, unknowingly mimicking my own gesture, and then he smiled into my eyes and I felt my heart turn over.
The service was quick and simple; those who conducted it were well used to situations like ours, and not an eyebrow was raised even though Mary and Martin were our only witnesses. I remembered standing on the rock above the quarry and yelling to the world that I was going to marry this man, and here we were. Within ten minutes we were legally wed, and back out in the autumn sunshine, hardly able to believe we had actually done it.
After the glorious summer, the weather remained warm. It seemed impossible to think that tomorrow Will would board a train for the coast, and a day later he would be on foreign soil. A shadow seemed to cross the blameless blue sky and I shivered; yes, it did seem impossible, but with every minute that passed we drew closer to the moment when it would become a dark and terrifying reality. What had seemed a wildly romantic notion might have also had the uncomfortable taste of something we had been using to keep the fear at bay, but looking at my new husband and his slightly bemused air of giddy happiness, I knew it was more than that; planning the wedding had provided a welcome distraction, but that did not lessen its importance, or the joy we felt that we were finally together. I also allowed myself the pleasure of having seen Martin steal more than one fascinated glance Mary’s way, although I was sure she herself had not noticed.
They left after tea, and by then Mary had begun returning Martin’s attentions; it seemed they shared an interest in travel, and Martin had grown up in India with his family, so they had much to discuss. She also seemed to be flushing and laughing a good deal more than I was used to seeing. Will noticed too, and after we had waved them off on their return home, he smiled. ‘Do you suppose they even still remember who we are?’
I smiled. ‘Does it matter?’
‘No,’ he admitted, and took my hand. ‘It’s still early, Mrs Davies. Shall we walk up the lane before supper?’
The sun was just beginning its slow descent on this, the happiest day I had ever known, and as we reached the top of the hill, Will pulled me to a halt. I turned to see the orange-gold light setting his eyes on fire and burnishing his skin, and an intensity in his expression that I knew would be mirrored in my own. Without a word passing between us, we turned to go back to the hotel, a new urgency in our steps and all thoughts of the earliness of the hour banished.
In our room he took me by the shoulders and brushed his lips against my forehead with the most gentle of touches that, nevertheless, shot straight through me, leaving a trail of heat in its wake. He stepped back and removed his jacket and shirt, and, unable suddenly to look at his face, and instead keeping my eyes on his surprisingly compact, muscular body, I eased my gown over my shoulders. When we moved close together again I had only my petticoats on, and the friction of the fine silk sliding between us ignited that heat and made us both gasp.
But we were not yet close enough, and when he raised my arms and slipped the last remaining barrier away my hands went to his chest, as if by the touch of my fingers on his skin I would finally realise he was mine. He pulled me closer, and I let my hands drift down his sides, over the strong swell of his ribcage, feeling him tremble with the lightness of my touch. I wondered if he was as drawn to my body as I was to his or whether, now he saw me without the mystery and flattery of my clothing, he might be disappointed.
The question must have shown in my face because his hand came up to touch my jaw. ‘Evie Davies, you are, without doubt, the most beautiful creature on this good earth,’ he breathed, and then his mouth came down on mine.
Eventually he broke the kiss and led me to the bed. I lay down and he looked at me for a long, delicious moment before stretching out beside me and, easing one hand beneath me, he lifted me closer. He raised his free hand to my breast and I arched towards him, longing for the complete possession that seemed to hover so close, yet still danced out of reach. All the while he was kissing wherever he could reach, along my cheekbones and down to my jaw, his lips blazing across my face to my eyes as if he couldn’t taste enough of me all at once. Thrilled at the thought that I excited him so much, I let my hands choose their path across his broad back and down to his hips, and my teeth nipped gently at his shoulder, my lips moving hungrily over the smooth skin.
Nervousness almost stole my pleasure as he moved across me, and I tensed as he positioned himself so that his entry was as smooth and painless as it could be, his eyes on mine in silent apology. But after a brief flash of pain my hips rose of their own volition to meet him and I didn’t even have to think about matching his rhythm; all thought seemed to be happening on another level of my consciousness and there was only sensation now. Our movements grew more urgent and I tried to pull him deeper inside me, knowing that, as wonderful as it was, there was something moreand I had to either have it or die.
All at once the warmth I had always felt in his presence – in my heart, on my skin, in my stomach – was now concentrated in one place and growing. Just as I thought I could bear it no longer, that elusive feeling I had sensed before rushed through me to meet that warmth, and the collision was everything. It was glorious. With every beat of my heart the sensation pulsed more heavily in every part of me, only fading away as Will, spent and exhausted, sank down to lie beside me.
After a moment he rolled towards me again, supporting himself on one elbow. I opened my eyes and smiled, and he looked relieved and brushed away a curl that had stuck to my cheek. His fingers were trembling. ‘It didn’t hurt too much?’
I could feel his thundering heart as his chest pressed against my arm. ‘It was awful,’ I said, ‘I never want to go through anything like that ever again.’
Will laughed, a shaky, breathless sound, and dropped his hand to my hip. ‘Never?’ he asked in a low voice.
I scratched my short nails lightly across his stomach. ‘Never,’ I breathed, and kissed his shoulder, moving down across his chest, tasting the light, salt sweat of him and loving it. ‘Not for at least ten minutes.’
It turned out ten minutes was a lot shorter than I’d thought.
In the morning we left that magical place behind forever, and to my embarrassment Will showed me he had taken some of the paper from the little supply in our room. ‘I’ll write to you on this, so we can remember,’ he said. ‘Whenever you see this hotel crest,’ he traced it with one finger, ‘you will know it’s you I’m thinking of. I’m going to kiss every single page,’ he grinned, warming to his promise as I rolled my eyes in disbelief, ‘and whenever you get a letter from me on this paper, you will think of our wedding night.’
Despite my teasing look, I was unbelievably touched; Will was not what I would have thought of as a particularly romantic young man, but I had no doubt that he would do exactly as he’d said. And when he left later that same day to join his unit, I thought of the ridiculous little stack of paper tucked into his shirt, and wished I could have taken its place.
Waiting with him at the station was a strange, hollow affair. He wore his uniform now – an oddly plain, muddy-green, ill-fitting affair of rough wool – and carried a hessian kit-bag; it was as if he were going to stay with a friend for a week, nothing more. That we were surrounded by people in the same clothes, and that some of them openly wept, only served to heighten the sense of unreality.
As the train pulled into the platform, the mood changed. It became charged with a brittle air of patriotic fervour, men straightening their backs and declaring it time to “get over there and sort the Bosche out”. Someone slapped Will’s shoulder, and he gave them a mechanical grin and slapped back. They had never met before, yet now they were quite likely to be living side by side and entrusting their lives to one another. Someone, somewhere down the platform began to sing “It’s a long way to Tipperary”, and a few disjointed voices joined in.
My heart suddenly, and finally, accepted that he was going, and it stopped beating for a breathless, terrifying moment. The thought flashed into my head: what if it doesn’t start again? But of course it did, and the racing, sickening feeling made me dizzy. I looked up into Will’s face and he seemed more dear to me then, more precious and more fragile than I had ever seen him. These people didn’t know him. How could he go off with them when they didn’t understand him? Didn’t realise that, beyond the cheerful smile and the clear, friendly blue eyes, he was a man of warmth and wit, and a quiet, fierce intelligence? Would they ever have the chance to realise how lucky they were to be with him?
His voice, when he spoke, wasn’t raised to shout over the cries of others. Instead it was pitched low, easily cutting beneath it and straight into my aching heart.
‘Evie, my impossible, exasperating wife, I love you so very, very much.’ He faltered, searching for words when we both knew there were none. At last he sighed. ‘Promise me you’ll be careful.’
‘I will if you will.’ I was trying hard not to cry in front of him; there would be time for weeping, so much time, but this was not it. So I smiled, but the movement loosened the tears that had gathered in my eyes, and they spilled anyway.
‘I promise.’ He bent to kiss my forehead and the warm press of his lips almost sent me spinning into hysterical pleading…don’t go! But he drew himself upright and away from me. He stood tall and straight, somehow making that awful uniform look like a thing of honour, touched my cheek once, and then he was gone, heading for the coast, and God alone knew what awaited him there. I stood with countless others, long after the train had pulled out of sight around the bend and, as the chuffing faded and voices started to filter back in, I blinked, swallowed, and let out a shaky breath. Soon I would be leaving too, to begin my Red Cross training; each of us had answered the call to arms in our own way, and I could only pray that, when I saw him again, it was not as a shattered, broken echo of the man he was now.
Back at Breckenhall I made my way to the fruit shop above which Will had taken his rooms. He would have to surrender them, or be faced with a dreadful debt when he returned…I emphasised the when, which kept trying to change itself to if. It would help no one to think of that. In the meantime all his things would stay at Oaklands, and I needed to know how much there was to bring across.
I knocked on the landlady’s door and introduced myself; she knew me only as one of the Creswells from the manor, and I told her I had come on behalf of Will’s family, to pay rent in advance and remove his belongings so she could let the room out again. In all the time we had been together I had never come here, it had been too much of a risk. The stairs were narrow and dark, and I pictured him climbing them at night, exhausted from his work, looking forward to a wash and a quick meal before bed – where perhaps he might have lain and thought of me, as I did of him. Through the pain of missing him, the thought made me smile, just a little. Even the smile hurt, made me feel disloyal.
The landlady unlocked the door and I gave her the two weeks rent money I had brought. ‘I can take just a few things now, but I’ll send for the rest tomorrow.’ She nodded, already used to her tenants’ sudden departures. I waited until she had gone back down the stairs, then turned to take my first look at where Will had lived for the past three years.
The room was not a big one and the first thing that struck me was the clutter, although a second look revealed it to be no mess, but rather a collection of paintings, carvings and sculptures. The largest of these stood on the table, half-covered by a carelessly thrown sheet which I drew back to reveal a statuette, standing around a foot high and carved in dark wood. It was the shape of a woman, her hair escaping her hat and shaped into wild curls that blew across her face, hiding the features, but I didn’t need to see them; I raised my hand to my own face, tears thick at the back of my throat.
The statuette wore the roughly outlined symbol of the Red Cross on her front, standing out against her uniform dress, and her legs were not yet shaped, just a solid block of wood. It felt as if my own legs were the same; just an unmoving lump, unable to take another step. The care that had gone into the carving of this piece sang from every notch and scrape, and the knife he had used to craft it lay on the table beside it, curls of wood littering the table as if he had been called away from his work suddenly. As I looked closer I saw, in the girl’s hat, a tiny rose carved out of the same block, and with a sharp pang I remembered his face when he’d seen the paper rose at my waist just yesterday. The rose itself was back in its box, and would go with me to Rugby, and from there to France, or wherever we were sent.
This piece was the one I would take with me tonight. I glanced around: the majority of the space was taken up with paintings, most of them facing the wall, and when I turned one or two of them around I understood at once why Nathan had been so unsuccessful towards the end. It wasn’t a lack of talent, far from it, but the paintings were dark and tortured-looking, full of deep reds and blacks, and swirls of mashed colours in thick oil that seemed to leap, screaming, from the canvas. Bodiless faces; roaring rivers; tall, black buildings; a huge, Golem-like creature bearing down on a tiny, helpless man…symbols of the trapped terror the artist was feeling for his debts, no doubt.
Disturbed, I turned these paintings back to the wall. It was little wonder Will had faced them that way, it would be impossible to sleep in this room otherwise. I looked at one or two others and they were calmer, presumably painted during earlier, easier days, but of less artistic merit that I could discern. It was ironic that Nathan’s best work had emerged as a result of the lack of success of these lesser pieces, and that gave me a pinch of sadness for Will’s unknown friend, but it was followed by frustration that he had given Will this dream, and then left him alone with the nightmare.
I went back to the table and picked up two of Will’s small pieces: a miniature cottage no bigger than my hand, but intricately carved in soft, pale wood; and a daisy of around the same size – both unpainted – and then I wrapped the statuette in the cloth again and tucked her under my arm. I would have everything brought over to Oaklands tomorrow, but for tonight I would have these things to remind me of my husband when I lay down in my bed, alone once again.
I slipped off my wedding band before the car arrived, and on the way home I rehearsed my cheerful lies; I’d already said I was attending a wedding, giving the impression it was a friend from London who was getting married, and fixed the description of my own gown in my head, ready to attribute it to the fictitious bride. The way the lies fell from my lips, cheerful or otherwise, disturbed me, but I wasn’t ready yet to place this burden on Mother’s shoulders; she was already distressed about my imminent departure to the Red Cross. Neither was I ready to turn this joyful news into something cold and hurtful, to be argued over rather than held tightly and treasured.
I tried once more to tell the truth before I left, but my mother’s despair at my stubborn insistence on going overseas, instead of serving in England, stole any inclination I had to heap more woe upon her, and it simply grew more and more difficult to tell her the truth. It seemed easier, and kinder, to let her believe I had too much to think about to waste time on hopeless, and unsuitable, romantic entanglements.
My training began in St Cross Hospital, Rugby, on a chilly October day. The hospitals were already taking in wounded from the various fronts and, although I knew I’d have heard if Will were hurt, I still felt my heart clench every time I went to the docks. When I realised he wasn’t among them, I fought the guilty relief and threw myself harder than ever into helping those who were, to make up for it. I know I wasn’t the only one to feel like that, and I soon bonded with a cheerful, freckled girl named Barbara, who was in love with an airman and talked about him non-stop. One day I called her “Boxy”, for “Chatterbox”. during one of our regular one-sided conversations, and it stuck. It suited her surname, Wood, too, and soon everyone was calling her Boxy but they didn’t know why. It was our joke; a small thing, but in our situation it was the small things that could sometimes get you through the most difficult times.
Boxy Wood shared my interest in motor vehicles and their workings. She told me what it was like in the ambulance corps; her sister had gone out two months before to join a convoy in France. ‘Honestly, Davies, it’s the most awful sort of torture you could imagine. And I’m not talking about the wounded, or even the driving. Clara says their commandant waits ’til they’re all falling asleep after a fourteen-hour shift, then blows her damnable whistle for inspection. And woe betide any poor girl with a mucky uniform; punishment duties are dreadful.’
It did sound awful. On the other hand the War Office had been calling specifically for young ladies of good breeding to go out there and do their bit. ‘We have to go,’ I said. ‘They need people like us, and it doesn’t look as though the war will be over by Christmas after all.’
She sighed. ‘I know, poppet.’ Then she looked at me with a little glint in her eye I was starting to recognise, and I felt a smile twitch at my lips in anticipation.
‘What are you cooking up now?’
‘All right, listen. We’ve missed out on our chance to go out with the Munro corps, correct?’
‘Correct. Unfortunately. Why do you suppose Doctor Munro only took six in the end?’ We’d both been keen to apply to Hector Munro’s exciting-sounding venture; working with the support of the Red Cross, but independent of their strict regimes, closer to the lines, and right in the thick of things.
‘Well, he had to pick the cream of the crop, and Mrs Knocker and Dorothie Feilding are certainly that.’
‘They’re so lucky,’ I grumbled, ‘avoiding all the huff and puff of inspections, uniforms and rotas. Doesn’t seem at all in the spirit of why we want to help.’
Boxy nodded. ‘Even worse since we’ve paid for our own training. It galls rather, doesn’t it? So, why don’t we just set up by ourselves?’
‘What?’ It was such a casual comment I wasn’t sure I’d heard properly.
Boxy warmed to her suggestion, and became more animated. ‘Look. We just have to find a base, some building no-one’s using, and you can be sure there’ll be plenty of those. We’ll find a place as close to the lines as we can get, and move forward as they do so we’re always within reach with emergency help. We’ll do a bang-up job, I know it. If we’re going to suffer I’d much rather it be on our own terms, wouldn’t you?’
I would, of course, but there were practicalities to think of. ‘How on earth would we get passes to work up near the lines, if we’re not attached to the Red Cross?’
‘We’ll just have to prove they need us. Think about it, are they really going to turn us away if we arrive with our own vehicles, and fully trained to boot? You and I are just what they need out there.’
The more I thought about it, the better it sounded. We could take our own ambulances, or cars if we couldn’t get them, and act as whatever was needed at the time; stretcher-bearers if they’d let us, ambulance-drivers if they wouldn’t, both if we possibly could. Boxy wrote to the commanding officer of a unit just outside Dixmude, a friend of her airman, and he wrote back advising caution, but hinting that an independent ambulance base would be just as welcome as another Red Cross one.
Later, as he realised we were serious, Lieutenant-Colonel Drewe offered to arrange passes for us, provided we were certified and able to supply our own vehicles, and so we continued our training, knowing there would be little back-up once we were out there and making doubly sure we were proficient in all we could be.
Between us we raised enough cash through savings and donations, and bought a rattly old ambulance that we named Gertie in honour of an amusing pig we had seen on a postcard.
‘She sounds rather like a pig,’ Boxy had said, as we drove a noisily snorting Gertie off the ferry and onto French soil. ‘A splash of pink paint and who’d know the difference?’
I rolled my eyes and laughed, a tingling excitement was making me feel a bit giddy despite the very real fear that was taking hold now. ‘Barbara Wood, we are not painting her pink!’
The cottage in Belgium was a decent enough place. We had to give it a number, so as to identify it with the ambulance convoys and the hospitals nearby, so it became Number Twelve. Abandoned shortly after the Yser Canal had been flooded, to stay the German advance in late October, it sat alone in its own little courtyard, miraculously whole and quite the ugliest place I’d ever seen. But oddly beautiful at the same time. We loved it from the very first. Although it was just a one-bedroomed cottage it had a roomy cellar, perfect for converting into a small ward, and with room for seven beds and an equipment store. We, and those we planned to help, would be safe down there from shellfire, and it was somewhere to administer basic first-aid before moving the wounded along to the Clearing Stations once they were more likely to survive the journey.
Not being part of an officially designated field ambulance division meant we lacked mechanical backup, so I was grateful Uncle Jack had always been firm with me, and shown me the basics of engine maintenance when he’d heard about my clandestine driving lessons.
‘No good just learning to drive,’ he’d said when I’d pulled a face. ‘You need to know what to do if something goes wrong. You’ll like it, once you get going, I know you.’
He was right and, even better, I discovered I had an aptitude for it; I couldn’t help grinning with delight the first time I was able to correct the problems he’d deliberately caused, and I was glad he’d persisted – especially now, given the work Gertie was putting in over increasingly rough roads.
We’d arrived in November 1914, and collected as much bedding as we could find, but the luxury of gathering equipment, and setting up what we’d fondly imagined would be our sweet little dressing station, with comfort and curtains, and hot drinks for the Tommies, was not to be. We were thrown into it right away, attached to the military unit a couple of miles away, and, with no field telephone, we quickly grew accustomed to the shrill whistle of the runner on his bicycle as he summoned us to duty. Days blurred into long, cold nights, and weeks into months, while we battled extremes of boredom and terror, and we faithfully wrote our sunny “gosh it’s exciting being in the thick of it!” letters home so our parents could boast about us to their friends. Heaven forbid they should find out what we actually did, night after night, I’m not certain Mother would have sat quietly at home if she’d known.
Our own tentative excitement had been crushed out of us after the first, awful night. With nothing of our own base ready we’d volunteered our services at least, and turned out to help the Red Cross convoy, lining up with the other drivers at the railway station. The trains had come in; old, rattling things in these early days of war, filled from end to end with wounded. Weeping men; silent men; angry, bewildered men; men numbed with misery and mute with horror…dear God, was Will in danger of becoming one of these?
We’d sat, still and shocked, while the orderlies loaded us up and barked our load: four stretchers, one sitter, and then driven, somehow, to the sergeant at the gate. ‘Four stretchers, one sitter,’ I repeated, stumbling over the impersonal words that were supposed to somehow explain the softly moaning, tangled mass of humanity I was carrying.
He consulted his clip-board. ‘Number Five.’ He waved us through, and we were on our way. Where was Number Five? I was utterly lost, both mentally and geographically, but we found Number Five hospital mercifully quickly and were unloaded. Then it was back again; the train was still crammed with men awaiting their turn. Or their deaths. As dawn raked the sky with glorious pink rays that belied the tragedy beneath it, Boxy and I returned, in trembling silence, to our beds. Different women. Grown up in the space of a few horrific and nauseating hours.
The next morning, after we’d opened the ambulance doors to begin cleaning, and instead contributed to the mess, we looked at one another, wiped our mouths and both of us had broken down in tears. It was the last time we did so as a result of our work, and since that night our bond had been unbreakable and if ever one of us wavered in her determination to stick it out, the other would simply touch her hand and walk away, leaving her standing alone. It served to remind us how the fighting men felt, away from the comradeship of their unit, hurt and frightened – it was why we were there.
But it was not all terrible; there was a certain amount of freedom we’d never have experienced if we’d joined the Field Ambulance, or were tied to the other units. There were a couple of friendly girls who came over now and again to spell us: Anne and Elise were based near Furnes, at a unit with which we often joined forces when things got especially hot. They enjoyed the chance to spend some time away from their slightly more regimented atmosphere too, and were keen to give us the opportunity to go into town now and again.
Will was with the 19th brigade of the 2nd Division at the start, and they rarely seemed to remain in one place for long. Letters were scarce – sometimes weeks would pass and then three or four would arrive at once; those were days I’d take myself off and find a quiet place to read, and read, and read, hearing his voice in my head as clearly as if he were sitting next to me. Except when I was particularly exhausted, when I sometimes struggled to remember what he sounded like, and then I had to put the letters aside or risk smudging the ink with tears of terror – what if I never heard him again? What if this was all I had left of him, only I didn’t yet know it? How would I cope?
In June 1915, he was stationed a mere two hours away from me in Northern France, and towards the end of the month he wrote a hurried letter telling me he was due a weekend leave and would arrive at the station in Cuinchy on Friday afternoon. He would be staying at a hostel nearby, the name of which he jotted at the foot of the note, and he desperately hoped the letter reached me in time.
It arrived on Saturday.
Boxy and I had been working solidly for sixteen days; late April had seen the first use of chlorine gas, and the results were so shocking it was difficult to comprehend such a thing had been invented by human beings. We spent long days at the hospital, and longer nights collecting wounded and gassed soldiers from the dressing stations, barely snatching three or four hours sleep and eating very poorly indeed. We’d reached that point of exhaustion where you don’t quite feel you’re there at all; drifting around each other, avoiding collisions more by luck than judgement, and taking it in turns to clean and disinfect the ambulance and the two cars we’d been loaned by the Belgian Red Cross. When we received our visit from Anne and Elise, with instructions to “flipping well get out of it for the day”, we both threw guilt to the four winds and seized the chance.
Boxy and her airman, Benjy, were unable to meet, but she had friends stationed at the nearby hospital and went off to see them. No doubt she would be called into service there, so it was not much of a holiday. I was luckier; our saviours had blown in the day I received Will’s letter, and I was able to shake off my tiredness and drive to Cuinchy in time to meet him before the cycle began for him again; front line, support, reserve, rest…then back to front line.
Walking into the hostel, I didn’t have to ask at the desk to find him. The place was filled with uniformed men, most in high spirits, and some singing – under the influence of some dubiously obtained wine, no doubt – but over by the window there was a small group, making the kind of appreciative noises that pushed long-distant marketplaces to the front of my memory. I felt the smile on my face before the instinct had solidified into fact, and my feet had already carried me halfway across the room, but I stopped short of drawing his attention, preferring to watch him for a moment, unnoticed.
He sat with his back to me, his dark head was bent to his work, and my fingers itched to brush gently across the back of his exposed neck. There were, perhaps, eight or nine men standing around, calling out suggestions, and the tallest of them was writing busily.
‘Unicorn!’ one man shouted, and the tall man rolled his eyes.
‘Did you ’ear that, Davies? Bleedin’ unicorn, he says! Look, mate, he might be good, but he ain’t no Leonardo daVinci!’
‘Two toffees for a unicorn,’ insisted the soldier.
‘Oh, I can manage that all right,’ Will said, and at the sound of his voice, this time for real, my entire body tightened with anticipation. I waited, curious to see how he could fulfil this lucrative commission. He worked quickly, and in less than a minute he stood up, turned to the soldier, and planted a narrow cone of paper firmly against the man’s forehead.
‘Unicorn,’ he said, and the soldier’s friends hooted laughter, clapping the newly created unicorn on the back, and taking over possession of the horn in order to fasten it to the man’s helmet.
Will stepped back, smiling, and in that moment he saw me. His tall friend followed his suddenly still gaze, and he nodded to me, and squeezed Will’s shoulder.
‘I’ll be busy tonight, mate,’ he said softly. ‘Room’s yours.’
The two-bed room was tiny, but clean. Will closed the door and locked it, and then his hands were at my waist, pulling me against him. Urgency gripped us both, quite suddenly, as though we were two different people from the shy, hesitant newly-weds of last year; this was the first time we had been together, alone, since that night. Romance was the farthest thing from our minds; need was everything. The narrow, single bed was chilly, the sheets felt slightly damp on my bare skin, but Will’s warmth covered me and I gave it no more thought. He gave me the most cursory of kisses, bruising kisses, the kisses of a man fighting for control, and I returned them equally savagely. I bit his shoulder as he entered me, and we both cried out at the same time, rocking together, pulsing heat between us and growing warmer with every beat. We hardly moved, either of us, just stayed locked together until the sensation of mutual release faded and our hearts regained their normal rhythm. Will eased away, as far as the small bed allowed, and we both lay there, searching for the words to express the complicated and contradictory feelings of gratitude and despair, but eventually fell into our exhausted dreams without saying anything at all.
Sometime in the night he woke me with a press of his lips on my forehead, and, wordless, we danced again – this time with slow, sweetly drawn out touches and kisses, and when we next fell asleep it was in a tangle of limbs, and with our heads close together on the single pillow.
All too soon it was morning, and the end of Will’s leave. The tall soldier from yesterday met us at the station with a girl in tow, and Will introduced him as “Private Barry Glenn, Lothario and souvenir-collector extraordinaire. Does a good line in German helmets, but no lady’s honour is safe, from Reims to Nieuport.” Barry grinned good-naturedly, flicked Will’s ear, and left us to our last half an hour together.
Looking at him across the table of the café, where we sat clutching our mugs of weak tea, I tried to pinpoint what exactly it was that made him look different now. His eyes had not lost their sparkle altogether, but it had dimmed, and his smile was still wide, beautiful and with the hint of the impish charm from before. But a hint was all it was. He looked older and leaner, and the dark stories he kept locked away had put circles beneath his eyes, but he was still unmistakeably my Lord William and I loved every new line and shadow that graced his face.
‘When are you expected back?’ he asked. ‘Will you be in trouble if you’re late?’
‘Not really, since I’m not governed by Red Cross rules. But Anne and Elise will be missed if they’re not back at their unit, and I don’t want to leave Boxy on her own for too long. I’ll begin the drive back as soon as your train leaves, it’s only a little over two hours.’
‘Do you have to go back?’
The question came out of nowhere, but when I looked at him, startled, I could see it was something he’d been thinking about for some time. He stared back at me with cautious hope, as if the very suddenness of the plea might surprise me into giving the answer he wanted.
I shook my head. ‘You know I must.’
‘Yes,’ he said quickly, and gave me a little smile. ‘But you can’t blame me for trying.’
‘It’s safe there,’ I insisted. ‘Safer than you’d think. We’re very well looked after, and as soon as we hear any sign of shells we can get down into the cellar. It’s quite exciting sometimes –’
‘Stop it,’ he said, and reached across the table to run a finger over the back of my hand. ‘You’re not as tough as you like to pretend.’
‘Will, these boys need us. We do good things, we’re not just playing at this.’
‘I know! It’s just…I know.’ He sighed, and turned my hand over to lie beneath his, palm to palm. ‘And to be honest, if I was sent down the line I would want someone like you pulling me out and getting me patched up.’ He let go of my hand and forced a smile. ‘But I’ll never stop worrying about you, not until you’re safely back in Cheshire driving Mrs Cavendish mad.’
‘I’m saving up something special to torment her with,’ I promised, relieved he had not continued pressing until we argued; it would have been awful to part like that, not knowing when we’d see each other again. I deliberately silenced that voice that still insisted, if…
He picked up his mug and swilled it around, pulling a face at the contents. ‘Have you heard from Lizzy?’
‘A short letter now and again. She’s had a bad chill but she’s a little better now. She’s horribly uncomfortable, and I hate thinking of her in there, but at least she’s safe.’
‘How about Jack?’
‘I had a few lines. I don’t think he’s had my own letters, because he never addresses anything I’ve said to him. Not even about Lizzy, and I know they got on famously and he would want to help. If it wasn’t for the fact I recognise his handwriting I might think it wasn’t from him at all. Presumably the censors have been on his mind; all he said was he’s gone overseas.’
We finished our drinks, now stone cold, and I noticed people starting to move towards the door. It was almost time.
‘You seem to have made a real hit with your paper-folding,’ I said. Anything to prolong the conversation.
He laughed. ‘It’s so strange. These are men who are brilliantly skilled, back home they build houses, and mend telephones for goodness sake! Some of them know the law of England like the backs of their hands. They perform complicated medical procedures every day of their lives. But watch a butcher fiddle with a piece of an old newspaper for two minutes and they’re completely flabbergasted!’
I smiled at the honest puzzlement in his voice. ‘I brought the rose with me to Belgium. I can’t bear to be without it,’ I added, suddenly shy in case he should think it was funny rather than touching.
But he looked pleased. ‘It must be a shocking mess by now.’
‘It is. But all the same…’ I really needed him to understand, but it was hard to find the words to explain it, even to myself. ‘When I look at it, it doesn’t just remind me of you, it’s almost as if it is you. It’s both of us.’ It sounded silly, and didn’t even really say what I wanted it to, but watching his mobile mouth soften into a smile, I realised he understood, and was moved to lean across the table and kiss him. There was a chorus of whistles from the table of Tommies in the corner so we didn’t stop, giving them the show they were so clearly enjoying, and not even caring if we were reported. When we broke apart we were both breathing faster; the memory of last night seemed very close at that moment.
‘You keep hold of that shocking mess if it makes you do that,’ he said with a grin. Then the grin faded and he grew serious as he rubbed his thumb gently over my cheek. ‘Some of the lads have asked me to make one for their own sweethearts. I’ll make them anything they want; cars, boats, houses…any other flower. But the rose will only ever be for you.’
On my twenty-first birthday Boxy and I threw a party, and invited anyone who could come. Some of the officers from the local company had made themselves known to us, and were pleased to be invited. They brought as much contraband as they could manage, and we ate like kings and queens, and sang songs until well past midnight. The night was a cloudy one, for which we were all grateful; far less chance of an offensive than when the moon shone brightly, and when the party tapered off Boxy and I sat outside, waving off our guests and enjoying a rare quiet night. The guns still boomed in the distance but there was none of the harsh, screaming wail that signified a serious shell attack. We finished the last of the chocolate cake brought by the officers, and took quiet pleasure in the chance to talk as we went over Gertie at our leisure for once.
I had still not told Mother about Will, and although Boxy confessed to finding it quite funny and romantic, she urged me to take the bull by the horns.
‘Come on, Davies, it’s not really fair. She has every right to know. Don’t you think she’ll adore your lovely man?’
‘It’s not a question of what she thinks of him,’ I pointed out, kicking at a loose board on Gertie’s runner. ‘You know that every bit as well as I do.’
She shook her head. ‘Well, no matter what she thinks of the marriage, you’re going to have to brave it one day. Think how much happier you’ll be when you don’t have to think so hard about every letter you send, just so you don’t let anything slip.’
‘That would be easier,’ I admitted. Unspoken between us lay the other truth; should something happen to me, it would all come out, and mother would have an awful sense of betrayal to add to her grief. ‘All right. I’ve got some leave coming up next month, I’ll write and tell Mother I’m coming home for a few days.’
‘And you’ll tell her?’
I sighed, and crossed my heart. ‘I promise. Now belt up and hand me that spanner.’