Rosie lived for the letters she wrote to Danny and waited anxiously for his replies, though he could tell her little. She scoured the papers now to find out what was happening in this raging, never-ending war and while she’d always been saddened by the sight of the telegraph boy, now it would set her limbs shaking and she’d break out in a sweat.
Everything mattered more to her now, the black-bonneted widows and those wearing black armbands and the maimed and lame, who begged on the streets or clustered about the Bull Ring. She thanked God daily for the good friends she had made who helped sustain her.
Bernadette had returned to nursery when Danny rejoined his unit and now Rosie took the two children, but she felt time hanging heavy on her hands. However, though she was coping with the money well enough with Ida’s help and advice, as March was drawing to a close and the bitter snap had gone out of the early morning and evening air, Rosie’s cough eventually ceased and she told Ida she was going to try and return to work in the munitions.
‘D’you think you should?’ Ida said. ‘It might have been that that made you sick in the first place.’
‘And it might not have had anything to do with it,’ Rosie retorted. ‘I’m feeling stronger altogether and I’d like to put some money by.’
But it wasn’t to be, for there were no vacancies at Kynoch’s now. More women feeling the pinch had joined and there was no job for Rosie, and she had little desire to try anywhere else.
‘I’ll look out for you, like,’ Betty said.
‘Yeah, if there is anything you’ll be the first to know,’ Rita promised.
Rosie was disappointed and the news from the front didn’t help. She knew the Government had been worried too when more formal meat rationing had begun in February. It barely bothered the poor, who in the main could only just afford to eat enough to keep themselves alive, and generally meat didn’t figure highly on their grocery bill, but it showed the level of the Government’s concern that such measures should have to be introduced.
‘But I’m more worried about the fuel rationing,’ Betty said. ‘Bloody good job the days are a tad warmer, that’s all I can say. These bloody houses are damp and draughty enough. If you couldn’t have a good coal fire in the chill evenings, life wouldn’t be worth living.’
‘Yeah, they say theatres and restaurants are going to have to close early and all,’ Rita said.
‘Well we won’t lose sleep over that, eh?’ Betty said. ‘Like to see us having a weekly date in a theatre or dining in a restaurant all lah-di-dah.’
‘I’ve been to a theatre,’ Rita protested.
‘Yeah, up in the Gods I bet?’
‘Well, yeah.’
‘Well they don’t heat that anyroad, do they?’ Betty said. They’re worrying about the ones in the plush seats down the front. They’re afraid of them getting their tootsies cold.’
‘You’re right,’ Rosie said with a smile. ‘It will affect us little.’
And fuel rationing didn’t affect her much, as long as she could get enough coal to heat the range to cook an odd meal here and there. She’d done as Ida recommended and used the heat to cook more than one thing at a time to eke out the coal, and so she managed, like most of the other women.
She wrote often to Danny, telling him each time how much she loved him, and as promised she prayed for him each night and morning. Then, after Mass on Sundays, when the soldiers were often prayed for, she’d sometimes spend some of her precious resources on a candle and say another wee prayer.
But soon all three woman had plenty to think about, for a large battle involving British and Australian forces began at a place called Amiens just a few days later. Allied losses were massive, so the paper said, and Rosie bought one every day and each evening the women pored over them.
Rosie wrote a long letter to Danny and at the end of it she wrote:
…Please remember not to try and be a hero. Remember your family – it’s breaking our hearts that we have no news of you. I love you with all my being, Danny, and I don’t think I could go on without you.
Please, please, as soon as you are able, write and let me know that you are safe.
All my love
Rosie
But no letters came and the battle raged on and all the women could do was wait. Rosie took comfort in her religion. She’d found Father Chattaway from St Joseph’s a nice, approachable priest and she’d wished she had the money to have a Mass said for Danny, but she couldn’t afford that. However, she did pop in to say prayers often, pleading with the Almighty to keep Danny safe.
Father Chattaway found her there in mid-May, kneeling down in one of the pews, her eyes tight shut, her lips moving, her face full of misery, and he felt heart sore for the woman, for he knew full well who she was praying for. The sound of his feet on the stone aisle gave Rosie a start and her eyes jerked open. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ Father Chattaway said. ‘Please go on.’
‘It’s all right, Father, I’m done anyway,’ Rosie said dejectedly. She was going to add she didn’t know whether it did any good when she realised who she was speaking to. She couldn’t take the priest giving out to her as well. She was feeling too depressed for that, so she said nothing.
But Father Chattaway heard the woman’s hopelessness in the tone of her voice. ‘Would you like a Mass said for Danny?’ he asked.
‘Oh aye, Father,’ Rosie said. ‘But I can’t spare the money you see.’
‘There will be no cost,’ the priest said. ‘It’ll be my gift to you, to help you over this traumatic time.’
‘Oh, Father,’ Rosie said, overwhelmed, and the priest smiled. ‘I take it you approve of that.’
‘Oh, thank you, Father.’ Surely God would listen if a whole Mass was offered for Danny’s safety? Rosie thought, and she blessed the priest for his understanding. ‘Thursday,’ the priest went on. ‘The early morning Mass will be dedicated to Danny.’
Rosie’s heart was a little lighter as she left the church and she knew she would be back at seven o’clock on Thursday morning and she would ask Ida to mind Bernadette and Georgie till she came home again.
A week after the Mass, a letter dropped through Rosie’s letterbox. She recognised neither the postmark nor hand-writing and so ripped it open anxiously.
I’ve not been able to write to you for a time because I’ve broken my right arm. But now I am in a military hospital and well on the mend and a kind nurse has offered to write to you on my behalf. I don’t want you to worry at all and hope to be transferred to a hospital near home soon.
Look after yourself. Big hug to Bernadette.
All my love,
Danny
Rosie dropped the letter on the table where she’d sat to read it and put her head in her hands. Danny, her Danny was injured. He’d broken his arm, but he would heal.
The man was alive when so many others were dead, and he was safe until he was fully recovered at least. ‘It’s from Daddy,’ she told Bernadette, who was sitting beside her, shovelling porridge at a rate of knots. ‘He’s alive!’
Bernadette had been unimpressed by the letter, but now she was pleased to see her mother smiling where for so long there had been a frown between her eyes. She was glad her daddy was alive, but she hadn’t considered him any other way. She was too young to understand death, but she did understand when her mammy said, ‘Daddy’s been injured, and he may be coming home for a wee while until he is better.’
‘When?’
‘Soon, I hope,’ Rosie said. ‘Now you sit there like a good girl and drink up your milk while I make the beds.’
And Bernadette sat and swung her legs and drank her milk and thought about her daddy and the fun things they’d done together and excitement began to build inside her at the thought of it.
She knew any minute Georgie would be coming in, for since her mammy had recovered she’d taken Georgie and her to the nursery to make life easier for Rita, she said, and Bernadette couldn’t wait to tell him. So Georgie and Rita were barely over the threshold when Bernadette burst out, ‘Mammy’s had a letter from Daddy. He’s been injured and he’s coming home soon.’
Rosie was coming into the room as Bernadette spoke and she saw the blood drain from Rita as she held on to the door for support, and Rosie crossed the room in two strides. ‘God, Rita! What is it? Are you all right?’
She blatantly wasn’t. What stupid things we say, Rosie thought as she led Rita to a chair and pushed her into it. ‘Bernadette said…’ Rita began. ‘Bernadette said you…you had a letter from Danny?’
Rosie could see the pain reflected in Rita’s eyes. ‘Aye,’ she said. ‘It came this morning. He’s been wounded.’
‘Did he write himself?’
‘Yes, well, no, one of the nurses wrote. He’s broken his arm, you see.’
‘But you weren’t informed by the military?’
‘No.’
‘Then it can’t be serious.’
‘No, well, not life-threatening anyway,’ Rosie said.
‘You must be relieved?’ Rita said in a deadened voice and then her anguished eyes met those of Rosie and she said in a low moan, ‘Oh Rosie, what am I to do?’
Rosie felt her heart lurch. For weeks the two women had grown closer in their common worry over their husbands. They’d comforted one another, cheered each other up. But before saying anything to Rita she removed Georgie’s coat and said, ‘Go away up to the attic to play, the pair of you. I’ll not be taking you to nursery for a wee while yet.’
The children were glad to go and Rosie had seen that they’d both been unnerved by the atmosphere. As their scampering boots could be heard on the stairs, Rosie enfolded Rita in her arms. ‘Don’t give in now,’ she pleaded. ‘God, you’ve kept me on track more than once. Just because I had a letter today doesn’t mean anything has happened to your man.’
Betty came in as she spoke and caught the last sentence. ‘That’s right, girl,’ she said to Rita. ‘Tell you what, bad news travels fast. If owt had happened to your man, you’d have been told by now.’
‘How can you be so sure?’ Rita demanded.
‘I ain’t sure,’ Betty said. ‘Life ain’t like that. I ain’t sure I won’t be killed on the horse road on me way to work, but one thing I is sure of is the fact that unless we get our arses up the road pronto, we’ll miss our tram and lose money.’
‘Do you want to call in sick today, Rita?’ Rosie asked.
‘What? And have some other bugger take my job,’ Rita said with a spark of spirit. ‘Not likely. Anyroad, I don’t want too much time to think and work is the solution to that.’
‘Come on, girl,’ Betty urged. ‘We really will be late if we ain’t careful.’
‘I’m coming,’ Rita said. She pressed Rosie’s hand. ‘Thank you,’ she said and added, ‘Say goodbye to Georgie for me.’
Rosie was glad to see them go. Glad to be able to hug herself with delight at the news of Danny she was just coming to terms with. She wasn’t aware of the smile plastered all over her face that cheered many on the tram as she took the children to nursery. Sister Ambrose, whom she shared the news with as she left the children at the door, was truly delighted for her. She’d known of her anxious weeks waiting for news.
She wrote to Danny’s family and her sisters that night, knowing they’d been worried too about the absence of letters, and included a special word to Dermot, who Connie said had plagued the life out of her for information since Danny had enlisted. She also sent a more stilted missive to her own parents, because she thought she ought to, though she was sure neither of them cared that much.
When Rosie got the go-ahead to visit Danny after he was transferred to the General Hospital in the city centre, she was stunned by the state of him. He was as white as the pillow he lay against, his head bandaged and a cage over his plastered leg. His arm too was plastered and when he saw Rosie’s worried face he gave a grin. ‘Cheer up, I’m nearly fully fit now and by God you should see the other fellow.’
‘Oh, Danny,’ Rosie said, half-laughing, half-crying.
‘Now,’ Danny admonished. ‘No crying over me. It will dampen my plaster, and anyway, you’re here to cheer me up.’
‘I know, I’m sorry,’ Rosie said. ‘It’s the shock. You said nothing about any other injuries and yet I should have known they don’t use a valuable hospital bed up just because a person has broken their arm.’
‘It was the shrapnel that was the main problem,’ Danny told Rosie. ‘I was peppered with it. I was blasted into a shell hole you see. Cut my head, but that wasn’t that deep, it just needed a few stitches. My leg was in a bit of a mess but they’ve operated on that, and my arm was broken but the shrapnel went everywhere and they had to poke about a bit to root it out.’
‘When will you be home?’
‘Soon, I hope. I get the plaster off my arm tomorrow and then we’ll see how the leg heals, but they do say I have good healing skin.’
‘Will your leg ever be really right again?’ Rosie said. She wanted him to say no, to say he’d never be truly fit, because that way he wouldn’t have to go back to the war. He could go home and stay safe.
Danny knew what was in her mind and shook his head. ‘Sorry old girl. In another two or three weeks they say I’ll be as good as new.’
‘Oh.’
‘I’ll have a spot of convalescence at home first,’ Danny said. ‘That’s something to look forward to, surely?’
Danny’s leave was something to look forward to, however brief it was, and Rosie decided to concentrate on that. There was also the fact that she could now visit Danny twice a week, and while he was here being patched up he was safe.
The weather was bright and sunny each day as June drew to a close and July began, and Rosie was contented as long as she didn’t think long and hard of her old home alongside the Wicklow Hills. In the dusty courtyard the air often seemed oppressive and anything but fresh, and in the house, dust motes danced in the sun that slanted in through the windows.
Betty and Rita said the heat in Kynoch’s works was unbelievable. ‘The sweat drips off you,’ Rita said. ‘Me and Betty take our sandwiches outside at lunchtime. It’s still warm, but there’s sometimes a bit of a breeze and the air, bad as it is, is bound to be better than the munitions, where the smell would knock you back at times.’
Rosie was glad Betty and Rita had taken to doing that when she heard the news of the explosion on the 5th July, for it saved their lives. Eighteen others, mainly women, died in the blast. Rosie was stunned by the news. She went to see Rita and Betty, who’d been caught in the blast and cut with flying glass and injured by debris. They’d been taken to the same hospital that Danny was in, to be patched up. They were in shock, all the women there were in shock. Most of them had known it was dangerous work, but no-one had thought of accidents happening to them. Accidents happened to other people, surely?
Rosie sat and suffered for her dear friends, holding their hands, scared of their stillness and their deadened eyes. Suddenly, Rita looked Rosie full in the face and said in a horrified whisper, ‘Miss Morris is dead too you know, and Mr Witchell.’
‘Ah, no,’ Rosie said. She thought of the fair supervisor and the kindly man that had interviewed her and made her laugh and she felt tears prickle the back of her eyes at the tragedy of it.
She tried to control herself. She’d come there to see her injured friends, to be strong for them, not to wallow in tears and upset them totally. Suddenly she felt a splash on her hand and realised Rita was crying the first tears she’d shed, and then Betty’s shoulders began to heave and the three women clung to each other and cried out their sadness.
There were so many funerals and Rosie could go to few of them because of her religion, but she went to the graves at Witton Cemetery later, for every girl that died had been there when she was and so had been known to her. It had been a depressing time. She’d watched heartbroken parents mourning their daughters, even the rather elderly parents of Miss Morris, and motherless children crying, and stunned, grief-stricken husbands trying to cope.
They’d all gone back to Rosie’s after yet another funeral one day, all down-hearted and shaken. ‘I didn’t realise Mr Witchell had six children, did you?’
‘No,’ Rosie said. ‘And every one of them crying.’
‘Except the widow and she was so white and shaking so much I thought she was going to pass out,’ Betty said.
‘Well, I’ve lost confidence in the place and that’s the truth,’ Rita said and Rosie could hardly blame her. ‘There’s no lines up yet, anyroad, but I don’t know whether I’ll go back. I mean, I have Georgie to think about.’
Just at that moment, a shadow went past Rosie’s window and her heart almost stopped when she realised that it was a telegraph boy and in his hand was a buff-coloured telegram and he was making for Rita’s door. She didn’t know what to do. It was as if she was frozen to the spot. She forced herself to move and she turned, but when she opened her mouth no words came out.
The look on her face was enough, however, and both Rita and Betty were on their feet. ‘What is it?’ Betty cried, but Rita had no need to ask for through Rosie’s window she could see a telegraph boy knocking on her door and Rosie could scarcely bear the pain she saw reflected in Rita’s eyes.
‘Dear Sweet Jesus,’ she cried in anguish and she sank to the floor with an animal-like howl. Rosie too was on the floor, bedside Rita, and Betty, who now knew what the commotion was about, went out and took the telegram from the boy. She hoped against hope it would say Harry was missing in action, to give Rita some vestige of hope, but when she tore it open it said ‘killed’ and her first thought was, Poor sod. He ain’t never going to see his son now.
Rita’s grief was profound and deep and for the first few days Rosie barely left her side, afraid she might do something silly for she’d said more that once that life without Harry wasn’t worth living. Left to herself she doubted Rita would ever have left her bed, let alone made a meal or washed her face, and the women, many in similar circumstances, rallied to support her.
Even Danny was affected when Rosie told him, for even though he’d never met the man, he liked and respected Rita and was sorry about her husband and also shocked at the accident at Kynoch’s. ‘You see why I didn’t want you in a place like that?’
‘I do,’ Rosie said, ‘and I have to say it fair shook me up. Anyway, it’s decided Rita won’t go back to work. As she says, if anything happens to her, Georgie will be an orphan. Poor child, he doesn’t understand and I hope Rita isn’t too over-protective now. She won’t let him go to nursery at the moment. She says he’s all she’s got and we couldn’t argue with that.’
Ida was better than anyone with Rita, having gone through the experience of losing her own husband not that long ago. Rosie felt almost guilty that her man would be home soon, but Betty told her not to be silly, she wasn’t to blame for Harry’s death. Danny could give no indication of when he’d be home; he said it depended on how the leg responded to the schedule of exercises they were doing, but Rosie was content to wait.
She’d taken to going to Rowbotham and White’s most Saturday nights as it made her money go further, and that Saturday, 13th July, was no different. That evening, though, Bernadette was tired and a little crotchety and Rosie asked Betty if she’d babysit at her house so that she could put the child to bed. ‘She’s like a weasel and that’s the truth,’ she said to Betty, coming back into the room after tucking Bernadette into her cot.
‘That’s not like her,’ Betty said. ‘She’s always so sunny.’
‘It makes me worry she’s sickening for something,’ Rosie said.
Betty knew what Rosie was worried about for Spanish flu was sweeping Europe. People said it was caught from the fleas that lived on the rats that shared the trenches with the soldiers, and unbeknownst to themselves, the soldiers had taken the infection back to their homes. There was no cure for this flu. You either had the constitution to fight it or you didn’t, and the young and elderly fell prey soonest.
But worrying about it did no good either, and Betty said, ‘For God’s sake, Rosie, will you stop fretting till you have something to fret over. The child’s probably just worn out. God, if I bounced about like she does at times, I’d be worn out.’
Rosie still had the frown between her eyes but she said, ‘You’re probably right, but anyway, bed’s the best place for her. D’you want me to bring you anything?’
‘I’d love a nice bit of liver. That bit you shared with me last week has given me a real taste for it. I could cook it up in a casserole tomorrow and take a bit round to Rita. I don’t think she’s had much but endless cups of tea since the telegram came, and that was five days ago. She can’t go on like this. She’s got Georgie to think about.’
‘I’ll see what the butcher has, but if he’s got some liver I’ll get some for you,’ Rosie promised as she fastened her coat.
‘Aye, one of the other neighbours is sitting in with Rita.’
‘Poor sod,’ Betty said. ‘She’s that cut up, and of course she hadn’t really got over that business at Kynoch’s either.’
‘It’s early days yet,’ Rosie said. ‘She’ll get through, everyone has to I suppose.’ But she shivered as she said it and hoped she’d never have to experience it herself.
About an hour later, both women were back home. Rosie, pleased with her purchases, was smiling and she shouted as she opened the door. ‘Got you a lovely piece of lamb’s liver, Betty.’
She stopped dead in the doorway for a second, for Betty wasn’t sat in the chair before the range, Danny was. With a yelp of delight she dropped her bag on the floor and was across the room on his knee, her arms around his neck in seconds. ‘Oh God! Oh Danny! What are you doing here?’
‘I was going to be discharged on Monday,’ Danny said. ‘And I got the chance of a lift this evening and I asked if I could come early and surprise you. The doctor examined me and said I could, especially as I have to go back every day for exercises for the next week, and here I am. I told Betty she could go home if she liked. I’d listen out for the child.’
‘Danny, I don’t know what to say.’
‘Don’t say anything,’ Danny commanded. ‘Kiss me.’
Rosie wound her arms about his neck again and kissed Danny, and it was as if her touch lit a furnace inside both of them. ‘Oh God, Rosie, how I want you.’
Rosie wanted Danny tonight too, and badly, but she had liver for Betty. ‘Take it then and quickly,’ Danny said. ‘And hurry back, for Christ’s sake. I’ll be in bed waiting for you.’
In a way, Danny was glad Rosie wouldn’t see him bumping his way up the stairs on his bottom. It might upset her and she would start fussing and it would make him feel stupid. Once on level ground, he could use sticks quite adequately, but he wanted to be in bed when she came in.
Rosie had never been in and out of Betty’s house so quickly, but Betty saw the light of excitement and longing in her eyes and had no wish to hold her up. She knew as well as any that once Danny returned to the battlefield a buff telegram might be handed to Rosie any day. They had to snatch each moment they could together and hope for the best, there really was nothing else to be done.