Chapter 45
July 1918
The following days brought increased agony as I worked to convince myself that Cissy was fine, willed her to be fine. In the chaos of the situation, she could not possibly get a phone call or telegraph out. Could she? Yet I knew the longer time marched, the bleaker things looked. As the nation became embroiled with the disaster, speculation grew as authorities released scant bits of information: sabotage, spy work, poor safety practices, and negligence—it was all there. My classmates came to understand the situation and tried to protect me from the news, but on the third day, the headlines spoke of the intensity of the blast—eight tons of TNT. I foolishly got myself worked up as I calculated that eight tons would fill 450 of the 112-pound bombs we were dropping on Germany. The news reported those who perished were buried in a mass grave, so mutilated were their bodies. I wept silently.
That afternoon the young clerk approached with a telegraph, marked from Eric Pitman.
4 JULY, 1918
REGRET TO INFORM CONFIRMED CISSY ANNE TAYLOR PERISHED STOP WARNING NOT TO TRAVEL TO AREA STOP ERIC AND DAISY SYMPATHIES ON TRAGIC LOSS STOP YOU MUST VISIT BEFORE REDEPLOY STOP
I sat completely stunned. Silence cloaked the room as my classmates inferred the news, the instructor canceling the class for the remainder of the day. I was vaguely aware of muttering as they passed by, some gently placing their hands on my shoulder. When the room emptied the instructor pulled up a chair in front of me.
“Lieutenant, do you wish to talk?” With my arms wrapped around my stomach, I leaned forward in the chair and studied the floor, noticing for the first time the elaborate rose pattern in the carpet but keeping my silence. “She must have been very special, holding the tenderest place in your heart. I am so sorry for your loss.”
I nodded, watching my tears drop onto the roses, making the petals darker, somehow more intense and prettier.
The instructor honored my moment with silence. After rocking a bit, I sat upright, looking into his face for answers I knew he didn’t have. But I could see his compassion, feel his warmth. “Have you lost a girl, sir?”
“Yes, Bob. Yes I have. My wife died of cancer in 1912. I’ve learned to live life alone, but never a day goes by without my thinking of her. Perhaps I’ll remarry after the war.”
“I’m sorry, sir. My situation must seem trivial—”
“No, not trivial. Love is love, and you need to grieve. Do you have anyone to assist?”
“Yes, my cousins in London.”
“Look, it is almost Friday afternoon. You can miss the weekend activities. I’d like you to go into London, try to deal with things, and return Sunday night.”
I looked at my instructor, not saying anything, my emotions choking me. At that moment, with news so raw, I felt relief at my instructor’s incredible gift. I knew he was setting aside a war in respect of my personal anguish. Eventually, I stood to shake his hand and thought there really were some good sorts in this military. I mumbled, “Thank you, Captain. You are so very kind.”
. . .
Late Friday, Daisy and Eric met me at the Honor Oak Park station. We walked slowly along the largely deserted street in the dark. Few words were spoken. I had kept a shell around me on the train down from Paddington as the Friday-night revelers came and went at each station, but now felt compelled to fill the void. I squeezed Daisy’s hand. “Are you doing all right?”
“Thank you for asking. I’ll be fine. I’m worried about you. Love between couples is different, at times stronger than between girlfriends.”
“Maybe different, but the loss is equally painful.”
Eric put out a bottle of Chianti with bread and cheese. We spoke of the tragedy in whispers, about the mechanics of the blast but avoiding the tender discussion about Cissy. Yet I went to bed holding a horrible image of the way Cissy died, she now lying in a cold mass grave at St. Mary’s Church. I knew there was nothing else they could have done, being unable to identify the bodies, but it hurt to think she could not have been honored better.
My head was pounding as I lay on the bed questioning. Why had Cissy been chosen out of thousands of others? When flying sorties I had selfishly feared for my life so many times, and now Cissy had been taken, when she hadn’t once complained? Like Perce, why were the good ones taken so violently?
I forced myself to think fond memories of Cissy, to fill the emptiness that was now such a painful reality. My eyes filled with tears and my breathing shortened, chest heaving up and down as I imagined her as a lively, happy, and beautiful being. I needed time to soak up those memories, carry them in capsules I would never forget, and to bury the sorrow—time which war did not accommodate.
I didn’t hear Daisy creep into the room to kneel beside me. I hadn’t realized, didn’t at all remember moving to the floor, nor my uncontrollable sobbing that woke her in the early dawn hour. She held me, stroking my head, as I leaned against the wall, knees to my chest. “Shhh, shhh.” It felt comforting as I opened myself to her compassion, realizing this was her manner of grieving as well.
At dinner Saturday, I confided in Eric and Daisy something that I hadn’t fully realized but that seemed inevitable once the war ended, something that I had tried to engage Cissy in. “You really loved Cissy enough to marry her?” asked Eric.
Emotion raced through my veins, coursing into my heart, as I gulped back the urge to cry, even though I had already sobbed myself dry. “Yes, I know I did, and I know we would have figured out a way to make that work, different countries and all.”
Daisy filled my glass, which I eagerly accepted though I had drunk enough Chianti. “You deserved her, and she you. Time heals, and as sure as I will nurture more friends, you will too as life cycles forward.”
I left for Henley at noon on Sunday and returned to classes Monday morning, feeling as good as I could expect. I respected Daisy’s prophecy, loved her for energizing my strength with thoughts of a future someone else, but not for now. My love for Cissy was too strong to think that anyone else could hold my heart the way she had.
. . .
It was a beautiful summer morning as I stepped from the Crossley tender that had fetched me from the Nancy train station. All was as I had left it, the familiar conjoining of chirping birds with whirring engines, and the green grassy airfield lying under a deep blue sky while insects buzzed and airmen scurried. This was my home, my refuge, my stability.
Following an afternoon walk alone in the woods, I was returning to my hut that Howie and I now shared when I heard my name called out from Hangar No. 2. “Bob! Hey, Bobby!” Hardy raced toward me. “How are you? How was training?” he yelled before he got close enough. “Are you all right? You look—aw, bloody hell, you don’t look so good.”
In spite of my puffiness, I looked straight at him. “It’s all right; I know I look terrible. I expected to be asked.”
“Something happen? Don’t mean to press, but is your family well?”
If there was anyone at the aerodrome who could help me transition back, it was Hardy. I trusted him, trusted his understanding. “It’s Cissy. She’s dead.” I knew my voice sounded barren.
He looked at me, absorbing my grief, then stammered, “D-dead?
Cissy? Are you sure? I mean, how—”
“Explosion.” Tears welled. I needed to hold it together, so I looked away to check myself before turning back. “The Chilwell Ammunition Factory explosion.”
“Chilwell. Ammunition. Oh, Bob, she wasn’t one of—”
“Afraid so. She was such a fine girl, a real darling, my sweetheart.”
“Would you like to talk? Would that help?”
“What I would like is to get on that motorcycle of yours, take a trip over to Nancy for coffee, perhaps. Would you do that for me?”
“I’m sure it’s fine. Let me just go explain to my lieutenant. I’ll pick you up in front of your hut in, say, ten minutes?”
The sound of the Douglas approaching was soothing, providing a comfort so often embedded in the type of tones that deliver memories of past pleasures. We flew along country roads, past farms and green fields, up rises and down road grades before reaching the flats leading into Nancy. I didn’t let go of Hardy’s tunic even as we bumped slowly along the cobblestones leading to the café. I was feeling the best I had felt since the sad news.
Bernadette, ever so excited to see Hardy, greeted us by arranging a table on the terrace. While I had thought her presence would set off more emotion, seeing her innocence and beauty actually worked the opposite, creating a sense of peacefulness.
I explained everything, feeling at times inadequate as I was not able to answer Hardy’s understandable questions about what had actually happened and why. “They aren’t saying much, so I don’t know if there was a safety lapse, an irresponsible rush to increase production, or some inevitable accident when a factory produces thirty-five hundred high-explosive shells per day.”
He looked at me with complete attention and sympathy. “Nasty position to be in, not being family but losing the most loving soul of your life.”
“Yet even family don’t know. She didn’t have family. So I’m in the same position, I mean, I was her family, my cousins Daisy and Eric were her family. I, all of us, can only cling to the Minister of Munition’s sympathies.”
“Churchill? What did he say?”
I gathered my thoughts in recall of the exact words. “I’ll never forget it. ‘The courage and spirit shown by all concerned, both men and women, commands our admiration.’ Cissy had courage, and gads, did she have spirit!”
“She did. I could see it in her eyes, see it in her movements, when I met her way back at the Savoy that night. She was lucky to have had such wonderful times with you before her life . . . oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“You can say it. Before her life was cut short. Well, it was, dreadfully short, which I’ve got to accept. But thanks for saying those kind words. Means a lot.”
Bernadette kept espressos coming until we protested and realized we had to return to the aerodrome. She sensed a level of grief at the table, so Sam explained there was a loss in my life. As we stood to say goodbye, she gave me a warm hug and an endearing kiss on both cheeks while whispering, “Mes condoléances.”