A Rose In Flanders Fields (19 page)

But, of course, he did go. On a frigid morning in the week between Christmas and New Year we took our leave of Oaklands Manor, and the first, fragile peace we had known in our married life.

I had tried once more, knowing it was hopeless. ‘You’re not ready to go.’

‘I have to. I can’t leave those boys out there, knowing I’m as fit and healthy as they are, and fitter than most.’

‘But they’re not making you go yet, so why risk it, after everything you’ve been through? Please!’

‘You’ll be going back after Christmas, I take it, now I’m well again?’

I looked away. ‘Yes, of course, but –’

‘Then you understand.’

But it wasn’t just his going, we both knew that. He was different now. The old Will was still there, deep down, but he was almost completely out of reach while this new man, this harder-edged, bleaker man, stood in his place. Now and again a flash of the happy-go-lucky charmer resurfaced, and it was enough to keep my hopes alive, but if he went back to France how much of him would return?

‘Please,’ I said again, quietly.

‘Stop it!’ For a moment I heard real desperation in his voice, but when I looked up he had himself under control again. ‘We both know I’m not the man you married, not any more.’ A muscle twitched in his jaw. I thought he was fighting words I desperately wanted to hear, but in the end the battle was won in his silence. He started up the stairs, and I hurried after him, changing tack.

‘So after everything Archie risked to get you out, you’re going straight back?’

I immediately regretted my words; Will didn’t stop but I saw his hands clench on the bannister.

‘Archie’s the one you should be with,’ he threw back over his shoulder. ‘He’s the one who risked everything to do what Jack Carlisle wanted him to do.’

‘What we all wanted to do!’ I reminded him. ‘Lizzy and Uncle Jack were able to get him to you, but every single one of us would have gone instead, if we could.’

‘Go with Archie,’ Will said stubbornly. ‘At least he’s one of your own.’

‘My own what?’ But I knew.

‘Your own class. And an officer.’

I followed him into his room and slammed the door, making him jump. ‘Will Davies, have you forgotten everything we ever said to each other? All those times we sat together on those Sunday afternoons and talked about how our love would overcome all that nonsense? That time you fought David Wingfield for me up by the quarry?’

There was a long silence and I saw him struggling with his determination. Then he sagged. ‘No, I haven’t forgotten any of it,’ he said at last. ‘I never did, not that. Evie, I love you still, you must know that. It’s because I do that I’m going away again. I can’t bear to see the disappointment when I can’t be who you want me to be.”

‘You
are
who I want you to be!’ I hoped he could read the truth in my face because yes, I loved the memory of who he had been, what we had been to each other, but that did not mean I could not also love the man he had become. I touched his cheek and spoke softly. ‘When your court-martial was over and I came to take you home, you trusted me. I can do the same for you, if you’ll let me.’

He hesitated, and I could see hope flicker in his eyes, then he took my hand and pulled me close again, drawing my head against his chest. ‘I’m not right yet, but I will be, I promise.’

‘But you’re still going back to France now,’ I said, my voice muffled against his shirt. He didn’t answer, he didn’t have to. I couldn’t risk fuelling his belief that he was pulling me into his own darkened world, so I continued to hide it. I stayed by his side, every touch reminding him that I loved him and would wait for as long as it took. This gentle persistence had seemed to work; as the time for the departure crept closer he had seemed to revert more easily to his old self. I moved my things into his room, and the first night we slept together he held me tightly but made no move towards any kind of intimacy. I told myself there was time yet, and contented myself with feeling his warmth and his closeness, and listening to the deep, slow breaths of a man finally at peace in his dreams. It was more than I’d dared hope for, for so long, and although my skin leapt at every touch of his hand, and my heart pounded in frustrated desire in the dark, I would accept whatever our marriage had become as long as he was with me.

Our conversations, when not about what had happened or about the war itself, carried some of their old, familiar laughter, although it died away a little more quickly than before. But that he was able to laugh at all gave me further hope, and every time the voice in my head whispered that a renewed closeness would simply make me miss him more than ever, I pushed it away and instead welcomed every little sign that the Will I’d known was ready to come back, to complete the man he had become.

My hand stole into his as the train rattled into the station at Liverpool, where we would part company. Will to the coast, and the ferry back to France, and me to London, where I would spend the evening with Uncle Jack before leaving for Belgium first thing in the morning.

Will curled his fingers around mine, both of us silent in the rising hubbub of passengers gathering belongings and calling greetings through the open windows. I tried to think ahead, instead of dwelling on our imminent farewell, but there wouldn’t even be a joyful reunion with Boxy to look forward to; she had left to marry her airman soon after I had come home, and there was a new girl there now, a novice who was being looked after by Anne and Elise in my absence. That was all I needed; some child to train during the coldest, nastiest months of the year, when the chances of her staying were at their lowest. The wretchedness of it all mounted as everyone began spilling out onto the platform, and I couldn’t even bring myself to move.

When we could delay no longer Will squeezed my hand, then let it go in order to pull our cases from the overhead compartment, and I curled my fingers over the warmth he’d left in my palm.

He saw, and touched my cheek. ‘Won’t be long ’til next time. His voice gave the lie to his optimistic words, but I forced an answering smile.

‘It’ll fly by.’ I stood up and took my case from him, fighting the instinct to grab his hand instead and make him stay at my side. He seemed to share the urge; I noticed his knuckles whitening on the handle before he relinquished his hold.

He looked down at me, his blue eyes darker without their old sparkle. ‘Evie, you begged me not to go back, but I had to at some point anyway, I have no choice. Not since conscription came in. You, though –’

‘Don’t,’ I warned. ‘I can’t refuse any more than you could, so don’t ask me.’

To my surprise, he actually smiled. ‘As if you’d listen to me anyway.’

‘What kind of wife do you take me for?’ I said in affronted tones, and added, ‘Of course I’d
listen
to you…’

‘Ah, the perfect wife, Mrs Davies. Absolute and unquestioning listening.’

Our shared smiles dropped away as we climbed out onto the platform, another of those irrevocable steps towards separation. Bags puddled at our feet, we stood firm against the jostling crowd, hands linked, and eyes on each other, storing up the tiny details for later when we were once more in the midst of our respective chaoses.

I marked the new lines at the corner of his eyes and the shadows beneath them, and the way he already seemed to be looking into a distance I would never see. I reached up to touch the small scar, pink with fresh skin.

‘Don’t worry about me,’ he said gently.

‘I won’t, if you’ll promise not to worry about me.’

His arms came around me then, and I felt his hands smooth down my newly regrown curls, as if by taming them he could tame the ferocious determination that kept me going back.

I tried to keep my voice steady. ‘What time is your next train?’

‘In half an hour. What about you?’

‘A little less.’

Suddenly there seemed too much to say, yet no words with which to say it. I felt him take an unsteady breath and his hands tightened on my back. My own arms were around him pulling him closer still, breathing in the slightly damp smell of his newly washed uniform, feeling the press of his buttons against my cheek and the scratching of the rough material on my skin.

He murmured something against my hair and I drew back to look up at him. ‘I said I love you,’ he repeated, and I pulled him close again.

‘I know that,’ I grumbled. ‘Why did you make me stop just to hear it again?’ I felt his body shaking with laughter, and smiled in response although he couldn’t see it. It was so good to hear him laugh again, but it hurt too.

Eventually time had its cruel way. As I bent to pick up my case, I blessed the eager passenger, running for the train from which I had just alighted, for bumping into me and shoving me against Will one last time. He rubbed his thumb across my lower lip and then bent to take it gently between his teeth, sending sparks shooting through me. As we kissed for the last time I felt tears sliding between us and realised there were too many to be mine alone – when he stepped back his eyes were bright once again, as they had been when he’d been the butcher’s boy, but for all the wrong reasons.

‘Goodbye, Evie,’ he said, and, unable to say the words myself, I just nodded. ‘I’ll come back,’ he promised, and I understood he didn’t just mean from France. I turned quickly away before I could ruin everything and make us go through it all over again. Fighting my way across the station to the departure platform I was only aware of my mouth, burning from his kiss; my eyes, hot and blurred; and my heart, empty and aching as I left him behind and returned to my own war.

Chapter Eleven

Flanders, February 1917.

I raised my head, and my face stung as it peeled from the rough material of my greatcoat sleeve. The memory of last night’s attack on the clearing station was already dimming from shock and outrage, into dull acceptance and the need to re-evaluate the fuel supply to accommodate the extra miles. Tomorrow, or, more properly, later today, I would check the store we kept in the cellar, safe from stray shells. In the meantime I had to try and get some proper sleep and, as I forced myself to stand up, my eye lit on the envelope on the table in front of me. Stiff and cold, and aching in every muscle, still it was my heart that hurt the most; in the two months since we had been back Will had barely written.

Being back amongst the filth, the fear, and the constant bellowing guns, had obliterated the faintly hopeful tenderness of our parting, and his letters, when they did come, had been like something he might have written to an old school friend, or a casual acquaintance. To my dismay I found my own letters to him were following a similar vein. I could find nothing to say that wouldn’t convince him he was right after all, that I was coming undone by his behaviour – every time I tried to express my feelings they came out hysterical-sounding and thin. Easier to match tone to tone, then, and this was what we had become by the time the world moved onwards, into the third full year of the war that should have been over by Christmas 1914.

In a few hours Kitty and I were up and breakfasted, and I was going over Gertie once more to make sure she was fit and ready for another night. She needed cleaning and disinfecting again, and daylight had revealed the extent of the bloody mess in the back, so I fetched a pail and used it to break the ice on the top of the water butt in the yard. As I scoured the floor beneath the benches, the water turning rust-coloured beneath my brush, I wondered how many men Gertie had carried between dressing station, clearing station and ambulance train over the years since we’d brought her over. It hardly bore thinking about, and I scrubbed harder, as if I could eradicate her history along with the blood and waste.

‘Steady on, darling!’ The voice, with its gentle Scots accent, pulled me back to the bright, icy day outside, and I blinked. A general staff car was parked in the driveway, and two of the four men inside were already getting out.

‘Archie! How lovely to see you.’

‘Likewise,’ he said, and dropped a kiss on my sweating forehead without flinching. I glanced past him and saw the driver smile, but it wasn’t a nice smile; it seemed almost like a smirk, and I turned away at once. I’d seen him before, and he always seemed to look at us girls just a little bit too long for comfort, or politeness, and usually with a half-raised eyebrow as if asking a question for which I had a very definite answer. But I told myself not to be unfair; some people just had a way about them that was unfortunate, but not necessarily a reflection of their true nature.

The younger man, who’d now joined us, was holding his cap in his hand and I saw he had hair as bright red as Kitty’s and almost as curly. He wore the same uniform as Archie, but with a different coloured flash on the sleeve.

‘This is Oliver Maitland,’ Archie said. ‘He’s just joining our lot from Nieuport.’

‘Nice to meet you, Captain Maitland,’ I said. ‘Skittles is doing terribly well, you must be very proud.’

‘Skittles?’ he sounded amused. ‘I am proud, extremely so,’ he said, but something about the way he said it made me wonder if that view was shared by the rest of the family.

‘And this,’ Archie gestured to the fourth man, just climbing out of the staff car, ‘is Lieutenant-Colonel Drewe.’ He turned to beckon the officer forward. ‘Sir, this is the jewel of Flanders I was telling you about. You made it possible for them to set up here.’ I blushed at the description, but there was no time to argue as Drewe seized my hand, heedless of the icy-cold wetness.

‘My dear girl, all this time and we’ve never met in person,’ he said, a wide smile on his plump, friendly face. He whipped his hat off and gave me a little bow, which made me smile too. ‘So sorry, must make more of an effort. I had the honour of knowing your father in Africa. Splendid chap, terrible blow to lose him like that, you and your family have my sympathies.’

With the truth of my father’s activities, and his death, so recently discovered, I felt both fraudulent and sad as I acknowledged his condolences, but I smiled my thanks. ‘Very kind of you to say, Colonel.’

‘Not at all, not at all. D’you mind if I take a gander around? I do so admire the work you girls are doing.’