Daughters of the Mersey (30 page)

She had no time to read it and anyway Ralph’s letters were something to savour and dream over. She pushed it into her pocket with a warm feeling that all was well in her world. Dinner was bangers and mash with onion gravy and she laughed with Mary O’Leary about a disaster she’d had in the sluice that morning.

As she was leaving the dining room, her eye scanned the letters board and she noticed an orange envelope where her letters were usually displayed. She pulled it out and was shocked to find it was a telegram addressed to her. She knew what this could mean and could hardly breathe as she ripped it open.

June felt her head swimming in disbelief
and everything was going black.

‘June, what’s the matter?’ She felt Doreen Brown catch at her and try to hold her.

When she came round she was lying on a bed in the nurses’ sick bay and the full horror of what had happened hit her. She couldn’t stop the tears coursing down her face and in her agony she showed Sister Jackson the telegram and the wedding ring she wore round her neck. She admitted that she’d secretly married Ralph. He was her husband. Sister was sympathetic but asked one of the doctors to prescribe a sedative and June slept for most of the afternoon.

She felt no better when she woke up. Matron came to see her and told her she should never have married secretly but she gave her two days off duty for this week. June got up and went back to the nurses’ home where she washed her face and changed out of her uniform. She caught the bus and went to her mother’s shop. She knew she’d be in time to catch both her and Elaine before they went home.

She put her arms round Elaine and told her about her brother, and they wept together. Mum was both sympathetic and supportive but for June it didn’t seem to help. If Ralph was dead nothing could help. Her future couldn’t be as she’d expected, everything was ruined forever.

J
UNE KNEW HER FAMILY
and friends had done their best to
comfort her but she felt bereft. Nothing could possibly help her now. She couldn’t understand what had caused Ralph’s death when he’d told her he was in a safer place than she was. It had come with savage suddenness.

She went back on duty when her two days’ leave was up, determined not to weep any more. She almost broke down when she found her friends offering words of sympathy and was only able to keep going by keeping her mind set on the next task she had to do. She couldn’t sleep and hardly knew what day it was, she felt like a zombie.

It was a week later that she received a letter from Ralph’s commanding officer. She stuffed it into her pocket to read later when she was alone, but all afternoon she was torn with curiosity about what it would tell her. She tore it open in the sluice to peep at it.

When another nurse came in she slid it back into her pocket, it appeared to be no more than a letter of condolence, but that evening
in her bedroom she found she was wrong. He told her how Ralph had died.

It seemed a lone plane had flown over the city and without warning it had strafed the military establishments with machine-gun fire. It had never happened before and had not been thought to be a danger, but in times of war such attacks did happen.

Lieutenant Ralph Harvey and another officer were unfortunately crossing the open compound that divided the buildings making up battalion headquarters at the time, and had been unable to find cover. Lieutenant Ralph Harvey had been hit by two bullets, one in his leg and another in his head and was killed instantly. He had not suffered.

June lay back on her bed and thought of Ralph. She was glad to know exactly what had happened but it seemed such a waste of his life. He hadn’t helped to win the war, he’d done nothing heroic. He’d just been unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was only six weeks since she’d said goodbye to him.

A few days later she received two more letters, one was from the battalion padre who sent his sincere condolences and said Ralph would be sadly missed. The other was from a fellow officer who described himself as Ralph’s friend, and told her again of the circumstances in which he’d been killed.

It was sealed in its envelope and her name was written in Ralph’s handwriting. With shaking fingers she slit it open and drew out the letter. It was dated six weeks earlier.

Ralph’s death was a
shock to Milo and his parents, too, were deeply upset. June had spent two days at home weeping and her eyes were red and swollen. It upset them all to see her like that.

‘Why did we make a scene about them marrying?’ his mother sighed. ‘It must be a comfort to her now that she was his wife.’

His father was very much on edge. ‘As Ralph has been killed I can’t see it makes any difference to her now,’ he said grumpily, but Milo knew he very much regretted standing out against him. He admitted as much. ‘I was wrong about him,’ he said. ‘I think he would have stood by June.’

The next time Milo was about to report for fire-watching, Pa set out with him. He was surprised to hear that Pa had joined the Civil Defence Service and had undergone some training so he could be fitted into the team.

Milo had been given a regular fire-watching position at the top of the church tower which gave a wide view across Merseyside, but the stone steps to get up there were narrow, steep, uneven, and there was no handrail. Many found them difficult but for Pa they were impossible.

Instead, Pa’s training enabled him to take charge of the telephones in the ARP post and direct the wardens to help where it was most needed. It was his job to summon ambulances and police as required. Milo was impressed and in the days that followed he found the team welcomed Pa.

Milo was due to return to the hospital
in Chester to be assessed and had been doing regular exercises to improve his fitness, knowing he’d be put through his paces in the gym. He expected to be found fit for work. His unit was now fighting in the desert in North Africa and he hoped to be sent to join them.

He was familiar with the hospital, its routine and staff, and was relaxed when he reported in. He was not alone, there were nine of them recalled for assessment and he’d met most of them on previous visits. To see them again was a pleasure, though he could see some were nervous of the outcome. It didn’t bother him to strip and be examined by the doctors. He enjoyed the session in the gym with the physiotherapists. He hadn’t managed to do all he’d been asked but he thought he’d done reasonably well.

The next morning when he presented himself to the senior doctors to hear the outcome, he was looking forward to being told he was fit and fully recovered. When it was his turn to enter the room, he saluted and stood to attention. Only when he was told to stand at ease did he notice that the atmosphere was sombre. The proceedings were very formal and Milo was soon filled with foreboding.

‘We are sorry,’ he was told. ‘We find you are no longer fit enough to serve.’

It took him a moment to take in what they meant. ‘But I feel quite well again. I’m over my injuries. I’ve been fire-watching four nights a week.’ The worst he’d been expecting was being told he needed to take another month’s convalescence and return for further assessment.

‘You’ve certainly recovered to that point, but the army expects serving soldiers to be super fit. They have to be able to cope with
modern warfare. We feel it would not be fair to you to expect more of you than you can give.’

Milo felt confused. He was being put out of the army! Discharged! He found that hard to believe. He was told to present himself somewhere else to start the process. Somewhere along the way, he was told he’d be given a pension. Pa had been given a pension when this had happened to him. But Pa had lost a leg, while he was perfectly all right.

Leonie was at the shop treadling hard on a long straight seam when her phone rang. She only had to hear one word to recognise Steve’s voice. ‘They were queuing at the fish shop for cod,’ he told her, ‘but half an hour later when my turn came, it had all gone. I had to use the ration book and get some mince for tonight.’

‘Thank you for doing the shopping, at least we’ve got something for Milo to eat when he comes home from the hospital.’

‘Tell me what I have to do,’ he said, ‘and I can get the meal started.’

She was delighted that Steve seemed to have turned over a new leaf. He no longer expected her to wait on him. He was helping with the housework and getting up to help make the breakfast porridge. He’d even enrolled in the Civil Defence Service.

When she got home from work that evening, Steve was in the kitchen, a pan simmering on the stove.

‘Will you taste the stew, Leonie?’ he said. ‘It doesn’t taste like the stews you make. Have I done it right?’ He was washing cabbage at the sink and had the potatoes ready peeled.

‘Perhaps a
little more salt,’ she suggested. ‘But it’s fine. You’re a marvellous help to me.’

‘I saw this queue at the off-licence and joined it. I was able to get a bottle of sherry. Let’s have a glass now.’

Leonie got out the glasses. ‘You’ve really changed. I do appreciate your help with the chores.’

He poured a glass of sherry for her and said, ‘There’s a war on. I have to do my bit like everybody else, don’t I?’

Leone smiled. ‘Being more active seems to be doing you good.’ He was no longer depressed and angry. As soon as he heard the wail of the air-raid siren, he was off out, whether he was supposed to be on duty or not.

‘It’s what most of the men do,’ he told Leonie. ‘We’re all volunteers. We want to help all we can. I wish I’d been able to get something more exciting than mince. Milo will want to celebrate if he’s been passed as fully recovered.’

‘He’ll have been well fed at the hospital over the last day or so, but . . .’ she broke off. ‘Here he is.’ A blast of cold air followed him into the kitchen.

Steve knew at first glance that things had not gone as Milo had hoped. He looked thoroughly miserable.

‘What’s happened, love?’ Leonie asked.

Slowly he took off his coat and turned to face them. ‘I’m to be invalided out of the army, pensioned off.’

Steve was shocked. ‘Discharged on grounds of ill health?’

Milo pulled a face. ‘They said I had recovered from my injuries but they were afraid I’d never achieve the super fitness required in today’s fighting forces, that it wouldn’t be fair to send me into battle.’

‘I was afraid you were being over-optimistic,’ Steve said dourly. ‘The wardens
sent you home when you were digging the injured out, didn’t they? Said you were spent, hadn’t the energy left to lift the spade.’ He could see the pain on his son’s face.

‘The point is, Pa, what am I going to do now?’

‘George will find you a slot in the firm. We’ve been ordered to give our staff their jobs back when the war’s over.’

‘No, Pa, that’s not what I want. I shall look for something else, something that interests me more – something to help the war effort.’

‘Well there’s plenty of work like that about.’ Steve reflected that his son was coping with the problems his serious injury had caused far better than he’d ever done himself.

He spent some time reading in bed that night, and when Leonie put out the light she said, ‘Milo’s taken it very well. I was very afraid he’d . . .’

Steve heard his own voice grate. ‘Expect you to wait on him hand and foot as I did?’

‘Well, not exactly, but . . .’

‘It was a humbling experience to see him take up his life again exactly where he’d left off. He fully expected nothing to change, but if he’s not fit enough to serve in the army, then obviously his capabilities are different now.’

‘He’s doing his best,’ Leonie said softly. ‘He’s not going to let it limit what he does. Not if he can help it.’

‘I wish I’d been as strong as him.’ Steve couldn’t hold back a heavy sigh. ‘All these years I’ve been wallowing in self-pity.’

‘The doctors were treating you for depression.’