The Shadow of the Sycamores (43 page)

It was an idyllic existence and Leo’s occasional outbursts were getting fewer and farther apart. Although she knew that he would never get back to being the charming handsome man he had been when they first met, she now had hopes that he would improve even more as time went by.

She had no worries now about leaving him while she went into town on an old bicycle she had found in one of the outhouses to replenish their groceries and any other items that needed replacing. At first, she had come back as soon as she finished shopping but now she took ten minutes to call on her mother, who was always anxious to know how things were going at Corbie Den.

‘Can’t I come to see Leo?’ Fay asked every time but the answer was always, ‘He’s not ready to see anybody yet.’

Mara sometimes felt guilty about this. Maybe Leo wouldn’t mind seeing her mother. Maybe she was being like the blue tits, making sure that no intruders could get in. Maybe she should ask him how
he
felt about it.

*    *    *

Jerry was grateful that Lil Nelson and Daphne made all the arrangements for the wedding. A special licence had been
obtained for the sake of speed and no fuss and the wedding was planned for one week ahead. That would give them fourteen days to enjoy their married state before he was posted overseas. He and Rob took a stroll along to the pub most evenings to be out of the women’s way for an hour or so but his last hour was always spent walking with his fiancée.

He had tried to control his increasing passion, even quoting the sergeant’s threat, but Daphne just laughed, ‘But nobody’ll know, darling. We’ll be married before I even know myself if I’m expecting.’

He wasn’t sure how he felt about this. It wasn’t proper for a girl to be so bold but he loved her and her kisses made him want her so much that he couldn’t resist any longer.

It was a first time for both of them but, nonetheless, it was marvellously, mind-blowingly, heart-stoppingly perfect. So perfect, in fact, that it was repeated some minutes later and twice every night until their wedding day.

Since arriving in Belgium, Jerry Rae had not often had time to think so a lull in the gunfire and exploding shells came as a welcome reprieve, letting him turn his mind to his darling Daphne. The most beautiful girl in the world. His wife. His father-in-law had insisted on paying for them to stay in a hotel for a week and he had really looked forward to having that time to themselves.

Knowing that their time together would be short – although he hadn’t foreseen how short – they let their passions run rampant every time they went to bed until exhaustion forced them to have at least some sleep. And, during the days, they wandered about the town creating memories for the time they would be apart – a time that came only too soon. They had not even had breakfast on the third day of their stay in the hotel when the message came that the battalion was being shipped out that morning and he must report immediately. They’d had no time for a long goodbye – just a quick peck on the cheek in front of the despatch rider and it was over. Perhaps it was just as well. Unlimited goodbyes could stretch out agonisingly. An instant break was easier in the long run.

As relief for a battle-weary set of men who were trying to hold on to a small village they had captured from the Germans, the Gordons were thrown in at the deep end when they finally reached their destination. It had been hard going, one step forward to two steps back, and God alone knew how long they could keep it up.

The acrid fumes of war still hung around them but, if he closed his eyes, Jerry fancied he could smell the delicate perfume Daphne had worn – only for a moment and then it was gone
again. There had been no mail yet but he had managed to scribble a couple of short notes to his wife, though it was anybody’s guess when she would get them. If he could only have some idea of when he would see her again, it would help him to survive in this hellhole. He would count the days, his spirits rising as the number lessened. Please God, bring this bloody war to an end.

Sadly, the only thing that came to an end was the lull in the firing.

Fay was shocked when she saw Leo and found it hard to believe her daughter’s assurance that he had been much worse when
she
saw him first. How any man could have stood up to what he had gone through was a miracle. How any woman could cope with what Mara was faced with every day was also beyond belief.

‘My heart went out to both of them,’ Fay told her husband that night, ‘but they seem happy enough.’

‘That’s the main thing,’ Henry smiled. ‘I’ll bike over on Sunday afternoon for a wee while. Leo might like a wee chat with a man for a change.’

Despite being forewarned, he was shocked at the pitiful sight his son-in-law presented and found it hard to think of something to speak about. The progress of the war was out of the question. The poor soul wouldn’t want to be reminded of the horrors, of the setbacks, the defeats the British army was facing in all quarters. The safest bet was the weather or the garden.

The war, however, was what Leo wanted to hear about, shaking his head at some points but nodding his agreement to others, while Mara lay on the grass beside her husband’s chair, smiling fondly as he propounded what his tactics would be if he were the commander-in-chief. Nonetheless, after an hour, she could sense, from Leo’s slowing speech, that he was growing too tired and so she got to her feet as a signal to her father to leave.

Thankfully understanding, he, too, stood up. ‘I’d better go, Leo, or I’ll be getting thrown out.’

Mara saw him off on the bicycle and, when she went back to her husband, she wasn’t altogether surprised that his eyes had darkened. ‘You could surely allow me to tell my visitors when they should leave?’ he barked as she pushed the wheelchair indoors.

‘I’m sorry, dear, but I thought you looked tired.’

‘If I had wanted him to leave, I would have said so.’

For the rest of the afternoon and the evening, Leo sat in surly silence, barely acknowledging the meal he was given, and Mara wished that her father had stayed away. Her husband was not ready for male company.

She had hoped that Leo would apologise when she made him ready for bed but, even when she was lying beside him, he was rigid and uncommunicative. With a sigh, she turned away, almost regretting having agreed to his father’s proposal, but knowing that he was better with her than with his stepmother. In any case, this was just a little hiccup – he would come round tomorrow.

Not much more than three minutes later, she felt his hand on her shoulder. She turned round slowly, guessing that he needed something – a drink of water perhaps or just to be shifted a little.

His hand rose to caress her cheek. ‘I’m sorry, Samara. I was an utter brute to you and I don’t know why you bother with me.’

Pity for him almost overwhelmed her but it was pity enclosed in a deep, deep love. Whatever he did, no matter how he treated her, she still loved him as much as she had done when he courted her. Even having to look at his wasted body and scarred face every day, she could, at times, see him as he used to be – tall and handsome with an attractive smile and personality to match. ‘It’s all right, Leo, dear,’ she murmured, ‘I do understand.’

He tilted her chin up so that he could kiss her. ‘I don’t think you do, Samara. I grant you I was a little tired but I was enjoying myself for the first time since …’ He sighed deeply. ‘Your father was talking to me as man to man not as a visitor
to a crippled wreck. He made me forget what I was. He made me feel whole again until you broke the spell.’

‘Oh, Leo, I’m truly sorry. I didn’t want you to get overtired – that’s why …’

‘I realise that now and it is me who should be sorry. Can you forgive me?’

‘There’s nothing to forgive, my darling.’ She kissed him tenderly and felt his arms tightening round her.

‘Oh, God!’ he moaned in a moment. ‘This must be purgatory for you. I am useless to you as a husband, absolutely useless.’

‘I don’t care about that side of things,’ she assured him. ‘I love you the way you are.’

‘You should have married an able-bodied, lusty young man, someone who could give you children to love. You are a born mother, Samara, and I am just your little boy.’

‘No, Leo! I never think of you as a little boy. I love you as a man, a real man.’

‘A nice try, Samara.’

‘It’s true! It’s perfectly true!’

‘Have you never wished that I could make love to you?’

‘Stop torturing yourself! I just need to know that you still love me, that’s all.’

He fell asleep first and, listening to his steady breathing, she prayed that he wouldn’t slip back into the black depths of despair if the improvement he hoped for did not materialise.

Back from the line for a few days’ respite, silence reigned as the young Scots eagerly read the mail that had been waiting for them. Jerry got a pile of letters at once from Daphne and sorted them into order by date before looking at what she had written. The first few were mostly about how much she loved him, how much she had enjoyed their three days as man and wife, how much she missed him now. Then the tone changed slightly because she was worried about not hearing from him. He picked up the second last one, hoping that she had received at least the note he had scribbled when they landed in Zeebrugge
and had reached only the third line when he gave out a howl of delight.

‘I don’t know how you will feel about this,’ she had written, ‘but I am in seventh heaven. I didn’t say anything before because I wanted to be absolutely sure but we are going to have a baby.’

He skimmed the rest, hardly taking in the assurances of love, the excitement she felt, how she hoped he would be home in time for the birth.

Waiting until his heart slowed to normal, he read it over again, carefully this time and right to the very end. He
was
glad that he was about to become a father for real – if only he could be with Daphne throughout her waiting time. He would be worrying about her now until he heard that the child had been born and they were both well.

After reading the good news again, he looked at the last letter. She had got his first note, thank goodness, and she said that some of her friends had told her they sometimes had to wait for weeks and weeks for a letter from their men in the forces. So she understood that he couldn’t always get time to write but begged him to write as often as he could.

He did his best but he was finding it more and more difficult to know what to write even when he did get time. She would only be upset if he told her of the conditions he was living in, of seeing comrades fall around him like ninepins, of the terror that swept over him when a fresh bombardment began. He could, and did, tell her that they were forging ahead, even if their progress would be more correctly described as ‘inching’.

Eventually, thank God, at a cost of hundreds of men, they recaptured one small town that the enemy had earlier wrested from them, and, with so few of each battalion remaining, it was a mixed bunch that put up a careworn, but heartfelt, cheer that the enemy had retreated.

Their spirits rose even further when they were told that each man would be allowed three days’ leave, in a rota of perhaps twenty at a time. For most of them, home was too far away even to attempt to reach, so they made plans to have a good
old spree in the nearest town that was still standing. Booze and dames, as the Americans said, what more could they want?

Jerry, of course, wanted his own ‘dame’. Surely he could chance getting a ship to Dover so he could go and see his wife? Even if they had only one day together, it would be something and she was pretty near her time. He might even be there when the infant arrived – it depended on … no, it would be sheer good luck if that was how it landed and he had never been blessed with good luck.

He was one of ten in the second truck that left their position well behind the front line, singing lustily as they negotiated the shell-holes in the road, shouting encouragement to the lines of marching men en route to the battlefield – these were the reinforcements they had managed without but would probably need next time.

Only three were left when they reached Zeebrugge – the others had been dropped off along the way – and they searched for a boat due to depart as soon as possible. After only about ten minutes, they came across a small ex-trawler on the point of leaving for Dover. Their dilapidated appearance won the day for them and they settled down on deck to have a much-needed sleep.

They were awakened, in the grey raininess of the early morning, by the bump against the jetty and sprang into wakefulness immediately, rushing to the side and jumping off as soon as they could. The three young soldiers separated now, heading for various points not too far from the docks. Jerry managed to get a lift on another truck to within quarter of a mile of the Nelson’s house and sprinted the rest of the way.

All three of the household had been up since two o’clock. Daphne had felt her first pains in the early evening but had said nothing to her mother – they weren’t all that bad. By the time she went to bed, they were growing more uncomfortable and more frequent but she endured them stoically for some hours before alerting her parents.

Rob, trying not to show how scared he was for his daughter,
had gone for the midwife as soon as he had thrown on some clothes. Lil made her usual pot of strong tea for comfort and could do nothing else other than try to reassure the girl. Daphne herself was doing her best not to scream as each shaft of agony came to its crescendo but there came a point when she couldn’t help herself and, when Mrs Drake, the stout little midwife, turned up, she encouraged her by nodding, ‘That’s right, dear. Let ’em rip!’

Now redundant, Rob took himself outside for a smoke to soothe his jangling nerves and he was standing at the garden gate, trying unsuccessfully to light his cigarette with matches that kept fizzling out in the rain, when he heard the running feet. Looking up, he gave a gasp of pleasure at seeing the galloping Scotsman with his kilt swinging in all directions. ‘Good God, Jerry,’ he exclaimed, holding the gate open, ‘you’ve timed it good and proper, you have.’