The Very Thought of You (24 page)

‘Crikey,' said Tommy, jumping up to get a better look. He suddenly sounded more scared than excited. ‘That looks the business. I think we really are going to the front.'

‘Of course we are, old chap,' Godfrey bellowed, and Colin tapped a finger on his cards. ‘Come away, Tommy. It's your turn.'

Catherine stood up and went to the front of the bus. She could see Robert in his Jeep on the other side of the barrier. He was with two more soldiers, and when she turned to look out of the back window, she could see an armoured car behind them with yet more. ‘We must be important,' she said to Frances, who was standing beside her. ‘Look at all the soldiers escorting us.'

‘I suppose we are,' Frances nodded. ‘Troop morale and all that.'

The soldier driver climbed back into the bus and the barrier was lifted. Soon they were on their way again, as the rain got heavier and the road muddier. They went through a small village where many of the buildings were badly damaged. Through the rain, Catherine could see large bullet holes in the walls of some of the town houses, and others were almost totally demolished. A few people wandered about, still dazed, she thought, by the extent of the damage, but a couple of food shops were open, with women queuing outside to get whatever provisions they could. An army lorry was pulled up in front of the little town hall, and soldiers were unloading supplies of flour and cooking oil, and further on, an army ambulance was parked in front of a lightly damaged house. Another queue of people, some with bandages round their heads and others with crutches, waited outside.

‘Look at that,' whispered Della. ‘It must have been awful.'

‘No worse than the bombing at home,' said Catherine.

‘I suppose so,' Della agreed. ‘The 'Pool was pasted, but those bullet holes in the walls are something else.'

A shape loomed up at the side of the road. It was a wrecked tank with German markings on its side. The turret was completely blown off, and the tracks at the front wrecked. That's a Panzer VI, thought Catherine, recollecting her lessons at the spy school. However did I remember that? she smiled to herself. I thought everything had gone in one ear and out the other.

‘Nearly there,' called the driver after another half-hour, and soon the bus was driving into a square clearing where there was one very big tent to one side and many smaller ones on the other sides of the quadrangle. It seemed like hundreds of soldiers were waiting to greet them, lined up in front of the tents and cheering as the bus came to a halt.

‘Wow!' said Della, quickly powdering her nose and fluffing up her hair before arranging her army cap on the back of her head.

‘Ready, everyone,' called Beau, struggling to his feet. ‘Look your best and don't forget your tin helmets.'

The soldier drivers jumped down first and helped Beau and then Frances to alight. The rest of the company came after, to welcoming cheers and whistles from the military.

‘Hello, boys,' called Della, and did a sexy pose before blowing kisses to the men, while the rest of the troupe waved and smiled.

‘Goodness,' whispered Frances, ‘are they glad to see us!'

‘We must give them a good show,' said Catherine, and smiled as a senior officer came up to welcome them and show them into the large tent.

‘Oh Christ,' groaned Della, as they walked into the tent. ‘Look who's here.'

It was Eric Baxter, standing beside a small platform with Captain Fortescue on his arm.

‘What ho!' brayed the captain. ‘The extras have arrived.'

That first concert at the front went better than they'd expected. Playing to an audience of exhausted men should have been difficult, because many of the soldiers had experienced things that they could never talk about and which would trouble them in their dreams for years to come. Could they be bothered to watch a troupe of performers when only days ago they had faced death? Frances, coming out of the latrine, overheard one of the senior officers, on the other side of the canvas, complaining that ‘The variety troupe performance will be all silly nonsense and a waste of time.' She heard murmurs of agreement from the men he was talking to.

‘Some of them don't want us here,' she said to Beau, as they, and the rest of the Players, set up the lights and the microphone.

‘And others do,' he replied. ‘So we'll put on a super show.'

From somewhere, probably one of the destroyed houses in the village they'd driven through, the colonel had found an upright piano. It was a little battered, and it had a splintered chip out of its lid, but when Tommy tried a few bars, he declared it ‘not bad' and left his guitar on the bus. He'd brought the guitar to play in places where there would be no piano, and over the last few months he'd given Colin some drum lessons. The magician turned out to be remarkably good. ‘All we need is for Godfrey to find himself a double bass and we could be a pretty good combo,' said Tommy.

The girls changed into their lavender-blue dresses in the colonel's office. Della had adapted hers with a split up the front so that her legs could be seen. Underneath, she wore her acrobatic costume shorts and her beloved fishnet tights.

‘I don't think there's room for somersaults,' said Frances. ‘That platform is quite small.'

‘I know, darling. I've checked it out, but I'll shorten the dance and do the splits. The boys love that.'

Catherine arranged a lavender silk flower in her hair. She had gone over her music with Tommy but hadn't yet decided what she would sing. Beau left it up to her now, trusting her judgement entirely, and she had never let him down. It always depended on the mood of the audience, but tonight it also depended on her own mood.

She'd spoken briefly to Robert when they'd all been given a tin mug of tea and some bread and jam in the canteen before going to set up the show.

‘Hello,' he'd said, looking intently into her eyes.

Her mouth felt dry. She yearned to touch his hand, wanted him to bend his head and kiss her. I'm mad, she thought. Whatever has come over me? ‘Hello,' she'd said, hastily taking a swallow of the tannin-laden tea.

He glanced around. The officers who'd joined the Players in the canteen were looking appreciatively at her, and a couple were moving towards them. He cleared his throat. ‘I …' but he could see that they were no longer alone, so instead he asked, ‘What are you singing tonight?'

‘I don't know yet.' She smiled at the young lieutenants who joined them and said, ‘I'll see how it goes.'

‘Excuse me, Miss Fletcher,' one of the young men said. ‘I saw you once at the Savoy. You were wonderful.'

‘Thank you.' Catherine smiled and shook hands with him and his colleagues. They looked tired and dirty, their hair curling over their collars, and their uniforms, worn every day for weeks, were scruffy and torn in places. The man who'd first spoken to her had a drying scab along his cheek, and another had his arm in a sling. Catherine thought about the shows they'd done in army camps at home, where the troops had neat battledresses and short back and sides. Even at the theatre in Bayeux, the men were clean and looked as though they'd eaten well. This was such a contrast.

‘You've been hurt,' she said to the young lieutenant.

‘Oh,' he shrugged. ‘It's nothing. An argument with a Jerry sniper.'

‘You got him, though, Danny, didn't you?' another boy laughed, and punched Danny on the shoulder.

Catherine kept smiling, but inside she felt a little sick. Was this how Christopher had been with his friends? Pretending that nothing mattered. Pretending to be brave.

She had turned her head to see what Robert thought of these young men. He'd fought, she knew that. You didn't get medals for nothing. But he'd gone, moved away into the crowd and was deep in conversation with Beau.

Now, getting ready to go on stage, Catherine knew what she would sing first, and having a last quick look in the long mirror that travelled with them, she went outside to find Tommy.

Della opened the show with her usual upbeat number, belting out the song so loudly that Tommy had to keep his foot jammed hard on the pedal. She high-kicked across the platform and ended her act with a jump and the splits, which drew cheers from the audience.

She was followed by Eric. The rest of the troupe, none of whom had spoken more than two words to him, watched from the sidelines. As he stepped onto the platform, he passed Robert, who grabbed his arm and spoke quickly into his ear. Whatever Robert said seemed to have worked, because Captain Fortescue's performance was clean and funny and well received.

Godfrey followed, his rousing song filling the tent, and during the second chorus, he encouraged the audience to sing along to the familiar words. They loved it. Then Colin fascinated the men with his card tricks and knotted strings that magically fell into straight pieces of cord. At one point, he got so excited with the applause that he reached up with his hand to calm them down and accidentally knocked his wig askew. This drew roars of laughter, the men thinking it was all part of the act, and Beau whispered to Frances, ‘We should keep that in and expand on it. We need a comedian.'

Finally Catherine closed the first half. She sang ‘You'll Never Know', her voice rising into the air and reaching into the hearts of all who were listening to her. She left the platform and walked into the audience, still singing while shaking hands with the soldiers. They were awestruck by her voice and her beauty, and by the words of her song. It meant so much to these men who were away from home and who had so recently been in danger and knew that they would be again.

Frances saw the officer who had spoken disparagingly of the troupe. He was standing, open-mouthed, against the door of the tent, and when Catherine finished, he cheered and whistled along with everyone else. Idiot, thought Frances. You couldn't have been more wrong.

They went into the colonel's office for a breather between the first and second halves of the show and grinned at each other. ‘It was great,' said Della, jigging up and down with excitement.

‘You all did very well.' Beau limped in, his face wreathed in a big grin. ‘And, Colin, I was especially impressed with that bit of slapstick. Let's get together and see how we can combine it in the act.'

Colin frowned. ‘I didnae do any slapstick, boss. I had a wee accident with the wig, that's all.'

‘Precisely,' Beau nodded. ‘It was brilliant.'

‘A loose definition of “brilliant”, old sport,' sneered Captain Fortescue, who was sitting on Baxter's arm, the doll's head moving this way and that, and its eyebrows jerking up and down.

Della shot round, ready to say something, but Beau stepped in front of her. ‘Anyway,' he said, trying to regain his grin, ‘let's get back out there and wow them again.'

They did.

Catherine sang ‘Long Ago and Far Away' and saw Robert leaning by the entrance, his eyes fixed on her. She turned her head and sang a few lines directly at him, before looking back to the rest of the audience.

‘Wonderful!' the soldiers yelled, and, ‘More, more!' and when Catherine beckoned Della and Frances onto the stage, they went wild. It was hard to get them to calm down, and although both Beau and Tommy tried to hush the audience, it was Della who yelled, ‘Shut the hell up!' and who finally got them to be quiet.

They sang ‘Don't Fence Me In', wearing the cowboy hats that Della had managed to buy from a theatrical costumier in London. The audience loved it, and after a nod from Beau, Della had a quick word with Tommy and he struck up with ‘Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy'.

‘Just wonderful,' said the colonel, when the show was over and they were in his office having a drink. He'd produced two bottles of whisky, which they were drinking out of tin cups. ‘I can't tell you how grateful we are. These lads have had a hard time, and we'll be going forward again next week.'

‘How far away is the front?' asked Tommy. ‘I mean, are the enemy close?'

‘No, not that close,' the colonel smiled. ‘No need to worry. They're at least ten miles down the road. The next village is liberated, and the one after. They're in the one after that. We'll be clearing them out soon.'

Frances thought of the bullet holes in the walls of the village they'd come through. That's what's going to be happening there, she realised, and how many of the young men who'd whooped and cheered tonight would be injured or even killed? It was a very sobering thought and she sat down, suddenly very tired.

‘There's food for you in the canteen,' announced the colonel, ‘and then we can put the ladies up in the first-aid tent. There is a regular tent with the men for the gents.' He looked at them anxiously. ‘It won't be what you're used to, being show business people, but it's the best we can do.'

‘We don't mind at all,' rumbled Godfrey, knocking back his whisky and holding out his glass for another. ‘We're just glad to do our bit.'

Later, the girls settled into their cots in the first-aid tent. It had stopped raining, but the ground was very muddy all around and their shoes sank into it.

‘We'll have to get gumboots, you know,' said Frances. ‘It's going to be like this everywhere we go.'

‘You're right,' Della yawned. ‘You organise it.'

Catherine lay thinking about Robert, to whom she'd had no opportunity to speak. He hadn't joined them in the colonel's office after the show, and neither had Eric Baxter. That was odd too. And as she was thinking about it, Frances said, ‘Where d'you think Baxter went? I didn't see him. Did either of you?'

‘No,' said Catherine. ‘You wouldn't think there'd be anywhere for him to disappear to around here.'

‘He'll be doing some buying and selling,' snorted Della. ‘Mark my words.' She yawned again. ‘Christ, I'm tired.'