While We're Apart (7 page)

The train was already pulling in, the wreaths of smoke and steam veiling the small knot of men who waited there. ‘Jack,' she called desperately. ‘Jack, where are you?'

He appeared through the smoke, tall and handsome and disturbingly unfamiliar in his khaki uniform, his face lit by his delight at seeing her. ‘So you decided to come anyway,' he smiled as she threw herself into his arms.

‘I couldn't let you go without saying a proper goodbye,' she told him after they'd kissed.

‘Well, I don't know how you managed it, but I'm glad you did,' he replied softly. ‘Mum and Dad couldn't face seeing me off again after the army trucks picked me up from the farm.'

Mary kissed him again, glad of his strong arms around her, but aware of the nervous tension that ran through him. ‘I had to come,' she murmured against his freshly shaven jaw. ‘I couldn't bear to think of you leaving without seeing you just one more time.'

‘Right, you horrible lot,' shouted a sergeant from somewhere in the mist of smoke and steam. ‘All aboard – and jump to it. Yer in the army now, and I don't like idlers.'

Mary clung to Jack as he kissed her for the last time. ‘I'll send you my address,' he said as he picked up his bag and edged back towards the open carriage door. ‘Take care of yourself, Mary, until I come home again.'

‘And you take care,' she managed as the tears welled. ‘I love you, Jack.'

He ducked his head and reddened as the other men cheered and encouraged him to kiss her again, but he clambered on to the train, and the sergeant slammed the door behind him before marching to the next carriage.

Mary stood on the platform desperately searching for sight of Jack. And there he was, lifting the blackout blind and opening the window, leaning out as the whistle blew and the train began to roll slowly forward with a hiss of steam. She reached out and their fingers touched before the train gathered speed. ‘I'll write every day,' she shouted as she tried to keep pace with him.

‘So will I, I promise,' he yelled back.

Mary came to the end of the short platform as the carriages trundled noisily past her with their blacked-out windows. She stood and watched until the train was lost in the darkness. ‘God go with you, Jack, and bring you home safely,' she stuttered through the tears she could no longer hold back.

‘There, there, lass,' said the elderly stationmaster. ‘He'll be back afore you knows it. Now, you dry them tears and I'll get the missus to make us a nice cuppa. How about that?'

Mary pulled herself together and nodded. ‘That would be lovely,' she replied with a tremulous smile. ‘It's a long ride back home to Harebridge Green.'

She sat drinking the tea in the stationmaster's cosy cottage, feeling the warmth of the roaring fire slowly thawing out her fingers and toes. She tried to ignore the coldness that had settled in her heart as she dutifully admired his wife's large collection of lovingly polished copper pots and horse brasses, and listened attentively as she talked about her equally large family of whom she was inordinately proud. Yet her thoughts were with Jack, her heart frozen at the thought she might never see him again.

Having finished her tea, she thanked the couple for their kindness and regretfully left the snug little home. It was well past nine o'clock and her journey would take at least half an hour now she was so tired and downhearted. She was relieved to find that her bicycle had come to no harm after being thrown to the ground so carelessly, and as the clouds disappeared and the moon's glow brightened, it was much easier to see her way.

As she rode through the sleeping countryside to the accompaniment of the tyres singing on the tarmac, she thought about Jack. He was the same lovely Jack she'd always known, but the uniform had already changed him in some indefinable way, and she wasn't at all sure she was happy about that. Even the smallest of changes could be amplified by distance and time, and she could only pray that this enforced parting wouldn't prove to be the end of all they'd planned and dreamed about.

She was snapped from her thoughts by the distant wailing of sirens, and she stopped pedalling to look back at the sky above Hillney. Searchlights were already piercing the darkness as the pitch of the sirens rose, and then she became aware of the ominous drone of a squadron of enemy bombers approaching from the north-west.

Realising she was very exposed out here on this country road she quickly turned off the lamp and wheeled her bike over to the hedge, where she pressed herself into the deep shadows. Looking up, she could make out the silhouettes of Dorniers, Heinkels and Junkers, accompanied by their smaller, swifter fighters. Spitfires, Typhoons and Hurricanes were harassing the fighters, and some furious dogfights had broken out.

The enemy planes were heading south, which meant they'd completed their raid and were dashing for home. But Mary knew that the danger wasn't over, for those returning bombers often dropped the last of their deadly cargo on the towns, villages and farmlands of Sussex so they could make a lighter, swifter departure.

She cried out as she saw a Spitfire take a hit and burst into flames. Searching desperately for sight of a parachute, Mary watched the plane go into a nosedive and heard the resulting crump as it hit the unforgiving ground. There had been no parachute, and Mary could only pray that the brave man flying that Spitfire had quickly lost consciousness before the end.

Amid the rattle of gunfire and the boom of the Bofors guns there was a distant explosion that had come from somewhere to the east, and another two that were nearer Hillney. She huddled into the hedge, aware of the glow in the sky to the east and west as the dogfights continued, the distant searchlights swept back and forth, and the enemy bombers continued laboriously on their way to the Channel. Had Jack's train been one of their targets? Was he still safe? The railway lines were horribly exposed on that branch, with only a couple of tunnels to hide in and wait out any raid. She closed her eyes and prayed fervently that those terrible images going round in her head would not become reality.

As the drone of the enemy bombers faded and the Spitfires chased their counterparts across the Channel, Mary retrieved her bike from the roadside ditch. She was shaking from cold and a terrible fear for Jack. Her first instinct was to return to the station and see if there was any news of his train – but then she realised it was much too soon for any reports to filter through. She would go home, she decided reluctantly, and telephone the stationmaster first thing in the morning.

Her legs were trembling as she slowly continued her journey. The silence of the night was distantly disturbed by the ‘all-clear' siren and the clanging of fire-engine and ambulance bells, but all she could think of was Jack, trapped on that train as the bombers flew overhead.

It was some minutes before she realised the sound of a clanging bell was getting louder. She stopped pedalling to look over her shoulder, and saw the hooded lights of one of the Hillney fire engines coming towards her at speed. Moving to one side, she watched it pass, and then quickly cycled after it.

The fire engine was soon lost from sight, but it was swiftly followed by an ambulance, and Mary's fear for Jack was overshadowed by the very real possibility that something could have happened in her village or nearby. If that was the case, then she would be needed to help her father bring solace and cups of tea to those in distress.

She was praying fervently that the fire was beyond the village, harmlessly burning in a field and not jeopardising any lives. Yet as she drew nearer to Harebridge Green she could now see the red glow in the sky, and the thick dark smoke that billowed across the pale moon.

Mary pedalled faster, and as she entered the village she heard shouts from those who were on the pavement, and saw a human tide of hurrying men armed with stirrup pumps, sacking and spades. She was deaf to their shouts, blind to everything but the terrible red glow at the other end of the village.

As she took the final bend, she realised she was hurtling towards randomly parked farm trucks and fire engines, and the large group of men who were preparing to tackle the fire as the women looked on. She skidded to a halt, and froze in horrified shock at the sight before her. The rectory was ablaze, the flames spearing through the roof and shooting from the windows, blackening the red bricks and devouring everything within reach.

Mary dropped the bicycle, fighting against restraining hands from the gathered crowd as she searched wildly for her mother and father. She couldn't see them anywhere, and wrestled her way through the trucks, Home Guard members and wardens, and past the fire engine down the drive towards the men who were battling the inferno. ‘My parents,' she screamed above the noise of water pipes and the shouts of firefighters. ‘Where are my parents?'

A fireman turned, his face blackened with soot and sweat, his expression saying more than any words as he shook his head.

‘No! No, they can't be!' Heedless of the danger and mad with fear, she tried to rush past him. ‘I have to get them out,' she screamed as she struggled to escape his iron grip on her arm.

And then two sturdy arms were wrapped around her, leading her determinedly back to the lane, as a familiar voice penetrated the fog of hysteria surrounding her. ‘It's too late, Mary, love. They've gone.'

Mary looked up into the soot-smeared face and kind eyes of Jack's father. ‘But they can't have,' she sobbed. ‘They can't have.'

Joseph Boniface continued to hold her, his dark brown eyes, so like his son's, looking down at her with infinite understanding and gentleness. ‘The rectory took a direct hit,' he said in his slow, deliberate manner. ‘They wouldn't have suffered or known anything about it.'

She stared at him and tried to absorb his words, but all she could hear was her father's blessing as he'd kissed her goodnight – all she could feel was a crippling, numbing guilt that she'd disobeyed him and hadn't been there when he'd most needed her. ‘It's all my fault,' she sobbed. ‘I shouldn't have left them and now Daddy's . . . Daddy's . . .' She collapsed against Joseph in a great storm of bitter tears.

Joseph held her while she wept, and muttered soft words of consolation. ‘It's not your fault,' he said quietly. ‘Of course it's not, and you must never even think it.'

He awkwardly patted her back until the storm ebbed, and then drew away. ‘I have to help put out the fire, but Barbara will take you home to ours,' he said. ‘She'll look after you, and you can stay with us for as long as you want.'

Mary looked from him to his wife and then was hypnotised by the sight of those terrible flames. They rose higher and higher despite the jets of water pounding on them, hungrily clambering up the crumbling walls and consuming everything in their path. Glass shattered in the heat, curtains withered to blackened wisps that floated in the swirling smoke, the chimneys toppled – and she cried out as the great roof finally succumbed and caved in with a mighty crash that sent sparks and debris flying.

As the men rushed forward to kill the swiftly travelling flames that were now igniting the overhanging trees, Barbara gently took Mary's arm. ‘Come away, love,' she said. ‘The men have work to do, and we're getting in their way.'

It was as if she was sleepwalking, for she put up no resistance as Barbara led her through the choking smoke and back into the lane. This was her punishment – the burden she would have to carry for the rest of her life – but it was her parents who'd paid the awful price for her deceit, and she knew that she would never find redemption.

THE ANCHOR HAD
stood in Camden Road for almost two centuries. It had once been a coaching inn and a refuge for the Cliffehaven smugglers, who'd used the large cellar to hide their booty and then transported it through a secret doorway into the tunnels that led to the church and the parsonage. Ron and his son, Jim, had made similar use of this hideaway before the war when they took the fishing boats across the Channel, but now Ron had converted this cellar into a shelter so the customers could stay and keep on drinking during the air raids.

The old inn stables had long since disappeared and their Victorian replacements now provided shops on the ground floor and spacious apartments above. The ancient tiled roof of the pub dipped in the middle like a weary sway-backed horse and overshadowed the tiny diamond-paned windows, and the whitewashed walls that leant rather tipsily towards the pavement were veined with dark wooden timbers.

The iron-studded oak door opened on to an uneven brick floor, an inglenook fireplace, and bench seating beneath the front and back windows. An upright piano stood in one corner, and in front of an ornate glass and mirrored fitment that acted as storage for bottles and glasses there was a highly polished wooden counter, two porcelain-handled beer pumps, and a heavy brass till. A collection of pewter tankards hung from hooks above the bar, and various leather straps holding horse brasses decorated the weathered, blackened beams on either side of the inglenook.

A few tables and chairs were scattered around, but most of the customers preferred to stand by the counter, one foot resting on the shining brass rod that ran round the base. Lit only by a few wall-lights and a single low-watt bulb over the bar, and with the blackout curtains tightly drawn, entering it was like walking into a cave smelling strongly of pipe and cigarette smoke and spilt beer. And yet, in winter, when there was a log fire blazing in the inglenook, it was the snuggest place in Cliffehaven.

Ron was standing in his preferred spot at the end of the bar by the brass till, enjoying a welcome pint after his long walk with Harvey, and gazing with love and pride at the landlady, Rosie Braithwaite. Rosie kept everyone in order as she served the drinks and made sure the other, older barmaids were managing to cope with the hectic pace. She didn't miss a trick, his Rosie, and he felt the familiar glow of pleasure as he watched her sashay back and forth in her high heels, for she was the prettiest sight with her laughing blue eyes, platinum hair and luscious figure.