The Long Journey Home

by Cecily Blench

  ‘How did it end?’ said Edwin at last.

  ‘He got married,’ said Rama, and laughed again. ‘It’s almost funny now but at the time it was a great shock to me. He’d never introduced me to his family or let me meet his friends, which was understandable because our backgrounds were so different. But it turned out he’d been engaged all along, to a girl he’d never met. The whole time he’d been – how do the Americans say – screwing around.’ He shook his head. ‘Poor girl. They had a grand wedding, I heard – thousands of guests, a great deal of food, dancing, no expense spared. She was from Jaipur, with strict parents. I doubt he stayed faithful for long.’

  ‘Did you ever see him again?’

  ‘Once. I was working as a waiter at one of the big hotels in Delhi just before the war, and I saw him come in alone. I was serving drinks in the foyer. He looked a little older and a little less handsome, but mostly the same. But he checked in under a name that was not his own. Who he was meeting I do not know, but it was not his wife.’

  Edwin felt a pang of guilt. ‘I behaved in just the same way. No one deserves to be treated like that.’ He thought of Emilia sitting silently by the fire, trying to read a book as the clock ticked towards midnight. ‘She was everything that is good and kind. I really did love her, in my way.’

  He listened to the insects chirping in the darkness and remembered the smoke rising over Golders Green.

  ‘You are thinking it was all a lie,’ said Rama.

  ‘Wasn’t it?’

  ‘Only you can know that. But what happened to her – it was not your fault.’

  ‘But if . . .’ Edwin had no idea how to finish the sentence.

  ‘If she had lived you would not have come to Burma. You and I would never have met. Perhaps everything that happened was meant to happen. Who can say?’

  He leaned over and brushed the hair off Edwin’s forehead. ‘All you have to decide is what you want here and now. Nothing more.’ His brown eyes were kind and Edwin thought his heart might burst.

  Rama pulled back for a moment and looked at him. ‘It’s all right to be sad still.’

  ‘I’m not,’ said Edwin, and the truth came suddenly. ‘I’m happy.’ And summoning his courage, he sat up and put his arms around Rama, tasting the sweet fruit on his mouth, and the ashes of his old life blew away on the warm breeze.

  PART III

  India, 1945

  Three years later

  50

  Calcutta, September 1945

  At the hospital, half of the beds at last lay empty. Kate stripped the linen from each one, throwing the white sheets into a basket, and wiped her forehead on the sleeve of her uniform as she progressed down the ward.

  For more than three years there had rarely been an empty bed, and often men were brought in to lie on the floor until one could be found. The fighting in Burma had been fierce, wave after wave of soldiers sent against the Japanese, to return with mangled limbs or ravaged by disease.

  But now the war was over and those soldiers who remained in hospital were being patched up before being sent home. The emptying wards echoed and Kate found herself walking aimlessly up and down between the beds, recalling the soldiers who had passed through her care, wondering what on earth she would do to fill the days.

  ‘Look, nurse,’ said Captain Howard, waving a photograph at her. ‘This came in the post today.’

  She went to his bedside and smiled at the photograph of three children, very solemn, sitting with a rather beautiful woman.

  ‘That’s my youngest,’ said Howard, pointing at the little girl on her mother’s lap. ‘Edith. She turned two last month, and I haven’t met her yet.’

  ‘You will soon,’ said Kate. ‘It won’t be long until you’re out of here.’

  ‘They might be afraid of me,’ he said, suddenly gloomy. ‘I shan’t be much use with only one arm.’

  ‘Children don’t see these things,’ said Kate, ‘I promise. They might be curious but soon they’ll stop noticing. They get used to things far more quickly than adults do.’

  ‘You don’t have children, do you, nurse?’

  ‘No,’ said Kate after a pause, and busied herself tidying his bedclothes. ‘But my father came home from the last war almost an invalid when I was a child and it never occurred to me to find it strange.’ She watched him cradling the photograph.

  ‘I thought I wasn’t going to get back to them,’ he said, looking up at her. ‘I thought I’d had it.’

  She put his teacup on the trolley and picked up some letters that had fallen to the floor. ‘Have you other family in the war?’

  ‘My brother was killed at Monte Cassino,’ he said, still staring at the photograph. ‘And my sister Gloria was a POW, although she’s on her way home now.’

  ‘Where was she?’

  ‘Malaya,’ he said. ‘Got caught in the first wave of the invasion. She says she’s all right, but . . . well.’ He sighed. ‘Anyway, she’s heading home. Going to live with Mother for a bit while she sorts herself out.’

  ‘It won’t be easy.’

  ‘No.’ He looked up at her. ‘You were in Burma, weren’t you, nurse?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Came out through the jungle?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Then you know what it’s like. When you’ve seen so much death and misery it’s hard to imagine going back to normal life. I told Gloria not to worry about doing anything except relaxing when she gets home.’

  ‘If she can,’ said Kate. ‘I find it’s best to be busy – the busier I am the less I dwell on things.’ She started to push the trolley away and then paused. ‘What will you do when you get home?’

  He waved the photograph. ‘Play with my children. Get to know my wife again. Father wants me to join the family business but I’m not sure I’ll be much use like this. I suppose I’ll just try to put all of it behind me.’

  ‘I’m sure you will,’ said Kate, although she felt doubtful. Would anyone really be able to forget? Nightmares still plagued her – three years since she had arrived in Calcutta, three years since she had slept on the forest floor, three years since she had seen the remains of the dead all the way to India.

  ‘I’m going to take some presents back for Edith and the boys,’ said Howard. ‘Get some toys before I leave Calcutta. I don’t know what she’ll like, though.’

  ‘Anything you bring her will be treasured. It’s you they want, really.’

  ‘You’re right, nurse,’ said Howard, tucking the photograph carefully into the top pocket of his pyjamas. ‘I must remember that. I’ve lost a lot of time with them over the last few years. Whatever I have left – well, I don’t mean to waste it.’

  Don’t waste it, thought Kate, as she went about her duties, her heart still warmed by the love of the captain for his family. Who else had said that? Ah, of course. Fred had said it, long ago.

  *

  When her shift was over, she untied her rusty bicycle from the railings and pedalled slowly home across the city, taking the quietest route she knew. For most of the war a curfew had been imposed, but now the dark streets were buzzing with traders and traffic. She slowed when she reached Ashoka Street and stopped to buy a warm paratha from a man behind a stall. A lamp cast a gentle glow over his greasy pan as he slapped the dough back and forth.

  ‘You are looking very tired, miss,’ he said, and threw an extra paratha onto the banana leaf before tying it up for her. ‘Time for sleep.’

  Holding the parcel in one hand, she wheeled her bicycle along the alley with the other, stopping at last under a wooden staircase. She abandoned the bicycle and padded up the stairs to the room she shared with three other nurses. Pamela and Priya were out at the hospital, starting a night shift.

  ‘There’s a letter for you,’ said Asanti, the youngest of the group, pointing to Kate’s pillow. She sat cross-legged on her own bed in a long nightgown, brushing her long dark hair, and gazing critically into a little round mirror.

  Kate
picked up the envelope and saw her name and address printed on the front in neat capitals. She ripped it open.

  Dear Miss Girton,

  I do hope this address is still current. I wanted to let you know that our office recently received a request for information that may relate to you. I wonder if you might call at the Bureau one day this week and speak with me. I am here each day until six.

  Yours cordially,

  Eileen K. Sharpe

  Evacuee Enquiry Bureau

  12 Wood St

  Calcutta

  ‘Is it something serious?’ asked Asanti, seeing her expression.

  ‘I don’t know. It’s rather a shock, that’s all.’

  She sat down, reaching under the bed for the bottle of black-market whisky that stood on the floor and slopped some into a chipped mug. Sipping it, she looked thoughtfully at the letter once again. She felt the whisky spreading calm through her body.

  Someone was trying to find her. She remembered the meticulous women at the Bureau who had taken down as much information as possible for each new arrival, cross-referencing it with enquiries such as this one. In the first year she had been there many times herself, asking for news, but none came and she had almost given up.

  But now something was happening. Feeling elated, she drank deeply from the cup in her hand and read the letter once more, tearing strips from the greasy paratha that lay cooling beside her.

  51

  Calcutta, September 1945

  Early the next morning Kate made her way to work, arriving at the hospital a little before seven.

  What had once been a small teaching hospital now sprawled across several acres of dry parkland, forced by the war to grow swiftly to absorb the thousands of wounded being sent from across Asia. Dozens of rudimentary wards had been thrown up and scores of new nurses and doctors had been recruited. It was one of the biggest hospitals in India now and it made Kate feel pleasingly anonymous.

  As she leaned her bicycle against a fence, she had the sudden feeling of being watched and swung around to look across the yard, but there was no one there, no one standing under the sad-looking palms or lurking in the flowerbeds. Apart from a few sweepers in the distance, there was no one to be seen.

  She checked the rota and made her way to a distant ward, where she found Nurse Andrews coming off duty. She smiled wearily when she saw Kate and gratefully handed her the logbook.

  ‘Any trouble?’ said Kate.

  ‘Very little,’ said the nurse. ‘Private Jamieson had a nightmare so there was a bit of shouting, but he’s sleeping soundly now. Don’t wake him unless you have to.’

  ‘And the others?’

  ‘Good as gold. Some fever still, and the usual dressings that will need changing. Nothing too onerous.’

  Nurse Andrews patted her shoulder and departed, leaving Kate alone on the ward. It was silent; the men were still asleep. The only sound was the fan rotating gently overhead, pushing the warm, disinfectant-scented air sluggishly about.

  She padded between the beds, checking on each patient.

  ‘Nurse?’

  She turned and saw Private Balewa, a Sudanese infantryman, blinking sleepily at her from his pillow. He was young, with wide eyes, and his dark skin glistened with sweat.

  ‘Abdul. Are you all right?’

  ‘I feel very hot, nurse. Feverish.’

  ‘I’ll bring a cold compress for your forehead in a few moments. It’s still early, you know – try to get some more sleep.’

  ‘How long till breakfast?’

  ‘Nearly an hour.’

  When she returned he was dozing again, and though she dabbed his forehead with a damp cloth he barely stirred. She perched on the bed next to him for a moment and observed how the blanket dipped in the empty space where his missing leg should have been. He had been shot by the retreating Japanese in the last months of the war, after nearly five years of combat.

  Moving along the ward, she found that one or two of the other patients were beginning to stir and she chatted to each one, changing bandages where necessary, and tidied up their bedclothes.

  At eight o’clock a bell tinkled and an orderly appeared at the entrance to the ward, pushing a trolley laden with bowls. ‘Morning, nurse.’ He lifted off the fly screen and gently stirred the large pot of tea.

  ‘Thank you, Nikesh.’

  He pushed the trolley around slowly, limping a little, and she helped him to distribute the bowls of porridge to the men. She hesitated at Private Jamieson’s bed, but at the sound of someone’s spoon tinkling against their bowl the Yorkshireman opened his eyes blearily and struggled to sit up. A wound inflicted at the Battle of Kohima had led to gangrene, but the danger had passed with the loss only of the toes on one foot, which he saw as a victory.

  ‘I’m famished! Porridge again, is it, nurse?’

  ‘Afraid so. It’s good for you.’

  ‘So I hear. I say, is that a newspaper?’

  ‘Yesterday’s,’ she said, passing it over from the trolley. He seized it and read it from cover to cover during breakfast, balancing the bowl of porridge on his knees.

  When she came back to collect his bowl the paper was lying discarded at the foot of his bed. ‘Nothing?’

  ‘What’s that? Oh, no. No news.’ He was lying back on his pillow, staring up at the ceiling unhappily. ‘If my brother’s dead I’d rather know for certain, but there’s never anything, no hint. Mother keeps writing to me and I can’t bear it.’

  Kate picked up the paper, which was roughly folded over somewhere in the middle, and her eye was caught by a small photograph in the lower left corner. Two men in longyis were shaking hands in front of a crowd of people. In the background was a building she knew well, and of which she could have drawn a floor plan from memory: the Secretariat Building in Rangoon.

  The brief article dealt with negotiations for a transitional government in Burma. Some of the names were familiar, but she could not see the one she was looking for. Instead she peered again at the photograph, scanning the faces in the crowd. For a moment she paused. There was a woman standing on the edge of the throng, her face slightly blurred, but Kate thought she was smiling. She held a child in her arms.

  ‘Are you all right, nurse?’ Jamieson was looking at her with concern.

  ‘Oh – yes,’ she said, putting the paper back on the trolley. ‘I thought I saw someone I knew. It happens a lot these days.’

  *

  Weaving through traffic on Wood Street, Kate arrived at the Evacuee Enquiry Bureau on Friday morning. She had come from a night shift and would be on nights for the next two weeks. Despite feeling tired, she was filled with nervous energy.

  The waiting room already contained three other people, none of them talking. She pulled out the book she had brought, but she was too anxious to read and instead stared at the cover.

  The minutes ticked past, and people went in and out of the main office until, at last, her name was called. ‘Miss Girton?’

  ‘That’s me.’

  ‘Mrs Sharpe is waiting for you. Her office is down the hall.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Mrs Sharpe looked just the same as she had done three years ago, if perhaps a little more grey. ‘Miss Girton, please sit down. How nice to see you again. Are you well?’

  ‘I’m fine, thank you,’ said Kate automatically.

  ‘Still at the hospital?’

  ‘Yes, for now.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re busy so I won’t keep you,’ said Mrs Sharpe, rummaging through a stack of papers. ‘This was the letter we received that I thought might be about you.’ She handed over a letter typed on thick notepaper.

  Dear Sir,

  I write seeking information regarding the whereabouts of a Miss Kate, an English Lady who was in Burma in 1941/42. I regret I do not know her surname or any further details except that her age is about thirty. We think she arrived in India in Spring/Summer 1942. We believe she is a teacher.

  Any help you can give me with tracking
down this lady would be kindly appreciated. I am working with a number of soldiers and former prisoners of war who are in the process of being repatriated.

  Mr Shaji Acharya

  ‘But who is Mr Acharya?’ asked Kate, turning the letter over as though more information might appear.

  ‘No idea, I’m afraid. He might be an agent or solicitor – I hear there’s quite a thriving business in seeking out people who’ve been displaced in the war. The return address is a PO Box in Baranagar.’

  ‘Well, as you may recall I have been waiting to hear from a man named Edwin Clear, but he knows my surname so I don’t see how this could refer to me. And he’s not a soldier.’ She looked gloomily at the letter. ‘How many other Kates are there on your list?’

  ‘None that fit the description as well as you. A couple of Katherines but they are both older and married, an elderly teacher known as Miss Katie, a girl of fourteen who arrived in April 1942 – and you.’

  ‘I can’t imagine who else might be looking for me. And I was never a teacher.’

  ‘Would you be willing to write a brief letter?’ said Mrs Sharpe. ‘Perhaps just giving a little more information about yourself and how you left Burma? Our mysterious correspondent might then be able to shed some light on the matter, if you are indeed who he’s looking for.’

  Kate felt suddenly deflated. She had been so sure that today was the day when she might get some answers. Now it seemed that there were only questions.

  ‘Very well. I’ll do it.’ She scribbled a brief note, outlining her connection with Burma and asking, in turn, who was looking for her. It would all come to nothing, she was sure of it – but after three years it was the only lead she had.

  Outside, Kate pushed her bicycle along the pavement, lost in thought. Two young men sitting on a wall muttered as she passed and turned to look at her, dislike etched on their faces.

  ‘You are not welcome here!’

  Resentment against the British in India had been bubbling for years, but the war had given it new fervour and she could easily imagine these men marching under the nationalist flag alongside Britain’s enemies. They followed her for a while and her heart thudded as she glanced back, reluctant to give in to their intimidation by fleeing. She was used to being followed by strange men, but these two looked angry rather than lecherous.