The English Girl: A heartbreaking and beautiful World War 2 historical novel

by Sarah Mitchell

  ‘He’s been very upset,’ Viv says again. ‘Not himself at all.’ She stops. After a moment, she says very slowly, ‘Sometimes… sometimes he seems to think he’s actually on the battlefield. Or under attack. Or being shot at or captured. Other times he stays alone in the dark for hours. As if he has locked himself out of the world and can’t get in again. Or doesn’t’ – her voice chokes – ‘doesn’t want to come back in.’

  Fran thinks, I know this already. Daisy and I, we’ve known this for a long time. The time spent away from the office, the disconcerting emptiness to Toby Markham’s face on the rare occasions when he is sitting at his desk. Vivien’s revelations make perfect, horrible sense. Come to think of it, Fran wonders, where is Daisy? Why isn’t she here? She obviously knows that Alice is missing.

  Martin says, ‘We’ll find them, Mrs Markham. Don’t worry. We’ll form a search party. Take torches, blankets, and get them both back home to you in no time.’

  ‘A search party may not be a simple thing.’ The crowd turns and parts in surprise as Thomas comes forwards. ‘If they walked east there is no problem, but to the west, towards the end of the spit, all of the mines have not been cleared.’

  ‘The beach is still mined!’ Viv begins to tremble. Her eyes rove the room for reassurance. ‘Toby will go east, won’t he? He wouldn’t risk the mines.’

  Nobody replies. Fran imagines that everyone is thinking the same awful thoughts as her. That Major Markham might not be thinking rationally about the mines, or anything else.

  Thomas says, ‘I will go. I know the beach better than anyone else – the parts that are cleared, the parts where to be more careful. I can bring Alice back. I can bring them both back.’

  Viv steps forward. ‘I’m coming with you!’

  ‘No, ma’am, the beach is too dangerous.’

  ‘I’m coming with you! It’s my husband and my daughter who are out there!’

  ‘I’ll go with him, Mrs Markham.’ Martin looks from Thomas to Viv. ‘It won’t help anyone to endanger yourself.’

  Thomas shakes his head. ‘I must go alone. That way there is less chance someone will get hurt.’

  Viv fastens the top of her coat, turning up its blue collar. ‘I don’t care about being hurt!’

  There’s a short silence. Slipping his hand under Viv’s elbow, Martin murmurs to Thomas, ‘We’ll both come with you as far as the beach. And if you insist that we wait there, I can at least keep Mrs Markham company.’

  All at once the room comes to life. Someone hands Thomas a blanket. Somebody else, two lanterns. As if to make amends for their earlier accusations.

  Scrambling off the table, Fran pushes past the woman with the headscarf. She walks up to the man at the bar and whips the picture still dangling from his fingers. ‘This belongs to the prisoner. That piece of Hitler scum who’s about to risk his own life to save Alice. And I’m sure he’ll be very glad to have his photograph back again.’

  She turns to Thomas, ‘I’m coming too.’ She has no right, no reason, to join him, of course. Other than their private, unspeakable connection, which all at once feels as loud and as obvious and as shameless as a song sung at full volume. And taking one of the lanterns she slides her free hand into his.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  They take Martin’s car, passing briefly by the camp where Thomas collects a mine prod from one of the trucks. At the sight of the stake, Fran’s heart contracts. She remembers the explosion before Christmas, the burned flesh of the prisoner in the sickbay throbbing through the remains of his overalls. The reaction must show on her face because Thomas murmurs, ‘Don’t worry. I’ll be careful,’ and lays the metal prod casually at his feet as if it were a bag of shopping or a walking stick.

  They stop again at the barricade, dismantling enough of the barbed wire to allow the vehicle to pass, before Martin parks as close to the shore as he can and kills the ignition. Viv gets out immediately and begins to climb the shingle bank. Within moments she’s melting into the night, blurring out of focus, so that Fran has the fleeting sensation of watching an echo or a memory and not a living, breathing person at all.

  ‘Wait!’ Martin calls, and the shadowy figure slows.

  When they catch up, Thomas passes Viv one of the lanterns. ‘You keep this one, so I can see where I, where we’ – the correction is swift – ‘need to come back to.’ The other lantern he takes in his left hand, with the blanket over his forearm. His right hand is holding the mine prod.

  ‘Which direction did Toby take?’ Viv twists from side to side, scanning the blackness.

  Fran follows her gaze. Although the rain has stopped, the sky is still heavy with cloud. Yet a faint luminosity rises from the water, enough to shape the coast in a charcoal outline that reaches long and straight towards the east and curves gently west to the tip of the point five miles away. Both directions are bleak and empty.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  And then, and then…

  Fran screws up her eyes, points a finger. ‘Look! Over there, can you see something?’ In the distance, some way short of the point, might be a tiny, bobbing candle of light. The more she stares and tries to focus, the less confident she feels that anything is there at all.

  Viv peers into the dark, teetering on tiptoes. A second later she grabs Fran’s shoulder. ‘That must be them! Who else could it be at this time of night?’ Cupping her fingers around her mouth, she hollers, ‘Toby! Alice! Stay there! Stay, right where you are!’

  ‘They won’t be able to hear you.’ Martin peers anxiously into the gloom.

  ‘And it is better perhaps, not to shout. Not to tell them you are here, if’ – Thomas hesitates – ‘if your husband is very upset.’

  ‘Oh my God!’ Viv drops her arm. ‘But they need to stop. If the beach has mines, the further they go the more dangerous it will become.’

  ‘I think they may have stopped already.’ The flicker of flame is deceptive, dancing and dipping as if on the waves, yet the arc of land beyond the light appears to be getting no shorter.

  ‘Then why don’t they come back?’

  ‘Maybe, they can’t.’ Fran says. ‘Perhaps Major Markham doesn’t dare risk the mines again.’ There are other reasons too, of course, ones she won’t articulate to Mrs Markham. That taking himself to the loneliest, most beautiful brink of habitation she knows, may mean he has only the haziest notion of making the return journey.

  Thomas hunches his shoulders. ‘I must go.’ His eyes linger on Fran.

  ‘Be careful. Please be careful.’ She bites her lip so hard the taste of salt pricks her tongue.

  He nods.

  The gravel grinds under his weight.

  ‘Just a moment!’ Viv dips into her coat and pulls out the one-eyed dolly. ‘I forgot to give you this.’ She stuffs the toy in Thomas’s pocket. ‘For Alice,’ she adds unnecessarily, ‘when you find them.’ He turns to leave, but Viv keeps hold of his sleeve. ‘Tell Toby that we’ll find another doctor. A good one. And tell him’ – her voice waivers, her fingers pluck the wool of his coat – ‘tell him, I’m sorry. That I’m staying here. Always.’

  Thomas nods, his expression impassive. Fran glances at Martin, who responds with the merest shake of his head.

  Before long, Thomas is lost to the dusk and all Fran can see is the golden orb of the lantern moving gradually further away. Every so often the light stops. She imagines him prodding the ground with the probe, the spike slicing the sand, the explosives skulking inches beneath, and shivers.

  ‘Should I shout again, do you think? In case Alice can hear me. They say sound travels over water. At least if I call them, Alice will know that I’m here.’ Viv has been crouching on the stones. She gets up now, paces a little towards the sea before spinning round and facing them.

  ‘I would try to be patient,’ Martin says. ‘I know it must be hard—’

  Suddenly Viv’s face cracks open. ‘This is all my fault!’ She flings her arm over her mouth as if about to vomit.

  Martin
takes a step forward. ‘Mrs Markham, this isn’t your fault.’

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘You mustn’t blame—’

  ‘It is my fault.’ Her voice is bursting with emotion. ‘This is all my fault. What my husband saw, when he got to the office… It was my fault, I tell you! My fault!’

  ‘Why? What did he see?’ Martin sounds dazed.

  Viv seems to choke on air. Helplessly she shakes her head, as if to sweep away the memory. Eventually, she whispers. ‘He saw a letter to me he should never have seen. A letter that should never have been written. A letter that’ – she hesitates – ‘that had been put on his desk amongst the papers he had to sign. It was still lying there for anyone to read when I got to his office.’ Then, she says in a louder, flatter voice, ‘Toby thinks I’m leaving him for someone else and going to America. He’s bound to assume that Alice will go with me. That he’ll have no one left!’

  Daisy was right, Fran thinks with astonishment. Vivien Markham was having an affair. Yet for some reason it’s hard to imagine. She seems too resilient to need transient admirers or succumb to the charms of an American. Then another, more horrible, possibility strikes her. Might Daisy have stolen one of Vivien Markham’s letters? If she did, she had the perfect opportunity to slip it into the repatriation papers while Fran was out of the office.

  ‘You must think I’m a terrible wife. And a terrible mother,’ Viv continues. ‘A terrible person, in fact! I had an affair with an American soldier while my husband was away fighting, risking his life and being terrified out of his mind. It hardly gets worse, does it? But I loved the American. I was so dreadfully in love with him that every second I wasn’t with him hurt. As if I was starving, and he could stop me from dying of hunger.’

  The air is raw and clean from the earlier rain. The blast of the lantern makes a ghost of Viv’s face while behind her head the sky swirls purple and black over the water. Fran swallows. The confession resonates so deeply she is almost seduced into getting up herself and declaring her own love for Thomas. Except, Fran realises, she doesn’t feel contrite. Or apologetic. Or actually want forgiveness from anyone.

  ‘He didn’t love me, of course,’ Viv continues. ‘The American. Although his letters were full of fancy words and promises, it turns out he had a wife and children waiting for him in Kentucky. A boy and a child about the same age as Alice. What a fool I was! And now… now I’m going to pay with the lives of my husband and daughter!’ Her chest judders.

  ‘Don’t say that!’ Martin shifts awkwardly on the stones. ‘Thomas will bring them back safely, I’m sure of it.’ He takes another step towards Viv, then seems to think better of it. Instead he adds quietly, ‘The war made liars out of a lot of people, but we have our whole lives ahead to put things right.’

  Viv’s mouth twists. ‘It’s rather ironic, don’t you think, that the fate of my family depends on the bravery of a German prisoner?’

  After a moment she drifts back towards them. Putting down the lamp, she sinks onto the pebbles with her knees drawn up to her chin. Fran squats the other side of the light. She’s still wondering what Martin meant by his last remark as he comes to sit beside her. Silently they all stare at the hulking crescent of the coastline, the stuttering twinkle just short of the point and the flag-like flame inching in tiny increments towards it. Their own lantern hisses. Eventually, Fran drops her head onto her knees and closes her eyes. The shingle shifts and Martin moves a little closer. She guesses he is deliberating whether to put his arm around her shoulders, and part of her wishes that he would. The solidity of his chest would be a wall to lean against.

  Seconds pass, minutes, before time slips free of any kind of measure. The soft spit and sputter of the lamp is hypnotic. Fran drifts in and out of dreams that skim her consciousness, pulling her beneath the surface one moment and jolting her awake the next with images of fire and explosions and bloody gunshot wounds. Even the temperature seems to fluctuate. One moment the cold is seeping through her bones like water in sand. The next, she feels almost hot from churning panic and alarm.

  ‘No!’

  Viv’s gasp rouses Fran in an instant. ‘What is it? What’s happened?’

  ‘The light, Toby’s light has disappeared!’

  Fran screws up her eyes. A hazy dance of one, not two, stars, glimmers in the west. Her throat constricts. ‘How do you know Toby’s lamp has gone out? It might be the one that Thomas is carrying.’

  ‘It’s Toby’s lamp. I’m sure of it. Something awful has happened!’

  ‘Most likely the gas has run out. I expect it’s nothing more than that.’ Martin’s tone is reassuring. ‘And Thomas looked to be so close to him it was impossible to tell whose light was whose, anyway. It’s nothing to worry about, Mrs Markham—’

  The crack of a rifle rips across the water.

  Viv screams.

  ‘Oh my God.’ Scrabbling to her feet, she stumbles to the edge of the sea. ‘Alice! Alice, my darling! Toby!’

  Fran looks at Martin. His horrified expression mirrors her terror. Together they hurry to Viv, who is bent double at the water’s edge, arms wrapped around her waist as if she’s breaking in two. ‘He’s shot himself, hasn’t he? Toby has shot himself!’ Her voice is directed to the waves that are almost lapping the toe of her boots.

  ‘You mustn’t jump to conclusions.’

  ‘Or Alice! Perhaps he shot Alice to stop me taking her away!’

  ‘Surely he wouldn’t do that. Not her own father.’ The words are sticky and slow in Fran’s mouth. She can still hear the boom of the gun echoing in her ears. And with it fear so acute the sensation feels like she already knows Thomas is the one who was shot. When Toby saw someone approach, wouldn’t he have believed he was on the battlefield again, being attacked? The conclusion seems so obvious the force of the logic shakes the whole of her body.

  ‘I think we should sit down and try to keep warm. There’s nothing else we can do.’ Fran can tell Martin is trying to sound calm as he steers Viv back up the beach, but his complexion gleams deathly white.

  All at once Viv digs in her heels and flings out a hand. ‘Look, it’s moving! The lamp is moving closer!’ Fran follows Viv’s finger. To begin with she can’t tell one way or the other. Eventually, as her eyes begin to smart, the glow seems to shift a little.

  ‘I think you’re right,’ she says. And for a while they all stare mesmerised until the progress of the solitary light is undeniable.

  ‘Let’s sit down,’ Martin says again, but none of them do. Instead, after a while Viv fetches their own lamp and bears it aloft, as high as she can reach. When her arm begins to tire, Martin takes over, and after him Fran. All of them taking turns to illuminate the way home to whoever is picking their path so slowly around the headland.

  Nobody mentions the gunshot. As her muscles ache with the effort of holding up the lantern, Fran finds herself praying. Please, she begs silently, let Thomas come back with Alice. It comes as a shock she’s able to barter away the life of Major Markham so willingly. They must all be making their private pacts of some kind, she supposes, and wonders with a lurch what Martin is hoping for. Would a part of him like Thomas to be lying dead or hideously injured? She has as good as told him that, if not for Thomas, she would marry him. She glances sideways, but Martin seems entirely focused on the sweep of the spit, his face contorted with concentration.

  Viv sees the figure first. A drag on her coat tails makes Fran look down. Vivien’s fingers are clutching at the fabric as if she were hanging to a life raft. Wordlessly, she tugs and points. Peering into the gloom, Fran sees that a person is materialising some way in front of them. Almost imperceptibly the outline of a head and torso are beginning to form behind the bobbing glow of yellow.

  ‘Who is it? Can you see who it is?’ Viv bursts out.

  Martin says carefully, ‘I can’t tell, not from this distance.’

  Although Fran says nothing, she lets out a quiet breath. She can recognise the posture of Thomas already, the str
ong square shoulders hunched very slightly, and the steady, even gait, even though there’s something unusual about his stance, the bulk and shape of his silhouette. Relief, sweet like rainwater, soaks into her soul. She waits until she’s so certain it’s him that she fancies the blue of his eyes are piercing her through the dark.

  She turns to Viv. ‘I think…’ she starts.

  Viv interrupts. ‘It’s Thomas! It’s definitely Thomas! He’s carrying Alice. Is she hurt? And where’s Toby? I can’t see Toby! Oh my God, where’s Toby?’ She plunges forwards.

  Martin grabs her upper arm. ‘Just a few minutes more. The mines…’

  Viv waits no more than a couple of seconds before wrenching free of Martin’s grip and racing up the beach.

  When Fran and Martin catch up, Thomas is already lowering the blanket-wrapped bundle of Alice onto the sand. ‘I think she is fine,’ he is saying. ‘A little frightened, a little cold and a little tired, that is all.’ He is worn out too, Fran sees. As he steps away from Alice his legs almost buckle. Fran is desperate to ask about Toby but doesn’t know how she can in front of Alice. Besides, the question must belong to Viv, who is kneeling on the wet shingle hugging Alice tight against her chest.

  ‘Darling, it’s all right. Everything is all right.’ Viv murmurs repeatedly into the silver cloud of Alice’s hair. Eventually she lifts her gaze and looks at Thomas, her face filled with torment. ‘Toby?’ she mouths. The sight of Vivien hunched on the ground, the sound of Toby’s name makes Fran hear the terrible blast all over again as if there might have been a second shot, a new bullet.

  Before Thomas can reply, Fran watches Viv’s expression freeze. Over the top of Alice’s head her attention is fixed on the middle distance, while the palm that was rubbing her daughter’s back falls still. Fran follows the path of her eyes.

  Another figure, stooped and stumbling, is making his way along the shoreline. Despite his painfully slow progress, it’s clear he is aiming for the pool of torchlight on the beach, the small, huddled knot of people that contains his wife and daughter.