‘I’d put a bet on that,’ said Alex. ‘But this summer ought to see the end. It can’t go on much longer, after all. There won’t be anybody left to fight, and men are going to mutiny if they have to spend another winter up to their necks in slime.’
‘I don’t know how you stand it.’ Rose didn’t want to think about what he was going back to, and she didn’t want him to think about it either, so she kissed him, then she tickled him until he caught her wrists and forced her back against the pillows.
‘Alex,’ she continued, ‘I knew there was something strange about you. I’ve just realised what. You don’t smell of alcohol today.’
‘I’m on the wagon.’ Alex wound his fingers in her hair. ‘I used to drink because it gave me courage, even though it made me careless, too. I would go on a bombing raid and make lots of mistakes, but I would somehow muddle through. But now I want to stay alive.’
‘You mind you do,’ said Rose. ‘I couldn’t bear it if you died.’
‘I won’t die, I promise. But I don’t know what we’re going to do when this is over.’ Rose saw Alex’s eyes grow dark with longing. ‘Chloe’s given me no grounds for a divorce. Other men will want to marry you, so I may have to let you go.’
‘I don’t want to go!’
‘But Rose, your reputation, your good name–’
‘What good name? Everyone in Dorset thinks I must be Daisy’s mother, that I’ll go with anyone. It doesn’t matter. The only thing I care about is you, and if you die–’
‘I told you, I’m not going to die. They’ve tried to kill me – twice they’ve even buried me, but I came out alive.’
‘You might still be hurt, and you know some lives aren’t worth living.’ Rose looked up at Alex anxiously. ‘We’re being wicked, and we’ll be made to pay.’
‘Who is going to punish us?’ asked Alex. ‘Rose, you’re spoiling Christmas.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘So you should be.’ Alex groped across the bed until he found his jacket. ‘I didn’t get a chance to go to Bond Street, but I’ve got you something.’
Rose’s eyes lit up. ‘I thought you were joking!’
‘You might hate it and think it’s very old-fashioned, but I think it’s pretty.’ Alex handed Rose a velvet box. ‘It was my mother’s.’
‘It’s beautiful.’ Rose took the silver locket from its nest. ‘But are you sure you want to give it to me?’
‘Yes, Rose, I’m sure.’ Alex clipped the locket round her neck.
‘I don’t have anything for you,’ said Rose.
‘No?’ Alex smiled. ‘Rose, I thought you’d given me your heart?’
Chapter Twelve
As he limped along the narrow alley, Nathan stopped occasionally to listen for stealthy footsteps following him.
But there was no sound. He reached the dingy house at the end, and then tapped lightly on the peeling door. ‘Phoebe?’ he whispered. ‘Open up, it’s me.’
Nothing broke the silence.
‘Phoebe!’ Nathan rapped more urgently. ‘Come on, it’s freezing out here in the street!’
‘You got no bloody patience.’ As the door creaked open, Nathan saw a wraith with wild, parti-coloured hair and staring, troubled eyes. ‘Come in, then,’ it said sharply, grabbing his cuff and dragging him inside. ‘I ’ope nobody followed you?’
‘They didn’t, I made sure of that.’
‘You got some stuff for me?’
‘Yes, but what you need is food, not drugs. Phoebe, when did you last sleep?’
‘I can’t sleep, you know that.’
‘If you don’t sleep, you’ll die.’
‘It’ll be a merciful release.’
‘I’ve brought you some cholent.’ Nathan put the bowl down on the table. ‘God, it’s cold in here!’
‘I don’t feel it.’ Phoebe grimaced. ‘But if you’re staying, you could try to start a fire. Them coals is damp, the rain comes down the chimney. But I can’t ask Morrie for no more. He’s already takin’ far too many risks for me.’
Fishing in his pocket, Nathan found a box of matches. He tore up the newspaper in which Mrs Rosenheim had wrapped the bowl of cholent, then he stuffed it down between the coals.
He struck a lucifer, knelt to blow gently on the flames, and prayed. The paper flared and, after he’d added a few dry sticks of wood, the damp coals kindled. Soon, there was a blaze.
Nathan hadn’t meant to lumber Morrie with this burden. But three days after Rose had gone to Dorset, taking Phoebe’s baby, Phoebe came back to the shop. Frozen, scared and starving, she’d begged them to hide her from Daniel and his friends.
Nathan knew he couldn’t ask his mother to take Phoebe in. After the raid, she’d raved and gibbered like a lunatic. Nathan’s brothers were dead, her home was ruined. She was half-crazed with grief and fear.
But Morrie Feinman, stage-door keeper at the Haggerston Palace Music Hall, lived in a dilapidated ruin of a house at the far end of a stinking alley where no one ever went.
Everybody knew he hated women. He hated Daniel too and dared to say as much in public, calling him a villain to his face. Nathan supposed he got away with it because their mothers had been related.
‘I’ll pay you seven shillings a week,’ said Nathan.
‘You’re a fool,’ said Morrie.
‘If you say so.’ Nathan had struggled grimly to his feet. ‘I’ll look elsewhere.’
‘Don’t be so hasty, boy. I never said I wouldn’t help you and your pretty shiksa.’ Morrie had bared his blackened stumps of teeth and held out one gnarled hand. ‘A fortnight in advance.’
‘You won’t breathe a word to anybody?’
‘You think I’m crazy?’ Morrie grinned again. ‘I don’t want her filthy goyisch blood on my clean floor.’
‘How is Morrie treating you?’ asked Nathan, as he put the dish upon the trivet.
‘I ’ardly ever sees him.’ Phoebe shivered, rubbed her arms and then ran shaking fingers through her matted, straw-like hair. ‘You ’eard from Maria?’
‘No, not a thing,’ said Nathan. ‘But you could write to her yourself.’
‘I can’t, I’m too ashamed. Anyway, it’s better if she don’t know where I’ve gone. I don’t suppose she’ll want to see me, not now I’ve disgraced meself.’
‘You know Maria’s not like that. I think you ought–’
‘Well, I ain’t goin’ to bloody write, an’ that’s the end of it!’
‘Calm down, Phoebe.’ Nathan stirred the cholent with a blackened, buckled spoon. The appetising smell of peas and barley filled the fusty room.
‘Come over here and eat,’ urged Nathan gently. ‘You need to get your strength back.’
‘Do I?’ Phoebe looked at him with sad, dull eyes. ‘So tell me why?’
‘You’re young, you’re beautiful. You have your life ahead of you.’ Nathan smiled, and stirred the food again. ‘Come and sit here by the fire, and let me give you some of this cholent. It’s my mother’s speciality. It keeps out the cold.’
Although it was the coldest, wettest January on record, Rose was never cold. Although she was working double shifts, and sometimes didn’t go to bed for three days in succession, merely dozing with her feet up on the big, black stoves that warmed the wards, she was never tired.
Earlier that month, there’d been a gas attack on British trenches to the north of Auchonville, and a ward was allocated to the ten worst cases. Though Rose was seeing terrible, distressing things, and was filled with pity for the choking, gasping, dying men for whom she could do nothing but try to ease their suffering as their lungs dissolved and were coughed up in blood-stained gobbets, she could not be sad.
It was as if she walked with angels, for nothing could upset her, nothing could pierce the armour that was light as thistledown, and which she had worn since that first day she’d realised she was loved.
Their visits to hotels were getting fewer for, as the days were lengthening, the build up of supplies and ammunition for
the great attack meant Alex was kept busy. Miles and miles more trenches spread tentacles across the ruined countryside. Ammunition dumps proliferated, and riding schools and training camps sprang up where there had once been fields.
At the beginning of a dull, damp February, Alex caught a cold that turned into a raging fever. He spent a week in hospital, then was given a few days leave and told to get his strength back before returning to his company.
Rose was delighted when he wrote to tell her he was staying at a guest house near Harfoix, and had asked the owner if his femme could come and stay.
‘You’re as big a liar as me,’ said Rose, who had for once arranged legitimate leave.
‘I didn’t lie, I said you were my femme.’
‘Your wife – or woman.’ Rose was somehow disappointed that the word meant both, that it had not been necessary to lie. ‘I couldn’t get a ring,’ she added. ‘So Madame Minot will suspect I’m not your wife.’
‘As if it matters.’ Alex had been lying on his back staring at the cracks which spread across the dirty ceiling. Now he rolled on to his side and took Rose in his arms. ‘She’ll get her rotten money, and that’s all she cares about. Rose, if I scarpered, I wonder if they’d catch me?’
‘Oh, Alex, you’re not thinking of deserting?’
‘Of course not, I’d be shot. But if I thought I’d get away with it, perhaps I’d walk and keep on walking.’
‘Why?’ asked Rose, ready to sympathise about the cold and filth and squalor, about the threat of death and injury.
‘Because it’s all so pointless,’ muttered Alex. ‘We don’t have enough equipment, ammunition, arms – enough of anything.’
‘But all those ammunition dumps–’
‘For every one of ours, the Germans have a hundred.’
‘You’re telling me you’re afraid?’
‘I’m terrified.’ Alex looked at Rose. ‘I didn’t use to be. I thought the men who shirked and cried were cowards, who should be put against the wall. But that was in another life, before I dared to hope. Rose, when I had no hope, I had no fear.’
‘I know it must be horrible.’ Rose took his hand and stroked the scarred, bruised knuckles. ‘I know I would be scared.’
‘Rose, you don’t understand. I’m not exactly scared – most of the time I just get on with it. Sometimes I enjoy it.’
‘Do you?’
‘Yes, because it’s all a game, and I’m quite good at it. But soldiers are supposed to fight, and what we’re doing these days isn’t fighting.’
‘What is it, then?’
‘We’re murdering each other, and it’s not the same. Rose, I know I shall get hurt again. One day it will be my turn to die. Once, I accepted it, but now, I want my life!’
‘I know.’ Rose didn’t know what else to say. ‘Alex, do you hate the Germans?’
‘Only when they pinch our food.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘They’re partial to our bully beef, and they’re always mounting raids to steal from our supplies. But the poor sods are stuck in the same filthy holes as us, wondering what their idiot generals are planning next, and wanting to go home.
‘They make more effort in their trenches, though. One we captured a few weeks ago had oak-panelled dugouts, with armchairs and a carpet on the floor. It was a real home from home.’
‘So did you occupy it?’
‘No, we bombed it.’ Alex’s grin was humourless. ‘We can’t have our chaps getting soft.’
‘Miss Courtenay?’ Rose was already fifteen minutes late, and as she panted down the corridor, trying her apron strings and breathing hard, the matron came out of her office. ‘I know you’re due on Harley Ward, but this won’t take a minute, so will you step inside?’
Rose suddenly felt sick. She’d been found out. Someone had seen her on a night time ramble or sitting with Alex in a village square, and now she was about to be sent home.
But the matron didn’t look annoyed. She smiled and motioned Rose towards an easy chair. ‘You’re happy here, Miss Courtenay?’ she asked pleasantly.
‘Yes, of course,’ said Rose.
‘You were on the ambulance trains when you first came to France?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘It seems they want you back.’
The matron glanced down at the letter lying on her desk. ‘I shall be extremely sad to lose you. I’ve noticed you often volunteer for extra shifts, and I must admit I’ve seldom known such a devoted, selfless worker. But you’ll be seeing old friends, and I’m sure you’ll soon settle down again.’
Rose stared at the matron, horrified. ‘Why do they want me?’ she cried.
‘I believe a certain Staff Nurse Gower asked for you.’
‘I see.’ Rose cursed Maria. ‘Do I have to go?’
‘Yes, I’m afraid you do.’ The matron spread her hands. ‘I know you’ve got on splendidly with us, and you’re very popular with all the staff and men. But the trains need nurses, and you have the necessary skills. Miss Courtenay, you might be a volunteer, but you’re an army nurse. So if the army sends for you, you go.’
‘God, it’s so unfair!’ wailed Rose. ‘Why don’t I have any say? Matron said how well I’d got on here!’
‘It will be exciting.’ Elsie put her arm round Rose’s shoulders. ‘Why don’t you want to go?’
‘Elsie, you know why!’
‘He might get posted to a different sector.’ Elsie offered Rose her handkerchief and said to have a good, hard blow. ‘The army’s always moving them around. How long has he been near Auchonville?’
‘Only since last autumn.’
‘Then it’s time he moved again.’
‘Elsie, you’re so hard!’
‘Rose, I’m realistic.’ Elsie smiled in sympathy. ‘I’m going to miss you terribly,’ she added ruefully. ‘I’m not cut out to be a nurse, I don’t have your strength and stamina, but you’ve pulled me through. I’ll never get Norah Troy to do my shifts.’
‘You’ll be all right,’ sniffed Rose. ‘But Elsie, why did you decide to be a nurse?’
‘My father’s a lieutenant-colonel. My brothers are in Flanders, they’re both in the front line. My fiancé’s in the army, too. I couldn’t sit at home in Kent and knit.’
‘It will be an opportunity. You’ll be travelling round again, you’ll see a bit of France.’
When Alex took this philosophical attitude as well, Rose felt the first stirrings of unease, as if her stomach were full of snakes. They were lying in bed in Madame Minot’s sordid guest house, Rose feared for the last time. She looked at Alex, although she knew his face as well or even better than her own.
Since autumn, he had changed. The sullen, sulky boy had disappeared, and although he sometimes scowled or grimaced, he was more often happy and contented.
Or was he complacent?
He had Rose where he wanted her, he knew how much she loved him, so would he move on to some other challenge now? There were scores and scores of pretty nurses, and they would all like Alex, all be enchanted by his lovely smile and fathomless dark eyes.
‘I don’t want to leave you.’ There, she’d said it and he could scoff and grin.
‘I don’t want you to go. But I’ll write every day.’
‘It won’t be the same.’
‘Of course it won’t.’ He shrugged, and Rose thought bitterly that his awful childhood must have made him stoical – had taught him to accept, not to rebel. ‘When I get some leave, I’ll come and see you.’
‘I won’t be able to get away, because those trains are prisons. We live on them, and we’re not allowed to leave unless we go in pairs. I’d never be able to slip away and slip back on again – the damned thing would move off and leave me stranded.’
‘We’ll find a way,’ said Alex.
‘You might find someone else.’ Rose felt the tears well up behind her eyes and threaten to spill over. ‘I sometimes think all this must be a dream.’
‘Then we’re bo
th asleep,’ said Alex, softly. ‘Rose, there’ll never be anyone but you, and so you must be careful. I don’t want to hear about you falling off a foot-board, or getting squashed between two moving trains.’
‘I’ll be careful. Alex?’
‘Yes?’
‘I – I’ll write to you.’
‘I know you will, and I’ll write back. Rose, what’s the matter?’
‘Nothing.’ Rose reached for her clothes. ‘I must be going. Elsie can’t manage by herself and Norah’s sick again, so I’m on shift at eight.’
‘Rose!’ The train was waiting at Amiens, and Maria had obviously been looking out for her, for now she hopped down nimbly. ‘It’s wonderful to see you! How did you get here? By rail from Belancourt, or did you find a lift?’
‘I got a lift.’ Rose blinked back the tears that were threatening to spill over. As she’d watched Alex drive away in the battered vehicle that belonged to his CO, she’d thought her heart would break in little pieces.
‘Come on board, I’ll show you round.’ Maria was relaxed and cheerful, in the highest spirits. ‘This is the best ambulance train we’ve got,’ she went on, proudly. ‘You can’t imagine how much things have changed! We’ve got proper bunks for all the men, the nurses have a bedroom each. The kitchen is all modern, and we’ve got ample room to stow supplies, so we’re not always falling over boxes.
‘We leave at ten o’clock tonight. I think we’re going north. There hasn’t been a battle, but I believe they’re taking lots of punishment up there.’
‘I see,’ said Rose, who didn’t care where she went.
‘Rose?’ Maria finally noticed she was quiet. ‘You don’t have much to say for yourself.’
‘I’m tired.’
‘Poor Rose. Well, Judith and Fiona will soon be back from town, and then we’ll have some supper. You’ll like them, Judith is a scream, she can mimic anybody. You should hear her take off Sister Glossop! Rose, what is the matter?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Then why are you so gloomy?’ Maria looked at Rose and frowned. ‘It – it isn’t Phoebe?’
‘It’s not Phoebe.’
‘Then who is it – a man?’
The Silver Locket (Choc Lit) Page 15