Rose nodded miserably.
‘There are problems?’
‘Yes.’
‘He’s married?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you’re fond of him?’
‘It’s more than that, Maria.’ Rose began to cry. ‘I l-love him more than anything!’
‘Then I hope you’re being very careful,’ said Maria.
‘I’ve been reckless from the start. But it doesn’t matter, because I want his child.’
‘Oh, Rose!’ Maria shook her head. ‘What does he say about it?’
‘I haven’t told him yet.’
‘You idiot, he’ll have to know! You can’t cope on your own, and you–’
There was a clatter of boots and suddenly two bright-eyed nurses jumped on to the running board outside the kitchen window. They started making faces through the glass.
‘You got that kettle on, Maria?’ mouthed a pretty redhead.
‘You better have!’ went on a tall brunette. ‘I’m as dry as the Sahara desert, and my flipping feet are killing me!’
Alex was trying to stick a plaster on a brand new gash on his right hand when Michael Easton came into the dugout, looking as if he’d eaten bitter aloes.
‘Sir?’ he muttered, and Alex could see how much it cost the baronet’s heir to call the bastard sir, ‘Major Gethyn says he’d like an urgent word with you.’
‘Alex, my dear fellow, you’re our man for night patrols.’ The major was scowling at a sheet of orders. ‘Those machine gun placements opposite – awful nuisance, doing frightful damage to morale. We need you and your chaps to take them out.’
‘This evening, sir?’ asked Alex, who’d meant to write to Rose, whom he was missing like a body part – which he supposed was not surprising, since she’d made off with his heart and soul.
‘If it’s not too bright.’ The major sniffed. ‘I know there’s a full moon, but the forecast reckons there’ll be cloud. I leave it up to you, but don’t wait until the cows come home. I want those buggers sorted out.’
After stand to arms, the cloud banked up. Alex thought he might as well go out, and so he chose a sergeant and another officer, told them to bring as many grenades and bombs as they could carry, then set off.
The gunners weren’t exactly opposite. Finding a position from which they could lob their bombs, then hope to make it back to the British lines, involved a half mile slither across a stinking swamp, cutting through a section of the wire, then skulking past some bombed-out houses, which Alex knew might well be occupied by German snipers.
‘Almost there, sir,’ Sergeant Norris murmured, as they picked their way in freezing darkness past a house, then crouched behind a garden wall.
‘Sergeant, you stay here,’ said Alex. He had skirted round the wall and could now see their target. ‘David, we’ll go in and get them panicking. Norris, when you hear the first explosions, throw the heavy ones for all you’re worth, then get off home to bed.’
Leaving the sergeant and the bombs, Alex and Lieutenant Richardson slithered on their stomachs through the mud, grenades hung around their waists and slung on bandoliers from their shoulders.
They got so close that they could hear the Germans talking. Alex turned to his companion, signalled he should wait, and then inched forward, pulling out the pin of a grenade.
As he threw it, orange fire lit the night behind him. He turned to see a sheet of flame enveloping Lieutenant Richardson, and Sergeant Norris running like a crab towards the stricken officer. Machine gun bullets threw up sprays of mud and splintered ice.
‘Get the bombs off him!’ Alex rolled Lieutenant Richardson in the stinking mire, pulling at his belt and tugging at his bandoliers, trying to get them off before the grenades he carried all exploded.
David Richardson was badly burned. His clothes were charred black shreds, his hair was gone, and strips of skin hung from his back and face.
Alex dragged his own jacket off and wrapped it round the shivering lieutenant. ‘David, I’ll be back,’ he promised. ‘Come on, Sergeant Norris. We’re going to blow those sods back to their mothers in Berlin.’
Alex hadn’t written for three whole weeks, and now Rose feared the worst. She’d offered God all sorts of deals. Alex could have found another woman, could have even had some sort of grand reunion with Chloe, if he wasn’t wounded, wasn’t dead.
Then, one morning, she had a premonition of disaster. ‘It’s all so pointless,’ he had muttered. When she’d asked if he was frightened, he had said – what had he said? She could not remember.
But if he’d climbed out of a trench one day, walked off and kept on walking, when they caught him he’d be shot.
A fortnight later, she finally had some post. She realised he must have written several dozen letters, but they’d all gone astray. She didn’t recognise the writing on the bulky packet, but supposed it was some army clerk’s. So where was he, in hospital? Or in some army prison and awaiting execution?
It was even worse than that.
The cutting was from The Times. ‘Captain Alexander Stephen Denham, 3rd Battalion, Royal Dorset Regiment, died of wounds on February 26,’ she read.
Rose stared down at the letters. ‘I’ll probably get some leave next week,’ he’d written on one he hadn’t finished, ‘so I’ll get a lift to Amiens and hope I can see you.’
Henry Denham wrote that he’d received all Alex’s things, and found Rose’s letters in his pack. ‘I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings,’ he continued. ‘I didn’t know you and Alex were so close. My dear, please come and visit me when you are back in England. I’d like to give you some of my boy’s things.’
Henry had sent her all the letters she had written to Alex. Creased and folded and refolded, stained with damp and tattered at the corners, read and read again, they all smelled of dirt and mould and blood.
When Maria came to look for her, Rose was in so much pain she couldn’t speak. She couldn’t hear, she couldn’t see, for a mist has risen and she couldn’t grope her way out of the shrouding horror.
‘Let’s get you to bed.’ Rose was aware of somebody undressing her, of tying back her hair, of tucking her between the sheets. Somebody was giving her a drink of something bitter, making her swallow small, reluctant sips.
When she woke again, Maria was sitting on her bed. The train was due to leave at six, and Rose knew she couldn’t stay there, taking up a nurse’s precious quarters. If she couldn’t function, she would have to let them find someone to take her place.
What would she do then? How would she survive the night, all alone and feeling as if she’d been stabbed through the heart?
‘Rose?’ Maria had brought black coffee. ‘I’ve arranged for you to spend the night in Rouen.’
‘I’m staying here with you.’
‘Rose, you’re in no fit state–’
‘Don’t you understand, I need to work!’ Rose met Maria’s startled gaze. ‘It’s either that or lose my mind.’
Rose got up and dressed, plaited her long, dark hair and twisted it into a chignon, and then she went on duty with the rest.
‘I’m not the only one,’ she told herself, as she moved on down the rocking train, charging carrel tubes, adjusting splints, applying poultices and fomentations.
As she cut off muddied, bloodied uniforms with enormous shears, as she helped the doctor clean then stitch a jagged wound or staunch a flow of blood, she smiled and soothed and murmured words of comfort.
Cheerful, diligent, efficient, that night someone else was occupying Rose’s body. She was in another place and in another time, and far away.
Chapter Thirteen
‘You’re only one of thousands,’ Rose told herself repeatedly, as she tried to batten down the pain. ‘Every minute of every day, some poor woman gets a telegram. They loved their men as much as you loved him.’
‘They couldn’t have done,’ her other self replied.
She worked every shift she could, but sometimes she was forced to
take some rest. Then, as she lay sleepless, the bad thoughts came crowding in.
‘It’s your fault he’s dead,’ they whispered. ‘You knew it was wrong, and that you’d both be punished. You killed Alex Denham as surely as if you’d stabbed him through the heart. Why don’t you kill yourself, and make an end of it?’
But she knew she couldn’t kill herself. If she did, she’d be a murderess, as well as all the other awful things. This new life inside her was her inheritance, her last precious gift from him and, although she didn’t know how she’d cope alone and friendless, she was determined she would find a way.
She thought of Alex’s mother, who had done her blundering best for him. But she would not rely on men. She’d go back to England soon, and find herself a job. She’d say she was a widow. She would have the baby, and then work for them both. They would be a little family.
The trains went back and forth, thundering through the night at breakneck speed towards another scene from hell, then trundling slowly back to bases in the towns or on the coast with yet more loads of pain and misery.
Rose started to get heartburn, backache, morning sickness that went on all day. The sweet, rotting smell of wounds made her feel nauseous, and often she would have to go and vomit secretly in buckets already full of blood-stained dressings.
The buttons on her dress began to strain to meet around her middle, her breasts were swollen and her ankles puffy, so her boots were much too tight.
One March evening, as they sped east towards another casualty clearing station to collect another crisis load, Maria found her sitting in the kitchen, staring through the glass at the black night.
‘Rose?’ Maria touched her shoulder. ‘Sister Glossop’s just been told there’s been a raid near Albert. There are lots of casualties, so we’ll be very busy coming back. I think you ought to go to bed.’
‘Why?’ asked Rose.
‘If you don’t rest, you’re going to have a breakdown.’
‘Who would care?’
‘Rose, you’re my friend, and I would care!’ Maria sat down too. ‘But I care about the men, as well. You’re exhausted, and exhausted people make mistakes. You won’t notice someone’s bleeding, that a carrel tube is blocked. You’ll make errors that will cost men’s lives.’
Maria took Rose’s cold hands and rubbed warmth into them. ‘Do you still feel sick?’ she asked.
‘A bit, but that’s the train.’
‘When will it begin to show?’
‘It won’t,’ said Rose. She bit her lip and looked away. She was determined not to cry. ‘I got the curse this morning, and I’ve been bleeding like a pig all day. Maria, I’ve lost everything.’
‘Oh, sweetheart!’ cried Maria.
‘I know you’re going to say it’s for the best.’
‘I wouldn’t be so cruel.’ Maria put her arm round Rose’s shoulders. ‘I’ll help you get through this, I promise. You did so much for Phoebe.’
‘Have you heard from Phoebe?’
‘No.’ Maria shrugged. ‘I’ve written care of Mrs Rosenheim, but there’s no news, they don’t know where she’s gone, if she’s alive or dead. Rose, do you write to Mrs Hobson?
‘Yes, and she wrote back last week. Daisy’s doing well. I meant to tell you.’ Rose looked at Maria with haunted eyes. ‘Do you think I’m useless, then? Should I go back to England?’
‘No, but you should try to rest, and remember everyone needs sleep. You’re a splendid nurse. You work so hard, you’re always kind and gentle with the men, and Sister Glossop thinks the world of you.’
‘I’m a whore. A wicked, worthless liar. A stupid, greedy harlot who took someone else’s man.’
Nathan was beginning to think there must be someone looking after him. Otherwise he wouldn’t have managed to crawl the length of this foul, reeking alley.
But there was no God. If there were, he wouldn’t let scum like Hanson walk the earth, much less do the things that Hanson’s friends had done tonight.
He didn’t dare go home. His mother would have a heart attack if she saw him in this state, bruised and bleeding with a broken nose, split lips and half his teeth knocked out.
He knew he must be dripping blood and leaving a thin trail of it along the grimy pavements. After the men had finished kicking him, a dog ran up to lick his bleeding face. As he crawled painfully away, it followed him down the street. As he groped his way along the alley, rats came from their holes to look at him.
He kept going, inching forward on his knees along the bumpy cobbles, and finally he reached the house where Phoebe was in hiding. He tapped with bleeding knuckles on the door.
Phoebe gasped in horror when she saw him. ‘It’s all right,’ he managed to croak, before collapsing like a sack of offal on the threshold. ‘No one followed me.’
She dragged him in and laid him on the couch. Then she washed his face, clucking in dismay as all the damage was revealed. ‘I think your nose is broken,’ she began, and winced as much as he did as she dabbed it with a sponge.
‘I dare say you’re right.’ He could feel broken bone and gristle loose inside the jelly of his face. ‘It’s a shame I couldn’t find my teeth. I’ve heard that if you stick them back in time, they root again.’
‘Oh, Nathan!’ Phoebe’s brown eyes filled. ‘Why did they hurt you?’
‘You know why.’ Nathan shrugged, then winced again. ‘But I didn’t tell them anything.’
‘You should have done!’ cried Phoebe. ‘I never expected you to run such risks! I never wanted you to take such punishment for me!’ Phoebe started crying. ‘I n-never knew you were so brave.’
‘Phoebe, I’m not brave. They didn’t offer me a choice, they didn’t ask if I was scared. Even if I’d told them where you were, they’d still have beaten me.’
‘They know you’re not afraid of him, and that makes you braver than anybody else in Bethnal Green.’
Phoebe looked at Nathan’s battered face, into his blackened eyes. ‘Daniel is a vicious, evil man. Everyone in the Green is scared of him and all his friends, but I don’t think you’ve ever been afraid. It must be because you’re so religious. You believe in God.’
‘I believe in God?’ Nathan would have laughed if he had not had broken ribs and even breathing had not been so painful. ‘I go to the study house to please my mother.’
‘But you’re going to be a rabbi?’
‘I don’t think so, Phoebe.’ Nathan’s split lip twisted bitterly. ‘You know my father died in Russia, killed by Cossacks as he tried to stop the sons of Satan from burning down his home. My brothers have been killed in France, in a useless war in which the Russians are our allies – may their evil names be blotted out! Even here in England, death comes falling from the sky.’
He coughed, and spat out bits of tooth and clots of bright red blood. ‘How could I stand up in a synagogue, and tell the people to believe in a just God, when I don’t believe in one myself?’
‘Then how do you manage to be so brave?’
‘I told you, I’m not brave.’ Nathan looked at Phoebe. ‘But I want to live, and what’s the point of living if you’re afraid? Phoebe, I think you should get out of London.’
‘But where else could I go?’
‘My mother has some relatives in Leeds. I’ll write them, I’m sure they’ll take you in.’
‘Nathan, why are you doin’ this for me?’
‘You know,’ said Nathan. ‘I think you’ve always known.’
Later, Phoebe watched him sleep. Morrie made a song and dance when he returned from bullying the chorus girls, sweeping out the Palace and probably giving Daniel Hanson lip.
But when he realised the blood that stained the horsehair couch was Nathan’s, as opposed to Phoebe’s gentile gore, he quietened down again.
‘I’ll go and tell old mother Rosenheim her precious Nathan’s stayin’ ’ere tonight,’ he muttered sourly. ‘It won’t do ’er any good to see ’im in that mess.’
‘You mustn’t tell ’er I’m
’ere, too!’ cried Phoebe. ‘She don’t know where I am – an’ anyway, she wouldn’t like to think that me and Nathan was alone.’
‘She knows her boy’s been sweet on you since you was four years old.’ Morrie sucked his stumps of teeth and grinned. ‘What ’appened to that nipper you was ’avin’?’ he demanded.
‘It – it died.’ Phoebe turned away to look at Nathan, who seemed fast asleep.
‘Just as well, I reckon.’ Morrie chewed the insides of his cheeks. ‘A girl like you ain’t fit to be a mother, ain’t cut out to fetch up kids. I meant to ask you – ’ow’s your stuck-up sister gettin’ on? The one what learned to talk like Lady Muck an’ went to be a nurse?’
‘Maria went to France.’
‘Oh, did she?’ Morrie shook his grizzled head. ‘A dirty lot, them French. You mark my words – one day we’ll see ’er an’ ’er belly come waddlin’ up the Green.’
March turned into April, covering the land with green and hiding some of what the shells had done the previous winter.
The spring gave way to a warm May, and in spite of grief that dragged her down, Rose sometimes felt her broken spirits lifting. This year, she thought, would see the end of it. This summer would be when the Allies gained the upper hand.
She read the newspapers and knew that back in England more than half a million conscripts were learning how to fire a rifle, lob grenades and use a bayonet. Bank clerks, farming lads and civil servants were being turned into soldiers.
Factories were making bombs and shells by the ten million. This June or July, the Allies would overwhelm the German army and send it packing to Berlin.
One balmy afternoon the train was in a siding outside Amiens. The engine driver had a nap while the nurses waited for a lorry to bring down fresh supplies of dressings, food and medicine.
‘You asleep?’ Maria asked, as she flopped down by Rose who was sitting on the running board.
‘Just dozing.’ Rose said, stretching. ‘When will we be off?’
‘Oh, we’ve got an hour or two, don’t worry.’ Maria turned her face towards the sun. ‘Sister Glossop said we’re waiting for a dozen troop trains to go through.’
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