Blue Smoke

by Deborah Challinor

  He moved his other arm slowly until his hand rested lightly on her stomach, from where, he hoped, it would be able to wander to other, more intimate parts of her body. His hand began to creep up the front of her fluffy jumper, and he let his thumb stroke the underside of the delicious curve of her breast.

  ‘Unhand that woman, you cad!’

  Billy almost leapt out of his uniform, and nearly gave himself whiplash swivelling around on the bench.

  Weaving up the street came Harry with the rest of the lads trailing behind him like ducklings after their mother. They had clearly enjoyed a very hospitable evening in the pub.

  ‘Harry, you bastard.’

  ‘Billy, you jack-the-lad.’

  Billy was rather annoyed at having been so rudely interrupted. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Waiting for the bus, same as you.’

  ‘Can’t you wait a bit further away? There’s another bench down the other end of the street.’

  Harry squinted and pointed an unsteady finger in Billy’s general direction. ‘Oh, no, I don’t think so, eh? Me and the lads aren’t in any condition to run after a bus, so just to be sure we’re waiting right here.’

  Billy sighed, and moved over so Harry could sit down. Rangi, Maru and Boy sat down as well, shoving along so that Violet almost fell off the end of the bench. She clutched at Billy’s arm, but when he looked he saw she was smiling.

  There was a companionable silence for several minutes, broken only by the sound of someone stifling a burp.

  ‘Good night for it,’ Harry said.

  ‘It was,’ Billy replied sourly.

  Silence again. Then Boy muttered something about going for a mimi. He trudged up the street a short distance until he came to a convenient alleyway, then turned his back. In the quietness of the night the sound of his urine splashing onto the cobbles reached them like a miniature waterfall. Harry started to giggle, then the others joined in, and finally even Billy had to allow himself a smile.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said to Violet, who was ostentatiously looking in the opposite direction.

  She shrugged as if to say, what else can you expect after an evening of holding up a bar?

  Mercifully, the bus arrived then, crammed with soldiers returning to camp as well as locals on their way home after a Saturday night out, and Billy and Violet squeezed together in a seat near the back. The Maori soldiers sang at the tops of their voices, almost raising the roof of the rickety little bus, and the locals looked on with amusement. They even applauded after particularly fine renditions of ‘Now Is the Hour’, ‘Pokarekare Ana’, and ‘Blue Smoke’.

  Billy said, or rather yelled, over the noise, ‘Will you come out with me next weekend, on Sunday?’

  Violet nodded, her eyes shining.

  ‘Shall we go up to that old castle? The one at the top of the hill? I’ll see if I can scrounge something nice from the mess to go in a picnic basket.’

  ‘And shall I get some of those custard buns you like from the shop?’

  Billy nodded enthusiastically. He gazed down at her sparkling eyes, her soft lips and her pale, pale hair, and decided he just about couldn’t wait.

  Sunday started out fine, but by the time he and Violet had carted the picnic basket up the hill above Farnham, heavy clouds were scudding across the sky. But the view was stunning. Climbing up the crumbling ramparts, hanging on to each other and giggling madly, they found they could see in all directions across miles and miles of green fields cross-hatched by stone walls, hawthorn and holly hedges, and narrow lanes. Billy, more used to seeing great open expanses of farmland uninterrupted by any form of fencing, found this amusing, and said so. Violet, for her part, thought the idea of having your stock wandering everywhere totally unfettered equally strange.

  ‘Don’t they run away, your sheep?’

  ‘Yes, but it doesn’t matter, because they come to a fence eventually. And it isn’t as if we need to milk them every day or anything like that.’

  Violet giggled again.

  Billy talked about his family then, and about Kenmore. But he played down the actual size of the station — an English country girl could have no concept of the magnitude of a large New Zealand property any way — and did not labour the point that his family was really rather well off. And he mentioned his ancestral home at Maungakakari only briefly. He was discovering how important it was that she like him for himself, and not for the wealth or status of his family or for any novelty value he might have as a ‘Moo-ree’. This came as quite a surprise to him, but then he’d never quite felt for any girl what he was starting to feel for Violet Metcalfe.

  Their picnic was very pleasant, in spite of the rain that was threatening in the form of dark clouds gathering on the horizon, and Billy was sorry when it was time to go. But before they got off the bus in Dogmersfield, he’d extracted from her a promise that they would go to the pictures again the following Saturday.

  Then for two weeks, as July became August, he did not see her at all as the battalion was out on long-range exercises that prevented him from going into the village. It was one of the longest fortnights of his life. Thoughts of her beautiful face, her lovely, lush body and her shy, giggling laugh hovered constantly in his mind, almost but not quite interfering with his daily activities. He was enchanted with her, he had to admit, even if only to himself and Harry, but was not prepared to allow that to get in the way of his training, especially when the battalion had finally been declared fit for front-line duty.

  They had been able to go to the pictures together twice more after that, and had afternoon tea and got their picture taken by the enterprising village photographer earning himself extra shillings by capturing the slightly blurred images of soldiers and their sweethearts. And once they went on a long bike ride that left Billy, who wasn’t used to pedalling for miles and miles, with a sore backside as a result of the mean little saddle on his borrowed bicycle. When his fingers weren’t doing their best to burrow under her top or up her skirt, he kept them crossed that she would finally let him make love to her, but so far she had fended him off with what he considered to be unnecessary vigour. It was driving him to distraction, being so close to her and not being able to have her, but he knew that to push too hard would ruin everything, and he desperately wanted to keep seeing her, even if his balls did ache after they’d been out together. And time could soon run out: the threat of the Germans coming across the Channel looked very real; they had been told to be ready to move at any time.

  He knew that if he wasn’t able to express his love for Violet — and that’s what it was now, he was sure — physically, he would miss his chance for God only knew how long, perhaps forever. He’d already decided he would come back for her after the war, but he desperately wanted a little more of her to take into battle with him. Harry said he was getting confused, and mixing up his hopeless need for a leg-over with love, but Billy was convinced his friend was wrong. He did love Violet, and he would come back for her, no matter what.

  But Violet, too, had heard the rumours about the battalion moving, and was well aware that Billy could be on his way any day now. And if she were completely honest with herself she had become tired of fighting him off, because in her heart, and in other newly aware parts of her body, she didn’t want to. She thought she might have fallen in love with him, and she wanted to share something, a special part of herself, with him before he went. And why shouldn’t she have that? Her parents would certainly not approve if they ever found out, but so what? She was a good girl, and always had been, but she was nineteen now and had never in her life met anyone as handsome, exciting and wonderful as Billy Deane. So one day at the very end of August, after an afternoon session at the pictures in Farnham, she made up her mind.

  Instead of waiting for the bus to take them back to Dogmersfield as usual, she took him by the hand and began to lead him up the hill.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Up to the castle,’ Violet replied over her shoulder as she p
receded him up the old beaten path. ‘There’s something I want to show you.’

  Billy was mystified. It couldn’t be the view, he’d seen that twice already now. But he kept hold of her hand as she climbed, pulling the lapels of his battledress jacket together to keep out the rising wind.

  In a few minutes, when they were almost at the top, Violet led him around the base of the stone ruin, beyond the wind that was threatening late summer rain and out of sight of the town. In a sheltered alcove between two crumbling walls, she stopped and turned to face him.

  When Billy saw the expression of longing in her eyes, he realised what she was up to and grinned in delight.

  ‘I want to show you that I love you,’ she whispered. ‘Because I do, Billy Deane, I do.’

  He kissed her, and this time it wasn’t a kiss driven by fumbling frustration, it was the sharp, passionate coming together of two people who wanted each other more than anything else in the world.

  There was no question of taking all their clothes off — it was too nippy for that — so Billy removed his jacket and draped it over Violet’s shoulders, where it hung on her small frame. He took off his cap, opened the buttons on his shirt so she could put her cold hands inside, then took her face in his own hands and kissed her again and again.

  It didn’t take them very long at all. He picked her up and she wrapped her legs around his waist as he held her against the wall and thrust into her. She cried out just once, when he first entered her, but after that pressed her face into the side of his neck and went with him in silence. As he came he cried out himself, a great, gasping groan that told of weeks and weeks of frustrated desire and lust.

  Then came the cramp as his bare legs and buttocks began to shiver in post-orgasm release and in the growing chill of the late afternoon air. He gently released Violet and set her back on her feet, yanked his trousers up then helped her to rearrange her underthings. There was a large hole torn in one of her stockings, and her thighs were slippery with his seed. He dug in his tunic pocket for a handkerchief and used it to carefully wipe her clean. She smiled at him for his tenderness, then bent to retrieve her knickers, which had been trampled underfoot.

  ‘I’d better wash these myself or Ma will be wondering how I got grass stains on them.’

  Billy laughed. ‘Oh, throw them away, go on! I’ll buy you a dozen new pairs, beautiful silk and lace ones.’

  ‘No! I’m not going home on the bus without my knickers! What if the wind blew my skirt up or I fell down the steps or something?’

  Billy laughed even harder. ‘Then you’d really give all the old fellas on the bus something to talk about, wouldn’t you?’

  He couldn’t keep the grin off his face. He felt elated and utterly delighted with himself, and with Violet. She was a gorgeous loving girl, a beautiful, precious living doll, and she was his and his alone.

  He rearranged his tunic across her shoulders, and set his cap on her white-blonde hair at a rakish angle.

  ‘Aren’t you cold?’ she asked him.

  ‘Not likely, not after that. Come on, I think it’s going to rain in a minute.’

  It did start to rain, just as they were nearing the bottom of the hill, and they ran hand in hand over the last few yards, laughing and cursing as their feet slipped on the wet grass.

  At the bus stop, which they shared with a dour-faced old woman who was as wide as she was tall and who kept looking at them and sniffing suspiciously, they cuddled into each other for warmth. It was really bucketing down now, and they would no doubt get soaked walking from the bus stop to Violet’s front gate where Billy had left his bike.

  They did, and under the meagre shelter of the front door porch, Billy kissed her wet face.

  ‘Marry me, Violet Metcalfe, and come back to New Zealand with me after the war.’

  She jerked back and stared up at him with wide eyes.

  ‘Marry you? I can’t marry you.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because there isn’t time. You’ll be away soon, everyone’s saying so.’

  ‘But if I wasn’t, would you? Marry me, I mean?’

  She didn’t have to think about it for long. ‘Of course I would, Billy. I’d like nothing better.’

  ‘Well, I’m off to talk to the major then, and if that doesn’t work, I’ll talk to the colonel himself!’

  But there was no time for Billy to talk to anyone because the next day the Luftwaffe’s massive raids on London began in earnest and the Maori Battalion, as part of the Seventh Brigade, deployed almost immediately to the Folkestone-Dover area to help repel what was assumed to be the beginning of the German cross-Channel invasion. He barely even managed to say goodbye to Violet, and if Harry hadn’t covered for him in the temporary chaos of moving out of Dogmersfield, he would have missed her completely.

  In the thirty minutes they managed to snatch together he promised he would be back as soon as could, and urged her to tell her parents about their plans to be married so that if the opportunity arose before the battalion shipped out to the Middle East, if that was still on the cards, they could take advantage of it.

  She cried when he left her standing in the lane, watching him pedalling madly off in an effort to get back to camp before he was missed, but she wasn’t the type of girl who gave in to tears very often and she wiped her face on her apron after only a few moments of indulging herself. He would be back, she knew it.

  The brigade spent several weeks camped in tents under trees in the Kentish countryside waiting for the invasion. They dug in, went on route marches and bolstered themselves by cheering for the RAF engaged in vicious dogfights in the skies above them. Billy hoped Duncan wasn’t up there.

  By the time the green leaves on the trees had turned the colour of flames and the weather had really begun to chill, it had become clear that the Germans had missed their chance of invasion; to attempt to cross the Channel during the October gales would be profoundly stupid, even for Adolf Hitler. So Seventh Brigade moved out of their muddy tents into billets, and on 8 October were finally disbanded.

  Billy had not managed to get away on leave at all, and was delighted when the announcement came that the battalion would be returning to the Aldershot Command area for the winter. And everyone was very pleased to discover that they were to be billeted in decent accommodation near Farnham — in stately English manor houses, no less! Billy’s company was allotted Bradshaigh on Gong Hill. Well housed they might have been, but the winter was so cold that when not out on exercises they sat around in their greatcoats wrapped in scarves and gloves warming their freezing extremities in front of fires made miserable by fuel rationing.

  There was time again to go on short leaves, and Billy made the most of these to visit Violet. She must have told her parents about the seriousness of their relationship because when he arrived on her doorstep they immediately made their excuses and went out. Not, Violet was convinced, to allow Billy and her to do what they did on the floor of the fire-warmed parlour, but to give them time alone in case Billy was sent off somewhere else at a moment’s notice.

  He had asked his company commander for permission to get married and, like many others recently, had been declined. The major did not approve of rushed marriages in times of war, although it had been pointed out to him by more than one senior officer that rushed marriages were surely better than fatherless children. But he stuck to his guns. In his experience young soldiers tended to agree to anything for a bit of comfort if they thought they might be off to the front any time soon. By turning down their requests to marry local girls, pretty though they may be, he felt he was actually doing them a favour, for which they would one day thank him.

  Billy was mildly put out, but he believed from the bottom of his heart that Violet would wait for him no matter how long it took. He was content with the situation as it was, convinced they would marry sooner or later.

  Halfway through November, Billy received a letter from his father telling him the terrible news about Duncan. When he realis
ed that East Grinstead was actually not that far from Farnham, he immediately asked the company commander for forty-eight hours’ leave. When it was denied, because ‘things were afoot’, he stole a motorbike and a tin of petrol from the camp and headed off wearing a leather jacket under his greatcoat, two scarves, a woollen hat under a leather cap, goggles and thick sheepskin gloves.

  He rode all day and arrived at Queen Victoria Hospital about eight that evening, frozen almost stiff and barely able to walk. He was such a sight when he wandered into the main reception area that the woman on duty at the front desk gasped in fright when she looked up from her papers and saw him.

  ‘Hello, sorry, I’m looking for Flight Lieutenant Duncan Murdoch. Is he here?’

  ‘What are his injuries, do you know?’

  ‘Burns.’

  ‘One of McIndoe’s army then?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘If he’s a pilot and he’s been burned, he’s probably in Ward Three. Just a moment please and I’ll look him up for you.’ She flicked through a list then nodded to herself. ‘Yes, Duncan Murdoch, Ward Three. Outside again and to your right — it’s a group of temporary buildings. Are you a relative?’

  But Billy had already gone.

  As he walked towards a wooden ramp leading up to what was presumably the door of Ward Three, he could hear a hell of a racket coming from inside. Someone was singing tunelessly and banging away on a piano, and there seemed to be some sort of yelling match going on, punctuated with bursts of raucous laughter. Perhaps he’d turned the wrong way when he’d come out of the main hospital building and this was the wing for mental patients?

  He went up the ramp any way, and found himself in a wide corridor that smelled strongly of antiseptic and something else a little less pleasant. There were no signs advertising which part of the hospital he was in, so he stopped the first nurse he saw.