Valentine Joe

by Rebecca Stevens

  She searched each face that passed as the men made their painful way towards the bunkers of the dressing station. The first three were black soldiers, North African troops in the blue-grey uniforms of the French army. The next was a Scotsman in his khaki kilt. And then . . .

  ‘Joe!’

  He looked terribly small next to the others, and quite different from the funny, fearless boy Rose had last seen in Ypres. How long ago was that? It felt like centuries. He was hunched and shrunken with pain. She didn’t think she could bear it. But she had to.

  ‘JOE!’

  He looked around vaguely at the sound of Rose’s voice, unable to see much through his poor streaming eyes. Then Tommy gave a little bark and Joe’s face softened into a smile as his eyes rested on them crouched together in the sun.

  ‘Rose . . .’ Her name came out in a croak and ended in a fit of terrible wrenching coughs.

  The driver took his arm and led him after the others. ‘Come on, chum. This way. You’re safe now.’

  Rose had seen the row of small, cave-like rooms of the dressing station when she’d visited this place with Grandad, but then they were made of concrete. Now they were built of wood which made them look insecure and temporary. On the step of the first bunker a couple of medical orderlies with their Red Cross armbands were sitting smoking in the sunshine. Behind them, Rose could just make out another man asleep on a bunk. Outside the second bunker, Tommy stopped, looking up at her.

  ‘This one?’ she said. ‘You’d better wait outside.’

  Tommy sat down and watched as Rose stepped in, slipping into the gloom like a shadow. The officer, the one with the accent, shot a quick puzzled look in her direction before turning back to the hunched figure on the bench.

  ‘What’s your name, son?’

  ‘Joe. Sir.’

  Each word was wrung out with a terrible effort. Rose could hear Joe struggling to breathe, the air rattling horribly in his chest.

  ‘Rifleman. Valentine. Joe. Strud—’ The word was swallowed in a fit of coughing.

  ‘It’s all right, son. Don’t talk any more. We’ll do what we can to make you more comfortable.’

  Rose slipped over and knelt down beside Joe’s bench, brushing past the officer as she went. He drew his breath and gave another sharp look in her direction, before turning away. Joe’s head was thrown back, tears streaming from his tightly closed eyes. She took his hand. It felt dry and rough and cold. He opened his bloodshot eyes and looked at her with a trace of his old grin. He took a juddering breath as he prepared to speak. Then:

  ‘Sorry. Rose. Got to be. Sick.’

  He turned his face and threw up in a well-placed bucket on the floor. Rose kept hold of his hand until it was over. He took a deep breath and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. His breath didn’t sound so painful now.

  ‘Feel a bit better after that, Joe?’ said the officer.

  ‘Yes. Sir. Thank. You. Sir.’

  ‘How old are you, son?’

  ‘Nineteen. Sir.’

  There was a trace of defiance in his voice. He was feeling better, Rose thought.

  The officer sighed. ‘I’m not a fool, son.’

  Joe said nothing. Rose squeezed his hand as the officer lifted Joe’s other one and took his pulse, nodding his head as if pleased.

  ‘Listen, Private Strudwick,’ he said. ‘Joe. This is what’s going to happen. I’m sending you back to Blighty.’

  Rose’s heart leapt.

  ‘Thank you. Sir.’

  ‘You’re going to be poorly for a long time,’ the officer continued. ‘But I’ve seen worse. With the right care, you should pull through. You’re lucky to be alive, you know.’

  ‘Yes. Sir.’

  ‘So let’s keep it that way, shall we? When you get better, which I think you will, and they send you home from hospital, I want you to go to your father and tell him to write to the War Office. Tell them you lied about your age when you joined up. If he sends them your birth certificate they’ll have no choice but to discharge you from the army.’

  Rose thought the medical officer had the kindest face in the world. She squeezed Joe’s hand again. Was it possible? Was he really going to be all right?

  ‘I can’t. Do that. Sir.’

  What?

  ‘Come on, son. You’re not the only boy who lied about his age to join up.’

  ‘Sorry, sir. No. Sir. I must. Come back.’

  What?!

  ‘How old are you, son? Really?’

  ‘Old enough. To fight.’

  Rose felt herself getting angry. She was glad the officer was so calm.

  ‘Tell me the truth now, Private,’ he said. ‘What are you? Seventeen? Sixteen?’

  Rose glared at Joe: Tell him the truth.

  He looked at her out of the corner of his eye and grinned faintly. ‘Fifteen. Sir.’

  The officer closed his eyes for a second and drew a long shuddering breath. ‘Someone should be shot for this,’ he said, almost to himself. ‘And it’s not those poor bastards across the canal.’

  ‘It’s not for. Me. Sir. It’s my two. Best. Pals. They’ve—’ The officer looked at him sharply as he fought for breath. ‘Gone. Sir.’

  Not both of them? Fred and Tonk? Tonk and Fred? Oh, Joe. Not both of them . . .

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that, Private.’

  Rose thought of the last time she saw them back at the barracks, kicking a ball about in the sunshine, like boys from her school. What was it Joe had said?

  Tonk, he’s the stupid one. And that one with the big ears and the daft face is Fred . . .

  ‘Got to fight. On. Sir. For. Their sake. Else—’ Joe doubled up in a fit of coughing, then managed to get out his last words. ‘—What’s. The. Point?’

  The officer shook his head and turned away so Rose couldn’t see his face.

  There was a voice from the sunlit doorway: ‘More casualties coming in, sir.’

  The officer sighed. ‘Thank you, Corporal.’ He turned back to Joe. ‘I can’t make you do anything, Joe,’ he said, ‘but I hope you’ll reconsider. This war is terrible enough. We don’t need to sacrifice boys.’

  He moved to the doorway, suddenly seeming very old and weary. Joe looked at Rose and grinned, then coughed and called after the officer as well as he could:

  ‘Who. Are you calling. A boy. Sir?’

  But the officer had gone. Rose drew a deep breath. Beneath the sharp hospital smell of disinfectant in the bunker was a darker stench of damp and despair.

  ‘I’m sorry about your friends, Joe.’

  Joe looked at her, his eyes streaming. Was it the effect of the gas or tears for his friends?

  ‘You. Understand. Don’t you, Rose? Why—’ He doubled up with coughs again.

  ‘I think so.’ He squeezed her hand. ‘But it won’t bring them back, Joe. It won’t help them if you die too.’

  ‘I won’t. Die. Rose.’ He stopped and fought for breath, then continued. ‘I’ve got me lucky. Sixpence. And Tommy. And. You.’

  Rose thought for a minute. A lot depended on what she was going to say next, and she wanted to get it right.

  ‘My dad died last year, Joe.’ The words came out quickly now. ‘And ever since then I’ve done nothing. Not really. I’ve done nothing except think about him and dream about him and wish I was back in the past with him. It’s like I’ve been in a sort of bubble, avoiding people, avoiding the real world.’

  Rose hadn’t thought about it before, but that was what it had been like. She was glad she’d realised it.

  ‘What. About. Your mum?’

  ‘She’s been in a bubble too,’ said Rose. ‘And I’ve been no help. She just makes me think how much I miss him. So I can’t look at her, or talk to her, not really. I’ve made it worse.’

  ‘Poor. Lady.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Rose took a deep breath. Thoughts and feelings were buzzing around in her head, jostling for position. They’d been there for a long time, but it was only now that she was able to sort them out
. To listen to them.

  ‘What I mean,’ she said, her thoughts becoming clearer as she spoke, ‘or what I think I mean . . .’

  She paused. Joe’s eyes were fixed on her face. He gave a tiny nod as if to tell her to carry on.

  ‘ . . . is that Dad wouldn’t want me to be like this.’

  He nodded again. She went on, still choosing her words carefully.

  ‘Whatever I do, however sad I feel, it’s not going to bring him back. He’d want me to live. And I think Fred and Tonk would want you to live too.’

  Joe took a deep rattling breath. ‘I will. Live. Rose. I—’

  He broke down in a fit of coughing. Rose finished the sentence for him.

  ‘Promise?’

  Before he could reply, one of the stretcher-bearers stuck his head through the doorway. ‘Private Strudwick? Time to go, chum.’

  Joe looked around as he tried to struggle to his feet. ‘Tom?’ he said. ‘Tom-my?’

  ‘That’s right, mate. We’re all Tommies here. You’re among friends now.’

  ‘He means his dog, Bert,’ said another voice. ‘Little pup that was with him in the trenches.’

  ‘Oh, yeah. Don’t you worry about Tommy, chum. We’ll look after him. He’s sitting outside in the sun right now watching the dicky birds.’

  ‘I’ll make sure he’s all right, Joe,’ said Rose.

  Joe turned and smiled at her. You could warm your hands on that smile.

  ‘You all right to walk, mate?’ The stretcher-bearer helped Joe to his feet and Rose released his hand.

  ‘Joe—’

  ‘Don’t. Worry. Rose. I’ll be all. Right.’

  ‘But—’

  He said it again: ‘I’ve got me lucky. Sixpence. Ain’t I? And Tommy. And. You.’

  For a moment his silhouette was dark against the sunlit doorway. Then he was gone.

  Rose took a deep breath and stepped out of the greenish gloom of the bunker. The sun was still beating down and the poppies were nodding their scarlet heads along to the rhythm of the guns.

  Joe’s going to be all right, she thought. He promised.

  Tommy was sitting on the grass, watching the injured men as they struggled into the back of the ambulance. Rose was glad to see that someone had given him a bowl of water.

  The mood among the injured men had changed. They were going home, back to Blighty! In spite of their pain and the terrible laboured wheezing in their chests, they were managing to crack jokes, slapping each other on the back. One of them even tried to sing – ‘Take me back to dear old Blighty . . .’ – before he was convulsed by a coughing fit, amidst friendly jeers from the others that ended up with them choking and fighting for breath as well.

  Joe was the last in line. Rose’s heart lifted as he turned and gave her a tiny wave before the medical orderlies helped him into the vehicle. He was going home, he really was. He was going to be safe after all.

  And then a soldier walked past, obstructing her view of the ambulance for a second. He was heading towards the cemetery. He had a spade over his shoulder and his face was pale in spite of the hot day.

  The driver slammed the door of his cab and started the engine. And as Rose watched the soldier walking across the cemetery, past the spot where she’d seen Joe’s grave, she realised something: the cemetery was only half full.

  Not even that, actually. There was only a handful of graves compared to the hundreds she’d seen when she was there with Grandad. The ground with its long grass and its beautiful nodding poppies was just lying there, waiting. Waiting to swallow up more young men.

  And one of them was going to be Joe. She’d seen his grave: V.J. Strudwick, it said, and the date he’d been killed: 14 January 1916. Exactly one month before his sixteenth birthday.

  And that was when the truth hit her. She hadn’t convinced him. Joe was still planning to come back. To fight on behalf of his friends. To die in France on a cold January day.

  Unless . . . Could she warn him, tell him what was going to happen – that if he came back he would be killed? Tell him he must stay in England, like the officer said, admit he’d lied about his age, get himself discharged from the army, go back to his mum, to school, to whatever he was doing before this all started.

  To live.

  Was it possible to change the past?

  The driver had finally got his engine to fire up and the ambulance was pulling away, out into the lane.

  ‘Wait!’

  Tommy looked up, startled, as Rose tore after the vehicle, hair and coat flying, stumbling over the rutted ground.

  ‘WAIT!’

  No one could hear her, of course. And only Tommy could see her, in her borrowed coat, watching the ambulance disappear down the road. But then she heard something else: a motorbike was being kicked into life.

  Tommy barked. Rose whirled round. The rider was astride his bike, goggles over his eyes, cap held on by a strap under his chin. Was he following the ambulance? Rose had no way of knowing – he might be heading for the front line – but she had to take the risk.

  As the rider kicked the bike’s starter again, Rose jumped. She flung one pyjama-clad leg over the seat and grabbed him around the waist. The rider shuddered as if he’d felt a sudden breath of icy air on his back, but then shook himself, revved the bike’s engine and zoomed off in a shower of gravel.

  They were off.

  Rose hid her face in his jacket and clung on, the engine making her body vibrate and her teeth chatter. She could just hear Tommy barking as the bike swerved out on to the lane and she felt the wind in her hair and the roughness of the rider’s jacket beneath her cheek. She could smell oil and petrol and the now familiar scent of the British Tommy: tobacco and sweat, unwashed woollen uniform and the faintest whiff of peppermint.

  Rose had never been on a motorbike before, even as a passenger. And she was scared at first, too scared to open her eyes or raise her face from where it was hidden in the back of the rider’s jacket. She hung on to him with all her strength, her arms clamped so tightly around his waist that it should’ve stopped him breathing, her teeth clenched in fear and determination.

  I am not afraid, not afraid, not afraid . . .

  And after a while she wasn’t. She actually started to enjoy the feel of the wind in her hair and the tilt of the bike as the rider manoeuvred it around bends in the road. She opened one eye, just one, keeping her cheek firmly against the rider’s jacket, and watched the fields whizz by in a blur of green and gold and red. They were heading away from the front line, and the countryside didn’t look very different from the landscape she and Grandad had passed through on the train. There were the same flat fields, lines of trees pointing up at the sky, neat farmhouses with cows and horses outside. Rose even saw a woman hanging out her washing as they shot past. It seemed strange that normal life with washing and cooking and growing vegetables, was going on so close to the battlefields where soldiers were dying.

  After a while, Rose felt even braver and raised her head from the rider’s back so she could look beyond him to the road ahead. Would she see the ambulance? The wind was making her eyes water, but yes – there it was, easily visible in the flat countryside. So she still had a chance, she told herself. To find Joe, tell him to stay in England. Make sure he didn’t come back.

  The fields soon started to give way to rows of little brick houses and it became clear they were entering a town, smaller and less important than Ypres, but still thronged with troops. Everywhere Rose looked there were men in khaki, sitting outside café s, hanging about on corners, chatting and smoking and laughing. Why were they all here? She guessed they must be on leave; they came to this little town when they had a few days off from the Front. But where was Joe being taken? And would her motor-cyclist take her to the same place?

  While Rose was thinking, he pulled up and parked the bike next to some other military vehicles. Then he dismounted, slithering free of Rose’s ghostly clutches as if she wasn’t there, and ran up the steps of a building that
looked like a smaller version of the Cloth Hall in Ypres.

  Rose sat for a moment, balanced uncomfortably on the back of the bike. Now that the engine had stopped, she realised she could barely hear the thud of the guns from the Front. It was just a dull background heartbeat behind all the normal sounds of humanity. Men laughing and talking, children shrieking and being scolded by their mothers. The clink of glasses and clatter of plates from the café s, hoofbeats on cobbles and trucks driving by. Life seemed ordinary here. Apart from all the troops, it was almost as if the war didn’t exist.

  But where was Joe?

  As Rose clambered off the bike, wondering what to do, an ambulance drove past. It wasn’t as big as the one that had been carrying Joe and the other soldiers from Essex Farm, but she guessed it might be going to the same place. She ran after it, slipping through the crowds, away from the square and into a busy side street. The ambulance disappeared around a corner, but she kept on running, running, running. She had to find Joe.

  Her chest was burning and she was dripping with sweat inside her heavy borrowed coat when she finally saw a group of military ambulances, parked outside what looked like a small railway station. And, yes, there were wounded men being helped out of them – some on stretchers, some walking – guided by businesslike young women in nurses’ uniforms: long skirts with white aprons, red crosses on the linen caps that covered their hair. Most of them looked young, some not much not older than Rose. She squeezed in amongst them, staring into the faces of the wounded men. Each one of them had a home to go to and a story to tell. But none of them was Joe.

  Rose hurried on, weaving through the crowd, heading towards the station. The wounded men must be going on a train. A train that would take them to the coast, where a boat would take them back to England. And if Joe was with them she had to find him. Because once he was back in England she might never see him again. And then how would she tell him that he mustn’t come back?