by Lucy Lambert
“Connors! What’s the holdup over there?” the guard on the other side of the road yelled over.
“Nothing, sir!” the guard, Connors, replied. The exchange strengthened his resolve. “Miss, I am truly sorry. I feel for you, I do. But you cannot, and will not, be allowed inside. Now, would you please…”
I couldn’t stand the pity in his eyes any longer, so I turned around and started back the way I came. Though I didn’t know where the road might lead me. I should have known this would happen. But my stubbornness and desire to leave had outweighed my good senses.
The coins in my pocket might buy me another night or two somewhere, I figured. But then what?
That endless line of trucks and cars, and even a few carriages, continued on by me. All those men would need to be put up somewhere. All the rooms everywhere would be full.
I stopped, then, my feet unwilling to carry me forward any longer. It made no difference where I stopped, so why not right there beside the street, within sight of my way home?
“Stop! Stop the truck!” someone yelled, the voice tickling at something in my memory.
The whole convoy came to a halt as the big vehicle squealed to a halt just ahead of me. A man in a small car right behind it stepped out, looking with disgust as the rain began wetting his uniform.
“What is the meaning of this? I demand you get this truck moving at once!”
A man hopped down from the back of the truck and marched straight over to the angry soldier.
“And I will demand that you get back into your car and shut up, sir!”
“Y…yes, Captain. I’m sorry, sir,” the formerly angry soldier said, tripping over himself on the way back to the car. He slammed the door shut hard enough to rock the vehicle and get the attention of the streams of soldiers well enough to make their way towards the promise of food and drink.
Rather than climbing back into his truck, the captain came over to me. I stared at the ground, watching the water dribble down my shoes. The toes of his polished boots came into my view.
“My God, Eleanor, is that you?” he put his hand on my shoulder.
I looked up into the face of Captain Lawrence Marsh. His cheeks had hollowed out some, and that haunted look I’d caught in his eyes on the trip to England had intensified.
My eyes stung, and a feeling something like relief warmed in my stomach. I threw my arms around his shoulders and buried my face against his chest. He stiffened, and a hiss of pain passed through his lips. I knew that I should let up, that he had to be injured in some way as well, but I couldn’t let go of him. I couldn’t release the one familiar thing that had returned to me.
But then he returned the hug, gently stroking the back of my head and whispering to me that it was all right.
It was ridiculous how comforting that felt. He seemed like the life preserver in the storm that was my life.
“Captain?” a man called from the truck.
“Just go on, corporal,” Lawrence said back to him.
The truck’s engine sputtered back to life, the gears grinding as the driver pulled away from the curb. The muffled sounds of the convoy coming back to life reached me.
“Come, Eleanor. We need to get you out of this weather,” Lawrence said, gently extricating himself from my grip.
He wouldn’t let me say no to him draping his jacket over my shoulders. I only protested weakly, however.
Soon, we sat in a crowded pub. Lawrence used his rank to clear us a space near a crackling hearth. Even with his jacket on me, I shivered awfully, my teeth clicking together. That constant, drizzling rain soaked me right to the bone, it seemed.
The place was much like Jill’s. Long tables and benches took up much of the space, which, while worn, was comfortable and warm. Even I felt a bit of the good cheer in there from all the men happy to be away from the front.
Many of the men had taken to smoking their pipes or cigarettes, and a blue haze swirled, blocking out the ceiling. For once, I was happy that my nose was stuffed so that I couldn’t smell all that tobacco.
“Here,” Lawrence said, taking his seat beside me. He put down two steaming mugs. “Coffee. Black.”
“Lawrence…” I started.
But he didn’t let me finish. In fact, he didn’t let me speak again until he saw that I drained half my mug. That coffee tasted fresh, with a bit of bitterness to it. Though the heat it left inside me was welcome. I pulled his jacket closer around my shoulders.
“Now please, Eleanor, tell me what it is you’re doing here. Not that I am not glad to see you again, and happy to know that you crossed the Atlantic safely. But what is this?” he said, holding his hand out and gesturing the question to me.
“I wanted to try and book passage back to Halifax.”
Lawrence leaned forward, taking one of my hands in both of his. The ruddy glow from the fire gave his face more color, but he still looked gaunt. I suppressed my curiosity as to what might have caused that over there on the front. “I thought you were waiting for gallant Jeffrey? Surely you don’t mean to say you’ve spent all this time over here only to leave like this? That would be such a tragedy, and I’ve been laboring under the impression that this is a love story.”
I looked at him, wondering how he couldn’t know. But that was stupid. How could he possibly know about my Jeff?
Seeing my expression, he gave my hands another squeeze. “Tell me, what is it?”
I tried to speak, but the words didn’t come out. Frowning, I tried again. Something blocked my throat, and pressure built behind my eyes again. I didn’t understand. Hadn’t I come to some sort of grips with Jeff’s death? Was I still so upset that I couldn’t tell anyone that he was gone?
So I forced the words up and out. “Jeff… Jeffrey’s dead. At Passchendaele.”
“Dead?” Lawrence said, sitting back. He looked genuinely shocked and confused. Though, I noted with annoyance, he didn’t seem upset. “Are you certain?”
He actually wanted proof?
I picked up my luggage from where he’d put it and rummaged through one suitcase, my fingers questing for that ball of paper I knew lay at the bottom. I found it and offered it to him.
Lawrence unfolded it against the finished surface of the table. It looked much the same as when I’d thrown it into the suitcase. The ink had run, and creases crisscrossed the text. Was it even still legible?
Lawrence squinted down at it, frowning all the while. I wondered if he needed spectacles. I doubt he wore them if he did, since they might ruin the dashing lines of his face.
Finishing, he shook his head and chuckled. When he offered me the note, I snatched it out of his hand.
“Are you mocking me?” I said, upset both at his lack of tact and at the prospect of me having to ask him for help crossing the Atlantic again.
“What? No. No. Of course not, Eleanor. I’m sorry, my laughter must appear quite sadistic to you. But let me assure you that it is not out of malice that I laughed.”
“Then why?”
He leaned in close. “Irony, my dear.”
“Explain yourself,” I said, my teeth clenched.
He slid my mug of coffee closer. “Finish your drink and dry off some more. I’ll see if this joint has a telephone and have a car brought around.”
“Why? Where are you taking me?”
Lawrence gave me a grin that reminded me of the man I’d met back in Canada. His eyes looked mischievous. A charming man, through and through. I couldn’t help but feel my spirits lifted, if only slightly.
“Allow me this bit of mystery. I’m a selfish man, as you know,” he said, grinning all the while.
***
“Really, Lawrence, where are we going?” I said from the back seat of the Model T in Ford’s favorite color: black.
Lawrence sat beside me. He examined me from the corner of his eye, and he kept fighting back against a small smile that curled his lips.
In front, an army private steered us through the maze of streets deeper into the city, away from the p
ort. He’d looked thoroughly intimidated and overwhelmed by Lawrence, who’d quashed all of his questions about requisitioning military transport for a soaked civilian.
The rain running in rivulets down the glass smeared my view of the street, but from what I could see, we were in a part of the city I never visited.
“Army personnel have been granted quarters a frustrating distance from port, my dear,” Lawrence said.
“So why are we going to see more army boys?” I said. Something about this situation got my hackles up. Did Lawrence plan on parading me around his barracks for some reason? Glancing at the street, I thought about stepping out at the next stop, but then I would be in the same boat as before Lawrence came to me, with only a little bit of money and no way home.
I decided to simply grin and bear it. Let Lawrence have a bit of fun; maybe it would earn me a spot as a laundry girl on one of the ships going back to Halifax.
“I, too, was at Passchendaele,” Lawrence said. He rubbed gently at his side, flinching at the touch. “A piece of shrapnel from a nearby artillery blast ricocheted into my trench and caught me along the ribs…” he traced a line on his body. “It’s still quite tender, and promises to be my most prominent trophy from this war.”
“That’s just awful,” I said. His story reminded me of my nightmares, of watching Jeff blasted to oblivion in the middle of a muddy, stinking field.
But apparently, Lawrence wasn’t finished. “When my men came to me, they thought me dead. So much blood on and around me, you see. I’ve heard of a number of such cases, where a man was mistaken for dead and gone. It has also been known that overzealous clerks send out notifications of death before that fact has been established. I just cannot bring myself to imagine the anguish of my mother and sisters if I’d been so unlucky as that.”
By his tone, he wanted to convey some subtext to me, some allegory. However, I couldn’t grasp it, since my mind constantly bombarded me with images from my nightmares.
“Truly terrible, yes,” I agreed, letting the irritation through in my voice. “Now, will you please tell me the reason for this trip?”
“Do you remember our time aboard the train? When I said how proud I would be to have a brave young man like Jeffrey under my command?”
“That, among other things,” I replied, hoping the tone of my voice conveyed that I also remembered his attempt at seduction.
Lawrence preoccupied his fingers toying with the buttons on his jacket. “Indeed. But they weren’t idle words, Eleanor. I did have Jeffrey transferred to my command. A fine young man, just as brave as I imagined. Though, perhaps, not so dashing as other men who have wanted to hold you close.”
That did get my attention. “You knew Jeff? Were you there when he… when he…” but I couldn’t get the rest of that question out.
Lawrence forestalled me with a raised hand. “No, I… Driver, turn right here!... I was not. For reasons that will become apparent to you very shortly. Private! Pull up beside that house there. No, not this one. The one I’m pointing at, can’t you see my finger?”
Looking through the water blurring my view, I could see we’d stopped on a stretch of road lined with large, old townhouses. Chimneys poked up at each corner. The housing looked to be in serviceable condition, if exhausted. They needed a new coat of paint.
Soldiers wandered up and down the street, many of them bandaged, or limping along with a crutch.
It looked like the government had quartered the runoff from the local barracks here.
“Wait here for a moment, Eleanor,” Lawrence said. Before I could protest, he opened the door and swung himself out into the drizzle. I watched him run up the stairs to the door marked 42 and enter without knocking.
The private kept the car running, the engine growling and sputtering, the frame of the vehicle shuddering slightly as it idled.
Lawrence didn’t return immediately, so I found myself staring down at my hands, folded on my lap. What business could he possibly be attending to here? And why did I need to be right outside? Surely he could have just left me back at that public house?
From the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a uniformed man emerging from number 42 and hurrying down the stairs. At least he didn’t want to take his time sauntering down the sidewalk, I figured. When he reached the door and began opening it, I readied my complains on my lips.
They died when the man who sat down beside me was not Lawrence Marsh.
“This can’t be!” I said, my body moving instinctually back into the corner created by the seat and door.
“It is, though. Oh, Ellie! There have been so many times I thought I’d never see your face again!” He reached for me.
“No, you’re dead! They told me you were dead! Am I insane? Am I seeing things?”
The Jeffrey Beech sat across from me in the back of the Ford looked both familiar and alien. Like Lawrence, he was gaunt, his cheeks hollowed out. His happiness at seeing me warred with the weight of what he’d seen over there in his eyes, which looked older than the shining, optimistic ones I knew back in Kitchener.
The tails of cream-colored bandages poked out from the cuffs of both sleeves, and he moved with a stiffness that spoke to whatever injury he’d sustained.
Like some child, I squeezed my eyes shut, my nails biting into the palms of my hands as I clenched them into fists. If this is a dream, I told myself, I want to wake up. I want to wake up now!
But when I opened my eyes, Jeff still sat across from me. My palms stung from the jabbing I gave them.
And Jeff still had his hand extended out towards me. One corner of his mouth trembled, and his eyes looked watery.
“I told you I’d come back to you no matter what,” he said, “And I wasn’t about to let an artillery shell make a liar of me.”
Slowly, still not quite believing what my senses told me, I accepted his hand. He felt solid enough, and warm.
“Ellie…” he started, but I stopped him when I flew across the seat and wrapped my arms around him. Despite his other changes, his smell remained the same. I luxuriated in the feeling of his chest expanding with his breaths. When he returned the hug, crushing me against him and resting his cheek on my shoulder, the tears came.
It was real. This was no dream.
My Jeff was alive!
***
The townhouse had three levels, with most of the rooms converted to dorms and jammed full of cots. Jeff stayed in what used to be some sort of study or library, judging by the bookcases built into the walls and the old stone fireplace that still smelled of ash.
Normally, it looked like ten men slept in there. But Lawrence had pulled rank and ordered everyone out to give Jeff and me some privacy. He’d pulled a few cots together (refusing my help all the while) and that’s where we sat, our hands intertwined and our thighs pressed together as we watched the rain slide down the window lattice in our first moment of contented silence in what felt an eternity.
I knew I was still in some state of shock and disbelief. I kept squeezing his hand and looking at him, making sure he was actually there. He squeezed my hand right back.
“What happened to you? Why did they tell me you were dead?” I asked.
Jeff unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it back off his shoulders with some effort, his eyes squinting in pain. I sucked in a breath. His stomach was heavily bandaged, as well as his shoulders.
“The shell exploded right next to me. They figure it must have been a partial dud or something, because it didn’t explode nearly as much as it should have. It was plenty for me, anyway. I don’t really remember much, actually. Just being lifted into the air, tasting dirt and blood in my mouth… and thinking about how I was never going to get to see you again.”
My hands played lightly over the bandages, coming to rest on the bare skin where his shoulders met his neck. “You’re going to be seeing me from now on, as often as I can manage,” I said.
I leaned in to kiss him, but he pulled back at the last moment. “Why are you
here, Ellie? In England, I mean. Don’t take this the wrong way, I’m so happy to see you, I’m just not really certain why I’m seeing you in this place. Was it Lawrence? Did he somehow get you over here?”
I smiled. “Not how you’re thinking, but in a way, I suppose. I followed you. I got over here only to find out that you’d shipped out already.”
That satisfied him. This time when I leaned in for a kiss, he didn’t stop me. His lips were as warm and soft against mine as I remembered. Warmth flooded my body, my heart fluttering at the touch.
Neither of us wanted to stop. So we didn’t. My sense of propriety raged inside the cell where I’d locked it away. Damn propriety. I thought Jeff was dead, and he wasn’t. And nothing was going to keep me from him any longer.
“Gently… Gently…” Jeff said as I eased him back down onto the cot. And it was quite an effort to be gentle. Desire and relief and pure happiness positively thrummed inside me, looking for any way out.
Some part of me wondered if there were soldiers bunched up on the other side of the door, listening in on our moment together. The rest of me didn’t care.
No, the rest of me was too busy unbuttoning Jeff’s trousers and kissing him and getting feverish at the thought of being together once more.
And then we were. We both sighed and shuddered in relief as we became one once more, him hot and hard, me just as hot, but soft and clutching around him.
Our hands clenched together, the strength of our grip attesting to our need for this intimacy.
I kept the pace relatively slow, not wanting to hurt him, until near the end. He touched me deep inside, and I just couldn’t control myself anymore. So I buried my face against his neck while he held me close, our bodies rigid as the waves of our pleasure passed over us.
And it was all the more intense for me. I thought we’d never have a moment like this again, and there we were, given a second chance by fate.
We lay side by side on the cots he’d pushed together earlier, looking up at the bare lathes of the ceiling.
It was then a terrible thought hit me. I bolted up, Jeff looking at me in confusion.
“What is it?” he asked.