“Hollandby says they’d have to break the right leg again and reset it. It isn’t anyone’s fault, just my age, I imagine! If I gave them the go-ahead, and it worked out as they hoped, then I’d have to spend a few weeks at their physiotherapy centre, in Sussex. After that they say I’ll still limp but not nearly so badly as if they patch me and send me out as I am.”
Jim considered; he was trying hard to put himself in Harold’s place. A few more weeks of pain and anxiety, weighed against the prospect of an almost complete cure. He knew at once what he would decide but then, he had not lain here for months in pain and fear, as Harold had done. It was easy to make a brave decision when one was fit and active. A man could stand so much pain and uncertainty and then, when the limit was reached, not one more twinge, or one more doubt.
He said, slowly: “It isn’t a thing I’d like to advise you about, Harold. If it was me I’d have it done but you know your own breaking strain, and if it’s going to drain you of what reserves you’ve got left, then maybe it’s better to settle for half a loaf. That’s something only you know about!”
“I keep asking myself if it’s worth it,” said Harold.
This was a question on which Jim felt that he could advise.
“Damn it, Harold, of course it’s worth it! Look at it this way, you’ve worked hard ever since you were a kid, and after this no doubt you’ll retire, and take things easy. You’ve got through the worst of it, not only all the years of hard grind that led up to retirement, but through the war and this fearful bashing they gave you! Isn’t it a pity to chuck away the twenty odd years of peace you’ve earned for the sake of one more spurt?”
“You’re taking it for granted that I’ll make old bones and I won’t Jim, not after this,” said Harold.
“Damn it, you’ll live as long as I will!” said Jim emphatically. “It isn’t your injuries that makes you think your life has been shortened, but lying here, with so much time on your hands! Listen, Harold old man, do you remember that night we got to know one another, at the time of Dunkirk?”
“Yes, of course I remember it, Jim!”
“Well, I’ll tell you something! You did me more good that night than anyone ever did in the whole of my life! I was ready to pack it in there and then, but it was you who gave me something to hope for, and something to fight for, simply by being who you are and what you are, an ordinary chap next door, with enough guts to hang on and hang on, until the muddlers like me got their second wind! I reckon you can scrape the barrel now, and find enough to go through with his job, and if you do, then you’ll be out in time to enjoy that little bastard’s wake, over in Berlin!”
Harold’s thin lips twitched and Jim was relieved to see that he was now smiling again.
“Good old Jim,” he said, at length, “you’re always on the look-out for someone to canonise aren’t you?”
“I’ve always believed that it’s been a battle as to who could hang on the longest,” said Jim, “and what goes for all of us goes for you! It’s a bit more than that too,” he went on, dropping his voice, “as far as I’m concerned winning the war wouldn’t mean a damn thing if you didn’t come through it!”
“You really mean that, don’t you, Jim?” said Harold.
“Yes, I do! It’s odd but somehow you…you kind of symbolise this war for me! You always have!”
Harold was silent a moment and then swivelled his chair. Jim noticed that he had braced himself and was smiling broadly now.
“All right, Jim, I’ll go through with it and thanks for everything! You’d better call them and….”
But there was no need to call anybody. The door opened and the Sister appeared, clothed in starch and fury.
“You really must come at once, Godbeer!” she snapped. “Is this all the thanks I get, for arranging a special visit?”
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” said Harold, wearily, as the Sister whirled him round, and whisked him past Jim into the corridor. And then, as a parting shot: “We’ve got our own Hitlers, Jim. This dam’ place is crawling with ’em!”
Judy was alone in the house with Barbara when Jim telephoned from Exeter.
Mrs. Cousins, the daily from the village, had sent a message to say that she was in bed with influenza and Ernie, the poultryman, had gone off to Exeter market to buy a secondhand hover for the spring chicks.
When the ’phone rang Judy had just had her first pain and she was sitting on the broad, bottom stair, still gasping. She called to Barbara, who was crayoning at the kitchen table.
“See who it is, Baba! Answer it for Mummy!”
She had been ‘Mummy’ to Barbara ever since they had moved into The Shillets, six months ago, and it had not taken the child very long to adjust herself to the relationship. The only other mother Barbara remembered was Frances, in Llandudno, and she retained memories of Pippa, but they were fading. She was a lively, intelligent child and Judy had found her such good company that she had put off starting her at school, although she had been five in September. She decided to wait until her own baby was born and Mrs. Cousin’s daughter, Thirza, came to live in.
Barbara came trotting out of the kitchen and reached up for the receiver. She liked answering the telephone.
“This-is-the-Shillets-and-it’s-Baba-speaking,” she recited gaily. She called across to Judy on the stairs. “It’s Grandfather Carver, and he’s in Exeter!”
Judy experienced relief. Now that the baby was actually coming some of her confidence had deserted her and the arrival of Jim in Devon was reassuring.
She struggled to her feet and crossed the hall.
“Hullo, Dad? Where are you?”
“At the Station and we can’t get a good train to North Devon until four. We thought about staying in Exeter for the night, there’s no sense in pushing on, and arriving long after dark. How are you, Judy-girl?”
“I’m fine but….”
The second pain gripped her and she broke off, squeaking into the ’phone, so that he instantly became anxious and said, quickly: “Are you still there Judy? Is that you, Judy?”
She gritted her teeth and sat down on the chair under the ’phone.
“Listen, Dad, I think it’s started….yes, just now…of all times! …I’ll have to ring off now and get somebody!”
His voice sounded desperately anxious. “Who’s there? Who’s with you, Judy?”
“Nobody, except Baba, but don’t fuss, Dad, I’ll get someone. It’s all fixed!”
“I’ll come, Judy, I’ll come over straight away!”
She nodded and replaced the receiver, clasping the arms of the chair and shooting out her legs as the pains wracked her, and lights exploded into the sun patterns before the open door.
The spasm passed and she realised that she would have to think and act fast. Jim’s arrival was a stroke of luck but he could not get here for over an hour, even if he was lucky enough to find a cab at the station. Ernie, the poultryman, would not be back from the market until after three o’clock, and Maud Somerton, whom she had promised to ring, would be in the stable yard and seldom answered the telephone at this time of day. She took advantage of a lull in the pain to pick up the receiver and ask for Doctor Christie’s number. She liked and trusted Christie, a brusque, elderly doctor, who rode to hounds. The Doctor’s secretary told her he was over at the Cottage Hospital but that she would try and get him at once. She then began to explain that he was due to perform a minor operation there at 3 p.m., but Judy cut her short as the pains began again.
“Get him or his partner….I’ll send someone down for Nurse Rawley! My baby’s on its way!”
The woman at the other end of the ’phone began to exclaim but Judy dropped the receiver and called loudly to Barbara, who had drifted back into the kitchen.
“Baba! Are you there, Baba?”
Barbara came running, startled by the urgency in Judy’s voice. Judy sat down again and beckoned to the child.
“Listen Baba, this is important! I want you to saddle old Gram
p and ride down to Mrs. Southcott, at the Ring o’Bells! Tell her Mummy’s baby’s coming, and she’s to get Nurse Rawley, and if she can’t get the nurse tell her to come herself, d’you understand, dear?”
The child regarded her with mild wonder. She knew all about the baby and was intrigued by the prospect of a brother who, for some inexplicable reason, was at present living inside Mummy, and taking his time about joining them, but the prospect of actually saddling up the pony, and riding down to the village without an escort, drove everything else from her mind, and she began to hop about the hall in her delight.
“Do you understand what you’ve got to do, Baba?” asked Judy, impatiently.
“Yes, yes,” chanted Barbara, “ride Gramp down to Mrs. Southcott and tell her the baby’s here. I’ll make him gallop—I’ll shake him up!”
“The baby’s coming…and get nurse, try and get nurse!”
The child nodded and clattered away. Judy heard her feet flying across the cobbled yard to the stables. Between the waves of pain she fought panic, for now that she was alone in the house and the prospect of losing the baby, as a result of her own carelessness in not making better arrangements, began to assume terrifying proportions.
Only last night, when Doctor Christie had looked in, it had all seemed a bit of a joke, and he had commended her on her lack of fuss, but now it seemed to her an act of madness to have left everything to chance and relied upon a five-year-old child to bring help when it was needed.
She dragged herself upstairs and was relieved to hear Gramp’s hooves clatter over the flagstones of the path, leading to the lane. She leaned heavily on the window-sill and waited to see pony and rider emerge from behind the chestnuts and canter off towards the village.
Then, as the pain receded for a moment, the incongruity of the situation struck her, and she clawed her way to the bed, rolling over on her back and thinking how strange it was that Esme’s first child should be called upon to play such a spectacular part in the arrival of Esme’s second child, while Esme himself was…. God knew where!
The pain became almost continuous then and she drew up her knees and moaned, trying to fix her mind on something pleasant in the past, something offering a refuge from the agony and terror of the present. She shut her eyes tightly and deliberately conjured up a picture of the ploughed ridge beyond Manor Wood, where it swept up to the spinney and the county border, but the figure that emerged from the wood and climbed the slope towards the spinney, was not Esme, but Boxer, her brother. Hands in trouser pockets he kicked at stones as he walked over the furrows and she saw that his lips were pursed in a whistle. She wanted, most desperately, to know what tune he was whistling. For some reason this became terribly important as she struggled to seal herself off from a fresh surge of pain, and concentrate on the slouching figure of Boxer mounting towards the skyline of the field.
Then, just as he reached it, she heard his whistle clearly. He was whistling a tune that she always associated with those days in the Avenue. It was ‘Coal-Black Mammy’ and she heard him as clearly as though he was standing at the foot of the bed. Her own lips formed the words.
‘Not a cent, not a cent
And my clothes are only lent….’
Then he passed over the skyline, the room went dark and the pain became so intolerable that she screamed.
The car that Jim had at last managed to find deposited him and Edith at the foot of the lane, and they were obliged to struggle up the muddy path to the farm on foot. He saw at once, however, that his worst fears were unfulfilled, for Judy was obviously no longer alone. A battered Morris, the doctor’s, he assumed, was parked under the chestnuts, and as he and Edith hurried into the garden an elderly woman in mud-splashed riding-boots and a hacking jacket green with age hailed them from the porch.
“Mr. Carver? Silliest thing, we’ve never met! I’m Maud Somerton, and you’ll be glad to hear the Gel’s fine! It’s a boy, a monstrous, hairy, little brute! He was born before the doctor got here, if you please!”
Jim gasped with relief. “God, but I was worried,” he admitted, and then, recollecting his manners: “How do you do, Miss Somerton? This is my wife, and we were only married this morning!”
They shook hands and Edith winced under Maud’s grip. The anxiety, the rush from the station, and the final sprint up the sloshy lane, had left her breathless and dishevelled. A hank of grey hair had broken loose from under her new straw hat, and her neat, brown shoes and stockings were coated with mud.
“You look all in, the pair of you!” said Miss Somerton briefly. “Come inside, and let me get you something! Doctor’s still upstairs! Nurse arrived after it was all over! I told the Gel that woman was no dam’ good! Lucky old Nell Southcott came back with the child!”
They went into the big kitchen, where a log fire burned brightly, and Jim sniffed the air appreciatively. Although an inveterate town-dweller he had always loved the smell of a farm-kitchen, and the hiss and splutter of burning wood.
Barbara came prancing out of the buttery and jumped at him.
“The baby’s here, the baby’s here!” she chanted, “and it was me and Gramp who fetched everybody from the pub!”
“She rode the pony down to the Southcotts,” Miss Somerton explained. “Now leave them alone, Baba, and let them get their breath! Have you given old Gramp a good rub down?”
“Yes, and I’ve put his rug on,” said Barbara, smugly.
“Good girl, good girl,” said Miss Somerton, absently, and to Edith, “I expect you could do with some tea. Help yourself to sugar!”
Jim and Edith sat drinking tea in the kitchen while Maud Somerton talked inconsequently of Judy, how happy she was down here, and what a flair the Gel had for teaching children to ride. Jim smiled, enjoying his relief, and remembering all the stories that Judy had told him about this terse, leathery, old riding-mistress.
“You changed her life, Miss Somerton,” he told her, gratefully. “She worships you, you know!”
Maud snorted. “Rubbish!” she snapped, “she’s got no time for anybody but that airman husband of hers! When is he likely to be home?”
“I shouldn’t think it’ll be long now,” said Jim, “we shall soon have the blighters on the run again?”
“By God and about time,” said Miss Somerton, explosively. “Do you know what they’re asking for hay this winter?”
Jim never learned the current price of hay for at this point the old doctor bustled in, purple-faced and wheezing. Jim shook hands with him and reflected, while doing so, that to live down here was to transport oneself back into George III’s reign. People still sent children on horseback for midwives, and doctors looked like hunting squires in 18th-century hunting prints.
“How is she, doctor?” he asked.
“First-rate!” said Doctor Christie, “and that’s the way to have them! I don’t know what people want with nursing homes and what-not. Damned badly-run places, most of ’em, nothing like your own home! You’d better feed her some broth now, Maud, and I’ll ring through before I turn in. Nurse’ll be here for a week or so. Will you be staying on, Mr. Carver?”
“I’m afraid we shall have to, just for tonight,” said Jim, apologetically. “We were on our way to North Devon when it happened and we were only married this morning!”
“Good God!” exclaimed the doctor. “Well, I daresay Nell Southcott will look after you, and congratulations on both events! I’d better be off now. Old Mark Phillips, over at Coombe Brake, will die tonight. Pity! I made sure he’d make his century.”
“I thought he had,” said Maud, off-handedly.
“Ninety-eight,” said Doctor Christie, “Ah well, we can’t all do it, can we Mrs. Carver?”
“Nnno,” said Edith, doubtfully, “I suppose not, Doctor!”
Mrs. Southcott, a sharp-nosed, cheerful woman, about Jim’s age, came downstairs and introduced herself, apparently accepting this interruption of her life very philosophically. After telephoning her daughter at the Ring o’ Bells she m
ade up the beds for Jim, Edith and the nurse, and afterwards helped Edith to prepare a meal of eggs and bacon, stewed fruit and another vast pot of tea. Maud finished her meal first and put Baba to bed, afterwards going out to replenish the wood pile. Before she left she went upstairs to see Judy and called down, saying that Jim and Edith could look in and see her before they went to bed.
“You go, Jim,” said Edith, shyly. “I’m sure she’d rather see you alone. Tell her I’ll see her in the morning.”
He climbed the broad, uneven stairs, and Maud pointed out the bedroom. On the landing he met the nurse, who told him that Judy had had one good sleep but was probably ready for another.
“I won’t stay a minute,” Jim promised.
He went in a little fearfully and found her sitting up, sipping a mug of Ovaltine.
A bright coal fire was burning in the high grate and the new curtains were closely drawn. The panelled room looked cosy and inviting. The baby’s cot stood beside the bed, furthermost from the fire, and the room was lit by a single, pink-shaded bedside light. The air of comfort and elegance astonished him, for his acquaintance with the kitchen had prepared him for spartan bedrooms.
“Hullo, there,” she called, cheerfully. “Well, I managed it!”
She could not keep the note of triumph from her voice and he was excited at seeing her so strong and confident. He did not remember ever having noticed the lustre of her thick, chestnut hair, or the rich bloom on her cheeks. She not only looked happy but in radiant health, and his mind went back to his first wife, Ada, and the birth of their eldest child, poor old Louise, in the drab, two-roomed flat they had occupied when Queen Victoria was still on the throne. It seemed several centuries ago.
“I’m so glad you were around,” she said, kissing him. “Where’s Edith?”
“Downstairs,” he told her, “and she’s tired out! She said she’ll come in and see you in the morning. We’ll be staying tonight, there’s no help for it. That Mrs. Southcott and Miss Somerton have seen to us.”
“Did it go off all right, the wedding?” she wanted to know.
The Avenue Goes to War Page 62