Cousins at War

by Doris Davidson

  Lots of love, Neil

  PS. Freda was sorry to hear about your operation and she hopes you’ll soon be well again.

  Noticing that Mrs Ferris was wiping her eyes, the kindly nurse hurried over. ‘Not bad news, I hope?’

  Gracie gave a watery smile. ‘No, it’s good news, the best I could have had. My son’s getting married and I’m so happy I couldn’t help having a little weep.’

  ‘You mums! Getting sentimental when your little boy takes a wife. You won’t be losing a son, you’ll be . . .’

  ‘I know, gaining a daughter-in-law. Freda’s an awful nice girl and I’m really pleased about it.’

  While she was writing to Neil, Gracie wondered if it would be better not to tell Hetty yet, though there was no point in keeping it from her. Olive had to know, sooner or later.

  When Joe came in with Hetty – Queenie waited outside – he said, ‘Did Patsy manage to come and see you today?’

  ‘Yes, the same time as yesterday, when she came off duty.’

  ‘Neil phoned this morning to see how you were and I told him you were coming on fine.’

  Gracie smiled. ‘Didn’t he say anything else?’

  ‘Just that he’d had a tiring journey back . . . oh, and he said he’d written to you. Have you got his letter?’

  ‘Yes, this morning. Read it.’

  In a few minutes, Hetty was expressing as much delight at the news as Gracie and Joe, and if Queenie’s later echoing of their happy sentiments was not quite so honest, no one noticed. She resented the fact that Neil had said nothing to her when he was home. They had been quite close at one time, and he should have told her.

  It wasn’t until Hetty arrived home that she began to feel apprehensive. Martin was sitting reading when she went in, but he raised his head and smiled, ‘How’s Gracie?’

  ‘She’s a bit better. Is Olive up in her room? Somebody’ll have to tell her that Neil’s getting married.’

  ‘Good for him! We’ll have to send a wedding present.’

  Hetty climbed the stairs slowly and unwillingly, angry at her husband for not taking on the responsibility. She had no time to think and it was quite possible that Olive would go berserk when she was told.

  The girl was bent over her desk writing furiously, with text books all round her, and she looked up irritably when her mother opened the door. ‘Gracie had a letter from Neil today and he’s getting married as soon as he can arrange it.’ Hetty had decided not to shilly-shally, but kept well back waiting for the volcano to erupt.

  ‘Married?’ Olive’s eyes widened, but her manner was quite mild. After a minute, she gave a smile. ‘We knew it would come, didn’t we? People who are engaged usually do tie the knot eventually.’

  Hetty’s racing heart slowed down. ‘You’re not upset?’

  ‘Why should I be?’

  ‘I thought . . . you were always so fond of him . . .’

  ‘A person can be fond of someone without love coming into it. Now, will you let me get on with this?’

  ‘Yes, sorry.’ Hetty went back to Martin. ‘She didn’t seem to be bothered.’

  ‘That does surprise me . . . if she’s genuine.’

  ‘I think she is. She accepted his engagement. She knew it would only be a matter of time before he got married.’

  ‘Thank heaven for that. I thought I might have to come and shovel you off the hall floor.’

  ‘Shovel me off . . .?’

  ‘I thought she’d throw you downstairs,’ Martin laughed.

  ‘You didn’t think of telling her yourself, though!’ Hetty burst out. ‘Everything’s always left to me.’

  ‘That’s because you’re so good at these things and it was a woman’s place to do it, not a man’s.’

  Cooling a little, Hetty said, ‘I suppose it was, but she took it like a lamb.’

  It was a very fierce lamb who was pitching her papers and books across the room at that precise moment. If Neil had been there, Olive would have struck him down with one blow. He was fiendishly evil, she thought bitterly, kicking her folder from under her feet. On Saturday – less than a week ago – he had given himself to her in the fullest sense, as she had given herself to him, turning her unsure world into a paradise of certainty. He had proved that he loved her. He had even admitted that he’d never made love to Freda, so why was he in such an all-fired hurry to marry the bally girl?

  Unscrewing the top of her fountain pen, she removed the outer case and squeezed the narrow rubber tube, watching as the ink spurted over the top of her desk, and wishing that she could squeeze Neil’s neck until his blood spurted out of his veins like that . . . God! Was there nothing she could do?

  For several minutes, she racked her brain for even a ghost of an idea, until it crossed her mind that Neil had possibly told her a downright lie when he said that he had never made love to Freda. This rushed wedding couldn’t be anything but a cover up to pregnancy. Olive was even more distressed by this conclusion. The very thought of him having sex with anyone else made her feel as though a steel spike was being ground into her chest.

  Even worse than that, if Freda was pregnant, it scuppered all her own hopes of driving them apart. She had planned to wait a few months then write to Neil that she was expecting his child, in the belief that he would feel honour bound to break his engagement and do the right thing by her, but now whatever lies she told would be useless. He would stand by Freda.

  Olive sat for a further few minutes, admitting defeat at last. She had lost Neil, after all she had done to make him love her, after all the hours she had spent scheming how to win him. Suddenly, with a quivering sigh, she dropped down on her hands and knees and began to remove all traces of her temper tantrum.

  Part Two

  Chapter Twenty

  On Wednesday, 21 April 1943, twenty-five Dorniers flew out of Stavanger, each carrying more than two tons of bombs. The target was Aberdeen. It was dusk, a little after nine in the evening, when they came sweeping in from the north to wreak their terrible destruction.

  Olive Potter – blasé about the alerts since there had been only a few tip-and-run raids lately – remained in her room until she heard the first bombs fall then, galvanised into action, she shot downstairs as though all the hounds in hell were after her. Her father, grim but calm, pulled her into the back hall where her mother was already sitting with her back against the wall.

  With the increase in noise level, Hetty whispered, through lips that were trembling fearfully, ‘They’re coming nearer, Martin.’

  ‘They’re still a good bit away.’

  ‘I hope they’re nowhere near King Street.’

  ‘Ssh!’ Martin was holding his head high to concentrate on the approaching sounds and, in a few minutes, they were all certain that a bomb had fallen in their immediate vicinity. They could feel the vibrations through their feet and they huddled together waiting for the next one, perhaps the last they would ever hear.

  Joe, Patsy and Queenie huddled with the other tenants in one of the cellars – the sunks, as they were colloquially known – underneath the tenement. ‘I think they’re going away now,’ Patsy said, in some relief. ‘One was close, but they don’t sound so loud now.’

  Joe nodded. ‘They’ve likely been after the harbour first, but they could be aiming for anything . . . hospitals and . . .’

  ‘Oh, God!’ Patsy burst out. ‘I hope they haven’t got near Foresterhill. What about Mum . . . and all the other patients?’

  Mrs Burnett from the top floor was appalled. ‘They surely wouldna bomb hospitals?’

  ‘They did it in other countries, trying to break morale.’

  ‘Oh, that’s right cruel.’ This was Mrs Fleming who shared the landing with the Burnetts. ‘But surely the Spitfires’ll shoot them doon afore they get as far inland as Foresterhill or Woolmanhill.’

  Queenie was still horrified, ‘I could understand if they aimed at barracks and places like that, but not hospitals.’

  Mr Walker from the second flo
or – a shrivelled-up, retired railwayman whose wife was curled up with her hands over her ears – tutted in disgust. ‘They’re barbarians! It’s Hitler I blame. Him and that Goering.’

  They all looked at each other in fear as several deafening explosions resounded in rapid succession, then Joe shrugged his shoulders, his thin grey hair parting to show his bald patch, and carried on speaking as if bombs were an everyday occurrence. ‘They’ve to obey orders, the same as our boys. I bet the ordinary Germans would be as shocked as us if they knew what was going on.’

  ‘Do our bombers bomb hospitals in Germany?’ Queenie asked.

  ‘If that’s what they’re told to do, but the trouble with bombs is they’re not always dead on target and even if they are, whole areas can get flattened, hospitals and houses and schools even, if they’re near. War’s a dirty business these days. It’s not hand-to-hand fighting, or shelling across no-man’s-land like it was the last time.’

  Each family there had at least one member in the forces but no one mentioned the husband, son or daughter who was at that moment taking part in the defence of Britain and other allied countries, whether on land, or at sea, or in the air. Nevertheless, it was the thought of their loved ones that prevented a show of panic. If they could stick it out, the people at home could do the same.

  For security reasons, details of the raid were not given in the local newspapers next day – the headlines merely said ‘Raid on North East Town’ – but the toll gradually emerged. The bombs had been of the phosphorous and oil type, igniting on impact, and seemed to have been dropped indiscriminately on large buildings and densely populated areas – which may have been intentional, if the enemy were trying to undermine morale. Churches, the Royal Mental Hospital and its nurses’ home, two schools and the barracks of the Gordon Highlanders had all been set alight. A stick of bombs had even fallen on St Peter’s Cemetery in King Street, fortunately missing the Ogilvie family grave. Other planes had attacked with cannon and machine guns, and streets had been raked with bullets. Close on a hundred people had been killed and almost as many were seriously injured. Joe’s assistant Jim was one of the fatalities, and it was days before he found a replacement – a widow with two sons in the navy.

  Once Gracie got home from hospital, she regained her health slowly. Queenie continued convincingly to be as effervescent as she could and Joe grumbled about the extra work – and the annoyance to his customers – that the rationing was causing, and about his new assistant until she learned the prices and positions of the goods he sold. But in the main, he was as good-humoured as he had always been.

  In May, Neil’s marriage having finally made up her mind, but having waited until her aunt was strong enough to bear the shock, Queenie took the fateful step. ‘I signed on for the WAAFs today,’ she announced as they sat down to lunch. She had expected opposition but was dismayed to see the colour draining from Gracie’s face.

  It was Joe who said, rather sharply, ‘Have you thought it over properly?’

  ‘Yes, I have. I’ve been thinking about it for ages. I’m . . . losing interest in my lectures and it’s a waste of time me carrying on. I want do something to prove myself.’

  Rubbing his hand across his chin, already stubbling since morning, Joe said, ‘I’m not happy about it, but I’ll not try to stop you. What about you, Gracie?’

  His wife nodded, her face still ashen. ‘If that’s what she wants to do.’

  ‘It’s what I want to do.’

  Patsy said very little when she was told, but tackled her cousin when they were in bed. ‘If you think going away will make you feel better about Neil’s wedding, you’re wrong.’

  ‘I won’t feel better about it,’ Queenie agreed, ‘but at least I won’t be here to see him with his wife.’

  ‘They’ll likely be here before you’ve to go.’

  ‘I think I can manage to cope with them once.’

  ‘What about your teaching career? Have you given up on it altogether?’

  ‘I can always carry on with my studies after the war.’

  Patsy thought for a moment, then said, ‘Maybe you’ll meet somebody when you’re in the WAAFs.’

  ‘Maybe I will.’ Queenie thought that it was unlikely that she would meet anyone who would come anywhere near Neil in her affections but let it go at that.

  No one referred to Queenie’s enlistment in the WAAFs the following day, but at teatime, in an effort to show her that he did not hold it against her, Joe remarked, ‘I know you girls can’t afford to go to the pictures very often,’ here he stuck his hand into his trouser pocket, ‘but here’s five bob, have a treat on me.’

  ‘No, Dad,’ Patsy said, as he held out two half crowns. ‘We don’t need it. We don’t mind not seeing any . . .’

  ‘Take it! I’ll be offended if you don’t.’

  ‘Well, if you put it like that . . . thanks, but is it OK if we go tomorrow? I told Hetty on the phone that I’d go there tonight . . . how about coming with me, Queenie?’

  ‘I’d rather not. Olive and I have never got on.’

  Remembering why, Patsy felt a momentary pang of pity for the other girl. ‘Can’t you put up with her for one night?’

  ‘Yes, go, Queenie,’ Gracie urged. ‘Hetty says Olive’s a lot quieter and better behaved now.’

  Queenie sighed in resignation, ‘I suppose I could. Right, Patsy, you’ve got a chum for tonight.’

  The visit turned out to be quite pleasant, after all Hetty and Martin made them very welcome, and even Olive managed to smile.

  When they went to bed that night, Queenie said, ‘I can’t get over Olive being so nice to me. She hasn’t had a civil word to say to me for a long time, but she asked how I was getting on with my degree work and even offered to help with anything she could. She certainly has changed.’

  ‘I don’t know if I should ask this, but was it anything to do with Neil that made you two fall out?’

  Glad to talk to someone who would understand, Queenie told her everything, and when she came to an end, Patsy said, ‘I always knew Olive could be nasty, but I never realised how malicious she was. Still, it should be a comfort to you to know she’s lost Neil, too. I suppose she felt just as hurt as you when he was married.’

  ‘I never thought of it like that. She must have been hurt for she always thought she would get him in the end.’

  ‘Um, Queenie, seeing you’ve confessed to me, do you mind if I confess something to you?’

  ‘No, carry on.’

  ‘There was a Canadian Air Force sergeant in our ward for a few weeks and . . .’

  ‘Don’t tell me you fell for him?’

  ‘I couldn’t help it, Queenie. His name’s Jake Corbierre . . . he’s French-Canadian really, and he’s got a lovely way of speaking, with just a hint of an accent . . . he’d been brought up to speak French, you see, living in Quebec. He’s dark and foreign-looking, and his eyes . . . this sounds like something you read in a novel, but his eyes are kind of deep set, a dark, dark brown, and they just look right into you. Some of the things he said made me think he looked on me as a person not just a nurse, and I thought he did care for me, but he was discharged last week and he didn’t even say goodbye, and that’s that. Exit Prince Charming, so there’s no love story. I should have had more sense than . . .’

  ‘Do you know where he’s stationed?

  ‘At Dyce. I thought he might come back to see me or write me a letter or something, but he hasn’t.’

  ‘Couldn’t you write to him?’

  ‘If he wanted to keep in touch, he’d have done something, so it looks like I was imagining things.’

  ‘Oh, Patsy, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘I’ll get over it, I suppose, but I did like him an awful lot and I feel let down.’

  Next night, the girls went to see Mickey Rooney in ‘Life Begins For Andy Hardy’ and regaled Gracie and Joe with the whole story when they went home, Gracie studying them as she pretended to listen. ‘You know, Joe,’ she began when they went
to bed, ‘I couldn’t help noticing how close the girls are. They used to be so different, Patsy was a lot quieter than Queenie, but they’re like true sisters now.’

  ‘Aye,’ her husband agreed, more seriously than usual, ‘but I think they were putting on an act for us. Do you not think the laughs were kind of false and high-pitched, like they were trying to prove there was nothing wrong?’

  After considering for a moment, Gracie nodded. ‘Aye, now I come to think about it. Queenie must have been in love with Neil after all, that could be why she wants to go aways but what would Patsy have to hide?’

  ‘Maybe she fell in love with a boy who didn’t love her?’

  ‘She’s never spoken about anybody in particular and she’s never been out with anybody that I know of, but maybe it was one of her patients. Patsy’s not the kind to tell folk about her troubles, but even if they’re both covering up a broken heart, they’ll get over it some day, and thank goodness we don’t have to worry about Neil now. He’s happy.’

  The atmosphere in the small cottage was anything but happy. Neil could see that Freda was pig-in-the-middle between him and her mother, but he was powerless to ease the situation and it was getting him down. Mrs Cuthbert barged into their room at any time without knocking, and paid no attention to all the hints he dropped. For Freda’s sake, he did not want to quarrel with the woman but it was difficult to keep his temper. What made things even worse, his wife often refused to let him make love to her in case her mother heard them.

  ‘What the bloody hell difference does it make?’ he snapped at her one night. ‘We’re married, so she must know what we get up to, and she must have done it with your father once. You weren’t the result of an immaculate conception.’

  Freda looked pained. ‘I can’t help it, Neil. I can’t . . . you know . . . when I’m worrying that Mum might hear us.’