A Christmas Promise

by Annie Groves

  People were running down the road past her and she wondered if it was an air raid. Looking up from the scant security of her elbow, she noticed what she thought was a football rolling, almost bouncing, down the centre of the road, before it came to rest in the thorn bush beside her. When she peered over to take a closer look, Tilly realised the spherical object wasn’t a ball at all, but a man’s head that had been taken clean off his body.

  Looking around, her stomach heaving at the discovery, she could see no sign of the the rest of the poor soul’s body. Again, her stomach heaved and she only just managed to stop herself from throwing up. She scrambled to her feet and headed back in the direction from which she had come earlier. And at the bottom of the hill, she was met by a gaggle of ATS girls who had also been caught up in the mêlée caused by the explosion, and they told her that it had been an ammunition ship in the harbour that had been blown up. The loss of life and the damage was awful.

  The battle at Cassino was raging now and Tilly could hear it from where she was. The thump, thump, thump of the shells was relentless. Tilly worried about how she was going to get back to her billet. And what about Janet? Tilly hoped she hadn’t lingered in the café and was somewhere safe.

  The constant noise that came from the direction of Cassino made the hairs on the back of Tilly’s neck stand on end. The noise was so awful she couldn’t have described it if she had been asked to, except to say it was something she doubted she would ever forget.

  Buildings were shattering around her and she noticed that the troops had started to move out along the road to Rome leaving the battle site to be scrutinised. She saw a colonel calling some of his men together and they started out in cars, to go and check what state the place was in after the bombardment, and to make sure all the Germans had been flushed out. As Tilly got onto the road leading up towards her billet there was an almighty flash of light, a boom the like of which she had never heard before, and then everything went black.

  Further down the road, soldiers had to abandon their vehicles as the rough, uneven road was rutted with craters. Moments later Tilly came to, her head thudding. She dragged herself to her feet, but her head was spinning now and she couldn’t walk very easily on the uneven road, so instead, she decided to walk on the loose stone wall with the flat top when she heard a lot of very loud shouting coming from the top of the range above her.

  Looking up, she saw four soldiers who had seen her climbing onto the wall screaming at her broken English.

  ‘Get down – the wall is mined!’ The Germans had taken out a flat stone every so often and put a mine in because they knew that Allied soldiers would be climbing up. Tilly saw some soldiers clearing up after the battle, collecting bodies. She saw a bayonet sticking out from behind a rock and went over to give it a tug, and out rolled a German body. When she walked to the edge of the hill and looked down she couldn’t believe it.

  The whole plain was a mass of lakes where there were bomb craters that had filled up with water. Everything else had been flattened. The monastery was in ruins and there were soldiers of different nations everywhere she looked. German soldiers were being brought out of the cellars of the monastery, which had been bombed from the air and was nothing but a hill of bricks and wreckage.

  Stumbling over the rubble, Tilly picked up a piece of small fresco; sitting neatly in the palm of her hand, it had the face of an angel on it. She closed her eyes and said a silent prayer of thanks. Perhaps she should take a little bit of Italy home with her? A reminder of the preciousness of life. Suddenly it was knocked from her hand by an irate monk who had been hiding in the ruins of the monastery.

  ‘This monastery is not always going to be a ruin. We are going to rebuild it after the war is ended and we want every piece of the original monastery that we can find. If everybody took a souvenir, there’d be nothing left to use.’ Tilly, considering herself to be well and truly chastised, thought about explaining, but instead, apologised and headed back towards her office. As she reached the end of the road, there was another almighty explosion, and her last thought before she was knocked her off her feet was a silent promise to write to her mother …

  ‘No! No! Archie, No!’

  Olive could not take it in as she gripped her husband’s jacket and her tears flowed freely onto his proud chest. The telegram, which was still tightly wrapped up in the palm of her hand, told her that her daughter, Tilly, was missing in action – presumed dead.

  ‘Come on, love,’ Archie said, while Agnes, who had travelled from the farm, held open the door to allow Archie to help his stumbling wife towards her chair near the fire. Archie gave Agnes a small nod to signal she was to pour two fingers of brandy into a glass before gently urging it to her lips.

  ‘The telegram doesn’t say that she definitely is …’ He couldn’t bring himself to say the word ‘dead’, even though they all knew that was what he meant. ‘They have been known to make mistakes, darling …’ And for as much as Archie had been in this situation many times before, and had reassured so many people who had been the recipients of such bad news, he never imagined that he would have to give solace to his own wife.

  ‘We’ll get a letter soon telling us it was all a big mistake, just you wait and see.’

  However, a week later, there was still no word, and Olive knew that her daughter would certainly get news to her own mother if she was alive. Every day and every night, the house was filled with women eager to bring some kind of comfort to Olive, who only wanted to be left alone.

  She was grateful for all their concern, of course she was. Agnes had come straight from the farm when Archie informed her that Tilly was missing, but there was little she could do except cry along with Olive.

  Dulcie left her newborn son and came with Agnes, and busied herself making tea for the many visitors from a supply she had brought with her. Vaguely, Olive reminded herself to thank them and offer to pay for the tea. Sally administered care, and, eventually, a sleeping draught, so Olive did not go into early labour with the shock.

  Tucked upstairs in the front bedroom, Olive slept right through the knock on the front door, and as Archie opened it he was met by two army officers whom he invited into the front room. The girls all made themselves scarce and when the officials had gone Archie came into the kitchen, his face wet with tears.

  ‘Archie?’ Sally was the first to speak when she noticed a big brown envelope in Archie’s hands. He sat down heavily at the table.

  ‘She’ll never get over this … None of us will,’ he cried, and pushed the envelope towards the three women sitting at the table. Sally put her hand inside and the loud audible gasp was threefold when she pulled out Tilly’s sapphire pendant and her dog tags.

  ‘Then there can be no question of what happened. I don’t think we need any more proof than that,’ Agnes said solemly.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  ‘Corporal Janet Fisher?’ The doctor picked up the docket and read the information it contained, before lifting the hand of the unconscious patient and quietly checking her pulse. Then, turning to the white-uniformed nurse, he asked, in hushed tones, ‘Is she calmer now?’

  ‘Much calmer, Doctor. She was quite distressed earlier and we had to sedate her.’

  ‘Well, it looks as if she’s coming round now. Maybe we will learn a little more.’

  The water was cool on her lips and she was grateful for the cold liquid to quench her raging thirst; somebody was talking to her …

  ‘Janet … Janet, are you feeling any better?’

  Feeling confused, and her stomach heaving, she tried to get up from the bed but the room began to spin and she felt her stomach heave again.

  ‘A bowl, nurse, get her a bowl!’

  After they lay her flat on the bed without a pillow, she put her hand to her head and her fingers sank into the jelly-like lump on the side of her head. She tried to open her eyes but the light was too bright.

  ‘All right, Janet, take it easy. You are in the military hospital. Can you remembe
r anything?’

  ‘No.’ Her voice was just a groan and when she moved her head the room spun and her stomach heaved so she decided it was best to try to keep still.

  ‘You were thrown from the wall, you fell about six feet and bumped your head and were knocked clean out, but we’ll have you up and on your feet in no time, Janet. Unfortunately, your friend wasn’t so lucky …’

  ‘My name isn’t Janet …’ she said, beginning to remember … She had been going to get her pendant and her dog tags from Janet … ‘Janet!’ The scream in the quietude of the hospital ward was piercing. ‘I’m Tilly … Sergeant Tilly Robbins.’

  ‘But that’s the name of the dead girl, isn’t it, Nurse?’

  Tilly tried to focus on what they were saying. One minute, they were calling her Janet and, the next they were saying someone was dead!

  ‘Can I have a drink of water, please?’ Tilly’s voice was barely a croak. She felt as if she was swallowing razor blades and she couldn’t open her eyes, they were so heavy.

  ‘We will wet your lips, my dear, but we cannot give you anything to drink until the nausea subsides.’ Moments later, Tilly felt a cold wet cloth against her lips and she almost bit the nurse’s finger.

  ‘I need a drink, I’m dying of thirst, please help me.’ All she wanted to do now was to have a drink of water and to float back to wonderful oblivion. She turned her head and felt the swimming sensation in her skull, the tingle in her throat … she was going to …

  ‘Get a sick bowl, Nurse Jones … keep one here at all times. We expect this with a fractured skull. She must lie flat; we need to keep the swelling of the brain to an absolute minimum if she is to survive.’

  Tilly realised they didn’t know she could hear or understand them. She wanted to tell them that she didn’t care what had happened, all she wanted to do was curl up and go back to sleep, but they wouldn’t let her.

  They wanted to ask her questions and make her open her eyes … But she didn’t want to open her eyes, she wanted to go to sleep …

  ‘Tilly Robbins?’

  She could hear the doubt in their voices, and in the fuzziness of her confusion Tilly tried to remember what had happened … She was on her way to meet Janet, she had been so upset about her mother’s letter … She should have collected her pendant and her dog tags but she had forgotten – and she was on her way back when … There had been a lot of fighting … Explosions on all sides … Somebody warned her to get off the wall … More explosions!

  ‘Janet will be waiting … You have to get word back to her … Tell her I’m safe … She’ll worry!’ Tilly gave a low gentle laugh, amused at the thought her friend would come in – all guns blazing – demanding to know … ‘She’s got the tags. Tell her I’m … fine …’

  ‘She’s gone again, Doctor,’ said the nurse dressed in the uniform of the American military hospital. She popped a thermometer under Tilly’s arm and shook her head. ‘She has a temperature, too, now.’

  ‘The other girl … the one brought in earlier,’ the doctor asked in a low whisper, ‘the one who died of her injuries – her name was Tilly Robbins, it said so on her cardigan.’

  ‘No!’

  Tilly could hear someone screaming, and as she rolled to the other side of the bed and threw up her insides onto the highly polished floor the screaming stopped and she realised the voice was hers.

  ‘All right, honey, come on you’ll be fine – we’ve got you now; you’re safe.’

  How could she make them understand? But all further thoughts disappeared as a another wave of nausea overcame her and not long after she fell into a strange and fitful sleep, where she dreamed of Janet and Drew and her mother, all of whom seemed to be trying desperately to tell her something …

  Tilly lost track of time, she couldn’t be sure how long she had been in hospital. Her head injury, though no longer life-threatening, had nearly killed her. The recovery was slow and it took her some time before she could get a sense of all the events in her head. In reality, it was another three weeks before Tilly woke fully and was able to understand that her friend Janet had been caught up in the explosion. It was hard to believe. But it was true that Janet – her feisty, funny, Scouse friend had been killed when she was shot down on her way to meet Tilly. It was also apparent that there had been a terrible misunderstanding and the authorities had thought that it was she and not Janet who had died. Tilly was devastated by the loss of her friend, but as soon as she was able to make herself understood, she was desperate to get word to her family.

  ‘You must let my mother know I’m OK. She’ll be out of her mind,’ Tilly pleaded.

  The nurse who was attending to her said in a soothing voice, ‘Now, you just rest, we’re doing all we can and the most important thing right now is for you to get well.’

  ‘But you don’t understand. ’

  Tilly’s head was throbbing and she fell back against her pillow, momentarily silent.

  Another nurse approached her bed and whispered something in her colleague’s ear. She turned to Tilly.

  ‘It seems you have a visitor.’

  Tilly struggled to focus as the figure coming towards her got nearer. There was something terribly familiar about him – could it be? Was it him? Perhaps she was still unconscious and this was a dream – was he really here?

  ‘Tilly Robbins, my darling, darling girl.’ Kneeling beside her bed, Drew gently caressed her hand and showered her with kisses. Tears shone in his eyes as he looked lovingly at the most precious sight in the world. His girl, alive and maybe not quite well, but on the mend.

  ‘Oh, Drew! I can hardly believe you are here.’ Tilly’s voice was choked with emotion and tears were streaming down her face.

  ‘Hush, now,’ Drew reassured her. ‘Everything is going to be all right. I made a promise to you all that time ago. We’ve waited too long already and now we’re going make our dreams a reality. I am never, ever going to let you out of my sight again, you hear me?’

  ‘Drew Coleman, my Drew.’ And Tilly fell into the deepest and most peaceful sleep she had had for some time.

  When she awoke, Drew was gone.

  Olive was sitting near the window in stunned silence. She had been sitting there all day. What could she do? She had no body to bury. She had no remains to visit when she needed solace.

  ‘Ha!’ Solace! Whatever that meant.

  ‘Olive, are you all right?’ Archie asked tentatively. He feared for his wife now; he worried she might be in too delicate a state to be able to sustain the child she was carrying.

  ‘They talk about comfort and goodness but there is none that I can see, Archie. All I can see is devastation and destruction.’

  ‘What about going to Agnes on the farm for a few weeks?’ Archie asked, knowing that being here in London was doing Olive no good.

  Olive continued to stare out of the window onto the street, alone in her grief. As she stared, seemingly into space, she was shaken out of her reverie when she recognised a familiar figure coming up the road towards the house.

  ‘Archie,’ Olive said in a low, cautious voice, as she looked out of the window, ‘I can hardly believe it, but it’s Drew, and he’s coming here …’ Olive’s words trailed as Archie rose from his seat, closed the front-room door behind him and went to the front door.

  Olive buried her face in her hands, knowing that Drew would want to spend some time with them because he and Tilly had been very close. She knew that now. She also knew she would never see her daughter again and she never had the chance to say she was sorry for keeping them apart. How was she going to face Drew now?

  Olive could feel the gnawing culpability return to devastate her heart once more and she knew that the blame was all hers. She did this to herself, she drove Tilly away, and now she would be punished to the end of her days, and rightly so!

  It was her fault that the two young sweethearts were separated. If she had gone against Drew’s father, her daughter would have been happy. Tilly had been right: it wasn’t h
er decision or Drew’s father’s decision to make. And they were good kids – they did as their parents expected – and sometimes she knew that even parents got it wrong, no matter how good their intentions.

  The voices of the two men in the hallway were low at first, and then they got a little higher, and then she heard Archie cry as if in anguish. Olive could stay still no longer and, pulling her cumbersome bulk from the chair, she got up from her seat by the window and went out into the hallway, to see Archie and Drew hugging each other and crying. Then she, too, was crying, hardly able to draw breath. Drew came to her now, his face wet with tears and his arms outreaching. He took Olive in his arms and they clung together in their grief.

  When he finally managed to let her go, Drew looked up, and Olive saw that he was laughing as he was crying, and then he said, in his loud American voice, ‘She’s alive! My Tilly’s alive. My darling Tilly’s alive! Tilly’s alive – here, look!’ He handed Olive a piece of paper, giving details of the hospital Tilly had been taken to in Italy.

  ‘Oh, my God!’ Olive said, her face pale as her hands flew to her white, dry lips.

  ‘I got the news when I was on my way back to join the Eighth Army. News had filtered through that two ATS girls had been hit and that one of them was Tilly … Every instinct in my body told me that it couldn’t be her – it couldn’t be my girl; I’d have known it – I’d have felt it. I got there as soon as I could! I went straight to the hospital. I saw her. She’s got one helluva bandage on her head but she’s alive! Olive, she’s alive.’

  Olive danced around the hallway in a triangular chain with her husband and Drew.

  ‘I’m getting back over there tonight, but I had to come and tell you in person – I knew you’d be devastated. I couldn’t tell you in a telegram. Do you want me to give her a message?’

  ‘Tell her I love her and I want her home now … Drew, will you bring her home to me?’