by Anne Bennett
The rabbit casserole was delicious and everyone tucked into it with obvious enjoyment as they discussed the events of the day. Then, towards the end of the meal, Marion’s composure was shaken a little when Richard announced his intention to join the Local Defence Volunteers now that he was sixteen.
‘Anthony Eden asked for volunteers over the wireless,’ he told his mother. ‘It was a few months ago. Remember I told you about it at the time?’
Marion nodded. ‘I do remember something about it, yes.’
‘Well, I sort of decided then, but talking to Sam and hearing what he had to go through sort of put the tin hat on it, as it were.’
Marion looked across the table at her elder son. He was tall for his age and, though fairly thin, he was well muscled due to his work in the brass foundry. There was nothing of the child left in either Richard’s body or his face, and his voice resembled Bill’s. Marion knew that soon he would tip right over into adulthood. Part of her felt proud that he wanted to join this force to try to protect civilians who might find themselves caught up in this awful war, and part of her was frightened for him.
However, she knew this had to be Richard’s decision and Bill, she could see, was all for it as he clapped his son on his back. ‘I’m proud of you,’ he said. ‘It’s important that we have people trained here at home as well.’
‘Will you have a gun and that?’ Tony asked.
‘I should say so. They’ll hardly issue us with catapults now, will they?’ Richard said sarcastically.
‘Golly,’ Tony said, ignoring his brother’s sarcasm. ‘A real live gun. I’d love to see one of them.’
‘It’s not the kind of thing I’m ever likely to bring home,’ Richard said. ‘One of the first things they will have to teach me is how to fire it.’
‘You’ll soon pick it up,’ Peggy said. ‘Where Violet and I came from, every farmer’s son over the age of twelve or so could shoot, and well, to be able to kill rabbits for the pot.’
‘If that rabbit casserole was anything to go by, I should say that you lived very well,’ said Bill.
‘We didn’t do bad,’ Peggy said.
‘Yeah,’ Violet said. ‘People in the country probably do much better than them in the cities now that rationing is beginning to bite, but I think we’ve all got to agree that Marion makes the best of anything she can get hold off. She’s a wonderful cook.’
‘Hear, hear,’ the others said.
Marion flushed with embarrassment at the unaccustomed praise. ‘Don’t say that until you’ve tasted the cake,’ she laughed.
Marion had made the cake to celebrate both Bill’s homecoming and Richard’s sixteenth birthday, which had been the previous day. She had been saving her sugar and fat rations for weeks. Pat had got some eggs from an old man who kept hens on his strip of allotment down by the munitions factory, Polly had loaned out her biggest cake tin, and Marion had made a large jam sponge. She had even made mock cream, using dried milk, margarine and sugar blended together, which had been a tip from The Kitchen Front recipe programme. She used it to cover the top of the cake and she’d even found one of the candles she used to put on birthday cakes when the children had been small, for Richard to blow out.
When she carried it out to the table that evening there were roars of approval. Bill declared it a culinary masterpiece and there wasn’t a crumb of it left by the time everyone rose from the table.
That night, Bill climbed awkwardly up the stairs and got into bed beside Marion, delighted that the bed was bolster free, as it had been when he was home on embarkation leave. He remembered his rage when Marion had first installed it on the advice of her mother after the birth of the twins. In his opinion, putting a bolster in the bed was like saying he had no control over his carnal desires, but he had swallowed his anger lest he upset Marion further. In fact, he had asked the doctor if there was something he could use to prevent pregnancy, and had been told there was and that he could buy them in any barber shop. He really needed to discuss what the doctor had recommended, and bugger the Catholic Church in its stance on contraception, but Marion was always too embarrassed to discuss sexual matters.
That night, though, after climbing the stairs, his leg was throbbing. Going any further than cuddling together was beyond his capabilities, but just to enjoy each other’s closeness was wonderful.
He was unaware of the dream he had a few hours later, which woke Marion. She saw her husband writhing on the bed, his lips moving as if he was speaking to someone, though there was no sound, and her heart contracted in pity for what Bill had gone through.
Even the visit from her parents the following day went better than Marion could have envisaged. They both shook hands with Bill and even Clara was civil. Eddie said sincerely that he was really pleased to seeing Bill looking so well. For a change he had news of his own: he had taken on an allotment.
‘Daddy, you dark horse,’ Marion said in surprise. ‘You never said a word.’
‘Well, I only decided yesterday after I heard this bloke on the wireless talking about saving our ships, and I thought about how nice it would be to have home-grown vegetables and that. I went to enquire about putting my name down for one, but the upshot was they had one going and so I took it on.’
‘Good for you,’ Bill said. ‘What’s it like?’
‘Overgrown,’ Eddie said. ‘Fellow that had it died last year and his family didn’t tell the allotment people until his subscription came up for renewal. Forgot, I suppose. Anyroad, it looks as if he wasn’t able to do much before that either. Be all right, though, when I’ve licked it into shape.’
‘I told him that it’s madness,’ Clara snapped. Turning to her husband she continued, ‘You work full time, for God’s sake, and you’ll do your back in with all that heavy digging, not to mention what you might be doing to your heart. Who d’you think you are? Superman? You ain’t no spring chicken.’
‘Don’t mean I have to be put out to grass,’ Eddie said, bristling in annoyance.
For once, though, Marion thought her mother had a point. ‘Come on, Daddy,’ she said. ‘There ain’t no need for you to kill yourself either. The kids finished school yesterday for seven weeks. Jack and Tony can give you a hand to do the digging through the week and any really heavy stuff the bigger ones can do next weekend.’
‘Sure they’ll not mind doing that?’
‘Course they won’t,’ Marion said confidently. ‘None of them will mind. Anyroad, as far as Jack and Tony go, you would be doing me a favour. Both of them have too much energy than is good for them and that, together with too much time on their hands, is a recipe for disaster.’
‘Yeah,’ Bill said. ‘You keep them hard at it, Eddie, and it might turn Jack off his latest harebrained idea of putting himself forward as a messenger if the bombs come.’
‘A messenger!’ Clara exclaimed. ‘But he’s only …’
‘Eleven next month, as he pointed out to me,’ Bill said with a grin. ‘He said it like it was some great age, you know.’
‘But what put such an idea in his head?’
‘I would guess the bike that he said messengers are given is the real lure.’
Clara gave a snort of disapproval.
‘Of course, he won’t be let do it; he’s too young,’ Bill said, ‘but knowing Jack, he would lie about his age. He is half a head taller than our Tony, and if they weren’t that bothered about checking … Well, let’s say I would feel happier if he had something else to do instead.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Marion, ‘because where he goes our Tony usually follows. If they think that working on the allotment is helping the war effort in some way, then they’ll be even keener.’
‘And of course it is,’ Eddie said. ‘“Dig for Victory” is what everyone is saying now.’
‘Ah, said Marion wistfully, ‘if only victory was that easily won.’
Jack was stunned when even his father forbade him to think of being a messenger. Polly and Pat were such easy-going parents that unti
l now Jack had got away with most things he’d wanted to do. It was a shock to him that on this issue his parents stood firm. He saw the dream he had of cycling around the roads in the teeth of a gale would have to stay a dream.
‘I can’t believe that you’re so unpatriotic,’ he said to his father.
‘You can level many things at this family but not that,’ Pat said, angered at Jack’s words.
‘If you want to do something for the war effort,’ Polly put in, before Jack had time to answer his father, ‘do what Auntie Marion suggested and help your granddad on the allotment.’
‘How can growing a few potatoes help the war effort?’ Jack said disparagingly.
‘I’ll tell you how, my lad,’ Pat said unusually firmly. ‘Merchant ships are being sunk every day. You know that as well as me. These unarmed ships are doing the dangerous job of bringing food into Britain, and when ships are sunk that food, which the merchant sailors have lost their lives for, is lying at the bottom of the ocean. So it’s important, if we are not to be starved to death altogether, that we grow as much food as possible. Be in no doubt about it, Jack, helping your granddad is definitely also helping the war effort.’
Jack understood every word his father had said and, being Jack, threw himself wholeheartedly in growing as much as he possibly could. Tony, being Tony, tried to match his cousin in the effort he put in.
THIRTEEN
It was Bill’s greatest desire to get better as soon as he could and so he worked hard at his daily physio sessions. The doctors were delighted with him, so much so that on Wednesday of that same week he came home from his session with a stick rather than a crutch. His mental state, however, was a different matter. The images he had seen at Dunkirk continued to haunt him and he had many disturbing nightmares. He had no recollection of these in the morning and when Marion tried to talk to him about them he was less than enthusiastic.
‘Look, Marion,’ he said at last. ‘I did go through it, and there’s no good me telling you anything else, and I suppose the memories do disturb my sleep, but there’s nothing you or anyone else can do to help me cope with that.’
‘Maybe if you told me it could help relieve the burden. It’d be better than bottling it up.’
Bill knew he could never share the horrors of Dunkirk with Marion, especially when she knew that, once fit, he might be returning to similar horrors. ‘This is something I need to cope with on my own,’ he insisted. ‘I’m sure that the dreams will calm down in a day or two.’
Marion had to be content with that. She didn’t feel she should press Bill to say any more than he wanted to, though she often saw shadows flit across his eyes.
However, the memories festering in Bill’s brain were increasingly disturbing. He had been home just over a week when he woke in the early hours with a primeval scream and shot up in the bed.
Marion, struggling from sleep, was alarmed. She got out of bed and turned on the light to see Bill still in the midst of some inner torment. He was still threshing his arms about and the eyes he turned to her were wild. She had the feeling he was not seeing her but something very sinister.
‘Bill, oh my darling, what is it?’ she cried leaping back into bed and holding his shuddering body tight.
The sobs came then, controlled weeping but gut-wrenching sobs that shook Bill’s whole body. His torment was so immeasurably sad that Marion wept too while she rocked him gently in an effort to bring him some comfort.
When he was eventually calmer and he lay back down, Marion wiped her eyes and went to see the children, knowing the girls at least would have heard the scream and be worried. The twins were lying either side of their big sister, their eyes were full of fear.
‘It’s all right,’ Marion told them. ‘Your daddy had a nightmare but he’s better now and almost asleep again.’
They all sighed with relief. They understood nightmares; they had all had those at one time or another.
‘So you settle down now too,’ Marion said, tucking them in solicitously, ‘or we will all be like chewed rags in the morning.’
The girls lay down easily enough, for they were still tired, and Marion went down to the boys, but they were still fast asleep and obviously had heard nothing. She was hesitant to visit the lodgers and so she returned to bed.
‘Telling me might help banish the fears,’ she said to Bill. ‘That’s what I’ve always told the children if they’ve had nightmares.’
‘There’s nothing to say,’ Bill answered brusquely. ‘I just had a bad dream, that’s all.’ It had shaken him, though, for it was reminiscent of the ones he used to have when he was recovering at Ramsgate and he dreaded going back to those again.
‘All right,’ Marion said. ‘Just thought something might be bothering you, that’s all.’
‘No, I’m fine now,’ Bill told her.
She lay wide-eyed long after Bill’s even breathing told her he had fallen asleep and she noted that even in slumber his face was contorted and drawn and there was tension in every line of his body. Her heart ached for him, but if he wouldn’t share his troubles then she couldn’t force him, and she eventually turned off the light and snuggled in beside him.
The next day Bill slept in late, so when Peggy and Violet asked about the disturbed night Marion was able to discuss it with them.
‘It isn’t to be wondered at,’ Peggy said. ‘Those Dunkirk survivors would have seen some sights. Sam had nightmares like that to start with.’
‘Bill insisted it was just a nightmare, but I know it was much more than that,’ Marion confided.
‘What about Pat?’ Peggy said. ‘Would he be someone Bill could share his fears with?’
Marion made a face, because Pat’s lackadaisical attitude still irritated her at times. Pat saw the funny side of most situations too, and she didn’t know whether he was the right person for Bill to confide in. On the other hand, he had come every evening to see Bill, who looked forward to his company.
Anyway, there was nobody else, and Marion was sure that if Bill didn’t unburden himself to someone he would never fully recover. ‘He has always got on with Pat,’ she said to the two girls, ‘but the man is such a fool at times.’
‘Only when it doesn’t matter,’ Peggy pointed out.
‘Yeah, he just tries to lighten the load a bit,’ Violet said. ‘I’m pretty certain he can be serious when he needs to be. I’m sure he would be able to help.’
‘I agree with Violet,’ Peggy said, ‘but if Bill doesn’t want you to hear about his experiences, then he’s not going to say anything to Pat when you or one of the children might overhear.’
‘You’re right, of course,’ Marion said. ‘I think he’s walking well enough to go out for a pint with Pat now. It will do him good to get out of the house, anyway. I think I’ll pop round to Polly’s in a minute and she can have a word with Pat when he comes in.’
Pat wasn’t at all surprised with what Marion had told his Polly about Bill. Pat had sometimes glimpsed desolation in Bill’s eyes and seen the strain inside him like a coiled spring.
‘So Marion actually wants me to take Bill for a pint,’ he laughed that evening. ‘God, that’s a turn up for the book, that is.’
‘Give over, Pat,’ Polly said, though she was laughing too. ‘Our Marion has been a lot better with you these last months. Bill won’t share his troubles with her, and she thinks he may well talk to you.’
‘I hope he does,’ Pat said. ‘He can’t deal with all that bad stuff on his own. Anyone with half an eye can see how the man is suffering.’
Pat decided to take Bill to the Victoria Inn, which was only at the end of Albert Road. Bill said nothing when Pat suggested it, but he seemed happy to be out. The pub was a fairly noisy place, which smelled of beer, and the smoke from cigarettes and pipes hung in the air like a blue fug. Pat was well known at the pub, and he was greeted by many of the men grouped around the bar. Pat had told them all about his brother-in-law injured at Dunkirk, and more than a few pumped Bill’s hand and
remarked on how well he was doing.
Pat ordered two pints from the buxom barmaid and then, as he handed one to Bill, he said to the others, ‘Must excuse us. Spot of business to discuss.’ He led the way to the very back of the pub where he found a table.
Bill sat down heavily and took a sip of his pint, and then he began to tell Pat of the nightmare he had had the previous night.
‘Woke up screaming and threshing out like a mad man,’ he said. ‘Scared the living daylights out of Marion, of course, and the kids, ‘cos the twins asked me about it this morning.’
Pat nodded. ‘Marion came and told Polly about that this morning. She said she’d not only been scared, she’d felt helpless as well.’
‘I know,’ Bill said. ‘In my mind I was grappling with the German who’d appeared from nowhere as we were trying to reach the Dunkirk beaches. He’d just sliced my mate Charley clean in half with a bayonet he had fixed to his rifle. I was a little bit behind him and semi-hidden in the undergrowth, so he probably thought that Charley was on his own. I didn’t want to load that on Marion. She was upset enough at the state I was in.’
‘No,’ Pat agreed. ‘Some aspects of war are not for women’s ears, especially when they know that their men are going out to face the same again. What happened to the scout?’
‘I killed him,’ Bill said, and he gave a sad little grimace. ‘At least he died quick. As for Charley … Oh Christ, Pat, he just lay there, his guts spilled out beside him, and he was covered in blood. There was a massive gash in his head, but he wasn’t dead. He was screaming in agony. If he had been a horse or a dog I would have put my gun to his head and put him out of his misery. I wanted to do the same for him, but I just couldn’t pull the trigger, though he was begging me to. His tortured screams will live with me always as I ploughed my way forward and hoped and prayed he would die soon.’