by Amy Myers
‘I do not love her. I respect her, I like her, we are companions, and that is all. But I do not believe you are listening to me. When I say my love will never die, I mean only that, with none of the interpretations forced on you by doubts and sadness. This has been a year of happiness I could never have dreamt of, and such love does not die. Like these trees of yours, it is still there despite the outward signs of winter. The trunk and branches do not perish. Only the leaves must renew themselves.’
‘Hold me close, Yves. Convince me that what you say is true.’
In uniform and surrounded by other embracing couples, they seemed just two more sweethearts thrown together by war, and about to be swept away from each other, like flotsam and jetsam.
‘And now,’ he whispered, as his lips left hers, ‘I must tell you something that will make you sad, cara.’
‘You’re going now?’
‘Very soon.’
‘The offensive?’
‘This month. But I will return. Death will not take me.’
‘You mean you’ll be fighting, not just on liaison work?’ A new terror gripped her.
‘There was a time when to do that seemed the obvious end to my dilemma.’
‘No!’ she cried, appalled. ‘Please, don’t fight!’
‘I must.’
‘Then do not be rash. Don’t seek death. Please.’
‘Even though the alternative is that I shall then return to my wife?’
‘Even that.’
‘Then you are even more loving and generous than I thought. What gives you the strength, Caroline, when I cannot always find it? Is it Isabel’s death? Do you feel you should battle on to compensate for the life she has lost?’
‘No.’ She saw he needed a serious answer. She did have strength, and it would remain with her even in her greatest agonies. In the last year or two, with Yves to love, she had almost forgotten from where it came. It came from the Rectory.
‘Porridge?’ Agnes wrinkled her nose up when she saw what Myrtle provided for their breakfast.
‘It’s only September, Myrtle.’
‘Don’t you blame her, Agnes.’ Margaret bustled into the kitchen. ‘It’s my instructions. The newspapers say we’ve got to eat plenty of porridge to keep away the Spanish flu.’
‘We don’t have to worry out here in the country, surely,’ Agnes remonstrated. She hated porridge. ‘It’s towns and places that have a lot of people sandwiched together that catch it.’
‘Mrs Thorn, do I have to remind you you have two young children? Do you want to come marching home from the Wells and pass it on to them?’
Agnes paled. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’
Margaret rubbed in her triumph. ‘And if I were you, I’d do everything else the paper suggests; make sure you sneeze night and morning, and follow it up with deep breaths, and wash inside your nose with soap and water. I’ll be making the household some of those anti-germ masks too.’
Then she relented. ‘It’s only a precaution, Agnes, but with winter coming on this nasty flu is bound to spread, and it’s as well to be prepared.’
‘Flu?’ Frank came into the kitchen from the Rectory with a face like thunder. ‘Don’t mention that word to me.’
‘Are you here to see Rector about the garden again?’ Margaret was puzzled, for she thought everything was settled.
‘No,’ Frank snarled. ‘The cinema. I came to tell him that Swinford-Browne has seized his opportunity. He’s closing it down because of the risk of flu.’
She was in a boat, an upturned one, she was sinking. Caroline’s eyes flew open to find Luke bending over her, shaking her awake.
‘What is it?’ She shot up in bed. ‘Bad news? Yves?’ Yves had left two weeks ago and she had heard nothing since.
‘No. And not the Rectory either. It’s good news, Caroline. The new British assault has begun. Plumer has attacked the Passchendaele Ridge. Bulgaria has asked for an armistice. Oh, it’s all happening.’ Luke was excited, stars in his eyes. ‘Go to see Felicia immediately and tie her down. I don’t want her rushing back to Ypres again. The Belgian army is in action—’
‘But the German reinforcements on the way from the east—’ It was almost the end of September and she had almost begun to think Yves had been wrong about the timing.
‘Diverted to defend Serbia.’ Luke perched happily on the side of the bed. ‘This isn’t perhaps the most proper place to discuss business, but the Germans are on the run now. They’re on the losing side and they know it. Ludendorff is running around like a cat with ten tails. This time it’s a fight to the finish. It’s not going to peter out.’
‘How can you be sure?’ There had been so many false hopes. Ypres had been fought over continuously since the autumn of 1914. There had been three exhausting battles there already, and even though the salient had never entirely been lost, it was still possible, for the Germans would know that this could be their last chance.
‘My guess is Haig’s plan is to drive the Germans back, push round on the coast and free Bruges and eventually Brussels. What are the odds that Yves is in the thick of it?’
She felt sick with terror, just as she had been when Reggie had departed. This was worse for in 1914 they hadn’t known what it was like out there. Now everyone knew just what fighting on the Western Front was like, and Luke was happily chatting about Yves being part of it.
‘Please, God,’ she prayed, ‘return him safe to me.’ Even though when he did, he would have to leave again, and this time for ever.
‘What are you doing here?’ Felicia stopped in surprise at seeing Daniel waiting for her outside the hospital.
‘Not very welcoming. I thought we might have dinner if you’re off duty now.’
‘I am.’ Felicia was suspicious. ‘This isn’t bad news, is it?’
Daniel raised his eyebrows. ‘Are you implying that’s the only reason I’d make such an offer?’
‘Usually, yes.’
Daniel laughed. ‘Pure imagination. Not to mention a slur on my noble character.’
An hour later, dining at Rules, Felicia asked politely once more: ‘Why are you here?’
‘Caroline’s afraid you’ll scuttle back to Ypres now the offensive has begun again there.’
‘I was considering it,’ she admitted.
‘Then Caroline said “slug” to you. Don’t tell me what it means,’ Daniel added hastily when he saw the look of thunder on her face.
‘I see dear Tilly has been talking.’
‘Er – what about?’
Felicia hesitated. ‘Promise you won’t laugh.’
‘On my honour.’
‘Out at the front – well, you know what it’s like, and our job was gruesome. One day last summer it was particularly bad. We’d been working for eighteen hours without a break and – to say the least there was a lot of blood and gore around. Then I found a slug when we at last crawled into our blankets to sleep.’
‘Well?’ he asked when she stopped.
‘I screamed out in terror for Tilly to take it away. It was only tiredness.’ Felicia was defensive. ‘Tilly thought it was funny, and after a moment or two so did I. It was an antidote to laugh, I suppose. She said to me, “Now I know you’ve an Achilles heel like everyone else. Felicia, promise me something.” I could hardly refuse. “Learn when to stop,” she said. “How,” I asked brightly, “will I know when that is?” “You will,” she whipped back at me, “for I shall tell you.”’
‘And now she has,’ Daniel said thankfully.
‘Yes, I promised, so I must stay here.’ She sighed. ‘I suppose I’ve done my bit to atone for Mons.’
Daniel stared at her. ‘Is that why you chose that part of the line? Because I was wounded at Mons?’
‘Yes.’
‘It wouldn’t work, my love.’
The calm certainty that had been with Felicia all her life that she and Daniel were inseparable suddenly deserted her. He had his own life, his own choices to make, and soon the time would com
e for decision.
‘It will, if we so choose.’
He looked at her compassionately. ‘And if I do not choose?’
‘You must choose me. Remember what you said to me when you brought me back from France? Choose life, Felicia. Now I say it to you. Choose life.’
‘I’m not so selfish.’
‘Is it selfish to grant me my dearest wish?’
‘Darling Felicia, damn you, Felicia. You know why I won’t. We can both choose life, but not with each other. We can’t be Abelard and Heloise. Nor, incidentally, have I any intention of going into a monastery after the war, and you shouldn’t be thinking of that way out either.’
‘I’m not. That decision was made a long time ago.’
‘Right. So if – when – I walk away from you, you’ll marry Luke.’
‘You have no right to ask me that.’
Daniel sighed. ‘Look, I don’t regard myself as a war-wounded cripple. My war work has been in London, it wasn’t the five minutes I spent at the front before a shell put paid, as I thought then, to any hope in my life. Now I know it didn’t, and the reason for that is you. You made me see there was life beyond what had happened to me. And there is, even without marriage. Would you want to take away what you gave me?’
Felicia listened, and certainty returned to her. ‘I thought,’ she said demurely, ‘you might like both, with me.’
Daniel surrendered, shouting with laughter. ‘I might. Oh, I might indeed.’
Yves returned as the leaves began to fall in earnest, tired and dispirited. The Germans were retreating, but far from defeated. A new assault on the Belgian Front was to begin the next day, 14th October, on the River Lys and the Deynze Canal, but he had been sent back to London because of the diplomatic situation. Ludendorff and the German High Command were at odds with the Kaiser and the Reichstag, but the army were still backing their commander. President Wilson’s admirable Fourteen Points for Peace a few days earlier had in theory been accepted by the German government, but there was little confidence in their acceptance, since Ludendorff was adamant that Germany should continue to occupy Belgium after the war was over. The enemy had just sunk a passenger steamer off the Irish coast with great loss of life and, worse, intelligence reports suggested that even if the Fourteen Points were accepted and Germany evacuated Belgium, the terms would leave Ludendorff free to devastate Belgium and other occupied land as they retreated to Germany, in order to hold up the Allies from following them there too quickly. Agreed peace therefore looked impossible, but there was no sign of the German High Command being willing to surrender.
‘The war will crawl on into 1919,’ Yves told her. ‘Perhaps a spring offensive might end it.’ His voice was tired and without hope, but against her will, Caroline’s heart leapt with pleasure at the thought of one last Christmas with Yves. One last Christmas at the Rectory.
If war was doomed to continue, was that so much to wish for?
Chapter Thirteen
The maroons boomed out over London. At eleven o’clock French time on 11th November the guns had fallen silent.
‘It’s over.’ Caroline’s words sounded flat and unreal, even to her.
It had seemed just another Monday morning in Whitehall until shortly after ten a.m. news had come through Military Intelligence that four years of war were ending this very day. It was impossible to pretend their work still mattered. On the other hand, until those maroons sounded, it was impossible to quieten the instinctive caution that said, wait, this may be one more false alarm. They had compromised by telephoning Ellen to join them.
She needed no second urging. ‘Someone can pinch me to convince me it’s really happening,’ she’d said.
‘Look!’ Yves had been standing restlessly by the window, and she went to join him, looking down into the street. A few minutes ago the streets had been almost deserted, but now, like moles greeting spring, every door was opening and more and more people flooding out to join the crowds. What began as little more than a hum, was growing to a crescendo of one deep roaring cheer from Trafalgar Square and Whitehall.
‘Let’s go.’ Caroline was caught up in the excitement. ‘Let’s all go!’ Luke and Ellen were already disappearing through the door, but Yves was waiting for her.
She took his hand and pulled him along with her. ‘Just for today, let’s be happy,’ she cried.
They were swept along by the surging crowd into Whitehall, for so long a grey sombre place, but now with the balconies full of red-tabbed high brass, and different coloured uniforms, and the crowds below them waving Union Jacks, colour had returned to it. All buses and taxis were being commandeered by the celebrating crowds; tin hooters were blaring, trays were being banged with zest, and a hundred and one different songs of spring were being hummed, whistled or yelled.
‘Where are we going?’ Yves shouted into Caroline’s ear.
‘The Palace, of course. Where else?’
Where else but to go where the people had gathered when the war began over four years ago, where else to go when four years of slaughter, waste and suffering had ended almost unexpectedly? Despite the increasing military successes in October, despite the surrender of Turkey, and even despite the news two days ago of the armistice with Austria and Hungary, no one truly believed that Germany would have accepted all the Allied terms for peace.
‘One last push,’ everyone had said. They had said it so often, however, that few had really believed it. Even when the newspapers confirmed some of the wild stories flying round London (Ludendorff had collapsed, he was dead, he had resigned, the Kaiser was dead, the Kaiser had abdicated, Prince Max was in charge, Hindenburg was in charge, no one was in charge, the German fleet had mutinied) they still did not believe it. It was true, it was now known, that Ludendorff had resigned, the Kaiser had abdicated his throne and left for Holland, and that Prince Max had accepted the regency and then resigned from it in favour of a chancellor, but even this news was treated with caution. Ludendorff’s understanding of an armistice, after all, had included Germany’s right to continue to occupy Belgium, and his obstinacy on this point had been unshakeable. Even though he had resigned, Yves was still naturally concerned that Ludendorff’s views might prevail.
No longer, yet there was little to rejoice at in the armistice save that the war was over. The eleventh stroke had chimed, but the known and unknown dead rested silent in the poppy fields of France, in the deserts of Palestine, in the seven seas and wherever the butchering hand of war had stretched.
In Ashden Margaret shifted awkwardly on her knees in the Rectory dining room. They hadn’t had family prayers at the Rectory for so long, it seemed strange indeed to be solemnly filing in to join the Rector, Mrs Lilley and Lady Buckford.
‘We thank you, Lord, for an end to the suffering of so many people all over the world …’
Margaret listened while the Rector led the prayers, but most of her attention was on a prayer of her own. She was praying for Joe. How proud she’d been to know that it had been a battle in Italy at the River Piave that had forced the Austrians to ask for an armistice. To her it seemed Joe had won it all by himself – and that was a kind of justice, to make up for what the war had done to Fred. Margaret found herself choking, as tears unexpectedly flowed. It must be the relief that it was all over, and she tried not to blow her nose too loudly. Then she heard a loud snort from somewhere, and opening one eye with an apology to the Lord she saw it was Lady Buckford. Mrs Lilley wasn’t crying. She had the same set faraway look on her face as ever. Agnes was busy shushing Elizabeth Agnes, who was asking what an armistice was.
‘An armistice is when Daddy comes home for ever,’ was Agnes’s answer, and that kept the little girl quiet.
Margaret thought of Lizzie and what she would be saying to little Frank. Whatever it was, Lizzie most certainly needed a prayer too, but before Margaret could frame her own, the Rector did it for her.
‘Lord, let us pray for Lizzie and for Rudolf, far away in Germany …’
; At Lake’s Farm, Lizzie was alone in the cowshed. To her astonishment, Farmer Lake had given them the rest of the day off, and the Land Girls and POWs had quickly vanished. Even that miserable so-and-so must think there was something to celebrate. Lizzie was in two minds about it. She was glad the fighting was finished with, but the thought of the problems that now had to be faced overwhelmed her, and she found herself reluctant to go back to Frank. Joachim had been working at the farm today, and she’d said to him: ‘It’ll mean you can go home.’
‘Ja.’ His eyes had been filled with homesickness.
‘Your sweetheart must be happy today.’ Joachim had showed her the photograph of his sweetheart, a stalwart German mädchen with a pleasant face, and soon she would make Joachim a good wife. Not like Lizzie had been to Rudolf, although she loved him. The trouble was she loved Frank too. The time had come to write to Rudolf and tell him about her son. She wasn’t any great shakes at writing, and Rudolf would be hurt. He was a kind man though. If he accepted the situation he’d be good to the child. But what about Frank? He’d always wanted a son too, and now he had one he adored. There was going to be no armistice in her problem; it was only just beginning, and had to be faced. Slowly she began to walk back towards her home where Frank and their son would be impatiently waiting for her.
‘And for Frank Eliot who has made himself a part of this village with his work at the cinema and on the memorial garden …’
Frank Eliot knew exactly why Lizzie hadn’t yet returned. He didn’t blame her, for fine words were one thing, and facts another. ‘One day when the war ends’ had a splendidly far-off ring to it. But now it had ended. What would he do if Lizzie chose Rudolf? It would tear him in two to have to leave his son, and Lizzie too he had come to love, even though she had never replaced Jennifer, his first wife. Had he the strength to leave? He might not have any choice. He could hardly hang around Ashden like a spectre at the feast. He supposed it was but one more blow in a life that had dealt him many. Or would it be one blow too much?