Sisters at War

by Milly Adams

  ‘Nothing changes,’ laughed Adam. Mick sent over a couple of pints with a seaman. ‘A christening present, sirs,’ he bellowed. They grinned their thanks. The seamen drifted over, and soon they were all sitting round the table together, and the beer mats were getting a real going over. The talk was of home, of the sea, of the last convoy. This is what Adam liked about the armed trawlers. Less pomp, more bloody do. Though that wasn’t fair, because the bigger ships did plenty, not that Morgan would ever have agreed with that.

  Morgan. Adam’s heart twisted.

  He was expected to stand a round as the new boy, and so he did, and then Geordie did, because, although he wasn’t new it was the tradition on High Ground that the subs saw off the ship with a good drenching of beer for all concerned. The songs began at ten, and were getting increasingly raucous by the time 10.30 came around, and Geordie nudged him. ‘They have till midnight, we have until eleven. I want to get to the telephone box.’

  Mick raised his glass. ‘Same place as it was last time we berthed. To the left, fifty yards, sir.’

  Geordie laughed. ‘I think I might just have found my way, but my thanks, Chief.’

  The night was cool, the moon was bright as they left the noise and fetid warmth behind and clipped along the cobbles, to the left. It was indeed fifty yards distant. ‘You go first,’ Adam told Geordie.

  ‘Ah yes, I sniff avoidance. Woman trouble, I’m thinking. She dumped you, eh?’

  ‘No, nothing like that. Family row, well, not really even a row, just things being different, and I don’t know why.’ Geordie had stepped into the booth, and wasn’t listening. He closed the door. Adam stood on the cobbles, staring up at the sky, and then out to sea. When there was no light on land, the stars seemed so bright. ‘By the light of the silvery moon’? Who had told him about the old lady on the train? He searched his memory, and then it came. Bee, of course.

  Well, he’d telephone his mother, and maybe he’d ask if Bee was over her mood. He felt strange, upset. But then why wouldn’t he? Morgan was dead, while he was back here. He just needed to settle in.

  ‘All yours.’ Geordie was holding open the door to the telephone box. ‘I’ll get on, relieve the skipper. See you back on board.’

  Geordie strolled off, whistling. Adam entered. Why did telephone boxes always smell of pee, or was it just damp? Adam fed in money, and was put through to Combe Lodge. He hoped his mother wasn’t in bed, because he had nothing to say to Bee. It was all too difficult.

  He leaned back on the side of the phone box, looking out. Clouds were scudding across the moon. It could be breezy tomorrow. His mother answered, he pressed the button, the money dropped, ‘Mum,’ he called.

  ‘Oh thank God,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know how to get hold of you. It’s Bryony.’

  His hand gripped the receiver. ‘What do you mean? Oh God, she hasn’t gone again, in the Tiger Moth? The Germans are there, for God’s sake. What the hell is the matter . . .?’

  ‘Oh, do be quiet, you stupid boy. After you’d left she didn’t come down, and Cissie crept into her room. She was lying on the floor, there was blood, a lot of it. Cissie screamed, I came. She had fallen, hit her head hard on the corner of her dressing table and cut it open. The rug was wet with it. She was so cold and I don’t know how long . . .’

  He felt sick. ‘Mum, Mum,’ he was shouting over her now. His mother stopped talking. He said, ‘Is she all right?’

  ‘Of course she’s not bloody all right, you utter idiot. She told the ambulance crew when she came to for a moment, that she’d already broken her arm. It was on the Sunflower, coming back, but she didn’t want to say anything because you were so worried about your bloody boat. When she fell again, she made it much worse, and there was a rib broken, and what with her poor cut head . . . Oh, so many stitches. She hasn’t woken again, not yet. She still hasn’t woken. Eddie’s there, now. I called him, and he came straight back, but he might go back on duty tomorrow, but only if she wakes. They might have to operate on her arm . . .I will go to the hospital tonight. The girls in the cottage will move in to look after Cissie.’ His mother was crying. She never cried.

  ‘Fell on the boat?’

  He remembered now. Yes, he’d shrugged her off. She’d fallen. But she never said anything, not a bloody thing. She’d helped him tidy the boat, she’d cycled home. How quiet she’d been. He rubbed his forehead. Someone was knocking on the glass of the door. It was Dozey.

  ‘Will she make it?’

  ‘Yes, of course she will, she’s just exhausted, she’s been through a lot recently.’ But she said it in that way of hers. Yes, of course the fire will catch, yes of course your homework is wonderful. There was no of course about it. The pips were going.

  ‘I should come home, but I can’t. I’m needed. Oh goddammit. Look, I’ll telephone you when I come back. Not sure when. Look after her for me.’ He put down the receiver, his mouth dry. He forced himself to smile at Dozey. ‘All yours.’

  ‘You all right, sir?’ Dozey cocked his head. ‘Woman trouble I ’ear?’

  ‘God, I’d forgotten what a load of bloody old women you blokes are. No, it’s not women trouble, everything’s fine.’ He mock-punched Dozey’s arm and strode along towards the wharf. He had a job to do but he didn’t know how, when his best friend could be dying. He turned on his heel, and found the pub. He hurried in and paid the man behind the bar a few bob to lend him a pen, the back of a receipt, an envelope and a stamp.

  He wrote. Bee, Forgive me, I didn’t know you were hurt. I’ll take you down to the pub when I’m next home, and we can catch up with the lads – get that darts arm up and running. Then we’ll fetch Hannah but you need to get better first. He hesitated. With love, Adam

  The barman said he’d post it. Mick came up to him. ‘He will, if he says he will. What’s happened, Adam?’

  ‘Bee’s hurt, she came to for a moment, but then she’s not regained consciousness again. I don’t know what I’ll do if . . .’ He stopped. ‘I just don’t know.’

  ‘Did you tell her that, in case she wakes?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  Mick sighed. ‘Well, sort of will have to do. You have five minutes to get back to the ship.’

  Adam flashed a look at the clock over the bar, and ran.

  Bryony lay in the hospital bed, her lids too heavy to open, a strange taste in her mouth. She was floating in darkness. Something banged, a strange voice was calling from somewhere far away, ‘Bryony, Bryony, dear.’

  She was too tired, and drifted again. She was in the water, it tasted foul, a different foul to the seawater. There were bangs, but different bangs to the bombs, and not so many. A different voice was calling her. ‘Come on, Bee. I have to go back. I’ll be flying. Soon you will be flying too, but you have to wake up. Come on, darling girl.’

  Flying? Ah yes, up there, feeling the wind as she flew the Tiger Moth, banking, floating, once the earth had released her, let her go, set her free. She wanted to smile, but she was too tired, and the pain in her head, her ribs, her arm . . . She drifted into the darkness, but for a moment she felt the shudder of the Dragonette engine, and heard the purring, then nothing.

  The noises came again. Her head was pounding, her mouth foul and dry. It hurt to breathe. Don’t, then. Don’t breathe. She slipped again into the darkness, where nothing hurt and she just drifted as though she was gliding on a thermal.

  Her hand? She wanted her hand back. It was being gripped, then tapped. A voice was calling, hauling her out of the darkness, out. Out. She gasped. The pain was back, but not the pounding. Her head hurt, but it wasn’t making her want to scream. She lay still. She could breathe easier. Her lids weren’t so heavy. Someone was pulling her hand, again. Slowly she turned her head. A woman leaned over her. ‘Good, you’re awake. My word, you’ve had us worried, my dear. You’re going to be rather sore but all should be well.’ She had a white hat on. It had a frill.

  She disappeared, and Bryony’s eyes closed and she was floating away again and
she didn’t have to breathe, she really didn’t. So she stopped, but someone was tugging her hand again. ‘Bee, don’t go. Bee come back.’ It was a child, Hannah? But no, not Hannah, they had turned back instead of going on. Poor Sunflower, she did her best. Should she have flown? She should have done something. But she hadn’t. She would go. She must go. She struggled, opened her eyes, but they were too dry, the light was too bright, she half closed her lids. Where was she? Where should she be?

  Her hand was squeezed. ‘Where have you been, my lovely girl?’ It was a man. She turned her head slightly. It hurt like her eyes. She stopped, and tried to lift her hand. She couldn’t because that hurt. She closed her eyes. The hand and voice wouldn’t let her go. Was it Adam, please say it was Adam? Who was Adam? She dragged her lids open, and this time she didn’t have to turn because someone was leaning over her. ‘Let me make it easy, sweet child. You just lie still.’ It was Eddie, her wonderful Uncle Eddie. She loved him, but there was someone else, she . . .

  ‘What’s happened?’ she asked, her lips stiff and her words slurred.

  ‘You told them when they put you in the ambulance that you fell, once on the boat, once in your . . .’ Eddie’s voice sounded strange. He stopped. She waited. He half coughed, his voice shaky and strange. ‘You came round after Cissie found you in the bedroom.’

  Ah, that ’s who the child was. Yes, she remembered Cissie. Now she remembered the fall on the boat, but was there another, later?

  Eddie told her now. He lifted her slightly, and she saw her arm. ‘They had to put in a steel pin, because it broke so badly when you fell again, you daft sausage. You broke a rib too, but when? They’re not sure whether it was the boat, or the bedroom. Then you hit your head and bled all over the rug, you know, the one you never liked very much. So that’s why you did it, isn’t it? Just to get rid of the rug. Then you passed out, came to again, ended up in hospital and then had to have an op, and since then, well you’ve worried us.’

  He lowered her. ‘You’ve got to stop this. I’m even more grey, and I must sit down. Holding you up is killing my back.’

  ‘You should be flying.’

  ‘Not while my niece is lying about, being a drama queen, but now you’re back, I will be off. A certain young lady, though, is driving us all mad to the extent that the hospital says she can come in again, just for a moment. Not that children are really allowed.’

  ‘Hannah?’ she breathed. She turned her head, as he sat down. ‘Is it Hannah?’

  ‘No, you didn’t manage to get to her.’

  Oh yes, of course. She had remembered a moment ago.

  A young nurse came, her cap pristine white. It was the same face as before. She said, ‘Ah, so the princess awakes.’

  ‘Where’s my prince?’ Bryony asked.

  Uncle Eddie and the nurse laughed. The nurse was feeling her pulse. ‘Good and steady, but thready. I am a poet, and your mind is back in place so we’re a winning team. You have one more visitor, then you rest.’

  Was it Adam? Eddie kissed her. ‘I must go. Don’t worry, you’ll fly again by the time you’re needed. Things will hot up, especially now Jersey . . .’ He stopped.

  ‘Bee!’ a child’s voice screeched. Hannah? No, no, of course not. Cissie. ‘Oh Bee, I found you but I couldn’t lift you, and they said it was good I didn’t, but I ’ad blood all over me hands, and me dress. It was disgusting.’ She sat on the chair that Eddie had just left, and reached for Bryony’s hand. ‘The Germans have landed on the Channel—’

  April’s voice cut across her. ‘Cissie, hush now.’

  Cissie clapped her hand over her mouth. April had entered and now she came to stand the other side of Cissie. She stroked Bryony’s cheek. ‘They had to cut your lovely hair, and actually—’

  Cissie interrupted, ‘Yes, they’ve shaved it where you fell because you had such a long split in your skin. A really long split and they had to sew it up. You’re quite bald on that side, but Uncle Eddie said you can wear a hat until it grows. It looks horrid.’

  Bryony stared at her, then at April, who was raising her eyebrows at someone on the other side of the bed. Adam?’ She turned. The pain made her gasp. No, it was the nurse, who said, ‘It really will grow, and quickly, so don’t look so sad.’

  Bryony felt tiredness sweeping over her. A child said, ‘Goodbye, Bee. We’ll come tomorrow.’

  Bryony murmured, ‘Goodbye, Hannah, I’ll come for you and Mum soon, I promise. I’m sorry, Daddy. I just couldn’t. But I will try ag—’

  Then the darkness came again and she let it take her away.

  In Jersey, the Germans had arrived, though Bryony had not. Hannah met Cheryl at her rented house. It had been a holiday let until the holidaymakers dried up, and she had managed to get it at a low rent. Together they walked towards St Helier, standing on the verge as a German on a motorbike approached. Bryony had seen one on the day of the invasion. He’d been riding a funny little folding motorbike. Her uncle had said it must have been dropped by parachute along with its rider.

  Cheryl waved uncertainly. The soldier ignored her. He wore a leather helmet and goggles. Cheryl chewed her lip. ‘It’s all so strange. I’m frightened.’ She had been working at a shop for the holiday season and was stuck here now, with no job. ‘No tourists, no job,’ she said. ‘Don’t know how I’m going to pay the rent unless Sylvia moves out of her flat and we divvy up the rent. What the hell are we all going to do?’

  They reached St Helier, and the sight of soldiers in their field-grey uniforms made them turn down side streets to avoid them, feeling clammy and uncertain. ‘I shouldn’t be here,’ Hannah said. ‘She should have come.’

  Cheryl leaned against the side wall of a shop, and took out her cigarettes. ‘Have a ciggy and give it a rest. That poor sister of yours can’t do anything right, can she? If you’d wanted to go that badly you could have got on one of the boats.’ Hannah took a cigarette, and cupped the match Cheryl struck and held out to her. She inhaled. It was her first of the day, because Doctor Clements had called at the cottage this morning and given the results of her mother’s examination at the hospital. As he did so he told her to take her filthy habit outside from now on. Yes, her mother’s TB was still at bay but why tempt providence, he’d said in that stuffy way of his.

  Bloody Bee had got away lightly, living over there, away from all these rules: no smoking, no loud music on the gramophone. She opened her mouth to say something, but Cheryl was flicking her ash on to the road, and nudging her. Two German soldiers walked past the end of the street.

  Cheryl said, ‘What are they going to do to us? You know, it’d be good to go home to England, but it’s not home. Not with Mum gone, and Dad at sea.’

  Well, Hannah thought, home to England would be different for her. She would have her art college money, and she could find Peter.

  ‘Come on,’ Cheryl whispered, flicking the ash off her cigarette, inhaling and then stubbing it out against the wall, and putting it in her pocket for later. Hannah did the same. Together they almost tiptoed to the end of the street, where they looked both ways. The soldiers were marching on. The girls ran across the road and down another street, and did the same once they reached the end, until they were on the way out of town. They set out for home, wishing they had never come into the town, wishing they never had to again.

  ‘But they won’t stay just there, you know,’ Cheryl said as they hurried through the lanes and fields. ‘They’ll be everywhere and telling us what to do, and probably shooting us if we don’t. You know what the other countries have had to put up with.’

  Chapter Eleven

  28 July 1940

  April put a small case on Bryony’s hospital bed. Cissie helped Bryony pack her few personal items and pyjamas, while April gathered up the cards people had brought or sent. They were so numerous Bryony had had to rotate them, keeping the majority in the drawer of the bedside cabinet, and swapping them over when Sister gave her the nod as to who had arrived to visit. Cissie’s cards were hand-d
rawn and painted, and there were many from her as she charted Bryony’s recovery.

  ‘Look, Bee,’ she said now. ‘’Ere you are on that Tuesday after your arm had gone wonky and you ’ad to have another operation. Look at the mouth. You weren’t ’alf sad.’

  ‘I felt rather sad, you horrible child. It hurt.’

  ‘You made Eddie cry. I don’t like it when grown-ups cry. He said he had something in his eye, and he kept saying, “That poor child.” I didn’t know he meant you, because you’re grown up and . . .’

  April grinned over Cissie’s head at Bryony. ‘Would you rather stay in the peace and quiet of hospital?’

  Bryony sat down on the bed, exhausted suddenly. ‘It begins to look appealing.’ She kept an eye on the ward entrance as Sandra, one of the other patients, called, ‘If Sister Newsome sees you sitting on that bed, she’ll break the other arm.’

  The whole ward laughed.

  April closed the case and patted it. ‘The girls from the cottage are preparing lunch. That should tempt you home. They’ve been looking after the veggie patch, well, we all have, haven’t we, madam? So there’ll be fresh salad, and—’

  ‘Scotch eggs,’ Cissie interrupted. ‘They’re like elephants, Anne and Catherine, I mean, not the Scotch eggs. Their blokes are at Catterick now, and they’re all just glad they got off Jersey when they did.’

  April said, ‘I’ve asked Eric to come to help us dig out the footings and then erect the Anderson shelter. We could need it any minute now, because how can those poor young RAF pilots go on fighting the Luftwaffe? We’re losing so many, and it’s just so dreadful.’ She sounded distraught and despairing.

  ‘I’m such a fool,’ Bryony groaned. ‘It’s exactly what Churchill called it, the Battle of Britain, and while Eddie’s lot are racing around delivering replacement aircraft I’m sitting here in a plaster cast. April, if I’m called on, I can’t go.’