Until We Meet Again

by Margaret Thornton

  ‘What?’ cried Joseph. He grabbed the letter and read it for himself. His first words, too, were ones of thankfulness. ‘Oh…thank the Lord! This is incredible news.’ He found himself shedding tears of joy. He was seldom known to cry, and after a few moments he began to think more rationally.

  ‘I hope to goodness they’ve got it right this time…’ He shook his head in a puzzled manner. ‘How can there have been such a huge mistake? What do they mean, mistaken identity?’ He perused the letter again, more carefully. ‘He’s in a field hospital near Calais. Isn’t that where Tommy Moon is? And why has it taken them so long to let us know?’

  ‘I don’t know, Joseph,’ said his wife. ‘I only know that I believe what it says here. That our son’s alive. We must let Tilly know straightaway. That poor lass! She’s been so brave, carrying on with her nursing. We must go round this morning, Joseph, to the nursing home, and let her know. She won’t have been informed, you know.’

  ‘Aye…yes, of course we must…’

  ‘And to think that he’s in the same hospital as Tommy. That’s what I can’t understand,’ said Mabel. ‘Why were we not told? And why didn’t our Dominic write…?’

  ‘Happen he’s too badly injured,’ said Joseph. ‘We must try not to get our hopes up too much, Mabel. He might be in a bad way.’

  ‘It says he’s recovering. That’s good enough for me. Oh, Joseph! He might be back home with us before very long.’

  ‘And…didn’t they say that Tommy Moon was suffering from loss of memory?’ mused Joseph. The thoughts that were gradually forming in his mind were ones that he didn’t like much at all, despite the overwhelming news that Dominic was alive. Mistaken identity… He was starting to feel very concerned. He wondered if it might be better to wait a little while before going round, post haste, to tell Tilly the good news.

  But that would not do for Mabel. She soon recovered from the shock she had received and was cock-a-hoop with delight. ‘Come along, Joseph. Go and get the car started up. I can’t wait to tell Tilly the good news.’

  Joseph didn’t have the heart to tell her the thoughts that were in his mind. After all, there was the possibility that he might be wrong.

  Faith Moon was in her office, busy at her paperwork, when Joseph and Mabel Fraser were shown in by the maid who had opened the door to them. Faith had seen Dominic’s parents only a couple of times since they had had the dreadful news about their son. Mabel had been devastated, and had looked as though she would never smile again. She was surprised, therefore, to see the expression of delight on the woman’s face now and her beaming smile. Joseph, however, was looking a little wary.

  ‘Faith…oh, Faith; we’ve had some wonderful news,’ Mabel cried before Faith had the chance to say hello to her. She couldn’t recall that the woman had ever used her Christian name before. ‘It’s our Dominic. He’s alive! He’s not been killed after all. He’s in a hospital near Calais. It must be the same one that Tommy’s in. He’s been injured, it says in the letter, but he’s recovering. Isn’t it marvellous news?’

  ‘It certainly is,’ agreed Faith, her mind trying to take in the enormity of what she was hearing, and how overjoyed Tilly would be. ‘But…how has it happened?’ she asked. ‘Such a mistake as that? Did they give you any explanation?’

  It was Joseph who answered. ‘Mistaken identity; that’s what they said. That’s all we know. They must have got him mixed up with some other poor blighter. I suppose it happens with the amount of casualties they have to deal with.’

  ‘So we thought we’d best come and let Tilly know right away,’ said Mabel. ‘She’s been so distressed, poor lass, and so brave. May we go and see her?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Faith. ‘She’s in one of the upstairs wards… On second thoughts, I’ll send a message and ask her to come down here. It will be a tremendous shock to her, as it’s been for you, even though it’s such good news.’ She went out into the hallway and spoke to the maid who was brushing the stairs. She asked her if she would please go and find Nurse Moon and tell her she was wanted in her mother’s office.

  Tilly looked surprised at seeing Mr and Mrs Fraser sitting there. ‘Hello there,’ she said. ‘How nice to see both of you. How are you? I must say you’re looking quite a lot better than the last time I saw you, Mrs Fraser.’

  ‘That’s because we’ve had some wonderful news, my dear,’ said Mabel Fraser. She rose from her chair and put her arms around Tilly. ‘The most wonderful news,’ she said again. ‘It’s Dominic; they got it all wrong. He’s not dead. He’s alive, Tilly! He’s alive!’

  ‘What? But that’s incredible!’ cried Tilly. ‘It’s wonderful, though. Oh…this is too much to take in…’ She burst into tears, so overcome with shock and profound relief that she was unable to stand.

  ‘Sit down, my dear,’ said Mrs Fraser, leading her gently to a chair. ‘It was a shock to us as well this morning when we got the letter. I nearly fainted, I can tell you.’

  ‘What did the letter say?’ asked Tilly. ‘Why did they say he’d been killed when he hadn’t? I don’t understand. How could it happen? And where is Dominic now? Is he coming home?’

  ‘We’ll tell you all we know,’ said Joseph. ‘We’re as mystified as you are. It seems as though they’d got him mixed up with somebody else. He’s been injured – we don’t know how badly, yet – and at the moment he’s in a hospital near Calais.’

  ‘Near Calais? But…that’s where Tommy is,’ said Tilly. ‘Why weren’t you told sooner? Tommy’s lost his memory, so they say… But why didn’t Dominic write?’

  ‘Perhaps he isn’t able to,’ replied Joseph. ‘There are a lot of questions we can’t answer at the moment. I daresay it will all be revealed to us in time. But the main thing is that he’s alive.’

  ‘Do you know,’ said Tilly, bemusedly, ‘I could never really believe that Dominic was dead, even though I was told so time and time again. It just didn’t seem possible. I always felt that I would have known, deep down, if he had been killed. And I never had that feeling. But eventually I began to understand that it must be so, that I was deluding myself in thinking he could still be alive…’

  ‘But he is! He is!’ cried Mabel. ‘I must write to him, and you will write as well, won’t you, Tilly? We don’t know how long it will be before he’s home, and I pray to God that he won’t have to go back again, to the war, I mean. I suppose I shouldn’t say this, but if his injuries are severe enough, he won’t have to, will he?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Tilly. ‘We’re nursing men here who have lost an arm or a leg, or have suffered bad internal injuries. They will never have to go back. You have no idea what his injuries are? We were told about Tommy losing an arm… and everything else.’

  ‘No, but we’re hoping to get more of the facts before long,’ said Joseph. ‘Now, my dear…’ He turned to his wife. ‘I think we have taken up enough of Faith’s valuable time. Let’s get home, shall we, and share the good news with our neighbours. And Cedric and Maud as well, of course.’

  ‘Yes, Priscilla will be delighted to hear the news,’ said Tilly. ‘She was – is – very fond of Dominic. Thank you for letting me know so quickly, both of you. So now we can look forward to seeing him again. It’s probable he will be moved to a hospital in England when he’s well enough. That’s what usually happens.’

  ‘And even if it’s at Land’s End we’ll be there to visit him,’ said Mabel, her eyes aglow with happiness. ‘And you must come with us, Tilly, my dear. I’m so happy for you, as well as for us. I know how fond you are of him.’

  ‘We must go and tell everyone the good news,’ said Faith, when Mr and Mrs Fraser had gone. ‘I am so pleased for you, my dear,’ she said to her daughter, ‘and for ourselves as well, of course. We were grieved, too, to think that Dominic had been killed. He was just like one of the family. But he’s alive, praise the Lord! And our Tommy, too, in the same hospital, at least I assume it’s the same one. That’s incredible, isn’t it? Oh, I hope it isn’t too l
ong before Tommy gets his memory back, then they can both come home. I must phone and tell William as well.’

  Tilly smiled. ‘Yes, it’s wonderful, isn’t it?’ she said quietly. But she was thoughtful, too, and a little concerned. She did not doubt that the news they had just heard was true, that her beloved Dominic was alive. It surely wasn’t possible that the top brass, or whoever it was, could make two such colossal errors. But Dominic was recovering in the same hospital as Tommy; now that was a coincidence if anything was. They hadn’t heard from Tommy because he had not yet regained his memory and, therefore, was not able to reply to the letter his mother had sent him. And the letter that Mr and Mrs Fraser had received had reported that it was a case of mistaken identity. Whose identity? wondered Tilly. As she thought about it her happiness was tinged with more than a little anxiety.

  William Moon was surprised to receive a phone call from his wife at midday, and even more surprised on hearing the stupendous news she was telling him, that Tilly’s fiancé, Dominic, had been found to be alive and recovering from his injuries, not dead as they had previously been informed. And he was in the same hospital as Tommy…

  ‘I’m delighted,’ said William. ‘That is, indeed, the best possible news. Tell Tilly how pleased I am, won’t you? And when I come home this evening we’ll crack open a bottle of champagne. You didn’t know, but I’ve had one hidden away since well before the beginning of the war, waiting for an occasion like this.’

  When he had come away from the phone, though, and after sharing the good news with Patrick and Katy, faint alarm bells started ringing in his head. And the more he thought about the situation the louder they sounded. It seemed as though it was a question of mistaken identity; excusable enough, maybe, with the vast amount of deaths on the battlefields and the difficulties of communication. He supposed such mistakes were bound to happen from time to time. But Tommy and Dominic in the same hospital? And Tommy, as they had been told, suffering from memory loss? And then there was the fact that the two young men had always been inseparable. ‘We’re in it together,’ he remembered them saying. He was gradually putting two and two together and not liking the answer that was revealing itself to him. He could be wrong, of course, and he hoped to God he was, but the niggling doubt in his mind would not be stilled.

  His wife was on top of the world with happiness at the moment – so had he been on first hearing the news, thinking of how happy Tilly would be – and he would hate to do anything to burst her bubble of joy. But he felt it was only right that he should warn her, as carefully as he could, that there might be disturbing news coming their way. Or would it be better, he pondered, to wait until more news came through, if it ever did?

  William was in a quandary, but he decided, after his thoughts had been driving him mad for over an hour, that he must go and talk to his wife. There was not too much work that day at the yard, so he left Patrick in charge, as he often did, and set off on his bicycle to his home on the opposite bay.

  Faith was surprised to see him, but very pleased. ‘Hello, dear,’ she said, looking up from her office work. ‘I feel too excited to concentrate on my work today, although I must try and do so. I expect you are the same, aren’t you? Is that why you’ve come home early?’

  ‘Sort of,’ said William. He looked at his wife’s happy face and began to have second thoughts, but he knew it would be wrong to let her continue in a state of euphoria when there could be bad news round the corner. And the more he thought about it, the more he felt sure that this would be the case.

  ‘Listen, my dear,’ he began. ‘There’s something I feel I must talk to you about. Let’s go into our room where we won’t be disturbed.’ The Moon family had their own small private room – a sitting cum dining room – for their own use. It had originally been known as the morning room, but since the house had been converted to a convalescent home it had sufficed well enough as a living room. ‘I’ll ask Hetty to take over from you in here for a little while.’ Hetty was Faith’s deputy with regard to the running of the establishment and quite often stood in for her.

  ‘Now, what is it, William?’ asked Faith when they were sitting together on the settee in their own little room. ‘You look rather worried, and I wouldn’t have expected you to, after the good news we’ve heard.’

  ‘Well, that’s part of it,’ he began. ‘I know it’s very good news about Dominic and I couldn’t be more pleased. But it’s raised a question in my mind. They’re saying he was confused with someone else; it wasn’t Dominic who was killed in action, it was…someone else. I don’t want to frighten or upset you, my darling…’ He realised, however, that he was probably about to do just that, ‘but I can’t help feeling that it’s strange that we haven’t heard more about Tommy.’

  ‘He’s lost his memory, William. He can’t write until he remembers who he is, surely?’

  ‘No, maybe not. But it seems rather a coincidence to me that they’re in the same hospital, and we knew nothing about it till now. You remember what close friends they were, and how they said they were in it together, that they would look out for one another…?’

  ‘What are you saying, William?’ Faith looked at her husband in consternation. ‘You surely don’t think…?’

  ‘I don’t know, Faith, my love. I may be barking up the wrong tree altogether, but I’m afraid it seems to fit the facts. We were told that Tommy was suffering from memory loss, and then, out of the blue, we’re told that Dominic is alive, after all this time.’

  ‘You mean…that Tommy was mistaken for Dominic. They thought it was our Tommy, and all the time it was Dominic? No, I can’t believe that. They could never make such a mistake as that. I’m sure you’re wrong, William. Besides, they don’t look anything like one another.’

  ‘No, but they were in the same regiment, and we know they used to see one another whilst they were over there in France. Tommy told us so, didn’t he? And mistakes do happen…’ He stopped as Faith gave a shudder and buried her head in her hands.

  ‘No, William, no! You’re frightening me. It can’t be true. I just can’t believe it.’

  He put his arm around her, drawing her close to him, wondering now if he had made the wrong decision. She was so precious to him and he would never forgive himself if he had distressed her unnecessarily. ‘I’m sorry, my darling. As I say, I might be wrong, but I felt it would be better for you to be forewarned, just in case we receive some bad news.’

  Faith did not speak for several moments. She was sitting as though in a daze, her head resting against William’s shoulder, when Hetty came into the room.

  ‘There’s someone to see you,’ she said, ushering a man dressed in army uniform into the room. She departed just as quickly, closing the door very quietly behind her.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Moon?’ said the stranger. He stepped forward to greet William, who had risen from his seat. His wife remained where she was, looking dazedly at their visitor.

  ‘I’m Captain Alec Johnson. I’ve come from the War Office in London,’ he said, shaking William’s outstretched hand. ‘I’m very sorry, but I’m afraid I have some bad news for you.’

  Faith gave a cry. ‘Oh no!’ She began to shake her head frantically. ‘No, no, it can’t be…’ Then, in a voice that could scarcely be heard, ‘You were right, William, weren’t you?’ she murmured.

  ‘Sit down,’ said William gruffly, motioning to an armchair whilst he resumed his own seat. He put his arm around his distraught wife. ‘I think we may have already guessed what you have come to tell us, Captain Johnson. Is it about our son, Thomas Moon?’

  ‘Yes…it is,’ replied the captain, looking down at the floor for a moment, obviously in some distress. Then he looked up at William, regarding him steadily. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Moon, Mrs Moon; we are all more sorry than we can say, but there has been a dreadful mistake. You say you have already guessed… We were given to believe that a young soldier, Second Lieutenant Dominic Fraser, had been killed in action; on a night patrol we have heard recently, j
ust before the offensive on the Somme. But I’m very much afraid that it was a question of mistaken identity. We know now that it was your son, Thomas, who was killed, and not Dominic Fraser. May I say again how sorry we are for the error, and we all offer you our most sincere condolences.’

  Faith did not speak, and at that moment she was dry-eyed. It was William who asked, a trifle abruptly, ‘And may we ask how this happened. Have you any idea?’

  ‘Yes, we have,’ replied the captain. ‘Far be it from us at headquarters to want to shift the blame, but it very much seems that the question of mistaken identity was due to a mix-up caused by the young men themselves. Apparently your son, Thomas, and Dominic Fraser ended up with the wrong tunics, hence the wrong identity papers. They were friends, I believe?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ agreed William. ‘The best of friends.’ He gave a sad smile. ‘I must say that sounds feasible. Yes, that would be typical of Tommy and Dominic. They were inseparable when they were at school together, then they were in the school training corps, and they joined up together.’

  ‘Yes, Dominic was like one of the family,’ added Faith. She was still managing to hold herself together and William was glad now that he had been able to forewarn her of what might be to come. ‘He was engaged to be married to our daughter, Tilly. She’s Tommy’s twin sister. And she has been believing all this time that Dominic was dead, until we heard otherwise this morning. Was it only this morning, William?’ she asked, looking rather bewildered.

  ‘Yes, it was, my dear,’ he answered, ‘although it seems as though we’ve lived a lifetime since then. Hearing the good news and now…this. Tilly was over the moon – as we all were – when she heard about Dominic. And now she will have to be told that she’s lost her twin brother, not her fiancé.’