by Annie Groves
June did look a bit pale and sweaty as she announced that she felt that shaken that she was going to go in and make herself a cup of tea.
‘I’ll come with you,’ Molly offered.
‘You sit down and I’ll put the kettle on,’ Molly said to June, once they were back inside number 78.
‘Look at that. Me hanky’s wet through,’ June hiccuped, still crying.
‘Here, tek mine, it’s clean,’ Molly removed her own clean handkerchief from her sleeve and handed it to her sister.
‘I don’t know why I’m crying, I’ve got nowt to cry about now that I know my Frank’s safe. Oh, Molly, if I’d lost him … Oh, Molly, what you’ve gone through, I can only imagine.’
‘Well, you mustn’t, and you’ve got baby to think about as well, so you’d better start pulling yourself together,’ Molly told her firmly.
‘I don’t know what I’d have done without you and Sally these last few days,’ June admitted shakily, ‘and I’ve got ter tell yer, Molly, I’ve been feeling right ashamed of meself for not understanding how it must be for you, losing your Eddie. I felt for yer, of course, and I thought I understood, but I know now that I didn’t,’ she added with unusual humility.
Such an admission from her normally abrasive sister made Molly’s hand shake slightly as she filled the kettle.
‘I’m getting better, slowly but surely,’ she told June determinedly. ‘I’ll never forget Eddie, of course – how could I? – but … I don’t know, June, it’s a bit like I’ve bin through the worst thing that could happen to me and for a while I thought that I just couldn’t go on wi’out him but then hearing about our lads nearly getting killed by Jerry and then being saved has somehow made me feel that I want to do me bit to get this war won and Jerry sent back where he belongs. For Eddie – so he didn’t die in vain. If one of us had to lose their lad it’s better that it should be me.’ She looked meaningfully at June’s belly. ‘There’s going to be enough kiddies left without their dads wi’out yours being one of them.’
She waited for the tea to brew and then poured them each a cup, going to sit down on the back door step.
For a few minutes they sat in mutual silence, and then June said unsteadily, ‘I hope that Sally’s Ronnie is all right.’
‘They’ve bin saying on the news that the navy and all them little boats are going back time and time again to bring everyone home,’ Molly reminded her, determinedly refusing to think of what Johnny had told her about the death and destruction he had witnessed.
It was no wonder that the church was so full today, Molly thought, as they waited to file out and shake the vicar’s hand. Everyone wanted to give thanks for the miraculous rescue of so many men, against so many odds. Over three hundred thousand had been brought back safely.
Sally, white-faced and drawn, clung to Molly’s arm. She had still not had any word about Ronnie, and now, where there had been closeness between her and June, there was awkwardness and tension.
It was Frank’s mother June was talking to as they left the church, their differences temporarily forgotten in their relief at the safety of the man they both loved.
Once they were outside the church, Molly whispered to her father to keep an eye on Sally and then slipped quietly away, into the cool shadows of the graveyard.
She hadn’t visited Eddie’s grave for over a month and it shocked her to see the stark line of new graves stretching beyond his.
She hunkered down beside the grave, and touched the smooth cold surface of his headstone, dipping her head to kiss the sharp carving of his name. Tears clogged the back of her throat, but today there was no bitterness in them, only sorrow and her own sense of loss.
‘So many of you lost, Eddie,’ she whispered to him. ‘But at least you’ll not be alone.’ She laid her hand flat over the body of the grave like a mother comforting a child. ‘I’ll never forget you, not ever.’ As she talked to him she was busily removing weeds, smoothing the cover of his last resting place with gentle, loving hands.
She looked up at the church clock. It was time for her to go. They were having a chicken for dinner – sent up from the farm – and she’d have to get back to make sure it didn’t spoil.
‘Where’ve you bin?’ June demanded as Molly caught up with them outside the church.
‘I just went to have a bit of a chat with Eddie, tell him that your Frank’s safe, and that,’ Molly told her, adding when she saw the quick tears filling June’s eyes, ‘and I told him, an’ all, that you’ll be moaning your head off if we don’t get back and get our dinner.’
‘They was saying outside the church some of them boats have gone back over and over again to get the men,’ June told Molly emotionally as they made their way home. ‘Haven’t they, Dad?’
‘Aye, brave lads they are too, an’ all. It fair lifts yer spirits and meks yer feel proud, when yer hear about how brave our lads are, standing waiting in line to be taken off the beaches. That takes courage, that does, and no mistake. Aye, and it takes courage to keep going back again and again across the Channel with Jerry doing his best to kill yer, too.’ His chest lifted as he heaved a huge sigh and gave both girls a watery smile.
‘Do you fancy coming back with us for a bit of dinner, Sally?’ Molly asked, hanging back until Sally had caught up with them.
‘No, ta. I won’t, if you don’t mind. My Ronnie is bound to be getting in touch to let me know he’s safe,’ Sally told her valiantly. ‘So I’d best stay at home so as I don’t miss any message.’
Silently, Molly nodded.
They all knew that the Germans were advancing on Dunkirk and that it was a desperate race for the navy to get as many men off the beach as they could before the Germans arrived. But everyone knew not all of them could be rescued. Some men would be left behind. Molly prayed that Ronnie wasn’t one of the unlucky ones.
That fear lay heavily on Molly’s heart as she joined Anne and the others at Mill Road Hospital on Monday night, where their WVS unit was on duty, helping the hard-pressed nursing staff.
‘We still haven’t heard anything from our Richard,’ Anne confided to Molly gravely as they stood together beside the tea urn they had set up inside the hospital’s foyer. ‘Dad tries not to show it, but I know he’s beginning to worry.’
‘You said he was at the airfield at Nantes, though, not Dunkirk,’ Molly reminded her, trying to cheer her up.
‘Yes, I know, but the Germans are bound to want to take the airfield and what will happen then? Oh, Molly, it doesn’t bear thinking about.’
‘Mr Churchill will get them home,’ Molly told her stoutly with more confidence than she was feeling. ‘You just see if he doesn’t. Look at how many we’ve got back from Dunkirk, and still coming too.’
‘I was talking to one of the nurses earlier. She’d had a letter from her sister down south saying that her husband had got back safe and sound but that he had the most dreadful look in his eyes and he wouldn’t talk to her, not even to say hello,’ Anne told her unhappily.
‘The men are bound to be shocked,’ Molly responded quietly, ‘and some will take it worse than others.’ She was thinking of Johnny and what he had told her, and how some men needed to talk about what they had seen and heard while others preferred to keep it all locked up inside themselves.
One of the jobs of the WVS was to go round the wards, taking magazines and newspapers others had donated to the wounded soldiers. This always seemed to take Molly longer than the others because she found it so hard to leave the bedsides of those who were reluctant to let her go, so grateful were they to have someone to talk to, especially those whose families hadn’t been able to visit them for one reason or another.
‘I’m afraid there aren’t any newspapers left,’ Molly began to apologise as she reached the final bed on the ward. ‘But I have got a Picture Post, and … oh, Johnny. It’s you.’
‘You know what they say about bad pennies,’ Johnny joked, grinning.
His arm was strapped up and someone had shaved him
so that he looked far better than he had done when she had seen him a week ago at Lime Street.
‘How are you?’ Molly asked him. ‘Do your family know you’re here? Do you want me—’
‘Course I want you. Allus have done,’ he told her cheekily, winking at her whilst Molly blushed and shook her head. ‘Mam’s bin in, but I’ve told her not to bring the girls, scriking and showin’ me up. She told me about your Eddie, Molly. I’m sorry.’
Before she could stop him, Johnny had reached for her hand and was holding it. His skin was calloused but warm, alive, and very male. Her face started to burn. Quickly she pulled her hand free.
‘I should have married you, Molly,’ Johnny told her fiercely. ‘Aye, and I would have done, an’ all …’
Molly turned away.
‘I’m sorry,’ he apologised gruffly. ‘I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t mean ter upset yer. I just meant that if that lying whore hadn’t claimed I’d fathered her bastard, then you and me—’
Molly shook her head. ‘You didn’t want to marry me really, Johnny,’ she told him. ‘It was our June who pushed us together.’
‘Your June and me own natural curiosity, if you know what I mean,’ Johnny laughed, winking at her.
It was strange how his innuendos didn’t worry her any more, Molly thought as she gave him a firm look and told him, ‘That’s enough of that, Johnny Everton. How’s your arm?’
‘Jerry’s damaged the tendons, according to the doc. Seems like the war is over for me, Molly, and from now on I’m going to be back in civvies,’ he told her.
By the end of the week it no longer shocked Molly to see men break down in tears in front of her, nor to hear them tell her about the terrible things they had witnessed, even though her heart ached for every single one of them – and for those who would not be getting on any train ever again.
She had also sat through the cinema newsreels showing the men being taken off Dunkirk’s beaches so many times with June, whilst her sister looked to see if she could spot Frank, that she knew every word of them by heart.
Not that June was the only one going back to the cinema over and over again to see those newsreels. The girls at the factory talked of nothing else, and neither did the newspapers – and who could blame them, Molly admitted. Everyone you talked to was saying how proud they were to be British, and those rescued from Dunkirk were greeted as true heroes by their families and friends.
Two days before her birthday, June had had a letter from Frank to say that he had been told he would be given leave but that he didn’t know when it would be. It was the best birthday present she could wish for, June had said, before biting her lip as she remembered too late the news Molly had received on the eve of her own.
‘Tell Sally,’ Frank had written, ‘that her Ronnie is safe back but that he’s in hospital with a broken leg.’
June had sent Molly running round to Sally with the news and the letter, but Sally had heard from Ronnie now herself. He was in an army hospital down south.
‘I just wish that I could see him, that’s all,’ she told Molly emotionally. ‘I daren’t let myself believe it until I do.’
Sally wasn’t the only one to feel like that, Molly knew. She had heard the same words so many times from families coming to the station looking for their loved ones when they got word that a troop train was going to be coming in.
‘What about those that are still there in Dunkirk?’ Molly said starkly to her sister and father on the following Friday night as they sat drinking their cocoa. She gave a small shiver. ‘How must they be feeling?’
‘Don’t, Molly. I can’t bear it,’ June protested, putting down Feeding and Care of Your Baby, the book she had been reading by the famous Dr Truby King. The book had been Elsie’s birthday present to her.
‘Now then, our June, don’t go getting yourself all upset,’ their father warned.
Molly wrapped her hands tightly round her cocoa mug. ‘When we were at the factory this morning I couldn’t help noticing how them as had had good news were all talking together, laughing and chattering, whilst them as hadn’t were holding back, not saying anything, but you could see in their faces what they were thinking and how afraid they were.’
They looked at one another in silence and then June said chokily, ‘Them poor lads … aye, and their families, an’ all.’
Phew, but it was hot! Molly lifted the heavy weight of her hair off the back of her neck to try to cool herself down. She had already taken off her WVS jacket, and she could feel the perspiration prickling on her scalp. She had walked all the way back from Lime Street station, thinking it would be quicker than waiting for a bus. The stream of men returning from Dunkirk had slowed to a trickle now.
Molly guessed that June would probably still be round at Sally’s, helping her to get ready for the journey down south to see her Ronnie. June and Frank’s mother, for once united, had insisted that she must take advantage of the Government’s offer to provide a travel warrant for her to go and visit Ronnie, and that between them they would look after Tommy for her.
Molly walked up the narrow path that led to the back of the houses and into their small back garden, the movement of the gate wafting the scent of roses and honeysuckle towards her. She pushed open the back door and then came to an abrupt halt.
Frank was sitting at the kitchen table, holding his head in his hands.
‘Frank?’ she queried gently.
When he looked up at her, her heart ached for him. He had lost weight, his face almost gaunt, dark shadows under the blue eyes, which had lost their habitual sparkle and were bloodshot with exhaustion.
‘Oh, it’s you, Molly.’ He spoke without any emotion, as though it was an effort for him to frame the words.
Putting down her jacket, Molly walked over to the table and calmly pulled out a chair opposite him.
‘June’s over at Sally’s,’ she told him lightly, knowing now, from her experience of talking to so many returning men, that a very gentle touch was needed on such bad emotional and mental bruises. ‘I dare say she’ll be back soon but I can run over and get her for you, if you like.’
‘No, not yet. I still can’t get me head round being here. All them hours, standing waitin’ on that bloody beach, thinkin’ that we might not be taken off.’ His voice was hoarse and harsh, and Molly suspected that he wasn’t even fully aware of who he was talking to.
‘Why don’t I make us both a cuppa?’ Molly suggested.
‘No … no, don’t go,’ Frank demanded, reaching across the table to put his hand on hers. ‘I never thought as I would mek it, Molly. Strafing us, the bloody Luftwaffe were, picking us off like we was …’ He shuddered violently. ‘One of them got them lads as was standing behind me.’ Tears filled his eyes and he tried to blink them away.
Molly got up and went to him, standing next to him and putting her arms around him in the motherly way she had held so many returning men as they had wept out the pain of what they had seen. ‘It’s all right, Frank,’ she told him softly.
‘There were a young lad …’ he said jerkily.
There was a look in his eyes that made Molly’s throat ache. He wasn’t looking directly at her but focusing on something only he could see, his disjointed words delivered in a low monotone. Molly had seen this behaviour in other men still in shock from what they had endured.
‘Only a bit of a kid, crying out for his mam, with his guts spilling out of his hands as he held his belly.’ He knuckled his damp eyes, whilst Molly fought to control her own reaction. ‘There were these lads right next to me, standing there joking one minute and gone the next …’ Abruptly, he seemed to come to himself and realise where he was and what he was saying. ‘I shouldn’t be upsettin’ you wi’ all of this.’ His voice started to get stronger. ‘You’ve had enough to bear, what wi’ losing your Eddie.’
‘Listening and caring are the least that those of us at home can do, Frank,’ Molly told him, as she released him and went back to her chair. ‘We want to do o
ur bit, an’ all, you know.’
‘Aye, I know that, and you do so much more than that, Molly,’ he agreed. ‘T’uniform suits you, Molly – meks you look proper grown up.’
‘I am grown up,’ she told him half indignantly.
He was smiling now, looking much more like the Frank she remembered.
‘You should have seen our lads, Molly,’ he told her warmly, reaching across the table to take hold of one of her hands. ‘They were that brave and strong. I were proud to be wi’ them.’
‘And we are proud of you, Frank – all of us, the whole country.’
‘You’re a good lass, Molly.’ He looked at her and said quietly, ‘I’m not going to say anything to June about what I was just telling you – about the other men, I mean.’
‘I won’t say a word,’ Molly assured him. He was still holding her hand and he gave it a small squeeze. It was funny to think that, a year ago, just the thought of being on her own with Frank would have sent her giddy with excitement. Inwardly she shook her head over the foolishness of the girl she had once been.
She returned the pressure of Frank’s fingers and looked into his eyes, relieved to see that some of the old light was coming back into them.
‘You’re a good ’un, Molly,’ Frank told her emotionally. ‘I never thought I’d be able to tell anyone about that young lad, but somehow it were easy to tell you.’
Silently they looked at one another. Molly felt her heart miss a beat and then thud unevenly. There would always be a soft spot in her heart for Frank, but he was her brother-in-law now and nothing more, she told herself firmly. This was neither the time nor the man for ‘what could have beens’, she acknowledged as she gently removed her hand from Frank’s.
‘Why don’t you walk down to Sally’s, and let June know that you’re back?’ she suggested. ‘And don’t worry, what you’ve said to me is just between the two of us and it always will be.’
‘Thanks, Molly,’ Frank said gratefully. ‘There’s no sense in upsettin’ June, not in her condition, and with me going back just as soon as Mr Churchill has got us all re-equipped.’