The Promise

by Lesley Pearse

  Jimmy grimaced. ‘If my Belle gets an idea into her head, there’s no shaking it,’ he said. ‘But the hospital is so busy now with wounded, they depend on her, so I’m hoping she’s given up the idea. She hasn’t mentioned it in her letters for a long while now.’

  Etienne’s whole being wanted to say he was aware how stubborn and hot-headed Belle was, but he knew he must not. If he admitted who he was, he might also reveal his feelings for her by accident. He couldn’t let the man go back to the battlefield with that on his mind.

  ‘I must go now, I’m due back,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘It was good to meet you. Keep your head down, and keep that wife of yours safe at home for when you get back.’

  ‘I’m very glad we met you,’ Jimmy said, getting up too and shaking Etienne’s hand. ‘You keep safe too. And thanks for the wine and the directions.’

  Etienne walked away swiftly. He heard Jimmy call out that he hadn’t told him his name, but he pretended he hadn’t heard and kept on going.

  ‘Where’s the French bloke gone?’ the corporal asked Red as he came out with two plates of egg and chips. ‘I got him some too.’

  ‘He had to go back,’ Red replied. ‘Shame, he was a good sort. I meant to ask him for a few phrases to help when we get to the French HQ.’

  ‘Looked like a tough bastard,’ Bin remarked as he came out, also carrying two plates of food. ‘Did you see his cold eyes? No wonder the Frenchies backed off when he shouted at them. Before we got ’ere I thought the French were a load of nancy boys.’

  ‘Why? Had you “Bin” with one?’ Donkey asked teasingly and all the men roared with laughter.

  ‘I’ll have the Frog’s chips then,’ Bin responded. ‘And you lot can whistle for a share-out.’

  As Etienne walked back to the camp he felt shaky. He’d managed to put Belle to the back of his mind after he left England in 1914, but today’s events had brought her right back into the front of it.

  He might have spent less than half an hour with Jimmy, but that was long enough to see what he was. It might have been satisfying to find he was a dull weakling. But he was a strong, principled and forthright man, with that quiet steadiness which made a first-class soldier and the best kind of friend.

  Would Belle come out here? Most women, he thought, would be far too scared even to consider going to a country in the grip of war, but Belle had more courage than was good for her. She was also single-minded when she wanted something, whether that was escaping from Martha’s in New Orleans, or getting her own hat shop.

  Chapter Twelve

  1 July 1916

  ‘That’s a bleedin’ lark!’ Donkey remarked, looking upwards at the clear blue sky, trying to spot the singing bird as he drank his rum ration. ‘’Ere, Red, reckon that’s a good omen, or is ’e just ’appy that the guns have stopped at last?’

  It was seven thirty in the morning, already very warm, and after five days of constant and deafening bombardment of the enemy lines the guns had suddenly cut off. Now it was eerily quiet apart from the birdsong. Even the German guns had fallen silent.

  Jimmy and his regiment had marched here to the Somme from Ypres two weeks earlier to join what had looked like the whole British army camped out for miles behind the lines. As always, no one had seen fit to tell them why this part of the Western Front was important to the generals. They had just been told that there were no major roads or rail centres close behind the German lines, and up till now it had been a quiet sector. Yet whatever the reasons for this being chosen for a major push, the men’s first reaction was mainly delight, as it wasn’t marshy ground like Ypres. Chalky soil meant trenches wouldn’t get flooded, and it was pretty, verdant farmland with the river Somme meandering through it.

  Only yesterday Jimmy finally learned that this battle was to draw the Germans away from Verdun and ease the pressure on the French army still fighting there. His captain had said that the five-day bombardment had smashed the enemy’s barbed wire defences and wiped out all the men and guns in the first line. Now as they waited for the whistle to signal the first wave of men to go over the top, they all believed it would be like a walk in the park across No Man’s Land, and the fighting would only start once they reached the second line.

  ‘The lark is a good omen,’ Jimmy said, gulping his rum ration down in one. He wasn’t entirely convinced it was going to be as easy as everyone thought. But it was good to have the heavy guns silenced, and to enjoy the warm sunshine.

  The peace was short-lived. All at once the British guns started up again, this time trained on the enemy’s second line of defence. At the signal the soldiers who were lying in position out on No Man’s Land rose up and set off with their officers at a steady, well-rehearsed pace towards the enemy.

  Then it was time for the first wave of men to go over the top. Jimmy and his chums were in the second wave, and they held back, watching the officers running along the parapet shouting encouragement and leaning in to give a hand to over-burdened men laden with full packs on their backs to pull them up and over. From Jimmy’s position he couldn’t see what was happening elsewhere on the line, but he knew it would be identical to here. Once down on the other side there was their own barbed wire to go through, but sections had been cut the previous night, or duckboards would make a bridge over it.

  ‘Us next,’ Bin said cheerfully, stamping out his cigarette almost gleefully. ‘By God, I’m ready for this.’

  It was then they heard enemy machine-gun fire. Not just a few guns, but hundreds of them, all firing at once. Bin’s grin vanished and Donkey turned to Jimmy with a look that said, ‘I thought we’d knocked them out.’

  ‘It sounds worse than it is,’ Jimmy said, but his insides were turning to water as he stepped forward and urged the others to do the same and take their places ready for their turn to go over.

  The waiting, vision obscured by the high trench walls, was the worst. The sound of machine-gun fire ringing in their ears, the weight of their heavy packs on their shoulders and the sick feeling they might not even make it across to No Man’s Land was terrible. Men who had been laughing a short while ago were now pale and twitchy, and Jimmy saw one young lad vomiting further along the trench.

  But all too quickly the order came. As they reached the parapet Jimmy saw the enemy front line was fully manned, and the Germans were focusing some of their guns on the gaps in the British barbed wire. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. Men were lying dead on the wire with their comrades being forced to climb over them.

  Yet further ahead was even worse. Jimmy thought more than half of that first wave were already dead or lying wounded on the ground and in the second before he too jumped down he saw still more of the remainder fall.

  He got through the wire, waited a second to regroup as they’d been instructed, and with Donkey to his right and Bin to his left set off at a purposeful plod into a rain of bullets.

  Donkey was hit within ten yards. His body jerked forward as if he’d got an electric shock, then fell back motionless. Just one glance told Jimmy he was dead; he’d been hit in the chest and blood was pouring out of a gaping hole.

  ‘Come on, Red,’ Bin urged him when he hesitated. ‘You can’t do anything for him. We’ll make it.’

  On they went through the enemy fire. Jimmy offered up a silent prayer for his own safety as he saw more men he knew well stagger and fall all around him. The smoke, the rapid rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire and the screams of the wounded were terrifying, but he couldn’t falter, they had to reach the enemy lines at all cost.

  A sudden searing pain in his upper right arm alerted Jimmy that he too had been hit. He looked down in horror and saw blood pumping out. He went on, but his arm felt as if it was on fire, the pain so bad he was lurching from side to side. He could barely hold his rifle – firing it would be impossible.

  ‘I’ve been hit, Bin,’ he yelled. ‘Go on, hold your nerve and join the others.’

  Bin turned his head, hesitating for just a second, but then, signallin
g with his hand, went on. Jimmy took a few more steps, then, seeing a shell hole, dropped into it.

  He must have passed out. When he came to, there were two other men from his regiment in there as well, both groaning with pain. Jimmy still had his pack on his back, and wincing from the pain in his arm, he gingerly took it off. It was very hot, though still early in the morning. He knew by the men rushing past above him, all intent on reaching the German lines, that he could expect no rescue until sunset. He looked up at the sides of the hole and realized he wouldn’t be able to climb out of it unaided.

  Loss of blood was making him feel light-headed. Or maybe that was just the rum he’d had such a short while ago.

  ‘How bad are you two hurt?’ he asked the other men. ‘Can I do anything to help?’

  It was the longest, most painful and worst day of his life, and since joining the army he’d had plenty of bad ones. He took off his tunic and put a dressing over his wound in an attempt to keep infection out, and did what he could for the other two men, but they both had serious chest wounds and passed out by eleven in the morning. He tried to eke out the water he was carrying, but it was so hot his thirst got the better of him.

  All he could see from the hole was the blue, cloudless sky above him, and a never-ending stream of soldiers rushing by. Machine-gun fire rattled out just as endlessly and remorselessly, and above it he heard screams and the moaning of men dying just a few yards from his hole. By the time the sun was directly overhead burning down on him, he had no water left and the pain in his arm made him want to scream too.

  He tried to think of Belle, and imagine the coolness of the kitchen back home. But although he could hold those images for a second or two, the noise and carnage all around him soon brought him back to reality.

  A rat appeared, running over one of the unconscious men, and Jimmy shuddered and threw a stone at it to chase it away. The rat disappeared, but it was obvious that it and others would soon be back, attracted by the smell of blood. He tried to stand up then, with the intention of trying to get out and get back to the line. But whether it was the vast number of bodies he could see all around his shell hole, his wound or just the heat, his legs gave way under him and he had no choice but to slump back down. He checked on both the other men and found they were dead.

  It was anger he felt then. How could the generals send so many men to certain death? If what he’d seen from his hole was happening all along the length of the line, then surely half the British army must be wiped out.

  Dusk was falling when they finally got him out. He must have been unconscious for most of the afternoon. As they held a water bottle to his lips he could barely swallow as his tongue and the whole of his face was swollen.

  Belle got a note from Jimmy telling her he had been wounded a week after it had happened.

  ‘I got shot in the upper arm, but don’t worry, it isn’t a really bad wound. They’ve patched me up and they’ll be sending me home on leave soon. I’m one of the lucky ones, my pal Donkey bought it, and so many more men I liked. But I expect you’ve heard how many casualties there were on 1 July.’

  Belle did know. The first of them began trickling into the Herbert by 4 July and by the next day it was a flood of wounded. An officer on Miranda’s ward had said he thought there were over 18,000 killed and 30,000 wounded just on the first day of the battle of the Somme. Belle didn’t know then that Jimmy was in the battle, but she was afraid he might be as he’d written a while ago to say he was on a march to a new place. So each day until she got his letter she had been bracing herself for the dreaded telegram.

  She was joyful he was only wounded, but at the same time she was afraid. Many of the wounded men she saw were withdrawn and had terrible nightmares. From things they said, often just in passing, she knew that they’d seen hell that day in France.

  Jimmy returned home the last week in July. His arm was in a sling and the skin on his face was peeling, but his smile was as bright as ever.

  ‘Don’t fuss,’ he said when she rushed around trying to make him comfortable, offering to cut up his food and undress him. ‘I’m fine. Never been so pleased to see you and home. But I’m fit to fight another day.’

  He had been lucky, compared with so many men at the Herbert. The wound had remained clean and it was healing well. He pointed out that the sling was only to prevent him straining his wound; all his fingers worked, which he demonstrated by playing a little tune on the piano in the bar. ‘I think I’ll keep the sling on for other people though,’ he said with a smirk. ‘I quite like being treated as a hero.’

  It was twenty months since he’d enlisted, and he made love to Belle that first night home as if he thought he’d never have the chance again. ‘This was worth getting wounded for,’ he said at one point. ‘I couldn’t think of anything else while I was in hospital; the nurses kept asking me what I was smiling about.’

  He admitted a day or two later that he was so relieved they’d given him a Blighty ticket. He hadn’t expected to get one; wounds like his were usually patched up over there, and then it was back to the front. He said he thought his CO had intervened on his behalf.

  Yet however lovely it was to have him home, knowing he’d got to go back to the front frightened Belle. She couldn’t take the view that he did, that this wound was his lot and he’d be safe from now on. Each time she bathed and dressed his arm wound she couldn’t help but think what it must be like for wives who got a telegram to say their husband was dead.

  Even in the sweetness of their lovemaking, her mind flitted between dreading his leaving again and guilt that she’d managed so well without him all this time.

  Mog boasting to Jimmy how they valued Belle at the hospital, and Garth saying how much he and Mog depended on her, made her sound like a paragon of virtue. It was difficult to believe Mog had once been so against both the work and Miranda, and changed her tune about both, even encouraging Belle to spend her off-duty days with her friend. Just a few weeks earlier they had ridden their bicycles out into the countryside beyond Eltham, and on many evenings they went to concerts and the theatre together.

  Now Jimmy had come home after such a close shave, Belle felt torn between being the perfect stay-at-home wife and pursuing her own dream. She still really wanted to go to France with Miranda. They had applied to drive ambulances twice, and been turned down. Miranda was sure it was only because they weren’t considered experienced enough yet, and insisted they had to try again.

  The weather was good, and Belle managed to get a couple of days off so that she and Jimmy could spend some time together. They took a picnic to Greenwich Park and sat under a tree and talked. Jimmy told her about his army friends, about the conditions he’d fought under, and groused about the generals, who he felt were mainly stupid and ill-equipped to lead men. ‘That five-day bombardment at the Somme was a waste of time and effort,’ he said with some anger. ‘Half the shells were duds as it turned out, and those that weren’t didn’t smash the barbed wire at all, or send the Boche running back to their second lot of trenches. One man I saw in hospital was stuck on the wire for hours; he was shot in four different places during the day and torn to pieces, and he was one of hundreds. Our men found out afterwards that the Boche had really dug themselves in there too. They had safe concrete shelters and far better and bigger guns than us. We didn’t stand a chance.’

  As the days passed Belle realized Jimmy was a little ashamed that he’d gone into the shell hole and stayed there all day. He had no reason to feel that way; she could see by the wound that he could never have fired his gun, and would probably have passed out through loss of blood anyway, which meant he might have been hit again, fatally. She told him this, then drew him away from the subject by describing the many strikes around the country, the rising cost of living and the shortages of food.

  She was a little ashamed of herself too for not telling him she still wanted to go to France, and that Miranda was giving her driving lessons whenever she could borrow her uncle’s car. Bu
t Belle reasoned with herself that they might never get accepted anyway. Besides, the war might be over soon, even though Jimmy thought not. She was relieved he had not been badly hurt and she wanted him to go back to France remembering the park in summer, their lovemaking, good meals and laughter. Not a wife who always seemed to have something else up her sleeve.

  Chapter Thirteen

  1917

  Belle reached the bicycle shed and before pulling the cycle out, she hitched up the skirt of her uniform dress a couple of inches and tightened her belt to secure it.

  It was a mild April evening, and after a long day in a stuffy, somewhat gloomy ward it was good to be out in the fresh air. The ride home over the heath always invigorated her and she was looking forward to it.

  But as she pulled her bicycle out, she saw that yet again both tyres were flat. There was no point in trying to pump them up; like all the other times this had happened, she knew it had been done intentionally. As she spun the wheels round, sure enough, there was a flat-headed tack in both of them.

  Belle was adept now at mending punctures, in fact since learning to ride she had become expert at all kinds of repairs. But not here – she would have to walk home with the bicycle and fix it there.

  As she began walking, pushing her bicycle, several nurses, other volunteers and orderlies on their way home or just arriving for the night shift waved or said goodnight. She had become quite well known at the Herbert and had made many friends. She was going to miss them when she left for France with Miranda in two weeks’ time.

  This business with the flat tyres was one thing she wasn’t going to miss though. Everyone else thought it was a stupid and random practical joke. But Belle wasn’t so sure about that; it felt as if she was being maliciously singled out.