The Promise

by Lesley Pearse

  ‘That’s a nice thing to say.’ Belle sniffed back her tears. ‘But thanks to my past I’ve messed up Mog and Garth’s life. And what about Jimmy? What will I do to him?’

  ‘You can’t be responsible for everyone’s happiness,’ Vera said. ‘My mother said that a few years ago when her sister was having a hard time and expected Ma to sort it for her. Maybe you will discover Jimmy is the only man for you, maybe you won’t. Mog and Garth might find they’ve got to move somewhere else, or it might all blow over. One thing we ought to have learned from this war is that we can’t predict anything. It’s just destiny.’

  ‘You are very wise,’ Belle said.

  ‘I’m also very cold,’ Vera said. ‘So let’s go and see if there’s anything to eat in the canteen and get some cocoa.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  ‘The one good thing about being really busy is that there’s no chance to brood on things,’ Belle said to Vera as they snatched tea and a sandwich between runs to the station.

  It was the middle of the night. The hospital trains ran at night now because of fear of them being bombed. German bomber planes targeted railways to break service and communication lines, and they had no scruples about blowing up the sick and wounded. So now the ambulances went out in the darkness, without lights, which made the job even harder on the bad winding roads.

  It was also raining yet again. People were saying it was the wettest, coldest summer on record, and Belle, who remembered stifling summer nights in Seven Dials as a child, and the steamy heat of New Orleans, wouldn’t argue with them.

  Vera’s freckled face broke into a grin. ‘Hard work might suit you, but I’d like time to wash my hair and write letters home,’ she said. ‘I know I look a fright, and Ma will be getting frantic if she doesn’t hear from me soon.’

  Belle guessed she looked a fright too; she had long since stopped caring about her appearance. ‘I don’t know what to say in letters any more,’ she sighed. ‘I can’t bring myself to write that it’s raining again and we wade through puddles to reach our ambulance. I’ve said that all too often before. The food here is as bad as ever, we never get time off, that’s also as dull as ditchwater and another repeat. The only difference with the wounded now is that there’s more mud on them. They might like to know at home that the death toll at Ypres isn’t as high as at the Somme, but I can’t bring myself to even think of men drowning in shell holes, let alone write about it.’

  The third battle of Ypres had begun on 31 July, preceded by a fifteen-day bombardment in which four million shells were fired. The noise of the guns was so loud it was said they could be heard in England, and at the hospital it sounded as if they were being fired only a few miles away.

  News got through that on the morning of the 31st the weather was dry, although the ground was churned and pockmarked by two years of shelling. By all accounts the infantry, along with a hundred and thirty tanks, made good progress towards the Gheluvelt Plateau, south-east of Ypres. It was considered important to gain this ground from the Germans because its slight elevation gave good observation over all the surrounding lowland.

  But then during the afternoon the Germans counter-attacked with such heavy fire that the leading BEF troops had to flee, and in addition there was a sudden torrential downpour which turned the already soggy ground to the consistency of porridge. More divisions continued the assault, but it rained solidly for the next three days. Lines of communication were broken, men drowned in shell holes, tanks sank into the mud, horses and mules floundered, and at that point General Haig called a halt to the offensive.

  The total casualties, including the French soldiers, were guessed to be around 35,000, and it was reckoned that the Germans had suffered a similar number.

  The first wave of wounded arrived on 1 August, and each day since the numbers had steadily risen. Belle couldn’t be sure whether Jimmy and Etienne were still alive, just as Vera didn’t know about her brothers. They had to make themselves believe that no news was good news.

  But the stories the wounded were telling about the conditions at Ypres were the stuff of nightmares. These wounded were the lucky ones who had managed to stay out of the water-filled shell holes until they were picked up by stretcher bearers. Some of the badly injured told how they had tried to pull a friend out of the mud, only to see him slither back deeper into it and disappear.

  While Belle, Vera and the other drivers had no real understanding of the bigger picture and what Haig’s battle plan was, it appeared to be as pointless as the battle of the Somme: enormous casualties to gain a few yards, only to lose those yards later in a German counter-attack.

  At the field stations and in the hospital trains, the nurses had made huge efforts to clean the mud off the wounded and get them into hospital blues, but even so, many men were still caked in mud on arrival at the train station. This was why Belle and Vera had no time for washing their own hair or writing letters, because as soon as they got the last of the wounded to the hospital, they went to the wards to help out there too. The regular wards were full to capacity and dozens of large tents had been erected for the overflow. Many of the doctors and nurses had stayed on duty for forty-eight hours at a stretch.

  ‘Captain Taylor wants us both driving the men with Blighty tickets to Calais tomorrow,’ Vera said as she gulped down her sandwich. ‘Reckon that means there’s even greater numbers coming in on the trains.’

  ‘Well, I expect we’ll be the last to know. But we’d better get back to the station now. No peace for the wicked.’

  ‘You haven’t mentioned you know who lately,’ Vera said as they walked back to their ambulances.

  ‘I try not to think about him,’ Belle replied. ‘But I’m not very successful.’

  Vera put her hand on Belle’s arm and squeezed it, her way of saying she sympathized. ‘Let’s buy a bottle of something in Calais tomorrow and get roaring drunk when we get back. It might take our minds off the people we love for an hour or two.’

  Belle thought about Vera’s suggestion as she drove to the station. David was half asleep; like so many of them he too was helping out in the wards during the day. Everyone at the hospital was worn out, not just from the long hours they worked, but from the unremitting horror they saw daily and to which no end was in sight. She and Vera weren’t alone in having people they cared for at the front; almost everyone had someone there they were concerned about. Then there were their families back home struggling with food shortages and being bombed, anxiety for those in France and wondering if life would ever return to how it had been before the war.

  Mog’s letters had become very different since Blessard’s remarks about Belle in the press. There was no gossip in them any more, instead she wrote about making jam and bottling fruit, or going out on a Sunday with Garth to the country. She tried so hard to sound cheerful, but it was quite apparent that she had withdrawn into herself.

  Guilt ate away at Belle, for her past which had cast such a cloud over Mog, and for her infidelity to Jimmy. He wrote as often as he could, but there was weariness in his letters too. As for Etienne’s, his unfailing optimism that one day they could be happy together was often frightening because Belle knew any happiness with him would only cause others misery. She had said in all her letters back to him that it could never be as simple as he believed it was. All he would say in reply to that was that he was prepared to wait, however long it took.

  It seemed to Belle she was always waiting. Waiting in a queue of ambulances to get loaded up, waiting for letters, for a war that seemed interminable to end, and waiting for a morning to break when she didn’t wake wanting Etienne so badly that it hurt.

  As Etienne sat cleaning his gun early in the morning, sheltering from the rain in a makeshift bivouac, the sound of English voices wafted over to him. This was the first battle in which his regiment would be fighting alongside the Tommies. He had the greatest respect for the ability of the British to endure all that was thrown at them; they fought doggedly and bravely, and s
howed far fewer signs of the apathy and weariness that was affecting so many of the French.

  He had thought he’d caught a glimpse of Jimmy Reilly last night carrying a stretcher to a dressing station, but told himself his mind was playing tricks on him as there had to be many tall, red-headed men amongst their number. Yet the thought persisted and he found himself pricking up his ears in an attempt to hear what the Englishmen were saying.

  The odd word he did catch meant nothing to him, just banter between soldiers, and he asked himself what good would come of knowing Jimmy was close by. The answer to that was that it would be a distraction he didn’t need. Belle was enough of a distraction already; thoughts of her dogged him constantly and if he closed his eyes just for a second he would see her dark curls framing her lovely face, clear blue eyes smiling at him and soft plump lips waiting to be kissed.

  There were times when he regretted seeking her out at the hospital; if he hadn’t had that one night with her she wouldn’t be burdened with guilt now. He hated himself for putting her in such an impossible position, yet he wanted her so badly that he felt compelled to keep the pressure on.

  He stood up, draped his waterproof cape around his shoulders and surveyed the scene around him. Thick, glutinous mud surrounded every waterlogged tent. The misery of it was reflected in every face as the men dragged on a cigarette, tried to shave, drank lukewarm coffee, wrote a letter or cleaned a gun. They had all but forgotten what it was like to be clean and dry, to eat a hot meal at a table and sleep in a warm bed. Etienne and all these men would be moving forward later today, off out on to that hellish No Man’s Land where the heavy guns would churn up bodies from both sides that had sunk beneath the mud on previous assaults. The stench of death, the ear-splitting barrage of gunfire, and the terror that today might be your last – that was the soldier’s lot.

  In his twenties Etienne had always relished a fight. But smashing a fist into the face or belly of a man you had a grievance with was one thing; here it was kill or be killed. He’d seen enough Germans at close quarters now to know they were just boys, like the men under him. There was no satisfaction in seeing a man scream out in agony as a bullet hit home. On the occasions they’d got to a German bunker and been faced with terrified boys screaming ‘Nicht schiessen’ he’d felt sick to his stomach. How many of the soldiers here would revisit these grotesque images again and again in their minds after the war was over?

  At two in the afternoon the whistle blew, and Etienne and his squad leapt out of their trench into No Man’s Land, protected to some extent by the heavy guns behind them firing over their heads at the enemy lines ahead. It was tortuous from the outset. The pack on each of their backs weighed around eighty pounds, some men had a shovel on their back too, and the extra weight made them sink into the mud up to their knees. Each step required great effort to pull out the foot which was being sucked down by the mud, and the driving rain made it impossible to see further than a few yards ahead. Etienne knew that there were supposed to be ten men to every yard of front, and in theory, after such a prolonged bombardment, if they were able to trek straight across to the enemy lines their numbers would be sufficient to take and hold that position.

  But the theory hadn’t taken into account that a distance of one mile became four or five when the men had to wind their way around huge water-filled craters. Then the shelling began before they were thirty yards in. There was nowhere to take shelter, not a tree or building was left in this godforsaken place, just the odd gaunt tree trunk stripped of bark and leaves standing like a monument to devastation.

  As shells hit the mud they sprayed muddy water thirty or more feet up into the air like huge geysers, making the visibility even worse. It was virtually impossible to keep his bearings; he could see Tommies who had strayed over with his men and doubtless just as many French had found themselves among the Tommies.

  Etienne paused to signal to those lagging behind to keep up, and he hoped as they floundered in the mud that they had taken note of his last order before they moved, which was to make sure they kept their matches dry. Some of the newer recruits had looked puzzled at this order, but they would discover the reason for it later. The only thing worse than being trapped and wounded in a shell hole was finding yourself there and unable to light a cigarette.

  As he was looking back for his men, the number of Tommies coming towards Etienne made him realize that by the time they all reached the German lines the two armies would be mixed up together. Another shell exploded and he saw two of his men thrown into the air and dismembered before falling back into a soupy hole in the ground. Then another shell exploded, and a Tommy went the same way.

  No longer entirely sure that he was keeping to a straight line, but able to see through the rain that two Germans manning a howitzer were picking off men like fish in a tank, he paused momentarily to fire at them. He had a few seconds of grim satisfaction at seeing them slump forward over their gun. Then, looking around him again, he could no longer see any of his men behind him, only Tommies plodding determinedly towards the German lines.

  Etienne had survived the horror of Verdun and been at the later stages of the Somme too, and it was because of what was cited at the time as ‘conspicuous gallantry’, in rescuing his wounded captain, that he was promoted to sergeant. Yet hideous as those battles had been, he thought this was far worse. The combination of slippery, sodden ground, torrential rain and the hellish shell holes filled with stinking water, often with bodies in there too, made it hard to make any real headway. Finding himself alone with shells bursting all around him, he paused in the shelter of a half-sunken tank, hoping that his squad would catch up with him and they could go on together. As he waited he fired his gun, picking off Germans who were firing relentlessly at the men running towards them. A stray bullet caught him on his lower arm, but he carried on shooting until he’d either killed them or they’d ducked back down under cover.

  A Tommie ran past, so close to him that Etienne had to pause firing in order not to hit him. The soldier was slipping in the mud, then he fell, and as he did so his helmet fell off to reveal red hair.

  Instinct told Etienne this was the same man he’d seen last night and thought was Jimmy. As he stared, considering going to his aid, a shell exploded in the space on the ground between them.

  For a moment Etienne thought he’d been blinded by the blast as he couldn’t see anything. But though he could feel the wound in his arm, there was no pain in his face. He touched it gingerly, and recognized it was just covered in thick mud thrown up from the shell. He groped for his canteen of water in his pack and splashed it into his eyes. To his great relief he could see again.

  But the red-headed man had not fared so well. He was writhing on the edge of a shell hole, his left leg and arm a bloody pulp. As he tried to move, Etienne saw his face. It was Jimmy Reilly.

  This man had crept into his dreams many a night. It was always the same, Jimmy on one side of him, Belle on the other. He would look from one imploring face to the other, and he didn’t know what to do. He would try to run from them, only to find he couldn’t move.

  The dream seemed prophetic now. And just like in the dream, he didn’t know what to do.

  He had liked Jimmy when he met him in Verdun and his instinct was to run and help him. But then Belle flashed through his mind and he knew this could be the answer to her dilemma. Left here, the man would die of blood loss; maybe another shell would finish him off before that. Nothing and no one would stand between them.

  But as he watched, Jimmy slithered over the edge of the shell hole and down into the fetid water. His hand was held up, fingers moving as he desperately tried to find something to cling on to.

  It was something about the hand that got to Etienne. He’d shaken it that day near Verdun. He couldn’t let a man drown in front of him, especially one he’d liked.

  Another shell exploded nearby, and Etienne darted out from behind his shelter and grabbed the man’s hand, hauling him out of the hole. Jimmy�
�s face was covered in mud, and he was so caught up in his pain he didn’t appear to realize anyone else was near. Etienne looked around him. It seemed the last of the troops had gone forward; there was no sign of any of his men. There were many others, both English and French, lying either dead or wounded, but as yet the shelling was still too heavy for the stretcher bearers to come and carry the wounded away.

  One of the army rules was that no soldier was allowed to break off from an assault to rescue another man; they were supposed to press on to the German line and do their job. Jimmy would not drown now, but he could be hit by another shell.

  Etienne was torn. As a sergeant, his duty was to find his men and lead them on, yet the image of Belle’s distress was too strong for him to leave Jimmy. He could imagine her tear-filled eyes, and knew that even if it meant that the way would be clear for him to have her for himself, he just couldn’t have it on his conscience that he’d left her husband here to die.

  Frantically scanning all around for a stretcher bearer he could signal to come, but seeing none, he knelt down beside Jimmy and wiped the worst of the mud from his face. ‘I’ve got you now, Jimmy,’ he said. ‘You’re badly hurt but I reckon I can carry you back to the line.’

  Jimmy looked up at him, tawny eyes full of pain. ‘You can’t help me,’ he croaked. ‘You’ll get into trouble and I’m not going to make it anyway.’

  ‘Allow me to be the judge of that,’ Etienne said. ‘It’s going to hurt like hell while I carry you, but I can’t leave you here.’

  Etienne put down his pack, then hoisted Jimmy upright till he was standing on his one good leg. He was close to passing out, so Etienne put his shoulder into the man’s belly and let him fall forward across his shoulders. He managed to grab his rifle as he straightened up and then set off back towards the line.