by Mary Nichols
‘It’s all arranged at the Orchard. Oh, and I nearly forgot, there’s a letter for you. I put it on your locker.’
Jan was puzzled. He had just left Louise, so it couldn’t be from her. He hurried to his room. There on his locker was an envelope with several official-looking stamps; letters like that usually meant news from home, smuggled out by agents to the government-in-exile. He snatched it up and ripped it open. Inside was another envelope which had been opened and resealed. He recognised the handwriting of his brother. Jozef was alive! He sat down heavily on his bed to read it.
‘I do not know if you will ever get this,’ Jozef had written. ‘For all I know you never left Poland. You might have died there. You might have died anywhere, but I live in hope that you have survived. When I heard that the Kościuszko Squadron had distinguished itself in the Battle of Britain and that Witold Urbanowicz and Mika Feric were still with it, I thought maybe you were with them and if not they might know what happened to you.
‘I was taken prisoner by the Russians in 1939 and sent to Kolyma. It is the most desolate and coldest spot on earth. I cannot begin to describe the conditions there, for civilians as well as soldiers. Hard labour, starvation rations and a cold that freezes your blood. Many, many succumbed. How their families will ever find out what happened to them, I do not know. How I survived, I have no idea – stubbornness, I suppose, but survive I did and then we were suddenly set free, if you can call it freedom. We had been on the march for weeks and many died on the way, before we learnt the reason for it. The Germans had turned on the Soviet Union and the Soviets needed more manpower to defend themselves. Manpower! We were living skeletons.
‘Some of us went into a Polish army in Russia, but others, me included, became part of General Anders’ army and spent last winter in a tented camp and more people died. When we had gained enough strength we were marched to Tashkent. We spent eight months there and then began another trek, this time to Iran and then Palestine. And here I am, back in the fight. There were very few officers among us; they were separated from the troops when we were captured. Heaven knows what their fate was, but it means I have been promoted to major.
‘Father and Mother died during the early fighting. I heard that the day before I was taken prisoner, but perhaps you know that already. In a way I am glad because they would never have survived Siberia. Is Rulka with you? I would like to think she is. Write to me.’
Jan lost no time in doing just that, and took it to the post before leaving the camp for the Orchard, where they had a noisy and drunken carouse to say goodbye to Witold.
By the end of that autumn term, Angela was able to pull herself to her feet, hanging onto whatever came handy: a chair, a table leg, the seat of the sofa and Tommy’s hands. He was very good with her and she adored him. It was Angela, with her sunny nature, who had eventually pulled him out of his gloom. She was trying to talk too, though whatever it was she was chatting about was unintelligible to the adults. Sometimes Beattie would report what she said, whether accurately or not no one knew.
By this time, too, the Battle of El Alamein had been won, Malta had been relieved and the Russians were fighting back outside Stalingrad. The Allies had landed in force in North Africa, determined to flush the enemy out of that continent, which frightened the Germans into thinking an invasion of southern France might be on the cards and they swiftly occupied the whole of France. At home the population struggled with shortages and air raids – nothing like as bad as they had been during the Blitz, but frequent enough to cause deaths, injury and hardship. The fourth Christmas of the war was at hand and everyone hoped it would be the last. Already there was talk of a second front. Louise wanted the war to end as much as anyone but she knew it would mean parting from Jan. He would, she knew, not abandon his wife if he thought she was alive. And that was, so she told herself sternly, as it should be.
Jan had hoped to go down to Cottlesham for Angela’s first birthday, but it was not to be, and he spent her birthday in the air, sticking close to an American bomber on its way to Dusseldorf.
The tide of war was beginning to turn in the Allies’ favour. The Germans had given up their attempt to take Stalingrad, nine hundred miles inside Russia, when an apparently defensive action turned into a full-scale counter offensive. The German commander Marshal Paulus, his chief of staff and fifteen generals, surrendered. Hitler, like Napoleon, had been defeated by stubborn resistance and the Russian winter and now those troops who had not surrendered were retreating westwards. Jan rejoiced at the ignominy of the German army, but he wondered what would happen if and when the Russian army pursued them all the way back to Poland. He feared for Poland and he feared for Rulka – if she were still alive. Louise had told him that the English had a saying, no news is good news, and he hoped it was true. But at the end of the war, if he survived, he was going to have to make a choice.
In the air, droning on at the speed of the Liberator he was escorting, his mind had time to wander. He could think while he searched the sky for enemy aircraft but his thinking led him to no conclusion. He had loved Rulka from the first moment he set eyes on her. She shared his pride in his nationality, spoke the same language, liked the same food, enjoyed the culture of Warsaw, just as he did. But how much of the nationality, the language and the culture would survive the war? If Rulka were alive, had she changed? Had he? Would she even recognise the prematurely ageing man who had promised her he would be back? If conditions in Warsaw were as bad as they had been led to believe and she had lived with it for years, how would that affect her attitude towards him who had escaped from it?
And then there was Louise. His love for her had not been a sudden revelation, it had grown slowly and inexorably as a result of a mutual need, but it was no less real for that. She was a steadying influence, a calm presence; she understood his changeable moods and soothed him, so that he was able to return to the fray with renewed vigour. He had called her his anchor and she remained his anchor through thick and thin. It was because of him she had become estranged from her parents. He despised her self-righteous father, but Louise loved her mother and he felt guilty about that. And there was Angela. He adored his daughter and the thought that he would not see her grow into womanhood wrenched his heart in two whenever he thought about it. How could he leave them?
Louise did not recognise the voice at the other end of the telephone, but she knew from the accent it was Polish. ‘Miss Fairhurst, I believe you knew Flight Lieutenant Grabowski?’
‘Knew?’ She immediately picked up on the past tense. ‘What’s happened? Where is he?’
‘I am afraid he is missing. He did not come back from the last sortie. According to the others the outward trip was uneventful, it must have happened on the return. They realised he was not with them as they crossed the Dutch coast. There was heavy flak. They think he might have been brought down …’
‘He’s not dead, then?’
‘We do not know. If he survived and was taken prisoner we shall soon hear. He might have been picked up by the Dutch people and is being sheltered by them. News of that might take longer to reach us.’ He paused, but when she did not answer, added, ‘Are you still there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Jan gave me your phone number some time ago and said if anything happened to be sure and let you know.’
‘Thank you.’
‘If there’s anything we can do for you?’
‘Let me know if you hear anything.’
‘Yes, I will.’
She put the phone back on its cradle and wandered into the kitchen in a kind of stupor.
‘What’s up?’ Jenny asked. ‘You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.’
‘Jan’s missing.’ Her voice was flat. ‘They think he was shot down.’
‘Oh, my dear girl.’ Jenny came to her at once and put an arm round her to draw her to the settee. ‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘It’s not fair!’ Louise burst out. ‘Twice! Why should I lose them both, when others ge
t off scot-free?’
‘I don’t know, Louise. But they said “missing”, didn’t they? When Tony was lost, they were quite sure, right from the first.’
‘Yes, I know. They said Jan might be a prisoner or he might have been picked up by the Dutch people.’
‘Then you mustn’t give up hope.’
‘Oh, Jenny, I am so tired of this damned war. Will it never end?’
‘One day it will and we must soldier on until it does.’
Angela, who had been playing with Cuddles under the kitchen table, a favourite spot of hers, toddled across the room on unsteady legs and tried to scramble onto Louise’s lap. Louise picked her up and hugged her, kissing the soft curls on the top of her head. She did not cry. What she was feeling was too deep for tears.
Jenny made tea and persuaded her to drink. ‘Is tea your cure for everything?’ Louise asked with a wan smile.
‘It helps.’
‘I suppose so. I’m so glad I’ve got you, you and Stan. Without you, I’d be lost.’
‘Yes, well, you are part of the family now.’ She paused to sit down beside her friend. ‘You mustn’t let this defeat you, Lou. Think of Angela. One day, she is going to grow up into a lovely young woman in a world at peace. Think of that.’
Louise looked at her daughter, sitting on her lap. She seemed to sense there was something wrong with her mother. She pulled at the ears of the teddy bear. ‘Cuddles,’ she said, endeavouring to give the toy to her mother. Louise kissed her soft cheek, set her on her feet and she toddled off. ‘Your daddy didn’t see your first steps,’ she murmured as she watched her. ‘He didn’t hear your first word.’ It would have made him laugh, because it was not ‘Mummy’ or ‘Daddy’, but ‘Cuddles’. It was then she cried.
Chapter Eight
Faith looked down at the man who lay unconscious in the hospital bed and wondered why she had ever been afraid of him. He was only flesh and blood, after all, just like any other man. He didn’t see himself like that. In his eyes he had been put on earth to eradicate sin wherever he found it. The trouble was he saw it everywhere except in his own soul. He was a man so driven he could see no good in anyone. Thirty years they had been married. Thirty years she had endured, even allowing herself to be cut off from the daughter she loved at a time when she was most needed. But Louise could be stubborn too. She had not answered any of the letters she had written to her in secret and given to the daily help, Mrs Phillips, to post.
‘He’s had a stroke,’ the doctor told her. ‘He must have hit his head on something when he fell which caused the head injury. But we’ve got to work on him, so I think he has a good chance of recovering.’
He wasn’t dead, wasn’t even dying. She was thankful for that or she would have been an accessory to manslaughter, if not murder.
Henry had been out all day visiting his parishioners and had come home in a filthy temper, complaining that they were a godless lot. ‘Mrs Green is obviously pregnant and her husband is a prisoner of war,’ he told her. ‘I spoke sharply to her about her wickedness and told her to get on her knees, but she laughed. She laughed at me, Faith. Laughed.’
‘Oh, dear.’
‘And Felicity Barlow is going about dressed like a tart. She is a tart. I saw her in the high street, standing on the corner with her skirt up to her backside, talking to an American serviceman. When I intervened, the man told me to get lost and pushed me over. Me, a man of the cloth. It was humiliating.’
‘Are you hurt?’
‘Of course I’m hurt. What do you expect? Everyone was laughing.’ He had been very red in the face and pacing up and down the study in his agitation.
‘Calm down, Henry.’
The doorbell rang and she had gone to answer it to find Felicity Barlow’s father on the step. He had stormed past her into the study without speaking and slammed the door shut leaving her on the other side of it. She heard him ranting at Henry about his abuse of his daughter. ‘You’ve no right to speak to her like that. In front of a crowd of people, too. Who are you to judge? My Felicity is a good girl. I want a public apology.’ She heard Henry’s equally angry answer as she made her way down the hall to the kitchen. He had really overstepped the mark, this time. The sound of a crash had sent her rushing back.
Mr Barlow was standing over an unconscious Henry and blood was pouring from Henry’s head. ‘I only gave him a little push,’ he had said. ‘He just fell and hit his head. Honest to God, I didn’t mean to harm him.’
Believing he had caused the injury, she had bundled him out of the back door with instructions to go home and then called an ambulance. She told the ambulance men and the doctor that she had been in the kitchen when she heard a crash and had run back to find him on the floor. She said nothing of Mr Barlow; she didn’t want to have to explain what he was doing there and why the men were quarrelling. It would have resulted in an investigation which would have made public the sort of man Henry was and the kind of life she led with him. She could not bear it. Being told it had been a stroke didn’t change anything.
‘Will you be all right?’ the nurse at the bedside asked as the bell went for the end of visiting time and she stood up to leave. ‘Is there anyone who could come and stay with you? A relative perhaps?’
‘No, there’s no one. I’ll be fine.’
She went back to the vicarage and tried to clear up the mess in the study. She righted the desk lamp, picked up papers that were strewn about, set an overturned chair back on its legs and tried to scrub the blood off the carpet. The stain defeated her, so she abandoned it and went into the kitchen to make herself a meal which she could not eat. She scraped it into the bin and set about washing up. Her mind was whirring like an overworked fan; what had she not done that she should have? What had she answered to all the questions put to her? Had she contradicted herself? She could not remember.
Hearing the front doorbell, she dried her hands and went to answer it to find an agitated Mrs Barlow on the step. ‘What happened?’ the woman demanded.
‘What do you mean?’
‘My Wally stormed out of the house saying he was going to kill the Reverend. He was angry enough to do it too. Then my neighbour said the Reverend had been taken off in an ambulance and now Wally’s disappeared. He didn’t come home.’
‘My husband is not dead, Mrs Barlow. He’s had a stroke.’
‘It wasn’t anything to do with Wally, then?’
‘No.’
‘Oh, thank the Lord for that. I’m sorry to have troubled you.’
Faith watched her hurry down the drive, then went back into the study and used Henry’s keys to open his desk and took out his diary. She would have to cancel his appointments and the confirmation class he took every week. She had not realised before how many young girls he was giving instruction to and the book was full of instances of the wickedness of his parishioners and the need to chastise them. They revealed a man not quite right in the head. Would he need that again? She made a note of the appointments, then tried the next drawer. It was then she found Louise’s letters, a whole pile of them flung unopened, together with those she had written herself. How had Henry come to possess those? She had begged and begged him to let her write to their daughter but he had been adamant and must have guessed she would try and do it in secret and browbeaten Mrs Phillips to hand them over.
She sat down heavily on the high-backed chair Henry used at his desk and began reading. She had kept her self-control all through the day’s ordeal, answering the doctor in monosyllables, careful not to give anything away of the turbulent emotions that seethed below the surface. But that facade cracked as she read, and tears streamed down her face. ‘Louise, oh my dear child,’ she sobbed. ‘It’s too late, all too late.’
Jenny had talked it over with Stan and they had decided that Louise would have to know sooner or later. ‘Better do it this evening, after the children have gone to bed and I’m in the bar,’ he had said.
So here she was pretending to read the newspaper, while L
ouise marked school exercise books.
‘Lou, I think you ought to see this,’ Jenny said, tapping the newspaper.
‘Why, what’s in it?’
‘See for yourself.’
Louise took the paper and scanned the headlines. ‘The tide of war is turning in the Allies favour’ was one. ‘The enemy faces defeat in Tunisia’ was another. Others were about the air campaign against European targets and one, more disturbing, reported that the Germans had unearthed thousands of bodies in Katyn Forest in western Russia, more than four thousand of them, nearly all Polish army officers. They had their hands tied behind their backs and each had been shot in the back of the neck and tumbled into a mass grave with their identification still on them. ‘The Germans are accusing the Russians,’ it said. ‘They have asked an independent medical team to investigate it. The Russians are blaming the Germans. They say it is a ploy on the part of the Nazis and Polish government in London to undermine the Soviet Union. The Polish government is asking for a Red Cross enquiry.’
‘This is dreadful,’ she said. ‘Jan said something about officers disappearing when he heard from his brother …’
‘I didn’t mean that,’ Jenny said, pointing at an article headed: Crime soars in the capital. ‘I meant this.’
Louise dutifully read it. Besides a flourishing black market, looting and robbery were escalating, it said. It went on to give examples, some of them violent in nature, and ended: ‘No one is immune. The Reverend Mr Henry Fairhurst was attacked on the street in Edgware yesterday. It is a sorry state of affairs when a man of the cloth, a highly respected churchman, going about his business of preaching the gospel and succouring the needy, should be attacked in this way. He is in hospital. His wife is at his bedside. The police are looking for the culprit and ask anyone who has information about this or any other crime, to contact them immediately.’
Louise let the paper drop in her lap. ‘I’ll have to go to her.’