War Brides

by Helen Bryan

  The planes went as quickly as they had come. Frances and Oliver touched each other gingerly as they pulled themselves to their feet. “Close,” Frances breathed. Both were shaking and stunned. The vicarage door was off its hinges, and there was plaster everywhere.

  Outside they clutched each other as they gazed at the devastation.

  The church was in flames. “The tower,” gasped Oliver. He could hardly believe his eyes. Masonry and stones lay scattered and broken across the churchyard.

  “Oh, no,” said Frances, faintly, peering at the place where the knight’s tomb had been. “Dear God, no!”

  Oliver held her shoulders. “I hate to leave you, I know how shaken you are, my darling, but I must make sure no one in the village is injured or dying and needs me.”

  “Of course,” said Frances faintly, sick at the thought that the old tunnel might not have been strong enough to have withstood the bombs. “Yes, go, darling. I’m a vicar’s wife. I understand.” As an Auxi with demolition training she understood all too well. But she had to be sure.

  “Oh, Frances…”

  “Go on!”

  Oliver hugged her quickly and hurried off.

  She made her way toward the flames. The knight’s tomb was covered with rubble although most of the tower had collapsed onto the other side of the church, where a Victorian stone angel now lay on its face. Frances gritted her teeth and began to tug at chunks of masonry. She had to try to get to the children. Desperation lent her strength, and finally she managed to heave and lever the last of the heavy pieces off the tomb. The handle with the skull was still intact, but the top lay open.

  She found the rope that they had untangled before the bombers went over. Then a torch. She tied the rope around herself and fixed the other end to the tomb. She tested it to make sure it would hold, then lowered herself down the narrow steps. She was used to the tunnel now and moved quickly, flashing the torch ahead, up and down the walls, checking for damage. There were intermittent showers of dust and earth, which she knew meant the tunnel was unstable. She swore softly and hurried on.

  When she reached the alcove where the smugglers had left excise men to die, the torch beam picked up the small metal trunk from Evangeline’s attic in which they had stashed an emergency supply of blankets, chocolate, candles, and matches. The light flickered and her torch went out.

  She groped her way to the alcove opening and felt for the trunk, rummaged in it, and found a candle and the matches. Something scurried past her in the dark, and she imagined she could hear breathing. “Bloody hell,” she muttered, but the thought the children might be stuck farther along left her no choice but to keep going.

  The path sloped down now, but Frances realized something was wrong. Before, she had been able to hear the sea and feel the movement of fresh air at this point. But now…she could not hear the sea and there was no breeze. Sure enough, she soon saw that a pile of rocks blocked her way. It nearly reached the top of the passage, but she dug uselessly, shouting “Lili!” “Klara!” desperately over and over. The only answer was a rattling noise of small stones from overhead followed by an ominous trickle, then a cascade of dust. There was nothing she could do now but go back. High tide would soon fill the cave, seeping in over the barrier. She could hear the water now on the other side.

  By the time she reached the stone steps she had no strength left to drag herself up. What were they going to say to Tanni? Clutching at straws, Frances decided to contact Rachel before they said anything. Their only hope was that tonight had been another false alarm. Holding the plaited rope she began to climb slowly up. Halfway up, she heard Elsie call her name.

  Bernie leaned over to haul her up the last few steps, and Frances collapsed onto the ground. Far below in the tunnel they heard a rumble that all three knew meant it had collapsed. “Thanks, oh, Elsie, there was a landslide and I couldn’t…they weren’t…oh, God!” Frances started to cry. In the distance Constable Barrows was shouting something, and Elsie and Bernie left her to see what it was, and above all to keep him away from the tunnel. When Frances had pulled herself together and blown her nose, something occurred to her. She went home and rang the special number she had been given.

  “There’s something odd here, not sure what is going on exactly, but it might have to do with Manfred. I’ll be there in the morning to explain,” was all she said. Next day, before anyone else was up, Frances left a note she had to attend another Land Girl welfare meeting.

  31.

  Crowmarsh Priors,

  November–December 1942

  The ugly little Edwardian cottage at the top of the hill where Alice and her mother had lived was nearly empty. On a dismal November afternoon Alice was alone in the bare front bedroom where the blackout curtains hung limply, packing up the last of her mother’s things. On the night that the Germans bombed St. Gabriel’s, she had gotten home as fast as she could, but it had been too late. She had rushed into the dark, silent cottage, finding her mother in bed, covers pulled up to her chin, dead, her face frozen in a rictus of terror. What, indeed, would her father have said? Alice knew she would never forgive herself.

  In shock, she had stumbled back to the front door and seen St. Gabriel’s burning. The vestry, she mused, must have been a tinderbox of dry wood and vestments. The bomb had narrowly missed the vicarage, and Oliver might be…Then the full horror had struck her. She knew at once that the tunnel had collapsed.

  For a long time afterward Alice had been numb. They all had. She continued teaching and with her war work but she had lost all sense of purpose. Now she emptied her mother’s cupboard and drawers automatically, her progress slow. She kept having to stop because she was crying. Poor Mummy. Poor children.

  But she had nearly finished. Into the last box she put a few mended nightdresses and two dressing gowns with frayed sateen cuffs, some seashells her parents had collected on their honeymoon, a half-empty tin of talcum powder, a collection of prayer books, a set of lace doilies. The feathered picture hat. As she tied up the box Alice thought that she, too, was fated to die alone in some dismal bedroom with just a few faded mementoes of a life even less momentous than her mother’s had been.

  She sat down on the bare mattress. She had hated leaving the vicarage because that had been her home, but now, looking around the bleak room, she felt nothing. She would be gone to London as soon as Christmas was over. Every time she passed poor shattered St. Gabriel’s she remembered the happy hours she had spent there. Now it was gone, and Richard lay injured in a London hospital. It was time to leave Crowmarsh Priors.

  Penelope, with her endless list of contacts, had been a brick, getting Alice work with the WVS and finding her lodging with two elderly sisters who had a spare room at the top of their house in Connaught Square. She had even come up with a replacement teacher for the infants’ school, a middle-aged woman who had taught before her marriage. She had been widowed in an air raid—the same night Alice’s mother had died and many other people, Alice had learned. Penelope, who never complained, had been shaken enough to tell Alice that she had had a narrow escape. The sirens had blared and there had been a horrible accident at the East End Underground station where she was on duty. The police had tried to force too many people in. A great many people had been killed in the crush, though Alice wouldn’t see anything about it in the papers: the authorities didn’t want the incident reported lest it stop people going to the shelters.

  Alice wondered how the world could hold so much sadness.

  As Tanni had lain in bed worrying about Lili and Klara, she had been frantic when the first bombs dropped on the downs. But as the planes came closer she forgot everything but the need to get five sleepy children down to the cellar. In her panic she had picked up both Anna and Johnny. By the time Evangeline had gotten back, Tanni was in labor. Sister Tucker had come as soon as she could, but it was too late. Tanni had given birth to another little girl, who had cried once and died in her mother’s arms. Sister Tucker gently took the little corpse from
her and said she was sorry. Tanni did not seem to take in the sad news. She did not cry or show any emotion. Sister Tucker made Tanni as comfortable as she could and said shock could do that to a person, that sometimes people blotted terrible things out of their memory altogether.

  Next morning, with Tanni still alarmingly unresponsive, Evangeline tried frantically to contact Rachel and the Cohens in London to tell them about Tanni, the baby, and the bombs, but when at last she managed to get through, the telephone operator said there had been heavy bombing in the East End again, and many exchanges were out of order. She also wanted to contact Bruno, but only Tanni knew his whereabouts and she was drifting in and out of a stupefied sleep and didn’t seem to know anything. An overworked Sister Tucker had been called away on other emergencies and Frances was gone, leaving Alice, Elsie, and Evangeline helpless and frightened.

  Ashen-faced, they tried to decide what ought to be done about the baby, whose tiny body lay wrapped in a linen napkin in the cold dining room. “We have to do something.”

  Finally at dusk, they gathered by Tanni’s bed, and Evangeline bent over her and said gently, “Tanni, darling, we’re all so sorry, but we have to bury the poor little baby. I know this is hard, but you need to tell us, if you can, if there is anything special we need to do for a Jewish baby. Does she have a name? Constable Barrows offered to make a coffin and a little marker for her grave.”

  “What baby?” Tanni had whispered. Then Tanni just lay staring at the ceiling, her lips moving silently. She refused to eat or say anything else, either to them or to Sister Tucker, who had called, gray with fatigue, to check on her. There was no question of Tanni getting up for the burial, Sister Tucker said. She gulped down a cup of tea and told them they would have to manage as best they could.

  The next day passed and there was still no response from the Cohens. Finally Evangeline went to the vicarage and told Oliver the baby had to be buried even if they couldn’t get in touch with Bruno, and did he know if there were special rites?

  Oliver rang the bishop, who promised to try to contact a rabbi. He found one in Portsmouth, which had been bombed, so the rabbi had his hands full there. He would try to come to Crowmarsh Priors, he said, but with petrol rationing and the uncertain bus service it might be some time. The only other thing he could report was that the rabbi had said that a Jewish burial should take place within twenty-four hours of death. The bishop told Oliver he was sorry but that as it wasn’t the child of Christian parents he didn’t think there was anything Oliver could do. Angry for once, Oliver slammed down the telephone.

  “What should we do?” the girls asked each other wearily as the afternoon waned. They trooped back to Tanni’s bedside. “Tanni, we thought we’d bury her in the far corner of the garden, where there are still some rosebushes and that funny old sundial. Darling, can you just say if you agree?”

  Tanni remained silent.

  There was still no word from Bruno, Rachel, or the Cohens.

  “How much longer can we wait?” they asked each other as it grew dark. “The burial is supposed to take place within twenty-four hours and already it’s past that.”

  “We must give the poor child a name,” said Alice. “We can’t just bury her without one.”

  “What about ‘Rebecca’?” suggested Evangeline.

  The next morning in the cold dawn light, just a little over forty-eight hours after Rebecca Zayman’s birth, Alice, Evangeline, Elsie, Bernie, Oliver, Agnes, the Barrowses, and the Hawthornes stood round her small grave as it was filled in. Constable Barrows stepped forward, bent down, and placed a smooth stone with “Rebecca Zayman, 28th September 1942” painted on it. Oliver recited the Twenty-third Psalm and asked them all to pray silently for Tanni and Bruno. Tears rolled down the women’s faces. Oliver bowed his head, heavyhearted with longing for Frances.

  Oliver had tried desperately to track down Bruno but met a stone wall of bureaucracy. All anyone would say was that he was “unavailable.” Five days later, when he finally reached him, Bruno said he would come at once and arrived within hours. He hurried to Tanni’s room, then spent more than an hour at the end of the garden. He came back with red-rimmed eyes and said that, in the circumstances, he had no choice but to take Tanni to a sanatorium until she was better. There was a place close to where he was based, so he could visit her often.

  Evangeline helped him dress her. She had packed some of Tanni’s things into the old carpetbag and was about to ask if Anna and Johnny might go to the Cohens for a few weeks when her own baby was born, but Bruno pulled her out of Tanni’s room and told her some grim news. The Cohens, Rachel, and her husband and two children had been killed in an accident at an air raid shelter, when the police had forced too many people too quickly down the stairs, the crowd had panicked, and people had been crushed to death.

  “Oh, Bruno, how awful!” said Evangeline, realizing it must be the same incident Penelope had witnessed. She said nothing about Johnny and Anna, though she wondered how on earth she was going to manage five children and a newborn baby. And she certainly couldn’t add to Bruno’s problems by telling him what she thought had happened to Lili and Klara.

  The girls hugged an unresponsive Tanni good-bye. “Get better, darling,” whispered Evangeline. Then Bruno put his arm round his wife and steered her into the car. They waved sadly as the car with Tanni and Bruno pulled away.

  At long last the doctors told Evangeline that Richard could be moved to Glebe House now that it was ready. His condition had improved a little: most of the bandages were off, and he had surprised them by regaining sight in one eye. When he arrived, Hugo came to see him. Richard was in a wheelchair now, and when Evangeline wheeled him into the visiting area, he reached forward to shake hands. Hugo seemed taken aback.

  “I say, old chap…lost for words, really.” They chatted awkwardly for a quarter of an hour, then Hugo looked at his watch, muttered something about the Home Guard, and left. Next day he sent word he and his father were both in bed with chills and unable to visit anyone for the moment.

  Richard had made an effort for his visitor, but talking tired him. The only person he responded to was Evangeline, and he loved to feel the baby move inside her. The doctors told her it was a stroke of luck that Crowmarsh Priors had its own convalescent home. His nerves were still mending and in no state to cope with a noisy houseful of children, but in time…well, they would have to see.

  Elsie looked after the children while Evangeline was with Richard, but much of the time Evangeline had to manage on her own. She was busier than ever now there was her baby to prepare for and no Tanni. It was due the first week in January, and Evangeline hoped that, after the birth, she and Richard could make a fresh start. Somehow.

  Before she knew it, it was nearly Christmas and she was late getting the winter cabbage in, utterly necessary if they were to have enough to eat. She dug ferociously in the garden, wearing an ancient pair of trousers that, in happier days, Tanni had altered with laces on the sides to make room for Evangeline’s expanding belly. She swung her spade and felt a warm trickle as her water broke.

  That afternoon Sister Tucker arrived, and she sent Tommy and Maude running to fetch Alice after school. Sister Tucker said someone had to let Richard know, but Alice snapped that Elsie could do it.

  Evangeline was in labor for two days and fought the contractions, terrified by what might happen if the baby were born with Negro features or coloring. Eventually, however, she gave birth to a son. She lay still, pale, exhausted, and frightened, while Sister Tucker bustled efficiently then handed her a tightly wrapped bundle. “We’re a few weeks early, Mummy, but we’re very well all the same,” she chirruped.

  Evangeline hardly dared look, but when she did, the baby’s eyes were blue, and his hair, of which there was a great deal, was brown. A tiny pink mouth opened in a yawn, which quickly turned into a howl. Evangeline too began to cry—with joy and relief. She was sure he wasn’t Laurent’s. “There, there,” said Sister Tucker, “all over now and he�
�s lovely. Have you thought what to name him?”

  “Please…will you tell Richard?” murmured Evangeline, “and I would like to call him Andrew. I had a brother named Andre…”

  When Frances returned, she, Elsie, and even Alice took it in turns to sit with Evangeline, who, like all new mothers, was expected to stay in bed for at least a fortnight. Nell Hawthorne brought some broth and plumped her pillows and cooed over the baby, while Edith Barrows had made her custard and jelly from her own mother’s recipe to “get Evangeline’s strength up.” “It’s like we’re repopulating the village!” Edith said, patting her own large bump.

  While Evangeline was recovering, Elsie made Agnes help with the scrubbing, the laundry, and minding the children while a resentful Agnes complained bitterly that Elsie had turned into a right bossy boots.

  The one topic the four young women avoided was Lili and Klara Joseph, but they had a permanent reminder of what must have happened in the shell of the church: the remains of the tower stood open to the sky, surrounded by masonry, broken glass, smashed wooden pews, and roof slates. The impact had wrecked many graves, so headstones and marble slabs mingled with the other debris. The knight’s tomb was still in its place, but had sunk almost out of sight. There was no way now to reach the entrance. The only faint hope was that the boat bringing the little girls had not reached the cave as expected, though with mines and military sea patrols, the possible reasons why didn’t bear thinking about. But if there was some other reason and the girls weren’t dead, where could they be now?

  Frances said that they could try the Free French to see if anyone in their network of contacts might know. But at the moment neither she nor Evangeline could go to London.

  Christmas brought two visitors, of whom one was Penelope: she wanted to spend time with Richard and admire her grandson. The other was a gangly lad with acne who slouched off the train. “It’s Ted!” exclaimed Agnes, joyfully. “I wrote to ’im, didn’t I? Told ’im where I was,” she informed Elsie. She was living with Elsie and Bernie again because the Barrowses’ baby was due any minute. As Frances was often away, Agnes could sleep on her side of the attic.