by Mary Hooper
Although nearly a month had gone by since she’d been on the Manchester train, the face of the badly injured soldier was still etched on Poppy’s brain. She’d talked to Matthews about it and between them they’d come up with a technique they thought might help. On coming face to face with someone badly injured, they planned to squint their eyes a very small, unnoticeable amount, so that the other, injured features were seen as slightly fuzzy and out of focus. They would then bring it into focus gradually, so that the shock of seeing something awful wasn’t too great.
They’d practised on each other and found that it worked quite well – although, of course, they hadn’t yet tried it out on a real injured man. Poppy had told Jameson what they were going to do, thinking such a technique might help her, too, but Jameson had just looked at her as though she was mad. ‘Everyone will think that VADs are cross-eyed!’ she’d said.
That evening, Poppy took Billy’s letter into the YWCA canteen, intending to stay there after she’d had supper and reply to him. She usually took her off-duty meals with Matthews – sometimes they even went out for a bite to eat – but that day happened to be Matthews’ day off and she’d gone home to see her family.
Poppy fetched some soup and bread, sat down at a table and was joined almost immediately by Jameson carrying her supper tray. Putting the tray down, she pulled a newspaper from her bag.
‘I know it’s a frightful thing to do, but I feel this compulsion to look through the list of officer casualties to make sure that no one I know is on it,’ she said, opening the paper. ‘Do you know, so many are being killed that some weeks they have to print a special supplement.’
She began running her finger down the names, murmuring under her breath. Reaching O she gave a little gasp of horror. ‘Oh my! I danced with Henry Orlap at my coming-out ball!’ she said. ‘Such a nice chap, tall and dark with eyes like boot buttons. He made some joke about my ball gown being pink.’
‘Why, what’s wrong with pink?’ Poppy asked.
‘Nothing, but my dress wasn’t pink,’ Jameson said. She frowned slightly, as if surprised by Poppy’s ignorance. ‘You must wear white at Queen Charlotte’s Ball. No one would dream of wearing another colour.’
‘Oh,’ Poppy said. ‘Does it say what happened to him?’
‘It just says he was killed in enemy action.’ She looked behind them to see who was around. ‘My father says that more of our boys are dying than the newspapers are reporting,’ she whispered to Poppy. ‘Probably twice as many.’
‘But –’
‘It’s because it would be bad for morale,’ said Jameson. ‘Everything’s got to be positive – it’s always got to look as if we’re winning.’
Poppy looked at her, shaking her head and wondering if that could possibly be true. She wondered if Freddie or her brother had yet been posted overseas. A whole regiment could be moved overnight, or so she’d heard. Were these two boys even now in France or Belgium? If either was seriously wounded, how would she know? Sighing, she added salt and pepper and stirred her soup, which unfortunately tasted of its main ingredient, vegetable peelings. All the most nutritious foodstuffs were going to feed the troops.
The war now dominated everything; it was all anyone ever talked about. People speculated how long it would last, how many would be dead by the end of it and what it was costing the nation. They told each other exactly what Kitchener and Asquith were doing wrong, talked about how good things had been before the war, asked where the street entertainers had gone, complained that they couldn’t buy half the things on their shopping lists and said that the bread wasn’t of the same quality. The war was always to blame.
‘Died in Action . . .’ Jameson murmured, then, finishing this section, moved on to the Died of Injuries Received section and went through the As, Bs and Cs while Poppy was still stirring her soup. Reaching the Ds, she began, ‘Davidson, Dawson, Derekshaw, de Vere, Dillon . . .’
Poppy went cold. ‘Stop!’ she cried. ‘What did you say?’
Jameson’s finger stopped moving downward. ‘Dillon. Do you know anyone called Dillon?’
Poppy stared at her. ‘The one before that.’
‘De Vere?’
Poppy nodded. ‘What . . . what was his first name?’ she stammered, her lips hardly seeming able to form the words.
‘I’ll read the whole thing,’ Jameson said obligingly. ‘De Vere. Second Lieutenant Jasper de Vere . . .’ Poppy, hearing Freddie’s brother’s name, felt herself go limp with relief – so much so that she sagged against Jameson, who looked at her in surprise before continuing, ‘. . . aged 22, who was badly injured during a skirmish at the front, has tragically died of the injuries he received. His funeral will be private, but his sorrowing family are holding a memorial service for him at three o’clock on 1st September in the family chapel on their estate in Mayfield.’ Jameson looked at Poppy with great interest. ‘You know the de Veres, do you?’
Poppy closed her eyes and breathed deeply, more relieved than she felt she had any right to be. ‘I used to work for them.’
‘Oh?’
‘I was their parlourmaid,’ she added.
‘Oh, so you were.’
Poppy did not elaborate. There were worse jobs, she knew, than being a parlourmaid. And at least, unlike Jameson, she knew that stairs should be done from top to bottom and not the other way round, that an egg shouldn’t be boiled for forty-five minutes until the water evaporated, and that milk went off if left in the sun – all of which misdemeanours Jameson had been guilty of since she’d arrived. Jameson, though, was a bit like Freddie de Vere, Poppy had decided. They’d both been spoilt and had had everything done for them. If you were well-to-do, that was just what happened.
‘I spoke to him on the train,’ Poppy said bleakly. ‘His injuries didn’t seem too bad. I thought he was all right . . .’
‘Will you go to the memorial service?’ Jameson asked.
Poppy thought for a moment. She would be able to pay her respects to the family, perhaps tell them the little story about seeing Jasper on the hospital train and, yes, see Freddie again.
‘I will if I can get the day off.’ She hesitated, then realised that if anyone knew the answer to this question of etiquette, it was Jameson. ‘Would it be all right for me to go, do you think?’
‘I think that would be fine,’ Jameson said. ‘Servants are regarded almost as part of the family these days, aren’t they?’
‘Are they?’ Poppy said. She had no idea how Mr and Mrs de Vere regarded her, but she didn’t think it was as family.
‘Anyway, you’re not a servant any longer,’ Jameson went on, ‘and anyone can pay their respects. There are no rights and wrongs about it.’
‘Then I’ll go,’ Poppy decided. ‘I’ll definitely go.’
The circumstances were certainly not what she’d hoped for, but they meant that she was more than likely to see Freddie again.
Chapter Eleven
Poppy was granted a day’s leave to attend the memorial service. She consulted a train timetable and worked out her timings carefully, thinking she would go to visit her mother afterwards, but a few days before received a note from her saying that she and the girls were going to Wales to care for an elderly aunt who’d just had a serious operation.
A pressing concern had been about what she should wear, for she didn’t have a black coat or hat with a veil. On asking the advice of Sister Malcolm, however, she was told that her outdoor uniform would be most suitable for a memorial service.
On the day itself, Poppy felt very anxious. She told herself that she must be sensible, that there was a chance Freddie had already been posted overseas and wasn’t going to be there for his brother’s memorial service – and if that was the case then perhaps it would be a jolly good thing and stop her making a fool of herself. But oh, if he wasn’t there, how bereft she’d feel! Or, worse, suppose he was there and simply ignored her?
Before she left that morning, Matthews gave her the once-over. ‘You look grand,�
� she said. ‘Just a little too clean and shiny, perhaps.’
‘Isn’t that good?’
Matthews shook her head. ‘No,’ she said, ‘because it shows that you haven’t actually done any nursing. You should look dishevelled and war weary, as if you’ve just come back from saving lives at the front and have been wearing the same apron for days on end.’
Poppy smiled. ‘I thought of boiling it to make the red cross look a bit faded. That’s what some of the girls do.’
‘Too late for that now,’ said Matthews. She looked at Poppy, head on one side. ‘It strikes me that you’re rather over-concerned about your appearance today. I’m beginning to wonder if there isn’t a young man involved. Someone special . . .’
‘Well . . .’
‘I thought so!’
‘But no one knows about it,’ said Poppy anxiously. ‘And really, nothing’s happened between us: only a couple of looks and, well . . .’ She looked at her friend wistfully. ‘But he did say he’d write to me . . .’
Matthews raised her eyebrows. ‘Is he a member of the family you used to work for?’
Poppy nodded.
‘Oh Lor’,’ said Matthews. ‘I see trouble ahead.’
‘Not at all,’ Poppy said. ‘I’ll probably just look at him, realise how silly I’m being and pull myself together.’ But she felt herself blushing . . . she knew she wasn’t likely to do any such thing.
Feeling splendidly self-conscious in her outdoor uniform, Poppy walked to the station and caught the train into Waterloo, then took a slow horse bus across to Euston. She didn’t want to go on the underground train in case she got smuts all over her face, and there were hardly any of the faster motor buses around; like so much else, they’d gone to do their bit at the front.
The war was everywhere. She passed town halls which had been turned into army recruitment centres and shops which were collection points for second-hand pyjamas for convalescing Tommies. She saw a market stall which was asking for old gramophones, records and mouth organs for the boys in khaki. In fact, everywhere she looked people were doing something; churches were even holding Blanket Days to encourage people to give a warm blanket ready for the coming winter months at the front.
She found London more subdued than it had been just a few months before. People still called out cheery greetings to anyone wearing uniform and applauded passing soldiers, but there was a certain reservation in the air; people were not so gung-ho, for by now nearly everyone had a friend, relative or neighbour who had been injured or killed. Despite all the positive stories in the newspapers, the idea was slowly taking root that the impossible might happen: the Allies might not win the war.
To her delight, however, Poppy also found that the courtesies afforded to men in uniform were now extended to her: people called her ‘nursey’ and beamed at her, she was ushered to the front of the queue in the newsagent’s shop, and from Euston went second class to Mayfield for the price of third.
On the train, she opened the weekly paper she’d bought. This had a supplement giving brief details of some of those who’d died the previous week and how they’d died.
Maurice Green, drowned face down in a trench; Arnold Tallis, killed as a result of a sniper’s bullet; Percy Jones, shelled whilst carrying an injured comrade to cover; Edward Topper, died after receiving the full force of a grenade during a skirmish at Gallipoli; George Brown, postie, killed whilst delivering mail to the troops; Frank Cotton and John Tiplady, comrades-in-arms, died together as a result of treading on a land mine . . .
Poppy, her eyes stinging with unshed tears, put the paper down. It was one thing to read a report stating that a certain number of men had died, but this particular newspaper personalised them so that one felt one almost knew them. Even worse was the list of names of boys ‘Missing in Action’, whose families were desperate for information. Were they dead, captured – or, horrendously, still out there, dying slowly on the contested land?
The leaves on the trees outside Mayfield station were beginning to turn an autumnal gold, but the day was fair and Poppy decided to walk across the parkland in order to see if Airey House looked any different. Sixty officers had now taken up residence in its spacious rooms, and as she made her way through the shrubbery, Poppy could see that a dozen or so hospital beds had been wheeled on to the terrace so that their occupants could receive the benefits of the afternoon sun. Slightly worried, therefore, that one of the men might think she was a real nurse and hail her to ask for something, she ducked behind the hedge and kept out of sight as she passed through the grounds.
She reached the little path which led down to the chapel fifteen minutes before the service was due to start. Some mourners had already gathered outside and Poppy recognised several of the ladies from the Mayfield Comforts Group. There were also two nurses, a small group of army officers and some women from the village, all speaking together in low voices.
After a moment she saw, through the trees, the family’s two large black motor cars coming through the iron gates. A man in a black frock coat took his place in front of the first one and, as if at a funeral, walked ahead of the vehicles as they travelled slowly towards the chapel.
She had to get inside before they did! Increasing her pace, Poppy went down the path into the chapel and took a space at the back behind a marble pillar. As the organ began playing, she did some deep breathing to try and gather herself. Please let him be here, she thought, and then chastised herself for thinking of Freddie instead of praying for the soul of his dead brother.
The chapel began to fill up. Two women and a child joined her in the pew, and Poppy became aware of the admiring glances of the little girl.
After a moment she whispered, ‘Are you a real nurse?’
Poppy nodded. Well, she was nearly.
The child gave a gasp of awe and her hand reached out to stroke the material of Poppy’s coat. ‘Have you been in the war?’
Poppy shook her head. ‘Not yet.’
‘Your coat has lovely gold buttons . . .’
‘Yes, it has, hasn’t it?’
‘I’m going to be a nurse when I grow up.’
‘So you can have a coat with gold buttons?’ Poppy asked, smiling, and then realised that the organ music had changed to something more sombre and that Freddie de Vere, his elder sister holding on to his arm, had come into the chapel and was looking directly at her. Her smile vanished in an instant, but it was too late – he’d seen her at his brother’s memorial service, smiling.
Poppy’s embarrassment at her blunder lasted all through the service, which took more than an hour. Lots of people spoke about Jasper: the nanny who the de Vere children had had since birth, Jasper’s schoolmates, far-flung members of his family and several of his tutors. His commanding officer also gave a speech saying that Jasper had saved the lives of two of his men by going out to rescue them under fire.
‘Second Lieutenant de Vere displayed great bravery in going back for a third man, but he was hit by a grenade. He was knocked unconscious into a disused trench and lay hidden from his patrol for a day and a night,’ the officer said. ‘He was found and received treatment for a severe leg injury, but, tragically, gangrene had set in and it proved impossible to save him.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.’
A strangled sob came from Mrs de Vere, making Poppy’s eyes fill with tears. When Freddie, his voice thick with emotion, rose to give a eulogy about his brother, Poppy lowered her head and found it impossible to look anywhere near where he was standing. How terrible this war was! And she’d actually sent Freddie a white feather to encourage him to join up. Suppose the feather which had shamed him into joining the army ultimately killed him – how would she feel then?
At this time, a year into the war, and with so many men dying, the fashion for extravagant funeral rites and services had passed. There was only one concession to a funeral tea: mourners were invited to take a glass of sherry in the chapel
vestry afterwards.
As the service concluded, many of the women began to file out, for the free and easy way that men and women now mixed in London was not yet the way people behaved in the suburbs. Poppy decided that she would go into the vestry, however, for if she didn’t take the opportunity to speak to Freddie, she knew she’d regret it. She needed to find out if what she’d seen in Freddie’s eyes many months earlier – what she thought she’d seen – was real or had been just in her imagination. Even if she made a fool of herself, even if her heart got broken, at least she’d know the truth.
Waiting at the end of the pew to turn left into the vestry instead of going right with those leaving the chapel, Poppy suddenly felt a hand grasping hers.
‘You’re here!’ Molly said, emerging out of the crowd. ‘I wondered if you would be.’
Poppy squeezed her friend’s hand, delighted to see her.
‘But don’t you look grand!’ Molly said, standing back and gazing at Poppy admiringly. ‘Quite the Florence Nightingale.’
‘I might look the part, but if anyone here had an accident I’d be quite useless,’ Poppy said. ‘But you!’ She put out a hand and touched Molly’s hair, which was frizzy and quite orange in the front. ‘You’ve changed your hair colour!’
‘Oh, it’s from the chemicals at work,’ Molly said. ‘It happens to all of us, no matter how much we try to cover it up.’
‘I quite like it. You look like Mary Pickford.’
Molly giggled. ‘We don’t even bother with headscarves now. Our supervisor said we should be proud of our orange hair and wear it like a badge.’
‘War work!’ the two girls said at the same time, and smiled at each other.
‘Oh, do come into the vestry with me,’ Poppy pleaded.
Molly raised her eyebrows. ‘You want to go in there, with the toffs?’