‘I apologise to you both that you won’t be having a honeymoon at this time; the moving of our camps and the limited personnel means it is not possible to grant you leave,’ Captain Grant said. ‘However, I understand that provision is being made for you to depart for home at the next opportunity?’
Ellie nodded, her body going numb, goose pimples covering every inch of her skin. ‘Yes, that is right.’ She presumed he knew that she was expecting.
‘God bless you both, and I wish you a safe passage home,’ he said, before turning sharply on his heel and beginning to walk away. ‘There will be a great need for trained, capable nurses back in London,’ he called back.
Safe passage home. Ellie had been so worried about the baby and Spencer that she hadn’t even thought about the forthcoming voyage. It had been bad enough coming over, but . . .
‘What if I don’t make it?’ she whispered, her bottom lip trembling.
‘You’ll make it home just fine,’ Spencer said firmly. ‘Now, come with me. I’ll be damned if we’re not at least going into town for a decent cup of coffee to celebrate.’
Scarlet and Lucy waved their goodbyes and hurried back to the hospital to check on their patients, doing their final rounds on those that were yet to be transported.
‘Come along, wife,’ Spencer teased, once they had gone, catching Ellie’s chin in his fingers and tilting her face up, dropping a soft kiss to her lips.
Ellie kissed him back, his words soothing her, making everything else leave her mind. ‘I like the sound of that, husband.’
They both laughed, then she picked up the hem of her dress so it didn’t get muddy and they went off in search of a ride to town.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Scarlet
There was a knot of fear in her stomach that Scarlet had never felt before. She wasn’t sure if it was the fact that she was about to leave what she knew, or that she might actually find Thomas. All she’d ever wanted was to find her fiancé, it was the very reason she was here, and now it terrified her. She knew in her heart that it was because of James, that he’d changed something inside of her. She still loved Thomas, fiercely, and she would give anything to find him and take him home to his family, but her heart was pulling her towards James, making it impossible not to think about him. Sometimes she wondered if she thought of anything else at night, when it was quiet and dark and she was lost to her own thoughts.
‘I can’t believe it’s really time for me to go,’ Ellie said, tears in her eyes as she enveloped Scarlet in a big hug.
Scarlet snapped out of her daydream and hugged Ellie back. Her friend was leaving, and come morning she and Spencer would have left, too. Everything was changing, and she had a feeling nothing would ever be the same again. Normandy might have been dreadful in so many ways, but they’d been a team. She’d spent the past months glued to Ellie, sleeping side by side, working side by side, sharing everything together, and then Lucy had come along and become part of their little unit, a friend she’d never forget. She’d been so cool and capable, as if she didn’t need them, but in the end Scarlet had become as close to her as she had to Ellie.
‘Tell me exactly when you’re embarking,’ Scarlet asked, wanting to know all the details, not ready to let Ellie go even though she knew it was the right thing. ‘Surely there must be some additional supplies you need to take with you.’
Ellie’s smile was sweet, tears still filling her eyes. ‘Stop worrying about me. I’ll be absolutely fine. It’s you lot staying behind I’m worried about.’
Scarlet touched her arm, knowing she needed to give Spencer and Ellie a moment alone but needing to say one last thing to her friend before she left. She kept wondering if this was the last time they’d see one another again – if this was it. Ellie might not make it home; she herself could be killed working, or on her own way home one day.
‘I promise I’ll keep your letter for you. Until this blasted war is over,’ Scarlet said in a low voice. It didn’t matter who heard; it wasn’t so much a secret as something that for some reason felt private between them.
‘Thank you.’ Ellie pressed a quick kiss to her cheek and gave her a hug. ‘I’m pleased you’ll have something of mine tucked against your body every day. It’ll be a little bit of me still here with you.’
Scarlet hugged her back, not wanting to let go. ‘You’ll keep mine? In case of the worst?’ she asked.
Ellie squeezed her one last time then stepped back. ‘Of course I will. I will keep it safe until the day you come looking for me. I’ll only give it back to you in person, so you’d better find me!’
‘I promise,’ Scarlet said, biting her bottom lip, not wanting to cry.
‘I’ll have tea and scones waiting,’ Ellie said, ‘or dinner bubbling away in a pot. Either way we’ll be drinking something and eating something even better. I can’t wait.’
Scarlet hoped that was true, that she could look forward to it over the months or maybe even years ahead. She longed for the day they could give their letters back, for neither of them to have to make the pilgrimage to one another’s families, to deliver the worst kind of message.
‘Stay strong and look after that baby,’ Scarlet said.
Ellie gave her a sweet little wave and Scarlet started to walk backwards, ready to give her some space and say her goodbyes to her new husband. Whoever would have thought that Ellie would be married to the doctor she’d bumped into in a hallway at their first lodgings, and expecting his baby? Certainly not her, but Scarlet was happy for her. If anyone deserved some happiness, it was Ellie. She had changed a lot from that girl she’d first met, had matured from a girl full of energy and optimism to a more mature woman. She was still Ellie, but they’d endured a lot, and Scarlet only hoped it had made her stronger in the end, even though she’d been so close to breaking.
Scarlet watched as Lucy spoke to Ellie and hugged her, and then they were both trudging back to the hospital. Saying goodbye was always hard, but this was tougher, especially after they’d both been through some hard times with Ellie, when they’d both wondered if she would pull through after being so traumatised by what she’d been seeing and doing.
‘I still can’t believe she’s pregnant,’ Lucy said as Scarlet turned back to give Ellie one last wave. ‘Imagine what they must have been up to that afternoon we left them in town!’ she quipped.
Scarlet laughed – it was impossible not to – but she didn’t exactly want to think about what Ellie and Spencer had been doing. ‘Well, the poor lovebirds didn’t get a lot of private time for starters, and other than that I don’t want to think about it.’
‘You’ve got to admit that it’s pretty funny, though, right? I mean—’
‘La-la-la-la-la,’ Scarlet started to sing loudly, elbowing Lucy in the side. She wasn’t used to talking about intimate matters, and she wasn’t about to start, no matter how much more worldly she was now than before she’d begun nursing.
Lucy poked her tongue out and they walked back into the hospital. It was going to be another long day, that was always a given, only today would end with her climbing into an army truck and heading off on an adventure that could mean finding Thomas. Her doubts were mounting. It was almost impossible to believe that after all this time it could be him.
She’d only just started to do her rounds, checking her patients, sniffing for gangrene and checking for fevers, when a hand closed on her shoulder. A strong, masculine hand that made her turn.
‘Scarlet.’
Scarlet turned and stared into the sombre face of Spencer, his eyes sad, mouth bracketed by a frown. She knew it must have been hard for him saying goodbye to Ellie, knowing she was carrying their unborn child, too.
‘I didn’t want to worry Ellie unnecessarily by mentioning this before, but we’re leaving pronto,’ he said. ‘Gather your things and be ready to depart in an hour.’
Scarlet stared up at him, incredulous, certain he was mistaken. ‘An hour from now?’ But she still had all her rounds to do. She h
ad thought they weren’t leaving until after her shift.
He nodded, looking weary as he stood before her, arms folded.
‘But my rounds, my patients, I will need to tell Matron and . . .’
‘Everything is organised, Scarlet,’ he said. ‘Gather your things; meet me at the commanding officer’s tent in an hour, and then we’ll both be briefed before departure.’
Scarlet was certain her knees were actually knocking together, legs most definitely beginning to shake. She bit down hard on her lower lip. She felt incredibly anxious. Maybe she didn’t even want to find Thomas.
‘Yes, Doctor,’ she said, slowly stepping back from the patient’s bed she’d been hovering beside. She took a slow, shaky breath and looked around, wondering when she’d be back and how different everything might be once she was.
By nightfall, she might know whether Thomas was dead or alive.
It had been only hours since she’d said goodbye to Ellie, but it already felt like days. The soldiers she was travelling with had been pleasant enough, much like the lovely men she was used to treating, but being the only woman amongst a group of men wasn’t something she would have volunteered for. They’d already had a convenience stop once, and while they couldn’t have cared less about relieving themselves around others, she had been red-faced and horribly embarrassed. They wouldn’t let her go far from their sight, and knowing they were so close had been awful, but they were being careful with her safety. They had to be.
But Spencer was his usual friendly self despite everything, and she was comforted by the fact that he was travelling with her. She doubted she could have gone without him, even if the soldiers had been friendly enough. Spencer was in love with her best friend, and she trusted him like she would have trusted a brother; she had no doubt that he’d protect her and demand that she be treated respectfully if he needed to.
‘Do you know how long the trip will take?’ Scarlet asked, clearing her throat and speaking up in a moment of silence between the men. They hadn’t told her why they’d left ahead of schedule, but she could only imagine it had something to do with their safety. She’d been told not to ask questions.
‘It’ll be a while longer yet,’ one of the men said, glancing across at her. ‘I suggest you get some sleep.’
She was exhausted, but the road was bumpy, the truck uncomfortable, and she doubted she’d be getting any sleep any time soon. Her imagination was running wild, too, thinking about what they might find, whether they’d see Thomas, what he would be like. She didn’t know how she felt, other than that she wanted to get him home, to do her duty by him in that respect.
‘Would you mind explaining to me how these soldiers ended up at the convent?’ she asked, speaking loudly over the noise of the truck. ‘I understand they were taken in by the nuns and kept safe there, but do we know what actually happened? I’ve been told more than one plane might have been lost in the area.’
The soldier driving answered her questions, calling back to her.
‘There were two planes shot down, and we believe that before the soldiers could be taken by the enemy, some brave locals helped to save them. They were taken to a convent, but we don’t know if any of those men are still alive or not.’
Spencer spoke up then. ‘Scarlet, all we know is that there were soldiers taken to safety. We do not know how badly injured they were, whether any of them could have survived even,’ he explained. ‘The only thing we know for certain is that local intelligence has confirmed that some of them were alive following their planes being shot down, which is a miracle in itself.’
‘So we could arrive there and find they are all dead?’ she asked, hardly able to believe what she was saying.
‘Yes, ma’am, that’s right,’ one of the soldiers answered.
Scarlet did shut her eyes then, because all the hopes she’d had, the scenes she’d imagined, might be so far from the truth that they were impossible. Thomas might be there, or he might not. He might have survived; he might be dead. He might be injured, he could be a prisoner of war, or he might have perished when his plane was shot down – a fiery ball of metal in the air that he didn’t have a hope of surviving. But some soldiers had survived at least the initial crash, and there was no reason why one of them couldn’t have been Thomas.
She listened to Spencer talking, wished she knew him well enough to reach for his hand and hold it, but instead she folded her hands in her lap and squeezed her eyes shut even tighter, hoping sleep would wrap its arms of slumber around her.
‘Oh hell!’
Scarlet’s eyes snapped open as the soldier cursed, Spencer’s arm thrusting in front of her as her body rose off her seat. She was thrown violently upwards, her head hitting something hard, something . . . She groaned, as everything started to go bright colours – every colour of the rainbow splashing through her vision.
‘Scarlet?’
She reached up, a swirl of blackness taking hold.
‘Damn it! Scarlet!’
The voice made her smile. She recognised that voice.
‘James?’ she whispered, smiling, feeling the change in her lips as she slowly became more aware of her surroundings. ‘James!’ she gasped.
‘Scarlet?’ the voice said again. ‘Who’s James?’
She blinked, reached for the face hovering in front of her. ‘James?’
‘We need to keep moving!’ someone yelled.
‘She’ll be fine, I’ve got her,’ the man’s voice said again as her eyes began to focus, the pounding in her head almost unbearable. ‘Scarlet, it’s Spencer.’
She groaned and let him help pull her up.
‘What happened?’
‘We hit something in the road,’ he muttered. ‘Who’s James?’
Scarlet swallowed, wrapped her arms tight around herself. ‘Ah, sorry?’
‘You were asking for someone called James?’
She went to shake her head then groaned. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she lied.
Scarlet hated that it was James her thoughts always turned to, and not Thomas.
‘Go to sleep. Once we’re there I’ll look you over more thoroughly, but for now I can at least see there’s no blood.’
Scarlet huddled down, hugging herself to try to stay warm. Thomas, she told herself. Thomas. She was supposed to be thinking about Thomas.
By the time she woke, roused by the bumping of the truck beneath her and Spencer calling her name, the sky was black and her neck was sore from the position it had been locked in. She had no idea how long she’d been out, from when she’d first thought she’d never fall asleep to obviously falling into a deep slumber.
‘We’re here?’ she croaked, straightening and staring out of the window into blackness. She glanced at her wristwatch and saw that they’d been travelling for hours.
‘Yes,’ Spencer said, looking weary as he rubbed a hand over his stubbly chin and then pressed the back of his knuckles into his eyes. ‘Once the area has been secured, we’ll head straight in and make our assessments.’
Scarlet nodded, her mouth feeling like even more cotton wool had been stuffed in than it had when she’d woken up moments earlier, her head still throbbing. This was it. This was the moment when she actually might find Thomas – the man she was engaged to, the man she’d been waiting almost two years now to even lay eyes upon again. The man whom she almost hoped she wasn’t about to find.
‘Is our plan still to evaluate the patients based on their injuries first, identify whether any need immediate evacuation, and then to look at those that are less injured?’ she asked.
Spencer managed a smile and for some reason it helped to relax her, settled the caged butterflies beating their wings in her belly.
‘Yes, pretty much. If you recognise him, if one of these men is your Thomas’ – he nodded at her, as if wanting her to do the same to acknowledge what he was saying – ‘you don’t freeze, you keep going, you do your job, then you can fall apart after our work is done.’
<
br /> The soldiers had started talking, doors were opened, commands were issued and Scarlet sat and waited, completely immobile as the soldiers who’d been in the same vehicle as her for hours disappeared into the inky blackness outside. She focused on her breath, the silent inhale and exhale as her lungs worked.
‘I’m thinking about Ellie,’ Spencer said quietly, his voice barely more than a whisper. ‘I know what it feels like to have that kind of pain in your chest.’
Scarlet didn’t care how well she did or didn’t know Spencer now, or the fact that he was her superior; she slid her hand across the seat and touched her fingers to his, clutching them as they sat side by side, both staring straight ahead. His fingers locked around hers, too, until there was a sudden bang on the window that made her jump.
‘It’s time,’ he said, releasing his grasp and pushing open his door. ‘Oh, and Scarlet, I took a good look at your head while you were sleeping. There’s a bump, but I’m sure it’ll simply be a headache and nothing more.’
Scarlet touched the side of her head and waited, watched as he moved, and then followed him out, a soldier reaching for her in the dark and taking her hand, helping her jump down and catching her before she hit the dirt.
‘Is it grim in there?’ she asked, terrified of what they might find.
‘No,’ the soldier said, letting her take his arm so she didn’t stumble in the dark. She felt fortunate they were all such gentlemen. ‘There’s only two of the men in there.’
Scarlet’s heart sank, a roaring sound in her ears that made it impossible to hear anything else. She opened her mouth to say something, anything, but any words there died in her throat.
Only two of them in there. There was no chance Thomas could be one of those two, not with odds that bad.
There were lights on in the convent, the small stone building untouched by war. Any soldiers who’d been kept there were lucky to have been so far from the fighting, so far from everything that was terrifying.
Spencer walked up the steps ahead of her with the soldier who’d been driving, the others posted outside, guns slung across their chests, held loosely in their arms. It settled Scarlet, their relaxed stance, the cigarette hanging from one of their mouths as if there were nothing in the world to worry about here.
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