by S C Worrall
‘David’s name is on the list.’ Nancy hears the tears in Mrs Stebbings voice. ‘He’s alive.’
Nancy swallows an anguished cry. ‘What a relief!’
‘If David is alive and Elliott Viney, then . . . ’ Mrs Stebbing doesn’t finish the sentence but the implication – that Martin must therefore be alive, too – makes Nancy want to sing out with happiness. ‘But it’s a bloody mess over there,’ Mrs Stebbings continues. ‘If you will pardon my French.’ The two women, mother and fiancée, laugh. ‘But at least we know something.’ She pauses. ‘You mustn’t give up hope. Are you keeping busy? That’s the important thing.’
‘My boss sees to that.’
‘Keep calm and carry on, that’s the spirit.’
Nancy smiles. ‘Thank you so much for calling,’ she says, cheerfully.
‘I’m glad I reached you!’
‘Me, too. It’s wonderful news.’ Nancy pauses, then, sensing the older woman is about to hang up, says: ‘You will let me know when you hear anything more, won’t you?’
‘Of course, dear. Us women have to stick together.’
6 OCTOBER 1940
Blythe Cottage
Sunday afternoon. The ninety-first day of the Battle of Britain. Her day off. So, of course, the weather is miserable: low-lying clouds, rain, mist. Typical British weather. But in this topsy-turvy world of war, bad is good and good is bad. Rain keeps the Henkel and Junker bombers away.
The tide has begun to turn, though. Some days, the Luftwaffe’s bombers turn back to their bases in northern France without even dropping their bombs, as Spitfires and Hurricanes swarm around them, like angry wasps. The day’s tally of kills has become the new cricket scores. On a single day in September, the RAF shot down one hundred and seventy planes. As revenge, Hitler ordered the bombing of the West End. John Lewis was reduced to rubble. Londoners were outraged to see one of their favourite shops go up in flames. But it was the bombing of Buckingham Palace that triggered something in the national psyche. Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, tells the nation: ‘I can now look the East End in the eye.’ There is a new sense of what it means to be British. A new togetherness. Strangers even talk to each other on the Tube!
Despite the murk, Nancy cycles to Church Path Wood and follows the footpath through the trees. The path they walked together. Their trysting place. Yellow leaves swish under her feet. The air has that mild, acid smell that comes with autumn. The green trunks of the beech trees rise like cathedral arches above her head. In places where there are pine trees, mushrooms push up through the needles. She stops at the old oak tree, with its heart-shaped hole from the lightning strike. A year ago, Martin proposed to her here, the bars of sunlight streaming through the green canopy, the air thick with midges. She sees him lying on the rug, laughing, the sun dappling his face; hears the pop of the champagne cork, the clink of glasses.
‘Je lève mon verre,’ she whispers, as she follows the path back to her bike. The sun slants towards the horizon. The woods grow darker. There has been no more news. Not of Martin, or of the other men. It’s one thing to tell yourself not to feel afraid, another to avoid fear altogether. It ambushes her at the oddest moments. Catches her unawares when she is washing up or filing a letter at the office.
Blythe Cottage is deserted when she gets home. She’s puzzled, at first. Then she remembers: her parents, LJ and Peg, have taken Pat round to their friends’, the Evans’. Nancy climbs the stairs to her room and goes to the record pile. It’s a day for Bach. Partitas and Sonatas for solo violin. Performed by a rising star with an unusual, Middle Eastern name she has only just heard of:Yehudi Menuhin. Recorded in Paris, before the world went mad. Tender, lyrical music. Perfect for writing. She puts the record on the gramophone and drops the needle. The violin soars like a skylark. She flips back the cover of the airmail pad, takes out her pen.
Martin – my precious, I have already written you two letters because I cannot bear to go on imagining you ‘somewhere in Germany’ without word of any kind and I shall just continue to write and pray that although we have no official confirmation through the Red X you are in a camp and one of those letters will arrive. The worst that can happen to them is that they are torn up and burnt – and if they all arrive you will understand why they often read the same. In each I try to tie up the beginnings and the ends of the long, long months since 27 May when we know you were last seen in Hazebrouck at 8 p.m. We have gradually pieced together the story of the battalion, and in particular the story of you up to that day, and even in the blackest days we have never lost faith that you are alive and well. I think of you day and night, but I know that the time is harder and infinitely longer for you. I could not write before the first people – the Vineys – knew Elliott’s address, and his first letter, saying there were seven other officers from the Btln in Camp VIIC with him, took weeks to come. Then I did write at once, hoping so much you were there, and afterwards to the other camp where Trevor Gibbens is. Martino mio, whatever happens do not worry about us, for we are all well. I cannot say more but knowing us all in the frame of England you will understand. It is you, away in a strange country, whom I long to comfort. If I could tell you how much we think of you – wonder how you are, whether you are well treated. I try and try to imagine what your life is and to share it with you in spirit and pray God each day to give you strength and the remembrance of things loved and beautiful: that these will bring you back to me unhurt in mind and body. We will find beauty again, my love, in all that life together means.
Do you remember after our week in Cornwall: how I was not allowed on the platform but had to say goodbye outside the gates? I remember you kissed me gently and quickly and said: ‘Don’t worry, darling – I shall be all right.’ Then I watched you disappear into the long train, which, because of the blackout, seemed to be lit by a strange, red light. It was all red and black and somehow sinister and I waited with the other people – they were quieter by the gates – until it slid out of the station. I have never forgotten that night. It seems now a symbol of our sadness. But it is a sadness that is transient – and beyond it all, I know is the reality of that village in Cornwall, the primroses, the blue sky and unending sea, where we were so happy.
She stares down at her ring, with its inscription cut inside. Lifts it to her lips, then writes on.
I often go to Penn, to the church and the great wide views we love – on your birthday I walked for miles in the warm, high sun up there – and watch the country change with the months and the flying wind catch up wild leaves. Last Sunday the church was full of harvest festival – Keats’ ‘season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’ – and autumn flowers. But I love it best when it is white and empty: then I picture you there as a small boy not long come to England, walking up the hill with Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Charles. How often I have read your last letter from France when you said: ‘I am buoyant – our love would not lead us into danger.’
I long to hear from you – to know what you need so that we can send as much as possible. We are allowed to send one parcel of 10 lb every three months, and in the interval the Red X send general parcels every day or two. I know you want food and books and shoes and only hope that until we know your address the general parcels will be shared by everyone in the camp. If you are with Elliott Viney then there are others with you. I pray you are not alone. If this letter arrives tell them all how much we think of them there, here.
I must tell you – for I am coming so quickly to the end of this single sheet of paper which is allowed – that last Sunday Roseen and Andrew announced their engagement. I was so glad and pleased and I feel you will be too, for I know you like Andrew. They are both such reticent people – but I am quite sure Roseen will be happy for she sees too clear and deep not to be certain about such a big thing. I believe Andrew will do big things with his paintings now, for he says himself Roseen is more than inspiration to him. I do not know when they will be married but perhaps soon, as I know Roseen does not like long engagements. Bless
them both.
Everyone in the Battalion is well – they all got back except those who were taken prisoner. Everyone thinks of you, my love – everyone writes such loving letters, so full of courage and love for you – people we have both met fleetingly. I know now, even more than I did before, how fine the men in the Bn. are after meeting so many of the families. I never forget what you said one evening in Cornwall about the good comradeship and spirits of the Bn.
It’s late now and I have to get up for work in the morning. I wish you were here beside me, listening to this music, lying in my arms.
I love you more than ever. Nancy.
11 NOVEMBER 1940
Blythe Cottage
Monday morning. Double mourning. Today is Armistice Day. It’s also St Martin’s Day. The red poppies commemorate the sacrifices of war. This year, they frighten her, as though they are globs of blood dripping down people’s lapels. Is her Martin safe? Why doesn’t she hear from him? Where is he? When will he come home?
She gets up, goes to the window and pulls back the curtains. A sky like a bowl of congealed porridge. She can’t even see the Evans’ house opposite. She wants to stay in bed all day, pull the eiderdown up to her chin. Forget. But her boss, Mr Charmless, has been dropping heavy hints about the number of days she has already taken off from work sick. So she hauls herself out of bed, washes her face, arms herself for the day ahead, as though preparing a town for siege. Scratchy woollen underwear. Woollen vest. Thick, cotton blouse. Cashmere sweater. Wool skirt. Finally, the heavy, blue wool overcoat. Layer after layer. Wool on wool. Like a bloody sheep. In the hallway, she bends to look in the mirror, dabs some powder on her face, places her red wool beret on her head. Remembers. She kisses the ring, tucks her scarf into her coat, pulls on her mittens, then steps outside.
The clammy air sucks at her ankles, slides long, damp fingers between the buttons on her coat, down her collar, up her sleeves, like a pickpocket. She pulls the scarf up over her mouth, unlocks her Raleigh, and sets off for the station. How did the ancient Britons survive it all? Permanently wet and cold, even in so-called summer. Perhaps that is what makes us so hardy. There’s no such thing as bad weather. Just unsuitable clothing.
The train compartment smells of damp wool and Brylcreem. Reports of Neville Chamberlain’s death dominate the front pages. He died over the weekend. But the announcement was withheld for twelve hours. What’s the propaganda value in that?
‘He’s the one that got us in this mess in the first place,’ says a young man, with a long, pointed face, like a lurcher.
She unwraps her scarf, takes off her beret, settles herself by the window and takes out a book. A slim volume of poems by Edmund Blunden. Everyone is talking about the American, T. S. Eliot. His intellectual brilliance. The breadth of his knowledge. The Wasteland. Martin thought he was too – clinical. A critics’ poet. Blunden is more, well, British. Loved cricket. Batted without gloves. Hard to imagine the bank manager, T. S. Eliot, playing any kind of sport. Let alone without gloves.
The fog on Baker Street is so thick she cannot see more than a few hundred feet. Grey sky. Grey buildings. Grey faces. A symphony of grey. A dirge. She spends the morning typing on her Underwood. In her lunch break, she catches a bus to Remembrance Field at Westminster Abbey. An elderly woman, Aunt Dorothy’s age, bends to plant a little wooden cross with a poppy on it. She pushes it down, but can’t get it into the heavy ground. Bends again, pushes the top of the stick, but still it won’t go in. Will that be her some day?
More than five months have passed since Martin disappeared. In that time, she has played and replayed in her mind countless times what she has learned of the events of that night, like images projected onto a screen. But all she has to go on is the incomplete and subjective testimonies of a handful of survivors. Who saw what, when? As every detective knows, memory and perception are partial, and subjective. Witnesses contradict each other; omit details others claim to have seen or recall things of which other witnesses have no memory. Details that seem important close to the event recede with time. Others we ignore can become significant with time. Perceptions bleed into one another. Did I imagine it? Did it really happen?
Thousands of men are still missing. Lists are constantly being updated: pages of names and numbers, ranks and regiments, typed by someone in Geneva from lists supplied from London or POW camps in Germany. Does the Red Cross know more than she does? She suspects they probably do – that as she sits and writes cards to other members of the battalion or cycles to Amersham to collect information from other families, they are sending out men and women to interview and collate and weigh the evidence. Two half-completed jigsaws: hers and Geneva’s.
‘My dearest, beloved Martin –’ She is writing this at the back at the office at elevenses. She darts a glance across the desks to make sure Mr Charmless is not watching. Continues.
Although we do not yet know where you are this is the fourth letter I have written to you in the hope that you are in Camp IXA. I shall go on writing in case one gets through to you in the end, and pray they will be allowed through.
Roseen and Andrew were married at Penn two weeks ago in a great hurry but beautifully. I wished completely you had been with me to see it, there were golden leaves all over the church and Roseen looked so happy. Afterwards at the reception Andrew proposed your health – and I said softly to myself ‘Alors, je lève mon verre – here’s to us, darling. As it always has been.
My darling, where are you now? What do your eyes see? I hope whatever it is, it is not too terrible. I think of you day and night. The moment I open my eyes in the morning. And when I close them at night. Your love lifts me up. It’s a crown I wear in my heart. I can never forget a single incident or meaning of everything we have loved and seen and known.
Today we kept two minutes’ silence and it is St Martin’s Day also. Your mother told me that – bless her, she is so brave. All the people you were with are well. Elliott Viney’s brother, Lawrence, has been an immense help through these long months of waiting. With all my strength I believe in the end we shall all come to Oxford again – as we used to. We shall be together again. I know it.
A thousand thousand kisses. N.
Christmas Day 1940
Blythe Cottage
Christmas comes on a cold, crisp Wednesday. Frost on the ground, but no snow to run through. No Martin. This time last year they were together in church, holding hands during the benediction, praying for the war to be over quickly. Everyone said, it’ll be over by Christmas. But so far this year, 24,000 civilians have died in the Blitz. Hundreds of thousands more have been made homeless. Forty-one thousand soldiers are missing. Now, Martin is one of them.
She tries to blot the statistics out of her mind as she sits in the Preston family pew between Aunt D. and Roseen. Kneeling on the blue velvet stool for the Lord’s Prayer, Nancy reaches for Martin’s hand in her heart and lifts her voice to sing the hymns with the rest of the congregation. Everyone is missing someone this year.
Uncle Charles drives her home after the service – he boasts good cheer and amiable conversation but in her parents’ home it is a sombre scene. Her father reads by the fire in the living room. The card table stands in the centre of the room, piled with letters and back copies of The Times. The Christmas tree – more a branch than a tree – stands in the corner of the dining room. There are no lights, no tinsel, but before they went to bed last night, she and Pat hung the hand-blown glass balls she brought back from Munich. A plump Bavarian angel, carved in wood, balances precariously at the top of the tree.
‘Merry Christmas, Daddy.’ She leans over and kisses her father.
‘Merry Christmas, darling.’
‘Mum in the kitchen?’
‘She’s performing the miracle of the loaves and fishes with our rations.’ He sighs. The front page of yesterday’s paper has a photo of a child asleep in an air raid shelter with Christmas decorations overhead.
‘Did she finish Pat’s scarf?’ Christmas
gifts weren’t on anyone’s list this year, but at least their refugee child should have something to open. She sits down at the card table where the newspapers have been piling up for the past few weeks. On top of the pile is a half-page photo of the bombing of Coventry from a few weeks earlier. ‘Since when is a cathedral a legitimate target of war?’ She shakes her head.
‘Since Hitler came to power.’ Her father angrily rustles the pages of his paper.
It is a full-time job going through the lists in the papers, reading the names of the missing, the captured. She has been using the holiday to catch up on the clippings, but everything takes so long. The papers are still carrying stories about the German invasion of France. Graphic photos of blackened ruins. Ravaged towns. More bombed-out churches.
‘Listen to this!’ Her heart has leapt into her throat as she reads the news. ‘Lt H. J Dafforn, MC, RA, previously reported wounded and missing, is now known to be a prisoner of war. Address: no. 30926, Stalag IX C, Germany. Friends, please write.’ She beams. ‘That’s where our men are, Daddy! I can write to him!’
‘There’s such chaos over there,’ her father says, calmly. ‘I expect Martin has just not been registered yet.’
‘Or maybe he’s ended up in another camp.’
‘Missing soldiers are still turning up all the time.’ Peg has popped in to the sitting room to take a cigarette break, even though she is wheezing from asthma. ‘Even stragglers from Dunkirk.’
Nancy cuts out the little strip of paper and drops it in the envelope with her other cuttings.
Christmas dinner, when it comes, is a bony roast chicken that cost the week’s meat ration, some boiled potatoes, carrots, a handful of peas, and gravy.
‘Didn’t I say she was performing miracles?’ LJ beams over at his wife, then his daughter and their evacuee, Pat. ‘Merry Christmas, everyone!’