Never Leave Me

by Margaret Pemberton

  She looked up at him, at the uniform that was American and not German. At the strong, kind, uncomplicated face. He meant well. He was trying to comfort her in the only way he knew how.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, but her eyes remained bruised with grief. Free. It was a relative term. She had lost her freedom when she had given her heart to Dieter and she knew she would never be truly free, ever again.

  The medics rushed into the room and she rose to her feet as they gave the unconscious American immediate aid. Within minutes other trucks were following the first. Trucks full of appallingly wounded men. Trucks full of medical equipment. With swift speed Valmy was turned into a field hospital.

  She showed the medical orderlies where fresh water could be drawn. She helped them set up their crude operating theatre in the grand dining-room. She bound up Luke Brandon’s leg after the bullets had been removed and had the relief of knowing that his life was no longer in danger. For hour after hour, through the long-day and even longer night, she toiled with the medics, cutting away mud-stained battle-dresses and bloody boots, swabbing wounds, even giving injections. There were wounds caused by gunshot, by mortar blast, by mines and by incendiaries. Wounds so horrifying that she never knew from where she drew the strength not to flinch and turn away.

  ‘That’s a good girl,’ the doctor said as she held a drain steady while he stitched up the stump of a leg he had amputated. ‘You make a fine nurse, Mademoiselle.’

  When Greg Dering returned from a bloody sortie inland, she had been on her feet for over twenty hours. ‘That’s enough,’ he said firmly, taking her arm. ‘You must have some rest. When did you last eat? Last have a cup of coffee?’

  A flicker of amusement touched the dark depths of her eyes. ‘My last cup of coffee was three years ago, Colonel,’ she said wryly, pushing a damp tendril of hair away from her face.

  He looked down at her, his sun-bronzed face grim. She looked like a ghost, her eyes darkly ringed, her face deathly pale. ‘Well, you’re going to have one now,’ he said tightly, leading her out of the foetid, makeshift operating theatre and towards the small cubbyhole of a room that was serving as his temporary headquarters. There were incendiary burns on the backs of his hands and arms but they could be treated later. They were fleabites compared to the injuries of those massing the chateau’s rooms and corridors. Entire platoons had been wiped out on the beach and the day’s fighting to establish a bridgehead had been fierce and bloody and, so far, unsuccessful.

  He pushed her gently down onto the only chair the room held and lit a primus stove. His task was to link up with the troops who had stormed ashore on the beach code-named Utah, some fifteen miles to the west. The town designated for the merging of forces was Carentan. It was small but of vital strategic importance. Not only was it a rail centre, but Route National 13, the major highway between the port of Cherbourg and Paris, ran straight through it.

  He spooned coffee from his ration pack into an incongruously delicate coffee cup bearing the de Valmy coat of arms. It was now invasion day plus one and Carentan should have been taken. Without it the push to Cherbourg was impossible. He wiped a trickle of sweat and grime from his forehead. The Germans had flooded vast areas of marshland leading to the town and the only access was by a narrow causeway. Their casualties, when they renewed their attack, would be high.

  ‘Here, take this,’ he said, turning round to her, the cup of hot coffee in his hand.

  She was asleep, her legs curled childlike beneath her in the deep armchair. There were smudges of smoke on her cheeks and forehead, and her sweater and crumpled skirt were covered with dust and flecks of dried blood. She looked very young, and very defenceless and, even in sleep, exquisitely graceful. Quietly he picked up his army greatcoat and lowered it gently around her shoulders.

  There was something about her that was totally European. He loved the slight tilt of her head when she spoke, the husky quality of her voice, the long, shining fall of her hair. She was as different from the girls back home as chalk was from cheese. Luke Brandon had told him that she had saved his life, dragging him from the woods to the chateau under heavy fire from strafing planes. He couldn’t imagine how she had done it. She looked too delicate and slender to lift any weight heavier than herself. For a long moment he looked down at her and then tenderly tucked his coat in around her knees and left the room, his sun-bronzed face thoughtful.

  When she awoke, she stared in puzzlement at the army coat covering her and then remembered that the Lieutenant Colonel had brought her into the breakfast room to make her a cup of coffee. It stood, cold, by the primus stove. There was still gunfire but this time it was more subdued and not aimed directly at the chateau but reverberating over the fields and woods that separated Valmy from Sainte-Marie-des-Ponts. She threw the coat to one side, appalled at her weakness at falling asleep, running back to the makeshift operating theatre.

  ‘Is there fighting in the village?’ she asked as she helped strip off an infantryman’s blood-soaked battledress.

  The medic nodded grimly, his face gaunt, grey with fatigue. ‘There’s no more resistance on the beach, troops and equipment are coming ashore freely, but we’ve not pushed the Germans back far. It’s still touch and go.’

  As many of the wounded as possible were ferried out to the destroyers standing offshore, and winched aboard. Many more died before they could make such a journey. Thirty men died in her presence that morning. She was numbed by the horror. Dazed by it. Field hospitals had been set up behind the beaches. Medics tended the wounded wherever they fell. But there were not enough of them. Mines exploded underfoot. Sniper and machine-gun fire came from every hedge and ditch. For every yard they pressed inland, an American soldier died.

  She cleaned wounds, staunched blood, held the hands of the dying and sometimes, when she thought she could bear no more, she thought of the kindness of the toughly built American with the friendly eyes.

  Luke Brandon fumed impotently. He wanted to join up with the British forces in the east, but his smashed leg made the task a near impossibility. If only there was some transport. A truck, a car – anything. But all American transport was intent on forging a way through to the west and Cherbourg. He could only remain at the chateau and pray to God that they succeeded.

  Route National 13 ran arrow straight over the swamps and flooded fields, its crown some six feet above the murky, swirling water. Greg knew that he and his men were cruelly exposed but there was no alternative approach to Carentan. The causeway, as they called the narrow ribbon of asphalt, had to be crossed. It offered them nowhere to dig in. Nowhere for them to take cover or to pause to regroup. German paratroopers raked them with withering fire. A Luftwaffe dive-bomber zoomed down on them. Mortar shells decimated their long, strung-out column. Inch by bloody inch they crawled forward and as they did so, Greg Dering clung fast to the image of a slender figure curled up in a chair. A slender figure he was determined to know better before he shook the bloodied soil of Normandy from his heels.

  At Valmy day and night merged into one. When it was physically impossible to stand on her feet any longer, she snatched a few precious hours sleep curled up in the armchair in Greg Dering’s cubbyhole of a room, wondering where he was and if he was still alive.

  Water from Valmy’s well was brought up ceaselessly, but there was never enough. As soon as the nearest inland town was safely in Allied hands and the medics were told that there were water supplies there, equipment and wounded were transferred in a fleet of trucks.

  She watched them go with a mixture of elation and panic. Elation that the Germans were receding so rapidly from Normandy; and panic at the prospect of no longer being able to submerge her grief in back-breaking physical work.

  She hugged her arms round her as she stood in the damp chill of early morning and the last of the trucks rumbled away down the gravelled drive. Dieter was dead. She would never see him again. It was a reality that she had to face and to come to terms with. Behind her, Valmy waited, thick with m
emories. Memories of their confrontation in the grand dining-room; of their heady, magical lovemaking in the turret room. Of his body in her arms, his lifeblood staining the ancient stone flags a ghastly crimson. She could hot step back in there. Not yet. Luke Brandon had remained behind, still determined to join up with the British forces at the first opportunity, but his presence would not be enough to provide the solace she craved. The Red Cross truck disappeared at the end of Valmy’s drive in a cloud of dust and she turned decisively, taking the small path that led away from the chateau and out over the headland to the beach and to the sea.

  The giant rolls of barbed wire that had prohibited it for so long were ripped and flattened by the weight of Allied tanks. The dead had still not been buried. They lay, German and American, beside the charred and twisted remains of knocked out vehicles.

  She raised her face away from the carnage and towards the vast, clean sweep of the sky. It was going to be a hot day. Already the early morning chill was melting away and the sun, striking through the thin cotton of her blouse, was warm. The ships still darkened the sea, bringing more men ashore, taking aboard the injured, unloading more tanks and trucks, more equipment. It was seven days since they had come ashore. The British were in Bayeux and pushing on to Caen. The Americans held all the coastal towns from Colleville to Ste Mére-Eglise and, according to Luke, were now pushing on to the important port of Cherbourg. They had come ashore and they were staying ashore. She remembered Dieter saying that the only way they could be repulsed was if they were repulsed on the beaches. He had fumed at Hitler’s reluctance to allow Rommel control of more panzer divisions. If those divisions had been available she knew that the devastation around her would have been the devastation of an American defeat, not that left in the wake of their victory.

  If she closed her eyes she could almost hear his voice. His face burned in her memory, strong and abrasive, the black-lashed grey eyes ablaze with love for her. The sobs she had suppressed for so long rose in her throat and could be contained no longer. She threw herself down on the grass and sobbed and sobbed, her heart breaking, her clenched hands beating the earth in a paroxysm of grief.

  She knew now that there had never been a future for them. They had been living in a make-believe world that time and circumstance would have brought to an end, even if he had not died. Fate had not meant them to be together; to be happy. Her breath came in harsh, shuddering gasps. She raised her head from her arms, knuckling away her tears, staring sightlessly out over the grey heaving waves. For a little time at least they had cheated fate. They had loved each other fiercely and passionately, compressing a lifetime’s loving into a few, precious months. And now it was over.

  Wearily she rose to her feet. Above her, wisps of cirrus flecked the sky. From the direction of Vierville came the faint sound of a church bell ringing. Her hands closed across her stomach. There had been an end and now there was a beginning. She was luckier than most. She had her child to look forward to. Dieter’s child. A child with corn-gold hair and warm grey eyes. A child that he would have been proud of.

  When she returned to Valmy the lines of strain and grief that had etched her mouth and shadowed her eyes were smoothed away. Luke opened the door for her, leaning heavily on his crutches.

  ‘I was worried. I didn’t know where you were,’ he said, as she walked with swift and easy grace towards him.

  ‘I went for a walk. Not far. There are church bells ringing in Vierville.’

  ‘It isn’t safe,’ he said tersely. ‘When the Americans moved out they warned us to be careful. They think there are still pockets of Germans hiding in Sainte-Marie-des-Ponts.’

  ‘I didn’t go into the village. I walked up on to the headland,’ she said, a small, reassuring smile touching her mouth.

  He caught his breath. It was the first time he had seen her smile. The glow that it gave to her dark beauty devastated him. He had made his impulsive offer to marry her out of guilt and the desire to protect her, but he knew now that it was an offer he would have made, even if he hadn’t been responsible for the death of Dieter Meyer.

  ‘We need to talk, Lisette,’ he said, following her into the chateau’s large, stone-flagged kitchen, watching her as she began to make two cups of coffee from the rations the Americans had left behind.

  She nodded, thinking he wanted to talk to her about the progress of the invasion. ‘Have the British taken Caen?’ she asked curiously.

  He shook his head, his face grave. ‘There’s been no further news. It won’t be an easy city to take. The Germans will hang on to it to the last bullet. It isn’t Caen I want to talk about. ‘It’s us.’

  Her eyes clouded. ‘It’s no use, Luke,’ she said gently, knowing very well to what he was referring. ‘I’m grateful for your suggestion, but …’

  ‘Damn being grateful,’ he said, his straight, black brows flying together. ‘It isn’t gratitude that I’m after.’

  A tide of colour stung her cheeks and he leaned his weight on his crutches, running his fingers through his hair, saying apologetically, ‘And it isn’t just sex I’m after, either, Lisette. I can’t stay here much longer. I have to join up with my own forces, even if it means crawling to them on my hands and knees. Once I’m back with them, it could be months before I can come back to you. I want to know that you will be here, waiting for me, when I return.’

  ‘You know I will,’ she said, and he felt his throat tighten.

  ‘As my lover?’ he asked, his blue eyes hot, his voice tense.

  She shook her head and her hair shimmered like black silk. ‘No,’ she said, and his knuckles whitened on the struts of his crutches. ‘As your friend.’

  Frustration knifed through him. ‘That’s not what I want,’ he said fiercely. ‘I want the kind of love that you gave to Dieter Meyer!’

  Pain flared across her face and he cursed himself for a fool, knowing that he had put their fragile, burgeoning relationship into jeopardy.

  ‘I shall never give that kind of love again,’ she said, turning away from him, her eyes bright with anguish. ‘Not to you or anyone.’

  She picked up the pail used for carrying water from the courtyard and walked quickly towards the door, not wanting him to see her pain.

  He watched her go impotently, wishing to God that he could throw his crutches to one side and run after and seize hold of her. They had been together for seven days and seven nights. He had seen her under the most appalling stress. He had watched her as she returned from burying Dieter Meyer, her lover’s blood still darkening and staining her skirt. He had watched her as she had braved enemy fire, her courage never failing. And he had watched her as tirelessly and with exquisite tenderness she had nursed the wounded and comforted the dying.

  Her dark beauty had a fragility that rendered him breathless, but he knew now that she herself was not fragile. She was made of fire and steel and heart and guts and he wanted to marry her. His initial proposal had been prompted by guilt. He had shot and killed the father of her unborn child, only minutes after she had fearlessly saved his own life. The dying Meyer had asked him to take care of her. It had seemed the least he could do, and marriage had seemed the most obvious way of doing it.

  But now he wanted to marry her because he had fallen in love with her; because her grace and beauty and courage were almost more than he could bear. Once he joined up with the British forces to the east, there was no telling how long it would be before he could return to Valmy. He had to know that she would be here when he did so. That when retribution began against those who had consorted with the Germans, she wouldn’t leave Valmy and be swallowed up with the hundreds of thousands of homeless wandering a war-ravaged Europe.

  He had never thought of himself as a romantic, but the way they had met had surely been fate. He couldn’t lose her now. It would be beyond bearing.

  She walked quickly across the cobbles to the water pump and began pumping water fiercely. Luke’s words had shattered all her hard won composure and her grief was once agai
n raw and terrible.

  A truck began to rattle down Valmy’s long, tree-lined drive and she dropped the bucket, running apprehensively out of the courtyard and round to the front of the house. It was an American army truck, caked with grime, packed with remarkably jaunty-looking soldiers. She raised her hand to her eyes, squinting against the glare of the sun as it swerved to a halt only yards away from her.

  ‘The field hospital has been moved …’ she began, and then a husky figure jumped down from the tailboard and began to run towards her and her eyes lit up with recognition and welcome.

  It was Greg Dering, his olive drab battledress thick with dried mud and dirt, a helmet crammed on his head, a Colt .45 strapped to his hip.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said with a wide grin, his hands going around her waist, lifting her off her feet, and swinging her around. ‘We’re not in need of it!’

  She laughed, infected by his high spirits, so much at ease with him that his familiarity seemed only natural.

  ‘I’m glad,’ she said, as he set her down on her feet again. ‘Luke will be so pleased to see you again. Has Carentan been taken? We’ve heard no news. Nothing.’

  He grinned down at her. There had been times over the bullet-ridden journey from Carentan to Valmy when he had wondered if he were in his right mind. He could easily have seen to it that someone else was detailed to mop up the lingering panzers in Sainte-Marie and the neighbouring coastal villages. Instead, he was doing it himself because it would give him an excuse to see her again. And now that he was here, and she was smiling up at him, he was fervently glad that he had done so.

  ‘Is Brandon still here?’ he asked as he began to walk with her towards the chateau.

  ‘Yes. He’s determined not to be shipped home as medically unfit. As soon as his leg begins to heal, he’s going to join up with the British forces around Caen.’ She looked back over her shoulder to the men still in the rear of the truck. ‘Are they coming in? The medics left coffee behind …’