A Christmas Gift

by Ruby Jackson

  To make it as much as possible like a theatre performance at home, programmes were prepared and tickets were issued. The programmes were illustrated with small pencil drawings of dancers, of rather splendid imaginary curtains, much more like the ones that fronted the stage at any London theatre, and of uniformed soldiers.

  Sebastian had had an idea. ‘Who did these?’

  No one he asked had any idea and he shrugged; he would think of something else.

  Two days later he saw their usual driver working on the engine of a field ambulance and stopped to watch. The young man’s intensity as he gazed into the workings of the great machine reminded him of Dmitri. ‘You a mechanic as well as a driver?’ he asked.

  The soldier laughed. ‘Not in a hundred years,’ he said. ‘This is what’s called learning from experience. Name’s Rowan, by the way, my mum’s favourite tree.’ He pointed to the open bonnet. ‘You any good?’

  ‘Afraid not. There might be someone in the company, though. People are always surprising me with their tal-ents.’

  They chatted together for some time as pieces of engine were removed, cleaned and returned, and Sebastian felt pleased that he could at least clean. ‘How long have you been in the army?’ he asked at last. ‘Was it something you always wanted to do?’

  ‘No, waited until my age group was called up and so I’ve been in seventeen months, one week, and, if I knew what the time was back home, I could give you hours and minutes.’

  They both laughed and then Sebastian had to tell why he had become an actor and why he had joined ENSA instead of one of the services. He looked again at the young soldier and decided that he had probably been at university before his conscription.

  ‘So you weren’t studying engineering?’

  ‘God no, I was at art school in Glasgow.’

  ‘I thought I recognised a Scottish accent when you talked to Millie.’ He looked at the young man with the oil-marked face and hands. ‘You illustrated the pro-grammes?’

  ‘Light relief.’

  ‘They’re terrific, Rowan. I have a proposal for you …’

  TWENTY

  A few days later, when Sally returned from a visit to the village where they had first performed, she found a small parcel on her bed. It was addressed to her and had been posted in Britain, but there was no return address and no note inside, only two very dirty and water-stained envelopes. Jon’s writing was on the envelopes and, startled, she sat down on the bed and opened one. There was no address, no greeting, but the writing, most definitely, was Jon’s.

  The island is so beautiful; it’s mountainous and so the roads – such as exist – are very steep. We were being driven down to the sea a day or two ago and suddenly a great line of goats jumped down in front of us. The Corsicans didn’t even turn a hair while the herd trotted across the road, no more than two inches from the front of the truck. I don’t think I have ever felt my heart beat so quickly, and Ben, the other chap rescued with me, was sick, poor lad. I was sure we were destined to reach the sea the hard way, falling right over the cliff edge but Emmanuel, the driver, laughed at us.

  But apart from the roads, I think I could easily grow to love this island. You cannot believe how highly the air is scented. The scrubland that covers every inch that has not been cultivated is called maquis and is full of the most beautiful wild flowers, trees and herbs. There’s heather, lavender, thyme, mint – oh I don’t have enough paper to list them. The people use them in their cooking and we have tasted the most beautiful honey. Our rescuer was a fisherman before the war and he still goes out for fish when he can, and his wife pulls pieces from several plants to add to her pots and such food as we are given – and they share generously – is delicious. You have probably heard or read the word maquis. The Resistance movement in the south of France have taken their name from the maquis. They are le Maquis, because that’s where they hide out. I tell you it’s all but impenetrable. The Corsican resistance fighters call themselves les Maquisards.

  It’s going to be a long time before there is any opportunity to return home. Emmanuel and Jean-Jacques, both Maquisards, will try to get us to France; they feel that there may be more opportunity to be picked up there. I don’t know why I’m writing this letter. How can it possibly reach you?

  The letter ended abruptly. She looked again at the envelope. Where had it been to get into such a state and who had sent it? It could not have been Jon – unless he had completely forgotten. He had, after all, been quite ill.

  Sally tried to remember every word he had spoken, all he had told her of his time in Corsica. Of course. Emmanuel was the fisherman and he had been killed, poor man, by a German patrol. Jean-Jacques was his cousin and he had rowed the two men they had rescued from Corsica to France. What a voyage that must have been.

  She decided to read the other letter before going over all her memories.

  Dear Sally,

  As soon as I had given the messenger my letter I regretted having written it. I used names. How stupid. I am an officer in the Royal Navy and should be more alert. These fishermen and farmers have risked everything for us. That I could have been thoughtless made me squirm. I decided to be much more circumspect, to continue to write to you because the simple act of communicating with someone I care about is, in some way, a lifeline, even though I fear that you will not receive them. That worried me because, should my careless letters reach the wrong hands, it could bring even more death and destruction to these good people and this lovely island. But I need not have worried for Emmanuel is a wise man and he has the priest read my letters. The good Father keeps those in which I name names or locations. He tells me that they are beautiful letters and that one day they must be read by you but, for the moment, he will wrap them in paper and put them inside the chimney in his house.

  Letters in the chimney; that accounted for the dirt.

  ‘He was a Maquisard.’ Is that not what Jon had said? The priest had also been with the Resistance. But these were two of the letters Jon had told her he had written and so who had sent them now and how had that person found out where she was? Her first thought was that it must have been Jon but Jon was on a battleship somewhere. Emmanuel was dead, murdered, but where was Jean-Jacques, his cousin, and where was the priest? Surely the priest was the only person who knew where the letters were, or had someone else taken them from their hiding place and … it was obvious that they had been sent to her from England, not Corsica or France. Somehow the stained packet of letters had travelled from the priest’s sooty chimney to England, but how?

  Sally was sensible enough to realise that she would never find out the truth about the letters while she was in France – unless, of course, she received another letter, perhaps from Jon, or from whoever it was who had gone to the trouble of finding out where she was.

  She wrote to Jon telling him that two letters, written while he was in Corsica, had turned up.

  You painted such a beautiful picture of the island and of the lovely people who took such wonderful care of you and your colleague. I could see the maquis, Jon, and even smell it and I would love to see the island when this war is over – and it must be over soon, please God. I want to thank Emmanuel’s wife too, for taking care of you because although you say little about her, in my head I see a very busy, caring woman.

  ‘Jump, Sally, there’s a line already for the shower thing the engineers rigged up. If you want to wash your hair, come now.’ Millie, who had peered into the tent from outside, abruptly closed the canvas again and disappeared.

  Could the letter wait? Yes, and the hot water could not, would not. Sally put her pen down, pushed the papers into her bag and ran.

  Sybil saw her later with her freshly washed hair hanging down her back dripping onto a towel. ‘Not the best time to wash your hair, Sally; it will never dry for tonight.’ She looked up at the sky, heavy with threatening clouds.

  ‘There’s a boiler in the laundry hut. I’ll sit beside it and do my first read of What Every Woman Knows. Max
thought a J. M. Barrie piece would go down well with the Scottish soldiers.’ She looked at Sybil’s face. ‘Peter Pan, Sybil.’

  ‘I thought I knew the name, but I’m more familiar with choreographers. Well, better get over there and get that hair dry.’

  Sally picked up her script and followed Sybil out. The rain had started and, as it had been doing for the past three days, it streamed down relentlessly, almost as if wherever Sally trod, someone with a huge bucket was standing above her, maliciously pouring. She pushed the script up inside her shirt and head down, ran.

  Millie and several others were in the laundry hut where a huge boiler was sending out overwhelming amounts of heat. Millie was huddled in a corner and when Sally reached her, she saw that her friend had been weeping.

  ‘Don’t touch me, Sally; I don’t want the others to know.’

  Sally sat down, making a great show of pulling the script out from its hiding place. ‘What happened?’

  ‘It’s a laundry. They don’t just wash shirts.’

  Sally looked at the piles of washing still to be done and the sheets and cloths hanging on wooden pulleys that, once again, the engineers had managed to construct. She avoided thinking of the stains that were on some of the sheets. ‘They’re incredible, the army engineers, I mean, don’t you agree, Millie? One day they’re putting up bridges across swollen rivers, the next, they’re fixing a place for us to hang our stockings.’ She kept her eyes on Millie and decided to keep talking, anything to prevent Millie from jumping up and running out into the downpour. ‘My mum had a local joiner put up a three-bar pulley in our kitchen; dried all our clothes a treat. Will you listen to me read this play, please? Sebastian says it’s really enjoyable, has “sympathy, tenderness, and flashes of humour”.’

  Millie nodded and Sally read until the rain stopped. By then their hair had been dry for some time and, like so many of the others, they trudged back through churned-up mud, grateful to be wearing Wellington boots.

  Millie seemed to have recovered from her sadness and talked easily about the Barrie play. ‘It’s a bit old-fashioned, don’t you think, Sal?’

  ‘They love Shakespeare and he’s a few hundred years older.’

  ‘Good point. I heard about a British marker today, Sal. The Scottish driver told me there’s a British helmet among some markers he saw near Douai – only the French and the Lord know how to pronounce that, but it’s not too far away; if I could just borrow a bicycle …’

  ‘Max will never allow it.’

  ‘If I’m careful he won’t know a thing about it.’

  Sally had no idea what to say or do. It was much too dangerous for Millie to go cycling; not only were there mines in some of the fields but there were occasional enemy patrols, hidden Resistance fighters and Allied and enemy planes flying over.

  ‘I’m not stupid, Sally and I haven’t arranged to borrow a bike, but I will not leave this area until I have seen this British marker.’

  ‘But, Millie, it may not be Patrick.’

  ‘And it could be. He was buried where he fell. No one knows where that is, just that it’s near here somewhere.’ She stood up and her face was fierce. ‘Damn it, Sally, I mean to find it and I will.’

  Wisely Sally said nothing. It would be extremely difficult for Millie to leave the base on her own. There were soldiers on guard at all exits, and surely she would not be foolhardy enough to try to squeeze under a barbed-wire fence. Sally would loathe herself for breaking Millie’s confidence but if necessary she would have to tell someone what Millie intended.

  She began with Sebastian.

  ‘I haven’t seen her as wound up as this for months, Sebastian, and I’m really, really worried.’

  ‘One or other of us will be near her at all times, Sal, and I think we should rope in Sybil and Lal. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, mainly because I haven’t seen you since, but I’ve been talking to our young driver, the Scots one, and he’s got permission from the CO, if everything’s quiet on the day, to drive that way when we’re on our way to our next posting. There’s an enormous Great War memorial and hundreds of graves at Arras and it might be better if Millie doesn’t go near the place, but she’s an adult.’

  ‘She handled being in the laundry room today, drying bandages, et cetera, hanging about. She needs to say “Goodbye” to Patrick.’

  ‘She’ll never say goodbye to him.’ Sebastian’s voice was so low that Sally almost didn’t hear him.

  She smiled. ‘She’ll never forget him – we wouldn’t want her to – but she will say “Goodbye, and sleep well”.’

  ‘I hope you’re right, Sally. I think someone is more than interested in our little ballerina.’

  Sally smiled. So he was more than friendly with Millie. ‘I’m so pleased, Sebastian. I want everyone to be as happy as I am, and now I must finish the letter I started to write to Jon.’

  When she sat down at the table to write she remembered that she hadn’t told Sebastian about the two letters from Jon in Corsica but, vowing to discuss them with him later, she took out the unfinished letter and wrote what she had wanted to write for some time.

  I treasure your letters, dearest Jon, and read them over although I don’t need to as I’m quite sure I know every word by heart.

  You talk about after the war. Yes, Jon, when this beastly inhuman war is over I would love to go to Dartford with you and to help you with your plans. To be a part of your life would make me the happiest woman in the world. Growing up I dreamed of stardom and perhaps some will come my way. My parents deserve to see that their sacrifices for me were worthwhile, but knowing them and loving them as I do I feel sure that what they want for me more than anything is personal happiness, and darling Jon, my own Just Jon, happiness for me is being where you are.

  All my love, always,

  Sally

  She took the letter to the camp post bag and returned to her quarters to prepare for their next performance.

  There was an almighty bang. A bomb? A mine? Dear God, where was Millie? Sally clambered out of the truck where she had been changing out of her uniform and into an evening dress.

  Could anything be more incongruous than a lilac silk evening dress on a military base on the edge of a war zone? Those had been her thoughts as she had changed, but now she had no time to regret the sound of the delicate fabric tearing as it caught on a piece of metal on the side of the lorry. She picked up what was left of the skirt and began to run towards the plume of dust and smoke that still hung in the air. She could hear voices but there was no hysteria.

  ‘Millie!’ She screamed the name as loudly as she could and suddenly there beside her was Sebastian, in his white tie and tails.

  ‘Sorry, darling, the bloody thing was tripped a little before it was meant to.’

  ‘What bloody thing?’ Sally who never swore repeated his words. ‘Where’s Millie?’

  ‘Over there, at the marker. I told you Rowan, our Scottish driver, found a British helmet. It was arranged for Millie to see it but first the bomb disposal lads went over the ground and they found a mine. There are several of the blasted things there and the experts are blowing them up before they let Millie near.’

  ‘She’s not hurt?’ Sally was almost sobbing.

  ‘No. We made sure she was in no danger but you see how sensitive the blasted things are.’

  Sebastian had put his arm around her and pushed her forward. ‘It was all supposed to be a lovely surprise. Just wait till you see what young Rowan has done. We’ll be hearing from that young man after the war, believe me.’

  ‘Sally, oh, your poor frock, what happened to it?’ Millie had carefully walked back to them along the pathway the disposal experts had laid. ‘There’s a marker, Sally; it might be my Patrick, it might not, but he’s British and so we’ll say goodbye and honour him as we should. Follow me and please stay on the path.’

  Sebastian led the way, followed by Millie and then Sally, trailing her ruined evening dress. Several of the company were there and some
soldiers, including a padre and a Scottish bagpiper.

  ‘Patrick believed in God, but not in religion,’ Millie whispered, ‘and he hated the bagpipes, especially close up but … he won’t mind, will he?’

  ‘No, Millie, he won’t.’

  The padre said a prayer, the piper played and Millie, holding a small bunch of flowers a soldier had foraged for her, stood before the marker. ‘Goodbye, my dearest love,’ she said, so quietly that only those beside her heard. ‘Sleep well.’ She kissed the small bouquet and, bending down, put it on the ground before the pole.

  She turned and walked back to the others. ‘Thank you all so much, Max, I’ll just thank the colonel and then I’ll get dressed for the show.’

  Sally had been remembering two of her dear friends as she watched Millie. The first was Daisy, who had lost the pilot she loved, Adair. How poignant Daisy’s story of visiting his resting place had been. Then there was her twin sister, Rose, whose childhood friend, Stan, had been killed about a year after Adair’s spitfire had plunged into the Channel. Occasional letters hinted at new loves for each of them. She watched Sebastian as he watched Millie and wondered if he cared for the young widow enough to wait for her until she was ready to begin a new life after Patrick.

  There seemed to be a strange atmosphere in the canteen, which had been quickly rearranged so as to become, for the evening, a theatre. Usually there was an air of excitement and expectation; there was always noise, hearty laughter, the sound of relief exploding from often very tense men. But tonight it felt different somehow, and Sally could not put a finger on it.

  ‘I suppose we’ll have to wait and see,’ said Sebastian, who denied emphatically that he knew something that he was hiding from his friends.

  Neither believed him.

  The small band of musicians started the programme and act followed act, a comedian after a scene – heavily edited – from a play, high kicks and somersaults from the girls, elegance and soft love songs from Sally, a Shakespearean soliloquy from Sebastian, a solo from the ballet Giselle by the exquisite Millie, accompanied on the piano by Sam Castleton. Every act was applauded rapturously, Millie more than any other, and then the makeshift curtain came down.