A Rose In Flanders Fields

by Terri Nixon

  Will leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and stared at the ground between his feet, as if it held the answer to what should have been the simplest question of all. Then he raised his head and studied me with unreadable eyes, before looking back at the rippling grey water.

  ‘I don’t think you should write to me any more.’

  I stared at him, too stunned to speak. He wouldn’t look at me again, but I saw his hands clenched where they hung between his knees, chapped, raw and bleeding where the skin had split. There was tension too, in his shoulders, in the rigidity of his jaw and in the flicker of a muscle in his cheek, but he didn’t say anything else. After a moment he stood up and began walking away, and it was only then that I was able to move. I ran after him and grabbed his arm. ‘Wait!’

  For a second I thought he was going to shake me off and keep walking, but instead he turned, seized my face in his hands and kissed me. Hard and desperately, and too quickly. He groaned as he pulled away. ‘Go back, Evie. Go and do what you were born to do, and try not to think of me any more.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Please…you don’t understand how I am now. You’ll hate me if you get to know me again. I couldn’t bear that.’

  ‘How could I ever hate you?’

  ‘I’m not the man you married,’ he said, as he had before. ‘You deserve someone better.’

  ‘Archie Buchanan.’ I’d tried to inject the name with denial, even disgust, but Will only smiled gently.

  ‘I’ve seen the way he looks at you,’ he said, ‘he’d be lucky, and proud, to have you at his side.’

  ‘But I want to be at yours!’ Why couldn’t he see that? If it hadn’t been for that kiss, and the urgency in it, I might have thought he was making an excuse, that he no longer loved me.

  He touched my face with heart-breaking gentleness, and began to walk backwards, away from me, his eyes locked onto mine. ‘I have to go. Take care of yourself, and give Lizzy my love when you see her. Try not to think too badly of me?’

  ‘I could never think badly of you.’ I realised it sounded as though I was giving in, but by the time I had found the words to deny it he had gone through the gate onto the platform. I couldn’t bear to watch him get on the train, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave yet, not while there was a chance he may turn and come back to me. So I stood by the gate, my fingers twisting together with growing anger and frustration; he thought he was being noble, did he, keeping me at arm’s length? This man who loved me, as he’d said, “beyond reason”? Well I wasn’t going to let him, and he would just have to –

  ‘Mrs Davies, isn’t it?’

  I turned to see a soldier, his arm around one of the local women. He looked familiar, and then I remembered him: the tall soldier who’d been taking requests at the hostel almost two years ago, although, for the life of me, I couldn’t remember his name. The one thing I’d noticed about him then, as now, was his height; he must have stood six feet seven in his socks.

  I forced a smile. ‘How nice to see you again.’ I nodded to the Frenchwoman, who looked a little irritated that her companion’s attention had been pulled away, but nodded back politely enough.

  The man looked past me, puzzled. ‘Where’s Will?’

  ‘He had to get this train back,’ I said, my voice surprisingly steady. Presumably this man should also be making his way back, but he didn’t appear to be in any hurry.

  ‘Don’t know why then,’ he said, and winked at the woman, ‘we’re granted overnight this time.’

  His words cut deep but I was determined not to show it. ‘Oh, he had something to attend to,’ I said. The soldier – Barry something, it came to me suddenly while my mind was occupied – let go of the woman and drew me to one side. He towered over me, but dipped his head to speak quietly into my ear.

  ‘Mrs Davies, I’m sorry to hear about everything.’

  ‘Sorry? Whatever for?’

  ‘Well, that you’re parting company,’ Barry said. ‘It’s a real shame.’

  ‘I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ I said. ‘We’re not parting. He’s gone through a lot, you know that, but I’m not giving up on him.’

  Barry straightened up and patted my arm. ‘I hope that’s true,’ he said, ‘but no one would blame you. It must be very hard for you, what with him being the way he is now.’

  ‘The way he is?’

  ‘Different. You know. Always angry.’

  That hurt too. ‘He’s not always angry. Sometimes he can be just like he was. Before.’ Again, that stupid little word that meant everything and nothing at once.

  Barry raised an eyebrow, and chose to ignore what he clearly didn’t believe. ‘He doesn’t make things any more, you know. When he joined up he was always makin’ things. Out of paper, or whatever he could find. Doesn’t do it any more, that’s all. Seems a shame.’

  ‘He’ll do it again,’ I said, thinking with a pang of my paper rose. ‘You just need to give him time. It’s…difficult.’

  ‘It’s difficult for us too, that anger thing.’ Barry said, ‘makes him hard to get on with. And when a man doesn’t get on with the others in his unit he needs a good friend at his side.’

  I swallowed hard, fear squirmed at the implication. ‘And are you still that good friend?’

  Barry nodded. ‘All of us are, that remember him like he was, Missus. Trouble is we lost a hell of a lot in July last year, so a lot of the others are new. They never knew him then. He’d have done anything for anyone. Still would in a way, I suppose; whenever the order comes through he’s up and over, before you can blink. Takes a terrible sort of courage, that.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  Barry sighed. ‘It’s like he has nothing to lose. And to be honest I think that’s exactly how he looks at it. Rightly or wrongly,’ he hurried on, seeing my face. ‘I heard they were looking for volunteer runners. Be just like your Will to step up, the way he is now.’

  ‘Regimental or trench?’ I knew the answer, but still I prayed he would say “regimental” –it would be easier to bear knowing Will was relatively safe and carrying messages between HQs. But a trench runner faced instant, invisible death every second he was exposed.

  Barry’s face gave me the answer I dreaded, and I gripped his arm. ‘You have to talk to him!’

  ‘I’ve tried,’ Barry said. His lady friend was tugging at his other arm now and I could see he was uncomfortable talking to me. ‘I’ll talk to him again, Mrs Davies, of course I will, but, well, he’s…’

  ‘Different now.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Barry said, and his expression turned sad. ‘Look after yourself, Mrs Davies. And keep up the sterling work eh? The lads need people like you.’

  I drove back to the cottage in the borrowed car, numbed and silent, not singing as I usually did, not even cursing as the night sky lit up with vivid flashes. In the yard, I dragged the handbrake on with unaccustomed savagery, climbed out and slammed the door. With one eye on the horizon, I hurried inside and made sure oxygen masks were ready, and likewise the few beds we had set up in the cellar. We might not be able to do much, but we could be prepared and help a few, at least, and checking it all gave me something to concentrate on, for which I was grateful; Barry’s words were echoing in my memory, and I tried not to think about Will’s cool determination to get himself blown up, or shot, in the belief I would be better off a widow than married to someone I could no longer love.

  Kitty was still out, no doubt doing a grand job, and once the cellar was made ready I was able to climb into bed, fully clothed against the cold, and try to put out of my mind what I could do nothing about; I would need to be alert for duty tomorrow, and could ill afford the luxury of lying awake feeling angry and sorry for myself.

  Sometime around three in the morning, after the big guns had fallen silent, I had drifted into a shallow, unsettled sleep when I heard Kitty come in. I kept very still, hoping she’d think she hadn’t woken me, but she tip-toed in, and I breathed softly in relief
. Then, as I began to float away again I realised I was hearing another sound: a soft hiccupping and the occasional sniff.

  I sat up. ‘Kitty, darling, whatever’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing. Go back to sleep.’

  ‘Are you hurt?’ I pushed off my bedclothes and hurried to sit beside her.

  ‘No, at least…no.’

  ‘What do you mean? Are you hurt?’

  ‘A little. It doesn’t matter. Go back to bed, we’ll talk tomorrow.’

  ‘We’ll talk now,’ I said firmly. I might have wished for peace instead of chatter, but this was hardly the same thing. ‘What happened? Was it a shell?’

  ‘No.’ She hitched another breath, and a moment later she had flung her arms about my neck and was sobbing against my shoulder.

  ‘Sweetheart!’ I had no idea what to do. Show me a man with his leg blown off, and instinct overtook thought, but this weeping child had me flummoxed. I settled for rubbing her back and letting her cry, while my mind raced with all that might have happened to set her off like this. I couldn’t feel any injuries on her, and her breathing sounded normal, apart from the tears.

  Her sobs began to taper off and I started to think more clearly about the questions I would ask, but she surprised me by pushing me away and standing up. She went across to the tiny sink in the corner, and I leaned over to light a candle. The distant, light cracking of rifles had temporarily eased off, and the room was eerily quiet as I watched her unbutton her coat and let it fall to the floor. I got up and picked it upto hang it on the back of the door, and when I turned to speak to her my breath stopped. Her face was a puffy mess from her left eye down to her chin, with blood crusted below her nose and on the side of her mouth, and her right cheek was grazed as well, and oozing blood slowly while she stood, no longer hiding, but silently letting my eyes take in the horror she had probably not even seen herself.

  ‘Who did this?’ My voice came out small and helpless as she reached for the cloth.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said, and she sounded dull now, and distant, so unlike her usual self it frightened me. I turned away, giving her a measure of privacy while she attended to herself and changed into her one clean set of clothing. I heard the small splashes as she dipped her cloth and wrung it, and then her tiny gasps as she dabbed at her bruised and bleeding face.

  ‘Please let me help,’ I begged, but she shook her head. ‘Then at least tell me who it was who attacked you.’

  She simply shrugged as she climbed into bed. ‘How would it help? I’m going to sleep now,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I want to talk about this after all, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘But you –’

  ‘No! Thank you, but no. I’ll see you for breakfast. Oh, and Gertie needs oil, I’ll see to it in the morning. Goodnight.’

  And with that Kitty turned away and pulled the eiderdown up to her ears, and didn’t speak again for the rest of the night. Anger boiled higher in my blood the more I thought about it. Who could have done this to the poor child? Someone must be quite sure of themselves, and of Kitty’s silence, and, to my frustration, it seemed as if their confidence was well-placed.

  The next morning I tried once again to draw out the story of what had happened, but all she would tell me was that a soldier had called the empty ambulance to a stop on its way to the dressing station.

  ‘He was walking down the middle of the road,’ she said. ‘Well, more stumbling, and so I thought he was hurt. He wasn’t though, and nor was he drunk, but he wasn’t…steady. His eyes were odd. He wanted …’ Her eyes cut away from mine and I went cold. She didn’t need to elaborate on what he’d wanted, and I had an awful, creeping suspicion I knew just who that soldier had been.

  ‘Did you recognise him? Has he been to the cottage?’

  ‘No.’

  But she said it too fast, and I saw the lie in the turn of her head as she took her coat down and went out to top Gertie up with oil. I remembered the general staff driver with a wave of revulsion, but the accusation had to come from her, I couldn’t put words in her mouth.

  I followed her, and found her rummaging in the shed. Another suspicion took hold. ‘Kitty, you didn’t carry on afterwards, did you? I mean, you came straight home I presume?’ I presumed nothing of the sort, and her shrug confirmed it. I looked at her with horror, and a surge of something very much like I imagined maternal love must feel. ‘You mean you worked on?’

  ‘The convoy is down four drivers since the attack on the clearing station. Why should the Tommies suffer?’

  I was floored by her courage. ‘You remind me of someone,’ I said, ‘someone I should very much like you to meet when we go to England.’

  ‘Your friend, the one who was your maid?’

  ‘Lizzy, yes. She’s equally reckless, and just as selfless,’ I said. I looked at Kitty, so young but with a new wariness in her eyes I would have given anything to take away. ‘Sweetheart, you have to let someone know. If not me, then ask one of the nurses to make sure you’re not badly hurt.’

  ‘I’m not,’ Kitty said. ‘Please, Evie, promise me you won’t tell anyone. If any word of this gets to Oliver he’ll panic and tell my parents. I’ll be sent home for good.’

  ‘Your parents didn’t want you here to begin with, did they?’

  ‘No, they didn’t. It took all my persuasion, and Oliver’s, to convince them he would be able to look after me.’

  ‘But he can’t!’ I said. ‘He’s a serving soldier, and besides he’s stationed miles away!’

  ‘They don’t know that,’ Kitty said. ‘They have a very strange idea of what life is like out here. It’s just a picture they’ve painted out of the few things I’ve told them, and they’ve added their own bits to make it easier on them when they think of Oliver and me. Of course, I let them think what they like, if only to stop them from coming here and dragging me back by my hair.’ She gave me a little smile and I was relieved to see it, but couldn’t help feeling she had not realised herself how difficult it would be for her brother to keep her safe. That was down to me, and I had failed her.

  That little glimpse of the old Kitty lasted no longer than the time it took for me to agree not to tell Oliver, and as the day went on I saw her retreat deeper and deeper into herself. Every attempt to draw her out was met with a shake of her head and the view of her hunched back as she turned away to some task, either imagined or real. She refused to go outside until darkness had fallen completely, and was clearly more grateful for the cold weather than any of us; it meant she could wrap her scarf around much of her face when she went anywhere she might be seen and noticed by others. Every time I thought of that horrible driver my suspicions grew, and I had to fight not to try and shake the truth out of her.

  Gradually the puffiness subsided and the bruises faded, but when she thought I was asleep I could hear her weeping. We lay without speaking in the freezing darkness, and I wished she would talk to me properly about what had happened. She was frightened to go anywhere alone now, which meant her newly discovered enjoyment of night-driving was dashed, and, I was ashamed to selfishly note, any hope I had of working alternate shifts was thrust aside for the time being.

  Two weeks later we were told a driver was available at short notice, and readied ourselves for our trip back to England.

  ‘I’ve changed my mind,’ Kitty said as she hurriedly threw a few things into her kit-bag. ‘I don’t want to go home. Can I come to the farm with you?’

  ‘Is this because of…what happened?’

  She shrugged. ‘My face is almost better, but Mother’s bound to notice something. So, can I?’

  ‘I can’t answer for the farmer’s hospitality, but if she can’t put the two of us up, I’ll find somewhere else and you can have my bed.’

  She looked at me, a little coolly. ‘Why would you do that?’

  ‘I’d like you to meet Lizzy,’ I said, but we both heard the unspoken words: because I want to make up for what happened to you. ‘And I know she’d like to mee
t you.’

  Kitty observed me for a moment, then nodded and tightened the strings on her bag. ‘Thank you.’ I hoped her thanks were for the silent part of that conversation, but something told me Kitty’s heart was closed off to me now.

  The diversion of this particular trip was a welcome one, despite the feeling that I had spent altogether too much time to-ing and fro-ing across the channel since November; my mind otherwise dwelt too long on the fact that I had written to Will every day since our meeting, but that he had not replied to a single letter. I even wrote to Barry Glenn, once I’d remembered his surname, in the cold, panicked certainty that something had happened. He wrote back that Will was in good health, just locked away in his own head and uncommunicative, even with his fellow soldiers. Of course I was passionately relieved to hear he was alive and well, and I knew I must give him time, but it hurt deeply that he couldn’t even bring himself to put pen to paper to reassure me. Worry was starting to give way to the beginnings of frustration, and of real anger now.

  It was with deep relief, therefore, that I looked forward to getting away from this place, to try and forget everything, just for a few days. It would also be a good thing to be away from Archie Buchanan who was, simply by being his usual gentle, amusing self, starting to seem more and more appealing by the day. In the face of Will’s rejection and the pain it caused me, to have an attractive man make no secret of his pleasure in my company felt disturbingly gratifying, and I hated myself for being weak enough to notice it. Better to be away from both of them, and take the time to brace myself for the fight I knew was coming.

  Kitty went out to check the shutters one last time, and I finished my packing while we waited for the driver who’d been detailed to take us to the ferry. Tension kept me nervously busy as I considered the possibility it might be the same driver as before, but if it was, Kitty’s reaction to him would confirm my as-yet unvoiced suspicions, and I could make a decision as to whether or not to report him.