by Terri Nixon
I stood in the village hall doorway, looking out at the bright, full, harvest moon. It hung in the sky, looking almost close enough to touch, and I tried to remember if it had ever looked like that out there. Flanders. Then I pushed the thought aside; tonight was precious, and in Lawrence’s words I wanted to wring every bit of joy out of it I could, for tomorrow I would be leaving it all behind. Archie would travel with me as far as Number Twenty-Two, where Elise would be waiting for me, before continuing to rejoin his unit who were currently still at Dixmude but likely to move soon.
‘Penny for them?’ Evie joined me at the doorway, but I didn’t want to tell her which way my thoughts had taken me.
‘I was just wondering if they’ve raised much money tonight.’ I gestured at the tins placed in various spaces among the harvest. A week ago there had been a terrible accident at Bere Ferrers railway station, just across the River Tavy, and the village was collecting with the vague notion of erecting some kind of memorial. Mostly it was just felt it was the ‘thing to do’, and perhaps the money would be sent to the families of the dead instead, or used to pay for their burial.
‘People haven’t got an awful lot to give,’ Evie said. ‘But it was such a horrific thing, I think everyone’s just doing what they can.’ She shivered. ‘Nine dead, wasn’t it?’
‘And three who went to hospital. I don’t know if they’re still alive.’
‘Did Seth say how it happened? I haven’t heard any details other than that it was the New Zealand lads, and a train coming down from Waterloo.’
‘All I know is that the men had got out on the wrong side of the carriage to collect rations, and were on the track when the London train came through.’
We were silent for a moment while we both struggled with the image of how it must have been—still light too, at only ten to four in the afternoon. Suddenly the room felt close and far too warm.
‘Let’s go outside for a minute,’ I suggested, and Evie agreed, but we were stopped by a breathless Belinda, who bounded up and seized our arms.
‘Wait! You can’t run off; you have to dance with Brian and his friend!’
I looked beyond her, where two flushed and exhausted young men were having a well-earned break and watching the dancers. I recognised them from the sawmill. ‘They can choose any one of fifty partners,’ I protested. ‘Men are in rather short supply.’
‘But I’m sure they’d want to dance with you two. They’d ask you themselves, but said they “don’t want to tread on no soldiers’ toes”.’
‘It won’t be the soldiers’ toes they’ll be treading on,’ I pointed out, and Evie laughed. It was a wonderful sound, and it made me smile too—and the wraiths of the nine dead soldiers faded slightly.
Belinda shook our arms urgently. ‘Please! Then, if you’re dancing with them, I’ll be able to dance with…with Seth.’
We stared at her in amazement, and turned to look at the men again. Seth Pearce had just come off the dance floor, where he was in even greater demand than most of the others. The girl whose hand he was holding was looking hot and excited, and laughing at something he was saying. He gently released her, and went to stand with his workers and friends. Belinda’s eyes followed every movement, and I saw him through her eyes at that moment—not handsome, but strong and pleasant-looking, friendly and dependable. And he was still as smitten with her as ever; his gaze accidentally found hers, and he rubbed a hand over his hair and turned away, no doubt remembering my assertion that her heart lay elsewhere.
‘Bel,’ I said gently, ‘you don’t need us to give you an excuse. Go and ask him.’
‘But Archie and Will won’t mind if you…’ Then she sighed and admitted, ‘He’ll think I’m fickle and a dreadful tease.’
‘I’m sure he’ll put up with it,’ Evie said, and removed Belinda’s hand from her arm. ‘Go on, love. He’s never going to put his heart out where you can kick it again. You’ll have to be the brave one this time.’
‘Brave. Yes,’ Belinda said, nodding. ‘You two have been unbelievably brave. I’m sure I can do this.’
She turned back into the room, and Evie and I went out into the cool night. A gentle rain had started falling. It felt cool and refreshing after the heat of the village hall and I turned my face up to it gratefully.
‘Are you all right?’ Evie said, with quiet concern, and I nodded.
‘I think so. I didn’t know if I would be, but…yes, I really think I am.’
‘At least you’ll have Archie nearby. For a while, at least.’
I turned to look at her, to watch her reaction carefully; I had to know. ‘Was it terribly difficult, day-to-day, you know, when you knew Will was out there?’
She considered a moment, her blue eyes catching the light of the moon and looking, for a second, a lot like the Kalteng Star. ‘Yes, sometimes. But by no means all the time. You know what it was like—so much to think about, your work carries you. Being home was harder. Having time to think.’
‘Like Lizzy and Jack,’ I said. ‘It must be heartbreaking for her, and for you too, when he goes away, right into…’ I glanced around and dropped my voice, although I couldn’t see anyone nearby ‘…you know, into the thick of things.’
‘I don’t know how she copes,’ Evie admitted. ‘I rather thought she might be here by now, but perhaps her brothers are making life difficult tonight.’
‘I hope she manages to get here,’ I said. ‘I don’t think I’ll have time to see her before we leave tomorrow.’
Evie nodded. ‘I’m sure she will. She said she would use this as her own personal birthday celebration since it’s only two days late. I’m glad Archie was able to stay, too.’ She paused, then added casually, ‘I suppose we ought to thank Nathan for that, really.’ She laughed at the horrified look I threw her, and put her arm around my shoulder. ‘Skittles, you are so easy to tease!’
‘And you’re far too good at teasing!’ I said, with a light punch on her arm.
‘Lawrence certainly thought so.’
We were quiet for a moment, and I felt an oddly strong need to see and talk to my own brother, to remind myself he was alive, if not free; Evie’s grief was well hidden for our sakes, but it was there and at least I had been spared that with Oliver.
‘Speaking of Lawrence,’ Evie said, ‘I had a letter from Mother. She’s honouring his wish to turn Oaklands into a convalescent home.’
‘I’m so glad.’
She gave me a shrewd look. ‘I don’t really see Lawrence coming up with that idea on his own, do you? I mean, he was the sweetest boy. We knew that…’ She broke off and cleared her throat, then went on, her voice growing steadier again. ‘But he really never thought about the house at all, never considered it as his own, certainly not to do something like that with.’
‘Well, I might have mentioned it,’ I confessed. ‘But he really took to the idea. He didn’t need any persuading.’ I realised now that Lawrence’s eager acceptance of the idea had been more to do with Will’s close call, than the fact that I had suggested it. ‘I suppose Lady Creswell would think twice, if she thought the idea was mine?’
‘She might,’ Evie admitted. ‘For a while, anyway. Common sense would win through in the end, I’m sure, but her first reaction would be disappointment that it hadn’t been Lawrence’s notion at all, and her second would be irritation that it had been yours. But she’d still do it.’
‘Well I shan’t be in a position to let anything slip,’ I pointed out. ‘She won’t let me near the house again.’
‘I wouldn’t be too sure,’ she said. ‘Mother was in a…very fragile state when you left. She’s not the type to let what happened to you form a lasting opinion. I promise.’ She turned to look towards the hall. ‘Besides, she has a fondness for any relation of Uncle Jack’s, and for your Scottish captain in particular.’
I followed her gaze; Archie and Will had noted our absence and guessed we’d come outside to enjoy the cool of the evening. They emerged now, Amy nestled securely aga
inst Archie’s shoulder, and Evie’s face lit up as I’m sure mine had. Archie put Amy down on the step, and she promptly scooted away until she sat on the damp ground, and began her favourite game of digging.
‘Are the doctors sure Will won’t ever go back?’ I asked in a low voice.
Evie shrugged. ‘Maybe if the war goes on another five years, which, please God, it won’t. But for now, no.’
I was glad to hear it. He tired quickly and was prone to infection, and it was easy to tell when he’d overdone things; his usually brisk walk would slow, and his hand would stray briefly to his waist. But his smile still had the power to melt hearts, and his good humour rarely wavered; he was an adoptive big brother to be proud of, and I gave thanks that he would be so much safer now.
Archie’s own wound had healed well. The torn pectoral muscle had taken the longest, but he had been pronounced fit for active service again. I felt cold whenever I thought about it, but I remembered that first day I’d seen him in his uniform, and my childlike conviction that he would emerge unscathed. He made it easy to convince myself I’d been right. His confidence and quiet competence shone through every movement; his men would walk through fire for him. His reaction to my own decision to return had been less sure, but it had been confined to a darkening of his eyes, and a tremble in his hand as he’d touched my face—not a word of it had fallen from his lips.
He raised his hand now and I went to meet him—Evie and Will nothing more than shadows behind me as my world shrunk once more. He still had a way of doing that; I could be the busiest I’d ever been, could be tired, or laughing at something, or furious, or weeping, have a hundred things on my mind, but as soon as Archie’s grey eyes caught and held mine there was only him. Everywhere. He drew me against him, and I rested my head on his chest, feeling the warmth of him through his shirt, and the slow, steady beat of his heart against my cheek. My arms went around him and held him tight, and I felt his lips against my hair.
‘Young Kittlington, you are the most desirable thing I have ever seen,’ he whispered. ‘I’m so proud to call you my wife. Have I told you that lately?’
‘Every day since August,’ I said, and looked up at him with a smile, ‘but please don’t let that stop you.’
He smiled back, then sobered, pushing a lock of my hair away from my eyes. ‘Are you ready for it all?’
My chest tightened for a moment, and I didn’t know how I’d feel when we had to part tomorrow evening, but for now I was as ready as I could ever hope to be, as ready as Evie had been when she’d travelled with Will to their separate trains, as ready as anyone was in these cold, uncertain days.
‘Yes,’ I said, and reached up to kiss him. My hands slipped around the back of his neck and into his thick dark hair, and as our lips touched I felt his calm strength flow into me, and it told me that this, at least, was no lie.
The sound of an approaching car, still rare enough here in the village, caught our attention and Archie and I drew apart and turned to look. Jack Carlisle’s Model T Ford clunked to a halt in the road next to the hall, and Lizzy, never the lady, leapt out and ran around to the driver’s door. She pulled it open, and grabbed Jack’s hand, and he emerged, chuckling at her eagerness.
‘Look who arrived just as I was about to leave!’ she cried. As they came over to us the moonlight shone on her dark hair, where a carefully applied clip had come loose and let her thick curls escape, and I tried not to notice how her dress had been buttoned up wrong. I exchanged an amused glance with Evie; now we knew why she had been late, at least.
Jack, looking so much younger than when I had seen him last, and more like Archie than ever, embraced Evie, shook hands with Will, and then turned to his nephew. ‘How are you?’ he said quietly, and touched Archie’s arm with the tenderness of a father.
‘Fighting fit,’ Archie said, and Jack pulled him into his arms. The hug was brief, but when they parted their two dark heads remained close, their foreheads touching, and Jack took a ragged breath and clasped Archie’s shoulders.
‘Be bloody careful, lad,’ he said roughly, and I felt a wholly unexpected sting of tears. I looked at Evie and Lizzy, and saw they’d been struck by the same sharp emotion, and even Will had turned away. Through the open doorway of the village hall I could see Belinda and Seth—I was too far away to see their faces, but their hands were linked and her attention was firmly on him. My smile returned. And there, making it even broader, was Frances Adams being pulled away from her conversation with Jessie, and towards the dancers, by an insistent Colin Trebilcock. She was not protesting at all.
I looked back at the people who had come into my life so recently, and then at Archie. It didn’t matter whether I’d known them for a few months, or most of my life; the fierce joy I felt in that moment, at simply being with them, would be what kept me going through whatever was to come. I would leave Dark River Farm and return to the war, and if and when I came back I might not be the same person I was now, but these people—these complicated, generous, courageous and deeply loved people—would be with me for ever.
Loved Daughter of Dark River Farm? Keep reading for an extract from A Rose in Flanders Fields, book two in Terri Nixon’s ‘Oaklands Manor’ trilogy.
Chapter One
Flanders, Belgium, February 1917.
The explosion was more than a noise, it was a pressure, and a fist, and a scream that started in the pit of my stomach and flashed outward through every nerve. Pulsing light from relentless shelling afforded glimpses through the dark of the uneven road ahead, and I had long ago learned to use this sinister glow as I guided the ambulance between dressing station and clearing station, but tonight it seemed Fritz was sending over all he had. Our chaps would give it back twice as hard though – at least that’s what I told myself, what we always told ourselves, and what we always made sure to tell the boys who looked to us for reassurance that their suffering was not in vain.
The wheels slid on half-frozen mud, and all my driving experience melted into mere hope; on a night like this it would come down to luck as to whether we stayed on the road or pitched off into the even rougher ground beyond, and luck has a famously capricious heart.
It occurred, not for the first time, that less than three years before, my prayers would have been no more intense than the wish that my mother would stop trying to marry me off to one of her friends’ “perfectly charming” sons. Even then I’d had no interest in, or need of, a husband, but it was a sobering thought that most of those adventurous and brightly confident young men would now be entrenched in mud, and finding their own prayers much altered.
Those who still lived.
I blinked hard to relieve my eyes from the strain of staring at the road, and a second later my heart faltered as I identified the cause of this latest, and loudest, of explosions. A moment later Kitty, the new girl, cried out in dismay as she saw it too: the large house ahead, and the sprawling collection of tents and outbuildings in its grounds that served as the casualty clearing station, was ablaze. Part of the roof was gone, a gaping mouth from which flames belched and licked ravenously at the overhanging trees, setting even the wettest canvas of the nearby tents alight. The painted red cross had collapsed inward, and while many of the staff retained their sense of duty, many more did not – chaos had the night in its grip now, and it was each man for himself. The two sister-stations, one empty and waiting and one already taking the overspill from the house, were in danger of catching too, and panic was evident in every silhouette that stumbled in search of safety, and in every cry that transcended the roar of flame and the crack of wood and glass.
Time was short, and I turned the wheel before we reached the road junction, sending silent but heartfelt apologies to my wounded, and then we were bumping over the roughly pitted grass towards the burning buildings. The moment I pulled to a stop, Kitty was in the back urging those more able to bunch up to make room, and explaining we must go another ten miles to the base hospital in the town. Exclamations of dismay followe
d me as I jumped down, and I understood every one of them; the men would have been blessing every turn of the wheels that brought us closer to help, and now they must hold on a little longer. There was little doubt that, for some, it would prove too long.
The intense heat stung every exposed inch of skin as I ran towards a group of evacuees, huddling as far away from the billowing smoke as they could get, and I drew a deep breath in readiness for shouting, feeling the moisture stripped from my throat the moment my mouth opened.
‘Two! We can take two –’ I broke off, coughing, bent double with it and unable to shout again, but one of the orderlies had seen me and when I rose, gasping and teary-eyed, he gestured me over.
In the end we took three; two more in the back, and one sitter up front with us, a boy no older than Kitty herself by his looks. He had just begun treatment for shrapnel wounds to the arm and shoulder, and moving at all must have jarred him terribly, but as soon as he was settled in his seat he began talking, with cautious relief, about being shipped back to England. I exchanged a glance with Kitty, and we both found wan smiles for what he considered his good luck before we rolled off once more towards the town. There was a harsh jerk and a new rattling sound as we rejoined the road, and I wondered how many more trips we could make before something else fell off the ambulance, or broke, and I would be required to spend the rest of this freezing night lying in the mud with my tool box.
When we got to the hospital we found one of the new blessés had died, and the shrapnel-wounded boy’s relief fell away, leaving him paler than ever and deeply subdued; I gathered they had been friends. We covered the dead man with his blanket and te boy hitched a breath, , and there was no more talk of Blighty while the VAD led him away to have his wounds redressed. Kitty and I hurriedly sluiced down the inside of the ambulance, and set off back to the dressing station for one more trip.