‘You miss your wife, don’t you?’ Sara felt she should say something, try to show sympathy and encourage him to talk in case he was feeling homesick. Besides, it was occasionally necessary to remind herself that the woman existed, but he dropped his gaze, avoiding her eyes.
‘Not quite so much as I should, perhaps. She was always there, you know, always a part of my life and yet . . .’ He sat down again, cleared his throat. ‘May I ask you a very personal question, Sara. I can call you Sara, can’t I? I mean we’re buddies now that we’ve both packed presents for Santa together, right?’
Sara smiled. ‘Of course.’
‘And you must call me Charles, or Charlie, as my friends back home call me.’
‘Oh, I don’t think I could do that.’ She found herself blushing at the very idea. It was true that they’d become friends through working together, yet she still felt strangely shy with him.
‘Try it. I’m just an ordinary guy underneath all this fancy uniform, these buttons and ribbons and spit and polish. I’d just like to hear someone call me by my given name, instead of addressing me by rank or number, Sir or Lieutenant. Then I’d know that I was still a real person.’
She looked at him consideringly. ‘I can understand that.’
‘Charlie. You can understand that, Charlie.’ He was grinning now, teasing and challenging her to do as he asked.
She smiled in response. ‘All right, I can understand that, Charlie! Now do try to be serious, please. What did you want to ask me?’
The grin faded and his gaze fell to his boots. They both watched in silence as he kicked a small stone off the step. ‘You know, it’s been real fun working with you. I’ve enjoyed your company. You’re one fine lady, Sara. I hope you don’t mind my saying that.’
‘No, no, of course not. Not at all.’ She felt flustered and could feel her cheeks start to burn like fire.
‘So I hope you don’t mind my taking advantage of our newfound friendship, only I’d be interested in your opinion, as a woman. Do you think, that if one party doesn’t find a marriage truly happy, that they should stick with it for the sake of the other party?’
He glanced up, looking keenly at her now, waiting for her answer but Sara could think of nothing sensible to say. She was astounded by the question, this being the last thing she’d expected to hear and her brain simply refused to come up with the right platitudes.
He doesn’t love his wife was the single thought running through her head and with it came such a burst of joy, it left her utterly stunned.
Yet even in this state of blissful realisation, Sara knew she really mustn’t reveal the slightest hint of her reaction. It would be crazy, mad, over-emotional, absolutely uncalled for and desperately dangerous. She struggled valiantly beneath the intensity of his gaze to somehow keep her expression studiously bland, while her useless brain searched for some innocuous, innocent response, failing utterly.
He was on his feet in an instant. ‘Hell, I must be out of my mind asking you such a question, and you a happily married lady. Forget it. I apologise for the intrusion. I must waste no more of your valuable time. Thanks again for the pasty.’
And then he was gone, striding away up the church path. Only when he’d disappeared from view, did she answer his question. ‘No, actually, I don’t.’
As winter wore on, the nation became increasingly obsessed by the need for secrecy. Yet despite all the care and the warnings, news did leak out from time to time. The talk now was very much concerned with ‘Operation Overlord’. This was to be the master plan for an Allied invasion of Europe. Everyone agreed that something was going on, but nobody dared speak of what they saw or knew, or thought they knew, in anything but hushed voices to their nearest and dearest.
Party time was over and normally quiet roads were massed with vehicles as the infantry were taken to training grounds often far distant from their billet, and the skies were filled with aircraft. Some planes were spotted flying with bomb doors hanging open and undercarriages dangling as they returned from night raids or from training flights, others fell into the sea or crashed into cliffs before managing to land safely. And those who went to their rescue were likewise in danger, sometimes becoming trapped by the tide or caught up in a wreck.
Sid Penhale, who also worked as an ARP Warden when not serving beer behind some bar or other, was responsible for making sure not a glimmer of light showed anywhere.
‘The last thing we want is to have them bloody Gerry’s chasing our pilots up our river,’ he’d roar, at anyone foolish enough as to ignore blackout regulations. Yet out on the moors where Sid, or any other ARP Warden for that matter wasn’t allowed to go, lights would blink on and off at all hours; buildings would magically appear overnight and a day or two later vanish, only to spring up in another place entirely.
‘Decoys, that’s what they be,’ Sid would tell anyone who questioned why this was permitted yet they’d been fined five shilling for not properly shielding a bicycle lamp. ‘Keep old Hitler guessing. Mum’s the word!’
Every family in the neighbourhood became aware of the training exercises as houses would shake while the blasting went on and on, but they might all have turned deaf, dumb and blind, judging by their silence on the subject.
Reconnaissance parties were sent out, local beaches selected for training on small boats and landing craft, and boatyards were kept working flat out to keep up the necessary supply of equipment.
Fowey folk thought these amphibious vehicles resembled floating cattle trucks since they had ridged ramps that let down to allow the men to walk on shore. Some were called DUKWS, designed to be driven straight off the larger boats through the surf and up the beaches.
The likes of Cory Tredinnick, Scobey Snell and Hamil Charke predicted drowning for anyone daft enough to embark in such vessels.
‘And proper ducks they do look. They’ll weigh the ships down and not survive the crossing. Even if they ever get to France, they’ll sink soon as they hit the water. Goes against nature,’ Cory declared with much shaking of his head.
‘And all the rules of seamanship,’ Scobey agreed.
‘I reckon they be dafter than even you, boy, to try it,’ put in Hamil Charke. ‘Utterly brainless, but that’s Yanks for you.’
If the Americans had arrived in Cornwall as young men with very little combat experience, they were certainly doing everything they could to make themselves better prepared.
Barney and Chad were sent, along with their comrades, on long route marches, or out on Bodmin Moor where it was cold and damp, swathed in mist or with a bitter wind blowing which was particularly tough for guys like them, used to a warmer climate. They would crawl under barbed wire weighed down with a full backpack of combat gear, learn how to set and detect booby traps and the inevitable mines, plus an assortment of stringent endurance tests and drills for basic fitness.
They were drilled in target practice, often using the old Cornish engine houses, and out on the open moorland were involved in carefully planned and extensive manoeuvres, sometimes with live ammunition, which meant that they must keep their wits about them as things could all too easily go horribly wrong, as Chad soon discovered.
Chapter Twelve
It went wrong for Chad one day when he somehow became separated from his squad. He didn’t seem to have his compass, grew confused and then thoroughly lost in the mist; finding himself ankle deep in bogs and swamps with not a clue which way to go. It was over an hour before he rejoined his comrades, and was forced to explain about the lost compass.
‘Didn’t you check your kit, soldier?’ roared the sergeant.
‘Yessir!’
The sergeant came closer to whisper with a dangerous quietness in Chad’s ear. ‘Next time, try to keep your mind on the job in hand and not lose valuable equipment. Think you can manage that?’
‘Yessir! Can’t think what happened to it, Sarge.’
‘You’re not expected to think, soldier, only to obey orders. Learning to check your kit
correctly is one of them. Check and check and check again. Got that?’
‘Yessir!’
‘What did I tell you to do, soldier?’
‘Check and check and check again.’
Only the way Barney was smirking behind his hand told Chad what had really happened. ‘You nicked it, you goddamned-son-of-a-bitch.’
‘You gotta keep your wits about you in this business,’ Barney responded with airy unconcern.
The first time Chad had ever set sail was when he’d crossed the Atlantic. He hadn’t enjoyed that experience one bit. They’d crossed on a banana boat meant to carry 80 passages but packed with three hundred soldiers. Some had slept under tables in the mess hall, others on piles of ropes on the decks, freezing cold and frequently soaked through from the pounding waves. They’d been fed largely on slops of rice, powdered eggs and chopped liver, most of which had ended up in the ocean, one way or another. The stink was awful as most of the men had suffered from sea-sickness and many actually prayed for death to come there and then, Chad among them. They’d suffered fifteen days of hell at sea in a dirty, stinking vessel.
But if he’d thought that was bad, the training he was undergoing now, was a whole lot worse.
And when it was finally over and they got around to crossing the Channel, the boats would be smaller and even more crowded. Word had it that for all it was only a short distance in terms of miles to France, the crossing could be rough.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, they would be loaded down with a full quota of heavy equipment and be under enemy fire. In these impossible conditions they were expected to disembark and wade through the water to reach the shore so they could claim the beach.
‘Doesn’t sound like a whole lot of fun to me,’ he dryly remarked.
Barney agreed. ‘I never wanted to be in this goddamned war in the first place. What in tarnation has it got to do with us anyway? But now we’re here, let’s beat the ass off Hitler and finish it for good, then we can all go home.’
They attended lectures, held at the base classroom on Windmill Field, to study maps and plans. There could be as many as seven hundred men packed into the hut at any one time, all striving to listen and understand, to make sure they gave themselves the best possible chance to survive. Then there was first aid drill and learning how to evacuate casualties. Last but by no means least, hand to hand combat and bayonet practice.
None of it seemed as much fun to Chad as he’d imagined it would be when he’d first enlisted.
Today they were practising climbing down ropes and nets, and transferring from the transporter ships to the smaller landing craft out at sea in waves that made Chad throw up time and time again. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so ill in all his life, not even on the banana boat. Barney made it worse by shaking the netting just as he was gingerly making his way down it, so that he lost his footing on the slippery rope and tumbled to the deck where he lay flat on his back, thoroughly winded.
‘Get the hell off your butt, soldier. Do you think we’re on a cruise here? Jump to it,’ yelled the sergeant.
‘Yessir,’ and Chad scrambled to his feet, cursing his old buddy under his breath. ‘This isn’t the time for your sodding practical jokes.’
‘It’s just one long vacation, huh? Come to sunny Cornwall. Where’s your sense of humour gone, matey?’
‘Cut the crap, Barney. We’re all in this together, so let’s not fight amongst ourselves, right?’
‘At least you got the girl this time.’
‘I sure did. Is that what this is all about, because I got her and you didn’t? Let me tell you it’s sweet little Bette who’s keeping me sane.’
By the time this particular day was finally over, Chad was bone weary and couldn’t wait to see her. Bette was always sympathetic and although he told her very little in the way of hard facts about what he did, or even how he felt, she always understood when he was suffering and was ready to kiss his wounds and soothe him any way she could.
But he was feeling a bit apprehensive about meeting her tonight. He was to meet her folks, which scared the pants off him.
In the tiny cottage on Passage Street, nerves were stretched even tighter.
‘You’d no right to invite him without asking our permission first.’ Sadie banged a few pans about in her miniscule kitchen to show the extent of her annoyance.
‘How can you be so unfriendly? He’s risking his life for us all here and you aren’t even prepared to give him supper. He’s a lovely guy. Give him a chance.’
‘Guy? Listen to yourself, talking like an American. You put a guy on a bonfire and maybe that’s where this Yank deserves to be.’
‘Mam! What a dreadful thing to say, and you know you don’t mean it. You’re just in a mood. What have you got against him? Why are you being so horrid?’
‘Because he’s a foreigner. I’ve told you a dozen times, you know nothing about him. He could have a wife and six children back home. What’s wrong with one of the local lads like Tommy Kinver or Dan Roskelly?’
‘If even the armed forces won’t have Tommy Kinver, why should I? As for Dan, he’s younger than me, very dull, and boring. Besides, he’s been called up too now and leaves to join the Merchant Navy next week.’
‘Well, there’s John Penhale and . . .’
‘Stop it, mam. I’ll choose who I go out with, not you. Chad is coming tonight because I want you to meet him, to see for yourself that he’s a decent bloke, so be nice to him please, for my sake. Tell her, Dad, for goodness’ sake.’
Cory stirred in the depths of his comfy chair and took the pipe from his mouth long enough to say, ‘Is this the chap who helped rescue our crew when we were hit by the shell?’
‘Yes, of course it is. Who else would it be?’
‘Well, my lover . . . ’ His face was unusually serious as he faced his wife. ‘Had he not called out the lifeboat, we might well have sunk and lost all o’ them fish. We were holed, you know, by that shell. Proper job he made of it, getting us out of there without losing a single fish.’
Sadie turned on him in a red hot rage. ‘That’s all you ever think about. Bloody fish!’
‘No, my lover, I enjoy all of it, even the rowing up and down the river all night long. I don’t mind it in the least, fish or no fish.’ And having said his peace, stuck his pipe back in and continued reading the paper.
‘Oh, I despair of both of you, I do really.’ Sadie flounced to the mirror that hung over the fireplace, her scarlet lips in a sulky pout as she patted her stiff, tight curls into place and struggled to calm herself. Temper did nothing at all for the complexion, so she really should be careful. ‘And what he’ll think of us, I can’t imagine. No doubt he’s used to big fancy houses in America, if he’s as rich as you say he is.’
Realisation dawned, and Bette went to put her hands on her mother’s shoulders, plump and soft, they were made even wider by the shoulder pads she’d stuffed into her dress.
‘Is that what’s really bothering you? That he’ll look down on us because our house is small and we aren’t well off. Well, he isn’t like that. He’s very polite and kind, not like some of the others, always showing off. Not like his mate, Barney.’ Bette slipped her arms further round the cushiony warmth of her mother and laid her cheek against her shoulder. ‘Stop fretting, Mam. You’ll like him, really you will.’
Sadie pushed her off. ‘We’ll see,’ she said, flouncing into the kitchen. ‘In any case, I shall make no extra fuss just because we’re having a visitor. He can take us as he finds us. We’re only having fish pie, so if he doesn’t like it, that’s his hard luck.’
Bette smiled to herself, knowing that it would be delicious, filled with scallops and shrimps and fresh ling, the best of the catch, topped off with creamy mashed potato. If there was one thing Sadie excelled at, it was cooking. And there was also a chocolate cake tucked away in the cupboard, which her mother had made just that morning, no doubt having bribed Mr Whitting with extra coupons in order to get the fat for
it. Bette felt a nub of excitement deep inside. It was going to be a lovely evening, she was sure of it.
Barney and Chad strolled down into town from Windmill, exhausted from their training and in dire need of a beer and some relaxation. There was still a tension bristling between them, hovering beneath the surface, but they’d been friends so long, it didn’t prevent them enjoying a pint together.
‘Come on, let’s grab that beer before you go play with your gal. We deserve it.’
Chad was not against the idea. It had been a long, hard day, a long, hard week in fact. They’d been soaked through to the skin and some of the ammunition they’d used on the exercise had been live. Things were getting much more serious, he could tell. No date had been fixed for the invasion, so far as he was aware, but word had it that it would be soon, once Eisenhower and Churchill had stopped arguing and come to an agreement. Any opportunity for a bit of pleasure must be made the most of. Even so, he didn’t want to get involved in a long session.
Beer and broads, that’s all some of his buddies ever thought about. ‘I can’t be late. I promised Bette. I’m supposed to be meeting her at Whitehouse first, then she’ll take me home for supper. It’s an important night for her. I gotta get it right.’
‘Don’t worry, she’ll wait. They always do.’
They went into the Kings Hotel and the place was humming with GIs and service men. Barney fought his way to the bar and ordered a couple of pints. He downed his in one long swallow, ordered another round and did the same again. Barney had polished off a couple more by the time a group of sailors came in, and he shouted over to them. ‘Hey, you limeys, can you afford to come in such a smart place? How much d’you make in a day, huh?’
‘Three and sixpence,’ said the youngest among them.
For All Our Tomorrows Page 9