Shadows of Conflict

by Jennifer Bohnet

  ‘You remember him well?’ Elizabeth asked.

  ‘Oh yes, he was very kind to me. I missed him so much when he died.’ Mattie was silent for a moment, remembering. Nobody had thought to comfort her when the news came through about the tragedy.

  ‘Although he was Clara’s boyfriend, he was my friend too. Always gave me candy whenever I saw him – and piggybacks! Said I reminded him of home and his young niece.’ Mattie stopped. ‘He must have meant you,’ she said, pointing at Elizabeth.

  ‘Did you know Clara also wrote to my mother?’ Elizabeth said.

  Mattie shook her head. ‘No.’

  ‘Because Hal’s letters were censored, he gave Clara our home address so she could write about all the things he wasn’t allowed to. Those letters are in the box too. Apart from the first couple which were written before Operation Tiger and Hal’s death, they were all written from somewhere in Somerset.’

  ‘Have you read the letters?’ Mattie asked.

  ‘Yes – and I’ll leave them with you to read,’ Elizabeth said. ‘I think my mother got great comfort from the contact she had with Clara, both before and after Hal’s death,’ Elizabeth added quietly.

  ‘I can’t believe this,’ Mattie said. ‘After all these years – to learn something like this.’ She wiped some tears away with the back of her hand before Henri silently handed her his handkerchief.

  ‘Did you know, according to the last few letters, Clara was planning to emigrate to America?’ Elizabeth said. ‘My mother wrote and invited her. Said she’d already started to think of her as a sister-in-law and she’d be more than welcome to be a part of our family, as if she and Hal had married. Apparently your parents weren’t …’ she hesitated, ‘as happy about the relationship as Clara was.’

  ‘That’s an understatement,’ Mattie said. ‘They were adamant that she was far too young to know what she was doing. They dismissed the idea of her loving Hal as rubbish. When he was killed, they assumed Clara would just accept it was over and get on with her life here without him.’ Mattie sighed. ‘Nothing was ever going to be the same again.’

  ‘Her last letter to me is in my family box there,’ she said. ‘It was full of her plans for her new life somewhere – she didn’t say where she was going, in case our parents read the letter, I suppose – but she did say I was to visit when she was settled.’ Mattie bit her lip. ‘It was while she was posting that letter to me she was killed.’

  Elizabeth squeezed her hand. ‘That must have been so hard for you to accept.’

  Mattie nodded. ‘But there was nobody to tell your mother about Clara’s accident, was there?’ she said. ‘We didn’t even know she existed. She must have wondered what had happened. Why the letters suddenly stopped, why the woman she thought of as her sister-in-law didn’t arrive in America as they’d planned.’

  ‘There’s an unopened envelope here, in Great-grandma Kitty’s writing,’ Noah said quietly. ‘The address has been crossed through and “Gone Away. Return to Sender” is written all over it.’ Noah looked at Mattie.

  ‘As it has this address on it, I think Great-grandma Kitty must have tried to reach Clara through this address when she failed to hear from her. Your parents must have sent it back, unopened and without an explanation.’

  It was Elizabeth’s turn to sigh. ‘I imagine that was when Mother put everything, the letters, photos of Hal, in the box and put it away in the attic. She had to learn to live without Hal or the English woman he’d loved and whom she was destined never to meet. It was probably easier to lock things away and try to forget what might have been if the woman he’d loved had joined us.’

  Mattie wiped her eyes with Henri’s handkerchief. ‘I’m so sorry, Elizabeth. I can only apologize for my parents’ lack of compassion towards your family.’

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Katie was busy in A Good Yarn over the next few days. With Mattie still taking it easy at Henri’s insistence, Katie was glad Trisha was able to step in and work extra hours. Worldwide Knit in Public Day seemed to have generated a lot of interest both from locals and holidaymakers.

  She was surprised on Saturday afternoon when the local florist arrived with a wreath of ivy and white and red poppies.

  ‘Mattie ordered it for this evening’s D-Day river trip,’ the florist said.

  Carefully, Katie placed the wreath in the clubroom. Should she have ordered one too? Maybe it was the done thing.

  When Leo arrived later that day, ready to walk down to the boats with her, she mentioned it to him. ‘Should I have ordered one? Does everyone throw one overboard?’

  ‘Not usually. The vicar and perhaps the chairperson of one of the local societies. The harbour master isn’t keen on too many floating objects!’

  ‘Will there be many boats taking part in the ceremony?’ Katie asked.

  Leo shook his head. ‘It gets less every year – unless it’s a big anniversary like the 60th or 70th. Are Mattie and Henri coming here or are we meeting them on the quay?’

  ‘They should be here soon – if they haven’t come to blows.’

  Leo looked at her.

  ‘Mattie is determined to walk down and Henri is equally determined she shouldn’t and wants to book a taxi,’ Katie said, laughing.

  ‘Taxi? No chance. My money is on Mattie walking,’ Leo said.

  ‘Shall we wait outside for them? Oh, I mustn’t forget the wreath,’ and turning to fetch the garland, Katie handed the shop keys to Leo to lock up for her.

  ‘Don’t forget your fleece,’ Leo called after her. ‘It will be cooler on the river.’

  Standing outside A Good Yarn, waiting for Mattie and Henri, Katie glanced at the fire-blackened buildings next door.

  ‘We were so lucky not to have more damage,’ she said. She glanced at Leo. ‘Any news on the cause?’

  ‘Definitely started deliberately, as Ron said,’ Leo said. ‘A full investigation is underway.’

  ‘Wonder if that means Ron will be helping the police with their enquiries,’ Katie said. ‘He seemed determined to keep what he knew to himself.’

  ‘Think he’ll find he doesn’t have any option but to tell the police what he knows. They can be very persuasive,’ Leo said. ‘Ah, I see Mattie got her own way – even if she did have to give in to using a walking stick!’

  ‘Oh good, you’ve got the wreath,’ Mattie said. ‘Do you mind carrying it for me? With this stick Henri insists I use I don’t have a free hand. I feel like an old woman,’ she grumbled. ‘My ankle is so much better.’

  ‘Bon,’ Henri said. ‘And that’s the way we want to keep it. I’ll carry the wreath, Katie,’ and he took it from her carefully. ‘Your godmother is a very stubborn woman,’ he added with a smile.

  ‘Where are we boarding Michael’s boat?’ Mattie asked. ‘Usual pontoon by the Station Cafe?’

  ‘Yes,’ Leo answered. ‘We’d better get a move on – he’ll be wanting to get going in about twenty minutes.’

  When they arrived at the pontoon, Noah Snr was on board Michael’s boat, the Nicola-Suzanne, with his large video camera on his shoulder, filming people as they arrived.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind,’ he said. ‘It’s for the final part of my documentary. I want to include the way D-Day is commemorated in the twenty-first century.’

  Elizabeth and Vicky were already on board and made room for Mattie by them on the seat in the bow. Katie and Henri stayed standing nearby while Leo went to give his father a hand casting off the mooring ropes, before joining him in the cockpit while he negotiated the boat away from the pontoon to follow the small flotilla of boats making their way downriver.

  As the boats moved towards the twin castles at either side of the mouth of the river, Mattie started to point things out to Henri and Elizabeth.

  ‘Look, you can see my cottage from here,’ she said, pointing towards the shoreline. ‘The top window you can see is the bedroom you’re in, Henri. It’s the room I spent all day in watching the harbour empty in 1944.’ She paused. ‘So many boats.
Even now I can remember thinking it would have been possible to cross to Kingswear jumping from boat to boat.’

  ‘You didn’t go down to the quay to watch and wave them goodbye?’ Elizabeth asked. ‘I would have expected there to be crowds of people all along the embankment.’

  Mattie shook her head. ‘Not allowed to. It was all still very hush-hush. Also, there were hundreds of tanks and troops pouring into town. Everyone was ordered to stay indoors out of harm’s way. It took all day to clear the harbour. I remember thinking the day was never going to end. And that was before I learnt that Clara had disappeared,’ she added quietly.

  ‘The logistics of organizing the 485 boats and all the troops that left here that fateful morning must have been huge,’ Henri said thoughtfully.

  ‘It’s hard to accept that fewer people were killed on the actual beach landings the next day in Normandy than in Operation Tiger here in the South Hams,’ Noah Snr said sadly. ‘Seems all wrong somehow.’

  Everybody fell silent at his words, remembering how Operation Tiger had altered the dynamics of their own lives even before D-Day had happened.

  It was cold out on the river and as the boats neared the open waters of the channel Katie was glad of her fleece. When Leo joined her and placed his arm around her shoulders, holding her tight, she leant against him, glad of the additional warmth from his body.

  Once the flotilla of boats were safely past the Mewstone, with its attendant cormorants, boat engines were briefly silenced. On board the Nicola-Suzanne they watched as the vicar threw the official wreath into the sea from the harbour master’s boat. His words of dedication, though, were carried away on the wind that was springing up.

  Mattie took her wreath from Henri and looked at Elizabeth. ‘Would you like to help me throw this?’ she asked softly. ‘For Hal and Clara.’

  Elizabeth, her eyes brimming with tears, nodded. ‘Yes.’

  Together they held and raised the wreath before dropping it over the starboard side of the Nicola-Suzanne and watching as it was caught up in the waves of the turning tide and began to float out into the channel proper.

  With Elizabeth on one side and Henri on the other, all watching the wreath with its red and white poppies being buffeted on the water, Mattie said quietly, ‘Out of past sorrows we will forge new friendships.’

  Henri gave her hand a conciliatory squeeze and Elizabeth whispered, ‘We will.’

  A minute later, boat engines were switched back into life and the flotilla started its return journey. The throwing of the wreath seemed to have lightened the atmosphere on board. Somehow it was as if the sadness that had accompanied them out to sea had been thrown away with the wreath and been replaced with the expectation that things would be better from now on.

  An early-evening sea mist began to swirl in as they motored back in, swathing the castle and St Petrox Church in wispy white fronds.

  ‘You know Castle Farm is in St Petrox’s parish, don’t you?’ Leo murmured to Katie as she looked at the ancient monument. ‘I can get married there if I want to.’

  Katie turned to look at him. ‘And do you want to?’

  ‘Definitely,’ Leo said. ‘Come into the stern. I want to make sure you see something,’ he said, taking her by the hand.

  Obediently, Katie went with him, glad of his steadying hand as the boat ploughed through the water.

  ‘You get the best view from here,’ Leo said, standing behind her and wrapping his arms around her. ‘Look over there, towards the left shore.’

  It took Katie several seconds to see what he was getting at. ‘Oh, that’s so beautiful,’ she said as she finally saw the graceful bronze mermaid serenely sitting on the rocks. ‘What a perfect place for her.’

  ‘She’s been there a few years now,’ Leo said quietly. ‘Every time I’m out on the river and see her, I think of you. Perfect – but elusive.’ He turned her in his arms and looked at her seriously for several seconds. ‘Are you ready to stop being elusive and marry me in St Petrox, Tiggy?’

  Katie smiled. ‘Yes. That would be the perfect part.’

  ‘Success is not final, failure is not fatal,

  It is the courage to continue that counts.’

  WINSTON CHURCHILL

  By the Same Author

  Follow Your Star

  Rendezvous in Cannes

  Copyright

  © Jennifer Bohnet 2013

  First published in Great Britain 2013

  This edition 2013

  ISBN 978 0 7198 1208 8 (epub)

  ISBN 978 0 7198 1209 5 (mobi)

  ISBN 978 0 7198 1210 1 (pdf)

  ISBN 978 0 7198 0876 0 (print)

  Robert Hale Limited

  Clerkenwell House

  Clerkenwell Green

  London EC1R 0HT

  www.halebooks.com

  The right of Jennifer Bohnet to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988