Between Friends

by Audrey Howard

  Tom’s eyes shone with patriotic fervour and he almost stood to attention as though already he was on the parade ground beneath his country’s flag. ‘There are a few weeks training. We’ve to report to Knowsley … but … oh Meg, say yes, say we’ll be married before I go.’

  ‘Go where, Tom?’ It was as if she could not comprehend the enormity of what was happening. Her eyes were bewildered, like those of a lost child and for a moment Tom’s bright, excited mind knew doubt and confusion for she seemed racked with a strange emotion. She had been distraught, minutes before, made so, she said, by the dread of what was to happen to the men who had already gone to war. Or that was what her words had implied. ‘Selfish and uncaring’ were the words she had used, ‘crazy men who risked their lives for a dream’ but surely she must see that a man had no alternative but to fight for his country, his family, his woman, when the call came. She was upset by it all, justifiably so but she’d come round. They all would, all the women who would wait behind for their men.

  ‘Go where, Tom?’ she repeated dully.

  ‘To France, Meg. Where else, but I’ll be home by Christmas, you just wait and see.’

  He had no idea what war would be like, imagining it to be a grand affair of great marches and even greater battles. He was not even really sure why he was to fight. He knew he was to defend his country in this ‘war to end wars’ as it was being called and that already a British force was in position, ready to fight, somewhere in France and his only anxiety was that it might all be over before he got there. He dearly wanted Meg to be proud of him.

  A few days later he and other members of his company were drilling in the sultry heat of the sports stadium at Knowsley, near Liverpool and the following week they were entrained before dawn for Edinburgh where, under canvas, Tom Fraser and his ‘pals’ were to be turned into soldiers.

  She was in the dining-room, chatting courteously to a guest when she heard the telephone ring in the reception area. She took little notice for it had scarcely stopped now for over four weeks, alive with those who wished to spend a few days in the peace of the Derbyshire countryside before going ‘over there’. Parents, moneyed naturally, who desired to share a day or two with a beloved son, young officers with their young wives and even, she suspected, those who were not, and the dining-room was filled with elegantly dressed ladies and immaculately suited gentleman and not a few uniforms that night.

  ‘Excuse me, Miss Hughes, it’s for you.’ The receptionist, a handsome young man who could have been taken for a guest was reluctant to interrupt the beautifully dressed woman who was his employer but the gentleman on the telephone had been most insistent.

  Meg turned, and smiling a polite word of apology, excused herself from the worried mother and proud father of the young lieutenant who was to sail for France the next week.

  ‘Who is it, Andrew?’ she said. ‘Mr Fraser?’

  ‘It didn’t sound like him, Miss Hughes.’

  Her mind was still filled with the anxious, tremulously smiling face of the young soldier’s mother, a face which said she knew she should be proud of her handsome, eighteen-year-old boy but really she would much rather he stayed at home in the nursery where he belonged and where he would be safe. All over the country, in cottages and mansions, in northern terraces and southern villas, women wore the same expression, not entirely convinced, as their menfolk were, that this was going to be the biggest adventure; that their husbands, city men, bus drivers, clerks, coal miners and teachers were to be off on the greatest ‘lark’ of their humdrum lives.

  ‘Meg.’ The voice at the other end of the line was soft, weary almost and she felt her heart turn over in her breast before it began to pump and beat vigorously, joyfully, lovingly.

  ‘Martin.’ She wanted to laugh and cry and shout across the wires of how much she loved him but she kept her voice cool.

  ‘Oh Meggie …’ It was said sadly, wryly, resignedly.

  ‘Yes Martin?’ She had begun to smile, her great golden eyes blazing across the reception counter into the startled gaze of a passing guest.

  ‘You win … you win, Meggie!’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean, Martin Hunter.’

  ‘Oh yes you damn well do! I can’t stand against you, my sweet. If you want to be a business woman, then be one. If you want to run a hotel, or any other bloody venture, then do so. Sweetheart, I can’t go on like this. I love you, Meggie. I should have known …’ She heard him sigh at the other end of the line, ‘My God, I should! Ever since you were five-years-old you have made up your own mind and stuck to it. I should have known you wouldn’t change now. I was a fool, Meg, the last time … oh my darling … marry me … marry me …’

  ‘Yes, Martin.’ Her eyes had begun to brim with tears but they were as bright and luminous as the diamonds on the wrists of her guests. Her face was suffused with a joyful, rosy glow and she lifted her head to smile enchantingly, enchanted, at the receptionist.

  Martin’s voice was ardent in his love for her, and soft.

  ‘Meggie …’ From somewhere, some female intuition sewed painfully a fine thread of fear in her. ‘Meggie, it won’t be for a while, sweetheart.’

  ‘Martin?’

  ‘I’m not at the field, Meg.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No, I’m at Upavon.’

  ‘Where … where is that?’

  ‘It’s in Wiltshire.’

  She knew what he had done, of course, for she loved him and loving him, knew him.

  ‘What …?’

  ‘The Royal Flying Corps, Meggie.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I had to, my darling.’

  Tom had said that and he was gone, now Martin was saying the same thing and suddenly she was angry, not just with them but with all the men, the stupid, the selfish, the senselessness of all men, men who would kill each other, and for what? Half of them did not know, did not care, they only knew they had to be ‘in on it’ just as though it was some bloody game they had to play. But Martin was speaking and the love in his voice reached out over the miles from – where was it, Wiltshire – and wrapped itself about her, begging her to understand, begging her to return his love and save it for him until he should return to claim it.

  And when would that be, her anguished heart cried.

  ‘Will you … come soon, Martin?’

  ‘Aah, no, Meggie, my love. I’m off to France …’ She felt her body sway and saw the hand of the receptionist as it came out to steady her for her face had drained of every vestige of colour but she clung to the counter and strove to keep her voice calm.

  ‘To France. I didn’t know … you are to fly in France, Martin?’

  ‘Yes … I can’t speak but I’ll write to you, my darling. I should be able to get leave. Bloody hell, Meg, I should have come.’ His voice was harsh with his anguish, ‘but my damned pride … Jesus, Meggie … promise me you’ll wait for me, promise, my lass.’

  ‘Martin …’

  ‘I’ll be home soon, sweetheart, promise me.’

  ‘I promise, Martin … oh Martin …’

  ‘And Meggie …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘See to the business … to Hunter Aviation and Automobiles and the rest. Keep an eye on it, keep it safe until I come home. I’ve left a document … it gives you power of attorney.’

  ‘Martin, I know nothing of motor cars … or aeroplanes.’

  ‘Meg, my love …’

  His voice faded, dying away in a series of crackles and high-pitched whines and though she called his name a dozen times he did not answer.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  SHE MOVED ABOUT ‘Hilltops’ as though she had wings on her heels, really she did, and they could hear her singing softly to herself in the back corridors of the hotel as she checked stores and supervised the sorting of linen with Edie, and they marvelled at the change in her. For a month or so she had been another person, not at all the brisk and efficient Miss Hughes with whom they were all so familiar, and though
it had been a pleasant change to linger over a cup of tea and a chat, knowing she would not notice, it was good to have her back, at the helm so to speak, dispatching orders and criticism, and praise when it was deserved, and making order out of muddle. The place ran like a Swiss watch, Mr Tom used to say, and the guests had not noticed that slight hiccup between one tick and another during the terrible heat wave for most of them had been too drained themselves to observe it, but by God, you could tell the difference when Miss Hughes was herself again.

  It was funny without Mr Tom, though. Such a cheerful, easy chap he had been, not concerned much with the rest of the servants except Albert and the young boy come straight from school to help in the garden. He had been outside for much of the day, making sure there was a plentiful supply of superb vegetables, fruit and flowers for the dining-room tables, milk, butter, cream and eggs, for Miss Hughes insisted on only the best and the freshest to put in the splendid dishes she served at each meal. He ate in the kitchen during the day, sitting with the servants and kept them in stitches over the escapades he and Miss Hughes and a chap he called Martin got up to when they were children and a more likeable chap you couldn’t wish to meet. No ‘side’ to him at all, considering he was part owner of the hotel. Yes, they missed him, but not half as much as Meg Hughes missed him.

  It was strange really, she thought to herself, for she and Tom had not seen a lot of each other in the course of their busy day. They shared an early cup of tea and smiled at one another in the kitchen when Tom came in for his ‘dinner’ at midday. He often helped out in the bar when they were busy in the evening, looking exceptionally smart and very attractive in his good, dark suit and was most pleasant with his guests, speaking, as was his way, in a humorous, engaging manner to which they could not take offence despite his broad northern accent. He would kiss her good-night and make his way to his own small room at the back of the house, spartan, but, as he said, he was soon to share Meg’s in his role as her husband, and it was not worth the trouble of ‘doing it up’.

  Now, it was as though a part of her had been sliced away and sent up north leaving a painful wound which was taking a long while to heal over. She missed Martin devastatingly, but she had not lived with Martin for ten years. He had not been a constant part of her life as Tom had been, and the absence of his physical presence did not leave the terrible hole in her life which Tom’s did. She found herself watching for him through the windows, each room she entered her eyes automatically searching across the gardens for his familiar stooping figure, her ears automatically listening for his cheerful, tuneless whistle. He had been beside her since she was five years old, except for her days at the Adelphi and then he had been at Silverdale, not more than half an hour’s cycle ride away, not perhaps the pillar of strength she would have liked him to be for he was no businessman, nor had he the capacity to see the fine and dashing future she envisaged for them both. He had lived in the present, not worrying overmuch about tomorrow providing he had a job in his hand, but he had just been there, loving her and, if she had asked it of him she knew, dying for her.

  He wrote to her from Edinburgh. He was in the infantry, he said. His letters were humorous, describing to her how he and his ‘pals’ were being put through their paces in a park in full view of the public’s ridicule and that his feet, unlike those of his fellow ‘soldiers’ had not blistered, due no doubt to already being used to wearing heavy duty boots. He was now fully ‘accoutred’ and equipped, he told her, evidently proud of his use of such novel words, and was ‘in line for a stripe’, his sargeant had said, so what did she think to that! He could now present arms, drill, was becoming adept at bayonet fighting and bomb throwing and the light-hearted manner in which he wrote of such things showed clearly he really had no intention of actually doing any of them, not in real life! He loved her and missed her dreadfully, he wrote ardently and worried about her down there alone without him to look after her, and really, Meggie, he must insist on a wedding before he went ‘over there’.

  But already, though it was not generally known, in that first month of the war, soldiers were dying in their thousands. It was a brutal shock to those who saw them being shipped home, mangled, armless, halves of men, groups of three men with three legs between them, and emergency hospitals were being commissioned with astonishing speed, in schools, mansions and stately homes. Those who lived in the south and east of England were at first confounded, then afraid and finally accustomed to the sound of the guns of Flanders, a good 150 miles away in the Ypres salient. It was a pulsing, thudding sound, more felt than heard and those who suffered it and who had men at the front realised that the sound they heard, day in and day out, might signify the death of their own loved ones!

  Posters began to appear on every spare bit of wall, simple, old fashioned and to the point! ‘Your King and Country Needs You.’ ‘A Call to Arms.’ ‘Rally Round the Flag.’ and all ending patriotically with ‘God Save The King’. In front windows of shops and terraced houses, in cottages and semi-detached villas there were cards which read ‘This House has Sent a Man to Fight for King and Country’ or ‘Not at Home. A Man from this House is now Serving in the Forces’. Patriotic fervour was high in that first month or two but as the excitement began to wear off, those who had been first to declare their intention of getting in on the great adventure decided they would wait to be fetched and other posters began to appear. The ruins of a Belgian woman asked ‘Will you Go or must I?’ There were others: ‘Is your Conscience Clear?’ ‘Is anyone Proud of YOU?’ and ‘Are You Doing your Bit?’, and the man in the street still in the garb of a civilian was asked to ponder on how he would answer the question ‘Daddy, What did You Do in The Great War?’

  Meg moved through those first weeks holding the precious gift of Martin’s love to her, taking it out at night to gloat over when she was alone, re-living that last telephone call again and again. The deep, unbreakable love Martin had for her, growing unseen over the years and only now acknowledged was what kept her heart and her step light. The joy which spread in her as she lay in her solitary bed, put the lovely glowing light in her eye and she waited impatiently for his first letter. She was filled with love, overflowing with it and at times she could scarce contain it, inclined to embrace the surprised Edie and put a joyful hand in that of Albert when he brought in her flowers, or presented her with the splendid fruits of Tom’s labour. She found herself with a tendency to go back to the days when she and Tom and Martin were children and often, as she sat dreaming by her open window at night she would see a boy with golden buttercups in his hair – was it Martin, or Tom? – or hear the sound of a bicycle bell and the cheerful song they used to sing as they pedalled home. Mrs Whitley was remembered and Emm, but her thoughts would go no further than that for her memories were not all happy. But as she dreamed through those days of waiting she could find no fault with her world for Martin loved her and would be home soon to marry her!

  Surprisingly, when the shock of his departure had worn off, she did not worry about him for he was a splendid flyer and was he not in his own ‘Wren’, the ‘King of the birds’? He was behind the lines, not in the dreaded trenches where sadly, British soldiers were dying for their country, how many was not exactly known for the casualty figures were glossed over, but Martin was safe, for two weeks after he left his first letter arrived.

  It was ardent! Meg felt her heart quicken and her breath become ragged for he spoke of many things, things concerned with their love and loving and how they would spend his leave which he hoped would be no later than Christmas. He was worried about Tom and how he had taken the news of their impending marriage and through it ran, like warm, sweet honey, his love … aah … how much he loved her and how well he would show her when he came home.

  She sat down immediately to write back to him. She did not speak of Tom Fraser. She had been over to the field, she said – after she had told him of her love and longing – and had had sharp words with Fred Knowsley, the manager, who, it seemed, did not
much care to be ‘spied on’ in Mr Hunter’s absence, especially by a woman. He was not much concerned with the fact that Mr Hunter had put her in charge, he said, affronted. He was well able to run the aircraft side of the industry without the – he had not said ‘interference’ but that was the word he had implied – and Mr Hunter had always had complete faith in his judgement and what his employer was thinking of, putting a lady in charge, he could not imagine. He was a mechanic, after all, just like Mr Hunter and they were building the ‘Wren’, following faithfully Mr Hunter’s design and had orders from the government as long as your arm and … pardon … the books? Aah, well, he was not a bookkeeper and had yet to bring the August and September balance up to date but if Miss Hughes cared to look them over … yes … he would be grateful … and the men from the ministry were coming next week … yes … well really … that would be most appreciated for he himself was merely a mechanic! Martin was not to worry, she said for she and Fred, yes she was to call him Fred, had the whole thing tied up and ticking over, waiting on his return. She told him not to give the business a thought for the aircraft side of it was thriving but she said nothing of the slowing down of the production of his little motor car, since the men who were to drive them had all but gone from the streets, serving their country far away. She told him she loved him and missed him and asked him if he thought a small investment or two with their surplus profit might not be a good idea, since there were plenty about in these days of war and would he tell her if he agreed in his next letter and, and, please to come home to her soon for she did not think she could survive much longer without his arms about her and his lips on hers and …

  The war news was splendid. The 3,000 cinemas in the country, supplied with material by the Department of Information provided a steady flow of propaganda which, while applauding the heroism of the British soldier and deploring the savagery of the German – who it was rumoured, cut off the breasts of nurses and rendered down the corpses of slain British soldiers for fat and tallow – glossed over the true horrors of the fighting and hid the appalling fact that by the end of November the British had suffered almost ninety-thousand casualties. Tom was to go soon, he said, and in his cheerful letters was hidden the vague unease he, and his ‘pals’ felt, fed by rumours. Nothing he wrote must let her know the anxiety which was beginning to be felt for he did not want to worry her, but the falsely cheerful tone and his repeated demands to be allowed to get over there and get the bloody thing finished rang strangely false now.