‘So?’ Lewis asked.
‘So why don’t we just enjoy today and tomorrow and the time we have.’
He fell back on the pillow.
‘It’s not fair,’ he said. ‘You see so many people who have all the time they want together, but they’re not happy. They really don’t want to be together. And here’s us, we don’t want to be apart. At least I don’t want to be apart from you.’
She said nothing and they went silent. He moved closer to her so that his thigh lay against hers.
‘I can’t believe this is happening,’ he said. ‘I keep thinking I’ll wake up from a dream.’
He turned to look at her. She was gazing up at the ceiling.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ she said. ‘It was while you were asleep and I was lying there watching you. I’m going to become a nurse – you know, a V.A.D.’
She turned to look at him.
‘Just until the War is over. This is what I thought: You’re going off to the War and I’m fearful that something will happen to you. I thought that if I became a nurse it might act as a good luck charm. You would be there fighting and I would be helping to save some lives or at least make them a bit more bearable. Who knows – if you got wounded – I might end up nursing you. Only a little wound, mind you. Nothing too serious.’
‘It’s a wonderful idea,’ he said. ‘I would feel safe. I would feel like nothing bad could happen to me. You can get your divorce and then when the War is over, we’ll be together. Won’t we?’ he said, turning to look at her.
‘Lewis, I’m old enough to be your mother. What would people think?’
‘What do you care what people think?’
‘I don’t but you might. Or you just might meet somebody else, somebody your own age. Or somebody more attractive. Somebody beautiful. A French woman while you’ve over in France. French women are all beautiful.’
‘You’re beautiful. You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.’
‘But I’m the only woman you’ve ever seen – like this. And what about the difference in our ages? When I’m an old woman you’ll be a young man. You’ll get tired of me and start going out with young gals and having affairs and all that kind of thing.’
‘Why are you saying all this?’ he asked. ‘Don’t you feel the same way I feel?’
It was a long time before she answered.
‘I felt – about Robert – I felt the way you feel now. I felt exactly that way. But something changed. I don’t know whether it changed when we got married or when, but it changed. And it’s gone. What we had is gone. And it won’t come back.
For us – you and me – last night - I never thought that would happen for me again in my life. It’s a pity that there are all these practical difficulties – our age difference —’
‘That’s not a difficulty —’
‘Just let me finish,’ she said softly. ‘The fact that I’m married. The War, for God’s sake, in case we’d forgotten about it. The bloody War. So here’s what I’d say. We’ve got our plans. You have to join the Army, I’m going to become a nurse. We can’t be together but we shall take care of each other while the War lasts. When I am tending other soldiers, it will be like I am tending you.’
‘And how will I take care of you?’
‘Won’t you be fighting for me? Could any man do more? Not like Robert with his staff job. So we’ll take care of each other. We’ll get through it. And then, when it’s all over – we can see. We may be two different people then. I don’t think I shall be because I’m a long way down the path I’ve chosen, but you’re only starting out. You’re young. The War could change you in all sorts of ways. And young people change so quickly anyway.
Let’s enjoy the time we have, Lewis. And the end of the War seems so far away. Let’s not worry about any of that now. We have a rainy day in Cornwall, food downstairs, a warm bed and two beautiful bodies. Could anybody ask for more?’
42
Lewis and Helen bought two one-way tickets, Truro to London Paddington, for Wednesday the eighth of November. He would be eighteen on Friday the tenth. Dad had wanted him to come earlier and have a week or so to get organised but Lewis had cut it as fine as he could. He had suggested that she come and meet Dad but Helen thought it was a terrible idea. He didn’t push it. Instead he would go home and she would go to a hotel while she sought enlistment in a Voluntary Aid Detachment. She had seen a poster in a shop window in Fowey showing three women in the white V.A.D. uniforms with their blue sleeves. The poster said that V.A.D’s were urgently needed – she assumed it had to do with the huge casualty lists from the Somme. Helen had telephoned and had an appointment for an interview on Friday the tenth. She hoped she would be successful and that she wouldn’t have to spend too long in the hotel.
Their last week in Fowey, the weather was wintry with high winds and rain that lashed the cottage and the smell of the sea, strong in the air. Mostly they stayed in, only going out to bring in wood for the fire and one expedition into Fowey for food. While the rain rattled on the window panes, they listened to music and talked and cooked and ate and made love.
Helen had wanted to take him into Plymouth to buy things for the Front. Apparently it was possible to go into some of the bigger department stores and be kitted out with all ‘trench necessities’. But Lewis didn’t want to waste any of their precious time together doing that. As the Wednesday approached their mood became more and more gloomy. Their train ride, when it came, was made in almost complete silence. They finally parted at Paddington. While Lewis was walking home, the tears came. Luckily, Dad was still at work and calling a quick hello to Margaret, who was in the kitchen, Lewis went up to his room. He lay on the bed and cried until he fell asleep.
When he woke he felt like his heart had been torn out, bloody with bits of veins and arteries hanging off it. He remembered what Helen’s husband had said about it being possible for a heart to be broken. Lewis too now knew that it was. It seemed hearts could do all sorts of things. They could be heavy; they could be light and – yes, they could be broken.
A few days later he had a letter from her. In it she told him that she had nominated him as her next of kin. She hoped he didn’t mind, the letter said. Lewis was overjoyed at the implication of what she was asking. Essentially she was saying that there was no one else in the world to whom she was closer.
After that it would be almost exactly a year – November 1917 – before he would see her again.
He got a week and they spent it in a hotel in Brighton. He didn’t tell Dad he was coming home for which he felt terribly guilty but there was so little time. The week was so like the final week they had spent in Fowey – the rapture of seeing each other after so long eventually becoming the long, painful Calvary of getting ready to return. They reassured each other that the spell was working – that because of the men she tended and the suffering that she eased, that he would survive. By then she was working at the one of the sixteen hospitals in Etaples, the huge British base camp on the coast of France.
They returned to France – on separate ships, the Army seeming to have a knack of arranging things that way.
43
‘Hande hoch,’ Lewis screams, indicating skywards with his free hand.
He knows the man won’t obey. Why would he? He is stronger than Lewis. He holds a rifle with a bayonet attached. The German knows the British are looking for prisoners and so that Lewis won’t shoot. All of this passes through Lewis’ mind in an instant.
Time seems to slow down so that Lewis can see everything in startling detail. The German lunges with the bayonet. It is a training ground perfect thrust, launched off the rear leg. He also screams exactly as Lewis had been taught to do. Lewis tries to step to one side but the man seems to have anticipated this.
In a panic Lewis pulls his stomach back with an almost backbone-tearing jerk. As though that would help. Simultaneously he strikes in panic at the bayonet with his pistol hand. He feels the blade slice across the backs
of his fingers and warm blood splashing out. His blow is pathetically weak in comparison to the power of the bayonet thrust but it appears to have been enough to deflect it. It drives into his Bomber’s Shield just below his ribs. Lewis winces in anticipation of the blade entering his flesh, but the thrust seems to have run out of steam and gotten stuck in the layers of the Bomber’s Shield. It has saved his life. The stupid thing has saved his life.
‘Bastard!’ Lewis screams. He steps back, extricating himself from the bayonet and then charges at the German. The duckboards are slick and Lewis’ feet slide on them for an instant. Then he is wrestling with the German. The rifle thuds to the ground, but Lewis knows that this is not good. The German is going to use his hands. For a moment they grapple together. Lewis tries desperately to maintain his balance and to push the German over. But the German is too powerful with the result that Lewis crashes down with the German on top of him. This is not going at all the way it was meant to. Lewis wonders where the others are.
Lewis tries to bring his pistol back around to point at the German but the man grabs Lewis’ wrist and pinions his right arm through a layer of mud to the duckboards. He is dimly aware that his back and his legs have become soaked with icy mud or water. The German is unbelievably strong and heavy. He now puts his other hand on Lewis’ throat and starts to squeeze. Where the fuck are the others?
The German’s breath is foul and Lewis is suddenly filled with a deep, all-consuming hatred for this man. Wife beater. Baby killer. This bastard is not going to be the cause of Lewis’ death. He screams, ‘Get off me, you fucker!’
With a huge effort he lifts his pistol hand off the duckboards. He is hardly aware of the pain from the bayonet cut. His hand hovers a foot or so off the ground, the German trying to push it back down, Lewis trying to raise and aim it. Lewis hates this man, hates his ignorant looking face, hates his strength. But he is stronger than Lewis. He looks stupid but he is going to be the cause of Lewis’ death. Lewis’ pistol arms splashes back down again into the mud and now the man’s hand tightens on Lewis’ throat.
‘Oh Christ. Oh Christ.’
Lewis hears the words gurgling out of him. He feels like his eyes are going to pop. He tries to move again but the German now has him clamped to the duckboards. The German adjusts his position slightly to get more leverage and power. Lewis’ vision is starting to go red.
But then he hears a sound like something hitting on bone. The German roars more in anger than in pain and his grip eases somewhat. There is another dull sound. It is a kick, Lewis realises. The German roars again and dimly Lewis sees a boot crashing into the side of the German’s head. There is another kick – this time more vicious and in the face. The German makes a stunned noise. All the strength and weight seems to go out of him. He relaxes his grip. Lewis gasps for breath and half rolls out from beneath him. In the gloom Lewis sees that it is Fraser, one of his men, who is doing the kicking. Fraser is tall and powerfully built. Lewis would have thought a kick from him would down a horse. Fraser drags the moaning German to his feet and passes him back to one of the other men. Then he leans down to Lewis and gives him a hand up.
‘Alright, sir? Sorry about the delay, sir. Bloke popped up out of nowhere. Nearly done for me. Had to kill him.’
They have to shout to be heard above the noise of the continuing British artillery barrage. Lewis is gulping in lungfuls of cold, foetid trench air. It tastes like nectar. It is a few moments before he can speak. His throat throbs where the German squeezed it.
‘Thanks, Fraser.’
Fraser grins.
‘All in a night’s work, sir.’
‘No, really – thank you,’ says Lewis. ‘He had me there.’
‘Somebody has to look out for you, sir. You’re bleeding, sir.’
Lewis had forgotten about his hand, but he is suddenly aware of great pain where the bayonet sliced his fingers. His hand which is still wrapped around the pistol is sticky with blood and soaked in mud from when the German held it down. Lewis flexes his fingers and feels sharp stabs of pain. The fingers move, though. They can still hold the gun. It occurs to Lewis that the pistol may not actually be serviceable any longer after the soaking that it got in the mud. Unarmed and running round an enemy trench. Jesus Christ!
‘Alright,’ Lewis says to Fraser. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
A figure looms up out of the darkness. Lewis is so jumpy at this stage that he is lucky not to shoot what turns out to be a British soldier.
‘Blocking Party?’ shouts Lewis, above the noise of the artillery.
‘Yessir.’
‘Whitby.’
It is the code word to withdraw. Lewis checks his watch. One forty one. They are way behind schedule.
‘Whitby,’ shouts the man to unseen people beyond him.
Lewis and Fraser turn round and hurry back to the entry point. Here they find their three men waiting. Up on the parapet there are several members of the Covering Party, kneeling down or crouching. The prisoners have already been sent out of the trench and back towards the British lines. Lewis is about to set off to find the rest of his party when the welcome figure of Sergeant Robinson appears out of the darkness. Robinson is carrying a satchel.
‘Got some papers, sir. That should keep ‘em happy.’
‘Nice work, Sergeant. Everyone with you?’
‘Yessir, all present and accounted for.’
‘Alright, send somebody to tell the Blocking Party and let’s get out of here.’
Robinson details a man called Wilson to do it. Lewis starts counting his men up the ladder and out of the trench. They are all out, with Private Jackson bringing up the rear, when Wilson returns.
‘Sir, they’ve got a wounded man.’
Another bloody hold up.
Lewis hears the wounded man before he sees him. Three men materialise out of the night. Two soldiers half-drag, half-carry the casualty between them, his arms around their shoulders. The front of his chest is a mass of dark blood. His head lolls and he groans continuously, the groan becoming a scream when the two men jar him too much.
‘Covering Party,’ Lewis shouts up, ‘we’ve got a wounded man here. We’re going to need a stretcher.’
‘Righto,’ a voice calls back.
‘Sergeant,’ says Lewis, ‘you and Wilson – up onto the parapet and get this man out.’
Robinson races up the ladder and Wilson follows him. As they do, Lewis sees one of the three ladders that the British lowered into the trench, being pulled back out. The Covering Party will lay blankets on it to use as a stretcher. The wounded man is brought over to the wall of the trench and placed with his back against a ladder. The two men who carried him lift him under his thighs and simultaneously, Robinson and Wilson lean over and haul him up by the arms. The man’s screaming becomes ear-splitting above the continuing artillery bombardment and the racketing of the machine guns.
Come on. Come on. Lewis looks at his watch. One forty four.
Finally, the wounded man is up, out of the trench and onto the improvised stretcher. Nearly there. Nearly there. Now it’s just a question of getting back.
Lewis hurries up the ladder where Sergeant Robinson waits for him.
‘The men are all on their way back, sir.’
‘Well done, Sergeant.’
Lewis’ party has sustained no casualties. Three prisoners and documents. They are almost home. Almost home. Almost home. They find the tape and begin following it to the wire, crouching and running as fast as they can. Behind them they can hear the men of the two Blocking Parties. The Covering Party, on the German parapet, will be the last to withdraw.
But then, suddenly, everything goes quiet. The ear splitting noise of the bombardment ceases and Lewis is conscious of a ringing in his ears. It is what he has been dreading. The extra time that they spent trying to find a gap in the wire meant that they were behind schedule going into the German trench. Now, the artillery – believing the raid to be on schedule and thus, over – stops firing.
The British machine gun fire continues but the artillery is stopped. Lewis and Robinson, along with most of the raiding party, are still on German side of the wire.
The momentary silence is deafening. A voice from somewhere behind Lewis says, ‘oh, Christ.’ Then the Germans open up with rifle and machine gun fire. Everyone dives to the ground. There is a crackle of small arms fire as the Covering Party, still between Lewis and the German front line, fire back. The stinging sound of bullets seems unbelievably close.
Lewis is panting and his heart is beating in his chest as though it would burst. He is coated in icy sweat. The German fire, which initially sounded reasonably light, is now starting to intensify as more Germans realise what has happened. It’s only a matter of time before they call up artillery fire. When that happens the British in no-man’s-land will be blown to spots.
‘Come on,’ says Lewis. ‘We can’t stay here.’
Lewis counts to himself – three, two, one. He stands up. Sergeant Robinson is up now too. The sound of bullets is all around them. Lewis hunches his shoulders in anticipation of one in the back. Let it be clean. Don’t let me be paralysed.
They begin running towards the gap in the wire, hunched down and conscious that behind them all the other men are doing the same. There is the sound of bullets stinging by. Lewis doesn’t understand why the Germans haven’t called up artillery. But then, as if reading his thoughts, Robinson says, panting, ‘I found some wires, sir. Phone wires by the look of them. Cut ’em all, sir.’
Lewis grins at Robinson. He could kiss him. They are pounding through the gap in the wire. Lewis hooks his boot on some barbed wire, trips and falls. He puts his hands out to brace himself, forgetting about the wound to his fingers. The pain is excruciating as his hands and knees land on the barbs, and are then shredded as he gets up again and disentangles himself.
Just as he stands back up, a shower of green flares suddenly goes up from the German lines. This is the signal for their artillery. Now it all depends on where the first salvo will land. If it lands on the British side of no-man’s-land they are done for. He hears the distant crack of an artillery piece followed by several more. No-man’s-land is full of running men.
Starlight (The Four Lights Quartet Book 1) Page 22