Wartime Sweethearts

by Lizzie Lane

  ‘That’s their business,’ Mary said to those who dared comment.

  ‘I’ll only buy my bread when you’re serving,’ Mrs Powell declared to Mary. ‘Or Ruby. I don’t approve of such carryings-on.’

  Stan Sweet declined to dismiss Gilda from the shop. ‘I won’t be intimidated by sanctimonious busy bodies!’

  The twins decided it was down to them to have a word with her, to tell her about the gossips. ‘Though tactfully,’ warned Mary. ‘Personally I can’t stand gossips, but she has to be made aware of what’s being said.’

  Ruby agreed. ‘And Charlie?’

  Mary pulled a rueful face. ‘Charlie doesn’t give a damn about gossip.’

  It was true. He aired the view that it was his business and nobody else’s.

  ‘Then I’ll have a quiet word with her,’ stated Ruby.

  Charlie looked her in the eye and raised a warning finger. ‘Don’t. You might not like what you hear.’

  ‘What did he mean by that,’ Ruby said to her sister once Charlie was out of the room.

  Mary frowned. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps we shouldn’t mention it.’

  ‘Oh, I think we should,’ said a more headstrong Ruby. ‘A woman-to-woman talk. Where’s the harm in that?’

  Mary was in two minds, but ultimately decided that it was a good thing if it prevented hearts being broken.

  It was after midday closing when they decided the time was ripe to warn Gilda about the gossip going on behind her back. Charlie had left earlier that day to re-join his ship. Gilda had helped out that morning and Ruby came back early from handing out leaflets in Hanham High Street. Mary had made tea and cut up two of Ruby’s meatless pasties that she’d made the night before.

  So it was that once the shop was closed and the three of them, Mary, Ruby and Gilda, were sitting around the table, the subject was finally tackled.

  Mary took a deep breath and dived in first. ‘Gilda, there’s something we want to speak to you about. Something very important.’

  Gilda’s complexion turned pale and her eyes were filled with alarm. ‘Can I still work here? If anything is wrong …’

  ‘Nothing is wrong, Gilda,’ exclaimed Ruby. ‘Not as far as the bakery is concerned anyway. It’s about you and our Charlie.’

  Mary covered her eyes and shook her head. Her sister had the habit of charging forward without uttering a few reassuring words first. Mary tended to be more tactful.

  ‘Gilda,’ Mary interjected before Ruby did her bull-in-a-china-shop routine. ‘This is a small village. Charlie is a single man and you are a married woman with two children. Besides that you’re foreign, and believe me, even coming from Bath or Bristol means you’re foreign in these parts. What I’m saying is the facts have not gone unnoticed—’

  Suddenly Gilda burst into tears.

  ‘Gilda! We’re not going to sack you …’ Ruby began.

  Gilda’s tears went on unchecked, then retreated into sobs leaving her shoulders heaving.

  ‘I am no longer married …’

  She reached into the pocket of her apron. They knew Gilda received letters from relatives in London, but the one she drew out of the pocket of her apron was rumpled and looked as though she had had it for some time. She handed it to Mary.

  Mary felt her throat constrict as she read it. Once she had, she gave it to her sister.

  Ruby reacted in much the same way as her sister. They both now understood why Gilda was crying.

  ‘Have another one,’ said Mary and poured her a second cup of tea. What other consolation was possible in the circumstances? Gilda’s husband was dead.

  ‘It’s my fault,’ Gilda stammered, her words shrouded by sobs.

  ‘Oh, Gilda,’ murmured Mary, giving the woman’s shoulder a squeeze. ‘That’s foolishness. How can it be your fault?’

  Gilda wouldn’t be comforted, her tears running down her face and into her mouth. ‘It is,’ she said still sobbing and stammering her words. ‘It is. It is all my fault.’

  Ruby slid along on to the chair next to Gilda. Like Mary she squeezed Gilda’s shoulder. ‘Do you want to tell us about it?’

  ‘You don’t have to, but it might help,’ Mary suggested.

  Gilda blew her nose. For a moment she seemed to think about it, though couldn’t say a word until her sobbing was under control, and even then the odd one escaped, her shoulders convulsing each time. Slowly her sobs came under control, though her shoulders still quaked.

  ‘He has been dead some time.’

  Mary exchanged a quick look with Ruby. They’d both read that he’d been dead sometime in the letter which had come via the Red Cross. Death by hanging, it said.

  ‘They promised he would only go to a concentration camp. They broke their promise. I should have known,’ said Gilda, shaking her head sadly. ‘I should have known.’ Gilda continued pulling the same lock of hair, twirling it around and around her finger one way then back in the opposite direction.

  As she spoke her eyes stayed fixed on the message, the scrap of paper looking so insignificant, even trivial despite the Red Cross letters written boldly at the top, yet it held the most severe message a wife could possibly receive. Her husband was dead.

  ‘It’s my fault,’ she whispered softly so that both twins had to listen carefully in order to catch what she was saying. ‘I had to make a choice. I was forced to make a choice.’

  Mary frowned. ‘Go on,’ she said calmly.

  Gilda continued to twirl the strand of hair, all the while staring at the piece of paper.

  ‘I am Dutch. Frederich was Austrian, a professor at the University of Vienna. We were happy enough even after Hitler came to power in Germany, after all, why wouldn’t we be? It was nothing to do with Austria. Naively we chose to ignore that the two nations spoke the same language and regarded themselves as all part of one big Aryan family. Austria was an older country than Germany, which had consisted of many principalities in the previous century until Bismarck had united them. As Jews we thought we were safe, but as time went on, things began to change. Eventually Germany annexed Austria. There was much jubilation, though we were not joyful. Suddenly we feared what might happen next. We had heard what was happening to Jews in Germany. Suddenly it began happening in Austria.

  ‘Frederich lost his post at the university, replaced by a jealous underling of less aptitude but of Aryan blood.

  ‘My husband didn’t take it lying down. He protested and got involved in a small resistance movement. There was a scuffle one night during a protest and a policeman was killed. Although Frederich hadn’t been present, he was arrested and so was I. Our children were placed in an orphanage.

  ‘At my interrogation I protested my innocence. I also pointed out that I was a Dutch national, a citizen of the Netherlands, born in Amsterdam.’

  Gilda paused, her eyes downcast. She swallowed deeply as though her mouth was dry. Mary poured milk into her cup which she drank in one gulp.

  The twins waited silently, their apprehension mounting.

  Gilda continued. ‘My husband had told them he was at home that night, as indeed he was. My interrogators told me they wished me to tell the truth and that he was not home, that he had lied.

  ‘I told them he was telling the truth.

  ‘They hit me then, slapping my face about six or seven times. After that they took me back to my cell then brought me out again the following day. It was then, after I had suffered the privations of being slapped and kept in a cold cell, that they told me what they wanted me to do. They needed me to say it was a lie. They wanted to pass the death sentence. My evidence would help them achieve that.

  ‘I said I would not, but these people …’

  Gilda took another deep breath as though her heart was breaking – which it was. It was obvious to the twins that explaining what had happened was taking its toll. She’d already said she hadn’t told many people; they guessed that Charlie, and perhaps Michael, was one of the chosen few.

  ‘They said that if I did not
testify as they wanted, my husband and children would be sent to a concentration camp.

  ‘“At least we shall all be together,” I said to them, defiant despite my sore face and my fear.

  ‘I remember the way he smiled, that man, the one who was obviously more German than the others. Gestapo.

  ‘“No. Not you, Frau Jacobson. As a foreign national you will be deported back to the Netherlands, your husband in a camp for men, your children, being Austrian born, in a separate camp. Many children die there without parents to take care of them.”

  ‘“You let children die?” I said to them. Only Jewish children, they told me. We only let Jewish children die.’ She shook her head in disbelief. ‘I shall never forget the evil look on the man’s face. He went on to say that if I complied with their request I could leave with my children and return to Holland.’

  It seemed to Mary as though the oxygen had suddenly been sucked from the room and she was close to fainting. She didn’t look at her sister but sensed she was feeling much the same. Her gaze remained focused on Gilda.

  ‘They made me choose between my husband and my children. I knew my children would never survive a camp alone without me, but that Frederich might. They promised he would not be executed as long as I confessed. They gave me hope but their promises were hollow.’ Gilda shook her head. ‘I betrayed my husband. Now he is dead. I had no choice.’

  She went on to explain that she’d wanted to hide from the world after that. The make-up helped but it was only a mask.

  ‘I felt I had no right to happiness ever again. Then Charlie came along and everything changed. So now you know.’

  Mary felt tears in her own eyes; Ruby patted Gilda’s hand. ‘You did what you had to do, Gilda. I would have done the same in your position. I’m glad you’ve found happiness again.’

  Mary tossed and turned all that night, fighting to shake off nightmares of prison camps full of men in uniform, all wearing RAF uniforms. Michael Dangerfield was one of them.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Frances Sweet was home for the weekend and snuggled under the bedclothes.

  At the other end of the village the sound of machines and men shouting were enough to wake anyone who wasn’t already up.

  Frances couldn’t help thinking about Mario, the man who lived in the forest. It was totally unfair that he should be carted off and interned as an enemy alien. She hadn’t known Italians were enemy aliens. In fact, she hadn’t even realised that Mario was Italian.

  ‘He can’t be an enemy,’ she’d shouted at Mary on her arrival back home. ‘He helped me find my way back to Ada’s.’

  Mary had looked undecided. Even when Frances had pointed out that he’d carried her all the way to Ada’s house, she maintained an undecided expression.

  By ten o’clock Frances was washed, dressed and eating toast with plum jam. One bite and she screwed her face up at the taste of it. ‘This butter tastes funny.’

  Mary turned round from turning the handle of the mincer. Cottage pie was on the menu tonight and some of the beef from Sunday’s roast was the main ingredient.

  ‘It isn’t butter. It’s margarine.’

  ‘Yuk!’

  ‘It’s no good complaining, Frances. We all have to make sacrifices, even you, and anyway, you can’t really taste it with all that jam piled on top.’

  Frances eyed the jam she’d spread lavishly on top of the margarine. Suddenly alarmed that Mary might suggest scraping some of it off and returning it to the jar she finished off her toast and drank her tea in record-quick time, grabbed her coat and headed for her friend Elspeth’s house.

  As it turned out she didn’t need to walk that far. Elspeth and a few other old friends were halfway along the High Street right outside the doctor’s surgery.

  They were walking quickly in the direction of the Apple Tree pub and the orchard.

  ‘Quick,’ shouted Edgar, the youngest of the Martin boys. ‘They’re digging up our orchard.’

  Frances gasped. ‘Our orchard?’

  Elspeth nodded solemnly. ‘For the war effort.’

  Frances couldn’t begin to guess what part an old neglected orchard might have in the war against the Germans, but she didn’t want it dug up like the one up at Perrotts’ Farm.

  Like a flock of homing pigeons, they ran as one, determined to get to their destination, though no plan was in place of what they would do once they got there. They’d played in that orchard from the time they were big enough to climb over the gate or the ruined wall, so when they were finally there, seeing what was going on, all eyes were filled with dismay.

  ‘They’re burning them,’ young Edgar exclaimed with disbelief.

  Frances took a deep breath and tasted apples, fallout from the bonfire. The orchard was ruined. Trunks were being loaded on to a lorry; bigger branches were being sawn into manageable logs before being distributed to those villagers already gathered. As the word spread about free firewood, more joined them and arguments were breaking out.

  A bonfire of twigs, roots and dried leaves crackled and spat in the heart of the orchard.

  Even the long grass where voles and rabbits and other small creatures lived was being cut down and there were gaping holes where the trees had been ripped from the ground.

  Frances stared. ‘They can’t do this!’

  ‘Oh yes they can.’ Miriam Powell was pushing an old perambulator piled high with logs. ‘They have to, Frances. It’s an order from the very top. We need more land to plant vegetables and wheat. We have to be able to feed ourselves and anyway, we’ve got enough apple trees, certainly around here. Never mind though, eh. You’ll find somewhere else to play with your friends.’

  Her smile was sickly sweet, almost as sickly sweet as the smell of burning apple twigs coming from the heart of the orchard.

  Frances was just about to say there was nowhere quite like the orchard when she caught sight of Gareth Stead standing in the middle of the pub yard watching the proceedings with an odd look on his face.

  At first she thought he was looking at her, but it wasn’t so. He was looking beyond her to where two men were pondering the contents of a sack.

  ‘Governor,’ one of them shouted. ‘We’ve found a bag of bones.’

  A big man with powerful arms and a black moustache strode over to them.

  ‘Just bones?’ He sounded as though he wasn’t too pleased at being disturbed.

  ‘And a dress,’ one of the men said. ‘There’s a dress in here as well.’

  The man speaking pulled out what looked at a distance like a bundle of material. Frances looked to where Gareth Stead had been watching. He wasn’t there.

  Scared, she decided. Gareth is scared and she thought she knew why.

  ‘Mister,’ she said, running over to the man the others had addressed as Governor. ‘Mister. I know who buried those bones.’

  ‘You do?’ The man looked at her kindly. ‘And how’s that then, me ’andsome?’

  ‘I saw him bury them. It was him,’ she said, pointing towards the Apple Tree pub. ‘It was him. I saw him, but he didn’t see me.’

  The man’s expression turned in a flash from friendly to serious. He touched the dress and peered into the sack. ‘It’s bones all right. Could be bones of anything, though.’

  ‘Only women wear dresses, Governor,’ the man who had brought the sack over pointed out.

  The man with the black moustache conceded that the other man was right and shook his head. ‘I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all.’

  Frances saw her chance to get her own back on a man she disliked intensely. It was probably his fault that her orchard was being ripped up, though everyone said it was because of the war.

  ‘I expect it’s his wife,’ she piped up to the man with the black moustache. ‘Nobody’s seen her for years.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Stan Sweet and Sam Pickard were mighty pleased to hear that the person responsible for stealing one of their pigs had been caught. Everything
to do with pigs and livestock, slaughtering in particular, had to be accounted for to the Ministry of Food, slaughtering in particular.

  Paddy Casey, the village bobby, who hailed from Dublin and had married into the village in his youth, wiped at his forehead with a large handkerchief as he related the story, his comments interspersed with loud guffaws of laughter.

  ‘At first we thought it was his wife. Thought he’d done away with her. Can you believe that.’ His face reddened when he laughed. ‘He’d wrapped the bones up in an old frock. More fool him, and then young Frances …’ Again, laughter. ‘She told them it was probably his missus who ain’t been seen fer years.’

  Paddy laughed. Stan laughed. Everybody laughed. Paddy’s laughter was that infectious.

  ‘If the silly sod hadn’t wrapped the bones up in that old frock, and if young Frances hadn’t said as were probably ’is missus … but you should ’ave seen ’is face – Mr Stead’s, that is. Went white as a sheet.’

  ‘So where is his wife?’ asked Stan once he’d stopped laughing.

  Paddy mopped his forehead, his face, his nose and his chin as he spoke. ‘Nowhere to be found, but that don’t mean she’s dead, only that she don’t want to be found. Can’t say I blame ’er. Stead ain’t one of my favourite characters.’

  Stan got to what really concerned him. ‘I take it you’re charging him with regard to my pig?’

  Paddy shook his head. ‘No real evidence.’

  ‘But my cousin saw him burying that sack,’ Mary pointed out.

  Paddy shook his head again. By now he was mopping the sweat at the nape of his neck. ‘She’s only a child, and anyway, she did suggest it might be his wife. Kids tell stories. We all know that.’

  Paddy’s green-flecked eyes flickered in Stan’s direction. Stan was sitting quietly, his eyes downcast.

  Paddy paused by his chair on the way out. ‘Stan. Don’t you be taking the law into your own hands. Hear me?’

  Stan got to his feet. ‘Thanks for letting us know what’s happening, Paddy. It’s much appreciated.’