I nodded, feeling a little foolish for even considering such a thing.
‘How can we know?’ Father concluded. ‘Us, mere warring mortals who can set the world on fire with our bombs, and cause excruciating agony with our evil gasses. We who build great ships, Zeppelins and aeroplanes, and squabble murderously about borderlines and areas of the great seas. Do we not think we are gods ourselves?’
I shrugged, unable to answer his questions. ‘The thing is, Father, the man who gave me the ring – the ring that reminds me that a miracle dolphin saved me, so that I could save Corporal Perkins – well, that man is Corporal Perkins’s rival for my hand in marriage. It’s all too confusing.’ My father shook his head so I tried to clarify. ‘If I had not been saved by the dolphin, I could not marry anyone. But the man who put the dolphin on my wedding finger is not the man who has asked you for my hand.’
‘I see . . . I think.’
‘If there is a public inquiry, and I am found guilty of opening the portholes and causing the Britannic to sink before it reached the island of Kea, might they hang me for mutiny? I am so afraid . . .’
Saying my deepest fears aloud was too much for me. I gulped and hiccuped and choked on my anguish. The bodies in the sea, my drowning, the needle going into my arm to draw blood, the horror of having an amputated leg dropped into my arms. All of it . . . boiled up and scalded me. And now imagining the floor opening beneath my feet and a rope tightening around my neck, then snapping it at the end of my fall into the darkest place on earth. Oh!
‘And if I was pregnant, would my life be spared, or would they still hang me after my baby was born?’
My father’s eyes widened and his mouth fell slightly open, but he said nothing.
I was so overcome I could not draw breath. Darkness invaded from the corners of my eyes, and everything rushed away. Suddenly I was in hell, swinging from a rope in the void demanded by justice, all for my wrongdoing.
A burning sensation in my nostrils brought me back to now and the smelling salts that father wafted under my nose. Then I was in his arms, sobbing violently.
‘We’ll get through this, Gertie, poor, poor child,’ he said, holding me against his chest as I wept.
Once Father had gone, I sat alone in my cell and studied Gray’s Anatomy until I fell asleep. The muscles and bones, brains, eyes and organs on the pages all came back to me in my dreams as I had seen them in the operating theatre, then I saw them tossed in the water around the Britannic’s propeller. In the purple and black of a gangrene nightmare I fell through the hangman’s trapdoor onto a heap of mashed bodies and gore and found myself screaming for all I was worth.
‘Miss! Miss!’ the sergeant cried. ‘You’re having a nightmare, wake up now!’
He was a decent fellow, and I could see he felt sorry for me. ‘I’ll make you some cocoa and we’ll see if we can get you out of here tomorrow.’
*
When father returned to my cell, he informed me I had no post at home. My heart plummeted. So I would accept Perkins’s proposal, even though we had little in common apart from the Britannic. He wanted to run off and fix broken vehicles, I needed to heal the wounded and nurse the sick. We were destined to hardly see each other before the end of the war.
‘Gertie, I have some great news,’ Perkins told me the following day. ‘There’s a shortage of mechanics now, and the government is accepting some amputees for certain posts that are not affected by their condition.’
‘That’s wonderful news, Johnathan.’
‘I received my papers this morning. I long to go, but of course I cannot leave you while you are harassed like this. Marry me immediately, Gertie Smith, before I return to the war. Make me the happiest man on earth. If you do, I’ll go straight to the press and I’ll tell them I’m sure you didn’t open the portholes.’
I stared at Perkins, then at the ring. I knew this would be the solution to all my problems and would make him immensely happy, but it would not mend my broken heart.
‘Please, Gertie, do me the honour of becoming my wife. I can get a special licence. We can be married in the fortnight.’
I thought about the baby growing inside me and nodded.
*
The magistrate released me with a caution and Jacob Boniface was ordered not to come within half a mile of our house, or a hundred yards of me.
Back home – on a mattress where the flock-stuffing gathered in lumps, determined to quarrel with the contours of my body – I hardly slept, more confident by the day that I was with child. Each day became a struggle. Manno became my hero, an anchor in my sea of troubles, although I suspected he hardly understood the intensity of my feelings towards him. He was a simple village fisherman, only twenty-two years of age. Captivated by the unconventional man who had swept me off my feet and literally thrown me on the bed, I wondered if I had given my heart away too soon?
*
My father agreed with my wedding to Johnathan and because he was a soldier, we had special dispensation to marry, two weeks later, before a small group of friends which included Matron Merriberry and Josephine, and some distant relations of Perkins. That day I became the Corporal’s wife in the town hall.
After the formalities before the registrar, we went back to our house. Mrs Cooper and her two daughters had prepared a wedding banquet – magnificent, considering we were in the middle of a world war. First, oysters, followed by a brace of pheasants with apple and walnut stuffing, roasted vegetables, and dandelion salad. Pudding was a luxurious apple charlotte with clotted cream.
After a little too much sherry, Johnathan and I left home, showered by the guests with rose petals and rice. Father drove us to a hotel in the town for one night. Someone had bedecked father’s Ford in white ribbons, added a pair of old boots to the back bumper, and fixed a written sign that said JUST MARRIED to the rear of the car.
I was frantic, sure Perkins would realise I was not a virgin. However, my true friend, Josephine, was ahead of me.
‘Gertie, come into the bedroom,’ she said earlier that day.
I followed her.
‘Look, I may be entirely wrong, if so, pardon me, but you may need this.’ She handed me a little parcel wrapped in white linen.
‘Thank you, but what is it?’
‘Forgive me. You are probably intact.’ Her eyes flicked down, then back to my face. ‘I’m sure you are. But as you rode a motorbike in Mudros, such activities can rupture a woman’s hymen. Do you understand?’
I nodded frantically. ‘I think it did . . . I’ve been so worried.’
‘Then, to save the tedium of explanations, use this gift and we’ll say no more.’
‘But how? I know nothing.’
‘You will find a phial of fresh rabbit’s blood and a small sponge. Saturate the sponge with the blood, and place it as high as possible in your secret place. Remove it and wash yourself as soon as possible after. All right?’
I need not have worried. For all Johnathan’s flirting, I realised he was not experienced in the art of lovemaking. Clearly it was his first time, and he was as anxious about the event as I, until mother nature gave him a delirious shove in the right direction.
*
The broadsheets picked up on our union and the opportunity arose for my new husband to keep his word and exonerate me from any part in the sinking of the Britannic.
Three days after our marriage, Johnathan left for France. The press forgot me, and I personally visited the families of the lost and injured men. I talked about those brave fellows to their parents and wives which seemed to bring the mothers in particular some relief from their torment. I cried with them, genuinely moved by their grief.
With a heavy heart, I wrote to Manno and told him I knew about his family and I had found a father for his baby. I told him how heartbroken I was. He had betrayed me – but maybe I had betrayed him too, by marrying Johnathan. I tried to put it out of my mind but that was impossible. Now, I understood true love. No matter what he did
, I loved him to the depths of my soul. There was no question, one day I would go back to that small Greek island and find the fisherman. I would feel his arms around me, and taste his lips on mine one more time. It seemed the saddest of tears were trapped in my heart, and would stay there until the day I met my one true love again.
I took work in the local hospital and saved every penny I could towards my trip back to Greece. When my pregnancy became obvious, I broke the news. Father congratulated my husband when he returned from France on leave.
Johnathan was thrilled and begged me to give him a son. He was such a dear man who clearly loved me. I tried to be the wife he deserved and kept my deceit to myself. I had made these two men, my father and Johnathan, very happy.
It was only in those darkest hours before dawn that I lay in my lonely bed and cried for my one true love.
As my girth expanded, so my mother’s health deteriorated until she passed away in her sleep a month before I gave birth.
*
While my husband was away, I gave birth to a beautiful, blue-eyed son. I’m sure my father read all the signs that my baby was at least three weeks late, yet I claimed he was almost a month early. Johnathan came home for three days special leave, and was thrilled that we were now a proper family. We decided to call our baby Adam, after Johnathan’s father.
‘You’ve made me the proudest man, Gertie. Thank you. I love you both so much,’ he whispered in my ear the night before he returned to the war. ‘In an odd way, I am not so afraid of being killed now, knowing a part of me lives on, here.’
CHAPTER 49
GERTIE
Dover, 1917.
ADAM WAS SUCH A BEAUTIFUL baby, and with his birth all the powerful instincts of motherhood were born too. When his eyes found mine, I became lost in the wonder of him. This perfect little baby seemed to glow with love as he grasped my little finger.
My father doted on his first grandchild, buying him the best perambulator in the country.
With Father’s encouragement, I took Adam out for a turn along Lighthouse Lane every morning after breakfast, once his thirty days of confinement was over. His eyes were already changing colour, and his porcelain pink skin had gained a golden hue. I saw Manno in every glance of my baby’s wonderful eyes. As the weeks passed, I’m sure my father realised the dark-haired, brown-eyed baby was not the Corporal’s child, but he said nothing.
My husband was due home in a fortnight. On several occasions, I feared he would see Adam’s likeness to his Greek antagonist. I strolled along Lighthouse Lane, towards home, when I noticed a stranger walking towards me from the direction of The White House. The man stopped, staring in our direction, then suddenly, he tore off his trilby and started running towards us.
‘Gertie! Is that you, agapi mou?’
‘Oh, Manno! Manno!’ I couldn’t believe it. Overwhelmed, I longed to be in his arms, yet I remained frozen to the spot, remembering the woman and two children he had in Kea. I pulled the brake lever on the perambulator and turned towards him.
‘Please, Manno, we can’t be seen together. At any moment, someone might come down the lane. Go through the gate just ahead and wait for me in the field, behind the hedge.’
As usual, the fresh air had put Adam to sleep. Once Manno had disappeared through the gate, and there was no sign of traffic, I headed in his direction.
Tears welled in my eyes when I finally entered his embrace. ‘Oh, my darling, I’ve missed you so much! What are you doing here? Why didn’t you answer my letters?’
‘I wanted to write to you, but I have a terrible confession, agapi mou.’
‘I know, I heard. You have a wife and two little girls already.’ I stared at the ground, unable to look at him, my tears coming dangerously close.
‘What! No! Who has told you such a thing?’
‘It’s useless denying it. Your wife cooked a meal for Matron, only last month. Your children are beautiful, she says so.’
He cupped my chin and lifted my face so that I could not avoid his eyes. ‘My sister-in-law, Katerina, looks after me and my father when we stay on Kea, and we look after her while my brother is in the army!’
I stared at him while the news went into my head. ‘You’re not married? Oh! Then what is your big confession?’ He took a breath, his face colouring a little. ‘Manno, you’re blushing! Oh, my goodness, what is it?’
‘I am ashamed, agapi mou, you see . . . I cannot read or write the English alphabet. My sister-in-law, she found your letters two weeks ago. I kept them all, you understand. Katerina, she read some of them to me.’
‘Manno, you break my heart.’
‘I think your father has guessed the truth, that I love you, agapi, but he does not want his daughter to run away with a foreigner and live in another country. He told me I was too late, that my Gertie is happily married, and she has a child. He said if I really loved you, I would leave you alone. Is it true, agapi? Are you married to that malaka English soldier, Perkins?’
‘What could I do? I was having a baby, and you never replied! I needed a father for my child, and that malaka English soldier, as you call him, saved me from going to prison and perhaps from being hanged. What a mess this is! What shall we do?’
‘Leave him and come back to Greece with me.’
‘I can’t do that. If I leave him, he’ll tell the authorities the truth. Besides, he really loves me. They could hang me, Manno, don’t you understand? You see, it was me that went against orders and opened the portholes on the ship. Because of my action, the two-million-pound hospital ship sank before it reached the port. They could have saved it, repaired it, and gone on to save thousands of lives. I’m guilty of mass murder.’
‘How can you be guilty of mass murder? You’re a girl! This is crazy, you cannot stay with a man who blackmails you into having his baby!’
I stared at him, my heart thumping and my eyes full of tears. ‘No,’ I sobbed. ‘No, you don’t understand! Oh, why didn’t Katerina read all my letters? This is too much, Manno!’ Then I couldn’t speak for the sobs that were jerking my chest. The pain gathered and rose until it escaped in a great howl.
Manno pulled me against him. ‘Don’t cry, please! I’ll do anything you want, anything, but don’t cry.’
‘Manno, I love you! And Adam is your son . . .’
His jaw dropped, and for a moment he seemed frozen in shock. Then, he took me firmly by the shoulders and almost shook me, disbelief written on his face. ‘My son! You are telling me that this baby, right here, is my son? My son?’
I nodded. ‘I was a virgin, remember. You were my first love. I told you in my letters I was pregnant.’
Manno seemed too emotional to speak, then he exploded with joy. ‘I have a son! Holy Virgin Mary, I have a son!’ He crossed himself and then pulled me against him. ‘This is a miracle. Let me see him. Does he look like me? My son . . . oh!’
‘Yes, he’s starting to look like you. I don’t know how I’m going to explain his brown eyes and dark hair to my husband when he comes home, but it’s clear to see he’s changing to look a little more like you every day.’ I unhooked the elastic loops on the perambulator’s apron and pushed the hood down. Adam stirred and sucked his fist. ‘It is coming up to his feed time. I must return home.’ The pain of loneliness gathered in my chest. Manno, my love. I didn’t want him to leave, but he must.
‘He is so beautiful, yes,’ he said breathily. ‘Let me pick him up and hold him, my own son.’
‘No, it’s too cold. Come back to the cottage tomorrow morning. My father will be working at the hospital after eight o’clock.’
‘I can’t. My ferry ticket is for tomorrow morning. I must start back to the port. I don’t have the money for another ticket back to Greece.’ I could see he was distressed and it broke my heart.
‘Then come back to the house. I will speak to my father.’
‘I have spoken to him, agapi mou. He made it clear I was not welcome here. Thank the Virgin Mary I came across you,
or I would never have known I have a son.’
‘Trust me. My father’s a good man. He’s only doing what he thinks is best. Allow me to go and speak to him.’
‘He will shoot me!’
‘No.’ I smiled. ‘Fathers do not shoot boys who make their daughters pregnant anymore. Trust me.’
‘I want you to know, I love you. When Katerina had read the first few letters to me, I went out and sold my boat to pay for a trip to come here.’
‘Manno, you sold your precious boat? Oh, my goodness.’
‘Well, to give you the truth, it was my father’s boat, and now he is threaten to shoot me. But no worries, when I tell him about the grandson of his, everything will change.’
‘You’re crazy, Manno. Really crazy. Let me speak to Father. Come to the house with me.’
I pointed to the chairs under the oak tree. ‘Wait there, Manno.’
‘You’re sure he will not shoot me?’
‘I’m sure.’ I pulled the front door open, wheeled the perambulator into the vestibule, and lifted Adam.
‘Who is that?’ Father asked as he turned away from the window. ‘He was here earlier, looking for you.’
‘Manno is the mailman who rescued us when the Britannic went down, Father.’ I sat in the nursing chair in front of the fireplace. ‘His grandmother looked after me, did my laundry and gave me her bed. A very special lady.’
Adam snuffled and gave a little cry, telling me of his hunger. As usual, the sound made my nipples harden painfully. I quickly unbuttoned the front of my dress and then opened the top of my combinations. My baby searched, open-mouthed, for my teat, latched on, and then nursed hungrily. His little fist opened and closed against the white skin of my breast, and his eyes half closed with contentment. There was something miraculous about feeding my little one, and the process filled me with wonder.
Father came over and, with an adoring look, peered down at us. ‘One of the most wonderful sights in the world, Gertie.’ Then he straightened up, and asked, ‘What do you want to do about the young man?’
Summer in Greece Page 38