Time to Say Goodbye

by Rosie Goodwin

  Sunday didn’t quite know what to say so she merely shrugged. ‘Well it will be a nice start to their savings, and he must have wanted to do it. I’m sure John would be upset if you were to tell him you can’t accept it,’ she pointed out. ‘Just put it in the bank for them.’

  Kathy nodded. She didn’t have much choice, but she still secretly thought that it was a very extravagant and expensive gift.

  Christmas arrived all too soon and though John had invited them all to spend Christmas Day at Treetops with himself and Giles, Sunday had decided that she, the girls and the babies would spend it quietly at the lodge instead because Livvy had flatly refused to go.

  Cissie was there with her on Christmas Eve when John appeared laden down with presents, which he carried in and placed beneath the small Christmas tree in the living room.

  ‘I was hoping to give these out tomorrow but, seeing as you’ve chosen to spend the day here, I thought I’d better drop them off,’ he explained, looking slightly crestfallen.

  Sunday’s cheeks burned as she saw the amused twinkle in Cissie’s eye and she thanked him graciously, passing him his gifts from her and the girls. When he had gone, she glared at Cissie. ‘Why are you sitting there with that soppy grin on your face? It is usual to give gifts to friends at Christmas, isn’t it?’

  ‘Of course it is,’ Cissie answered innocently, as she bit into one of Sunday’s delicious mince pies.

  With a sigh Sunday turned away. Cissie was her oldest friend and she loved her dearly, but she could be so annoying when she got a bee in her bonnet about something!

  Chapter Twenty-One

  March 1939

  ‘I tell you, war is coming, and I reckon it will be sooner rather than later,’ George solemnly informed Cissie and Sunday as they all sat together in the little kitchen of Cissie’s cottage one windy morning in March. ‘Neville Chamberlain has informed the House of Commons today that if any action threatened Polish independence and the Poles felt it vital to resist, Britain and France would go to their aid.’

  Cissie paled. The newspapers had been full of doom and gloom for weeks and things seemed to be going from bad to worse with every day that passed. On 15 March, Hitler had made a triumphal entry into Prague and slept at Hradcany Castle. On the 23 March he had forced Lithuania to surrender Memel, under threat of air attack, and now he was demanding Danzig from Poland.

  ‘They’re sayin’ that German troops are already movin’ towards the Polish border so I can’t see how we can avoid becoming involved now,’ George ended glumly.

  ‘But what could this mean for us?’ Cissie asked fearfully. She could still remember the last war all too clearly.

  George sighed. ‘It’s hard to say at present. We’ll just have to wait and see what develops.’

  Sunday and Cissie exchanged a concerned glance and fell silent, each of them lost in their memories.

  On the 23 August, the signing of the Nazi–Soviet non-aggression pact shocked British leaders who reaffirmed their pledge with France to defend Poland, and by the end of the month another war seemed inevitable. The forces were mobilised in readiness, reserves were called up and children began to be evacuated from the major cities. On 1 September German aircraft and troops attacked Poland and just two days later everyone’s worst fears were realised when Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain declared that England was now at war with Germany. The country fell silent as families huddled around their wireless sets to hear the grim news and almost immediately the air raid sirens began to wail across London, sending people scurrying to the shelters. Thankfully this time it was a false alarm, but it was a fearful indication of the destruction which might yet come.

  ‘I almost feel glad that I never had a son,’ Sunday confided. ‘I’d be worried sick about him going off to fight if I had.’

  ‘I know exactly what you mean,’ Cissie agreed glumly, thinking of her own sons. ‘I think John is afraid Giles may decide to sign up too but all we can do now is wait and see what happens over the next few weeks.’

  Later that afternoon, John popped into the lodge to discuss the dreadful news. ‘I think I’ll offer to have a couple of evacuees here,’ he told Sunday. ‘I’m far too old to go and fight but at least if I do that I’ll feel as if I’m doing my bit.’

  ‘But will the children be safe here?’ Sunday fretted, thinking of her own two adorable grandchildren. At two, they were mischievous, and running all over the place and sometimes she felt that she needed eyes in the back of her head. But even so she doted on them and was terrified what might happen to them. Thomas had now gone from being the smallest of the two to being the tallest, although Daisy was still the chatterbox and by the far the most bossy. Truthfully, she would have liked to take some evacuees herself, but the lodge was already overcrowded. ‘We’re only a stone’s throw from Coventry and the car factories there are bound to be a target if they start bombing,’ she pointed out.

  John shook his head and spread his hands helplessly. ‘I should think it would still be safer here than staying in one of the major cities.’

  She nodded numbly as a horrible sense of foreboding swept through her.

  Within days recruitment centres appeared in all the towns and cities across the country and young men were called up to join the forces.

  ‘They were queuing up outside the recruitment office in Nuneaton,’ John told Sunday sorrowfully one afternoon before admitting, ‘I’m terrified that Giles will be called up at any moment. I find myself lying awake every night worrying about it.’

  She could understand his fears. She could still remember how terrified she had been when Tom and Ben went away to fight in the first war, but as she pointed out, ‘I imagine he’ll want to feel he’s contributing in some way, though. But what will happen to the horses when he goes? I’m not sure George could manage everything in the stables on his own.’ Unfortunately, young Billy, the groom John had first employed when he arrived at Treetops, had left soon after his arrival to return to his family so the onus of looking after the animals had fallen solely to George and Giles again.

  ‘If it’s anything like the last time the army will take the horses,’ John said glumly. ‘They’ll just leave the very young and the very old probably. They’ll probably take the gates and any metal they can get their hands on as well for making tanks and ammunition but we’re just going to have to make the best of it.’

  Dread ran through her veins like iced water as she again thought back to the last war. Their sons and daughters would not remember it, but she did, as if it was only yesterday. She could remember being in the town one day and watching the young men queuing to go to the front, she had known many of them and was painfully aware that the majority had never come home and now their bodies lay buried in foreign countries far away. Would it be the same this time? All they could do was wait and see.

  When Livvy got home from work that evening she flung herself into a chair and pouted. ‘Three young men from our office alone went and joined up in their dinner hour today,’ she told her mother. ‘Three of them just from one business, so how many more must be going? There would have been four, but Jeremy Garner got turned down for medical reasons. He has a heart murmur apparently and bad eyesight too. At this rate there’ll be no men left here!’

  Sunday and Kathy glanced at each other and shook their heads. It was all so worrying for everyone.

  Kathy had just got the children up from a nap and she stood in the doorway with one on each hip. Her main concern was for her children, but she hoped they would be safe as they lived in a village on the outskirts of the town. She settled the twins on the floor with a pile of wooden bricks then set about getting their tea. They were having boiled eggs and bread-and-butter soldiers this evening followed by jelly and cream – one of their favourites. They both had healthy appetites although Daisy was still the greediest, and they would eat most of what she put in front of them, which she was grateful for.

  ‘Do you think there’s any chance this Hitler chap might turn bac
k and everything will fizzle out?’ she asked hopefully, and Sunday snorted.

  ‘Huh! This Hitler is some sort of power maniac. I think there’s about as much chance of that happening as a snowflake in hell would have!’

  Kathy bit her lip as she buttered the bread. It seemed they were just going to have get on with it as best they could.

  Over the next couple of weeks training camps sprang up all across the country and the stations and trains were packed as the new recruits flocked to them, waved off by teary-eyed sweethearts and parents, who remembered the last war all too well. There were no celebrations to see them on their way this time, just the loved ones left behind on the deserted platforms, their faces etched with dread.

  David called round one evening, as he often did, in time to help Kathy get the twins ready for bed. Normally he was laughing and playing with them but this evening, as they sat and watched them splashing in the bath, he seemed unnaturally quiet and thoughtful.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ Kathy asked eventually as she lifted Daisy first from the water and swaddled her in a big, warm towel. It wasn’t like him to be so quiet.

  ‘Yes … Well, it all depends what you mean by all right.’ He stared at her solemnly. ‘The thing is, I’ve been talking to Matron. You may be aware that the British Expeditionary Force has already crossed to France and taken up their position alongside the French army.’

  ‘Yes, I was aware of that,’ she replied, puzzled. ‘It said in the newspapers that they’d arrived safely despite fears of them being attacked either by U-boats or the German army.’

  ‘Hm, well, Matron informed me that at present a number of field hospitals are also being set up and the army are asking for doctors and nurses to volunteer to work in them. And so … the long and the short of it is, I went and signed up this afternoon. Myself and a number of nurses from the hospital will be taken to a port in the south of England then we’ll be ferried across the Channel escorted by destroyers with all the medical equipment we’ll need.’

  The breath caught in Kathy’s throat as she stared at him from frightened eyes.

  ‘B-but you might be killed!’

  He gave a tight little smile. ‘I don’t think we’ll be anywhere near as at risk as the troops who’ll be doing the fighting,’ he assured her. ‘But even if we are, it’s a chance I’m prepared to take. I don’t want to be considered a coward.’

  ‘But you’re not,’ she said in a choky voice. ‘And you’re needed here! What about all the lives you save at the hospital?’

  ‘I’m sure the older doctors will be more than capable of stepping in and filling the younger doctors’ shoes while we’re away.’

  Kathy’s heart was pounding with fear and emotions she couldn’t recognise. David was nothing more than a friend – that’s all he had ever been, wasn’t it? But she had come to depend on him and to care deeply for him. She hadn’t realised just how much, and the thought of him going to war had her quite upset.

  ‘And when will you be leaving?’ she forced herself to ask as she began to rub Daisy dry.

  ‘Within the next two weeks.’

  Again, she felt as if all the air had been sucked from her lungs. It was so very soon, she would hardly have time to get used to the idea and he would be gone. A silence settled between them, as David lifted Thomas from the bath and began to dry him, while Kathy put Daisy’s pyjamas on and brushed her hair. Normally this was such a happy time of the day but this evening even the twins seemed to sense that something was amiss, and they were strangely subdued. The adults sat them at the kitchen table when they were done and David carried the bath outside and emptied it, while Kathy gave the children some milk and a slice of bread and jam before carrying them up and tucking them into their cots.

  David was sitting in the fireside chair when she came back down, and she made them both a cup of cocoa and joined him. Sunday had gone into the village to visit Flora and Jamie, as she often did, and Livvy had gone out with her friends, so now with the twins settled it was just the two of them.

  ‘So, do you have any idea where they might be sending you?’ she forced herself to ask. She wasn’t sure that she really wanted to know.

  He shook his head. ‘None at all. It’s all very hush hush for obvious reasons but … I’ll write to you, if I may?’

  ‘Of course you must write.’ Suddenly the tears she had been holding back spurted from her eyes and ran down her cheeks and with a sigh he was down on his knees in front of her holding her hands.

  ‘I … I’ll miss you,’ she sniffed.

  ‘I know,’ he said gently as he stroked a lock of her glorious dark hair from her cheek. ‘And I’ll miss you too; more than you’ll ever know.’ His face was troubled as he wrestled with himself and then suddenly everything he had wanted to say for so long came spilling out of him. ‘Oh, Kathy, you must know by now that I still love you? I’ve never stopped loving you—’

  She opened her mouth to stop his flow of words, but he held his hand up to silence her. ‘I know you don’t feel the same. Your heart obviously still belongs to the twins’ father, whoever he is, but I had to tell you how I felt before I went just in case I don’t come back …’

  ‘Don’t say that,’ she said in an anguished voice and threw her arms about his neck. ‘I do love you, David, but not in the way you want me to. I love you as a dear friend, and I still can’t bear the thought of you being hurt.’

  At that moment Sunday appeared and seeing the tears on Kathy’s cheeks and their arms about each other she asked with a hopeful smile, ‘So what’s going on here?’

  As Kathy haltingly told her, Sunday’s face became solemn. ‘Then may God go with you,’ she told David. ‘And just be sure to keep in touch.’

  ‘I will.’ He rose slowly and headed for the door. ‘I’ll be round again on my next afternoon off, if I haven’t been shipped out that is. But if I am, I’ll be sure to let you know.’

  Kathy could only nod; she felt far too upset to speak and she was even more upset when the door had closed on him and her mother rounded on her.

  ‘Oh, Kathy, you little fool,’ she snapped in an uncharacteristically sharp voice. ‘Are you really going to let that poor chap go off to war without recognising how you feel about him and telling him?’

  ‘What do you mean? David knows I love him as a dear friend!’ Kathy snapped back.

  Sunday shook her head and sighed. ‘They do say as there’s none so blind as those who don’t want to see. Let’s just hope you don’t live to regret this!’ And with that she stomped off to her room, leaving Kathy staring after her with a bemused expression on her face, and a feeling of dread in her heart.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  David left for war ten days later after a tearful farewell from Kathy and soon the whole of Britain was in a state of uncertainty and anxiety. Hospitals were cleared of patients except for the gravely ill and mortuaries were stacked high with piles of cardboard coffins that the government feared would be needed for the first casualties. Everyone was urged to carry a label with their name and address on and identity cards and gas masks were issued. Suddenly blackout material was becoming hard to find and streetlamps remained unlit as everyone waited for the first raids that would surely come.

  On a blustery morning in mid-October John visited Sunday to tell her that the two little evacuees he had agreed to house for the duration of the war would be arriving the following day.

  ‘Really? Where are they coming from?’ she enquired.

  He grinned. ‘The East End of London – two little cockney sparrows aged five and eight, so I assume I’m going to have my hands full! But Cook and Edith are looking forward to having children in the house. I’m not so sure Giles is that keen on the idea though.’ His face became solemn then as he confided, ‘Between you and me I’m still worried that he might go off and join up before he’s called up. Oh, I know he’ll have to go eventually but he’s been very quiet for the last couple of days.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ His words o
nce again brought back memories of when Tom and Ben had gone off to war. Ben … just the thought of his betrayal still cut like a knife, for no matter what he thought, she had loved him as her own. But that had clearly been what had festered in him for all these years. She had to admit that she hadn’t taken it well when she’d discovered he was Tom’s son, and he had obviously never forgiven her for that, despite the many years she’d cared for him before that. And when he’d returned from the war, he’d been so distant; it was as if he’d closed his heart to her. Then, once Kathy and Livvy had come along within months of each other, she’d always suspected he’d been jealous of them, although it hadn’t been so much of a problem at the time as he’d had Maggie. But then he’d had the heartbreak of losing Maggie and his son, followed by the death of his father to contend with. Even so, she would never have believed him capable of stealing everything from her.

  ‘I was wondering if you’d drive into Nuneaton with me to pick them up from the church hall tomorrow?’ John asked her, bringing her thoughts sharply back to the present. ‘To be honest, I’m not that brilliant with children. It’s been a long time since our son was born and my wife did most of the caring back then. She always wanted at least four children, but Giles’s father was our only one and when he was killed, I think it would have killed her too if she hadn’t had Giles to take care of.’

  ‘Of course I will.’ Sunday pushed gloomy thoughts of Ben aside and smiled. ‘I’m sure the children will be delightful, and Edith will probably do most of the looking after of them, if I know her. She’s so good with the twins. It’s such a shame that she never had children of her own.’

  And so immediately after lunch the next day she and John drove to the church hall in town. It was total chaos inside. Bewildered children with their names written on brown cardboard labels hanging on string about their necks were sitting on chairs around the walls of the hall as the women who had escorted them from London tried to place them with the families who had volunteered to take them in. It appeared that most of the children had already been chosen or allocated.