Meet Me in Bombay

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Meet Me in Bombay Page 20

by Jenny Ashcroft


  Della reached over, taking her hand, seeming to know what she was thinking about. “He’ll have the photograph,” she said.

  Maddy nodded. They were taking it that afternoon, in the garden; a picture that would have to do until Luke could cradle Iris for himself, in those arms that she, Maddy, hadn’t felt around her for too many months, and missed so very desperately.

  “He’ll be all right,” said Della gently. “He’s not going to let himself die over there. Neither of them are.”

  “I know that,” said Maddy, but wasn’t sure why.

  Neither of them, of course, knew any such thing.

  * * *

  He wasn’t all right. He was in Ypres, a hell that the long winter had done nothing to improve, and which managed to be even grimmer flooded in April sunshine than it had been drenched in November rain.

  “Poetic,” said Peter, beside him in the hastily dug ditch that they, Fraser, and several hundred others were crammed in, bayonets fixed, waiting to go over the top for the second time that day.

  “I’ll put it on a postcard,” said Luke, looking at his watch, then placing his whistle to his mouth, ready to give the signal to move.

  Overhead, shells flew, bombarding what they were all praying was the German position they were about to attempt a charge on, although it could just as easily be empty woodland. They’d been fighting for two days now, both sides firing constantly, retreating, advancing, retreating again, until no one knew where anyone was. The officers who’d gone to reconnoiter the land ahead of this attack had failed to return, and the howitzers were shooting blind. Luke could only guess what direction they were supposed to bloody run in. He hadn’t met half of the men he was now leading until an hour before. The battalions had become hopelessly mixed, British and Indian scrambling in the chaos of the fighting, running in panic from the gas the Germans had started using for the first time, digging in wherever they found themselves. None of them had gas masks. The only strategy for surviving the clouds was to get below them, or preferably away from them, as fast as humanly possible. “That,” Luke had said to them all, “is the plan.”

  He pressed his hand to his jacket pocket, feeling the crinkle of Maddy’s letter inside. He’d got it the morning before. Anxiously as he’d watched for it to come, ever since Alice’s wire had found him on a brief rest stop in Poperinghe and made him shout, punch the air with happiness—BEAUTIFUL IRIS IS HERE STOP PHOTOGRAPH ON ITS WAY STOP MADELINE DID WONDERFULLY STOP YOUR FAMILY IS WAITING FOR YOU STOP TAKE GOOD CARE STOP—he hadn’t opened the envelope to look inside. He’d wanted to leave it waiting while he was still here in Ypres, so that he had something to get through for. Now, though, now … He dropped his whistle, swallowing dryly, and shifted up, against the chalky earth wall, peering through the smoke, the cacophony of fire and guns toward the distant trees, whatever was waiting there, and felt his heart pummel too hard in his chest. Moving without realizing he was going to, knowing he had only seconds left to do anything, he reached into his pocket, grabbed the envelope, and tore it open.

  “No,” said Peter, realizing what he was doing, “you don’t need to, not yet…”

  He ignored him. He ignored everything. He didn’t breathe, just stared. Because there she was. His daughter. His daughter. A sepia wonder, nestled in Maddy’s arms, palm leaves casting shadows on Maddy’s downcast lids, her cheekbones, and Iris’s perfect, perfect eyes, her miniature lips, her tiny foot that poked, free of the swaddling, her mess of dark hair. He couldn’t believe he’d held himself back from seeing her. How could he have thought it would be bad luck to look at her, to look at both of them? He pressed the image to his lips, and for the first time in months felt filled with hope, strength. He felt invincible.

  “You’re not,” said Peter, shouting above the bombardment. “So while she’s as beautiful as she was always going to be, you be sodding careful, because she’ll want a papa.”

  “She has one,” he said, stealing a final look at the picture, then taking back his whistle. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Just over the top,” said Peter, raising his bayonet.

  “Just that,” said Luke, and blew.

  For a while, almost an entire minute, the advance was textbook. They scrambled up in good order, progressing slowly toward the trees in long stretches, keeping well behind the protection of the artillery barrage that wouldn’t lift until they reached the woods. There was no answering fire from ahead. No one fell, or screamed, and then they were almost there, at the tree line. Luke glanced sideways at Peter, saw Peter look back at him. Can it really be this easy?

  That was when the pellets began to rain from the blue, cloudless sky, plopping soundlessly in the grass, releasing a burning yellow vapor that turned the sunlight opaque and filled their eyes, their noses, their lungs …

  Choking, Luke ripped off his jacket and pressed it to his mouth, sending his identity tags scattering in the process. He saw Fraser Keaton stoop, fumble to pick them up, and yelled at him not to worry, for God’s sake, but his voice got lost because their guns were still blazing, and the Germans started up, too, pounding the field with shells, machine-gun bullets with them, only from the side of the wood, not within it as they’d thought, mowing through the grass, the men, taking them down, sending them running blindly, randomly, into the exploding shells, the raining earth and blood, unable to see or breathe.

  Luke doubled over, sinking beneath the rising gas, hands to his throat, gasping. He saw his batman less than twenty paces away, struggling to get his suffocating brother’s jacket off, and he half ran, half crawled toward them, yanking the jacket free, pressing it to the boy’s face, shouting at them to keep low, run for shelter, now. It was as they went, disappearing into the haze of smoke and gas, that he spotted Peter, one arm over his mouth and nose, limping, obviously hit.

  “Peter,” Luke shouted, “Peter, get down…”

  He saw his friend look around, eyes wide, settling on nothing. Out of nowhere, Luke remembered his words the winter before. I don’t want this to be the last thing I see.

  “Get down,” Luke yelled again, coughing on the effort.

  “Luke?” Peter shouted back. “Luke?”

  “Get down,” Luke shouted a final time, then cursed, because blood was pouring from Peter’s leg and it was obvious he wasn’t in any state to do anything. Men everywhere were collapsing, and they were all going to get killed, in this place. This place. Some, like Luke’s batman and his brother, were making a break for the trees, but Peter went nowhere. He jolted, then dropped, hit again.

  “Peter,” Luke yelled.

  Still struggling for breath, eyes pouring, he stood and made a run for him, dodging shells. As he went, Fraser stumbled in front of him, seemingly out of nowhere, jacketless, his shirt nothing but torn scraps, and his schoolboy features horrifically shot to a pulp. He no longer wore any tags around his own neck—which was as ravaged as his face—but was still, perversely, clutching Luke’s set. It was the only way Luke was able to tell it was him. Aghast, he moved toward him, grabbing him by the waist as he slithered to the ground. He crouched, threw his own jacket over him for warmth until he could get back to him, then, choking more than ever, raced on to Peter, who was unconscious, but just about breathing. Pulling him onto his back, Luke ran, panting, for the trees.

  He was almost there when the shell landed.

  He didn’t hear it. But he felt a sudden stillness, and his blood turn cold in sickening foreboding, before a wall of heat struck him, slamming into his face, his head, his spine and blood. He flew up, on and on into the Ypres sky. The last thing he was conscious of was Peter on the grass floor, opening his eyes briefly to stare up at him, a look of horror spreading over his pale face.

  The last thought he was aware of was his love for his daughter and Maddy; the picture of them that he’d left with his jacket on top of Fraser’s faceless body.

  And how glad he was that he’d looked at it.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  When he
came to his senses again, he was limping on a leafy floor, stooped over, clutching his arm, trees all around. He looked up, at the movement of the branches, and heard no rustle, only ringing. Beneath his torn, bare feet, the ground vibrated. He wasn’t sure what made it do that.

  He wore only trousers, a ripped vest. I should have a jacket, he thought, and it felt important, but he didn’t know why, or where his jacket could be. When he touched his head—which hurt, very much; almost as much as his arm, his ribs and feet—his hand came away red.

  Blood, he thought. I’m bleeding.

  Again, he couldn’t think why he was doing that.

  Or what was making it so very hard for him to breathe.

  His arm didn’t hang properly from his shoulder. He held it to stop it falling. He had gashes all over his hands. He could taste blood in his mouth as well. His vest was covered in it. I need to find someone to help me, he thought, and kept on stumbling forward, for he didn’t know how long, until darkness fell, and he came to a soundless road that was jammed with other bleeding, stumbling men, and vehicles bearing red crosses, out of which jumped a tired-looking woman who looked him in the eye, caught him as he fell forward, and yelled for a stretcher.

  She’s helping me, he thought. Good. That’s good.

  Where am I?

  “What’s your name?” the woman asked him. He watched her lips form the words.

  He stared.

  She asked him again.

  He shook his head, awful realization dawning on him.

  He didn’t know his name.

  To his horror, he had absolutely no idea who he was.

  * * *

  The telegrams arrived at once in Bombay, just as the whole family was sitting down to lunch on the veranda, a sleeping Iris in her perambulator included. They were all subdued. Richard had heard, barely an hour before, that sweet, keen, eager-to-please Fraser Keaton had been declared as missing in action, presumed dead. Much as they were all trying to reassure him that there was still hope (if they’ve found no body, how can anyone know?) he couldn’t seem to muster any, but instead kept berating himself for not managing to persuade Fraser against enlisting.

  Even with the sadness of poor Fraser, though, Maddy suspected nothing when the telegraph boy arrived at the villa. He came so frequently, after all, with wires for her father, and for her from Luke. She felt no real disquiet as Ahmed showed him out through the drawing room doors, only a lift of anticipation, foolish hope, that Luke had written again.

  But the boy asked for Della, not her. Della, who was expecting Jeff to join them for lunch any minute, and who never got wires, but whose mother had assured her by letter that she’d send one the second there was any word of Peter.

  Della stood warily, pushing her chair back, taking the paper from the boy. Maddy watched her every movement, a slow shiver of fear snaking down her spine. Her parents, too, sat very still.

  Fumbling, Della opened the telegraph. She looked down at it, reading. “Oh,” she said, round eyes filling. “Oh God…”

  “What is it?” said Alice. “What’s happened?”

  “He’s lost his leg,” Della said. “He’s in hospital, in France.”

  “No,” said Richard. “Oh, Peter…”

  Della went on, voice shaking, saying it was all right, he was alive, getting better, moving back to Blighty soon.

  “He’s out of it at least,” said Richard. “That’s something.…”

  Maddy knew she should speak, too, go to her friend, hold her, tell her how desperately sorry she was for Peter—which she was, she was—but the telegraph boy had turned to her, and he had another paper in his hand, only this one was a different color, and it had come direct from the army.

  “I don’t want that,” she heard herself saying. Her voice didn’t sound like her own. It seemed to come from someone else entirely. “You can take it with you. Please.”

  Dimly, she was aware of her parents turning, Della, too, tearfully looking from her to the boy.

  “Memsahib,” the boy said, “you must be reading it,” and he placed it on the table, then grimaced at her apologetically, and backed gratefully away.

  Maddy stared at the wire. They all stared. Such a small piece of paper.

  Iris stirred, pushing her swaddling free, eyes flickering to open, as though she’d sensed the sudden dread in the air. Maddy went to her, picking her up, realizing as she did how much her arms were shaking, then turned, looking once more at the telegram.

  “Do you want me to open it?” her father offered.

  “I can,” said Alice.

  Numbly, Maddy shook her head. She studied the paper a few seconds longer, willing it to say anything but what she most feared. Then, knowing that no amount of waiting could change what was already written, and that the boy had been right, she must be reading it, she passed Iris to her mother and, fingers trembling more than ever, tore the paper open.

  She didn’t move. She didn’t breathe. She just read the words, then again, and again, only they couldn’t feel real.

  Her parents’ anxious voices came, Della’s, too, asking questions. Out on the lawn, one of the peacocks called, and upstairs, a door slammed. It all happened in another world, a world he apparently wasn’t in anymore. Killed in action, it said. Not missing, like Fraser. Not being treated for injuries. But, Killed.

  She didn’t believe it.

  She couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t be gone. He just couldn’t be. She’d have known, guessed …

  She let the paper fall to the ground, and turned to her mother, taking Iris back into her arms, which weren’t shaking, not anymore.

  “Madeline?” Alice said. “What’s happened?”

  “I need to write to Luke’s CO,” Maddy said. “There’s been a dreadful mistake.”

  * * *

  Guy visited Peter at the Quai d’Escale base hospital, a converted train station in Le Havre, the first opportunity he had, which was nonetheless almost a month after Peter was injured. He’d heard what had happened to both him and Luke from a naik in Peter’s company. The Indian private had been admitted to his casualty clearing station—a hospital of tented wards and operating theaters in a field just back from the Ypres line—with shrapnel wounds to the chest and gas inhalation; he’d spoken, to Guy’s grief, of the lieutenant colonel whose shrouded body the stretcher-bearers had brought in, then thrown into the ground for burial, and the major who’d been shot in the leg. The naik had tried to bat the anesthetist’s mask away as they’d attempted to put him under for surgery, raging on the table at this war, the guns, the daughter the lieutenant colonel had just been so happy to have news of. He had the photograph with him, it was with him … Guy had tried to console him, badly shaken himself. In his mind’s eye, he’d pictured Luke and Peter as they’d been in Bombay—not recently, but years before, when Luke had first lived there, and both he and Peter had laughed and acted the fool down at the Gymkhana Club, racing each other on the polo field. All that happiness, gone. Gone. In the end, he’d asked one of the other surgeons to do the operation for him, not trusting his own hands. It had been almost a relief, how upset he was—that even in his wretched jealousy, he’d felt such sadness at Luke’s death, nothing but desolation for Maddy, poor, poor Maddy …

  He’d wanted to send her his condolences, for whatever they were worth. Pass his love on to little Iris, too, who’d now never know her papa. But Alice had got in touch with him first.

  I hate to trouble you, she’d written, especially with this—I can only imagine what you must be contending with there—but I’m too worried not to. Madeline won’t accept he’s gone, you see. She won’t cry, or grieve, but keeps writing letters, first to Luke’s CO, then General Staff, telling them they have to find him. She’s even asked her aunt Edie to travel to London, visit all the hospitals, which Richard has told her there’s no point in, making her as angry as I’ve ever seen her. Guy, this doesn’t seem normal. Should we take her to see someone? Does she need help? She’s only just had Iris
after all, and I’m scared it’s all been too much.…

  Guy had written by return, telling her how grateful he was that she had troubled him, that she wasn’t ever, ever to worry about doing it, and that he was afraid to tell her there really was no chance Maddy could be right; he himself had met one of the privates who’d been at Luke’s burial. Please don’t rush into taking Maddy anywhere, though, he’d said, balking at the thought of her being sent down that particular track. Let her be a while longer. I am sure this is all quite natural. How is she with Iris?

  Besotted, Alice had written back, we all are. That child is the only person who can make her mama smile.

  Then I really believe you have no cause for concern, he’d replied, heart pinching as he pictured Maddy with her daughter. My advice is she spend as much time as she can with the baby. I’m sure she’ll accept everything else once she’s ready. Please tell Della that I’m going to visit her brother, tomorrow. I’ll send him her love.

 

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