27
RUBY
3rd July
Slowly, my days slipped back into their old, pre-Sam routine: I got up, went to work, came home, ate supper, and went to bed or out on ARP duty.
I was existing, but I wasn’t living.
The war ground on, with no word from – or about – Sam or Stanley, although Vera had written to the Red Cross, begging them for information. Sometimes I found myself wondering if Sam had even existed, or if the past ten months had been some long, wonderful dream I’d managed to convince myself was real. The only thing I had to remind me of him was the Emily Dickinson, and his drawing, and the shrivelled remains of the flower-ring. I hadn’t looked at them since he’d gone; I couldn’t bear to.
I didn’t talk about how I was feeling to anyone, not even Vera – I didn’t want to burden her with my own worries when she was so upset about Stanley. Grandmother kept plying me with various nasty-tasting tonics, saying I looked under the weather, but really, I knew they were her way of getting back at me for causing the row with Father. I had to force myself to eat, my waistband becoming so loose I began fastening my skirt with a safety pin.
A few days later, at work, Vera had popped out to the lav when Alfie arrived with the post. ‘There’s one for Vera,’ he said.
‘Oh, put it on her desk; she’ll be back in a sec,’ I said, sifting through my envelopes, which were all addressed to Announcements or Advertisements, the Bartonford Herald, and dividing them into the usual piles on my desk.
Alfie coughed. I looked round at him; he was twisting his cap in his hands.
‘Father’s having another dance at his works the first Saturday of August. I was wondering if this time, you might be free to go with me. I know your father doesn’t approve of dances,’ he rushed on, ‘but you see, I’ve already got permission from your grandmother – I met her in the lane when I was on my way to work this morning and asked her, and she said it was all right to speak to you about it. I hope you don’t think that was terribly forward of me but I – I’d really like you to come.’
Going to a dance with Alfie was the last thing on earth I wanted to do, but I hadn’t the heart to turn him down flat. ‘I – I’ll think about it,’ I said. ‘Is that OK?’
He nods, his cheeks going pink. ‘Thank you.’
Vera returned. ‘Oh, hullo, Alfie.’
‘H – hullo,’ he stammered. ‘B – bye, Ruby.’ He dashed out of the room.
‘What’s got into him?’ She sat down at her desk and picked up her letter, frowning at the handwriting on the front.
‘He wants me to go to a dance at Blythe’s with him next month,’ I said dully.
She reached for a letter opener and slit the envelope, pulling out a single, thin sheet of paper. ‘Oh. Will you?’
‘I don’t know. He’s asked Grandmother and apparently she’s quite happy for me to go, but I’m not—’ Then I noticed the way she was staring at her letter, her face suddenly chalk-white. ‘Are you OK?’
‘I – it’s from Stanley,’ she croaked.
My heart gave a great, painful jolt. I stood up. ‘I’ll leave you in peace to read it.’
‘No, don’t!’ She grabbed my hand. ‘Please – stay.’
I sat back down, watching as she scanned the page. Her eyes grew bright with tears, but she began to smile. ‘He’s OK. He’s in hospital, but he’s OK!’
Then her face grew grave again.
‘Vera? What is it?’
She turned the letter over. ‘It – it’s Sam.’
‘What about him?’
‘I – he—’ She shook her head and, with a hand that trembled slightly, passed me the letter. ‘I think you’d better read it.’
My dearest Vera,it began. I am writing this to you from my bed at the Queen Victoria Hospital in Netley, Southampton – yes, I’m back in good old Blighty, and a lot sooner than I thought I would be! I am sorry it has taken me this long to write to you. I am wounded, pretty seriously I’m afraid, and I’ve been very sick, but nowI am finally on the mend I wanted to let you know that Iam OK. Hopefully this will make it past the censor.
I don’t know what you’ve heard about the invasion (“D-Day”) over there but the Germans put up a hell of a fight. It was…
The next few lines had been blacked out.
A group of us made it over the bluffs later that day and inland, the letter continued. After a few more skirmishes with the Germans we reached a little village, and sheltered there for a few hours before moving out again. Our CO was pretty keen for us to find another unit – strength in numbers, I guess. What we hadn’t counted on was stumbling across a whole nest of Germans, who were waiting for us in the castle just outside the village. The fight was terrific – most of the guys bought it and I got shot through the leg. Eventually I managed to escape with Sam and a guy called Freddie Gardner.
I shuddered, remembering the grinning, arrogant soldier who’d cornered me in Ropewalk Alley, and leered at me at the dance. How long ago that seemed! Poor Sam, getting stuck with him.
We staggered around the countryside the rest of the night until we were thoroughly lost, Stanley continued, and I was half out of my mind with pain. Eventually we stumbled across a farmhouse, right out in the middle of nowhere, and hid in a stable. I was good for nothing and by the next day, Sam was sick with a fever and cough – we’d all spent most of the previous day…
Another blanked-out section. I held the paper up to the window, but the censor had used indelible black ink in great thick strokes, obliterating whatever was there.
For the first couple of days, the farmer and his family looked after us, Stanley continued. I had a nasty infection in my leg, which was getting worse, and in the end Sam, who was starting to feel better, made the decision that he and Freddie would go and look for our guys and send help. But something went wrong – I’m not sure what, because I was laid up in a stable, unable to move, but Sam went to fetch me some water before they left and next minute I heard shouts in English and in German.
Somehow, I found the strength to haul myself up into the rafters of the stable, where I hid myself just minutes before the Germans came pouring in. There seemed to be hundreds of them, although in reality there can’t have been more than twenty. They searched the stable, jamming their bayonets into the pile of straw where I’d been lying, but I guess God was on my side that day because they didn’t look up. A guy in a commandant’s uniform came in and barked something in German. After taking the horses, his men filed back out into the yard. I heard the farmer’s wife sobbing, pleading with them. Then shots – five of them.
I don’t recall much after that, except that I smelled smoke and heard more shouts before everything went quiet. I hid in those damn rafters until nightfall, then crawled out into the stable yard. The Germans had ransacked the farmer’s house and burned it to the ground. The barn too. Only the stable was left – maybe they’d run out of fuel. There was a pile of something in the middle of the yard, smouldering too – bodies. Nearby was a jacket. I managed to pull it towards me. It was torn and covered in blood. In the inside pocket were some papers. They were Sam’s.
I wanted to go and check the bodies to make absolutely sure, but as I tried to crawl across there my strength left me and I lost consciousness. I was found a few hours later, still lying in the yard, by a British platoon. They got me back to the coast and onto a ship for England, which was pretty hairy too, as during the crossing an enormous storm landed right on us. We made it in one piece, though, and I’ve been here at Netley ever since. It looked for a while as if they might have to take my leg off but they think they might be able to save it after all, thanks to this new miracle drug they call penicillin.
Please tell Ruby about Sam. And make sure you tell her he is one of the finest men I ever knew. I am so sorry.
I will write again soon,
Yours,
Stanley xx
My ears began to ring, the letter slipping out of my fingers to the floor. Somehow I found myself in my chair, my legs turned to India rubber, dark spots flocking in front of my eyes. ‘Put your head between your knees and breathe,’ Vera ordered. ‘I’m going to make some tea.’
She returned with two mugs a few minutes later, but I couldn’t drink mine. Sam… gone. It was what I had feared all along, yet it still didn’t seem quite possible. Vera kept asking if I wanted to go home, but having to hide how I was feeling from Grandmother was the very last thing I wanted or needed right now.
What about his mother and sister? Did they know? Should I try and find out where they lived and write to them? What were they going to do now, without the money he’d been sending home to them?
That evening, I cycled back to Barton Hall in a stupor. I got off at the gates and wheeled my bicycle the long way round through the gardens, still unable to face returning to the cottage. Men were sitting on the lawn in the evening sun – the numbers of patients at the hospital had swelled again after the invasion – but no one paid me any attention.
In the rose garden, I bumped into Mrs Blythe, who was on her way back to her house in the lane. ‘You’re lookin’ right peaky, my girl,’ she said in her kindly way. ‘Not sickenin’ for summat, are you?’
‘I’m fine, Mrs Blythe, honestly,’ I heard myself say, as if from a great distance. ‘It’s just this awful war. It’s been going on for so long.’
‘And you’re missing that soldier of yours, no doubt.’
I stared at her. ‘How did you—’
‘Oh, goodness me, Ruby love, don’t look so worried! I won’t tell anyone. Saw you two sneaking into that old lodge one day, didn’t I? Well, good for them, I said. It’s about time that girl had a bit of happiness in her life, especially with that old dragon breathing down her neck at home.’
Suddenly, I remembered a day in April when Sam and I had arrived at the lodge and there had been an enormous bunch of wildflowers in a vase on the lounge table. He’d sworn he had nothing to do with them, but I’d thought he was being bashful, and had laughed his protests off. The lodge had always seemed so tidy, too, even though we were always far too preoccupied to think about sweeping the floors or dusting. Again, I’d put it down to Sam.
I burst into tears. ‘Sam’s dead, Mrs Blythe. The Germans shot him.’
The colour drained out of her face. ‘Oh, Ruby, love.’
There was a little summer house in the secluded rose garden nearby, which was empty; she led me in there, sat me down and offered me a hanky. ‘You have a good cry. Let it all out.’
I leaned against her, all the pain and anguish of the last few weeks pouring out of me in wrenching sobs. Mrs Blythe put her arm around my shoulders. ‘There, there,’ she kept murmuring. ‘There, there.’
Eventually, I had no tears left. I sat up and blew my nose, swallowing hard, my eyes raw.
Mrs Blythe gazed out at the flower beds, which were a riot of scent and colour – pinks, reds, white, cream and lemon yellow. ‘I had a fellow, before the last war. Dennis, he were called. He volunteered and got sent to France. I’ll be back before you know it, Dot! he said before he got on that train. That were the last time I saw him.’
I looked round at her.
‘But he also said to me, If I don’t come back, Dot, don’t spend the rest of your life waiting for me. Don’t make sense for you to act as if you’re dead too. I want you to be happy. I want to know you’ll be all right. He made me promise, see?’
I wondered, numbly, what she was getting at.
‘When I got that letter saying he was missing, it was the worst day of my life,’ she said, ‘but I remembered what he’d told me and I made up my mind there and then that I was going to keep my promise. I met Wilf a few months later and, oh, I knew I’d never love anyone like I’d loved Dennis, but we’ve been happy enough, Wilf and I.’
She gave me a motherly squeeze. ‘Allow yourself to grieve, Ruby love, but don’t spend the rest of your life pining away. Your Sam wouldn’t have wanted that – I’m sure of it. And at least you know, one way or the other. There’s so many that never will.’
Getting heavily to her feet, she gave me a pat on the arm. Then she was gone. All around me the air was heavy with the fragrance of the roses, and filled with the screams of the wheeling swifts that nested in the eaves of Barton Hall. I sat in the summer house for a long time, thinking about what Mrs Blythe had said.