Kitty’s War

‘And you,’ he said, relaxing a little, and opened the car door for me. ‘Hold on tight, the roads haven’t improved since you were here last.’

He was right; I remembered feeling queasy on my way to the ferry, and that had been worsened by the way the car had constantly swerved to avoid the bigger shell holes, but in the past month the roads must have taken quite a pounding, and the going was jolting and slow. We arrived in full dark, and I was taken to a small hotel just up the road from where Oli was being held.

‘Can I see him?’ I asked, when Archie pointed out the building, a large, dark blob against the night.

‘Not tonight, darling.’ The casual word, one he had used ever since I’d known him, now had the power to slice through me. But even if he’d meant it in the way I longed for, his earlier reminder that my reputation was about to be ruined told me once and for all that it was too late now. When he left me to return to HQ I accepted the light, brotherly kiss on my cheek, and told myself it was just as well he still thought of me as a child after all. I eventually fell asleep to the hollow boom of distant guns, and only realised when I was awoken by a lull, that I hadn’t even noticed them.

The following morning Jack greeted me in the lobby. He rose from his seat, and automatically started to pull his uniform jacket straight, then his dark blue eyes met mine and he stopped fussing, came over and, without a moment’s hesitation, put his arms around me. I almost sagged in relief, but held myself firm, accepting his comfort, and then smiled up at him.

‘Evie’s right about you,’ I said, and he looked both pleased and slightly embarrassed.

‘In that case I hope she’s said something flattering.’ Then his own smile faded, and his expression held echoes of Archie’s solemn look from the night before. ‘Kitty, I want to sit down and talk to you for a while, somewhere private. Would that be all right?’

‘Of course. Where should we go?’

‘There’s an office at HQ we can use. It’s just a few minutes away.’ He glanced down at my footwear, as if he half expected me to be wearing kitten heels and stockings. But although I’d wanted to look smart, Frances and Lizzy had both said variations of the same thing: you were working when it happened, and you weren’t dressed to catch a man’s eye then. Best not look like some flighty girl now, when it matters most.

I tightened the belt on my coat, and knocked the flat heel of my boot on the floor. ‘I can walk for miles,’ I assured him, and his smile returned.

‘Well then, shall we?’ He held out his arm, and I took it, and together we walked out into the rubble-strewn street.

HQ was, in fact, another hotel, but much larger. However, the room Jack showed me into had clearly been a smallish storeroom of some kind in its past existence, and a tiny desk was pushed into the corner, with a typewriter parked precariously on the edge and a single upturned chair taking up the remaining room on it.

I looked at it doubtfully, but as I turned back to Jack, mouth open to ask where I should sit, I saw the reason for the squashed up arrangement of furniture: someone had jammed two tattered armchairs into the space behind the door. They sat arm-to-arm, but even that cramped space looked comfortable and, most important of all, friendly.

I felt a little tearful as I realised this had been Jack’s doing, I could tell from his anxious expression, and from his relief when I nodded. He looked so much like Archie that I had to swallow a new lump in my throat as I sat down.

‘If you’d rather not speak to me, you only have to say,’ he said quietly. ‘And if you feel like crying, don’t hold back on my account. I can stay, or go, as you like.’

His voice was low, like Archie’s, but his accent was firmly north-western. No hint of Scotland anywhere in it. It was close to my own accent, in fact, and that familiarity helped as he started to talk, to explain all he knew of Oliver’s circumstances, and, finally, gently, to coax out of me the story of what had happened on the road that freezing February night.

It was hard at first. Every word felt like a tug on an un-anaesthetised tooth, but as I talked they began to come more easily. I told him how I’d been so excited about driving alone for the first time, how Evie had patiently gone over and over everything I would need to know… I felt the constant ache of guilt over the fury I had unleashed on her blameless head, and tried to say as much to Jack, but he shook his head.

‘She understood. But don’t give her a thought just now. I want you to get the worst part of the story out of your head and into mine, here, where it doesn’t matter. Once you’ve spoken it out loud it’ll be easier next time.’

So I told him the rest, and when I explained how Drewe had pinned me to the filthy, blood-soaked bed in the back of the ambulance, his face took on a strange expression. Lizzy had told me he’d known Drewe many years before, had fought with him in Africa, and had respected the man he’d been. Now I could see dismay and regret at the man Drewe had become, and I wouldn’t be the one to sit in judgement while he mourned the fall of a great man, but for me there was only anger.

‘They must see Oli was provoked,’ I said when I’d finished. ‘He shouldn’t have hit the colonel, but Evie said Drewe struck him first.’

‘There’s no proof of that,’ Jack said. ‘We must stick to the fact of provocation, and not muddy the waters with a self-defence plea.’

‘Do you think it will work?’ I asked, my voice coming out small and scared-sounding.

Jack reached out and took my hand. ‘I’m going to do everything I can to see it does,’ he said. ‘Now, would you like me to take you to see your brother?’

Oliver was barely recognisable as the confident, cheerful boy I’d so often wanted to push into the river. He’d been allowed to shave, and his uniform was neat enough as he readied himself for this new trial, but his eyes had lost their light, and his face, always thin, now looked skeletal. I couldn’t begin to imagine how it felt to have come so close to death, and then to have been reprieved, only to face the horror of it possibly happening again.

‘Kitty!’ He rose from his bunk and embraced me, and, with Jack standing quietly in the back of the tiny room, we sat down to talk. Evie had only been able to give me the bare bones of the story; immediately after she’d heard it herself she’d gone to France to find Will. She had wired again, as soon as the news came through that Drewe had not died as a result of being struck by Oli, and from that moment on my brother’s life had rested in my hands.

‘Is Archie going to be there?’ Oliver directed this question at Jack, who glanced at me before answering.

‘No, his unit’s rotated forward; he’s needed in the line.’

I felt cold all over, and Oli squeezed my hand. ‘He’ll be right as rain, Kitty; don’t worry.’

‘And so will you be,’ I ventured, not knowing any such thing, but wanting it so strongly it felt like the truth.

He grinned, and seemed his old self again, in that moment. ‘I should bloody hope so, after you traipsing all this way,’ he said. ‘And just imagine how cross the parents would be if I got shot tomorrow, on their wedding anniversary. It would really put a wrinkle in the celebrations.’

‘Can’t have that,’ I agreed, trying not to flinch at the word shot, and feeling a faint pang at the thought of life continuing its familiar path in the house where I’d grown up. ‘Although, when the story comes out about the…the pregnancy…’ I stumbled over the word ‘…I have a feeling that will more than wrinkle things. Don’t you?’

There was nothing he could say to that, and he simply squeezed my hand again. After a moment’s silence, Jack motioned to the door. ‘It’s time we were off, Kitty.’

I turned to Oli and put my arms around him. He felt small, suddenly, even to me. ‘It will all be all right,’ I whispered. ‘Please don’t worry. I love you.’

‘I love you too,’ he whispered back, and I was sure if he’d spoken the words any louder they would have cracked.

Jack was right; telling him my story first, in the quiet little office where only he could hear me, made it easier to speak out at the court martial. I could see people studying me intently—my dress, my shoes, my manner—and was grateful for the advice given by Lizzy and Frances. I was not slim and pretty, like Evie, my hair was a tangled mess of red curls despite my attempts to tame it, and my figure, although I’d lost weight since I’d joined up, was still more on the rounded side—I was clearly not a temptress, and therefore my words seemed to carry more weight. That shouldn’t have been the case, and it angered me that it was, but it was a relief nevertheless. I kept looking around for Archie, hoping Jack’s explanation that there was a push on had merely been preparing Oli for potential disappointment, but I didn’t see him anywhere. His presence as I gave my evidence would have given me extra strength, but perhaps my timidity also worked in my favour.

Jack’s own evidence as to Drewe’s character was honest and raw; he told of his deep respect, and of the sadness as he’d watched Drewe slide into morphine dependency. To hear then, that that dependency had sunk deeper than any of them had realised, had shaken Jack, but the medical evidence was inarguable, and the post-mortem report bore out Evie’s suspicions; Lieutenant Colonel Drewe had been on the verge of that heart attack for a long time, and it might have happened at any moment. The verdict was delivered quickly: not guilty of murder, but guilty of manslaughter. The circumstances would now be taken into account, and we sat in frozen silence while we waited for the sentence to be pronounced.

It did not take long. Oliver would be stripped of his commission and given a dishonourable discharge from the army, to serve a ten-year sentence in a civilian prison. Cashiered. Not shot. My heart hammered almost painfully as I felt all the strength drain out of me, and I slumped in my seat. The release of tension was making me shake, and all I could do was fix my eyes on the back of the seat in front, and listen to the chant echoing loudly in my head. Thank God, thank God, thank God…

I felt the gentle pressure of Jack’s hand on my arm. ‘Sit up straight, love, and give him a smile to see him back to Blighty.’

Somehow I did so, and realised Oli’s attention had been fixed on me anxiously. He nodded as our eyes met, his face pale, but he returned my smile. ‘Come and see me,’ he mouthed, as he was led away.

Jack stood, and drew me to my feet. ‘Come on, I can think of one or two people who’ll want to hear this news.’

‘Are we going to see Archie?’ I heard my voice thicken as I spoke his name, and my pulse picked up in sudden hope, but he shook his head.

‘He really is rotated forward,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t just saying that for your brother’s benefit. We’ll wire him the verdict. What I am going to do now though, is take you back to France.’

‘To the ferry? Already?’ Disappointment broke over me, but Jack smiled.

‘To Arras.’

The hospital at Arras, where Will was awaiting his own Blighty ticket, was an astonishing affair. Underground passages, wards and operating rooms, smartly turned out nurses and orderlies creating calm from chaos…and although the smells and sounds brought back everything I thought I’d never experience again, with them came, not revulsion, as I’d expected, or even dark memories of trembling exhaustion, but a strange and aching sweep of nostalgia. For the first time I understood what Evie had meant, when she tried to explain how it had felt to be at her glorious Breckenhall home and wanting, more than anything, to be back here.

Tiredness was creeping over me now, and I was feeling a little light-headed and hot, but the thought of seeing Evie again, and meeting Will at last, kept me looking around with increasing interest.

‘Uncle Jack!’ The familiar, clear voice cut through the noise, and I turned to see Evie coming down the corridor towards us. She saw me at the same time, and gave a little cry and drew me into her embrace. ‘Skittles! How are you, sweetheart?’ Then she drew back, her breath catching as she belatedly realised why we were there. ‘What happened? Is the trial over?’

‘Yes, love,’ Jack said. He caught my eye and suddenly, in the midst of this madness, the relief set in properly; the smiles on our faces filtered through Evie’s tiredness, and she gave a shaky laugh.

‘He’s been acquitted?’

‘No, not quite. But he’s not going to face the guns.’ Jack gave her a brief account of what had happened, and although her face shadowed at the news he would spend ten years in prison, she understood as well as we did how close he had come to losing his life.

‘And what of young William?’ Jack wanted to know. ‘How’s he doing?’

‘He’s bright enough. Cheerful as ever. Infection was a worry for a while but it won’t be too long before he’s fit to travel. Come in and see him.’ She led the way to a crowded ward at the far end of the hospital, and we followed her to the bed halfway down one side, where a couple of nurses were standing at the foot, entranced by what they were watching.

‘He’s making things again,’ Evie said, her smile lighting the room. ‘People give him all the spare paper they can find.’

The two nurses caught sight of the sister approaching from the other end of the ward and scuttled away quickly, leaving a clear view of Will, his fingers twisting with dexterous concentration and unaware his audience had changed. Then he looked up and saw Evie, and my heart clenched at the look on his face. I’d seen a battered photograph Evie carried with her, and the man who sat propped against these pillows might have been someone else—that man’s father perhaps. This man was older, thinner-faced, with deeper cut lines around his mouth and eyes—but the smile that curved his mouth stripped away those extra years, and his hand dropped the paper boat he’d been crafting and reached out to his wife.

She sat down on the bed and her free hand slipped around to cradle the back of his head, and as she kissed him, I could almost feel the touch of phantom lips on my own and it took no guesswork to understand whose they were. That, at least, answered a question that had hovered darkly in the back of my mind since the attack; would I ever be able to bear the intimate touch of a man on my skin? The answer was evidently yes, provided that man was Archie Buchanan.

I looked away, and saw Jack was doing the same as Evie and Will finished greeting one another, then Evie spoke, and the conversation went naturally to Oli and the verdict. Will did not know my brother, but he seemed genuinely delighted, and his smile was warm when he turned it on me.

‘I’m glad,’ he said, in his husky, slightly broken voice. ‘It’s not often justice gets done, but thanks to you, it has this time.’

‘Thanks to Evie,’ I pointed out, and Will looked back at her, and seemed to have trouble speaking again. Instead he just nodded, and swallowed hard. He shifted on his bed, and hissed a sharp breath, one hand pressed to his middle.

‘Keep still,’ Evie said in worried tones, but he found another smile.

‘I’m fine. I just forget sometimes.’

‘Well I’m going to keep reminding you,’ she said crossly, and I exchanged another look with Will, who sighed.

‘Was she like this with you?’

‘Worse,’ I told him, and Evie rolled her eyes, but her smile returned.

Will’s other hand was still wrapped around hers, and he squeezed it. ‘She couldn’t even let me die in peace,’ he said, and his tone was amused, but his eyes on Evie’s were soft with awe. ‘She followed me out into no man’s land just so she could keep nagging me.’

‘She what?’ Jack’s voice cut like a whip through the room, and several faces turned to us in astonishment and interest.

‘Will!’ Evie groaned. ‘You weren’t supposed to say anything about that.’

‘Oh, hell.’ He looked at Jack and then, apologetically, back at Evie. ‘You didn’t tell me it was a secret.’

‘Secret be damned!’ Jack growled at Evie. ‘I knew there was something up, when you could hardly stand up the other day, getting out of the car.’ His hands clenched at his sides, then abruptly relaxed, and he shook his head and gave her a wry smile. ‘Evangeline Davies, you are going to be the death of me.’ He dragged a chair over and gestured to me to sit down, then leaned against the wall at the head of Will’s bed, and folded his arms.

Evie sensed the worry behind the exasperation. ‘I’m sorry, Uncle Jack. I hate keeping secrets from you, but that was…well, quite a big one. Please don’t tell Lizzy.’

‘Don’t be silly; of course I’m going to tell her! But I won’t tell your mother.’ He ran his hands through his hair and sighed, dropping his voice considerably. ‘In all seriousness, love, don’t let anyone else find out or Archie’ll cop it.’

‘He had no idea,’ Evie protested, her own voice little more than a harsh whisper. ‘I didn’t even know I was going to do it, so it wouldn’t be fair to blame him.’

He looked at her steadily. ‘We’ve just seen how close things can come to “not fair”,’ he reminded her. ‘The point is you were in his care.’

‘He helped me bring Will back,’ Evie said. She turned to her husband again, who was clearly deeply regretting having spoken up. ‘If it weren’t for him Will would have died out there.’

‘You’re as bad as each other.’ Jack shook his head again. ‘Archie’s a good lad, Evie. I’d hate to see him get into trouble over this.’

‘He won’t,’ she assured him. ‘We’ll keep it to ourselves now.’

I couldn’t imagine what had been going through Evie’s mind to go out into no man’s land, not after what we’d both seen. The thought of her and Archie out there in the dark, just a few feet away from the German lines, gave me chills, but I wanted to know everything. ‘Will you tell me about it though, Evie?’

‘Of course.’ She glanced around us at the crowded ward. ‘When we’re back at Dark River. Speaking of which—’ she brightened ‘—how’s Lizzy?’

We chatted for a while longer, then I noticed Will was starting to sweat slightly, and his breathing was shorter. Evie noticed at the same time, and turned to look for a nurse. ‘It must be time for your next injection,’ she muttered. ‘I’ll go and find someone.’

‘It’s another hour yet.’ He caught at her hand before she could rise. ‘It’s all right; they’re very good. I’m never left waiting past my time.’ He managed a brief smile. ‘Don’t want to get addicted to the stuff, do I?’

His words ricocheted around us, and Evie’s face paled. ‘Don’t say that,’ she said, her voice low and worried. ‘You won’t get addicted.’

It was only then he realised what he’d said. ‘Of course I won’t! Evie, please…don’t worry.’

‘But look at you!’ She was close to tears. ‘You can barely breathe, you need something.’

‘I’ve got something,’ he said gently, and lifted their still-linked hands. ‘Just sit with me? Don’t mind if I drift a bit. Just…sit with me.’ He let out a slow, difficult breath and his eyes closed. I saw his jaw tighten against a small sound of pain, and Evie raised his hand to her lips and kept it there.

Jack and I murmured our goodbyes and started to drift away, but Evie caught up with us before we reached the door. ‘He’s sleeping already,’ she said. ‘He’s so tired. Hopefully he’ll sleep until it’s time for his next injection.’

Jack put an arm around her. ‘I was never certain I’d say this, but I think he’s worthy of you, Evie.’

‘I love him so much,’ she said, choking on the words as she looked back to where Will slept. The lump of bandage beneath his pyjamas stretched right across his waist, and around his left side, and I guessed the surgery had been intensive, and more dangerous than Evie had wanted to say.

‘He’s going to need a lot of help to stay off morphine once he’s out,’ Jack said, and while I knew it had to be discussed, I thought he might have delayed a bit. But Evie was made of sterner stuff than me, and she nodded.

‘But it’s a good sign he didn’t let me call the nurse over, isn’t it?’

‘It is. I think he knows how scared you are though, and if you’re not careful he could go the other way.’

She gave him a horrified look. ‘You think he’d actually deny himself pain relief?’

‘He loves you, sweetheart,’ Jack reminded her, and kissed her forehead. ‘He’ll do anything.’

‘Are you all right, Skittles?’ Evie asked me, and put a hand on my arm. I nodded, but I was starting to feel distanced again, as if I were watching from the other end of the tunnel.

‘I’m just tired,’ I told her, and smiled. ‘A good sleep and I’ll be right as a trivet.’

Five minutes later the three of us were outside, listening to the crump of guns and the shouts of men and a newly arrived convoy. Now the worry over Oli was eased, all I could think about was Archie. I could see Jack’s mind had turned inward, and wondered if he too was thinking about his nephew.

‘I’m going back to Belgium tonight,’ he said to Evie, confirming it. ‘I want to be there when the lad gets back.’

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Give him a hug from me, won’t you?’ She glanced at me as soon as the words were out of her mouth, but I smiled and gave a tiny shake of my head. If I’d had any remaining doubts about her love for Will, they’d have been dispelled as soon as I’d seen the couple together.

‘Will you take me straight to the ferry, or am I coming back with you?’ I asked Jack.

‘I’m sure you’d like to see Oliver once more before he’s shipped back, wouldn’t you? I can take you to the hotel again if you like, and you can see him in the morning. I’m not sure you’re up to a channel crossing by the looks of you anyway.’

‘I’d feel better for sleeping in a bed,’ I admitted, and Evie gave me a hug.

‘You take care, sweetheart. You’re still not back to your old self.’

We said our goodbyes, and while I sank with relief into Jack’s passenger seat, Evie went, with equal relief, back down to spend another long night at Will’s bedside.

We arrived back in Belgium in the early hours, and I fell into bed with deep gratitude. The travelling, the cold and the tension had all gradually chipped away at me, and I still felt a low ache in my belly but I couldn’t tell if it was a physical pain or the emptiness of losing the baby. Frances had been appalled at the way I’d embraced the blame, and she denied any possibility that I deserved it, but I felt the truth wrap itself around my heart and it was a hard truth to forget.

Late in the morning I managed to spend ten minutes with Oliver before he was marched out, dressed in civilian clothes and looking so very young it made me want to run after him and hold him while we both cried. But I remembered Jack’s words, and instead gave him the strongest smile I could muster, then returned to my hotel and collapsed into bed once more. I remained there all day, drifting in and out of a fitful sleep filled with fever-dreams, and during my lucid, waking moments, I told myself over and over again that Will was alive, that Oli was safe, and that Archie would be too. What more could any of us hope for?

In the early evening I rose, much recovered, to have a shallow, lukewarm bath, and to find something for dinner. The big guns were quiet tonight, and it wasn’t until I went outside after my meal that I heard the light cracking of rifles. I tried to shut them out, to reduce them to the same background noise as they had been before, but the image of Will in that hospital bed wouldn’t leave me. It seemed madness, after all the pain and injury I’d seen, that any one person could bring the horror home to me so completely, but he had. And now all I could think about was Archie out there in no man’s land. What if that rifle shot had been the very one that signalled the end of his life? Or that one? A life was being taken for almost every single one. Why not his?

My hands trembled as I drew on my gloves against the evening chill, and I was concentrating on smoothing them over my fingers, so it wasn’t until he spoke my name that I saw him. He was covered in mud, his hat shoved under his arm, and there was a smudge of blood across his forehead, but he was smiling, and he was whole.