A Rose In Flanders Fields (37 page)

I think Kitty might have been pleased to do that too, but despite her obvious courage I’d always hesitated to suggest it and so, on day runs, she’d always go up to the train station and take the wounded from there. I never had to worry about Boxy the same way, which left me free to worry, instead, about how Will had received my terse little note and if it had given him the release I’d intended, or if it had actually hurt him further. It was driving me mad, not knowing, and I prayed for one more letter from him to indicate how my seemingly quick acquiescence to his wishes had been interpreted. I didn’t even know whether I hoped he believed me or not, and part of me, despite knowing it would work against what he needed, wished he would read between the pathetically few, sharp lines and see the pain there.

‘Where are you off to?’ Boxy said, coming out of the cottage after breakfast, and catching me climbing into the ambulance. ‘The convoy’s not due for hours yet and I’m not ready to go up the line, I’ve got to replace the plugs on the car first.’

‘I’m going back to Number Twelve,’ I said. ‘Just for a look around. See if I can find…anything useful.’

She looked steadily at me for a moment, her lips pursed. ‘And if you find “anything useful”, will you risk your life to go inside and get it?’ She knew, of course, what I was hoping to find.

‘I’m sure it’s quite safe there now,’ I said evasively. ‘Anything that was going to fall down would have done so by now.’

‘And what if you don’t find it? Or if it’s mashed beyond all recognition, or burned? Would that be worth the risk?’

‘I have to try. You do see that? It’s all I have left now.’

‘Then let me come with you, you might have an accident, trip on something.’

‘You have the plugs to do,’ I reminded her. ‘You have to be ready for tonight, that’s far more important. It’s all right, I won’t do anything silly, I’m just going to be in and out again in a few minutes. I know exactly where it is. If I’m not back in an hour, come and find me.’

‘Be careful, poppet. Promise me.’

‘I will. Go in, you’ll catch your death out here.’

I began the long, frustrating task of starting the cold engine. Boxy watched me for a while, clearly struggling with her conscience, then blew me a kiss without smiling and went back inside.

I parked the ambulance on the road just across from Number Twelve, and sat quietly for a while, listening to the distant sound of the bombardment and knowing that, when it stopped, we would not celebrate, but instead feel that hollow, sick anticipation of the whistles summoning us to bring our men back from yet another hopeless push. The rain beat steadily down, turning the last of the late snow to grey-brown mush where the hundreds of tyres had churned up the mud. There was a good deal of traffic on the main road, but none of it pulled into the yard any more; Number Twelve was useless now, where it had once been a bustling haven of hope to so many. The cars, ambulances and horse-drawns simply rumbled carefully past on their way to the clearing stations and hospitals, and in the other direction they sped, empty, to the aid posts and dressing stations up near the lines.

I peered through the downpour at the cottage, seeing it in its ugly quaintness, as it had been for our first years out here, before my vision accepted the rain and allowed me to see through it to what was really there: just another of the countless, shattered ruins that had once graced the landscape, and now marred it beyond all recognition.

I pushed my hat more firmly onto my head and climbed down, sloshing through the puddles and mud that were all that remained of the once-neat yard, stepping over small holes and skirting larger ones until I reached the doorway where Anne had stood, smoking what was to be her last cigarette. I closed my eyes for a moment in memory, then stepped into the ruined main room, looking ahead through the gloom to where the bedroom door hung half off its hinges.

There was debris everywhere, but the roof looked sound enough, and nothing was creaking or groaning. A few tentative steps across the room and my confidence and excitement grew; I would go straight into the bedroom, find the little black box, and be out of the cottage and back to Number Twenty-Two before Boxy had time to spare me another thought.

But a noise from the cellar changed everything.

Chapter Twenty-Six

I stopped, my heart pounding so hard I was sure it could be heard. I turned my head, trying to analyse the sound. Had it been a shuffling step, as I’d thought? Or might it have been a simple shifting of some masonry down there, disturbed by my passage through the room above? The sound did not come again and I decided on the latter, and let myself breathe again. I took a couple of steps, concentrating on where my feet fell; I didn’t want Boxy’s worries to become a reality, and even a sprained ankle would put me out of action for tonight’s work.

I pushed at the awkwardly hanging bedroom door and looked in, seeing the window I’d broken, and the thin curtain hanging limp and sodden as a result, and was hit by the horrible irony that I might have destroyed the rose by my own impatience, letting all the damp in. If the box had been even a little bit open…

The noise came again. This time I was certain: it was a footstep. On the cellar stairs. A sliding scuffle of a boot, and now I could hear another, and another. What if it was Potter? He might have seen me park up, and followed me in, knowing there was no way for me to get out once I was this far into the room. But what was he doing in the cellar? Scavenging? There might still be some medical supplies down there, and anyone who could attack a vulnerable young girl would be just the type to try seize them and sell them on.

My skin rippled into terrified goose flesh, and I looked around for somewhere to hide. If I could only make him think I’d gone, he’d go back downstairs and I’d be able to make a run for safety… I ducked down behind the broken door and listened, holding my breath, letting it out oh, so slowly, before drawing another and holding it until I felt dizzy. The sounds stopped. I didn’t know whether that was because Potter had reached the main room, or because he had gone back down to finish what he’d been doing. It was likely still flooded down there, and I couldn’t hear the swish of water as he walked through it…but neither could I hear any sound from the next room. Perhaps he’d seized the opportunity to escape unseen, while I cowered back here like a frightened child?

Slowly I rose to my feet, careful not to dislodge any of the broken sticks of furniture or loose bricks that lay strewn across the floor in the semi-darkness, and peeped into the main room. Right away I could see it wasn’t Potter; this man was taller, and an officer. I could only see his left shoulder and his head as he’d begun to descend the cellar steps again, and he was hunched with cold and fatigue, but the colour of his hair, unkempt and escaping the confines of his cap, was unmistakeable.

‘Oli!’

Oliver turned in shock at the sound of my voice. He was a terrible mess; exhausted and terrified, his face no longer clean-shaven but dark with two weeks’ growth, and filthy. His eyes flew wide at the sight of me stumbling across the room towards him, and he held out a defensive hand.

‘Don’t, please…’

I stopped, worried he might turn and run. ‘What are you doing here, you bloody fool? We’ve been all out trying to find you, to give yourself up before it’s too late.’

‘It is too late,’ he said, and his voice shook.

‘No, it’s not. Look,’ I stepped closer, carefully so as not to scare him, ‘Jack Carlisle is doing everything he can to fix things. We’re going to get Kitty out here to tell her story…’ I hesitated, unsure whether to tell him, then decided he ought to know. ‘Oli, Kitty lost the baby.’

He caught his breath, then came back up the stairs. Framed in the front doorway, his hair caught the light and he looked so much like his sister I could have wept for them both. ‘Is that the truth?’ he asked quietly.

‘Yes.’

‘Then I suppose I should be glad,’ he said, but he didn’t sound it. ‘A child born of violence can’t have a happy life, one would assume.’ He gave me a sad smile. ‘A child born in love has no guarantee either, evidently. Poor Kitty. Is she all right?’

‘She’s being well looked after. Look, we all want to help, but they’ll find you eventually and it’ll go badly for you if you wait until they do. Oli, you
have
to come back with me.’

‘No!’

‘Please! There may still be time to put this right, when you explain why you wanted to go to England.’

‘And why
was
that?’ he said bitterly. ‘To speak to Kitty? That was how it started, but I didn’t do that, did I?’

‘I understand you were scared –’

‘I can’t come back with you, it’s too late.’

‘Why do you keep saying that?’

‘Because he’s dead!’

I fell silent, wondering if I’d mis-heard. He backed out of the door, almost losing his balance on the loose stones, his green eyes on mine and his face a twisted mask of fear and misery.

‘That’s why I ran away, Evie. I killed him.’

Before I could find my voice, or any words, he had gone. The doorway stood empty, but afforded me no other sight than a shattered yard and the distant road. Oliver Maitland had vanished again. Numb with shock, it was almost as an afterthought that I turned back to the bedroom; even the black box didn’t seem as important as it had just a few minutes ago.

Until I saw it had gone.

‘What do you mean, “gone”?’ Boxy said, when I told her.

‘Exactly that.’ I couldn’t tell her about Oli, and so the vanished box became the focus of my thoughts until Archie responded to my urgent wire. Not giving myself time to agonise over the choice, I’d gone straight from Number Twelve to the field post office, and now every time I heard a vehicle outside I prayed I’d done the right thing.

‘Someone stole it? Was there anything else missing?’

‘Someone must have decided it looked interesting enough,’ I said. ‘Probably one of the soldiers who helped move the bodies out after the flood.’ I’d already considered, and dismissed, the hope that Oli might have thought the box was Kitty’s and taken it; he had nowhere to put it. Sorrow stole through me again; when whoever took it opened it, and saw nothing inside but a collection of letters and a tattered paper rose, they would discard it in disappointment and it would lie there in the mud, and eventually become part of the landscape. No matter how much I told myself it was just a piece of paper, it symbolised so much more and now its disappearance fell into neat symmetry with the loss of Will. Like the world at war, everything was falling to pieces, everything was dying.

I slept late after a particularly gruelling night, and emerged from my flea-bag just before lunch to find, not Archie after all, but Uncle Jack, in uniform, sitting at the kitchen table, chatting amiably with Elise and Johnstone. I’d not seen him wearing his uniform in years; he cut a dashing figure though, and I couldn’t help smiling at the way Elise was staring at him.

He looked around as I came into the room, and rose to his feet. ‘Sweetheart, you look exhausted. How are you holding up?’

‘I’m well,’ I assured him, and accepted his unselfconscious hug with relief. ‘And so pleased to see you, but what are you doing here?’

‘I came over yesterday, on government business rather than army, but it’s surprising what difference a uniform makes. Archie couldn’t get away, but he showed me your wire. Shall we go for a walk while you tell me what’s so urgent?’ He had obviously sensed it had to do with Oliver, and I nodded gratefully and took my coat off the back of the door. Boxy thrust a piece of toast at me in lieu of breakfast, and then we were outside, glad to find a rare clear sky and even the glimmer of the sun behind scudding clouds. It was a relief to explain everything, and the words tumbled out, in the wrong order and punctuated by distractions as I went back to try and correct them, but he grasped what I was saying.

‘Poor boy must be beside himself,’ he said when I’d finished. ‘Look, try not to worry, darling. Now we know he’s around here, we can concentrate on finding him.’

‘But what about Potter?’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. No one’s reported having found him, it may turn out that Maitland only believed he killed him.’

I snatched a sudden, hopeful breath. ‘Is that likely?’

‘Well, it’s most odd that a body hasn’t turned up in over two weeks. He might just have been put out of action for a while. I’ll check the field hospitals and the clearing stations, in case he’s wandered in looking for medical help. Don’t worry, I’ll be discreet.’

I shook my head, almost ready to laugh. ‘I can’t believe I didn’t even consider the possibility!’

‘You’ve a lot on your mind,’ he said. ‘Besides, I don’t want to raise your hopes. Unless Maitland stole his papers Potter would have been identified by now, if he did go for help. Then again, HQ would have been informed if he made a complaint against Maitland, so that’s another possible bit of good news.’

I needed that, and held onto it, hugging his arm in relief. ‘Thank you. How are you, anyway? I’m so sorry, I never remember to ask.’

He patted my hand where it lay in the crook of his arm. ‘Don’t worry about me, love, I’m fine. How’s Kitty?’

I could see that wasn’t really what he wanted to ask, and said, ‘I’m sure she’s being very well fed, and will soon be up and well.’ Then I added casually, ‘I expect Lizzy has made some biscuits for her.’

The smile that swept across his face could have lit St Paul’s Cathedral. ‘Lucky Kitty,’ he said, and pretended to check his teeth for breakages.

I laughed. ‘She misses you like a lopped-off limb,’ I told him, and his smile faded a bit, but the warmth was still there.

‘I worry about her doing too much,’ he confided. ‘I’m not able to spend enough time watching her, what with zipping off all over the place, and she does tend to try and do everything herself.’ He bumped me with his elbow. ‘A little bit like someone else I know.’

‘I’m learning,’ I assured him.

‘And how is Will?’

This time I was able to hide my emotions quite well; it wouldn’t be fair to pile my cares onto shoulders that already bore so much for the sake of others. ‘He wrote a few days ago, and I wrote back,’ I said evasively, ‘it’s all rather the same as always. His unit’s in Arras now, so the grapevine tells me.’ Archie, of course, being the grapevine; letters between units were now almost as strenuously censored as those travelling back home, and more and more I had been left with a few bland words between the heavy black smudges. But I would have treasured another one nevertheless.