A Rose In Flanders Fields (39 page)

I hugged her, as best I could with her sagged against me. ‘I’ll wire Benjy and tell him you’re in the best possible hands,’ I said, and forced a smile as we handed her over to the tired-looking Sister. Boxy looked as if she wanted to answer, but I shook my head. ‘Just do as the nurses tell you, and don’t be a nuisance. Let them get a word in, at least.’

‘Leave her with us,’ the Sister said. ‘You look as though you might benefit from some fresh air yourself. The courtyard’s through there.’ She jerked her head in the direction of a double-door. ‘I’ll send someone if there’s anything you can do.’

I felt roundly dismissed, but the ward was almost full and I would only have been in the way, so I watched from the doorway while the Sister and a nurse helped Boxy into one of the few empty beds at the other end, and then pushed open the door and went out into the chilly early morning. Snow was drifting lazily around in the air, falling wetly to a sodden ground and vanishing instantly. I felt the odd flake alight on my cheek and wondered if this winter would ever end; it had been the bitterest one I’d ever known, and surely by now it should have given way to spring. But, as the war grew older the weather stayed harsh to match it, and I could barely remember how it felt to be warm, comfortable and happy.

I’d intended to walk awhile, but my chest still felt tight and when I turned my head too quickly I became dizzy, so I sat down on an iron bench beneath the big beech tree at the far end of the path and, despite the cold, and the hard discomfort of the seat, I dozed and drifted. My thoughts were mangled and dark, twisting around themselves with divided fear for Boxy and Oliver, and the ever-present ache of missing Will. I don’t know how long I had been there when I eventually raised my head, but the sky had lightened and there were more people coming outside now. Patients and nursing staff leaned on one another as tiredness, injury and long nights took their toll, and lifted their faces to the sky as if to soak in the hope that we all sought in each brand new day.

One man, tapping a cigarette on his case prior to lighting it, caught my eye and nodded in casual greeting. I peered closer and my breath froze. It couldn’t be…I stood up and took a couple of steps closer. It was! Oli hadn’t killed him after all! Oh, thank God…

‘Private Potter?’

He looked up again, squinting against the flare of his match, and looking a little nervous at the way I was staring at him. ‘Miss? I hope you’re all right?’ He shook out the match, leaving his gasper unlit. ‘How did it go at your friend’s trial yesterday?’

The voice shocked me even more; those friendly, conversational tones that had lulled me during the drive to the court-martial. I felt the first wave of doubt; could this really be the man who’d done that terrible thing? This proud, devoted family man? Then I snapped back to reality and stepped away. This was obviously how he’d done it: lulled poor Kitty into dispensing her typically eager comfort and sympathy, before trapping her in the back of the ambulance and destroying, not only her life, but that of her brother too. I was about to shout for someone, anyone, when I heard my name called, and turned to see a familiar figure rounding the corner by the double-doors.

I almost melted with relief. ‘Archie! It’s him, don’t let him get away!’

‘Hush, Evie –’

‘Grab him!’

‘Miss? Sir?’ Potter sounded bemused and frightened, barely remembering to salute, but Archie spared him no more than a glance.

‘Evie, listen to me!’

I stopped, my heart chilled suddenly. ‘Is it about Oli?’

Archie’s face was pale through worry and lack of sleep, and there were dark circles beneath his eyes. He put his bag down at his feet, heedless of the damp ground, and took my hands. ‘The news isn’t good. I’m sorry.’

‘But Potter’s not dead! It can only be a desertion charge, and Uncle –’

‘He wasn’t the one, sweetheart.’ He shook at my hands. ‘Potter didn’t do it. Oliver knew who did. And that man
is
dead.’

‘Who, then?’

‘Colonel Drewe.’

Everything darkened around me, and my balance shifted sickeningly, but Archie steadied me. I tried to stop my voice from shaking when I spoke. ‘What happened?’

‘Sit back down, I’ll tell you all I know.’

‘I’ve been sitting too long. Tell me now.’

Archie looked at Potter, who had been staring from one of us to the other, fascinated. ‘Dismissed, Potter. Be ready to drive me back in an hour.’

Potter saluted again, a quick, not very smart salute, and looked reluctant to leave, but Archie waved him away. Then, alone again on the path by the door, we stood, heedless of the whispering snow that continued to drift around, and Archie told me everything, exactly as Oliver had told it to him.

About an hour after Oliver and Archie had seen me in the CSS, Lieutenant-Colonel Drewe had summoned Oliver to drive him over to the shelled cottage, to see what might be salvaged and to make his report. ‘He took a great interest in these places,’ Oliver had said to Archie,‘and everyone thought what a wonderful bloke he was for it. Anyway, he needed a driver, since Potter was still on secondment, and all the others were busy after the shelling the night before. I volunteered instead.’

He told Archie how he and the colonel had been walking through the rubble outside the cottage, and he’d been unsettled to notice Drewe’s eyes, bloodshot and skittering around in their sockets; the man was clearly done up on something. Something had jolted his memory then, something Kitty had said about her attacker’s eyes. And, more tellingly, the realisation slipped into place that Potter was with another unit, in another country…it
couldn’t
have been him! Oliver’s mind raced, putting things into the neat little boxes from which they’d spilled in the fury of hearing the accusation levelled at the driver: Drewe had been the one who’d made it so easy to borrow the car that night, Drewe was a respected officer, someone Kitty would have been both familiar with, and eager to help when he’d been stumbling up the road that night. She would have been most reluctant to name him; who would believe her?

Oliver’s suspicions began gnawing harder, and he’d studied Drewe’s amiable, grandfatherly face, searching for a hint of anything dark. Drewe had abruptly turned away but Oliver had seen guilt in that gesture, and spoke bluntly.

‘Was it you? Did you rape my sister?’ He wanted the colonel to express puzzlement, even anger at the insubordinate tone, but he hadn’t. He merely turned back and studied Oliver’s face in return, drawing himself up even straighter. There had still been others there at that time, stretcher-bearers wading through the floodwaters, and negotiating the stone steps to bring the gas victims back out for burial, and as Drewe walked away, and Oliver followed, the tension flared between captain and colonel and several heads turned to watch with interest.

Oliver called out, anger sharpening his tone. ‘Don’t walk away from me!’

Drewe spun back. ‘Raise your voice to me again,
Captain
Maitland, and you’ll be up on a charge.’

‘Do it and be damned! Answer me!’

Drewe had ducked into the cottage unchallenged. Denied further entertainment the stretcher-bearers closed the ambulance flap and drove slowly away, but Oliver knew talk of the altercation would be all over the company inside an hour. He shook his head, annoyed with his own fragile temper, and went inside. He still didn’t know for sure, and vague suspicion was not enough to risk an insubordination charge over. Inside, the front part of the cottage was ruined but it looked as though the back had escaped the worst of things; perhaps some of Kitty’s belongings might be saved after all, he’d look later. The water had been turned off, and the air was thick with the smell of burning and, as he headed for the cellar, to make sure everyone was indeed out, Oliver took shallow breaths to avoid inhaling too much soot. It made his heartbeat race uncomfortably, and was evidently having the same effect on the colonel; Drewe’s face was reddening, and his eyes seemed to be getting smaller and smaller. He was looking longingly at the door already.

Oliver’s disdain kindled again. ‘Look at you! Fought in two wars and yet the biggest coward I’ve ever met.’

‘Coward?’ Drewe snapped. ‘You have absolutely no notion, boy, of the things I’ve done in the name of king and country!’ He pushed past Oliver to the cellar.

Oliver followed him. ‘I know what you’ve done in the name of greed and cruelty. And it takes a yellow man to force a sweet, trusting girl who only wanted to help.’

‘Not as sweet as she’d have you believe,’ Drewe said, making Oliver’s breath halt in his chest. ‘None of them are.’ He turned, and smiled up at Oliver, and it was such a familiar, kind smile, that Oliver had trouble accepting what he was hearing, the words were so incongruously mis-matched to the expression. Drewe carried on down the steps, stopping just short of the floodwater. ‘It’s why they come out here,’ he threw back over his shoulder, ‘haven’t you realised that yet? All the girls love a Tommy, and your sister was no different. She was the lucky one though, bagged herself an officer instead.’

Oliver’s rising rage carried him several steps down before he realised Drewe had turned back and was coming up again. He had felt his own fist bunching but found enough control to hold back, and instead of lashing out he had taken a step backwards, deliberately putting Drewe out of reach.

But Drewe pressed closer until his face was level with Oliver’s chest. ‘Move, boy.’ And with a speed and brutality that Oliver might have found terrifying if he hadn’t been so furious, he drove the tip of his swagger stick into Oliver’s stomach. Oliver stumbled and gasped at the pain, but a second later his still-curled fist was up and smashing into Drewe’s jaw. The colonel lost his footing on the waterlogged step and crashed backwards, spinning to land face-down in the filthy water. Breathing hard and swallowing a wave of nausea, Oliver had waited in vain for him to get back up, and eventually he had waded down the last few steps to Drewe’s side and rolled him over. Drewe’s eyes were wide open, the late afternoon light fell on them through the tiny, ground-level window and gave them the appearance of life, but an appearance was all it was.

‘He came to find me, as soon as he realised,’ Archie said. ‘He didn’t tell me what he’d done, but he was obviously keen to get on the road to Calais before someone found the body.’ He hesitated, then said gently, ‘No matter what the provocation, or how freakish the accident, he killed a superior officer. He’s been found guilty, and sentenced.’

‘Sentenced…’

‘He’s to face the squad tomorrow.’

Bright hatred washed over me as I recalled the cheerful, friendly face of the Lieutenant-Colonel. I remembered the way he had let me half-run, half-stumble into town the night Gertie had crashed, claiming a broken ankle; how terrifying and dangerous that journey had been…and how quickly that ankle had healed.

I wrapped my arms across my middle, and heard my own voice escape in a little moan, and Archie took my shoulders and made me look at him. ‘Listen, Uncle Jack is still working on this, he’s calling in every possible favour he can. Pulling strings all over the place. We’ll just have to trust him, aye?’

I nodded, unable to do anything else, or to find anything to say. Jack had been able to make sure all the evidence was heard at Will’s trial, but this was different: Oliver had killed Drewe, he had even confessed.‘I don’t think I should tell Kitty just yet,’ I said reluctantly. ‘It’d destroy her to know it’s going to happen and she can’t do anything.’

‘Aye, that’s best,’ Archie said, when I told him. ‘She’d be frantic to get here, and she’s not up to the trip yet, poor wee girl’ His voice was tight again, and a distance had come into his expression. I was about to ask what he was thinking, when he swam back.

‘Oh, I almost forgot.’ He bent to open his knapsack. ‘This was dropped off at HQ yesterday, just after you left. ‘He moved aside a spare set of puttees, and brought out something that made my heart stumble and then race. I stared at it, expecting it to vanish, half-convinced I was dreaming, but when I reached out to take it, it remained solid and real in my hands.

‘Who dropped it off?’ I asked, running my fingers over the battered black box as if it were covered in the most precious gold leaf.

‘A Sergeant Blunt. He was the one who found Drewe’s body.’

Blunt? It took a moment, but then I remembered. ‘Did he have blond hair and a London accent?’

‘Aye, that’s him. He said he’d seen you the day after the base was shelled, and you seemed distressed about the box when you left, so when he was off duty, he went back and found it. Of course, you’d gone back to England by then, so he couldn’t give it to you. Anyway, he took some lads back there the other day, to see if they could recover some of the stretchers and so forth as well, and that’s how they found Drewe. Blunt hoped to see you at the trial, but you were gone by the time he arrived, so he asked me to give it to you.

I held my breath, blessing the sergeant silently, and lifted the lid. There, right on the top of the pile of letters, lay the paper rose.

The words we’d spoken on that day in Blackpool sounded as clearly now, in my head, as they had done when they’d flowed between us, punctuated by the clacking of the train wheels that carried us home.

‘…I will never, ever give up on you, and I want you to promise the same.’

‘I pledge my life on it.’

How quickly we forget promises made in the rush of relief and happiness, when a face you love is looking at you with earnest devotion, and all you want to do is kiss it and forget the doubts ever existed.

I looked at Archie and said bluntly, ‘I’ve got to go.’

‘Where?’ Archie reached out to take my arm, but I jerked away from him and started walking towards the door.

‘Arras.’

‘To do what?’

I walked faster. ‘To tell him I didn’t mean what I said in my letter.’

Now Archie did seize my arm, and pulled me to a stop just outside the door. ‘What letter?’

‘I told him I was setting him free, but I can’t. I don’t want to. And deep down neither does he, he just thinks he’s doing what’s best for me.’ My chest was still tight and my breathing thin, but the burning in my eyes had nothing to do with gas.