A Rose In Flanders Fields (43 page)

‘Does for him?’

‘Look at him. Eyes all over the place. Next stop opium, and probably soon after, heart attack. Poor boy.’

‘Really?’

‘Not his fault, of course, but he won’t have access to morphine. It’s the family I feel sorry for. When he goes it won’t be as a hero, it’ll be as a drug-addled mess. Better if he’d died out there in the field, sorry to say.’

My thoughts were jumbled and tired, but they quickly sorted themselves into neat parcels of information: Uncle Jack’s remembrances of Colonel Drewe’s morphine addiction,
“… he changed quite a lot, became dependent on morphine for a while..”

Kitty had said the man who attacked her had seemed drunk, but had not been. His eyes, though, had been “odd”. Oliver’s own telling of the events in the cellar at Number Twelve had told a similar tale, and I remembered how he’d said the necessity to take short, shallow breaths had made his heart race, and had affected Drewe even more severely.

And finally, the expression on Will’s face as he’d looked at the syringe of morphine that would, temporarily at least, lift him away from his pain and give him some peace. He had looked as though, if anyone had stood between him and that peace, he might have killed them without a second’s thought.

I dropped the cloth I was holding back into the bucket by my feet and, ignoring indignant shouts from the ward, I ran. Back out into the tunnel system, up into the cool breeze of the thankfully still pitch-black early morning.

I found him right away. He wouldn’t have gone far, I knew that, but in the dark only his height and stillness gave him away against the others travelling to and from the underground city.

‘Archie!’

He turned, saw the urgency that propelled me towards him, and came to meet me, clasping my arms as I fought for enough breath to speak clearly. ‘We have to telephone Uncle Jack
right now
. Where can we go? How can we find him?’

To my relief he didn’t ask for answers then and there, but caught my hand and dragged me to the nearest field telephone. ‘If we can just get a stay of execution,’ I urged. ‘We need to check the cause of Drewe’s death.’

‘Got it. Hello! Yes, Captain Buchanan. Vitally important this message gets to Major Jack Carlisle…’

He left the message, with the rather worryingly determined, ‘Evidence to follow,’ and all we could do then was wait. We stayed next to the field telephone, but my eyes kept straying to the doorway, and eventually Archie touched my hand.

‘Go back, darling. Be there when he needs you, I’ll come to you with any news.’

Electric light was a wonderful thing, but it couldn’t tell me if dawn had come. Archie’s continued absence was worrying, but as soon as I heard the operation was over, all thoughts of him, and of Oli, were swept from my mind. There was only Will.

‘The bullet took him just below the lowest rib,’ the surgeon said, his voice tired and his eyes tireder. ‘Thankfully missed the aorta, and lodged at the bottom of the pancreas.’

‘But is he –’

‘He survived the operation, yes,’ the surgeon said, and my knees almost gave out. He held up his hand as I opened my mouth to express my relief and gratitude. ‘He’s got a long way to go, Mrs Davies. He’s extremely lucky to have survived this far, please don’t get your hopes up.’

His caution did little to quell the fierce elation that ran through me; I would see him again, speak to him, have the chance to tell him I never really gave up on him. I wasn’t allowed in just yet, however, and paced the tunnels with a twisting, aching need that grew stronger with every minute that passed.

I thought back – was it really only a few short hours? – to the moment I had seen him lying by the wire up by the German trench; clinging on to life, not trying to throw it away. His body had been fighting, every bit as hard as the instinct that had caused him to turn his face to the side as he lay there – an echo of my own instinctive desperation to go on. I wondered how long he’d been conscious, frightened and in terrible pain, before the darkness had closed in, and if he knew he would see daylight again or if he believed that to be the end.

My musings were interrupted by a low voice in my ear. ‘Don’t hope for too much, but they’ve agreed to postpone the execution, pending evidence that Oli didn’t kill the colonel.’

‘Oh, thank God!’

Archie nodded. ‘How is Will?’

I told him, and we leaned against one another in shared relief. Both outcomes were shaky at best, but we would have a little time, at least, to gather ourselves and make sure we did all we could. Breathing space. Time to sleep, even.

But no. Archie had switched back into briskness. ‘Right, where’s this evidence?’

It occurred to me that I hadn’t told him anything of any substance, and that he had just potentially committed a grave offence based only on my frantic babbling. ‘It’s just…I think Drewe might have had a heart attack, not drowned at all.’

‘You
think
?’ He shook his head and blew out a heavy breath, then calmed himself. ‘Aye well, a post-mortem will confirm if that’s the case,’ he conceded. ‘I doubt if they’d considered one necessary, what with Oliver confessing to murder. So, what have we got to go on?’

I told Archie everything that had flashed through my mind while listening to the nurse’s musing. ‘She said morphine addiction can lead to dependence on opium, and that a big risk is heart-failure.’

‘She’s right, of course,’ Archie said. ‘Seen it happen. Tragic. Especially when it’s nearly always a result of a courageous act, or following orders.’

‘Well, Oli said Drewe was very red in the face, and quite breathless, when he went into the cellar. If he thought Oli might go to the authorities with what he knew, might that have brought on a heart attack? He hadn’t denied it, after all.’

‘It’s possible. Oliver said he waited a moment before going down the steps to roll him over.’

‘But we don’t
know
he drowned.’

‘Not conclusively. But it’s still likely Oliver will face the firing squad. Even striking a superior officer carries the death penalty.’

‘The question then, even if we can prove Drewe died from natural causes, is whether we can also prove the provocation. Maybe we can get the sentence commuted to life imprisonment. We just need to borrow some time! Time to get Kitty out here.’

Before Archie could reply, a VAD approached and touched my arm shyly.

‘Mrs Davies? You can see him now.’

Archie squeezed my hand. ‘Go on. I’ll give this some thought and work out what to tell Jack.’

I nodded gratefully, and followed the VAD back to the ward.

‘You mustn’t tire him,’ she began, then subsided with a little smile and gestured at my uniform. ‘Well, you know.’

‘Thank you. And I won’t.’

I approached his bed, more nervous than I had ever been around him, even on our wedding night. My heart pounded and my hands felt clammy, and I wiped them on the front of my apron. He slept, still, but I was glad; it gave me a chance to compose myself and I sat down beside him, marvelling in the reality of him, and comforted by the sight of his chest rising and falling gently as he breathed. I felt as if I tore my eyes away from him it would all stop, that the next time I looked he would be waxy-looking and still, and a hand would fall on my shoulder, eyes looking at me with sympathy mingled with faint impatience: I should move away, let them free up the bed…

‘Evie?’

So fixated had I been on watching him breathe, I hadn’t seen him open his eyes. They looked at me now, calm and familiar, and once they locked with mine I couldn’t look away. I’d told myself his life was all that mattered, only that he should survive to hear my last plea, and then make his decision, but now I knew I’d been trying to fool myself. I would give anything to see the same tender, hopeful look of love in his face as I knew must be on mine.

‘I never meant it,’ I whispered. ‘That letter. I was coming to tell you.’ He nodded, and his hand turned palm-up on the bed. I laid my own in it, feeling his fingers closing over mine and it was as if he’d folded my entire body in his arms just by that one small gesture. But it was the giving and taking of comfort, nothing more. The need for a human touch during a moment of deep fear and regret. The last touch of a love that was broken and burdensome.

I couldn’t tell him about what had happened out in No Man’s Land; hated the thought that it sounded as though I had hopes of winning him back through obligation, but I remembered something else, and fumbled at the dolly bag I wore at my hip. ‘Look.’

I pulled out the torn, battered paper rose, and laid it on his chest. He picked it up with his free hand, and closed his eyes briefly as the movement caused a spasm of pain. It took a moment for his breathing to settle. Then he said, with the tiniest hint of a smile, ‘As I thought. Shocking mess.’

‘Shocking,’ I agreed. There was a long, difficult silence.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said at last, on a sigh. ‘You shouldn’t have come. You needn’t have.’

I looked at him, my answering smile fading. ‘What are you talking about?’ He shook his head, then carefully lifted his hand away from mine. My fingers closed on empty air. ‘Will?’

‘All this,’ he said. ‘It’s exactly why,’ he winced and swallowed hard, ‘why I said what I did.’

‘And you think
all this
is going to make me want to leave you?’

‘You’d be a fool if you didn’t. And you’re no fool, Evie.’

‘Oh, aren’t I?’ I folded my arms across my chest. ‘I actually think I must be, to think you had half an ounce of common sense about you, Will Davies.’ I leaned in close, hardly raising my voice above a whisper, but pouring every ounce of frustrated anger into it. ‘Do you know what I think?’ Without giving him time to form an answer, I went on, ‘I think it’s
you
who’s stopped loving me.’ His hand clenched on the covers and he looked stricken by the ferocity in my voice. ‘You’re not the only one who’s had to build a wall between the past and the present!’ I paused to wipe a furious tear. ‘We knew we’d change, Will. We even talked about it, but you promised me…’ I realised I was beginning to raise my voice, and dropped it low again. ‘You
promised
me that wouldn’t matter. If you don’t like what I’ve grown into after all, I think you should just tell me the truth. You owe me that much.’

‘Now, nurse, let the patient rest,’ a voice behind me said, and I turned to see the sister bearing down on us, a tray in her hand that drew his eyes away from mine, leaving a cold fear snaking through me at the desperation in that look.

‘I thought about you,’ he whispered, still looking at the syringe the sister was preparing; his face was milk-white and greasy-looking. ‘When I was lying out there. I couldn’t move, or even open my eyes, but I remember, I thought I heard your voice.’

‘Will –’

‘Come along, nurse,’ the sister said. ‘God willing there’ll be time for talking later.’ She stepped forward and, with despair taking hold once again I moved aside, but Will gripped my hand and pulled me back.

There was a new light in his eyes, one of realisation and trembling awe. ‘I didn’t imagine it, did I?’

I didn’t reply, but he must have seen the truth in my face, and in the guilty way I looked over my shoulder.

‘My God, Evie,’ he breathed. ‘You thought I no longer loved you, and you still did that?’

‘It didn’t mean my own feelings had changed.’

‘You’re rarely wrong,’ he managed, ‘but when you are, you are spectacularly, ridiculously, unbelievably wrong.’

‘Does that mean –’

‘It means you are spectacularly, ridiculously –’

‘Unbelievably wrong,’ I finished for him, my heart beginning to thump hard with relief. ‘We’re well-matched then. You finally accept you’re burdened with me for life?’

He was becoming tired, and his words were mumbling across his lips, but every one of them sang. ‘How could I not, with the sacrifices you’ve made?’

‘Nurse!’ The sister was growing impatient, but Will and I ignored her and kept our eyes on each other.

‘I couldn’t leave you alone out there.’

‘I’m not talking about that,’ he said, and, from somewhere, a smile crept across his face, banishing the pain just for a moment. ‘I’m talking about this.’ He flicked the collar of my uniform. ‘You even fixed your cape properly and straightened your cap.’

‘You remembered that?’ I was trying not to laugh now but I couldn’t help it, the relief was thundering through me and banishing every last ache and doubt. He laughed too, then gasped and held his breath. I clutched at his hand and he let out the breath slowly, his eyes closed tight, and accepted the sting of the needle with gratitude. After a moment he looked at me again, and I could tell by his expression that he was going to say something important. I leaned in closer so he wouldn’t have to raise his voice.

‘You’ve got a hole in your pocket,’ he murmured, and then his eyes closed, and he went gratefully into whatever awaited him in the darkness.

At that moment I wished, above everything, that I could follow him.

Archie found me a little later. I’d been told Will would sleep for a good long time; he needed to let his body begin the healing process and if I returned too soon and disturbed him, let alone made him laugh again, I would be given extremely short shrift and bundled back outside. So I went of my own accord, and stood watching the light streak across the sky, lightening the day until it felt like another world.

I was able to look around for the first time properly, and see my surroundings, the personnel coming and going, the endless chains of supplies of medical equipment, blankets and ammunition that was unloaded and carried away from the lorries. While watching one team of men unloading a consignment of mortars I caught sight of Archie, looking around for me. I waved and he came over.

‘Uncle Jack has swung it,’ he said, before I’d had chance to ask. ‘They’re going to do a full post-mortem, and if it turns out Drewe did have a heart attack, the charge will be altered. There will be another trial, another chance for Oli to tell his side.’

‘And for Kitty to do the same,’ I said. Relief peeled the of the last weight from my shoulders, but, conversely the release of that weight stole the strength I needed to stand up any longer, and I looked around for somewhere to sit.