Read For King and Country Online
Authors: Annie Wilkinson
‘Will, Will!’
‘Oh, oh,’ he gasped, his eye wide and staring until he saw her and came shuddering to himself.
‘You were dreaming.’
‘Was I?’
‘You shouted “muddy!” Just like the night nurse said you did, when they thought you couldn’t talk. Only it sounded more like “mutter!”’
He sat bolt upright and shook himself like a dog shaking water off its coat. He looked at her, still shuddering from time to time, as if throwing off some unseen horror.
She sat up. ‘What is it, Will?’
‘Ugh,’ he breathed. ‘Ugh,’ but gave her no other answer.
She put her arms around him and rested her cheek on his shoulder. ‘Don’t think about it.’
After a while he said: ‘It was a few weeks after our Jack copped it. We were mopping up, after taking a trench. Before the war, nobody would have believed what that entails. You sling
smoke bombs in the enemy’s dugouts, so they have a choice between choking to death and coming out. So they come out, and as soon as they do you shoot them, or put them to the bayonet. Well,
that was the job I had this time, and I was all keyed up and baying for blood. “Come on out, you buggers, let’s have you,” I was yelling, but there was only a couple came out,
with their hands up, jabbering, “
Kamarad, kamarad
!” like they do.
‘“I’ll give you bloody
kamarad
,” I said, and I put the first one to the point. But the one behind him was younger, and when it was his turn, when I stuck the
bayonet in – he was only a kid – he looked – straight into my eyes as he fell, and he said “
Mutti
!”’
He stared straight through her and gave an awful groan, and then placing his hands behind his head he curled himself into a ball.
Sally sat beside him, horror-struck at the thought of those lads and the German muttis who would never see their sons again. Then came the tears, welling into her eyes and dropping onto the
killer of their children, her ordinary village lad turned murderer. She murmured choked words of comfort he seemed not to hear, and stroked his hair.
The scars on his face were bad enough, but now she saw the scars within, deep and ugly – scars that might never heal. They filled her heart with dread, and her mind was overwhelmed by
doubt that she would prove strong enough to take on the burden of a broken man.
‘She can still talk,’ the neighbour said, her bright brown eyes looking inquisitively into Sally’s as she prattled on, seeming quite oblivious of Mrs
Burdett’s presence. ‘She’s paralysed all down one side, and her speech is slurred, but you can just make out what she says, if you listen hard enough. Me and the lass across the
road, we keep coming in to have a look at her, try and get her to eat a bit. Help her to use the bucket, like. She hasn’t had one wet bed, so far. We’re expecting her father today,
he’s coming to look after her, and I’m not sorry. I’ve got my own family to see to, but poor lass, you couldn’t see her stuck. Your Emma and your Ginny and your mother keep
bringing her a bite to eat, and now you’re here! I never realized you were all so friendly, although I know you knew the lads.’
Sally nodded, and the woman’s gaze became more intense.
‘It was after that bobby was down asking her about their Will that she took the stroke. They reckon he’s not dead at all; he’s a deserter! By, that must have been a shock for
her!’
‘Will’s dead,’ Sally insisted, ‘and they’d have done a lot better to leave her alone.’
‘Oh, aye, I’ll agree with you there,’ the woman said, but Sally said no more, her attention was focused on the woman in the bed, who was struggling to speak.
Half reluctantly, the neighbour said, ‘I’ll get off now, then, shall I?’ Sally nodded, and saw her out, locking the door behind her before returning to Mrs Burdett’s
bedside.
‘Good neighbour,’ she slurred, giving Sally a lopsided smile. Sally smiled back and nodded agreement, detecting a trace of irony in the words.
Now feeling the scrutiny of Mrs Burdett’s searching eyes she sat down and took her limp, cold hand. ‘Never bother. He’s safe, and I’ll keep him safe,’ she promised,
giving it a squeeze.
Mrs Burdett closed her eyes, and released her pent-up breath in a long sigh.
‘It’s a good job you told us where to find the key to the laundry,’ Sally went on. ‘He passed the first night there, well out of the way, lying beside the ironing stove
with plenty of blankets to cover him up. He said he’d had many a worse billet in France, anyhow. I’ve got him staying with a friend of our Ginny’s just now. He’s all
right,’ she emphasized, ‘they’ll never get a hold of him there. He’ll be all right.’
Mrs Burdett spoke, but in so garbled a fashion that Sally couldn’t be sure she’d heard her right.
‘Did you say “Marry him?”’ she asked. ‘Why, Mrs Burdett! And are you sure you want me for a daughter-in-law, like?
Mrs Burdett nodded, and with a great deal of effort said something that sounded very much like, ‘He’ll give you bonny children.’
Sally gave her an embarrassed smile. ‘I can do a bit of nursing now, you know. I’ll wash you and change your bed while I’m here.’
‘When I die,’ Mrs Burdett struggled to say, ‘everything’s for you. Marry him.’
Sally raised her eyebrows, and protested, ‘You’re not going to die, Mrs Burdett. People can get better from strokes, and your dad’s coming to look after you.’
‘For you,’ Mrs Burdett repeated.
‘For me, for Will? Is that it?’
Mrs Burdett nodded, and Sally gave her a pitying look. Poor woman, she was as poor as a church mouse. She must be going wrong in her mind. When Mrs Burdett died, it would be a miracle if she
left enough for a decent burial.
Best to humour her, though. ‘All right then,’ she smiled. ‘It’s all for me.’
Matters were not quite as bad as the neighbour had said. Mrs Burdett still had some use of her right arm, so bathing her was easy, and she’d lost so much weight that
getting her out of bed to change the sheets wasn’t too much of a job either. Sally had just tidied everything away and was combing her patient’s hair when they heard the expected knock
on the door.
Mrs Burdett’s eyes brightened. ‘Dad.’
‘You’m Sally Wilde,’ Mr Hibbs said, when she opened it. ‘Nurse Wilde. I ent forgotten.’
She led him in, pleased to have washed his daughter and dressed her in clean linen before he saw her, hoping it might lessen his shock at the sight of her lolling body and her palsied face.
It didn’t. Stricken, he dropped his suitcase on the floor. ‘Oh, Bessie!’
Sally escaped into the kitchen, leaving them to their greetings and explanations and mild recriminations, and kept out of the way until the kettle boiled.
‘Send him to Stafford,’ the father said, when she eventually took the tray into them and poured the tea. ‘I’m taking Bess home, as soon as she’s fit. Send him to
Stafford, or I’ll come back for him when she’m settled with her sisters. Nobody’ull remember him there, except his own family, and they’m not going to let on. He’ll be
another prisoner of war who made his way back from Germany, and nobody to say any different.’
‘He’ll be safer where he is . . . for now,’ Sally said.
‘He’ll be better off in Stafford,’ the old man insisted. ‘Men like to be their own masters, I know that, and you can’t drive ’em to anything they don’t
want to do, but if he takes my advice, he’ll let his uncle teach him the photography business. It’s a good living. But if he wants to stay in the pits, we’ve got pits in
Staffordshire. He can work in one of them.’
‘I can’t see anybody in their right mind going down the pit, if they’ve got the chance to be a photographer,’ said Sally. ‘I’m sure he’d rather do that.
But I’m not sure he wants to go to Stafford.’
Mrs Burdett reacted instantly. ‘Yes! Tell him! Go, go!’ she slurred, gesticulating with her good hand, ‘Marry him, go!’
The old man lifted his eyes to Sally’s as she handed him the cup. ‘She might not be as sweet on Will as you’m told me he is on her, Bess, and he’s got nothing to keep a
wife on. And she might have got a chap with better prospects in mind,’ he said, his eyes still on Sally. ‘But send him to Stafford for Christmas. Give us six months with him, and when
you get some holidays next summer, come and see us. See what his prospects are then.’
Sally answered with a nod, and a troubled smile. ‘Aye, all right. I’ll ask him if he’ll go, anyway.’
‘Well, it’s the twenty-first of December already,’ Ginny said, when Sally arrived at the Cock Inn. ‘Another four days, and it’ll be Christmas Day. It’s a pity
you don’t take a drink. If you’re up anywhere near Miss Brewster’s, you’ll have enough to make merry on. But I suppose you’ll be working.’
‘Why, Christmas Day’s always the patient’s day, Ginny. Always has been. On Christmas Eve they put the lights out on the wards, and the nurses go round with candles singing
Christmas carols, until they’ve been round every ward. It’s lovely.’ She gave a nostalgic little sigh, regretting that she wouldn’t be a part of it this year.
Ginny gave her an old-fashioned look. ‘Why then, that’s something to look forward to.’
‘Aye, it is. And then on Christmas Day, the consultant comes onto the ward when the dinner comes up, to carve the turkey for the patients. Oh, yes, they’re well looked after on
Christmas Day, the patients are.’
‘And you’ll be there, doing your bit, I suppose.’
‘Why, that’s what the nurses are there for, Ginny man.’
‘Come on upstairs. It’s half an hour before opening time. We’ll have a cup of tea. How’s Will getting on?’
Sally followed her sister through the empty bar and up to her living quarters. ‘All right, as far as I know.’
‘They keep you fastened in that nurses’ home, I suppose.’
‘Aye, they keep the nurses on a bonny tight rein, Ginny.’
Halfway up the stairs, Ginny turned round and looked at her. ‘Why, tell the truth and shame the devil, our Sally. This is your own sister you’re talking to, and I know for a fact
you’ve packed nursing up, and you’ve been living at Miss Brewster’s for over a week,
and
you’re blackmailing her into letting Will stay there. But if you report
her, there’s nothing to stop her reporting me. Have you thought about that?’ she said, resuming her ascent of the stairs.
‘She won’t report you,’ Sally said, her jaw set in an obdurate line. ‘And if she does, you just deny it. She can’t prove it. You never gave her any receipts, did
you?’
‘I can’t believe you, our Sal, the way you’re carrying on. I suppose you’ve had to lie to shield him, but I’m glad your mother’s not here, listening to the
fibs you’re telling. You want to be careful you don’t end up a habitual liar, especially not with your own. And Will’s in the wrong place there. She’s a spinster, used to
living on her own and having everything her own way. It’s not fair to put on her. Bring him here. He’ll be all right upstairs. His mother’ll be able to come and see him
then.’
Sally followed her sister into a kitchen bright with winter sun and filled with the scent of brandy and spices. ‘How can he come here?’ she demanded. ‘People are in and out of
this place all the time, and I thought you said our Lizzie’s husband might be coming an’ all, and him a captain?’ She lifted the wooden spoon and began idly stirring the bowl of
mincemeat on the top of the stove while Ginny began to fill the gleaming copper kettle. She raised her voice a fraction above the rush of water. ‘Why, he’s not likely to have much
sympathy for a deserter, is he? And Will’s mother has a job to walk, so how’s she going to get here? And then up all these stairs?’
‘We’ll carry her up. How else?’
‘Why, that might look a bit suspicious, don’t you think? You suddenly starting fetching her here, when she’s never set foot in the place in her life before? She’s got
plenty of nosey neighbours who’ll soon start asking each other what that’s all about. Anyway, her father’s taking her to Stafford as soon as she’s fit to go, and he wants
Will to go an’ all. He’s given me a letter for him, and money for the fare.’
Her lips compressed and her dark brows drawn together in a slight frown, Ginny turned off the tap and set the kettle on the stove. ‘If Mrs Burdett doesn’t see Will soon, she might
never see him at all, the way I look at her,’ she said.
‘Will’s had too many narrow squeaks already, and the police haven’t given up looking for him. If he does come to see her, he’ll probably get caught, and then we’ll
all cop it, and what good’s that going to do her? And Miss Brewster’s house is like a fortress, Ginny man, you know that yourself. Nobody’ll ever catch him there. He’s
better off where he is, until his arm heals. Anyway, I’ve seen people a lot worse than Mrs Burdett after a stroke, and they’ve lived to tell the tale.’
Ginny gave up the argument. ‘All right. Please yourself.’
‘I will,’ Sally assured her. ‘And if you haven’t already told me mam I’ve moved out of the nurses’ home, don’t. Don’t tell her about Will,
either.’
Ginny reached up to the shelf for the tea caddy, and put two spoons of tea into the brown teapot. ‘I haven’t. It would be nice if you could get here for the New Year, though, Sal.
We’ve just heard our Arthur’s getting demobbed. I hope he’ll be here in time to be the Cock’s first foot.’
‘I hope he will,’ said Sally. ‘And you’d better make the most of it; it might be for the last time. He’ll be on the boat to Australia, the first chance he
gets.’
‘Try this.’ Miss Brewster handed Will a cut-glass goblet full of ruby coloured liquid.
He raised it to his lips and, very hesitantly, took a sip. ‘Aye, it’s lovely, Miss Brewster. A bit sweet for me like, but it’s nice.’ The smile he turned on her had
something of the old charm, despite his ruined face. Sally caught her breath at the sight of it, and looked away.
Miss Brewster had melted a bit towards him since his outburst about England’s heroes, and he evidently had every intention of helping the thaw. She beamed back at him for a moment, and
then handed a glass to Sally. ‘Now you.’
Better forget she’d signed the pledge. Sally took the glass and sipped a little. ‘Mm,’ she said, ‘It’s lovely. You’re deliberately leading me astray, Miss
Brewster.’