Home Front Girls (45 page)

Later that day, after making discreet enquiries of the other girls, she discovered which ward Joel was on and also that the surgeons had managed to save his leg, although it would never be the same again.

‘That poor bugger won’t be seein’ service again,’ Sandra Pritchard, one of her roommates, told her in a matter-of-fact voice. Annabelle felt torn between sympathy for Joel and relief. He might be maimed but at least he was still alive, which was a lot more than could be said for many of the men who had arrived the night before and who were now lying in the hospital morgue. During the next couple of days, telegrams would be going to their nearest and dearest informing them of their deaths, and yet more families would be devastated. It all seemed such a terrible waste of life. But as the VADs had learned early in their training, it wasn’t their job to dwell on the fate of the departed. There was nothing that anyone could do for them. Their job was to do their best for the survivors, with a cheerful word or a shoulder to cry on when the men were feeling down.

Sometimes Annabelle thought that this was one of the most important aspects of their job, although had anyone asked her if she was capable of doing such a thing just a short while ago, she would have scoffed at them. Why would Annabelle Smythe, the girl who had been born with a silver spoon in her mouth and who had been pampered and spoiled all her life, demean herself to such a low level? But as she was now painfully aware, that girl no longer existed. Had never existed really, and so she just got on with the job she had chosen to do as she tried to work out who she was now.

Two days later, Annabelle found herself on duty in the ward to which Joel had been admitted, and she had to force herself not to rush over to him as she worked her way down the row of beds seeing to the patients’ needs. Madam had set up a new rota, and she was no longer required in the theatre for the time being. And then at last she was standing next to him. He was lying very still with one arm in a sling and his leg suspended from a pulley in the ceiling.

‘Good morning, Mr Ford,’ she said officially as she swished the curtains around the bed to create some privacy. ‘I’ve come to change your dressings. How are you feeling today?’ She began to rummage on the trolley for fresh bandages as Joel turned dull, reddened eyes towards her, and then as recognition dawned those eyes lit up and he held his hand out to her. Every visible inch of him seemed to be covered in cuts and bruises, and he had lost a tremendous amount of weight – and yet she still felt the pull of him as she had when she had first met him.

‘Belle,’ he said weakly, and she grinned. She had always considered shortened names to be common, yet coming from Joel she quite liked it.

‘Yes, it’s me,’ she whispered. ‘But we mustn’t let the Sister think that we know each other, or she won’t let me nurse you.’

He was obviously very weak but he nodded to acknowledge that he understood what she was saying. She began to unroll the bandage from his arm and after checking that the wound beneath was clean she painstakingly applied a fresh one.

‘I – I got blown up,’ he managed to tell her. ‘I was trying to help my friend who had been shot, back to one of the trenches, b-but he didn’t make it anyway.’ His head rolled from side to side in distress. ‘H-he was just twenty-four years old and married with a new baby. He didn’t even get to meet his child.’ A tear rolled from the corner of his eye and sliced its way down his stubbled cheek, and deeply affected, Annabelle gently wiped it away. And then her heart plummeted as she suddenly realised that Joel didn’t know about his own little sister’s and his mother’s death. She was in a dilemma. Should she tell him, or would any more bad news tip him over the edge? She decided to say nothing for now. She didn’t want to do anything to impede his recovery, but she could at least let Lucy know that he was alive and perhaps she could write to him and tell him? Deciding that this might be the best course of action, she finished dressing his wounds, then after washing him and making him as comfortable as possible she moved on to the next bed, promising that she would be back as soon as she could.

That night, before retiring, she wrote to Lucy telling her that Joel was alive and in Haslar, then she hurried down to the reception area and placed her letter along with the others that would be collected and posted the next morning. Lucy wrote back immediately, begging for more news of her brother and asking how serious his injuries were. It was almost a week later before the letter arrived, and thankfully by then Joel was a little stronger, but he still had a long way to go before he made a complete recovery. His leg had been so badly broken in three places that the bones had actually been protruding through his skin, and although the surgeons had managed to save it they had told him that he would always have quite a bad limp and would probably have to walk with the aid of a stick. Thankfully his other injuries had been fairly superficial and now as the bruises started to fade his skin was a kaleidoscope of yellows, reds, purples and blues.

Annabelle wrote to Lucy again, telling her that she could write to Joel although there were no visitors allowed at Haslar. She explained about the severity of his injuries but said that he would survive, hoping to put her mind at rest – and then she also told her that as yet, he had not been informed of Mary or his mother’s death. And then once that letter, too, was posted, all she could do was wait.

‘I’ve heard of Joseph’s coat of many colours, but skin is ridiculous,’ Annabelle would tease him as she gently bathed his fading bruises.

Slowly his speech improved over the weeks as he regained his strength, and he began to watch for a sight of her walking into the ward.

‘I think young Mr Ford has a soft spot for you, Nurse,’ the Ward Sister teased her one day, and Annabelle blushed and quickly walked away to cart a bedpan off to the sluice. Being back on the wards meant she could spend as much time as possible with Joel, without making it look too obvious. When she had first met him, she had felt drawn to him, despite her reservations. That same attraction was still there, but now she felt as if they had more in common. She was a working girl now for a start-off and not the spoiled young madam Joel who had once known, who felt that the world was at her feet.

The day came when she received another reply from Lucy. It arrived just as she was about to go to breakfast, which meant that Joel’s letter might well have arrived too. When she walked into the ward a short while later, Annabelle saw instantly that Joel had received his sister’s letter. His eyes were bloodshot, much as they had been when he first arrived, and there was no welcoming smile today.

‘Did you know about Mary and my mother?’ he asked as she approached his bed and made a pretence of straightening the blankets.

‘Yes. I wanted to tell you but I didn’t feel it was my place. I’m so sorry, Joel.’

He stared up at the ceiling. ‘Poor little mite didn’t have much of a life, what with one thing and another, did she? Neither did my mother if it came to that. She was an invalid for most of her life,’ he muttered, and Annabelle felt her throat constrict.

‘But at least Mary was loved during the time she did have,’ she answered softly. ‘She couldn’t have had a better brother or sister. And I’m sure your mother knew that you all loved her too. Her death might have been a blessed release, from what Lucy told us.’

He looked at her strangely, and knowing that she had said too much, she rushed on, ‘Lucy told us – about your mum, I mean. I think she needed to confide in someone.’

‘Oh yes? And what exactly did she tell you?’ He was frowning now and she felt suddenly nervous.

‘W-well, just that your dad was a . . . a bully and one night she couldn’t take any more so she er . . . stabbed him to death and ended up in a mental home.’

Joel’s lips pursed into a thin line but he remained silent, and feeling extremely uncomfortable, Annabelle told him, ‘I must get on now, but I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

There was no response and as she set off back down the ward she cursed herself. Why had she had to go and blab that out, about Lucy telling them her secret? Joel was obviously none too pleased about the fact that she knew, but it had just come out as she’d tried to comfort him. But what was there to be ashamed of? She just hoped that she hadn’t got Lucy into bother, but for now she had a list of jobs as long as her arm to think about, so there was no time to dwell on it. With luck, by the time she saw Joel again he would have had time for the first shock to subside. She just prayed the bad news would not impede his recovery.

On St Valentine’s Day, 1941, Dotty and Robert were married in a short ceremony at Marylebone Register Office as Laura and Paul looked on. Dotty had the low-key affair she had wanted, although Laura had insisted on her having a new outfit and carrying a small bouquet of pink roses, and everyone who saw the bride commented how absolutely beautiful she looked. She wore a pale blue costume with a navy hat and shoes, and happiness seemed to radiate off her in waves as the registrar pronounced them husband and wife.

Laura sniffed tearfully into a scrap of handkerchief as the newlyweds came out onto the steps after the ceremony, and Paul took some photographs on his Kodak Brownie camera. A professional photographer had been impossible to find in these difficult times, but that didn’t matter to Dotty or Robert. All they cared about was being together. Laura then showered them in rice and Paul whipped them all away to a restaurant at Marble Arch for a slap-up meal.

‘To our dear friends!’ Paul declared a toast as he raised his glass and Robert kissed his wife tenderly as he asked, ‘Are you happy, Mrs Brabinger?’

‘Couldn’t be happier,’ she assured him, and if a tiny part of her was wishing that her mother and her father could have been there to share this most special occasion, she hid it well. She was determined that nothing should spoil the day and thankfully nothing did – until later that night when she shyly climbed into bed with her new husband in the sumptuous hotel bedroom in the Charing Cross Road. He had promised her a honeymoon somewhere exotic when the war was over, but for now this was the best he could do and Dotty had assured him that it was just perfect. She had just been admiring the congratulation telegrams that had arrived early that morning from Miranda, Annabelle and Lucy, and was deeply touched that they had all thought of her. But now she suddenly felt nervous. She had never had anyone to tell her about what would be expected of her on her wedding night, and she was praying that Robert would not be disappointed in her. However, sensing her unease, he didn’t rush things but slid his arm about her shoulders and asked, ‘Have you enjoyed the day, darling?’

‘Every minute of it,’ she told him truthfully as she gingerly inched across the mattress towards him in the lovely silk nightdress Laura had bought her especially for the occasion. Dotty had never owned anything so fine in her whole life and she almost hated to crease it. She knew that it must have cost an absolute fortune, but then that was Laura down to a T – generous to a fault, bless her. Fingering the gold band on her finger, nestling next to her later mother-in-law’s engagement ring, she resisted the urge to pinch herself. Could this really be happening to her, plain old Dotty? But yes it was. She could feel the heat of Robert’s leg lying next to hers and there was something sensuous about his closeness. She had never lain with a man before, and yet from now on she would lie next to him every single night for the rest of her life. It gave her a tingly feeling just to think of it, and when his hand settled gently on her thigh it felt like the most natural thing in the world and something deep inside her responded to him.

‘Oh Dotty, I can’t believe that you’re really my wife at last,’ he muttered as he covered her eager lips with short hot kisses. And it was then that the air-raid sirens sounded, and for a moment they were both so shocked that they lay motionless.

‘Oh no, I don’t believe it,’ Robert groaned. ‘On tonight of all nights too! Bloody Adolf wants shooting!’ But he got no further because Dotty had dissolved into giggles and they were so infectious that soon he saw the funny side too. ‘Come on,’ he ordered, dragging his wife from the bed and draping her dressing-gown about her. ‘It doesn’t look like we’ll forget our wedding night in a hurry.’

‘But there will be other nights,’ Dotty told him naughtily, as she took his hand and led him downstairs to the hotel’s air-raid shelter. ‘Lots and lots of them.’

‘Now is there anything else that you need?’ Annabelle asked as she tucked the blankets about Joel’s legs. He was no longer in traction, which was heaven for him, although his injured leg was still in splints. She was about to go off duty for the night and was so tired that she didn’t know where ached the most.

‘No, I’m fine,’ he said – just as the sirens began to wail.

‘Oh no!’ Annabelle glared towards the ceiling as if she could somehow magically see straight through it to the German planes that would soon be droning overhead. ‘It looks like we’re in for it
again
tonight. Come on – let’s get you into this wheelchair and down to the cellar.’

‘Go and see to some of the other chaps first, Belle,’ he instructed her, but she shook her head and with a determined glint in her eye, began to help him out of bed.

‘I’ll come back for them,’ she said firmly. ‘But not until I’ve got you down there first.’

He sighed with resignation as she manhandled him into the wheelchair. They had grown close during the weeks that she had tended to him, and he sometimes wondered how he would have got through this without her. Sometimes he would wake from a terrible nightmare where he was once again on the battlefield crawling through stinking mud as he tried to get to his friend to help him. And then he would once more feel the impact as the landmine exploded and threw him into the air like a rag doll. But then he would wake and she would be there, holding his hand and mopping his sweating brow, and he was more grateful than he would ever be able to tell her. Now they joined the queues of nurses in the corridors wheeling patients to safety.