Small Wars (23 page)

He spoke to her mother, in England, on the telephone in Dr Antoniadis’s office. Moira and George had been told already, by the army, and the shooting was in the English papers – in the news all around the world. She had been told what time his call would come, and answered the telephone immediately it rang.

‘I’m sorry George can’t come to the phone,’ she said. ‘He just can’t bear to.’

She was brave, asking him questions that he had a feeling she had written down first. Hal pretended confidence, reassuring her, waiting while she cried and recovered. He expected her to blame him, was prepared for it, and would not have defended himself, but Moira was subdued; her misery was beyond blame. She asked after the girls.

‘They’re well. They’re fine.’

‘Thank you, Hal,’ she said. ‘Thank you,’ and Hal, in his shame, couldn’t answer her.

The next day they measured the risk of infection against the risk of more haemorrhaging and decided to operate. The operating theatre was on the fourth floor. Hal watched while they made her ready, but didn’t follow when they took her away. He stood in her empty room blankly, as the sound of the nurses, and the wheels of the bed, went away from him down the corridor.

Evelyn came for him. She took his arm, linking hers through his, and walked him out of the hospital into the street. They sat in the dining room at the hotel. It was where Clara and Gracie had sat – he didn’t know – and Evelyn ordered food for him. He ate some of it.

‘There’s no reason to suppose it won’t be all right,’ she said.

After lunch they walked back to the hospital and sat together, waiting. There was dust in the sunlight.

Evelyn took a paperback from her handbag. ‘Shall I tell you what it’s about?’ she said.

‘Please.’

‘Well, so far, we’ve met a fearfully glamorous viscount – it’s set in the late seventeenth century, you see, and he’s throwing away his fortune on wine, women and song until one day he meets a beautiful heiress…’

Clara did not die that day. She lived. They cleared out the torn placenta, her damaged womb, ovaries, and the foetus, which would have been almost eleven inches long, had it been stretched out, and a boy.

The patching up of a body is fairly crude, a matter of closing holes and sealing tubes, cutting away the things that are no longer needed; they had to put a lot of blood into her veins for all the blood she was losing.

The cut, from her navel to her pubic bone, was sewn neatly closed, but messier and wider where it met the bullet wounds. It was dressed with pads and gauze. When they told him she was alive, Evelyn cried, as if unused to it, turning her face away from him. Hal shut his eyes and saw an infinity of relief.

It occurred to him to thank his dead son for protecting his mother; if that was a man’s first duty, that small life had performed it. There was more honour in its sacrifice than in any action of Hal’s since his own conception.

Chapter Five

Then there was the telling. She had been in an in-between place, protected. He thought she was too weak still, and would have never said it out loud but ‘The baby died,’ she said, on the morning of the fifth day. ‘I don’t think it was ever going to stay. What did they do with it?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Was it a boy?’

‘Yes.’

‘I knew it was a boy.’

Her forehead was sweating. She was very pale.

Hal was close to her. He couldn’t look at her face but dropped his head to avoid her.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

She slept after that.

The next afternoon, Hal brought the girls in to see her. They overlooked him in their eagerness to get to her. He had been right; they were unsettled by his reappearance. Clara had asked him to bring her makeup in, too. They waited outside for her to brush her hair and put on red lipstick. Evelyn had sent a bed-jacket with him, made of Greek cotton.

Hal kept the girls from climbing on the bed. Lottie tugged at her mother’s hand, jumping, while Meg stood close to her with her fingers in her mouth, listening.

He watched them, guarding her jealously from their love.

She fell asleep suddenly, and the girls were frightened. Hal was frightened too, and wanted them gone. ‘Meg, kiss your mother, it’s time to go home,’ he said. The word ‘home’ was wrong, of course.

He pulled the girls from her, pushing them out of the door, not caring if they cried. He looked up and down the empty corridor; there was no nurse. He pushed the door against their small bodies. She hadn’t wakened. He went back to the bed, with the girls crying in the corridor, and felt her head. It was both hot and cold. Quickly, quickly –

In the corridor he picked up one child and grabbed the other’s hand.

‘Come along, Mrs Burroughs now.’

He went down the empty corridor, feeling his panic in his chest. At the end of the corridor he saw a nurse. He knew this one, she didn’t speak English – he thought suddenly of Davis; he would know the right words.

‘My wife,’ he said, pointing, ‘my wife. Should she be asleep all the time? Please? Can you go? Can you check on her?’

The nurse smiled at him. She was going the wrong way – she hadn’t turned round.

‘Clara Treherne,’ he said, pointing again. ‘Please –’

She nodded kindly. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes.’

He took the girls down to Evelyn and left them with her. They cried and had to be carried, wriggling. Hal didn’t have any feeling for them.

‘How is she?’ said Evelyn, trying to wrestle them from him.

‘I don’t know,’ he said, turning to leave.

‘Hal, this is Captain Wallace, from Brigade HQ.’

‘Yes?’

The captain, a pale man of about twenty-six with white lashes, stepped forward and saluted him.

‘Major Treherne, would you be able to come with me, sir?’

‘Now?’

The girls’ cries made it hard to hear. Lottie gave a scream. Evelyn was trying to leave with them and Hal was distracted.

‘Here,’ he said, picking up Lottie round her middle and following Evelyn, who held Meg firmly by the hand, towards the entrance.

‘Thank you,’ said Evelyn. ‘It’s just to the car.’

The captain followed them, at Hal’s shoulder. He was embarrassed. ‘Sir, I’ve orders to accompany you to HQ, if it’s convenient. There are a few things to sort out with your leave, sir, paperwork –’

‘It isn’t convenient.’

Captain Wallace opened the doors of the hospital for them and Hal and Evelyn got to the kerb, where a car and driver were waiting.

‘My goodness, what a handful!’ said Evelyn.

Hal bundled Lottie into the back of the car.

‘You ought to go with him, Hal. It’s just boring old procedure –’

‘I’m terribly sorry, sir, but we won’t take up much of your time, sir,’ said the captain, holding the door of the car, and looking at Evelyn, struggling with Meg, as if he’d never seen a child before.

‘All right. Yes. Come on, then,’ said Hal, slamming the door after them.

The car pulled away and the girls’ screams couldn’t be heard.

‘Is Mrs Treherne feeling better, sir?’ asked the captain.

Hal nodded, but did not answer. The man had no business asking him.

It was a very short drive. Brigade HQ was a colonnaded building near the Archbishop’s Palace.

Hal followed Captain Wallace into the peace of the shadowy entrance. Sentry guards saluted them. After the white foreign hospital the change in surroundings was profound. They entered corridors that were panelled and warm; their feet made an ordered rhythm. Typewriters could be heard in anterooms from the long corridors, which were lined with trophies and smudged photographs of past ceremonies. Even needing to get back to Clara, the arms of familiarity encircled him, as if lulling him into a dream state.

They came to a door.

The captain knocked twice and opened it.

The brigadier stood up.

‘Brigadier Bryce-Stephens, this is Major Treherne,’ said the captain, saluted again and left.

Hal stepped into the room.

‘No need to stand on ceremony. Please. Sit down.’

Brigadier Bryce-Stephens was about fifty, his uniform, thick with medals, immaculate and at odds with his face, which was very tanned. A broad nose that had been broken at some point and re-set poorly.

‘Can I say how sorry I am about what has happened to your wife?’ His voice had the short flattened vowels of an aristocrat.

‘Thank you.’

‘We’ve been doing everything we can here to make things run as smoothly as possible for you. I’ve spoken to Colonel Burroughs, at Episkopi, several times. Needless to say, everyone there has been eager for news. Mrs Burroughs has been a help, I understand?’

‘Yes, she’s been very kind indeed.’

‘Can we offer you anything to drink? A cup of tea? Something stronger?’

‘No. Thank you.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘I should get back.’

The image of Clara, slipping away from him into mysterious sleep, played in front of his eyes. It didn’t have the urgency it had before.

‘I understand. I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been for you. The funeral for Mrs Bundle will be on Friday. Will your wife be well enough to attend?’

Three days.

‘I don’t think so. She can’t sit up properly.’

‘We’ve received a number of cards from well-wishers. I shall have them sent on to you. Many of them are from England, not just people in the services. The general public…’ He adjusted a pen on his desk. ‘I don’t know how much you’ve had a chance to think about what might happen next.’

‘Sir?’

‘Will your wife be going back to Episkopi Garrison with you?’

‘No. She’s going home.’

It was as if someone else had said it for him. The decision had been made.

‘We’ll need to arrange transport for her. She won’t find a sea voyage very pleasant. I’ll see what I can do to get her back by air. I’ll have a word with the RAF, see if we can cadge a lift on a Valetta.’

Cadge a lift on a Valetta.

‘Will it go directly back?’

‘I would have thought so. Although with this Canal business, everything’s rather up in the air at the moment, you understand.’

‘She’s not at all well.’

‘Of course she won’t travel until she’s strong enough. Have they said when they’ll discharge her?’

‘No.’

‘Which brings us to the question of your leave. I understand you were due a week, but not before the middle of November.’

‘Yes.’

‘The incident happened on Friday. Your company is on ops this week?’

‘Yes, sir, for the next week and a half.’

There was silence.

‘A shame things didn’t fall the other way.’

‘Sir?’

‘There was rioting in Limassol yesterday. We’re spreading ourselves pretty thin at the moment, as I’m sure you’ll appreciate. Egypt –’

‘There was rioting?’

‘Yes. The schoolchildren. Not any more.’

Hal spoke quietly: ‘The schoolchildren were rioting in Limassol.’ He didn’t know why he repeated it, just to hear the sound of the words in his mouth, he thought, picturing the schoolchildren, his men trying to stop them.

‘It’s calmed down now.’

‘Fatalities?’

‘None I’m aware of.’

‘And here?’

‘It was unfortunate here. Things got a little overheated. It was a despicable and cowardly act. EOKA deny all knowledge, of course, but it’s hard to believe it was coincidence that the wives of British Army officers were the targets. It’s been difficult for our boys to control themselves as they ought. As I say, it’s all calmed down now. We’ll lift the curfew tonight. Feeling was running high, after what happened to Mrs Bundle and to your wife. You know.’

Yes. Hal knew. The schoolchildren were rioting. Clara, with the long cut in her abdomen, their baby dead, could cadge a lift back to England on a Valetta.

‘I can promise you I’ll do my best to make sure your wife is given every care, every consideration. We’ll see her safely home, Major. Normally we’d be dealing with this sort of thing at battalion level, of course, but in view of the circumstances, we’d like to give you a few extra days. I can extend your leave until next weekend. Your 2i/c is a Captain Innes, is that right?’

‘Yes, sir. Mark Innes. He’s very capable.’

‘Jolly good. I’m sure they’ll get along without you for another week.’

Hal looked at the brigadier across the desk, knowing he was to be thanked.

He watched the people on the sunny pavements from the car.

The inside of the hospital was familiar to him, too, and like a homecoming. The reflections on the shiny floors, the echoing sounds – metal bowls being stacked, trolleys pushed through swinging doors – the sight of Clara’s door as he approached, the weak sick fear he felt on opening it: all were known to him.

He went inside. Clara was sitting up in bed in Evelyn’s bed-jacket. Hal felt absurd surprise at her being there; it washed through him. He wanted to say – to say something, to say –

‘Hello. Feeling better?’

‘A bit,’ she said.

‘You fell asleep. I was worried.’

‘How were the girls?’

He had a picture of himself manhandling them into the car. ‘Fine,’ he said.

He went over to her, but didn’t sit down. Inside this limiting white room he ought to be able to find words to say to her. ‘They’ve given me extra leave. Until next Saturday.’

‘What then?’

‘Well, I’ll go back to Episkopi.’

He looked down, tried not to look at the blankets where they covered her bandages. ‘I thought you might want to go back to England,’ he said.

‘Without you?’

He nodded.

‘Oh.’

Her blue look flickered towards him, and then, as if seeing something harmful, glanced away. ‘I do want to go home,’ she said.

As he was leaving, she said, ‘Hal, would you go to the funeral? Gracie’s funeral?’

‘Yes, if you want me to.’

‘Please.’

Chapter Six

Gracie might have been a general for all the soldiers there, mixing with the civilians amongst the gravestones. Major David Bundle stood at the graveside. His younger sons were not present, just the two older ones – little boys still – in dark suits, and next to them Gracie’s mother, a wider version of Gracie, holding their hands.

Kirby drove him to the British cemetery outside the city. The watered grass grew neatly around the edges of the gravestones laid out in long rows. Hal was standing away from the family, with people he did not know. Soldiers carried the small coffin. The Cyprus sun shone onto them: their buttons, medals and buckles. It spread the smell of the grass and the flowers through the people.

There was silence as the coffin was lowered. The graveyard was very exposed, on flat ground in the glaring sun. A hot wind came sideways through the crowd, blowing the pages of the Bible the chaplain was holding.

Hal stood upright, following the coffin with his eyes as it went slowly down into the deep grave. He had not known her.

The coffin settled and was left alone in the ground. The chaplain began to read. ‘“I am the resurrection and the life,” saith the Lord; “he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live…”’

Hal looked from soldiers, to mourners, to chaplain; and at David Bundle, whose face had the same blank broken shock he felt himself, and thought what a helpless scrabbling for dignity it was, to put Gracie’s small body amongst those of fighting men. Would it help her husband to have her grave amongst the noble, not the commonplace, dead? Gracie hadn’t known she was bravely risking her life. She hadn’t known she would be honoured for it. He thought of his letter to Jenson’s parents, his search for heroism in the man’s life or death, his failure in finding it. Jenson had been good with horses. Gracie had been kind to Hal’s wife.

‘“I know that my Redeemer liveth…”’

Afterwards, as the people moved away, Hal, aware of his duty, spoke briefly to David Bundle. He was repelled by him, as if by the brief contact they could be magically reversed, and it would be he whose wife was dead, not the other man.

David was fired up with the energy of his grief, wishing Hal well and telling him how often Gracie had written to him about Clara. ‘Thank God
she
was spared,’ he said, with apparent joy, grasping Hal’s hand in both of his. ‘Thank God.’

Hal let the family leave, and those who knew them well, too.

He walked slowly across the huge cemetery, past the rows of graves until, stopping, he read:

Capt. Thomas S. Thurlough

1888–1917

A gallant soldier, and a very perfect gentleman

He stood looking at the headstone for some minutes. He gave a short nod towards that favoured soldier, in envy and regret, and walked on.

Far in the distance he could see the mountains beautifully encircling them all.

The entrance to the cemetery was a tall iron gate set in a long black railing, like a garden square in London. Hal walked through it as light dust floated round the feet of the people getting into their various vehicles to drive back to the city. He had left Kirby there, a few hundred yards along the road, but he saw Captain Wallace, going against the crowd, approaching him.

‘Sir?’

‘What is it?’

‘It’s important you come with me, sir. I’m terribly sorry to bother you again.’

‘What’s this about?’

‘Let’s talk about it at HQ. The brigadier is waiting.’

Brigadier Bryce-Stephens met him at the door to his office this time and closed it, shaking his hand very firmly. ‘Hal, there’s been a change of plan. I’ve spoken to Colonel Burroughs, the situation in Limassol requires your presence. Luckily, this has coincided with my happening to procure a place for your wife on a plane. It’s a Foreign Office plane – a lot more comfortable than she might have been – landing here at RAF Nicosia this afternoon. She can be at home or in hospital by this evening.’

His urgency and sureness were infectious and Hal, adjusting, felt the pull of unseen mechanisms. ‘Just a moment,’ he said.

‘I’m sorry to spring this on you. Do sit down.’

‘I’ll stand. What situation in Limassol, sir?’

‘I don’t know the details. My office had a communication from your CO – I’m sure he’ll fill you in on your return. The point is there’s a change of plan. How is your wife?’

‘To travel?’

‘Is she well enough?’

‘I’ve no idea. I’d have to –’

‘The hospital had been planning to discharge her in a few days anyway. I believe she’s anxious to be reunited with your daughters.’

‘How do you know all this?’

‘My office have spoken to a Dr…’ he went to his desk, glancing down ‘…Antoniadis there.’ He glanced up at Hal. ‘There’s a degree of urgency about this. Of course you wouldn’t know all these things, being so much at the hospital, but I can assure you you’re needed.’

It was resolved then. Hal said, ‘What time will the plane be ready, sir?’

‘Around eighteen hundred hours.’

‘Then I’ll leave straight after I’ve seen them off.’

Hal had Kirby drop him at the hospital, then dispatched him to the hotel to see about the packing. He didn’t go to Clara immediately; first he found Dr Antoniadis.

‘Yes, we were visited by two men, soldiers. I don’t remember the names. It is very important for Mrs Treherne to go back to England, I understand this.’

‘But is she all right to travel?’

‘Yes, Mr Treherne, if she must.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘There is no danger.’

‘No danger?’

‘No big danger, sir, of infection or haemorrhage, if she is sensible. But she is very weak. She needs to rest now as much as she can.’

So it was done. Clara and the girls would go back to England, and Hal would resume his duty.