The Promise (54 page)

‘I’ve been imagining this moment for months,’ he said before he kissed her.

That first time was fast and furious, yet there was such tenderness in his touch, love in every fevered kiss. And although it was over too soon for her, she sensed that she’d only had the hors d’oeuvre and the banquet was yet to come.

How right she was. The next time he was only intent on pleasing her, the pace was slow and sensual, and he put his hand over her mouth because she was making so much noise.

They had a fit of helpless giggles about it later, and pulled the eiderdown over their heads so Garth and Mog wouldn’t hear. She doubted she would ever experience such joy again in her lifetime. Or feel such sorrow that the war changed them both for ever.

Mog still had many moments when she cried over losing Garth. But the excitement of starting a new life in New Zealand and all the packing and other jobs to be done had helped to distract her. She had bravely said that when she closed the door of the Railway for the last time, she wasn’t going to cry any more, just smile at the lovely memories Garth had left her with.

They were still hearing of neighbours dying from the flu, and it was frightening to read in the newspapers that it had spread all over the world. But for today the end of the war was the only subject on everyone’s lips, rationing, bombing and other hardships all put aside because soon all the men who had survived would be coming home.

On 12 January 1919 Noah arrived home late. Lisette was sitting by the fire in the sitting room doing some mending.

‘You are very late,’ she said. ‘But I kept your dinner warm. Did you ’ave any luck?’

‘None,’ he said dejectedly. ‘Another wild goose chase. I hate to say this to you, Lisette, but your lot don’t seem able to keep tabs on anyone. Not even one of their heroes.’

They had got firm confirmation a week before Christmas that Etienne had received his medal while still alive. Included was the citation which said exactly what he had got it for, and that had been the same day that he rescued Jimmy. Noah had intended to tell Belle in time so that she could talk to Mog, explain what Etienne meant to her, and then they could all celebrate together on Christmas Day.

But then just two days later he received an official letter from Etienne’s commanding officer informing him, as next of kin, that Sergeant Carrera was missing, presumed dead. This had happened in late October, but there was no explanation as to why Noah hadn’t been informed earlier.

To have his hopes built up and then crushed so shortly afterwards was terrible. If it hadn’t been for Lisette pointing out that Etienne was only ‘presumed’ dead, Noah would have given up then and there.

Lisette hadn’t seen the battlefields. Like most people who hadn’t witnessed the carnage, she imagined the dead were all lined up in neat rows, evidence of their identity noted, then buried with prayers.

Noah knew it wasn’t like that at all. Hundreds of men were blown to so many pieces their body parts were scattered to the four winds. Others had sunk so deep into the mud they buried themselves. Many of the dead were found to have no identification on them. And as a senior officer had told Noah out there, ‘They are dead. We can’t help them, and we have to concentrate on saving the wounded who might survive.’

But Lisette kept on insisting that Etienne could be badly injured in a hospital, or he could have been taken prisoner. She urged Noah to say nothing to Belle yet, but in the New Year he must try to find out more.

Both Noah and Lisette were anxious to know the truth before Belle and Mog booked their passage. But the days went by and all Noah’s renewed efforts came to nothing. He made telephone calls and wrote dozens of letters, but the letters weren’t answered and on the telephone he was always directed to someone else.

Then Belle booked the passage to New Zealand, and now, as the day of their departure drew ever closer, she and Mog could talk of nothing but buying a trunk, and which clothes they should take and which they should leave behind. Mog had bought enough dress material, sewing cotton and buttons to take with them to make dresses for half the female population of Russell.

Today Noah had had an interview with someone from the Red Cross who dealt with prisoners of war. All he could say was that it was far more likely Etienne was dead than alive, but that he would look into it.

‘France is in chaos, Noah,’ Lisette said soothingly. ‘There are so many men unaccounted for, you know this. Some soldiers ’ave gone home, others still ’ave duties. But your letters, they will be passed on, and soon they will come into the hands of someone who knows what ’appened.’

‘But Belle will be leaving England in a month. They have a passage booked. What if I find he is alive and she’s already gone?’

He didn’t believe Etienne was alive, not now. A man might choose to disappear if he had something to hide, but Etienne was a war hero, and if he had survived that last assault, someone would know.

Lisette went over to Noah and put her arms around him. ‘It won’t matter if she’s gone. If ’e is alive and ’alf the man I believe ’im to be, ’e’ll go and claim ’er,’ she said. ‘Now, come with me and I will get your dinner.’

‘Don’t cry, ducks,’ Mog said to Belle as the HMS
Stalwart
weighed anchor and began to move slowly away from the dock at Southampton. ‘We can always come back if we don’t like it. But you and I are made of strong stuff. We’ll make a good life for ourselves out there, you’ll see.’

Belle wiped her eyes and smiled at Mog. ‘I’m not sad at going. I’ll miss Noah, Lisette and the children, but there isn’t anyone else. This just reminds me of going off to France with Miranda.’

That wasn’t strictly true. She had thought about Miranda earlier, remembering how excited they’d been as the ship left Dover. But what had really made her cry was thinking about the trip from New York to New Orleans with Etienne. She’d had her first glass of champagne with him on her sixteenth birthday, and she thought she was in love with him and tried to seduce him. There was a kind of irony in that all these years later she was on another ship, this time going right to the other side of the world, yet even though he was dead he was still dominating her thoughts.

‘Let’s go and unpack and make our cabin feel like home,’ Mog suggested. ‘It’s cold enough to freeze a witch’s tit out here.’

Belle laughed then. She hadn’t heard Mog use that expression since they left Seven Dials and she became set on being ladylike.

‘Only another two days and we’ll be there,’ Belle sighed. ‘I can’t wait to walk down a street, to look in a shop, to see grass and trees. And won’t it be good not to have to listen to any more people complaining?’

It was April now, and they had been through every kind of weather. The first storm of the voyage in the Bay of Biscay had been a baptism of fire for Mog when there had been waves as big as church steeples crashing over the ship. But although she turned green, she hadn’t become really ill.

There had been winds so strong it was impossible to walk without hanging on to the ship’s rail. They’d had hailstones as big as marbles which rattled on the decks like gunfire, rain and thick fog, and sometimes the sun was so intense that in just a few minutes it burned any exposed skin.

As they drew closer to the equator the sultry heat made it impossible to sleep at night, and there were tropical storms too. But it was cooler now, still stuffy in the cabin, but pleasant to walk on the deck when the wind dropped.

Boredom had been the biggest trial. The days seemed endless with nothing to do. They had both brought embroidery and knitting with them, and they read books, played cards and waited for meals, but it was being cooped up, and the lack of exercise, that prevented them enjoying what should have been like a relaxing holiday.

There were of course many other passengers to talk to: a group of officers, all wounded, but not so badly they needed to be on a hospital ship, around forty immigrants like themselves, and some New Zealanders who had sailed for England before the war and had to remain there because of the danger to shipping. But although most of these people were pleasant enough to while away an hour or two with, none of them were terribly interesting, and some were downright dull. Because Belle and Mog were stuck together in such a confined space, they often snapped at each other. They both had to make a concerted effort to give each other some privacy and time alone.

But now the voyage was nearly over, past irritations had vanished. Mog was being positively girlish, flirting with the ship’s crew and beaming at everyone.

They disembarked in Auckland to warm sunshine. To them it felt like a spring day back in England, and it was strange to think it was autumn here. The small guest house they found about half a mile from the docks was a pretty clapboard house with a view of the sea from their room.

They had five days there before boarding the
Clansman
to sail to the Bay of Islands, and their delight at last to be able to walk around on dry land was almost intoxicating. Everyone they met wanted to talk about England to them. Even those who had been born in New Zealand all seemed to have English or Scottish parents or grandparents. People were friendly and helpful, advising them on places to visit, local customs, items they might need to buy in Auckland that they wouldn’t be able to get in Russell. They were regaled with stories about the Maoris and their culture, something they found fascinating and knew nothing about before. Then there were the tales of the hardships early settlers had endured when they came out on immigrant ships in the last century. They were also shown a great deal of sympathy for losing their husbands.

In many ways New Zealand wasn’t so different from England. It didn’t have the very old buildings, it wasn’t so crowded, and they hadn’t seen anywhere they’d call a real slum, even if the locals considered them to be so. The climate was similar to back home, people had the same kind of priorities and beliefs. Yet the Spanish flu had killed people here too on the other side of the world. Their landlady told them around 6,700 people had died, but that she’d been lucky that everyone she knew who got it had survived. She described how the trams stopped running for fear of spreading infection, and that carts, trains and trucks were pressed into service as hearses.

The effects of the war were very similar to those back in England too. Thousands of New Zealanders had enlisted for the same reasons as British men, and as high a proportion had died. And just like at home they saw men with missing limbs, and blinded and disfigured, out on the streets of Auckland. They were told that most of them were casualties of Gallipoli and that there were over 4,500 of them. A further 2,700 had been killed. But that wasn’t all; as many again who had been wounded in France had not been brought back yet. Despite almost everyone here having lost a family member, however, the New Zealanders seemed very stoic about it, and took great pride in the courage of their men. Both Mog and Belle were touched, too, by their sympathy for everyone in Britain, because they’d had to cope with not only huge numbers of deaths and casualties, but also bombing, food shortages and rationing.

‘I feel as if I’ve come to the place I was supposed to live,’ Mog said one night as they were preparing for bed. ‘Don’t you just love it that they don’t seem to have pokers up their arses?’

Belle roared with laughter at that. Mog meant the seeming lack of class distinctions. Belle wasn’t entirely sure that this was a general attitude; they were after all staying among ordinary people. But she was hopeful it would be the same in Russell, because she remembered Vera had always been rather puzzled and amused by the snobbish attitude of the other women drivers in France.

‘You’d better not bandy the word “arse” around until we know people well,’ she warned Mog.

As the
Clansman
headed into the Bay of Islands, both Mog and Belle gasped at the beauty of it. They might have had it described by Vera and seen pictures of it in Auckland, but the reality of it was far more astounding. The sea really was turquoise and so clear they could look down and see fish clearly. The trees on all the little islands were a vivid green and grew right down to the water’s edge.

They had seen dolphins as they sailed here; they had come and played around the bows of the ship, lifting their shiny heads out of the water and opening their mouths as if smiling in welcome, and that had moved both Belle and Mog almost to tears. They had seen a huge whale in the distance too, and all this had been so exciting, sights they’d never expected to see. Yet to see this magnificent bay spread before them, which outshone all the wonders of HMS
Stalwart
’s ports of call, was truly humbling.

‘If we can’t be happy here then we won’t be happy anywhere,’ Mog said, wiping an emotional tear from her eye.

As the ship approached the jetty at Russell they could see a great many people gathered there waiting. They had already been told that the north had no proper roads, and that a ship was the only way to get there. The
Clansman
was the town’s weekly lifeline. It brought not only passengers but mail, food supplies and other goods. The first European settlers had come here, and it was once intended to be the capital city of New Zealand, because of its splendid and safe natural harbour, but in the end Auckland was chosen because of Russell’s isolation.

‘There’s Vera!’ Belle exclaimed, pointing her out to Mog. ‘I wonder how she knew we’d be coming today?’

‘Well, it looks like the whole town turns out whenever the ship comes in,’ Mog said. ‘But look at those pretty little houses! What a picture it is!’

It certainly was a picture, a clutch of pretty little white or cream clapboard houses which looked like dolls’ houses. Up behind the town the wooded hills rose up as if protecting it, and in front of the houses was a narrow strip of sandy beach. Dozens of small boats bobbed up and down at their moorings, and gulls were wheeling overhead, hoping to snatch an easy meal from one of the fishermen.

Vera was jumping up and down with excitement even before the ship was moored and a gangway fixed to the jetty. She was wearing a green print dress, her red curly hair loose on her shoulders and gleaming in the sun. An older, stout, short woman was with her, who they thought perhaps was her mother.