Danny Boy (27 page)

Rosie was glad Betty and Rita had taken to doing that when she heard the news of the explosion on the 5th July, for it saved their lives. Eighteen others, mainly women, died in the blast. Rosie was stunned by the news. She went to see Rita and Betty, who’d been caught in the blast and cut with flying glass and injured by debris. They’d been taken to the same hospital that Danny was in, to be patched up. They were in shock, all the women there were in shock. Most of them had known it was dangerous work, but no-one had thought of accidents happening to them. Accidents happened to other people, surely?

Rosie sat and suffered for her dear friends, holding their hands, scared of their stillness and their deadened eyes. Suddenly, Rita looked Rosie full in the face and said in a horrified whisper, ‘Miss Morris is dead too you know, and Mr Witchell.’

‘Ah, no,’ Rosie said. She thought of the fair supervisor and the kindly man that had interviewed her and made her laugh and she felt tears prickle the back of her eyes at the tragedy of it.

She tried to control herself. She’d come there to see her injured friends, to be strong for them, not to wallow in tears and upset them totally. Suddenly she felt a splash on her hand and realised Rita was crying the first tears she’d shed, and then Betty’s shoulders began to heave and the three women clung to each other and cried out their sadness.

There were so many funerals and Rosie could go to few of them because of her religion, but she went to the graves at Witton Cemetery later, for every girl that died had been there when she was and so had been known to her. It had been a depressing time. She’d watched heartbroken parents mourning their daughters, even the rather elderly parents of Miss Morris, and motherless children crying, and stunned, grief-stricken husbands trying to cope.

They’d all gone back to Rosie’s after yet another funeral one day, all down-hearted and shaken. ‘I didn’t realise Mr Witchell had six children, did you?’

‘No,’ Rosie said. ‘And every one of them crying.’

‘Except the widow and she was so white and shaking so much I thought she was going to pass out,’ Betty said.

‘Well, I’ve lost confidence in the place and that’s the truth,’ Rita said and Rosie could hardly blame her. ‘There’s no lines up yet, anyroad, but I don’t know whether I’ll go back. I mean, I have Georgie to think about.’

Just at that moment, a shadow went past Rosie’s window and her heart almost stopped when she realised that it was a telegraph boy and in his hand was a buff-coloured telegram and he was making for Rita’s door. She didn’t know what to do. It was as if she was frozen to the spot. She forced herself to move and she turned, but when she opened her mouth no words came out.

The look on her face was enough, however, and both Rita and Betty were on their feet. ‘What is it?’ Betty cried, but Rita had no need to ask for through Rosie’s window she could see a telegraph boy knocking on her door and
Rosie could scarcely bear the pain she saw reflected in Rita’s eyes.

‘Dear Sweet Jesus,’ she cried in anguish and she sank to the floor with an animal-like howl. Rosie too was on the floor, bedside Rita, and Betty, who now knew what the commotion was about, went out and took the telegram from the boy. She hoped against hope it would say Harry was missing in action, to give Rita some vestige of hope, but when she tore it open it said ‘killed’ and her first thought was,
Poor sod. He ain’t never going to see his son now.

Rita’s grief was profound and deep and for the first few days Rosie barely left her side, afraid she might do something silly for she’d said more that once that life without Harry wasn’t worth living. Left to herself she doubted Rita would ever have left her bed, let alone made a meal or washed her face, and the women, many in similar circumstances, rallied to support her.

Even Danny was affected when Rosie told him, for even though he’d never met the man, he liked and respected Rita and was sorry about her husband and also shocked at the accident at Kynoch’s. ‘You see why I didn’t want you in a place like that?’

‘I do,’ Rosie said, ‘and I have to say it fair shook me up. Anyway, it’s decided Rita won’t go back to work. As she says, if anything happens to her, Georgie will be an orphan. Poor child, he doesn’t understand and I hope Rita isn’t too over-protective now. She won’t let him go to nursery at the moment. She says he’s all she’s got and we couldn’t argue with that.’

Ida was better than anyone with Rita, having gone through the experience of losing her own husband not that long ago. Rosie felt almost guilty that her man would be home soon, but Betty told her not to be silly, she wasn’t to blame for Harry’s death. Danny could give no indication of when he’d be home; he said it depended on how the leg responded to
the schedule of exercises they were doing, but Rosie was content to wait.

She’d taken to going to Rowbotham and White’s most Saturday nights as it made her money go further, and that Saturday, 13th July, was no different. That evening, though, Bernadette was tired and a little crotchety and Rosie asked Betty if she’d babysit at her house so that she could put the child to bed. ‘She’s like a weasel and that’s the truth,’ she said to Betty, coming back into the room after tucking Bernadette into her cot.

‘That’s not like her,’ Betty said. ‘She’s always so sunny.’

‘It makes me worry she’s sickening for something,’ Rosie said.

Betty knew what Rosie was worried about for Spanish flu was sweeping Europe. People said it was caught from the fleas that lived on the rats that shared the trenches with the soldiers, and unbeknownst to themselves, the soldiers had taken the infection back to their homes. There was no cure for this flu. You either had the constitution to fight it or you didn’t, and the young and elderly fell prey soonest.

But worrying about it did no good either, and Betty said, ‘For God’s sake, Rosie, will you stop fretting till you have something to fret over. The child’s probably just worn out. God, if I bounced about like she does at times, I’d be worn out.’

Rosie still had the frown between her eyes but she said, ‘You’re probably right, but anyway, bed’s the best place for her. D’you want me to bring you anything?’

‘I’d love a nice bit of liver. That bit you shared with me last week has given me a real taste for it. I could cook it up in a casserole tomorrow and take a bit round to Rita. I don’t think she’s had much but endless cups of tea since the telegram came, and that was five days ago. She can’t go on like this. She’s got Georgie to think about.’

‘I’ll see what the butcher has, but if he’s got some liver I’ll get some for you,’ Rosie promised as she fastened her coat.

‘Ida going with you?’

‘Aye, one of the other neighbours is sitting in with Rita.’

‘Poor sod,’ Betty said. ‘She’s that cut up, and of course she hadn’t really got over that business at Kynoch’s either.’

‘It’s early days yet,’ Rosie said. ‘She’ll get through, everyone has to I suppose.’ But she shivered as she said it and hoped she’d never have to experience it herself.

About an hour later, both women were back home. Rosie, pleased with her purchases, was smiling and she shouted as she opened the door. ‘Got you a lovely piece of lamb’s liver, Betty.’

She stopped dead in the doorway for a second, for Betty wasn’t sat in the chair before the range, Danny was. With a yelp of delight she dropped her bag on the floor and was across the room on his knee, her arms around his neck in seconds. ‘Oh God! Oh Danny! What are you doing here?’

‘I was going to be discharged on Monday,’ Danny said. ‘And I got the chance of a lift this evening and I asked if I could come early and surprise you. The doctor examined me and said I could, especially as I have to go back every day for exercises for the next week, and here I am. I told Betty she could go home if she liked. I’d listen out for the child.’

‘Danny, I don’t know what to say.’

‘Don’t say anything,’ Danny commanded. ‘Kiss me.’

Rosie wound her arms about his neck again and kissed Danny, and it was as if her touch lit a furnace inside both of them. ‘Oh God, Rosie, how I want you.’

Rosie wanted Danny tonight too, and badly, but she had liver for Betty. ‘Take it then and quickly,’ Danny said. ‘And hurry back, for Christ’s sake. I’ll be in bed waiting for you.’

In a way, Danny was glad Rosie wouldn’t see him bumping his way up the stairs on his bottom. It might upset her and she would start fussing and it would make him feel stupid. Once on level ground, he could use sticks quite adequately, but he wanted to be in bed when she came in.

Rosie had never been in and out of Betty’s house so quickly, but Betty saw the light of excitement and longing in her eyes and had no wish to hold her up. She knew as well as any that once Danny returned to the battlefield a buff telegram might be handed to Rosie any day. They had to snatch each moment they could together and hope for the best, there really was nothing else to be done.

Two days after Danny came home it was Bernadette’s third birthday. There was little in the way of presents and not even any fancy food, but they tried to make the day a little special for her and Rosie was touched by the tissue-wrapped rag doll Betty had given Rosie on her way to work. She was working on a different line, she said. ‘I could have got Rita set on, but she said no. She can’t risk it.’

‘I don’t blame her,’ Rosie said. ‘I didn’t realise how dangerous it was.’

‘Why d’you think they pay us so much?’ Betty said. ‘You must have tumbled to it. You ain’t stupid and you were more than glad of the money.’

‘I was,’ Rosie agreed. ‘And I probably knew deep down but shut my eyes to it. Danny was always on at me. But anyway Betty, thanks for Bernadette’s present. She’ll be delighted with it, I know.’

‘Where is she? I thought she’d be up with the larks.’

‘She’s playing with her daddy,’ Rosie said, and added with a smile, ‘I don’t know which one is the worst. He has her ruined. She’s quite happy to stay in the cot till I fetch her when Danny’s away. Now Danny’s here she shouts to be let out and he gives in to her. She clambers all over him and I
was worried at first she’d hurt him, but he says no. But then, he would say that. He won’t hear a word said against her.’

‘And why would he, girl?’ Betty said, and Rosie said with a sigh.

‘Aye. How could it be any other way?’

And would she want Danny different? No, dear God she wouldn’t, and her heart went out to Ida and Rita.

‘Go on down and see Rita today, will you?’ Betty said, interrupting her thoughts.

‘I surely will, Betty, there’s no need to ask,’ Rosie said. ‘She’s bringing Georgie to a little tea party here this afternoon.’

‘Maybe that will cheer her a wee bit, for she’s still in a bad way,’ Betty said, and Rosie promised to do her best.

As prophesied, Bernadette was enchanted with the doll and she called her Belinda. It had two scarlet blobs on the cheeks to match the rosebud mouth and there were two brilliant blue eyes below a mop of hair made of brown wool. ‘Where did she get the stuff from?’ Danny asked.

‘She told me from scraps left over from her rag rug,’ Rosie said.

‘Some of those pieces wouldn’t be put in a rag rug,’ Danny said scornfully. ‘And who painted the face on?’

‘Betty must have.’

‘The woman’s a genius if she did,’ Danny said. ‘She should go into business and get out of the bloody munitions.’

‘Danny, few people around these doors could buy a rag doll, however cheap it was.’

‘You wouldn’t sell them around the doors, would you,’ Danny said. ‘I bet one of the stalls down the Bull Ring would snap them up. Look at the clothes it’s wearing as well.’

Betty had sewn a dress of light blue taffeta with a bit of lace at the collar and cuffs, and covered that with a knitted coat of navy blue that reached the knitted boots in black that covered her stubby feet.

‘Talk to her about it then,’ Rosie said.

‘I will,’ said Danny and added, ‘And she’ll take as much notice of me as you did and that was bugger all.’

‘Ssh,’ Rosie admonished, her finger to her lips, for Bernadette was playing with her doll by the range just a few feet from them.

‘She’s not taking a whit of notice,’ Danny said.

‘Don’t you believe it,’ Rosie hissed in a whisper. ‘Her ears are cocked all right. Sister Ambrose told me she called someone a bloody basket yesterday.’

‘I bet that raised a few eyebrows.’

‘It’s not funny,’ Rosie said, though she was smiling herself. ‘I was really embarrassed. I didn’t know what to say.’

‘Oh that’s simple,’ Danny said airily. ‘Tell her if she says it again I’ll skelp the skin from her bottom.’

‘And of course she’ll believe it,’ Rosie said sarcastically, for Danny never even raised his voice to the child, let alone his hand. ‘And then she’ll behave perfectly.’

‘She’s not badly behaved,’ Danny protested, ‘and God knows, when I’ve seen and taken part in the violent massacre that’s going on across the channel I can’t be that concerned over a wean saying a few bad words she doesn’t know the meaning of.’

‘I’m not asking you to be concerned, but be careful around Big Ears.’

‘Who’s Big Ears?’ Bernadette demanded.

‘See,’ Rosie said with a triumphant laugh. ‘I’ll leave you to explain who Big Ears is, Daddy. I’m away to see Ida.’

Danny had decided to go without his cigarettes and had used the money to buy wee cakes and sweets for the children at Bernadette’s party. That alone would have guaranteed success for the little ones and not even Rita’s heavy, sorrow-laden eyes could stop Georgie’s cries of delight.

‘Harry was my life,’ Rita told Rosie, watching Danny playing with the children. ‘I don’t want to go on without him.’

Rosie sympathised. Wasn’t that what she always said about Danny? But Rita couldn’t give in this way, not in front of Georgie, and she told her so. ‘He doesn’t know he has no father,’ she said. ‘He’s just a wee boy and not able to understand the word never. Sure, a week is a lifetime when you’re three, but he’ll know something is wrong and for his sake you’ve got to go on.’

‘What d’you know about it?’

‘Nothing,’ Rosie admitted. ‘But Ida knows.’

‘Oh yeah, Ida,’ Rita spat. ‘Told me time is the great healer. Fat lot of use. Maybe she couldn’t stick her old man, was glad he was dead, but Harry…’

‘Rita! That’s a wicked thing to say. She’s found a way to cope, that’s all.’

‘Well I haven’t and I don’t want to cope. Without Harry I’m just half a person and you keep your nose out of it. When I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it.’

Rosie knew Rita was not angry, more bitterly hurt and in despair, for she’d seen it in her eyes and heard the catch in her voice and would have liked to have talked more with her, but the children were claiming her attention.

Danny had one ear on the conversation between his Rosie and Rita, even as he kept the children amused, and he knew Rita was near the end of her tether. He’d seen men in the trenches with the same desperation in their eyes. Women were luckier than men, though, he thought, for they can weep, while a man who did the same would be dubbed a nancyboy. He could see that Rita needed to cry before she could even begin to look forward.

Rita didn’t stay so long and Rosie was glad, and guilty because she felt glad, but Rita’s behaviour and countenance had put somewhat of a damper on the proceedings, although Rosie doubted the children were aware of it, especially as Danny had kept them entertained.

Later in bed with Danny she tried to imagine life without
him if he was to wind up dead on a foreign battlefield somewhere. But it hurt too much to think that and she shut her eyes against the pain of it and felt the weight of Rita’s sorrow on her heart.

‘You can’t fret for the whole world,’ Danny whispered, knowing Rosie was still awake.

‘I know. It’s just…’

‘Loving someone hurts like hell at times,’ Danny said. ‘How d’you think I felt when you were so ill with bronchitis? I was out of my mind with the worry that I’d lose you. It’s what people take onboard when they love someone, but someone said once it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, and whoever they were, they were right.

‘In time, after Rita has truly grieved for Harry, she will remember the times they shared, however brief, and no-one can take those memories away from her. Maybe she’ll share them with Georgie so he’ll know the manner of the man his father was and it will be a comfort to them both.’

Would it comfort me? Rosie thought, and prayed that she need never know. ‘Oh hold me tight, Danny,’ she pleaded, and Danny held her in the circle of his arms until she fell asleep.

‘Don’t send Bernadette to the nursery,’ Danny pleaded the day after her birthday. ‘God, I see little enough of her. The doctors have encouraged me to walk now and I could take her with me. Come on, Rosie, I’ll be back in that infernal bloodbath soon enough.’

Put like that, Rosie could hardly refuse, and with her at home each day there was no reason to send Bernadette anywhere.

‘I think I’ll keep her at home now all the time,’ Rosie said. ‘She’ll have Georgie to play with. They get on really well.’

‘Aye, don’t I know it, and I have no problems taking Georgie with me too when I go out with Bernadette, and she won’t mind.’

That was undeniable. Georgie was Bernadette’s best friend and she thought it sad that he had no daddy, for she thought her own wonderful. She always felt safe with him. He was strong and brave and yet gentle and kind. He was always ready for a game and would read to her for hours or better still tell her his own stories that he said he’d learned from his parents. She didn’t mind sharing her daddy with Georgie.

Danny treasured all those days. His home seemed like an oasis of calmness and peace in a world gone mad.

In the fields of war he’d seen man’s inhumanity to man displayed in horrific and barbarous ways. It was a place where to survive at all, you hadn’t to allow yourself to be touched by anything, or to care about anyone, for feelings were better kept securely under lock and key.

So when you heard the screams and saw the men with limbs blown off or half a head, or those bullet-riddled and still jerking, and those dead and dying, floundering in their own blood and guts, you could view it all dispassionately. It was war and they were casualties of it, not human at all, just a statistic.

Over the top and on and on into the hail of bullets and whining shells was the only thing that mattered. Mates you’d shared a smoke with minutes before would shudder and jerk before you, crumpling to the floor, and you could barely spare them a glance.

Just before he came back to England, Danny, his rifle poised, bayonet fixed, was attacked by a German in a dugout past No Man’s Land. He’d practised attacking with a bayonet into bales of straw but he never thought he could use it on a human being. However, he found he could.

He saw the man’s eyes widen for a split second and his mouth opened in a scream as the blade impaled him. He sank to the slurried ground and when Danny pulled his blade out it had blood and mangled body organs attached to it, and Danny vomited onto the mud.

He’d killed men before, both in the insurrection in Ireland and in the war, but he’d shot them with a rifle and though he’d seen that his bullets had reached their target, and seen them fall, somehow he was removed from it. It was nothing like impaling someone who stood next to you and he found he was shaking with shock at the abhorrence of what he’d been forced to do.

‘Good man, Walsh,’ said his commanding officer, coming upon him at that moment. ‘Wipe your bayonet, lad.’

Danny bent to run his blade over the mud and when he heard the shell he instinctively curled up. The officer’s body was split into pieces and distributed over the dead German and Danny’s vomit, and the blast of it threw Danny into a pit. That had ensured him a Blighty, which is what a pass home through injury was called by the British.

Bernadette and Rosie were not part of that life. They were so clean and pure, innocent of what he had to do. Thank God! But any time he spent with them was so important to him.

When he’d been forced to enlist he told himself it was those two he was fighting for, and all through his training he’d thought often of his beautiful wife that he loved so much he ached, and Bernadette, whom he adored.

The thoughts and memories of his family he took with him to the battlefield, and he would hold them in his head and his heart like a talisman against evil. Amongst all the carnage and terrible suffering, the vile things it had forced him to do, it had given him some purpose.

Danny had been home ten days when he was deemed fit to rejoin his unit. Rosie had known he would be, for she’d seen his leg become stronger each day with dread.

The day he left she looked deep into his eyes and traced his cheeks and chin with fingers that trembled, and then she lifted up his hands and kissed his palms.

‘Ah, Rosie,’ Danny said, and pressed her close so she’d not see the tears glistening in his eyes, but she felt the emotion pounding through his body and told herself she mustn’t cry. She mustn’t make it harder for this man she loved, or Bernadette, biting her lip with anxiety. ‘And me, Daddy,’ she said in a tentative voice.

‘And you, certainly, Princess,’ Danny said, scooping her up with one arm, and they stayed like that for a moment. Danny and Rosie, full of their own thoughts, and Bernadette, content for a moment to have her mother and father to herself, and she cuddled tight against them both. After a while, though, Bernadette pulled away a little so that she could see her father’s eyes and asked, ‘Are you going away like Mammy said?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘When will you be back?’

‘I honestly don’t know, Bernadette.’

‘Will it be soon?’

Danny shook his head helplessly. ‘I can’t tell you that, pet, for I don’t know myself. The army doesn’t tell you.’

‘Georgie’s daddy was in the army,’ Bernadette said and Danny saw the pucker on his daughter’s forehead and he answered gently,

‘That’s right.’

‘Georgie’s daddy…Georgie’s daddy. That won’t happen to you, will it?’

Danny felt Rosie give a start and saw the stricken look on Bernadette’s face. But he knew he could give no bold assurances that he would be fine. Instead, he said, ‘I hope not, Bernadette, for my place is here looking after you and Mammy.’

‘That’s all right then,’ Bernadette said satisfied, and Danny let her down to the floor where she returned to her doll, Belinda.

Rosie, seeing her daughter’s attention taken elsewhere, said
quietly to Danny, ‘There may be more than myself and Bernadette to see to by the time you come home.’

‘You mean…’

‘It’s early days, but I’m a week late,’ Rosie said. ‘I wouldn’t have said until I was sure, but I wanted you to know.’

‘Oh God, Rosie,’ Danny said, hugging her tighter. ‘You are happy about it?’

‘Of course I am, if I’m right,’ Rosie said.

‘It’s not too soon?’

‘Not at all. And I’m fine and healthy, and if I am expecting I don’t care how difficult it will be, I’ll want this baby; your baby.’