Pattern of Shadows (8 page)

Reluctant to go home, Mary made her way to her favourite bench by the lake. One of the boats had broken free of its moorings and was drifting aimlessly in the middle of the lake, its rope trailing behind. For once she was unable to bring back the happy times she spent there with Tom.

Instead her thoughts settled on Frank. Whichever
shifts he was on, they hadn’t coincided with hers. Or he was keeping out of sight. Either way, if they did meet she wasn’t sure what she would say to him and besides she had enough on her plate with her job and home. Nevertheless tears prickled the back of her eyes and she closed them; she must be more exhausted than she realised.

Mary lifted her face to the weak afternoon sun, smelling the faint whiff of smoke that permanently hung in the air. Resolutely she turned her mind to work.

According to Matron at the end of shift meeting, Schormann had been a general practitioner in civilian life who then became a captain with the Red Cross. As such, and in line with the Geneva Convention, he shouldn’t have been taken prisoner, but he had been and Matron was pleased to have him in the hospital. She hadn’t said much about Pensch, except that it was good that they now had two doctors to cover the four wards and, much to their annoyance, she’d added she expected each of the Ward Sisters to keep excellent order … as if they needed telling.

They’d all hurried away after that, eager to go home, so Mary hadn’t chance to find out if Schormann had been as offhand with everyone else. Obviously he must resent what had happened to him, especially if Matron was right about the rules of war. Mary paused in her line of thought to wonder how anybody decided on what set of laws there could ever be for killing and maiming another human being.

By the time the doctors had left her office all her nurses were back on the ward and they’d had plenty to say about the two men. Leaving her door open she’d listened to the chatter afterwards and although she heard them all agreeing that the older doctor seemed all right – he’d
greeted them with a tilt of his head and click of the heels – the younger man had won himself no favours with his cold attitude and his reluctance to acknowledge the group of young women.

‘He looked straight through us,’ Jean had said, indignant, ‘with his bloody fish eyes.’

Mary had privately agreed with her friend but felt obliged to reprimand them. ‘Let’s keep things professional, please. The doctors have been transferred here to do a job, not make friends … especially not to make friends,’ she’d said, repeating Matron’s mantra. ‘As long as they are civil when they are working, that’s all we should expect. And
I
expect courtesy from my nurses.’

Hilda Lewis, standing apart from the group, hadn’t let that one pass. ‘I hope you’re not including me in your lecture on etiquette,’ she’d said.

Mary’s ‘Of course not, Nurse Lewis’ had been lost in the melodramatic groans of the others. Mary had ignored them; she knew the woman was not the most popular member of the hospital staff.

A young mother trundled a large wheeled Silver Cross pram across the grass and carefully pressed on the brake with her foot, before she sat next to Mary. Undoing the knot of her headscarf, the woman smiled at her. ‘Just off duty?’

‘Yes.’ Mary smiled, watching the other child, a small boy, climb the wheels of the pram to peer into it and poke a grubby finger at the baby’s stomach.

‘Steady with her,’ the woman cautioned. ‘He’s a really good brother, aren’t you, love?’ The boy beamed
self-importantly
. ‘She’s lucky to have you as an older brother, isn’t she?’ He nodded.

Mary stood. ‘I’m sure she is.’

‘Don’t go because of us.’

‘I’ve got to get home.’ She’d had a brief recollection of Tom laughing and running full pelt down their street pushing that old pink pram with her hanging on for dear life. And, just as quickly she pictured him in that cheerless visiting room at Wormwood Scrubs. She felt sick.

When she got to the top end of their alleyway on Greenacre Street she had the urge to turn and run away. Lower down a gate opened and the large figure of their next door neighbour appeared and began to beat a mat against the brick wall. Through the dust, and the smoke that drifted up from the clay pipe clenched between yellowed teeth, the woman squinted curiously at Mary. ‘All right, girl?’

Mary spoke shortly. ‘All right, Mrs Jagger.’

The woman removed the pipe and gestured with it towards Mary’s house. ‘Quiet in your house, these last few days. You’d think there was no one in, most of the time.’

‘Would you?’

Discomforted, Edith Jagger swung the mat back and forth from one hand and replaced the pipe in her mouth. She waited a moment and then wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, leaving a dusty stain. ‘Well, I can’t stand here all day nattering. I’ve lots to do.’

Mary went into her own yard and waited. She could see the top of the turbaned head of the woman hovering by the wall. She stopped by the tin bath, tapping her fingers on it and called out. ‘Bye, Mrs Jagger.’ There was a loud snort, a final small puff of smoke and the bang of a door closing.

Mary smiled, gratified for the small victory over the neighbour who had kept the gossip flowing when Tom had gone to prison the first time. She remembered the morning he was arrested, Edith Jagger waiting on the pavement outside to watch as he was led through the front door by the two policemen. ‘Look after Mam,’ he called over his shoulder. Mary had put her arms around her weeping mother and they’d stood in the kitchen doorway long after the front door had slammed shut. Her father had stayed in bed.

She made a slight movement of her head as though to shake off the memory. Holding on to the catch of the back door, she heard her father’s cough. He was in the kitchen and there was someone with him.

‘I don’t know who I hated the most when I first went to France – the Huns or the army.’

Frank! What was he doing here? Mary held her hand to her throat. She could feel the pulse in her neck quicken.

‘I joined up in April ’39 and applied to be a driver in the Royal Artillery. Instead I finished up as a gunner in the 91st Field Regiment. We all had to take a test and the cheeky buggers said my score was low … so that’s what I had to be, a pissing gunner. Bloody sergeant had it in for me right from the beginning. Bastard …’

He sounded different, harsher than before. She pushed the door slightly open and stood still.

‘Come in, girl, you’re letting the bloody cold in. You remember Frank, don’t you? Patrick’s mate? He’s waiting for him an’ we got talking.’ Bill spoke impatiently as he looked up at her from the table and then back at Frank, who was sitting opposite him. No mention of the quarrel the younger man had witnessed. No indication this was
the first time that her father had spoken to her for over two weeks.

‘So I see.’ She stepped into the kitchen and closed the door.

Frank kept his back to her and carried on talking. ‘Our training was a farce. When they sent us off in September we were given what stuff they could find for us; bloody old service uniforms, light armour that wasn’t worth using, and guns that had half the sodding range of the Jerries’ artillery. I tell you Bill, we were a right sorry sight …’

Mary raised her eyebrows. Not only did he seem completely unaware of her presence, he was now on first name terms with her father. She couldn’t remember any of her or her brother’s friends calling her father Bill.

‘’Ang on a minute lad.’ Bill looked out of the corner of his eye at Mary. ‘Your Mam and our Ellen’ve gone round to Mrs Booth’s. Her Ted’s copped it.’

‘Oh no.’ Being ignored by someone she barely knew now seemed unimportant. ‘Not Ted.’ Mary was barely aware that Frank had swung round in his chair to watch her. She’d liked Ted Booth; a couple of years older than her, she’d known him all her life and he’d grown into a quiet and thoughtful man. She’d often sat at the kitchen table between him and Tom in the months before war was declared listening to her brother earnestly explaining why, as a Christian, it would be morally wrong for him to contribute to something that meant killing another human being. She’d heard them discuss what they would do if the Government brought in the Conscription Act. Then they did and one day Ted was gone, unable to follow Tom’s actions. Now he was dead.

For as long as she could remember he’d been sweet on Ellen. There was even a time when Mary thought her sister would give in to his persistence and go out with him, but it hadn’t happened and, despite his letters that had regularly arrived for her, Ellen very rarely mentioned him. Mary wondered how she’d reacted to the news of his death.

‘Mary!’ Her father’s shout startled her.

‘What?’ She was close to tears.

Bill sucked greedily at his cigarette. ‘I said make us a brew.’

‘I’ll get changed first, if you don’t mind,’ she snapped. Running upstairs she sat on the bed for a few minutes trying to work out what she felt. Sad for Ted, of course, irritated by her father, but angry at Frank as well and she couldn’t work out why. Blowing her nose she changed into slacks and her favourite jumper; not that it mattered what she wore. She combed her fingers through her hair and checked her face in the mirror. She looked pale and tired. Blow it! Hanging up her uniform she noticed a dirty mark on her cap. When she went downstairs she took it with her.

Frank was still talking. ‘We were part of the BEF that sailed from Southampton. You know how short transport was, in those early days? Well,
we
went in an old removal van. The blasted thing broke down before we were two miles from Cherbourg, so we left it there.’ He sounded bitter, but as she pushed through the curtain and stepped down into the kitchen he winked at her. She stared, felt compelled to give a quick smile, and went through to the scullery. ‘We marched to Laval singing the
Lambeth
Walk,’
she heard him say, ‘daft buggers that we were.’

Mary twisted the knob on the Ascot and watched the water run into the sink. She didn’t know what to make of him; she didn’t understand men, but then the only ones she’d ever really known were her father and brothers. Pursing her lips, she swished the small piece of carbolic soap around in the inch of warm water and then used it to scrub at the stain. If Bill and Patrick were true examples of manhood then, as she had told herself many times, she was better off not knowing. She dropped the cap in the bowl of cold water on the draining board and stood swirling it round with one finger. But perhaps Frank didn’t know where he stood with her either; maybe he was too embarrassed to say anything in front of her father. Somehow she doubted that. She picked up the kettle to fill it but stopped as she heard her father’s voice.

‘Same for us … Infantry … part of the Ashford mob.’

Mary waited. Her father never mentioned his war. She held her breath. What would he say next? But he didn’t speak again. She turned the tap on, the pipes shrieked as the water gushed out then clanked as she shut off the flow. She carried the kettle across the kitchen and, going round the back of Frank’s chair, put it on top of the range. ‘The fire needs more coal,’ she said.

It was as though she hadn’t spoken. Bill was shaking his head and studying his fists, his knuckles pressed tightly together. ‘
We
marched out of town singin’
Tipperary
to Ashford’s brass band.’ His sigh came from deep within his chest and finished with a breathless whistle. Mary realised they weren’t even aware she was listening. ‘Loaded up like mules with all sorts of shit.’

He slapped his hands on the table and pushed himself up. Grasping the poker he stabbed at the coals before
throwing a few more bits on. Grey ash fell into the can below the grate. The fire began to breathe small yellow flames so that their shadows wavered on the back wall of the kitchen.

Mary took two mugs from the hooks under the shelf on the wall and put them on the blue checked oilcloth. In the scullery she emptied out the sludge of leaves from the last brew and rinsed the pot before carefully spooning out a small scoop of tea leaves. All the time she listened and watched through the open door as Frank talked and Bill listened. Every day she patched up the injuries men did to one another in war, but she would never experience what these two men shared.

‘When we got to Belgium we were told we would have two, maybe three weeks to get ready, but the Jerries were on us in four bloody days,’ Frank said. ‘At least the damn Luftwaffe was.’ He leaned back on the chair until it rested on two legs and clasped his hands behind his head. ‘They didn’t attack us though. They just let us know they were there and we soon found out why. They were waiting for the rest of the buggers to catch up, the ground forces.’ He tugged on his earlobe, his mouth twisted into an embittered line.

‘Bloody thousands of them.’ He banged the chair legs back down onto the floor and stood up. ‘We should have known.’

When she came back into the kitchen, Mary saw he was watching her.

‘All the time we were going further into Belgium, people were flooding past us, getting out. All loaded up to the gills carrying everything they owned.’ He moved restlessly around the table, stopping to light a cigarette.
‘We hadn’t a clue what was going on, not a clue, and they wouldn’t tell us.’ His voice was bleak. ‘The women stared like they hated us … and the wailing … all those kids.’ He whipped round towards Bill. ‘The soldiers just shuffled past with their heads down. We didn’t realise they were retreating, until we collared one who could speak a bit of English.’ He flopped back down in his chair, blowing out cigarette smoke through clenched teeth. ‘We heard nothing from the bloody bigwigs. Our orders were to just keep going. We had no idea what was in front of us. And them in charge hadn’t a clue either.’

In the silence, the lid on the kettle lifted and fell back with a soft click, at first slowly, then faster. Steam gushed out of the spout and sputtered on the hot plate. Mary wrapped the towel around the handle of the kettle and poured the water into the teapot, stirring at the same time.

Both men watched. Then Bill spoke. ‘Aye lad, it were the same for us. They were useless then. Gave it a grand title, mind, ‘The Big Push’. They even ordered fuckin’ bagpipes to play somewhere. I dreamt about that sodding miserable noise for years.’ He coughed and, leaning over, spat into the middle of the fire. ‘Our lot started shelling to get rid of the Hun’s front lines but what with the bloody smoke and dust we couldn’t see a thing.’ He waited until Mary poured the tea into the mugs and moved away from the table. ‘We couldn’t keep up the artillery fire an’ when we stopped the Germans left their lines and set up gun posts, cool as you like. It were like a wall of shells exploding all over the place, coming at us, and behind them their infantry. We didn’t stand a chance.’