The Lost Soldier (29 page)

Molly’s face suffused with such joy that Tom’s heart jolted within him and he caught her to him, hearing her say as he did so, “Not after the war, Tom, now. I’ll marry you tomorrow.”

Sarah, waiting close by but out of earshot saw the embrace and her heart was troubled. She knew she should not be countenancing this clandestine meeting between Molly and Tom. If Reverend Mother knew… and what would happen to Molly? Tom must be recalled at any time now. But when she saw Molly’s radiant face as she rejoined her by the convent gate, she swallowed the comment she had been about to make and only said, “Come on, Molly, we must get back inside.”

Upstairs in the safety of their room, Molly, still glowing with happiness showed Sarah the little silver bracelet and told her that she and Tom were to be married.

Despite her growing reservations and misgivings, Sarah hugged her and said, “I’m very happy for you, Molly.” She listened as Molly poured out her happiness, and Sarah’s only caution was to say nothing of it to anyone in the convent.

“I think Reverend Mother wouldn’t approve,” she warned, “and if you say anything to anyone else it will surely get back to her.”

Molly, who didn’t care if Reverend Mother approved or not, agreed cheerfully. “The only problem is that Tom’s been called up for a medical board. If they pass him fit he’ll leave the next week. I want us to get married before he goes.”

“Molly, dear, Molly,” Sarah sighed, “I doubt if that is possible.”

It wasn’t. On the next Sunday evening, their last together before Tom had to leave, they sought Robert Kingston out after the service.

“We want to get married,” Molly told him. Tom, less forthright, said, “I’ve asked Molly to marry me, and she’s said yes.”

The padre smiled, but worry lurked in his eyes. This was his fault, he realised. He had allowed them to meet in his presence, and now with the pressure of the war they were trying to rush into marriage when, he felt, neither knew the other at all.

“Congratulations, Tom,” he said, shaking his hand. “You’re a lucky man.” Turning to Molly he said, “I hope you will be very happy.”

Molly had wanted to get married straightaway, but Tom was against it. “What would happen if I got wounded?” he said. “You might be tied to a blind man or a cripple for the rest of your life.”

“I wouldn’t mind if it was you,” avowed Molly.

“My darling, I know you think you wouldn’t,” Tom replied gently, “but you might come to mind, and I couldn’t bear that, for either of us. We should wait till the war is over.”

“The war will never be over,” Molly said petulantly.

“It will one day. Molly, I want us to be together, to be married with a home and a family. I’ve never had a family and I want us to be one more than anything in the world.”

“I want that too,” Molly cried. “Oh Tom, I want that so much.”

“I might be killed and you’d be left. I don’t want you to be a widow, Moll.”

“If you’re being that morbid,” Molly said quickly, “if you’re going to think like that, you might be killed anyway, and then we’d never be married at all. We have to live for now, Tom. There may not be a tomorrow.” At last she had persuaded him at least to speak to the padre, but now Molly could see that, despite his congratulations, Robert Kingston was not happy with what had happened.

“I’m afraid I can’t marry you, just like that,” he said quietly. “You need a licence, and there’s no time for that. But that is not the only issue here. You’ve known each other a very short while…”

“Long enough,” Molly interrupted him abruptly.

“How old are you, Molly?” the padre asked, ignoring her rudeness.

Molly looked surprised. “Twenty,” she said. “Old enough to know my own mind, padre.”

“Perhaps,” he conceded, “but not old enough, legally, to get married without your father’s consent.”

“I’m sure he’d give it,” lied Molly.

“Well, I suggest you get it, in writing, and then perhaps you could be married when Tom next has some leave. Though it isn’t encouraged, you know.”

Molly had been very disappointed at the padre’s words, and she said to him defiantly, “I’m twenty-one in May, then we can get married without my father’s consent.”

Tom had felt a certain measure of relief. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to get married, when he’d said to Molly that having a family was his dearest wish, he had not been exaggerating, but he also had no illusions as to his possible fate; he knew what he was returning to, and had a very real fear that Molly would be left a widow, or worse, landed with a cripple.

“I’m putting you as my next of kin,” he told her. “That way if anything happens to me, you’ll be the first person they tell.” He gave her the address she should write to and promised to write to her in return.

On Wednesday 5th January 1916, Tom Carter marched out of the camp among a squad of thirty others, all returning to their various regiments. Molly stood at the convent gate and watched them go. They were singing as they marched and Molly’s tears were not only for Tom and herself, but for all the men who were marching so bravely back into hell.

Rachel arrived at the offices of the
Belcaster Chronicle
next morning and made straight for Drew Scott’s office. Cherry said, “He’s very busy, Rachel. Is it important?”

“It is to me,” Rachel said and with a sigh Cherry let her by. “I’ve a load of stuff for you this morning,” she warned her. “Don’t forget to pick it up on the way out.”

Rachel promised, and went in to tackle Drew. He looked up and smiled.

“Rachel, what gives?”

Rachel took a deep breath. “Drew,” she said, “I’m on to something that will make an amazing feature article, even a series maybe, and I want to follow it up.” Briefly she outlined what she had discovered.

The evening before she had read Molly Day’s diary long into the night. When she came to its end she was still curled into her chair, but was stiff and cold. She stretched her aching limbs, and peering at the clock, she saw that it was past one in the morning. She crawled from the chair and, with another stretch, put the notebook diary onto her desk. The diary of Molly Day, her great-grandmother.

What an amazing story, Rachel thought as she considered what she had read. What an incredibly courageous thing for two women to do, to set off into a foreign country where war was raging, not as part of any recognised organisation, but on their own, to work in a convent hospital. As the diary unfolded their story, Rachel had read avidly, almost as if it were a novel unfolding a fascinating plot. She was longing to know what happened next. But the end was disappointing, indeed there was no proper ending. The diary stopped at the beginning of January 1916. So far Rachel didn’t know why it had come to such an abrupt end, all she knew was that the man whom Molly Day had loved had marched back to the front, and Molly had stopped recording her thoughts.

Rachel looked at the packets of letters still lying in the biscuit tin. Maybe they would carry on the story. She didn’t know, but she couldn’t read them now, she was too tired. She would read them tomorrow… today it was already. She put the diary back into the tin and putting the tin into her desk drawer, went to bed. There was surely a story here, much more complex than that of two women setting off bravely to nurse in France.

So far the diary had posed more questions than it had answered, and though she had decided she could read nothing more tonight and her head ached with tiredness, the things she had been reading in the diary spun round in her brain, keeping sleep at bay. She was fascinated by her great-grandmother, by how much she had changed and matured even during the short time in France which the diary chronicled; leaving behind the insecure and submissive housemaid of only elementary education and growing into the determined and efficient nurse, expressing herself ever more fluently. Faced with the rigours and stress of nursing badly wounded men, with the pain of watching some die, Molly must have drawn on a strength she hadn’t known she’d had. Gone was the wide-eyed girl who had been surprised to find there were trees in London, and in her place was the strong young woman who had stood and watched the man she had come to love, march back to the horrors of the front. Taken out of her natural environment, and treated with friendship and respect, faced with responsibility, Molly had overcome her uncertainty and grasped her own life with both hands.

There was Sarah Hurst, too. Sarah seemed far more at home with the nuns than Molly would ever be, mostly because she shared their brand of Christianity, but also because she accepted the hierarchy of the convent more readily. Rachel was intrigued by how well Sarah fitted into the community, despite her occasional run-in with authority. Clearly she had a mind of her own—she was, after all, the instigator of their trip to France. Molly would never have dreamed of it. It was Sarah who had been determined to go and “do her bit”, and Molly was towed along in her wake. Sarah had appeared to change over the weeks covered by the diary too. She had taken the unusual step of treating her maid as an equal, not just suggesting it, but carrying it through, so that she and Molly had become true friends. In many ways this was more difficult for her than Molly. Sarah, however graciously, had been giving Molly orders for years, and to change their relationship so suddenly could not have been easy. Perhaps the sharing of the room, the rigours of the work and each being the only link with home for the other, may have contributed to their real and growing friendship, but Rachel couldn’t help wondering if it would withstand real difficulties, or a return to the rigid social strata at home. Then she remembered that, according to Cecily, Sarah had never come home; their friendship had never been put to the test.

As sleep continued to elude her, Rachel had made a mental list of things she wanted do, there seemed so many leads to follow up from what she had learned. She slept at last, but when she awoke to the buzzing of her alarm next morning, she felt as if she had only just dozed off. A quick shower, followed by a banana and a cup of strong black coffee, revived her and sent her on her way to speak to Drew. She had come to a decision even as she slept, and when she awoke this decision was firmly established in her mind.

When Drew had heard her out he said, “I can’t give you time to research this. Delve into its past if you like, Rachel, but in your own time. If you produce a good feature with an interesting angle, I’ll look at printing it in early January. Things will be slower after Christmas. Sorry.”

Rachel took her courage in both hands and said, “I understand, Drew, but in that case I’d like to take some holiday.”

“Holiday!” Drew stared at her. “In the run-up to Christmas? You have to be joking! Have you seen the list of stuff Cherry has for you today?”

“No, not yet,” Rachel replied evenly, “and I won’t leave you in the lurch, Drew. I’ll cover today’s work and tomorrow’s, but after that I want time off. I am entitled, you know.”

Drew glowered at her. “We have to get this Christmas edition out.”

“I know,” Rachel broke in, “but if you’re honest, Drew, most of it is done already.”

“I need you to follow up what is happening in Charlton Ambrose at present, not in the past.”

“And I will,” soothed Rachel. “I promise, but after tomorrow there won’t be much, and next week’s paper is mainly small-time local stuff, it always is the week after Christmas.” She grinned at him impishly, “Let’s face it, Drew, even if a big story breaks it won’t be me who’s sent to cover it, will it!”

This sally drew a reluctant laugh, and he said, “OK, I give in. From Wednesday. Two weeks, and this article had better be bloody good!” He waved aside her thanks and snapped, “In the meantime, get on to the planning office today about the Brigstock Jones thing. When does Mike Bradley meet with the planning office?”

“Tomorrow, I think.”

“Right, back on to him tomorrow after they’ve met to write a short update and then we’ll probably have to wait until after the New Year for anything further from them. Remember that the whole building trade will close down from Monday for two weeks over Christmas. That should also give you a chance to contact the various families concerned with these memorial trees before they do. I doubt if they’ll have anyone working on that over the Christmas period.” He gave her a wry smile, adding, “I assume that they feature in your research anyway.” When Rachel said that they certainly did, he wished her good luck and a happy Christmas. “But I’ll see you on Thursday at the bash in the Royal. You’re coming to that, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I’ll be there,” Rachel said.

When Rachel left his office Drew looked at the closing door and thought: That girl does have the makings of a really good reporter. She has the nose for a good story and is prepared to back herself.

He could manage without her for a couple of weeks, and he let her go in the expectation that she would get her story and that it would worth waiting for.

Back at her desk, Rachel rang the planning office and was told that the next meeting of the planners to consider applications wasn’t until the end of January.

“Our planning meeting is the last Friday in the month,” an impersonal voice informed her, “so there will be no December meeting.”

David Andrews was unavailable and Rachel had been put through to someone else who did not give his name.

“But what about the planning application put in by Brigstock Jones for their development in Charlton Ambrose? I understood there was a meeting between them and Mr Andrews tomorrow.”

“I’m sorry,” said the voice on the end of the phone, “we can’t possibly comment on individual applications. Mr Andrews is out of the office for the rest of the week, but the plans are on display in the council offices if you wish to inspect them, madam.”

Realising she was going to get no further in this direction, Rachel thanked him and rang off. There was nothing to be learned from them until after Christmas, which meant the pressure was off. She rang Brigstock Jones, but neither Mike Bradley nor Tim Cartwright was available to take her call. There really wasn’t going to be a great deal of follow-up to the Charlton Ambrose story in the immediate future, except from her own point of view, but Rachel wrote a short piece saying that the question of the Ashgrove was still being considered and inviting anyone who had any information about the trees or those they commemorated, to contact the
Chronicle
. That should be enough to keep the story in the public eye until she could discover more.