Page 42

‘Do you go out dancing, Beth?’ Sergeant Harold Irwin asked whilst Beth was making his bed. He was called ‘Sarge’ by the other patients, but the nurses and assistants like Beth called him Harry.

He was sitting on a chair with his plastered leg up on a stool.

He’d been brought in a couple of weeks earlier with an infected broken leg.

It was said he’d made himself a makeshift splint and continued on the march from Normandy towards Belgium because he didn’t want to leave his men.

That heroic act had resulted in his leg breaking again in another place and becoming infected.

He was very lucky he was treated before gangrene set in.

‘I’ve only ever been dancing once,’ Beth admitted as she smoothed out the bottom sheet and tucked it in with hospital corners as Sister insisted. ‘My Jack took me to one in London. But I think his dancing days are over now. He’s lost both legs and he’s a POW in Germany.’

‘What rotten luck,’ Harry exclaimed. ‘Especially with a beautiful girl like you waiting at home for him.’

Beth blushed. Sergeant Irwin was thirty-eight and very handsome in a rakish kind of way, with dark chocolate eyes, too-long curly fair hair, and lips that curled up in the corners like a continual smile.

All the women at the convalescent home had remarked on his looks– one of the older nurses thought he looked dangerous; a younger one said he was ‘swoon-worthy’.

Beth just liked him. He was brave, interested in people, amusing, caring, and very intelligent, though, as she had waspishly told him, ‘It wasn’t intelligent to walk miles with a broken leg.

’ He’d responded: ‘If I’d known a girl like you was due to come along, I would’ve sat by the road in France and waited for you. ’

He came from Bristol, and said he was delighted he was brought to his hometown rather than being dumped in Folkestone or Dover. Beth saw him as a lucky man, well-liked by other men, and loved by his elderly parents, who she’d met when they visited him last Thursday.

Beth only volunteered here on Mondays and Thursdays. Rose had encouraged her to do another day, saying she could see it was helping Beth’s anxiety about Jack. But Beth didn’t think it was fair to leave Rose on her own so much.

‘Tell me more about your Jack,’ Harry said. ‘Are you married? Engaged? You aren’t wearing a ring.’

‘No, we’re not married or engaged. We met during a bombing raid in London and I only knew him for a short time because I had to go back to Ireland, and shortly afterwards he was sent to North Africa.’

‘Poor devil. I’ve heard it was pretty hairy there.’

‘I wouldn’t really know about how bad it was– his letters from there were always cheery. But since I was told he was missing, nearly a year ago, there was no word from him until we got the news he was in the sick-bay in Germany. But you must’ve had a bad time too, in Normandy?’

His face clouded over. ‘Yeah, it was awful, so many good men killed and wounded. But we’ve got the enemy on the run at last. I didn’t break my leg there, though.

It happened as we were chasing after the retreating Germans.

I got up on a tank to get a better view, slipped off onto a rock and broke it.

Not all injuries are caused by bullets!’ He grinned sheepishly as he said it, and she felt he was embarrassed about it.

Beth plumped up his pillows, then put the top sheet on.

‘Let’s hope that teaches you to be more careful,’ she said lightly.

‘You said you were going back to Ireland. You don’t sound Irish?’

‘I’m not. I was lucky enough to be left a cottage there by my godmother. I was full of enthusiasm when I first went there, but there’s no work and it’s a bit lonely. I came to Bristol for a little break and met the lovely lady I now work for.’

‘Are you going to be able to cope with Jack’s missing legs when he comes home?’

If anyone else had asked that question she’d have snapped at them. But the gentle way Harry put the question suggested he understood the problems that wives, girlfriends and other family members had with amputees.

Beth shrugged. ‘I really don’t know, Harry. I want to claim I’ll be fine. But he’s been missing for months and is in such a bad way that someone else writes his letters to me. If I could just talk to him, find out how he feels. It’s the not knowing which makes it so difficult.’

Harry nodded in sympathy. ‘Most servicemen find it hard to talk about such things. But stick with it. As he gets used to his situation, he’ll probably find it easier to communicate. Where are your family?’

‘I haven’t got any. Jack’s family are in Cornwall.’

‘Will they help?’

‘I’m sure they will. I haven’t met them though, only spoken to his father on the telephone.’

‘So Jack’s said nothing about how he sees the future?’

Beth nodded.

‘What do you want to happen?’

‘I wanted to get married, I still do, but—’ She faltered.

‘You can’t see where you could live, or how,’ he suggested. ‘You don’t know how long it will take to get him prosthetic legs, or for him to learn to walk with them.’

‘Yes, that’s about the size of it,’ she said, and her eyes involuntarily filled with tears.

Harry reached out and took her hand, squeezing it in sympathy.

‘There must be hundreds of girls in the same boat as you,’ he said soothingly.

‘And even more men in POW camps and hospitals worrying themselves sick that their girl back home has already met someone else or will reject him when she sees his injuries.’

‘Have you got a girl here?’ she asked.

‘No, and I’m glad about that as there’s no one to hurt or disappoint. I expect Jack is half hoping you’ll give up on him, he wouldn’t want to spoil your life.’

‘That’s quite an insulting view. If you love someone you want to take care of them,’ she said, angrily wiping her tears away.

‘It’s also quite insulting to imagine a man should be happy to be taken care of,’ he retorted.

Harry’s eyes were twinkling. She knew he didn’t mean to humiliate her, but his bed was made, and it was time to go and prepare the tea trolley. ‘I’ll deal with you later,’ she said as a parting shot before walking out of the ward.

Her face was flushed as she arranged the cups and saucers on the trolley. She wasn’t sure what she’d meant by dealing with Harry later. Was it an attempt at flirting with him? If so she should be ashamed at herself.

As she walked home later, Beth found herself having guilty thoughts about Harry.

He was very attractive, but surely she shouldn’t be noticing that.

She knew he was a regular soldier, not conscripted.

She wished that instead of telling him about her anxiety over Jack, she had asked him something safe, like whether he would be staying in the army after his leg was healed and the war was over.

‘You look perkier!’ Rose said as Beth came in. ‘Something nice happen today?’

Rose put a cup of tea and a slice of cake for Beth on the table. She had become adept at finding recipes that didn’t require eggs or sugar. Some were good, others were, as she said herself, like eating wood shavings.

Beth sat down, tried the cake and smiled approval. It was a fairly good one. ‘Nothing in particular,’ she said. ‘It was nice walking back across the Downs, though. The leaves on the trees are all changing colour now, maybe it’s that.’

She found it extraordinary that Rose could pick up on her every mood. Yet she never gave her opinion unasked.

‘And what have you been doing?’ Beth asked her.

‘Aside from this cake, I bottled some raspberries. Miss Tomlinson gave me lots of them. Apparently, she’s got a glut this year and she’s sick of eating them.’

‘How can you get sick of eating raspberries?’ Beth giggled. In her opinion their neighbour bought friends by giving them things. She knew if she called round with something people would invite her in, and she was quite hard to get rid of. ‘So what did you say to banish her today?’

‘I didn’t need to, she was on her way to someone for lunch.’

Beth went into the kitchen to put the kettle back on, and saw the six Kilner jars full of raspberries cooling on the table.

‘You should’ve waited till I got home,’ Beth reproved Rose. ‘I don’t like the thought of you handling boiling syrup.’

‘I was making jam and bottling fruit before you were born,’ she retorted. ‘And I still have all my faculties.’

Beth laughed and went over to hug her. ‘Yes you have, but to be on the safe side, wait for me next time.’

‘Miss Tomlinson claimed you’d be off soon now you’ve heard from your young man. I tried to tell her he’d lost his legs and was still imprisoned in Germany, but she didn’t seem to grasp the seriousness of that.’

‘I think she’s a bit senile now,’ Beth said, but laughed because they’d both had conversations with the old lady, and she was always getting things wrong. She’d probably be looking for her raspberries tomorrow, having forgotten she gave them away.

The telephone rang suddenly, shrill in the quiet of the sitting room. Beth moved to answer it.

As soon as she heard Mr Ramsey’s voice she sensed it was bad news.

He paused, as if gathering the strength to speak. ‘I’m sorry, Beth, there is no easy way to tell you this, but Jack passed away a couple of days ago. We just got a telegram from the Red Cross. A letter will follow.’

To Beth it felt like a black pit had just opened up in front of her, and she was about to fall into it. She forced herself to be more rational.

‘But why? I thought he was on the mend,’ she said, tears coursing down her cheeks.

‘We don’t know,’ Ramsey said. ‘We will when we get the letter. But we think it was the infection. It’s always that for the most severe wounds. We are trying to tell ourselves he is in a much better place now, but it doesn’t help. Our beautiful boy gone.’

Beth had no words, her head was spinning so fast she had to drop to a chair. ‘I’m so, so sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t believe it really. He’s so much alive in my mind.’