men at the Front were being asked to endure every minute of the day and night.
“Keep your head down, sir,” said Davies as he studied the battlefield through a pair of field binoculars. “The look-out post is about a hundred yards away, sir, one o’clock.” He passed the binoculars across to George.
George refocused the lenses, and once he’d located the post he could see exactly why communications had broken down. “Right, let’s get on with it,” he said before he had time to think what it was that he was meant to be getting on with. He leaped out of the trench and ran as he had never run before, zigzagging through waterlogged potholes and treacle black mud as he charged toward the forward look-out post. He never looked back, because he was sure that Davies and Perkins would only be a stride behind. He was wrong. Perkins had been brought down by a bullet after only a dozen paces and lay dying in the mud, while Davies had managed almost sixty yards before he was killed.
The look-out post was only twenty yards ahead of George. He had covered fifteen of those yards when the mortar shell exploded at his feet. It was the first and last time in his life that he said
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
THE REGULAR FLOW of letters suddenly dried up; always the first sign, all too often followed by an unwelcome telegram.
Ruth had taken to sitting in the alcove by the drawing room window every morning, hands clasped over her ever-growing belly; thirty minutes before old Mr. Rodgers cycled up the drive. When he came into view she would try to fathom the expression on his face. Was it a letter face, or a telegram face? She reckoned she would know the truth long before he reached the door.
Just as she spotted Mr. Rodgers coming through the gates, Clare began to cry. Did she still have a father? Or had George died before his second child was born?
Ruth was standing by the door when Mr. Rodgers stopped pedaling, put on his brakes, and came to a halt by the bottom step. Always the same routine: dismount, rummage around in his post bag, extract the relevant letters, and finally walk up the steps and hand them to Mrs. Mallory. It was no different today. Or was it? As Mr. Rodgers mounted the steps he looked up at her and smiled. This wasn’t a telegram day.
“Two letters today, Mrs. Mallory, and if I’m not mistaken, one of them’s from your husband,” he added, passing over an envelope that bore George’s familiar handwriting.
“Thank you,” said Ruth, almost unable to hide her relief. Then she remembered that she wasn’t the only person having to suffer like this every day. “Any news of your son, Mr. Rodgers?” she asked.
“’Fraid not,” replied the postman. “Mind you, our Donald never was much of a letter writer, so we live in hope.” He climbed back on his bicycle and pedaled away.
Ruth had opened George’s letter long before she’d reached the drawing room. She returned to her seat by the window, sank back, and began to read, first quickly and then very slowly.
Ruth stared out of the window at the Surrey hills in the distance, not sure whether to laugh or cry. It was some time before she returned to George’s letter.
“I’m going to recommend that you are discharged in the next few days, Mallory, and sent back to Blighty until you’re fully recovered.”
“Thanks, doc,” said George cheerfully.
“Don’t thank me, old fellow, frankly I need the bed. By the time you’re ready to come back, with a bit of luck this damn war will be over.”
“Let’s hope so,” said George, looking around the field tent, full of brave men whose lives would never be the same again.
“By the way,” the doctor added, “a Private Rodgers dropped by this morning. Thought this might be yours.”
“It certainly is,” said George, taking the photograph of Ruth he’d thought he’d never see again.
“She’s quite a looker,” mused the doctor.
“Not you as well,” said George with a grin.
“Oh, and you’ve got a visitor. Do you feel up to it?”
“Yes, I’d be delighted to see Rodgers,” said George.
“No, it’s not Rodgers, it’s a Captain Geoffrey Young.”
“Oh, I’m not sure I’m up to that,” said George, a huge smile appearing on his face.
A nurse plumped up George’s pillow and placed it behind his back as he waited for his climbing leader. He could never think of Geoffrey Young as anything else. But the welcoming smile on his lips turned to a frown as Young limped into the tent.
“My dear George,” Young said, “I came the moment I heard. One of the advantages of being in the Ambulance Auxiliary Service is that you get to know where everyone is and what they’re up to.” Young pulled up a small wooden chair that must have previously been used in a French classroom and sat down beside George’s bed. “So much news, I don’t know where to begin.”
“Why not start with Ruth. Did you get the chance to visit her when you were last on leave?”
“Yes. I dropped in to The Holt on my way back to Dover.”
“And how is she?” asked George, trying not to sound impatient.
“As beautiful as ever, and seems to have fully recovered.”
“Fully recovered?” said George anxiously.
“Following the birth of your second child,” said Young.
“My second child?” said George.
“You mean to say that nobody’s told you that you’re the proud father of…” He paused. “I think it was a girl.”
George offered up a silent prayer to a God he didn’t believe in. “And how is she?” he demanded.
“Seemed fine to me,” said Young. “But then, to be honest, I can never tell one baby from another.”
“What color are her eyes?”
“I’ve no idea, old chap.”
“And is her hair fair or dark?”
“Sort of in between, I think, although I could be wrong.”
“You’re hopeless. Has Ruth decided on a name?”
“I had a ghastly feeling you might ask me that.”
“Could it be Elizabeth?”
“I don’t think so. More unusual than that. It will come to me in a moment.”
George burst out laughing. “Spoken like a true bachelor.”
“Well, you’ll find out for yourself soon enough,” said Young, “because the doc tells me he’s sending you home. Just make sure you don’t come back. You’ve done more than enough to salve your conscience, and there’s certainly no need to shorten the odds against you.”
George thought about a dead corporal who would have agreed with Young.
“What other news?” asked George.
“Some good, some bad-mostly bad I’m afraid.” George remained silent while Young tried to compose himself. “Rupert Brooke died at Lemnos while on his way to Gallipoli-even before he reached some foreign field.”
