“There’s no need to wait until you’re back in France. I’ll look into this. What was the orderly’s name? Private Wilson? He should be easy enough to find.”
“Thank you,” I replied, feeling a wash of relief.
“Shall I ask your father’s help?”
“No, please. At least-not yet.” I had other issues to face with my parents.
“Consider it done. Meanwhile, it’s too fine a day to waste. We’ll take a drive in the afternoon, shall we? And I’ll ask the hotel to put up a lunch for us.”
At a little past eleven o’clock, Simon knocked at my door as promised, and I went down with him to his motorcar.
The drive out of Eastbourne was lovely, climbing through narrow twisting lanes where trees overhung the road and cast cool shadows.
We came into the little village of Jevington, where pretty cottages lined the road and wildflowers bloomed along the low walls. I saw an elderly man, stooped and gnarled by rheumatism, hoeing between his roses.
Unexpectedly I was reminded of Melinda Crawford, who like me had lived in India as a child, but much, much earlier, at the time of the 1857 Indian Mutiny. Melinda’s mother had survived the unspeakable horrors of the siege and subsequent battle for Lucknow, struggling to keep her small daughter safe. And when it was over and she had come back to her house on the outskirts of the town, she found it burned to the ground and her English garden in ruins. She had knelt in the torn earth and wept for her lost roses. It was the only time Melinda had seen her mother cry until the death of her father.
A small link with home, that garden, and its destruction seemed to epitomize all she had suffered in a foreign country. I wondered who the old man was keeping those roses alive for through these awful years of war. A son-a grandson?
Simon took a turning to the left, up a twisting road that led to a knoll. And there before us was the church of St. Mary’s, set above its sloping churchyard overlooking the back gardens of houses below it. Nearer the lane a stretch of clipped grass offered a view of the Weald, crystal clear in the noon air.
The church was partly Saxon, and we went inside to look at their stonework in the tower, and then moved down the aisle. There had been a service here only this morning, the flowers at the altar not yet wilted, the air of sorrow still lingering in the dim silence.
Outside Simon spread our rugs on the grass by the view and brought out the large wicker basket provided by the hotel. Inside were sandwiches, bread and cheese, even Banbury buns. We ate in companionable silence, and there was a Thermos of tea for me, a bottle of wine for Simon, although I noticed that he didn’t open it.
We had just finished the last crumbs of the Banbury buns when he shattered the tranquil spell.
“Bess. Your parents have asked me to speak to you. They were already late starting for Somerset, but they wanted you to know that they fully understand your eagerness to return to nursing. After all, it’s what you’ve trained for, what you do so well.”
My heart leapt with joy. But he was still speaking.
“And so it’s been arranged for you to be posted to a clinic in Somerset, beginning at the end of next week. It shouldn’t try your strength too far. And you’ll be close enough to come home occasionally-”
I stared at him, then interrupted him, not wanting to hear any more. “But-I told Mother that I’m needed in France-” Not to belittle the demands of working in a clinic devoted to convalescents, but it wasn’t why I had trained to be a nurse. As long as the war lasted, I wanted to serve the men fighting and dying in the trenches.
Simon was examining the view, as if trying to memorize it, unwilling to meet my gaze. “You must understand, Bess. They came close to losing you twice. Once on
“Yes, I understand, of course I do. But if I were a soldier in my father’s regiment-as I could have been if I were his son and not his daughter-he would want me to return to my duty.”
“Third time’s unlucky, Bess. That’s how they see it.”
I bit my lip, then asked quietly, “Because I’m their daughter?”
“Essentially, yes. You’re all they have.”
“Vincent Carson was all that Julia had. He was her husband. No one made any effort to keep him in England.”
“That’s different, Bess, and you know it. I’m sure Julia would have tried, if she could.”
“Is it different, Simon?”
I got up and walked across the lane to stare up at the stonework of the Saxon church tower. Simon followed me after a moment, standing just behind me.
For the first time I could remember, I was furious with my father. And then with my mother for not taking my part in this argument. They had supported me from the beginning when I chose to go into nursing. Reluctantly, yes, but they had understood the call of duty. Why not now?
I knew why, of course. Simon was right, twice I’d had close calls. Nurses did die at the Front. Of illness, of gunshot wounds from aircraft that made it behind the lines-I’d had experience of that myself-of shells gone astray. Nurse Edith Cavell had died before a German firing squad. There were no guarantees. But I could have just as easily died of the influenza in Somerset, never having set foot in France.
Yes, I was their only child. But how many mothers had lost their only sons? How many wives had grieved for their husbands? How many children had lost their fathers? I needed to go back. I needed to do what I could for the torn bodies that came to the forward aid stations or to the hospitals just behind the lines. I couldn’t sit out the rest of the war in what amounted to the comfort of a Somerset clinic. It was unimaginable.
Had my parents given Simon this onerous task of breaking the news to me, rather than face up to it themselves?
“They must have thought you very brave to take on this charge for them,” I said over my shoulder, unable to keep the bitterness from my voice. It was almost as if Simon had betrayed me too.
“The Colonel and his lady had to leave for Somerset, Bess. Julia Carson particularly asked your father to deliver the eulogy.”
“It’s expecting too much,” I said, turning to him. In the sunlight, framed by the rolling green land of the Weald, he looked every inch the soldier. A tall, strong, very attractive man with more courage than most.
“Give it a try, Bess. You can save lives in a clinic, you know.”
“A handful. Compared to what’s happening in France. You’ve been to the Front, you know how they are dying.”
“I’ve seen it,” he said shortly. It was the first time he’d admitted that he’d been sent into the thick of the fighting for reasons he never spoke of.
He took a deep breath.
And I realized that for the first time in all the years he’d been close to my family that I was asking him to divide his loyalties. To go against my parents’ express wishes and help me do what they didn’t want me to do.
I stood there waiting, all the while knowing how cruel it was even to ask.
A choice between the Colonel Sahib and my mother on one side, and me on the other.
I knew I would remember the expression in his eyes for the rest of my life.
“Bess-” he began, and then choosing his words carefully, he gave me a name. “I make no promises that your appeal to this man will succeed. Your father has more authority than I ever will. But it’s worth a try.”
He turned away from me, looking down the sloping churchyard with its row after row of gravestones under shady trees, and on to the rooftops of the village beyond. “My head tells me you should go back to France. No one will ever know the number of men who owe their lives to you and women like you. At the same time my heart-Bess, call me superstitious, if you like. But I don’t wish to find out if the third time you come close to dying, we
And with that he turned on his heel and went to pack up the remains of the picnic basket, folding the rugs neatly and stowing the lot in the boot of the motorcar.
I stayed where I was, blindly looking at the church porch, wishing I could take back the words I’d spoken. Wishing I hadn’t had to make him choose.
And then he was calling to me, and I walked slowly across to the motorcar, and he helped me inside.
