A shower of droplets, cold like rain, jolts her from her drowsy torpor. Thomas flops onto the sand beside her and picks up the sketchbook.
She struggles to her elbows in the shifting sand and attempts to snatch the sketchbook as he flips through the pages.
‘Give that back.’
‘Hold on a minute. These are good.’
‘They’re nothing. Just some scribbles.’ She grasps the sketchbook, but he jerks it out of her reach.
‘Why can’t I have a look?’
‘I’m not an artist. I was at art school, but I quit after Ruthie … after Ruthie …’
Thomas closes the cover and hands back the sketchbook. ‘I’m sorry. You’re right. It’s none of my business. I wish it was.’
Ellie squints at Thomas through the sun’s glare and holds her hand up to shade her eyes. ‘Why do you wish that?’
He leans on his elbow in the dune, sand clinging to his wet arm like a sleeve. His grey eyes sweep over her face. His skin is tanned and his ash-blond hair has turned the colour of wheat from the long days in the sun he’s told her about, laying out barbed wire and wooden fortifications on the Norfolk beaches. Her fingers itch to touch that wheat hair. She folds her fingers into balls and buries them in the sand.
‘Draw me.’
She looks at him. ‘What?’
He picks up the charcoal pencil and holds it out to her. ‘Draw me. I want something of yours. Something just for me.’
‘Really?’
‘If I could draw, I’d draw a hundred pictures of you. But I’m just a fisherman with a rifle and a shovel.’
Opening the sketchbook to a blank page, Ellie takes the pencil from Thomas. Sucking in a deep breath, she wills her hand not to shake. She looks over at him.
‘The sun’s in my eyes.’
‘That’s no good.’ Thomas rises to his feet and holds out his hand. ‘Let’s go around to the shady side of the dune.’
Ellie looks at him. ‘All right.’ She slides her hand into his and he pulls her to her feet.
‘I don’t think the fellows have laid the mines there yet.’
Ellie pulls her hand away. ‘Mines?’ She gapes at the sand and lifts up a bare foot. ‘There are mines on the beach?’
Laughing, Thomas slaps his sand-covered leg. ‘I’m just teasing, maid. Not yet, anyway.’ He waves towards the east. ‘Further down. Near Cromer. There’s lots of beaches closer to Germany than Holkham.’ He grabs hold of Ellie’s hand. ‘C’mon.’
They plod through the soft sand and into the shade of the dune. Across the marsh grass, the towering pines line the shore like a dark green wall, and coils of barbed wire curl along the base of the green line.
Ellie lies against the cool dune and burrows her toes into the sand. ‘It’s a shame about the barbed wire. It’s easier to pretend that life is back to normal when you’re looking at the sea.’
Thomas flops into the sand beside her. ‘I likes it better here. I prefers the view.’
She runs her tongue over her dry lips as she feels the colour rise in her cheeks. ‘Right. So, sit back and just talk. You’re good at that.’
‘What do you want to know, Ellie Mae?’
Ellie raises her eyebrows. ‘My father calls me that. How did you know my middle name is Mary?’
‘You’re a good Catholic girl, aren’t you? I’ve never known a Catholic girl who didn’t have Mary in her name somewhere.’
‘I guess there’s some truth in that.’ Holding the pencil poised over the sketchpad, she peers at Thomas’s lean face and draws a line. Another glance and another line. ‘Tell me about Newfoundland. Do you have any brothers or sisters?’
‘I had two brothers and a sister. They died from the Spanish flu the winter of 1918. One after the other. I got sick too, but God must’a taken one look at me and said, Not on your life. You’re not ready to come through the Pearly Gates yet.’
‘I’m sorry, Thomas.’
‘I was only three. I only knows about them because of the three little crosses with their names in St Stephen’s Cemetery and what my mam told me once when I asked her about them.’ He holds up three fingers and counts them off. ‘Elizabeth Mary, Ephraim Paul and Alphonsus William.’
Ellie flicks her eyes over Thomas’s face as he stares at the line of trees. A gust ruffles his hair.
‘What about your parents? How did they feel about you joining the army?’
‘They didn’t like it one bit, and that’s the truth.’ Thomas clears his throat. ‘Did you ever hear about the Battle of the Somme?’
‘Of course. It was a horrible battle in the last war. Thousands were killed.’
‘Seven hundred and eighty fellas from the Newfoundland Regiment went over the top at Beaumont Hamel on July 1st 1916. In the middle of No Man’s Land there was a burnt-out tree they called the Danger Tree. Most of the fellas fell at the tree.’
Thomas clears his throat and presses his fingers over his eyes. ‘Three of my uncles died there that day. The next day only sixty-eight men answered the roll call. Dad was one of them.’ Thomas looks over at Ellie. ‘Mam says he turned to drink after that.’
Ellie sets down her pencil and takes hold of Thomas’s hand.
He gives her hand a gentle squeeze. ‘The king renamed the regiment the Royal Newfoundland Regiment after Beaumont Hamel.’ He shrugs. ‘I guess that’s supposed to be some kind of compensation.’
‘I’m so sorry, Thomas.’
‘When I signed up, Dad went out in his boat. Said he wouldn’t come back till I was gone.’
Ellie looks at Thomas, at his strong, angular profile outlined against the blue sky. ‘My father was in the Royal Horse Artillery. He was gassed somewhere. Mustard gas. He won’t talk about it. His lungs have never been the same.’
‘Ruddy wars.’
Ruthie’s cheerful face flashes into Ellie’s mind. She puts down her pencil and leans her head against Thomas’s shoulder, and they lie together in the shadow of the
