The Winter Baby Page 22

  Daisy was now the designated housekeeper, as her nursemaid days were almost behind her, and she already cooked wholesome meals for the family. Bobby the dog did his bit, but mainly dug holes where they were not needed in the expanding kitchen garden. Jessie organised the girls, foraging in hedgerows and fields for blackberries, wild plums, rosehips, chestnuts, mushrooms, edible plants and elderberries and elderflowers for the Christmas wine, and took them gleaning in the fields at harvest time.

  ‘We can grow most things here, but we can’t grow sugar cane, and although we have decided – some of us anyway – to give up sugar in our tea, what about the Christmas baking? It will be a very small cake this year, not much dried fruit either,’ Jessie sighed. ‘We’ll have to improvise, Daisy.’

  The humble carrot was no longer limited to stews, but was grated into puddings and cakes as a sweetener. Potatoes were in short supply in towns, but in the country they maintained their vegetable clamps, and the humble spud remained a vital part of their diet. Mashed potato was added to the flour when making pastry, as imported wheat from the Commonwealth had drastically reduced. Tea was another commodity that must be used sparingly. Daisy decided to put one less spoonful in the teapot and save used tea leaves. But how many times could she reuse them? she wondered.

  On Christmas morning, Kathleen woke early in the bed she now shared with her daughters. After Sam had gone to war, she had found sleep difficult. Now, as Jessie remarked fondly, ‘You are like three giggling girls together!’

  ‘Well, we are looking after Mum, as we promised Dad,’ Heather said solemnly. She was growing up fast, Jessie thought, and promised to be a beautiful young woman. Kitty was very much like her own daughter Mary had been; full of fun.

  There was wrapping paper all over the bed and excitement over presents. Kathleen had been busy knitting, while Jessie’s sewing machine had been whirring. Heather and Kitty had red woolly caps with saucy white bobbles and matching mittens, as did Jimmy, who had joined them for the delving into parcels.

  Daisy took Wilf to his grandparents’ room to open his pillowcase of presents, while she volunteered to make the morning tea. The adults were thinking of Sam and Danny but were determined to make this Christmas as normal as possible. There was a tentative knocking on Jessie’s bedroom door and Mrs Amos came in bearing gifts. ‘You don’t mind me joining you?’ she asked.

  ‘Of course not,’ Jessie assured her. ‘Wilf is your grandson too. We are all one family here. Move the rocking chair over . . .’

  *

  On Christmas Eve, Marion collapsed with exhaustion and the duty doctor at the hospital was asked by the sister in charge to call in at the farmhouse.

  Sister ushered Dr Gillespie in and pointed up the stairs. ‘Nurse Amos is in the first bed. I took her temperature just now and it is still up. I expect you know each other?’

  He nodded. ‘Yes. We do. She trained at my hospital back home.’

  Marion was dozing, her face turned into the pillow. He bent over the bed. ‘Marion, I was asked to check you over . . . Can you sit up?’

  ‘I . . . I don’t know,’ she murmured. ‘Pain in legs . . . all over . . .’

  He lifted her gently and propped her up with a second pillow from another bed. He checked her heart with his stethoscope, and then turned her on her side so he could move the cold metal over her back. Her skin was hot and dry. She shivered and he tucked the blankets back round her.

  ‘You have a chest infection, Marion; I will give you something to bring your temperature down.’ He was puzzling over a swelling on her right arm, which was red and puffy. It came to him that he had seen something similar on a young soldier with minor injuries but a raging fever. The lad was now battling for his life. Could this be the start of an epidemic?

  He rummaged in his black bag. Sister arrived with a cup of coffee for him and a glass of water for Marion. ‘I’ll leave you to it, Doctor . . . Any instructions?’

  ‘She should be given quinine four-hourly, please. I don’t think she is infectious, but she must rest up for a few days. I wonder, was she bitten by something?’

  ‘Bitten? She didn’t say, but most of the patients have lice when they arrive at the hospital. Marion has to remove their clothing, of course.’

  ‘She must have bed rest,’ he emphasised once more. ‘I’ll give her the first dose now and then I must get back to the hospital.’

  They were alone for a precious few moments. He bent and stroked her flushed cheek.

  ‘You’ll be all right, Marion. No hugs or kisses tonight, I’m afraid, but I will come again when I can, I promise.’

  ‘I love you, Bruce,’ she whispered.

  He wanted to say that he felt the same, but he was, after all, still on duty, with more patients to see. ‘Goodnight, dear Marion,’ he said, and then he was gone.

  *

  Sam was not part of the amazing Christmas truce, when soldiers from both sides joined together for an impromptu football match in no-man’s-land, but he and Woody were due to join some of the other diggers and Welsh miners for Christmas dinner. Prior to that, he had a surprise visitor; Danny rode over on a borrowed motorcycle with Christmas greetings and some post from home. Sam left an official letter until last, after the loving messages from his family.

  ‘Aren’t you going to open that one?’ Danny asked. He lit a cigarette. He was a regular smoker now, whereas Sam had not succumbed to the habit. When Sam felt stressed, he would feel the rosary beads in his top pocket and think of his beloved Kathleen.

  The letter was from a firm of solicitors; the name seemed familiar. Sam realised that it was Kathleen’s uncle’s firm. He read it twice without saying anything, and then cleared his throat. ‘Kathleen’s uncle has died and left her some money. This is a copy of a letter she received, but she didn’t mention it to me.’

  ‘This would help your present situation regarding the brickworks?’ Danny guessed.

  ‘Kathleen has asked that the money be put in trust for the children and used for their further education . . .’ Sam sounded bemused. ‘I have to sign this and send it back to the solicitors to say I agree.’ He added, ‘Money is of no importance when you’re stuck here in all this stinking mud far from home, eh?’

  ‘I had a letter too,’ Danny said. He seemed to have something in his eye, which he was rubbing. ‘I heard from Marion’s . . . friend, Dr Gillespie, that she is very ill. He asks if I would be able to go and see her, given the circumstances.’

  ‘Will you go?’ Sam asked.

  ‘If I can. I still love her, you know.’

  Is it possible to love two women at the same time? Sam wondered. There was no answer to that.

  Woody appeared. ‘Dinner’s arrived! We’re having it in the officers’ mess. Bring your brother.’ The mess was a glorified dug-out, but brick-built.

  Danny gave a wry smile. ‘It doesn’t smell like Christmas, Sam, not like Mother’s kitchen back home.’

  ‘The cooks do their best,’ Sam said, ‘but it is all thrown in the same pot . . . rather like us,’ he added reflectively.

  When it was time for Danny to leave, they exchanged small gifts. Sam gave his brother a crumpled packet of cigarettes and Danny presented Sam with a small French dictionary.

  ‘I may not be here much longer,’ Sam said slowly. ‘These bloody dugouts I helped to establish mean the front line now extends from the North Sea to Switzerland. I have asked to transfer to a fighting regiment; I need to be involved with the real action.’

  ‘But what about Kathleen? You are much more likely to be injured or . . .’ Danny took a deep breath; he had to say it, ‘killed.’

  ‘She gave me this.’ Sam brought out the rosary from his pocket. ‘I say the prayers we learned as boys . . . Danny, if the worst happens and you survive me, will you look after Kathleen and the children? I was the fortunate one, I married her, but I know you loved her too.’

  ‘I promise you I will,’ Danny said solemnly, ‘but I hope
it will never come to that.’

  *

  Danny had to wait until New Year’s Eve before he was able to visit Marion. He borrowed his friend’s motorbike again and arrived in the afternoon. A nurse answered his knock; one glance at her face, and he knew what had happened before she managed to tell him: ‘Marion . . . passed away this morning. You must wear a mask and gloves before you are allowed in the sickroom. Sister’s orders. We are not to touch the body. I’m so sorry; please follow me . . .’

  Marion had been isolated in a small room upstairs. Bruce was waiting for him, masked and gowned too. ‘May I call you Danny?’ he asked.

  Danny nodded. He looked towards the bed. Bruce gently pulled the sheet down.

  ‘She looks peaceful,’ Danny said after a long moment. ‘She was my wife for ten years, the mother of our son.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘It wasn’t an unhappy marriage, but Marion knew I was in love with my brother’s wife. I never betrayed her, though, because you see, I loved her too.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘What caused this to happen?’ Danny wanted to know.

  ‘I’ll tell you all I know, which isn’t much. But first I’ll leave you to say goodbye to your wife. Come downstairs when you are ready.’ Bruce went quietly from the room.

  Danny knelt by the bed. ‘I can’t kiss you, Marion, I can’t touch you, but I’m sorry I failed you. You are at peace now, and you will always be with me in spirit, I know that.’

  Later, he learned that this mystery illness was spreading. ‘Some call it trench fever,’ Bruce told him.

  Marion was buried a few hours later, at dusk. There was a brief service conducted by the chaplain, and Danny stood tall among Marion’s fellow nurses as the Last Post sounded. He did not cry then, but he felt despair. This would affect the family back home badly, he thought. How would Wilf deal with it? He would ask Sam’s friend, the carpenter, to make a simple wooden cross.

  *

  The family at Home Farm received the sad news shortly after New Year. Mrs Amos did her grieving in the privacy of her room, and Wilf, bewildered by all the tears shed by the women, clung to Daisy, who vowed silently never to leave him.

  Heather and Kitty were worried about their young cousin. They observed Daisy washing out his damp bedlinen most days; poor Wilf, he couldn’t tell anyone, not even Daisy, how much he missed his mother, who he knew would never come back.

  The girls took him to one side and Heather told him, ‘You have us, Wilf, and we think of you like another brother – Jimmy does too. You will always be part of our family.’

  ‘Will Kathleen be a sort of mum to me?’ Wilf wanted to know.

  ‘Of course she will. And when your dad comes home, he’ll be proud of you, I know.’

  Kathleen overheard this conversation. She was missing Marion too, and she was proud of her girls for comforting Wilf. Heather was growing up fast, such a beautiful girl, and Kitty, who was very like Jessie in looks and manner, had an impish sense of humour. We’ll be all right so long as we all stay together until Sam and Danny come home, she thought.

  TWENTY-NINE

  In February 1915, the relentless rain and damp turned to bitterly cold weather. Conditions worsened and trench fever became all too familiar.

  Back home, the headlines in the newspapers reported that German battleships had shelled the coastal towns of Whitby, Hartlepool and Scarborough; there were many civilian casualties from these attacks. Gallipoli, which the girls looked up on their world map, was much in the news too; the war was reaching places they had never heard of before. Mrs Amos, who was proud to be an honorary Australian, related how the Anzacs were involved.

  The first night-bombing raids were not on London as expected but on the east coast of England at Great Yarmouth and King’s Lynn. The original target was Humberside, where many wartime factories were based. The blackout imposed all over the country from 10 p.m. had proved its worth, but now the Zeppelins carried incendiaries that could be thrown overboard to light their way.

  Another official visitor called at Home Farm – something Doc had warned Jessie might happen. Daisy answered the knock on the door. A short man stood there; he removed his bowler hat and said in a high-pitched voice, ‘Good morning, are you the lady of the house?’ He tapped his bulging briefcase. ‘I have a document for you to sign, may I come in?’

  Daisy, flustered after being mistaken for her employer, despite her apron and headscarf, opened her mouth to reply, but Jessie appeared behind her. She too wore an apron, and she had a trowel in her capacious front pocket as she had come in from the garden.

  ‘May I ask why you are calling?’ she said. ‘I can see to this gentleman,’ she added to Daisy, who escaped thankfully. The visitor wore a pince-nez, which was unusual in these parts, and he had a sharp look about him, Daisy would tell Kathleen later.

  ‘You are Mrs Kathleen Mason?’ The visitor stepped inside the hall.

  Jessie put him right. ‘No, I am her mother-in-law, Mrs Wiseman. This is my house. Kathleen is at the stables where she works with my husband. May I ask why you are here?’

  ‘I am one of the billeting officers for the area. My name is Cyril Gosling. Is there somewhere we could sit and talk?’

  Jessie opened the parlour door. She suddenly thought, if Kitty had heard the name she would no doubt have nudged Heather and whispered: “Quack, Quack!” She quickly composed herself. ‘Take a seat, Mr Gosling, pull up that small table . . .’

  Mr Gosling clicked the lock on his briefcase. ‘I understand that your son, Sergeant Samuel Mason, is with the army in France. He owns two properties: a new house and a converted barn at a brickworks. These properties are empty at the current time. Is that correct?’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘I have to tell you that these empty dwellings will be requisitioned in the near future, unless you can tell me that they are likely to be reoccupied soon. Everyone must be prepared to help the war effort.’

  ‘I understand, but it could be that we might take in our own evacuees if London is bombed – we have friends there who work among the families in the docks area.’ This was true; something Olga had mentioned in her last letter.

  ‘Well, that is very laudable, but I still need confirmation from you that you will co-operate with us if necessary. Have you a pen in your desk?’

  ‘Yes,’ Jessie said. Mr Gosling gave her the paper he wished her to sign, and she dipped her pen in the inkwell.

  ‘I will need another signature from your daughter-in-law; may I call on her at the stables?’ Jessie nodded. I must write to Olga right away, she thought, and also to Min and Josh, and explain the situation to them.

  Doc told her later that he thought Mr Gosling came from the government property office in the big Nissen hut that had replaced Mrs Amos’s farmhouse at the beginning of the war, rather than from the council offices as she had supposed. It was all very mysterious, they agreed, but you didn’t ask too many questions nowadays or you could be suspected of having an interest in matters you shouldn’t have.

  *

  In April, poison gas was used for the first time by the Germans, to devastating effect. Chlorine gas was followed by the even more deadly mustard gas. The men in the trenches donned gas masks, but often it was too late. There were many casualties, and those who survived would be left with irreparable damage to their lungs. It was not long before the Allied troops retaliated with the same weapon. This was a very different war from those that had gone before. Incendiary bombs were dropped on the troops from aeroplanes, targeting the trenches and the armoury. Fires blazed and were tackled by the firefighters, a chain of weary men with buckets of water.

  Overhead, it became commonplace to spot reconnaissance aeroplanes, with cameramen on board who took photographs of the trenches. Shortly after the initial gas attacks, there was frequent aerial combat between the warring factions.

  Danny was transferred to the cavalry along with his horse, King Cole, and joined a new battalion of
the Buffs – the Royal East Kent Regiment – who were in France to back up the British Expeditionary Force. Sam, meanwhile, was no longer stuck down his hellhole. He drove a truck ferrying troops around, and delivered ammunition and supplies to the front line. Danny had taught him to drive; it was ironic, Sam thought, that his brother had himself chosen to stick to horsepower.

  *

  In the spring of 1915, the long-anticipated onslaught on London from the skies began. Bombs began to rain down on the capital, and on strategic targets in other cities all over the country.

  Doc kept his promise to his dockland friends and arranged to drive to London to collect a large extended family who had been made homeless and bring them to live with Olga in the Brickyard House. This would necessitate two journeys, for there were four young children with their mother, an aunt and a disabled grandmother; three older girls had already been sent to a munitions factory in the Midlands. The aunt’s husband would stay in London to be involved with the firefighting, but the children’s father had recently been killed in France.

  Kathleen and Jessie went over to the house to open it up and air the rooms. They collected blankets knitted by the group Daisy belonged to in town, and there were donations of household linen from the community. At last the stacks of platters, bowls and mugs in the barn would be put to good use, as well as ornaments made by the girls to make the place look more homely.

  The stove and fires were lit to warm the house up, and Daisy came over to clean the windows and banish the dust and cobwebs. ‘The house has come alive again,’ she told Jessie. ‘There was a huge spider in the bath, but I captured it and put it outside – it’s unlucky to kill spiders, isn’t it?’

  Tins of food appeared on the Home Farm doorstep, along with boxes of vegetables. ‘People are so kind,’ Jessie said.