Softly Grow the Poppies Read online

  She thought about Charlie, taking him out of the small shrine she had made for him in her heart, the shining memory of the moment when she had become his wife and before that when they had loved one another in her father’s summerhouse beside the lake at Weatherly. Memories of when she had been a child, she realised that, but now Charlie and this bloody war had made a woman out of her and when she found him – and she would – she would never leave his side again. If he was blinded, maimed, emasculated, and she knew what that meant now, she would be beside him for the rest of their lives. He had blessed her world. He was the beat of her heart and as the ship dipped up and down on the heaving seas and the young soldiers all around her voided their breakfasts into the Channel, she thought about the child they had made with their love. She had left him behind with Rose, dear Rose, who would keep him safe until she and her husband returned.

  They were met at Boulogne by a command leader. Barnes and O’Neill were to go with another detachment of ambulance drivers to Number 4 General Hospital at Camiers, the rest to go on by train to Étaples. Alice hoped to God that O’Neill would not be genuflecting and praying all the live long day for she would find it very hard to live with someone who still believed there was a God who would allow this massacre to grind on as it was doing. She had not even arrived at their designated hospital yet and certainly not been in any sort of close contact with the wounded but just standing here on the dock listening to the sighing, murmuring of suffering humanity who lay on the dock waiting to be shipped back to England, was almost more than she could bear. She wanted to go to each man on his stretcher and try to comfort his pain, his agony but she must be dispassionate and listen to the instructions the command leader was mouthing at them. She watched a line of soldiers, their eyes bandaged, shuffle up the gangway of a steamer bound for England, each one with a hand on the shoulder of the man in front of him, a doctor leading them, a nurse at the rear and she was almost destroyed by the horror of what might at this moment be happening to Charlie. If he was blinded she would lead him, ease his pain, care for him but first, she didn’t know how, she must find him. If he were in some hospital she would scour every one until she did. Charlie . . . Charlie, her heart cried as she followed O’Neill and the others to the waiting ambulances that were ready to go up to the front.

  8

  The men coming from the line, the walking wounded and the mangled and bloody bodies of those carried on stretchers were astonished and delighted by the dainty little lady who was dressed as an ambulance driver and who smiled as she spoke to them, for she was the prettiest thing they had seen since they left home. She was questioning every one of them about a certain Captain Charlie Summers, though they were sorry to see the disappointment on her face when they sadly shook their heads since they would have liked nothing better than to help her.

  ‘The 19th Battalion, the King’s Liverpool Regiment,’ she repeated time and time again. ‘I cannot find out where he last fought but someone must have served with him and can tell me where that was. In March, it would be. Perhaps Neuve Chapelle or Ypres in early April?’

  She walked along beside the wounded men on stretchers, looking from one agony-filled face to another, even holding a hand that reached out to her, for though she worked eighteen out of every twenty-four hours and wore the unflattering hat and long shapeless coat of an ambulance driver she was very pretty and her compassionate smile made them smile through their pain.

  Alice Summers had been given her first half-day’s leave since she had been sent to the tented hospital in April and it was now September. The Germans had almost demoralised the men at the front with their hideous new weapon, the ‘flamethrower’ at a place called Hooge. It was called the ‘wonder weapon’ and was meant to burn the British troops out of the trenches. The German soldier wore a pack on his back from which ran a rubber hose ending in long steel nozzles. Out of the nozzles spurted a vicious stream of liquid fire. The men who were caught in its horrendous river of flame were for the most part killed but a few of them survived it. They were dragged out burned, blackened and bleeding and yet still breathing – wishing they weren’t – from the inferno. These were on the stretchers being carried to the hospital at the end of their tortuous journey and would be treated on a special ward. When they had been hastily examined, one of Alice’s colleagues would drive them in her ambulance to the docks and the boats that would take them back to the special burns unit in England. It took all her strength to talk to these tormented soldiers who did their best to help the lovely woman who was looking for her husband. What was such an innocent little thing with eyes like pansies doing in this hell on earth but all they saw was her serene and Madonna-like face, not the steel that lay at the core of her. She was stronger than the strongest of them but they did not recognise that, only the sweetness of her, the almost ethereal frailty of her shimmering in the pale sunshine that broke through the clouds.

  Alice saw an officer limping along with the walking wounded, a lieutenant, young, with barely the fuzz of a beard on his gaunt face and she wondered how old he was. What he must have seen to make such a boy into an old man she could well imagine after driving her ambulance for four months, but he was polite as he stopped to talk to her, glad to do so for he was but a lad at the end of his tether. He had several splinters of shrapnel in his arm and could not lift it to raise his cap or even manage a small salute, which distressed him as he had been brought up to be polite to ladies.

  ‘Miss, why don’t you go to headquarters, to Command and ask in which battle the Liverpool 19th fought. They will tell you and perhaps . . .’ He shrugged and his cultured voice tapered off and his face contorted in pain. He swayed and she put out a hand to him, holding him steady.

  ‘I do beg your pardon, miss, but I must go with my men and am only sorry I could not have been more helpful.’

  She took his advice and the next time she had an hour free she walked up the shattered road from the hospital until she reached the headquarters building from where all commands were sent. It was heavily sandbagged and guarded by two soldiers with rifles. They were loaded down with the usual accoutrements of war as though they were to be off to do battle at any moment. Gas mask, rifle, cartridge carriers, haversack, pack, canteen and numerous pouches to carry everything a soldier might need for trench warfare.

  ‘Can I help you, miss?’ one asked politely. He looked at her with the admiration all men did, for even in the ugly, concealing uniform she was an extremely attractive woman. She had on the long khaki coat that came to within an inch of her ankle bone and hid most of the thick, black woollen stockings she wore. Her hat did not detract from her loveliness though it was a hideous thing pulled down to her eyebrows. From it escaped curling fronds of her silver-gilt hair.

  She was not a woman really, as she still had the innocent, childlike features she had when she first met Rose despite what she had suffered. She had loved and lost her husband. She had borne a son and left him behind, in good hands, she knew that, but Charlie was first in her affections and she would search until she found him or had positive proof of his death. Her face was a pale oval and her huge eyes reflected the many shades of the winter pansies that grew in the garden of Summer Place. Their brightness and the sparkle of laughter they had once shown had gone but they were still exquisite, her eyelashes sweeping delicately nearly to her eyebrows and her cheekbones. They fluttered at the soldier and he fell instantly in love with her as all men were inclined to do.

  ‘What d’yer want, chuck?’ he asked kindly, while the second soldier wished he had spoken to her first.

  ‘I want to speak to someone in command, if it is at all possible, whoever that might be,’ she said softly. ‘My husband is missing, believed killed, but I cannot believe it. If I was to tell the commanding officer what regiment he was in he might be able to say where the regiment was fighting in March or April. I don’t know whether that is prohibited information but I will look for him until the end of this vicious war, if I have to. Can you help m
e?’ she asked innocently.

  ‘Nay, lass, I can’t leave my post but I can send for someone who can.’

  At that moment a man with a major’s insignia on his sleeves climbed the steps that led to the door the two soldiers were guarding. They both saluted smartly and, like all male creatures, the major’s eyes could not tear themselves away from Alice Summers. He had been about to berate the soldiers for talking to a woman while they were on duty when she turned her luminous eyes on him and, again like all of his gender, he fell into them. He returned the soldiers’ salute absent-mindedly and turned to her.

  ‘May I ask what your business is here, miss?’ but in a soft voice as though speaking to a lost child. She was a beauty and when she looked him fully in the face he could feel the corners of his mouth lifting in a smile.

  ‘I am looking for my husband, Major.’ She knew all the ranks by now, for even under the muck, the blood, the compost that French farmers had spread upon their land and which was now insinuating itself into the wounds of the men and was the chief source of the infections to the wounded, their ranks could just about be seen and recognised.

  ‘Does he work here, madam?’ he asked, wanting to take hold of her hand and lead her off to somewhere private, for the two guards were watching with great interest.

  ‘Oh, no, Major, he is in the 19th Battalion, the King’s Liverpool Regiment. Captain Charlie Summers,’ she said proudly. ‘I gave birth to his son in April—’ then she shut her mouth like a trap because as a married mother she should not have been out here in France. She opened it again, then smiled radiantly and at once all three men smiled back, unable to help themselves.

  The major leaned towards her and actually took off his cap, for he knew he was talking to a lady even if she was in the unattractive uniform of an ambulance driver.

  ‘And what—’

  ‘I would like to know where his regiment was fighting last March or April when I received the news of his . . . the telegram said, “missing, believed killed” but he is not dead, Major, I know that. I would know it here’ – thumping her chest where her heart lay – ‘if he no longer existed,’ she went on passionately. ‘I want to find him or . . . or his . . . his body and I shall not be turned away. I was told that I might find out here where . . . where he fell, and I beg you to help me. I know that these two soldiers’ – she began, turning to smile brilliantly at the men guarding the door. They said to one another afterwards it was like a bloody angel touching them, marvelling at her.

  ‘Of course, I understand. If you would come with me to see Colonel Savage he might be able to give you that information.’ He led her through the double doors into a wide hall that was filled with men in uniform, hurrying and scurrying here and there with bits of paper in their hands, ignoring each other as though they were ghosts. ‘Of course that might be classified information, I’m not sure. The colonel will know and perhaps be able to help you. That is if he is available. Will you wait here, madam?’ He touched his swagger stick to the peak of his cap and knocked lightly on a door. A voice told him to enter which he did, closing the door behind him.

  Alice sat on a wooden seat placed next to the door of the colonel’s room and waited. A quarter of an hour later the major reappeared. ‘He can give you five minutes, madam. He is a very busy man, as you can imagine.’ And he had not yet set eyes on Mrs Summers, the major thought, which might change his mind for he had had a hard job convincing the colonel that this was a lady who promised not to keep him long.

  He opened the door for her and the colonel, sitting behind a cluttered desk, looked up irritably, then, after letting his eyes wander over the face of the beautiful ambulance driver, stood up and smiled. Alice had realised that she was always to have this effect on men and would often take advantage of it!

  ‘My dear lady,’ the colonel said, for, like the major, he knew one when he saw one. ‘I believe you wish to know something about the disappearance of your husband. Please sit down,’ indicating a chair in front of his desk, not sitting himself until she was seated.

  ‘Yes, I know he . . . fell . . . sometime in March or early April but I don’t know where. He was in the King’s Liverpool Brigade, the 19th Battalion, a captain in the cavalry, but I don’t know in which battle he . . . he fell. If you could tell me where his brigade was fighting at that time I can start to look for him there. I have spoken to—’

  ‘My dear madam, you cannot possibly wander round the battlefields looking for one officer. God knows who might be there now.’

  ‘You would know, Colonel, and I don’t want what might be restricted information, just the actual battle in which he fell. I shall look for . . . I don’t know what, exactly, but there must be some of his regiment still in the lines somewhere, a soldier who knew him. His . . . his . . . body has . . .’ She almost broke down then, for the thought of the masculine beauty of her husband’s body, torn apart as so many of the soldiers were, those she had carried so tenderly in the back of her ambulance, those she had seen dragging themselves and their wounds back to the hospital, almost undid her. She drew herself together and both men, soldiers who had fought, for the colonel had not reached his rank without physically fighting, moved automatically to try to comfort her but she lifted her head proudly as though daring them to pity her.

  ‘Madam, I’m sorry for your loss, of course, but I’m not sure I can help you. If you will wait I will consult our records of the different regiments’ movements. Please wait here and perhaps Major . . .’ – he looked enquiringly at the soldier who stood to attention – ‘could bring you a cup of tea?’

  ‘Major Pearson, sir,’ saluting smartly.

  ‘Major Pearson, see what you can do while I consult with my commander-in-chief.’

  ‘Thank you, Colonel, you are very kind,’ Alice murmured softly. They spoke to one another as those of their class had always done. He was a gentleman, she was a lady and was given the courtesy and respect she deserved. She might be on a mad mission that was bound to fail, for by now her husband would be among one of the tens of thousands who were even now decomposing in the soil of Flanders.

  She drank her tea which an orderly brought her, captivated by her sweet face and smile of thanks. Major Pearson, with great regret, apologised but he must be about his duties, he told her. When the colonel returned he held a scrap of paper in his hand. He sat behind his desk staring at the paper then looked up sadly.

  ‘Mrs Summers, I have here a list of the regiments who fought at Neuve Chapelle and the 19th Liverpool Battalion was among them. Your husband . . . I’m sorry, if he was there, I have no list of the men, the officers who fell and no way of knowing what happened to those who did not come back. If Captain Summers was in the battle there and did not return he will be believed to have been killed or taken prisoner.’

  She leaned forward eagerly. ‘But don’t you see, if that is the case I must find some of his men who might have seen him fall, or got away with the others who came back.’

  ‘If he had come back, madam, he would have reported to his—’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know, but he may have been . . . been wounded and could not get back.’

  ‘Then where is he, Mrs Summers? He was not a conscript, I take it?’

  ‘No, Colonel, he was a regular soldier who came over with the BEF—’

  ‘Who were seriously depleted, madam.’ Then was sorry for his words as her face seemed to crumple, almost to melt in her agony.

  She got slowly to her feet and at once he did the same. She might be a lowly ambulance driver and he a colonel in the British Army but he treated her as he would any lady. Besides, she was one of the brave women who had come to this hell-hole to ease the suffering of the fighting man and he admired her for it.

  ‘I’m sorry, madam, if I could—’

  ‘No, no, Colonel, you have been most helpful and kind but at least I know where to start searching for him or men who were with him in the battle.’

  His face expressed his horror. ‘Mrs Summers, you can�
�t mean you are to go to—’

  ‘I must, Colonel. When I can get time off I will make my way there and search.’

  ‘But it is no place for a female. God knows what you will see there. It was a bloody battle and hundreds of men fell. His unit will have been split up and the men who survived placed in another brigade. To find his . . . his body you would have to dig up every square inch of the battlefield.’

  ‘If that is so I must remember to take a spade with me.’

  The doctor came every day to examine him, clearly glad of something other than the usual battle wounds that took up his time. He was pleased with his patient and had removed the bandage, revealing the long scar with its neat stitches on his shaved head. The man had borrowed a dictionary from one of the nurses and was teaching himself a smattering of German so that he was not completely out of touch. They were all interested in him, nurses, doctors, patients and orderlies, despite the fact that he was a British soldier, and were pleased when he practised his halting German on them, laughing when he got things wrong, correcting him, congratulating him when he succeeded. It gave him something to do in the empty world in which he lived. It was a frightful thing to have nothing in one’s head, no thoughts, no memories except those of the last few weeks.

  ‘Wo ist . . .’ Where is this hospital? he was trying to say.

  ‘Krank-uhn-hows,’ the doctor said helpfully.

  ‘That means hospital, Doctor?’

  ‘Ja, hospital.’

  The soldier lifted his head and his eyes looked round the ward. He was young, good-looking, lean as an athlete beneath the tight sheets that made it almost impossible to move but he was improving in strength and the doctor knew he would have to go to the prisoner-of-war camp eventually. He would be sorry to see him go, for though he was the enemy he would have liked to have seen the outcome of his delicate work on this man.