Molly's War (36 page)

‘Sergeant?’

‘Yes, sir. A travel warrant to Bishop Auckand, sir.’

Even as he boarded the crowded train with only minutes to spare and threaded his way through the troops sitting on their kitbags in the corridor until he found a space just large enough for him to dump his own small bag and stand beside it, he still wasn’t sure if he was going to go to Ferryhill. He took off his red beret and folded it, buttoned his epaulette over it and turned to gaze out of the window. Not that there was anything to see. The night was dark and soot from the engine smeared the window anyway. There was only the reflection of him standing grim-faced and those reflections of the other soldiers and airmen lounging
about
in the crowded corridor. It was of course impossible to get into any of the compartments with seats, they had been taken up at King’s Cross.

Jackson flexed his shoulder muscles. They had stiffened slightly since the morning when they had practised their jumping over and over again. He could still feel the pull of the harness as the parachute opened, the rush of air against his legs as he floated down to earth. He wondered if he would be posted anywhere near Harry this time.

The last time he had seen his friend was when he had told him he was going to volunteer for the Airborne Division. And about Molly and her baby. Jackson had watched Harry’s face for his reaction. Condemnation of his sister perhaps.

‘Do you think they’re managing?’ he had asked. ‘Oh, why didn’t Molly tell me?’

‘Who knows?’ Jackson replied. ‘And don’t worry, she’ll be getting a wife’s allowance, I haven’t stopped that.’

‘Poor Molly. She’s had a hard fight of it since Dad died.’

‘Yes, well, so have a lot of women and they didn’t go completely off the rails, going with men, acting like a …’

‘Don’t say it, Jackson,’ warned Harry. ‘It’s not true. Molly loved you, you know she did.’

‘Only a few weeks after I was posted missing?’ said Jackson. ‘Oh, aye, I’m sure she must have loved me then.’ Bitterness welled up in him; it was like bile
in
his throat. ‘Well, I’m finished with her.’

‘Poor kid. All on her own. What it must have been like for her.’ Harry bit his lip, gazing at Jackson. ‘I’ll have to see her, first chance I get. I’ll go up, seek her out.’

‘She lied to me, Harry,’ said Jackson. He felt almost on the defensive, as if it had been he who had done the unforgivable, not Molly. ‘Well, not exactly lied but she married me without telling me about the baby.’

‘She must have been desperate,’ said Harry. ‘We let her down, Jackson. At least I did. I should have been there to look after her better. This isn’t her fault, it’s the fault of this bloody war.’ He sighed. ‘She must have been convinced you were dead. She was all alone, don’t you see?’

‘No, I don’t,’ Jackson replied.

‘For God’s sake, Jackson!’

He said nothing but turned on his heel and walked away.

The train was pulling into York where the platform was awash with people even though it was past midnight. Next stop Darlington, Jackson thought, and had to make up his mind what to do. Maybe he should go to see that Molly was all right, he told himself. He needn’t even look at the baby, just find out how Molly was, see if she was in need. Then he would go home to Eden Hope and tell his parents that his marriage was over. That was his best course.

After all he would be away fighting by this time next week, he expected. He had to have his domestic problems sorted out by then.

In his heart Jackson knew he was fooling himself as to his reasons for taking the Durham train from Darlington and alighting at Ferryhill station. But he couldn’t seem to help himself.

He walked down the street to the house, stood irresolute before the door, his heart beating as hard and as painfully, perhaps more so, than on the occasions when he had faced the enemy. Squaring his shoulders, he knocked. And knocked again. There was no answer and he felt incredibly let down. In the distance a pit hooter sounded, signalling the end of a shift, the beginning of another. Fore shift, he thought, it must be just after twelve o’clock. Jackson knocked again, louder this time. No response. A straggle of miners in their pit black began walking down the street. One of them flashed his light over Jackson, inspected his uniform, saw the badge gleam on his red beret.

‘Now then, mate,’ he said respectfully, and a few of his marras spoke too. ‘Wotcher.’ ‘Good luck, lad.’ There was a lot of respect for the paratroopers among the miners. They wandered away down the street, talking to each other in low voices. A shaft of moonlight illuminated the group, which was thinning out as the men dropped away on reaching their homes. Jackson turned back to the door and raised his hand to knock.

Suddenly there was a cry from inside. At first he thought it might be a cat. It came again, not a cat but a baby. Well, that would wake Molly at least. He waited, listening for
movement
, but there was none. The baby’s wailing was louder now, a continuous, furious crying out that no one was taking notice.

Jackson tried the door handle with little expectation of the door opening but to his surprise it did. He pushed it open and stood in a narrow passage leading to a kitchen-cum-living room. Closing the door after him because of the blackout, he struck a match and looked around. There was a light switch on the wall; there was electricity then. Upstairs the baby’s wailing had subsided a little, was almost despairing.

‘Molly?’ he called. ‘Molly? It’s Jackson.’

The baby cried afresh. There was a thud as though someone had fallen. Jackson took the stairs two at a time and opened the first door he came to. A woman, it must have been Dora he thought, lay there, breathing heavily. Why hadn’t she woken? But he hadn’t time to think of that. He opened the other door and switched on the light. Molly was lying half in and half out of bed, her arms moving weakly as she tried to pull herself up.

Jackson’s heart filled with dread. Running over to her, he picked her up in his arms, laid her back on the bed and pulled the covers over her. The atmosphere in the room was freezing, her face was blue-white with the cold. Oh, God, she wasn’t dying, was she?

‘Molly? Molly? Wake up, please, wake up!’ he cried, laying his face alongside hers, cradling her in his arms. She opened her eyes and tried to move.

‘Beth,’ she said, her voice faint and faraway. ‘I must get to her.’

‘No, no, you can’t! You’re not well enough,’ said Jackson. ‘Oh, Molly –’

She looked at him properly for the first time. ‘Jackson? Oh, Jackson!’ she began to sob. ‘I prayed you would come.’ Exhausted, she lay back against the pillow, her breathing fast and shallow. She closed her eyes then opened them immediately. ‘See to her, please …’

Reluctantly he stood up, adjusted the covers over her. ‘I will, I will, don’t fret.’

Going over to where an old brown-painted cot stood in the corner, he looked down at the bright red face of the baby. She had stopped screaming and was now sobbing quietly, looking up at him with Molly’s dark eyes. The bedclothes had been kicked off; her feet were like ice. She lifted her arms to him and he picked her up.

Beth was wet, very wet. She must have been lying there for a long time. Jackson looked helplessly around, he had to do something. Beth hiccuped, waved her fist at him, and where it touched his cheek it was so cold he realised he had to do something. He laid her down again, found the safety pin in her nappy and released it, drew the sopping nightie over her head. ‘Give her to me,’ said a wavering voice he hardly recognised as Molly’s and he took the baby over to the bed and laid her beside her mother.

‘Warm milk,’ said Molly, and closed her eyes as though the effort to speak had been too much for her.

‘I’ll get it,’ he said and ran down the stairs. He chopped sticks from an off-cut of pit prop he found in the coal house, built a fire in the cold grate and fanned it to life by propping a tin blazer on the top bar. Milk now, he thought, and found a baby’s bottle in the pantry and a saucepan on the shelf. He picked up a bottle of milk then saw the National Dried can of baby’s milk beside it. He heated water, read the instructions on the side of the can, found two cups and Beth’s boat-shaped bottle, and soon was carrying a tray up the stairs. He even had time to be amazed at how well he had managed.

Molly took a cup and drank thirstily then sank back on the pillow as he took the baby in his arms, wrapped her in a large towel he had found on the rail over the kitchen range and offered her the bottle.

‘It’s not too hot?’ croaked Molly anxiously.

‘Do you think I’m daft?’ he asked. But all the same he shook a few drops on to his hand before Beth took the teat in her mouth and sucked with the serious expression of a dedicated drinker.

It was when the baby had finished her bottle and pushed it away and was smiling up at him that he caught sight of the other cup of milk. Giving Beth back to her mother, he took the milk into the next room. But Dora couldn’t take the milk, she was deeply unconscious.

‘Dora’s very ill, Molly,’ he said as he went back into the other room. But she didn’t hear. She was sound asleep, breathing noisily, her mouth open slightly.

‘Oh, God,’ said Jackson aloud. ‘Don’t die, Molly, please don’t die!’

Beth started to cry. She held out her arms to him and he picked her up and rushed downstairs and outside to bang on the door of the neighbouring house. A miner just returned from the pit answered. He was in his stockinged feet, braces hanging down. But he was quickly galvanised into action when Jackson gasped out his story.

‘I’ll fetch the doctor, lad.’

‘’Flu, that’s what it was, followed by double pneumonia,’ said the doctor. It was half an hour later and Jackson and he were in the kitchen waiting for the ambulance that was to take Dora away to hospital. ‘A lot of it about, I’m afraid. I’ll write you out a prescription for … the young lady.’

‘My wife,’ said Jackson firmly. He held Beth lightly to his chest with one hand and the baby tried to reach up to the shining badge in his cap. She seemed to have recovered already from her cold night. She chuckled and grabbed at the beret and, like Harry had a few weeks earlier, he took it off and gave it to her to play with.

‘A shame about Mrs Fletcher,’ said the doctor. ‘I’ve had a few similar cases after this ’flu.’ He paused and wrote something on his prescription pad. As he handed a torn-off sheet to Harry he added, ‘Don’t worry, your wife will be fine in a few days. And it looks like your little daughter has escaped it though she’ll be to watch for a while. When are you due back?’

‘Monday evening. But I’ll ask for compassionate leave. It should be all right for a few days at least. Then there’s my mother.’

The doctor sighed. ‘So long as proper care can be arranged if you have to go.’

After he had gone and Jackson had dispatched a neighbour’s son for the prescription, he started up the stairs with Beth on one arm. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, he took Molly’s hand. Already she was looking more her old self.

‘Mind, you gave me a heck of a shock,’ he said. He bent and kissed her on the forehead, squashing Beth a little so that she protested loudly and he sat up straight.

‘You’re not going to come between us all the time, young lady,’ he said to her, and Beth smiled and crowed and held out a hand to him. Obviously she was taken with him and by the look on his face the feeling was reciprocated.

Downstairs, the marble clock suddenly chimed. It must be going again, Molly thought, startled. Her hand beneath the bedclothes, she crossed her fingers.

‘Is it all right now, Jackson?’ she asked, holding her breath in case she had misread the signs. Was he being nice simply because she was ill? Oh, she couldn’t bear it if it was that.

‘I don’t know. I don’t know how I feel.’

In truth his emotions were in complete chaos. He looked at the baby and she gazed back at him, with Molly’s eyes.
She
even tilted her head in the way Molly did. He couldn’t hate her, of course he couldn’t. None of this was her fault. In the back of his mind he knew it was nobody’s fault. It was the war, the flaming war.

Molly said no more, she was afraid to. Instead she stared out of the window at the row of chimney pots opposite. But a spark of hope had been ignited and it was still flickering.

‘Well, at least Dora is going to get better,’ said Jackson. ‘Though you won’t be in a fit state to look after her when she comes out of hospital.’

He had been down to the telephone box to ring the hospital to enquire after Dora. Now he sat on the edge of Molly’s bed again, dandling Beth on his knee. She was gurgling and smiling for all the world as though she had known him all her short life rather than a few hours. Molly, already feeling a little better, was propped up on pillows, a doting smile on her face as she looked from her man to her daughter and back again. She refused to think about tomorrow.

‘At least she’ll be all right. I’ll manage somehow.’

‘No, you won’t, my love.’

Had the endearment just slipped out? Molly wondered.

‘I know you’re used to managing but I won’t have you doing too much. You have this one to see to.’ Jackson lifted Beth up in the air and jiggled her about and she crowed with pleasure.

‘There’s my mother …’

‘But she has your dad on crutches,’ Molly reminded him.

‘I’ll ring up, ask for extended leave,’ said Jackson. ‘But I’m not sure …’ After all, Molly was not in any danger now.

She suddenly sat bolt upright, her weakness forgotten. ‘I know! I’ll ask Vi.’

‘Vi?’

‘A girl who worked in the maternity home. I got friendly with her when I was there and I’ve felt guilty ever since that I hadn’t asked her here at all. She has no family of her own and she loved Beth. Oh, I know she’ll come! I’ll ask Vi. Send her a card now. It’ll catch the post, won’t it?’

It was the following morning at nine o’clock, just half an hour after the post was delivered at the home, that Vi presented herself before Matron.

‘I have to leave,’ she said, her smile stretching from ear to ear. ‘I’m going to help my friend, live at her house.’

‘Are you sure of what you are doing?’