The Storms of War (36 page)

London, February 1917

It was early February. Celia had been staying with Emmeline ever since they had left Verena at Stoneythorpe a week after a miserable Christmas. Most days she had spent lying in Emmeline’s room or on the thin cold grass in Bedford Square, looking at the dreary winter sky. She never knew which was worse. The nights full of Michael, catching her hand as they ran together to the stream, there to pick her up from the station in Cambridge, swinging her up into his arms even though she protested she was too big. Or those when he was not there and she saw only endless dark space, aching as she prayed over and over for the dawn.

She knew she should not, but despite herself she loved the dream that came to her often, that Michael had returned, she had awoken and he was beside her, sitting on the bed, smiling and tanned, putting his hand in hers, saying he was sorry that he had been away so long, he had been lost in France, but now he was back. She cherished, clutched the joy, trying to prolong it, even though the realisation of the truth when she opened her eyes was thick with pain. She knew that doting on the dream made the pain worse, but she could not stop herself. She spent her days trying to imagine over and over how it had been, how Michael had saved Tom, what could have happened. She wished she’d run after Tom at the funeral.

She was lying in Bedford Square when she felt a shadow fall over her. She looked up and Emmeline was standing there. ‘You can’t spend your days like this,’ she said.

‘Emmeline. Would you leave me alone?’

‘We have all lost something. We are all without Michael. Not just you.’

‘Please, Emmeline.’

‘I think you should do some war work again. Something in London.’

‘I don’t want to do that any more.’ Celia wanted to reach up and hold tight to her sister’s hand. ‘Please understand.’ Emmeline was trying to help her, she knew, but Celia just wanted to tell her how wrong she was. ‘I can’t.’

‘Well, perhaps you will have to. I need you to. You need to do something if you are living here. We don’t have money to spare. You know Samuel lost that pupil, Christopher, because the parents couldn’t afford the lessons, and he isn’t selling many paintings. And Mama doesn’t have any to give us. So you should work or go back to Stoneythorpe.’

Celia propped herself on her elbows, screwing up her eyes against the sun. ‘I can’t go back there!’ Verena, wandering around the house, her eyes full of pain, begging for conversation, worrying over the placement of a vase, the space for a table. Celia knew she was wrong in not wanting to go to her mother, but she could not help it. ‘You were trying to persuade her to come to London.’ Verena had been complaining that the factories were doing badly, that a man had come and said that Stoneythorpe needed a new roof but Mr Lewis didn’t think he had the money to give her.

‘Yes, but she won’t agree, you know that. Anyway, we are talking about you. You could go and be a driver in London. I’ve read all about this WAAC lot. Something you’d get paid for. And you’re eighteen now, no need to pretend to be me.’ A week ago, Emmeline had invited Jemima and Rufus for a birthday tea. They sang to her and Celia could only cry.

Celia looked up. ‘You’re being unfair. You didn’t see it. Shep died and then Michael died!’ Saying the words out loud scarred her throat. She felt hot tears running down her face.

Emmeline swept her skirts from under her and sat down. ‘I know, Celia. But you’re still alive.’

Celia cried into the bright winter sky above her. ‘I don’t want to be. I don’t understand why I am.’

Emmeline patted her hand. ‘You don’t have a choice. And while you are waiting to die, you have to live. Come, Celia, let’s go. I will take you to the recruiting station.’

Within a week, Celia was back in uniform again as a driver for an officer, Captain Russell. He was youngish, dour-looking, spent most of the time with his head buried in papers. That suited her well. She drove him from meeting to meeting, moving between gears, not thinking. She put on her uniform, cleaned the car, collected him and his papers. While he was in his meetings, she huddled in her greatcoat, trying to keep warm by burying her hands under her legs. She dodged patches of ice, roadworks at Piccadilly. After work, sometimes she took a parcel that Emmeline had given her for delivery to one of Mr Janus’s artistic friends. It was against the rules, but Emmeline begged and it was easier than saying no. In the evenings, she came back to her bed at Emmeline’s and pretended she was asleep. She wrote to Tom at his family’s house, only twice, but in her head she was always writing. She let her hair grow back, thinner and wispier than it had been before.

Once she went to the works canteen, but the ringing tones of the other girls made her shrink back in fear. The waitresses carrying bowls of pudding were so full of life, the men laughing around the tables, the groups of women in uniform patting their hair – she wanted to say,
But why are you so happy?
They all looked a little like Jemima: slim bodies, round red cheeks, girls who could never be knocked to the ground.

She tried to avoid Jemima when she came around, pretended to be asleep on the sofa so they would not have to talk. She knew that Jemima was a little hurt, and it was her fault, for she had changed and the woman she had idealised had not. Jemima had been so pleased to see her back, hugged her violently, told her how glad she was to see her and asked to hear all about France. But Celia couldn’t tell her. Every time she opened her mouth,
Michael and Shep loomed up in front of her.
They are dead, while we are alive.

Everything made her feel bent down, as if she had been pushed over and could not get up. The word ‘fight’ made her feel sick, and who cared about the vote, she wanted to say.
What difference will it make? They will still go to war.
When Jemima came to her, her eyes bright, offering a pie or a cake that she had found at great expense, Celia felt a failure, hopeless for not being able to give her what she wanted. Tom was the only one she wanted to see. He had the answer to the puzzle. She thought of him lying in no-man’s-land, thinking that no one was coming to help him, giving himself up to the gunfire. And then Michael bending over him. ‘I’ll help you,’ he said. He pulled Tom up into his arms, dragged him forward.

Warterton had written twice since Celia had been home, saying she hoped she would come back soon. Her writing was large, round, neat. The food was worse, she said, but HQ had demanded a review of why so many girls had left, and so orders had come in to give them an extra hour’s rest in the morning. Cooper was on warning for sneaking out, might be sent home. Celia hadn’t replied. She couldn’t bear writing to Warterton; what would she say?
I can’t come back. I don’t have the courage to face death again. If I see a man screaming because his leg has been blown off, I will think of Michael and I will feel as if I want to die myself. I would stop the ambulance and cry. And if a Zepp came towards me, I’d get out and stand under its silver sheen and say why don’t you take me now, like you did everybody else?

She had even received a letter from Commandant Robinson, who’d passed on Shep’s parents’ address and suggested they might like to hear from her friends. That made Celia cry hard, for Robinson had called her Elizabeth, the name Johnson had used after they knew she was dead.
She’s still Shep!
Celia wanted to cry, but she knew it wasn’t true. Shep was dead, buried in France in a grave near the brave soldiers. And girls who gave their lives were not Shep or Sheppie, but Elizabeth – dignified, graceful, truly English.

She stared at the letters from Warterton, the commandant, three from Verena. She picked up her pen to reply, and then
could not. She knew the words she should have written:
how are you?
to Warterton,
thank you
to the commandant, and then a fond anecdote about Shep to her grieving parents, an enquiry about Mick in the POW camp. Warterton would have done it straight away, ticked off her list, written something general and kind about how
everybody loved Shep,
and then a pleasing detail like
she always had biscuits to spare.
Every time Celia thought about writing, she wanted to scream. She would have to say that Shep was brave, good,
doing her duty
, as you always had to say, not that the war had taken her and there was no plan to it. She could not bear to write
Shep was, Shep had,
for then that would make it real.

One day in early March, Captain Russell came in holding a map. ‘A different route today,’ he said. ‘I need to collect some documents from a house in Hampstead, near the Heath. Do you know the way?’

It was the first time they had diverged from the usual route around Whitehall and the War Office. Celia nodded. ‘I know the way.’

They headed past the stations and north through Camden. Women, bent over around tiny fires, sold piles of belongings near the roadside, saucepans, clothes, tables and chairs; some, she supposed, after their houses had been burned down, some simply desperate for money. Dirty children sat beside them, selling off their toys. Ragged newsboys ran around shouting about the next big push. ‘Fritz on the brink of collapse!’ they cried. ‘Buy the paper!’ Nursemaids wheeled out prams. Celia found it almost shocking that people were still having children. Houses were missing their roofs, the garden squares were without their railings, windows were dirty. The only men she saw were elderly, women hurrying around them. There were no spring flowers.

Celia shivered as she arrived on the borders of Hampstead. She had not seen their old home for years. Already she was recognising the houses, dully noticing how they did not look grand any more. There were broken window panes, grimy doors, skeletal perambulators abandoned in overgrown gardens. The place looked like it had been bombed, even though she knew the bombs had
not come close, at least not yet. ‘It is Prince Arthur Road I want,’ Captain Russell said.

‘I know it.’

He raised his head from his papers. ‘You are familiar with this area, Miss Witt?’

‘I lived here when I was a child. In one of the nearby streets. John Road. Keats lived there once.’

‘Did you really live here? I did not know you were from the area.’

She gazed out at the road. ‘My father was a meat importer. He wanted to move to the country to buy a big house there. It was a beautiful house, but my sister and brothers preferred London.’

‘Are they still in the country now?’

‘No. Only my mother.’ She manoeuvred to avoid a pothole.

‘The rest are here?’

‘Not in Hampstead. Other places.’ She changed gear and turned the corner.

‘I have a great admiration for you war girls, you know,’ he said. ‘Coming from all sorts of backgrounds, buckling down.’

She could not think of a reply and kept her eyes on the road. She knew he was treating her with more respect and interest because he thought she was rich.

‘You must have left a lot of your old life behind in the country, I suppose. Friends, your family. Your sweetheart.’

‘I don’t have one.’ The words rose and glimmered between them. She could have got out of the car and walked to where Tom’s house once was.

‘A young girl like you. Surely you must.’

She turned into Prince Arthur Road. ‘What number, sir?’

‘Sixty-five.’

She drew up outside, pulled on the brake. ‘Won’t be long,’ he said, manoeuvring himself out of the passenger seat. ‘Don’t feed the strays.’ The previous day, while she was waiting for him, she had broken off a bit of her sandwich to throw to a scrawny-looking pigeon, and he had come around the corner and caught her. ‘Don’t you know it’s illegal?’ She did know about the law, of
course, but hadn’t really associated all those dire warnings and advertisements with these few puny things, scrabbling for grain at the tail end of winter. She didn’t know, hadn’t realised that you could be fined for feeding pigeons or stray animals, wasting food. She hoped that no stray animals would come near; she would only feel too much pity for them.

She sat and looked at Prince Arthur Road. She was strictly forbidden to leave her vehicle unattended. But she could hop out now and run to their old house, just a few streets along, and Russell would be none the wiser. A woman walked past with a pram, two small children at her side. That decided Celia. There was no threat here, just mothers and babies; it was the safest place she could possibly leave the car. She leapt from the cab, locked the door and ran at top speed around the corner, turned past the house that used to train orphan daughters of Crimea soldiers for service, her favourite house in the old days.

She slowed as she saw their house. The trees at the front had grown taller and wilder. The roof was missing tiles and there was a broken chair lying by the door. She stepped on to the drive and walked slowly to the door, the knowledge that she should not pulling her forward. She knocked. A scruffy-looking maid answered.

‘Yes? Oh, we don’t have anything for the collection, you know.’

‘I am not here for that. I lived here once. I wondered if I could see inside.’

The maid shook her head. ‘Of course not! Whatever next?’ She started to close the door.

Celia held out her hand. ‘Please. Could you ask your mistress?’

‘They’re all out. You’d better go. Come back tomorrow, she might be in then.’

‘I can’t. I am only here today. Please.’

‘I will call the gardener if you don’t go.’

‘I would give you money.’ Celia put her hand in her pocket and brought out some notes. ‘After all, if they are not here, no one would ever know.’

‘Miss, I told you. I can’t let anyone in!’

‘You can take this.’ Celia fiddled with her purse, brought out more notes.

‘You’re trying to bribe me.’

‘I just wanted to offer you something. Listen, please let me in. I have lost a lot. My father and brother are dead in the war.’ How terrible she was for lying. ‘I would like to remember the times when we were all happy.’

The girl looked at her and hesitated. Celia held out the money. ‘Please. You are my last chance. I won’t be able to come again.’