For King and Country (2 page)

Sally followed her sister upstairs, to her living quarters. ‘Aren’t you worried about leaving them in the bar on their own?’

‘Not with Ben keeping an eye on things. I’d trust him with my life’

‘I hope he doesn’t realize where the cheap whisky comes from. I wouldn’t trust him far enough to tell him that, if I were you. You’d get wrong off the bobbies if he let
on. You might get locked up.’

Her sister grinned, and chucked her under the chin. ‘Don’t be daft, my little Methodist-Miss. I’ve already said; I could trust him with my life. But don’t worry;
he’s got no idea.’

Sally breathed a sigh of relief. ‘By, you’re a warm ’un, our Ginny. I don’t know how you dare. Have you heard from Martin?’

‘Aye. I get a letter or a field postcard nearly every day, unless he’s somewhere he can’t send one, or the post’s delayed. They’ve taken plenty of punishment from
the Germans these past few months, and a lot of the officers are out of the war, one way or another. They’ve made Martin a Second Lieutenant – promoted in the field, he told me the last
time he wrote. An officer and a gentleman doesn’t sound much like my husband, does it? An officer’s lady doesn’t sound much like me either, come to that. By, but they must be
getting desperate over there, if they’re turning socialists into officers!’

Will Burdett, dead! She could hardly take it in. Sally passed his house on her way to her sister Emma’s in Annsdale Colliery, the mining village a couple of miles distant
from her mother’s cottage in rural Old Annsdale. The curtains were drawn and there was no sign of life inside. Sally hesitated, wondering whether to knock, and give her condolences. Better
not. Mrs Burdett might be asleep, and it would be a shame to disturb her. She’d call and see Emma first, and then call on John’s wife, and then better go and see her brother Arthur.
She’d leave enough time to call on Mrs Burdett on the way home.

After an hour with Emma and her family, and another a few streets away with John’s Elsie, Sally reluctantly pointed her wheels in the direction of Arthur’s house.

‘He’s out. Gone to the Club.’ Arthur’s wife Kath flung open the door, to reveal a kitchen in chaos.

‘Why, what’s been going on here, like?’ Taken unawares, Sally wasn’t quick enough to disguise a look of horror.

‘Come in, if you can get in.’ Kath’s fists descended to her hips, her elbows splayed in the attitude of a woman who would stand no nonsense. The tone of her voice confirmed
Sally’s suspicions; she was glorying in the devastation. What a homecoming for her brother, Sally thought, as she did as she was told and got in, picking her way towards an empty kitchen
chair over spilt sugar and basin, broken crockery, and a scorched and screwed up tablecloth.

‘He started a row because our Robson wouldn’t go to him. What does he expect? He’s been away in France that long the bairn doesn’t know him. So he lost his bloody temper
and chucked his breakfast on the fire. All that good food, wasted.’

Kath looked at her, an expectant gleam in her dark eyes. Although Sally had long experience of Arthur’s moods she wouldn’t be dragged into any criticism of her hot-tempered brother.
After an uncomfortable pause, she said: ‘So what did you do?’

‘What did I do? I soon fettled him! “Oh, that’s the game we’re playing, is it?” I said, “Well, I’ll help you, then!” and I ripped everything off
the table and chucked it all into the hearth after his breakfast, and I pulled all the cups down, and they went onto the fireback, an’ all, and the bloody tablecloth went on top of the
lot!’ Her words came out in a torrent, and Kath’s eyes were flashing now as she relived the episode. ‘And it nearly went up in flames, so he had to pull it off the fire and stamp
them out. You can have a cup of tea if you want. I’ve been to me mam’s to get a couple of jam jars to drink out of, and I’ve made a pot.’

‘Where are the bairns?’

‘Oh, they’re at me mam’s.’

‘I’ll give you a hand to clean it all up.’

Kath sloshed tea into a couple of clean jamjars. ‘No bloody fear. It’s staying where it is ’til he gets back. He can clean the bugger up. He started it.’ The milk jug
seemed to have escaped the devastation, and was still whole. Kath lifted it and sniffed suspiciously at the contents. ‘It’s gone off a bit. Do you want any, or would you rather go
without?’

‘I’ll go without.’

But the jam jar was too hot to hold, and she would be a captive until the tea was cool enough to drink. She took off her straw hat and sat down. ‘I don’t know how you dare, Kath.
Aren’t you frightened he’ll belt you?’

‘No. He’ll have my brothers to reckon with if he tries that on.’

‘Hm,’ Sally said, without conviction. She wouldn’t rely on that to stop Arthur. She’d never known him back down from a fight with anybody. ‘It can’t be good
for the bairns, though,’ she said, ‘all this rowing.’

Kath stopped and raised her eyebrows, giving her a look that made her feel every inch the hopeless spinster she was, a look that seemed to ask: and how do you know what’s good for bairns?
You’ve
got none.

Sally flushed slightly, and Kath grinned.

‘Oh, a good row clears the air sometimes.’ Her grin broadened as she added, ‘And we always enjoy making it up afterwards. I’ll probably end up pregnant again. Oops,
sorry, maybes I shouldn’t have said that, with you not being married, and being a bit prim and proper, like.’

Sally fanned herself with her straw hat, her flush deepening. Arthur had met his match with his wife, no doubt about it, and she might manage to tame him, if he didn’t kill her first. But
she couldn’t say she really liked Kath, and she’d far rather she kept their private business to herself, especially
that
sort of business. She changed the subject. ‘I
heard Mrs Burdett got another letter.’

‘Aye, their Will. A bit of bad luck that, like. And he fancied you an’ all, or he looked as if he did when I was watching him dancing with you at your Lizzie’s
wedding.’

Something inside her shrivelled at Kath’s words, and Sally shook her head. ‘No, he didn’t. No more than the rest of the lasses in the village. I think Will fancied every lass
he saw.’ And he fancied himself, an’ all, she thought, but kept that to herself. It wouldn’t be right to speak ill of the dead, especially a lad who’d laid his life down for
his country.

‘And every lass he saw fancied him, an’ all. All bar you. You’re such a head-in-the-clouds dreamer I don’t think you even noticed him giving you the glad eye. I think
that must have been the attraction. Do you remember him lending you that book, after your Lizzie’s weddin’, and then a week later he went all the way to Darlington on the train, to get
it back again? I never heard of him going to so much trouble to see any other lass before.’ She grimaced and gave a shrug. ‘Too late to bother about it either way now, I suppose; his
courting days are over, like a lot more. My sister’s just married a cousin of his. Did your mam not tell you?’

‘Why, she told us your sister was married, but she didn’t say it was to Will’s cousin. I hope they’ll be very happy.’

‘Aye, so do I, like.’

Sally took a couple of sips of scalding tea, her fingers burning. ‘I start on a new ward tomorrow.’ She wasn’t going to tell Kath it was a men’s ward, the first one
she’d been on, and give her room for any bawdy comments.

‘Oh, aye? Why, that’ll be a change for you. Rather you than me, though. Me dad was in hospital once; he said he’d never want me to be a nurse. They have some right dirty jobs
to do, and they work all the hours God sends.’

‘He’s right about that an’ all, the hard work, I mean. I would never have believed how much a pair of legs can ache. They used to keep me awake at night. But they’re not
so bad now.’

Her legs were the one feature she could be proud of, that she could show off with the new hemlines, and she’d feared nursing would ruin them, that all the constant running up and down
would make her lovely calves bulbous, and they’d look just awful. She smiled, and stretched them out in front of her. Her ankles and calves were as shapely as ever.

If Will had fancied her at that wedding reception as much as Kath appeared to think, Sally hadn’t noticed. No, that wasn’t it. She’d determinedly failed to
notice, because there was hardly a lass in the village who hadn’t fallen at his feet. He’d loved and left nearly every one of them at one time or other, and her pride couldn’t
stand the thought of being just another one of the crowd. If he thought he was going to add her to the list he could think again. Will Burdett had far too big an opinion of himself and she
wasn’t going to give him any room to boast about her. So she’d danced all night with him, but refusing to succumb to his attempt to charm her, she’d hardly given his handsome face
a glance.

But trust Kath to notice Will’s interest in her. That lass had a one-track mind, always leading up to . . . something. Something disgusting. But Arthur was just the same. They suited each
other very well, when you came to think about it.

Or maybe not. Sally couldn’t see any woman wearing the trousers for long in her brother’s house. Kath might think she could get the best of him, but there would be some sparks flying
at Arthur’s if and when he came back from France for good, and she wouldn’t want to be in Kath’s shoes when they did.

She was coming up to Mrs Burdett’s door. She really ought to go in and see her. It would be a long time before she got another day off, so if she didn’t do it now, the condolences
would come a bit too late. But maybe now was too soon, and what on earth could she say? ‘I’m sorry?’ What good would that do? ‘It’s terrible?’ Well, the poor
woman already knew that, and far better than anybody else. ‘I know how you feel,’ maybe? But she didn’t, and she never would know how it feels to lose a son. She would never have
any children to lose. She slowed and stopped the bike, and let one trim little foot in its polished black shoe come to rest on the road while she stared at the house, its curtains closing it off
from the world, turning it in on itself. After a moment or two’s hesitation she lifted herself back onto the saddle, and pedalled home.

Her life was not going to go as she’d thought a few years ago, when, like all the other young lasses, she’d peered into the future, trying to glimpse the faceless husband and
children who might be hers. After this murderous war had culled the best part of a generation of young men, it wasn’t likely that that longing would ever be satisfied. In all probability she
would never be the woman she’d always imagined she would be, happy in her family, loved by husband and children. She might as well face the fact. She would be forever a spinster, just one
among hundreds of thousands of surplus women who would never learn the secrets of the marriage bed, never feel a husband’s kiss nor hold his baby in their arms.

None of Mrs Burdett’s sort of grief would ever touch her; she would be alone. She straightened her back a little, and lifted her chin. She’d have to muster all her courage and
soldier on, like the poor lads who were still fighting. Her biggest problem would be keeping herself out of poverty, and saving enough for her old age, but she would do it, somehow. She
didn’t intend to be a burden on anybody.

What a shame, though, that she’d been out when Will had called at the Doctor’s for that book he’d lent her. They hadn’t asked him in to wait for her; she wouldn’t
have expected them to, she was only the housemaid, after all. But now she’d never see him again to return it. And although theirs had only been the fragile beginnings of a courtship that had
fizzled out when he went to France, she felt tears pricking her eyes at the pity of it all.

The well-polished range, the focal point of the kitchen and the housewife’s pride and joy, was gleaming bright when she got back home, but the fire was still not lit. It
was silly, on a day like this, but she would have liked to see it burning in the grate before she went back to the hospital, to see warmth and comfort and good cheer reflected in all those polished
surfaces, rewarding her for her work.

On the train to Newcastle Sally eyed the other passengers, especially some of the servicemen returning on leave to the wives and families they were fighting for. They were
bonny lads, most of them . . .

She turned her head to stare out of the window at a field full of ripening corn. It would be a good harvest, as long as the weather held. The weather had to hold, and she had to stop weaving
fantasies about other women’s men. But that’s what you do, when you haven’t got one of your own. Stop it, Sally, she thought, and think about something you
can
get
– a good career for yourself. Some women would love to be in your shoes, the ones who’re married to gamblers, or drinkers, or wife beaters, or pulled down with dozens of bairns, and
never a minute’s peace or rest from constant drudgery. There’s far worse things than being on your own.

Her eyes were drawn back to the soldiers, and chanced to meet the bright, blue eyes of a corporal, who smiled at her. But he was probably married, with half a dozen kids. She’d bet her
life on it, somebody as good-looking as that. She quickly lowered her eyes and looked out of the window, and after a while lapsed into a daydream.

‘Your brothers are in the army, did you say? Well, they’re doing hard and dangerous work for their country, and if they’re unlucky enough to be injured, they’ll need good
nurses to pull them through. We need girls who are willing to put the good of the patients before everything else, and that means self-sacrifice,’ Matron had impressed on her at her
interview. ‘The question is, are you ready to make that sacrifice? I don’t want any dabblers, or dreamers. I want serious, practical, patriotic girls who’re willing to dedicate
themselves to work that really counts.’

‘Huh!’ She gave a little grunt at the memory. Never a truer word was spoken, and she’d certainly needed every ounce of dedication and self-sacrifice she possessed to support
her through the months of backbreaking work that followed Matron’s warning. But she’d never intended to be a dabbler or a dreamer, and she’d thrown herself into nursing, heart and
soul, on the women’s wards. But tomorrow was going to be different. She was to start on her first men’s ward, and the thought gave her a twinge of . . . what was it? Apprehension
– or excitement?