Shadow on the Land (22 page)

According to the newspaper, Hitler really was dead, Berlin was in the hands of the Allies and the German army was surrendering all over the place. But according to the BBC there would not be an announcement until tomorrow.

‘But that’s what they said yesterday,’ Emily complained, when Alex arrived home late and tired and as cross as his equable nature ever allowed him to be.

‘I wish Mr Churchill would get on with it,’ he
exclaimed, as he struggled out of his dungarees. ‘He may not be quite aware of it, but you can’t just press a switch and turn off four mills at one go. Not even one mill at one go,’ he added as an after thought.

Emily laughed and gave him a hug.

‘I think we’re all like over-excited children who’ve stayed up too late,’ she said. ‘If something doesn’t happen soon, we’ll throw a tantrum,’ she said, as she bent down and put the casserole in the oven.

‘Come on, let’s go and walk round the garden while it heats up. With all those meetings I wasn’t sure what time you’d get back and I didn’t want it overcooked.’

He grinned sheepishly and followed her through the open back door, across the yard and into the flower garden.

‘Have you got your decorations up?’ she asked.

‘Oh yes, yards and yards of bunting. The women have been making it for weeks from spoilt cloth. There’s a bonfire ready too, down by the lake at Millbrook. There’s one at each mill, but Millbrook’s is enormous. There’s a huge effigy of Hitler on top, moustache and all. I’ve told Robert Anderson he’d better be on Fire Brigade duty whenever the announcement comes.’

‘And what did he say to that?’

Alex laughed, his good spirits restored by the sunlight of a fine May evening and the happiness
of being home in his own garden with his wife at his side.

‘He just gave me a look.’

‘Any news from Jane or Johnny?’ he asked, as they made their way down the main path, the air full of the scent of hawthorn blossom mixed with the varied perfumes of garden flowers.

‘Yes, Johnny is off duty for whatever day it turns out to be, but he’s expected in Norwich. It’s the same girl he’s been talking about … it’s getting to be a regular thing, I think,’ she went on, laughing, ‘and Jane says she drew the long straw, so she’s off on
the day
, likewise, and she’ll go up to Dungannon if there are any buses or she can get a lift.’

‘Maybe Johnny will get some leave soon,’ Alex said thoughtfully.

‘That would be nice, but we mustn’t depend on it. As Carrie reminded me, there’s still the Japanese. He’ll be training pilots to go out there.’

‘No more rockets, Emily, no more bombs …’

‘Goodness, what was that?’ exclaimed Emily, as a series of very loud noises shattered the quiet of the evening.

Moments later they heard a bugle, then car horns and then drumming from a long way away. They ran down to Rose’s viewpoint and looked out over the summer fields, the shadows just beginning to lengthen as the sun dipped in a blue sky.

Beyond the river flowing placidly between green
meadows, they could see a couple of cars stopped on the road. Beside them, tiny figures hopped up and down. They shouted and waved flags, banged a spanner on the spare wheel and sounded the horn alternately with blowing the bugle.

‘I
think
I know what that is,’ said Emily.

‘I
think
you’re right,’ replied Alex. ‘It’s come. It’s come at last.’

Alex had to be up even earlier next morning to get to work before the day shift arrived.
If
they arrived.

At least he could rely on Robert Anderson in the engine house at Millbrook, but he would need to visit all four mills in the course of the morning and see that shut-down procedures and safety measures were carried out correctly.

It was the loveliest of mornings and already, at this early hour, as they finished breakfast it promised to be a fine, warm, day.

‘So, when will you get back, love?’

‘Late morning, certainly by noon.’

There was a small silence as each was aware what the next question would be.

Emily poured more tea for both of them.

‘There’s going to be a Victory Parade this afternoon and bands in the park. I think we should go, don’t you?’ she said matter-of-factly.

There was no need whatever to refer to the
reasons why they might
not
go. Many families would be faced with the same decision this morning. Some would decide they could not celebrate when they had suffered such loss, others that life must go on, that today marked a new beginning of some kind and they must make the effort.

He nodded briefly and smiled.

‘Leave out my red shirt and the blue tie …’

She laughed and shook her head, thinking of some of the outfits in preparation that Mary Cook had told her about.

‘I’ll see what I can find. It’ll just be nice to see you out of dungarees!’

The afternoon got steadily warmer and the bandsmen leading the parade all had red faces as they tramped down the main street thronged with gaily-dressed people and children waving flags. There was a fancy-dress parade, a smart turn out by the British Legion, the Boys Brigade ear-splittingly enthusiastic on their cornets.

It seemed to Emily that every organisation she’d ever heard off was included in the Victory Parade. Daisy Cook waved vigorously as the Brownies marched past, one little girl swinging her arms, military style, as her grandfather had taught her. Jimmy Cook was in the Cubs and managed to preserve an appearance of dignity, having made quite sure they’d seen him.

Emily was glad they’d gone. She’d had her bad moments, but that was no more than she had expected. Cathy had been a Brownie and a Guide and so had Lizzie. Poor dear Lizzie, who was clearly so successful, but perhaps not exactly happy. She hoped that, wherever she was this afternoon, she had friends with whom she could celebrate. She might come home one day, or she might not.

It was so long since Emily and Alex had been anywhere together other than the local cinema, that neither of them was prepared for the number of people who came to shake their hands and say what a great day it was. Many people from all the mills had chosen to come to Banbridge to celebrate, among them Robert Anderson and his family, Daisy Elliot and her Billy, and dear Jimmy Elliot, her nephew, who wore a big grin as he looked down at her, his ‘medal’ firmly pinned to his clean white shirt.

But to her surprise there were many others as well, friends she’d made in the Women’s Institute and the Red Cross. People who’d helped when she was running the picnics for Chris’s lads. Even customers from the W.I. market, women who had come each week to buy vegetables in the Church Hall and add to the fund waiting in the Ulster Bank for Jane and Johann.

After the parade, they went into the park. Solitude
had always seemed to Emily an inappropriate name for a public park and today it was more laughable than usual. Boys perched precariously on railings and walls, because every corner was packed with people, willing to stand if they could find no room to sit on benches or on the grass.

The brass band had been rehearsing for months and revelled in their big day. They were good, a liveliness in their playing that went far beyond mere competence. They’d have set the whole place dancing had there been room to move. As it was, the crowd clapped and cheered and urged them on till it was the turn of a silver band and then the Salvation Army.

They were still playing as Emily and Alex squeezed their way out of the park and walked back down the empty main street under the bunting that had been draped from every lamppost and the flags hung from every window.

Carried on the still air, the sound followed them out of town as they walked together under the trees to Ballievy, where they’d left the car, the only one in the mill car park. The mill itself stood silent, the sunlight glancing from the rows of tall windows.

They drove home, made tea and took it out into the garden.

‘Are you glad we went?’ Emily asked quietly, as they sat on their summer seat looking at the rise and fall of midges in the deep shade under the trees and
the fumblings of bees in the opening blooms nearer at hand.

‘Yes, I am. You were right to take us,’ he replied. ‘I’d never realised just how many people we knew and how many friends we’ve made over the years. Even more, these last years, war or no war. That really was a surprise.’

‘Yes, it surprised me too,’ she agreed. ‘I suppose we had to work so hard at the big things, we didn’t always notice the things that came to help us. People did pull together. I can never remember asking anyone to do anything that they didn’t do willingly.’

Alex smiled.

‘That may not be so much to do with the war as to do with Emily.’

‘I try, Alex, I try,’ she said, suddenly sad. ‘I see so much need all around me, not just people being poor, or ill, or over-worked. I see people losing heart, feeling that life is too much for them. I feel that way myself sometimes,’ she went on honestly, ‘but then I have you and our family and our friends. I have so much.’

‘But you share, Emily. You give and it comes back to you. I watch you and learn.’

‘Oh Alex, what a lovely compliment,’ she said beaming. ‘I’ll not forget that one.’

They sat in the garden for a long time, talking quietly about all that had happened to them in the
last long years, speaking of their family, of their hopes for Jane and Johann, for Johnny and Lizzie. They spoke of their new family, Alex’s sister, Jane and her husband, her three sons, but especially of Hank. They remembered good friends like Brendan and Sam, whom they’d not seen for a long time and Emily’s sister, Catherine, more a part of their life now, though they hadn’t seen her since before the war.

As the shadows lengthened and the temperature began to drop sharply, they moved back into the house, had supper and put a match to the sitting-room fire, grateful for the continuing supply of logs and Michael Cook’s source of turf which Emily so loved.

‘What would we have done without this fire, Alex?’ she said, as she brought in coffee, the last spoonfuls from the last packet from the box her boyfriends had left her, just over a year ago.

‘It’s been a great comfort,’ he agreed, as the kindling crackled and flames rose and the turf began to smoke gently, sending its aroma out into the room.

‘There’s something I have to tell you, Alex,’ she began, with a little smile. ‘It’s good news, so don’t worry, but it didn’t seem right to bother you these last few days when you’ve had such a lot on your mind and Mr Churchill wasn’t being very helpful.’

She poured their coffee and put his cup on the low table beside him.

‘I’ve had another letter from your Mrs Campbell, or rather from Jeannie,’ she went on. ‘But one’s as bad as the other as far as handwriting goes. You can try to read it for yourself, or I’ll tell you what it says,’ she offered.

Alex looked across at her. If she said it was good news, then it was, but he wondered why he felt so apprehensive about what she might be about to say.

Mrs Campbell was the only person who could possibly know anything about him he had not found out already. She had been the means of clarifying his relationship with Jane and that had been a gift to them both. But what now?

‘Just you tell me, Emily,’ he said abruptly, as he reached for his coffee cup.

‘Well, it’s a bit of a story,’ she began. ‘Mrs Campbell wasn’t well back in February, as you know, and she had to go into hospital. She was rather poorly for a time and when Jeannie went to see her she was a bit delirious. She was wandering and talking about people from long ago. There was a woman called Annie. Annie Gamp.

‘When she got home, Jeannie asked her about this woman and was told off. Mrs Campbell was quite cross and said she was imagining things. She’d never known any woman called that. And that was that,’ she said, pausing to drink her coffee.

‘Then last week, they were sitting having a cup of tea when Mrs Campbell suddenly says: ‘Ach, I’ve remembered. It wasn’t Annie Gamp. I knew I’d never heard tell of a woman called Annie Gamp. Alex’s father, Lofty had a brother, Tom, a blacksmith, somewhere in Ireland and it was a place called Annie Cramp.’

Alex’s mouth dropped open and he stared at her wide-eyed.

‘Annacramp,’ he whispered, his mouth suddenly dry.

She nodded and watched his face change, anxiety and amazement moving away until finally he smiled.

‘So I really did remember Annacramp. And I
am
a Hamilton.’

‘Yes, love. Are you pleased?’

‘Not yet, but I will be,’ he said crisply. ‘It’s who I am now that matters, I know that, but suddenly it’s like a weight off my mind. I know now I was right in what I had remembered, just as Jane was when she said she had a brother.’

She watched him as he stared into the fire his mind moving she knew not where.

‘Emily, shall we go over to Liskeyborough tomorrow and tell Sam?’ he said suddenly. ‘Mr Churchill did us a favour. The Directors said we might as well have a second day while we were about it after all that waiting.’

‘But what about petrol?’ she asked automatically.

‘Gallon can in the workshop,’ he replied with a straight face.

‘Oh Alex, what a lovely, lovely idea,’ she said, delighted by the prospect. ‘How long is it since we drove anywhere beyond Banbridge together? And I’d love to see Sam’s face when you tell him you’re a Hamilton from Annacramp.’

The resources for writing a novel set during the period of the Second World War are formidable and I am very grateful for books, archives, exhibitions and websites. I have used many sources, but the ones that have contributed most to this particular story are the
unconsidered trifles
which I have been offered by individuals.

It never ceases to amaze me how generous people are when I ask my questions, a fireman who contacts former colleagues about hose fittings, young County Council staff who ring grandparents to find out about the prisoner of war camp, now lost under a new housing estate, friends who produce wartime cookery books and old photographs, newspaper editors who offer me access to their wartime editions.

For the first time in the Hamilton sequence, I have memories of my own, my first experience of moonlight on the night of the Belfast Blitz when the
siren sounded in peaceful Armagh. There are harsher memories for my husband, who spent the nights of the Blitz in a shelter at the bottom of a garden in South London and experienced the V2’s at school in the City. I am grateful to him for the details of the machinery of war, the day by day preoccupation of every small boy at that time.

Ulster was the only part of the United Kingdom to be invaded. But it was a friendly invasion and the links made are still cherished by many, like the Hamiltons at Rathdrum, for whom the war brought joy as well as sadness, hope and possibility, as well as the weariness of a long hard time.