He reached out to her, but there was nothing to touch. She was gone, leaving him to cry for her like a frightened lost child. ‘Don’t leave me! Don’t leave me!’
The next thing he knew, he was lying on a bed in a chaotic makeshift hospital with a young nurse in an incongruously smart Red Cross uniform studiously applying a bandage to his leg while telling him everything was going to be all right. ‘I saw for myself the bullets you caught,’ she said brightly. ‘No real harm done, so you’ll soon be up on your feet.’
In the bed next to him, a man laughed. ‘Nurse Wainwright says that to everybody. You could be brought in here with both legs blown off and she’d still tell you you’ll soon be right as rain.’
‘I’ll thank you to keep your sarcasm to yourself, Mr Fitzwilliam,’ the nurse said primly. She fastened off the bandage and then carefully covered Jack’s legs with a blanket. ‘Call me if you need anything,’ she said, ‘and if necessary I could find you a change of bed if Mr Fitzwilliam gives you any trouble.’ This last comment was said with a friendly wink.
When she was gone, his fellow patient introduced himself. ‘Roddy Fitzwilliam,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I would shake hands only …’ He held up a heavily bandaged arm that stopped short just after his elbow. ‘Bloody good thing I’m left-handed.’ He laughed bitterly. ‘Bright side and all that.’
‘Jack Devereux,’ said Jack. ‘How long have you been here?’
‘Came in yesterday. Only popped in for a haircut, and look what happened to me.’
Jack smiled and entered into the spirit of the exchange. ‘Any chance of attracting a barman round here?’ he asked. ‘I could murder a whisky and soda.’
‘I’m afraid the service is not what it could be.’
Their friendship was sealed that day, and afterwards, when the war was over, neither of them could quite believe they’d actually survived the hell of the Somme. Not when so many they had known had not been so fortunate.
But now Jack was facing a fresh new hell; the battle once more for his life, a life he wasn’t ready yet to relinquish. He wanted one last chance to try and put things right with his family. He owed it to Maud to do that. It was what she would have wanted, and he had to do it while he still could, before it was too late.
With the certain knowledge that the sands of time were fast running out for him, he could see with unerring lucidity that stubborn pride had turned him into a dogmatic and overbearing father and uncle. Moreover, he was guilty of neglect and intolerance, of prejudice and arrogance. Even his recently made will was an act of supreme conceit. But how else to remove the battle lines and bring the children together?
He struggled again to open his eyes. He concentrated hard, forced his whole being into that one simple task. As if swimming up from the depths of a bottomless ocean, he dragged himself up, up and into the light.
‘There you are, darling,’ he heard a woman saying. Maud?
He blinked in the brightness of the sunlit room and focused on the source of the voice. No, not Maud, but another equally wonderful woman. And never had Romily looked more beautiful to him than in this moment, with the sun streaming in through the window and illuminating the radiance of her face. It was a woefully inadequate cliché, but her love for him had made him feel young again. It had also gone some way to softening many of his hard edges, awakening in him something he’d believed he’d lost – the ability to love; to love someone with all his heart and soul. In short, to care again.
He looked into the face that meant the world to him and willed himself to move, to lift a hand to touch his wife in the way that had brought him such joy. But all he could manage was a vague waggle of his fingers. The rest of him felt like a leaden dead weight.
She bent down close and kissed him on the lips. ‘You look so peaceful when you’re asleep,’ she said. ‘Can I get you anything?’
‘Whisky … and soda,’ he said. In his head, the words came out with crystal clarity, but he could see from the hesitant expression on Romily’s face that she was having trouble deciphering what he’d said. Then, as if slowly making sense of it, she smiled.
‘A whisky and soda, eh? Well I don’t see why not. Just don’t tell Dr Garland or the nurses, or they’ll ban me from seeing you.’
‘Let … them … try.’
Once more there was a small delay in her understanding.
She kissed him again. ‘You’re right, they wouldn’t stand a chance against me.’
‘Nobody … does,’ he said.
She smiled and stood up. ‘I’ll be right back.’
He watched her leave the room. She was such a young and vibrant woman; perhaps it would be a blessing to her if he did die sooner rather than later. He hated her seeing him this way. She deserved so much more than to be married to a helpless invalid. Yet in his weakened state he could see things so much more clearly, and knowing that he would never again have the chance to do the one thing he should have done a long time ago, he resolved to ask Romily to do it for him: to reunite his family. He prayed that she would agree; it was a lot to ask of her.
When she returned, tumbler in hand, she held it carefully against his mouth. ‘Nectar,’ he struggled to say. ‘Heav … enly … nec … tar.’
Whether she understood him or not, she wiped his chin with a handkerchief before offering him another sip.
‘Where’s Rod … dy?’ he asked, forcing the words out through lips that no longer felt like his own.
‘Taking a break. You’ve worn him out with your incessant chatter.’
He tried to smile. ‘You’re … the … best thing … that … ever … happened … to me,’ he said breathlessly. He watched her face, waited for what seemed like forever for her to understand what he’d said.
