The tall, good-looking man in uniform who stood before Dot, when she answered the door, gave her quite a shock when he enquired whether he had found the right house.
‘Am I speaking to the sister of Tilly Truscott?’ he asked.
The American accent sounded strange to her. What was this man doing here? Her mind began to race with the possibilities. Did he have news of Tilly? They hadn’t heard from her in months. They had no expectation as she’d said in her last letter that they would be moving around and any letters would take a long time to reach their destination.
Amelia joined Dot at the door and prompted her to invite the young man inside. Dot seemed to be frozen to the spot.
‘Is it Tilly?’ Amelia asked tentatively. ‘Did she send you? Is she alive?’
‘When we parted company, she was,’ the stranger replied. ‘So, be reassured. She’s a resourceful young woman is Tilly and I’m sure she’ll be OK. I’m Dr Jed Martinez by the way. How do you do?’
‘Amelia Clarence,’ Amelia said, offering her hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, Dr Martinez.’
‘Dot Truscott,’ Dot said, also shaking his hand. ‘Please, do come in. What must you think of me?’
They made Jed some tea and offered him cake.
‘How could I refuse?’ he replied with a charming smile. ‘I’ve heard about your English cake.’
Jed told them the story of how he and Tilly were separated and how the boat left without her.
‘And that was the last you saw of her?’ Dot asked.
‘Yes, she was with a badly injured soldier,’ Jed replied.
‘We told her, no heroics,’ Dot said. ‘But then she never was one to do as she was told.’
‘I can imagine,’ Jed replied. ‘She’s a strong-minded young woman.’
‘You seem to have the measure of her,’ Amelia said. ‘How did you two meet?’
‘I’m the surgeon with the Royals. Tilly brings me the soldiers to patch up and return to battle. We are both fighting against the odds to get men fit in order for them to be cut down again on the battlefield. It’s what you call a thankless task, I think, but someone’s got to do it. We can’t allow Hitler to take whatever he wants and destroy everything in his path, can we? Tilly is a good nurse and a brave woman. She often drives through the night and under fire to get soldiers back to the field hospital. If she does her job well, which she does, then I can do mine.’
Dot and Amelia thanked him for making the journey from the mainland and bringing the message from Tilly, and asked if he had a place to stay for the night.
‘I need to get back. So, I will catch the late-afternoon ferry,’ Jed replied.
‘Will you see Tilly again, do you think?’ Dot asked, scanning his face to judge whether his relationship to Tilly was something more than professional.
‘When we get reassigned, there is every possibility. Anyway, I know where she lives now and she might not be able to escape me, once this war is over,’ Jed said with a grin.
‘Let’s hope that’s sooner rather than later,’ Dot replied. ‘The death toll is too high. Too many young men are not coming home.’
After he had left, Amelia and Dot both agreed that there was a distinct glow about Jed when he talked about Tilly.
‘But an American. You know what they say about them. Something in me hopes that this is just a passing phase. Wartime relationships don’t last, do they? The future is too uncertain. When it’s over, always supposing that we all survive it, he will go back to America and she will come home to us,’ Dot said.
‘That’s not always true about wartime relationships,’ Amelia said. ‘If two people are in love, then the feeling doesn’t end with the war. Who knows if Kate would have married Philip, if he hadn’t been killed at the front?’
‘Do you really think that he would have married Kate? Would his family have allowed it? Their backgrounds were too different. Kate has told me that she often wonders if she should have told Ronnie about his real father, Amelia,’ Dot said. ‘When she found out that Ronnie had joined up, she seriously thought of telling him.’
‘You’ve never mentioned that before,’ Amelia said. ‘I don’t see what that would achieve. Albert has been a father to Ronnie and it would be hurtful to take that away from him.’
‘She just thought he had a right to know. That’s all,’ Dot replied. ‘It’s strange how what happens in families is often echoed down the generations. Ronnie wants to marry Sarah. Then he will become a father to Anthony. Does that story sound familiar to you?’
‘I’m sure he will make a much better father to Anthony than his biological father would. Sometimes things turn out for the best,’ Amelia replied. ‘We shouldn’t try to predict the future. Who knows what it might hold?’
* * *
