‘Yes, there is,’ she replied. ‘Yes, my brother and three friends.’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. Stupid of me,’ he said.
‘No, it’s all right. I miss them all but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to talk about them.’
The afternoon sun was low in the sky but she could feel the warmth on her face. She pushed the wheelchair around the pathways and, although the trees were devoid of leaves and the flower beds were nothing but bare earth, she could feel Charles’s joy at being outside.
‘Look, a squirrel digging up his store of nuts,’ he said. ‘Such clever creatures, saving what is precious for hard times.
‘Were there times when you had very little to eat?’ asked Kate thinking of Philip and what might pass for meals in the trenches.
‘Oh yes, plenty of times and when we did eat, it wasn’t always entirely edible, just enough to keep us going.’
She wasn’t sure how far she should pursue these questions. Perhaps he didn’t want to think of what he had left behind? Perhaps it was better to let him enjoy the peace and recuperation time without troubling him with thoughts of his men? But she couldn’t help but want to know what Philip and Archie might be living through now, at this moment. She decided to ask.
‘It must have been so hard watching your men go hungry, on top of everything else they had to suffer.’
Charles didn’t answer but shivered and instead said, ‘Could we go back inside now? It’s getting quite chilly out here.’
Kate determined not to pressure him into talking any more about the war. On the way home, she couldn’t help but think that either Philip or Archie could be lying in a hospital bed somewhere in England and she would have no knowledge of them being there at all. She hadn’t replied to Archie’s last letter yet. She was putting it off. What would she say? Writing to one man whilst wanting another. On top of that, she hadn’t kept her promise to visit Mrs Mabbs but she couldn’t divide herself up into so many little pieces. At least she was helping one person. Charles was getting stronger every day. Soon he would be strong enough to go back. What a strange world they were living in, patching men up, making them whole, just to send them back to be torn and bloodied all over again.
Although Kate knew that Charles’s departure was inevitable, when she returned to the ward the following Sunday, his empty bed gave her a shock. Being with Charles had helped her feel closer to Philip. Their experiences would be similar. They were both officers in charge of men.
Kate asked after him.
‘He’s been transferred to one of our recuperation houses for physiotherapy and convalescence,’ one of the nurses, a pretty young woman named Rose, said.
‘He said to make sure I gave you this.’ She handed Kate a note.
Dear Kate,
How can I thank you enough for helping me recover over the past few weeks? You have been my strength and the reason I can return to the battlefield. None of us can say what our destinies will be but please know that the memory of your sweet face and kind heart travels with me. I will get stronger andeventually go back to the men in my battalion restored and revived by your care.
With grateful thanks,
Charles Spencer
Kate felt as if she’d been punched in the stomach. An emptiness and helplessness swept through her whole being. She hadn’t said goodbye to him, just like she hadn’t said goodbye to Fred. She didn’t know where Philip was now or Archie, whether they were dead or alive. She needed something to hold onto and the only positive thing was her work.
Kate put all her energies into her work at Vanburgh House and at the hospital. Between the two places she had little time to herself but she was happy for it to be that way. She dreaded hearing about what was going on in this war. Every time she read the old news that came to her through Mr Winton’s discarded newspapers, it seemed that another country had joined; this was indeed a world war. The names of places such as Turkey and Bulgaria fascinated her, places she would never visit and people she’d never meet. She wondered what some of these countries were like and why they sided with Germany against the British Allies. She wondered about those she cared for so far from home and when this war would ever end, when they would be able to return. Her head hurt with the thought of it all.
Whenever she voiced her thoughts to Mrs B she was told bluntly that the best thing she could do was to just get on with what she was good at and focus her mind on doing what little she could to help the men who were here. She could trust Mrs B to place her feet firmly back on the ground!
* * *
Ida came into the kitchen and placed an envelope on the kitchen table. They’d just cleared the remainders of thebreakfast away and were enjoying a quick cup of tea before the morning tasks took over.
‘This one’s for you, Kate,’ Ida said. ‘Post was early today. Must be a new postman. Old Jones must’ve retired. About time, I say. He could hardly get up the front steps most days.’
Kate looked at the handwriting. It was her mother’s. She opened the letter eagerly for news of home. She wanted to hear of how Henry had grown. Whether the top of his head had overreached the markers on the outhouse wall for her and Dot and Fred at the age of five. Five years old and she had hardly spent any time with him at all. Her eyes hurriedly scanned the page but the words they settled on were not the ones she wanted to read.
heartbroken . . . your dear brother, Fred . . . killed in action . . . come home, Kate, please come home.
Kate’s arms fell into her lap. The only words she could find stuck in her throat but her brain kept repeating them. ‘Oh God, no, not Fred, please God, not Fred.’
‘What’s wrong, Kate?’
It was Mrs B’s voice reaching out to her through the mixed muddle of muted sounds that ran through her head. Ida was standing in front of her saying something, but although her mouth moved, Kate could make nothing out. There was a ringing in her ears and a sudden heat flowed up through her body until she felt she was drifting away from them.
