Page 120 of Summer in Greece

I shrugged, unable to answer his questions. ‘The thing is, Father, the man who gave me the ring – the ring that reminds me that a miracle dolphin saved me, so that I could save Corporal Perkins – well, that man is Corporal Perkins’s rival for my hand in marriage. It’s all too confusing.’ My father shook his head so I tried to clarify. ‘If I had not been saved by the dolphin, I could not marry anyone. But the man who put the dolphin on my wedding finger is not the man who has asked you for my hand.’

‘I see . . . I think.’

‘If there is a public inquiry, and I am found guilty of opening the portholes and causing the Britannic to sink before it reached the island of Kea, might they hang me for mutiny? I am so afraid . . .’

Saying my deepest fears aloud was too much for me. I gulped and hiccuped and choked on my anguish. The bodies in the sea, my drowning, the needle going into my arm to draw blood, the horror of having an amputated leg dropped into my arms. All of it . . . boiled up and scalded me. And now imagining the floor opening beneath my feet and a rope tightening around my neck, then snapping it at the end of my fall into the darkest place on earth. Oh!

‘And if I was pregnant, would my life be spared, or would they still hang me after my baby was born?’

My father’s eyes widened and his mouth fell slightly open, but he said nothing.

I was so overcome I could not draw breath. Darkness invaded from the corners of my eyes, and everything rushed away. Suddenly I was in hell, swinging from a rope in the void demanded by justice, all for my wrongdoing.

A burning sensation in my nostrils brought me back to now and the smelling salts that father wafted under my nose. Then I was in his arms, sobbing violently.

‘We’ll get through this, Gertie, poor, poor child,’ he said, holding me against his chest as I wept.

Once Father had gone, I sat alone in my cell and studied Gray’s Anatomy until I fell asleep. The muscles and bones, brains, eyes and organs on the pages all came back to me in my dreams as I had seen them in the operating theatre, then I saw them tossed in the water around the Britannic’s propeller. In the purple and black of a gangrene nightmare I fell through the hangman’s trapdoor onto a heap of mashed bodies and gore and found myself screaming for all I was worth.

‘Miss! Miss!’ the sergeant cried. ‘You’re having a nightmare, wake up now!’

He was a decent fellow, and I could see he felt sorry for me. ‘I’ll make you some cocoa and we’ll see if we can get you out of here tomorrow.’

*

When father returned to my cell, he informed me I had no post at home. My heart plummeted. So I would accept Perkins’s proposal, even though we had little in common apart from the Britannic. He wanted to run off and fix broken vehicles, I needed to heal the wounded and nurse the sick. We were destined to hardly see each other before the end of the war.

‘Gertie, I have some great news,’ Perkins told me the following day. ‘There’s a shortage of mechanics now, and the government is accepting some amputees for certain posts that are not affected by their condition.’

‘That’s wonderful news, Johnathan.’

‘I received my papers this morning. I long to go, but of course I cannot leave you while you are harassed like this. Marry me immediately, Gertie Smith, before I return to the war. Make me the happiest man on earth. If you do, I’ll go straight to the press and I’ll tell them I’m sure you didn’t open the portholes.’

I stared at Perkins, then at the ring. I knew this would be the solution to all my problems and would make him immensely happy, but it would not mend my broken heart.

‘Please, Gertie, do me the honour of becoming my wife. I can get a special licence. We can be married in the fortnight.’

I thought about the baby growing inside me and nodded.

*

The magistrate released me with a caution and Jacob Boniface was ordered not to come within half a mile of our house, or a hundred yards of me.

Back home – on a mattress where the flock-stuffing gathered in lumps, determined to quarrel with the contours of my body – I hardly slept, more confident by the day that I was with child. Each day became a struggle. Manno became my hero, an anchor in my sea of troubles, although I suspected he hardly understood the intensity of my feelings towards him. He was a simple village fisherman, only twenty-two years of age. Captivated by the unconventional man who had swept me off my feet and literally thrown me on the bed, I wondered if I had given my heart away too soon?

*

My father agreed with my wedding to Johnathan and because he was a soldier, we had special dispensation to marry, two weeks later, before a small group of friends which included Matron Merriberry and Josephine, and some distant relations of Perkins. That day I became the Corporal’s wife in the town hall.

After the formalities before the registrar, we went back to our house. Mrs Cooper and her two daughters had prepared a wedding banquet – magnificent, considering we were in the middle of a world war. First, oysters, followed by a brace of pheasants with apple and walnut stuffing, roasted vegetables, and dandelion salad. Pudding was a luxurious apple charlotte with clotted cream.

After a little too much sherry, Johnathan and I left home, showered by the guests with rose petals and rice. Father drove us to a hotel in the town for one night. Someone had bedecked father’s Ford in white ribbons, added a pair of old boots to the back bumper, and fixed a written sign that said JUST MARRIED to the rear of the car.

I was frantic, sure Perkins would realise I was not a virgin. However, my true friend, Josephine, was ahead of me.

‘Gertie, come into the bedroom,’ she said earlier that day.

I followed her.