Paid To Be Safe

BOOK ONE

ONE

THE DOOR OF the ship’s surgery stood slightly ajar. The young doctor, busy at his desk with the various forms and indentures incidental to the ending of a voyage, had purposefully left it so. They were in the smooth waters of the Clyde and, when a sudden movement of the ship caused the door to slam, he arose from his desk and fixed it on its hook so that it remained firm, and more widely ajar. He was listening for a half-expected footstep.

Preparations for landing were in full swing. People came and went along the alleyway. They interrupted him and his work went slower in consequence, but he was fearful of appearing over busy, or that the door, closed, might act as a rebuff.

Almost an hour passed before, suddenly alert, he lifted his head and his eyes, behind their thick lenses, brightened. Only a moment elapsed before a light tap on the door and a question came simultaneously.

‘Dr Jamieson! Are you busy? May I come in?’ and before the girl had finished speaking, Robert Jamieson’s fingers were unfastening the hook while he answered:

‘Please do, Mrs Sandyman. Is there anything I can do for you?’

His voice and words gave no indication of the real state of his mind, but his tone was not formal. They had been through too much together. The girl – she was hardly more – had leaned on him through her hours of trial. She had not found him wanting; and she was quite unconscious that he was deeply in love for the first time in his life, because her own feelings were merely those of deep friendship and gratitude. She shook her head negatively as he added:

‘Won’t you sit down?’

‘No, thank you, I mustn’t stay. I am helping Mrs Lennox with her babies.’

Despite these practical words Robert saw the quiver of pain that passed across her face. He closed the door and, taking her bag, put it on the table before he turned about and took both of her hands into his own, and his eyes glistened as he looked into hers and said:

‘That’s right.’

She gave him no opportunity to say more. ‘Yes, you were right – but sometimes…’ Her voice broke and the tears welled up in her eyes.

‘I know. I know,’ he answered, but she freed a hand to dash away her tears and hurriedly continued:

‘There is such confusion on deck. I just had to come and risk disturbing you. I was afraid I’d miss you, and – and I – I do so want to thank you again – for all you did, and to say goodbye.’

Robert Jamieson’s heart missed a beat but he managed to smile as he answered:

‘I should have found you.’

‘Yes. In a crowd, and I should not have been able to tell you, again, that I shall never forget all you did for Felicity, and – and, sometimes, I feel I am breaking the last link with Frank and Felicity when I leave this ship, and you.’

Once more the tears welled up in her eyes, and once more Robert Jamieson possessed himself of both her hands; and there was more than professional sympathy in his voice as he answered:

‘I shall always wish I could have done more—’ His voice hesitated on the last word, but Susan Sandyman interrupted with a quick shake of her head.

‘No, no! No one on earth could have done more; and I shall never forget our talks.’

She paused, while the silence within the cabin deepened. To Robert Jamieson it suddenly felt remote. As if he, and she, stood isolated from everyone and everything else. Alone as, perhaps, they would never again be alone. A thousand things he would like to have said flashed through his mind; but the time was not yet. Perhaps never would be. The realization gave him pain, pain he successfully disguised as he asked:

‘Have you thought of any definite plan?’

‘No. I am only remembering what you said, No panacea like hard work. War is so awful. We may never meet again, but all my life I will remember and be grateful.’ She paused again and the brightness of Robert Jamieson’s dark grey eyes, as he looked into her blue-grey ones, was not wholly accounted for by his spectacles.

‘I needed that pull up you gave me,’ she continued. ‘It is true I am young, I am strong, and I will put my back into whatever job comes my way. It isn’t only what you did for Felicity that makes me grateful, it is also what you have done for me. Now, goodbye. I must go.’

A few more formal sentences passed between them, and then she was gone. Robert Jamieson stood in his surgery doorway and watched her retreating figure until she was out of sight. She walked firmly and swiftly down the alleyway, as if she had a new purpose in life. She did not look back, and he was glad. He felt, although he longed to see her smile once again, that it was indicative. She would not look back. Her memories and her sorrows lay deep. She would cherish them and they would inspire her to high endeavour. But he sighed as he closed his door and returned to his neglected papers. Absentmindedly he retrieved some that had fallen to the floor before he sat down and gazed unseeingly before him, deep in retrospection…

He had seen her for the first time when she came aboard at Colombo. ‘Mrs Frank Sandyman and child.’ He had read her name in the new passenger list, and afterwards, heard that she had escaped from Singapore in a little Dutch coastal steamer. She was just one of the many passengers who now overcrowded the already crowded SS City of Truro. Women and children, without clothes and without money. He had helped her, as he had helped others, and as impersonally, until he had fought with her, the twenty-four hours’ losing fight, for her child’s life. That was almost three weeks ago. The convoy had been slow, and they had come by the Western approaches into the Clyde. Their first sight of land after leaving Freetown had been the coast of Northern Ireland. Robert Jamieson sat remembering it all. Those hours of anguish had given him such an insight into the stability and courage of her character that the apathy into which she had sunk, and with which she listened to the service and watched while the tiny shroud of canvas slipped gently into the sea, had puzzled him. For a few days he had left her to herself, then, being something of a psychiatrist as well as a physician, he had deliberately set to work to arouse her. He had, somewhat diffidently at first, taken what proved to be the right course. He had forced her to talk of her sorrows, of her child and of her husband left behind in Singapore, and of whose fate she knew nothing. He had called upon her for help with other sick children, and had kept her busy. He had reminded her of their country’s need of every pair of hands, and had spoken, as he rarely did, of his own limitations, the defective sight that forbade his entry into either of the Services, adding ruefully:

‘It isn’t sufficiently dependable even to make me a really good surgeon, but I mean to be a good physician.’

Example and precept had done their work. Susan Sandyman did not know it, but she left the City of Truro that day with her loins girt ready to plunge into the fight.

At last the journey was over. The formalities of landing: the kindly Colonial Office representative who had met them all, and who had supplied the money for her journey south. The equally kind immigration officer who had produced clothes coupons and ration cards. The friendly people about the docks. The night spent in a Glasgow hotel with Mrs Lennox’s obstreperous children, while their mother tried to get in touch with relatives. Her journey from Glasgow. The night in London when, although refusing to leave her bed, she could not sleep because the sirens wailed. It was all behind, and now Susan Sandyman stood on the corner of the familiar Hampshire common, watching the retreating bus. It was the familiarity that hurt. Everything looked the same. As if time had stood still.

Inside the bus it hadn’t been quite the same. For one thing she had not been in the habit of using the bus all those years ago; but, now, for over half an hour she had sat penned closely in, so great had been the number of her fellow passengers, all anxious to get to one destination or another. The bus stopped frequently, and the atmosphere inside grew hot and disagreeable with the odour of wet mackintoshes.

She had sat, in her far corner, with her eyes closed, until she realized how she longed, and yet dreaded, to see a familiar face. But all had been strangers. Mostly women with baskets and bags, and babies and small children, returning from the market town with their shopping. She hadn’t looked at the babies. That hurt too. Everything hurt. Everything exaggerated the pain within her breast – so poignant that it was physical. She had dreaded the journey’s end. Now it had ended. At the bus stop on the corner of the familiar common.

The bus rounded the distant bend and disappeared. Slowly her eyes travelled back to that part of the village visible. The postoffice with its white-painted bay window, and the clock pointing to twenty-past three. The bank, as usual, closed. It opened only on Tuesdays and Fridays for a few hours. Odd how one remembered, she thought. The butcher’s shop and the grocer’s. No customers coming and going. It had always been so. The village seemed to sleep through summer afternoons, and despite the persistently showery weather, this afternoon, late in May 1942, one could feel summer in the air. It was all so peaceful, so unchanged. Half unconsciously she noticed it all.

Then, suddenly, the air was filled with the roar of approaching machinery and she looked towards the corner where the bus had disappeared, wondering what was coming. Half a dozen tanks lumbered into view and the earth trembled beneath her feet as they rattled past. The first she had seen. Without moving she watched them.

She was wrong. Everything had changed. There was the proof. Nothing was the same. Nothing. Nothing could ever be the same. Quickly, as if shaking off her thoughts, she turned about and struck off across the common to where she knew the end of the King’s Lane, her shortest way home, came out beside the church. A few steps and again she stopped. Under the trees at a little distance she could see row upon row, of Nissen huts and others grouped near the church and school. She walked on, passing them. Some soldiers were on parade where the children used to play, and a few others lounged about under the trees. They took as little notice of her as she did of them. She only hastened to get into the lane. She had always loved the King’s Lane. It would be peaceful there.

She looked lonely as she walked. Lonely and rather shabby. Her grey flannel suit needed pressing. She wore no hat and had no gloves and the coat she carried over one arm was somewhat crushed. One rather battered suitcase and a handbag comprised her luggage. The suitcase could not have been over heavy. She carried it easily, as she had carried it everywhere, whenever it had needed carrying, for almost four months. Ever since that awful day when Frank, her husband, had held her in his arms and said ‘goodbye’, while both knew, in their hearts, that this might be their final parting. She had got away. Frank was in the Malayan Volunteer Force. He had to go back. All he could do for her safety and their child’s had been done.

‘You must get home. Go straight to the shipping office. They should have a berth for you. If they haven’t, get a passage on anything as far as Colombo. You can get money there.’ Frank had repeated these sentences again, although they had already been said a dozen times. The parting was hard.

‘If I am lucky, I will follow you as soon as the war is over. If not…’ and oblivious of everyone in the crowded hotel lounge he had held her closely and their eyes, hers swimming in tears, had looked into each other’s. ‘We have had a wonderful time, Sue. Always remember that. You have been everything – just everything.’

‘And you…’ was all she had managed to say before her voice had broken.

Her eyes filled with tears again now as she walked on, remembering. Felicity, her child, who had died at sea. Frank had given her her name.

‘Felicity – great happiness. That is what her coming means to us.’ And so it had been, until a few months ago.

More memories crowded as she turned into the King’s Lane. For a little while she walked swiftly. A few more houses had been built, but very soon she was beyond them, and the clump of hawthorn and larches, self sown, in the middle of the wide old road, hid them from view. Now she loitered, not noticing how the wet from the grass was soaking through her shoes, until she came level with the stile that led to the mushroom fields. She walked straight to it, put her suitcase on a step and, folding her arms on the top bar, buried her face in them.

The last time she had passed this way was on her wedding day, when, secretly, unknown to her mother and aided and abetted by her father and the old groom-gardener, she had driven to church through the King’s Lane in her own shabby governess car, beloved from childhood, and behind the pony she had broken, trained and groomed herself. Her mother had been horrified, but Frank had been in the secret, and together they had gone back to the house in the same way. Less than five years ago – but – a lifetime!

Slowly memory produced picture after picture. ‘This is a review,’ she told herself heartbrokenly. ‘I have to face up to things, but now, just here, before I go home…’ She did not finish explaining to herself. She knew what she wanted. Just to be quiet and still and go through her memories. She was no coward. She knew she must play her part, must take up whatever war work she could, and she wanted to do it. It was all that was left for her to do. The only ways he could justify herself, and Frank’s belief in her. So, leaning on the stile, she did not spare herself. Mentally she visualized every step of the way. Saw again the mountains of luggage that had made Frank gasp:

‘Good heavens! Do we own all that?’ and heard again her own laughing answer, ‘More than that!’

She moved her head and looked down at her one battered suitcase. All she had left – not even a garment of Felicity’s. Other mothers’ babies had needed those. She was not alone in her suffering. All over Europe, all over the world, hearts ached as hers was aching. All over the world women mourned their babies, or their husbands, or both. And not women only. This unholiest of wars had reversed the position. Men mourned women and children. There was only one thing to do. Robert Jamieson’s advice had been right. ‘Don’t give in. Don’t stop to think. Get a job. Just as quickly as you can. There’s no panacea like hard, interesting work.’

Mentally she shook herself and suddenly found she was staring across the meadows, beyond the stile, at a signboard, quite unaware that ever since she had lifted her head after that glance at her suitcase she had been staring unseeingly at it. ‘Cultivated Mushrooms. Trespassers will be prosecuted. By Order.’ She half smiled. These fields! Commercialized! Where all her childhood and girlhood she had searched for mushrooms. Her thoughts took a new turn. She remembered summer mornings while the shadows were still long. Naked feet in the dew-wet grass. Walking to misty September mornings. Her brothers; and the ‘Come on, lazy-bones’ of their voices as they roused her from sleep. Sometimes she was first and then it was her turn to call them ‘Lazy-bones’; and the setting forth alone, a little frightened, as she crept through the still sleeping house, after they had returned to school. The dew-drenched garden; walking in their plimsolls until they reached this very stile. Thoughts that fell like balm, although for over six months she had no news and did not know what had befallen her brothers.

Suddenly, anxious for them, she lifted her arms from the stile and picking up her suitcase walking on more quickly, and now the lane was as she had always known it, wide and tree-grown. The giant oaks and beeches meet overhead. It was one of those old green roads of England, albeit more historical than some. Along this very way King John had ridden to Runnymede to sign that charter of all free Englishmen, now, for the first time over 700 years, in abeyance. For a moment her thoughts slipped back again to childhood, and her imagination pictured the scene as it must have been, as well as the way they had played it. She had always wondered if these old trees, as saplings, had seen him pass? Then, a great old road – now, merely a wide green lane, shady, and cool in summertime – a short cut by which a few dwellers at this end of the village reached the church, and school and shops.

Now she was walking where the garden of her own home abutted on the lane. She was nearly home. After all, she was lucky. Other women aboard the ship had no homes and no money. The thought hastened her steps until a rustle in the undergrowth as a golden retriever forced his way beneath the hedge and bounded towards her brought her to a standstill. One glance and she had dropped her suitcase, coat and handbag, and was on her knees embracing the dog.

‘Jason! Oh, Jason! You can’t remember! It’s impossible!’

Impossible or not, the dog apparently did not agree. Voice or scent or something was ‘family’, and he knew it, and did not spare his satisfactory welcome. He licked her hands, licked the tears from her face, was boisterous; and then broke away, running towards the gate at the end of the garden, and then back again, to be boisterous once more, before settling down and trotting quietly as if to say ‘Come along. Let’s go home.’

Susan Sandyman once more picked up her belongings and smiled at the dog. Walking steadily, side by side, they went through the gate and across the garden.

She had reached home.

There was no one in the garden, no one on the veranda where the drawing-room windows stood wide open. Again the familiarity hurt. Susan dropped her suitcase and coat on the veranda and entered by the window. The room was deserted. She looked round. It was just as she always remembered it. As it had always been. The flowers and chintzes. No. There was an extra table beside her mother’s favourite chair. A table that held photographs.

Frank’s! Her own! A snapshot she had sent of herself and Felicity; but more. Her eyes took in their significance while her heart stood still.

Jack’s! Her elder brother, with a medal ribbon pinned on top. Claude’s, in a flying uniform. It hardly seemed possible. Claude was a schoolboy in his second year at Harrow when she went away. Then she became aware of a new photograph of her father, standing, a little apart, by itself. Before she had grasped the import of this she heard a door open and shut again with a bang, and a footstep in the hall. The drawing-room door stood ajar. Hastily she dashed to it, calling: ‘Mother! Mother! I’m here! I’ve come!’

Her mother, apparently, had just entered by the front door. She carried a basket. Startled, she stared for a moment before ejaculating:

‘Heavens, child! How you frightened me!’

‘Did I? I’m sorry.’ Their kiss was perfunctory.

‘Nothing to be sorry about. When did you come?’

‘Just this minute. I came on the bus and by the King’s Lane. Jason met me. He seemed to remember.’

‘Oh! He must have sensed you. That was why he suddenly dashed off. But—’ she looked round. ‘Where’s the child? Where’s Felicity?’

Susan caught her breath, as again that pain stabbed.

‘She died, Mother. Died at sea. Poisoned by some awful insect. After – after we left Freetown. I couldn’t – couldn’t bring myself to cable. I thought I’d wait. Wait until I could tell you…’

For a few seconds her mother stared as if unhearing. Her face did not go white. It went ashen grey and twisted painfully. Susan, alarmed, sprang to her, throwing her arms about her. The older woman strove to speak; the words came in a whisper, with great difficulty. ‘I’d – I’d borrowed a cot. I was trying to get a pram.’

It was too much for Susan. She could never remember any tenderness from her mother. If she felt any, she had always hidden it under a somewhat brusque manner. Now Susan’s head fell on her mother’s shoulder while a flood of tears had their way, but only for a moment. Tenderness there might have been, but her mother could not show it. Speedily she pulled herself erect, patted her daughter’s shoulder and said firmly:

‘There. There—’ as to a child. ‘Come. Crying doesn’t help. Come with me. You may as well know it all, at once.’

Meekly, and amazed at her quick recovery, Susan followed her mother back to the drawing-room. There was no hesitation. Her mother almost marched to the table of photographs and stood looking down at them, and speaking in her own brusque way said:

‘We haven’t been bombed here; sometimes I wish we had been. One fell harmlessly in the woods. That was all. We are not an evacuation area because of the ammunition dump. There is nothing I can do except sew and knit. Father caught a chill while on Home Guard duty. It turned to pneumonia. That was in March. Claude was killed while training in Canada. Jack won the Military Cross and was killed the next week in Libya. I wrote to you.’

‘Mother! Oh – I’ve had no letters – oh—’

‘One – just – has – to make – the – best – of – it.’ Her mother’s voice went on speaking slowly, with a pause between each word. ‘There is no one left but you. I had hoped—’ She broke off and finished: ‘I’ll go and put the kettle on. I’ve only old Jane left, and she is out’ and hurriedly left the room.

Susan stood motionless. The dog, who had been lying at full length in the patch of sunshine near the door, arose and slowly walked to her and thrust his nose into one of her loose-hanging hands. A deep silence fell on the room. After a few moments the whispered words, ‘Oh, Daddy! I wanted you – just you,’ hardly disturbed it.

Everything had changed.

TWO

‘MOTHER IS LIKE an automaton, Grannie. I don’t know what to do to help her.’

Susan was kneeling on the hearthrug beside her grandmother’s chair and, now her greetings were over, warming herself at the acceptable fire. It had rained again, and the morning was chilly.

‘I just couldn’t bear it. I bolted to you.’

‘I’m glad you did, child, but I am of little use to anyone now.’

‘Dear Grannie!’ Susan leaned forward and touched the old lady’s hand. ‘I was heartbroken when I heard about your stroke; and I did miss your letters.’

‘Old and helpless,’ murmured the other’s gentle voice.

‘You don’t look a day older and your hair is beautiful. And you are younger than Mother in your mind. She is apathetic, while you are comforting and intensely mentally alive. But what am I to do, darling? Can you think?’

‘Do you mean about yourself or your mother?’

‘I mean both. I thought I’d have Father—’

‘Don’t talk of your father, if you would rather not.’

‘I’d rather, really.’ Susan spoke softly. ‘I am all right now. I got all my crying over last night.’ She flicked away a tear. ‘At least, I did – nearly. I’ve faced up to it all. We had an awful evening. Poor Mother! If she could only let herself go, for once.’

‘It’s not her fault, Susan. She was brought up to restrain every natural impulse. To be very self-controlled. She does not lack imagination, but she was taught to be very material.’

‘Yes, I know. Father told me. Of course we never doubted she loved us. That was his teaching, too, but Claude was the only one who ever got inside her shell. I know she is awfully glad I am back, but she won’t show it. We had a ghastly evening. I had got myself firmly in hand before I arrived, but – those extra shocks…! Oh, Grannie! If only we could have talked and cried together! I had things I should have liked to tell her. Now it is too late. I know I never shall. She sat knitting and knitting until I could have screamed. We listened to the news, and then silence again. I sat, she knitted, until at exactly ten o’clock she almost jumped up, pushed her work away, she said, ‘You must be tired: you will be glad to go to bed.’

‘So I said goodnight and went. I know Felicity’s death is the final blow. Poor darling! She had everything ready. Began directly she got my last cable. I sent it from Freetown. I’d said we both were well. It nearly finished me. I tried to thank her. The cot, and the blankets, and the big spare room all ready for a nursery…’ For a few moments Susan covered her eyes and bent her head, leaning against her grandmother’s knee.

The old lady did not speak, only lifted her one serviceable hand and gently stroked Susan’s hair. After some minutes she said softly:

‘Don’t talk about it any more if you would rather not.’

Susan lifted her head.

‘It helps me, I think.’ She paused a moment before she continued: ‘I’d pictured myself telling Daddy. Then – her face – when I told her about Felicity – it was dreadful – like being torn to shreds. If only she would let me inside. Let me help her. I feel I could, and she could help me. And yet, even of that I am not sure. It was terrible. To come home and hear what she had gone through – but, somehow that helped me. Her loss is the greater. I couldn’t think of anything but how to help her, and she froze me. And I can’t stay with her. I know I have to register and that means some job, and I must get a job as quickly as possible.’

‘Do you mean you need money?’

‘No. No. Not exactly. I owe the ship’s doctor ten pounds. The Malay Bank stopped payment. I couldn’t get any money in Colombo and I’d lost my coat. The doctor lent me enough to go shopping in Durban. I wasn’t thinking of the financial side, but the other. I’ve got to be too busy to remember. That would be fatal. To come back – like this. I should keep thinking back – but Mother has really gone through more. I added to it.’

‘Yes, darling. She was worn out with hidden anxiety. I shall never forget the day she rang me up to say you were safe and well in Colombo.’

‘Yes. I got there in a little Dutch ship. Everyone – I mean all the women and children in Singapore – were just hustled into ships. Any ship. Some people had only their evening clothes, and people in shops weren’t allowed to go home. I was luckier. Frank warned me, and directly he left me I sorted out and put into the lightest suitcase just what baby and I must have, and what I could carry—’

‘Frank left you?’ Old Mrs Ledgard’s voice was incredulous.

‘Yes. Of course. He had to. The Volunteer Force. He joined it in ’38, directly he knew he wouldn’t be allowed to go home to fight if we had war.’ Again for a few minutes Susan was silent. When she spoke her voice had sunk almost to a whisper.

‘We drove and we drove. It’s a nightmare to remember. At first we thought of flying, but things happened so quickly. The Japs had air superiority. Much better ’planes. If we had been shot down we were finished. I drove. Frank had the revolvers, ready loaded, and Felicity on his lap most of the time. He told me whatever happened to keep on driving. Not to stop. We took all the petrol we had – and just what clothes we could, and we set fire to everything else, the house – the ’plane…’

Again she paused while memory looked back. Those clouds of rolling, billowing smoke! Would she ever forget? Or how Frank had taken the child from her saying, ‘She is safer with me.’… Safer with me! Memory gave a jolt. Abruptly she said, ‘I know Frank is dead.’

‘My dear! I did not—’

‘No. I haven’t heard anything,’ Susan interrupted. ‘Only the night Felicity died I heard him. Oh, I know it sounds silly, perhaps unbelievable, but very soon after we started that day Frank took Felicity from me – I had her in my lap – and he put her on the floor under his legs where he could shield her – we had the hood down because of keeping watch – he said, She is safer with me. Then, the night she died, I felt he took her again, and I heard his voice, She is safer with me. It was quite close and plain – so – I just know. I told the doctor. He is a Scot, like you. He helped me so much. He believes we do hear sometimes – in moments of great emotional stress. Says nothing else explains it – and it’s been such a comfort.’

Susan’s head went down again while she fought back her tears, and, again, the old lady gently stroked her head, murmuring, ‘My darling – my darling,’ over and over again. ‘Let the tears come. They ease one’s heart.’

Susan choked down a sob. ‘So you see, I know. I know there will be no wonderful cablegram. No long watching and waiting and hoping. His name will be among the missing. I shall probably never know how he died, but I know he is safe. Nothing can hurt either of them any more. Nothing can hurt Daddy. Nothing can hurt Jack, or Claude. Not again. So, the responsibility is on me.’ Again she paused, but now she held her head erect and gazed into the fire while her grandmother looked puzzled.

‘You mean – to avenge, darling?’

‘No! Oh no! That is impossible.’ As she spoke Susan rose to her feet with an abstracted air, and dragged the fender-stool forward, placing it so that she could sit facing the old lady and yet close to her. ‘Impossible!’ she repeated as she sat down.

‘The whole thing has grown too vast, too colossal for individual vengeance. But I think of all the girls who were born about the time Felicity was born. It was so wonderful. I was so happy. I hardly dared breathe. That happiness is not unique. It should be every woman’s lot. Those girls will grow up. The doctor and I talked about them one night at sea. It stimulated me. He was a moral support.’

Again she was silent a moment. The old lady watching her knew it was not the moment to speak. Quietly, firmly, Susan’s voice came again.

‘I saw my bungalow – I was so proud of it – my treasures, my wedding presents, the piano you gave us, the things we had bought, and you had all sent for Felicity, the ’plane – we loved it – we’d had such a wonderful time in Sydney learning to fly – I saw it all go up in flames. Then I lost them both, Felicity and Frank. Those girls – and the men they are to marry. The responsibility that it never happens again, that they will get the chance to rebuild what we were forced to destroy, is mine as much as anyone’s. So Grannie’ – Susan twisted round again on her stool and looked into the old lady’s face – ‘help me. What can I do? What job can I best do? I don’t care for nursing, but if it would be best – only I’d rather be out of doors. There is ambulance driving, but older people can drive ambulances – I wish I knew.’

For some moments the old lady did not answer, but Susan’s next remark, said half under her breath, ‘Something that has danger,’ made her look at her granddaughter as if appraisingly, a look that grew more intent as Susan added: ‘I don’t mean something with merely a modicum of danger, but real. Where I take all the risks a man would take. There is only me. The only one left to hit back – to fight for them all.’ Her voice died away. The old lady waited another moment. Then she said quietly:

‘Susan, believe me, I understand, and I think you should, a little later on, join one of the women’s services. But, for the present, if you can find some job that brought you home at night – for your mother’s sake…’ She hesitated and stopped. Susan was silent, but in a moment or two she took the old lady’s hand between her own and looked up, but, before she could speak, the words, ‘She, too, has to make her readjustments,’ fell softly on her ears.

‘Yes, Grannie. I know. Now, without Felicity, she doesn’t know what to do. Felicity meant – everything. She had it all thought out. No. She did not tell me – but that room did.’

Again silence fell and, when Susan spoke, there was an undercurrent of fierceness in her tone.

‘It’s difficult. I’ll do my best. But I feel I want to hurry into something arduous. Where there is movement and excitement. I’m in a way itching for battle. I don’t want to think, or to remember too much. But, Grannie! What can I do?’

‘Mark time a little, darling. Try to be patient. There is plenty of work locally. Hazlewood House has recently been taken over as an Auxiliary Hospital.’

‘Has it? I didn’t know. But – nursing! It’s – it’s so tame.’

Mrs Ledgard smiled and answered:

‘It has its moments.’

‘For the trained nurses, yes. But I can’t see myself as a VAD,’ Susan answered dryly. ‘Susan, my dear. Just for a while. Until your real job shows itself.’ Susan looked up, and meeting her grandmother’s eyes looked straight into them and asked:

‘You think it will?’

‘I know it will. It is going to be a long war, darling. There is much to do before we are ready to invade Europe.’

‘All right, Grannie, and I'll try the petting way with Mother! Perhaps we shall get a bit closer. That’s what Daddy used to do, and Claude succeeded.’

Old Mrs Ledgard half smiled, and immediately she said:

‘There is no time like the present, Susan. Ring up now. The telephone has been moved to the pantry. Rose knows the number. The Commandant is a Mrs Knaggs.’

Susan rose to her feet.

‘All right, Grannie,’ she repeated. ‘But what about registering and the Labour Exchange?’

‘Quite simple. They won’t have to find you a job.’

Susan was gone some little while. She was obliged to talk a moment or two with the elderly parlourmaid, whom she had known since childhood, and then, while the maid got the number, with the equally elderly cook; but after a somewhat prolonged conversation she ran excitedly back to the drawing-room to fling herself on her knees by her grandmother’s chair and exclaim impetuously:

‘Grannie! You are a genius! You said no time like the present! You made me catch the moment. What do you think? Someone, up in Scotland, had given them a shooting brake to use as an ambulance. It’s all ready – petrol – everything – and the girl who was to fetch it has jibbed. Ill or something. So I am going, next weekend, and Mrs Knaggs wants to see me this afternoon!’

THREE

INTERVIEWS WITH THE commandant of the hospital and with the Labour Exchange were all behind and, within a week of her arrival at Hazeley, Susan was en route for London and Scotland.

The train was so crowded that, although she had been successful in securing a corner seat, she had no space in which to open out her newspaper, so, instead, she gazed unseeingly out of the window and reviewed the past few days.

It had seemed incredible that the classes on ‘Home Nursing and First Aid’, which she had attended during the winter before she went abroad, could have proved so useful. About those Susan really felt a little conscience-smitten. She had attended them with no other thought than that ‘it might be useful to know how to adjust a bandage’, and that ‘we may be far from a doctor’. ‘Selfish motives, absolutely,’ she told herself, but they had landed her with her first war job.

She had been very frank with the hospital commandant. ‘Yes, I have my certificates, but I was very young when I took them, and I don’t like nursing, and I loathe housework,’ but Mrs Knaggs had merely sniffed, in a way Susan was later to find characteristic, and lifted her somewhat bristling eyebrows, and explained:

‘That is all right. What I want is someone capable of fetching that car and looking after it,’ and she had gone on to further explain that they were not an hospital, but a convalescent home: that the patients were not the helpless or the very ill. ‘Just sitting cases, and some are coming or going almost every day. There is a lot of station work and the shopping to fetch. That brake will be invaluable. And our Quartermaster has no assistant. Shall we make you the Assistant Quartermaster? Of course you must join the detachment and have your uniform.’

That had been the preliminary, but things had also gone very smoothly at the Labour Exchange. Contrary to the expectations aroused by her fellow-passengers, Susan had found sympathy and interest. She was thanked for reporting so promptly and her plans were instantly approved. She was surprised by this and said so, only to meet with a smile and an approving nod from the registrar, who answered:

‘It’s a relief when anyone has a useful job, or a special training. It’s the undecided, untrained, lazy people who make all the trouble,’ and Susan had left the Exchange marvelling within herself. These were people she would not have known, never have encountered, in her former life, and yet here they were equally full of purpose, as she was herself. All they apparently thought about was their job, and how best they could fulfil their appointed duty. And she did not realize how soothing was the influence of the calm woman to whom she had spoken. It helped her to be patient. Only she herself knew how she longed to get away to work among strangers. Poignant memories seemed to lurk in every corner of her home. They haunted her and shook her determination of closing the door on what had been, and of taking up life anew.

The population of the village she found much changed. Only the elderly people and the very young were left. Those more or less of her own age, boys and girls with whom she had played, were scattered far and wide. Her own home was not the only one that mourned its sons, or its daughters. She hadn’t, she found, to walk abroad to gather this information. Her mother had it all tabulated and seemed to know the details of every tragedy. She was surprised, too, at her mother’s attitude. Felicity was not mentioned again. Neither were her brothers, or her father, except about matters of finance, a conversation that seemed to come about naturally and spontaneously.

It arose over clothes. On the second evening Mrs Ledgard’s grey sock had disappeared and some soft-looking yellow wool had taken its place. Susan’s offer to hold a skein made her ask, ‘What is it for?’

‘For you. A jumper.’

‘Oh, Mother! Thank you, but don’t bother. I shall be in uniform. Make it for yourself.’ ‘It is too bright. Father disliked mourning of any sort, but – I don’t like bright colours, and you must think about clothes.’

‘I suppose so – but my uniform will help. Mrs Knaggs seemed to think I could get some ready-made.’

‘But you need other things. You can afford them.’

‘Can I?’ And it was with surprise, mingled with pain, that Susan heard of her financial independence. The thought, although she realized that Frank’s income had ceased, had not occurred before, and having relinquished her own allowance as unnecessary, upon her marriage, she now learned that it had been saved for her, and that her brother’s allowances were now hers. For a few moments she had been too overcome to speak and her mother had continued:

‘Some day you will be very comfortably off. Grannie is not poor.

It was all overwhelming, and they, both Grannie and Mother, had been adamant about her clothes. Both had presented coupons and Grannie a cheque, and Grannie had made Susan sit down and make lists.

‘No, my dear,’ she had argued, waving aside Susan’s protests, ‘to begin with you need new shoes, and a smart mackintosh. I may sit here day in and day out, butat least I can see the weather,’ and she had glanced towards the window where, yet again, a heavy shower splashed down against the panes. ‘And I still have a little common sense. One could afford to despise umbrellas and thick shoes from the comfortable protection of one’s own car – but, nowadays—’

‘Grannie! You are incorrigible!’ Susan had tried to interrupt, but was not allowed.

‘Clothes coupons!’ The old lady’s voice was indignant. ‘At my age! What do I need with clothes coupons? My cupboards are sufficiently well stocked to see me out. I do not like to be told what I may buy.’

At this Susan had laughed outright and pulled the fender-stool nearer the old lady’s chair.

‘Darling! All my life, ever since I can remember, you have tried to find excuses for giving me things. The nicest parties, the nicest toys, the nicest clothes. We always knew where to come when pocket-money ran short. But, now, it isn’t really necessary. Mother’s cleaning and pressings have made me quite presentable – and – I can’t be bothered. I truly am not interested.’

‘That is a bad beginning,’ and now old Mrs Ledgard’s voice was stern. ‘It is all nonsense to think that one’s appearance does not count. It does, and very much so – and that applies even more in uniform.’

‘All right, all right. I give in.’ Susan had laughed as she spoke, and, now, she sat and conned her lists, and tried not to think of that hectic, exciting time and the thrill of her final