her arrested. It seemed almost silly to me. She just laughed and said that she simply had not been able to resist it. She had been standing with a group of women outside Downing Street. When the black car came with the Prime Minister supposedly ensconced inside, they began shouting anti-war slogans and pulled out painted banners denouncing the government. As the car passed and the policewomen began to move in to break up the crowd she pushed to the front and threw one egg. It didn't even hit the window she said. She doesn't even know if Macmillan was even in the car, she certainly didn't see him, not with its blackened out windows. But that act made her a target and she was the one arrested from the crowd. The police, she says, walk a tightrope. They cannot arrest all of the protesters for fear of stirring up support with more women. They have instructions to maintain a facade of free speech. So they arrest infrequently. More often they simply force women to disappear, like they have done with your mother. Large numbers of arrests would attract attention to the cause which the government wants to deny even exists.
Soon though our conversation with your mother was hindered by the ominous hovering of the nurse. She announced that she had telephoned the doctor to come and speak to us. M whispered in your mother's ear, asking if she wanted us to take her away from that place. She simply smiled and each of her restrained hands gripped our fingers. "No," she said aloud so that the nurse and the approaching doctor could hear, "I am perfectly fine here. Please send my deepest love to J and look after him for me. It was so very kind to visit,"
The doctor brushed us aside, asking us to leave and saying that as we did not have permission to be on hospital grounds she had a good mind to call the police. We said goodbye to your mother and each of us in turn kissed her cheek. As we walked down the ward, I turned back to look one last time. The doctor had rolled up your mother's sleeve and was injecting her, with what I do not know. I had a tear in my eye.
I know that describing her situation must be distressing for you but I hope it is of some comfort for you to know that she is alive J. And despite what they have done her mind is as sharp as ever. I am so sorry that I have to tell you of the nature of the place where she is imprisoned. And it is a form of imprisonment, make no mistake. It saddens me so that we do not know what will become of her.
We can only hope that the war can actually end and then we can free her. Or that we can escape somehow and take her with us. Perhaps, like M wants to, we could all travel through Ireland; catch one of the secret refugee boats that take people to America. Perhaps we can actually run away J, all together, you and I, your mother and mine and Aunt M; pack our things and cross the Atlantic? Wouldn't that be marvellous? To have new peaceful lives.
For now I am back at home and continue my routine of work and looking after mother. Aunt M has vowed to stay with us and is in the process of selling her assets in Kent so that we will not be so badly off.
She has taken me to meetings of women. Secret meetings that mother does not know about. It would be too much for her. I cannot reveal here the kind of actions that we discuss. But M and I have made a promise to each other. That we will do whatever we can to help the cause and stop this foul war. To continue in your mother's proud footsteps. At the same time we are realistic and know that we have to look after our own and those dear to us. And please know J, that this promise and our plans include you.
Stay safe J and we will meet again, I promise.
Much Love,
Esme
Xx
Madame F. Moreau
46 Rue de Rosamel
ÉTAPLES
62630 FRANCE
16th October 1962
Dearest E----,
Thank you for your letter, it was so kind of you and M---- to visit my mother. To be honest I have very mixed emotions about it. On the one hand I am pleased that she is alive, has all her faculties and, in strange way she is safe, away from the bombings and rockets. On the other hand there is a certain despair in my heart that she is a prisoner in such a foul place. I had tears when I read your words. I am glad that she knows that I am alive. Sadly though, I cannot help but dream of her strapped to that awful bed. We must find a way to get her out E----. We must find a way out of this awful situation, all of us. America. America is our hope now.
It is quite strange here in the hospital right now. Another continuing odd lull in things. After your letter was delivered by a nurse whom I had never seen before and I devoured every word I realised how quiet it is here. We haven't seen any doctors of officers, or indeed any soldiers, apart from the wounded, for days. It seems they have all been called away. It is as if we are just ordinary patients in an ordinary French hospital.
H---- and I sat in the courtyard yesterday beneath the oak tree. 'Chene pédonculé' our nurse calls the tree. I call her 'our nurse' for she is the only one who seems to fuss over H---- and I. Her name is Aurelie. I think that is such a pretty name, although I have to be honest and say that she is far from a pretty girl. She is young but has the most rotund figure and her uniform stretches over her frame like small sheet stretched over a barrel. H---- finds her most comical, he says her round face is like a piglet's face. So he has taken to calling her 'piglet', I tell him not to be cruel but she smiles at his jests and I do not think she knows what he means. Her English is stilted and faltering.
A lot of the nurses are reticent about making much personal connections with their charges, especially the older ones. They have seen soldiers like us many times before and we have become routine to them. A routine of self-preservation I suppose, for they fear that an affection for some poor Frenchie or Tommy will only lead to heartache.
Aurelie is different to this, perhaps because of her youth, or perhaps because she realises that these poor crippled men in her care will be the only men she will ever get to care for. To have affection for. She even arranged for H---- to be moved into my ward, next to me. So kind.
The French patients don't seem to care for her, I am not sure why. Mostly they are affable chaps, despite the fact that back at the front there is sometimes rivalry. J---- used to always call them 'Frogs' or 'Poilu', he said that meant they were 'hairy bastards'. I suppose he thought that was funny.
Anyway, Aurelie seems to spend more time with us than them. I told her the tree was an 'English Oak' but she insisted that the oak was a native of France so therefore it was a French Oak. 'Chene pédonculé' as she calls it. Funny how ordinary it seemed, the two of us to be joking with her, in the chilly October sunshine. It seems so long since I felt ordinary. Not since my last leave when I met you. Although that feeling made me feel extraordinary. It seems so long ago. It is a feeling I hanker for E----. I suppose I simply hanker for you.
Aurelie kindly brought us a chess set from home and I have been teaching H---- the moves and strategies of the pieces. We sit on the edge of our cots with a small trolley between us and H---- wrinkles his brow in concentration. I do not think that this is because he is calculating the moves in his mind. It is perhaps because he has to concentrate to distinguish between the pieces. I think that perhaps the eyesight in his good eye is worse than he lets on. His pride causes him to knock things over and spill things and at meal times he always has constant dribbles of gravy or soup in his beard. Aurelie fusses and wipes his chin but he gruffly pushes her away.
H---- said that the war is like a game of chess, to which I replied that that was an obvious statement since it is clearly a game of combat. But, he explained, that wasn't what he meant. He said that there is some unseen hand, reaching down to move the pieces. Shift the armies across the French and Belgian fields, and with each move the stalemate gets deeper. I don't feel that I can believe in fate, but I can understand his description. The powerlessness of fate and its unseen hand. Perhaps there are real Greek gods, up there on some celestial Olympus, playing a game of chess with all of us down here, just for their own amusement. And perhaps we individually acquiesce to their whims, despite our capacity for freewill, because we fear that if those gods on high are no longer amused
then they will tire of their game and they will play it out quickly to its conclusion. The inevitable check mate. And which side might they choose for that final throw of the dice? Black or white?
Let us just pray that it doesn't come to that. Just not yet anyway. But at the moment, as there is a quiet about the place, it feels like the calm before the storm. There is a foreboding in the air. It has become so relaxed here in the last couple of days that I even dare to sit on my bed and openly write you this letter in full view, in daylight. It seems they cannot even afford to spare the necessary M.P.s or M.O.s to watch over us. This means that they must, once again, be massing at the Front. A massing perhaps even bigger than before. Something big is going to happen.
I suppose that H---- and I must count our lucky stars that for now we are forgotten, along with the other amputees, broken cripples, madmen and those slowly dying of gangrenous infections. There is a Frenchman in the cot opposite me who no longer has his face. His cheek caved in by some calamitous explosion or other. His skull exposed on one side in skeletal fashion. Half of his palate is missing, so he just lies there moaning and constantly dribbling. He has to eat as best he can through a paper straw. What future for