him poor soul?
We are useless forgotten remnants of what used to be human beings. No longer of use to the machine of war. At least that is what H---- and I hope. What a terrible thing to hope. That we are so pathetically broken that we are redundant.
I am healing slowly but there is such an itch, deep in my shoulder wound. Constantly gnawing at me; a reminder of where I am and why. But I daren't scratch it ever because I constantly worry about infection. It is rife here and if it gets into my wound I could be done for. I asked Aurelie why they don't wash the men, or disinfect the ward, but she just shrugged her shoulders and rubbed her thumb over her fingers. The international gesture for money; a rubbing of dirty fingers and thumbs. Dirty money. The governments of Britain and France deem it a waste of their dirty money to buy soap and disinfectants for this hospital. There are barely enough anaesthetics, painkillers and bandages to go round as it is.
I look at the oak leaves swishing around in the breeze through the dirty window; brown and crumpling. They form the whirlwind pattern that use to fascinate me as a child. Swirling and rising in the centre of the wind born shape, before hesitating and falling again. The smallest ordinary signal of winter's approach.
I remember standing waiting for the horse-drawn bus as a child. Standing in the gathering folds of mother's skirt, the warmth of her legs on my shoulder. Perhaps I was four or five, I can't be sure. You know, outside Woolworth's on the high street. It must have been a cold day, my gabardine mac belt tied tight and hand knitted balaclava pulled down and tucked into the collar of my thick grey school shirt. The sounds of the street muffled by the itchy wool.
In a corner by the green grocers some dishevelled brown paper bags had fallen, the kind the grocer filled with mud encrusted potatoes or swedes. They swirled and floated as if by magic, trapped in the fluid wind born pattern of winter. It seemed miraculous to my childish eyes, as if the bags had fairies trapped inside them trying to fly upwards and escape only to be dragged down by gravity and the effort of the task.
Normally these simple paper bags were denied any freedom. They were sown together on a piece of string next to the fake grass slope of the vegetable display. Clear as day I can see in my mind's eye the green grocer rip a single bag from the string and expertly shovel carrots into it with the shiny silver scoop and dump the packet on the scales. The way she would ostentatiously roll the filled bag over and over between her hands to give it twisted paper ears and seal it up fascinated me too. Such a quick expert movement, over in a flash as she swapped the bag for a sixpence and rifled for change from her beaten leather shoulder bag. Wrinkled white knuckles in fingerless mittens.
The floating paper bags must have been ripped from the string by the wind. I think perhaps, as I child, I thought they were making a bid for freedom, only to be trapped in the deadly miniature whirlwind.
I don't really know why I remember that now, except I suppose that your meeting with my mother has stirred these feelings within me. If I was ever happiest, apart from the distant fleeting moments I spent with you last year, it was back then; a small child bathed in the radiance of my mother's unconditional love, shielded from the darkest parts of our existence. Just like her flowing woollen skirt shielded me from the wind. They say ignorance is bliss and the carefree magical innocence of a child can be so very blissful. For them life should be all wonder and play and no work or fear. I hope I can survive to experience that again with a child of my own. A child with you. A child my mother can be a grandparent to. A child with hope of a future beyond the swirling whirlwind that we cannot control. A child with the glowing free wings of a fairy set free from the trap of a dirty brown paper bag writhing helplessly in the wind.
Although now, I think again of how the hope of fatherhood brings fear. Fear of the future. I suppose I simply dream of a family beyond this war.
Sadly, H---- told me this morning that his mother has passed away. I don't know the circumstances, he wouldn't say. He found out just before we were wounded and sent here. I asked him why he didn't tell me before and he just shrugged his tired shoulders and stared out of the window. After a while he blinked his good eye and simply said "Now I am alone...” His last link to some kind of stilted normality is gone. His last link to any chain of human feeling, love and closeness.
"I am a tired old broken man," he said, "out of step with this time, I don't fit...” His voice was flat like an endless beach. A rough pebble that lies alone in amongst the millions of wind-blown grains of sand swirling around him.
I didn't know what to say so I simply hugged him. I am sure he would have sobbed if his eyes stilled worked properly. Instead he simply sighed a slow deep sigh; his face against my shoulder. I could feel the damp human warmth of his breath through my hospital gown. Self-consciously I looked around the ward but no one was paying attention. We were alone in moment. He is right that we are alone inside our flesh shells. But he forgets that we are all alone together. Touch and understanding can show us this. I will look after him as best I can.
I don't know how to explain it to him. I do not think I have the words; but I like to believe that we are not alone. Despite how many loved ones they strip away from us; we are all beings of the same flesh after all. Even those whose hearts seem eternally hardened; frozen by the harsh winter of the times that we live in. Those who take us from our mothers to send us to our deaths. Even those must have a kernel deep inside them that still desires the love and comfort of their mother; of someone close to touch them and understand. Just like H---- needs someone close to understand. I cannot believe that anyone truly forgets that desire, however hard their heart has been frozen. Beyond the permafrost it is there deep within us all, within every man, woman and child upon the face of the earth.
After that Aurelie brought us French coffee. I have gained quite a taste for it despite its bitterness. They drink it black here in tiny white cups with no handles. I have to be careful I don't have more than two cups. I like the cutting taste; it goes well with black tobacco. She says it is imported from North Africa.
I drifted sipping it. Imagining myself as a writer ensconced in some Moroccan cafe wafting myself with a panama hat; you sat by my side drinking lemonade in some floaty chiffon dress. Your eyes sparkle beneath a wide straw hat as you lazily watch the colourful world go by.
The coffee is quite strong; the caffeine can be quite a sleep destroyer, and sleep here seems strangely harder to come by. I suppose it comes with finally being relaxed. For the first time in months we are without immediate fear. The fear is still there; fear of being sent back, but it has subsided. Any air raids are aimed at the shifting temporary docks, which is away from here. At the front the constant fear is exhausting, mentally and physically.
It fascinates me; the connection between the mental and the physical. How our state of mind can so affect our state of body. So unless you are completely consumed by it, like Thompson was, the fear tires you so much that you can sleep wherever you are. You see men snoring like infants in foxholes and trenches, their cheeks resting in the mud as if it were the finest down pillow. Now though, when I have a relatively comfortably hospital cot with a real pillow, I find it harder to sleep. And my new found affection for coffee doesn't help.
H---- hates the coffee, but still sips away when Aurelie offers it. I have a sneaking suspicion he rather likes her. It goes without saying that the tea here is abominable, almost as bad as at the front. I am afraid the tea you sent is long gone.
I am beginning to daydream of a future for us E----. A future where we can travel and live in peace. I suppose the idea that we might escape to America has fuelled my thoughts. If it is true that others have done this then it must be possible for us. I would like us to go somewhere warm, near the sea. Perhaps California. All of us in some cabin of a house.
I like to think we are family now, thrown together by circumstance. Would you call it fate? An extended family; myself, mother and you, Aunt M---- and your mother. Once we are settled beyond this war I dream of wr
iting and travel. Perhaps the Caribbean. Or perhaps I am dreaming just a bit too far? Stretching my hopes beyond that which a humble young man such as myself should hope for. Just to live in peace, with you and raise an ordinary family would be enough. With just enough money to get by. That surely isn't too much to ask for?
It seems a long way off from this cold damp hospital with its cockroaches and slugs. Funny how this seems like a palace compared to all of the other places we have been billeted. Always cutting the cloth to suit; I unthinkingly bend my expectations to circumstance.
There are rabbits in the courtyard, I think they must have a rabbit hole nearby. I am surprised no one sets traps for rabbit stew. I watch them scurry among the oak leaves out of the window and think about Alice, disappearing down her hole. Although things here in the hospital are infinitely better than at the front I still feel a sense of foreboding. A cloying immanence on the horizon. As if something is coming, something big and bad that may suck H---- and I back down the hole. As if we were back in those stinking tunnels again. I really don't know how else to describe it to you E----. I suppose my tiredness is playing tricks with my mind.
Perhaps I really should try to sleep. If something is coming I need to steel myself for it, be ready and be strong, for you and for H----. So I will sign off for now and hopefully I can pass this letter to the network later this afternoon and it will wend its merry way to you soon.
As always my thoughts and love are saved for you my dearest E-----. Write soon.
All my love,
J----
Miss B. Smith
P.O. Box 47853
Hammersmith
LONDON
(Defence Zone D)
W60AF
Saturday 20th October 1962
Dear J,
It seems remarkable that your letter came so soon. Only two days! The secret network is so much quicker than the normal post. I suppose that's obvious really, what with there being no need for the censor’s beady eyes.
Your letter seemed a bit down and I do hope that you can take heart and remain hopeful. I suppose I detect a slight melancholy in your thoughtfulness. It is a problem with the written word that one cannot see the expression or hear the inflection one would in conversation. So easy to be misunderstood but at the same time easy to think about and find the right words. I know that I am not so eloquent in conversation as I perhaps can be with these letters, where I can pause and think of the right words to write. Although I could never hope to be as eloquent with my writing as you are.
Anyway, I am writing back straight away. I got your letter this morning and it is now Saturday lunchtime and I want to make sure that I can send this back to you today. I so want you to hear about what has happened to me.
Right now, as I write, mother is sat in the kitchen with Aunt M peeling potatoes; they are going to fry them as chips. M managed to get some fillets of haddock, such a treat. I even heard mother giggling a few moments ago. Sometimes she is almost back to her normal self. She shows little glimpses of it. Though I don't think she will ever be the same again, not since D. I don't suppose any of us will.
Anyway I must tell you what happened on Thursday. Aunt M and I went up to London to a demonstration. Such a momentous day. Imagine it J, little me joining in with a an anti-war demonstration. A few months ago I didn't even imagine such things existed. Now I feel part of it, having been to meetings where some of this was organised.
The day was so uplifting, and it felt so liberating to be with so many brave women who openly feel the same way that we do. It was almost unbelievable. There must have been three or four or even five thousand there. It makes you feel as if the momentum is building. And I, for one, truly believe it is. If more and more women find out about us and join us, which they inevitably will, then they won't be able to resist our numbers.
Through the meetings we had secretly organised and distribute anonymous leaflets to advertise it. All across London. We had no idea how many would turn up. It goes without saying we didn't tell mother.
On the day I just pretended to go to work as usual and then met M at the tube station. From a phone box I called the factory and told that hideous man Jenkins that I was sick. I didn't care that I would lose a day’s pay.
It felt illicit and dangerous to lie to him. But I liked the feeling. Sometimes there is a frisson about doing something when you know it to be wrong. Or more accurately this felt like I was doing the right thing; it felt so right. I am not proud of lying to my mother, but needs must and we have to protect her delicate feelings. But I enjoyed lying to Jenkins, as if I were a spy in one of those black and white films from the forties; where a brave woman sneaks into Germany to steal secrets. Made me wish I had a twin-set and pearls like Olivia De Havilland! A feeling of being grown up and glamourous; to be on a secret mission as it were. You must think this so childish!
I never really did many naughty things when I was a child, so this did feel naughty to me. I wasn't like you and Billy Treacher. I was always such a good girl. Sneaking off to the demonstration felt like it must have done when you and Billy used to sneak off to the railway lines or bomb sites. Except it was more than that. It had sort of grown up air to it, as if for the first time in my life I am truly making decisions for myself. And, like I said, it felt so right, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to do. The only thing to do. And something we should all be doing. Shouting with our real voices about what we really think.
I just sat thinking as we huddled together on the crowded tube train; the Metropolitan line always gets more crowded as you approach Baker Street and I just looked at all the passive faces of the women squashed in together. Holding squirming babies in slings or carrying heavy shopping baskets. There wasn't a man to be seen. All the faces blank, expressionless and impersonal. Avoiding eye contact like people do on the tube. All squashed in together but separate, individuals alone. Lonely almost. How many of those faces knew what I knew and thought what I thought? How many had suffered loss? How many would be at the demonstration? I wanted to ask them; these strangers, but knew it was best to stay silent. I wondered how many of these ordinary women felt they had any kind of say in our world.
And when I thought about it J, I realised how very little say we do actually have. Any of us. Men or women. Britain is always held up in the history books as the true bastion of democracy, with Westminster as the 'mother' of parliaments. Funny how they would make it female; parliament as a 'mother', when women are not even seen as clever enough to be able to vote. But even the pretence of democracy is a foolish lie. The men who can vote can only vote for the same sets of men who have formed this Government since Asquith formed the coalition in 1915. The same old Liberals and Conservatives. Is there any real difference between them? I think not. Not one of them is brave enough to stand on a ticket of peace, even when they bother to have an election. M says it is scandalous that they haven't had an election since 1947. Strange how I haven't ever thought about this before. The war effort and the idea of 'total war', where we all have to play our part, do our bit, is seen as more important than any trivial matter of voting and elections. Macmillan says we are 'all in this together'. I cannot ever believe this now.
Mother always argued that we should have had Lloyd-George as Prime Minister back then, or maybe someone like Churchill. She says they would have won the war. But then again she says Macmillan will do it. But we all know he won't.
We got off at Piccadilly Circus and walked down towards Trafalgar Square. You could see purposeful women with determined faces striding down the street from all directions. A sombre parade against the bustle of the horse-drawn buses and gas-taxis. It must have been about half past ten when we entered the square and the scale of things was immediately apparent. Thousands of women jostling for position, some sitting on the plinths with placards, most standing and waiting. Banners and pink flags everywhere. Women with colourful headscarfs turned into armbands. The sign of feminism; armbands like I had seen before at th
e factory, when they demonstrated because it was shut down because for a while and we weren't getting paid. Back then I had thought those women to be strident; reckless even. Now I was joining them and I tied my paisley headscarf around my arm with pride.
The whole square was a kind of colourful patchwork display, scarves and banners and placards everywhere. A centrepiece of banners had been quickly erected around the ragged lump of stone that used to support Nelson's column. I have never seen anything like it. There for all to see, banners proclaiming an end to the war. Placards denouncing the government. All kinds of slogans.
Up by what used to be the portrait gallery were a few policewomen, but they were vastly out-numbered and stood there bemused by the vast crowd. There was simply nothing that they could do. A few more were stationed, together with a few armed troops, outside South Africa House. It was clear they were taken by surprise.
The crowd was hushed, just women whispering, waiting. The atmosphere was tense. I felt electric. Like nothing I have felt before J, I cannot describe it, I was swept along by the tide of feeling.
M explained to me that they were waiting for the secretary of defence, Watkinson, to arrive. It had been announced in the press that he and the Colonies minister were to have a meeting at the South African embassy to argue for more troops to be sent from there. 'Zulu' regiments they call them; poor black Africans sent half way across the world to fight our stupid war. No choice for them but to follow orders from the apartheid government. As if slavery still existed. But then again, boys like you J had no choice either.
The rumour was that Watkinson would be joined by the Prime Minister; such was the urgency of the need for fresh troops.
Nothing happened for a while. I looked around at the expectant faces. Ordinary women from all classes. From the poorest rag-bound cockney women to the high born ladies, their faces covered with mink stoles to avoid recognition. All shoulder to shoulder in the square.
I suppose I had expected speeches to be made but when I asked M about it she said that the leadership of the women's resistance is always kept secret. Any women standing up to make a speech would be deemed a threat and arrested later. She would be 'disappeared'; that's what M called it. Like they did with your mother. They 'disappeared' her, so that she could no longer be a nuisance.
So no one knows who the leaders are; the network works on a 'need to know' basis and you only ever know the