David Monnery - For King and Country

They had reached the edge of the Serpentine. ‘Playing Cowboys and Indians in the Scottish hills,’ he said wryly. ‘Getting ready for the big day, like everyone else.’

‘And when will it be?’

He grunted. ‘You’d better ask Churchill that. Or Eisenhower.’

‘It’ll be soon though, won’t it?’

‘I should think so.’

‘And you’ll be part of it?’ She sounded worried now.

‘Me and a million others,’ he said lightly, but she wasn’t to be put off so easily.

‘Robbie,’ she said, ‘I know it’s been awfully hard for you. Since Catherine died, I mean. And I know you can’t bear the thought of working for Father when all this is over, but there are lots of other things you could do.’

‘I know,’ he said. For some reason he felt close to tears.

‘I suppose I’m being really selfish,’ she went on, ‘but I need my brother and I just want you to be careful.’

He put an arm round her shoulder and squeezed. ‘I promise I will,’ he said.

By the time McCaigh had taken the Circle Line to Liverpool Street and the LNER stopping service to Stoke Newington he felt as though he’d seen enough trains to last him several lifetimes. Three hundred and sixty miles in twenty-four hours, he told himself as he took the short cut through Abney Park cemetery. Fifteen miles an hour. He had always been good at arithmetic.

His mum’s welcome more than made up for the rigours of the journey. She plied him with another breakfast – his Uncle Derek had apparently been present when certain items fell off a lorry in nearby Dalston – and went through all the local gossip. One family they all knew in Kynaston Street had been killed by a direct hit only a couple of weeks before.

‘Has it been bad?’ he asked her.

She shook her head. ‘Nothing like the real Blitz. And everything’s much better organized these days. We quite enjoy it down the shelter these days, what with bingo and all that. Or at least your dad and I do. When the siren goes Patrick’s usually nowhere to be found.’

‘He’s at school now, isn’t he?’

She shrugged. ‘Supposed to be, but I doubt it. He’s been helping out with the fire wardens lately – real proud of himself, he is. He must have lied about his age – either that or your mate Terry took pity on him. At least it’s stopped him moaning on and on about how the war’s going to end before he has the chance to join up. Way he talks you’d think it was like being in the films. And I don’t want you encouraging him, either,’ she added with a threatening look.

‘I won’t,’ he promised.

She believed him. ‘When you came home last time I thought you were keeping something back, but I didn’t like to pry.’

‘Nah,’ he said, ‘not really. We were on this op in Italy – eight of us – and four got killed. Felt a bit close to home, I suppose.’

‘Not surprised.’ She got up to pour them both another cup of tea. ‘Bloody Eyeties,’ she muttered as she put the cosy back over the teapot.

He laughed. ‘Matter of fact it was Eyeties who helped the rest of us escape from the bloody Krauts,’ he told her.

She looked at him. ‘But you’re all right?’

‘Yeah, you know me.’ He changed the subject. ‘How’s Dad?’

‘He’s at work, if you can call gazing at trees work.’ Donal McCaigh was the head park keeper at nearby Clissold Park. He’d been a trainee teacher just before the last war, but several exposures to mustard gas in the Ypres salient had left his lungs permanently impaired, and forced him into an outdoor career. ‘He’ll be home for lunch. So should Patrick, though I think he’s got a game this afternoon.’

McCaigh’s sixteen-year-old brother had been an above-average footballer since he could walk, and most of the family were hoping he’d get a chance to turn professional after the war. The exception was his mother, who wanted him to go for something with a future. ‘If he hasn’t,’ she added, ‘he’ll just be bouncing that damn ball against the wall out the back all bloody afternoon.’

McCaigh grinned.

‘You should be thinking about going to university when the war ends,’ she told him, the bit now firmly between her teeth.

‘I’ll probably be past thirty!’ he said.

‘Won’t matter,’ she said emphatically. ‘They’ll be taking all ages after this. And you’ve got most of the family’s brain rations – why waste them? I tell you, Mickie, there’s a lot of things are going to be different after this war, and a lot of opportunities. You want to be prepared.’

‘I’ll give you another lecture tomorrow,’ she said, laughing. ‘Now why don’t you catch up on your kip. I’ve made up the other bed for you, and I’ll wake you for lunch.’

It seemed like a good idea, and his head had no sooner hit the fresh pillow than he was out for the count.

Neil Rafferty had been lucky with his connection at Bletchley, and the sun was just clambering above the houses beyond the sidings when his train drew into Cambridge. There were no buses in the station forecourt but the house he and Beth had rented for the past two years was only a twenty-minute walk away, and it felt good to be stretching his legs after such a long journey.

Even as a child he had loved this time of day, and the grandparents who had brought him up had never had any trouble getting him out of bed, or at least not when the sun was shining. He had never known his father, who had died on the Somme before he was born, and he had no memories of his mother, who had succumbed to the postwar flu epidemic. His father’s parents had taken him in and he had grown up in their Cambridge house, surrounded by his professorial grandfather’s books and the model cars and ships which his father had once laboured to construct.

He would visit them later that afternoon, after spending the morning with Beth and the baby.

The thought of his wife made him lengthen his stride. He hadn’t seen her for more than a month, and there hadn’t even been a letter for over a fortnight, but he was hoping that this visit would be special. It could hardly turn out as badly as the last one, which had coincided with her time of the month. In two days she’d hardly let him touch her.

This time they had a whole week, and he felt better already. The last couple of months hadn’t been easy, but as he walked through the Cambridge streets in the early morning sunshine Italy seemed a long way away.

Rafferty was not a man given to introspection – his mind gravitated to the practical, to problem-solving – but he had spent quite a lot of time trying to understand why those few days in Italy had affected him so deeply. No simple explanation had occurred to him – it had, he decided, been a combination of factors. The brutality of the Germans had shaken him, and he supposed that the deaths of the four SAS men had brought home his own vulnerability. Jools Morgan had always seemed so indestructible, then bang, he was gone. Somehow it had all become real in that moment – not only the war and soldiering but the life he lived outside all that. Beth and the baby. England in the sun.

He passed the end of the road where his grandparents lived, resisting the temptation to drop in for just a few minutes. Another two turnings and he was approaching his own front door. The house was nothing special, just a two-up two-down, but the ivy they had started was already threatening to engulf the front room window. Too impatient to rummage through his bag for the key, he banged twice with the knocker.

Beth opened the door with a smile on her face, and he reached forward to take her in his arms. She backed away, the smile gone, replaced by surprise and something else. ‘Neil,’ she said instinctively. ‘Don’t…’ And then she saw the expression on his face. ‘What are you…didn’t you get my letter?’