Becoming Mrs Mulberry by Jackie French

Author:Jackie French
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin Enterprises (Australia) Pty Ltd
Published: 2023-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

It was a good evening. Douglas seemed surprised to see Annie at the dinner table, but clearly enjoyed listening as she and Agnes compared the ferocity of matrons and ward sisters they had known.

Douglas contributed a single tale about a certain sergeant major in the few weeks of basic training that had been all an officer received by that stage of the War. ‘He n-never let up on us. W-woke us up at two am to go for a twenty mile run in the rain. By the end of that s-stint he’d turned a group of lads from across the c-country into a tight-knit band. That final night we each s-stood him a drink in the pub, w-waited till he was outside …’ he paused to swallow a forkful of potatoes dauphin ‘… then t-tipped him into the d-duckpond, with more d-duck than p-pond, if you know what I mean.’

Agnes laughed. Annie choked on her stuffed shoulder of lamb. ‘At least you had friends with you when you went to France,’ said Annie.

‘We didn’t g-go together,’ Douglas said shortly. ‘All s-sent on different postings. Never s-saw each other again.’ He was silent for a while, staring at his plate. Neither woman broke the silence. At last he said, ‘The average lifespan of a junior officer on the front was three w-weeks.’

Does he know how many of the others are alive? Agnes wondered. She had read letters to him over the years, not just thanks from the families Puddin’ had helped in his name but some — shorter and more matter-of-fact — from men he had known in the army.

It had struck her that there were no long emotional letters, the kind women sent each other, words of comfort, even of despair. But perhaps the letter writers had heard of Douglas’s shell shock and kept their messages brief so as not to burden him.

She had suggested replies to them, and he had nodded, and so she had composed them in his name and he’d signed them. She was glad she’d kept them all, in the bottom drawer of the library desk. One day he might want to read them again. There had been no replies, but that too might have been because Douglas’s mental state had been so publicised.

Silence shadowed the room again. Suddenly Annie gave a startled cry, staring out the window where, as usual, the curtains hadn’t been shut, the electric light spilling into the garden. ‘I think … I’m sure … I saw a naked man run past.’

‘That must be Private Private,’ said Agnes, relieved to have a harmless subject. Annie must have seen naked men in her years as a nurse, so she doubted she was traumatised by the sight of a pair of buttocks. ‘He’s a naturist, a nudist. He lives in a hut across the ridge.’

Annie absorbed that with no more than a blink. ‘But why was he running past your window tonight?’

‘He’s often out at night. He traps rabbits, but I’ve just found out he was a zoologist before the War.

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