Iris and Ruby

Author:Thomas, Rosie [Thomas, Rosie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780007460106
Publisher: Harper Collins, Inc.
Published: 2011-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

‘My darling girl,’ my mother wrote. ‘Your father and I were so excited to hear your big news, and we are so very pleased for you both’

I read her letter at my desk, in a brief lull. GHQ was in turmoil. The offensive had begun two days earlier as twenty-mile lines of Allied troops and armaments poured across the frontier towards Rommel’s Panzer Group Africa, and Tobruk. Roddy Boy had been wearing the same shirt for twenty-four hours because he hadn’t had time to go home and change.

And now, what do you plan to do? You won’t think I’m too sentimental, I hope, if I tell you that I have once or twice dreamed of my girl’s wedding in an English church on a midsummer’s morning, with her father to give her away and perhaps Evie’s children as her little attendants. And her mother shedding one tear in the front pew. Of course this war has changed that for everyone, not just you and your Alexander.

(By the way, my mother’s cousin Wilfred married a Miss Molyneux. Do you think there is already a family connection?)

If pressed, my mother could usually unearth a remote connection by marriage to almost anyone you cared to think of.

You do not mention a date, and it may not be your intention to wait at all. I know that ‘quick’ wartime ceremonies are quite normal nowadays – but, darling, I should so like to see you being married. Perhaps after Christmas, or even in the spring (if it ever comes, this dark winter seems to stretch ahead for ever), your father and I could somehow find a passage out to Cairo to be with you? What with coupons and everything in such short supply here, it may even be easier to put together your trousseau out there. What fun it would be to go shopping together at Cicurel’s. I wonder if my old Lebanese dressmaker still lives in her little house by the Bab al-Futuh?

What a lot there is to think about. Daddy is well, and sends all his love, as do I. The vicar has asked me to help out with the garden effort, we are turning some of the park over to vegetables.

God bless you both. Ever your loving Ma.

I reread this letter several times during that week in late November.

The original offensive by the three brigades of the Seventh Armoured Division and supporting artillery and infantry had developed into the confusion and horror of the battle of Sidi Rezegh. Thirty thousand British, German and Italian tanks and other vehicles milled and circled in a flat, exposed desert landscape of dust, thorns, smoke, burned-out tanks and dead men covering three thousand square miles. On the ground, it was often impossible to tell friend from enemy. Every vehicle that loomed in sight could be a threat or a reinforcement. Signals trucks were captured and whole formations seemed to evaporate because the next link in the chain couldn’t communicate with them. The transport systems of all

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