Harvest of War (14 page)

‘You want me to stand up in front of a hall full of people and talk?' Leo said doubtfully.

He leaned back in his chair and raised his eyebrows. ‘Are you trying to tell me, after everything you've done, that you are frightened of speaking to a civilized English audience?'

Leo took a deep breath. ‘No, you're right. Anyway, it's the least I can do.'

By the end of the month she had found a hall and placed the advertisements in four daily papers. Initially there seemed to be little interest. The fighting on the Western Front was of far more immediate concern to people in England. The Serb's heroic retreat had been consigned to a distant memory and the Salonika front was referred to only in the context of musical hall jokes suggesting that it was a good place for skivers who wanted to avoid the fighting. Then something happened to bring it to the forefront of people's minds. Leo was stunned to open her paper one morning and read that a devastating fire had swept through the city, destroying most of the old buildings. She sat for a long time, remembering the vision of the city rising out of the mists as she sailed towards it, with its towers and minarets. She thought of the
caravanserai
where she and Victoria had slept that first night, and the narrow streets where they had been accosted by the drunken soldiers. She remembered the Makedonia Palace Hotel, where she had first seen Sasha, Floca's, where they had spent so many happy evenings, and above all the room in the small pension where they had slept together. She wondered if her friends at the Red Cross hospital were safe, and the British and French officers whom she had known during that last summer. In spite of her worries, she had to admit that the fire had done one good thing, at least. Salonika was back in the public mind and she was determined to use that to the best advantage.

She was busy writing letters to everyone she could think of who might help with her fund-raising efforts when Beavis came into the room.

‘Pardon me, madam. There's a man at the door, a sergeant in the New Zealand army. He says his name is Luke Pavel and he claims to be an old friend.'

‘Luke!' Leo jumped to her feet. ‘Show him in at once, Beavis.'

‘Very good, madam.' The butler retreated, his back stiff with disapproval at the idea of admitting a non-commissioned officer, and a colonial to boot.

When Luke entered the room Leo was shocked by how much he had changed. He was no longer the romantic boy with the ready grin she had known at Lozengrad and Adrianople. This was a man whose weather-beaten face was lined with exhaustion and whose eyes were shadowed with bitter experience.

She recovered herself quickly and went to take his hand. ‘Luke, this is a wonderful surprise. I'm delighted to see you.'

‘I hope you don't mind,' he said awkwardly. ‘I wasn't sure until this morning that I'd actually get to London, so I didn't write to tell you I was coming. I thought I'd call in on the off chance. I guess that's not the way things are done over here.'

‘Oh, nonsense!' she exclaimed. ‘You don't have to stand on ceremony. You're on leave, of course. Not wounded, I hope?'

‘No. I'm all in one piece – so far, anyway.'

‘That's good to know. Come and sit down. You will stay for luncheon, won't you?'

‘If that's not too much trouble. It's a bit short notice.'

‘Not at all. Of course you must stay.' Leo rang the bell. ‘Now, tell me all your news. Is it terrible in France?'

‘Pretty bad.'

‘Not worse than Gallipoli, surely. From your letters that sounded like hell on earth.'

‘Near enough. But Flanders runs it close. It comes down to the question of whether you'd rather burn or drown, I guess.'

‘You poor man!' Beavis came in and Leo said, ‘Sergeant Pavel is staying to lunch, Beavis. And I'm sure he would like a drink beforehand. I'm going to have sherry, Luke, but I expect you'd rather have something stronger. Whisky and soda?'

‘That would be great.'

‘Thank you, Beavis.'

‘Very good, madam.'

When the butler had gone Leo went on: ‘I read in the papers that you Anzacs distinguished yourselves at Messines. Well done! Was it a very hard fight?'

‘Not to start with. But we lost a lot of men in the German counter-attack. Then a day or two later we were ordered to push on to a place called La Basseville, across the River Lys. That was tough going. We won it and lost it and won it back again over the course of two or three days. Then we were relieved and I was lucky enough to get leave.'

‘How long have you got?'

‘It was a week, but I spent the first two days getting here. Men going on leave don't have a high priority when it comes to seats in railway carriages.'

Beavis re-entered carrying a tray. ‘Your drinks, madam. And Miss Langford is in the hall.'

‘Oh, God!' Leo clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle the exclamation. She had completely forgotten that she had invited Victoria for lunch. Before she could speak, Victoria was in the room, handing her walking stick to the butler.

‘Take this horrible thing away and hide it, Beavis! I'm determined to learn to do without it.' Then, turning to Leo: ‘I'm sorry. I didn't realize you had a visitor.' She stopped short, staring. ‘Luke? It is you, isn't it? Leo, why didn't you tell me . . .?'

Luke broke in. ‘I just looked in on the off chance. I didn't know . . . Look, I'm going to be in the way. I'll go.'

‘You will do nothing of the sort!' Leo said robustly. ‘Vita, Luke's just come back from the fighting in Flanders. I've invited him to lunch.'

‘Of course.' Victoria recovered herself. ‘Please don't go on my account, Luke.' She crossed to him and held out her hand. ‘How do you do?'

‘I'm fine, thanks,' Luke responded, flushed with confusion. ‘But how about you? I mean, why the walking stick?'

‘I had a bit of an accident last January – skidded into a ditch. Careless of me.'

He grinned suddenly. ‘You always were a tiger behind the wheel of a car.'

‘It wasn't a car,' Leo said. ‘It was an ambulance and poor Vita was trapped under it for hours, up to her neck in freezing water.'

‘Jeez! I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make light of it . . .' Luke's confusion was increasing.

‘I'd much rather you did,' Victoria said. ‘It really wasn't anything to make a fuss about.'

Beavis was hovering with the tray of drinks. Leo said, ‘Will you have a sherry before luncheon, Vita? I'm having one.'

Victoria looked at the tray. ‘I think I'll have something stronger, to celebrate Luke's arrival. Bring me a horse's neck, please, Beavis.'

Beavis's face took on a martyred expression. He disapproved of the new fashion for cocktails, especially when drunk by young women. ‘Very good, madam,' he said on a sigh and left the room.

‘Do sit down, both of you,' Leo said.

They sat and for a moment nobody spoke. Leo was trying to work out how to deal with the situation. Victoria had been very non-committal when she had shown her Luke's letter and she could not guess what her friend's feelings towards him were, after a lapse of so many years.

Luke broke the silence. ‘Look, Leo, I didn't mean to gatecrash. I mean, I'm not used to moving in these aristocratic surroundings . . .'

Leo looked round the room and was aware for the first time in years of the ornate chandeliers and the overstuffed furniture.

‘Oh, there's nothing “aristocratic” about this place. This was my grandmother's house. It's badly in need of redecorating and refurnishing, to get rid of all this stuffy Victoriana. But I've had other things on my mind. And don't get the wrong idea. My grandfather was a self-made man who got his money building railways.'

Beavis returned with Victoria's drink, then turned to Leo. ‘Pardon me, madam, but cook would like a word with you.'

Leo could guess what the problem was. She excused herself to her guests and made her way down to the kitchen, where she found the cook glowering at two small lamb chops.

‘This was all I could get from the butcher this morning, Miss Leo, and the boy had to stand in a queue for an hour to get these. And now you ask an extra gentleman to lunch. You tell me how I'm supposed to make three meals out of two chops.'

Leo laid a hand on her arm. ‘I'm sorry. You look after me so well it's easy to forget for a moment how difficult things are. But the problem is easy to solve. Give both the chops to Sergeant Pavel and Miss Langford and I will make do with vegetables. I'll tell him we're on a special diet.'

Back in the drawing room she sensed an atmosphere of understandable constraint. She lifted her glass of sherry. ‘Sorry about that. Cheers!'

Victoria took her cue and raised her glass in turn. ‘Welcome to London, Luke! Oh, and I've just remembered, congratulations! Leo told me you are married. How is Sophie?'

Luke lowered his glass, untouched, his face suddenly bereft of expression.

Leo leaned towards him. ‘Luke? What is it? What's wrong?'

He spoke as if dragging the words from deep within him. ‘I wasn't going to mention this till later. Sophie died. I heard last week.'

‘Sophie, dead?' For a moment Leo could think of nothing else to say. Was there to be no end to the death and destruction, even in a remote corner of the earth like New Zealand?

‘It was some sort of flu,' he said, his tone flat. ‘She volunteered to help in the hospital in Wellington. They reckon it came in with one of the hospital ships coming back from Europe. They say it was all over very quickly.'

Leo looked at Victoria, who sat like a graven image. She got up and went to crouch beside Luke's chair. ‘My dear, I am so sorry. To think she survived the typhus and all the other horrors in Adrianople, only to be struck down just when she seemed to have found a safe place. You must be devastated.'

He looked at her, and his expression was hurt and puzzled, like a child unfairly punished. He said, ‘It's strange. We were married for such a short time. Only a few months. And I've been away now for almost a year. It's sort of . . . unreal. It's hard to believe it ever happened.'

‘What about your little girl?' Leo said gently. ‘Is she all right?'

‘Oh, yes. She's being looked after by my mother. I've got a photograph.'

He fumbled for his wallet and produced a blurred image of a chubby child. The sight tore at Leo's heart strings. ‘She'll be waiting for you when you get home, Luke,' she said huskily. ‘You have that to look forward to, at least.'

He nodded numbly. ‘And Anton – Sophie's boy. Funny to think I've got a ready-made family waiting for me.'

‘Be grateful for that,' Leo said, and turned away.

Beavis appeared at that moment to announce that luncheon was served. Victoria regarded her meatless plate with a puzzled frown and Leo said breezily, ‘Vita and I have given up meat for the moment. It's the latest health advice. And I'm sure we feel better for it, don't we, Vita?'

‘Oh, yes,' Victoria mumbled. ‘Definitely.'

It was not an easy meal. Leo was haunted by the little-boy-lost look in Luke's eyes and could think of no way of banishing it, while Victoria remained unusually taciturn. Leo managed to keep the conversation going on neutral topics, mainly to do with the news from the battle front, but it was clear that Luke had no desire to be reminded of conditions out there. She racked her brains for some way to distract him. Finally, with the coffee, she said, ‘Vita, we should do something to entertain Luke while he's on leave. Why don't we take him to the Coliseum?'

‘The music hall?' Victoria queried. ‘Do you think that's quite . . .?'

‘It's not the usual sort of programme,' Leo said. ‘They are giving this new work by Sir Edward Elgar. It's called Fringes of the Fleet, and the words are settings of poems by Rudyard Kipling. I'm told it's very good.'

‘Kipling?' Luke said. ‘I like his stuff. Let's go.'

For the next few days Leo put aside her fund-raising efforts in order to show Luke round London, and found in the process that she was seeing the city through new eyes. It gave her pleasure to see his unaffected admiration for the splendours of St Paul's and Westminster Abbey, but he was shocked to discover ruined houses, the result of bombs dropped from Zeppelins earlier in the war.

‘I'm glad we didn't have to contend with them as well as everything else at Adrianople,' Luke remarked.

‘We had our share of them in Calais,' Victoria said, ‘until our chaps discovered incendiary bullets. Wow! You should have seen one of them go up!'

Leo had not pressed her to join them but she seemed to take it for granted and it quickly became clear that Luke enjoyed her company. It seemed that the old spark of mutual attraction was not dead. On the last night of Luke's leave they went to dinner at the Savoy and afterwards Leo found that the cab driver had been instructed to drop her off at Sussex Gardens first, leaving him alone with Victoria. Who had arranged it, she was not sure, but she speculated as she undressed for bed that it was not simple coincidence.

Next morning they went to see Luke off at Victoria Station and she watched them both carefully, but their behaviour gave nothing away. After the train had pulled out, however, amid a frenzy of shouts and waves and tears, she was not entirely surprised to see her friend surreptitiously wiping her cheeks.

Tom had come to the conclusion that, if the Somme represented Dante's Seventh Circle of hell, with its plain of fire, Ypres in October, with its unending cold and mud, was the last and lowest circle. All through September the weather had been fine and the sodden ground had dried out again. That had allowed new roads to be laid across the swamp. They were constructed of planks of wood placed side by side and were quickly nicknamed ‘corduroy roads'. The German shelling continued unabated and very soon these roads were lined with the bodies of dead mules and overturned wagons, but slowly the necessary supplies and ammunition were brought forward to support the new advance. Once again, all had gone well to start with, in spite of the fact that on the dry ground the troops were blinded by the dust raised by the shelling. The Anzac forces took and held the Gravenstal spur and pushed forwards to the edge of the salient. And then the rain started again.