Harvest of War (20 page)

The captain in charge of their escort shouted, ‘Is there anyone here? Come out and show yourselves!'

Somewhere a dog barked, but otherwise the silence was unbroken. Then Leo saw a movement out of the corner of her eye. An old man appeared at the top of some steps leading down to a cellar.

‘You! Come here,' the captain called. ‘Are you the only one left here?'

The old man spat on the ground. ‘What do you want? Soldiers! You're all the same.'

The captain urged his horse forward and it looked as if he might strike the old man but Leo put her own mount between them. ‘Please, I'm looking for someone. Do you know the Popovic family?'

‘Popovic?' He squinted up at her. ‘The ones who took in the English lady's baby – the one who died?'

Leo felt a hand tighten round her throat. ‘The baby died?'

‘No, not the baby. The woman. Came here for some reason, gave birth and died.'

‘No!' Leo said. ‘No, she didn't die! I'm that woman. I've come to find my baby. Please, do you know where the Popovics are?'

He jerked his head towards a heap of rubble that had once been a house.

‘That was their place.'

‘And what happened to them?'

He shrugged. ‘Direct hit. No chance.'

Leo drooped over the neck of her horse. For a moment she thought she was going to faint. Then she heard a woman's voice.

‘What is it? What do they want, Janachko?' An old woman had joined the man.

‘Looking for the Popovics.' He jerked his head towards Leo. ‘She's the mother of the child they took in. I've told her the whole family bought it when that shell hit their house.'

‘No, they didn't! You silly old fool.' She hobbled to the side of Leo's horse. ‘He doesn't know what he's talking about. They left weeks before that shell hit. They went north to get away from the fighting.'

‘Are you sure?' Leo could feel the blood pulsing in her head. ‘Where did they go?'

‘They were here!' the old man insisted. ‘It was that other lot from next door who left.'

‘No, it wasn't! Don't pay any attention to him, my lady. They went north and took your baby with them.'

Others had appeared from various cellars and hiding places and gathered round, drawn by the sound of voices, and the old man appealed to them. Immediately a vociferous argument began, some maintaining that he was correct, others supporting the old woman. One thing emerged clearly. If the family had left, no one knew where they had intended going.

The captain raised his voice above the hubbub. ‘We won't get any sense out of these people. If you ask me the shelling has driven them all mad.' He rode closer to Leo. ‘The old girl will tell you anything she thinks will please you. She's hoping for a reward.'

Leo looked down at the old lady, who was clutching her stirrup and insisting on the truth of her assertion. ‘Please! Are you telling the truth? Don't give me false hope.'

‘I'm a mother and a grandmother,' she said. ‘I know how it feels to lose a child. Your baby's safe somewhere. I wouldn't lie to you.'

‘Thank you!' Leo felt in her pocket and took out some coins. ‘I don't know if there is anything left to spend money on, but take these anyway. And thank you again.'

The captain gave a brief, contemptuous laugh and called his men to order. As they rode away Leo could see the old couple still arguing. She rode in silence, struggling to reconcile the chaos in her emotions, until she felt Victoria's hand on her arm.

‘I'm so sorry, my dear. It's a cruel disappointment.'

Leo voiced the thoughts that were uppermost in her mind. ‘If the family went north, then they are still in occupied territory. So there's no hope of finding them until the army pushes further forward. Perhaps not until the country has been liberated completely.'

‘How could you trace them, even then?' Luke said. ‘Needles and haystacks don't come close.'

‘There must be ways,' Leo said. ‘There must be refugee camps. Someone must be keeping some kind of records. Or maybe when the country is at peace they will come home to Lavci.'

Neither of her friends replied and they rode on in silence. By the time they reached Bitola Leo had come to a decision. She waited until they were back in the hospital, in the small, draughty room that served as a dining and sitting room for the staff. Then she said, ‘Listen. There's obviously no chance of finding Alexandra until the war is over – or at least until the allies are in charge of most of the country. That could be this summer, but it might take longer. We've had so many false hopes raised about how long it will be before peace comes that I'm not going to rely on anything. I haven't decided whether to stay here or go home and wait, but I'm quite clear about one thing: I can't expect you two to hang around indefinitely. You have your own lives to lead, and Luke needs to get home to his children. I want you to go, as soon as you can find a ship to take you. And when I've found Alexandra – or when I'm sure that there is no point in going on looking – I'll come and visit you. That's my promise, and that's as far ahead as I can see. So please don't argue, or feel you can't leave me. I'm among friends here if I decide to stay on. If not, I shall go home to Tom. I'll miss you, of course I will. But it won't make life any easier for me if I am feeling guilty about you two. Do you understand?'

Luke and Victoria looked at each other. Then Luke took both Leo's hands in his. ‘You are the bravest girl I know and I admire you more than I can say. But you are right. I need to get home and I want Victoria with me. Thank you.'

They left with a convoy the next morning and Leo travelled with them to Salonika. Before she set off she spent a few minutes alone with Pierre Leseaux.

‘I will be back, Pierre. But I don't know when. I'm going to see Luke and Victoria off and then I'm going to see General Bojovic to try to find out how he thinks the war is going. After that, I'll make a decision about whether to go back to England and wait or to come back here and help you. If there seems to be a chance of a quick victory, I'll stay here. If not . . .'

‘If not you should go home,' he said. ‘This uncertainty is taking its toll on you, I can see that. You should go home and find a life for yourself there. Then, if you find your little girl one day, you will have a home to take her back to. And if not . . .'

He left the sentence unfinished and Leo nodded. ‘I understand. And you are right. Goodbye, Pierre. And thank you.'

‘You should not be thanking me. It is the other way round.
Au revoir, ma petite, et bonne chance.
'

As soon as the three friends reached Salonika Luke went down to the docks to investigate the possibility of finding a ship that would take him and Victoria at least part of the way towards New Zealand. He returned with the news that a cargo vessel was leaving for Alexandria in two days' time and he had arranged with the captain to take them on board.

‘Once we get to Alex,' he said, ‘there shouldn't be a problem finding a ship to take us through the Suez Canal, maybe as far as Singapore. We might even manage to wangle our way on to a troop ship heading for Australia, or better still for Wellington.'

‘The day after tomorrow!' Victoria turned to Leo. ‘Now it's so close I don't know if I can bear to leave you here on your own.'

‘Don't be silly!' Leo said. She could have wept at the prospect of losing her friends but she had made up her mind to do nothing to delay them. ‘There's no point in you hanging around. Who knows when you might find another ship to take you?'

‘I wish we knew for sure what you plan to do,' Luke said. ‘I think we should both feel easier in our minds if we knew you were going home too.'

‘It would be for the best, surely,' Victoria urged her. ‘There's nothing you can do here and what about Tom? He must be longing to have you back.'

Leo nodded. ‘Yes, you're probably right. He needs me, and there's not much point in my searching for the Popovics in the middle of the fighting. The sensible thing is for me to go home and wait.'

As she spoke she knew that it was the sensible decision, but the thought of leaving Salonika again dragged at her heart. She had arrived with such high hopes and she had a terrible premonition that if she once went back to England she might never return. A small, treacherous voice somewhere in her head was telling her to go home, marry Tom and abandon the fruitless search for her daughter.

‘Do that!' Victoria said. ‘It's much the best idea. Why doesn't Luke go back to the docks and see if there's a ship that will take you to Italy or Marseilles?'

‘There's no need,' she protested. ‘I'm quite capable of doing it for myself.'

In the event, all three of them went, only to discover that the only ships leaving for either destination in the immediate future were tramp steamers with no accommodation for a passenger.

‘It doesn't matter,' Leo said. ‘I can take the train to Athens. I'm bound to find something suitable there.'

The following day Leo went to call on her old friend General Bojovic, but was informed that he was no longer in Salonika. He had resigned after a disagreement with the High Command over the expansion of the Salonika front. Command was now in the hands of the Vovodja – the Serbian equivalent of Field Marshal – Duke Zivojin Miscic, a veteran of both Balkan Wars and the victor of several famous battles in the time before the Serbs were finally driven out of their homeland.

Indeed, there were those who said if he had been allowed to stand and fight, as he had wished, the terrible retreat through the mountains might never have happened. There had been changes at the head of the French army, too, which was now commanded by General Franchet D'Esperey – known to the English as Desperate Frankie. Leo sensed that there was a new sense of purpose in the air. On the way into the city they had passed gangs of workmen improving the roads that led to the mountains or making new ones, and railway lines were being laid. At last, it seemed, there was a real intention to sustain a new campaign until it resulted in victory.

Her next call was at the British consulate, to let them know she was back and to pick up any mail that had arrived in her absence. She had had dealings with the consul on various occasions and had the impression that he thoroughly disapproved of her, though he was always meticulously courteous. It was an attitude she was familiar with among men of his class and it did not bother her. There were not many letters, since very few of her acquaintances knew where she was. There was one from James Bartlett, her estate manager at Bramwell, to say that all was well and, in spite of the difficulties occasioned by lack of manpower and of horses, the harvest looked promising. There was another from her solicitors regarding minor repairs to the house in Sussex Gardens, and there were three from Tom. She kept those to read when she had dealt with the others. He seemed cheerful. The move to London had suited him very well and he found Sussex Gardens a congenial place to work; Sim and Beavis seemed to get on all right and made sure that he was well looked after; he was painting every day and the gallery owner who had been going to show his earlier work until it went up in smoke was interested in a new exhibition. He added that he missed Leo very much and hoped that she would come home in time to see it.
I hope every day to hear that you have found your daughter and are on your way back to London. Until that happens I shall not be able to fully enjoy all the other advantages which you have so generously provided for me. With all my love, Tom
.

Back at the hotel, Leo tried to compose a response, but she was so undecided about her future plans that she gave it up. She would write when Victoria and Luke had gone. She would have to make up her mind then.

She passed the rest of the day wandering the streets with her friends. Victoria was intent on finding the places she remembered from their first visit in 1912 but very little remained that was recognizable and, while it was a disappointment to her, it was a relief to Leo. She had no wish to be reminded of that more recent summer when she had returned with Sasha. All in all it was an unsatisfactory day for all of them. The awareness of their impending separation weighed on their spirits. Luke and Victoria were torn between anticipation of the new life ahead of them and their anxiety about leaving Leo, and she was struggling with the effort of remaining cheerful and positive in face of the prospect of being left alone.

As they ate their last dinner a thought suddenly came to Leo. ‘You're going to get married. But you are not, yet. Won't that be a problem?'

‘We've talked about it,' Luke said. ‘I was all for waiting till we got back home. I reckoned turning up with a ready-made bride for the second time might be a bit much for my mother. But now I realize that it could cause all sorts of trouble. We're going to ask the ship's captain to marry us.'

Leo felt a lump rise in her throat. ‘I wish I could be there. I should love to see you married.'

Victoria caught her hand. ‘So do I, darling! Of all the people in the world I would want you at my wedding. We did think about tying the knot sooner, when you first came out here. But then we thought it would be better to wait until you had your little girl with you. But now . . .' Her words trailed off into silence.

Luke got up abruptly. ‘I've had an idea. You two stay here and finish your meal. I'll see you back at the hotel in about an hour.'

He was gone before they could ask questions and was back sooner than he had promised, his eyes gleaming triumphantly. ‘I've had a word with the chaplain at the British HQ. He'll marry us at eleven o'clock tomorrow morning on board that British destroyer in the harbour. Technically that's British soil, so he reckons it will be legal, but we can sort out any complications when we get to Wellington. Our ship doesn't sail till the afternoon tide, so we'll have plenty of time. How does that sound?'