. . . I wasn’t going to tell you about this now. I still don’t know what to think and I wanted to wait until we’re together. Now I have your letter, it doesn’t make sense not to tell you. The first surprise is that Briony isn’t at Cambridge. She didn’t go up last autumn, she didn’t take her place. I was amazed because I’d heard from Dr. Hall that she was expected. The other surprise is that she’s doing nurse’s training at my old hospital. Can you imagine Briony with a bedpan? I suppose they all said the same thing about me. But she’s such a fantasist, as we know to our cost. I pity the patient who receives an injection from her. Her letter is confused and confusing. She wants to meet. She’s beginning to get the full grasp of what she did and what it has meant. Clearly, not going up has something to do with it. She’s saying that she wants to be useful in a practical way. But I get the impression she’s taken on nursing as a sort of penance. She wants to come and see me and talk. I might have this wrong, and that’s why I was going to wait and go through this with you face to face, but I think she wants to recant. I think she wants to change her evidence and do it officially or legally. This might not even be possible, given that your appeal was dismissed. We need to know more about the law. Perhaps I should see a solicitor. I don’t want us to get our hopes up for nothing. She might not mean what I think she does, or she might not be prepared to see it through. Remember what a dreamer she is. I’ll do nothing until I’ve heard from you. I wouldn’t have told you any of this, but when you wrote to tell me again that I should be in touch with my parents (I admire your generous spirit), I had to let you know because the situation could change. If it’s not legally possible for Briony to go before a judge and tell him she’s had second thoughts, then she can at least go and tell our parents. Then they can decide what they want to do. If they can bring themselves to write a proper apology to you, then perhaps we may have the beginning of a new start. I keep thinking of her. To go into nursing, to cut herself off from her background, is a bigger step for her than it was for me. I had my three years at Cambridge at least, and I had an obvious reason to reject my family. She must have her reasons too. I can’t deny that I’m curious to find out. But I’m waiting for you, my darling, to tell me your thoughts. Yes, and by the way, she also said she’s had a piece of writing turned down by Cyril Connolly at Horizon. So at least someone can see through her wretched fantasies. Do you remember those premature twins I told you about? The smaller one died. It happened in the night, when I was on. The mother took it very badly indeed. We’d heard that the father was a bricklayer’s mate, and I suppose we were expecting some cheeky little chap with a fag stuck on his lower lip. He’d been in East Anglia with contractors seconded to the army, building coastal defenses, which was why he was so late coming to the hospital. He turned out to be a very handsome fellow, nineteen years old, more than six feet tall, with blond hair that flopped over his forehead. He has a clubfoot like Byron, which was why he hadn’t joined up. Jenny said he looked like a Greek god. He was so sweet and gentle and patient comforting his young wife. We were all touched by it. The saddest part was that he was just getting somewhere, calming her down, when visiting time ended and Sister came through and made him leave along with everyone else. That left us to pick up the pieces. Poor girl. But four o’clock, and rules are rules. I’m going to rush down with this to the Balham sorting office in the hope that it will be across the Channel before the weekend. But I don’t want to end on a sad note. I’m actually very excited by this news about my sister and what it could mean for us. I enjoyed your story about the sergeants’ latrines. I read that bit to the girls and they laughed like lunatics. I’m so glad the liaison officer has discovered your French and given you a job that makes use of it. Why did they take so long to find out about you? Did you hang back? You’re right about French bread—ten minutes later and you’re hungry again. All air and no substance. Balham isn’t as bad as I said it was, but more about that next time. I’m enclosing a poem by Auden on the death of Yeats cut out from an old London Mercury from last year. I’m going down to see Grace at the weekend and I’ll look in the boxes for your Housman. Must dash. You’re in my thoughts every minute. I love you. I’ll wait for you. Come back. Cee.
HE WAS WOKEN by a boot nudging the small of his back. “C’mon, guv’nor. Rise and shine.”
He sat up and looked at his watch. The barn entrance was a rectangle of bluish-black. He had been asleep, he reckoned, for less than forty-five minutes. Mace diligently emptied the straw from the sacks and dismantled his table. They sat in silence on the hay bales smoking the first cigarette of the day. When they stepped outside they found a clay pot with a heavy wooden lid. Inside, wrapped in muslin cloth, was a loaf and a wedge of cheese. Turner divided the provisions right there with a bowie knife.
“In case we’re separated,” he murmured. A light was on already in the farmhouse and the dogs were in a frenzy as they walked away. They climbed a gate and began to cross a field in a northerly direction. After an hour they stopped in a coppiced wood to drink from their canteens and smoke. Turner studied the map. Already, the first bombers were high overhead, a formation of about fifty Heinkels, heading the same way to the coast. The sun was coming up and there was little cloud. A perfect day for the Luftwaffe. They walked in silence for another hour. There was no path, so he made a route by the compass, through fields of cows and sheep, turnips and young wheat. They were not as safe as he thought, away from the road. One field of cattle had a dozen shell craters, and fragments of flesh, bone and brindled skin had been blasted across a hundred-yard stretch. But each man was folded into his thoughts and no one spoke. Turner was troubled by the map. He guessed they were twenty-five miles from Dunkirk. The closer they came, the harder it would be to stay off the roads. Everything converged. There were rivers and canals to cross. When they headed for the bridges they would only lose time if they cut away across country again. Just after ten they stopped for another rest. They had climbed a fence to reach a track, but he could not find it on the map. It ran in the right direction anyway, over flat, almost treeless land. They had gone another half hour when they heard antiaircraft fire a couple of miles ahead where they could see the spire of a church. He stopped to consult the map again. Corporal Nettle said, “It don’t show crumpet, that map.”