Memories of the War

The book was stirring up memories of long ago. I hardly ever thought about it these days, but reading this book was bringing it all back again – the words seemed to talk to me and awaken my senses – allowing me to feel and smell and see everything that had gone on around me all those years ago.

I didn’t usually read history books or as my friend puts it ‘deep’ books that just make you feel morbid and unhappy! I disagreed with that but could see what she meant about the ‘morbid’ feeling, although I would say melancholy and pensive – but Gloria always was a drama queen.

Strictly speaking this wasn’t a book about war that I was reading but of a love story set in the time of WW2. Thankfully there wasn’t too much written about the death and destruction that took place on the battlefields but more the relationship of two people with the war going on around them, in the background so to speak.

The girl in this story was so in love, just as I was. She was young and I was a bit older than she was, not much. She was one of the lucky ones whose fiancée came back to her whereas I lost my true love. He went off to the war and never came back. But that was a long time ago. I’ve been through another two loves since then, two husbands, and both of them predeceasing me – would make a good murder mystery story I expect, if it wasn’t for the fact that they both died of natural causes!

The heroine of the story I was reading was from a middle class family and living in the countryside of Devon, unlike me, who at the time was from the poorer side of town and living on the outskirts of London. Her life was about to be torn apart because the love of her life had enlisted to join the army and would soon be leaving her. I could actually feel the knot in her stomach and see the perspiration on her soft pale brow as he told her. “Don’t leave me. I don’t want you to die fighting the enemy. Do you have to go? Please don’t go.” she begged him, tears sliding down her ashen cheeks.

“Of course I have to go my love” the enthusiastic young man whispered to her, “But I will be back and then we can get married. It will be alright and the war might not last that long anyway. Don’t you worry about me, I’ll be ok” and he imagined what it would be like when he got there – how the enemy succumbed under attack from the mighty British soldiers. Their strength and agility too much for the German’s – he and his mates would come out the victors from the battle, laughing and hugging each other, exhausted but exhilarated.

He had it all wrong.

It didn’t happen like that. The tattered and torn letters that Brenda received from Jeremy on occasion told it differently. The enemy was relentless. The continual sleepless nights in cold deep muddy trenches, the incessant noise of gunfire and planes flying overhead, and the waiting, the long hours of waiting for orders to leave the shelter of the trenches to march, shaking with fear towards what could be your last day on earth.

He never glorified the war; he didn’t want to be there. In his letters he spoke of his love for Brenda and what the future held if he did get back one day. He would never promise to come back, he couldn’t and they both knew it.

And he didn’t come back. He got killed three months after arriving. All Brenda had to remind herself of the man she loved was the St. Christopher he wore around his neck and a letter he had written but not sent to her.

She used to get the letter out and read it each day. But it got too painful to look at the dirt smudged papers, reading the thoughts he had while waiting scared in the trenches. She stopped after a while and put the letter in a plastic bag, high up on the top shelf of the attic. As the years passed by Brenda didn’t think of Jeremy as often as she used to, and she met someone else. The letter just sits in the plastic bag, but this story was reminding her of how she felt all those years ago.

Brenda put the book down and sat with her hands in her lap, thinking of the people who used to live in her street, a lot of them long gone, most really, and those that were still here were either in a nursing home or couldn’t remember much anyway. She was one of the lucky ones, who for her very advanced years had a good memory. She always told people that she put it down to never having a drink and eating oats every day for breakfast! She doesn’t know if she really believed that though.

Mr. Swindon was still around – he lived independently, but after talking to him last week, Brenda thought that it wouldn’t be too long before he had to be looked after. Many years ago he ran the post office not far from where she used to live and was a really cheerful man, always willing to help out if needed. Brenda would go in to send her letters to Jeremy and he would tease her about how sweet the envelope smelled from the perfume she had sprayed on it! He changed a bit thought when his brother got killed during the war. It was his only sibling and he felt guilty that because he was very deaf in one ear and colour blind he didn’t have to enlist. He remained a kind and helpful man but always slightly melancholy. He never married, saying that as Brenda was taken, it was no good looking any further!

The only other people who were around at the time of the war and still here were Mr and Mrs Neilson, who were both in the dementia section of a nursing home. They didn’t even know who each other was any more. Their memories of the war and Mr Neilson coming back severely maimed after being shot down by German fighter jets were long gone. Brenda remembered how the neighbours would take turns in looking after some of the Neilson’s eight children while Mrs Neilson visited her husband in hospital each day and then when he came home to recuperate they would rally around to make some food for the family from the rations they all got. That’s when kind Mr. Swindon would talk his cousin into giving him an extra couple of coupons for the Neilson family to get some added butter and bacon.

Brenda sighed and opened up the book again.

She could relate to the girl in the story worrying, day in and day out about the men at war. She envisioned each time a couple of ranked officers marched up to a door, knocked and stood back, waiting to give the household bad news about a loved one far away and fighting for their country, and the feeling of relief when they got back into their army vehicle and drove off, not having to go to another house. She would shut her front door and cry a few tears in relief. Sometimes if the person lived very close you could hear the wailing of the parents or other family members in disbelief that they would never see their loved one again.

Then on a very cold winter’s day in October, it was her turn. Brenda was at work when the knock at the door came - as soon as she saw her mother’s pale face at the office door, she knew. Something in the look on her mother’s face told her, suddenly filling her with a feeling of dread and anxiety and taking her breath away, and she silently mouthed the words that wouldn’t come out.

Jeremy died on the front line, rifle in his hand. Most of the platoon died that day – young men with their whole lives in front of them. Their bodies were buried where they died and marked with their own bayonet. Many years later some of the bodies were exhumed – the ones found, and buried with dignity and love.

Jeremy was eventually buried in the local church cemetery. After going to visit the burial site, taking flowers and just sitting and thinking for many years, it stopped and Brenda’s life moved on.

“Oh I feel so tired” said Brenda to herself, shutting her book and putting it on the table next to her. “I’ll just have forty winks and then get up to do something” she mumbled as her eyes began to shut and she started to doze off.

In her dream she was back on the day that the war was officially declared over. Brenda and her two best friends raced out, disbelieving, from the building where they had been working voluntarily putting together parcels for the soldiers at war. “It’s over, the war is over, we’ve defeated them” a group of boys had raced in shouting at the top of their lungs. Everyone downed whatever it was they were doing and ran outside. The air rang with the sound of people singing, loudly declaring “There’ll always be an England”. Groups of friends had all joined hands and were jumping up and down and laughing. The air around was saturated with elation and relief – the six years of hell were over. Shouts of “Let’s get the tube into London” could be heard as people raced to jump on the tube and get to the heart of a country that had been smashed to a pulp by the German bombings. It seemed as if everyone had come out to celebrate! The street was jam-packed, children had come home from school and stood with their families, laughing, joking and hugging each other tightly. Brenda told her friends to go on before her on the tube as she wanted to go home to find her parents and share the joy with them.

Her elation that she shared with her mum and dad was diminished by the realization that she wouldn’t get to spend the warless years, the future, without the fear of bombs and death with the love of her life. The fact that Jeremy gave up his life so they could all enjoy this moment in time, didn’t seem fair. She sat on the front step, her head resting on her mother’s shoulder and cried, sobbed for all that could have been for her and Jeremy and never would be.

Brenda woke suddenly and sat up in her chair. She wiped away tears from her eyes and off her cheeks, and then she remembered the dream. Feeling all of her age she struggled to get up and off the seat but eventually walked into the kitchen. She had picked up the book on her way through and put it in the bin. ‘That’s enough of that book. I need to brighten up! No more thinking of the past for me – I intend to enjoy whatever future I have left’.