Softly Grow the Poppies by Audrey Howard Page B

You’ve seen the posters. The Germans are trying to get to the sea to cut us off but so far, thank God, they have not succeeded. It’s quite clear it will not all be over by Christmas, in fact it seems to be stalemate.’
    ‘What does that mean, Harry?’ She sat in a chair opposite him, sipping her chocolate, her hands cupped round the mug, one of the puppies determinedly chewing the toe of her boot while the other cried under the table lost in the folds of the cloth and unable to see his mother. Harry casually rescued him then sat down again.
    ‘It means the trench lines dug by our troops and theirs are so heavily defended on both sides they cannot be breached. Miles of barbed wire and machine guns are deployed. Charlie says—’
    ‘You’ve heard from your brother?’
    ‘Yes, being an officer his letters aren’t censored so he can tell me these things. Anyway, I shall find out for myself soon. I shall report . . .’
    She scarcely heard the rest of his sentence, for the banging of her heart was in her ears. She could not bear to think of him in danger and her face was white now, the lovely peach tint drained from it.
    ‘. . . so I shall have to get the . . . the funeral over and then . . . I’m hoping Charlie will get compassionate leave. Forty-eight hours perhaps.’
    He was filled with consternation when she stood up abruptly, picked up the puppies and made for the door.
    ‘I must let you get on. I’m sorry to have held you up.’
    He stood just as quickly. ‘Don’t be daft, lass,’ smiling as he fell into the tongue of the Lancashire man he was. ‘You have been most welcome. And what about the puppies? You can’t carry them on a horse. I assume you rode over?’
    ‘I can walk.’
    ‘Let me send them over with Enoch then.’
    ‘I would be glad if your man could bring them. It will give me time to warn Dolly.’
    She was terrified he would see the expression on her face which would have told him that she found his going to war was unbearable. At last she understood what Alice had gone through. Stumbling to the front door, not bothering to be
shown out
as was the correct way of doing things in their society, she ran down the steps, mounted her chestnut mare which was almost the same colour as her own hair and galloped off down the neglected drive as if the devil were after her.
    When she reached home she dismounted and almost threw the mare’s reins at Davy, who scuttled from the stable where he and Fred had been having a crafty smoke, and dashed across the yard to the kitchen door.
    ‘We’ve got a visitor,’ were the first words Dolly spoke, moving to one side as Rose flung open the door, revealing, to Rose’s astonishment, the huddled figure of Alice Weatherly. She was slumped at the table doing her best to drink the cup of tea that Dolly had thrust into her shaking hands.
    ‘Alice!’ At once Rose could feel the hopelessness that had run through her body when Harry told her he was to go to war begin to drain away from her. Here at last was someone she could talk to, someone who would understand what she herself was feeling, but when Alice stood up, the tea ignored, the change in her was obvious. Dolly was to tell every one of them over and over in the next few days that she had never been so shocked in all her born days. Her lovely bright hair, which had once been so fair and bonny, hung in a lank curtain about her face and down her back. Her eyes were lifeless and her hands wavered like two snowflakes towards Rose as though she might fall. Tom was in the kitchen having a brew and as Alice stood, his newly lit pipe fell from between his teeth and shattered on the stone floor, the noise seeming to bring them all back to life. Dolly took her hand from her face and turned on Carrie and Polly, shooing them into the scullery.
    ‘Why don’t tha’ come to’t fire, my lamb, an’ get thi’ warm,’ Dolly invited and Rose moved at last.
    ‘Come, Alice, you must be frozen. Bring your tea and