‘Scarlet’s right. I’ve only been here a short while, but the way he looks at you? It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out.’
Ellie blinked away tears. It was so unusual for her to feel like this, but something about their time in Normandy had affected her deeply, from the moment she’d seen those bodies bobbing in the water – water red with the blood of their fallen soldiers.
‘He’s been worried about you, too,’ Scarlet said, her voice tinged with sadness. ‘We all have. But that’s not why he wants to see you. He told me that if he’d met you back in London, he’d have taken you for lovely dinners and long walks. I think this is his way of trying to be romantic.’
‘So it’s not a pity date?’ Ellie asked, making herself laugh. It had been so long since she’d simply giggled and been silly, joked around and made fun. ‘Please tell me I’m not a pity date,’ she moaned.
The other girls laughed and Ellie linked her arms through theirs, taking a big lungful of air. It was cold and it was dreary outside, but something inside of her was finally starting to thaw.
‘I don’t know where I’d be without you two,’ she confessed.
‘Bored, that’s where you’d be,’ Lucy quipped.
Scarlet dropped her head to Ellie’s shoulder for a moment, and Ellie knew that despite all the jokes, her friends felt the same. They’d looked after her in her darkest moments – times that she’d been so sleep-deprived and tormented by her thoughts, she didn’t know how she’d have survived without them.
‘I think today you’ll finally see how much you mean to him,’ Scarlet said in a low voice.
‘If I manage to get a bath first, you mean?’
Ellie and Scarlet burst out laughing at the same time.
‘Hey, I wasn’t going to say anything, but let’s be honest. I wouldn’t let a man near me right now!’ Lucy giggled.
‘Even your gorgeous soldier?’ Scarlet asked, still laughing.
‘One whiff of me and he’d probably lose his memory all over again.’
Ellie burst out laughing. ‘You girls,’ she muttered, shaking her head. ‘Heavens, I’d forgotten how good it was to laugh.’
They all looked up as a truck came rumbling down the road, the noise making them pause. Ellie was so used to being cautious now that it came as second nature, on alert at the first sign of danger.
‘It’s one of ours, we’re fine,’ Scarlet said quickly.
The truck passed slowly, the weary-looking soldiers raising their hands as it went by them. Ellie wasn’t attention hungry, but she thought it was sad when a group of young men didn’t say anything or even whistle at three nurses on the side of the road. They might all be in need of a bath, but her friends were pretty, and the soldiers they’d waved goodbye to back in London wouldn’t have missed the chance to wolf-whistle or wink at a pretty nurse. Now, those same soldiers had a defeated look in their eyes that she saw countless times in the hospital, and it made her so sad.
‘So where do you think we should go? I mean, to find what we need?’ Scarlet asked.
Lucy was the first to start walking again and Ellie quickly fell in beside her.
‘Some of the girls said to head to a large white farmhouse, one with the flag flying on the front porch. Someone said something about the people there having a soft spot for nurses, so they’re often willing to sell food cheap, like eggs.’
Ellie listened to Lucy then turned to Scarlet when she started to speak.
‘I think we should hitch a ride to the convent. The one in Bayeux. If I had to choose, I’d rather have a shower than something to eat.’
Ellie didn’t mention that she’d heard how long the queues could be there because she knew how desperately Scarlet wanted to find word about Thomas. Her friend might have had feelings for the man who was supposed to become her brother-in-law, but it hadn’t curbed her determination to find her fiancé. Maybe her guilt was making her more determined.
‘So the option is to get one of those jeeps to take us,’ Lucy said, frowning, ‘and spend the better part of the day travelling, or head straight to a local farmhouse and beg them to feed us?’
Scarlet made a kind of clucking noise in her throat that reminded Ellie of a chicken. Ellie stifled a laugh. ‘I know it would be cold, but couldn’t we just bathe in a river or something? I’m ready to beg for food!’
Scarlet scowled and stuck her thumb out as soon as the distant rumble of a vehicle sounded out on the road, most likely heading straight for them. ‘You two can do as you like, but Ellie? If I were you and I had a fine man like Spencer all excited about an afternoon alone with me, I’d be choosing the hot bath first.’
Ellie clamped her hand over her mouth. The Scarlet she’d met all those months ago would never have said anything like that. ‘You’re trouble,’ she teased.
‘Me?’ Scarlet laughed. ‘If you think I’m trouble you obviously haven’t met my friend Ellie.’
Ellie poked out her tongue before looking back and seeing the jeep heading straight for them, going slow enough to make her think it was stopping for them. ‘Fine. But don’t moan if we end up standing in queue for hours.’
Not to mention if they ended up taking so long that she missed the time she was supposed to have with Spencer.
Ellie was a ball of nerves. They’d finally made their way back after their baths, which had only cost a few francs but had made Ellie feel like a million dollars. She’d forgotten how incredible it felt to have every part of her body clean and scrubbed. Her hair was long dry, and she’d pinned it up with some help from Scarlet and Lucy, since she didn’t have a mirror. Now all she could do was wait, and perhaps pay for another cup of real coffee. It had been her other highlight of the day, drinking real coffee with real milk. She smiled just thinking about the difference between what she’d finished drinking to what she’d survived on at camp.
But now Lucy and Scarlet had gone off in search of food to take back to camp, with eggs top of the list, and she was waiting for Spencer to arrive. Part of her wondered if it was a cruel joke, that he wasn’t truly coming and her friends had only been teasing, but she knew them better than that. They would never have waved her goodbye and left her to wait for no one.
‘Ellie.’
She jumped at the sound of his voice, turning slowly. She was standing outside the little place where she’d had coffee, not minding the cool breeze.
‘I’m so sorry to keep you waiting like this.’
Spencer’s smile was kind, his face open as he looked down at her.
‘I’ve hardly been waiting. We only arrived back from Bayeux less than an hour ago.’
He moved closer, his arm extended like he wasn’t quite sure what to do, and it made her laugh. She grabbed his hand and smiled up at him. Today was the first day in a long while that she’d felt a little like her old self, and she was going to make the most of it.