I remember the day our boys came home. I say 'our boys'...
We only got one of our boys back.
I was an evacuee at the beginning of the war. I was taken in by a couple named Martin and Luella, alongside another girl called Masako. We were both barely 15 years old, so the people in charge stuck us together.
I didn't mind. It was nice to have a friend. Even if she was a bit quiet.
Martin and Luella had their own children, twins who were a year or so older than me and Masako. Their names were Oliver and Eugene, or Noll and Gene as they were more affectionately called.
Masako and I used to stay up late, giggling about these boys. We were silly and fifteen, arguing over who we were going to marry and what we were going to call our future children.
The reality of war had not hit us then.
My parents died sixth months after I was evacuated. I guess that was when it hit me. The letters just stopped.
And then I received a single letter from an old neighbour telling me what happened. Naturally, I was inconsolable.
Luella and Martin didn't know quite how to help. Neither did Masako. She had lived a life of luxury before being evacuated. Luella and Martin weren't bad off for money. But in the wartime… Well, their lovely garden had been converted into a small farm to grow vegetables and keep chickens.
Luella protested to keep one of her rose bushes.
It was the twins that comforted me. I had not known they were adopted until then. But they promised that I would not be without a family, as long as they were around.
I say 'they'.
Gene did the talking. He always did. Noll just kind of sat there. His mouth did twitch at one point. I think that it was supposed to be a reassuring smile.
The twins were drafted when they hit eighteen. Both of them had wanted to go into scientific fields. They should have been omitted on that point alone. But so many people were applying for a scientific role and exemption from fighting that they were rejected.
Luella cried for a week when they were taken.
Gene had hugged her and told her it would be fine. That they would both come back. Even Noll hugged her before stepping onto the train.
And life continued.
Occasionally, we received letters from them. Mostly from Gene on behalf of them both. But once they were split up into different troops, Noll sent his own.
Once he sent one just for me.
It mainly consisted of requests to look after his mother, which I was doing anyway, but it was still nice.
I wrote to them both, as often as I could afford. I told them about the vegetable patch. Masako and I had several competitions for the biggest potato or longest runner bean. It was petty but kept us amused.
But then Luella and Martin received news.
Gene was MIA.
Not dead, just missing. No one needed to add 'presumed dead' to the letter. We all knew it was there. No one cried. We all pretended.
Gene was a mischievous sod. He'd probably just got lost. Or that is what we told ourselves.
But when the boys came home…
Only Noll stepped off the train. He knew about Gene.
I remember his blank face as he embraced Luella and shook Martin's hand. Masako had stayed long enough to welcome him back before returning to her own parents.
"Gene probably got on the wrong train," Luella had said. "Oh my how you've grown."
He had grown. Sure, he had always been taller than me. But now he was a lot taller.
I remember pouting up at him. I remember him smirking back down at me.
In that moment, I thought everything would be okay. But Gene didn't get the next train either. Or the one after that.
A month later, a young man turned up on our doorstep.
"My name is Osamu Yasuhara," he had declared. "I fought with Gene. I brought you his things."
He had passed over a box and turned to leave, but Luella invited him in. She asked all about his time with Gene until they were both in tears. Noll had sat in the corner of the living room, listening without making a comment until Yasuhara really had to leave.
"Do you think he's alive?"
"I believe he could be," Yasuhara had said in a quiet voice. "If I hear anything, then I'll let you know. But Gene was the cleverest guy in our lot, if anyone made it, it would be him."
I knew Noll was upset that night because instead of reading alone, he chose to sit in my room and read there. I didn't mind one bit. After listening to stories of Gene, I did not want to be alone either.
Over the next few months, we got used to the idea that Gene was never coming back.
Oliver applied to university and I started looking for a proper job. I had picked up a load of random skills due to various odd jobs that I had taken to help the war effort. After all the suffering, what I really wanted was to help people.
Luella had taken to going to the local hospices and talking to the grieved parents. Sometimes I went with her and spoke to the soldiers that had returned with injuries.
It was odd. Seeing so many people missing a leg or an arm…
But they appreciated my company. I thought about training as a nurse, so I could relieve those people of some of their pain. I remember talking it through with Oliver, who deemed it 'not an entirely stupid idea'.
I took that as his approval. So I trained, hoping to earn enough to move out and stop burdening Luella and Martin.
But they did not like that idea one bit. I quite thought that they saw me leaving as losing another child. They had only let Masako go because she had her own parents to return to.
I remember, about a year after Noll's return, that he started getting nightmares. The horrors of war returning to him. He spoke, reluctantly, of flashbacks. I also caught him, once or twice, collapsing to the floor and shielding his head at the sound of any loud noise.
It took time for that to go away.
Life got better.
When I became a fully fledged nurse, I decided I would declare that I was going to move out and make my own way. That I would forever be eternally grateful for everything they had done for me…
But someone got there first.
Noll told them he was going to move out.
Which Luella and Martin had refused to believe. They all but banned Noll from attempting it. But Noll had always been clever. I think he knew what I wanted to do. He saw the solution.
He proposed to me.
In front of his parents and everything. As my best friend of the past few years, I could not refuse him. It perhaps was not the wild romance I had dreamed of in my youth. But I think I understand looking back that Noll was not the type.
Luella and Martin even threw us an engagement party. They invited the entire village. Lots of people threw parties at that time. Just as an excuse for everyone to be happy together.
But we still ended up crying.
Martin had just called for silence when it happened. He had been about to make a toast when there was a knock on the door.
I remember Luella's frown. She had scurried off to answer it.
Then she screamed.
Everyone flocked to the door.
It was Gene.
He was propped up on crutches due to half a missing leg. Yasuhara had stood behind him, holding his bags. It was the first time I had ever seen Noll cry.
It turned out Yasuhara had lost his parents in the war, much like I had. So he returned to the continent, looking for Gene. Who had been holed up in a small French village. A bomb had blown the lower half of his leg off. The villagers had nursed him back to health from a coma. But they had had no way of easily finding out how to get him back.
Until Yasuhara turned up.
That night was the best night of my life.
Luella and Martin took Yasuhara in, much like they had taken me in. Noll and I moved out after we had married. But we did not live far away. Eventually, Luella let Gene and Yasuhara move out too, one they had got settled into jobs.
I don't think Luella ever got used to Gene joking about his lack of leg.
"At least you can tell us apart now!"
Noll never seemed to care. I think he was just happy to have his brother back.
We were lucky. In a way so many other families were not.
Our boys came home.
Author's note: So this is the result of me watching those "soldiers coming home" videos on YouTube... Thanks to Circe and Tiffo for editing!
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