24 Sept.
1915
Albert, France

Tommy,

I was thinking this morning of what to write to you. It's not been an eventful week and I was lacking anything interesting, when I met two young girls playing in the town streets, beneath the Notre-Dame de Brebières- where the Leaning Virgin is.

I'm sure you've heard of her, apparently she's like folklore among you boys.

Anyway, these two little girls are the daughters of a local farmer who came up for market today. They have the whitest hair I've ever seen. It's almost like someone's managed to find a way to wear sun rays- you know the kind you see breaking through the clouds when you're standing on top of a hill? They have very pale skin to match, though I don't doubt they will be brown like the rest of the village before long. Hard work in the sun hasn't caught up with them yet and it's very endearing.

These little girls were running around, playing a game I thought I recognised, which is why I took interest.

I was sitting with Emma and Nessie at the time, playing our own game of cards, but I was losing and desperate to find a quick way out before I was at risk of having to give Emma my best bar of soap (you know how terrible I am at Poker). I excused myself with the reason to go after the girls and find out what they were playing.

It was a simple little game, they'd involved other children in it by the time I got over- one where some of the group chased the others, and if they were caught they were sent to a sort of prison. In their case it was a hole in a bush where lots of young children can fit in quite nicely.

The villagers are always welcoming, but the children most of all. I think, in their naivety, they see as as more of a novelty that anything serious. Dressed in strange clothing, with strange accents and terrible French to match (really- you'd laugh at how bad my French is still), they end up liking us a lot. It took a bit of time to get them to fully explain the rules, but it was a good waste of an afternoon once they let the lot of us get involved.

I realised I recognised the game because it was something we used to play when we were younger, but instead of in a beautiful French town, it was in the mud of Charlie's yard, and I think we called it something like coppers and thieves. I hope you appreciate the irony of that as much as I do. It seems we were destined from children to end up how we are.

We were very proud of ourselves, making up the game, but it turns out even little girls in France play it, so we weren't really that clever were we? Anyway, I suppose I must have been about eight, so a bit older than the girls, whose names are Heloise and Camille by the way (from what I could gather anyway). It means you and Freddie would have been thirteen. God, we were young weren't we?

Once I persuade the children to let me and the other girls join in we were hardly allowed to stop. The little Heloise also seems to have taken a shine to me. She refused to leave my side all afternoon, but it was a price worth paying to get a chance to play.

I'm sure if the matron had seen us trying to hide in that bush and running after screaming children she would have thrown a fit, so it's lucky she wasn't there. The whole time we played I couldn't help thinking about when the three of us would play it back at home. I was always a copper, which I took to be a great offence at the time- and still do really.

I still had so much fun though, regardless of who I had to be, though I would never have admitted it. You boys would always be thieves, making us girls chase you around. But it was good because Ada, Martha and I were faster than you lot for a very long time.

I'm pretty sure we stopped playing that game within the year, moving on to whatever else took our interest, but it was enjoyable while it lasted.

After we finished playing and the children had been collected by their parents, we headed back to our lodgings.

It was our first day off duty here in Albert, so let me tell you about this town that I've spent the last week in. Perhaps you've already been here?

In my last letter I said we were leaving Doullens, and by now we have already spent a week here in Albert. The hospital is just outside the town, and our tents are pitched next to it, so today is the first day we've had any time, or ability, to see the place. It's very beautiful. We are staying in an old school house that hasn't been used for a while. The building is probably a hundred years old, but I like it. The rooms are comfortable and the windows are big- it was lovely to wake up to warm sunshine on my face.

As I write this letter to you, I'm sitting on the desk that's right in front of a window. Before it grew dark, I could see fields outside and a eventually some woodland, where, from the looks of it, there is a brook. Hopefully we will visit that tomorrow. We only have two more days off before it's another week of work, but it would be nice to see as much of the town as possible.

I'm sharing a room with Nessie, and behind me she's complaining that I need to turn the lamp off so she can sleep, so my letter needs to come to an end. Shit. Ignore the ink that's spilt across the paper, I'll have to try and write around it. She just threw a pillow at me. I will finish quickly to avoid more pillows.

As I was saying, Albert is really beautiful. The Notre-Dame de Brebières is a church in the middle of the town, and on the steeple is a gold stature of the Virgin Mary that was knocked over from artillery shell. The soldiers call her the Leaning Virgin. But likr I said I'm sure you've heard of her. When the sun shines on her it's a wonderful sight.

There are a lot of trees around the town. Thick, twisted ones with lovely, green leaves that will be gone by the time we're finished here. The streets are cobbled and the buildings are all so old they look like they could collapse any minute.

I wish you were here Tommy. We could play with the children under the church and then go for a walk down to the river I can see from my room. I'd like that, and I hope you would too.

Have I mentioned how unbelievably hot it is here? I can't stand the heat, especially in this uniform. I suppose I'll just have to cope won't I.

Missing you, as always,
Ever yours
Liza

in this story, there will be several flashback type chapters in the format of letters Elizabeth wrote to Tommy through the war. I haven't decided yet if these flashbacks will only be as letters yet or whether there might be some actual stories, i'll see. hope you enjoyed! feedback is always appreciated.

e x

(09/06/2020)