Chapter XII

Dearest Walt, Rose and Blythe,

I am writing this letter to the three of you, as I won't have time to write three seperate ones! I'm so glad that your New Year's Eve was wonderful and very homey. I hope that your return to Redmond was just as pleasant too.

Right now, I am training to gain more experience with anesthetics, to help surgeons during surgeries on very badly wounded soldiers we get. I am really proud of myself and with every new thing I learn, I feel more and more experienced nurse (I still can't quite believe that I am a nurse!).

I don't know if you've heard already or not, but on the 29th of December, London was standing almost entirely in fire. It was the most terryfing night of my life. Just after Christmas, Claire, me and some other nurses were switched onto the night-duty (6pm till 6am), which is so much worse than the day-duty because the patients who are wounded quite badly, can't sleep and need our constant help. Anyway, on the 29th, we were prepared that the Blitz will start all over again, but by God, not on this scale! I don't know what time it was, but suddenly, without any hearing of sirens, we all heard explosions near our hospital, later screaming of people outside. I was sure that the bombing started and so I shouted to all the nurses to help the soldiers who can walk, to go to the shelter and not wait for the sirens to start ringing. Mrs Ashby, our Matron, got red and her face looked just like a perfect round tomato. She shouted at me: "How dare you give commands to the nurses when I am the Matron?!". I helped Mr Richard Tomney to stand up from his bed and answered calmly: "Because the bomb can drop on the hospital in any moment, Matron." and with this she bit her lip nervously, and agreed to my commands.

I was the last one to get to the shelter as I was very concerned about all the men who had to stay in their beds, most of them were unconscious and didn't even know what was happening. I was scared to death that something could have happened to them. As quickly as I got into the shelter, the war alarm siren started ringing above us and all the other nurses who were asleep in their beds ran down to the shelter as well. We knew that the bombing that night was much worse than any other during the Blitz because of the shaking ceiling and the lamp above us which was constantly turning on and off. Somehow, I really don't know how when I look at it now, I managed to sing "Wish Me Luck As You Wave Me Goodbye" for the whole room full of nurses and soldiers. I think that I sang it to make myself feel better as well, trying not to think about the burning London above me. When we came out, after around four hours of patient waiting in the shelter, we were overjoyed to find our hospital still standing. But what I saw outside was a total chaos.

My heart went still and I thought I will cry for I couldn't believe that the view in front of me was still the dear, beautiful London. I know one thing which this war already taught me: people are really incredible when they all work together, and they can make miracles! Me and some other nurses (Claire as well!) went outside after our duty and helped people to recover the remains of their houses and streets. It was one of those experiences which are both traumatising and unbelivebly hopeful. We were helping people to recover their houses and all the furniture and other things that people had in them. Even though it was terryfing to see so many houses collapsed to the ground, it was amazing how all of these people could smile through and talk to us like to their friends.

Now, it's nearly 10 o'clock in the morning and so I really have to go to sleep or otherwise I will fall on Mrs Ashby's lap and sleep there until she'll push me on the floor.

Write to me everyday (each of you!), if you can and tell me all about your Redmond-stories!

I love you all,

Always Yours,

Julia Una Blythe (Your Bathsheba)

February 1941 came very quickly and almost unexpectadly. Julia thought that she nearly completely left her soul (and body) of a child and stepped into a soul of a grown-up. "Nearly" because Julia could never be a complete grown-up, no matter how many horrors she would see in her life.

Her days were going very quickly because she wasn't just taking care of the soldiers' wounds but she could finally also help with the surgeries and she absolutely loved it. Even Mrs Ashby thought that Julia was one of the most enthusiastic nurses in the hospital.

The soldiers were coming and going, coming and going, and although Julia tried her best to count how many she nursed, she wasn't able to do it, she wasn't even able to talk to any of them and to meet any more "kindred spirits". But of course she was happy for every soldier who was cured and could either come back to the front or go home. Because not every soldier was lucky enough to be cured completely, and Julia was always very downhearted after each of her patient who didn't live long enough to see another sunrise or sunset. But in situations like that, she was always writing to the family of the soldier who died and was writing to his parents or siblings or sweethearts all about how he died, how strong he was and how very wonderful.

Julia was also in a constant touch with every person in her family, and they knew all the details from her life and she knew all the small and funny accidents which happened in Glen or Four Winds, whether it was how Una's Nancy fell from her desk on which she was standing and broke her ankle, or how Di's small Tom ran out of the house without his pants on and pretended to be a ghost.

Merry and Jake (with Marshall) were moved to the North of Africa at the end of January and were sending Julia letters about how hot and humid the air was there. Gilly, however didn't write much and it made Julia quite worried but soon enough she would know the reason he didn't reply for her letters.

On the 11th of February, Julia, Olive and Claire started the next day of their work at night-duty. The new men arrived that night, Julia first thought that they were from the navy but Mrs Ashby corrected her saying that they were from the air force. Julia gulped and got goosebumps, thinking about Gilly who, God forbid, might as well be between those blessed boys. She carried on with her work though, and slowly stopped thinking about Gil and whether he arived at the hospital or not.

It was nearly five o'clock in the morning, when Julia finished bandaging the last man's arm, smiling to him as she always used to. Her hair was all messed up, her uniform covered in small or big blood stains, and her hands almost shaking from tiredness.

"Bath! Bath!" Olive called out while she was running hurriedly towards Julia with her burning cheeks.

Julia turned to Olive and grabbed her hands in worry "What happened, Olive?!" she inquired with her heart beating faster and faster, her thoughts fulfilled with many different scenarios about what happend or will happen.

"There's a man in the east angle who wants to see you immediately! His name is Ford!" Olive replied with a half-grin on her face.

Julia's eyes got bigger and her cheeks flushed with emotions "Gil Ford?" Julia whispered, hardly trying to hide the smile forming on her mouth.

"Yes, yes, Gilbert Ford, I'm sure." she answered and before she did or said anything else, her friend was rushing to the east angle with increasing speed. Julia was looking at each bed with shaking hands and tears in her eyes, praying not to see Gilly in a state from which he can't recover from.

She was half-happy and half-horrified. Gilly, her darling boy-cousin, was there in the hospital in which she was working. She was incredibly joyful and eager to see him but at the same time she feared the image she might see. Will he be blind? Or with an amputated arm or leg? Maybe his face will be burnt? No, Julia couldn't think about things like this, and she continued with searching for her friend.

"Nurse Blythe at last!" a fammiliar manly but weak voice said from behind Julia.

She turned around quickly and there he was, no one else but Gilbert Ford lying on the hospital bed right in front of her "Gil! Oh, Gilbert!" Julia gasped and threw herself on Gil's bed. He had his left arm and neck bandaged. His face was cleaned but had a few cuts on it with a small bruise right under his left eye. Other than that he seemed positively happy and Julia saw the sight of relief reflecting in his eyes.

"Remember about the arm, Sheba!" he chuckled when he finally got out of Julia's tight hug.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Gil." she whispered in a cheerful tone with her watery eyes, thinking that all of that had to be the product of her own imagination "Gil what happened to you?" she asked eventually, still holding onto his hands.

He smilled to her again "We had a small accident along the way, as you can see." he said without any fear or sadness in his voice, pointing at his bandaged arm.

"A small accident?" Julia repeated with a raised eyebrow.

He chuckled "You didn't change a bit, did you, Jules?" he patted Julia's hand gently "Our plane was bombed, by a total accident but thankfully it wasn't bombed so badly it exploded, it just stopped working and in the end we all landed in the nearby river." he explained as if nothing happened at all.

"Well then you really were lucky, weren't you?" she replied and kissed Gilly's hand once again "And we meet at last!" she laughed and so did Gil.

"Yes, under the most unexpected circumastances of course." he said with a smirk crossing his exhausted face "Tell me, how are you , Jules?"

"I am perfectly fine and very much occupied, I must admit." she answered looking around at all the new men that arrived that night.

Gil nodded in agreement "I can imagine... So…" he started but Mrs Ashby interrupted their converstaion with her old and grumpy voice.

"Nurse Blythe! What do you think you're doing?!" she shouted looking at both Julia and Gilly, rushing to Gil's bed with clenched fists.

"I'm sorry Matron, but this is my cousin and a friend and…" Julia started explaining, again being interrupted by Mrs Ashby.

"No excuses, thank you very much!" she said irritated "Now go back to work! Your duty ends in forty minutes!" she waved her hands towards the hall.

Julia looked over to Gil who just smiled at her "Go, I have to get some sleep anyway, we'll talk later." he said and winked at her knowingly.

She jumped to his bed once again and kissed his cheek "I'll see you later but try not to wander off too much!" she giggled.

Gil chuckled and just after few seconds after closing his eyes, he drifted into the world of night and the deepest of dreams.

Gil spent the next two months at Julia's hospital and both of them, joined sometimes by joyful Olive and interested Claire, were spending at least one hour of talking after their duty every single day.

"He didn't change at all, thank Goodness." Julia wrote to her parents just four days after Gil arrived at her hospital "He even seems more lively than he was beofre the war. I just hope that he isn't just pretending… No, I don't think Gil would ever do that, and that's why I am so pleased to see him, truly see him. I check up on him every day, even though the other nurse does it as well, so you can tell Aunt Rilla and Uncle Ken that he is in really good hands. Gil, who was so scared of going to the front, is now very excited about going back "as soon as possible"! I just hope that he really means that."

But Gilly did change, maybe not on the inside, but on the outside. His chest got wider and his face looked so much like a face of an adult, "no more any sweet dimples of yours, are there Gil?". Gilly looked more and more like his father, and Julia couldn't believe that a child can be such an ideal copy of one of his parents. Gil was just irritated that he couldn't take Julia or one of her "lovely friends" in his strong arms and dance with them across the hall.

"No, Dad and Mum," Julia concluded her letter with a smile on her lips "-Gil didn't change at all."

At the very beggining of March, early in the morning Julia received a short telegram from Kingsport which said: "Julia, I married John yesterday. It was just us at the ceremony. John is enlisting on Monday.".

Julia looked at the small piece of paper in her hands with blank expression on her face. Her Rose? This crazy, wonderful singer and her most beautiful girl-cousin with so many views and dreams and hopes, married? Married? Wearing a gold band on her fourth finger of her right hand? Julia sighed, she was so disappointed that she couldn't see Rose's happy, radiating face at her wedding day. She knew that she must have looked amazingly beautiful and simply dashing.

"Rose? Married?" Julia said in disbelief on the same day, when she read out the telegram to Gil.

"The first one to marry out of our generation." Gil grinned and patted Julia's hand "You're not angry at her, are you?" he asked with a raised brow.

"No, I'm not angry at her, just a bit shocked." she chuckled bitterly "I knew she would marry John in secret, to make our family gossip about it for the next year or so…" she and Gil laughed "But I understand why she did it and I think that she really loves him, for all the letters I got from her, the three quarters of them were about John."

"And this only makes me wonder, who will be the next one to marry out of our clan?" Gil asked with a smile while slowly touching the scar on his cheek.

Julia looked at the floor, with her cheeks flushed. She smiled for a second, imagining how she would look like if she would be the next one to marry. She would buy one of those fancy dresses, and make herself a flowery veil… No, she shook her head. In order to be married, she would have to marry someone. And she knew that her heart was beating with only one other heart, a heart of a man with black curly hair, and grey, grey, grey, shining eyes of a poet. "I think that I really don't want to know that." Julia whispered half absent-mindedly, lost in her own little world in her own head.

Dear Julia,

I know you've been waiting for this letter for a while, but I was so busy with exams that it really was hard to even write one letter as short as this one. I probably sound silly to you talking about being busy with exams while you save other people's lives everyday!

I married John Richardson last Friday, straight after our lessons (John finished his course in Redmond that day as well). I married him so quickly because he wanted to enlist next Monday and it was me who proposed to him, as strange as it probably is to many people. But I know that you would do the same for the man you love, you understand me better than anyone, Sheba.

So, we married very quietly on Friday afternoon with just John, me, Blythe and Walt and no one else escept us in the church (and the priest of course!). Then, John took me for a two days long honeymoon, to Medford, to his parents. They are so nice and so very understanding for our quick marriage, I had to fall in love with them immediately.

My darlingest of all husband (!) enlisted, as he wanted, on Monday and tomorrow he's leaving for his training course in Toronto and so I know that I won't sleep tonight, I can't think of anything else but seeing him in his new uniform of a navy officer, at the train station tomorrow. Tomorrow, Juliet! Tomorrow! Oh, my heart is breaking!

I am so hysteric, as you know, and I cry every five minutes. And these are the moments when I miss you, my sweet Bathsheba and dearest Jake the most of all.

I have to turn off my lights now.

Goodnight, my dearest Juliet, and please could you say one of your prayers for my John?

Always Yours,

Anna Rosemary Richardson

At the end of March, Julia got a one day leave from work to catch a bus to King's Cross station, to see Gilly going back to the front in Greece. They didn't talk much during their journey to King's Cross but both of them were thinking about the same things. That was when Julia realised that Gil was scared, almost terrifyed of going back to the front.

"Gil, please be honest with me, and tell me: Do you want to go back there?" Julia asked him when they stepped on the King's Cross station, walking hand-in-hand, Gilly in his RCAF uniform and Julia in her VAD uniform.

He sighed and half-grinned to her "Yes, I am. But aren't you scared when you hear the sirens outside your hospital?" he asked her, squeezing her hand from time to time.

"I am, but I can cope with it and therefore my question is: can you?" she whispered to him as if she was asking him a secret question.

"Yes, but I fail sometimes." he said and his voice broke at the end, making Julia throw her arms around her cousin's neck and hug him tightly.

"Gil, listen to me," she whispered into his ear "-I will pray for you every night and I will think of you, wherever you are and wherever I am. And remember: your family loves you, and I love you and we will be with you, always."

Gilly looked at her with tears in his eyes and he smiled to her with a smile which always appears on people's faces when they know that whatever misery will bring them, there will be always someone by their side "Thank you, Sheba. You always know what to say." he whispered back.

And then he jumped on his train, still holding Julia's hand in his own "And I love you, Jules, do you know that?" he asked her, half-grinning.

"Yes, I do." she replied softly and squeezed his hand assuringly "Promise me that you'll be careful out there?"

"I promise, no matter what." and with that the train started moving and Julia's hand slipped out of Gilly's hand. Her eyes again filled up with warm tears, and her heart started beating quite fast. She said to him goodbye earlier, didn't she? Why was she scared now, when he was lucky enough to survive this "accident", as he called it and get well again, almost without a single scratch? But Julia was strong, and she took a deep breath and her lips formed into a tender smile, which she knew would give her Gil courage to go to the front.

And so she waved to him as long as she could see the small dot on the horizon, knowing that whatever Gil ever promised or will promise, will become true.