Wildflowers In The Ruins: A 1917 Story

Chapter One. Dandelions

Friday 6th April, 1917:

It was quiet today, unsettlingly quiet. I sipped at my soup... well, that's what it was meant to be. Just a lone chopped carrot in hot water and packed with salt. To be honest, I didn't mind. The food was of little consequence as really I craved the solitude. It meant it was relatively peaceful out there. I knew it could be worse, so much more so, and to have a break and eat lunch truly was a Godsend. Also, the fact it had already been prepared for me was another reason to be thankful. Whilst I was happy on my frequent cooking duty, nothing felt quite so luxurious as sitting down and being served. I sipped at my water and contemplated my letter to Lavinia.

My dearest friend since childhood, Lavinia Piper had stayed behind in the small Dorset town we'd spent our 25 years in to run the post office whilst her husband, Charles, was over here somewhere. He'd ventured further north with his batalion and as far as I knew was still sending correspondence to her and their five-year old, Charlie. Lavinia loved to hear every last detail and as it'd been the first quiet day in over a week, I felt compelled to write whilst I had the chance.

Lavinia wasn't the only one I wrote to frequently. There was also Ada, my dear Brother John's widow and my darling Granny, who I lived with. The letters varied as greatly as their recipients.

Ada was from a lovely, though too sheltered family and suffered from a rather nervous disposition, so I had to vet my letters tactfully and tastefully. The premise with Ada was always 'what she didn't know couldn't hurt her.' I also knew she read the letters aloud to my nieces and nephews, little Ellie, Louisa, Alexander and Edward. Every so often I'd put in a little miniature of a watercolour for them to enjoy I'd found time to do, but that time was getting few and far between now.

My Granny would have the letters read aloud to her by Lavinia as her sight was failing now. They'd be in a similar vein to Ada's but I'd mention more of the scenery and walks along the coast on my half-day-a-week off. I'd longingly gaze over the slate grey waves of the channel to Dorset and my life as I'd left it just over two years earlier to come here.

Lavinia's correspondence was a different story. Always the most confident of our little quartet (there was Agnes and Lily too, who'd long since married and moved away) with an unbridled sense of adventure and a very broad mind, she particularly loved to know all about the soldiers and if there'd been any trysts with them.

There never had. Only on two occasions had anything ever happened. Shortly after my arrival, a very young private who I still remember as David, although I can't for the life of me remember his surname even though I know I should. He was so young, and with deep brown eyes like saucers and hair the colour of black coffee, was breathing his last and requested a kiss from me as he'd "never kissed a girl and wanted one last wish." I obliged and thanked God I wasn't caught as it would've been an instant dismissal. Although it would've been worth it as he passed sometime during the early hours the following morning. I'd fallen asleep still holding his hand, my head on the sage green blanket keeping him warm. The nursing sister gently moved me off him. I cried when I glimpsed his face and Sister Harkness was kind for once, thanking me and hushing I needed to sleep, which just made me cry even more. I'll always remember his hand was still warm and a slight otherworldly smile on his face, like he knew a secret.

David reminded me so much of my first kiss, on my seventeenth birthday, with my pal Lily's older brother Walter. I really had been a 'sweet sixteen and never been kissed'. That picnic by the stream which winded it's way through the park near our town on such a hazy, sun-kissed August day seemed a lifetime ago now. Walter had kissed me so gently that no others, not that there had been many, measured up... that was until David. Poor, sweet David.

Then at the Somme last summer the same thing happened. Only he was a general and another general was at his bedside. Both men practically ordered me to do it to the point they shouted and said "did I think it above my duty?" As I nervously leaned over he grabbed both my tiny wrists in a vice-like grip, bruising them within seconds. The kiss was wet and disgusting. Although I know he was probably capable of far worse, my stomach still lurches at the memory. Leaving his room feeling degraded, I washed my mouth throughly and didn't check on him ever again.