The Soldier's Girl: A gripping, heartbreaking World War 2 historical novel Read online

  The Soldier's Girl

  A gripping, heartbreaking World War 2 historical novel

  Sharon Maas

  Also by Sharon Maas

  Of Marriageable Age

  The Lost Daughter of India

  The Orphan of India

  The Soldier’s Girl

  * * *

  THE QUINT CHRONICLES

  The Small Fortune of Dorothea Q

  The Secret Life of Winnie Cox

  The Sugar Planter’s Daughter

  The Girl from the Sugar Plantation

  Contents

  Prologue

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Part II

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Part III

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Part IV

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  The Lost Daughter of India

  Sharon Maas email sign up

  Also by Sharon Maas

  A Letter from Sharon

  Historical Notes

  The Orphan of India

  Of Marriageable Age

  The Small Fortune of Dorothea Q

  The Secret Life of Winnie Cox

  The Sugar Planter’s Daughter

  The Girl from the Sugar Plantation

  Acknowledgements

  In Memory of Trudel Elsässer (1909–2011)

  Lili Marlene Lyrics

  Outside the barracks ‘neath the lantern light

  There you’ll find me standing, I’ll wait for you tonight

  Under the lamp, that’s where we’ll meet,

  I’ll be there waiting on the street,

  For you, Lili Marlene

  For you, Lili Marlene

  * * *

  Our shadows join there, united in embrace

  In the lantern light I gaze upon your face

  Holding you close, we are as one

  Remember this, when I am gone

  From you, Lili Marlene

  From you, Lili Marlene

  * * *

  There goes the bugle, it calls the last tattoo,

  Leaving you here will break my heart in two

  I’d rather stay here by the gate

  Under the lantern, though it’s late

  With you Lili Marlene

  With you, Lili Marlene

  * * *

  You’ll be waiting for me, listening for my feet

  I’ll be longing for the day when next we’ll meet

  One last kiss, and we must part

  But I will hold you in my heart

  Just you, Lili Marlene

  Just you, Lili Marlene

  * * *

  When I am marching in the freezing cold

  Fighting as I’m ordered, and trying to be bold

  Brave I am not, but love is strong

  And if I die, you’ll sing this song

  For me, Lili Marlene

  For me, Lili Marlene

  Prologue

  June 1944

  She jumped. Or rather, she let herself fall. Into the translucent night sky, silvery from the full moon’s glow, inky and endless, empty. Beneath her, the dark shadow of earth. Above her, the universe.

  The Lysander curled away above her, the whirr of its propellers humming into the night’s vast silence. She was alone in the moonlit sky. For a moment she tumbled downwards, towards earth, but then the soft silk of the parachute unfurled and she hovered there in the in-between state of consciousness that lay between one identity and the next, one life and the next.

  ‘Sibyl Lake must cease to exist,’ Vera had said. And so she dropped not only from the plane but from all that had been before, that old self a mere skin. Yet: here I am. Here, and now. She slid out of the crust called me, that Sibyl-me, out of that persona with a name and a past, parted from it like an old skin, useless, defunct, a cast-off peel. Here I am. No longer in the old identity, not yet in the new, and yet more real, more present than ever, free of identity and the care and the fear that are identity’s twin features – a new me, one without limits. The endless night sky, dominated by a great round shining moon, held her safe in its heart, in a sense of great purity, great fullness, great peace.

  Downwards she floated, towards the unknown.

  A thud, brief pain, the solid touch of earth. She collapsed into it, into her new self, new name, new future. The silk of the parachute flayed gracefully and floated down upon her, a soft white shroud. France.

  Part I

  Those Halcyon Days

  ‘Who says I am not under the special protection of God?’

  Adolf Hitler

  Chapter 1

  September 1929

  ‘Girls! We’ll be there in five minutes! Put away your things, now, and tidy yourselves up!’

  Obediently, silently, solemnly, Elena and Sibyl closed the books they were reading, packed them into the little canvas bags their mother had given them for the journey, bent over to find the shoes they had wriggled free of soon after leaving Paris, and buckled them into place on their feet. Without a word.

  This wasn’t right, Kathleen thought. They should be bouncing up and down in anticipation, squealing with excitement. Not once had one of them cried out, Are we there yet? Not once, in so many hours. Sibyl hadn’t once complained, Mama, I’m bored! – screwing up her freckled pixie-face, tossing her auburn curls. As for Elena, her little chatterbox: she’d been as silent as… but no. Not that word.

  Both girls had been perfect angels all the way from London; reading their books, playing card games, holding Mama’s hand at station platforms, sitting quietly on the ferry instead of running to the rails to peer into the Channel’s swirls, going to the lavatory when Mama told them to, eating their packed sandwiches without a grumble. This angelic docility was unnatural, disturbing; it might make life much easier for a parent, but Kathleen would have given anything for just one little squeal of impatience during the never-ending journey. Shellshocked. That was the word. All three of them. Still shellshocked. Though there had been no shells. The telephone call from Mervyn’s secretary, Miss Hughes had been bombshell enough.

  And now, this flight to France.

  Through her numbness Kathleen remembered train journeys from when she was their age, back in British Guiana. She and her sisters Winnie and Yoyo had been squirming bundles of eagerness, even t
hough they knew the Rosignol to Georgetown trip like the back of their little hands. And her girls, too, had until recently, behaved like children should on day excursions to the seaside. Train trips were inherently adventures, even from London to Brighton. And now, London to Colmar? The girls should be brimming over with the thrill of it all, unable to contain themselves. But then she herself was hardly bursting with exuberance. Hopefully Margaux wouldn’t be too disappointed. For so many years they had planned and promised to meet again; and now that time had come and she was just a shadow of herself, of the bouncy schoolgirl Margaux would be expecting. Well, no wonder. Margaux would surely understand. That’s why she was here. To recover from it all. Kathleen sighed, and helped Sibyl with her bag. That’s why they were all here. Before they withered down to nothing from sheer sadness and broken hearts.

  She stood up, straightened her clothes, removed a brush and comb from her travelling case and tidied her own hair in the compartment mirror, before attending to Sibyl’s tangles and Emily’s plaits, loosened considerably throughout the trip. They all put on their hats, edged themselves from their compartment into the narrow corridor and along it to the doors. They had left their three suitcases near the exit; now, Kathleen pulled them free as they waited for the train to chug into Colmar station. She leaned forward past the girls, pressed the handle, swung open the door and urged the them to jump down to the platform. She got out herself and reached back into the train for the suitcases.

  ‘Kathleen! Kathleen! There you are! C’est moi! At last! You’re here! Welcome, welcome; and these are your little girls! Elena, Sibyl, I am your auntie Margaux! I am so happy to meet you at last! Let me look at you – Kathleen, you are so thin! And your girls, so tall! And so pretty! Little English roses! Come, give your auntie a hug and a kiss! You understand French? Shall I speak English? You understand me?’

  It was Margaux, indeed, just as she remembered her, the words, bubbling from her lips, some English but mostly French. As ever, kisses and hugs everywhere, all the exuberance so lacking in herself spilling out all over them so that, in spite of herself, she smiled and flung her arms around her friend. And clung to her, not letting go. And shuddered, so that Margaux at last drew still and hugged her again, this time in silence, and in reverence, and in depth.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Margaux whispered into her ear. She only nodded. Yes, this was Margaux. The same Margaux who had coaxed her, Kathleen, out of her shell when she arrived at Château Montrouge, a shy eighteen-year-old shunted off to a Swiss finishing school by grandparents who, having failed to secure a suitable bridegroom, didn’t know what to do with her. Her dormmate Margaux, brimming over with energy and conviviality, had opened doors to Kathleen’s spirit; they’d giggled into the night, broken all the rules, and earned themselves the nickname les jumeaux terribles, the terrible twins. They had stormed the gates of adulthood together, only to be torn apart the following year when Margaux returned to her family vineyard in Alsace and Kathleen had been summoned back to Norfolk and staid British upper-class convention. Since then, the letters had flown back and forth; they had promised again and again to visit each other, but marriage and then childbirth had interfered. Until today: Kathleen precipitated into Margaux’s arms by catastrophe.

  Aware of the girls, who stood silently watching next to the suitcases, Kathleen pulled away. The two women gazed for a few seconds into each other’s eyes. Kathleen’s were moist with unshed tears. She was afraid a dam would break, and it was too soon for that, so she forced a smile, and, for the first time since alighting on the platform, spoke: briskly, calmly, as if she had not just been on the verge of a complete breakdown. She had to hold on…

  ‘Come on girls, remember your manners: shake Auntie Margaux’s hand!’

  Which they did, solemnly and politely.

  Fortunately, Margaux too quickly regained her own composure. With the help of a porter and a luggage trolley she whisked the newcomers through the station and to the carpark, bundled them and the cases into the battered Renault waiting there, tipped the porter and settled herself into the driver’s seat. The flow of words continued the moment they turned into the road, and Kathleen was glad of it. Already she felt perked up. Hopefully the girls would feel the same, especially as Margaux was addressing them specifically.

  ‘My children are so excited,’ said Margaux. ‘They can’t wait to meet you. Elena, Marie-Claire is just about your age – you’re ten, aren’t you? Nine? Ten? She’s ten-and-a-half, as she insists, and she can’t wait to have some more girls her age around the place, because Victoire is only three – a baby. Leon and Lucien – well, they might be only boys but Leon’s Sibyl’s age and he is eager to show you around. He’s a bit rough and tumble, a typical boy, but he’s friendly enough. I hope you like animals, because Leon has two dogs of his own and he will share them with you – he raised them from puppies! And Jacques of course, like a third son to me… Is it the first time you have been to France? Your first time in wine country? Let me know if I am speaking too quickly – remind me to slow down and if you don’t understand something, just shut me up and ask! But your maman said you have a French nanny? So you are almost bilingual? Is that right?’

  ‘They had a French nanny,’ Kathleen corrected, in French. ‘We had to dismiss her, of course. After – after it happened.’

  ‘Oh. Oh, yes of course, I’m sorry. So sorry.I keep forgetting. How you say it in English? I put my foot in it, didn’t I? Me and my loose tongue. So terrible. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘It’s all right.’

  ‘But you must tell me. What happened… You said you’d write a letter with the details but you never did. Just telegrams. I only know that…’

  ‘I will tell you everything,’ said Kathleen, softly, looking over her shoulder to the back seat, where the girls sat quietly; looking out the window, hopefully absorbed in the countryside fleeing past. ‘Later.’

  ‘Yes. Yes of course. Later. Later we will have a long chat, you and I, and you will tell me the whole story. So sad. Devastating. When your telegram came I immediately rushed to the phone, but no-one picked up. But of course, you could come! You have always been welcome. You can stay for the whole summer, all of you, in fact, stay as long as you like. There is plenty of room at Château Gauthier. You have come at exactly the right time, too! Golden September, and the grapes are just plump and bursting to be plucked, little jewels shining in the sunshine, heavy on the vines! The whole of Ribeauvillé is golden with sunlight and everybody will be out in the vineyards and you will love it – those succulent grapes! And the wine, Kathleen! It is all exquisite, like heavenly nectar – the best wine in all of France! And now – here we are!’

  She turned into a driveway and had not even drawn to a halt before the mansion at the end of it before the front door opened and a horde of small people poured out of it and swarmed around the car, squealing and hopping, hugging and kissing in French exuberance. Normal happy children, children whose lives had not been blown apart from one moment to the next. This will be the cure. Kathleen breathed out a long sigh of relief. She could already feel the healing seeping into her. Ribeauvillé was the remedy.

  Chapter 2

  Margaux popped the cork from the bottle and poured golden liquid into Kathleen’s glass. The sun was about to slip behind the rolling foothills of the Vosges mountains, and shadows were growing long, but the terrace was still flooded with warm light. The children were off somewhere with the dogs, all of them, girls and boys, young and old together, Elena and Sibyl seamlessly assimilated into the flock. The transition had happened without a hairline break; gloom ignored and swept away like so much debris, smiles lured from long faces, sparkle returned to dull eyes. They had been first infected by Laroche effervescence and then whisked away on a joyful tide of bienvenue.

  ‘There is so much to explore,’ Margaux said. ‘They will be fine. Don’t worry about a thing. This is not London. It is safe. Let them run.’

  And slowly her own tension was melting, slowly the
tautness loosening; the cocoon of sheer desolation that had wrapped her in tight bonds over the last week releasing its grip.

  ‘Now, tell me,’ said Margaux. ‘How did he die? Raconte!’

  Margaux spoke French, but Kathleen replied in English. So had it ever been, ever since their Montrouge days: though both were fluent in both languages, and understood perfectly, Kathleen would speak English and Margaux French. Kathleen’s letters were written in English, Margaux’s in French. Communication this way was perfect.

  ‘He hanged himself.’

  Margaux’s jaw dropped in shock. ‘Oh no! Chérie! Oh, how terrible! Oh, you poor poor thing! How? Why? Did you find him? What happened?’