Flora's War Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Copyright

  About the Book

  Dare she risk her reputation?

  When the orphaned Flora MacDonald escapes from a harsh reform school she falls – literally – into the arms of Andrew Stewart, a handsome sailor on shore leave. But their blossoming love is interrupted by the outbreak of the Second World War.

  With Andrew away fighting, Flora finds herself in an impossible situation: alone and pregnant. Out of desperation, she travels to Andrew’s country estate, but she doesn’t know how kindly his well-to-do family will welcome her in. Will she find a home where she can raise a child?

  About the Author

  Audrey Reimann was brought up in Macclesfield where she was educated at the Macclesfield Grammar School for Girls. She and her husband now live in East Lothian.

  Audrey has three children and is the proud grandmother of ten, and has been variously a bank clerk, a nurse, a teacher and a foster mother to twenty-five. But, above all, Audrey is a storyteller. Recently, on Anne Robinson’s BBC Two programme ‘My Life in Books’, comedian Sarah Millican named Audrey’s novel Flora’s War as one of her favourite books, saying: ‘This is a book that will make you laugh and make you cry.’

  Prologue

  1961

  It was a tranquil Scottish summer evening and the swans, gliding upriver in regal formation, seemed oblivious of the rotting body of a man that floated, grey and bloated, face down in the reeds.

  Above the watershed where the River Esk gushes into the bay of the Firth of Forth, high tides bring flotsam, fishing nets and lobster pots upstream. A fisherman’s lad who daily scavenged the banks was the first to spot the clothed corpse swirling slowly, one bare purple foot caught under a piece of driftwood. The lad’s father had said that there was a reward of five pounds for a body found at sea. That would buy a transistor radio. He ran swiftly up the bank, over the ancient stone bridge and past the church until he reached the police station.

  ‘I’ve found a dead body,’ he gasped. ‘My dad says it’s five pounds.’

  The sergeant leaned across the high wooden counter. ‘Dead body? Where?’

  ‘Under the Roman bridge.’ The boy took a deep breath. ‘I’m first, if there’s a reward.’

  Half an hour later the sergeant rang through to Edinburgh and demanded to be put through to Chief Inspector Andrew Stewart.

  From the window of his office in Royal Terrace, Chief Inspector Andrew Stewart had a good view of the high craggy ridge of Arthur’s Seat, the 1,000-foot extinct volcanic mountain that rises in Queen’s Park in the centre of the city. The phone rang.

  ‘Answer it, Jenny,’ he said over his shoulder to his secretary.

  He continued to scan the park where tomorrow, on his day off, he’d run to the summit of the mountain and see the whole city laid out at his feet, the castle on its rock, and below it the little graveyard where still stood the weeping willow under which as a young man he’d plighted his troth.

  From the top, on a clear day, he’d see the three giant iron cobwebs of the Forth Bridge, the foothills of the Trossachs and, turning full south, the border country. But today he was looking for anything unusual. He’d have to rid himself of this habit of looking for trouble if he were to leave the police force. He’d had fifteen good years and could retire in another five, but was starting to think that perhaps now was the time for a change of direction. He was forty-one; not too old to make a new start, to buy a few acres of fertile East Lothian coastal land, build a house, look for a wife and hope for children. He should wind down, limit himself to civil work, and not get involved in anything exciting.

  Behind him Jenny said, ‘It’s the sergeant at Musselburgh station.’

  ‘All right.’ He walked over to the desk and took the handset from her to hear the sergeant saying, ‘Chief Inspector, sir? We’ve just pulled a body out of the River Esk. I think it’s your old commander.’

  This was the last thing Andrew wanted – the frisson of excitement that came when the song in his ears was different from the tune being played in the investigative area of his mind. He often thought in musical metaphors, for he was a good singer and a fair pianist. He rumpled thick dark hair that was greying at the temples and said sharply into the mouthpiece, ‘Who else could it be?’ and after a few seconds, ‘No. His wife must identify him. Is he in the mortuary?’

  While he listened, Andrew glanced at his desk, where the lead story on the local paper read:

  The sea search for Sir Gordon Campbell of Ingersley has been called off. Sir Gordon sailed out of North Berwick harbour at high tide on 15 June in perfect sailing conditions. His empty yacht drifted ashore the following day but there have been no sightings and there is little hope now of finding the wartime naval captain alive.

  Lady Campbell, well-known local figure, JP and school governor, told reporters that her husband was being treated for depression. He had never recovered from the loss at sea of his son Robert, who went missing, presumed drowned, off the coast of San Francisco three years ago. It is looking increasingly likely that our foremost local family has once again been struck by tragedy.

  Andrew knew all about the misfortunes and tragedies of the Campbell family, for he had been born and brought up on their Ingersley estate. The sergeant’s words came faintly over the crackling line. ‘He’s in our mortuary. It looks as if he capsized and drowned.’

  Sir Gordon Campbell had captained a county-class cruiser in the Mediterranean from 1940 throughout the war. How could he capsize a small yacht on a night when a child could have set a straight course over the Forth? Andrew said, ‘The fiscal deputy’s been called? And the pathologist? Photography crew? This is a suspicious death.’ He put down the phone.

  Outside, his metallic gold Ford Zephyr was parked in front of the soot-blackened building. He liked this car. It was big enough to accommodate his long legs and fast enough to cover the twenty-five miles to Ingersley in under an hour. He would break the news to Lady Campbell before she heard it from anyone else. She must identify the body immediately – if she could; the facial features on a body that had been submerged for three weeks were usually unrecognisable. He turned the car towards Abbey Hill and took the low road, through Queen’s Park, past Holyrood Palace towards Duddingston Loch and out on to the highway, heading for his old home at Ingersley. And as he went his normally alert, watchful expression gave way to a wry smile. This was the first time in his life that he had volunteered for the job that all policemen try to avoid – breaking the news of a man’s death to his wife. He wanted to see her immediate reaction, though he did not expect Lady Campbell to shed a single tear over the man to whom Andrew himself owed so much.

  As a boy he had hero-worshipped Sir Gordon Campbell, the master of Ingersley, though the young baron represented everything his youthful heart rebelled against; the Scottish system of feudal land rights where a few aristocrats, dukes and lords own vast estates. Land parcels are leased annually to tenant farmers who can only rent and never own the land they work. He also hated the knee-bending and forelock-tugging that went with privilege. But Sir Gordon, the most honourable man Andrew had ever known, was contemptuous of privilege a
nd had inspired every young man whose life crossed his own.

  Chapter One

  Early August 1936

  Sir Gordon Campbell, the youngest Justice of the Peace in the county, glanced through the window of Haddington courtroom as the boys were led in. It was a perfect day for sailing, with a light breeze ruffling the leaves on the aspen trees outside. He was thirty-seven, tall, sandy-haired, and had the keen, steady blue eyes of a seafaring man. He hated the civic duties that had fallen to him three years before, on his father’s death. Three years he had been away from the sea and his life as a commander in the Royal Navy; three years of trying to adjust to the duties of landowner and master of an estate that, since the catastrophic stock market crash of 1933, was all but bankrupt.

  He had spent a soul-destroying morning here, sending to reformatories juveniles who showed any spark, any inkling of hope for reform. He’d also sent to prison the likes of the boys who stood before him now: four street urchins, the eldest of whom was fourteen, the youngest twelve; not related, all from big families yet none of them had a father present in court. And without a father to plead for them and accept responsibility for their good behaviour, there was nothing Gordon could do about it. Prison was the only punishment for robbery.

  He had no children himself, but was mindful of the fact that had any one of the four boy children Elizabeth had miscarried come to term, that son might almost have been the age of the boys who stood before him, dirty, frightened and hostile.

  Gordon said gravely, ‘You leave me no other course but to sentence you to six months’ detention.’ The eldest boy would go to prison; the others to a reformatory. ‘Have you anything to say?’

  ‘No,’ said one.

  The sheriff’s officer barked, ‘No? No, what? How do you address the magistrate?’ With surly reluctance the boys said in unison, ‘No, Your Honour,’ before they were led away. Gordon signed the order, passed it to the clerk and asked, ‘How many more?’

  Before he could answer there came from the waiting room next door the sound of a girl singing: ‘Speed, bonny boat, like a bird on the wing. Onward! The sailors cry. Carry the lad that’s born to be King. Over the sea, to Skye . . .’

  Her voice soared, high and sweet, only to be silenced by the sheriff’s officer, who left the courtroom bristling with indignation. Gordon heard him roaring, ‘Wheest, lass! Ye’re here to be sentenced. Show some respect.’

  The girl replied, ‘There’s nobody here. What harm is there …?’

  ‘They can hear you in court.’ The officer slammed the door.

  There was silence again. Gordon repeated, ‘How many more?’

  ‘Just the girl, sir.’

  Gordon nodded as the clerk gave him the papers to read before she was sent in. No doubt it would be another sorry tale of neglect and misfortune. If he dealt with her quickly he could be home in half an hour and by three o’clock out on the Forth estuary, with the wind carrying him fast over the water to Fife. He read. She was a twelve-year-old orphan, brought up by her grandmother on a small tenanted farm, close to his own Ingersley estate. Her mother had died giving birth to her, and her father shortly afterwards. Her name was Flora Macdonald. Here, at last, he smiled. Imagine giving a commoner’s lass the name of one of Scotland’s heroines. Did she know she bore the name of Lady Flora Macdonald who rowed Bonnie Prince Charlie over the sea to Skye? He remembered her sweet voice, ‘Speed, bonny boat, like a bird on the wing …’ and read on.

  In the waiting room Flora sat very still, though inside she was shaking. She must not let the sheriff’s officer see how afraid she was. She had sung a few moments ago to give herself courage – and tried to imagine how much more courage had been needed by her namesake. But Lady Flora Macdonald had had a chance of escape, and Flora had none.

  She adjusted her navy-blue beret over blazing coppery hair that fell in soft curls to her shoulders. To calm herself she closed eyes that were the liquid green of a deep, troubled sea and fringed with dark lashes that were damp with held-back tears. Biting her trembling lip, she tried to summon up the courage that Gran had instilled in her, and tried to remember Gran’s advice, but all that came to her was the knowledge that her life had changed irrevocably on that February afternoon, five months before.

  It was almost dark at four o’clock and Gran was nowhere to be seen when Flora came home from school. The fire was blazing and Flora’s stomach rumbled in anticipation as the aroma of simmering leek and lentil soup wafted up from the back of the stove. The jiggling of the lid on the long-handled iron pot told her that Gran had made cloutie dumpling as a winter’s treat.

  Flora, wearing a knitted brown hat and herringbone tweed overcoat against the freezing February chill, went to the door and smiled at the sight before her. Gran, careless of the hard frozen ground and the foot-long spears of ice that hung inches above her head from the eaves of the old pig sties, had no coat on. She was wearing a voluminous brown corduroy skirt, patched and pocketed, that reached to her boot tops. Over it she wore a thick jumper knitted in random stripes and random thicknesses of wool spun from her own fleeces, while on her head she sported a crocheted purple bonnet.

  Gran was stomping squarely towards the vegetable patch waving her stick at ‘they drat sheep’, as she called the twelve blackface ewes who escaped from their field practically every day.

  ‘Gran, I’m coming.’ Flora grabbed a walking stick from the porch and ran down the yard. She reached Gran as the little flock of twelve sheep bunched together, ready to run across the cabbages.

  Gran shouted, ‘Over yon …’ her breath freezing into a white vapour cloud about her dear old face.

  Flora leaped to narrow the gap between the sheep and the cabbage patch. Sheep always made for the widest opening. The secret was to keep closing in, narrowing the way you didn’t want them to take. They worked the flock in harmony, Gran shouting instructions, Flora running like a sheepdog under the darkening sky. She jumped, gawky but agile as a young deer, over tall Brussels sprout plants, the cold air hurting the back of her throat as she herded and urged the animals forward. Gran ran behind the flock until the leading sheep went, dashing for the gap in the hawthorn hedge.

  ‘Go on by!’ Gran shook her stick again as the last panicking ewe shoved its way through the hedge. Then she leaned, heavy and unsteady, on the loose fence post, getting her breath back.

  ‘Shouldn’t we put them in the barn, Gran?’ Flora asked. ‘They’ll be coming in for lambing in a couple of weeks.’

  ‘No. Best keep them oot o’doors till their time. They’ll stop escaping then. They won’t be running in a flock when they have lambs at foot.’ Gran dived into her skirt pocket for twine and scissors and on her knees in the dead, frosty grass began to repair the wire netting whose rusty, weakened state was the reason for the sheep’s daily excursions.

  Flora said, ‘I hope we don’t lose any ewes this year.’

  ‘But you like your pet lambs,’ Gran said, smiling. Her breath was a white plume in the frosty air. ‘You want to go on bottle-feeding them long after the others are weaned.’

  ‘I feel as if I’m their mother,’ Flora said. ‘You’d think that if a ewe died, then another one who’d lost a lamb would take it on, wouldn’t you?’ Ewes whose lambs were born dead would bleat plaintively for days, and yet they would not foster a dead ewe’s lamb but would kick out at and attack the orphan lambs who needed mother’s milk.

  ‘Aye. You’d think. But it’s a rare female of any species that will adopt a suckling.’ Gran pulled hard on the twine to bring two rusty squares together and tied them firmly. ‘It’s nature’s way. It’s all to do with the secretions they call hormones. It’s the protective instinct and it comes with the birth. Same wi’ women and their bairns. Women can be cruel to a bairn that’s not their flesh and blood. I never knew a woman who loved an orphan like her ain.’

  Flora said, ‘You weren’t cruel to me. I was an orphan lamb.’

  Gran smiled her crooked old smile. ‘Ye felt like me ain bairn
. I liked the smell of ye. And the feel and the sound o’ ye.’

  Flora stood for a few seconds stamping her booted feet on the hard ground, banging her bare hands together before saying quietly, ‘Some of them have already left, Gran. Gone on to half-time work; the girls into service, the lads in the fields. It’ll be me come summer.’

  ‘You want to stay on, don’t you?’ Gran’s face was a picture of regret as she looked up at Flora.

  ‘It’s not school. I’ll miss my singing lessons if I go into service.’

  Gran’s arthritic fingers were blue with cold as she tried to hold the twine that was catching on the stabbing spines of the hawthorn. ‘It’s a shame there was no money to buy a piano and have you taught.’

  ‘I am being taught, Gran.’ One term of ten piano lessons cost two guineas from Miss Whitehead in the village. One term was all they could afford, and without a piano there was no chance of practising, but Flora now knew the basics of notation, and instead of playing she sang operatic arias to Miss Whitehead’s accompaniment.

  So well did she sing that Miss Whitehead gave her an hour’s free tutoring every week, firing her up with enthusiasm, saying, ‘You’ve got the finest soprano voice I ever heard,’ and promising that when she was eighteen she’d get her into a choir or an operatic society.

  Flora said, ‘I’ll have to leave before I’m fourteen anyway. We can go part-time from thirteen. But I don’t want to go into service. They keep you in. I hate being kept in.’ In fact she had a horror of being shut in anywhere. She had told nobody about the suffocating panic that came over her in crowded places, the fear of closed doors and small spaces, and the wariness if other people stood between herself and the nearest way out. She said, ‘I’d have to live in and I don’t want to leave you.’

  ‘Then dinnae.’ Gran winced as a spine stabbed into her thumb. ‘You never know what might happen, lass, if you keep in mind what it is you want. Do as I did. Have courage.’ Gran sucked her thumb hard before going back to her task.