Letitia didn’t answer for a long moment. Her face remained bleak, her expression shuttered

On Renfrew Street, Day28

After Ellen finished her shift she went to look for Letitia. She was tired and dirty and longed only for bed, but she knew her friend must be grieving. Letitia had assisted in the operation to remove the leg of Lieutenant Lucien Allard, who was very gently winning her heart among all the misery of the war. A sudden infection in his wounds had meant his leg had to be quickly amputated above the knee.

Ellen found her friend in one of the empty rooms on the top floor, where some of the abbey’s heavy old furniture was shrouded in sheets, and the windows overlooked the meadows now bathed in lambent silver.

“Letitia . . .”

“If he survives,” Letitia said bleakly, “what sort of life can he have? An amputation above the knee, Ellen. It doesn’t bear thinking about.”

Ellen came to sit next to Letitia.

“We’ve seen plenty of men with similar amputations,” she said quietly. “They will all have to find a way forward after this war is over.”

“After this war is over,” Letitia repeated. “Sometimes I wonder if that is ever going to happen.”

“The tide is turning,” Ellen answered with more conviction than she felt. “With America entering the war –”

“And Russia about to make peace terms with Germany,” Letitia answered. “The players may shift, but the terror will never end. And when it does . . .” she gazed bleakly out at the fields “. . . what will happen to men like Lucien? Do you think his country will provide for him?

“There will be so many wounded, and I fear by that time everyone will just want to forget. What will they do, all these poor boys?”

“I don’t know,” Ellen admitted. “I don’t know what will happen when the war ends.” She laid a hand on her friend’s arm.

“But do you love Lieutenant Allard?”

Letitia didn’t answer for a long moment. Her face remained bleak, her expression shuttered.

“Does it matter?” she finally asked, and rose from where she’d been sitting.

After a pause Ellen followed her.

Plagued

Ellen went to her room and tried to sleep, but her troubled dozing was plagued by dreams of blood and gore and the cries of the wounded, even though the hospital was now all peace and quiet.

By mid-morning it had become too hot to sleep, and she rose and washed and dressed.

Today was her day off, and she thought perhaps she would travel into the nearby village of Asnieressur-Oise, simply for a change of scene.

She was just tidying her hair when Edith came up to see her, breathless, her face red from both exertion and heat.

“Ellen! There’s a soldier here to see you! He cuts quite a dashing figure in his uniform. He speaks English, too, like a Yank.”

Ellen’s breath came out in a rush as she hurried down the abbey’s twisting stairs.

Hope was a dangerous thing, she reminded herself, and yet she could not keep it from ballooning inside her as she rushed to the abbey’s entrance hall, where a soldier in the uniform of the Canadian Expeditionary Force waited, his cap in his hand, his smile wry.

Her mouth dried as she came to a halt in front of him.

“Lucas,” she said wonderingly, and then she rushed into his arms.

Smart

Lucas’s arms closed around Ellen and she pressed her cheek against his chest, the buttons of his coat digging into her skin.

Finally, with a self-conscious laugh, she eased away from him and surveyed him from his neatly combed hair to his perfectly polished boots. He held his CEF cap in one hand.

“You look very smart as a soldier,” she said, and he laughed self-consciously. “How long has it been since we last saw each other, Lucas?”

“Six years.”

Six years. She shook her head slowly, the events of the last six years – her time in Glasgow, and these last hard years of war – tumbling through her mind. “It’s so good to see you.”

“And you, Ellen. I wasn’t even sure I’d find you here. Your aunt Rose had told me you were nursing at Royaumont Abbey the last time I was on the island, but that was in 1915.”

“Do you have news?” Ellen asked. “You must tell me everything. Letters from Aunt Rose get through rarely.”

“I’ll tell you all I know,” Lucas said, and he glanced around as if looking for chairs.

“I was just going out,” Ellen told him.

“Why don’t you come with me? If you have time, that is.”

“I’m not due back to London until tomorrow.” “There’s a little café in the village. It’s nothing much, just a few tables and chairs in someone’s front room. But Madame Loisel makes some lovely cakes, and there’s usually coffee.” Even if it was made with old grounds.

“All right,” Lucas said, and Ellen fetched her hat and cloak before they set off into a warm summer’s afternoon.

It felt so strange and yet surprisingly right to walk with Lucas along the dirt road that led to the small village.

“If I close my eyes,” Ellen said, “I can almost believe we’re back on the island.”

“I don’t even have to close my eyes,” Lucas answered as he smiled and looked down at her. “You haven’t changed a bit, Ellen.”

“Oh, I have,” Ellen protested.

She lifted a hand to her cheek, conscious of how tired and worn out she must look.

“I’m not a young girl any more, Lucas.” She’d turned 26 that spring. Most women her age, back on Amherst Island at least, were married with several children already.

“And I’m not a young man,” Lucas agreed. “But you still don’t look any different to me.”

News

Ellen waited until they were settled in the front room of Madame Loisel’s house with cups of weak coffee and pastries in front of them before she asked about Amherst Island.

“So tell me all the news,” Ellen said as she took a sip of coffee.

She studied Lucas over the rim of her cup. He looked dashing in his uniform, but older, too. There were new lines around his eyes and mouth, and his light brown hair had streaks of grey by the temples, even though he was only 27.

“I don’t know how up to date my news is,” Lucas answered.

“Many of the island boys joined up with the First Expeditionary Force in 1915 – me and Jed, of course, and the Tyler twins, Andrew Parton . . .”

“But you’re not with them now, are you?” Ellen asked.

“Aunt Rose mentioned in one of her letters that you’ve been doing something in London.”

“I was commandeered to join a specialist operation in 1916,” Lucas told her. “And I’m afraid I can’t tell you more than that.”

Ellen eyed him mischievously.

“It sounds intriguing.”

More tomorrow.

On Renfrew Street was previously a serial in The People’s Friend. For more great fiction, get The People’s Friend every week, £1.30 from newsagents and supermarkets.

Artwork: Dave Young