Silence

Marie’s ears felt full of cotton. Moments before, she felt they would explode, but now she heard nothing. It was as if all the air was sucked from the space around her, leaving a vaccuum. The feeling lasted but a moment, then everyone was calling out to each other, checking to see that none were injured, that loved ones close by were still alive.

Closing her eyes, Marie said a prayer for Richard before climbing from under the table and taking her place behind the microphone. Not even the war would stop the show, if she could help it.

Shades

Mum told her it was dangerous using the lantern, but Violet argued her studies were important. Once the war was over there would be plenty of work rebuilding.

“But you’re a young woman, not a carpenter.” Her mum argued back.

“That’s why I need to study!” Came her daughter’s reply.

Men’s minds and bodies would need renovation as well as the structures around them. Being a nurse was one of very few paths enabling Violet to help rebuild her country.

After a time, her mum stopped arguing. Checking the tape often, she made sure no light escaped the shades.

Faces

Jeanne refused to read the papers. It was not the stories; they kept her going, a link to events in a war that felt so far away. No, it was the pictures that disturbed her so.

Sometimes she would read the front page, plastered with images of war. She would read the stories that began there, flipping through to follow the rest of the tale. That is when she would find them, the faces. Some were soldiers, some children, some grieving widows, but she remembered each one and they kept her awake on quiet nights, long after the ‘all clear’.

Energy

They passed through in a never-ending stream. Unloaded, tagged, and reloaded for further treatment elsewhere. Violet collapsed into bed each night, visions of a limitless river of broken bodies swimming in her head, keeping sleep at bay despite her fatigue.

“How do you keep it up, pigeon?” Her mum worried over her.

“I’m not sure,” she admitted, “but sometimes one of the boys will look up at me and smile. He tells me how lovely it is to see a sturdy English girl at the end of the road.”

Violet smiled. “Most days, it’s enough to be getting on with.”

Voice

Shivers ran down Marie’s back. The train was late. When it arrived the women pressed in, watching as the men disembarked. The crowd became a nightmare to navigate.

She passed face after face, many of the young men searching just as she did, with the extra advantage of height.

The crowd thinned as time went on. Leading Marie to think she had the wrong train, the wrong day. Or perhaps she had missed the letter and she shouldn’t be here at all.

Then a soft, warm baritone whispered in her ear and the world was full of hope once more.