Across the Mersey - Annie Groves [88]
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‘Luke’s got to leave from Lime Street Station today to rejoin his unit,’ Jean reminded Sam as she poured him a second cup of tea.
‘Yes, I know,’ Sam agreed tersely.
‘He’s upstairs packing now, and I’ve told him that we’ll go to Lime Street to see him off.’
Sam’s mouth tightened with hostility, as Jean had known it would, but her heart still sank.
She had hoped so much that this unexpected period of leave that had brought Luke home to them to share Christmas and the New Year would have softened Sam’s heart and turned him back into the loving father he had been.
‘You can do what you like, I’ve got better things to do than waste me time hanging around Lime Street making a lot of fuss about nothing.’
Jean went paler. ‘Sam Campion, how can you call seeing your only son off to fight “nothing”?’
‘Fight?’ Sam snorted with derision. ‘From what I’ve heard all he’s done so far is go sightseeing in ruddy Paris.’
‘You know better than that, Sam. They might have had a bit of leave in Paris, but it’s obvious from what Luke’s not said that they’ve been doing a fair bit more than that. Please come to the station with me, Sam,’ she begged.
‘I’ve got some work to do down at the allotment. We’ll be needing everything I can grow there now when this rationing comes in.’
Jean didn’t argue with him. She knew there wasn’t any point.
For Luke’s sake she tried to put on a brave face when they left the house together an hour later, telling him brightly, ‘Your dad would have come with us but—’
Luke’s quiet, ‘It’s all right, Mum, you don’t have to explain,’ cut her to the heart.
The twins had wanted to go with them but Jean had visions of the pair getting into all kinds of mischief in the busily packed station, and had refused to let them, and Grace, whose company she would have welcomed, was now living in at the hospital and had started the second part of her nurse’s training.
Lime Street Station was seething with young men in uniform and their families, some of them returning to their units, some leaving for their first tour of duty, having completed their basic training, and others just starting out on that training.
Groups of WVS in their uniforms were manning information points and providing welcome canteen facilities, and Jean felt proud of Luke’s calm soldierly manner as he found out which platform his train would be going from and where he needed to report.
‘Two family members only are allowed onto the platform,’ the tired WVS lady in charge of one of the desks informed them, adding, ‘That’s if you can get a platform ticket, otherwise family are allowed only as far as the barrier.’
Jean was relieved when Luke took hold of her arm and told her, ‘This way, Mum.’
She had been to Lime Street before but she had never ever seen it as packed as this, not even during summer holiday weeks. You couldn’t move for other people, but somehow Luke managed to carve a way between the packed crowd jostling for space, until they finally reached the barrier to the platform guarded by a large sergeant with a long list in his hand.
‘Private Campion, Number 813320,’ Luke told him, putting down his kitbag and handing over his papers.
He had grown so much broader since he had been in the army, Jean recognised, with muscles now that rivalled his dad’s.
‘And this is your sister, come to see you off, is it?’ the sergeant joked, smiling at Jean, before letting them through without even asking her if she had a platform ticket.
‘Better not tell Dad about that,’ Luke warned her.
Down on the platform where the train was waiting, its doors open, the air was thick with smoke and bitterly cold.
‘Hang on here a minute, Mum,’ Luke told her, ‘whilst I go and nab meself a seat, otherwise I reckon I could end up standing all the way to the coast.’
His movements now were those of an army-trained man, careful and economical, and so very different from the boyishness he had had before he left.
Jean watched as he secured himself a seat and then let down the window, and leaned out so that he