Page 135 of The Sapphire Child
Chapter 49
A week after Andrew left Rawalpindi, Stella entered Winifred Shankley’s room and knew something was wrong. There was no reply to her morning greeting. The old woman lay still and when Stella approached, she didn’t move. But leaning over Winifred, she could hear her shallow breathing.
‘MrsS, are you all right?’ Stella smoothed back wispy white hair from the missionary’s brow.
Winifred’s eyes flickered open. Her expression was confused. She didn’t answer; her hand fumbled for Stella’s and tried to hold it, but her thin fingers were too weak. Stella sat on the bed and, lifting Winifred’s hand to her lips, kissed it. Winifred smiled and closed her eyes. Her rapid shallow breathing continued. A lump formed in Stella’s throat; instinctively she knew that her old friend’s life was finally ebbing away.
‘Would you like me to sing to you?’ Stella asked gently.
Winifred gave the slightest of nods. Stella began singing the missionary’s favourite hymn, ‘There is a Green Hill Far Away’.
As she sang, the old woman’s face relaxed and her breathing grew calmer. Stella wondered if she should go for help and get Jimmy to call the doctor, but when she tried to draw away, Winifred’s fingers fluttered in agitation. So, Stella stayed and kept on singing hymns while stroking the missionary’s brow.
Abruptly, Winifred’s breathing changed. It grew deep and ragged, and she gasped as a bronchial, rattling noise sounded in her chest.
In alarm, Stella broke off singing. ‘MrsS?’
Winifred’s eyes opened wide. She saw Stella leaning over her and smiled. ‘Glory to God!’ Then she closed her eyes again.
Stella bent down and kissed her tenderly on the forehead. ‘Glory to God, MrsS,’ she whispered.
A few minutes later, Winifred Shankley stopped breathing.
MrsShankley’s death spurred on Stella to volunteer for general service with the WAC. By December, news was seeping out that Indian and British forces were engaged in battle with the Japanese in the Arakan, a coastal area inside Burma close to Chittagong in East Bengal. She didn’t know for sure, but it was likely that Andrew was involved in the fighting. While she worried about him, it made her the more determined to do her bit.
‘I’m spending most of my time volunteering as it is,’ she explained to her mother. ‘And there’s no reason why a single woman like me shouldn’t be prepared to go where I’m most needed.’
‘What about next season?’ her mother questioned. ‘Won’t the Lomaxes expect you to help at The Raj-in-the-Hills?’
Stella felt a now familiar feeling of anxiety and sadness at the mention of the Lomaxes. ‘Not if I’m volunteering full-time in general service. I’ve written to explain.’
In some ways, it would be easier not to return to Gulmarg and be confronted with seeing Belle every day while not being able to mother her. Going to work somewhere with no associations with Belle or the Lomaxes would be easier in the long run.
After that, things moved swiftly. By mid-December she had been given her posting. Stella was slightly stunned to find she was being sent to New Delhi as secretary to a conservator of forests who had been seconded to the Defence Department as an inspector of gun carriages. It sounded a very responsible position, on top of which Delhi lay over four hundred miles and a long train journey away.
‘His name’s Major Maclagan,’ Stella told her family, ‘and he used to work in Lahore before the war, so at least we’ll be able to talk about the Punjab. He’s going to be away in Bombay for Christmas, so they’ve agreed I can spend Christmas here and then travel down to Delhi before the end of the year.’
‘What does inspecting gun carriages mean?’ Yvonne asked curiously.
Stella shrugged. ‘Something to do with the timber used to make them, I think. I don’t imagine I’ll need to know more than how to spell the names of the trees used.’
‘Well, you’ll be good at that,’ said Jimmy. ‘You’ve always been happiest among the trees and plants of Kashmir, haven’t you?’
Stella gave him a grateful look. ‘I’m going to miss you all so much though.’
‘We’ll miss you too,’ said Yvonne with a sad smile. ‘But it won’t be forever.’
On Boxing Day, the Duboises went round to Auntie Rose and Uncle Toby’s flat in Lalkutri for the traditional Dixon all-day party. There was a false heartiness to the Dixons’ welcome and Stella knew it was because they were trying to mask their worry over their eldest son Rick, who was rumoured to be flying military supplies over the Arakan.
‘They say that the British are getting bogged down in the jungle,’ said Clive, ‘and that only the Indian Air Force is saving them from defeat.’
‘I don’t know where you get such tales from,’ Auntie Rose exclaimed to her son-in-law. ‘That’s anti-British propaganda.’
‘Yes,’ Auntie Lucinda agreed. ‘I’d heard the Japanese pilots are so short-sighted they need three pairs of spectacles to see. So fit young men like Rick will defeat them every time.’
Cousin Sigmund snorted in disbelief. ‘Auntie! That’s nonsense. The Japs have proved themselves deadly in the air from China to Burma.’
‘Let’s not argue today,’ Ada intervened. ‘Stella will be leaving us soon too, so let’s just be happy the rest of us are all here together.’
