by Jana Petken
Kevin gulped his tea. It slithered down his throat awkwardly, as though it had hit a wall on the way. “Patrick, there was a Zeppelin attack on Greenwich last night,” he said. He then added hurriedly, “Don’t worry about your mam and Minnie. They’re fine.”
Sitting up straight, Patrick’s face paled. His eyes bore angrily into Kevin. “Jesus Christ, could you not have started off with that bit of news instead of sitting there talking as though everything’s rosy? Out with it, then – all of it.”
Kevin nodded guiltily. “I was at Minnie’s when we were hit. Everyone who was in the house at the time is safe and well. There was a bit of damage – glass – a crack down the wall …”
“Where are they staying now?”
“They went to your Uncle George’s house last night, but he doesn’t have room for Danny. Your mam refuses to be parted from your brother, so they’re going back home today. Structurally, Minnie’s place is fine. Danny and John are going to board up the windows and see to the crack in the front wall.”
Sighing with relief, Patrick said, “I heard some vague rumours about the air raid in the London area, but I didn’t have time or even think about asking for details. Thank God they’re all right. Was my Jenny hysterical?”
Kevin paused for a moment, and then, when Patrick looked reasonably calm, he gave him the news. “Jenny wasn’t in the house, Patrick. She was caught up in an explosion in Deptford …”
For the next thirty minutes, Kevin told Patrick about Jenny’s injuries and gave him the prognosis as outlined by Dr Thackery. Patrick, visibly distressed but seemingly listening with a professional ear, periodically asked questions about the treatment she was receiving.
“The doctor seemed to know what he was talking about,” Kevin said, after giving Patrick all the pertinent information.
“I think I know this Thackery from the college in Dublin. Did you manage to see Jenny?”
“No, but I did escort your mam to the hospital. She was the only person they allowed into the cubicle, and she was in there for less than ten minutes. She said that Jenny was heavily drugged, moaning with the pain, and that she wasn’t aware of what was going on around her.”
With a stoic expression on his face, Patrick asked, “Did Minnie or Danny not go?”
“Minnie was too tired to go with us. Your mam put her to bed in your uncle’s house. Danny was the one who found out about Jenny. He’d already been to the hospital. He was dog tired, Patrick, after just getting out of prison – I have to give him his due. He acted very responsibly last night.”
“Christ, I feel so useless being down here.”
“You can’t help that. I spoke at length to the doctor. He was one of your father’s students. He idolised your dad.”
Patrick’s grief clearly intensified. “Then he is the Thackery I suspected. If only my dad hadn’t died. The family would never have gone to London.”
“C’mon now, don’t think like that.”
“What else am I to think? It’s true! So have you told me everything?”
“Yes.”
Looking pensive, Patrick stood up. “I’ve got twenty-four hours before we go back to sea. I need to get back to London, even if it’s just for a couple of hours,” he said, paying for the teas at the same time. “I’ll go see my commanding officer now. Hopefully I can get on the first train in the morning.”
On the way back to the ship, Kevin said, “You should be proud of Jenny, Patrick. She got herself a job, and I think she liked it. She made friends. When have you ever known her to have female friends?”
Patrick smiled. “Jenny earning her own keep? It was short-lived for her.”
Kevin didn’t think this the appropriate moment to talk about his feelings, but he had run out of time. This was his last chance.
“We’ve become close. We spent time together.” Pulling an envelope from his jacket pocket, he said, “I wrote this letter to her when I was on the train. I know this is a rotten time, but I want you to give this to your mam. She’ll decide whether or not to give it to your sister. I love her, Patrick. I want her to know that, in case I never get the chance to tell her in person.”
Patrick’s face crumpled with grief. “You’re a good man, Kevin. I’ll do what I can, but don’t get your hopes up. I doubt very much that romance will be on my sister’s mind for a long, long time.”
When they arrived at the Britannic’s gangway, Patrick shook Kevin’s hand. “Keep that big head of yours down over there and write to me.” Patrick looked as though he wanted to say more, but he could only manage to squeeze Kevin’s arm before turning around and boarding the ship.
The deck was packed – a sea of equipment and green-uniformed soldiers sitting or standing from bow to stern with the same expression of trepidation on their faces as Kevin felt running through his body. He looked longingly at the jetty, wishing he could step onto its solid ground and then run as far away from there as his legs could carry him. But he couldn’t escape this, for it seemed to him that God’s great plan was to empty the earth of men, and no doubt, wherever he ran to, God would find him and smite him with damn rocks from heaven.
He shut out the noise surrounding him, and instantly his mind spiralled into a gloomy pit. When he reached that hellish ground in France, he’d find a horror that he could not yet fully imagine. Strange that he should believe that, for he had already witnessed the awfulness of violence and destruction of war. Still not fully recovered from the Zeppelin attack and the Dublin uprising, where he’d seen his city in ruins and people with bodies so broken that they had barely looked human, he wondered if mankind would ever regain humanity when the madness of this war was finally over. He had never faced a German foe, but he was already consumed with bitterness, hatred, and thoughts of revenge for what had happened to Jenny. His feelings scared him. Was it better to go to war detesting the enemy as he did, or did one hold on to his sanity simply by trying to survive the bombs and bullets, without a thought for who was firing them?
Chapter Twenty-Eight
31 August 1916
It wasn’t a waiting room, as such, in the hospital, but the orderlies had placed a few chairs at the end of one of the hallways for the comfort of family members waiting to see loved ones. Visiting periods, limited to a half hour in the morning and twenty minutes in the evening, were open to no more than two family members at a time, and during this interval, doctors were available to answer questions.
Every day since the air raid, one or more of the Carmody family had gone to see Jenny. Minnie opted to remain at home, after struggling to walk the mile from the bus stop to Shooters Hill. It was too much for her old bones, she’d said apologetically to Susan and Danny, and anyway, she’d rather wait a while before she visited. Jenny would appreciate her old granny more when she felt a bit better.
Waiting in the hallway on this particular morning were Danny and John, accompanied by Patrick. Having been denied shore leave on the night Kevin told him about the air raid, Patrick had been forced to wait until after the ship had returned from another voyage to France. In Southampton, he’d been given a forty-eight-hour leave pass, and he had set off as soon as he was able to on the last train of the day, bound for London.
Patrick, who was reading the Times newspaper, looked up at his brother. Leaning against a wall, Danny was deep in conversation with John about a newspaper article he had read earlier that week.
“The Dublin Corporation has decided to tear down some of the old tenement blocks, but there’s no talk of building new houses to replace them. The Catholics will be thrown out first – you’ll see,” Danny said.
“You’re right. The Protestants will get all the decent houses, as usual,” John agreed.
“Jimmy Carson predicted this state of affairs. He’s a canny man, that Jimmy. He said we’d all be homeless before long.”
Patrick shook his head in consternation. Danny was drawing far too much attention to himself from the other visitors. He sometimes wondered if his brother deliberat
ely set out to stir up trouble with opinions better kept private or if he was just incredibly stupid at times.
A few minutes later, Danny’s voice grew louder still, becoming more agitated as he continued to cite the government’s many sins against the Irish Catholic population. Patrick looked up again, this time noticing the scathing looks being thrown in his brother’s direction from a dozen or so people. Deciding to put an end to the inflammatory conversation before it instigated another altercation with the English, he said pleasantly, “Has everyone heard the good news this morning?”
Out of all the visitors, only one elderly man answered him. “What’s happened, son? Have we taken the Somme?” he asked hopefully.
“No, not yet, but things are bucking up. Italy has just declared war on Germany.”
“That makes sense,” another man piped in. “They’ve been fighting Austria for the past year. It’s about time they took the Huns on.”
“It’s good news from Rumania too,” Patrick added. “They’ve thrown their lot in with the allies and have just declared war on Austria and Hungary.”
“I don’t understand the ’alf of it,” another man said.
His wife, standing beside him, told him to be quiet.
Instead, he continued. “If you ask me, this war is all down to petty squabbling between Europe’s royal families, and whilst they’re sitting in their palaces eating their faces off, our men are being slaughtered – you don’t see any of them royals, and lords and ladies, visiting my two boys in ’ere, do you?”
“You have two sons in here?” Danny asked, sounding genuinely shocked.
“That’s right. Both were wounded on the same day in the same battle. Gawd only knows why he saw fit to spare them, but he did. Tho’ neither one of them will ever walk again or be any use to anyone but their mother and me. Far as I’m concerned, you can take your good news and shove it up the king’s arse.”
Relieved to hear the visitor’s bell ring, Patrick walked along the corridor to Jenny’s ward, accompanied by Danny. John waited behind, having been promised ten minutes alone with Jenny before the end of the visiting period.
Inside the ward, fifty beds were lined up against adjacent walls, with a row of additional beds in the centre of the room. The ward was mixed, with both male and female patients; however, the women were located in a section that had been curtained off from the rest of the ward. This gave them a modicum of privacy.
Patrick could see that Jenny was attempting to smile. For the first time since the night she was injured, her head and face were devoid of bandages. The full extent of her injuries was revealed: the cuts to her face, overshadowed by a completely bald head, looking more like burnt crust on a loaf of bread than human skin; a ragged hole where her ear had once been; and an eye burnt around the top and bottom lids, devoid of eyelashes and eyebrow.
Patrick had spoken briefly to Dr Thackery before going to the waiting area. It appeared that Jenny had been lucky. Her body had also been hit by shrapnel, but there were no serious burns or wounds to it, apart from a gash to her leg, which would heal in time.
Jenny visibly tried to smile again but didn’t quite manage to lift the corners of her mouth.
Overcome with love and grief, Patrick inadvertently rushed forward. At her bedside, he relaxed his breathing and planted a grin on his face. Jenny, his headstrong, beautiful sister, was irreversibly damaged. His heart was breaking. Behind him, he could hear Danny choking back a sob. Patrick turned and warned his brother with his eyes to control his emotions. Danny nodded apologetically.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, Patrick took Jenny’s hand and gently stroked her fingers. “I tried to get back home sooner, darlin’, but the navy had other plans for me.”
“I understand.” She grimaced, and then a soft gasp left her mouth. It was apparent that the effort to speak was painful. “You’ve come home now,” she mumbled.
“Danny tells me that you’re being very brave. You’re a true Carmody,” Patrick said. Jenny was observant, he thought. If she could, she’d probably make a sarcastic remark about his feeble attempt to cheer her up.
Danny said, “She’s a trooper, right enough.”
Jenny looked briefly at both of her brothers and then closed her eyes just as a tear fell from the corner of her right eye. Finally, she whispered, “How do I look? They won’t let me see my face.”
“You’ve looked better,” Patrick answered truthfully. “But give it time and you’ll be just grand.”
Danny, still vividly upset, confirmed Patrick’s optimistic prediction by saying, “Dr Thackery tells us that you’re getting the sight back in your sore eye. That’s a great sign. He thinks you’ll be on the mend in no time.”
“I look like a monster. I know I do,” she said.
Patrick squeezed her hand. Her hair would never grow back through the dead skin that covered part of her head. The outer corner of her eye was badly burnt, and the skin around her hairline had disintegrated, leaving muscle exposed. But the rest of her face was perfect. He needed to check his next words. She would remember them.
“Don’t say such things,” he eventually said, more harshly than he’d intended. “I’ve seen much worse than you since joining up. Doctors can work wonders nowadays, thanks to modern medicine. And your face isn’t burnt, Jenny. You look as you always do, apart from the small area around your eye and the side of your head. It’s a miracle you didn’t lose your sight.”
“My ear?” She tried to point to her left ear, but the effort was clearly too much for her. “I can’t hear …”
Kissing her forehead, he decided not to go into any details. She looked to be in agony. “Oh, that’s probably the ringing noise from the blast. You just rest. It’s still early days.”
“Are you in a great deal of pain today?” Danny asked when she started to whimper.
“Yes, tell them to put me to sleep again just as soon as you leave – will you, Danny?”
“I will, but first I have a nice surprise for you.”
She stared passively.
“Your John is here to see you.”
Jenny’s eyes lit up for a moment, but then she unexpectedly asked, “Where’s Kevin?”
Patrick wondered how to respond. Was it possible that Kevin was uppermost in her thoughts … and not John? If that was true, he’d be a very happy brother.
“Kevin’s gone off to France, but he did come with Mam to see you before he left. He sends his warmest regards to you.” He watched her face brighten for a second, and then the light went out.
“If you’re too tired, you don’t have to see John,” he said hurriedly.
“Don’t be daft. Of course she wants to see him,” Danny scolded him, his face like thunder. “She’s his betrothed.”
Patrick asked again, “Do you want to see him, Jenny?”
“Yes, he’s my fiancé,” she said, leaving Patrick even more bemused by the minds of the fairer sex than he’d been before.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
After kissing Jenny goodbye, Patrick and Danny took a moment to settle their nerves. In the hallway, Danny stood with hands on hips, looking down at the floor. Patrick, having seen fatal burn victims before, was disappointed at his own lack of self-control. He probably hadn’t managed to hide a single emotion or thought.
“Oh God, I never imagined it would be that bad,” Danny wept.
With the silence now broken, Patrick said, “It looks bad, but the worst of it is on her head, not her face or body. That’s a blessing.”
“Have you gone soft? A bloody blessing?”
“She can cover her head, but she can’t cover her face, can she? They even have fancy wig makers in London,” Patrick said impatiently. “Danny, believe me, I have seen men with their faces blown off, with nothing left but gaping holes where their noses and mouths sat. There are men walking about with their teeth visible through their cheeks and jaws.”
Danny shuddered. “Even so, we have to warn John about the state she’s in. He’
ll have a fit when he sees her.”
“I agree – and we’ll have to let Mam know what Jenny looks like before she visits again. She never saw Jenny without the bandages on. We can’t have her screaming her head off. You know how much she loves her theatrics.”
Calming down, Danny asked, “What’s going to happen to Jenny?”
“She’ll survive this – that’s what’s going to happen. It’ll be a long hard road to recovery, and she’ll be in pain for a long time, I suspect. But she will be able to walk and talk and live a reasonably normal life if she has courage and willpower.”
“If I could change places with her, I would. I mean that with all my heart.”
“I know you would.”
“Thank God she has a good man to take care of her,” Danny then said. “I bet you our mam won’t try to stop Jenny from marrying John now.”
Patrick nodded, but secretly he was not convinced that Jenny still wanted to marry John. It seemed to him that Kevin might have been telling the truth after all. “When you talk to John,” he said, “bear in mind that he’s only been in to see Jenny once, and on that particular occasion, she slept through his entire visit.”
“I know. It was me who told you that.”
Walking towards the waiting area, Danny gripped Patrick’s arm. “Do me a favour. Don’t mention Kevin’s name again, especially not to John. Remember, he’s her best bet for marriage and children as well as a decent life.”
The waiting area was empty apart from John and a couple of young women. John, who was reading Patrick’s discarded newspaper, jumped up from the chair when he saw Danny and Patrick, throwing the newspaper to the floor without a second glance.
The three men hoped to find a cab rank on the Shooters Hill main thoroughfare. There were no buses during the afternoon; the next one to pass through the area would be late in the evening. John had barely said a word since they’d left the hospital. Danny, suspecting that John was too upset to talk about his feelings, understood his silence. His friend’s love for Jenny reminded him of his own devotion to Anna. She had rarely been out of his mind since the last time he saw her. Finally, after an uncomfortable quiet, he attempted to engage John in conversation.