Frontline Nurses On Duty

by Holly Green

  It took Tom nearly an hour in the gathering darkness to find Ralph, trudging along with the common soldiers with a bandage round his head. He looked up as Tom slid to the ground beside him and for a moment his eyes were as blank as they had been in the casualty station at Mons. Then his face lit up.

  ‘Tom! Thank God! I thought you’d bought it!’ He reached out and gripped Tom’s shoulder and Tom slid an arm round him.

  ‘What about you? Is the wound serious?’

  ‘No, just a scratch.’

  ‘Where’s your horse?’

  ‘Shot out from under me when I went back to round up the stragglers. I’ll get a new one from the remounts when we halt.’

  For a moment he let Tom support him. Then he straightened up. ‘Well, we held them for a day. I just hope that’s long enough. Sooner or later we’ve got to call a halt and face up to them properly, or they’ll sweep us into the sea.’

  Chapter 6

  On the afternoon of August 26th, The Times produced a special edition. The headline read ‘BROKEN BRITISH REGIMENTS’. In a despatch from Amiens, the reporter described the German advance and British losses. New recruits were urgently needed to reinforce the troops, the despatch concluded. By the next morning the recruiting offices were besieged by men wanting to sign up.

  For Leonora it was a time of torment. Her anxiety about her brother and Tom was exacerbated by her own enforced inactivity. While the hundreds of new recruits marched, whistling, through the city streets it seemed that the only contribution the women of Britain were to be allowed to make was to knit socks and pack up parcels of ‘comforts’ for their menfolk. Ashley Smith was still on her way back from South Africa, and Mabel Stobart seemed to have disappeared completely. The FANYs busied themselves with stretcher drills and collecting equipment, but the chances of their being required seemed remote.

  She received a letter with a New Zealand postmark:

  Dear Leo,

  This will only be a short letter as I don’t have much time. I just want you to know that yesterday I rode into Wellington and signed up with the Wellington Mounted Rifles. It would only have been a matter of time before I was called up anyway, since I’ve been in the Territorials since I was eighteen, but I wanted to get in as soon as possible. Looks as if this time I’ll actually get to do some fighting instead of carrying stretchers. It’s a different enemy this time, of course, but there are rumours that the Turks may come in on the side of Germany, so I might get to have another crack at them yet! I don’t know if I’ll make it as far as Europe. We’re still waiting for news of embarkation. But if I do I hope I shall have a chance to see you – and perhaps Victoria, too.

  What are you doing? I’m sure neither of you will be content to sit back and let the fellows do all the fighting. I shouldn’t be surprised if we meet up again on another muddy battlefield. If I ever have the misfortune to get wounded, there’s no one’s face I’d rather see looking down at me when I come round from the anaesthetic!

  I’ll do my best to keep in touch, and look forward to hearing from you.

  Yours affectionately,

  Luke

  One morning the telephone rang and Leo heard the voice of James Bartlett, the estate manager at Bramwell Hall. It was very unusual for him to ring and when he did his tone was normally restrained and respectful. This time he sounded near to tears.

  ‘They’re taking the horses, Miss Leo!’

  ‘What? Who are, James? Taking them where?’

  ‘The army, Miss Leo. They came this morning with a document – all very proper and legal – saying they are entitled to requisition any horses.’

  ‘Have they taken them all?’

  ‘All of them, miss. Even your little chestnut mare.’

  ‘They’ve taken Amber? But that’s ridiculous! She’s too small for an officer’s mount and anyway she’ll bolt at the first sound of gunfire.’

  ‘I told them that, Miss Leo. But they wouldn’t listen.’

  ‘And they’ve taken all the farm horses?’

  ‘Every one except old Bramble. They reckoned he was past it.’

  ‘How will you manage?’

  ‘God knows, miss – pardon the language. But there’s one good thing. Most of the harvest is in. There won’t be so much work for the horses until spring ploughing season. Maybe by then it will be all over.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Leo said, without conviction. She drew a breath and sighed. ‘There’s nothing we can do about it, James. You must just manage as best you can. Buy horses if there are any to be had, but I doubt if there will be. Is there anything I can do to help?’

  ‘No, no, Miss Leo. Don’t you fret.’ She could hear that he had himself under control now. ‘I just wanted to let you know. As you say, there’s nowt we can do except pray the war doesn’t last too long.’

  ‘Amen to that!’ Leo said.

  When she had put the phone down, tears welled up in her eyes. She had maintained a stoic attitude to her manager, but the thought of her beautiful little mare, her father’s last gift, being caught up in the chaos of the battlefield was almost unbearable. She bit her lips. First Sasha, then Ralph and Tom, and now her beloved horse had been swallowed up in this pointless war and it was quite possible that she would never see any of them again.

  Acute as her anxiety was for Tom and Ralph, it was doubled by the news from Serbia. Max, who was still at his post in Belgrade, wrote to her every week and in this way she had learned that for two weeks the city had been bombarded by the Austrian’s heavy Krupp’s guns from across the Danube and Sava Rivers, while the main element of the Serbian army, short of supplies and ammunition, had struggled back from the south where they had been guarding the borders of Macedonia. Then had come the news of the battle of Cer Mountain, at which the Austrians had been driven back by the Serbs under General Putnik and it seemed Belgrade had been delivered from the immediate threat. Max wrote, however, that the Austrians were still massed on the borders and he expected a renewed attack at any time. Sasha, he had found out, had survived that battle, but Leo could only wonder how much longer his luck would hold.

  After a long silence, which stretched her nerves almost to breaking point, she received a letter from Tom.

  Sept 17th

  My dear Leo,

  Please forgive me for not writing sooner. There really has not been a spare moment in the last few weeks. I can’t go into details about places and dates but I think you will have read in the papers about the fighting around Mons. That was followed by a ‘strategic withdrawal’, which involved marching for twenty hours out of every twenty-four, until we were almost on the outskirts of Paris. How the men did it, I shall never know. It was hard enough on horseback. Now, thank God, we have stopped retreating and the German advance has been halted at the Marne. Everyone is exhausted and we seem to have reached a kind of stalemate, so there’s no knowing where we might go next.

  I’ve seen things that have filled me with admiration, and others that have made me despair. For those of us, like you and me, who have some experience of modern warfare, the positively medieval ideas of some of our commanders are almost unbelievable. Would you believe that the French cavalry charge machine guns, wearing their polished cuirasses and plumed helmets, as if they were going on parade? And the ordinary French soldier wears a red coat and blue trousers, as if the intention is to make him a perfect target for enemy fire. I have seen them shot down like a flock of pheasants.

  Enough of this! I am well – surprisingly so, in fact – and so is Ralph. He would write but he spends all his spare time going round his men, listening to their troubles and cheering them along. He is a very popular officer, justifiably. I will write again when I can and meanwhile I enclose a few of my more light-hearted sketches.

  With my love,

  Tom

  Two days later Leo learned from the papers that the Austrians had successfully invaded Serbia and were besieging Belgrade.

  *

  One day Leo and Victoria arrived at FANY HQ with
the rest of the Corps to discover Ashley Smith awaiting them with her second-in-command, Lilian Franklin. In response to the chorus of delighted greetings, she said, ‘Well, the good news is, on the boat home I met a M. Louis Franck, who is the Belgian Minister for the Colonies. When I told him what we were hoping to do he said that the Belgian army would welcome us with open arms. Apparently, there already is a British-run field hospital in Antwerp and I have the name of the secretary. I’m going to see him tomorrow, to offer our services.’

  At last it seemed that the period of frustrating inactivity might be at an end, but Leo’s optimism was short-lived. The following day Ashley Smith reported that the secretary had insisted that he had no need of the Corps’ assistance, though he had grudgingly conceded that she might go out herself, if she could get a laisser-passer from the Belgian government.

  ‘Of course, he was convinced I wouldn’t get one,’ Smith added grimly, ‘but I’ve proved him wrong there.’

  Two days later she left for Antwerp.

  For a week the FANYs chewed their collective fingernails and waited. Then Franklin came into the room where they were gloomily rolling bandages, waving a telegram.

  ‘She’s done it! The Belgians have offered Ash a three-hundred-bed hospital and we are to go out there and help her to run it.’

  The cheer that went up must have been heard, Leo reckoned, in the street outside. The rest of the day was spent in a flurry of packing equipment and personal belongings.

  Next morning, Leo woke to hear the newsboys shouting in the street and caught the word ‘Antwerp’. She sent Millie out to buy a paper and read the headline that put an end to their hopes: ‘GERMAN ARMY AT THE GATES OF ANTWERP’.

  Antwerp fell to the Germans on October 10th and there had been no word from Ashley Smith. The mood of euphoria evaporated, leaving Leo and the other FANYs more depressed than ever. Then, ten days later, Ashley Smith walked into their HQ, spick and span in her uniform and apparently unharmed. She was at once besieged with questions.

  ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘How did you get away?’

  ‘Did you see the Germans? How come you weren’t interned?’

  ‘If you’ll let me get a word in edgeways,’ she responded in her soft Scottish burr, ‘I’ll tell you. I was in Ghent, helping to rescue wounded soldiers. When the Germans overran us I was evacuated to a place called Eecloo but then I heard that there was a British officer in the Flandria hotel in Ghent who was too ill to be moved, so of course I had to go back.’

  ‘Go back!’ someone exclaimed. ‘Weren’t you terrified?’

  ‘Oh, my heart was in my boots, all right. But the young man’s relief at seeing me was enough to make it all worthwhile. I managed to get him into a nursing home but the next day it was taken over by the Germans to billet their soldiers. I expected them to arrest me at any moment, but no one bothered us.’

  ‘Did the young officer recover?’

  ‘No, sadly. I sat up with him for two nights but on the third morning he died. I stayed to arrange his funeral and then I went to the German CO and asked for a safe conduct out of the city.’

  ‘Were you wearing uniform?’ Leo asked.

  ‘Oh yes! It was very funny to see the German’s reaction. I suppose a woman in any uniform is pretty surprising to them, but to see a woman in British khaki in an occupied city – well, I think the German word for it is verbluffend. Of course, they refused me the safe conduct, but at least they didn’t arrest me. I swanked out as if I owned the place and, do you know, one sergeant drew his men up to attention and saluted me!’

  ‘Good for you!’ Lilian exclaimed. ‘But how did you get away in the end?’

  ‘I happened to have met a Belgian baroness and she managed to arrange for me to get out through Holland. So, here I am and the good news is—’ she paused and Leo held her breath ‘—the Belgians have taken over an abandoned convent school in Calais as a hospital for their troops and they want us to go out and help to run it. And, I have persuaded Sir Arthur Stanley, of the Red Cross council, to give us permits to cross the Channel on the Red Cross yacht.’

  *

  On October 26th the advance party of six FANYs, together with three qualified nurses led by the redoutable Sister Wicks, and two male dressers, assembled on the docks at Folkestone. With them was Ashley Smith’s brother Bill, at the wheel of a brand-new motor ambulance.

  ‘How did you get it?’ Leo asked. ‘I thought there were hardly any in existence.’

  Ashley Smith winked. ‘Friends in high places. I twisted a few arms.’

  ‘I wish Victoria was here,’ Leo said. ‘She would be green with envy.’

  Victoria had insisted on taking Sparky, her sports car, to France and, on being told that there was no chance of it being accommodated on the Red Cross yacht, she had declared that she would make her own way over and join them in Calais.

  As they made their way towards the berth where they expected to find the yacht they passed a hospital ship and saw stretcher after stretcher being carried down the gangways and laid out on the dock. There, a small party of men under the command of a tall, thin colonel in the uniform of the Royal Army Medical Corps were collecting them and carrying them to a waiting train. It was a miserable day, with a cold drizzle falling, but the stretcher-bearers could not keep up with the growing number of casualties being unloaded from the ship.

  ‘There are so many of them!’ whispered Marion Wilkinson to Leo as they marched past. ‘Where have they come from, do you think?’

  ‘Ypres, I suppose,’ Leo said grimly. ‘According to the papers there’s a big battle going on there.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘Belgium. Poor devils, they shouldn’t be left lying in the rain like that.’

  When they reached the designated berth there was no sign of the Red Cross ship. Enquiries elicited the information that it was detained in Calais because of bad weather in the Channel.

  ‘Right!’ said Ashley Smith. ‘Let’s make ourselves useful while we wait. Forward march!’

  The colonel was checking a list on a clipboard and looked up impatiently as the group halted and Ashley Smith saluted smartly.

  ‘Who the devil are you and what do you want? Can’t you see I’m busy?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Ashley Smith replied. ‘That’s why we are offering to help. We are members of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry and we are fully trained in stretcher drill.’

  ‘You? Carry stretchers?’ He stared at them with an incredulous smile that came close to being a sneer. ‘How long do you think you’d last, with those soft white hands of yours?’

  ‘These soft white hands are probably capable of more than you will ever guess,’ Ashley Smith responded curtly. She turned to the others. ‘Right, ladies. You know what to do. Let’s get busy.’

  Leo normally worked with Victoria but in her absence she turned to the girl beside her. ‘Come on, Wilks.’

  As they stooped over the first stretcher, the man lying on it, his head swathed in bandages, opened one good eye and exclaimed, ‘Cor blimey! Angels! I must have died and gone to heaven.’

  ‘Not yet, private,’ Leo said with a grin. ‘You’ll have to wait a long time for that. But we can get you to a more comfortable billet. Ready, Wilks? Lift!’

  They had practised stretcher drill till their arms ached and their hands were blistered, carrying volunteers provided by the RAMC, but Leo was the only one there apart from Ashley Smith herself who had ever worked with real casualties. After the third or fourth trip she saw that Wilks was sniffing back tears.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ she asked irritably. ‘You’re not tired already, are you?’

  ‘No! It’s just … I can’t bear to see them in such pain! That boy just now with his eyes bandaged. He kept asking if he’d ever see again …’

  ‘I know,’ Leo said more gently. ‘It’s terribly hard. But think how much harder it is for them. The last thing they need is us snivelling over them.’

  �
�You’re right.’ Wilks sniffed and drew her fist across her nose. ‘I’ll try to be braver.’

  A call interrupted them. ‘Four bearers needed here!’

  Leo and Wilks hurried over to where Franklin and another girl were standing. On the stretcher between them was all that was left of a man. Both his legs had been amputated and one arm was wrapped in bandages, through which blood was seeping. He was shuddering with pain.

  As they bent to lift him the colonel noticed them. ‘Oh, getting tired now, are we? Needs four of you to carry one man, does it?’

  Franklin straightened up and fixed him with a look. ‘No, that is not the case at all. You should know that a stretcher carried by four people is considerably less jolting than one carried by two. This man needs all the consideration we can give him.’

  Having delivered that rebuttal, she bent to the stretcher again and the four of them lifted it with great care and carried it to the waiting train, where Franklin sought out a doctor and insisted that he leave what he was doing to give their patient a dose of morphia.

  Eventually, all the casualties had been loaded onto the train and there was still no sign of the Red Cross yacht.

  ‘We could stand round here all night,’ Ashley Smith said. ‘How about trying the ordinary ferry?’

  Two hours later the motor ambulance was winched aboard the regular cross-channel ferry and they were on their way at last.

  It was dark when they reached Calais, to be greeted with the mirror image of the sight they had left behind in Folkestone; lines of stretchers laid out on the dockside in the rain, waiting to be loaded onto a hospital ship.

  This time they did not wait to offer their help because they had been met by an official from the Belgian Red Cross who was waiting to conduct them to Lamarck, the convent school that had been converted into a hospital. Calais, less than fifty miles from the battle front, was seething. They passed along streets teeming with soldiers in the uniforms of three nations, horses, carts, gun limbers and refugees and arrived finally at a large, grey stone building. Leo’s heart sank as they entered the courtyard, and looking at the others she could see that they were feeling the same. Everything about the place spoke of neglect and decay. The shutters hung at crazy angles from their broken hinges, the paintwork around the door frames was peeling and the courtyard itself was strewn with rubbish. There was one redeeming feature. Rising above the buildings on one side was the towering bulk of the cathedral, its stained-glass east window glowing softly from the lights inside.