by Lizzie Page
Clean feet. Short toenails.
Cakes. Eccles cake. Fruit cake. Victoria sponge. Elizabeth’s macaroons.
Art galleries. The National Gallery. The Portrait Gallery. Even Percy’s exhibition!
Shoes. All my beautiful shoes.
Mrs Crawford’s pies.
30
After Kitty came back from her mother’s funeral, she looked different, more determined somehow. She had freckles on her nose and a healthy glow, but it wasn’t just that. Her jaw was set, her chin tilted upwards and even in her docile white blouse and tie, and her long sweeping skirt, she somehow looked a picture of defiance. As soon as she’d greeted me, she asked, ‘What’s going on out there?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘The ship, the train, the trucks on the roads – everywhere I went, we were packed in like sardines. I’ve never seen anything like it.’
Hundreds of troops were on the move. Marching, chanting. They were Kitchener’s Army. All volunteers. There were pals from Battersea, pals from Dartford. When we walked into town, some of them waved and we waved back. I found tears coming to my eyes. I wondered if German wives, mothers and sisters over in Berlin or Düsseldorf were thinking and fearing the same. And there were planes too. German planes, daring as small birds, flying low and watching us intently.
‘Perhaps the war will be over soon,’ Bonnie offered hopefully.
‘Something’s definitely happening,’ Kitty murmured. She looked at me questioningly, but I just shrugged. I wasn’t concealing anything, I didn’t know a great deal more than that. I thought of ‘Mother’ – Mother was going to see to it that everything was all right. Mother and her fourteen children. What could go wrong?
* * *
Something else was happening now: rain. The clouds gathered overhead, and whereas once at this time of year you’d sensed summer making its presence felt, now you didn’t know what it was. Of course it was fun to blame Kitty for bringing it back with her from England. Rain in France. Warm rain. Just running from sleeping tents to hospital tents, from hospital tents to the canteen, you’d be as wet as if you’d gone for a dip in Tooting Bathing Lake.
The ground kept splashing up. Keeping clean was a nightmare, but we managed.
I noticed that our convalescents were being hurried away too quickly, before their time. Even the ones who might have been contagious.
We had no patients, but we needed empty beds?
* * *
Another field hospital was built not far from ours. I don’t know how they managed it in the rain and the mud, but they did. One minute there was nothing, the next a massive tent had been erected, with a village of small tents around it. It went up so quick, I worried that it wasn’t sturdy enough, especially in this rain. I watched wide-eyed new nurses arrive in shiny purpose-built ambulances. Dark-haired and bustling, they were from Portugal. They came to our hospital to see how we were doing. Funny to watch our matron, so stiff, arms folded, talking to their matron with her hands flying and her expressive face. We greeted our dear allies warmly, but we had to get on with our work. Maybe they found us reserved, or unemotional, I don’t know.
Louis came by again about a week later. As delighted as I was to see him, I was uncomfortable with this. Matron made it clear she didn’t like it, and even Gordon probably thought it was unprofessional. But Louis always did what Louis wanted. He held a large umbrella, but the rain was so torrential, so horizontal, his handsome face was still drenched. He reassured me he only had a minute; he was on the way to a meeting in Amiens. He somehow made it sound as though this was general knowledge.
We got in his car while the rain thrashed at the windshield. We gripped each other’s hands as though afraid the other would float away. If only we could be alone, together, away from all this.
‘When are you getting out of here, sweetheart?’ he eventually asked.
‘In twelve days.’ I was sure he already knew this. We had talked about it many times. I could rhapsodise about this trip with my daughters for ever.
‘How long will you be away for?’
‘I have two weeks’ leave,’ I said even though, again, I was sure I’d told him umpteen times. I rabbited on, at first oblivious to his manner. ‘Gordon’s been good about it. Matron had the hump, but I can’t wait.’
Louis looked over his shoulder as though expecting someone to be there. He slid one of his fingers between each of mine. I had to catch my breath.
‘Go now,’ he said.
I laughed. ‘Don’t be daft, Louis.’
Louis’ knees were shaking, it wasn’t just the cold. He took his hands from mine, clutched the steering wheel. He seemed to be having palpitations; he was struggling to breathe.
‘Louis? What is it, Louis?’
‘Leave, May, leave now!’
‘I can’t. You’re being absurd.’
He could hardly get the words out, his teeth were chattering so: ‘It’s going to be bad.’
‘That’s why we’re here,’ I said soothingly.
‘As bad as Verdun. This is the big push, right here…’
I thought of the low-flying planes. ‘Do you think the Germans haven’t noticed all this preparation?’
Louis looked at his hands. I realised this was the wrong thing to say.
‘Then this is what’s needed,’ I said, comfortingly. ‘It may be bloody and terrible, but it has to be done. We have a duty, all of us.’
I noticed a small spider on his windshield, perhaps enjoying the view. I thought, if only they’d start the battle today, they could be done in two weeks and then I could get home, having done my bit. As it was, I bet I would be away when it was on. I didn’t want that, even if Louis did – I would hate to let my team down.
‘I don’t know,’ he said.
I thought, but you showed me everything, you said how good it was, how advanced we were! You were cheerful. What’s happening now?
Louis looked at me with pleading eyes. He was still shivering.
‘I’ll be all right,’ I told him. ‘I promise.’
‘You’re sitting ducks out here.’
I wished I were back in the lake with him now, the sun beating down on our naked shoulders. That delicious togetherness. The yearning to be alone with him, to be away from here was so powerful it was almost frightening. I had to put it to one side or else I would have been completely overwhelmed by it. ‘They won’t attack the hospitals,’ I said confidently, although of course I had no idea who or what they might attack. ‘Come here, darling. Let me hold you.’
I made Louis put his quaking arm around me, snuggled into him, his damp uniform and all, and soon he had stopped shivering.
* * *
The next day, it felt like some luck arrived. First, the sweetest letter from Elizabeth. Everything was coming together. She had found a new coach and this fellow was a genius – he had trained two men to cross the water before the war. He was taking on the arrangements: her boat, her starting point, her headgear. He didn’t think her pace was too fast (always a bone of contention between her and Mr Albert). He approved of my goose fat! They were even approaching biscuit company Tunnock’s for sponsorship. Her enthusiasm bounced off the page. It was all go-go-go! She had encountered some opposition but as always, this delighted rather than deterred her.
No one thinks I can do it, but by Jove, I’m going to cross that sea by sheer will, if necessary. I have also got rather plump but that’s all for the best apparently! You won’t laugh at me, will you?!
I started a reply wishing her all the best, saying how I couldn’t wait to cheer her on. I felt so excited for her that I thought I might venture a light-hearted mention of the mysterious Harriet. Would I be waving alongside her and would she, on this occasion, be fully dressed?
Then there was a commotion outside and I abandoned my letter-writing. It sounded like a motorbike. I heard a voice call out: ‘Where is she then?’ and then Elsie Knocker appeared at my tent. It was wonderful to see her. Although I’d known he
r only a year and a half, and most of our friendship had been conducted by letter, I felt like our relationship was much longer and more familiar.
She had come all this way in the mud slush, in the terrible rain, riding her motorbike with sidecar – and someone in it. I thought it might be Harold but it was a freckly English engineer with strawberry-blond hair. Robin, as he was introduced, seemed fond of Elsie, and she of him (but not as much as he seemed to hope). When I asked how things were in Pervyse, she said ‘Beyond terrible,’ then added brightly, ‘but I have rum in unspeakable quantities.’
‘I can’t tonight, I’m still on duty.’
But the beds were empty except for two boys who had both mysteriously been shot in the feet that afternoon and even more mysteriously failed to remember how such an incident befell them.
Gordon shrugged. ‘You might as well go, May.’
‘Really?’
‘While we’ve got the chance.’
‘What about Matron?’
‘I’ll see to her.’
The while we’ve got the chance rang in my ears as I hurried to get changed out of my apron.
* * *
At last there was some respite from the rain, but it was still far too boggy to go outside, so Elsie and I spent the evening in the canteen. Her freckly friend went off to the Portuguese hospital – he was doing his bit for ‘international relations’.
‘Aye-aye, wink, wink, know what I mean!’ He winked so much I wondered if he had an eye condition.
Some of the more chatty orderlies and stretcher-bearers joined our table. Elsie seemed to attract men to her like moths to a flame. We drank and gossiped and I tried to put Louis’ last visit to the back of my mind: his panic, his flailing. He was just being extra-cautious. I tried to remember some of the jokes darling Leona used to tell.
‘Knock, knock.’
‘Who’s there?’
‘Doris.’
‘Doris who?’
‘Doris open, so I thought I’d drop by.’
Elsie laughed. ‘Doris is the name of Harold’s horse.’
‘Harold?’ I raised an enquiring eyebrow. ‘The Man of the Moment?’
‘Uh-huh…’ Elsie paused. ‘She’s a very nice horse.’
At the end of the evening, Elsie and I went outside to say goodbye among the lanterns and the stars. I suddenly felt apprehensive: Elsie being here, Louis’ worries, Gordon’s words. It was like we were standing on the precipice of something huge.
‘Do you have to go back to Pervyse?’
‘I do,’ said Elsie, and the way she said it left no room for doubt.
And I understood this, of course, I did. She had her duty and so did I.
‘Good luck, Nurse Turner.’ Suddenly formal, Elsie seized my hand and shook it so firmly it hurt. I realised that whatever it was I was fearing, she was fearing it too, and that was the reason she had come.
Soldiers’ superstitions
Crossed fingers.
Touch wood (Or someone’s wooden head!).
Mascots (toys, hankies, blankies).
Favourite underpants! Worn back to front, if necessary!
31
I woke up to the most terrible noise: the bang and the boom of bombardments. An influx of dust and grit. Our tents had shaken before, but never like this. You might have thought it was an earthquake. Or a volcano. I imagined this would be the roar that would reach Battersea Common. This would get them chatting in the tennis club. Perhaps Percy, safe in his studio, would wake to it, shut the window, feeling his canvases shake. I imagined he would curse the people who owned bigger apartments.
This was it: it had started. It was 1 July 1916. Two days before I was due to go back to England, to get my daughters from school.
It had to work. The final push had to be done. I was probably more gung-ho than Louis, but I believed the deadlock had to break. The status quo could not go on for ever. A push was what was needed so a push is what it was. The bombs would go off, then over our boys would go. Wave after wave after wave of them. We had ‘Mother’ on our side – I had seen it. The Hun would be petrified. We would capture back the land, French land, Belgian land. The Germans would be dead on the other side. That was sad, but this was war, and this was the promise: it would be over soon. I would be back in England soon and I wouldn’t need to ever come back to the Somme. Peace would be restored and our lives would return to their normal paths. That was what the leaders said would happen. I still believed them.
I wasn’t due on until the evening, but early that morning, someone, I don’t know who, started marching up and down the living quarters, blowing a whistle and shouting: ‘Attention! All hands on deck!’ This had never happened before, and I wanted to protest, ‘But who will work tonight then?’ or ‘We’ve only been asleep for four hours,’ but there was no arguing with that racket.
Matron stuttered upright. ‘I wasn’t asleep anyway. Horrendous noise…’ We dressed quickly and although I may, in my haste, have tripped across her invisible line, for once she was too busy pulling on her stockings and tying back her hair to care. When she was nervous, Matron talked more, and she did so now.
‘Let’s hope it’s all a kerfuffle over nothing,’ she said.
‘It’s probably just a precaution,’ I said, as though the noise out there wasn’t happening at all. She nodded vigorously.
‘That’s right, just a drill… Nothing out of the ordinary.’
* * *
No warning telegrams came that day. Not one. Instead, the men just started arriving from all directions. When they started being brought in, it sounds ridiculous but for one foolish moment, I thought they were black men. I actually thought they must be our troops from the West Indies, Jamaica maybe or some faraway African tribe, men from some outpost of the Empire who the British had drafted in to do their business. But soon I realised they were only black because of the soot from the explosives or the mud.
They had the worst injuries I’d ever seen.
Not only that, but there were so many of them. Blind men, men with lost limbs, shell-shocked men with wild eyes. Walking dead, nearly dead. Men wild with grief. I thought, what about the howitzer? What about the tanks?
I washed and treated the wounds of the men who had to wait for surgery. They all had to wait, there were so many of them. I tried to comfort them, but the job was so vast, so impossible, that a pat on some unbloodied part of the uniform had to suffice. I wasn’t part of the surgeons’ contingent, but soon I was called in: ‘Sterilise, clean, quickly, quickly!’
Men everywhere. Wounded. Dead. I thought of the cheerful troops, whistling and singing. I thought of the boys crossing Battersea Park. Was this them? Might I have brushed past some of them in the street?
Did they look like this the other side? Were our counterparts doing the same as us? The German nurses flurrying around, determined to hide the horror in their hearts?
This was our battle.
We were going to win this.
The rain poured down.
I was told to put up a sign on the surgical tent to turn people away: ‘No room here’. I felt like the innkeeper. If only we had a stable to offer them. I couldn’t leave it like that. I added: ‘Sorry’ – I felt criminal.
But we couldn’t stop them coming. It was overwhelming. Usually, of course, they came up in ambulances; usually, there were stretchers. Now, I saw the stretcher-bearers were using any old thing to transport the men: planks of wood, bits of old fence, horses, on their backs.
I gave a feeble wave at the Portuguese nurse across the way. She raised her hand uncertainly back at me, and then we shook our heads at each other. We understood each other well in that moment.
A man staggered towards our tent with a heavy rucksack on his back. God knows how far he had carried it.
‘Further along, it’s only two hundred yards, or if not, try up at the Canadian hospital?’ I called to him.
‘There’s no room there,’ he gasped.
‘One mile away, there�
�s a base…’ I didn’t know what else to say.
His eyes were desperate. It was only when I looked more closely at him, then, that I saw how badly injured he was himself. And that it wasn’t a rucksack he was carrying, it was a man. These were somebody’s beloved sons. I stared at him, uncomprehending, and he stared back at me. It was a moment I would never forget. We were quiet in the noise. I just knew that whatever I did would utterly fail him. I had come into nursing for this? I felt someone approach from behind: it was Matron.
‘Tent two,’ she said softly, and together we unfurled the man being carried on his friend’s shoulders and dragged him in between us.
* * *
It was worse than a nightmare. We had thought we were the best-prepared hospital in the Somme. Were we mad? We were well prepared but this, this was… well, you couldn’t prepare for this.
Flicking images through my head. Bonnie’s trembling lip as she kept mouthing, ‘He’s sixteen.’ Gordon shouting for bandages, swearing for more. Kitty’s wide-eyed terror as yet another truck full of injured men pulled up. Matron keeping us together, keeping us solid. Whisking and allocating men off somewhere, I don’t know where. No time for tenderness, no time for painkillers. I thought of my grandma. A kind word? We barely had time for that.
Next to the bucket, scrubbing hands, scrubbing arms, alongside Kitty and she was quoting Shakespeare at me and I thought, we are demented.
Blood on the sheets. Mud in the eyes. Bullets through the heart.
Bonnie was taking notes from a boy to send to his ma. Was it bad that I sometimes wanted to interrupt? That I wished someone else could have done it because Bonnie’s handwriting could sometimes be so spidery? But Bonnie, like me, always jumped to do letters. She said it was a chance to sit down for five minutes.