The War Nurses

by Lizzie Page

  Some time later Elsie still hadn’t returned, so I decided to go and check that everything was fine.

  Retracing our steps through the shadowy passages of the hotel, I felt brave, as though I were already on a rescue mission. It was after eleven at night – I rarely stayed up so late – and all the rooms were quiet now.

  There were still a few people milling around downstairs, but I picked her out right away, talking with a man in uniform. He held his arm up against the wall, right over her. I couldn’t tell if it was protective or menacing or both.

  ‘Elsie?’

  The soldier straightened when he saw me. Elsie flattened her hair.

  ‘Mairi, goodness, have I been gone an age?’

  ‘Is this your sister?’ demanded the soldier. His accent was somehow not as handsome as he was.

  She replied, ‘Kind of, right, Mairi?’

  I didn’t know what to make of her. All this smoking, drinking and telling lies to strange men would have made my father’s hair stand on end. I hesitated but she said, ‘I’m coming now.’

  I returned to our room and moments later she was there too, with a bottle and two glasses on a sopping tray. What I had seen was much on my mind, but I figured, the Bible doesn’t address this directly. It’s not as if there are commandments about smoking and drinking and telling lies to strange men. And maybe, hers wasn’t a real lie, maybe we were kind of sisters…

  As we drank, Elsie asked what I thought of the other members of our group.

  ‘Arthur seems nice.’ What I was actually thinking was, he’s good-looking, but I didn’t like to say.

  ‘He’s an intellectual.’ The way she said it made it seem like that wasn’t a good thing.

  ‘Helen is clever.’

  ‘A writer,’ she said dismissively. ‘Fiction.’

  ‘Lady D is…’ I was going to say ‘a suffragette’, but decided on ‘lovely’ instead.

  ‘Too lovely for us. I give her six weeks at most.’

  ‘Dr Munro is… kind?’

  ‘But mad. Completely mad as a…’

  I felt this was a step too far and was just about to tell her so when I heard a yelp from outside. I froze. Had the war come to England?

  Elsie got to the window first, then beckoned me to have a look. There I saw Dr Munro – the same Dr Munro who promised my father duty and decorum above all else – wearing only his long johns and standing with legs wide apart, reaching forward to his toes. I wondered if he was stuck, but then he moved – arching from one side to the other while letting out more whoops.

  ‘I believe that’s… saluting the moon. Or is it downward dog? Either way, we’re lucky he’s dressed; he usually likes to do his exercises sans clothes.’

  ‘Mad as… a box of frogs?’

  Elsie took my hand, and I let her, surprised. No one had held my hand for a long time. My family did not do touching. For a moment, we stood together like that at the window and I remembered her standing the same way with her son.

  ‘You and I are going to have such a time,’ she murmured. She turned back to the tray. ‘Another drink?’

  * * *

  Later in bed, I had to put my foot down on the floor to stop the world from spinning. Alcohol was good. Adventures were great. And I kept thinking about what Elsie had said about us being sisters. To think previously Uilleam had been enough for me! What a fool I was. How I had missed out by only having one silly brother. I couldn’t believe I had not only acquired a sister today, but such a splendid one at that.

  I wanted to ask Elsie something, but the harder I tried to make my words sound normal, the more wobbly and out of control they came out.

  ‘Gypsy, no, Elsie…’

  She was standing by the window, still smoking. ‘What?’

  ‘No-oo, I can’t say it…’ I slurred.

  ‘Sisters can tell each other everything!’ Elsie said,and I thought, I’m going to remember that forever.

  ‘So… can it be true… our flying ambulance corps is… gulp… made up of a… burp… naturist, a pianist, a journalist, a lady and a… widowed mother?’

  We both giggled. I couldn’t stop giggling. What a funny place this world was! Even if it did whirl somewhat.

  ‘And a non-smoking schoolgirl, yes.’

  ‘I’m not a schoolgirl any more!’ Laughing, I sat bolt upright. Bad idea. The churning got faster and faster. I kept thinking of the plump cherries on Lady D’s hat.

  ‘Watch out Germans! We’re on our way!’ Elsie said sarcastically.

  ‘We are sooo ridiculous…’ I continued.

  ‘We’re not though, Mairi. Who do you think the soldiers are but farm-boys, postmen and train drivers?’

  That seemed incredible to me. That we weren’t real nurses, I could just about accept, but the idea that soldiers weren’t real soldiers I could not.

  ‘Won’t we be a laughing stock out there?’

  ‘I don’t mind being a laughing stock,’ retorted Elsie drily. ‘I just don’t fancy coming back as chicken stock.’

  ‘I dare say, Kenneth would rather his mother stayed alive too…’ I added, feeling that was a profound thing to say. The fact that Elsie was an actual mother was incredible to me. She wasn’t like my mother and she wasn’t like the mothers of the girls I knew. I had so many questions but for now the ones that pushed themselves to the forefront of my mind were: Why did I drink that last one? Am I squiffy? Or am I, perhaps, not squiffy, but dying?

  ‘Maybe I’ll find a rich and plucky Belgian to be a father for him,’ Elsie said, then snorted. ‘Although the sight of Munro just now might have put me off men forever.’

  ‘Gypsy,’ I murmured, and I was about to ask how she had acquired her exotic nickname when I realised I had something more urgent to contend with.

  I couldn’t keep it in any more. I ran out the room, down the corridor and thumped on the door of the lav at the end. Thank goodness, no one was in there, else I don’t know what I would have done. I pushed through and knelt at the bowl as though I were about to pray. The floor was cold and damp but I wouldn’t let myself think about that. I made it just in time. The drinks, the coffee, the dinner, the dessert, the stupidly wonderful mints, all sprayed out of me.

  * * *

  When I woke up some time later, I was in the hotel bed, wearing my nightdress (fewer ribbons) tucked up under smooth unfamiliar blankets, with no recollection of how I had got there. There was a glass of water on top of my Bible on the bedside table, which I gulped down thirstily. How could she have known how much I needed that? I thought, wondrously. I looked over to the other bed to whisper my appreciation.

  Elsie was not there.

  3

  The SS Princess Clementine looked magnificent, a white hulk gleaming in the autumn sunshine. I had never seen a ship so big before: it was about three times the size of my old school building (which was by no means small). As we drew closer, I could just make out uniformed men hanging off her railings, waving at the people gathered behind the barriers on the port. Some people on land were shouting up to them.

  ‘Love you, Ernie!’

  ‘You’ll be back soon, Bernard!’

  Dr Munro had given us Red Cross armbands and as we pushed our motorcycles up the gangplanks, some of the watching people clapped us. I was already emotional and these gestures of support made me more so. I was torn between feeling a fraud – I had done nothing yet – and feeling proud of myself. My grey overcoat felt heavy for the time of year but that too added to my air of person with responsibility. And then some of the men already on board whistled at us. I couldn’t believe it when Elsie put her fingers in her mouth and gave a full-bodied whistle back. My mother would have been horrified.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  She shrugged. ‘How do they like being called like a dog?’

  Elsie’s motorcycle was a powerful Chater-Lea, complete with a sidecar. Elsewhere, Arthur and Helen were driving our two ambulances onboard: a converted Daimler and a Fiat. I was looking forward to havi
ng a go at driving them both, especially the Daimler, which had a much bigger engine than I was used to.

  ‘You’re looking rather green around the gills,’ Dr Munro commented.

  ‘She’s seasick,’ said Elsie.

  Squinting at me, he said, ‘We haven’t gone anywhere yet.’

  ‘I’m a real landlubber,’ I muttered, not daring to look at either of them. I will never drink alcohol again.

  When I had asked Elsie where she had gone during the night, she said, ‘Out for some air,’ but also ‘I’m afraid I sleep badly.’ I knew from Uilleam that giving two reasons for anything was as good as an admission of guilt but she just smiled at me. She was as bonny and blithe that morning as if she had had a full night’s sleep. That smile isn’t cricket, I thought. It gave her an unfair advantage.

  We sat in the middle deck because Dr Munro thought it best we stayed out of the wind. ‘We don’t want to catch colds,’ he warned firmly. I wouldn’t dare. The sea was smooth though and thankfully, my fears that I would be rocked or thrown around proved unfounded. Groups of soldiers were talking and laughing, some had their feet up on the tables and although it was before ten, some were drinking beer.

  Dr Munro was telling us about the actual Princess Clementine for whom the ship was named. She was the third daughter of King Leopold of Belgium; her father gave her independence to travel but without her mother's approval. She later wrote, thanking him, saying ‘Thanks to you, I have been able to find happiness.’

  I wondered if Dr Munro was retelling this for my benefit? He must have known how my mother would react to this whole escapade of ours. But he didn’t meet my eye, and had soon moved on to an equally long-winded history of the HMS Ulysses.

  Still slightly nauseous, I went for a walk. Arthur and Helen had grabbed chairs some way away on a lower deck. As he saw me, I’m sure Arthur buried his face in the newspaper so I wouldn’t notice him. Nevertheless, I had nowhere else to go and so I approached them; Helen at least gave me a welcoming smile. On the front page of Arthur’s paper, the headline read that sugar prices were rising. This was grand news for plantation owners in the Caribbean. I was about to say that my father would be delighted, but I hesitated. Much as it was a conversation-starter, I had a feeling that Arthur already had me down as a ‘spoilt thing’.

  Helen, as ever, was writing in her notepad. Her swirly notes were so messy that I wondered how she could ever read them back.

  ‘May I look?’

  Reluctantly, she passed it over. I could just make out ‘A dark, stormy night on the SS Clementine.’

  ‘Stormy?’ I looked at her, mystified.

  ‘Well.’ She shrugged. ‘I do exaggerate sometimes.’

  The more time I spent with the group, the more worried I became about how we would manage in Belgium. We just seemed so ill-prepared. At breakfast back in the hotel, Arthur, bad-tempered and yawning, had made a fuss over the eggs. They had not been poached to his taste. Lady D had taken some bread that was not meant for our table and the waiter had come to ask for it back. There was an altercation. Dr Munro was late for breakfast, because he had been doing exercises in the hotel garden again. Helen seemed apart from everything, as though she was an observer not a participant – in this way she reminded me of my mother. Elsie ate a single rasher of bacon, then pushed the greasy plate away. She seemed to live on cigarettes. Although I thought she was adorable, I admit that I was especially unconvinced by what Elsie might be bringing to the corps. If she had been at home with Kenneth for the last six years, then of course she might be good with children, and she was definitely good with men, and at consuming cigarettes and alcohol, and at racing motorcycles she was probably unparalleled, of course, but apart from that…

  Twenty minutes or so later, I climbed to the upper deck to where I could look out at the vastness of the English Channel. I was moving further away from home, and although I was apprehensive, it felt right. I had felt stifled living with my parents; even excursions with Uilleam or motorcycle races couldn’t allay that. The London war-work hadn’t been busy enough; I needed stimulation. The sun made dappled patterns on the water, which was a soothing blue-grey. My headache had tapered off. I was beginning to feel like myself again.

  I spotted Elsie chatting to a soldier with oily hair and the sort of pencil-thin moustache that was popular now. Would I always find her enjoying some flirtation or another? She waved to me but I didn’t go over to them, so she left the fella and came to me, which I thought was nice. She didn’t have to.

  She had run out of cigarettes earlier, but now she had a handful.

  ‘That man just gave you them?’

  ‘Oh Mairi, Mairi, Mairi, I’m going to have such fun with you.’

  She didn’t make sense sometimes, but then, I supposed, not everything had to. Together we looked out to sea and agreed it was a beautiful day for a sail.

  * * *

  Lady D had brought wrapped corned-beef sandwiches from the hotel and although it was early for lunch, I tucked in royally. She also gave me some of the mints she knew I’d liked from the night before. ‘Save them, Mairi,’ she said, ‘there might not be mints where we’re going…’ She looked at me with sympathetic eyes. I looked away. I hate it when people feel sorry for me. I wanted to say that I already knew about deprivation – after all, I had been at boarding school from the age of nine – but she had already gone to stand by the steamed-up windows, a melancholy expression on her pretty face.

  Dr Munro was launching into the life story of another ship when Helen appeared, full of self-importance, her arm around a shaking young soldier. He had tufty white-blond hair, tears spilling down his freckly cheeks and a nose so large that I initially assumed that was where his problem lay. But it wasn’t that. He had fallen down the ship’s stairs and hurt his arm.

  ‘Should we do something?’ I nudged Elsie.

  ‘Helen’s got it under control,’ she replied, which I guessed meant she hadn’t a clue what to do.

  ‘That’s a break,’ Helen confirmed as she rummaged among our first-aid boxes before opening one. The boy was crying harder. Tears stuck to his eyelashes, giving the impression of a frightened calf. It was probably his first time away from his mum. Helen gave him some medicine, then tied up his arm with a splint and bandages. She did a surprisingly neat job and I could see she was pleased with it herself. I was also impressed by how gentle she was with him. She asked him questions about himself: his name was Jim – Jim Mason – he was eighteen, he had never been on a ship before. I didn’t realise at first that the questioning was not mere prying, but was designed to distract him from the issue at hand – or rather of his painful arm. When I did realise, I thought it was clever of Helen. In fact, she had done everything far better than I could have. I had a sinking feeling that maybe Elsie and I would be the weaker members of the corps.

  There wasn’t much I could do, but I passed him a mint. Briefly, his sad eyes lit up, but even better, Lady D nodded approvingly at me.

  Helen took off with poor old Jim back to his troop. Arthur raised his eyebrows at us. Each time he turned a page in his paper, he licked his finger first. His pink tongue, peeping out every few minutes, made me feel sick again.

  ‘What a disaster: sent back home to his mum and dad while everyone else has a most spiffing adventure,’ I said cheerily.

  ‘Hmm,’ said Dr Munro, pouring more whiskey. ‘Not everyone likes to get… stuck in.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘I’ve seen cases like that before.’

  He didn’t say any more and I didn’t like to press him. Later, I went and looked at the stairs where Helen said he had fallen. They were pretty steep and the surface was slippery.

  * * *

  Land was ahoy! And there were loads of small fishing boats and larger cargo boats and all sorts of vessels nose-to-nose in Ostend harbour.

  ‘I want to speak to you all before we disembark,’ Dr Munro said. I groaned inwardly. I wanted to check that Douglas had weathered the journe
y. Who knew there would be so much waiting around? Still, it was easier to trust Dr Munro when he was in his uniform with its shiny buttons. It gave him a certain authority. His cheeks were pink and his hair windswept like a golden scarf.

  ‘The important thing is that we work as a group, a tight-knit group. In a way, it’s like a marriage. Consideration and respect for each other are a must.’

  Elsie whispered. ‘Do you think he ever married?’

  I wanted to laugh. I thought of his ungainly cat-stretching on the lawn. ‘I doubt it.’

  Then I remembered how I had not only imagined that Dr Munro had come to propose to me, but I had considered asking for a long engagement! I felt my face flush. I couldn’t imagine Elsie making that kind of vain mistake.

  ‘Inevitably, things can cause bad feeling within the group. Money, for instance, can cause discord.’ He paused and surveyed us as though he were seeking out a dissenter. ‘Well, we don’t have much, so that shouldn’t be an issue.’

  Lady D sighed. Arthur and Helen raised eyebrows – and consequently matching spectacles – at each other.

  ‘And hanky-panky.’ He paused.

  I dared not look at Elsie’s expression. I wondered what she would make of that phrasing.

  ‘Finally, as Dr Freud would say, “Ego”.’

  ‘Dr Freud’ and ‘Ego’ joined the growing list of things I had never heard of before. I squinted, trying to guess what it meant. Ego – go – I go – Egg?

  ‘Please leave your egos at home. Forget what is best for us as individuals and think firstly of the group. In a few minutes, we shall disembark in Belgium. May God be with us.’

  ‘May God be with us,’ Lady D and I repeated enthusiastically. I knew what that meant! It wasn’t until later that I realised that the others had stayed silent.