The War Nurses

by Lizzie Page

  ‘Let me tell you about Miss Mairi Chisholm here!’

  I lowered the brim of my hat, bowed my head and wished a huge catastrophic shell would detonate on top of me.

  ‘This… quiet, humble woman is devoted to her work. She has a calm and courageous spirit, she is my backbone, my conscience, keeper of my secrets, my moral compass and my sister.’

  I had never heard Elsie say such generous words and, despite my fury, tears sprang to my eyes. Some of the audience, the older women mostly, went ‘aww’, and the others clapped while I broke into a stupid sob.

  Elsie grabbed and then squeezed my hand. I cringed because my palms were so damp.

  ‘Mairi, darling, they’d love you to speak.’

  I looked around fearfully. All these faces were peering up at me from the three hundred or so chairs, waiting for more pearls of wisdom to come their way. Playing nurse, either on the battlefields or in Romeo and Juliet, was nothing on this.

  ‘I c-can’t.’

  ‘You can.’ Elsie smiled like it was the easiest thing in the world. She didn’t let go of my hand.

  ‘You promised.’

  Her face fell. ‘Trust me, Mairi, you’re a very impressive person.’

  There was no getting out of this.

  ‘What should I say?’

  ‘Just be yourself,’ she said. Her eyes may have been kindly, but it was her fault I was in this predicament. ‘And…’ she hesitated. ‘Play up the Scottish bit.’

  ‘Wha-at?’

  ‘Just… you know… Do the “Och aye the noo…”’

  I hated her then. I staggered up on the box, holding my silly hat. My heart was beating so loudly that I was sure the people in the front rows would hear it.

  I took a deep breath.

  ‘Thank you for your warm welcome, Glasgow!’

  I was astonished that they cheered. The crowd actually cheered back at me.

  Three hundred seats, all occupied, and there were also people standing at the back.

  ‘I just want to support everything Elsie has told you,’ I began. My hands were trembling so much I was glad to be holding the hat. ‘It’s a hard life, on the Western Front, but we do our best to ease the suffering around us…’ I continued. Elsie was nodding encouragingly.

  ‘As a widow, Elsie knows what it is to lose a loved one.’

  The room was hushed again. I could see how pale Elsie was out the corner of my eye. ‘Elsie knows how important the boys are to you, their wives, their mothers and fathers, their sisters and brothers.’ I thought of Uilleam for a moment. If only he were grinning at me now. ‘We do our best to keep them safe.’

  The crowd was nodding. I searched around for something to add but my mind was blank.

  ‘Does anyone have a question?’

  They all had a question.

  Mrs Grange pointed at one of the many hands raised.

  ‘How would you change things, if you had the power?’ It was a journalist I think, in the front row. Pen poised for an answer. Only I couldn’t think of a single answer. How ridiculous was I!

  Elsie jumped in. ‘The war needs to stop, that’s all.’

  The same questioner said, ‘Mairi? How about you?’

  ‘Oh yes, absolutely, sir. What Elsie said.’ I wiped my brow.

  ‘Who should we vote for?’ asked someone else. I knew Elsie wouldn’t like that so much. Politics was all talk to her. She preferred action.

  ‘I don’t know who you should vote for,’ Elsie said.

  I thought she failed to conceal her impatience but the questioner didn’t seem to mind and added, ‘Who would you vote for, though?’

  This time, I did have something to say. My hands had stopped shaking and I felt a sudden sense of opportunity. I knew the leaflets by heart. I took to the box.

  ‘That’s an interesting question, thank you – because as you know, in the antiquated parliamentary system we have, we women don’t even have the vote!’

  A man yelled out from the audience. ‘A woman’s place is in the home!’

  I countered furiously, ‘Whether it’s home, hospital or cellar… a woman’s place, sir, is wherever she makes good.’

  It felt like the place erupted. I mean, everyone started laughing and clapping. A good few of them were cheering too.

  ‘God won’t like that!’ another called.

  ‘There is nothing in the Bible that says women are inferior to men, sir.’ I gazed around the room, thinking, somebody needs to say this. ‘The suffrage must be widened. We are entitled to nothing less than a voice. The vote is our voice.’

  There was some more cheering. I thought, Lady D would be so proud of me!

  Elsie was whispering alongside me. ‘Good, Mairi, but let’s keep emancipation out of it.’

  I shook her off. The audience were in the palm of my hand and I had never experienced that before. What a revelation it was! ‘But it’s ridiculous, isn’t it?’ I continued to the crowd, feeling elated. ‘We women contribute. We work as hard as the men, but unlike the men, we can’t cast a vo—’

  Elsie stepped up again. ‘The big question today is: how can we continue to support our boys? And the answer is: we can only help them if you dig into your pockets, dig deep. Please.’ Her voice was desperate, but she was soon smiling again as she shook a tin bucket at the crowd, then dropped down to pass it to the front row. The audience were putting in not just coins but notes too. This could secure our post for months.

  ‘Is there anything else we, back home, can do to support you?’ Mrs Grange asked as she walked over to us.

  ‘Send blankets. Oh and… we want you to visit us,’ Elsie said firmly.

  ‘What?’ I exclaimed.

  ‘Why not?’ Elsie shrugged, then raised her voice to the crowd. ‘Come, see what we face, every night and day. You will be impressed by the resilience of the soldiers—’

  ‘There’s one other thing,’ I interrupted.

  Elsie didn’t think she had forgotten anything. She gazed at me quizzically. I knew she would be running through her mind what I might be about to say.

  ‘Mairi?’

  ‘If you could send loving prayers, we—’ I smiled at Elsie, who shook her head mutinously, ‘I mean, I would be grateful.’

  * * *

  As we walked off the stage, Elsie was still shaking her head, but now she was laughing.

  ‘Oh, Mairi. I thought the war would have knocked the religious stuffing out of you by now.’

  I could barely find the words to retort. ‘My faith is stronger than ever, Elsie! We need God more now, not less.’

  Elsie smirked.

  ‘Don’t make that face, Elsie! Anyway, where are all those testimonies?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I want to see them.’

  ‘Mairi—’

  ‘Please.’

  They were in her bag; I knew exactly where they were. Naturally, Elsie didn’t want me to open it, but she didn’t resist when I grabbed it and pulled out the pages. I scanned through each sheet. On every one, by hand, was written:

  I'm Gilbert the Filbert the Knut with a K

  The pride of Piccadilly the blasé roué

  Oh Hades, the ladies, who leave their wooden huts

  For Gilbert the Filbert the Colonel of the Knuts…

  I couldn’t believe it. Elsie’s bare-faced lies! How dare she? Hauling me up on stage when she had promised me she wouldn’t, telling me to act more Scottish! Her testimony of untruths, then cutting me off when I was talking of women’s suffrage. I felt suddenly enraged, properly enraged. What did she think she was doing?

  ‘Why wouldn’t you talk about the suffrage with them?’

  ‘I had no idea you were such a Pankhurst fan, Mairi!’

  ‘Of course I am!’ I said. ‘Aren’t you?’ I had just assumed, naturally, that with the life Elsie led, she would be one hundred percent behind it. I stared at her incredulously. I felt like I had never seen her before. ‘Don’t you believe in a woman’s right to vote?’

&nbs
p; Even my mother, even her circle, had been making murmurs about women’s right to vote. When Father suggested that ‘perhaps women didn’t have the intellectual capacity’, my mother did her bit for the cause by not speaking to him for a week. I found it inconceivable that Elsie, my dearest, my most brilliant sister, might have reservations about suffrage.

  ‘Oh, I don’t mind it,’ Elsie said casually, as though she were talking about spam or gooseberry jam. She rearranged her hat, smiling to herself. She knew she looked a picture.

  ‘You don’t mind it? What does that mean?’

  ‘I mean it’s not my decision to make.’

  I didn’t understand this either. I knew she loathed political ‘chattering’ but this was something else.

  She sighed wearily as though dealing with a small child. ‘Thing is, we don’t want to put off any potential donors.’

  I stared at her aghast. ‘How would women’s suffrage put anyone off?’

  ‘Oh Mairi, Mairi, Mairi,’ she said, the way she had that first night at the hotel, the way she had on the SS Clementine. My anger grew at each ‘Mairi’. ‘I know what people are like. They’re… simple.’

  ‘No, they’re not.’

  ‘We came here to talk about the boys out there, not to make a political stand.’

  ‘People can cope with more than one thing at a time.’

  ‘I’m not sure they can.’ She laughed hollowly. ‘All right, I’m not sure I can!’

  ‘What about principles?’

  ‘Sometimes, you have to pick your principles,’ Elsie said.

  ‘You may do, but I don’t.’

  Elsie laughed and said ‘I understand’ in a way that suggested that I was the one who didn’t. I had noticed before that whenever Elsie was fed up with a conversation, she simply changed it. She did that now.

  ‘Mairi, you were grand up there after all.’ She grinned delightedly. ‘I knew you would be.’ She had flagrantly ignored my wishes, yet, because I hadn’t crumbled on stage, she thought it meant nothing. ‘I don’t know why you were so worried.’

  17

  I helped pack away a few of the three hundred chairs while Elsie went off in her fine dress and pretty hat, with the curly-haired man from the audience maybe. I didn’t know or care. Mrs Grange and a few others were collecting empty glasses and plates.

  A young fella came over to assist with the stacking. I preferred to keep the chairs to three high, but he made extravagant towers of six or seven. I thought it was a mistake but I didn’t like to tell him.

  ‘She’s quite the gal, isn’t she?’

  I was still bruised by my exchange with Elsie and full of the things I should have said, but I looked over to him. His smile was clearly an effort, for it dropped away within seconds. His shiny black hair was slicked way back, while his prominent ears came forward. He looked young, but close-up not that young – twenty-two, twenty-three maybe. He was losing his hair, that was certain. Never mind; aside from that, and the ears, he had a nice, serious face, red with exertion. It wasn’t a handsome face but it wasn’t plain, as Elsie might say, ‘for an Englishman’.

  ‘She sure is.’

  ‘So are you. I liked what you said.’

  I didn’t know how to respond to that. We carried on lifting our way through the hall. Although it wasn’t my job, I felt committed to this mission of returning chairs to their proper place.

  I felt his glances on me. They may have been admiring, but I didn’t know. I’m not sure how anyone can be certain with that most foreign of languages – the one between men and women (although Elsie never had a problem translating).

  We were almost finished when suddenly there was a tremendous crash: a tower of his chairs had come down. I looked up and caught his eye. The colour had drained from him – his cheeks, even his lips were white. I recognised the fear on his features, as familiar as an old friend. He knew.

  * * *

  His name was Jack. Jack from Ingatestone, he said as though it was his title. After we had finished reorganising the fallen chairs, he invited me to a tearoom across the way and I surprised myself by accepting. He said he was visiting the family of a friend, but he didn’t know them well, so—

  ‘I don’t know anyone here either!’ I said reassuringly. It was still raining a drizzle, making the streets slippery. When I tottered on a cobblestone, he offered me his arm, but I waved it away. ‘I’m fine.’

  He smiled, more to himself than at me. ‘Course you are.’

  The door made a dreadful ringing noise when we pushed it open. Apart from us, the only customers were two old ladies who nodded at our arrival. I felt they didn’t approve of Jack but I imagined they liked my bonnet. The yawning waitress could hardly be bothered to cover her mouth. I chose a macaroon from the menu but regretted it when Jack said he wasn’t hungry. I wondered if it was because he didn’t have enough money, but didn’t know how to broach the subject. He had warm eyes that dropped away quickly when I tried to meet them with mine, which made me think of my reaction to Harold. While the waitress made the drinks, Jack and I sat silently and I wondered what on earth had possessed me to come here with him.

  The waitress returned and, with minimum enthusiasm, announced, ‘No macaroons left.’

  Jack looked concerned but I said, ‘Jolly good, I didn’t want anything anyway.’

  Perhaps because the place was so empty, the conversation on the next table reverberated around the room more than it normally might. Or maybe those two ladies had particularly booming voices. We weren’t listening but we couldn’t help but hear:

  ‘If they only had any gumption it would be over by now.’

  ‘They’re too soft,’ agreed the other. ‘They just let it go on.’

  ‘A captain I know says he’s never seen such weak, lily-livered, feeble young soldiers.’

  ‘They should be ashamed to call themselves British.’

  This time Jack met my eyes. His jaw was set quite differently now.

  ‘The war will be lost because of men like them.’

  Jack couldn’t control himself any longer. He swept away his napkin and rose from his chair. Half of me was petrified he would make a scene, but the other half couldn’t help but admire his dignity.

  He stood in front of them. Even the backs of his ears looked furious.

  ‘You have… no idea what it’s like,’ he interrupted. ‘You have NO idea how t-t-terrible it is.’

  They didn’t argue with him, thank goodness. One of the women wiped her thin lips slowly with her napkin. The other looked at him as though he were something crawling across her empty plate. He looked like he would say some more, but then he backed away from them, still shaking his head incredulously.

  They called for the bill and the waitress came out still yawning, as though nothing had taken place, which, I suppose as far as anyone except us was concerned, it hadn’t.

  Jack’s arm was wobbling as he tried to pour more tea. It came out of the spout orange and then turned yellow as it spilled onto the tablecloth. It created a shape like Africa on a map.

  ‘Dash it,’ he said crossly. ‘I’ve w-wound myself up.’

  I smiled and without thinking much about it, reached across the table and grabbed his hand to soothe him. Compared to Elsie’s, his fingers were solid and grainy but his hands were clean, unlike the boys in the trenches, whose fingernails were always black with mud.

  ‘People don’t appreciate what’s going on.’

  ‘I’m not good at speaking about it,’ he said regretfully, ‘but… how can I tell them?’

  ‘It’s okay.’

  It was a strange bond we had, I realised, but it was a bond.

  Jack said he didn’t receive any letters when he was on duty. I tried to imagine how it must feel to have the post-boy pass you by every single day.

  ‘Not from your parents?’ I asked hesitantly, wondering if his, like Elsie’s, were dead.

  ‘They can’t—’ he mimed writing, ‘you know.’

  ‘Oh.’
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br />   I knew some boys went letterless. It had never occurred to me that could be the reason. I don’t know why I said it, it was just one of those things that came out, but I offered to write to him, ‘If you would like me to?’

  Jack’s gloomy eyes lit up. He managed to hold his smile for a few seconds longer than before. And then he looked anxious again.

  ‘B-but I’m not on the front, Mairi. I’m at Stow Maries’. He looked at my quizzical face. ‘It’s an airfield. Back in Essex.’

  ‘That’s fine.’

  ‘That doesn’t change your mind?’

  ‘Course not.’

  ‘Then I would treasure that.’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ I said. ‘I write to people most days.’

  As I went back to the guesthouse, I couldn’t stop thinking of Elsie and replaying her views on suffragettes, principles and phoney testimonies. She wasn’t back yet, of course. How nice it would have been to be the last one home! I got into bed far earlier than usual, determined to be asleep before she came in. I wondered if Harold had heard of the collapse of the cellar house and if he would try to see us? I didn’t give Jack of Ingatestone or his letters another thought.

  18

  Although I was still unimpressed with Elsie’s behaviour at the Assembly Rooms and the position she had put me in, my grievances had to wait. She woke the morning after the meeting uncharacteristically anxious.

  She needed to buy Kenneth a present and she didn’t have the faintest idea where to begin.

  ‘Help me,’ she pleaded, gnawing at her knuckles. ‘What am I going to do?’ There was no way I could turn her down in her moment of need.

  Out in the market, stallholders were calling out fast and incomprehensibly. We browsed stalls of combs, pins, biscuits and sheet music. There were shouting tramps, shameless beggars and women sitting on the cold ground with two babies apiece. There were mothers with raggedy children and grandmothers pushing perambulators, and filthy workers in caps with pipes. As we walked between them, I realised, curiously, that I felt more at home here than I had in the tearoom the evening before.