Broken Music

by Marjorie Eccles

  She was out of uniform, wearing the only civilian clothes she had brought with her (of which she was heartily sick by now, though anything made a change from her uniform) but she hesitated, until he added, with a sudden laugh, looking at her hair, ‘No one will recognise you. Oh, I say, I’m sorry, shouldn’t have said that…’

  ‘That’s all right, I know,’ she said. Her hair looked terrible, but she was hoping she’d be able to find somewhere to get it cut a little better while she was here.

  ‘But if anyone does, by any chance, and sees fit to report you, refer them to me and I’ll tell them I needed to talk ‘shop’ with you – which happens to be true.’

  That explanation would not save her if the senior superintending nurse happened to find out, but suddenly, the risk seemed worth it. She let him take her elbow and guide her to a small estaminet tucked into a corner, which had evidently had a miraculous escape when the hôtel de ville next door, its roof now half missing, had been shelled. She followed him, amused that with a few words and a smile, he was able to command a small corner, screened from the packed and noisy main room by a high bench. If anyone noticed them passing they didn’t make it obvious.

  She still found herself a little constrained. There was almost no opportunity for personal conversation in the day-to-day nursing routine, or in the desperate conditions where they worked; there they were simply a skilful doctor and another competent nurse, doing what they could under impossible conditions, but within that environment there had grown a certain easy familiarity between all of them who worked together. A brief smile, or a nod, when they had accomplished something difficult, perhaps saved a life, a stoical endurance when they failed. Here, away from the familiar routine, it was different.

  The place was very small, and very warm, and crowded with service personnel. He ordered their food – there was no choice, they had to take what was on offer – and a bottle of red wine was brought to their table by a young girl while they were waiting. After he had poured them each a glass, he came directly to the point. ‘I really do have something to say to you. Let’s get it over and then we can enjoy the evening. It’s about young Foley I wanted to speak. I gather you knew him in Civvy Street?’ She nodded. ‘What’s wrong with him? Is he asking to be killed?’ He must have seen that kind of sheer recklessness that Grev was showing often enough, and understood it perhaps as being a refusal to admit to danger in case their terror, and even cowardice, became apparent, but obviously he felt in his case it was something more. He was looking steadily at her. ‘Or is he looking for a Blighty one?’

  That wasn’t something one said lightly and she was glad of their secluded corner and the noise that surrounded them, which made it impossible for anyone else to overhear. ‘A Blighty one’ meant a wound sufficiently serious to be sent home and because of this, despite its severity, was often welcomed. More than that, a self-inflicted injury, or one deliberately courted by men who had reached the bitter end of their tether, was not unknown. An arm above the parapet of the trench which the ever-vigilant German snipers would be unlikely to miss. ‘Accidentally’ shooting oneself in the foot. It took courage, but better the grim prospect of losing a hand or a foot than stay in that hell on Earth, where one was more than likely to be dead or maimed for life the next day, anyway. Such an action was, however, regarded as a serious offence, marked down as an act of cowardice, punishable by court martial and most likely a firing squad. Was it sublime courage that drove young Foley on, or was it cowardice? he was asking.

  She replied, as steadily as she could, ‘You don’t understand. If you were a musician, as Grev is, you would never deliberately put yourself in the way of anything that might injure you to the extent of ruining or jeopardising your career. But he’s not in any way a coward. He always swore he would never fight if war came, but don’t you see, what he’s doing, going out night after night to bring the wounded in, is far braver?’

  ‘Yes, he’s brave and fearless and all that, God knows how many lives he’s saved, but he can’t carry on like this. I don’t like the look of him at all. Yet he’s refused all leave so far. I’ve recommended he be sent home, whether he wants it or not. What are the odds on him surviving if he carries on like this?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Nella said. She couldn’t deny what he was saying, that what Grev was doing was an idiocy, because she’d seen it with her own eyes. He was unsteady, he had a wild light in his eyes, indeed, a kind of madness. ‘I can tell you, though,’ she went on hesitantly, ‘that something happened, before the war, something personal and very terrible, and it’s made him extremely unhappy.’ She found she could not go on. She took a sip of her wine. It was so rough it made her cough, but it gave an excuse for the tears which sprang to her eyes.

  ‘It concerned you, too,’ he hazarded, and looked contrite. ‘Look here, please don’t feel you have to speak of it. I am so sorry.’

  ‘That’s all right. It was my sister, you see, she died, accidentally drowned. Grev was very fond of her. I think it’s thrown him a little off balance.’

  She had never spoken of Marianne, and the way she’d died, to anyone before, afraid of the embarrassed pity such a revelation would call up. But he said nothing more, simply stretched out his hand and covered hers. It was a nice hand, big but well shaped, strong. She had seen those same hands expertly performing terrible, by now routine operations, little miracles, a thousand times. The contact steadied her.

  ‘I wouldn’t have mentioned anything,’ he said eventually, ‘except that I feel a certain degree of responsibility for him.’

  ‘I’m worried, too, but I don’t know what I can do.’

  The bar was overheated, khaki uniforms mixing with the locals, the smell of food mingling with Woodbines and French tobacco and too many people squashed into one small, hot room. The decibel level of the noise was making it hard to have a serious conversation. A group of young subalterns at the bar, none of them much more than schoolboys, were making asses of themselves after too much to drink, and an old Belgian in a beret, from his place at the bar, spat accurately into the fire. In the corner a gramophone played what seemed to be the same tune over and over again, though it was impossible to make out exactly what it was, with all the noise.

  The arrival of the young woman with their food bridged the awkwardness that followed the exchange. The Belgians could generally find something palatable, and this time they were given fried potatoes and steak, with a sauce, bread and some cheese. He seemed to have accepted that the subject of Grev was closed. ‘Bon appétit,’ he said, smiling and raising his glass.

  At the bar, an altercation had arisen. Madame in charge had decided the young officers were getting out of hand and was demanding they should leave, which they were not inclined to do, but after a certain amount of good-humoured protest, at last they tumbled unsteadily out of the door. In the relative quiet they left behind, the gramophone could at last be heard, scratching out the newest popular tune, a sweet nostalgic melody that was on everyone’s lips, being sung, whistled and hummed, everywhere. Would she ever hear ‘Roses of Picardy’ again without a wrench of the heart?

  It was just two nights after that conversation over dinner that Grev went out under heavy fire with three other stretcher-bearers. It was a nightmare attack, star shells exploding into the night sky, the deafening sound of guns, the screams of the wounded, men falling like swatted flies. Two of the stretcher party were killed but the bodies of the other two, one of them Grev, were blown to bits and never a trace was found. Only one of the countless numbers with no known grave. Quite literally blown to pieces, so that there was literally nothing left, not even a cap badge or an identity disc, to identify them.

  Chapter Sixteen

  In the room which was designated as the nurses’ sitting room, Duncan Geddes sat with his legs to the fire, onto which he had thrown another couple of logs. It was a charming room which he had been told had always been known simply as the garden room. It had dark, wood-panelled walls, chintz covers on
the chairs, blue and white china, several bookcases and low, wide windows overlooking the drive and the once glorious herbaceous borders. There was no one there tonight except him.

  On the small table in front of him was a tray of tea which a flirty little nurse had been delighted to bring him, though obviously rather intrigued by his request for two cups. He hoped Nella would not be held up, or the tea under the cosy would be cold.

  He remembered the little quirk she had of liking her tea very hot, scalding almost.

  It had been wine they’d drunk, though, not tea, in that little estaminet where they’d had their first meal together. She had taken a gulp after he’d been so crass as to bring up the subject of young Foley which had upset her so much, and the wine had gone down the wrong way. He had cursed himself for his blindness: he had realised before that she was fond of Foley, a distant relative of some sort he believed, but he hadn’t suspected the extent of her regard, or realised she might be in love with him. Of course. He had been astonished how deeply the thought had hurt him, until she had told him it was her sister that Foley had loved.

  It had been impossible to pursue his original concerns about the young man after that conversation, though they were still there. Morale was at rock bottom generally, between men who saw no point in going on, and he had seen the same question in Foley’s eyes that he heard being asked more and more: what were they fighting for? Why should they obey orders that no longer seemed to have any point to them, allow themselves simply to be used as cannon fodder? And who could blame them? It was something he asked himself, often, operating on mangled flesh, and even in his dreams removing shrapnel, dressing amputations, trying to put together men who would be better off dead, and often were before he had time to finish. But he had so far kept his thoughts to himself; he had no time to waste railing at the blind stupidity of generals and the old men in Westminster, playing their war games.

  The embarrassment at the gaffe he’d made with Nella was still, to this day, vivid in his mind, as was the whole scene. The shape of the wine bottle, the candles on the tables, the ubiquitous check cloth, not very clean. The drunken young officers. ‘Roses of Picardy’. Slabs of beef on their plates, more meat than they’d seen for years. Nella having difficulty with it, and finally pushing it away. ‘Aren’t you hungry?’ he’d asked.

  ‘I think this is horsemeat.’

  He was amused, but she pointed out that he wasn’t eating his, either.

  ‘It does taste as though it’s chased many a man up a tree. Or died of old age. How very English we are,’ he went on, pleased to see her smile. ‘The Continentals think us mad, preferring to go hungry rather than eat horsemeat. Although there are worse things I’ve been offered, I can assure you.’

  ‘McConachie’s?’ He laughed; the tinned stew was a staple of their rations, like bully beef and biscuits, not like mother made but welcome if you were hungry enough. ‘Any other delicacies you were thinking of I’d rather you kept to yourself, thank you,’ she added, with a smile.

  ‘What would you really like to eat, right now, then, if you had the choice?’

  She closed her eyes for a moment. She had thick, dark lashes that lay in soft crescents on her cheeks. In that unguarded instant, he saw the lines of strain, the exhaustion on her face and felt an overwhelming tenderness towards her. He suspected that she had, like many others, added a year or two onto her age in order to be accepted for service overseas, but he knew her to be one of the best of all these young women who had voluntarily come out here, delicately nurtured, sketchily trained, then thrown into this obscene war. They had learnt to flinch at nothing: the most hideous of wounds, the inhuman damage a shell could inflict on a human body, the stench of gas gangrene. He had seen Nella on the point of fainting, many times, but she had held on, gritting her teeth, swabbing festering wounds, hurriedly applying dressings, mopping brows, while all around lay more wounded men on stretchers, groaning in pain or waiting for attention in silent agony.

  ‘Right now?’ she was saying, answering his question. ‘I don’t have to think. A fresh, new-laid boiled egg, some brown bread and butter, a pot of tea—’

  ‘Tea that really tastes of tea, not paraffin, or stew, or the last thing that was cooked in the billycan—’

  ‘Oh, yes. Tea. Earl Grey, or even Lipton’s Breakfast.’ Her eyes had lit up, the fleeting, three-cornered smile he had begun to look for widened into a laugh. He had found her to be full of courage and endurance, but now he caught a glimpse of the young woman she might have been, before the war had robbed her of laughter, a woman full of warmth and fun. ‘And very hot, in a china cup, of course.’

  ‘A china cup? What’s that?’

  Yes, it was the simple things one had missed most, the simple, honest things.

  He had not been honest with her, out there, and it was something he bitterly regretted. He had missed his chance when it was there, failed to take that one step which might have changed his life, and hers; it was far too late now, but he could at least tell her the truth, as soon as it was opportune. There were other things he must tell her, too, that were going to hurt her unbearably, more than he had already hurt her. Moreover, it would not be Nella alone who would suffer. He was by no means a cowardly man, but his heart misgave him at the thought of what he must say, and its inevitable consequences.

  One of the logs he had thrown onto the fire had burnt almost through, leaving the other precariously balanced. He stretched out a toe and kicked it into place, then for good measure added another log to keep the blaze going, just as the door opened and Nella came into the room.

  She had finished her reports, handed over to Burkin, told her what had happened with Bomber so that she could keep an eye on him, before she came to meet Duncan Geddes. She was glad he couldn’t see how wildly her heart was beating under the starched bib of her apron. Immediately, he sprang up and pushed a comfortable chair nearer to the warmth.

  ‘I see you’ve made yourself at home,’ she said, noting the tea tray and the cup and saucers one of the other nurses must have brought for him; he had always been able to charm people into doing anything for him, men as well as women, nurses and orderlies alike.

  ‘I am not finding it difficult to get back to this sort of civilisation again. I can’t tell you how good this is, Nella.’ He took her hand and held it, a small hand, rough-skinned and red with Lysol and hot water. She withdrew it quickly, embarrassed as she had always been at the state of her hands, and reached out to lift the teapot. ‘No, no, I’ll pour. You sit back.’ She settled herself obediently against the cushions and he handed her a cup of tea.

  ‘I’ve only about fifteen minutes.’

  ‘Sarn’t major all right now?’

  ‘Sleeping like a baby when I left – a rather noisy baby.’ She sighed. ‘Poor Bomber.’

  ‘Difficult night, eh?’

  ‘Not until he started up. He must have had the whisky bottle in bed with him.’

  ‘Who’s to blame him? I read his notes, poor devil.’ She nodded. ‘They’ll all be gone soon, and then what? What will you do?’

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Get a job, I hope, but that won’t be easy. There aren’t enough jobs even for the men coming home.’

  Someone had placed a bowl of hyacinths on the polished, dark oak table – Eunice or Aunt Sybil, no doubt – and their heavy fragrance filled the room. There were two lamps, either side of the fireplace, throwing golden circles of light onto the ceiling. The fire crackled comfortably. She would have liked to close her eyes and sleep.

  ‘And you? What will you do?’

  ‘Return to my old practice.’

  She said evenly, as lightly as she could, ‘You don’t see yourself as a Harley Street surgeon, then?’

  ‘Not quite,’ he smiled, ‘though something of the sort has been suggested.’ He might have been tempted, after his time in France, which had gained him more experience in four years than he could have gained in half a lifetime, to specialise, and carve out a lucrative,
glamorous and perhaps brilliant career for himself in reconstructive surgery, and indeed this had been put to him several times, but he shrank from it for more reasons than he could explain now. For one thing, he was not ambitious for himself, and certainly not in that direction. And he was certainly not in need of money. ‘No, I shall go back to my miners.’

  He had told her a little of his background. The son of a hard-working Presbyterian doctor in a poor district of Glasgow, after leaving medical school in St Andrews he had gone as a junior partner to a practice in the little group of coastal towns and villages in the North-East coalfields, south of the Scottish border. There, in Lillington, he had seen what poverty was. He learnt that miners crawled on their bellies in two-foot-high coal seams, turning to lie on their backs to hew out the rich coal, which was then exported at a profit to the coal owners, while the wages of the miners themselves were cut to the bone. Some of them were forced to live in shanty towns, their children running wild, out of reach of the school-board man, absent because they had no shoes to go to school in. Money for doctors’ bills was non-existent. He had been brought up with notions of service, and he intended to go back into the practice, which had been kept going for him by old Dr Hedley, brought out of a comfortable retirement for the duration and not anxious to be kept away from it any longer than was necessary. He hoped, with the money he now had, he might contribute something, however small.

  Paris. He ought to mention Paris, prepare her. At that moment a nurse opened the door, then, seeming to sum up the situation, backed out and closed it. No, perhaps now was not the time, with interruptions likely at any time. ‘Nella, I have to speak to you, but I can’t say what I have to say when you have to be on duty in a few minutes. Will you let me talk to you, privately, somewhere where we’re not likely to be disturbed?’

  She said evenly, determined not to read between the lines, ‘There’s nowhere here in the hospital that’s very private, or anywhere in Broughton, for that matter, unless you go for a walk.’