Harpers Heroes

by Rosie Clarke

  ‘Yes, you can believe me,’ Kurt said and leaned forward to kiss him softly on the lips. ‘It is my gift to you, Marco. I’m leaving now by the back stairs. When your people congratulate you on giving them such valuable information, you will know you can trust me as I trust you.’

  ‘You have to go?’ Sometimes Kurt stayed on into the early hours, drinking good wine and, occasionally sharing Marco’s bed.

  ‘Yes, I need to get back, because I’m on duty.’ Kurt smiled. ‘Destroy that note, Marco. I’m not the only one who might decide to visit you this evening.’

  Marco nodded and tore the note into shreds before setting it alight with a match in an ashtray. He was thoughtful as Kurt left, a little rueful. He’d thought himself clever, making the first moves on Kurt, but the German had been aware of his motives, perhaps, as he claimed, from the start. Kurt was no fool – just afraid of the man who had used him that night. It was hardly any wonder that he hated the German officer so much he would betray him without a quiver.

  Finishing his drink, Marco went back downstairs. He would continue to entertain the officers in the club until it closed. Later, when he was rested and it was light enough to be sure he was not being followed, he would contact Pierre at the café. Kurt could have set a trap for him. He didn’t think so, but he would contact the man Kurt already knew of so that if they were arrested his other contacts would remain safe. Marco was no fool either and he’d decided he would not risk Cecile this time. She was a nurse and more vulnerable; she was also more likely to break under torture. Pierre knew what it was all about. He’d been wounded more than once and understood pain.

  If Kurt had just been playing with him, Marco would learn what pain could mean before tomorrow evening. He would make sure the cyanide crystals were hidden about his person just in case but pray that Kurt had meant it when he said he wanted them to live together after this damned war. It could save his life and, if the German proved himself a good friend, might be the beginning of a lasting friendship.

  If he had been telling the truth, they were on the verge of something important. Marco would be able to pass on valuable information more often and on a larger scale than he’d dreamed of.

  22

  They were nearing the breakthrough point now and everyone’s nerves were on edge. If the information received was correct, the Germans were tunnelling just a few feet away and due to open up the last section and surprise them in two days, but instead they would be getting the surprise.

  Mick glanced back at the men behind him as he set the low explosive charge. Every one of them was a hardened soldier, armed and ready and used to this kind of nerve-wracking work. What could have taken another day or two to get through little by little would be weakened by the explosion and then he and the crack troops he was a part of would pour through the gap and down the tunnels, sweeping any opposition before them. It was what the enemy had planned for them, but because of the information received, the tables were turned.

  Mick set the charge and ran back to where the others were sheltering behind a barrier of wood and stones. The noise was deafening and they all had their hands over their ears, heads down until the dust cleared.

  When Mick looked up, he saw it had worked and they were through to the German side of the tunnel and the intelligence had been good for once. You could never be sure you wouldn’t be miles off course or completely on the wrong track when information was received, but this had proved true.

  He was on his feet, leading the charge, scrambling through the dust and debris into the tunnels that had been dug by foreign hands. He could hear startled shouts somewhere ahead, because the enemy was uncertain what had happened. They knew something was going on but were confused and the first man to come face to face with the avenging British soldiers died without knowing what had hit him.

  Fighting in such cramped quarters was the stuff of nightmares, because you scrambled over the man you’d killed and on to the next one, either killing or being killed. It was just down to who had the quickest reactions, who shot first or used his bayonet to clear the way. Mick was well into the German tunnels and he wasn’t sure how many men he’d killed or injured before he met someone who was faster.

  He fell with a bullet in his chest, vaguely conscious of the men behind him pulling him to one side as they surged past deeper and deeper into the tunnels. Before he lost his senses and sank into the darkness that enveloped him in a haze of pain, Mick thought there could be only one outcome. The enemy hadn’t been ready and there were forty good men with him prepared to sell their lives dearly. They would win the day and kill numbers of the enemy before they retreated back to their lines. He probably wouldn’t live to know the truth, but he was sure that in this stalemate of trench warfare, it would be hailed as a victory – small, but a victory just the same.

  Maggie was one of the first to meet the convoy that afternoon. The trucks, lorries and waggons were overflowing with wounded men, as always. She greeted the driver of the first lorry and asked what category of wounded he was carrying.

  ‘These were all involved in a fierce fight, nurse,’ he said. ‘It was close combat and you’ll find stab wounds as well as bullet wounds. Most of this first lot are alive and with a chance of recovery, I would think.’

  ‘Good, that’s what we like to hear,’ Maggie said. ‘We’ll take them inside tent C please, private. We have beds waiting there, some of our less severely wounded men went home yesterday.’

  Private Reggie Jackson nodded. If you got what was called a Blighty wound, it meant you would be shipped home as soon as there was a ship available to take you. Blighty wounds were usually serious, but the men had pulled through the worst of it and were judged fit enough to travel, possibly after weeks of being nursed in the field hospitals. The dangerously ill patients were in tent A, because they often didn’t last long and those that did were too sick to be sent home for weeks, perhaps months.

  ‘Do you have a list of their names, Private Jackson?’ Maggie asked.

  ‘Yes, nurse.’ He handed it to her and looked at her consideringly. ‘I reckon I’ve seen you before – before this lot, back in England. Didn’t you use to work in Harpers?’

  ‘Yes, I did,’ Maggie smiled at him. ‘I don’t remember you, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t work there,’ he said. ‘I’m Reggie Jackson – and I’m engaged to Marion Kaye. I think she pointed you out once and I saw you talking when I was waiting for her a couple of times.’

  ‘Oh, dear Marion! It’s a small world,’ Maggie said and smiled warmly. She still had no sense of recognition, but she knew the name, because Marion had talked about him often enough. ‘How are you doing, Private Jackson?’

  ‘I’m doin’ all right, nurse,’ he said and grinned. ‘This duty is the easy one. I get to drive these poor devils down here and grab a decent meal in the canteen before I’m back up the line.’

  ‘Well, it’s nice to meet you.’ Maggie was checking the list. Her pencil hovered over a name and she looked up sharply. ‘You have Lieutenant Michael O’Sullivan on your list – is he badly wounded?’

  ‘He took a bullet in his chest,’ Reggie Jackson said and frowned. ‘A very brave man – he’s a top man in the explosives team of engineers and he led from the front yesterday. If the ball had entered a fraction lower, it would have killed him, but it looks as if it hit his cigarette case and veered off into his shoulder area. At least that’s what the doc said who patched him up when he was carried back into our lines.’

  ‘He has been lucky then,’ Maggie said, feeling relieved as she waved goodbye to him. She couldn’t see the young officer who had brought her the news of Tim’s death amongst the wounded, but several stretchers had already been carried into tent C. Maggie saw all the wounded off and then went to meet the next truck. When the more severely wounded were carried into their allotted tents, they would be tended to by the doctors and nurses on duty there; her duty this morning was to see the injured settled in the right wards, or tents, whic
h was all they had to house badly injured men here. So, she couldn’t go to investigate Lieutenant O’Sullivan’s injuries just yet, because she had to oversee the rest of the new arrivals.

  Lorry after lorry and several farm carts lined up to bring them in. Sometimes, it seemed that there were endless streams of badly wounded men. The next two loads of men were all very seriously injured, some of them had blast wounds, which meant they’d lost limbs, and in the case of one unfortunate youngster, the side of his face. Maggie instructed he be sent to tent A; he was unlikely to live long, but he would get care and attention from the nurses, even if there was nothing the doctors could do for him.

  Maggie held his hand, walking with him into the tent and talking to him until his stretcher was placed on the ground in a shady sheltered spot where he could have peace. He was barely conscious, his moans of pain growing fainter. She felt the sting of tears as she realised that this one probably wouldn’t even make it to the end of the morning. At least he had somewhere quiet to lie until he passed, she thought, and soothed his forehead with her fingertips.

  ‘I’ll look after him now, nurse,’ a senior nurse told her. ‘You’d better get back to the transport.’

  ‘Yes, Sister,’ Maggie said. ‘I don’t think he’s really aware.’

  ‘Perhaps just as well. Off you go.’

  Maggie obeyed, though she was reluctant to leave the soldier, who couldn’t have been much more than sixteen and looked far too young to have been sent up to the trenches. The volunteers were supposed to be eighteen, but quite a few sixteen-year-olds and even one fifteen-year-old had managed to enlist and been wounded and sent back to England to be patched up. She doubted this lad would make it home, though sometimes men did survive with what looked like impossible wounds.

  She shook her head, refusing to give in to the tears that threatened. Her job was to comfort those she could with a kind word or a touch of a soft hand, a sip of water, or, as many of them asked, a kiss on the cheek. Maggie kissed those that asked, because it made them smile and most of the nurses were willing to give an innocent peck on the cheek to a man suffering terrible pain.

  ‘You’re a beautiful angel,’ a young cockney soldier told Maggie as she helped him walk from the transport to tent C. He was one of the less seriously wounded men and as cheeky as they came. She gave him a wrapped toffee from her pocket and refused to kiss him, because he was full of himself.

  ‘You’ll be fine once nurse has patched you up,’ she told him. ‘It’s a Blighty wound for you, private.’

  ‘I’d rather they patched me up and sent me back up the line, nurse. My best mate was killed last night and I want to kill a few of the buggers for Ricky.’

  ‘Well, you can do that when they send you back, but by the look of your leg, you’ll be on the next ship home.’ Maggie smiled at him. The real heroes always said the same, none of them ever wanted to be sent home. It was the ones that were stretched to the limit who welcomed the journey back home to recover – but after what they’d gone through, they were heroes too. Of course, they were all heroes just to go up and over the top knowing it could be their death. Most of the men told her it was the waiting that got to them. Once the order came to go over, it was almost a relief.

  It was a busy day and by the time the last of the wounded had been brought in, men were lying outside the tents because they were all filled to capacity. The nurses and orderlies fixed canvas over them to keep off the worst of the heat in the middle of the day. Maggie went from one patient to another, soothing them, giving them whatever care she could. The doctors walked round looking at them. Some men were taken inside to replace those that had died and been carried out the back way ready for burial. Unless there was a ship going home that had the capacity to take them home for burial, they were buried nearby in a local churchyard. The field behind the church had once been a pleasant meadow with wild flowers growing; now it was a field of wooden crosses. Perhaps in time the wild flowers would return and make a field of poppies, Maggie thought as she put a hand to her aching back.

  ‘Nurse Gibbs,’ Sister Mayhew’s voice cut across her thoughts. ‘You’ve been on duty since seven this morning – take a break now. Get something to eat and drink.’

  ‘I’m all right, Sister…’

  ‘You look like death walking,’ the sister said gruffly. ‘You will take a break, eat and drink, and then report to tent C. That is an order.’

  ‘Yes, Sister.’

  Maggie did as she was told. It was well past the time she ought to have taken a break for her midday meal, but she’d been too busy to bother, but when Sister Mayhew gave an order, you obeyed. She smiled wryly as she remembered that at Harpers the time for luncheon was always set and restricted. She’d always had to hurry back if she went across the road to the café and bought a bun or a ham sandwich with her tea. All that seemed a world away from this… nightmare of death, blood and the stench of unwashed bodies that often lay in their own urine until the nurses could wash away the stink of battle and fear.

  Maggie ate a sandwich made of sizzling hot bacon with mustard and lots of grease. It filled up her empty space and she couldn’t taste the tea afterwards, which was good because it was normally stewed. Feeling better for the food inside her, she walked towards tent C. It was a relief to enter the ward, which was cool after the heat of the day and smelled of disinfectant and medicines. In here, the stench of battle had been washed away and the men lay in clean beds, looking relaxed and comfortable.

  ‘Ah, there you are, Nurse Gibbs.’ Sister Mayhew looked at her critically. ‘That’s better. I can’t have my best nurses fading away for lack of sustenance. We need girls of your calibre here. Now, follow me as I make my rounds. I want you to help me change bandages and you can write up whatever I tell you, so pick up that board and look sharp.’

  ‘Yes, Sister.’ Maggie was so surprised at being told that she was one of Sister Mayhew’s best nurses that she obeyed instantly without feeling tired or anxious.

  In the third bed they visited, Maggie saw Mick O’Sullivan. He opened his eyes as Sister spoke to him, looking at them both a little hazily. Maggie smiled at him but wasn’t sure if he knew her.

  ‘Well, young man,’ Sister said in her stern voice. ‘This is what comes of leading a mad charge. From what they tell me, you were supposed to do your job and retire to the back, but instead you went surging ahead and cleared the way for the men behind you until you were deep into enemy trenches and someone managed to stop you. You were lucky your friends refused to leave you behind. Otherwise, it would have been a German nurse sticking needles into you, if they didn’t shoot you.’

  ‘Sure, a needle is a needle, be it English or German,’ the faintly Irish voice said and a flicker of a smile played over his mouth. ‘’Tis cruel you are, Sister.’ His eyes were focused on Maggie and recognition came. ‘But ’tis an angel standin’ behind you, so it is.’

  Sister shook her head at him. ‘He’s not dying, nurse. This one will mend – be careful or he will lead you astray. It’s Irish charm and I should know – my husband is Irish.’

  ‘Are you married, Sister?’ Maggie was surprised as she’d been told it was strictly forbidden.

  Sister Mayhew smiled. ‘I married and gave up my profession, but when the war happened, I volunteered to come out here as my husband was fighting in the trenches.’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t know,’ Maggie said a little uncertainly. ‘No one has ever said…’

  ‘Because most don’t know,’ Sister Mayhew said and winked at her. ‘It’s not allowed and you mustn’t tell – on pain of death.’

  ‘Oh, I won’t,’ Maggie promised and laughed. She’d always thought Sister Mayhew was so stern and strict, but it seemed she had a sense of humour after all.

  ‘We shall leave you to sleep, Lieutenant O’Sullivan,’ Sister Mayhew said.

  ‘Call me Mick, Sister darlin’,’ Mick said and winked at her.

  ‘Avoid this one like the plague,’ Sister Mayhew said as she moved on to t
he next one, but there was a smile in her eyes.

  ‘I’ll come and see you later,’ Maggie promised softly and then followed Sister to the next bed. She sensed that the lieutenant’s eyes followed her as she walked in Sister’s wake, but she didn’t look round.

  Sister Mayhew kept Maggie busy until past six o’clock that evening and then sent her off duty. Lieutenant O’Sullivan was sleeping soundly so Maggie didn’t disturb him but went to the hut she shared with Sadie and others.

  Sadie was just dressing. She glanced at Maggie inquiringly. ‘Have you eaten?’

  ‘Yes, Sister Mayhew made me take a break and I’ve had sufficient, thank you.’

  ‘I’m going for breakfast now,’ Sadie said and grinned at her. ‘I like Sister Mayhew – she’s not the dragon everyone thinks her. It’s sad though…’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Maggie asked, looking at her in puzzlement.

  ‘Her husband was killed soon after the war started,’ Sadie said. ‘Everyone thought she ought to go home, but she just stayed on and got on with the job.’ Sadie looked at her. ‘She’s a bit like you really, Maggie love – a damn fine nurse. She said she was needed here and there was nothing to go home for.’

  Maggie nodded but didn’t say anything. She’d wondered why Sister Mayhew had singled her out, sending her to get food and drink and then taking her in hand for the rest of the day. Now she thought she understood. Sister must have heard that Maggie had lost her fiancé, because things like that got known even if you tried to keep them a secret, and decided that she needed a helping hand.

  Maggie lifted her head determinedly. Sister Mayhew had been out here since the beginning. If she could carry on despite the loss of her husband so could Maggie.

  Marco walked down to the café in the village and ordered coffee from the café manager, Jean Macron, behind the bar. He reached for his change, but the proprietor shook his head.