The Bannister Girls

by Jean Saunders

  ‘Nurses who succumb to your condition are usually sent home.’ Sister Therese’s calm voice was suddenly crisp and unrelenting, reminding Angel of Mother Superior’s stern manner on her arrival. Reminding her of Sister Yard at Piersville. Strong women all, when they needed to be.

  Angel gasped, struggling to sit up, her voice jerky. ‘You can’t send me home! I’m useful here. I must stay!’

  ‘A nurse who collapses through her own stupidity is not useful. Make an effort within the next week, Bannister, and your situation will be reviewed. Otherwise –’

  She shrugged expressively, her eyes showing no emotion. Even nuns, Angel thought angrily, were bound by the rigid needs of wartime. There was no place for sentiment or for people who didn’t pull their weight. No place for Angel Bannister if she didn’t do something about it. She spoke sarcastically.

  ‘Perhaps I should begin now. I’ll have smoked salmon and caviar, followed by fresh Cheddar strawberries and clotted cream, all washed down with a bottle of vintage champagne, naturally.’

  If the thought of it curdled her stomach, she gritted her teeth and didn’t show it.

  Sister Therese laughed gently.

  ‘I’ll see what I can do. Though don’t be surprised if it’s cold meat and bread, washed down with cocoa. A tray will be sent up immediately, and you will stay here for one week.’

  ‘Oh, but –’

  ‘One week to decide your future, Nurse Bannister.’

  She went out of the room silently, and Angel was left in no doubt that it was now up to her. She closed her eyes. Sitophobia. It was a long-winded name for a condition that had unexpectedly affected many nurses who were caring for the wounded. She knew several who had been sent home because of it, but it was the very last thing she wanted.

  And now she was stuck here in bed, not even able to arrange to meet Jacques. Perhaps she could turn this to her advantage, she thought hopefully. She would surely be allowed one extra day, and she could use it to go to Brighton Belle … to her absolute chagrin, her request was left in the balance until she had proved herself. Of course, she thought bitterly, they would need her back on duty as soon as she was well.

  A new and fierce battle at Cambrai had been in progress for nearly two weeks, and with the new influx of casualties everywhere, the hospitals were operating a kind of shuttle system between them. It was just like the trains pulling into Temple Meads station, Angel thought. Walking wounded to the front, middling to the middle, stretcher cases to the rear. Only in this case, those who had desperate need of medical attention were sent to hospitals nearest the Front, the lesser wounded went to hospitals like the Abbey, walking and convalescents went to the clearing hospitals or onto the ships for short leaves in Blighty before returning to be shot up all over again.

  And if she didn’t want to be joining them, to return home ignominiously, then she had to jolly well eat something and ignore the threat of disgorging in her stomach. She forced down the cold meat and bread and swallowed the cocoa as quickly as she could, remembering the words of another sufferer when Angel had been curious to know the symptoms and the remedy.

  ‘The best way is to pretend you’re not actually eating anything. Tell yourself there’s nothing being pushed past your teeth and into your growling stomach. Keep your mind fixed on other things and fool your body into thinking it’s not being bombarded with nourishment it doesn’t want, and you gradually overcome the food phobia and begin to enjoy the taste again. That’s the theory, anyway. It doesn’t work for everyone.’

  To Angel’s enormous relief, it worked for her. As she ate a reasonably good breakfast on the last day of her enforced confinement to her room, she knew that it wasn’t only the other girl’s advice that had helped her. It was mostly due to her dogged determination to remain in France where she could make contact with Jacques.

  Mother Superior was to see her that morning, to decide whether she could return to duties or not. Angel was filled with impatience as she waited. Days began very early at the Abbey, and it was still barely light on the cold December morning when the door of Angel’s room opened.

  ‘So, Bannister, you’ve decided it’s not worth while starving yourself, after all,’ the nun greeted her.

  ‘Mother, I’m quite well now. I must have put on pounds in weight in the past week! And you were going to tell me if I may have today free.’ She held her breath.

  ‘So you think you are ready to resume work?’

  Angel’s heart gave a jolt.

  ‘Of course! I was stupid, that’s all, and I shan’t do such a silly thing again.’

  ‘I hope you will not. There are enough deprivations nowadays without self-inflicted ones.’

  ‘And – about today, Mother?’

  The nun smiled slightly.

  ‘Yes, you may have today free. I would not wish for a repeat performance to alarm our patients. They must always be our first concern, Bannister. A nurse who cannot fulfil her duties is best occupied elsewhere.’

  ‘I understand –’

  ‘Please do.’ After the warning, her expression softened. ‘My dear, the man we knew as Papillon – Monsieur de Ville – was under our care for a long time, and I appreciate your wish to be near him. But there are other ways if the work here becomes too testing for you. Munition factories, packaging food supplies for the soldiers –’

  ‘No!’ Angel shook her head violently. ‘I’m proud to be a nurse, and it’s what I shall continue to be.’

  The nun nodded as if satisfied, and suggested that if Angel wanted to spend the day away from the hospital, she must see about her own transport.

  It was all the incentive Angel needed. Once alone, she washed and dressed, and despite being in her room for a week, felt considerably stronger than before. She rushed downstairs to the phone and left a message with the batman who answered, letting Jacques know that she hoped to be there that afternoon.

  There was a bus service of sorts that went part of the distance. Once before, she had been able to hire a bicycle for the rest of the way. It was all very haphazard, but she was unable to ask Jacques to meet her at the bus-stop with his car, and determination gave her an extra charge of adrenalin. She would reach Brighton Belle if it took all day…

  ‘I’ve been so worried about you!’ Jacques said, when at last they found a quiet corner of the officers’ mess, and were discreetly left alone by the others. ‘I tried to phone twice this week, only to be told that you were unwell, and I couldn’t get away to see you –’

  ‘It was nothing,’ Angel said shakily. ‘A touch of ’flu or something. I’m fine now.’

  She felt suddenly too ashamed to admit that she’d been so foolish, and thankful that the nuns hadn’t revealed the truth to Jacques. Looking back, she could see that starving herself hadn’t accomplished anything.

  ‘Don’t let’s talk about it, Jacques. I can’t stay more than an hour. I must get to the St Helene bus before dark.’

  ‘I’ll borrow a truck. We can throw the bicycle in the back and I’ll return it once you’re on the bus. I shouldn’t have asked you to come. It’s far too risky, chérie.’

  In the distance, she was aware of the sounds of battle, much nearer here than at the Abbey. She had become used to them at Piersville, but after some months away from it, she was suddenly afraid. She clung to Jacques, warmed by his protective arms around her, and all the things she had been determined not to say came tumbling out.

  ‘Oh, Jacques, I’m scared that I’m losing my nerve,’ she stuttered. ‘It’s a terrible admission to make, and I hate myself for it –’

  She felt his lips on her cheek, and the steady beat of his heart against her own.

  ‘It’s human, chérie,’ he said gently. ‘Do you think you’re the only one who ever felt afraid? There’s no achievement in being brave if you have nerves of steel. It’s the people who manage to overcome their fears, who are the courageous ones.’

  She looked into his face, the silvery scars that were the banners of his brave
ry fading more and more. He was her dear, her very dearest love…

  ‘Like you?’

  ‘Like me, if you wish. Did you think I was never afraid?’

  She nestled closer. It didn’t make him less of a hero in her eyes. She understood exactly what he meant. Without fear, one had nothing to overcome. It made it all slightly easier to bear.

  ‘Do you want to take a walk? It’s cold outside, but you’re well wrapped up, and we can’t be alone any more, Angel.’

  She realised that the door had opened and a group of officers had come in, still wearing their flying suits, faces shining and blackened with oil, eyes glinting with exhilaration.

  Angel stood up at once. She didn’t want to hear of their exploits, their dare-devil risks, their closeness to oblivion as they raced across the sky with an enemy plane marking them as its next target. Let Jacques hear it all later … she stumbled ahead of him to the door, unaware that his feelings echoed hers precisely.

  For just a little while, she wanted to pretend that the two of them were merely taking some exercise, walking briskly over the crisp wintry ground, arms around each other to keep warm, in the lee of the buildings and into one of the empty aircraft hangars where they could be unobserved.

  Jacques took her in his arms, just holding her for a long while before he kissed her. His skin was cold on her cheek, slightly unshaven and tinglingly fresh. She was overwhelmed with love for him, as she was every single time they met. Their bodies were pressed close, and against her softness, she knew that Jacques had recovered his abilities as a man.

  ‘You see what your nearness does to me, my darling one?’

  He murmured huskily against her mouth. ‘God, but I’m so impatient for all this to end, so that we can begin our life together. It’s what drives me on, and what I suspect drives many men on.’

  ‘More than patriotism?’

  ‘We don’t fight only for the glory of our country, chérie, we fight for the right to be ourselves, for the freedom of being with those we love. Now you have my admission, my Angel. Is it more terrible than yours?’

  ‘Not to me,’ she whispered. ‘It’s the most beautiful and honest thing I’ve heard yet about this dreadful war. It makes some sense of it. Do you think the Germans feel the same way?’

  He was tempted to condemn all Germans as inhuman monsters. They had killed his best gunner, and burned countless friends and acquaintances. They had killed Margot Lacey’s brother and been responsible in a way for blowing up Louise’s husband. They had committed every atrocity known to man … but he had glimpsed the naked fear in a German pilot’s eyes, and he knew how frighteningly it matched his own.

  ‘Even the Germans have wives and sweethearts,’ he said grudgingly. ‘Ordinary men and women must want the war to end as much as we do.’

  Angel shivered in his arms. ‘Not as much as you and I do, my love –’

  Jacques gave her a very private smile, holding her closer, as if he would never let her go.

  ‘But who would ever dare to call you and I ordinary people, my Angel?’

  Thoughts of home were in everyone’s mind as Christmas Day approached. There were special services in the Abbey, the nurses holding candles high and singing carols in the holly-decorated wards. They sang in English and in French, but the meanings were the same, the personal memories and the lumps brought to every throat were the same, and it could have been any hospital anywhere in the world.

  Angel had managed to make a long-distance telephone call home on Christmas morning. Ellen answered, and the two of them wasted precious seconds crying into the phone at the sound of each other’s voices.

  ‘Darling, I must tell you quickly. Louise had a baby boy in the early hours. Isn’t she clever to have such good timing? They’re going to call him Christopher, naturally. It was either that or Noel, and that would have been too ghastly –’

  ‘What wonderful news!’ Angel said excitedly. ‘Oh, Ellen, do call and congratulate her for me. And thank-you all so much for the presents and cards. They arrived more or less intact –’

  ‘Good-oh. I’ll have to go, old thing, Mother’s hovering to talk to you. Chin up, darling, and write soon.’

  ‘You too –’

  Clemence came on the line, too delighted at the thought of being a grandmother now to waste emotions on recriminations for Louise’s undue haste in producing a child. Angel listened to her enthusiastic plans for inviting the three of them to Meadowcroft as soon as it was reasonable for the baby to travel, and was filled with a fierce longing to be home, in the midst of all this…

  ‘Angel?’ Suddenly it was her father’s bluff voice on the phone, and her own unaccountably caught in her throat. ‘Happy Christmas, my dearest girl.’

  ‘Happy Christmas, Daddy.’ Tears blinded her, remembering other years at Meadowcroft and at Hampstead. The rituals always the same, with love overflowing among family and friends as they gathered for the day. The huge glittering tree, almost weighed down with tinsel and baubles, presents piled excitingly high beneath, the tantalising aroma of the goose sizzling for hours, the spice of the hot mince pies and the wine flowing freely…

  ‘Come home soon, Angel. We shall drink a toast to our absent loved ones this afternoon. You’ll be with us in spirit, darling girl, never fear.’

  Fred’s words were meant to be tender, but they acted like a dash of cold water in Angel’s face. Absent loved ones for Sir Fred Bannister would presumably also mean Harriet Garth and Angel resented the very idea of being included in the same thought as that woman. A curt reply hovered on her lips, but before she could make it, she heard Ellen’s voice again.

  ‘I can’t let the old folks hog the phone without telling you some more news, Angel. Margot Lacey’s engaged! She called last week and asked for your address, but I couldn’t wait to let you know. She’s getting married in a few weeks’ time.’

  ‘Good Lord!’

  Angel hardly knew what to say. She felt ridiculously let down, and guiltily resentful that Margot had got out of France and was now apparently marrying and settling down as if the war wasn’t happening at all. Somehow, other people still led comparatively normal lives. And then she remembered young Eddie Lacey and felt even more shamed by her own thoughts.

  ‘I’ll leave Margot to write and tell you the rest,’ Ellen laughed. ‘We’d better stop talking, Angel. We’re off to church and Mother’s glaring at me already. Have the best time that you can, darling!’

  ‘I will. Good-bye –’

  They were cut off, and it was Angel who had the lump in her throat now, and had to make a great effort to conquer it. It didn’t do to be down-hearted on Christmas Day. Not when there was a hospital full of wounded soldiers all missing their loved ones, and hoping to have a bit of cheeky banter with a nurse or two as a kind of compensation.

  Some of the men grew extraordinarily attached to their nurses. Small wonder, really, when the nurses knew them more intimately than wives or mothers ever could. It was a relationship that was unique, closer than love, freer than air when the man was finally discharged. Any nurse foolish enough to think it went deeper than that was wasting precious emotion.

  But on days like Christmas Day, any could be forgiven for transferring their affections to the one nearest, even if it wasn’t the one who was dearest. Angel put up with it all, with as much good nature as the rest of the nurses.

  ‘Come on, Nurse Angel, give us a kiss!’

  ‘A quick cuddle would be even better –’

  ‘Nobody’s going to notice if you slip the curtains round us for five minutes, Nursie – I’ve got a tasty bit of apple pie we can share –’

  She laughed down at them, teasing them back, trying not to let her mouth water at the thought of hot apple pie and cream. Her appetite was fully restored now, and she still felt a small shock at a cutting from The Times newspaper her mother had sent her, listing the food shortages at home, now that strict rationing was in force.

  Sugar, butter, tea, margarine, lard, dripp
ing, milk, bacon, pork, condensed milk, rice, currants, raisins, spirits, Australian wines … many of the quoted items were unrationed, but were in such short supply that the government was being ridiculed for bothering to appoint a Minister of Food at all.

  Everything had changed. Even to the poor royal family being pressured to change from the old German name of Saxe-Coberg-Gotha to Windsor, a fact that had caused Angel’s mother to write her own outraged letter to The Times on the humiliation of demanding such a thing from their beloved royalty.

  Angel’s attention was caught again by a soldier begging a kiss for Christmas from Nurse Moss, which she laughingly refused, saying cheekily that he’d do better with a cup of cocoa to dampen his ardour, since he couldn’t do much about it!

  Nurse Moss grinned at Angel, who silently agreed. They had all inevitably become freer with words in the uninhibited atmosphere of the hospital wards, despite the presence of the nuns, but they didn’t have to be so free with their kisses.

  Besides, the only kisses Angel wanted were Jacques’, and there was still the best part of another week to go before they both had a blissful three days’ leave, and they were going to spend it somewhere in the country. They were going to be Mr and Mrs Anonymous.

  It couldn’t be so wrong to want to spare a little time for themselves, when all her waking hours were spent in putting men back together for other women to love…

  He picked her up at the Abbey in his small car. This was going to be Christmas and New Year and everything wonderful rolled into one. Angel was bubbling inside, hardly daring to believe that this day had come. That they were driving away from the Abbey, away from the danger of the Front Line and the sound of guns and the orange glow of burning in the sky. Now at last there was a little time for love.

  They found a small country hotel, half-hidden by trees, en route from St Helene to Paris. It was a secluded place, which suited their mood. Christmas festivities had been modest, the New Year yet to be celebrated that night by the proprietors and the few other guests.

  There were no bells chiming to greet the new year of 1918, no wild fireworks exploding, no dancing in the streets. But there was music and kisses, and a fervent hope in everyone’s heart that this would be the last new year under siege, that the dawn of 1919 would be celebrated in freedom, a sentiment echoed by all who drank the toast with Monsieur and Madame Alphonse.