Lorimers at War

by Anne Melville

  But the unexpectedness of his news had left her confused, almost dizzy. She heard her name called and turned so sharply that she staggered, needing Robert’s arm to steady her.

  Kate, who must have left the family group while Robert was breaking his news, was running down the platform towards them, her eyes wide with shock. Margaret held her breath and waited to hear what new horrors this day held in store.

  5

  Kate had left the family group as Brinsley’s train finally disappeared from sight, in order that no one should see how close she was to tears. Sniffling vigorously and rubbing her eyes, she was not at first conscious of her surroundings. When at last she had brought her feelings more or less under control, she was surprised to see a row of ambulances drawing up in the station forecourt. To take her mind off Brinsley she forced herself to be curious and followed the men who hurried from each vehicle as it came to a halt. They led her to the platform furthest from that on which the band had been playing.

  The platform was covered with stretchers, and more were still being unloaded from an ambulance train which must have arrived unobtrusively while everyone’s attention was on the departing troop train. Kate stared unbelievingly at the rows of men who lay, too weak or too shell-shocked to move, with grey faces and sunken eyes which stared unblinkingly from black sockets. She began to move amongst them, asking questions and occasionally lifting a blanket to inspect the wound it covered. Then, horrified, she ran as fast as she could to find Margaret.

  ‘Come and see here, Aunt Margaret.’ She seized her aunt’s hand and tugged her towards the other platform while the rest of the family, startled, followed more slowly. For a moment the two women, both doctors, stood side by side, taking in the scene in silence. Then Kate led Margaret over to one of the wounded men with whom she had spoken a little earlier.

  ‘Look at this,’ she said quietly to Margaret. She raised the blanket which covered his leg. He was still wearing the khaki trousers of his uniform, covered in mud, and his blood-stained puttees: only the boot had been cut away. ‘It’s five days since he was wounded. I asked him. Five days to bring him from the front line to here with only a field dressing. Just look!’

  Even in her state of horror Kate had enough tact not to describe what she had recognized. Perhaps the man had not yet realized that he would have to lose a leg. Margaret, staring at the slimy bandage and blackened, gangrenous toes, would not need to be told.

  ‘Where are you taking them?’ Margaret asked one of the ambulance men.

  ‘Thirty to Charing Cross Hospital,’ he said. ‘The rest’ll wait here till we find out where there’s room.’

  The rest of the party came up to join the two women and Kate repeated her indignant reaction to Lord Glanville. But Margaret gestured them to move away from the stretcher area so that they could talk without being overheard.

  ‘The hospitals must be cleared to make room,’ she said. ‘I shall go back at once and stop admissions to my gynaecological ward. Given efficient transport, my patients can perfectly well be cared for in the country. These men need surgeons and skilled nurses, and they need them at once. All the London teaching hospitals ought to make all their beds available to these emergency cases while the crisis lasts.’

  Kate, who had only recently qualified as a doctor, had none of her aunt’s power to take decisions like this. While the members of the older generation discussed what should be done, she stood back in silence.

  Margaret had spoken with the authority of a professional woman and Lord Glanville, even more accustomed to taking decisions at a high level, was considering the situation with equal gravity. Kate knew that he had been personally responsible, fifteen years earlier, for persuading Margaret to leave her country practice and supervise the women students of the hospital of which he was a benefactor and governor. So although he had no medical experience, he was familiar with hospital administration.

  ‘These men are surgical cases, I take it,’ he said to Margaret. ‘They’ll need operations without delay and surgical nursing for some time afterwards – and then what? A less intensive standard of nursing for what could be a considerable period while their wounds heal?’

  ‘If they’re lucky, yes,’ said Margaret. ‘If they arrive at the operating theatre in time.’

  ‘And during this healing period they’ll be occupying beds which may be needed by the next trainload of wounded, and the next.’

  ‘But this can’t go on indefinitely!’ exclaimed Alexa – though like her husband she kept her voice low. ‘Obviously there has been a major battle. Something must have been decided by it. And I understood from the newspapers that the war is almost over, that we are on the point of victory.’

  ‘The newspapers are telling us what we hope to hear,’ said Piers. ‘It was true a few weeks ago that the Germans were in retreat. But when they became too tired to retreat any further they dug trenches to protect themselves for a breathing space and found – as each of the men on this platform has found – that a row of concealed machine guns can be remarkably effective in keeping an army at bay. I suspect that there will be many more injuries of this kind. It seems to me a matter of some urgency that the surgical wards in London should be kept available for acute cases; and that means that convalescent soldiers must be moved out as fast as emergencies move in. No doubt the hospitals are making their own plans. What I have in mind is a specific proposal.’ He turned towards Alexa. ‘Your opera house at Blaize is not due to open for its next season until the summer,’ he suggested. ‘It would not take too much reorganization to convert it into a long ward for men who require rest and some care, but not the most skilled nursing. There would be room in the main house for the doctors and nurses to stay. It must be your decision, of course. What do you think?’

  ‘But rehearsals are due to start –’ Alexa’s first reaction was a selfish one. Before she could express even a single objection, however, her gaze returned to the rows of stretchers and the men who lay on them, too weak even to groan. She put a hand apologetically on her husband’s arm. ‘You’re quite right, Piers,’ she said. ‘How ought we to arrange it? We should need medical advice if the conversion is to be efficient.’

  ‘The best plan would be to attach Blaize to one of the London hospitals as its country branch,’ suggested Margaret.

  ‘And since I’m already a governor of yours, there’s no need to waste any time in choosing between them all,’ said Piers. ‘I hope you won’t mind if I put forward your name, Margaret, to be medical administrator of the country branch, since we shall all have to live and work together so closely.’ He thought for a moment. ‘I’ll take Alexa back to Park Lane now and then come straight to the hospital to see what arrangements can be made.’

  ‘It’s too late!’ Kate cried, watching as Piers and Alexa hurried off. Robert went with them, perhaps still fearing an emotional outburst from his mother if he stayed. But it seemed that Margaret had for the moment succeeded in pushing her personal distress to the back of her mind.

  ‘Too late for these men, perhaps,’ she agreed. ‘But Piers’s plan will help others. And all his colleagues in the House of Lords have large country houses. If a first experimental scheme can be seen to work successfully –’

  ‘I don’t mean that,’ interrupted Kate. ‘I mean that it will be too late for the next batch of wounded as well as for these if they are always to be sent back to England. How many lives are being lost by this kind of delay, do you think? The men should be treated as soon as they are wounded; and that means within a short distance of the battlefield.’

  ‘Well, obviously there must be dressing stations and field hospitals,’ Margaret began; but again Kate interrupted her.

  ‘And obviously there are not enough. Or else they are not adequately equipped. Or else there are not enough doctors. Aunt Margaret, I must go to France as well.’

  ‘You may think you see a need, Kate.’ Beatrice – Arthur’s elder sister – had taken no part in the earlier conversation and she spoke
now with the the cold edge of sarcasm which came naturally to her voice. But Kate could tell that she had been as deeply affected as any of the others by the contrast between the strong young men who had set off from Waterloo that morning and the broken bodies of those who had returned. ‘I can promise you, though, that the War Office will not think any emergency great enough to warrant the recruitment of women doctors. In the suffragists’ office we have fought this battle twice and lost on each occasion. Since the generals are finding the Germans more difficult to defeat than they had expected, they console themselves by putting women to rout instead.’

  ‘What’s happened, then?’ demanded Kate.

  ‘The French have accepted us. Dr Louisa Garrett Anderson and Dr Flora Murray are already in France. They are the leaders of a Women’s Hospital Corps which has been entirely paid for by private subscription. And the Scottish Federation has raised enough funds to equip two complete units. The first of them will be leaving for France within the next two weeks, if all goes well.’

  ‘I want to go with it,’ said Kate. She was overwhelmed by the strength of her need to become involved.

  ‘It’s fully staffed.’ Beatrice spoke with a firmness as great as her cousin’s. But her brusque comment did not prevent her from looking thoughtfully at Kate as though to estimate how far she had spoken only out of impulse. ‘But there’s still a vacancy in the second unit. We expect that to be ready in January.’

  ‘Will you accept me?’

  ‘You haven’t had much experience yet,’ Beatrice pointed out. ‘But it’s not for me to say yes or no. The surgeon who’ll be in charge of the unit has already been appointed. You’d have to convince her that you could make yourself useful. I’m expecting her to call at the office this afternoon with the list of equipment she wants me to provide. If you’d like to come at two o’clock –’

  ‘I’ll be there,’ said Kate. ‘Thank you, Beatrice.’

  The change in Beatrice did not go so far as to make her smile easily. She nodded as Kate in acceptance of the arrangement and advanced her lips towards Margaret’s cheek without actually touching it. Then, businesslike and matter of fact, she strode away.

  ‘Don’t rush into a decision like this, Kate,’ Margaret said, putting a hand on her niece’s arm as though that would be enough to hold her back. ‘It’s too important to be settled all in a minute. And I promised Brinsley I’d look after you. He’s fighting in order that the people he loves shall be safe. He wouldn’t want you to put yourself in such danger. Besides, you’ve seen for yourself how great is the need for doctors here.’

  ‘One doctor in France could save the work of ten in London,’ Kate argued. ‘Suppose Brinsley were to be wounded, Aunt Margaret. One of the men I spoke to had lain for three days at Boulogne waiting for a ship. No one even changed his dressings. Could you bear to think of something like that happening to Brinsley when I might be able to prevent it? Or if not for him, for some of the others like him.’ She saw Margaret shiver and guessed that her aunt was imagining not Brinsley, but Robert lying on a stretcher in a railway shed. ‘When you know, absolutely know, that something is the right thing to do, no amount of thinking about it is going to change the rightness. It isn’t exactly that I want to go, Aunt Margaret. I don’t see it as Brinsley does, as a kind of adventure. But the need is there. I have to go. There’s no choice.’

  ‘I’m frightened, Kate,’ said Margaret. ‘It’s only a few hours since we were all dancing at Blaize. And now the place is to be filled with wounded men and Brinsley has gone and you and Robert will follow him. Where is it all going to end?’

  ‘God knows. Do you think the Germans are as convinced that God is on their side as we are that he’s on ours?’

  She tried to make the question sound light-hearted, almost a joke, but in her heart she too was frightened. Everyone in the family – everyone in England – was having to make plans for an emergency which stretched into an indefinite and unpredictable future. Only one thing must be reckoned as certain. The war would not, after all, be over by Christmas.

  6

  Two days after her interview in Beatrice’s office, Kate learned that her offer to serve as one of the two doctors in the next women’s medical unit had been accepted. Perhaps her cousin, knowing her to be hard-working and conscientious, had recommended her, or perhaps she owed her success to her youth and strength and energy. Certainly Kate herself was as well aware as anyone else that although she was fully qualified she had not had a great deal of unsupervised experience of dealing with emergencies – and in work of this kind, most of the casualties brought to her were likely to be emergencies.

  Since it would be ten weeks before the unit was ready to leave, she took steps to improve her usefulness by volunteering for temporary hospital work. Doctors and surgeons were working round the clock to accept the flood of wounded soldiers sent back from France, and Kate was welcomed as a member of a team which inspected each man as he arrived, supervised the cleaning of wounds, made a detailed observation of the damage, performed the more straightforward operations or those which were necessary to prepare for major surgery, and kept a close watch for a few days afterwards to guard against complications. She worked four twelve-hour duties each week, and this allowed her the opportunity also to play her part in the upheaval which was taking place at Blaize.

  On her first visit she found Margaret already installed there. Lord Glanville had wasted no time in making his property available and pressing both the hospital governors and the army to accept his sister-in-law as its commandant. Alexa had cleared a corner room in the east wing to act as an office, and by the time Kate arrived, it had already taken on the appearance of an operations room at the front line. Plans of the various buildings on the estate were pinned to the wall and every piece of furniture was covered with papers listing equipment required or actions to be taken. Kate had already learned from Lord Glanville that Robert had had to report for training within two days of volunteering. The leisurely process which had carried Brinsley to the front was a thing of the past, and it did not require very much sensitivity to recognize the worry behind Margaret’s frown of concentration.

  Kate found it curious to walk through the house which she knew so well from holiday visits and to consider its amenities now in such a different light.

  ‘The family will keep the whole of the west wing.’ Margaret told her. ‘That’s where the nursery suite is, and we don’t want to disturb Frisca and little Pirry. Most of the east wing will be made available for the medical staff. That means Alexa loses her drawing room and morning room, I’m afraid. They’re going to use the library as a drawing room instead. As for the Tudor part of the house, there are problems in converting it. We’ve had a surveyor in to look at the long gallery up at the top. It’s the perfect shape and size for a ward, but apparently the floor wouldn’t take the weight. There would be trouble with stretchers on the stairs as well. The ballroom is more promising, and reasonably straightforward because it’s empty. The decisions still to be made are about the opera house.’

  They walked together through the wood. The path down towards the river was not too steep, but rain the previous night had left it muddy and slippery. Lifting her skirt to keep the hem clean, Kate paused to look back.

  ‘Do you expect to transfer any of the patients from the theatre to the house?’ she asked. ‘It may not be an easy journey. And if doctors are coming and going all day, the mud will get much worse.’

  Margaret nodded and made a note in the notebook which was tied by string to her belt.

  ‘So we shall need a path with a firm surface and a gentler slope,’ she agreed. ‘Gradual enough to push a wheelchair up, in fact. Now then, give me your ideas on this.’

  They had arrived at a very long brick building, older even than the house. Once upon a time it had been a tithe barn, built right on the bank of the Thames so that tenants of the Glanville estate could bring that part of their harvest which they owed to the church to a convenient place of stor
age – especially convenient in view of the fact that the Glanvilles had the patronage of the living, and could usually find a member of the family to accept it. During the last century, though, the tithe barn had been allowed to fall into disuse and decay, and only in the past few years, since Lord Glanville’s marriage to Alexa, had it been repaired and converted to an opera house.

  Even Kate, who was so strongly aware of the need, felt a moment’s sadness to see the building which had been Alexa’s pride stripped so unceremoniously of its trappings. Already the seats had been taken out, and at this very moment workmen were taking up the raked floor. There would be no need for any of the hospital beds to have a better view of the stage than the rest.

  At this moment, however, the stage proved to be in use. A little girl in a white dress was dancing to music which issued from the huge horn of a gramophone. So intently was she concentrating on her energetic but graceful movements, that she did not notice the two new arrivals. This was Frisca, Alexa’s daughter, made fatherless even before she was born by an earthquake in San Francisco and adopted by Lord Glanville when he married her mother.

  The record came to an end and Frisca curtsied to the workmen before running to wind the machine up again.

  ‘You ought not to be here, Frisca,’ said Margaret, stepping on to the stage. ‘You’re distracting the men.’