by Ann Harries
Doctor Simmonds was an Englishman who had been on the Island for twenty years. A reclusive man, the place suited him perfectly, its bleakness chiming in with his view of life. Of real life, that is. The life inside the covers of books was what he retreated to every evening, a glass of whisky at his side. He told Patch that opening a book was like opening a door to a house of many rooms leading into each other, each filled with strangers who became friends. You could leave by the door if you didn’t get on with the company or the architecture. Patch liked Dr Simmonds, gruff and reserved as he was. Although the doctor made no effort to talk about personal matters, he had the feeling that his own slippery nature was completely understood by this man. Often he would leave with a slim volume under his arm. He enjoyed what he read, for the doctor had chosen accurately: Sherlock Holmes; some Kipling stories; a selection of poetry. At the orphanage the children had been allowed to read only the Bible, religious tracts, or the lives of saints; all works of fiction were regarded as sinful lies which would lead you into evil ways.
After a couple of months Dr Simmonds looked at him long and hard and said, ‘Here’s a lengthier book which might interest you.’ The book was Oliver Twist. The door opened with a description of Oliver’s birth, and Patch entered a world that reminded him of the District in its turbulence and lawlessness, with gangsters like Bill Sikes and Fagin skulking in dark doorways, knives in their back pockets. He felt a sudden wave of homesickness for the overcrowded homes, the noisy taverns, the pavements cluttered with hawkers, foreigners, kaffir workers, musicians, drunks, rats, pigs, cats and dogs chasing each other or being chased by outraged women or laughing children … and the Witbooi family, of course, who had taken him in when he’d fled from the orphanage. Mrs W treated him like a son from the start, no questions asked. He’d shared a room with Johan and two cousins who worked in the slaughterhouse by the Castle. How had motherly Mrs Witbooi come to know of this job on the Island? He’d asked her several times for her source of information but her lips were sealed on the subject and he’d stopped asking her to tell him.
So why did he remain? Was it just for the money? No, he was growing to enjoy the space and privacy of the Island. In the District you were lucky if there were just three or four of you to a room, coming and going at all times of the night. Here he had an entire bedroom to himself – which made him feel lonely sometimes, but which was also a luxury he’d never dreamed of. There were other leper guards but most of them preferred their own company. He was proud of his uniform (they’d had to lengthen the trousers). The Anglican nuns who worked in the leper hospital were more human than the Sisters of Mercy. Three meals a day were provided. He saw Fancy and Johan every three weeks and continued to sing duets with Johan in the Transvaal Tavern though the Trusty Trio was a thing of the past now with Cartwright gone. And he came back to his bedroom every night to find a cocaine-addicted detective, a maddened highwayman, and a traumatised orphan boy awaiting his return, for they could not resume their busy lives till he released them from their pages.
By the time Patch had changed into his uniform the mist had melted away. Glad to stretch his legs (unlike those poor horses), he set off on his evening tour of the Island, hurrying past the old ward devoted to male lepers in an advanced stage of the disease. A nauseating odour emanated from the ward, the evil effluvia of decaying bodies, but something else was floating from the ward – an unearthly whistling, as if the lepers inside were trying to blow into flutes made of bamboo or pipes of straw; the sound made Patch uneasy. Though he knew it was caused by tubes inserted into their throats to help them breathe, it made him think of ghosts and ghouls talking to each other about the afterlife, planning to drag him off with them into their weird spirit world which most probably was Purgatory, the intermediate detention place, almost as bad as Hell except people could pray for your soul and get indulgences for you. He quickened his step.
It was a relief to get to the jagged shores and look at the waves endlessly rolling in, mere ripples at the moment, as if a giant pebble had been thrown into the centre of the ocean causing lazy circles to undulate all round the Island. At low tide, like now, they sighed placidly, hardly bothering to unfurl, but Patch knew that, in a few hours’ time when the tide came in, they would transform into tigers with bared teeth and claws, thundering on to the shores as if straining to submerge the whole of the Island. Often the wind would join in, shrieking like a pack of demons through the cracks in windows and doors, trying to blow down trees and buildings, vying with the ocean for destruction. It seemed a miracle that everything was still standing the next day.
Patch’s patrol took him right round the Island. He always liked to start with the view of Cape Town and the mountains, then walk on the sandy path to the other side where there was only infinite ocean. Dr Simmonds had shown him a map of the world where he could see that the same Atlantic Ocean that washed the shores of Cape Town washed also the shores of Ireland. That was a comforting thought. He liked to stand on the rocks and move his gaze over the horizon, trying to guess where Ireland was if you drew a straight line north. No matter that this view pointed west, as the setting sun now reminded him. The colours in the sky were turning violent mauve and pink and orange, as if God had daubed the favoured flamboyant colours of the Cape Mohammedans on the horizon with his heavenly paintbrush.
It seems the whole of mankind feels compelled to construct a simile when viewing a spectacular sunset, and Patch was no exception. Grinning at the image which had occurred to him, he continued his patrol along the beaches. He shouldn’t spend so long gazing out to sea; his job was to look out for lepers. What about convicts or madmen though? He wouldn’t fancy bumping into one of them at this time of day. He felt cold at the thought, then realised that the wind had suddenly risen and was slicing through his uniform.
He moved on. A lump of something dark and large lay on the wet sea sand that blazed purple and pink from the sunset. As he walked towards it – could be a drowned man – a husky Irish voice addressed him.
‘Just take a look at that, will ye.’
He spun round. Sitting on a rock close to the sea was a leper woman with wild grey hair flying about in the wind. Even in the twilight he could see wet pustules and patches all over her skin. There wasn’t much left of her nose.
‘Look!’ she commanded, waving the stump of her forearm in the direction of the dark shape. This woman shouldn’t be here, but with his curiosity overcoming his sense of duty he obeyed her barked instruction. Then exclaimed in astonishment.
The lump was a large shark which fishermen must have caught earlier in the day. Alongside it were six full-sized seals, taken out of its stomach.
‘You’d think that shark had given birth to those seals, from the look of it,’ said the woman, not moving from her position on the rock.
‘Strange shark that gives birth to seals,’ mumbled Patch.
The woman put her head on one side and looked at him sardonically. ‘I gave birth to six seal pups, would you believe it?’
Spare me this, thought Patch. ‘No, I would not,’ he said.
‘All boys,’ she mused. ‘Each one as different from me as seals from a shark.’
‘You shouldn’t be here,’ said Patch sternly. ‘You’re not allowed beyond the fence.’
‘Sure, d’ye think I’m going to try to escape? Build myself a wee boat like those others?’ she sneered. ‘I’ll be off then, officer. Ye won’t catch me breakin’ the law.’ She scuffled off towards her hut and he sniffed the air to see if she stank.
Patch followed her home, to make sure. He didn’t go near the women’s huts as a rule: the inner Island wasn’t on his beat. Her garden, which he’d seen briefly over the high hedge on his first visit with Dr Simmonds, took him by surprise: a little spot of woman-made beauty in the midst of all this desolation. Resolving to visit it the next day, he bade goodbye to the woman and finished his tour of duty as darkness fell.
But that night the wind howled itself into a frenzied storm and a
fishing vessel splintered on the rocks and Patch was called to help rescue the crew. The next day, with the storm still raging and a search party out for two missing sailors, he was too busy to sneak off to view country gardens.
It was nearly a week later, on an innocently pleasant day, that Patch got to the garden. A little pebbled path wound its way through a mass of flowers, all shapes and sizes, as if Fancy’s stall in all its brilliant colour and variety had been transplanted to that desolate hillock. You’d think some of the plants would’ve been flattened by the storm but they seemed untouched by the gale. Perhaps that’s why she’d grown the hedge all round. He stood by the little wooden gate and feasted his eyes. She was picking the dead heads off one of her bright purple flowers with a remaining forefinger and thumb. ‘Good garden.’ He nodded condescendingly, as a patrol guard should. But in his heart he was excited; he drank in the fragrance that hovered, as seductive as the perfume of a woman.
‘Come in and have a look,’ she offered, wiping a strand of grey hair from her face.
The gate meowed as he opened it and he looked round for the cat.
‘That ole gate needs oilin’,’ she said as she straightened herself.
He could see she was once beautiful, but had coarsened under the scabs and pustules. He could not think what to say. ‘Your grass is green,’ he muttered.
‘ ’Twould be a lot better if I had a proper lawn. You can see this kikuyu grass isn’t taking. What I need is some good grass seed, sure I do.’
The concept of gardens was new to Patch. The District didn’t have room in its crowded streets for gardens, though Mrs Witbooi tried to grow some nasturtiums in an old sink in her backyard. But this arrangement of path, riotous floral borders, grass, vegetables at the back, pleased him. It settled his mind.
He said, ‘I can get you some grass seed when I next go to Cape Town.’
Her blue eyes gleamed. ‘That’ll be mighty kind of yer. There used to be an officer brought me seed for the hollyhocks and pansies. Now they seed theirselves.’ Some butterflies were floating about on waves of honeysuckle scent. ‘One thing’s good come out of bein’ here and that’s this.’ She nodded at the garden. ‘I wasn’t thinkin’ about flowers and the like on the mainland. Too many other things to think about.’
‘I must get on,’ said Patch, in case she started to tell him about those other things.
He returned to his patrol round the edge of the Island. In spite of all the warnings three leper men had made a secret boat out of old tins and boxes. He was glad he hadn’t been the one who’d discovered them; he might have let them get on with it. Mind, it would be even more difficult to get to the shores of the mainland now that there were so many ships in the bay, weaving towards the docks to deliver men, horses, ammunition, hay; or anchored at sea, waiting their turn. Patch enjoyed watching the schooners zigzag out of the harbour and across the bay. You could see the young boys working on the topsails, hanging from the rope ladders and clinging to the masts, the whole crew tacking, luffing, and generally outwitting the gusts of wind that wanted to blow the vessel back into the harbour. Then finally, sail by triumphant sail, the ship would slip beneath the rim of the ocean, sometimes into the setting sun. Would he ever get away on one of them? Ireland was where he wanted to go, to prove he was an Irishman. Perhaps he should save his wages to buy a fare …
As he leapt across rock pools and scrunched over the sea sand in his new boots, he was surprised to find himself thinking about the leper woman. He wanted to visit her garden again and learn how to make plants grow. What did she do to the thin soil to make them flourish?
When he got back to the hospital office he looked up her surname in the register of lepers. When he saw it was the same as his own he was startled. He clutched the rosary in his pocket, then the Miraculous Medal: Help me, Mother of us all.
That night he dreamt he was little Oliver sleeping among the coffins. He awoke, his body clenched into a question mark, and aching. A rash seemed to have broken out all over his skin but when he looked it was smooth and tanned as ever. Yet all day he itched and scratched.
The next day he visited the woman again. He stood at her gate in silence. She looked up from her cabbages and cauliflowers on the side of her hut as if she had been expecting him. A bitter wind swept between them. ‘You forgot to tell me what sort of grass seed. I’m going to Cape Town on Saturday.’
With her forearm she brushed back a hank of greying hair blown loose by the wind. ‘Buffalo is best. If you can get it.’
He paused. ‘How long?’ he said. ‘How long since you’ve been here?’
She thought. ‘Must be twenty years. They say they’ll let me out when these have cleared up.’ She tilted her head. ‘But they’ll never go. They’re here for good.’
He could scarcely bring himself to speak. ‘Do you see your family? Do they visit you?’
She laughed coarsely. ‘I’ve six sons blown to the four corners of the earth. Priests, all of them, except the youngest. They wouldn’t visit a leper mother if you paid them.’
‘What’s happened to the youngest then?’ Patch fiddled with the loop of wire round the gate.
‘Never met him. Except when he popped out of course!’ She gave that harsh laugh again.
He looked at her in sudden disgust. She had laid aside her trowel and was rolling some tobacco into a crude paper tube. ‘You couldn’t bring me a mite o’ baccy, could ye? They’ve clean run out at the hospital shop.’ Her eyes were cunning, trying not to show her hope. She knew she was taking advantage of him. She hazarded an asymmetrical smile.
‘I’ll try,’ said Patch shortly, and turned away before she’d ask for brandy as well. He touched the medal round his neck. The Blessed Virgin would guide him.
Sarah’s Diary
23 December 1899
Here I sit curled up in my deck chair in the wind and rain, covered in wraps, as the Dunottar Castle heaves across the Channel. I think and hope I am at last entering into a new, brighter phase of my life. Already I feel the stir of anticipation, but not of course the wild excitement which Louise is experiencing. She has brought a huge wardrobe of extraordinary clothes, as well as Dolly, her lady’s maid. I wonder when she expects to wear those outrageous creations, mostly from Paris. There is one evening dress made entirely out of khaki serge with gold fringes and ostrich feather trim, as khaki has become all the rage in the world of fashion. Only Louise could bring herself actually to wear such a garment.
My decision to apply to nurse in South Africa was taken in some trepidation, after several changes of mind. War is such an extraordinary development in my quiet life that I was not sure if I was strong enough to cope with the vicissitudes it must entail. I have to say the appearance in the Daily Mail of verses by Mr Kipling helped me to make up my mind. This great poet has written The Absent-Minded Beggar to raise funds for indigent families left behind by volunteers and reservists, and Sir Arthur Sullivan turned the verses to a thumping march:
Duke’s son – cook’s son – son of a hundred kings—(50,000 horse and foot going to Table Bay!)
Each of ‘em doing his country’s work (and who’s to look after their things?)
Pass the hat for your credit’s sake, and – pay! pay! pay!
And goodness me, the public are paying – I believe £340,000 has already been raised for the Soldiers’ Family Fund. Now you can go nowhere without hearing the stirring sounds – from organ grinders to music halls, from street corner musicians to patriotic drawing-room concerts – and thousands have joined up as a result, for it is a recruiting song as well as a fund-raiser. Someone has etched the image of a bloodstained, bandaged Tommy pointing his bayonet at an (invisible) cringing Boer; we see this picture everywhere, on cigarette cases, tea towels, ashtrays, ladies’ purses and so on. I was strangely moved by this heroic trooper, even though I feel my sympathies drifting towards the high aspirations of the Conciliation Committee and have actually attended several of their meetings. When dear Aunt Harriet presented
me with a trinket box bearing this stirring image on its lid, I finally capitulated, and made my application to the Army Nursing Service Reserve. Within days I was called up – and so was Louise, who had been put on their lists some time back. We were of course delighted to find that we’d be sailing to Cape Town on the same steamer.
I feel sorry for Sophie as she would love to go to South Africa to see how things really are there. As she has not been nursing long enough to qualify for the Army Reserve Service, she has instead offered her services during her free time to the Conciliation Committee and is busy educating herself about South African history so that she too can address the public across the length and breadth of the country in an effort to educate the British people and promote peace as soon as possible. Brave, high-minded Sophie! She has even rehearsed some of her speeches with me, peeking only a few times at her notes, so I am unusually well-informed about the history and politics of South Africa. I have promised to send her detailed accounts of my experiences in the military hospitals – we have no idea where we will be sent.
I must say that our departure from Southampton this morning was quite extraordinary and made me feel I was indeed participating in a great moment of history. I think my parents were proud of me as we enjoyed a final cup of tea among uniformed officers and nurses in the first class dining saloon. We watched the huge mass of well-wishers who had crowded excitedly into the Southampton docks to wave goodbye to the Dunottar; they seemed to have covered every available space – some had settled on to the lattice work of dockside cranes, others perched on railway carriages, all waving flags and breaking into song (the Absent-Minded Beggar was a favourite); wives and children clung to sallow, khaki-clad Tommies who then poured in endless streams into the bowels of the ship, blanket rolls and rucksacks on their backs. And never have I ever seen so many varieties of horse in one small area! Filing up the high gangway to the forward deck where their stalls awaited them were horses of all shapes and sizes: pure Arabs, heavy drays and mules normally seen pulling omnibuses or waste carts, light hansom ponies, race horses – all jumbled together in a sudden democracy that must have amazed them as much as it did me. And the mailbags! There must have been a dozen letters for every soldier in South Africa coming up yet another gangway in a great torrent of leather bags. ‘It seems the working classes have suddenly become literate,’ remarked my father, who finds it hard to believe that his gardener or chimney sweep might be able to read, let alone write.