by Ann Harries
At the same time, I have to say it is an absolute scandal the way this hospital is run. Everyone blames everyone else when things go wrong. In particular, the medical officers blame Roberts for the deficiency of hospital equipment, saying hospital needs are put at the bottom of the army pecking order – well below the consignments of officers’ champagne, for instance – with the result that they are blamed for not having bandages when the hospital consignments haven’t even left England! It’s a mystery to me therefore how Sarah’s hospital, the Number 3, is so well equipped – in fact, the model hospital in every way.
But almost the worst aspect of the hospital is the orderlies. These men are simply rank and file Tommies who’ve taken a first aid course and consider themselves to be fully fledged nurses. Their fingernails are long and filthy, a condition I draw to their attention every day, with nothing but a glare in response; their uniforms need washing, and their breath stinks of beer. They’re half asleep most of the day as they start their day at five a.m. with an inspection parade, then they engage in menial tasks such as washing the patients’ private parts (we nurses may only wash hands and faces, it being considered that soldiers will get too excited if women wash their genitals!); arranging breakfasts, washing up, cleaning the ward, scrubbing the floor, changing the bed linen, fetching meals. They hate being told what to do by us female nurses, in spite of our years of training and experience, and accuse us of having airs and graces. What a nerve!
The senior medical officer, Dr James, has invited me to dinner at the very grand Mount Nelson Hotel where the officers are billeted, poor things!! It should be great fun! I think I am falling in love with him and he with me. Well! There is one young lady I shall NOT be introducing him to for the moment …
Two
Flank March, February 1900
A giant wave of dust is breaking over the South African veldt. It floods across the broad and barren plain, surging among the stony hillocks that erupt occasionally from the flat red landscape. The herds of springbok in its path scatter neatly; one after another they rise and fall in soundless ripples: then freeze at a distance, as if posing for a photograph. The great tide sweeps on. Like surf upon faraway shingle, it rumbles: a deep, primeval roar that amazes watching Boer and beast alike. For this is no ordinary dust-storm which spins red across the veldt without warning and blinds the eyes, carpets the floors, coats the bedclothes, covers the milk and is the curse of every Boer housewife in this desolate Boer Republic: this is the dust of the British Army sweeping over Africa; this is the thunder of thousands of hooves, the beat of marching boots, the rumble of horse-drawn field guns and howitzers; the whole force of cavalry, infantry, light horse of all descriptions, horse-gunners, field-gunners, two great bullock-drawn naval five-inch cannons, followed by miles and miles of mules and wagons, ambulance carts, teams of oxen whipped by four thousand hooting kaffir drivers.
There is no gleam of arms, nor glamour of scarlet and gold, though when the tips of the six-foot-long spears of the Lancer brigades pierce through the dust cloud, their metal points and fluttering pennants suggest something of long-lost medieval romance. Over the rolling veldt heave the mighty columns, pouring over ridge after ridge, tramping through the short tufty grass or along the fine veldt roads, marching in perfect unison. As they reach the foot of a ridge of kopjes, each troop in turn gets the order ‘Sub-sections, left!’ and they wheel smartly in fours and file through a road cut into the rocks. And up there in front on his black charger is the wiry little figure with the bronzed face, the white whiskers and the straight back in whom the hope of Great Britain resides. A mourning band still encircles Bobs’ khaki-clad arm; the handle of the sword of Kandahar protrudes from his hip. Behind him rides a turbaned sepoy, his personal valet from India. And there’s the red-eyed Lord Kitchener, the Sirdar himself, also known as Lord of Chilled Steel, or King of Chaos, trotting austerely beside his chief, not even a medal on his broad chest to flash out their location, but for all the world looking as if he’s the one who’s in charge.
What makes anyone want to live here, that’s the mystery. What made those Boers trek out of the lushness of the purple-mountained Cape to set up home in this dust bowl? The two-mile front of dragoons, hussars and lancers must be the most thrilling thing that’s happened here since time began. Not that it’s particularly thrilling for the troopers who’ve eaten nothing but a biscuit and some mielie-pap in the last twenty-four hours, the Boer general, De Wet having ambushed the stores at Waterval Drift. ‘Put ’em on half rations. They’ll do it for me,’ smirks Bobs when he hears that two hundred wagons, nearly a third of the transport, were stranded with their kaffir drivers beside the Riet River, surrounded by cheering Boers. Vast supplies of biscuit and bully beef, medicine and bandages, all meant to last for weeks – all abandoned to De Wet. Now there’s so much dust in his throat Patch doubts he could swallow anything anyway. It coats his face and trickles down his neck and mingles with the sweat and vermin beneath his khaki tunic. His water bottle is empty: half water rations don’t last long when the temperature is over a hundred.
He can just see Cartwright in the same regiment further down the line. Cartwright recovered in time to rejoin for this manoeuvre – a swift recovery which Patch rather regretted as he’d been looking forward to another visit to that hospital. The pale little nurse occasionally flits through his mind, fixing him with her dark stare, but she’ll be sailing back to England soon as the war’s over, back to her toffee-nosed family, so forget her, mate.
Who’d have thought he’d end up riding a bleeding horse? And getting fond of the melancholy old girl, at that. He’d never had much time for animals before, and in his childhood had done some vile things to Dominic, the convent cat, just to show who was boss. The nuns never did find out where Dominic disappeared to, not surprising. But now he thinks of the nag Olga as a sort of friend, with her heavy-lidded eyes and gentle movements, not meant for war, not at all. When he’d volunteered he’d signed up as an infantryman, a foot-soldier, hoping he wouldn’t have to ride a horse, but Bobs wants to mount at least half of the forty thousand troopers he’s taking up north, just as Dr Simmonds had predicted. Trouble is the Boers know how to ride, they can ride their little Basuto ponies before they can walk, it’s said. As if there could ever be any comparison with these pale shrunken Tommies who tumbled off their nags the moment trotting started. Well, finally Patch had got the hang of lifting up his bum and pushing down into the stirrups, but not before he’d taken a fall or two.
Bobs is certainly changing things; changing the whole way the British Army goes to battle because, even though this is meant to be a white gentleman’s war, the enemy don’t fight like gentlemen, taking pot-shots from behind a rock or from inside their trenches, then riding home to a slap-up meal on their farms while Tommy chews his biscuit … Now it’s horses, horses, horses, coming in from all over the bleeding world: Argentina, wherever that may be, Russia, Britain, Australia, you name it. The harbour’s stuffed with boats full of nags, fillies, mules, ponies, whatever you want to call them. The whole of the South Arm is given over to army stores, armaments and forage from Argentina, which seems to have an endless supply of hay. Next, the poor nags have to get used to the thunder of firearms. They have to get shot at (blanks, of course) day after day till they can advance into volleys of rifle fire with absolute fearlessness. They have to lose their instinct to run away at the sound of explosions; to believe that whistling bullets, screaming shells and thundering cannon have no connection whatsoever with the shattered and lifeless bodies of men and horses that lie all around them. After a few weeks they know every bugle call and obey their messages every time.
But now, on this great flank march, the horses are suffering. At least Patch has a nosebag for Olga with a little grain in it, but nosebags are in short supply. Also in short supply is what goes inside them. The horses need a minimum of fifteen pounds of grain a day to keep themselves in reasonable condition, but they’re down to half that, and a little hay (in
spite of the vast stores on the South Arm). The gunhorses are falling in their traces from pure exhaustion, and so are the mules who pulled the ambulance carts, not that there are many of them after Bobs and K of Chaos decided to cut back eighty percent. The newly Mounted Infantry aren’t doing much better as the monstrous weight of saddle gear takes its toll on their horses. You can see birds of prey circling in and out of the dust overhead. Patrick feels Olga stumble again. She was never made for battle: the regimental breastplate, with its lower straps passed between her front legs, gives her a warlike air but no one’s fooled. Patch makes a sudden decision and slides off Olga’s back and walks beside her. His sacrifice seems to have made no difference. Her neck still droops. She can scarcely lift her hooves.
Patch unstraps the wallet fastened to the front arch of the saddle. Contained in the wallet is Olga’s grooming brush, some cutlery, a change of underclothes, a post for tethering horses, and as much tobacco as he has been able to squeeze in. Not fair to expect the old girl to carry all this as well as everything else. She raises her head a little.
He unstraps the rolled blanket and carries it under his arm. Her neck straightens.
Then he remembers David Copperfield. ‘Must weigh a bleeding ton, you poor old thing.’ He dives into the rucksack attached to the saddle and pulls out the two volumes wrapped in brown paper. His instinct is to throw them away into the thorn bushes, but remembers Dr Simmonds’ advice about emergencies. He hesitates; then tucks one under each arm, cursing their weight. Olga slides him a look of relief and begins to trot again. He has to jog alongside her, loaded with all that gear, but never mind, he’s less exhausted than she is. And to think the Boer on his pony carries nothing but his gun, his bandolier, and his umbrella!
Boots, boots, boots, boots
Marchin’ over Africa …
That came out of the poetry book Doctor Simmonds had given him. Funny how verses come into your head when you’re out on the veldt for days on end, with an empty belly and a dry, swelling tongue, and a ton of equipment on your back if you’re infantry. Maybe he got it right, that poet called Kipper or something like, that’s why he’s famous. And overhead that bleeding balloon is floating up in the gigantic blue sky, looking out for Boer snipers crouched behind those hills with their Mausers. You can see a man in the balloon basket peering down through field glasses. Probably there’s bottles of champagne up there, and roast chicken and smoked salmon. Oi, guv, chuck us down a bone or two!
The sun beats down so hard you wonder how these grey-skinned Tommies can stand it. Their precision marching is impressive but they’re dropping like flies now on this forced march; they haven’t the stamina to carry a rifle and a hundred and fifty rounds of ammunition, to say nothing of what was in their haversacks. Cartwright says most of them are rotten with syphilis. But when it rains it’s worse. The sky curdles with sudden black clouds, then cracks open and releases the deluge. It can thrash down for hours, with thunder exploding above your head as if the artillery’s got lost in the sky. Then it’s pitiful to see each man’s face turned towards the sky, mouth open to catch the drops of rain that fall.
Yesterday, when they rose at dawn the air seemed full of snowflakes. But these flakes had gauzy wings which, fluttering in the early morning sunlight, produced the exact effect of windblown snow. Or so Cartwright told him, Patch never having experienced that wintry phenomenon. The locusts whirred past in their millions, leaving the troops alone, but baffled. ‘Bloomin’ ‘eck, even the bleedin’ butterflies are khaki-coloured!’ cried one trooper.
Young Colonel Hannay’s in charge of Patch’s division. It’s good to see an officer you can admire. He’s out there in the front, leading the MIs and making them feel all right even though they’ve only just learnt to ride. The officers aren’t wearing their swords in case they flash in the sun and get mistaken for heliographs. Everyone’s straining their eyes for a strip of green on the horizon. The Tiger Scouts with those stupid wildcat skins on their hats are up ahead, supposed to be leading the men to the Modder River, and they’d better know where they’re going. The Modder River. Even Patch, with his shaky grasp of Dutch, knows that Modder means mud. Still, when your water bottle’s been empty for hours and your mouth’s full of dust, even mud sounds thirst-quenching.
But what if the river’s lined with Boers and their killer-rifles? Patch tries to do his trick of thinking of pussy to divert this speculation. He hasn’t seen real action yet and doesn’t know if he’s a man yet, or not. He’s got plenty of swagger, specially in his slouch hat pinned up stylishly on one side, which attracts the girls (he knows that), but right now he’d gladly turn back home, wherever that is, for a glass of cold beer and a shower and a clean shirt. Back to pussy now: that lovely wetness between Fancy’s legs he had slipped into before he left, tonguing her ear and gripping her shoulders, but what about those Mausers, they can pick off a man a mile away and the cartridges don’t have to be reloaded every time like the Lee Enfields.
Maybe a prayer would be a good idea. A prayer to the Virgin Mary. That virgin nurse. Seems like a sin to think about her fanny. Nevertheless Patch distracts himself for a few minutes by undressing the virgin nurse, who turns out to look like the statue of Mary, stripped, her eyes downcast, her hands chastely covering her bush. What about the other hair, the hair beneath her veil? What does that look like? As a child, Patch tried to see under the wimples of the Sisters of Mercy to ascertain whether hair grew in so tightly confined a space. Once Sister Theckla’s wimple had slipped a fraction and to his horror he could see only bristles beyond her forehead! His young stomach had lurched at the thought of a female shaven head.
Best move on from the Virgin. Perhaps it’d be safer to address the Son of God directly.
O sacred heart of Jesus I place my trust in thee.
Sarah’s Diary
13 February 1900
Our little villa has taken in three new nurses from Australia, all very highly organised and efficient though somewhat overbearing. Middle-aged and bespectacled, lean and energetic, they have only one object in life: to work, and work they do with a vengeance. The little graces of womanhood and the feminine pleasures and varieties are not for these women of steel. They come to Africa with nothing but a tiny tin trunk the size of a biscuit box, and a kit-bag. But for the sick and wounded they brought a whole cargo! Packing case after packing case of shirts, Nightingale scarves, linen, Vi-cocoa, dressings, and I don’t know what besides. Most estimable women.
Sameela and Rushda are worth their weight in gold! Not only do they do all our cleaning etc for us, they also cook us glorious meals very cheaply (and food is so expensive here, and meat hard to come by). But the girls seem to have private access to a ‘Halaal’ butcher because they are Mohammedans. They present us with all sorts of very spicy meals with curious combinations and rice, sometimes dyed yellow, always accompanies what they cook. In our sweet-smelling pantry there is a circular box divided into eight segments, each one filled with a different type of spice: clove, coriander, nutmeg, cinnamon (I don’t know the names of the others), which the girls grind up with a pestle and mortar, perfuming the whole house.
14 February
This is a letter dictated to me by one of my favourite patients, George Tomkins, as one of my jobs is amanuensis to those who cannot write through illiteracy or wounds or general weakness:
Dear Mary,
Just a note to let you know I am getting on famous and hope to be home soon. I was hit by a bullet in the right forearm, and the surgeon had to take it off below the elbow. They have made a famous job of it. I have no pain and I am eating heartily. It will be quite easy to strap a hand on to the stump. You must not worry about me as I am really alright. I am lying in bed smoking a cigar. Our baby is due any day now, please get someone to write as soon as she arrives (I know it will be a little woman, cute as her mother). With much love I am your devoted Husband George
This is typical of all the men – they are determined not to let their families know
the true level of their suffering. George does not mention the gangrene that has set in despite the removal of his forearm; nor the infection in his wounded leg which we fear will become gangrenous as well. He lay too long on the battlefield before being delivered to the hospital train. He is actually a very sick man, and the doctor here is worried about his chances of survival. Yet in all his pain he cracks jokes, teases and flirts, and blues the air with his swearing, though they all try not to curse in front of us.
15 February
The Australian nurses and I got the fright of our lives this morning when Rushda and Sameela turned up for work clutching blood-stained cloths to their lips. On removing the cloths they revealed the cause of the bloodshed: both have had their beautiful front teeth removed! I didn’t like to ask the reason why but Sister Talbot had no such compunction – Australians are very forthright, I am learning – and demanded to know why they had performed this ghastly act upon their gums. At this the girls became very coy, nudging each other knowingly, but refusing to offer an explanation. Once they had left the room, another rather plain nurse from ‘down under’, whose own teeth could have done with some attention, said in a severe voice ‘I believe it is done for sexual pleasure.’ I found myself blushing violently at this untrammelled language, and a sudden silence fell as we all tried to imagine what she meant by her remark.