A Rose in No-Man's Land

by Margaret Tanner

  Twenty or more of them were crammed into the wagon. The sickly smell of unclean dressings and sweaty bodies assaulted her nostrils. Several of the wounded groaned in pain as they hit a bump, the wagon swaying dangerously before lurching forward once more.

  Late in the afternoon, they pulled into what must have once been a large manor house. Gaping holes festooned the roof, and many of the windows had shattered. Surely they did not intend putting wounded in this shell of a place?

  Those who could walk did so, either alone or with the help of others, including her. The rest waited to be carried inside on stretchers. The hospital was in a cellar, the walls whitewashed, the flagged stone floors clean. Beds set close together stretched along either side of a long hallway, with a dozen or so mattresses spread out on the floor.

  “I am Doctor Heinrich.” A thin, untidy young man walked up to her. He spoke almost perfect English with just the barest of accents. “They told me to expect an English nurse.” He peered out from behind thick glasses.

  “I’m Australian.” She winced when he took the bandage off her head.

  “Just a flesh wound. Lucky for you, Fräulein. Another fraction of an inch would have proved fatal.”

  “You look after all these wounded on your own?”

  “No, with the help of orderlies, when I can get them. This is an aid station, next stop is a military hospital, if they’re lucky. You are well enough to help?” he asked eagerly. “After I dress your wound, of course, Sister.”

  “Well, I suppose so. I’m still a little weak, but…” German or British, what does it matter? They’re all wounded and need help. It’s not as if I’m a soldier.

  Ernst Kruger, the blond boy from the wagon, was seriously wounded, with a chest full of shrapnel. Franz, the middle-aged orderly assigned to her, had chubby cheeks and a shiny bald head. His command of English was poor, her German non-existent, but somehow they managed to understand each other with the aid of Dr. Heinrich and extensive use of sign language.

  The doctor himself attended her wound, a laceration where a bullet had grazed the side of her forehead. She was issued a large white apron and commenced work straight away, assisting in the evacuation of debris from Private Kruger’s chest.

  As always, there were too many wounded and not enough help, but as darkness came upon them, all the patients had been attended to.

  “Another rush like this, Sister,” the doctor scowled, “and my patients will have to lie on the bare floor. The military spend millions on killing machines, yet begrudge me a few marks to make life more bearable for our wounded.”

  “It’s awful, isn’t it?” She tidied up the supply cupboard. “That’s how things are with us, too. I served at Gallipoli.”

  “Ah, the Dardanelles.”

  “Yes. Soldiers died from lack of medical supplies and speedy evacuation, yet yachts were moored in Mudros harbor for a privileged few, with everything on board we needed so desperately.”

  “Time for some tea, I think, Sister, a habit I picked up during my time in England.”

  They drank from tin mugs in the doctor’s office. The tea was strong and hot, and she sipped it gratefully. A surly young soldier dumped a plate of congealed stew in front of her, causing Dr. Heinrich to leap out of his chair.

  She didn’t understand the angry exchange of German, but the soldier snarled one word, Gefangene, with extra venom. Cold hatred darkened his eyes. Inwardly quaking, she threw her head back and stared straight into his face until he swung around and stalked off.

  “This food isn’t fit for pigs,” the doctor growled. “I’m sorry you witnessed such an awful display, Sister.”

  “Call me Amy. Thank you for sticking up for me. Did you spend much time in England?”

  “Half my life. My parents died just before my tenth birthday, so I went to England to live with relatives. I was working in Austria when war broke out. Before I realized the ramifications, the authorities arrested me. Gave me two choices. Be interned or volunteer as an army doctor, so here I am.”

  “You must be torn between both sides.”

  “Yes, in some ways.” His shortsighted eyes were pale blue and slightly vague. His sparse blond hair stood on end because he kept dragging his fingers through it.

  “I don’t worry about the nationality of my patients; medicine has no sides, as far as I’m concerned.”

  “What did that word the soldier spat at me mean?”

  “Prisoner.”

  “Is that what I am?”

  “I suppose so. The Commandant will wish to speak with you later on. His English is poor, so I’ll translate. More tea?”

  “No, thank you. How do you say it in German?”

  “Danke.”

  “Doctor, where are we?”

  “Thiepval. Didn’t you notice the village?”

  “No.” Thiepval was supposed to be a fortress. How many thousands of men had been slaughtered trying to take it from the Germans? Her stomach plunged. If the Germans did not kill her, the English artillery would.

  “I must check on young Ernst Kruger again.” The doctor stood up.

  “Do you think he’ll recover?” She pushed her mug away.

  “Hard to say. He’s young and strong, but he’s lost a lot of blood, and I can’t be sure how bad his internal injuries are.”

  As Amy followed him back into the ward, she wondered where she would sleep. Would they lock her up? Ship her off to Germany? Shoot her?

  Ernst’s breathing sounded shallow, and a film of perspiration covered his bleached skin. “Anna, Anna.” He cried out so piteously she dropped to her knees beside his bed and picked up his hand.

  “Shh, it’s all right, Ernst. Morphine, Doctor?”

  “There’s none left.”

  “Anna.” There was a note of pleading in his voice now, as he gabbled out words she could not understand.

  “Shh.” She stroked his cheek. He had reached a crisis point. “What’s he saying?”

  “He wants Anna, must be his girlfriend, wife perhaps. Who knows? Stay with him, Sister, while I check on the others.” The doctor strode off muttering.

  If only she could give Ernst something to dull his pain so he would rest. If he got over tonight he might survive, if he did not…

  “Ernst, don’t die. I know you’re a German, but you’re only a boy. It isn’t fair.” His body started convulsing, and she held him down by lying almost on top of him.

  She started humming the hymn “Rock of Ages,” and after a few bars, his frantic struggles subsided. As she sang the words softly, he started to relax. He couldn’t understand the words but obviously knew the tune.

  After singing all the hymns she could remember, she hummed the tune “Roses of Picardy,” until her voice became scratchy. When Dr. Heinrich came back with an officer, Amy stayed where she was, lest her movement should waken Ernst, who had slipped into a peaceful sleep.

  “Sister, let me introduce Major Schwartz.”

  “Fräulein.” The major clicked his heels together and inclined his head.

  “Good evening, sir. Doctor, our patient seems to be sleeping much easier now.”

  “Yes, thanks to your singing.”

  “I should like to…to speak with you, Fräulein.” The major spoke slowly, struggling with his English.

  “Would it be all right if we waited a while? Poor Ernst has settled down now. If I move away too soon, he might wake up again.”

  The major thrust his chin out arrogantly, his ice-blue eyes narrowing to slits. “I be Commandant of this unit. Now, Fräulein.”

  Dr. Heinrich interjected, and a heated discussion broke out between the two men. “Fick dich,” the major snarled as he turned on his heel and stalked off.

  “Arschloch,” the doctor muttered.

  “Arschloch? Is that a swear word?”

  “Yes, it means ‘asshole.’”

  “Such language, Doctor,” Amy admonished with a smile. She didn’t dare ask him what fick dich meant. She already had a fair idea it was
the worst kind of swear word, having heard some of the young German soldiers using it.

  “Arrogant bloody Prussian. He’s only in charge because our colonel is away. The authority must have gone to his head. Come along. You must rest. One of the orderlies will watch over Ernst. I’ve arranged rough accommodation for you here in the cellar. It’s safer. You’d better eat your meals with me, too, so I can make sure you aren’t fed slops like before.”

  ****

  The next few weeks were the strangest Amy ever spent. She was a prisoner and yet she wasn’t, not around the hospital, anyway. The orderlies came to regard her as the doctor’s assistant, and after a preliminary inspection by a number of curious young soldiers from nearby trenches, they left her alone.

  Major Schwartz, though—she shivered thinking about him. The pebble-hard blueness of his eyes held hatred when they surveyed her. He watched her all the time, and when he walked he slithered along like a snake. The hair stood up on the back of her neck as she burrowed herself deeper into the coarse army blankets. Don’t let your imagination run riot. You’re quite safe.

  The cellar shook with the vibration of the English bombardment. Fear shredded her nerves when the sounds of falling bricks and masonry penetrated the pit-like blackness. They would all be entombed; she would never see Mark again. Never have the opportunity of telling him she now fully understood what had happened in his billet that night, when he cried out Ella’s name.

  The mind can act strangely under extreme trauma, as Dr. Heinrich, who had studied psychiatry, explained on more than one occasion. That’s what must have happened to Mark after Pozieres.

  You wanted to make him the scapegoat, Amy Smithfield. The cruel honesty pared her soul wide open. Sharing Mark’s bed without marriage went against everything she had ever been taught. She wanted his passion, had eagerly seized the chance of being in his arms in Paris—had instigated it, in fact.

  She dared not admit it until now, but she wanted to be with him again for as long as they had. They would never escape from the nightmare of the Somme. After one battle, another always followed. Thousands lay dead, and their luck would not hold out indefinitely. It was not a matter of if a bullet had Mark’s name on it but when.

  “Fräulein, Fräulein.” The words sounded distorted, probably because her ears still rang from the artillery fire. She felt her way to the door of her room and unbolted it.

  “Dr. Heinrich, what’s wrong?” It was too dark to see, but instinctively she knew when the male form shoved its way past that it was not the doctor.

  “Fräulein, I come see you.” Major Schwartz’s words were slurred, and his breath flayed her face with whisky.

  “Get out,” she ordered, backing away, “or I’ll scream.” She fought to avoid his groping hands.

  “No one hear you, schlampe.” He gave her a vicious shove that knocked her to the floor, and his body pile-drived into hers.

  “Slut, English whore.”

  His punch almost decapitated her and left her ears ringing with shock. I mustn’t faint! God, I must keep fighting. She bucked and writhed beneath his weight, while he tore at her clothes. Fortunately, the cloth of the German uniform in which she slept and worked hindered his invasion. Suddenly her body was free of his weight.

  “Undress, schlampe,” he snarled as she scrambled to her feet.

  “I’d rather die than be violated by a pig like you.”

  She heard the click as he flicked open the flap on the pistol holster he always wore on his hip.

  “Now, schlampe.” The cold threat in his voice frightened her more than his vitriolic snarl. “I be generous to them who please me, but not them who don’t.”

  She felt rather than saw him take aim with his pistol. Her life was going to end at the hands of a deranged monster.

  Fear drenched her body with sweat as she forced her brain to function. She had to do something. Otherwise she was doomed to die here in a German held cellar.

  “Undress.”

  “Only if you let me undress you first, Major. Come closer. I can’t reach you from there.” She injected huskiness into her voice, hoping it sounded seductive.

  “Ah.” He snickered. “You play, Fräulein, a game with me.”

  “Yes, a game.”

  With shaking fingers Amy fumbled with his jacket buttons. How drunk he must be to think she would welcome his filthy advances. “Your trousers next, Major.” She lowered her voice to a breathy whisper.

  He gave a low guttural laugh. As she slipped his braces down, he swayed slightly, and she felt the hard bulge between his thighs. Her flesh crawled with the vileness of the situation, but the will to survive proved strong. She would try anything to escape.

  He stood motionless. The stench of his sweating anticipation fouled her nostrils as she slowly slipped his trousers down until they dangled around his ankles. Her sudden shove caught him off balance and sent him sprawling. She leapt for the door.

  With his curses rumbling in her ears, she dived into the passageway and started running toward the stairs. God, if she couldn’t lift the outside trapdoor, she was a dead woman. Desperation gave her the strength of a man, and when the opening slid back, a cold gust of air clutched at her throat.

  If she blundered around in the darkness, she would be caught, for sure. The terror of what capture would mean allowed her brain to function with a cunning coolness. She lay down behind a pile of rubble, pulling some uprooted bushes on top of her for further camouflage. With several hours of darkness still left, if she could avoid detection for a while, she had a slim chance of escape.

  Bellows of rage from Major Schwartz, followed by barked-out orders, confirmed the search had started. She clenched her teeth to stop them chattering and tried to still her trembling body. You don’t want to die. You want to live so you can be with Mark again. Love fought with fear—love won.

  She lay motionless, even when a booted foot stomped on her hand. Scarcely daring to breathe, she waited. Time passed, how long she did not know, but when a tremendous artillery barrage started up again, Amy knew the British prepared for yet another assault on Thiepval. It had to be now or never.

  Getting to her knees, she crawled on all fours in what she hoped was the direction of the British lines, too frightened to cry out. If she stood up, she would almost certainly be mown down.

  What if the infantry attack started and caught her out in no-man’s land? In a German uniform, she risked being shot even if she managed to make contact with some unit.

  I’m doing this for you, Mark. I wouldn’t be brave enough to do it otherwise. After what seemed like hours, with shells dropping all around, she came to barbed wire. God, don’t let me die out here like a dog, not after I’ve come so far. She clawed at the ground with her fingers, gouging and scraping the oozing mud away in an endeavor to tunnel underneath.

  The unseasonable downpours of the last few days had turned the Somme battlefield into a sea of mud. Finally she burrowed her way under the wire entanglements.

  What a sight she must present, scratched, muddy, unwashed, filthy hair probably full of lice. You fool. Why worry about how you look? Survival is all that matters. Getting out of this hell. Concentrate on this, nothing else. You want to live, don’t you? Fight to live, Smithfield.

  “Oh, Mark, please help me.”

  Terror filled her heart as a machine gun opened up from the German lines, instantly followed by a barrage from the British. Still on her knees, she crawled over bodies. Some felt stiff and hard, others saturated with the warm stickiness of fresh blood.

  “Stretcher bearers, for God’s sake, help me.”

  Above the noise of battle Amy heard a plea almost at her elbow. Someone was still alive out here in this ravaged no-man’s land. She hesitated only for a moment. You’re a nurse, aren’t you? Do something.

  “Where are you?” Her voice sounded so scratchy she hardly recognized it.

  “Here.”

  She slithered toward the sound. “Where?”

  “Over
here.”

  The ground opened up beneath her and she felt herself falling. She hit something soft and heard a scream of agony.

  “Sorry, I’ve fallen on you,” she apologized.

  The moon slid out from behind some clouds. Its translucent beam momentarily allowed her to see a pile of bodies, and a soldier slumped up against the trench wall.

  “Fritz.” He raised his rifle, but the moonbeams shifted, fortunately, plunging the trench into darkness once more.

  “No, I’m an escaped prisoner.”

  “You sound like a lassie.”

  “I’m an army nurse.”

  “You must be one of those Australian nurses who disappeared. Been talking about you up and down the trenches for weeks.”

  “I’m Amy Smithfield. How badly hurt are you?”

  “My legs have been shot about, and my shoulder is all smashed up so I can’t drag myself back. I’ve been here since yesterday morning. Sergeant Alistair McLeod, at your service.”

  “You’re Scottish?”

  “How could you tell?”

  “Your accent, of course.”

  “We must be daft, lassie, chatting out here like this.”

  “Yes, quite mad,” she agreed. “If I help, do you think you could stand up?”

  “I’ll never be able to climb out of this shell hole, but we’re only a hundred yards from our trenches. You could get someone to come out and get me.”

  “What about the others?”

  “All dead. I checked them in the daylight. A mortar landed on us. Lucky it’s dark and you can’t see properly; it isn’t a pretty sight. I’ve been in the army for twenty years. Never seen anything this bad, though. You better make a run for it, Sister. Once it gets light, you’ll have no hope.”

  “I can’t just leave you out here, Sarge.” She knew as well as he did the unlikelihood of stretcher bearers being able to bring him in, even if she did tell them where to find him. “I can help you.”

  “No, save yourself.”

  “We can both make it,” Amy insisted. When a lull in the firing came, she knew this might be their only chance of escape. “Try to stand up.”