The Woman at the Front

by Lecia Cornwall

  Edward was looking at Matron Connolly as if she were the most enchanting woman in the world, but his practiced charm didn’t raise so much as a half smile from the dragon.

  “He means me, Matron,” Louis said. He looked at Edward. “It’s still plain Lieutenant Chastaine here.”

  Fanny gasped. “Budgie! You don’t use your title?”

  He frowned. “Cyril’s title, rather. I didn’t want it when my brother was alive, and now . . . Well, it means a lot of unwanted attention and expectations.”

  “But, Louis—” Lady Frances began, but Matron Connolly cleared her throat and fixed Edward with a commanding glare.

  “Lieutenant Atherton. Are you a relative of Miss Atherton’s?”

  “Brother,” Edward said, looking sheepish.

  “They’re twins,” Louis said brightly.

  “Though they’re obviously nothing alike,” Lady Frances added tartly.

  Nothing at all, Eleanor thought.

  Matron Connolly kept her eyes on Edward. “Lieutenant, I must insist that you curtail this . . . this visitation. These are wounded men, and they need quiet. You may return tomorrow between ten and eleven o’clock, one at a time.” She glared down the length of the ward, where two other elegant young women and another man in uniform stood peeking through the curtain, waggling their fingers and blowing kisses at Louis. He waggled back.

  “Oh, we’re not staying,” Lady Frances said. “Not here. It’s too ghastly, and Uncle Douglas fears we’re too close to the front. We’re going on to Paris.”

  “Paris?” Louis’s smile faded wistfully.

  “Yes. Do come with us, darling Budgie,” Lady Frances said. “I have a motorcar outside.”

  “He’s not able to travel. He’s still recovering,” Eleanor interrupted. Lady Fanny rolled her eyes and sighed. She didn’t bother to look at Eleanor.

  “Then when can you come?” Fanny demanded.

  Louis smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Soon, darling girl, soon. Just as soon as Eleanor says I might go.”

  Fanny looked at her now, haughty annoyance simmering in her eyes. “Really?” she drawled. “My, but your mater really does have you on a short string.”

  Eleanor saw the muscle in Louis’s jaw tense.

  “Perhaps we should take our leave for now,” Edward said, eyeing the matron.

  Louis looked at Eleanor. “Are those your orders, Doctor? Must they leave?”

  Eleanor felt everyone’s eyes on her—Edward’s, Lady Frances’s, Louis’s, and Matron Connolly’s. “I think it would be prudent if you got some rest, and perhaps later—”

  But another horn sounded outside, this one harsh and tinny, followed by the squeal of brakes and the rough rumble of a motor. No, it was more than one vehicle. Eleanor heard voices calling for assistance and cries of pain. There were running footsteps on the duckboards outside. Every patient in the ward, every nurse and VAD, turned toward the door, wide-eyed and expectant. Eleanor felt a prickle run through her.

  “What’s happening?” Lady Frances asked. “What’s that noise?”

  Matron Connolly barely glanced at her as she hurried past. “Ambulances. There’s wounded coming in.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Eleanor’s mouth dried. Wounded coming in. An attack, then?

  The attack?

  The staff rushed out, following the matron, and the patients fell into solemn silence. Even Louis was frowning. Everyone left on the ward was still listening to the sounds outside: the rumble of motors, the squeal of brakes, the shouted orders and calls for help, the cries of wounded men. The hair on the back of Eleanor’s neck rose.

  Lady Frances broke the spell. “Do go find out what’s happening, Eddie,” she ordered, wrapping her satin-clad arms around her body, her eyes wide.

  Eleanor followed her brother out of the tent. David Blair ran past without a glance, nearly running straight into her. Edward pulled her back just in time. “Steady on, mate! Have a care where the bloody ’ell you’re going,” he yelled in his old Yorkshire drawl, but David Blair ignored him and ran on and disappeared around the end of the tent.

  “You’re blocking the walkway, Miss Atherton,” Colonel Bellford said, coming along the duckboards from his office, pulling on a white surgical gown as he went. “Go and wait in the guest quarters. Do not, and I repeat, do not, get in the way!” He sent Edward a sharp look, and Edward snapped to attention and saluted, but by then the colonel was gone.

  “Martinet,” Edward muttered, still holding her elbow. “We’d best go back inside out of the way.” But Eleanor pulled free and followed David Blair and the colonel. “El, wait—”

  She didn’t stop. She picked up her skirts and followed a nursing sister moving at a dead run along the boards, carrying pails of bandages and supplies, her white veil flapping behind her.

  Eleanor rounded the end of the tent and stopped. Her heart climbed into her throat. The road and all the space in front of the triage tent were filled with ambulances and walking wounded as far as she could see. The noise was even louder here. Screams and horns and shouted orders filled the air. She could smell blood and smoke and vomit—and gas. She remembered the terrible smell from Calais, when the hospital train had opened its doors. It had been nothing like this, nothing as bad.

  Ambulances were pulling in around Lady Frances’s huge touring car like farm geese surrounding a swan. The drivers jumped down and cursed the fancy vehicle for being in their way. One man kicked at the front tire as he passed it.

  “Watch what you’re doing! That’s Lieutenant Colonel Lord Petrie’s motor!” Edward called, but everyone was too busy to take any notice. Her brother might as well have been invisible.

  Orderlies and bearers streamed past them, swung open the doors of the ambulances, and began unloading the wounded. They, too, had to take a detour around the car, through the muddy ditch.

  Eleanor caught her brother’s sleeve. “Move the car,” she said through stiff lips, but Edward was staring around him in horror. Eleanor shook him. “Edward, move the bloody car!” she shouted, and he snapped his eyes back to her, pale and helpless. He looked as if he might be sick. He swallowed hard and shook his head.

  “I can’t. There’s too much traffic. It might get scratched.” He grabbed her arm. “Come back inside.” He dragged her away, back to the officers’ ward, and pulled her inside, and she allowed it, too numb to resist. The patients turned to look at her. “What’s happening, miss? How many?” one of them asked Eleanor.

  “I don’t know. A lot . . .”

  Someone had drawn the curtain around Louis’s bed, but she could hear laughter. There was a loud bang, and Lady Frances screamed. One of the wounded officers flinched and cried out, clapping his hands over his ears.

  Eleanor feared the worst—Louis had fallen out of bed or broken the splint and was lying on the floor in terrible pain. She shoved back the curtain.

  Lady Frances was pouring champagne. A picnic hamper lay open on Louis’s bed, disgorging a lavish feast across the fur coat. Louis’s other visitors were here as well, two young ladies, and another man in uniform—a clean, crisp, expensively tailored uniform that had never seen battle.

  Not like the scene outside. She wondered if they were all mad.

  One of the women yelped at the sight of Eleanor. “Is that the dragon?” she asked Frances.

  Lady Frances looked at her. “She’s Eddie’s sister. Come and have some champagne. There’s plenty to go round,” Lady Frances said, holding out a glass to her. Eleanor recoiled, but Edward pushed past her and took the glass. The other officer opened a second bottle and the cork popped with a sharp report, and another patient cried out in alarm, writhing in his bed, trembling.

  “Stop it! The corks—they sound like gunshots. It’s frightening the patients. You can’t open them here!” Eleanor cried.

  “Don’t
be silly—it’s a 1911 Bollinger, and a 1911 never frightened anyone,” the officer quipped. He grinned at his friends. “Quite the opposite, in fact.”

  Eleanor met Louis’s eyes, pleading silently, but he stared at her as someone filled the glass in his hand, his eyes heavy lidded. He knew better . . . She held his gaze until he flushed under her glare. “Fanny—” he began. “Perhaps we’d best not—”

  “Look, we can share with all of them if you’d like,” Fanny snapped, following his gaze to Eleanor. “There’s enough.”

  “It’s not that,” Eleanor said. “It’s shell shock.”

  “No such thing,” the dapper young officer said. “Cowardice, you mean. Drink up, all—here’s a toast to good old Budgie. Long may he fly!”

  She turned to her brother. “Edward, do something!”

  “What would you have me do, El?” he asked, looking annoyed. “What can I do? We’re all tired of this bloody war. Live a little for a change, and stop being such a stick.”

  She stared at him, at the bland insouciance in his eyes, the careless aristocratic stance he’d learned and now used to perfection. He regarded her as if she were a stranger—an embarrassing stranger trying to make a connection where there wasn’t one, to presume upon an old and half-forgotten acquaintance.

  She turned away and began to gather the bottles that hadn’t been opened to carry them away, get rid of them, and she heard laughter and whispers.

  But Edward stepped in front of her, snatching one of the bottles out of her hands. “Stop it. You’re embarrassing yourself. It’s just a bit of fun. Why do you have to take everything so damned seriously?”

  She stared at her brother in his crisp, perfect uniform. Even his nails were manicured.

  “There’s a war on,” she snapped, making her tone as aristocratic as his. “Do you not know that? There’s. A. War. On.”

  “Miss?” one of the patients called. “Captain Graham is in a bad way.”

  She looked at the patient across from Louis. The man was curled into a ball, shaking, muttering, crying out.

  “Coming,” Eleanor said.

  Edward made a sound of frustration, or annoyance, perhaps, and went back to his friends.

  Eleanor crossed the ward to the shattered captain and gripped his hand, holding it tight.

  Across the room, the gay celebration continued on without her, or despite her. She caught Louis’s eye, and for a moment he looked back at her, and she read regret and helplessness in his eyes. Then he turned away.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  David Blair felt the familiar horror rise in his belly—familiar even though he never got used to it. The wounded pouring in, the blood and pain and stink made him feel helpless and small in the face of an impossible task. He wanted to freeze, to hide, to run. Instead, he forced himself to reach for the nearest patient, to make a start. Once he did, the horror would pass, and he wouldn’t feel anything but the need to work, to do whatever he could to fix this, even knowing the whole fucking mess was utterly unfixable.

  A dawn attack had cut three battalions to ribbons, like so many pounds of stew beef and offal, and it was up to him to pay the butcher’s bill, to stitch the pieces back together, reassemble them, make them human again.

  And these poor buggers were the lucky ones.

  The walking wounded streamed along the road toward him like ghosts, their eyes hollow, carrying or leading staggering comrades. He listened to the bellowed calls for help, to the grind and growl of an endless parade of ambulances coming up the road, trying vainly to go gingerly over ruts and potholes for the sake of the poor buggers in the back.

  Triage gave him a place to start—take the worst ones first and get them to surgery or send them to be resuscitated. The nurses would handle the rest. They were short staffed. They needed ten more doctors to deal with this—or twenty. But there was only Bellford and himself . . . Clean them up, warm them, bandage them, put them to bed, send the hopeless cases to the moribund tent to await the end . . . Make space for the next ambulance and the next lot of wounded . . . Continue. Don’t stop, or give up, or take too much time. Move on, and on, and on.

  The fact that the ambulances left again as soon as they finished unloading meant more casualties were awaiting transport at aid posts and field ambulances. Was this the big push that had been a rumor for weeks? Everyone was whispering that question now. No one knew. They’d had no warning—or not enough. David wondered if there was enough of everything—ether, bandages, antiseptic, morphine, beds. And time. Just himself and Bellford in theater, and the colonel was already scrubbing for surgery.

  Urgent cases first.

  Nurses and orderlies were bending over the wounded, reading the tags attached to each man’s tunic, taking note of the treatment and diagnosis given by the medical officers at the frontline aid posts.

  Chaplain Strong was directing traffic, doing his best to help, but they were already overwhelmed. Stretchers were lined up along the edge of the road in a double row outside the reception tent. There were forty or more already, and twice that many walking. David felt his belly curl against his spine.

  The first three—one gut shot, moribund. The second was shot through the jaw, but still breathing, still conscious. His eyes pleaded with David to save him, to let him live. As if it were up to him. He nodded, a silent promise to try his best. The third man was in shock, his arm shattered below the elbow. He gave orders and moved on.

  The orderlies were bringing the worst cases straight to him, piling them around him, hemming him in, waiting for his decision, life or death.

  How many times had he done this, waded through blood and mud and broken bodies? It should be routine by now. He should be able to turn off his emotions and just get on with it, but it never got easier. A slippery hand gripped his wrist, three fingers missing. “Help, please,” the lad croaked. “Help me.” David looked down, saw the boy’s shattered legs.

  “Surgery,” David ordered, pulling away, moving on as they carried the lad away.

  He could see at least five more surgical cases from where he stood. Bellford was likely already elbow-deep in some dreadful belly wound, with other critical patients waiting on the tables and outside for him to finish. David should be in there, too, but someone had to manage this chaos, funnel patients into the system in an orderly, professional manner.

  He noted that some of the patients were missing tags, which meant they’d come straight off the field and their injuries hadn’t even received basic treatment. It meant the aid post was overwhelmed, or worse, that the medical officer had been wounded or killed.

  Someone caught his arm, and he looked into the fierce eyes of Fraser MacLeod. The big stretcher bearer was muddy, his uniform stained with the blood of other men, his face lined with worry. “Captain Duncan took a piece of shrapnel in the belly. Can ye come?”

  David shut his eyes for a moment. There it was—he’d been right. A medical officer had been hit, and it would have to be Duncan, one of the best.

  “I left Corporal Chilcott at the aid post, but beyond a dose of morphine and a bandage, there’s not going to be much he can do for anyone. I ordered him to send everyone straight here.”

  “What about 38/CCS?” David asked.

  “Full. They’re directing wounded here. And you’re closer.”

  “I need a doctor!” Matron Connolly yelled over a row of stretchers, her white apron covered with blood, with more pumping from her patient’s thigh.

  “Pressure,” David said to her.

  “This one’s urgent!” Reverend Strong called to him.

  “Captain Blair!” an orderly bellowed at him.

  He looked at Fraser. “Can you help with triage?”

  Fraser looked around him. “I can help, but I’m not a doctor. Ye need—”

  “I need assistance!” someone else screamed.

  “There is no one e
lse. You’ll have to do your best,” David snapped and turned back to Fraser.

  The stretcher bearer looked around, his granite features bleak. “Aye,” was all he said, and David moved on to the next patient.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Edward, please stop!” Eleanor pleaded again, looking from her tipsy brother to Louis. “Louis, you can’t have a party here, not while there are men out there, wounded and even—”

  One of the young ladies looked at Eleanor and screamed. Well, not at Eleanor, but at something behind her. The woman’s eyes rolled back and she swooned. Edward leaped to catch her.

  “Maud! Eleanor, fetch some smelling salts!” Edward ordered.

  Eleanor stared at the society beauty. She’d seen Lady Maud’s picture in Country Living, part of the smart set, wealthy, titled, and pretty. Now her mouth hung open, her lipstick was smeared, and her fashionable hat was tipped askew. Edward lifted her in his arms and held her out to Eleanor like a sacrifice. “Help her, Eleanor.” Now he appreciated that she was a doctor. But no, that was unkind. He looked honestly distressed.

  “Dr. Atherton!”

  She spun at the harsh voice and found herself staring up at Sergeant MacLeod, big, dirty, and bloody. He was frowning, and Eleanor instinctively took a step back. He caught her elbow, held her still, loomed over her.

  “Ye need to come with me. We need another doctor.”

  Behind her, Lady Frances gasped, perhaps at his rudeness, perhaps at his disheveled condition, or maybe at the way he addressed Eleanor without so much as removing his cap.

  The sergeant glanced over Eleanor’s head and took in the silk-clad ladies, the fur coat, the champagne and caviar, the dandy young officers, and the limp woman in Edward’s arms. He flicked his eyes back to Eleanor. “We need another doctor,” he said again.

  “Well, we bloody well need a doctor here, too—Lady Maud has fainted,” Edward said in the arrogant tones of a superior officer.