The envious eyes of his now ex-wardmates were on him. He smiled, almost apologetically, glanced up at the portrait of King George, saluted and left.
With his haversack slung over his shoulder, Guy made his way down the long echoey corridor with the huge windows overlooking the tents and marquees set out neatly on the lawn. The pain in his leg grew more acute. His crutches felt awkward to move. Staff ran in all directions in the hurried pursuits of urgent duties; a stretcher passed - its occupant’s face totally hidden beneath blood-soaked bandages, groaning as the stretcher-bearers hurried down the corridor. He saw a young Frenchwoman dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief; a doctor leaning against the wall, looking skywards, drunk with fatigue; a soldier in a wheelchair embarrassed by the damp circle between his legs. Wounded soldiers idled this way and that; a priest overtook Guy and almost bumped into a kitchen orderly carrying a bucket of vegetable peelings. No one noticed or acknowledged Guy as he made his way to the desk in the grand hallway. By the time he reached it, he was quite out of breath, the pain in his leg causing him to grip the desk until his fingertips turned white.
‘You alright there?’ said the man behind the desk.
‘Yeah. Just a minute,’ stuttered Guy as he waited for the pain to wash over him.
‘Do you want to sit down?’
Slowly the pain receded, leaving Guy panting in relief. ‘I’m... I’m OK now. Thanks.’
The man signed Guy’s name off his register and handed him his medical papers.
Outside, it was cold and blustery. Guy shivered. It was fast approaching two o’clock. He saw his transport – a horse-drawn carriage with room for six passengers, Browne and Lampton had taken their places, Browne talking excitedly. The driver stood next to the horse, stroking its neck. Guy hobbled across the gravelled courtyard towards the carriage.
‘Private Searight.’
Guy recognised the voice. On turning he was surprised to see coming quickly towards him Sergeant Wilkins, his arm in a sling.
‘Private Searight,’ he repeated, slightly out of breath, ‘I see I’ve caught you in the nick of time.’
‘Sarge.’
‘They told me inside you was just leaving.’ Having found Guy he looked like a man who wished he hadn’t.
‘Yes, I’m being sent home via a hospital on the coast.’
‘That’s, erm, that’s good,’ he said nodding his head furiously. ‘Yes, that’s good.’
‘How’s your arm?’
‘This? Oh, it’s nothing. I’ll be back up the line soon.’
The two men stood facing, unable to look at each other. Wilkins spoke. ‘Look, the reason... I mean, what I wanted to say...’
‘Sarge?’
Wilkins looked at the carriage, with the driver climbing aboard, reins in hand. ‘I just wanted to say... to offer...’ Then, finally, he looked Guy straight in the eye, ‘To offer my condolences on the death of your brother,’ he said quickly.
Guy opened his mouth to speak and found himself unable to form any words.
‘Your brother, he was a good lad.’ His hand shot out and it took a moment for Guy to realise that the sergeant was offering his hand.
He focussed on the fingers, stubbly and rounded, a gold band on one.
‘A good lad,’ repeated the sergeant.
‘Yes, thank you, Sarge,’ said Guy taking the proffered hand limply and having his hand shaken.
The driver coughed.
‘I’d...’
‘Yes, you’d better go.’
Guy climbed aboard, let his bag drop to the floor of the carriage and acknowledged his fellow passengers. As the horses lurched forward, Guy looked back and watched the sergeant walking back towards the hospital. The carriage juddered through the large, black iron gates and around the corner. The sergeant was no longer in view. Guy’s attention and that of his colleagues was taken by the passing of an ambulance travelling at speed towards the hospital. Its driver wore a look of grim determination as he took the latest batch of wounded to the hospital that used to be, before the war, a boarding school for boys.
Chapter 26: A Cabinet of Curiosities – 14 November 1917
The hospital train, eight carriages long, had emblazoned on it a series of red crosses but, Guy noticed, it carried the scars of having been hit – broken windows patched up by tape, woodwork splintered. One of the carriages, he learnt, had been requisitioned as an operating theatre. The platform was a mass of activity; men laid out on stretchers, many, like Guy, on crutches, others propping each other up, men asleep standing upright, men with bandages over their eyes and around their heads, so many gaunt, expressionless faces, a continual hum of groans. There must have been over three hundred men and nurses milling about, crowded onto the narrow platform, paying no heed to the fine drizzle of rain. Most were still in their filthy uniforms, having been brought directly to the station from the battlefield, sidestepping the casualty clearing stations; others, the more fortunate like Guy, had been given fresh uniforms. Nurses and orderlies buzzed round, making sure their charges were OK.
Now, with the evening drawing in, they waited to board. ‘Doubt we’ll get first class,’ said Lampton.
‘No, we’re not wounded enough.’ He pointed towards the rear of the train. ‘We’ll be in with the horses.’ On the side of the rear carriages were notices painted large with the words Hommes 40, chevaux 8.
‘What does that mean?’ asked Lampton. ‘Men and horses?’
‘Yes. Question is does it mean forty men or eight horses, or forty men and eight horses.’
‘We’ll find out soon enough. It’ll probably stink’
‘Yes, poor horses.’
‘Get on board, get on board,’ came the shout from a sister who had the air of one in charge. The nurses and orderlies helped the men on board, the stretcher cases were lifted and manhandled in among the grunts and yelps of pain.
‘Come on,’ said Guy to Lampton, ‘we don’t need help, let’s get on.’
The carriage door had been slid open, and along with a host of men, Guy and Lampton hauled themselves up the steps and in. The place did indeed stink and the carriage consisted of wooden benches, each piled with blankets. Guy sat at the end of one bench and pushed his haversack beneath him and rested a blanket on his knees. ‘Very nice,’ he said, ‘could be a lot worse.’
It took almost an hour for every man to be hoisted on board and made comfortable. With the doors closed, the fifty or so men in the horse carriage were left without light save for whatever daylight pierced the cracks in the wooden sides. Most of them were amputees, but every one of them had at least the one leg. Those without were made more comfortable in the better carriages nearer the front. Eventually, the train pulled out.
The train seemed to move at an excruciatingly slow pace, stopping frequently. Within a couple of hours it was dark, and the men lit a number of hurricane lamps. It was cold and without heating, the men huddled in their blankets. At the centre of attention was an Indian soldier, a man with a long wispy beard, wearing a turban, missing his left arm. His name, when asked, was Kiran Singh.
‘Can-he-sing? Strange name,’ said Browne.
Kiran giggled. ‘No, listen,’ he said, articulating the syllables, ‘Ki-ran Singh; it means ray of sunshine.’
‘Ray of sunshine? In this place?’
‘So where’s the sun, then, Ray?’
‘Where I come from, there is much sun.’
‘And where’s that?’
‘A small village in India.’
‘My God,’ said one, ‘you’ve come a long way to fight for king and country.’
‘Yes, a long way. But I am happy.’
‘Hah? Happy? Then you must be a ray of sunshine,’ said Browne.
‘And what is your name?’
‘Stephen Browne. Browne with an ‘e’.’
‘And what is the matter with you, then?’
‘Leg wound.’
With a whoosh, the huge side door slid open and there appeared a nurse, a large
bag on her back.
‘How did you get in? The carriages aren’t joined,’ asked one of the men.
The woman laughed. ‘There’s a footboard, isn’t there?’ she said with a thick Welsh accent.
‘Nonetheless.’
‘Don’t you go worrying about me, soldier, this train is so slow I could walk to Le Havre faster than this old thing.’
‘How fast is it going anyway?’ asked Browne.
‘No more than twelve miles per hour. It’s regulation.’ She swung the bag onto the floor. ‘Well, boys, I come with goodies – cake and smokes. Proper dinner will come later. Wait, wait, your turn will come.’
‘Where’s the toilet, nurse?’
‘Surely you mean the lavatory, Private. Half way down. You’ll have to wait until the next stop.’
As the men dozed off on their hard benches, wrapped in blankets, Guy thought of Mary. He wondered whether he might find her in Le Havre. The town, by all accounts, had a couple of large base hospitals brimming with VADs and it was to one of these hospitals that they were scheduled to go.
*
The following morning, having slept as well as they could on their wooden benches, the men grumbled as the train made yet another stop, this time held up at a junction. But their irritation soon vanished when the side doors opened, letting in a blast of cold but welcome fresh air and a shaft of wintery sunlight, and, queuing up outside, a number of French women, mostly old and all dressed head to toe in black, bearing baskets covered with tea towels. ‘Mesdames,’ cried Lampton, ‘Qu'avons-nous ici? What have we here?’
‘Bonjour, Messieurs, bonjour. Comment allez-vous?’ they said as they reached into the baskets and started handing out hunks of bread, bits of fruit and cigarettes. ‘Des petits cadeaux pour nos Anglais courageux.’
The men fell over themselves in their thanks. Guy took an apple and thanked the grizzled old women profusely. The old women were particularly taken by Ray, as Kiran Singh had now been christened, intrigued by his turban. Ray, aware of his novelty value status, bowed several times and smiled. Shouts came from the front of the train that they were ready to depart. The men crowded near the open door and waved at the gaggle of old women as the train slowly pulled away. They returned to their benches with their little snacks and ate in silence. The gifts may have been modest but the men, as one, were touched at their generosity, the simple show of support.
*
Finally, after two exhausting days, the train pulled into the station at Le Havre. Transports of varying sorts were waiting to take them to their new home, a hospital. Most were placed in ambulances but Lampton, Browne, Ray and Guy took their seats in one of many horse and carts, theirs driven by a Frenchman smoking a ridiculously large pipe. As it made its way through the narrow streets flanked by high buildings, French children ran alongside, enjoying the sun, shouting and saluting. The men saluted back. The town was a heaving mass of soldiers, outnumbering by far the locals; ambulances whizzed by, columns of men heading in every direction.
After a ten-minute bumpy ride along the cobbled stones of centre ville, the driver took a road where, after a further twenty minutes, he turned and drove through an ornate gate and onto a gravel drive of a grand-looking building. Lampton whistled. The Hotel Saint Jacques, as the sign informed them, was a huge, palatial hotel, a stone staircase leading up to the reception, three floors, huge windows, those on the first floor with balconies, on its roof the tricolour of the French flag. The driver, his pipe puffing blue smoke, weaved his horse through a number of similar vehicles, announcing ‘Voici,’ as he pulled his horse to a stop.
A sister with small spectacles greeted them, ‘Welcome to Hotel Saint Jacques,’ she said shielding her eyes from the sun. ‘If you would like to follow me...’ The four men did as instructed, and with their bags and holdalls, followed the sister. Browne touched Guy’s arm and gestured with a nod of his head to a shed at the side of the courtyard. Its doors were open and just inside Guy could make out a pile of wooden crosses. The two men raised their eyebrows at each other.
The sister led the men into reception with its two-tone marbled floor. The whole area was covered with men laid out on stretchers with nurses moving between them, stepping over them, trying to answer their calls. Many were having their uniforms taken off, usually by a nurse wielding a large pair of scissors to slice through the heavy fabric. Behind the reception desk, two further nurses.
‘Your names please,’ said one, trying to raise her voice above the din.
With the formalities done, an orderly led them to the lift. As they waited, Guy caught sight of the men on stretchers with their gaunt expressions and bloodied bandages.
Once inside the lift, the orderly spoke. ‘You OK, chaps?’ he asked of no one in particular. ‘You’ll be glad to know that you’re on the top floor, away from all the chaos.’
‘Is it always like this?’ asked Guy.
‘Oh yes, it never lets up, I can tell you. But you lot are considered fit, I mean what’s a leg or an arm between friends? Don’t get too comfortable here, though, you’ll all be off tomorrow, back home. There’s a thought for you all, eh?’
‘Tomorrow?’ said Browne. ‘Music to my ears.’
‘Yep, thought you’d be pleased to hear that. Your beds are too valuable. No one stays on the top floor more than one night.’
Coming out of the caged lift, the orderly led them to their room. ‘Wow, this is something,’ muttered Lampton as they made their way down the carpeted corridor with its chandelier lights.
‘Here we are, gentlemen,’ said the orderly, opening the door. ‘Make yourselves comfortable. Dinner is at eight downstairs in the restaurant. Don’t expect anything fancy, mind you, it may have once been a hotel, but it’s the usual army fare, I’m afraid.’
‘That’s fine by us,’ said Guy.
‘Cheerio then,’ said the orderly.
The room was small; Guy guessed before the war this was the sort of bedroom used by staff or perhaps servants of the wealthy guests. But as small as it may have been, it boasted a huge window, with heavy draped curtains.
Lampton placed a piece of metal on his bedside table.
‘What’s that?’ asked Guy. ‘Shrapnel?’
‘Sure is, and not any old piece of shrapnel but the very bit that shattered my leg.’
Guy fumbled in his holdall, finally finding his bullet. Holding it up triumphantly, he said, ‘Swap!’
‘Hey, we could make a collection.’
‘Yes, our very own cabinet of curiosities.’
Ray pulled open the curtains. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘what a beautiful view.’
Guy and Lampton joined him at the window and looked – they were at the back of the hotel and ahead of them a long stretch of lawn, overgrown perhaps, but still a wonder to see the fresh, unspoilt grass, and a small copse of trees to the right. In front of the trees was a small cemetery, a series of wooden crosses haphazardly placed. Beyond the lawn, the sea – nothing but the sea and, to the left, the wave of cliffs.
‘Listen,’ said Ray.
The men listened and it took Guy a few moments to realise what he was listening out for. It was the sound of the sea, the waves, the seagulls, the silence. His leg gave way, momentarily, as he realised he’d never heard such peace.
Lampton, wide-eyed, said softly, ‘Isn’t it the most beautiful thing you’ve ever heard?’
Guy, unable to speak, nodded. The sea: how alluring it seemed, glistening beneath the blue sky, reflecting the sun. He looked at his new-found friends and noticed that Ray had tears in his eyes.
*
Guy was dreaming of the German, of the bayonet, the screams. ‘I’m sorry,’ he heard himself say, ‘I’m sorry, forgive me, please.’ ‘Guy, Guy.’ The German boy’s hands, slender and surprisingly clean, are on the bayonet, helping Guy extricate it from his cheek. ‘Guy, it’s me.’ ‘Yes, I know.’ The blood oozes out between his fingers, startling in its brightness. ‘Help me. Mother.’ ‘I’m trying, Lord knows I didn’t
mean to do this.’ He slams his foot against the boy’s chest, but having the one leg now, loses his balance. As he lies on the mud, his rifle still skewered in the boy’s face, tottering, he sees a spurt of red jut out of the boy’s mouth, his eyes rolling over. Guy tries to look away only to find the mirror image on his other side. He looks to the heavens and the German is still there, his mouth a bubbling pool of blood. ‘Guy, Guy, wake up, it’s me...’
‘No,’ he muttered half-asleep. ‘Leave me be, go away.’
‘Guy, please...’
He opened his eyes. Leaning over him he could see the outline of a woman wearing the blue uniform of a VAD, a bonnet on her head. ‘Who is it?’ he said, his breaths coming in short bursts. ‘Leave me be. Who are you?’
‘It’s me, it’s Mary.’
‘Mary?’
‘Shh..’
‘No,’ he whispered, ‘it can’t be.’ He tried to prop himself up.
‘Here, let me help.’
As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he could see her now.
‘I can’t believe it’s you,’ she said, her hand clasped to her mouth.
‘Nor I,’ he said, trying to calm his breathing.
‘Oh, Guy...’
‘It’s okay, come now, it’s okay.’
‘I... I don’t know what to say.’
He stroked her arm. ‘You don’t have to say anything.’
She put her arms round him and the two embraced. Guy smelt her warm, youthful skin; his nose tingled at the incongruous mixture of lavender and iodine. He found himself breathing in her smell, intoxicated by the pleasure of this sudden and unexpected presence.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s been so hard. I’ve seen so much, and I’ve not cried, I’ve not had time to cry.’
‘I know.’
This Time Tomorrow Page 21