Two Women Went to War

by L E Pembroke

  ‘Well, he must have been a late developer; he’s a tall chap now, still skinny, though.’

  ‘I’d like to meet him again. See if you can arrange something, Tom. How is Mother?’ I had to ask – it would have been unnatural not to – but I was aware that my voice had become tentative and strained.

  He replied that she was all right and flat out knitting for the Red Cross as well as nagging the farm hands about everything they did on the place. ‘You know, Genevieve, I hate seeing you two at loggerheads. Why don’t you try to forgive and forget – drop her a line?’

  ‘I did write on the way to Egypt, but she didn’t reply. Dad always said she was a hard woman.’

  It was Tom’s turn to look hard and distant. ‘I can’t ever forgive him. The whole town knowing what he was up to when he had his heart attack was so humiliating for Mother.’

  It was a subject on which we would never agree. I had always been grateful that Dad eventually found love. But Tom didn’t see it that way. By being away at school for years he missed the worst of the arguments and recriminations. When he came home for good the parental relationship had descended into perpetual stony silence.

  ‘She’ll come round. Give her time. I’ll tell her you were asking when I write. Come on, buck up, it’ll all come good in the end,’ said Tom, ‘and I’ll definitely arrange something with Andrew.’

  *

  Two weeks later Tom contacted me again. ‘We’re coming into the city. Andrew said he’d like to meet you again – we’ll go out for dinner.’

  Andrew had changed beyond recognition. Well, why not? I’m nothing like the little girl I was ten years ago – and was I grateful for that? I was so glad he’d belatedly grown tall; I really didn’t enjoy going out with men who were shorter than me. I remembered how polite and thoughtful he’d been years before; how he sensed I was feeling awkward with the older boys and girls who were visiting Bellara for a tennis party.

  I was especially attracted to his eyes. They lit up when he smiled. I received the impression that here was a sincere and thoughtful, as well as an amusing, man and one to whom I was almost instantly attracted. He seemed to be just the sort I wanted to meet while in Sydney instead of that smooth phony Gordon McCann.

  We met at the club, had a drink there, then took a taxi to a local restaurant. I remember discussing the local food and saying how much I enjoyed Egyptian cuisine and wished I had the time to learn how to cook it. He said he thought it was all right, although he preferred a tender thick steak, fried onions and mashed potato. ‘Hard to beat that anywhere.’ Andrew picked up the menu. ‘What appeals to you, Genevieve?’

  My memory of that evening lingered for months. The things I noticed the most about Andrew were how intently he looked at me, the warmth of his grin and the gentle laughter in his eyes. Nice to have a man look at you like that. I wriggled with pleasure and a tinge of embarrassment. What is it about this man, I wondered, or is it just plain old lonely me getting desperate for sincere affection? Why does being in his company make me feel so relaxed, yet with a tinge of anticipation of better things to come? I wanted to dance with him, to feel his nearness. I didn’t often feel that way about men, not lately anyway.

  The night the three of us went to dinner, one of my instincts warned me to be wary of instant physical attraction; after all, look where it landed me with Gordon. Then again, I was absolutely sure Andrew was nothing like Gordon. For a start, he wasn’t smarmy; he was more reticent, I don’t mean aloof. On the contrary, I could tell he was genuinely interested in knowing all about me as a person, and certainly not merely as one with whom he wanted sex. It still hurt badly to recall eighteen months before when I was unable to discriminate between love and lust, unable even to consider that Gordon might be lying to me.

  I wished we were alone. Tom did not have much to say; he just munched away at his meal and steadily consumed a few beers. He seemed to be becoming maudlin. Without him realising it he was putting a blight on our conversation, stopping me from really getting to know Andrew. Tom would think conversation between two people attracted to one another was puerile, especially when one of those people was his young sister, and Andrew was attracted to me – I could feel it.

  Funny how, after all this time, I can recall our conversation so vividly. I was interested to know as much as possible about Andrew. I listened hard to his every word. And he was keen to talk to me and reveal what was important to him. He told me he had been passionate about joining the army since he was a small boy. It began when his mother took him down to Sydney Harbour to farewell a contingent sailing to the Boer War. He described how the ships were dressed for a grand farewell. Pennants were fluttering on all the stays. He said it was spectacular, with hundreds of cavalry standing at attention on the foreshore. And he remembered his uncle, his mother’s brother, riding slowly past reviewing his troops. ‘I can still see the colourful uniforms, feathers tucked into their slouch hats, bands playing and horses groomed to perfection. For me it was inspirational and a scene I never forgot.’

  He told me how his father was dead against him joining the army and wanted him to take over the family business. His father was a clothing manufacturer, and his biggest contracts were for army uniforms. Andrew said he thought I could guess how much he would have hated that job. Fortunately his mother intervened and was able to dissuade his father. And he ended up, in 1911, being one of the first students at Duntroon.

  ‘No regrets, I hope.’

  ‘No, not so far. Of course we are a very small outfit compared to Sandhurst and West Point, although small was good because we became a close bunch of blokes. All of our class went to Gallipoli – we lost quite a few of them.’

  What do you say to army chaps with ghastly and vivid memories? Nothing seems adequate. ‘I’m sorry, Andrew. Such a waste.’

  ‘Yes, I don’t often mention it. Can’t think why I did tonight – hardly appropriate on such a pleasant occasion.’

  Tom, who’d been listening to Andrew, frowned. ‘All my mates from the bush were at Gallipoli. I feel a bloody fraud missing out on all the action last year.’

  ‘Don’t worry, mate. From what I hear you’ll soon have the opportunity to catch up.’

  We took another taxi to the hospital’s Nurses’ Home. Cairo was full of taxis patrolling the streets on the lookout for the thousands of troops in training for action in Europe and the Middle East. Andrew walked with me to the entrance of my quarters. I was pleased to see that Tom was dozing in the vehicle.

  Andrew took my hand. ‘Let’s do it again soon. I’d really like to see you again, Genevieve. Maybe next week, if you can get away? I think we’ll be moving on soon.’

  ‘I’d really like that, Andrew.’

  We shook hands. I experienced a frisson of excited anticipation as I watched him move off towards the cab. I couldn’t wait to hear from him again. I had a feeling that I had met someone who might become very important to me.

  His letter came only a week after our evening out. Andrew wrote:

  Dear Genevieve,

  I’ve been thinking about you and very much looking forward to meeting you again.

  Unfortunately I have been seconded to a Forward Party and will be leaving Egypt very soon. So I’m afraid our evening will have to be postponed until after the war. I pray it won’t be too long and that together we can celebrate our victory.

  Look after yourself, Genevieve.

  I’ll be seeing you.

  Sincerely

  Andrew

  How flat and disappointed I felt. I’d been thinking about him and looking forward so much to seeing him again and perhaps feeling something special for him. Oh well, what can you expect in wartime? Maybe it wasn’t meant to be; yet maybe it was. And perhaps, when it’s all over, he might come knocking on my door and say something like, ‘About time we had that dinner together, Genevieve. What do you think?’

  And I would say, ‘At last! I’ve been waiting for you to turn up for years, Andrew. Come on, let’s go.’<
br />
  *

  By September 1916 most of us were in France. At that time, we cared for our sick and wounded just a few miles behind the front line. During the terrible and unbelievable Battle of the Somme, when hundreds of thousands of soldiers were killed in a few days, some of us Australians worked in a tented hospital situated on the cliffs near Boulogne.

  Usually the wounded men carried into the hospital were tense, in severe pain and shocked by their experiences in battle. For them, it was important to be cared for by comrades from their own land. Familiar voices put them, relatively speaking, at ease. They lost some of their fear because they felt safe. They were confident that their own doctors and nurses would have a special interest in saving their lives or helping them to recover quickly.

  I enjoyed my work, as much as anyone could enjoy working amid so much pain and suffering. It was a feeling I would have found difficult to explain to any of my civilian friends, but there was a certain euphoria looking after the boys from home who needed us so badly. On the worst days our energy levels were high, and adrenalin surged through our bodies. We were never tired when on duty, even on a twelve-hour shift. Yet when we came off duty and stumbled into our sleeping tents we fell immediately into black unconsciousness. There was no time for the nurses to dream about peacetime, home or boyfriends in the forces. Our world, to all intents and purposes, was contained on a half-square mile of rough terrain within hearing distance of a constant bombardment of artillery shells. The weeks flew by.

  On the blustery cliffs of Boulogne we made the closest friendships of our lives. The experience of working as a team, of dealing with hideous and disfiguring wounds and death, bonded the doctors and nurses together in unique comradeship.

  Many of the casualties arrived by ambulance, but there weren’t nearly enough of them. So the authorities were forced to commandeer dogcarts, hay wagons, oxen-driven drays and even some of the few privately owned cars in the region.

  One day in October, I was in the casualty tent syringing a deep wound. I looked outside and saw the long queue of men grey-faced with exhaustion and pain. I pictured their horrendous journey from the front. We all knew what they had been through because nurses, on the journey by ship from Egypt to France, were trained in the medical evacuation system. My heart went out to those weary men whose journey began when they left the trenches either stumbling along or carried on stretchers to the Casualty Clearing Station. There, having received minimal treatment and priority labelling, they were moved on to a field hospital, such as where I worked.

  Boulogne was five miles from the nearest action. That distance must have seemed much longer for those in desperate need. How were they coping after the trauma of the journey, then finding themselves in a long queue behind a hundred other men? These men reminded me of submissive farm animals unable to rebel against their fate: poor fat lambs on sheep stations, separated from their mothers and forced into crowded lorries destined for the slaughter yards.

  That day was unusually hot. I glanced again through the tent flap and sighed at the sight of the long line of wounded waiting, both on stretchers and squatting silently along the dirt track. Flies, swarming over blood-soaked, impermanent dressings, dropping their maggots at will, added to the patients’ woes.

  In mid-afternoon an ambulance, with horn honking, raced along the dirt road with the driver’s foot obviously flat to the boards. The driver, who looked hardly more than a schoolgirl in khaki uniform, brought the vehicle to a screeching halt, jumped out and raced into the tent calling urgently for help. She tugged at my sleeve and dragged me out into the warm sunlight to the ambulance.

  I peered in and immediately realised the patient was dead: frothy blood covered his lips and stained his neck and chest. The girl began to cry. ‘I did my best, but the roads are so choked with men and equipment, and this is only my first week in France,’ she sobbed. ‘I don’t know how I could have saved him.’

  ‘I don’t think he could have ever survived with a chest wound like that. Why don’t you take a break? Have a cup of tea in the recreation tent. I’ll join you in fifteen minutes or so.’

  The girl was still weeping when I arrived and made tea for both of us. She thrust out her hand, saying, ‘I’m Madeleine Aspinall. How do you do?’

  I grasped her hand. ‘Genevieve Howard. I’m very happy to meet you.’

  That was the start of what became a lifetime friendship.

  CHAPTER 10

  I felt an instant rapport with the young English girl, although I don’t know why. Was it the attraction of opposites? Madeleine was, in looks, what I had always longed to be. Petite, for a start, and with a classic English beauty: creamy, clear skin, fair hair and blue eyes. I soon learnt that she was also outgoing and uninhibited. She was most often amusing and unrestrained, although there were times when she was chastened by her wartime experiences. She was a chameleon – a creature of moods.

  Often, over the following months Madeleine arrived at the field hospital looking shocked by the sights she encountered closer to the trenches, in particular the pitiful condition of many of the young wounded, boys even younger than she was. At other times, after she had received a letter from her fiancé, she danced into the sisters’ sitting room her face glowing with happiness. Garrulous and ebullient, Madeleine told me so much about her fiancé that I felt as if I actually knew Charles Phillips. Madeleine wore her sapphire and diamond engagement ring on a chain around her neck.

  ‘In some ways Charlie and I are very different, Genevieve. He’s a quiet sort of chap. His personality is not unlike yours, I think. He is steady and reliable. He doesn’t believe in taking unnecessary risks.’

  She then eagerly told me the history of their relationship; how they became engaged last year when he came home on leave, and how he said that they would have to wait until the war ends before they married because the mortality rate was horrendous: one in two junior officers were already dead.

  ‘As you can possibly imagine, Genevieve, I disagree entirely. I want to marry him even if it’s only for a few weeks. What do you think?’

  I told her that I could see merit in both points of view, and I really wouldn’t know because I wasn’t in love with anybody.

  ‘How sad. Don’t you think everybody needs someone special in their lives, especially in war time?’

  I totally agreed.

  ‘Isn’t there anybody special in your life, Genevieve?’

  I thought of Andrew and what might have been, but I just said no, there was nobody.

  Madeleine, who was a soft-hearted girl, suggested that I try to get a few days leave towards the end of the year and go to England with her and stay at her grandmother’s home in London. She’d applied for leave because Charlie wrote that he thought he might get home around Christmas and, as she hadn’t seen him for six months, she was determined to be there even if she had to go AWOL.

  How I envied her because of her intense love for someone and her great enthusiasm for life.

  *

  I managed to get leave for a few days and travelled with Madeleine by naval ship across the Channel to London, a city crowded with servicemen, a city I’d never seen before, having travelled direct from Egypt to Marseilles, but one which, in a way, felt of special significance to me.

  For Madeleine, feelings were very different. Charles’s last letter, received only a day or two before we left France, told her that he couldn’t get away in the foreseeable future. I tried to comfort her by pointing out that this sort of thing was happening to thousands of people and that things would get better because recently there’d been talk of the Americans joining the war on the side of the Allies.Madeleine snorted, ‘About bloody time.’ She could be very outspoken at times. She then said that if I didn’t mind she’d leave me to explore London on my own because she wanted to visit Charlie’s parents – his father having been quite ill lately and his mother being in need of company and assistance.

  *

  My leave in London turned out to be a for
gettable time with few highlights. I yearned for the company of young people and was glad when it was almost time to go back. In France I would be with friends I’d worked with for months and with the men I empathised with so well. Christmas was just around the corner, and being on duty at Christmas, I always thought, was a privilege. There on the cliffs at Boulogne we would try, as they did in the hospitals at home, to give the patients some extra joy on Christmas Day. Doctors and nurses would form a choir and go from ward to ward singing carols. And the kitchen staff would prepare something special for a Christmas meal. It would be an emotional time and one I didn’t want to miss.

  I’d had a week in London. The Aspinall home in Eaton Square was a new and in many ways over-awing experience. The family was obviously well-to-do. I had visited one or two nice homes in Sydney and our own home Bellara was comfortable enough, but nothing compared to the luxury of the Aspinall home. However, the people I met at Eaton Square were my mother’s age or older and, with the exception of servicemen on leave, I hadn’t noticed any young men on the London streets. It seemed as if a whole generation of men had simply disappeared.

  I reckoned Madeleine’s grandmother must have been at least eighty years old. Nevertheless, always sprightly, she left the house early each morning to spend several hours at one or other of her war charities. Consequently, she had little time to entertain me. I didn’t mind because there was so much sightseeing to cram into each day. Yet my daily expeditions, which took me from one end of London to the other, were always lonely. Seeing all the marvellous history in London on one’s own really was a terrible waste. Wandering through famous galleries, peering at Crown jewels and gawping at palaces with nobody beside you sharing the experiences, cracking a joke or expressing wonderment, made me realise how much I yearned for some sort of close relationship. Without a family, no man in my life and away from the hospital and all the boys we cared for, I was desperately lonely. My brother Tom would have made a difference. Even phlegmatic Tom, who had never been known for his outgoing personality, would certainly have been better than nobody. And where was Tom? Not a word in months. How typical of the man.