Angels at War

by Freda Lightfoot

  The work, too, was far less glamorous and adventurous than she’d hoped for. On her first day she was given a mop and bucket, and a bottle of disinfectant, and told to wash the floor. Livia had never done much in the way of housework before. Certainly none had been expected of her at Angel House as her father had kept several servants to wait upon them. Since then she’d lived at the store where they employed an army of cleaners for the task, and sweeping the tiny two-roomed cottage and dusting their few bits of furniture was no comparison to the hard manual labour demanded on these wards in order to keep everything clean and hygienic.

  ‘I dare say you’ve never used a scrubbing brush in your life,’ Mercy teased, watching her first feeble efforts.

  Livia laughed. ‘Except for those few days in that prison cell. I dare say it will soon come back to me.’ In no time Livia’s hands were red raw from the carbolic soap and washing soda, and her back ached dreadfully, but no one could say the floors weren’t clean.

  Both girls were half longing for a bit of excitement, but for that to happen it meant some poor souls had to be injured first. It was not a comfortable thought.

  Sister Rendell, a bustling, formidable woman with brown hair and the faintest hint of a moustache over tightly pursed lips, was in charge of the ward. One morning she took them all into her office and issued a stern lecture about what they might expect when the work really started.

  ‘I won’t have any VADs fainting on my ward, is that clear? You are here to do a job, and if you aren’t up to it, then keep out of the way of my nurses. Go back home to papa.’ Sister was convinced the VADs were delicate gels more familiar with tea parties than blood and bandages. In some instances, Livia thought, looking around at her fellow volunteers, she might well be right. She hoped she wasn’t considered one of their number.

  ‘I want you to cast your eyes over these,’ Sister said, laying out a batch of photographs on the table. ‘If you can’t stomach these pictures, I won’t allow you anywhere near my ward.’

  There was a photo of a young man whose legs had been blown off, the stumps blackened and bleeding; faces that had been badly burnt, holes in stomachs and thighs, and other horrors. One girl backed away weeping, another fell to the floor in a dead faint. They were both swiftly ejected from the premises. Livia felt the bile rise in her throat but gritted her teeth against a strong urge to vomit. These poor boys needed help, not pity or revulsion.

  Many of the VADS were suffragettes like herself, some were married women with a knowledge of first aid learnt from the Red Cross or the St John Ambulance, while others had no qualifications at all. In that first week, tasks were allocated and the untrained women became cleaners, drivers, and orderlies, cooks, kitchen maids, clerks or even fund-raisers. Only those considered suitable were allowed to work with the nurses, who rather tended to look down their noses at the less well qualified VADs.

  Some of the single girls had indeed volunteered as an escape from an unwelcome marriage, or from the expected role of an unmarried daughter destined to care for ageing parents. But what they found was not excitement and adventure, only boredom and drudgery.

  Within days the first casualties came pouring in and they were witnessing the horror in reality. There was no time then to be bored, or even to sleep or eat on occasions. The VADs were on duty either from eight in the morning until eight in the evening, or vice-versa if they were on nights. They were long shifts, yet Livia did them gladly, without complaint. It was a job she meant to do to the best of her ability.

  Visitors who called in the calm of a quiet afternoon, seeing beds neatly made and flowers on the tables, the VADs sitting sewing sandbags or rolling bandages, might think it a pleasant, agreeable place to work. But then they couldn’t see the horrific injuries beneath the dressings.

  ‘This place makes the workhouse look like paradise,’ Mercy wryly remarked as she watched a nurse pack salt into an open wound in a sailor’s side. His desperate cries made her shudder, but earned him no more than a sharp reproof from Sister.

  Not all the patients were physically wounded; some were suffering from a form of dementia, which was the result of a condition described as shell shock. They only had to hear the siren go off, or a buzzer go, and they’d run for cover or throw a fit, as if terrified they were about to be shot. It was all most distressing. Mercy seemed to be especially good with these poor souls.

  ‘They remind me of my lads, the poor boys labelled as imbeciles in the workhouse ward. They weren’t that at all, of course, just needing time and attention, and someone to talk to.’

  Few of these boys, however, wished to talk, but Mercy did what she could to offer comfort, and the doctors, too, felt they were still learning how best to treat these injuries of the mind.

  The two girls worked well together, busily making beds, assisting with feeding the patients, helping to change dressings or draw sheets, take temperatures or pluck out stitches. There was a good deal of rushing about, fetching and carrying, and generally providing a second pair of hands for the qualified nurses. The work was utterly exhausting but infinitely more satisfying than scrubbing floors. Livia tried to watch everything the nurses did, studiously observing and learning the whole time, but it was all new and strange, and nothing was easy.

  The first time she was asked to give a young man a blanket bath she was hugely embarrassed. Livia had seen a man naked before, of course, but only Jack or Matthew, not that of a perfect stranger.

  ‘I won’t look if you don’t,’ he teased her.

  The fact he could even manage to joke, having lost an arm and a leg above the knee, filled Livia with humble admiration. He seemed to be on the mend now, following at least two operations, but was still in considerable pain. And there was the ever-present danger of infection setting in.

  Livia carefully spread a rubber sheet beneath him, then very tenderly covered him with a blanket. She’d brought a bowl of warm water with soap and towels, and was about to set about the task of washing him when Sister Rendell appeared at her elbow.

  ‘Don’t you think it would be a good idea if you undressed the patient first, girl?’

  ‘Oh, of course. I forgot,’ Livia said, cheeks blazing.

  ‘Dear me, some ministering angel you are.’

  The woman stood by, clicking her tongue with impatience, watching closely as Livia fumbled with unfamiliar buttons beneath the blanket. She finally managed to remove the man’s clothes, but when she found naked flesh, something quite firm and well shaped, her cheeks burnt even brighter. Her young patient just winked at her, and Livia had to stifle a giggle. Fortunately, Sister walked away and left her to it, and she was able to apologise.

  ‘This is the first blanket bath I’ve ever given,’ she confessed.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m enjoying every minute,’ the soldier joked, still able to smile despite his horrific injuries.

  He would look out for Livia after that, saying she could give him another bath any time she liked. ‘Nurse,’ he would call, but when a nurse went over to him, he’d send her away. ‘No, I want the other one, the one with the titian hair and the lovely smile.’

  ‘She isn’t a proper nurse,’ they would say, glowering at Livia as if it were her fault the patient had made this foolish mistake.

  ‘I don’t care, she’s got lovely soft hands.’

  Livia would giggle and gently scold him. ‘You’re very naughty, and you’ll get me in trouble.

  He was called Donald and he would tell her about his girl back home in Birmingham, how she was eager to come and see him once he was considered fit enough to receive visitors. Livia would write his reply for him, full of words of love and reassurance, as if there was nothing at all wrong that a few weeks in hospital wouldn’t put right. Yet he never told her the full extent of his injuries, and put her off coming time and time again.

  Livia also wrote letters to his widowed mother, who wasn’t fit enough to make the journey. She would read him snippets from the local newspaper, or stroke his head when the
pain from the amputated leg was too much for him to bear, or his shoulder throbbed – although she quickly found that nursing wasn’t just about putting a cool hand on a fevered brow. It was grisly work needing enormous amounts of energy and compassion.

  Healing was slow and infection set in. Keeping the wound clean was an unpleasant and painful task and sometimes it smelt quite foul. Livia was worried that if it didn’t get better soon he might be facing another operation to have more of the stump removed.

  ‘I’ve a day off tomorrow, would you like me to bring you anything back from the shops?’

  ‘Only your lovely smile,’ he told her, his face grey with fatigue and suffering.

  She took his letters to the post and promised she’d find him a nice jokey postcard that he could send to his girl next time, and a pretty flowery card for his mother. On her return the following morning when she went to give him his breakfast, she found his bed stripped and empty.

  Livia grabbed one of the nurses as they hurried by. ‘Where have you moved Donald to? Has he gone for another op?’

  ‘Oh, he died during the night. Gangrene.’

  Livia felt his loss like a personal blow. She grieved for him as if she’d known him for years and not just a matter of weeks. Donald’s belongings had all been packed away but she could remember his girl’s address, and that of his widowed mother. That night she sat down and wrote to them both, telling them how brave he’d been, how strong, laughing and joking right up to the end and always thinking of them with love and affection.

  She could do this for him at least.

  As she settled down to sleep she felt utterly drained, and tears slid unchecked down her cheeks, dampening her pillow. Livia could only hope and pray that neither Matthew nor Jack would suffer in such a way.

  Whenever the two girls had a dinner break or the odd hour free, they’d work in the hospital’s walled garden. There was a head gardener who looked wizened enough to have worked in it from its early Victorian days, but he was a gentle soul and welcomed the help of the VADs with the digging and planting. Such things as fresh vegetables, tomatoes, apples, plums and gooseberries were much needed for the health of the patients.

  In that first year, with only one day off a month, Livia and Mercy came to enjoy these days out in the clean, fresh air, finding it a welcome change from the sights and smells of the ward, almost a form of relaxation.

  Sometimes there might be a dance or a concert party organised to entertain the nurses and VADs, which was always a treat. Or a group of them would walk in the park or treat themselves to cream cakes at the local tea shop. The two sisters took part in all these activities together. They worked with equal diligence and compassion alongside each other day after day in the ward, and what little free time they had they spent together too. They even slept in the same room, so it wasn’t surprising that they grew close as a result.

  They also waited with the same sense of anxiety for news from the front.

  It was a strange situation. Jack wrote to each of them, entirely ignorant of the fact that his wife was now aware of his love for her half-sister. If either one of them should get a letter they’d come running, eager to share the exciting news. The other might be secretly jealous, but relieved to know that this meant Jack must still be safe and well.

  Sometimes they would share little snippets, sitting up in bed reading parts of what was in effect a private love letter. Livia was only too aware, however, that her own didn’t qualify for that description quite as much as did Mercy’s. She knew this by the way the other girl curled up in bed and would read her letter over and over with a small smile of happiness on her face.

  But Livia found she minded less and less. Why should she? She got letters from Matthew and didn’t share those with anyone, not even with Mercy. Matthew’s were very much love letters whereas those from her husband were more practical and chummy.

  Occasionally Mercy would receive a letter from George, always polite and friendly, saying he was well and hoped she was too. He and Tom Mounsey had joined up together in the same pals regiment and were in France, although no one quite knew where as this sort of information was censored.

  It was a strange situation, but not one to examine too closely, Livia thought, not while there was a war on. Mercy, however, had different ideas.

  ‘Did you mean it when you said you’d divorce Jack?’ she asked Livia one evening as they sat huddled together in bed for warmth, pouring over their precious letters. Staff dormitories weren’t heated and they always slept in dressing gowns and thick bed socks.

  Livia gave a rueful smile. ‘It’s fairly obvious that would be the best for all concerned, when the time is right. But what about George, would he agree to a divorce?’

  ‘I reckon so. He says I deserve a bit of happiness.’

  ‘He’s right, you do.’ Livia knew only too well that Mercy was perfectly capable of snatching what happiness she could, even at the expense of others, but understood the reason and forgave her. The girl was less strident and difficult than she used to be, but where Livia strove to find a purpose in life, Mercy needed simply to belong.

  ‘Jack says in this letter that he’s going to ask you for a divorce once the war is over. Should I tell him that you already know about us, and agree?’

  ‘Oh, dear, it’s all a bit of a muddle, isn’t it? One that will take some time to sort out, I expect, once this war is over. I’ve no idea how one even sets about getting a divorce, or how much it costs.’

  So many times Livia had wondered if she should have stuck to her plan never to marry at all. Yet now she ached to marry Matthew, knew it felt right for them both. Happiness in marriage depended upon choosing the right man in the first place. Livia sighed, wishing life could be simpler, or that she’d realised this simple fact sooner.

  ‘It might cheer him up, you see, to know that you’re all right about it. So can I tell him?’ Mercy persisted, interrupting her thoughts.

  It felt almost hurtful and certainly rather sad that hearing your wife had agreed to end your marriage would cheer up a soldier fighting at the front. Generally the reverse was the case. ‘If you wish,’ Livia sighed. ‘I’ll be guided by you in this, Mercy. I just want us all to stay friends, if that’s possible. I couldn’t bear to fall out with Jack. I’m still very fond of him, even if …’ She left the sentence unfinished, as it was all far too complicated to sort out right now.

  And it was Matthew’s letter she kissed and tucked under her pillow when she climbed back into her own bed to sleep.

  ‘Keep safe, my darling. Keep safe.’

  Then after a year of working in the military hospital, the two sisters heard they’d been posted to France.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  On cold days, which seemed to be the norm, Livia would often find herself thinking of life at Angel’s Department Store, of dear Mrs Dee and her scarlet petticoats, and the crotchety old dragon, Miss Caraway. How she longed to be back there, safe and warm, even if the food was nearly always mutton stew, the shop girls prone to gossip, and the customers difficult.

  She would think of Ella at the farm, knowing her sister had suffered in her first winters there. But had Kentmere ever been as cold as this? Here they had to contend with mud and fleas as well as bitter temperatures. The River Somme wasn’t nearly as benign or as beautiful as the River Kent, and had slowed as it iced over. Everything they possessed was sodden, and even the poor horses stood about looking wet and miserable.

  Most of all she would think of Matthew, worrying where he was and if he was safe and well. Was he, too, suffering from the cold, or something far worse?

  It was March 1916, and they’d been here three months. It felt more like three years.

  Livia had chilblains on her fingers as well as her toes, despite wearing three pairs of stockings and fleecy slip-ons inside her gumboots. She wore two flannel vests, two petticoats, corsets, flannel drawers, and a jersey beneath her uniform dress, the apron proudly displaying its red cross on the bib, on to
p. And the speed with which she could remove all of these garments, wash herself down with a small basin of warm water (if she was lucky enough to find any) and dress for bed had to be seen to be believed. But then it was the only way to survive in these freezing temperatures.

  There were some nights when she didn’t bother to change at all, just fell onto her bed and was asleep in seconds, dead to the world. But even then the biting cold would wake her just before dawn when her feet would feel like ice and her nose numb.

  Livia smiled across at Mercy now, decked out in pyjamas tucked into thick bed socks that reached right up over her knees, dressing gown, gloves and a warm muffler that Ella had knitted for her last Christmas, and as if that weren’t enough, as she leapt into bed she piled her coat and any extra blankets she could find on top. Pulling them all up to her chin, she looked across at Livia.

  ‘Had a good day?’

  ‘Spiffing fun.’

  ‘Me too. Absolutely topping!’

  And they grinned at each other, enjoying this silly joke as they did every night.

  Mercy said, ‘Did you see that Sister Pretty has plucked her eyebrows? My, my, I think she fancies the sergeant. She even wore kohl the other day. Very racy. Not at all like Sister Rendell at the military hospital.’

  ‘Yet she can be equally vindictive. I’d watch out for her if I were you. She has a real down on the VADs, even more than most.’

  ‘Don’t I know it. She was nagging me today because I was too slow. “Get a move on, Simpson. Jump to it.” Her favourite phrase.’ Mercy had reverted to her maiden name for convenience, and because she felt her mam would be proud of what she was doing. ‘I suppose I was a bit slow, but I’d got this headache I just couldn’t shift.’

  ‘Have you taken anything for it?’

  ‘One of the nurses gave me some foul-tasting stuff. Quite set my teeth on edge. No more of that, thank you very much. I just need a good night’s sleep.’