The Best of Daughters

by Dilly Court

  Despite their constant attention to hygiene, many of the women succumbed to debilitating attacks of dysentery. This meant that those who did not fall ill were compelled to do double shifts, and during the first few weeks at Lamarck Daisy lived in a constant haze of exhaustion. She was fortunate enough to avoid contracting the illness, but she collapsed onto her narrow cot at night fully clothed and did not wake until first light.

  Despite the battle raging at Ypres, the first patients at the hospital were mainly suffering from typhoid. When they were brought in from the trenches the soldier’s bodies were invariably flea-ridden and running with lice, added to which they were covered in filthy mud and their own excrement. They had to be stripped of their uniforms, washed and deloused before they could be put into clean nightshirts and admitted to the wards. Performing such intimate tasks on strangers was shocking to someone like Daisy, who had never seen a naked man before, but she realised that it was just as embarrassing for the men who had no alternative but to endure her ministrations.

  Even though she had never intended to become a nurse it was a position thrust upon her by necessity, and she tried hard to develop a professional approach to her work, but she had to steel herself not to pass out at the sight of blood. She had fainted several times in the first week, but it was surprising how quickly she became accustomed to dreadful sights. Apart from the dreaded typhoid, gas gangrene, trench foot and shell shock, there were the terrible injuries inflicted by shrapnel from exploding shells. For some there was little that Daisy could do other than hold their hands and comfort them as they passed away. Sometimes she sat and wrote a letter at the dictation of a dying soldier, sending his last words to his wife or mother, and she could barely see the paper as tears welled up in her eyes. Her schoolgirl French had improved rapidly and she was able to converse reasonably well with the Belgian nurses and doctor as well as the patients.

  No matter how hard they struggled to save lives, the coffin man was the most regular visitor at Lamarck, and Daisy dreaded hearing the rumble of the cartwheels as it entered the courtyard. She managed to cope by simply not thinking of anything other than the task in hand. She did not look back at the life she had left in England, nor did she allow herself to dwell on thoughts of her family at Rainbow’s End. All that seemed like another world. She had been a different person then, and she could hardly recognise herself as the young woman whose main problem each day had been what gown to wear and the choice of accessories. Now her first thoughts on waking were for Rupert and Teddy. She hoped against hope that they were not suffering in the trenches like the men who were brought daily to the hospital.

  She was homesick, of course, like all the other young women who had given up comfort and safety in order to help others, but they supported each other and one thing they all had in common was waiting anxiously for news from home. Letters arrived infrequently and were tucked in Daisy’s pocket to be brought out at night when she was either on duty in the hospital or lying down to sleep on the narrow camp bed in the shop window. Even in the darkness she could hear the muffled sobs of some of the other girls, but Daisy had built a protective shell around her heart and she did not cry as she struggled to decipher Bea’s spidery scrawl, or studied the perfect copperplate written by her mother. As the weeks went by it began to feel as though she was reading about strangers. Their lives were so far distant from her own that they might have been living on the moon. When she had finished the letters she added the precious links to a life once lived to a bundle tied together with a scrap of ribbon she had found on the floor of the shop.

  Despite the fact that she was doing a worthwhile and necessary job, Daisy longed to do something more active, and just before Christmas, when one of the drivers took sick with typhoid, she was given the task of driving one of the two motorised Ford ambulances. Her job was to collect the wounded from trains arriving from the Front and transport them to hospital or to the docks for repatriation. It was often heavy work as she had of necessity to assist the stretcher bearers and load the injured men into the vehicle. Some of the soldiers were barely alive, and all of them were in desperate need of medical attention. She became adept in dealing with delirious patients who attempted to escape or lashed out at her thinking she was the enemy. She learned how to soothe the fears of the younger soldiers who thought, sometimes rightly, that they were going to die, and she often found herself in the role of surrogate mother, sister or confidante. Despite her active role she was still required to help out on the wards when they were short-staffed, and she did so with a willing heart. She found it deeply touching and rewarding to be able to help the men who had survived the carnage on the Front, and it was good to know that at least some of them would eventually be considered fit enough for repatriation.

  Every time she met a train she searched the soldiers’ faces in case one of them turned out to be Rupert or Teddy. She had long forgiven her elder brother for all the taunts and teasing of their childhood days, and now she remembered only his good points, but she was still confused as to her feelings for Rupert. She wore her engagement ring on a gold chain hung around her neck, but she could not imagine how she might have felt had they been able to take their marriage vows. Sometimes she wondered if she had ever loved him, or if she had merely been dazzled by his looks and social standing. He seemed distant, like a hero from a novel who was real only in her imagination, and if she ever allowed Bowman to sneak into her thoughts it was also with mixed emotions. Love and hate were there in equal parts, or perhaps her feelings for him were simply a fatal attraction to someone wholly unsuited to her. She did not allow herself to dwell on those unbidden thoughts. All she knew was the intense flood of relief when none of the tired, unshaven men, damaged mentally and physically who filed past her at the station was her brother or Rupert. Again and again she pushed such dire thoughts to the back of her mind.

  With Christmas close at hand, Daisy volunteered with several others to take comforts to the troops in the trenches. These consisted of knitted articles sent from England, including socks and Balaclava helmets, cigarettes and tobacco. The scenes that she witnessed had a nightmare-like quality. The mud, the desolation, the stench and the squalid conditions in which the soldiers lived and died were too terrible to contemplate. Despite the brief ceasefire on Christmas Day, when the Germans and the British exchanged cigars and cigarettes and sang carols, the carnage continued on into the New Year. Daisy was beginning to feel that the war would never end. The constant boom of the guns echoed in her head night and day, and the cries and groans of the injured soldiers haunted her dreams. Despite this, when the ambulance driver was well enough to return to work, Daisy volunteered to drive the mobile kitchen to take soup and sustenance to the troops.

  She had just driven back from such a mission one cold and windy night in the middle of March when she came across a scene of devastation at Lamarck. A Zeppelin raid on Calais had dropped bombs on the surrounding buildings, damaging the cathedral chapel and smashing windows in the hospital building. The railway station had been hit and there appeared to be many casualties. She alighted from the vehicle and ran to aid a soldier who, although wounded, was struggling to get an even more badly injured man to safety. ‘Let me help,’ she said, taking the unconscious soldier’s arm and looping it around her shoulders. ‘We must get him under cover quickly.’

  ‘Yes, miss.’

  The voice was achingly familiar, although his face was unrecognisable in the semi-darkness and with mud and blood caking his features.

  ‘Bowman?’

  His rictus grin exposed a row of white teeth, which contrasted oddly with his smoke-blackened face. ‘Yes, miss.’ His eyes rolled upwards, revealing the whites, and he slumped to the ground, almost taking her and the wounded soldier with him.

  ‘Help needed here.’ Daisy’s voice broke as she shouted loud enough to make herself heard through the background noise of gunfire and the screams of the injured.

  One of the Belgian orderlies rushed forward to pick up Bow
man and throw him unceremoniously over his shoulder. ‘Can you manage, mademoiselle?’

  ‘Yes,’ Daisy said stoutly, although the man was a dead weight and of a big build. Somehow she managed to half carry half drag him into the hospital, where she found Bowman struggling back to consciousness and attempting to stand. ‘Sit down,’ she said firmly. ‘You’ll be seen to as soon as possible. Where are you hurt?’

  With his right hand covered in a bloodied dressing he pointed to his left shoulder. ‘Shrapnel got me.’

  She felt his brow and frowned. He was feverish, but a cursory examination of his shoulder revealed a wound that was undoubtedly painful, and would need the doctor to probe for fragments of metal, but was nowhere near fatal. She took a gauze dressing from the trolley and covered the area. ‘Hold that in place,’ she said firmly. ‘The doctor will see you as soon as he can.’ She frowned, eyeing his bandaged hand. ‘What happened there?’

  He pulled a face. ‘You don’t want to know.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. I can’t assess how urgent your case is unless I know what’s wrong.’ She glanced anxiously at the wounded soldier, who cried out in agony as the orderly laid him on one of the trestle tables which were being utilised as makeshift beds. ‘That man is in more urgent need of attention than you, Bowman.’

  He raised his right hand to hold the pad in place. ‘You want the truth, Daisy? Then I’ll tell you. I shot my trigger finger off. Men are doing it all the time. It’s a free passage home, or in my case I did it because I wanted to find you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t look so shocked. You know it happens.’

  She did know all about the extremes that some of the soldiers went to in order to be repatriated as unfit for active duty, but she could not believe that Bowman had mutilated himself for her sake. ‘You’re delirious,’ she said warily. ‘You wouldn’t talk such nonsense if you were in your right mind.’ She was about to walk away but he reached out with his good hand and caught her by the wrist.

  ‘It’s the truth. When I found out where you’d gone I volunteered for the London Regiment. I’d read what the newspapers said about you and the other crazy women who want to be at the forefront of war and so I joined up too. It didn’t take a genius to work out that we’d be sent to the Front, and I knew that’s where I’d find you. I attached myself to the Belgians as a stretcher bearer, but I was unlucky and took a hit.’

  She snatched her hand away, staring at him in disbelief. ‘You’re a deserter. You must be out of your mind.’

  He nodded dully. ‘That’s what you’ve done to me, Daisy Lennox. I can’t get you out of my head.’

  The orderly coughed politely. ‘Do you want me to shift this one, mademoiselle? He’s a case of shell shock if ever I saw one. Shall I put him somewhere quieter?’

  Daisy shook her head. ‘I’ll deal with it, thank you. I can manage.’

  He saluted and hurried away.

  ‘I’m not crazy,’ Bowman said with a sigh. ‘But at least I’ve found you. It’s taken me six months, but I’ve done it.’ He closed his eyes and his head drooped forward onto his chest.

  ‘Sit there and don’t move.’ Daisy adopted the tone she might have used to a small child. ‘The doctor will get to you as soon as he can.’ She left him and moved on to the soldier, who was groaning loudly.

  It was a long night, and as the grey dawn broke a sudden sense of calm descended upon the previously frantic wards and the courtyard, which during the hours of darkness had been a desperate place where the medics had done their best to save lives. Daisy did the rounds of the men she had cared for during their emergency treatment, and found Bowman lying across two chairs with a blanket thrown over him. Sound asleep despite the dressing on his shoulder where the wound had been probed without the advantage of anaesthetic, he looked pale but peaceful and somehow much younger and defenceless. Daisy stood for a moment gazing at him, oddly bereft of emotion. She felt neither love nor hate, but she was curious. She wondered how much of the improbable tale he had related was true, or whether his rambling story was the result of shell shock or a fevered brain.

  He stirred, as if sensing her presence, and opened one eye and then the other. He struggled to a sitting position but she laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘Don’t get up. You must rest.’

  ‘You didn’t seem surprised to see me last night,’ he said with an attempt at a grin.

  ‘Nothing surprises me any more,’ Daisy said dully as a wave of exhaustion threatened to overcome her.

  His brow darkened. ‘You should be lying down, not me.’

  ‘I’m going off duty. Someone will take you to the ward when they have a bed free.’

  ‘Do you want to know another reason why I volunteered for the London Regiment?’

  She met his intense gaze coolly. ‘Not really.’

  ‘I was running away.’

  ‘From what?’

  ‘Myself mainly. I’m not proud of what I did to young Ruby. She’s a great girl and she didn’t deserve the way I treated her, but as I couldn’t have you she seemed like the next best thing.’ He held up his hand as Daisy opened her mouth to protest. ‘I know, I was a real bastard, and if I could turn the clock back I would. I’m truly sorry for the way I treated both of you, but what I told you before was God’s honest truth. I was desperate to find you and let you see that I’m not a bad fellow at heart. I’d do anything for you, Daisy.’

  She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Don’t expect me to feel sorry for you, Bowman.’ She walked off without giving him a second glance.

  She slept, but her dreams were violent and disturbing although she could only vaguely remember them when she awakened at midday. Someone was shaking her by the shoulder and she looked up to see Clarice Edmonds, a distant cousin of the Pendletons, whom she had taken under her wing when she found her sobbing with exhaustion and homesickness on Christmas Eve. Clarice looked pale and tired but her dark eyes were alive with excitement. ‘Wake up, sleepyhead.’

  Daisy raised herself on one elbow. ‘What’s happened? Is it another Zeppelin raid?’

  ‘No, nothing like that, but we’ve got to take the soup kitchen today. Rosemary and Enid have been up all night tending to the casualties and they’re exhausted.’

  ‘All right. Give me a few minutes to get dressed.’

  Clarice chuckled, pointing to Daisy’s crumpled uniform. ‘You didn’t take it off last night. Poor thing, you must have been fagged out.’

  Daisy struggled to her feet with a wry smile. ‘My mother would have a fit if she could see me now.’

  ‘So would mine.’ Clarice handed her a tin mug filled with tea. ‘Here, drink this. There’s no milk but I managed to pinch a spoonful of sugar.’

  Daisy sipped it gratefully. ‘You’re a brick, Clarice.’ She drained the lukewarm, weak but sweet tea, and put the mug on the windowsill. ‘I’ll just wash my hands and face and then I’m ready. I’ll meet you in the yard.’

  ‘I’ll go and help them finish loading the truck,’ Clarice said eagerly. She bounced off like an excited puppy anticipating a long walk.

  Daisy sighed, hoping that nothing would happen to dull Clarice’s optimism and enthusiasm for life and the work she had set out to do with such determination. Clarice had Rupert’s niceness and genuine concern for others, and getting to know her had made Daisy feel even guiltier for not loving Rupert as she knew she should. Putting such thoughts aside, she had a quick wash, but instead of going directly to the courtyard where the mobile kitchen was parked she went to the ward where she expected to find Bowman. She made her way between the packed beds but he was not there. She found the young Belgian doctor who had been attending to the wounded all night. He was pale-faced and in desperate need of a wash and a shave. He looked at her dully when she enquired about Bowman.

  ‘Can’t place him,’ he said in perfect English. He picked up a sheaf of papers and scrutinised them carefully. ‘What’s his name again?’

  ‘Private Bowman, doctor.’

  He ra
n his hand through his already tousled mouse-brown hair. ‘Trigger finger. Yes, Englishman. I remember him now. Shrapnel successfully excised from his left shoulder. Possible shell shock. I put him down for repatriation. Not much chance of a cowardly chap like him being much use to the army, or anyone else for that matter. He’ll probably end up in prison when he gets back to England.’

  Daisy stared at him aghast. ‘But surely he wasn’t fit to travel?’

  ‘If he was fool enough to cripple himself he’ll survive the journey home. Let the authorities deal with him. We’ve got genuine cases to look after here.’

  Daisy did not wait for him to continue. She ran from the ward. Whatever Bowman had done she could not stand by and allow him to travel on a troopship so soon after a painful operation undertaken without the benefit of anaesthetic. He should be resting in bed until he was fully recovered. She had to find him.

  Chapter Sixteen

  DAISY RACED PAST Clarice. ‘I’ll be back in two ticks.’ She did not wait for a response but ran on, slipping and sliding on the wet cobblestones, determined to reach the docks before the troopship sailed. Regardless of the steady drizzle she pushed her way through the crowds of civilians and soldiers, arriving at the quay only to find that the ship had already left. Disheartened and soaked to the skin, she turned on her heel and hurried back to Lamarck. Feelings for Bowman that she had thought were dead had come back to haunt her.

  ‘Where have you been?’ Clarice cried anxiously. ‘I’ve been getting black looks from everyone and I was afraid I’d have to go on my own. I don’t know the way and I’d be really scared.’