Mercy and the VAD worked together for the rest of the afternoon, making their way down the twin line of beds, removing the filth and vermin of war as they went. The doctor had already begun his preliminary examination of the new patients. As he approached, his retinue following respectfully in the rear, Nurse Chapman came hurrying ahead into the ward to check on progress. At the sight of Mercy working with the VAD her brows knitted.
‘What are you doing?’ she demanded.
‘Helping me, thank goodness!’ said the VAD. ‘Simpson ran off, she’s had all she could take. We’re managing fine, honestly we are.’
Nurse Chapman looked doubtful for a moment, then said, ‘Oh all right, carry on. Only, for goodness’ sake don’t let Matron catch you! When the doctor comes round hide in a cupboard or something.’
Mercy did not get the chance to hide. They happened to be attending to a patient near to the door when in walked the doctor, matron and all.
‘Why is a ward maid doing the duties of a VAD?’ demanded Matron in a voice of doom.
‘It was an emergency, Matron,’ Nurse Chapman explained hurriedly. ‘Allenby’s partner was suddenly taken ill, so… er…’
‘Lisburne’ supplied Mercy in a hurried whisper.
‘So Lisburne stood in. She seems competent, and Allenby is experienced—’
‘Lisburne? I know you, don’t I?’interrupted the doctor. ‘Didn’t you bring someone to Casualty once? A skating accident or something.’
‘You’ve got a good memory. That was some time ago,’ admitted Mercy.
‘Yes, it was. Von Herwath was with you, as I recall. I seem to remember you did some pretty good first aid work then. What the devil are you doing messing about as a ward maid? You should be nursing!’
Not waiting for her reply he swept on to his next patient. Matron followed him, a look of pained affront on her face. It was bad enough for a doctor to forget protocol and directly address a lowly ward maid, but for a ward maid to have the temerity to reply was an affront to the structure of hospital discipline.
Mercy could sense Allenby and Nurse Chapman shaking with silent laughter beside her, and she chewed fiercely at her lip to stop herself having a fit of the giggles. When Doctor, Matron, and their acolytes had departed the three of them collapsed into an hysterical heap.
‘Enough hilarity, ladies,’ gasped Nurse Chapman, remembering her dignity. ‘Back to work. And Lisburne, I think we can expect to see you among the VADs soon.’
‘I hope so,’ said Mercy fervently. ‘I do hope so.’
The very next morning she was summoned before Matron. She was to begin her VAD training immediately!
* * *
It was a long, cold winter. The lighting restrictions which darkened the streets made it seem even more dreary and dismal than normal. In addition to everything else Mercy suffered agonies from chilblains. Despite the discomfort she was determined not to give up her nursing. At last she felt as though she was doing something worthwhile.
Accounts of the war in the newspapers were cheerful enough, but their optimism made Mercy feel uneasy. The reports of easy victories and excellent conditions did not seem to tally with the comments of the men she was nursing.
By the time spring came it seemed as if they had been at war for ever. Even the dignified atmosphere of the Villa Dorata was disrupted by Agnes filling the place with parcels being made up for the troops, or groups of women dutifully folding bandages.
It was midsummer when Peter came home for a brief leave. Mercy looked forward to seeing him again with an eager excitement which surprised her, yet somehow the happily anticipated days did not fulfil their promise. To begin with Peter was different. She had expected that, of course. She was not surprised that he seemed older, more serious, and that much of his old boyishness had gone. What she found less easy to understand was a certain withdrawal in his manner. She sensed it had nothing to do with the past difficulties of their marriage. It was the war. He never spoke of his experiences at the Front. It was a part of him that was completely divorced from life at home.
For the first time in an age he made love to her, if such hectic thrusting urgency could be called love. Mercy found his lack of consideration, so completely out of character for Peter, the most upsetting thing of all. She wished they could talk more, but somehow there was too little time and he was too distant.
On the day before his leave ended Mercy chanced to encounter Rogers coming out of Peter’s dressing room. Poole had long since joined up, so the elderly butler had assumed the duties of valet while Peter was home, and now he stood outside the door, an expression of acute distress on his face.
‘Is anything wrong?’ she asked.
Rogers swallowed hard, clearly grappling with extreme emotion.
‘I was about to commence packing for Mr Peter, Madam, and I asked him if there was anything special he needed, and he said— he said, “I’d be grateful if you could get me a large tin of Keatings”.’
It was a measure of the butler’s distress that he referred to Peter in the old familiar way, instead of the proud ‘Captain Lisburne’ of recent months. Mercy could understand why he was so upset. The idea of the ever fastidious Peter needing anything as distasteful as flea powder clearly upset him greatly. But Mercy had tended enough men straight from the Front not to be shocked.
‘I’ll buy some on my way to the hospital,’ she said.
‘Oh thank you, Madam!’ Rogers’s relief was evident. ‘I shall endeavour to pack it carefully so that Mrs Lisbume does not see it.’
‘Good.’
Mercy smiled at him, and Rogers gave a brief grin in return. One unexpected benefit from the war was the greater understanding between her and the butler.
Peter departed on a cold, rainy day more appropriate for October than August. Mercy sensed he was almost glad to be going, as though he was relieved he would no longer have to keep up any pretence.
Another year came and went. Casualty lists mounted, the names of places like Ypres, Marne and the Somme were on everyone’s lips, and there was still no hope of peace. Mercy was astonished at how cheerful the wounded soldiers remained, even though most of them were destined to return to the trenches again as soon as they were fit. Boredom was a great problem once they had begun to recuperate, and so Mercy sacrificed her beloved gramophone and took it into the ward, along with as varied a selection of records as she could find. The brief musical interludes were tremendously popular, and were soon nicknamed ‘Mrs Lisburne’s Half Hour’. Only once did these impromptu concerts cause any dissension.
The gramophone was in the charge of a corporal from Plymouth, who proudly operated it from his wheelchair.
‘Danged if I can read what this label says,’ he declared. ‘Darned thing’s in a foreign language. Hang on, I can make out the name— Franz Lehar. Oh, that’ll do.’
‘No it won’t!’ exclaimed one soldier. ‘He’s a bloody Hun, isn’t he? Us don’t want none of their rubbish in here!’
‘He’m Austrian, not German, you gurt fool. He wrote The Merry Widow.’
‘I don’t care what he wrote. He’s still a Hun!’
‘Got some good tunes in it, has The Merry Widow.’
‘What’s wrong with a British tune?’
‘Austrian, German! Don’t make no difference. They’m all vermin!’
‘No, you can’t say that! There’s good and bad among them, same as there is with us,’ stated the corporal reasonably. ‘My brother’s a prisoner in Germany. He’s in a prison hospital and he wrote to say he’s being really well looked after. He says if the same doctor had treated him in civvy street it’d have cost him a fortune. Funny thing, this German doctor knew Plymouth well, he was joking with our Stan asking him if he fancied a night out in Union Street. Knew Torquay, too. Used to work at one of the TB clinics or sommat.’
Mercy had been passing through the ward during this exchange, but she stopped stock still at the corporal’s words.
‘Funny old world, isn’t it?’
commented someone.
‘It is that!’ agreed the corporal with a sigh. ‘A decent bloke like that doctor, and what has to happen to him? He gets run over by a car and killed! Our Stan says everyone, prisoners and Germans, was in a terrible way about it. What a waste, eh?’
Mercy was the only one who found the lively rhythm of the waltz out of place and shocking. It could not have been Gunther! No doubt there had been lots of German doctors working in Torquay before the war. It did not have to be Gunther!
She forced herself to voice the question.
‘The doctor who was killed, you don’t happen to know his name?’
The corporal stopped beating time to the music. ‘Sorry, Nurse, our Stan didn’t stay. I could write and ask him, though there’s no knowing how long it would take.’
‘Thank you – there’s no need.’
‘Might he have been a friend of yours?’ The corporal looked at her with sympathy. ‘Perhaps it’s better for you not to know for certain – it’s not as if you could do anything. Shame, though. He saved our Stan’s life.’
‘Yes, you’re right.’ Mercy managed a brief smile, and left the men to the music.
It did not have to be Gunther who had been killed, but it was. Instinct told her so, and a stunning pain overwhelmed her. She had no recollection of leaving the ward. When her senses came back to her she was in the sluice room, among the bedpans and the steam, and she was crying.
Eyes red with weeping were no novelty during those dark days. Nurse Chapman noticed Mercy’s and merely asked kindly, ‘You all right, Lisburne? You can take a break and brew up some tea, if you like.’
‘No thanks, I’m fine,’ Mercy lied, and went back to her work.
She was not fine, of course. Her thoughts kept returning to Gunther, to his long muscular body broken and bleeding, to his boundless energy stilled for ever by a stupid accident. That night and for many nights to come she wept herself to sleep. Her grief she had to keep to herself, but for the first time in that long and terrible war her loyalties were no longer divided.
* * *
1917 brought with it tighter and tighter food restrictions, and though the news that America had entered the war was cheering, people were too exhausted to be overjubilant. It was also the year in which Peter celebrated his thirtieth birthday. He was master of his own affairs at last, but too involved with fighting in ‘The War to end all Wars’ to pay much attention.
It was Mercy who had to cope with this new responsibility. Agnes kept a tight control on the finances until the last possible minute before reluctantly handing over the reins. The advent of war might have lessened hostilities in the household, but Agnes Lisburne was determined to demonstrate her continuing disapproval of her son’s marriage to the bitter end.
To her annoyance Mercy proved to be an able manager where money was concerned, so robbing her of any chance to gloat over her daughter-in-law’s incompetence.
A persistent tapping on her bedroom door woke Mercy one afternoon.
‘I am sorry, Mrs Peter,’ apologized the ever-faithful Stafford. ‘There’s a telephone call for you. I said you that you’d been on duty all night, and that you were asleep and couldn’t be disturbed, but the person at the other end said it was most urgent, and she sounded so upset.’
‘She?’ Mercy emerged from her cocoon of bedclothes and blinked in the afternoon light. ‘Oh, very well. Put it through to my sitting-room, please. I’ll take it in there.’
Pulling on a robe she shuffled drowsily into the other room. Sleeping at odd times of the day was one part of nursing to which she could never become accustomed.
‘Hello,’ she said.
‘Mercy? Oh Mercy!’
Mercy’s weariness dropped from her immediately.
‘Queenie?’ she said sharply. ‘What’s happened?’
‘It’s Joey… A letter came…’ Over the line all Mercy could hear was a series of incoherent gasps as Queenie struggled to share her news. She made out only the words ‘official’ and ‘posted missing’. They were enough.
‘I’m on my way,’ she said, ringing off. She hurried back into her bedroom.
Stafford was there.
‘Oh dear, I was afraid it was bad news, Mrs Peter,’ she said with concern.
‘Yes, my brother. I must go to Paignton at once.’
‘Very well, Mrs Peter. I’ll get out your grey linen dress, shall I?’
Mercy found it slightly incongruous, having a lady’s maid when she considered some of the tasks she performed in the course of her nursing duties. There was no help for it, though, because Stafford had nowhere else to go and would never get another situation at her age and in wartime. On this occasion Mercy was grateful for the maid’s help. Her mind was so consumed with anxiety she could not concentrate. Eventually, she found herself knocking on the peeling door of the lodging-house in Church Street. It was opened by the dour Mrs Baxter, who stood by without a word, and let her in.
Queenie was sitting in an armchair in the back room when Mercy entered. At the sight of her visitor she rose to her feet, tried to speak, and collapsed in tears. It was Mrs Baxter who, still without speaking, took a letter from the mantelpiece and handed it to Mercy. The words stood out black against the paper, harsh and dreadfully official.
‘I regret to inform you that your husband, Private Joseph Seaton, is missing, presumed killed in action.’
It was the ‘presumed killed’ that caused Mercy to catch her breath. He could not be dead, not Joey. He was too young, he had seen nothing of life. She wanted to say words of comfort to the heartbroken Queenie, instead she found herself clutching at her sister-in-law and sobbing too. Mrs Baxter brought them some tea so laced with brandy that at the first mouthful they both coughed and spluttered. By the time she had finished her cup Mercy, for one, felt calmer and able to think more clearly.
‘It’s not definite, you know,’ she said encouragingly. ‘It only says “presumed”. There must be a lot of confusion over there, so how can they possibly know where everyone has got to? How can anyone say who is alive and who isn’t.’
‘What can we do… ?’
Mercy had been pondering on these questions. She did not think she could bear simply to sit still and wait.
‘I’ll write a few letters,’ she said. ‘My husband, for one, might be able to discover something. I refuse to give up hope, and you must do the same!’
Queenie gave a watery promise, struggling to hold back a fresh flood of tears.
It was easy, writing the letters, seeking the best sources of information. While she was doing those things Mercy felt active and hopeful. It was afterwards, when she could only wait, that despair took hold. Week slipped into week until nearly a month went by. Just when she felt that she could stand the uncertainty no longer the telephone rang and this time it was an ecstatic Queenie who spoke.
‘I’ve had a letter from Joey! He wrote it himself! He’s alive!’ she cried.
For Mercy the room swayed about her precariously, so that she was forced to grasp the table to steady herself.
‘Thank God!’ she said fervently. ‘Is he all right?’
‘He was wounded and taken off to a hospital behind the lines. That was why no one knew where he was for a while.’
‘And is his wound serious?’
‘He’s lost his right foot!’
The blunt way Queenie said the words made Mercy gasp with horror. She sat down suddenly, the phone still clutched in her hand.
‘Oh no!’ she exclaimed. ‘Poor, poor Joey! That’s terrible!’
‘No it’s not!’ declared Queenie, unexpectedly jubilant. ‘He’s coming home, and they won’t be able to send him off to fight again, will they?’
‘I— I suppose not.’ Mercy was shaken by her reasoning. ‘How is he?’
‘On the mend, he says. And once he gets home we’ll really get him better. Oh, isn’t it grand news?’
‘Yes, wonderful news,’ Mercy agreed. She thought of her lively young brother hobbl
ing about on crutches. How would he cope? she wondered. But that was a problem for the future. The main thing for now was that he was alive and coming home!
The letter that came from Peter later that week made no reference to Joey – Mercy’s note must not have reached him. She did not notice the omission, however. She was too startled by his news.
‘I’ve had a slight collision with a German shell, which did not do my arm any good,’ he wrote. ‘It’s nothing too desperate, it’s what is enviously referred to here as a “cushy Blighty”, because it means I will get some home leave.’
He was coming home! Mercy felt intense relief. Her next reaction was to wonder how she could arrange time off so that she could be with him.
How much older he looks! These were Mercy’s first thoughts when she saw Peter waiting at the station forecourt.
He saw her coming and smiled, holding out his right arm to embrace her. Only then did she notice that his other arm was in a sling. He held her tightly, his lips tasting cold on hers. He took a deep breath. ‘Just smell that air! The sun, the salt and the sea! Who couldn’t recuperate under these conditions! It’s probably even better the further away from the trains you get!’
‘It certainly is. I don’t know why we’re standing here, among the smoke and smuts from the railway engine. Let’s go home!’
‘Home! How wonderful that sounds!’ His words were almost whispered and his face grew serious, his hold on Mercy’s hand tightening. Then almost as swiftly he was smiling again. ‘Come on, my friend!’ he urged the taxi driver. ‘Let’s get going! I don’t want to spend any more of my leave at the station!’
It was a very light-hearted evening. John and William could not get enough of their father’s company, and followed him like two small shadows. Over-excited, they protested loudly when the time came for them to go to bed.
‘What’s this? Mutiny in the ranks?’ demanded Peter, in mock fury. ‘To bed this minute! And I’ll follow behind to make sure you obey orders! Forward march! Left, right, left, right…’ The three of them headed for the stairs, followed by Nanny who was laughing and shaking her head.
To Dream Again Page 32