by Maggie Holt
‘But ye’re home and ye’re safe!’ Mabel protested, impatiently shrugging off his hand.
‘I know, I know, but the war’s spoiled so much that was good and hopeful – I mean, look at me, I’m not the man Phyllis married. I wasn’t joking when I said I was a pain in the arse, a bad-tempered swine who drinks and smokes too much, and can’t ever tell Phyllis what I’ve seen – or what I’ve done. Can’t tell anybody. There are some things I’ll always have to keep to myself – and never be free from the memory of them, not till the day I die.’
There was a long silence: his eyes were averted from her, staring out of the window.
At length she straightened herself up and gently placed both of her hands over his.
‘Why don’t yer tell me, then?’ she asked softly.
He turned to look into her blue-grey eyes that were willing him to speak. Which at length he did, after first lighting another cigarette. ‘We see some sad sights at the East London, Mabel, and it was no picnic for you at Booth Street, either,’ he began. ‘But Mabel, you should have seen that casualty clearing station close to the Somme in the middle of winter. Cramped, cold, dirty, only the most basic of equipment, not enough room for all the wounded who kept pouring in. It was hell.’
‘Didn’t the ambulances get ’em away to base hospitals as soon as they could?’ Mabel asked, awed by the bleakness of his expression.
‘As fast as they could, yes, but often I had to say who was to go and who was to stay and die. We had a “moribund ward” – a wretched place where we put the men who were going to die. There were a few Red Cross nurses who stayed with them. We didn’t bother to splint a broken arm or leg, you see, if the man had lost more blood than he could afford – we saved our time and supplies for those who stood a chance. And it was never easy to judge the hopeless ones against those who just might survive.’ He lowered his voice. ‘And I made mistakes.’
‘Oh, Stephen, yer poor man.’ What words were there for her to say? Nothing that was half adequate in such circumstances.
‘But that wasn’t all, Mabel. I had to – I had to despatch a few of my own men when there was no help for it – nothing else to be done.’
Mabel’s mouth fell open, aghast at what she was hearing.
‘Yer own men? Yer mean British soldiers?’ she said incredulously, remembering Harry’s fear of killing Germans.
‘Yes. What else could I do, listening to a man dying in agony, calling out for his mother all night until he choked on his own blood? I wonder what you’d have done?’ His voice was low and harsh. ‘One night I shot two Tommies in no man’s land for the same reason that I shot dying horses – and there were plenty of those pitiful creatures, I can tell you!’
He put his mouth close to her ear and she closed her eyes. ‘I pushed my .45 revolver muzzle against the back of their neck, first one and then the other, and I said I was sorry and fired. Death was instant, at least there was no doubt about that – the whole of the front of the skull came away and there were their brains, just blown out – oh, Christ. Oh, Mabel. Oh, Mabel, I was a doctor. A doctor.’
He covered his face and again turned towards the window with his back to her. She handed back the handkerchief and prayed for the right words to say, what to do for this tormented man. Her instinct was to take him in her arms and cradle his head against her shoulder, as she did with the children; but she could hardly whisper ‘All right, ssh-ssh, never fear, Mabel’s here’ to Dr Stephen Knowles. She could only rise and place her hands upon his shoulders waiting until the storm passed over. At least he knew that she was there as a friend he could trust.
After a minute or two he brought himself under control, wiped his eyes and blew his nose.
‘Thank you. I won’t apologise because – oh, Mabel, I’ve told you what I’ve never told before, not my own father, not anybody – let alone my wife, poor girl. Thank you, my dear. Thanks more than I can say.’
‘And it’ll never go any farther, yer know that, Stephen.’
‘I know. And I know it’s upset you, but –’
‘No, I’m glad yer said it to me and nobody else. I’m glad I was the one yer could tell. It was a good deed that yer did, Stephen. Only God could give the kind o’ courage ye’d need to do that.’
‘Bless you, Mabel. I couldn’t have gone on much longer out there, though.’ He grimaced, shaking his head. ‘We’ll both stick with our sick children here at Shadwell, Mabel – and it’s time we were going back there. Come on!’ He rose stiffly from the seat and took her arm, picking up his stick.
Outside the evening was still clear and they stood and looked across to the East London Hospital towering above the Shadwell Basin. They walked slowly back over the bridge and up the gradual ascent of Glamis Road. A sound of movement, talk and laughter could be heard from the Outpatients’ Hall.
‘The staff are allowed to play badminton after hours,’ he remarked. ‘It was passed at the last Board meeting. Not that I’ll be leaping about bashing a shuttlecock,’ he added ruefully.
‘And I wouldn’t have the faintest idea how to play,’ she replied. ‘I’ll leave that to the poshies!’
‘Poshies?’
‘Yes, the medical students and lady probationers who think that all Poor Law infirmaries are workhouses!’
‘Oh, Mabel.’ He was about to say something, but changed his mind and just joined in her quiet chuckle. He felt somehow released from the horror that had separated him from the life and the people he had known before the war. He had been able to tell this girl what he had not told to another living soul. She had understood, because of Harry. And Stephen was grateful.
‘Goodnight, Mabel. Thank you for – this evening.’
‘Thank yer too, Stephen. Goodnight.’
On his way up to his room in the medical quarters, Knowles heard loud male laughter coming from the students’ lounge; it sounded as if young Thompson was at the piano and practising with his friends for the concert party they traditionally held at the end of their time spent at Shadwell. The door was ajar, and Knowles heard one of them ask for another run-through of a song.
‘Can you do “Taught by Court” again? It’s so priceless when we come in for the chorus!’
Stephen Knowles’s ears pricked up and he stopped outside the door to listen.
A few opening bars were played, and then Thompson began to sing with an exaggerated cockney accent, in the style of a music hall ditty.
‘If ye’re seekin’ information,
To en’ance yer reputation,
Let ev’ry eager student come along –
Though she never went to college,
She’s a fountain’ead o’ knowledge,
An’ ’er nose is always sniffin’ aht a pong!’
Another male voice chimed in,
‘So don’t complain if bedpan smells ain’t quite as sweet as roses –’
Thompson came back with,
‘But take a sniff, a good ol’ whiff, to aid yer diagnosis –’
And together they sang with gusto,
‘Yer know to use yer eyes an’ ears, but don’t forgit yer noses!
We was taught – pooh! – phew! –
By Staff Nurse Court!’
Howls of laughter greeted the final two lines and somebody begged for another verse, to bring in halitosis and proboscis.
Knowles’s first reaction was one of furious indignation, and he was about to burst in on the young men round the piano and tell them that their so-called wit did them nothing but discredit; but second thoughts restrained him. Better not to make an issue out of thoughtless high spirits; he didn’t suppose the silly oafs had intended malice towards a young woman whose shoes they were not fit to tie up. He’d have a private word with Thompson, though, and tell him to remove that tasteless item from the programme forthwith.
Stephen Knowles even managed a grim little smile to himself as he slowly ascended the remaining stairs to his room. Later he was to be thankful that his common sense had prevailed.
Chapter Seventeen
THE SIGHT OF the little children happily playing out of doors on a sunny Sunday afternoon was a joy to behold. The small open space – it could scarcely be called a garden – at the front of the Midway Babies’ Home had been transformed by three bench seats, two new swings and a see-saw, all supplied, like the two large perambulators, by Mrs Spearmann’s Friends of the Midway, a charitable association which not only held fund-raising events but encouraged its members to befriend individual children and invite them into their homes.
‘Some o’ them get on well from the start, like little Mary with those two sisters and their housemaid Kitty,’ said Norah. ‘But others take longer, and sometimes it just doesn’t work out at all. The great thing is, y’see, they know they can always come back to Sister Norah at the Midway!’
Mabel, who was sitting on a swing with a toddler on her knee, remembered Albert’s words about Norah being ‘like a little nun’. Infants swarmed around her, trying to sit on her lap and clamber on her shoulder, forever clinging and clutching in the way of young children starved of affection; in Sister Norah they recognised a mother-figure who always had time to spare for them.
‘How’re ye gettin’ on over there, Maudie? Is he takin’ it?’ she asked.
Maud Ling had been presented with a yelling baby and a boat-shaped feeding bottle of milk. Seated at the end of the bench that Norah occupied, she was concentrating hard on the task in hand. Once the eager little mouth had gripped the rubber teat, the milk rapidly disappeared, to the accompaniment of encouraging noises from Maud.
‘Ain’t done this since Ted was a baby – whoops! I fink it’s got blocked – ’e’s stopped suckin’.’
‘Try bringin’ up some wind.’
‘’Oo, me?’
‘Here, let me show ye.’ Norah laughed, and when the baby had given a loud, satisfying burp, Maud took him back and gently pushed the teat towards his rosy mouth again. There was a tender, thoughtful look on her face as she fed the child, and although her skin was pale and her eyes shadowed, Mabel felt fairly sure that she was making a big effort to keep her drinking habit under control. It had been a terrible spring for the Royal Flying Corps, with the loss of three hundred British airmen in April.
‘I wish ye’d say a few o’ yer prayers to the Sacred ’Eart for my Alex, Norah, same as yer do for Albert,’ said Maud sombrely.
‘Oh, but I do, Maud darlin’, I do!’ replied Norah at once. ‘I say a Rosary for all o’ the dear men, every single day, and hasn’t it kept Albert safe all this time?’
There was no reply, because both Maud and Mabel were thinking of Harry, safe from enemy action now, but tragically crippled in mind and body. There was no point in dwelling on it and Mabel now passed on the news of Alice’s baby Geoffrey.
‘Cor, that was quick, wa’n’t it?’ Maud grinned. ‘’E may ’ave ’ad ’is face burned, but there can’t be much wrong wiv ’is ovver bits!’
Norah lowered her long lashes modestly in front of the children, and Mabel stayed silent. Maud looked deeply abashed. ‘Oh, sorry, Mabel, that was an awful fing to say. If my Alex had been – oh, Gawd, yer wonder ’ow much longer it can go on for, don’t yer? S’pose it should be better now that the Yanks’ve come in.’
‘How’s Harry’s brother-in-law?’ asked Norah.
‘Still in chokey on Dartmoor,’ answered Mabel. ‘Ruby took the boys down to see him on the train. She said he looks thin as a rake, but he gets on well with the other chaps, and they’re all determined to stick to their principles.’
‘Reckon ’e’s got the right idea, if yer ask me,’ said Maud dourly. ‘At least ’e’ll come aht alive, which is more than can be said for – wonder ’ow yer friend Ada’s gettin’ on, Mabel – whevver she’s copin’ on ’er own.’
‘She’s got her children and her parents – and Arthur’s parents to help. She’s better off than Sam Mackintosh’s young widow,’ Mabel said sadly, remembering Albert’s friend from railway days, killed on the Somme.
‘Hey, did yer see that poster about the Waifs an’ Strays? Five fousand poor kids they got now to look after.’ Maud sighed. ‘They did a jolly good job for me an’ Teddy, but it must be ’arder than ever now. Yer know, you ought to do summat like that, Mabel, after the war. Seein’ as poor ol’ ‘Arry –’ She bit her lip and there was a silence before Mabel replied.
‘Yes, Maudie, I’ve thought about it,’ she said softly. ‘Get this horrible war over, an’ then it’ll be children for me – other people’s, seein’ as I shan’t have any o’ me own.’ She got up and smiled round at the children. ‘Who’s comin’ to have a swing?’
A circle of four- and five-year-olds immediately surrounded her, clamouring to be first; it was so good to see them smiling, shouting and running around in the sunshine, in contrast to the pale-faced, dull-eyed mites she had encountered on that first visit to the Midway eighteen months ago with Mrs Spearmann. And what a difference that lady had made, with her money and determination! And Norah was ideal as Sister-in-Charge, calm and sweet-natured, never in a hurry. It was right that she should come here and that I should go to Shadwell, reflected Mabel; and perhaps – who knows? – when Albert returns to marry her and take her away from the Midway, I may be the one to take her place . . .
For Mabel now knew – and in fact had known in her heart for some time, that her future would not be with the Salvation Army, much as she admired its aims and achievements.
The arrival of Mrs Lovell with a tray of tea, bread-and-butter and scones put an end to further exchanges. Two nurserymaids brought out drinks and rusks for the children who gathered around them with hands outstretched. Mabel left the swing and picked up the little girl who had been clinging to her skirt. Two soft arms at once went round her neck.
‘She’s prop’ly taken to yer, Mabel, poor little fing,’ said Maud. ‘Ain’t it a shame, so many kids an’ not enough love to go rahnd!’
The following Wednesday dawned clear and bright, and when Mabel wrote the date on a bed chart, she realised it was June the thirteenth. A shiver ran down her spine, for it was five years exactly since that unforgettable day when she had come home to find her father dead at the hand of his young son: she saw again the glass flower vase, the marguerite daisies strewn around on the carpet, the wet tablecloth that Jack Court had dragged off the table as he fell. And dear old Dr Knowles had put his own career and reputation at risk by conspiring with her to make it look like an accident, and then arranged to get George away to Canada. And how good Harry had been, faithful and loving through it all, even when he knew the truth of what had happened – oh, Harry, Harry, best of men! She had a sudden longing to see him, but today she only had a morning off, from ten to one thirty, which meant that there wasn’t really time. But . . .
‘You needn’t come back until two, Nurse Court,’ said Sister Heckford. ‘You were on late last night, so get out and enjoy the sun for a few hours.’
Four hours of freedom – and there was time. It was just the day to take Harry out for an airing, and if she got a bus from Cable Street to take her over Tower Bridge and down to the Elephant and Castle, she could get another bus along the Wandsworth Road to Battersea. Only she’d have to get a move on, so without stopping to change out of uniform she put on her scarlet cloak and ran for the bus.
Before eleven she was at Falcon Terrace, helping Harry into his jacket, while his mother looked on without enthusiasm. ‘I don’t want him tired out, Mabel. John took him too far yesterday.’
‘I’ll take good care o’ him, we’ll go on the bus to the Park and sit by the boating lake,’ Mabel answered with determined brightness. ‘An’ we won’t need yer walkin’ stick, Harry, ’cause I’ll be holdin’ yer arm.’
But Doris Drover picked up the stick and handed it to her. ‘Better take it,’ she said, pursing her lips. ‘Yer never know.’
Mabel did not see the point of lumbering herself with the stick in her left hand while supporting Harry with her right, but not wanting to argu
e with his mother, she did as she was told.
‘Goodbye, Mrs Drover! I’ll bring him back by one at the latest!’
What a relief it was to be out in the open air and on their own, she thought thankfully. They reached a bus stop just in time to get aboard for Battersea Bridge, and within another fifteen minutes were walking under the trees.
‘Like old times again, isn’t it, dearest Harry?’ she said, squeezing his arm, and he responded with his slow, faraway smile. ‘L – love ag – again, M –’
‘Just like when we were first courtin’. Look, there’s a grey squirrel runnin’ across the path – there he goes, shinnin’ up that tree, see, with his bushy tail up!’
She laughed, pointing with the walking stick. The war might have changed their lives and this dear man had been to hell and back, yet here they still were on a summer morning, the green of nature all around them, the London sparrows chirping. But Harry’s steps were slowing.
‘I don’t think we’d better go as far as the lake, Harry. We’ll have a rest here if ye’re tired.’ She led him to a bench seat, and Harry obediently sat beside her, feeling for her hand. The sunlight filtering down through the leaves made little round circles of light on the path, and Mabel closed her eyes, savouring the moment: it was a brief idyll of peace and calm, happiness of a kind, but alas, the time was passing.
‘I just heard it strike twelve back there, Harry, so we’d better start makin’ tracks for the bus.’
He shook his head in protest, but she reluctantly rose and gently pulled on his arm. ‘I’ve got to be back for two, dear. We’ve had a lovely mornin’, haven’t we? Come on, give me yer arm.’