A Nurse's Courage

by Maggie Holt

  Her brief interview with the doctor resulted in a visit from another doctor, the now retired Henry Knowles. ‘This is a sorry business, Mabel, my dear,’ he said as they stood in the kitchen, out of earshot of Harry. ‘Though I must confess I’ve seen it coming, as I’m sure you have too. Anyway, I’ve done some asking around and so has Stephen, but I’m afraid there’s only one place that will take your Harry. You see, he’s classed as a chronic case.’

  He did not add, ‘without hope of recovery’, which was the term used in Stephen’s correspondence with the military.

  Mabel took a breath. ‘Netley?’

  ‘Yes, my dear, the Royal Victoria.’

  ‘And he’d go into D block, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘Not necessarily and certainly not at first. He’d go for assessment and then wherever they’d got a bed.’ He sighed. ‘I’m very sorry, Mabel, but you can’t go on like this. Netley’s a good place, you’ve been there and seen it, he’ll be well looked after among other men who’ve suffered in the same – the same terrible battles. Talk it over with his sister and parents, and let me know when you’re ready to send him there. Stephen says he’ll take Harry down to Southampton himself – they’ll go by train, you know they run these special ambulance trains now, the “Netley coaches”. Whenever you decide, Mabel.’

  She began to cry silently. ‘Oh, Dr Knowles, how shall I ever tell him? It’s so far away.’

  ‘Yes, my dear, I know. But it’ll be for the best in the long run.’

  ‘Yes, an’ it was all for the best when poor Maudie had to part with her baby and go to a women’s refuge,’ she said bitterly.

  Knowles put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Yes, dear, I know,’ he said again. ‘And I’m so sorry.’

  There was something else that troubled Mabel, something she could not mention to Dr Knowles. She was not happy about Stephen’s involvement in Harry’s fate. No doubt he wanted to be of practical assistance in this crisis, but she knew that Harry had always sensed a rival in young Dr Knowles – and, she had to admit to herself, not without reason.

  ‘I’ll arrange for a day off – the relief midwife can take over – an’ I’ll go down to Netley with Harry meself,’ she declared.

  The Drovers and Ruby were deeply dismayed when they heard that Harry was to return to Netley, though they all maintained that it would be a temporary measure and that he would be home again by Christmas. The date was fixed for Thursday, the twelfth of September, and Stephen and his father were to arrive at Deacon’s Walk in their car at ten, so that they could accompany Mabel and Harry to Waterloo Station and see them on to the special carriage of the ten thirty train.

  On the Wednesday night the Drovers came to say goodbye and sat for an hour with their son; John Drover said a prayer for a safe journey and a happy outcome for Harry after his two years of affliction. They kissed him and his mother gave him a small engraved text to put above his bed at Netley: I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living.

  After they had left and the cases were packed and the wheelchair folded ready for the journey, Mabel told Ruby that she would sleep downstairs in the armchair in Harry’s room, to be on hand if he needed anything in the night. In fact, she undressed, put on her rightgown and got into Harry’s single bed, cuddling close against him with her arms round his thin frame, her warm face pressed to his cheek. He flung his arm across her, trying to speak, but she put a finger on his lips.

  ‘Ssh-ssh, dearest Harry,’ she whispered, kissing him. ‘I love yer, remember that – we’ll always love each other.’

  He breathed a long, contented sigh. ‘L-love again. Love.’

  Mabel soon drifted into sleep and dreamed that they were walking out together on a fine, sunny day, arms linked and chattering happily as in their courting days. She smiled in her dream and her eyelids fluttered. The parlour was in darkness, but the curtains stirred a little at the open window as a light breeze blew them to and fro. The clock ticked, but Harry could not see the time, nor did he want to: he wished the night to go on for ever and ever, feeling her warm body beside him, listening to her soft, regular breathing like a lullaby, soothing him into sleep – a deep, deep sleep without dreams . . .

  All of a sudden he awoke. The breeze was now pouring into the room, a healing stream of deliciously scented air that bathed him in its fragrance, pervading all his senses. Every ache and discomfort had gone, and his body had become as light as a feather, for he was floating up above the bed towards the window. He could look down and see himself lying there beside Mabel, curled in her arms: Mabel, dearest of girls, the only girl he had ever loved.

  But now he knew that it was time to leave: time to go on that journey he had made once before when in the hospital on Malta, three years ago. He remembered it all as he saw again the night sky, the stars whirling around him as he ascended up and up, leaving the world behind, speeding onwards and upwards to that blessed realm of light, happiness and peace.

  The first light was just beginning to touch the eastern sky when Mabel woke with a sudden chill. She started up in the bed and looked around her. The room was very silent. ‘Harry!’ she cried aloud. And then she saw that he had gone.

  Mabel Court had looked upon death many times at the Infirmary and at Shadwell; she had seen both her mother and father in death, and it held no terrors for her. She got out of the bed, closed the half-open eyes, straightened the body, pulled the sheet up over the empty face.

  There would be weeping and mourning for the loss of a good man ‘promoted to glory’ in the Salvation Army tradition, but in this quiet hour at sunrise Mabel knelt alone beside the bed and gave thanks through her tears that for Captain Harry Drover, that faithful soldier and servant of the Lord, the war was over; this cruel world would trouble him no more.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  ALBERT’S LETTER – THE longest he had ever written to his sister – arrived on the day of the funeral at Wandsworth Cemetery. The news of Harry’s death had not reached him, and Mabel found his comments about his former workmate and friend all the more poignant.

  ‘So the old girl come up with it in the end,’ he had written on torn-off sheets of paper filched from some office cupboard.

  And you diserve it Mabel after all you put up with from her. Its yours and not to give away do you understand me. Not for Alice or Daisy they are aright and so am I and we may never here from George agen so its yours Mabel.

  But you coud help out poor old Harry and his famly if they need ready cash but Mabel I think that he will have to go into one of these homes for servicemen there going to need a lot of them places I reckon. Also poor old Maudie you coud give her a helping hand. That was a terible shame about losing Alex and the kid as well. I hope she can go back to the thetter stage.

  But Mabel you have you own life to think of and my advise is to look round for a nice big house in a nice part and buy it for children down on there luck. You always said you want to well now you got the means so do what I say. Spend it on a home you can be your own boss and not be holden to some lady de la Posh telling you what to do. You coud take in who you like and not who you dont like.

  Escuse the spellng mustakes I am writing this on watch and cant see very much light.

  Your loving brother Albert.

  And then he had added an almost indecipherable scrawl at the bottom: ‘I know youd take care of my little Norah if she was on her own Mabel.’

  ‘Merciful God, Albert, never say so,’ she whispered, folding the two sheets of paper back into the envelope; she put it in her pocket when they left Deacon’s Walk for the funeral, so that she could touch it and feel his presence near her. But she’d never be able to show it to Norah, not with that last bit: why on earth had he written it?

  A large crowd of mourners and well-wishers turned out to pay their respects to a much loved neighbour, supported by the Battersea and Clapham Corps of the Salvation Army with their bands leading the cortège. Ruby and her sons joined Major and Mrs Drover at the graveside, while Mabel was
flanked by Sister Norah on her left and a wan-faced Maud Ling in black, holding her right arm. Teddy Ling stood a little way off, and one or two familiar faces from Booth Street and Shadwell gathered around in silent sympathy. Dr Henry Knowles was there, but Stephen was not, for which Mabel was thankful.

  Harry’s cap was placed on the coffin, and she felt her two friends’ arms tighten around her as it was lowered into the earth to the sound of a single muffled drum-beat and his mother’s anguished sobs; and then the bands joined to lead the singing of ‘The Day Thou Gavest, Lord Is Ended’ Mabel trembled and thought of a passage from The Pilgrim’s Progress that she had read many years ago at school: ‘And so he passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side.’

  Only in Harry’s case it’d be trombones, she thought inconsequentially and touched Albert’s letter in her pocket, for it was just the sort of remark that the cheeky rascal would have made; but at the same time she made up her mind to follow his advice and put Mimi Court’s ill-gotten fortune to good use. Without poor Harry to consider, there was nothing to stop her from handing in her notice to the LCC and applying to the Waifs and Strays Headquarters for work in one of their small children’s homes. And then after the war – if it ever came to an end – she would buy that ‘nice big house’ and start her own refuge for children, fulfilling a lifelong dream. And it would be a memorial to Harry.

  Afterwards she sat down with her two friends to talk. She was particularly glad to see Maud Ling after several weeks with no news.

  ‘Dear Harry’s brought us together again today, Maudie – you an’ me an’ Norah. How’re yer gettin’ on now, dear? Doin’ all right at the – er –’

  ‘At the shelter, yer mean? Yeah, they been very good to me, Mabel, and there’s ovver poor girls there worse orf ’n me. But I can’t stay there and I’m movin’ dahn Twickenham way as soon as Teddy’s found us lodgin’s. ’E’s got a job in a film studio there.’

  ‘Oh, isn’t he with the Daily Chronicle any more?’

  ‘Nah! ’E’s learnin’ to be a cameraman, workin’ with that photographer ’e met on the Chronicle – they’re wiv a team makin’ movin’ pictures. Some bloke’s bought up the ol’ skatin’ rink at St Margaret’s an’ turned it into a studio. Teddy reckons there’s a big future in it.’

  ‘My word, Maudie! Are yer gonner be in films like Mary Pickford?’ joked Mabel, though she sadly noted how pale the girl looked, with the pain of loss still shadowing her hazel eyes.

  ‘Ha! Very funny, I’m sure!’ said Maud, making a face. ‘Nah, Teddy reckons ’e can get me a job doin’ somefing arahnd the place, runnin’ messages, makin’ tea an’ sammidges or summat. Don’t want to go back into service again.’ Her mouth tightened. ‘I’m grateful to the Sally Army, Mabel, but I ain’t cut out for that sort o’ life, not permanent, like. No, I’m orf to Twickenham.’

  ‘But ye’ll keep in touch wid us, won’t ye, Maudie, darlin’?’ said Norah shyly. ‘Ye won’t be lost to yer old friends?’

  Maud looked away without answering. Mabel knew that she could not forget how Norah had insisted on keeping baby Alex at the Midway – from where he had been stolen. She hoped that the coolness would pass in time, for the friendship between the three of them was too precious to lose.

  Over tea and fish paste sandwiches the talk turned to the latest news from the battlefields, where it seemed the tide was at last beginning to turn. Another German advance on the Western Front in the spring had received a sharp setback in July, and in August a massive British attack using hundreds of tanks ploughed into the enemy lines and effectively broke up all but a few pockets of resistance. On the Eastern Front Germany’s allies Bulgaria and Turkey surrendered, and then Austria. Newspaper headlines blazed with predictions of an end to the fighting, but by this time war-weariness had caused widespread cynicism; people no longer believed what they read of Allied advances and enemy retreats: they had heard it all before and been disillusioned. Worn out by austerity, shortages of food and fuel, crushed by the sorrow of the sacrifice of so many men’s lives, the British public could see no end to the misery of war. They were for the most part unaware of the negotiations for a peace settlement, instigated by the German generals who, faced with military defeats, a half-starved population at home and mutiny in their navy, were now calling upon the Allies for an armistice.

  When Maud and Teddy Ling had left, Norah spoke of Mrs Spearmann, now nearing her confinement. ‘Sure I didn’t like to mention her in front o’ Maudie, but she’s not at all well, y’see. She’s blown up like a balloon wid the dropsy, an’ gettin’ blindin’ headaches –’

  ‘Oh, Norah, that’s very bad – she could start havin’ fits!’ cried Mabel. ‘What does Mr Poole say?’

  ‘I don’t know, except that he’s visitin’ her, an’ keepin’ her in bed wid the curtains drawn an’ a private nurse livin’ in at Maybury Place. It’d be terrible for the Midway if – I mean she’s been the guidin’ light o’ the place, made all them reforms – God forgive me, Mabel, I should be prayin’ for her husband an’ two little ones dependin’ on her.’

  Mabel could follow Norah’s train of thought and her fears for the future of the Midway Babies’ Home if . . .

  On the first of October Olive Spearmann was delivered of a stillborn son and came close to death herself. While she slowly recovered her husband fell victim to a new and deadly menace: a virulent epidemic of influenza had broken out in Europe and had reached Britain in late 1918, where it become known as ‘Spanish flu’. It found an easy foothold in a population ravaged by four years of war and civilian deaths rapidly mounted, adding to the casualty lists of men lost in battle. Amos Spearmann’s undernourished workforce was decimated by it and the resultant death toll included Spearmann himself.

  Against this grim background rumours of an end to the war began to be taken seriously. All through October hopes rose and became openly expressed: people hardly dared to imagine that there could be light at the end of such a long, dark tunnel.

  And then, suddenly, out of the blue, there was Ruby Swayne’s stricken face waiting for Mabel to come home from her afternoon visits: she was holding the Evening Standard in her hand. Darkness was falling as Mabel read the report of the sinking of the SS Galway Castle – torpedoed in the Mediterranean – only a few survivors . . .

  ‘I must go to Norah.’

  Closing her mind to the full import of the news, Mabel leapt back on to her bicycle and pedalled furiously towards the Elephant and Castle and on to the Midway Home hidden among the backstreets to the north of the New Kent Road.

  Breathless and perspiring, she wheeled the cycle down the passageway and stood it up in the yard that did duty as a playground in good weather. She rang the bell and a nurserymaid answered.

  ‘Why, Nurse Court!’ she said in surprise, but her smile froze on seeing the look in Mabel’s eyes.

  ‘I’ve come to see Sister McLoughlin. Where is she?’

  ‘Down with the in-betweens, givin’ ’em their tea.’

  The in-betweens were aged from around six months to two years, making the transition from babyhood to toddling. There were about a dozen of them.

  ‘Er – is summat wrong, Nurse Court?’ asked the girl.

  ‘I must see Norah,’ replied Mabel, already walking down the corridor in dread at what she had to tell her dearest, closest friend.

  Norah looked up from feeding a wriggling infant on her lap when Mabel entered the room. Another helper was giving a bottle feed. Whimpers and gurgles filled the air in equal measure.

  ‘Now, now, Charlie, ye got to learn to take it off a spoon. Why, Mabel, ye’ve cycled over here in the dark. Is it ’cause ye’ve had a telegram?’

  Mabel stared blankly at Norah who had asked the question so matter-of-factly, patting the little boy as she spoke.

  ‘No, Norah, not a t-telegram – not yet. But it’s here – in the evenin’ paper, see – the Galway Castle’s been torpedoed – an’ sunk. Only a few – only a few survivors.’ Her v
oice sounded thin and strained. When Norah remained silent she added, ‘But ye’ve heard already, then? Yer know?’

  ‘No, Mabel, I haven’t heard anythin’, it’s just a feelin’ I’ve had these two days past. I can’t pray, y’see. Come on now, Charlie-boy, take another spoonful – open yer mouth – whoops, there’s a good boy.’

  She smiled at the child as he spluttered over the rusk softened in milk and Mabel stared in bewilderment, unable to comprehend Norah’s apparent lack of emotion.

  ‘There were survivors, Norah, it says so – he got picked up before when the Christina –’

  Norah wiped Charlie’s mouth on his bib. ‘No, Mabel, darlin’, not this time. I’ve seen him in a dream, y’see, like many a time before.’

  Remembering how Norah’s dreams of Albert had so often been followed by his actual reappearance, Mabel broke in eagerly, ‘But if yer saw him in this dream, Norah – didn’t he – did he say anythin’?’

  Norah rose from her chair, lifted Charlie and held his face against her cheek briefly before placing him in a wooden pen with other ‘crawlers’. She stood and looked at Mabel with enormous pity in her blue eyes. ‘No, Mabel, darlin’. He just smiled – he was walkin’ away from me – from us. He won’t be comin’ back. That’s why I thought ye’d had a telegram.’

  ‘Oh, no, Norah – oh, God, I never thought to lose him – not me brother!’ cried Mabel as the truth at last struck her like a blow between the eyes. Her voice rose on a long, despairing wail.

  ‘Hush, Mabel, not in here. Come wid me – watch the children, Izzie,’ Norah ordered the open-mouthed nursery assistant, and taking her friend’s arm she led her out into the corridor and along to her office where Mabel collapsed on a chair and laid her head upon the table.

  ‘Albert! Oh, Albert, me brother, me own dear boy – oh, God, oh, God!’ The words were wrung out of her; she beat her fists on the table in a kind of helpless rage.