by Peggy Savage
The maid brought Amy’s lunch.
‘Well?’ Helen said again.
‘He was just passing through,’ Amy said. ‘He only had a few minutes.’
Helen looked at her in silence for a moment, then she shook her head, eyes cast up. ‘Most women would give their eye teeth.’
Amy laughed. ‘Not in public they wouldn’t. The place was seething. Dozens of pairs of eyes.’
‘In private then.’
Amy ate some of her pie. ‘This is good.’
‘In private then,’ Helen persisted.
‘He wants to meet me in England.’ Amy said. ‘He’s got leave in June. I don’t know if I can get leave then.’
‘You can try,’ Helen said. ‘God knows we’re all due for it. I want to meet up with Peter….’
Two nurses crossed the crowded room and sat down to share their table.
‘Talk to you later,’ Helen mouthed.
After dinner Amy went to Dr Hanfield’s office. She tried to prepare herself for what she presumed was the coming embarrassing discussion about her future. Would she be thrown out, or would Dr Hanfield believe her, accept that Bulford was a misogynist and a power-mad bully. And how had she found out? She supposed, wearily, that she would have been found out sooner or later. She would just have to face it out.
Dr Hanfield smiled as she came in. ‘Sit down, Amy.’ Amy sat down in front of her desk. It reminded her sickeningly of sitting in front of the General Medical Council. ‘I wonder,’ Dr Hanfield said, ‘whether you would be prepared to take on some more duties in theatre. Two of the nurses are leaving – problems at home, I believe, and there are staff needing leave.’
Amy stared at her trying to disguise her surprise and relief.
‘You do seem to have a talent for this kind of work,’ Dr Hanfield went on, ‘And I’m sure you could do the job. What do you think?’
Amy wanted to lean across the desk and hug her, give three rousing cheers, dance around the room. ‘I’d be very happy to do that,’ she said calmly.
‘Good. I thought you would.’ Dr Hanfield paused. ‘You do realize that it would mean handling other parts of the body, severed limbs, perhaps?’
Amy nodded. ‘I know. That wouldn’t be a problem at all. I’d like to do it very much.’
‘Excellent.’ Dr Hanfield smiled, a tired, weary smile. ‘We’ll start you in a few days then. We’ll have to give you some training – how to scrub up, sterilize instruments, do swab counts, that sort of thing. We’ll see how you get on, what you can do. Is that all right?’
Amy nodded. ‘Of course.’
‘Thank you, Amy.’ Dr Hanfield looked relieved.
Amy stood up. ‘Thank you, Dr Hanfield. I shall look forward to it.’
Outside the door she gave a huge sigh of relief, and not only relief. Not by a long way. She was going to be in theatre again. She would be part of it again, eyes and ears open to observe and learn every new fact and technique that came along. And there were many. Hideous though it was, the injuries and diseases that raged through a war were an unequalled stimulus to medical advance and change. She made her way slowly up the stairs. New things were happening all the time. American doctors had enormously improved blood transfusion techniques and they were already being given in some of the Regimental Aid Posts or Clearing Stations. One of their patients had been transfused at an Aid Post and it had saved his life. There was a tetanus antitoxin, a typhoid vaccine, Madame Curie with her X-rays. So many things. Now perhaps she’d be able to keep up with at least some of the changes. She might even be able to read some of the medical journals without arousing suspicion. It really was a huge change for the better, and a huge joy to her. And today, she had seen Johnny. Her heart began to lift.
Helen was waiting in the hall. ‘What did she want?’ she said.
Amy took her arm. ‘Let’s go upstairs.’ They sat down on their beds. ‘She wants to know if I’ll do more work in theatre. Apparently they’re a bit short of staff.’
‘Do you really want to do that?’ Helen looked doubtful. ‘I’m not sure I would, handling all those things. It’s bad enough on the wards.’
‘I want to do it.’ Amy tried not to sound too enthusiastic. ‘It’ll be much more interesting.’
‘It’ll be a change, anyway.’ Helen stared out of the window. She looked and sounded unsettled, restless.
‘Are you getting sick of it, Helen? Or just dreadfully all round tired? Are you thinking of giving up?’
Helen shook her head vigorously. ‘No, of course not. It’s just….’ The words seemed to burst out of her. ‘I want to see Peter. We hardly ever see each other. It’s not fair!’ Her mouth twisted. ‘It isn’t fair for anybody, is it?’
‘No, it isn’t. Perhaps he can get leave at the same time as you. ‘Amy thought immediately of Johnny. ‘Why don’t you get him to send you the date, and then we’ll have a go at persuading Matron.’
‘Perhaps,’ Helen said. ‘But it’s never enough, a few days now and again. I want to be with him all the time.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘We’re going to get engaged, Amy.’
‘Oh, Helen, how lovely!’ Amy moved over and sat beside her and took her hand. ‘Congratulations. I should say that to Peter really, shouldn’t I, and wish you every happiness? Have you told your family?’
‘Not exactly.’ Helen smiled and dried her tears. ‘Peter wants to speak to my father first. He’s a bit old-fashioned – Peter, I mean. I do hope they like him, and I hope his parents like me, but I’d marry him anyway.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with being a bit old-fashioned,’ Amy said. ‘Keeping up the standards. I’m sure your parents will love him, and his will adore you. It’ll be wonderful.’
‘What about you and Johnny?’ Helen said eagerly. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘I really don’t know.’ Amy looked away from Helen’s eager face. ‘We haven’t got that far. We’re just friends.’
‘No you’re not,’ Helen said. ‘Or he wouldn’t have come to see you.’
Amy sighed. It was all so easy in Helen’s eyes. You fell in love and you got married. There was no problem. ‘I just don’t know, Helen,’ she said. ‘I hardly know him really. I don’t really know how he feels.’
Helen smiled. ‘I think you do. You just won’t let yourself admit it.’
Amy sighed. ‘Perhaps you’re right.’ But there are problems, she thought. So many problems.
Amy started her work in theatre. She helped the surgeons and the sisters into their gowns and gloves, she sterilized instruments, she held bowls to take the shattered parts of the human frame that had to be discarded, she carried away severed limbs and soaked, stinking swabs. All the time she watched and remembered, and she obtained permission to read the medical journals. She began to feel alive again.
February came, and the battle for Verdun. They watched and worked in horror as the new batches of wounded arrived, many of them burned, sometimes beyond recognition. ‘The Germans are using flame-throwers,’ Dr Hanfield said. ‘They’ve got these ghastly machines that burn them where they stand.’ Amy spent day after day in theatre, watching the surgeons clean up the burns as well as they could, removing dead tissue, sometimes down to the bone. Infection raged through the burns and many of the men died of toxic shock.
Alongside the others Amy laboured through the days. Now and again when staff shortages were at their worst she was allowed to assist Dr Hanfield. To scrub up, to handle the instruments again, was a satisfaction that went deeper than even she had anticipated. Coming back into theatre after the months away was like coming home. She had that feeling of utter contentment, knowing that she was in her rightful place. She had missed medicine as one might miss a lover and the reconciliation was deep and true. She lay awake in bed at night, the old resolution rising more surely. She would get it back. She would.
But she had another love. She wanted Johnny with the same yearning. She wanted his arms around her. She wanted to rest her head on his broad shoulder, o
n the shining wings on his breast. She wanted his smile and his fearless optimism and his boundless energy. She couldn’t answer the question as she tried to get to sleep. Could she have them both, or would she have to make a dreadful, painful choice?
A letter arrived from Johnny. ‘I’ve got three days in England,’ he wrote, ‘starting on 20 June. Promise me that you’ll be there. Tell your matron that if she doesn’t give you leave I’ll come after her in my BE2.’
Amy bearded Matron in her office. Matron sighed and shuffled her papers and consulted her roster but in the end she said yes. ‘I hear that Helen wants to go too,’ she said. ‘We can’t spare you both at the same time. Helen will have to go when you come back.’ After a flurry of letters they both managed to organize their dates.
‘I’m a bit disappointed,’ Helen said. ‘I wanted you to be there when I got engaged.’
‘I’d rather be there when you get married,’ Amy said, ‘If leave is going to be rationed like this.’
Helen hung a calendar up in their room and crossed off each day when they went to bed. ‘I’ll have to get some clothes,’ she said dreamily. ‘I can’t turn up to Peter’s parents in a shabby uniform. I shall go to Woolands in Knightsbridge and get something really nice.’
‘Good idea.’ Amy was reminded of her own lack of wardrobe. The clothes she had left behind were so utilitarian. Johnny had never seen her in really nice clothes. If she were going to see him, certainly lunch and perhaps dine with him, she would need something to wear. Her own battered uniform still wouldn’t go down very well in London restaurants. The very thought was cheering – something feminine and pretty and something with colour. How she missed colour, after the endless khaki and dark blue and grey. Just to see pastel pink and green and pale blue and lilac would be a tonic. She had been given a week’s leave, so she would have a day or two before Johnny arrived. She could shop, have her hair done, have a manicure….
Helen interrupted her daydreams. ‘What are you going to do about these letters from Dan?’ she said. ‘They still keep coming.’
‘I don’t know.’ They had brought the post up with them and a letter from Dan was lying on Amy’s bed. ‘There isn’t any harm in writing to him, is there?’ she said. ‘Lots of women at home are writing to soldiers, even ones they don’t know. It’s a link with home.’
‘I think you’ll have to tell him about Johnny,’ Helen said. ‘Peter said he talks about you. Quite fondly, apparently.’
‘There isn’t anything to tell yet, Helen. Anyway, Dan told me very carefully that he didn’t want to get involved with anyone until the war is over. He’s not interested in that way.’ Helen merely smiled and shrugged.
Amy arrived home in England on a warm, sunny day. Her father hugged her with delight. ‘You look well, Amy. Tired, but well.’
‘I think I could sleep for a week,’ she said.
‘You can do that if you want to. Your room’s all ready.’
‘Johnny’s coming in a few days,’ she said. ‘I want to do some shopping.’
He smiled. ‘I thought he might be.’
After dinner they walked to the top of St Martin’s Hill. ‘Look,’ her father said, ‘you can see the grounds of the Crystal Palace from here and it’s all of three miles away.’
I’ve flown over that, she thought. I’ve seen it from the air. Johnny will soon be here.
That night she looked at herself in the mirror in her bedroom. She was thinner than she used to be. Her old clothes wouldn’t fit her now. Her hair needed the attentions of a good hairdresser – she would leave it long so that she could put it up, but have it trimmed a little, and a really good wash and a rinse with camomile. Her hands needed a manicure and lots of soothing hand cream. All that washing had roughened them. I need everything, she thought, from the skin outwards, new underclothes, a coat and skirt and a hat, an afternoon dress, a dress for dining, new shoes. She was going to enjoy herself.
She went to town the next day and toured the shops, D.H. Evans and Selfridges and Woolands, revelling in the colours and the fine fabrics. In D.H. Evans she held a silk petticoat up to her face. The softness and smoothness were an almost forgotten and sensuous delight after two years of cotton and rough linen and worsted. She bought a fine cream linen summer coat and skirt and a brown felt hat, a lilac silk afternoon dress and a black taffeta dinner dress. Then she went to Dunlops and bought a pipe for her father. She went to Savory and Moore’s to buy some scented toilet soap. She had almost managed to forget the war until she heard an army officer buying some morphine. I’m not going to think about it she thought. Just for a few days, I’m not going to think about it.
The next day a telegram arrived from Johnny: Can you meet me tomorrow for lunch? The Ritz. One p.m. Johnny.
The Ritz again, she thought. Thank goodness she’d been shopping. She telegraphed back: Yes.
‘Johnny?’ her father asked and she nodded.
‘He wants to meet me in Town tomorrow. You don’t mind, do you, Father? He’s only got a couple of days.’
‘Of course not, my dear. I’ll have your company for a day or two after that.’
She walked down Piccadilly the next day, remembering the last time she had met him here, when she almost turned back. Now she had been drawn into a relationship that she was almost afraid of, but she knew now she couldn’t resist. The thought that she was going to see him now, in a few moments, made her almost tremble.
He was waiting for her in the hotel, looking splendid in his uniform. No gun this time, she noticed. He came to her at once and stood very close, holding her hand and looking down at her. ‘Hello, Amy.’
‘Hello, Johnny.’ For a few seconds they looked at each other, not speaking, until she became aware again of the other people moving around them and moved away a little.
‘It’s so lovely to see you,’ she said. Such a trite remark, she thought. She had longed to see him and all she could do was to say that. She should be able to throw her arms around him. Chaperons may have been dispensed with, but the restraints were still there. He took her hand, though, as they walked into the restaurant. The waiter settled them at a table.
‘You look wonderful,’ he said. ‘You’ve done something to your hair.’
‘A little,’ she said. ‘It’s nice to do a few frivolous things again.’
He ordered champagne. ‘Not quite de rigueur for lunch,’ he said, ‘but I feel in a champagne mood.’
Over lunch he talked about flying, as if he were just doing it for fun. She almost told him about Helen’s engagement; he had met Helen at the hospital, but then she didn’t want to talk about engagements.
‘I will have to leave you after lunch,’ he said. ‘My mother has arranged a dinner party for the family and half the county.’
‘I expect she wants to show you off,’ Amy said. ‘She must be very proud of you.’
‘She’s glad to see me home,’ he said. He took a small box out of his pocket. ‘I thought you might like to have this.’
She opened the box. Inside, on a silk cushion, was a brooch, a small replica of his wings in gold, with a diamond at the centre. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said. ‘I love it. Thank you so much, Johnny.’
‘I thought you might like it.’
‘I shall treasure it.’
After lunch he took her to the station in a cab. ‘I’m sorry to leave you so soon,’ he said, ‘but I’ll see you tomorrow. I’ll pick you up from home in the car. About ten.’
He arrived promptly the next day. She brought him into the house to see her father.
‘Hello, sir,’ Johnny said. ‘I hope you are keeping well.’
‘Very well, thank you. All the better for having Amy at home.’
Johnny smiled. ‘I quite agree, sir.’
‘Let’s hope you will all be home for good soon.’
‘Yes, sir. We all hope that.’
Her father came to the door to see them off. ‘Enjoy your day,’ he said.
Johnny started the car and they
drew away. ‘Where are we going?’ she said.
He touched her hand briefly. ‘I’m taking you home to meet my mother.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
1916
THE house came into view at the end of the drive, much as she had imagined it. It was large and rambling and settled among the lawns and trees with the serenity of old age. She thought she could recognize the additions that had been made through the years – a bit of Jacobean, Queen Anne and certainly mid-Victorian – but melded by the years into a charming mellow whole. She smiled to herself. It could only be an English country house. She could understand why his family would cling to it, why they kept to their traditional ways, why they didn’t want anything to change.
‘It’s a lovely house,’ she said.
‘Been in the family for a few hundred years.’ Johnny drew up in a crunch of gravel.
The door opened and the butler came out on to the porch.
‘Hello, Barnes,’ Johnny said. ‘All well?’
‘Yes, sir.’ He held the door open for them. ‘Good afternoon, miss. Her ladyship is waiting in the drawing-room, sir.’
He took Amy’s coat and she glanced around her. The beamed entrance hall, perhaps the original part of the house, would have been warm and welcoming if she hadn’t been slightly apprehensive. Johnny’s ancestors, she supposed they were, looked down at her from the walls; unchanging, unbroken continuity. She was not, she thought, apprehensive about the woman she was about to meet; she wasn’t afraid of anyone. If she could face the thought of meeting the Germans, she could face Johnny’s mother. She was apprehensive about the situation, about the influence his mother would undoubtedly have, one way or the other. She was also worried that the coming social exchange might prove difficult. She was not used to this any more. Some of the old social rules had begun to seem more and more foolish and exaggerated. She was used now to the very lowest, most primitive situations that anyone could be in, to nerves stripped raw, grunted exchanges and strangled cries. That she could be judged now by some casual word or minor action seemed unreal. She hoped that her impatience with traditional social niceties would not show. Lady Maddox knew nothing about her – thankfully.