by Mary Hooper
After dinner on this particular day, Poppy was sent out on an errand by Sister. She came back along the promenade, squinting in the sunshine across the Channel to see if she could glimpse the white cliffs of the English coastline.
There was a small café bar along the prom which, although run by a French couple, always contained lots of British customers: boys who’d just arrived in France, those going on leave, mothers and fathers over here to visit their recovering sons and staying at one of the hostels, and anyone else trying to kill a little time. Poppy glanced in, but the windows were steamed up and at first she thought she must be mistaken in what she saw. The two figures at the bar looked like Privates O’Toole and Booker, but they both had bandages round their heads and O’Toole had what looked like a broken arm in a splint. There was also a pair of wooden crutches propped against the bar.
Poppy stared through the plate glass, confused. Had they both had an accident she hadn’t heard about? But she’d seen them only that morning and they’d seemed perfectly all right then.
Suddenly, Private O’Toole saw Poppy, and, nudging his chum, quickly whipped off the bandages round his head, which had been preformed into a ready-made turban. His head was revealed, completely wound-free.
Mystified, Poppy went in.
‘Don’t tell Sister!’ said Private Booker as she approached.
‘It won’t happen again,’ said Private O’Toole. ‘It was just a joke.’
‘What was?’ Poppy asked. She frowned. ‘Why are you covered in bandages?’
‘Sit down, nurse!’ Private O’Toole said, removing the splint from his arm. ‘Have a nice French coffee, won’t you?’
‘Just tell me what you’re doing here,’ Poppy said, quite sternly, for although she had absolutely no status at all within the hierarchy of the hospital, the boys in beds seemed to make little distinction between VADs, staff nurses and sisters; all were called ‘nurse’ and usually deferred to as figures of authority. ‘And why do you look as if you’ve just come from a clearing station?’
There was a long pause.
‘The thing is,’ Private Booker began, ‘all the other chaps in the ward have injuries that show . . .’
‘So when they go out and about, they get looked after,’ finished Private O’Toole.
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Well, they’re heroes, ain’t they? They get treated to a cup of tea here, have a pat on the head there, and half a crown or a shilling gets slipped into their back pocket.’
Private Booker nodded towards the bar. ‘They sometimes get a nice little shot of whisky or a glass of Calvados.’
‘But we get nothing!’ Private O’Toole said. ‘People can’t see what we’ve got wrong with us, so they treat us like malingerers.’
‘Malingerers, is it?’ Poppy raised her eyebrows meaningfully.
‘People ask us what injuries we’ve had and want to know when we’re going back to the front. I tell ’em I had a bayonet in me guts and I’m still under the doctor, but I don’t think they believe me.’
‘I tell them I was buried alive,’ Private O’Toole said, ‘but unless they can actually see you’ve got something wrong – like a bandaged limb with a bit o’ blood on it – they’re not really interested.’
Both of them smiled uneasily at Poppy.
‘No harm done. We just thought we’d get ourselves a bit o’ pocket money, see,’ Private Booker said.
‘You won’t tell Sister, will you?’ Private O’Toole put in quickly. ‘We won’t do it again, will we, Booker?’
‘Certainly we won’t,’ Private Booker said. ‘Wouldn’t dream of it.’
‘Sister would have a fit,’ Poppy said. ‘The boys from her ward, out begging!’ She tried not to smile as she reached across the table. ‘Come on, let’s have the bandages and the splint, then . . . and the crutches.’
‘Here, just to show willing,’ Private Booker said, and he got out a handful of money and put it on the table. ‘This is what we’ve got so far today.’
Poppy scooped up the mixture of francs and sixpences. ‘I’ll put it in the Ward 5 treats box.’
When Poppy got back to the ward, she found the men – and one man especially – in a good mood, for the doctors had decided that, as Tibs had now felt some sensation in both feet, he was recovered enough to go home, as long as he took things easy and promised to massage his feet every day.
‘Tibs has got his Blighty ticket!’ Private Bingley shouted down the ward. ‘Some devils have all the luck!’
Sister, who was taking temperatures at the time, gave him a look. ‘Lucky?’ Poppy heard her saying, ‘If you think losing most of your toes is lucky . . .’
If there was an element of luck involved, Poppy thought, Tibs was lucky not to have lost either of his big toes, for she’d been told that if either of these went then one’s body was thrown off balance, making walking much more difficult. As it was, however, slowly and leaning on a walking stick, Tibs intended to lead Violet down the aisle. Much teasing of the bridegroom went on, and the boys made a card for Tibs full of doubtful jokes about him already having had his wedding night some seven months previously.
Three other convalescent boys from Ward 5 went on the Red Cross ship with Tibs, and almost immediately four new casualties arrived. Two of these were Belgian soldiers who were taken under the wing of one of the older VADs, who spoke fluent Flemish. One newcomer was a sergeant major who took his job seriously and whose bark could be heard from one end of the ward to the other, and the last was a lanky lad of about seventeen, who had a gunshot wound to his arm.
As usual, the long-term men in the ward left the new boys alone for a couple of days. This allowed them to sleep as much as they wanted, then slowly come to terms with where they were and what injuries they had. Once they were sitting up and looking around them, the long-term residents of the ward would come and call on them, asking to know all the latest from the front and how the new boys thought the war was going.
They didn’t get much information out of Private Casey, the young lad, apart from the fact that he’d signed on under age and wished to God that he hadn’t. There was a great difference between him and the other young chaps in the ward, who were always ragging each other or making up marching songs with double – smutty – meanings. While they larked about, Private Casey would stare at them, baffled by their banter and trying desperately to keep up with what they were talking about.
Seeing this happening, Sister asked Poppy to keep an eye on Private Casey and, if she had a moment, go and chat to him, so some afternoons Poppy would sit by his bed. There she’d darn bedsocks or sew buttons on pyjamas while Private Casey told her about his life at home before he’d joined up. He’d lived on a farm with his mother and father in Somerset, where they’d kept a herd of cows and delivered milk to their neighbours in the surrounding countryside, and he wanted nothing more than to be back there.
‘All I had to worry about there was whether our cows were giving enough milk and when to run them with the bull,’ he told Poppy one afternoon.
‘If it was just you and your dad on the farm, couldn’t you have got a certificate to say you were in a reserved occupation?’ she asked him.
He shook his head. ‘I didn’t even try. I got given a white feather, see, and it made me feel that bad that I weren’t fighting.’
‘But you were under age!’
‘I told the woman that, but she wouldn’t have it.’
Poppy briefly thought of Miss Luttrell, who’d once handed out feathers to all and sundry without much thought for the consequences of her actions.
‘She said I was a strong lad and I had no excuse not to be fighting for my country.’
Poppy sighed. ‘And so I suppose you went to the recruiting office . . .’
‘That’s right, and when the quartermaster asked me how old I was, I forgot to lie and said seventeen. He said to go away and come back the next day when I was eighteen. And that’s what I did.’ He shuddered. ‘And then I st
arted to get trained how to kill people and I didn’t like it one bit.’ He was quiet for a moment. ‘But it was seeing those poor horses struck down in battle that was the worst thing of all. You see, they’d already come and taken away two of ours from the farm – they wanted them for war work. So Dad and I were managing with just one horse each to pull the carts.’
‘That must have been hard work for the two horses left behind,’ Poppy said.
He nodded and his bottom lip trembled. ‘But we kept telling each other that our horses would be doing sterling work at the front, pulling ambulances and bringing men in to safety. But when I got here and saw all the poor things piled up dead on the ground . . .’ His eyes filled with tears and Poppy passed him a handkerchief. After a moment, he continued, ‘We were taken to our billet, which was on land which had just been fought over, and the first thing I saw was a horse like our Gertie – with the same markings.’ He paused to blow his nose. ‘But a shell had exploded nearby and that poor horse had been blown right up into a tree and was just hanging there over a branch, dead.’
Poppy bit back tears of sympathy. ‘That’s terrible.’
‘There were dead horses everywhere I looked, and others just about alive but suffering terrible injuries, and not nearly enough veterinary men to treat them, and I thought, what are we all doing here? Oh, I do want to go home!’ As he said this, he turned his head into his pillow and began weeping.
Poppy patted his shoulder, then pulled the screens around his bed and went to get him a hot drink. She’d speak to Sister, she decided – see if they could perhaps try and get Private Casey’s mother and father over to give him a boost, give him something to look forward to. He couldn’t possibly go back to the front line as he was.
In the kitchen, Poppy put the kettle on the gas and heard someone come in behind her.
‘Poppy?’ a hesitant voice said.
Wheeling around, she came face-to-face with Essie Matthews, her best friend from Netley.
‘Matthews!’ she said in amazement. ‘Have you been posted here? How lovely!’
But Matthews, although she hugged her back, did not look as if it was a lovely occasion at all.
Chapter Eighteen
‘What a surprise! Have you just arrived? Which ward are you on?’
A handful of questions tripped off Poppy’s tongue, but none of them received an answer. Matthews just stood there, rather flustered, looking as if she wanted to speak, starting sentences but not continuing them.
There was a pause, then Poppy, realising Matthews couldn’t find the right words and that there was something wrong, said more urgently, ‘What is it? I know something’s wrong.’ When it still seemed as if Matthews might prevaricate, she added, ‘Please! Just say it.’
Matthews tried to compose her face. ‘Poppy, I’m very much afraid it’s your brother. It’s Billy.’
Poppy could not speak for a moment, just stared at her friend. Then she said, ‘Not . . . ?’ She shook her head. ‘Not dead?’
Matthews nodded. ‘Yes. I’m afraid he is dead. There’s no mistake. Oh, Poppy, I’m so terribly sorry.’ She put her arms about Poppy, who swayed against her.
‘Are you sure? Could there be any doubt about it? I mean, has anyone seen him or has he just been posted as Missing? Might he have been captured?’
‘No. His . . . his body came in. I saw it briefly.’
Please, please, don’t let it be another self-inflicted wound, Poppy thought. ‘Do you know what actually happened to him? Don’t tell me he did it himself?’
Matthews shook her head. ‘I don’t know very much at all, except he had multiple injuries.’
‘Where are you stationed? Where was he?’
‘I’m in No. 1 General Hospital in Étretat.’ Poppy looked blank, so she added, ‘It’s on the coast, north of here, about three hours away by train. There are lots of Australian units billeted there.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Poppy said, remembering Billy’s letter.
‘I’m in a surgical ward,’ Matthews said, ‘and I was on night duty when he was brought in.’
‘And was it self- . . . Did he do it himself?’ Poppy asked. Oh, the shame of it if he had.
‘That’s just it,’ Matthews said. ‘I don’t know exactly what his injuries were. Someone was checking the tags of those who were unconscious and I heard someone call out, “William Pearson, dead on arrival”. I tried to get over to find out more, but we were really busy. There’d been some sort of skirmish going on, there were a dozen badly injured boys on stretchers and people were running about all over the place. You know what it’s like.’
Poppy nodded.
‘There was someone else who was DOA and he and your brother were taken away so the doctors could get on with saving the living.’
There was a metal stool in the kitchen and Poppy, feeling sick and weak, sat down on it.
‘So, before I went off duty this morning I found out where his unit was and went to see his commanding officer,’ Matthews continued. ‘I told him that you and I were great friends, and that your ma is a widow and it was going to be a terrible shock for you both, and he spoke to some bigwig who gave me permission to come up here and tell you, rather than sending a telegram.’ Poppy didn’t say anything and Matthews added, ‘Awfully good of them really, considering I’d only been there a while. And if you want to be at the funeral and see where he’s buried, you can come back to Étretat with me. I’ve got a permission slip for you to give your matron and a travel warrant.’
‘But didn’t Billy’s CO say how he died?’ Poppy asked. ‘Didn’t he give you any sort of hint?’
Matthews shook her head. ‘You know how inscrutable those army types are. Everything’s kept secret.’
‘Because I . . . I don’t want to go to his funeral if it’s just to have a lecture about what a wicked thing he may have done – cowardice under fire and letting his country down and all that.’
Matthews shook her head. ‘I wish I could have found out more.’ She closed her eyes, as if to concentrate the better. ‘I think he came in on his own . . . I don’t remember anyone else from his unit coming in injured.’
‘And he really is dead? There’s no possibility of a mistake?’
‘I’m afraid he really is,’ Matthews said. ‘Look, there’s no need to come back with me if you don’t feel up to it.’
Poppy sighed, wondering what to do for the best. ‘I think I must,’ she said after a little while. ‘I could get a photograph of his grave – Ma would want that.’ She gave a cry. ‘Oh, what about Ma? However will I tell her?’
‘We can catch a train back to Étretat this afternoon.’
Poppy looked at her friend closely, as if suddenly noticing it was her and not just a messenger. ‘God, Matthews, you look done in.’
‘That’s what night duty does for you,’ Matthews said. ‘But I can sleep on the train going back.’
Poppy smiled at her. ‘It’s lovely to see you,’ she said, and then burst into tears. ‘But I do wish you hadn’t had to come.’
It took under an hour for Poppy to explain the situation to Sister, pack a few things in a bag, put on her outdoor uniform and get down to the main station in Boulogne with Matthews. She felt dead and hollow inside, not knowing quite how a girl who was going to her brother’s funeral should act. Once she knew what he’d done, it would be easier. She’d know whether to be ashamed of him, to hang her head at the graveside and not meet anyone’s eye, or to be upright and proud of the brave stretcher-bearer who’d perhaps died whilst bringing in a wounded man. But when she found out the truth, how was she going to word the letter to her mother? Would she have to lie to her, the way she’d done before?
The train was over an hour late getting away, but this wasn’t unusual considering the numbers of horses, trucks, crates of machinery, provisions and equipment also going to Étretat, as well as Australian or British soldiers either being newly posted to the area or returning to their units after a few days’ leave.
Ne
ither of the girls slept at first, because they had much to talk about: the progress of the war, the ways in which their hospitals over here differed from Netley, the merits of night duty, the scandalous lives of the silent movie stars and how annoying it was that they weren’t allowed to go out socially with either Tommies or officers. And, of course, there was the topic of romance . . .
‘Have you met someone, then?’ Poppy wanted to know.
‘I have!’ Matthews said. ‘And it’s all happened so fast that I haven’t even had time to write and tell you.’
‘Since you’ve been over here?’
Matthews nodded. ‘Right in Étretat!’ she said. ‘Stanley was in my ward and was just about to go convalescent when I arrived.’
‘And what happened? How did you get together?’
‘Well, Stanley’s a great joker,’ Matthews said, smiling. ‘I served him soup and he declared he’d fallen madly in love with me at first sight. Then he took my hand and said he wasn’t going to let it go until I promised to marry him.’
‘Never!’
‘And of course I knew I’d get into fearful trouble with Sister if she found us holding hands over the soup, so I said I’d marry him just to get away. But . . .’
‘But?’ prompted Poppy.
‘But I did awfully like the look of him and he made me laugh, so when he said a few days later that he’d really meant what he said, I went along with things so as not to spoil the fun.’ She smiled. ‘Well, one thing led to another and we arranged to meet in secret, and now he wants to get married on our next home leave.’
‘Matthews! How exciting.’
‘Yes, it is, but I’m terribly worried about Sister finding out we’re seeing each other, because if she does it’ll mean instant dismissal and I’ll be sent home.’
‘And even if you get married . . .’
‘Exactly,’ Matthews carried on. ‘They don’t allow married girls to nurse if their husbands are serving soldiers.’ She shook her head. ‘And terrible though it is in some ways, I love being over here and doing my bit.’ She heaved a sigh. ‘But what about you?’