The Shattered Tree

by Charles Todd

  Either the Scot was tiring, or the two orderlies were more than he could deal with. He was still fighting them, but they’d pulled him off the Frenchman, who was still doing his bit, landing a blow himself. I turned to check on Matron and the Sister who had been attending the Scot before all this began.

  Matron was still dazed, but I managed to get her to a chair. The doctor, his face flushed and angry, was bending over the Sister who had been thrown to one side. He seemed to be working with her left shoulder.

  As the battle surged back and forth, it moved out into the aisle, leaving the Frenchman half sitting up against the cot, wild-eyed and breathing hard. I wasn’t sure he even knew where he was or what had just happened to him. I turned my attention to him, bending over him, intending to help him back into his own bed. But he held me off, his hands shoving me away as he shouted something that was nearly lost in the uproar the orderlies and the Scot were still making just behind me.

  “It’s all right, it’s over. He’s very ill—the Scot. He had no idea he was attacking you—sometimes that happens,” I said, trying to calm this man down as well.

  He shut up in midsentence, staring at me, then turning his gaze toward the Scot, whom the orderlies and the doctor were finally dragging back to his bed. Someone else had come in and taken the doctor’s place, attending to the Sister with the shoulder injury. Every other patient in the ward was wide awake and staring toward the commotion.

  “It’s all right,” I said again, but he shoved himself to his feet and started for the door of the ward. I had all I could do to stop him, catching his arm, reminding him of his wounds, of his exhaustion, anything I could think of to turn him about.

  But it was his own weakness that betrayed him. Faltering, all at once he leaned heavily on me, and in the next instant, he passed out, nearly taking me down with him.

  I lowered him to the wooden floor of the ward, and there were others coming in now, another Sister and two more orderlies. We got my patient back into his bed, covered him again, found the hot water bottle—which had rolled under a neighboring bed—rewrapped it in the towels, and put it at his feet.

  At the forward aid station, Dr. Winters had been too concerned by the wounds on the man’s head and leg to pay any attention to his feet. And in the dark, shoving the hot water bottle under the blankets as he lay waiting to be loaded into the ambulance, I hadn’t seen them either.

  Now I realized how badly cut and bruised they were, as if he’d walked a long way without shoes. How he’d managed to hold me off just now, on his way to the door, was a mystery. Saying nothing, I tucked him in and asked one of the other orderlies to sit with him for a bit.

  “He was badly frightened by that attack,” I said quietly. “Coming up out of a deep sleep to find someone trying to throttle him. He may still be unsettled when he wakes up again. Keep an eye on him for a while.”

  “Yes, Sister. You’ve got a scrape on your forehead. It’s starting to bleed.”

  I put up my hand and realized he was right. I remembered the toe grazing my head as Matron and I tried to pull the two men apart. “Thank you. I’ll attend to it.”

  Matron had come up to me. “Are you all right, Sister Crawford? Have someone look at that scrape.”

  “Yes, thank you, Matron. And you?” By this time the Scot had run out of whatever mad strength he’d found in his delirium, and his shouts had become agitated mumbling dwindling into muttering. I thought they must have managed to sedate him somehow, and that it was slowly taking effect. The orderlies were replacing the straps across his chest and legs; the doctor was watching grim-faced and still out of breath, to make certain the man was not feigning. In the other cot, the Frenchman was lying there with closed eyes, but I could see the tightness around his mouth.

  “I’m fine,” Matron lied, for I could see that she was still shaken by the suddenness of the attack. We all were, and the other Sisters were trying to settle other patients back into their cots. “I expect your ambulance is ready to return to the aid station. I’ll leave you to meet it. Thank you, Sister Crawford.” She cast a glance at the now subdued Scot, breathing heavily and only partly conscious, then turned to the ward at large.

  “All right, then, as you were, gentlemen. Lights out in five minutes.”

  They subsided, and I took a last look at my patient before walking on to the ward door. There I stopped at the ward Sister’s table and asked for something to clean my forehead.

  She had stepped out to accompany the appendix case to the surgical theater and so had missed the start of the commotion. As she reached for a pad and poured a little alcohol over it, she said, “I was shocked. According to the report you brought with you, Lieutenant MacGregor has been quiet until now. Did he know the other patient? Was that the problem?”

  I took the pad and pressed it to the scrape, feeling the sting as it touched the raw skin. “His fever must have spiked. We had no trouble with him at all at the aid station. And as far as I know, he’s never seen the Frenchman before.”

  “What’s wrong with the Frenchman?” She pointed to a set of charts on her table. “I haven’t had a chance to look.”

  “Exhaustion. Possible concussion. Loss of blood,” I said. “Keep an eye on him if you can. And have a look at his feet, will you? As for Lieutenant MacGregor, he may reach a crisis tonight, unless you can keep that fever down. I’d watch his breathing as well. Pneumonia. There’s a possibility of gangrene. That wound doesn’t look very good.”

  “Yes, of course.” There was little we could do for the pneumonia cases but try to lower the fever and give them something to help clear their lungs. “But he’s a big man. He could well be strong enough to overcome the infection.”

  “I hope so,” I said, and thanking her for her assistance, I tossed the pad into the bucket for waste that was to be burned, and walked out to meet Robinson and my ambulance. The new Sister was already in the back, and I could smell the strong soap that had been used to clean there. She wrinkled her nose at me and settled herself. Dr. Winters would be happy to see me returning to the aid station, and I could just make out the boxes piled high in the rear all around her. Badly needed supplies that he would welcome even more.

  I was already in my seat, my door closed, and Robinson, looking over his shoulder, was busy reversing, to head back toward the Front. And in that instant I realized something.

  The shivering man, the one too weak with exhaustion to be treated by Dr. Winters, wore the uniform of a French officer. But when he was shouting at me back in the ward, he’d spoken German. Fluent German.

  “Wait,” I said, quickly reaching out to touch Robinson’s arm before he could drive on. “There’s something I must do.”

  “Too late, Sister.” He gestured forward. “The shelling’s started. We’ll be needed.”

  I could see the horizon bright with flashes from the German guns, and hear the rolling sound of a barrage. The respite I’d counted on had been all too brief.

  “It’s urgent,” I said. “I must speak to Matron.” Something in my pocket rustled as I turned toward the door, already opening it. “And there’s Sister MacRae’s letter. I promised to post it.”

  He grumbled, but I was already out, nearly slipping in the mud, heading back the way I’d come. I reached the ward, and handed Sister MacRae’s letter to the ward Sister, then asked where Matron was.

  “She’s in her office, I believe. She’s just ordered tea. Can I help you?”

  “Thank you. I had a question to put to her, nothing urgent.”

  But it was, and I tapped on her door.

  “Come,” she said, and I stepped inside.

  She was an older woman, well into her thirties, but she looked even older tonight. I could see a bruise starting on her chin, where she had been caught by the flailing foot. It would be painful tomorrow.

  “Sister Crawford?” she asked. “I thought I’d heard the ambulances leaving.”

  “I felt I should tell you. The patient. The one who was attacked. Did
you hear what language he was shouting in?”

  “French, I expect,” she said wearily, and at that moment one of the Sisters brought in a tray with her tea. I waited until she had set it on the table and closed the door behind her.

  “It was German,” I said.

  She forced a smile for my sake.

  “Perhaps he’s a Frenchman from Alsace-Lorraine. It’s not unusual.”

  Perhaps he was. I felt a little foolish. Even after nearly fifty years of German rule, many people from that area were bilingual, using their French secretly.

  The French provinces of Alsace and Lorraine along the Rhine frontier were given to Germany by the Treaty of Frankfurt after the 1870 war with Prussia. The excuse was that parts of the area spoke German, although the real reason—according to my father—was military. Memories were long, and much of Europe hadn’t forgot Napoleon’s victorious campaigns. Territory on the far side of the river—the eastern side—was considered a necessity to protect Germany from any future French dreams of a European empire.

  “I thought I ought to mention it,” I said, suddenly uncertain.

  “And very rightly so,” she told me, but her eyes were on the steaming pot of tea.

  I thanked her and left her to it.

  Chapter Three

  Two weeks later

  Coming back from leave in England, I discovered that I’d been reassigned to Dr. Winters. At his request.

  He grinned when he saw me stepping out of the lead ambulance.

  “Sorry,” he said, and I could see he didn’t mean a word of it. “But I like having you about.”

  I returned the smile. “Has it been that bad?”

  “God, yes. And Sister Weeks is all fingers and thumbs. A good nurse, I grant you, but not very able in my surgery.” He took my kit bag from me and carried it toward the quarters tents. “I hear you’ve been home. How was London?”

  “I saw very little of it,” I confessed.

  Disappointed, he said, “I was hoping you might have managed a concert or a play. Something rather normal and interesting to talk about.”

  “I was in Canterbury mostly,” I told him after a moment’s hesitation, hoping he wouldn’t ask me any more. “With friends.”

  “Then talk to me about Canterbury.”

  He hadn’t been home in three years.

  I couldn’t tell him the truth, that the shops were nearly empty and the shortage of food was worse. That everyone seemed tired, weary of war and death and doing without.

  “The cathedral is still there,” I said brightly. “I went to see it. One could get lost in the blues of the windows.”

  “Ah. A little island of peace.”

  “Yes.”

  He set my kit inside my tent, then looked at his watch.

  “There’s time for tea before you come on duty. Sister Weeks can see to the patients waiting to go back with the ambulances.” He paused. “We’ve had a good many jaw wounds.”

  They were always the worst, men with half their faces blown away. They survived, but so little could be done for them. We fed them, kept the wound clean, and tried to cheer them up. We lost some to infection, and others went home to England, their war over, their future uncertain. But I’d heard that work was being done on reconstruction that would at least make it less unbearable for them to see themselves in a looking glass or shop window.

  Dr. Winters was staring up into the sky. Stars twinkled in the cold night air. “It’s quiet at the moment, but until this morning the shelling has been intense. On both sides.”

  I remembered what the artillery officer had said. That every shell would be fired before the war ended.

  Thanking the doctor, I went into my quarters and changed into a fresh uniform. Then I sat down on my cot and pressed my hands over my eyes. I was tired, not refreshed, after my brief leave. I longed for a week at home in Somerset, far away from the sound of the guns and the endless lines of wounded. But that was not to be.

  I wrote a short note to my parents, to let them know I had arrived safely, although I couldn’t tell them where. One of the drivers could mail it for me. I wondered sometimes if my father had friends and fellow officers who kept him apprised of my whereabouts, and I wouldn’t have put it past my mother to have made friends with some of the women in charge of the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service who could tell her how I fared. My parents seldom interfered in my life, but having a daughter in harm’s way had been worrying. I’d had some close calls. And so they must have tried to stay in touch. I smiled at the thought. Sometimes being loved was amazingly comforting.

  That done, I reported for duty and made myself acquainted with the cases that hadn’t gone back by the ambulance convoy that had brought me forward. There had been a cold rain for several days, and a number of patients had come in with chills. I could hear them coughing as I approached one of the tents we used for temporary cases. If they didn’t go into bronchitis or pneumonia, they’d be all right. However, we never saw them in the line of wounded until they were in a bad state. They’d argue with their sergeants to stay in the trenches as long as possible, rheumy eyed and coughing and already starting to feel feverish.

  It was late that night when a corporal came running from the communication trenches several hundred yards ahead of us. He was in a Lancashire regiment, I could tell from his insignia as he got near enough to call softly.

  “Sister?” he said breathlessly. “There’s a man in bad shape. We daren’t move him. Our sergeant. Can you send someone?”

  I’d been sorting the incoming wounded, and I turned to call to Dr. Winters. He came at once, thinking I had someone bleeding heavily. I told him what the corporal had reported.

  He scanned the line of wounded waiting to be processed. Twenty patients, none of them life threatening, as far as I could tell.

  Dr. Winters must have come to the same conclusion, because he asked, “Anything here that Sister Weeks can’t handle?”

  I shook my head.

  He called to her, asked her to take over, then gestured to me. “Let’s go.”

  We followed the corporal back to the communications trench as Dr. Winters questioned him about the sergeant’s condition.

  It didn’t sound good.

  We hurried down the trench, ignoring the smells and the thick mud underfoot that sucked at our boots with every step, and very quickly came upon the patient lying on a stretcher.

  He was bleeding from a gash in the neck, and I heard Dr. Winters swear under his breath as I knelt beside him to examine the patient.

  “The shot has nicked the artery,” he said quietly to me, and began to do what he could to stop the bleeding.

  Necks were so much harder than a bleeding limb, where we could apply a tourniquet until a doctor could take over. The only choice was to bandage the wound well and hope that we could carry the sergeant back to the aid station without losing him. There, with better light, we could tell just how serious the damage was and whether there was still something in the wound—a bit of his uniform, perhaps—that was preventing the bleeding from becoming a hemorrhage.

  The sergeant was watching us with pain-dulled eyes, reading our faces, gauging his chances. I tried to smile for him, to assure him that he would be all right. But it was not going to be a certainty.

  “Let’s move him now. Carefully. Slowly.” Dr. Winters was on his feet, intent on his patient and the fresh bandaging.

  The corporal said, “I’ll inform the Lieutenant. He’ll want to know.” And he also stood, starting back the way he’d come.

  We never saw the sniper. The corporal was trotting along head down, almost at his trench, when a shot rang out, and he dropped like a stone.

  I ran forward, keeping low as I’d been trained to do by my father, and bent over the wounded man. But there was nothing to be done for him. The shot had caught him in the throat and severed his spine. He must have been dead before he hit the ground. I closed his eyes just as two men from his company came running, and I r
ose to try to warn them before they came into range and were shot as well.

  “Stop—don’t come any farther,” I cried.

  Then everything seemed to happen at once.

  As the two men came to a halt just short of the communications trench, another shot rang out, and I heard an officer shouting.

  “Someone find me that bloody sniper!”

  I felt something spin me around, and in the same instant I saw the ground coming up fast to meet me. I only had time to throw up an arm to protect my face from the mud as I fell across the dead corporal’s body.

  Dazed by the suddenness of what had happened, I lay there for an instant.

  A round of firing came from the trench behind me, and after a moment I heard another voice exclaim, “Got him this time, the bloody bastard.”

  Someone was bending over me. “Sister? Are you all right?” he asked anxiously.

  It was an officer, possibly the one I’d just heard shouting.

  “Yes, of course,” I said, smiling. “How silly of me, I tripped.” As he reached down to offer me a hand, I added, “I’m afraid your corporal is dead.”

  I stood up just as a searing pain shot through my side. Looking down, I saw a red stain spreading across my already bloody apron, only this time it was fresh, it was warm against my side, and it was mine.

  I registered that just before the officer saw it.

  “You’re hurt.”

  “It’s nothing. I need to get back to the aid station. They need me.” My fingers were probing my side, and they quickly found the wound.

  “You’re bleeding. I’ll have one of my men escort you.”

  “No, I’m fine, it’s not very deep—”

  The shock hit me, and I staggered.

  The officer shouted a name, and someone was there to take my free arm as my rescuer held on to the other.