I smiled, wanting her to relax. I walked around the table until I stood in front of her. I reached out and touched her hair. ‘Oh, look,’ I said, ‘there is somebody who would like to accompany you on this journey.’ From behind her left ear, I produced a whiskery white mouse. Tegan gasped as she took him in her palm.
‘Oh, look at him! He’s gorgeous.’ She grinned at me, relaxed again now.
We went into the little copse behind the house and gathered wood. Soon we had a lively fire burning in the fire pit. I patted the fallen tree trunk beside it. Tegan came to sit next to me, eager now, not stopping to think too deeply about what was happening, simply letting it happen. The white mouse sat on her lap, washing its face with licked paws.
‘Listen,’ I said. ‘What can you hear?’
She turned her head this way and that. ‘Well, the logs crackling in the fire. An airplane somewhere. A wood pigeon, is it?’
‘Good. What else? Listen deeper.’
She frowned, head cocked, listening beyond those first available sounds. When she spoke, it was in a whisper. ‘I … I can hear breathing, really fast.’ She looked down at her lap. ‘It’s this mouse. I can hear him breathing!’
‘What else?’
‘Rustling. There is something over there in those nettles.’
‘Call to it,’ I told her.
‘How?’
‘Just call.’
‘Come on,’ she called softly. ‘Come out. It’s okay.’
The rustling stopped for a second, then the nettles parted and a hedgehog trundled out. He poked his snout into the air and made his way toward us, taking a circuitous route around the fire. He halted at Tegan’s feet, snuffling at her toes, which peeped out of her sandals. Tegan laughed.
‘Hey! That tickles.’
I took a piece of almond biscuit from my pocket and handed it to the hungry hog. He chomped it down and then hurried off in search of a juicy slug or two. I touched Tegan’s arm.
‘Look behind you.’
She turned slowly and came face to face with a fine dog fox. He flicked his tale, clearly provoked by the proximity of the mouse.
‘Now then, Monsieur Reynard, behave yourself,’ I told him.
He whimpered and lay down, rolling over playfully to expose his tummy. Tegan leaned down and scratched his rusty fur.
‘Wow! You are fabulous. Look at you.’
The fox tolerated her attentions for a few more moments before leaping back onto his feet. He shook his fur into place and loped off into the night.
By now, dusk was beginning to deepen, and soon darkness descended properly. Tegan’s face glowed, partly from the reflected light of the flames but mostly from wonder.
‘Listen again,’ I said. ‘Be very still, close your eyes, and let the sounds come to you.’
She did as she was told. The mouse started, sensing something unusual in the air. It darted up Tegan’s school shirt and dived into her pocket. Tegan waited with admirable patience. At last she took a quick in-breath, her whole body tensing.
‘What is it?’ she whispered. ‘What is that noise? It sounds almost like … like voices.’
I smiled. I had not been sure that she would be able to hear them. I had always believed she had a sensitivity that would help her connect, but you can never be certain until the moment comes whether or not a person is as open and accepting as you wish them to be.
‘They are indeed voices,’ I said, ‘many, many voices. Not everyone can hear them. You are fortunate, Tegan. They trust you. Now, open your eyes.’
I noticed her hesitate but only for an instant. When she did lift her lids, the sight that greeted her made her hands fly to her mouth to stifle a cry. It was undeniably a wondrous sight. In front of us, stepping lightly past the fire and coming to stand in a fidgeting group before us, was a gathering of at least one hundred fairies. The tiny beings were arrayed in a spectrum of the most brilliant colors, their lacy wings fluttering lightly against the heat of the fire. They were all much of a size, no larger than blackbirds, their dainty feet clad in exquisitely tailored shoes. They jostled for position, all eager for a better view of the new human who had come into their midst. One, a little bolder than the others perhaps, flew up and alighted on Tegan’s knee. With infinite care, Tegan held out her hand and the fairy hopped onto her upturned palm. Tegan lifted the weightless creature up until it was level with her own face. The two peered at each other, equally enthralled and amazed by what they saw. The fairy tripped along Tegan’s arm until she came to her ear, reaching out to touch the silver dragon that dangled against Tegan’s neck. Tegan quickly undid the earring and offered it to the fairy, who clapped her hands excitedly before accepting the gift and flying down to show it to her friends. The group was so delighted they started to dance. While we watched, filigree wings flittered and blurred as the fairies danced and danced and danced around the fire. For nearly an hour, with moonbeams as their spotlights and the glow from the fire flashing off their iridescent clothes, they kept us both enchanted and beguiled. Then, as if on some secret signal, they gathered on the fallen trunk, waved good-bye, and disappeared into the woods. Tegan stared in the direction they had gone for many minutes after the last of them had melted into the shadows between the trees. Finally, she turned back to me.
‘Magic,’ she said somberly. ‘It really is magic. And you really are a witch, aren’t you?’
I could see the thought processes she was working through in her bewildered mind.
‘I am,’ I said, ‘but there is one final thing I must share with you. I know you will not be truly convinced without it, for you must believe, surely, that all witches can fly?’
She sprang to her feet. ‘Don’t tell me you are going to fly!’
‘No, not me,’ I took her hand, ‘We.’
Before she had time to react, I threw my head back, waved my arm, and we were airborne. Tegan screamed with a mixture of terror and delight as we shot up into the night sky. Once we had reached a safe height, I paused. ‘Just hold onto my hand,’ I told her. ‘Spread out your arms, that’s right. Now, come with me.’
It had been a very long time since I had flown. I had forgotten the pure joy it engenders. My heart sang with the freedom, the lightness, the grace of gliding through the air, swooping low over treetops, twirling and diving and rising again. I heard Tegan laughing, unable to contain her glee. We passed over the sleeping village and across the rolling fields. A family of bats came to investigate, joining us for a moment or two. An owl screeched in alarm in an oak tree far below. On we went, cutting through the night sky, tumbling and turning, then climbing and soaring as free and as glorious as hawks. Soon we had reached the coast. I pulled Tegan out over the dark water and pointed down to the smooth ocean. Dolphins surfaced. I swooped low so that we might race alongside them, the sea spray refreshing our faces. At last we turned back, and I set us down in the copse beside the fire. Tegan lay on the ground, panting from exhilaration and wonder. Slowly she grew quieter and sat up.
‘How?’ she asked. ‘How can it work? How does any of it work? I mean.’
I looked at her levelly.
‘You have listened to my story. You know how I came to be what I am.’
For a moment she struggled to assimilate the information I had just given her. I could see that her instinctive reaction was to reject such an idea as nonsense, impossible, fantasy. But then, after what she had just seen, just experienced … She knew now that there were things far beyond what she had hitherto accepted as possible in this world.
‘You are Bess, aren’t you? And Eliza?’
‘And many more.’
She shook her head slowly, not denying the truth, for she could see it for what it was, but as if to help the thoughts settle in her spinning head.
‘Tegan, do you trust me?’
She nodded.
‘There are things you need to understand. Things … about myself. And about others who are connected to me. There is danger, Tegan. Danger which you cannot
see but which is nonetheless real.’
‘Why would I be in danger? I have you to protect me,’ she said.
I felt tears, the first for such a very, very long time, sting my eyes. Oh, how I wanted to keep this girl safe! It was because of me that she was now in peril. I could not fail her. I had to make her understand the power of the force we were to face. The evil. If she were to stand any chance of survival, I had to take her further into my world.
‘You have come to realize that I am not what you first thought. That outward appearances can be deceptive. There are others who present themselves as one thing and yet are another. One other, in particular.’
‘Ian? You mean Ian?’
I nodded.
‘But I love him. He loves me.’
‘Just as Eliza, as I, once believed Simon loved me.’
‘You’re saying Ian is Gideon?’ She shook her head vigorously now. ‘No! No, I don’t want to hear this.’
‘You must.’
‘I won’t!’
‘Tegan!’ I knelt beside her and held her shoulders tight. ‘I know how much this hurts you.’
‘You don’t, you can’t.’
‘I do! I know what it is to love and to lose. But you must accept what is true; you must listen to me.’
She began to cry.
‘Please,’ I said softly, pulling her close. ‘Listen.’ I threw another log on the fire and poked it into life. ‘Listen and I will tell you one last tale.’
Passchendaele, Flanders, 1917
1
I stepped off the train at Saint Justine, twelve kilometers south west of Passchendaele, onto what was in fact nothing more than a halt. In peacetime, few feet would have paced its platforms awaiting its infrequent and half-empty trains. Now, even in the hours of the night when most people would choose sleep if it were offered them, it was a scene of constant movement, a place of urgency and purpose. As returning troops and noncombatants disembarked, the wounded were lumbered onto the train, many on stretchers, others on crutches, all battle-weary and setting their sights firmly in the direction of home. Along with the small group of surgeons and nurses, I picked my way through the giddying mêlée, out of the station and down the main street. Saint Justine was a village, nothing more, and an unremarkable one at that. Had it not been for its situation on the railway line or its perilous proximity to the Front, I would most likely never have seen or heard of the place. Instead, it is forever etched into my brain: a name to jolt me from the present, a place ineffably coupled with pain and loss. The words themselves are sweet-sounding and cause the mouth to smile when they are spoken—Saint Justine, Saint Justine. But I have never in my life known a place more bowed down under the weight of human suffering and heartbreak. The main street, such as it was, offered a few empty shops, a café, a bakery devoid of warmth or smells, a church with its stained-glass windows boarded up, a deserted school, and a handful of nondescript homes. The dwellings petered out as the road crested a small hill, on the other side of which the temporary hospital had been erected. Or, more correctly, Number 13 Casualty Clearing Station (CCS), Saint Justine. Number 13 seemed appropriate enough. The whole consisted of a hamlet of tents, marquees, and wooden huts. Under the summer moon the canvas gleamed dully, bone-white and inappropriately bright. If one could have shut out the noise of marching feet, of barked orders, of moaning from hastily moved stretchers, and of the distant booming of the heavy artillery, it was just possible to imagine one had stumbled upon a large, hearty agricultural show on the eve of its opening. But it was impossible to block out those sounds. I hear them still, on wakeful nights.
I located the entrance to the reception marquee and, along with a glum-looking young girl from the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry called Kitty, presented myself for duty to the first nurse I encountered: a broad-shouldered girl whose red hair frizzed out at the front of her white headdress.
‘Ah, fresh faces. Splendid! Hope you got some sleep on the crossing; you won’t do much of that here. Follow me, I’ll take you to Sister’s office,’ she said, never once pausing in her brisk and somewhat unladylike stride. ‘Name’s Arabella Gough-Strappington, but for pity’s sake call me Strap; war could be over by the time you’ve got that mouthful out.’
We threaded our way through the ceaseless current of doctors, nurses, orderlies, stretcher-bearers, and walking wounded. Strap covered the ground surprisingly swiftly for one so solid, her nurse’s uniform billowing like a wind-filled spinnaker. Kitty and I followed on with hurried steps.
‘Don’t be put off by our Dear Leader,’ Strap said over her shoulder. ‘Her bark is worse than her bite. As long as you don’t get bitten.’ She laughed at her own joke, shoulders shaking as her loud guffaws drowned out the gunfire from the Front.
She led us to the smaller tent that housed Sister Radcliffe’s office. Sister Radcliffe, who eschewed her more formal title of Commandant, was a formidable creature. She exuded efficiency and good sense from her very pores and had about her the air of one who was accustomed to unquestioning obedience. We stood in front of her as she sat behind her desk. Despite Strap’s introductions, she did not hurry to complete the notes she was writing. At last she put down her pen and looked up at us over metal-rimmed glasses. She gave a sigh, as if already disappointed by the caliber of her new recruits. She consulted her register.
‘Assistant Nurse Watkins…’
‘Yes, Sister. Kitty Watkins.’ The girl could not have been more than twenty-five years old, but her expression was one of weary middle age.
‘With the FANY since 1916,’ Sister read. ‘Slow to answer the call, were you not?’ She looked up at Kitty with genuine bewilderment.
‘Yes, Sister. That is to say, no, Sister,’ Kitty quickly became flustered under such scrutiny, her cockney twang growing more noticeable. ‘I was needed at ’ome. Me mum was poorly, y’see. And me baby brother, well, he’s only twelve.…’
‘And is your mother recovered now?’
‘No, Sister. She died, ma’am.’
For a moment Sister Radcliffe said nothing and I wondered if she was about to make a comment on the ineffectual nature of Kitty’s nursing skills. Instead, she said simply, ‘I am sorry to hear that. Kindly do not address me as ‘Ma’am.’ You will be stationed in the Evacuation Tent.’ She turned her attention to me. ‘And you are…?’
‘Nurse Elise Hawksmith, Sister.’
‘A professional nurse, I see.’ She took off her glasses and looked me full in the face, daring me to drop my gaze. ‘And which do you consider to be your particular skills, Nurse?’
‘I have been assisting in the surgical ward and in theater at Saint Thomas’s hospital in Manchester for over two years now. I do enjoy the work very much, Sister. But of course I shall be happy to do whatever is asked of me.’
‘Indeed.’ She replaced her glasses, made two swift marks in the register, and then put it away. ‘Let’s start you off in the resuscitation tent. See how “happy” you are there, shall we? Nurse Strappington, show them to their quarters.’
Morning came quickly. Kitty and I found the refectory and queued up for breakfast. We were given weak tea and gray porridge. I looked for Strap, but there was no sign of her. I wondered how long her shift could be. She had been working when we arrived and must surely be in need of food and rest by now. Looking around at the taut, pale faces near me, I could see grim determination written over sad resignation. Kitty saw it too and was looking glummer than ever. I finished my food, gave Kitty a few words of encouragement, and made my way to the resuscitation tent. It did not take me many minutes inside it to understand that Sister Radcliffe had sought to test me. The pre-op and operating tents would offer action, treatment, and hope. The ward tent allowed those still too weak to travel to heal a little before their journey or to receive further treatment. The evacuation tent prepared patients for the longed-for trip home or return to the front. The resuscitation tent was a limbo. A purgatory. Here it was that men too weak to withstand surgery, however much they n
eeded it, must cling to life and wait for an improvement in their conditions that frequently did not come. Here those horribly burned and too frail to withstand the bustle of the ward tent would writhe behind screens and undergo all manner of painful and often ineffectual treatments. Here those half-dead from languishing in the muddy stretches of No Man’s Land for fear-filled days, suffering their wounds alone and unaided, would be placed in heated beds in a desperate attempt to bring warmth back to their failing hearts and rotting flesh. I soon learned that more men died here than in any other part of the CCS. And they died here slowly and in pain.
‘Nurse Hawksmith!’ Sister Radcliffe’s voice jolted me from my daze, ‘I am not familiar with the way the wards are run at Saint Thomas’s, but here there is no time to stand idle.’
‘I’m sorry, Sister.’
‘Corporal Davies needs his dressings changed.’ She indicated the bed nearest me with a curt nod before stepping past me. ‘When you have finished there, you will see to Private Spencer and Corporal Baines. There is a list of daily dressings and treatments pinned up at the nurses’ station by the entrance to the tent. Kindly read it the minute you start your shift. I do not expect to have to remind you of your duties again.’
‘Yes, Sister.’ I fetched fresh dressings from the cupboard in the center of the room and hurried to do as I had been instructed.
Corporal Davies was a short, ruddy-faced young man with a shock of black hair and twinkling blue eyes dulled by pain and fatigue.
‘Don’t let Sister put the wind up you, Nurse,’ he said in a soft Welsh lilt. ‘She’s our secret weapon, see? When they’ve run out of men at the Front, we’re going to send her over the top. Those Germans won’t stand a chance.’ He tried to laugh, but this caused him to cough horribly, his whole body going into painful spasms. The effort of it left him further weakened and quiet. I glanced at his notes. He had been felled by shrapnel during a bombardment while out on nighttime operations. Unable to move, he had lain in a water-filled shell hole for three days and nights before stretcher-bearers had been able to reach him. While most of his wounds were not serious in themselves, the sheer number of them was incredible. His face had mostly escaped harm, and his tin hat had no doubt saved his life, but his chest and abdomen were riddled with cuts and holes, many still containing sharp pieces of metal, since he was too weak to face surgery. Most of his ribs had been broken in the blast, and a larger piece of shell casing had smashed his left knee joint and tibia and fibula. His right foot had been almost severed at the ankle. He claimed it was the coldness of the muddy water that had saved him from going mad with the pain, and the angle at which his right leg had been stuck up that had stopped him from bleeding to death. Indeed, he had even managed to cake the wound in his ankle with mud to staunch the flow. But that same slime and cold that had kept him alive were now responsible for what would, without hope or doubt, kill him. The filth of the mud had worked together with the hot metal in his wounds to render them septic, turning the flesh around each painful tear and cut purple and swollen. The only thing that might now stop the poison in his blood from killing him was the pneumonia his watery mantrap had given him. The two deadly conditions were engaged in a macabre race to claim the poor man’s life. I began the slow task of redressing his wounds. Despite the agony he must have been experiencing, he did not offer one word of complaint or even moan as I peeled lint from his wet and festering skin. Not for the first time I marveled at the human capacity for bravery; at the strength of spirit some possess. And at the ability of man to inflict such merciless suffering on his brothers.
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