I feel great sympathy for you at the loss of your matron. We need all the good ones now. With the Russian Reds out of it, Fritz is coming, you know. Everyone understands that much. Fritz is coming. God knows where and God knows when. But certainly this spring.
He went. Lady Tarlton said, That was almost sensible for a brigadier.
They laughed lowly. Then they retired in the wake of the burial party of soldiers.
Naomi wondered, who would be unlucky when Fritz came?
Bureau of Casualties
Major Bright gave Sally a regular rundown on how Honora was progressing. She had begun working again, he said. She was not content with resting in Rouen. At the advice of a mentalist, she had done what all her friends had unsuccessfully urged her to—stopped writing to the casualty bureau.
In talkative moments in the nurses’ mess, Leo took some minor enjoyment from Bright’s visits to Rouen. He seemed to carry this boyish conviction that no one could see through him. Freud had a great deal of time for Major Bright and thought Honora—when back to herself—should be encouraged to seduce him. Freud had begun favoring words such as “seduce” again. It was as if—as in the old days—she wanted to shock her sisters out of sedater terms. She called couples “lovers” where others used terms such as “pairs.” She had been witnessed having the sort of quarrels with her American—Captain Boynton—that were symptoms of an intense but difficult attachment. She had certainly won back her air of knowing and the casual ease which had characterized her before the outrage on Lemnos.
Yet sometimes Sally wondered if it was really ease. There was still a fever in it. She respected Boynton, though, for the fact that when Freud worked with him as a theatre nurse, he encouraged her to excise smaller pieces of shrapnel with scalpel and forceps—a setup anyone else would consider irregular but which Freud was skilled enough for. He thought she ought to start medical studies after the war—though if the war lasted another five years, she might be forty before she finished.
• • •
The clearing station did not move until the New Year of 1918, when the wards had been emptied and snow covered the mounds in the field of the dead who were now being left behind. Trucks were packed with surgical and medical gear—even the X-ray machine, with its miraculous potency shrouded with a tarpaulin, was winched up onto the rear of a lorry. The women barely turned to look at the vacant huts and tents, at the pathways and duckboards—it would not do to look back for fear of being overwhelmed—but climbed on an old French bus to go up to Bapaume. They had on their balaclavas, overcoats, rugs, and whatever they possessed which could lend warmth as the bus slowly took on the temperature of outside. At one stage the engine died, but the driver and an orderly somehow got it going again.
Despite the scathing night, Sally slept—they had all learned to sleep with an ease soldiers were said to have—and when she woke again she could see a ruined town. They were in the sector black with ruin and rimed mud which had been prized from German grasp last autumn. They got down from the bus and went wandering in the ragged town of Mellicourt. Very few people still lived there. It was in particular the old who emerged to answer their rapping on the doors of cafés and estaminets. And they shook their heads—nothing to eat. Nothing warm to drink. The pipes were frozen.
The new clearing station—chiefly hutted and with plain canvas marvelously rare—lay on flat ground and closer to the front than Deux Églises. Its cookhouse was already pumping smoke and offered a guarantee of comforting fluids. Again ambulances arrived the first night. British gas cases, nearly all of them. All the normal comfort was extended to various and hectic traumas.
It was a matter of joy to Sally to know in the meantime that the Australians had either been put in a quiet sector at Messines or had come out of the line and were resting. They might be drilling for future dangers but were safe from present ones. She had, of course, therefore written to Charlie, telling him where she was now in case he had a bicycle available and was within riding distance.
When a note came back from him, it asked if she could by any chance be in Amiens on 16 March? “I’ll visit the main entrance to the belfry near the mairie every half hour from nine o’clock. I believe it’s still standing but even if it’s shelled in the interim, people will still be able to direct you to where it was in its square. All in hope of seeing you . . .”
There was not enough time to get a reply back to him. She went to doughty Matron Bolger, who had once saved them from hysterical fear by recounting their mess bills. Reasonably enough she frowned. No one knew when an onslaught would come and the resultant flood of activity.
Are you meeting a fiancé? the woman asked.
It would be convenient to say yes since that would end two-thirds of the argument and the matron could add the word “compassionate” to “leave.” But Sally did not share a name for what existed with her and Condon, even with the matron.
I had a very close friend named Nurse Carradine, said Sally. She is working at the fracture hospital in Amiens.
It was a good story—a story nearly true. If she were allowed to go to Amiens, she would indeed visit Elsie Carradine.
Because Amiens was full of what the matron called rough soldiery, she even used the telephone to make Sally a booking at the nurses’ hostel—a converted convent. Sally traveled there the usual way—in an ambulance taking men from Mellicourt to Carradine’s fracture hospital. Arriving late in the evening of the fifteenth, she asked the location of the belfry. An elderly French porter at the hostel convent drew her a map. It was a mile or so away, over a canal with ancient-looking houses along it. The great black shape of the overwhelming cathedral acted as her reference and she came at last to the bell tower standing in the midst of a square. A few less fortunate structures nearby had been damaged by bombardment. But the belfry Charlie had nominated stood ornate and unmarred. She went to a café at the edge of the square and sat there but visited the door of the tower each half hour until eight o’clock that evening—just in case he was early. Then soldiers approached her and asked her if she was waiting for someone. There was such raw appetite in their eyes that she gave it up. This—as she had already discovered—was a city of men. She had been told that it was the center of venereal disease for young Australian men—who innocently took pleasure here in whatever address and then passed the name of the house on to their friends in the line.
From the belfry she crossed the canal again to get to Carradine’s place. It seemed to her that old men and women, harried-looking mothers with urchins, café owners, and one or two priests had stayed in town amongst the soldiers of many nations. She found the Rue St. Germain, of whose convenience to the hospital Carradine had boasted in a letter.
Sally rose up the stairwell beside apartments that had the look somehow of being shut up, and found the right number on the second floor. After she knocked, she heard Carradine tell her to come in.
Elsie was advancing across the living room in an apron tied over the azure dress of the Red Cross volunteer nurses. On the couch, to Sally’s surprise, sat a drowsy Lieutenant Carradine—although he would now prove to be a major. He was wearing an army shirt and pullover and unheroic pyjama pants. His face looked thinner even than when they had visited him in England.
After Sally and Carradine had kissed and hugged—Carradine exerting a greater pressure than Sally could find it in herself to apply—Elsie stood back and said to her frowning husband, You remember Sally Durance, darling? She visited you in Sudbury.
And there it was—the bewilderment on his face. He did not remember.
Of course, he said. He was used to faking knowledge which the wound and its malign afterhistory had taken from him.
We were just about to eat. I was making shepherd’s pie—with a dash of bully beef I’m afraid. You must be hungry after the trip.
Sally admitted she was.
And what a wonderful accident that you’re both here at the same time.
Carradine put her arm through her husban
d’s elbow. Come on, let’s all continue this at the table. A separate dining room. Did you notice that, Sally? Wouldn’t get a flat like this in normal times.
In the dining room, Sally and Major Carradine sat down at the table. While Elsie was fetching the meal from the oven, the major looked at Sally a second with eyes that were vacant of interest and recognition.
Was it hard to find this place? she asked.
Oh, we’re subletting it from a notary’s family, said Elsie from the kitchen. They wanted to go down south because everyone believes the Germans will take this city.
Do you?
Well, everyone thought they’d capture Paris once. But they didn’t. Eric and the boys will keep them out.
Eric grunted.
The two women talked about each other’s work while Major Carradine looked at his plate as if trying to work out what was sitting on it. Carradine shot him glances as she discussed her fracture ward a few kilometers away. At least with fractures you’re not waiting for people to die. And the new splints and the traction . . . much better than the old ways. But I think it’s the busiest work I’ve ever done. Do you have a headache, darling?
Eric said in a narrowed-down voice, Why does a man always have to have a bloody headache if he keeps quiet a second?
Now come on, she said, with the fixed smile of a woman who had had her hopes, but now couldn’t predict anything. I’m just worried your dinner will get cold.
He picked up the wine and drank half a glass. If it were to get cold, he told her, it would not hurt it very much. Then he looked away and said almost as if he were disappointed with himself, Oh damn! I’ve done it again.
He got up, set down but did not fold the laundered linen serviette his wife had somehow provided, and left the room saying, Well, sorry, sorry, Elsie. Done it again. Any whisky in the living room?
Yes, she called. The usual place.
Carradine said, He’s actually better after whisky. Can you believe that? They do everything on whisky and rum up there. Whether they’re breeding a race of drunkards we’ll know when this is all over.
Sally said, If you want to go and . . .
No. I shouldn’t follow him straightaway. He’ll get angry again. I know all the rules by now. But can you believe he passes muster at the front? He must be a different person there. The question is, will he ever pass muster anywhere else?
She put her elbows on the table, made fists and lowered her forehead on to her knuckles. She grieved for ten seconds but there were no tears. Sally got up and put her hand on Carradine’s shoulder.
I’ve sent the longest telegram of my life to his father, said Carradine. If he was to get attention, he’d have to be forced into it by burly orderlies. But they have to take him home, I told his father. England’s no solution. If we put him there, he’ll be back across that Channel in no time, trying to go to the trenches. I know Mr. Carradine the elder will help—he’s coming to England, you know. On a ministerial visit. The trouble is, Eric’s going back to his battalion tomorrow. Surely his colonel sees that something is wrong? Eric’s his adjutant, for God’s sake.
Perhaps he seems normal up there, Sally suggested. Everyone’s temper must be pretty edgy there.
And his colonel’s a man of about twenty-four. In times of peace a soldier was lucky to command a battalion by the wise age of fifty. Now it’s infants with little knowledge of the world. Look, I’ll go and see him now.
Carradine rose. Her food was untouched. Her thinness was more apparent to Sally. She was not long gone.
He’s asleep, she said—relieved—when she returned. Her voice was more like the normal Carradine.
There might be something pressing on his brain, said Sally.
Maybe. His temperature is normal. He doesn’t have encephalitis.
Carradine was captured by a thought then, and said, as millions did, This bloody war! Surely it must be over within two years.
Earlier, Sally lied.
But Elsie returned directly to the subject of Eric. We went to Paris last month. Had a room looking out on the Tuileries. It should have been perfect. But there were headaches, there was anger. “I don’t want to go and see those stupid tarts and their dogs in the gardens!” There was a scene in the bar with a British officer . . . A little hidden alcove in the dining room was the only place he felt safe enough to break his bread. Oh, if that bloody conscription vote had been passed, we’d have plentiful new drafts coming in. It would be easy to get fellows like Eric out of the line.
Perhaps, Sally ventured, though because they’d be conscripts, he might have to stay with them to hold their hands or keep them in place.
There was a slight flare of anger in Carradine. You sound like all those Labour people. They say even the ordinary soldiers voted against it—they didn’t want their battalions sullied by conscripts. Well, that’s all right, but they’re all dying, that’s the thing. Some battalions are so small now they have to be squeezed into others. I’m sorry if I sound cross. I’m bewildered. But not as badly as him.
They looked to the door which led to the bedroom.
Look, said Carradine, tonight’s been dismal. But you don’t have to go yet.
I won’t, Sally assented. Let’s have some of the wine.
• • •
Now, at Carradine’s table on the edge of the spring of 1918, Carradine poured another measure of wine into both their glasses and uttered an opinion she could not have even given respect to a few years past.
Valor is complicated, she said. Sometimes I think the only brave ones are the ones who flee.
Yes, said Sally. Sometimes I’ve thought that too.
I hope tomorrow morning, Carradine whispered, there’ll be a soft-speaking officer and some orderlies and provosts at our door to help him away to more treatment. Eric will scream at me if it happens. And hate me.
She shrugged.
Carradine was nervous about Sally walking back to her hostel in that town so on edge and full of soldiers. But Sally went downstairs and began the journey with relief and in a fever of anticipation for the meeting at the belfry.
The Great Experiment
The next morning at nine o’clock Charlie was a sudden apparition outside the door of the bell tower. She saw him before he saw her. His overcoat was undone, he had one glove off and was smoking anxiously. She could tell somehow—even by his movements—that he was nervous both about the chance of her arrival and the opposite. His skin was as harsh as a stockrider’s, his face thinner and his features even more prominent. But he was clearly the same Charlie who had taught her about light and harbored doctrinal reservations about color.
As she got nearer he saw her and his body loosened, then he walked forward. He put out his arm swiftly and gave her an economic hug. Neither he nor she wanted notice to be taken here, with soldiers and officers coming and going. They both wanted to know about time. When was she due back at Mellicourt? When was he due back up there? It was little more than a day and a half in either case.
What will you show me today then? she asked.
But it’s time I asked you. What do you want to show me?
Well, she said, if you would care to look up you will see a magnificent leaden sky.
Oh, he said, I’ve seen one or two of those recently. They’re tending to proliferate.
Well, that’s about my limit. I’m still learning.
You’ll get talkative enough. After a time.
She liked that phrase, “After a time.”
Haven’t you noticed, he went on, that I always choose subjects on which I can be a know-all, and studiously avoid those on which I am ignorant? Viticulture, say, or stamps, or the workings of the internal combustion engine. I am not a Renaissance man. I play my limited strengths, that’s all.
That’s enough for me.
They both became aware that men were looking across the square at them—ravenous for a gram of their shared fervor.
There will be a great outbreak by the enemy, he murmured, and half t
he men we see here . . .
But not you.
Certainly not me. I’ve been sent down here to reconnoiter. In case we have to move when the Germans come. Now, I admit I’ve been studying up the cathedral here just to impress you. But it’ll be damned cold in there. First let’s find a café.
They walked across the square. Her distress rose all at once—with a sort of heat.
This coming onslaught . . .?
Don’t concern yourself, he said. We’re in reserve for now. In any case, up there or down here, they won’t hit us first off.
How do you know?
Because we’re too good for them, he said simply, without a hint of bravado. They won’t hit the Canadians or the British veterans, he went on. They will hit some poor, hapless British army of conscripts—kids just moved up, eighteen-year-olds with a few good old NCOs. That’s one of the flaws of conscription, you see—men undertrained. Divisions that don’t know themselves.
It was surprising to hear him talk like that—as a military analyst, a role he had never adopted before.
The likelihood of coming assaults was far from being the only cause of her fretfulness. There was as they crossed the square the gravitation of their two bodies. She knew he was aware of it as well—if he hadn’t been, it wouldn’t have been gravitation. They sat a little discontentedly in a café—a pause in their ferocious rapport that had to be gone through. He ordered brandy and drank it without coughing—the coughing at cognac was far in his past. Gone with the choirboy features. She drank the light-colored stuff the French called thé. He reached an ungloved hand across the table, and she took it in her open palm and felt the cold rasp of his. Again, the holding of a hand did not attract the attention of the deity here like it did in the Macleay.
You are the best of companions, he said. Do you want to see the cathedral? I mean, for your own sake. Not so that I can blather on . . .
There was something dizzying about cathedrals, something cleansing too. They were a sort of Gothic autoclave. But she had seen enough for now. She wanted to be with him in a way that did not have to do with architecture.
The Daughters of Mars: A Novel Page 44