by June Gadsby
He nodded, then stood to attention before her, clicking his heels with military precision. A tremulous smile lit up his face and he took his leave of her. Mary watched him walk back to his hut, feeling a rush of sympathy that tore at her heart.
‘Now, now, Mary.’ Iris’s voice next to her made her jump. ‘No fraternizing with the refugees, even if he did dance with you and go all gooey-eyed when you sang the other night. And he wasn’t the only one.’
‘Well, they’re a long way from home, Iris.’
‘So are we, but I suppose it’s harder for the Poles, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, poor souls. They may never see their loved ones again,’ Mary said, frowning. ‘We really don’t know how lucky we are, Iris. These men have lost everything. The major’s just been showing me pictures of his wife and children and the place where he lived in Poland. It was beautiful. Heaven only knows what state it’s in now, or if his family are still alive.’
‘What’s his name?’ Iris was sifting through a series of official looking messages that had just come in.
‘Berwinski,’ Mary replied and Iris looked up and blinked, her expression becoming suddenly very serious.
‘Major Berwinski? Wife, Maria, two children, Piotr and Anya? From the town of Poznan?’
‘Yes, that’s right. Why?’ Mary’s eyes swept over the telegram attached to the government form that Iris handed her. ‘Oh, Iris!’
‘You’d better tell him.’
Mary wanted to refuse. She couldn’t bear to think of the suffering this news was going to inflict upon the young Pole. Hadn’t he suffered enough?
‘Yes, all right,’ she said, straightening herself up and smoothing out the wrinkles in her uniform. This was no time to be overtaken by soft, feminine emotions. She had volunteered to do a job, and this was part of it.
She knocked on the open door of hut number four. When she entered, a group of Poles smoking and playing cards together looked up and saw the telegram clutched in her hand. They had been there long enough to know that it was bad news for one of them. She could see the fearful anticipation shining in their eyes.
‘Major Berwinski,’ she said, and he turned from the little primus stove where he was making himself a cup of tea. ‘Jan…?’
She saw his chest heave. His mouth opened, but no words issued forth. The other men withdrew tactfully, each touching their comrade lightly as they passed. There was no standing on ceremony because of his rank. He was one of them, a man in anguish, and there but for the grace of God they all would go.
As she approached him, Mary saw Jan swallow over and over again, saw his eyes protrude uneasily from his gaunt face, which became more drawn as he waited to hear what she had to say to him.
‘It’s bad news, Jan,’ she said softly, reaching out to steady him as he staggered weakly and clutched at the back of a chair for support.
Almost as if he knew it was on its way, he had been compelled to speak of his wife and children, show her their pictures, trying, perhaps, to ward off the terrible moment by some magical turning of fate.
He shook his head vehemently and put his hands over his ears.
‘I do n-not w-w-wish to know!’
Backing away, he collided with the wall, then slid slowly down to the floor. Mary lowered herself down beside him, stroked his bowed head, rubbed a hand comfortingly up and down his rigid spine. Her heart was bursting, but she had to keep her voice steady.
‘You have to know, Jan,’ she said gently. ‘Word has just come in. Maria … and the children … they’ve been taken … they’re not sure where … but …’
Mary choked on her words. They had almost certainly been transported. Maria Berwinski was a Jew.
‘No … no …’ Jan cried out, his head rocking from side to side. ‘Dead is better! In a camp they will p-perish … s-slowly. Ah … my Maria … my Piotr … my little Anya!’
Mary took him in her arms and held him close. One by one the other men returned to the hut and gathered around. One touched her on the shoulder and nodded, saying something in Russian, which she took to mean that they would look after him now. The soldier helped her to her feet, smiled and nodded again. Mary left them to their shared grief, hoping she would not have too many more incidents like that, though her hopes were probably futile.
She did not have too much time to dwell upon Major Jan Berwinski’s sad news, for the moment she stepped out of his hut into the warm, late-afternoon sun, she heard the familiar throb of Effie’s motorbike as she rode into camp to deliver another batch of messages from the main base on the other side of Coetquidan.
Within minutes, the CO called an urgent meeting in the staff mess. France was about to fall to the Germans, he announced. Because of the huge enemy advances, they were being forced to strike camp and move north to Normandy where the only remaining British and Canadian stronghold existed.
‘These are dangerous times, my friends,’ the colonel said, his face tired and drawn. ‘Some of us will not survive them. We can only retreat and pray that we make the coast without too much loss of life.’
‘Then what do we do?’ Effie whispered in Mary’s ear. ‘Swim across the Channel?’
‘If we have to.’ Mary smiled grimly, pressing her hand over her heart, which was beating so irregularly that she was finding it difficult to breathe.
‘Well, if that’s the case, I might as well surrender right now,’ Iris said. ‘I can’t swim.’
‘Ye’ll not catch me surrendering to the Jerries,’ Effie grunted. ‘I’ll walk on the bliddy water first.’
And, Mary thought, of all of them there, Effie was the one most likely to do just that.
On a cold, wet day in May, Jenny West stood peering through the cemetery railings at the funeral party gathered about the newly dug grave. There was a simple coffin and a single wreath of waxy-white lilies. Not many people were in attendance, she thought, but then it was a very private burial and, given the circumstances, she guessed that the family would be glad to see an end to the affair without too much fuss.
Not that a death in anybody’s family should be considered bother-some, she thought. Especially the demise of someone as young as Fiona Craig. The news had seeped through the town on a whisper. Some heads nodded as if they were agreeing that death had served as some kind of justice, but Jenny couldn’t bring herself to think so cruelly. A young woman was dead, and her unborn child with her. Complications had set in. A heart defect, apparently, that no one knew about.
Jenny wiped the rain from her spectacles and tried to make out the mourners around the grave where the gravediggers were in the process of lowering the coffin. She could make out Dr Gordon and his wife, and she assumed the grief-stricken couple beside them were the girl’s parents, come down from Scotland for the occasion. Another man stood a little way off, looking grey-faced and very much alone. That, she would put money on, was the man who was at the bottom of all the family’s troubles. Fiona Craig’s fancy man and the father of her dead child. There wasn’t a person in Felling who doubted it. The girl had been seen too many times flaunting her affair in public.
Well, she thought with a sigh, they do say we reap what we sow, but this seems harsh justice to me.
She was just about to move away as the group around the grave broke up and people filed out through the cemetery gates. Dr Gordon saw the family members to his car, then got his eye on Jenny and called to her to wait.
‘Oh, Dr Gordon, I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to disturb you in your time of grief.’
‘Not at all, Mrs West.’ Dr Gordon was, as ever, polite and friendly. ‘I’ve been thinking about you lately, so I’m glad to have this opportunity. Tell me, have you heard from Mary recently? I heard she joined up.’
‘Yes, that’s right, Doctor.’ Jenny smiled proudly, but inside she was still fearful for Mary’s safety. ‘She’s with the FANYs.’
‘That’s very admirable. I hear they’re extremely well thought of. Where is she stationed? It seems a while since I saw her.’
‘Well, she was in London for a while, but she’s been moved.’
‘So, where is she now?’
‘They shipped her off to France, Dr Gordon.’
‘Dear me.’ Seeing Jenny’s anxious expression, Dr Gordon put a hand on her shoulder and smiled reassuringly. ‘Let’s hope she’s not in too much danger. They say the fighting’s getting worse and worse as the Germans advance. They’re already evacuating servicemen from Dunkirk because there’s nowhere for them to retreat to.’
‘Dunkirk? Where’s that, Dr Gordon?’
‘It’s next door to Calais – just across the channel.’
‘Oh, that’s all right, then. Mary’s in Brittany. Lovely place that is. She went there once with the Beasleys. She went all over France with them as a bairn, you know.’
‘Yes, I see.’
Jenny couldn’t understand why he should look so grave, but she put it down to young Mrs Craig’s funeral and all that that entailed.
‘Your nephew couldn’t be here for his wife’s funeral, then, poor soul?’
‘No, I’m afraid not, Mrs West. We don’t even know if he has been informed of her death as yet. It’s a difficult situation, you see.’
‘Well, yes, that’s understandable. But then, we mustn’t dwell on the lassie’s indiscretions, eh? Best soon forgotten.’
He frowned and gave a little shake of his head.
‘No, Mrs West. I wasn’t speaking of that silly business …’ Dr Gordon scraped a large hand over his face. ‘Actually, we don’t even know if Alex is still alive over there in France. All communication seems to have broken down.’
‘Oh! Oh, I see! Oh, I am sorry,’ Jenny said, trying to hide her embarrassment. ‘Well, let’s hope the poor lad gets out.’
‘Yes, indeed. Let’s hope that … and Mary too.’
Jenny nodded and they said their goodbyes. She walked away, feeling a little dazed. Surely Mary couldn’t be involved in all that fighting over in France. She was just an innocent volunteer after all. Her job was to drive people about and do a little clerical work. She was teaching English to Polish refugees, for goodness sake, not shooting at Germans.
‘Helen!’ She banged on her eldest daughter’s door and thanked God that the girl was there. She had been allowed time off from her job in the munitions factory because the baby was sick with the measles. ‘Helen, I’ve just been down to the funeral … you know, that poor Dr Craig’s wife. I’ve had quite a scare.’
Helen took her mother by the arm and led her to a chair in the sparsely furnished accommodation she was renting. The place smelled musty and the linoleum that covered the floor was scuffed and cracked. Even in summer it was going to be cold, but Helen seemed happy enough living there.
‘What is it, Mam? You’re as white as a sheet.’
‘It’s our Mary. Dr Gordon seemed to think she might be in some kind of danger. She will be all right, won’t she? Oh, God, Helen, tell me our Mary’s going to be all right!’
‘Of course she is, Mam.’ Helen sat down by her mother on a worn, leatherette sofa with tired cushions and tufts of horsehair escaping through the cracks. ‘She’s a FANY. They don’t get involved in the fighting.’
‘No?’ Jenny wiped her eyes and smiled shamefacedly. ‘Oh, you’re right, lass. It’s just me being silly.’
‘You’re not silly, Mam, but you do worry too much. Our Mary’ll be fine, you’ll see.’
‘Aye. Aye, she will. Now, I’d better go and see if I can get a rabbit from the butcher’s for the tea. You know how your dad likes my rabbit-pie.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
ALEX had lost track of how many times the field hospital had been moved. He functioned mostly on automatic pilot these days, too tired to think, too exhausted to sleep. The senior MO was too sick with dysentery to do much else than sit behind a desk handing out advice and the only surgeon in the unit had died from a heart attack a month ago.
The wounded were coming in thick and fast. There wasn’t time to care, to indulge in emotion of any kind. He did what was necessary, passing from one man to the next. Most of them were dying and he could do nothing about it. The Wehrmacht kept on advancing, forcing the British troops to retreat until all that was left to them was the thin strip of Dunkirk coastline.
Orders had come in an hour ago. They had to move, yet again, but this time it was to be final. They had to get the wounded to the wharf at Dunkirk and wait for the boats that were able to approach the great breakwater under cover of darkness to lift them off. Embarkation under enemy fire was to be expected. Difficult choices were going to have to be made and it went without saying that only those servicemen who could survive such an operation would be able to go.
That meant only about half the patients he had in his care as things stood. The others wouldn’t even make it to the coast. The journey would kill them. There was to be no second chance for those who didn’t make it to the boats this time round. Word had it that this was to be the final evacuation. Those who stayed would either die or be interned in the German prisoner-of-war camps.
‘Go with them, Craig.’ Major Williams’s voice was weak and he looked years older than his age, which wasn’t much above forty.
Alex shook his head. ‘You know I can’t, sir. I have to stay behind to look after the men who are too ill to travel.’
‘There’s no need for both of us to stay.’
‘That’s true, which is why I’m advising you to get on one of the ambulances and get the hell out of here. Dammit, man, you’re sick.’
‘It’ll pass. Besides, I don’t have anything to go home for, do I? They say things aren’t too bad in the POW camps if you play your cards right. I’m also pretty useful, being a doctor.’
He gave a small laugh that was intended just for show. Alex knew that the major had very little to go back home to. Maybe it was some kind of suicide bid, this insisting on staying behind. He hoped not. Williams was a good man, a strong man. If he survived the camps he would still have the opportunity of a long life before him.
‘You can’t look after fifty men on your own, sir. Not in your state.’
‘There won’t be fifty of them by the time it takes you to get the others to the beaches. They’re dying like flies back here. Now, get yourself along, Captain. That’s an order.’ He took a faltering step forward and placed his hands heavily on Alex’s shoulders. ‘Go on, Alex. I’ll be fine. Say hello to Blighty for me and … well, good luck.’
‘You too, David.’ Alex saluted smartly and watched as Major Williams staggered back into the hospital. For a moment, he hesitated, feeling guilty for the flood of relief that was coursing through him. It would be good to see England again, but was it good to do so at the other man’s expense?
‘Captain Craig,’ Grace Forsyth’s voice made him start.
‘What is it, Sister? Not more wounded? We don’t have room.’
‘No, sir, but there’s a man asking for you. He was brought in yesterday with a mild case of shellshock. He says he comes from Felling, in the north-east of England.’
Alex pressed his hands over his eyes and sighed.
‘What’s his name?’
‘Private Walter Morgan, sir, of the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers.’
Alex’s brow creased as he strove to remember the name. ‘It … doesn’t … mean … anything to me, but I’ll go and see him. Where is he?’
‘Between the German prisoner and the young amputee.’
‘Fit enough to be moved?’
‘I would say so, yes, sir.’
‘Very well, Sister. I’ll go and see him now.’
Sister Forsyth placed a restraining hand on his shoulder.
‘Alex … Captain Craig … you must try to get some rest.’
‘I haven’t seen you take much time off, Grace.’
‘No, but then I’m not quite so much in demand. If you don’t get some sleep soon you won’t be capable of performing the lancing of a boil, let alone major surgery.’
Since th
e resident surgeon’s death and Major Williams’s illness, Alex had been coping with every medical condition thrown his way. His knowledge of surgery was minimal, but he was all these poor devils had. He could swab their wounds, extract the shrapnel, clean, disinfect, and stitch them up, hoping that they would survive long enough to reach a more experienced surgeon before they died.
He had not trained as a surgeon beyond medical school basics. It wasn’t his chosen field of expertise. He deplored what war had made of him. What he did was little short of butchery at times, but for many he was their last chance, their only hope between life and death.
‘Private Morgan?’
The man in the low pallet bed, near the entrance to the large tent hospital, lay shuddering uncontrollably. Above sunken cheeks a pair of haunted eyes stared up at the ceiling. In rapid rhythm his fingers plucked relentlessly at the blanket that covered him.
‘Sir?’ The man stirred, raised his head slightly and gave Alex a look that mirrored so many of the men who appeared before him.
‘You wanted to see me,’ Alex said, bending over the soldier and trying to recognize him, though there was nothing familiar about the long, heavy jawed face. ‘I’m Captain Craig. Sister Forsyth tells me you’re from Felling.’
‘Aye, s-sir. S-sorry I c-can’t salute you, sir, but….’ Private Morgan gave a huge gulp and shuddered some more. ‘C-can’t s-seem to l-lift me arms.’
‘That’s all right, Private. Take it easy. We don’t stand on protocol here.’
‘Me name’s Wa-Walter Morgan, s-sir.’ The soldier’s eyes rolled. He swallowed with difficulty and gave another great shudder. ‘You d-danced with my f-fiancée last Christmas … Mary?’
‘Good Lord!’ Alex felt his heart trip and miss a beat at the mention of Mary’s name. ‘Yes … yes, of course. What can I do for you, soldier?’
There was a poignant pause while Walter struggled to get his words out. Alex leaned on the instrument trolley that was parked alongside the soldier’s bed, wondering what Mary saw in this nondescript young man. Then he told himself not to be absurd. What business was it of his anyway, even if he did consider Mary to be his own personal angel of mercy?