Dr Curcin appeared very pleased with their decision as he escorted them to the northbound platform, where a train was waiting. Most of the carriages were already filled with civilian refugees who were returning north now that the fighting was over. But Dr Curcin had reserved one carriage for the women. Their medical supplies and equipment were loaded into the baggage compartment and the women climbed aboard.
Once inside the carriage Elspeth sat on a three-seater bench next to Frances Wakefield. Sylvia, sitting directly opposite, was her usual cheery self, chattering away quite happily to Louisa Jordan in the aisle seat beside her. But Vera, in the window seat on the other side of Sylvia, seemed unusually quiet. As the train pulled out of the station and headed north, Elspeth saw Vera staring pensively through the window at the passing Serbian countryside.
‘Penny for them?’ Elspeth asked Vera, when she finally turned her head away from the window.
‘Oh. Well, I know it’s a stupid question,’ she said, an embarrassed expression on her face, ‘but I don’t understand the difference between typhus and typhoid. I thought we’d been vaccinated against both?’
‘It’s not a stupid question at all,’ Elspeth replied. She turned to Dr Wakefield. ‘You know more about this, Frances; perhaps you could explain?’
Dr Wakefield nodded, her eyes bright as she spoke to Vera.
‘Typhoid is an infection caused by swallowing typhoid bacteria, usually from contaminated food or spoiled drinking water. It causes fever with diarrhoea or constipation, and stomach pains. But as long as the food we eat is properly cooked, and our drinking water boiled, we probably won’t catch it. Also, we’ve all been vaccinated against typhoid, so even if you did swallow the bacteria, the vaccine will either protect you from getting infected, or at least make the illness less severe.’
‘And typhus?’ asked Vera
Dr Wakefield glanced at Elspeth before she replied. ‘Well, that’s more of a problem. It was only discovered three years ago that lice carry the typhus bacteria inside their guts. It is believed that lice in your clothes defecate onto the skin, and bacteria in the faeces pass directly through the skin into the body. So it’s different from typhoid in that it’s not caught from eating or drinking, but through skin contact with lice. The illness is different as well: there is fever and a rash, a very high temperature, headache and muscle pains. But the main symptom is confusion; in fact, the name typhus comes from the Greek typhos, which means stupor.’
‘And we haven’t been vaccinated against typhus?’
‘No. A certain Dr Plotz in New York claims to have isolated a bacterium from infected patients and says he can produce a vaccine from it. But his work has not yet been proven.’
‘Is there any treatment?’
‘No. There is little we can do, apart from make the correct diagnosis. You just have to let the infection take its course. After five to ten days of fever, there is usually a crisis with high temperatures. Then the fever breaks and most people recover.’
‘Most?’
‘With good nursing care and decent food, two-thirds of patients should survive. However, for a wounded soldier, badly fed and dirty, the chances are much less.’
Sylvia nudged Vera in the ribs with an elbow. ‘Don’t worry, Vera; you’re as strong as an ox. You’ll be fine. Just don’t let those beastly lice get under your corsets.’ She slid a hand into Vera’s sides and began to tickle her, eliciting a yelp of laughter. Watching her two friends fooling around, Elspeth smiled and shook her head. Let’s hope, she thought, that Dr Curcin’s fear of an epidemic did not materialise.
***
Kragujevac, eighty miles south of the capital, Belgrade, was the site of Serbia’s main military arsenal, and Elspeth remembered Dr Curcin saying that the battle for this strategically important town had been particularly fierce. However, the first stage of their train journey was up through northern Greece and then across the border into southern Serbia, neither of which had been affected by the war. The train stopped briefly at Skopje station, where Elspeth had her first glimpse of the enemy: at the far end of the platform she saw a small group of Austrian prisoners standing in a circle; tired-looking men, in frayed pale-blue uniforms which hung off skeletal frames, their eyes compliantly downcast. A detachment of Serbian soldiers dressed in grey, with bright yellow straw moccasins on their feet and red-woollen hats on their heads, stood guard, rifles pointed towards the prisoners, bayonets fixed, eyes focussed on their captives.
The next stage of their journey was across the central plain of the Kosovo region. It appeared that the war had not yet touched this area either, and through the carriage window Elspeth saw ploughed fields, straw thatched cottages and red-tiled farm buildings with herons nesting on the chimney tops. But as the train climbed up into the Serbian highlands – with snow on the hills and eagles soaring high above the rocky crags – the scars of battle began to appear: the broken stumps of shell-blasted trees, dead cattle lying in shell-cratered fields, the ruins of burnt-out barns and farmhouses. Eventually they neared Kragujevac and the train slowed as it passed through the fire-scorched outer suburbs of the town. The carriage fell silent as the women pressed their faces up against the window, squinting through the evening gloom at piles of broken cobblestones on the streets, fallen telegraph poles, and houses and shops with windows smashed and roof tiles missing.
A small, grey-bearded man – almost gnome-like – with darkly shadowed, red-rimmed eyes was waiting for them on the station platform.
‘I am Dr Dmitri Anitch, from the First Reserve Military Hospital,’ he said to them.
‘You speak good English, Dr Anitch,’ said Dr Soltau.
‘I visited the London teaching hospitals some years ago,’ he explained as he led Elspeth and the others out of the station.
‘How is the fever situation?’ Elspeth asked.
‘Very bad. I am now sure it is typhus. The situation in my hospital is desperate; three of my medical colleagues have died this week and I am the only surgeon well enough to operate.’
‘Can we visit your hospital tonight?’ Elspeth asked.
Anitch shook his head as he led them to a row of ox-wagons waiting outside the station. ‘There is no street lighting and it is unsafe to travel in the dark. I’ll take you there tomorrow morning after we’ve found a suitable location for your hospital.’
Elspeth watched a number of Serbian guards load their hospital equipment, luggage and other supplies into the wagons. Then she and the other women climbed on board and the small convoy set off through the rubble-strewn streets. After a twenty-minute journey they arrived at a large ivy-covered, whitewashed villa on the outskirts of the town. Anitch explained that the villa had previously been used as a private medical clinic and had ten rooms, each holding three beds, which could be used as the women’s sleeping quarters. The villa had some minor exterior damage from the fighting – a few bullet holes in the walls – but the inside of the building was undamaged and the rooms clean and recently decorated. Dr Anitch and Dr Curcin left for the First Reserve Hospital, promising to return early the next morning, and then Cook fired up the oven in the kitchen to prepare a late supper of toast, tinned meat and cocoa. Finally, the women went to their bedrooms, and Elspeth, Sylvia and Vera – sharing a room together – climbed, exhausted, into their beds.
The next morning Dr Anitch and Dr Curcin reappeared. Dr Soltau suggested that Elspeth, Dr Chesney and Dr Wakefield should accompany her, and so the party of six left the villa and began to walk towards the centre of town. After walking only a few hundred yards along the debris-littered streets, side-stepping piles of broken paving stones as they went, they came across two ox wagons pushed up against the pavement. Dr Curcin pulled back a thin tarpaulin sheet covering the first wagon, and Elspeth was shocked to see five wounded Serbian soldiers lying on the wooden floor. In the next wagon they found a similar number of injured Austrians, still in their bloodstained, mud-soiled uniforms. All the men looked malnourished and cold, so Dr Soltau sent Dr Wakef
ield back to the villa to tell the VADs to bring them food and warm clothing.
Elspeth and the others carried on walking and arrived in the centre of town, where they saw that some of the shops – even some of the restaurants – contained casualties. Walking inside the nearest building, a butcher’s shop, they found eight Serbian wounded lying on the sawdust floor, their wounds covered with dirty field dressings. The rancid smell of decay was in the air, and Elspeth watched as Dr Curcin knelt to speak to one of the soldiers. After a few words the soldier removed his jacket and shirt, and Elspeth was shocked to see sores on his buttocks and shoulder blades, a result of lying too long on the hard floor. Another soldier had a gangrenous foot. Elspeth felt torn: her instinct was to stay and help the poor men. Dr Soltau, however, insisted that their first priority was to find a building they could use as a hospital. So it was with great difficulty that Elspeth finally left the building and followed the others away.
Ten minutes later they arrived at some wrought-iron gates, behind which Elspeth saw a two-storey brick building, fronted by a square concrete courtyard. Anitch told them that this was the town’s high school, but as most families had fled Kragujevac it was no longer in use. Dr Soltau pushed the gate open and Elspeth followed her into the yard. The school appeared to have been abandoned in a hurry, as the main entrance door, approached by a short flight of stone steps, was unlocked. Inside the building on the ground floor they found a number of empty classrooms, but also a canteen, a good-sized kitchen, proper toilets and running water. More classrooms, a library and offices for teachers were on the first floor.
‘Aye, we can clear the classrooms of desks and they can be converted into ward bays and an operating suite,’ said Dr Chesney.
A smile appeared on Dr Soltau’s face. ‘Yes. I think this will do very nicely as our hospital,’ she announced.
‘Excellent,’ Dr Curcin said with a beaming smile. ‘I will go and arrange for a detail of Austrian prisoners to come here and clear the classrooms. They can also bring over your medical equipment and help erect the beds.’ He paused. ‘There are a number of well-trained nursing orderlies amongst the Austrians. If you wish, you may keep a few in the hospital to assist with the heavier manual work.’
‘That would be a great help,’ Dr Soltau replied.
‘I will also organise a permanent detachment of Serbian guards to watch over them.’
Dr Soltau nodded her agreement and then turned to Dr Chesney. ‘Lillian, can you go back with Dr Curcin, and fetch our nurses and VADs? We should make an immediate start on disinfecting the floors and walls of the school buildings.’
Dr Chesney agreed and followed Dr Curcin out of the building.
Dr Soltau turned towards Dr Anitch. ‘Would it be possible for Dr Stewart and I to be shown around your hospital?’
He looked embarrassed. ‘The conditions in my hospital are very poor. We are badly overcrowded and the wards are dirty as the cleaners have fled from fear of infection—.
‘We understand the situation is challenging,’ Dr Soltau interrupted. ‘But seeing your difficulties will help us understand how we might defeat them.’
Reluctantly Anitch agreed, and after another walk through streets sprinkled with more broken paving and fallen roof tiles, Elspeth and Dr Soltau finally arrived at a large red-bricked building: the First Reserve Military Hospital.
There had clearly been heavy fighting in this area, and the exterior walls of the hospital were heavily pockmarked with bullet holes; many of the windows were patched with boards and pieces of packing case. But the conditions inside the building were far worse: Anitch told them that although the hospital had been built to accommodate two hundred patients, there were now four hundred men packed within its walls. As she walked onto the surgical ward, Elspeth was shocked to see the crammed rows of patients lying on straw mattresses, the lucky ones on top of the mattresses, the unlucky ones on the floor between or even underneath the beds. She could see only one, exhausted-looking orderly, dressed in a dirty white gown, carrying a chamber pot and ignoring the pleas of men as he walked by them. Elspeth felt queasy at the sight, but turning towards Dr Soltau, she was impressed to see that the chief medical officer’s face was impassive.
‘I see your difficulties,’ Dr Soltau said in a calm voice. ‘Can we see the fever ward please?’
In the next ward they encountered the same overcrowding of beds; the smell of the place was dreadful, a mousy, musty, feculent odour.
‘And your laundry?’ Dr Soltau asked, holding a handkerchief to her nose.
They followed him out – Elspeth was relieved to be away from the fetid stench – and along a corridor to another large room. Four large iron steamer units were on one side of the room. A large pile of dirty uniforms lay on the floor on the other. The air was hot and steamy and carried the smell of washing and soap. A Serbian soldier sat on a chair in the far corner of the room with a rifle across his lap, watching three Austrian prisoners load the dirty clothes into the steamers. They were using two long pieces of wood like chopsticks to lift and carry the uniforms, but, seeing Dr Anitch, they stopped their work to bow their heads to him. He waved at them to continue, and after smiling and bowing their heads to Elspeth and Dr Soltau, the men returned to their task.
‘The Austrian prisoners are happy to work here,’ Dr Anitch said, ‘even if it is a dirty and dangerous business. They tell me it is better here than the prison camps.’
Good Lord, Elspeth thought. What must the prison camps be like if they would rather be here than there?
‘Come and see this,’ he said and led them towards a pile of dirty clothes. ‘But don’t get too close.’
Elspeth bent forward and squinted at the rags on the floor, and then focussed on the sleeve of an Austrian officer’s jacket. ‘Oh my goodness,’ she said, seeing the tiny dark bodies of lice outlined against the pale blue of the uniform. Beside her Dr Soltau jerked back with surprise.
‘They’re active now because they don’t like being separated from the warmth of the body,’ he said. ‘It is a plague of lice. Every soldier – Serbian or Austrian – has them.’
‘Can’t you just burn the uniforms?’ Elspeth asked.
‘No. This is all they have to wear. There is no spare clothing.’
‘I think we’ve seen enough, Dr Anitch,’ Soltau said. ‘We must get back. The quicker we convert the school to a hospital, the quicker we can help you.’
‘Your arrival in Kragujevac is a blessing,’ he replied. ‘You can see how badly you are needed.’
***
‘Are you sure about this?’ Elspeth asked Sylvia as the two women walked towards the triage room.
‘Yes, absolutely certain,’ Sylvia replied. ‘I’m going to help Dr Wakefield run the new typhus hospital.’
Six weeks had elapsed since the women had arrived in Kragujevac. Six long, challenging weeks, during which Elspeth had worked harder than ever before, helping the other women to turn the school into a fully functioning surgical hospital, and operating on the large number of Austrian and Serbian wounded that had lain for so long without proper medical help. Dr Soltau had originally brought beds and medicines to equip a one-hundred-bed hospital, but there were so many casualties that she eventually found space in the school’s ten classrooms for one hundred and seventy patients. The work was arduous, and seeing so many young men permanently disabled by the misfortunes of war was heart-breaking. But eventually the backlog of surgery was almost done.
And then typhus had struck.
Dr Soltau had always emphasised that her major concern was to protect the women from infection. Everyone in direct contact with patients had been given typhus uniforms, consisting of long white high-collared calico gowns, which were to be tucked into their boots and rubber gloves. For those women attending patients with proven fever, hair was compulsorily cropped to one inch and fully enclosed in a white cap. And for every arriving casualty a strict admission policy was enforced: the patient was placed on a rubber sheet and stripped of
all clothes – which were sent for steam disinfection – the head and body were shaved, and finally the patient was rubbed from head to foot with paraffin.
However, in spite of this, the number of cases of typhus rose.
Dr Soltau responded by opening a fever ward in the hospital, but as the number of cases climber even higher, she decided to establish a separate typhus hospital in a disused tobacco warehouse on the outskirts of town. Dr Wakefield was to be the only doctor working in this hospital, and she would be accompanied by eight of the VADs and five trained nurses. And to Elspeth’s surprise, Sylvia – who had so far only ever worked on surgical wards – had volunteered to be one of the two sisters working there.
‘What patients with typhus need most is good nursing care,’ Sylvia said. ‘The backlog of surgical cases is mostly finished here, so I’ll be more useful organising nursing care in the new hospital.’
‘You do realise you’ll have to chop off most of your lovely hair, don’t you?’ said Elspeth.
‘I’d been thinking it needed a bit of a cut anyway,’ Sylvia replied, picking at her blonde fringe. ‘In any case, it’ll grow back quickly once all this is over.’
‘Who else volunteered to go with you?’
‘Louisa Jordan will be the other senior nurse.’
‘And Vera?’
‘Dr Soltau wants all patients with typhus to be taken up to the new hospital. So Vera will drive them there.’ Dr Curcin had managed to find the women an old Serbian army ambulance, and Vera was to drive it when required.
‘Well I’m staying here,’ Elspeth said. ‘There’s still a steady stream of surgical work coming in from the surrounding towns and villages.’ She paused for a moment. ‘You will be careful, Sylvie, won’t you? Those calico gowns are not fail-safe.’
‘Don’t worry, Ellie – I do know what I’m doing…’
She stopped talking as they arrived at the triage room, a small space that had originally been the school caretaker’s storage cupboard, but had been converted into an area to assess and disinfect all potential admissions to the hospital. Two injured soldiers – one Serbian in grey uniform, one Austrian in pale blue – lay on rubber sheets on the floor. Standing above them were two of the Austrian prison orderlies, holding heavy scissors and shaving equipment, waiting for instructions.
The Furies Page 16