‘He made you give me up. He didn’t want me around. Do you know how that feels?’
Shelly sighed. ‘He did, and that must make you feel unwanted, I understand that.’ She pulled over and turned in her seat. ‘But I want you to understand, he was having a breakdown, going through real mental torture with nobody to support him. He wanted to do the best thing for both of us – for you and me. I know he only ever meant well.’
DJ nodded. ‘Perhaps I should have brought him a bottle of whisky, or something. Does he smoke?’
Shelly shook her head. ‘No. He gave up cigarettes for New Year. He uses a vape, though. Claimed it helps him get over smoking tobacco but now he’s addicted to the vape and gets frantic if he mislays it.’
‘We have something in common, then.’ DJ smiled out of the car window.
‘There’s one other thing. Last weekend, we discovered a bag of stuff that belonged to my great-grandmother. She went off to nurse in the First World War, just after the Battle of Gallipoli around 1916.’
‘Nineteen sixteen, that’s cool. What did you find?’
‘Apart from a nurse’s uniform, we don’t know what’s in there, we thought we’d wait until you arrived and then have a look together.’ They pulled up outside the cottage.
‘Thank you.’ He turned towards her, still smiling. ‘It’s very peaceful around here, isn’t it?’
*
After the introductions, Shelly was aware of tension building between DJ and Gordon. She showed DJ around the cottage, before returning to the dining table. They sat in silence as she dished out the food.
‘What do you think of White Cottage then, DJ?’ Gordon tried.
‘Nice place, a good size family home.’ Then, appearing slightly startled by his own words, he went on. ‘Love the beams, really cool, Mr Summer.’
‘You can’t call me Mr Summer, lad. You’re family, after all.’
Clearly, DJ went through a number of responses in his mind, but then gave up.
Shelly glanced at her father’s glum face, wishing he would cheer up. Then they all glared miserably at the joint of beef in the centre of the table, dumping their woe on it. DJ was jigging his knee. The tap dripped into the sink. Shelly chewed her lip. This wasn’t what she had envisaged.
‘Wait, I forgot the mustard,’ she cried, glad of the excuse to speak, feeling the hot accompaniment would somehow warm up the atmosphere.
They tucked into the veg, roasties and Yorkshires with only her father helping himself to a huge portion of beef, while DJ took a frugal slice, glancing around the table guiltily as he did so. Shelly tried to make conversation, but the strained atmosphere prevailed until eventually, she jumped up and started shifting plates.
‘I’ve made an amazing apple pie with real custard, who’s up for a slice?’
Hands went up. ‘I’ll clear the table,’ Shelly said, placing a blanket of tinfoil over the remainder of the joint and shoving it into the fridge.
DJ stood. ‘Can I help?’
‘Certainly not,’ Shelly said. ‘Dad, get DJ a beer, please.’
Gordon was clearly uncomfortable, and DJ noticed it too. ‘Don’t worry, I’m fine.’
In an awkward moment both DJ and her father moved towards the sofa and almost bumped into each other. DJ, aware of the tension, glanced at Shelly. Gordon suddenly threw his arms around the boy as if in a rugby tackle.
Startled, everyone froze.
‘’Ere, lad, I want to say I’m right sorry. Really. Can you ever forgive me? Not a bloomin’ day’s passed that I ’aven’t regretted my decision all those years ago, and I ain’t never forgot you, an’ neither has our Shelly. You’re me only grandson, lad, and I’m glad you’re ’ere.’ Then, he sniffed loudly and everyone realised how upset he was. ‘I’ve been a right grumpy bastard since the day you left us, ask yer mother; and I’m good ’n’ proud of the way you’ve turned out.’ He let go of DJ, turned away and blew his nose with gusto.
Shelly exchanged an ‘Awww’ look with DJ, then passed two bottles of beer over. ‘Why don’t you two take to the sofa so we can put the table back against the wall and have some room in here. We’ll have the pudding on our knees, OK?’
Both men nodded and the tension broke as they pushed the table back to the wall and then flopped onto the sofa.
‘Ouch, sorry, sat on something,’ DJ said, pulling the scatter cushion out from behind his back, then holding up a huge pair of holey, pale-blue Y-fronts.
Gordon’s eyes widened. ‘’Ere, I’ve been looking for them. They’s me most comfy ones. Shelly, you ’aven’t been using them as a duster?’
DJ’s shoulders were shaking.
‘For goodness’ sake, Dad. There’s no backside in them,’ Shelly cried.
‘I admits they’s a bit thin in the seat, but the front’s still good, and who’s ever goin’ to see my behind?’
Laughter exploded from DJ. ‘You crack me up, Gramps!’ he cried between gasps.
‘You leave my crack out of this!’ Gordon said, which made Shelly laugh helplessly too. In a few silly words, all the strain between them was blown away. Shelly took a surreptitious glance at her father and wondered if he had somehow orchestrated the whole fiasco just to break the tension.
*
The pudding was a great success with everyone having seconds. They talked for a while, Gordon telling DJ about his pigeons, then explaining about the steam engine he’d kept for him for the past twenty years.
Shelly smiled to herself, delighted to hear the ease with which they made arrangements for the following week. DJ, her son, fitted into the family, and wasn’t that wonderful? More than she had hoped for.
‘Come up to the loft, lad, have a look at me birds while Shelly gets on with the dishes, then we’ll bring Gran Gertie’s bag down and see what’s in there, right?’
Shelly continued to clear up, smiling when she thought about her father apologising to DJ the way he did. Clearly, he’d been dreading the day he’d face his grandson. Half an hour passed and Shelly was finishing her coffee when the men returned from the attic with Gran Gertie’s pillow-bag.
‘Here, Gramps, shall we put it on the table?’
‘Sounds like a plan, lad.’
They hefted the bulging pillow-bag onto the empty dining table. ‘Right, here we go,’ DJ said. ‘Who’s going to do the honours? I think it should be you, Mum. What do you think, Gramps?’ He looked at them both, his head slightly to one side. ‘It feels a little odd saying Mum and Gramps, you know?’
‘Aye, course it does, but we’ll all get used to it, lad. I remember when our Shelly was born. At first, it seemed right weird to call that little baby Michelle . . . Must admit, I called her a few other names at night, when she was teething. They came quite natural, believe me, but honestly, you don’t want to hear them now.’
Shelly and DJ laughed.
Shelly’s chest tightened every time DJ called her Mum, and she could see her father was quite overwhelmed by his new role too. She went right up to DJ and said, ‘Look, we’re all family here, do you think you could just . . .’ She had to stop and gulp back tears. ‘Give me a hug? I’ve waited a lifetime.’
DJ, who was six inches taller than her, pulled her to his chest and wrapped his arms around her. ‘You can’t understand what this day means to me,’ he said quietly. ‘Thank you.’
*
‘That went all right, don’t you think?’ Shelly said, putting the last of the dishes away.
Gordon nodded at the window, towards the old oak tree where DJ was sitting on the bench reading some of Gertie’s letters that they’d found in an oilcloth envelope in the pillow-bag. ‘He seems like a nice boy; kind, good-looking, with a sense of humour. Of course, he’d get all that from his grandad. Runs in the family, don’t it?’
Shelly laughed and marvelled at how her father’s wit had returned. Her own joy was so great she felt an urge to pull on her ballet pumps and pirouette across the table, but she hadn’t worn them since she was six years old
.
‘I’m just going to pack the contents of the pillow-bag into my suitcase to take with me next week. Is there anything you’d like to keep, Dad?’
‘Well, I don’t know, we didn’t really have a good look, did we? Too busy yakkin’. Let’s go through it together shall we?’
‘Might as well finish going through the trunk too,’ she said. ‘I put the Christmas presents in my bedroom. I thought . . . well, about having a proper Christmas this year . . .’
‘I know,’ he said, way ahead of her. ‘It’s time we celebrated Christmas. I’ll do it in honour of my wife, and you do it in honour of your son, OK?’
CHAPTER 36
GERTIE
Lemnos, Greece, 1917.
BY CHANCE, I CAME TO see some of Lemnos. The beauty of that island brought all of Greece into my heart forever. Neither the magnificent architecture of Syros nor the rural simplicity of Kea, Lemnos was Constable’s English pastures. Rolling hills dotted with sheep, groves of fruit trees, neat rows of beehives. Corn fields, wheat threshing circles and hay stacks. When I turned my back on those rural scenes and faced the coast, there were beaches of white sand and turquoise water like nothing I had seen before. The deep port of Mudros was another story. Frigates lined up, embarking coal and water unloaded by supply ships. A motley array of barges sidled up to the great frigates and destroyers, flogging their wares like gypsies in the market place.
One day, one of our orderlies came off his motorised bicycle and broke his leg outside our tent.
‘Take care of my bike, nurse,’ he muttered between gasps of pain. ‘If you learn to ride it, you’ll get a few tips when you deliver stuff, and you’ll keep my job open for me. Say you’ll do it?’
William carried messages from one end of the camp to the other. After a tentative start, I found the motorised cycle manageable and took the messenger’s place, hurrying through the camp three times a day. I loved that vehicle and fetched supplies from the stores whenever we ran out of something crucial. I wished Sissy could have seen me flying along the duckboards between the marquees.
Matron Merriberry approached Josephine and I as we came off duty one week before Christmas. ‘Nurse Jones,’ she said to Josephine. ‘I want you and Smith to start in theatre, tomorrow morning, seven o’clock, understood?’
I could hardly speak, and only managed to squeak, ‘Yes, Matron.’
‘There’ll be no Christmas celebrations, ladies,’ Matron continued. ‘The usual three-day ceasefire over the holiday has been cancelled this year. The murder will go on.’ She stood taller and shook her shoulders defiantly. ‘However, everyone’s name is entered into a pillow-bag, and every Monday at dinner, I’ll draw six out. Those nurses will be taken for a day out at the beach or the mud-baths with a picnic, weather permitting. Any questions?’
‘Excuse me, Matron. I just want to thank you for putting me in theatre. I won’t let you down, and my father will be very proud.’
She lifted her chins, huffed, and continued on her way, but as she turned, I saw the flicker of a smile, though it probably had nothing to do with me.
*
I managed to write to my parents every Sunday. Once a month I received a small parcel with things I had requested, plus a few treats from Mother; her Dundee or parkin cake, or a bar of prized chocolate. She told me, Father was proud to read I was training as a scrub nurse in the theatre.
I found the position much more rewarding than being in the tent ward.
‘You wanted to rise through the ranks, Gertie,’ Josephine said. ‘Now, we’re so short-staffed there are no restrictions on how far you may go. Just work hard and be eager.’
The operations were fascinating. My first theatre experience was a leg amputation, which reminded me of handsome Corporal Perkins, and the operation I’d missed on the island of Kea.
Josephine was the anaesthetist, and her being there took away some of my nerves.
The surgeon, Rumley, was a highly respected Australian. ‘Ready?’ he called as he entered the stone-built theatre with two orderlies and a poor wretch on a stretcher.
‘Yes, sir,’ we all replied.
‘You, new girl,’ he said to me. ‘Stand next to the anaesthetist and do whatever I or she says, and don’t speak. I can’t abide chattering nurses.’
The patient writhed vigorously, his eyes staring in unashamed terror as he struggled against the orderlies.
Josephine spoke calmly over his whining. ‘You’ll be fine in a moment, soldier. Count ten for me. Come on now, let me hear you. One, two . . .’
She handed me a bottle with a glass stopper. ‘Open when I say and close immediately after I’ve filled the dropper – and don’t inhale the fumes.’ I nodded. She had what looked like a miniature bullhorn, with a pad of cotton inside. ‘Open.’ I did. She took a dropper of liquid and said, ‘Close’. Josephine emptied the chloroform dropper into the contraption and held it over the patient’s mouth and nose. The hypnotising smell wafted around us like oriental silk. The patient continued to writhe while Josephine talked soothingly, but soon he became dopey. The red-faced orderlies let go of his limbs. Josephine continued until he lay still, then she pulled his eyelid back to check his pupil.
‘Ready to go, sir,’ she said, adding more drops to the mask.
‘When nurse says so, open a window,’ Rumley ordered, nodding at me.
‘Right, give me the bottle and open the window,’ Josephine said moments later. Then she instructed me to apply a blood pressure cuff and tell her the reading.
The surgeon and the theatre nurse cut away the filthy bandages that tied the leg to a length of wood. Then they cut away what remained of the shredded uniform trousers.
‘There’s a mess,’ Rumley said, examining the two ragged wounds where shattered bones protruded. ‘Hit in the back of the knee. Blown off his entire knee and the ends of the tibia, fibula, and femur. We can’t repair what isn’t there. Let’s get on with it and amputate at the lower femur as close to the knee as possible.’ He prodded and peered. ‘No sepsis. Right, let’s have a belt tourniquet on the thigh and get started. How are you doing, nurses?’
I’ll never forget that; to be addressed as ‘nurse’ by a surgeon for the first time. How I wished Father had been there.
The operation was nothing like the line drawings in Father’s medical book. Once the leg was in two separate parts, he lifted the lower half and dumped it in my arms. ‘Stand it in the corner, nurse.’
Oh!
The limb was unexpectedly heavy, and I was shocked! Really shocked! I caught a glance from Josephine and understood this was a test.
‘Yes, sir,’ I said strongly, ignoring the foul-tasting saliva that rushed into my mouth. I propped the limb on its blackened, swollen foot in the corner; stuck my head out of the window and hauled in a fierce breath, then returned to the table. Rumley trimmed the muscle so that there was a good flap to sew over the end of the stump. Then he stitched the wound around a rubber drainage tube.
‘Pay attention, nurses. I spend too much time on external sutures when any of you could relieve me of the task.’ Without looking up, he said, ‘New girl, how’s your bandaging?’
‘I’m the best, sir,’ I said boldly, wishing I had the courage to tell him I could have done the stitches.
‘Then get on with this and be snappy, there’ll be another chloroform job in ten minutes.’
I am proud to say I applied my finest dressing to that limb. I thought of Corporal Perkins as I worked and I wondered if his wound had healed cleanly. Was he measured for a prosthetic, and could he go back to being a mechanic? Now, I realised the surgeon was right to take away a little more leg than appeared necessary. Better safe than sorry was the general consensus.
I missed Perkins and wished I had his address so that I could write to him.
*
‘Good job, today,’ Josephine said in our room. We had five hours to wash, eat, and sleep, so there was no time to deliver post or discuss the operation. What praise: good
job! Despite my tiredness, I was proud and ambitious, and content with the day. I saw myself on the bottom rung of a ladder that I didn’t know I could climb, or to what heights it would take me.
When back on duty, I tackled everything offered, and did my best. Despite the bone-aching tiredness, the thrill of my latest accomplishments spurred me on towards any new challenge.
*
After a month on Lemnos, my name had not come out in the draw. Josephine and I longed for a day off, a swim in the crystal-clear sea, time to chatter, laugh, sing and splash, most of all to bathe in the saltwater and sleep all day on the warm sand. The names of people who won didn’t go back into the draw, so I consoled myself; Josephine and I were bound to win a day off eventually, even if we were the last two left in the sack.
My work continued in the theatre, assisting the anaesthetist, sometimes doing the final stitching, and dressing wounds. There was no part of a man that I had not worked on. February came and we saw the casualties change with the weather. Added to the shrapnel and gunshot wounds came severe frostbite. Feet blackened and stinking with gangrene were amputated. After assisting with the removal of both feet, a young cherubic soldier lost his battle and died on the table. He reminded me so much of our Arthur that I was shaken to the core.
I said, ‘Excuse me,’ left my post at the surgeon’s side and rushed out into the evening air. The tears of helplessness raged for a few seconds, then I dried my face and returned to my post.
‘We’ve only lost ten per cent of patients this week, nurse. A new record, I think. Excellent!’ surgeon Rumley said without emotion and not looking my way.
By the end of February, I hoped to be able to deal with a drainage tube and stitch down a flap. I scrutinised every move of Rumley’s hands with the utmost interest.
‘Nurse!’ he bellowed one afternoon, making me jump. ‘Why is your head between me and my patient?’
‘Sorry, sir,’ I said, pulling back. ‘I got carried away, sir. It’s my target to learn the tube and flap procedure by the end of the month, sir.’
‘Get out of my way!’ he yelled furiously. ‘Who do you think you are?’
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