by Nicola Slade
Captain Makepeace rolled his eyes. ‘Oh Lord, I pity the pair of them. Halliday was on the same transport as me and one chap who’s been with him since the field hospital told me his memory has gone and he’s mute. Part of one foot was shot away too. I gather poor Trevelyan’s just as silent. Matron seems well-meaning, but her voice is so dreadfully loud. Tactless, too.’
It sounded as though one, at least, of the two men in question, agreed with him, as the recumbent officer, who was lying on a daybed, became very agitated and started to shout.
‘Mr Trevelyan, do calm yourself’ Matron rustled over to his bedside. ‘What, pray, is the reason for all this unseemly noise?’
‘Halliday,’ he shouted, his voice thick and unused. He was staring at the ceiling, not at the other officer, and I remembered that this was the young man Alix had mentioned several times. Paralysed, shell-shocked and in a very fragile mental state, he was out of place at Groom Hall, and stranded here until a bed fell vacant near his family in Kent. Alix said he rarely spoke coherently and seemed unable to comprehend his surroundings.
‘Halliday,’ he shouted again, gobbling at the name. ‘Traitor. Bastard.’
There was an awkward, lengthening silence but he had no more to say. Matron pursed her lips so tightly that they almost disappeared into what Bertie used to call a cat’s bum, (though not in any grown-up’s hearing). She was evidently shocked by his language, though you would think a nurse during wartime must have heard far worse. Dr Pemberton looked round the room and beckoned to the officer shrinking beside the bed.
‘Captain Halliday,’ he boomed. ‘Are you acquainted with Lieutenant Trevelyan?’
There was no answer. The brown-haired young man he addressed looked to be in his middle twenties. Foiled by Matron who seized his arm when he tried to return to his seat by the window, he stared at Dr Pemberton in mute dismay through his tinted spectacles. Lighting up a cigarette, he drew his crutches close to him as though for protection.
‘Ah, yes,’ the doctor harrumphed. ‘I’d forgotten you can’t speak. Here, come and let him see you. Now then, Trevelyan, this is Captain John Halliday. Is he the fellow you’re speaking about so roughly, eh?’
The boy in the bed had his eyes closed.
‘Halliday,’ he gargled again.
‘Bastard,’ he said quite clearly.
Chapter Three
Sunday, 10th March
It had been on Friday that we visited the Hall to hand over our invitation to take in paying guests. On Sunday we all, except Mother who pays no attention to the passing of time, attended Morning Service at the Priory in town, mostly for the sake of appearance. Apart from Granny we tend to be lax, but Alix wanted to see and be seen, and Addy won’t be left behind in case she misses something. I felt the need to pray for lots of lodgers to make our enterprise a success.
The programme for Sunday evening looked set to be as dull as usual: mending (Granny), sighing over accounts (me), grumbling over homework (Addy), and picking through our scant supply of trimmings to look for something to brighten up a hat (Alix). Just after half-past nine there was a ring at the front door and Granny, who was in the hall, answered it then called Alix and me.
I recognised Hutton, a middle-aged orderly from Groom Hall. He had evidently delivered a letter which Granny was reading, a frown creasing her brow.
‘Matron writes that they are seriously short-staffed at the Hall tonight,’ Granny said, peering over her spectacles at us. ‘She and Hutton here,’ he shifted his feet as she nodded in his direction, ‘will have no nurses to assist them. There has been some mistake in drawing up the lists and two nurses who have been away for the weekend have telephoned to say their train has been cancelled.’
‘Nurse Randall and Nurse Drummond,’ Alix nodded. ‘They were going to stay with Drummond’s aunt in Portsmouth.’
‘Quite,’ Granny frowned again. ‘Matron asks, Alix, whether – in the circumstances – you would take a night duty from ten until six tomorrow morning.’
Alix opened her mouth but Granny went on, ‘I can hardly refuse permission, but you must take Christabel with you for company.’
It was my turn to open and then close my mouth. It’s never any use arguing when Granny has made up her mind.
‘I don’t consider it suitable for a girl of Alix’s age to spend a night virtually alone in a convalescent hospital full of young men and in any case, you’ll be company for each other.’ I swear there was amusement in her voice when she added, ‘I expect you’ll have time to read, Christabel, so you needn’t consider it a wasted evening.’
Granny was right, as usual. Alix took her hat and the basket of trimmings with her and I took my notebook and spent ages making notes so I could be sure of accuracy in any hospital scenes I might write.
‘Addy would love this,’ I murmured to Alix as we sat primly and self-consciously at a table in the large inner hall. ‘Wouldn’t she have fun bullying them all into showing her their scars and giving her gory details about how they were wounded.’
As the night wore on I was glad our younger sister wasn’t there because even though the patients were mostly sedated, they were rarely silent, snoring or whimpering in their sleep, or muttering tetchily while tossing and turning. Occasionally we’d hear a scream which was distressing. Our table was opposite the drawing-room and we could keep an eye on the occupants because the double doors were thrown open. The only light was on our table, just bright enough for us to read or sew, but not to disturb the sleepers in their curtained cubicles.
We had never been invited to the Hall when the family still used it, so I was interested to see how the hospital worked, particularly the round tower that had been stuck on the outside, for no apparent reason. The upstairs rooms were now offices and staff quarters. On the ground floor only the drawing-room still served as a ward, which meant the patients were slightly cramped.
I mentioned this to Alix. ‘When the house was originally set up as a private hospital,’ she explained, ‘Lord Greysdale insisted that several rooms, including his dining room, cellar and study, must be locked up and never used by the patients. As he’d offered to pay for the whole thing and was almost ninety, nobody wanted to upset him, but it meant beds were crammed into every other room, including this inner hall – which is now used as a sitting-room and recreation area. No wonder the house was quickly changed to a convalescent hospital, it’s very inconvenient and quite unsuitable.’ She shook her head, staring round the room. ‘This room is long and narrow and the circular bay at the end doesn’t help. Somehow they’ve squeezed two beds in there though there’s not much room, but at least it means the other beds are more spread out.’
‘At least there are curtains so the patients can have some privacy,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘It reminds me of the dormitories in all those school books we used to read.’
‘We still do read them,’ Alix nudged me, grinning. ‘Mind you, Matron wouldn’t let anyone have a midnight feast. There’s usually a trained nurse who can hear if anyone calls for help at night.’
The orderly, Hutton, alternated between prowling round to check on the officers and going off for a smoke in the small scullery set aside for the male staff; he explained that patients would also sneak in there at night. Smoking was allowed in the rest of the house but not in the wards, where it was strictly off limits, day or night. At half-past one Hutton surprised us with mugs of cocoa and some biscuits.
‘Here we are, young ladies,’ he said genially. ‘You’re lucky so far, it’s a quiet night.’ When we stared in surprise he shrugged. ‘They can’t help it,’ he said, his face softening. ‘The noise, I mean. Some nights it’s bedlam round here. One of them will start to dream and they remember, even in their drugged sleep, and that sets them all off, poor devils.’
‘You were in it too, weren’t you?’ Alix looked round the darkened hall with pitying eyes.
‘I was, Miss, but I was lucky. The trenches set off my asthma something chronic and the powers-that-be decide
d I was worse than useless out there so I was sent back home. I saw some sights, though.’ He was silent for a moment. ‘Still, we do what we can for ’em.’
‘And these are the survivors, the walking wounded who are to be discharged.’ I bit my lip and shivered because this was the closest I had come to the War. Bertie’s death had injured us but seeing these men when they were so vulnerable brought it all home.
Matron rustled downstairs every half-hour or so to inspect the patients, or rather to glare at them from the doorway and depart without entering the room.
‘Why doesn’t she stay down here,’ I whispered to Alix as we watched her ramrod-stiff back as she took a last look round and returned upstairs. ‘She’s supposed to be on duty, isn’t she?’
‘Not tonight,’ Alix murmured. ‘It’s supposed to be a free night for her but being short-handed means she’s in charge. I think she’s making a point that although she’s off-duty, she is actually available if we report any problems. Good job she hasn’t caught either of us cat-napping but thank goodness we’ve dozed enough to tide us over, so we won’t be too exhausted in the morning.’
‘She’s not how you imagine a nurse should be, is she?’ I munched one of Hutton’s biscuits. ‘I’m sure Florence Nightingale would expect her to be on the spot.’
‘Nurse Randall is lovely,’ said Alix. ‘The patients adore her, and Drummond is good too, but patients and staff are all on their best behaviour when Matron’s around. Did I tell you the orderlies reckon she bathes in carbolic, because she’s so keen on it; beds, tables, crockery and cutlery, everything reeks of it. Still, they’re quiet for the moment so I’m going to finish darning Addy’s gloves and stockings – as long as Matron doesn’t see me and have the vapours at the idea of a schoolgirl’s stockings being visible to soldiers!’
During the night I was surprised to see some of the officers get out of bed and walk about the room, but Alix said it was quite usual and to take no notice; it eased the pain for some of them or kept the nightmares at bay.
‘The nurses told me that there’s always somebody walking up and down between the beds,’ she explained. ‘It’s a narrow space but they’ll do a few quiet laps till they tire. They don’t speak so the nurses don’t object as long as they don’t disturb the others.’
We took turns to check on all the patients but there was little we could do for them apart from a quiet word if they wanted to talk, or to give them water if they woke thirsty. I recognised some of them from our visit on Friday. In adjacent beds on the right and almost at the end of the room lay the major with one arm and the young man who couldn’t speak. Beyond them was the entrance to the circular bay and there I found myself gazing pitifully down at poor Lt Trevelyan, the young man who had no prospects, at the age of twenty-four, apart from a lifetime in a home for incurables. His bed was tucked awkwardly under the window on the left and his pitiful screams almost drowned out the hearty snores of his neighbour in the next bed. He quietened if you soothed him.
To enter the bay I had to tiptoe past the end bed on the left in the drawing-room itself where, when I peeked into the cubicle, I recognised Bertie’s friend, Henry Makepeace, his fair hair tousled as he tossed from side to side. I held his hand for a few minutes and that seemed to calm him, but I was unbearably moved when I realised he was crying in his sleep. I thought of Bertie, who’d had nobody to comfort him.
Alix gave me a hug when I went back to our table, wiping my eyes.
‘I know,’ she whispered. ‘They’re so young, most of them; but watch out, Matron’s on her rounds.’ She glanced at the grandfather clock and nodded. ‘It’s just gone five now, not much longer before we’re allowed home.’
Time dragged; patients dreamed and screamed or woke and walked about in a vain attempt to banish the pain and the memories. Matron nodded graciously to us but never deigned to speak, while Hutton took pity on the occasional sufferer and sneaked him out to the smoking room. Around twenty-past five he put his head round the door, looking warily about.
‘Where is she?’ he hissed.
‘Conservatory, I think,’ Alix hissed back, pointing to the glass door leading off from the drawing-room. ‘You know she likes to snip off dead leaves and water the plants now and then.’
‘Be a good girl, Miss, and make us some cocoa? Kettle’s boiling but I’m a bit stuck listening to one poor bug… chap and I’m parched. You can take ten minutes if you nip out now, you deserve a break and the dragon won’t notice. Didn’t you know she has a sneaky cigarette or two out there? Gawd knows what it does to the plants, but it keeps ’er ’appy.’
Alix grabbed my hand. ‘Come on, Christy. Granny won’t want you left here on your own, not now some of them are on the prowl. We’ll hear if we’re wanted.’
Her eyes went, as did mine, to the corner where poor young Trevelyan was trapped in his nightmare, his heart-rending moans rising to frantic screams which would break off, only to begin again at once.
‘I’ll do the cocoa.’ Alix pointed to a cupboard. ‘You put out the mugs and see if you can find a biscuit or two. It’s worse than you expected, isn’t it?’ she added kindly. ‘I’ve at least had some experience, but you’ve never seen wounded men. They’re much quieter during the day but the nurses warned me that they’re haunted at night.’
I nodded gratefully then lifted my head. ‘Listen, that’s poor Mr Trevelyan screaming again – oh wait…’ The screams had stopped abruptly and this time did not recur. ‘He’s quiet. He must have dropped off, thank goodness.’
‘Best thing for him,’ agreed Alix. ‘Drink your cocoa then I’ll take Matron a cup, might sweeten her temper for the morning shift.’
She was back soon, smiling. ‘Heavens, the cocoa did the trick! I caught her at the door to the conservatory and she was so surprised she said we might as well go home now as we’ve only another fifteen minutes. Not only that, but she said to thank you and that we’d been a great help. Wonders will never cease!’
Alix and I shrugged on our coats and collected our belongings, waving goodbye to those of the officers who were awake enough to notice our departure. Among them was the donkey-braying major who, grim-faced, was marching up and down the room, counting the laps under his breath. He stood aside to allow the silent Capt Halliday to hobble in the opposite direction, propped awkwardly on his crutches. They both ignored me as I walked quietly round the room for a final check, glancing into each cubicle, but for some reason I had a sudden sharp memory of Papa when I peeped briefly at Lt Trevelyan and then Henry Makepeace. I was relieved that they both seemed tranquil at last.
Why on earth had I thought of Papa, I fretted? He had caused enough trouble in life, and certainly had no cause to be here at Groom Hall, so why think of him? Just then something irritated my eyes which began to water, and I started to cough and splutter, so I hurried away. I prayed they might both continue to sleep and then, after Alix also cast a cursory glance around the room, we departed.
Monday, 11th March
My prayers were answered when Matron sent us a Mrs Mortimer, mother of one of the newly arrived Second Lieutenants. I’d managed to snatch two blessed hours of sleep after breakfast when Mother hadn’t needed my typewriting skills, so I was able to greet her without yawning in her face. She had her luggage with her and clearly intended to move in whether she approved of us or not. She was not the kind of guest I’d hoped for. Naively, I had pictured quiet, anxious ladies who were only too grateful for the chance to stay so close to the hospital.
Mrs Mortimer was not like that. I tried to make allowances for her, but it wasn’t easy. For a start, she was extremely genteel. Her vowels were thoroughly tortured and she winced at the sight or sound of anything she considered risqué. If we’d had a naked piano leg in the house she would probably have fainted at the sight.
‘Ay suppose the room will have to do,’ she said on her arrival shortly after luncheon, as she sniffed at the former morning-room. It was now the most inviting room in the house, with its bright cream
walls and the large, handsome bed we had polished up like new. (I had hastily removed two of the cats, Matilda and one of her kittens, from the centre of the eiderdown and made a mental note to keep the doors shut. I wasn’t sure that Mrs Mortimer would be an animal lover.) ‘Ay certainly cannot manage those steep stairs.’ She waddled into the room and, corsets creaking, bent to look under the bed. ‘Ay don’t hold with bathrooms either,’ she added, with a pained expression.
‘Bathrooms are modern and hygienic,’ I countered, staring her down. The bathroom, and more particularly the lavatories, were our salvation. If it had been a question of emptying chamber pots for strangers our scheme would have withered on the vine. We are not exactly dainty, but there are limits.
‘Hmmph.’ She eyed me thoughtfully and I looked down my nose at her, having spent ages copying Mother’s imperious manner. We all know she looks haughty because she is inordinately shy as well as short-sighted and too vain to wear her spectacles in public, but the effect is daunting. At eighteen, first Alix and then I had put up our hair as expected of a young lady. Alix’s fair curls were done up in a modest pompadour style and I had my own dark hair in a low bun at the nape of my neck. I hoped it made me look older and sufficiently imposing to be a landlady.
To my complete lack of surprise the role of hostess had been forced on me because Granny was too busy and also too abrupt. She is irritated by airs and graces and as she values honesty and plain speech, she does not possess the emollient quality needed by a landlady. Alix would strike any potential guest as far too frivolous and easily-dominated, while Addy is barely fifteen. As Mother has only the vaguest idea of our enterprise it was felt better – by me, to tell the truth – to keep her in ignorance. One sniff of an extra guinea or two and Mother would send an extravagant order to Foyle’s. We may be a literary family but books alone will not feed five women.