The German Nurse

by M. J. Hollows

  Suddenly there was the sound of an engine, rising in pitch, breaking through his reverie. At first Richard thought it was the lifeboat, but the rhythm was different, at a counterpoint to their own ship. He looked around for the sign of another boat, but they were alone in the seas not far now from Jersey. The sound came again, this time much closer. Richard crossed the front of the boat and finally saw it. There was a faint grey shape silhouetted against the sky. Then he saw another, its companion. They were getting closer, turning into the unmistakable outlines of aircraft. The German cross was clearly visible, black against the grey of the underwings.

  Richard hoped they would be ignored, due to the giant red cross that was painted on the top of the lifeboat, but his illusion was soon shattered by a spitting sound. Spray jumped out of the sea in front of the boat like sprites in two parallel lines, getting closer.

  ‘Get down!’ Richard shouted as he heard the splintering of wood. Bullets hit the fuselage as he ducked down to find some cover. The crew cried out in surprise as they hid. There was a sound like a saw against wood. Shards of timber came loose as rounds cut through the hull, then the German aircraft rushed over them in a roar of engines. Richard didn’t dare get back up, knowing there was another coming. A second later more bullets crashed around him, narrowly missing him, whistling past his ears. Then suddenly the other aircraft was gone, the pitch of its engines lowering in a Doppler shift.

  It took a minute or so before Richard felt safe enough to lift his head. He looked up and the aircraft could no longer be seen. The faint hum of their engines was still audible in the distance, and he had no idea how long they had before the planes came around for another attack. The boat was heavily damaged, but still seaworthy as most of the damage had been done to the hull above the waterline. He pulled himself out of the netting, his legs aching from being squeezed into a small space.

  The crew had clustered towards the back of the ship. They all stood now and, as he got nearer, he noticed a shape slumped across the stern bench. Impossibly his heartbeat rose and there was a pressure in his chest, a dull pain that was growing sharper by the moment. The shape was horribly familiar, and the crew pulled aside as Richard dragged himself nearer.

  ‘My son?’ The words escaped his lips, but he barely heard them over the beating of his heart. His son was lying there as if sleeping, but Richard knew he would never sleep on the job. His eyes were closed, but his chest didn’t rise. There was a red mark on his temple and blood dripped down his sleeve. Richard fell to his knees. There was a wailing sound, but he didn’t know where it came from until the motion of the boat caused him to close his mouth. He cradled his son’s head in his arms, but it was too late.

  Chapter 4

  28 June 1940

  Jack stayed at the harbour for as long as the flames from the ruined trucks would allow him. It was his duty to make sure that everyone else got away safely, at least, those who could. The clean-up operation would take some time, but that was the least of their worries. The German planes were dropping bombs on the rest of St Peter Port and the island, and he even saw one land near the hospital. Before long the planes would have to return to the continent to refuel, but they would be back, of that he was sure. He had grown almost accustomed to the sounds of explosions, but he had yet to see the full consequences.

  There was still no sign of the boy who had been playing on the road. The tomato trucks that lined the way out of the harbour were ruined wrecks, some of which were still on fire. Their metal frames were a stark reminder of the terrible damage aircraft could cause. The few ambulances on the island had struggled to get through the wreckage and it had been some time since Jack had last seen one. If he found anyone else alive, he would have to either treat them himself, or somehow get them the help they needed.

  He crawled under the wreckage of one of the trucks. It was still warm, like a fire late at night, and there was a smell of burnt tomatoes. As he crawled, his hand came up covered in a watery red paste. A pool of crimson liquid was spreading out, staining everything it touched. The cloth knees of his trousers were sodden, and he thought he would never get those marks out. It wasn’t the only thing; the horror of the last hour would haunt him forever. Most of the colour was from the tomatoes, but he didn’t doubt there was some blood mixed in there. He knew it wouldn’t be the last of the islanders’ blood to be spilt. He just hoped that wherever Johanna was, she had kept away from the bombs.

  His search under the truck was futile. If any of the people who had hidden under the vehicles were still there, then they would need a lot more than a policeman to find them. The boy was dead and he couldn’t do anything about that. There was no sign of his parents either, and Jack wondered if they had perished together.

  He crawled back out from under the ruined cab in shock and wiped his hands on the thighs of his trousers. He looked up as he heard a scraping noise, instantly on guard. A man, only a few years older than Jack, was shuffling along the road, awkwardly dragging one leg as if he had been hit. He had a white cloth or piece of clothing tied round his head, in an attempt to staunch a head wound that was still bleeding. The blood stained his neck and shirt, and his skin was covered in a patina of black ash from the fires. He didn’t seem to notice Jack as he passed, absorbed in his own personal hell. The man was far from the first walking wounded Jack had seen and he was sure the hospital would be inundated. The island didn’t have much in the way of medical facilities, and the population was only small. They never expected it to come to this.

  Jack moved closer and reached a hand to put an aiding arm around him. ‘I’ll be all right,’ the man said, his voice barely a whisper, and shrugged Jack off with a wince of pain.

  Jack let go, but the man stumbled. He managed to right himself, with a groan, but then the strength seemed to ebb from him completely and he dropped to one knee. The man sagged further before Jack could catch him. He was a deadweight in Jack’s hands as he eased him to the ground and then knelt down to check his pulse. His heartbeat was still strong and he was breathing, if faintly. He would need medical help and there was no way that Jack could leave him there.

  Jack looked around but he was alone, apart from a few firemen who were trying to put out the remaining fires. Jack cradled the man’s head with one arm while he reached around his waist with the other and prepared to lift him up. He didn’t want to risk his head dropping onto the hard road, but he needed to get a good enough grip. There was no way the man would be able to carry himself to the hospital. Bending his knees, Jack hauled him onto his shoulder. The man groaned like someone coming around from sleep. It was a lift they had been taught in their police training, but it didn’t do much to displace the man’s weight. It did, however, make him easier to carry and less likely to slip off Jack’s shoulder.

  He lurched forward, hoping that the man’s weight would add to his momentum, but cautious not to let him pull both of them over. With each step Jack could feel his own wounds more, not just scratches and grazes, but bleeding cuts where shrapnel had hit him. They both needed help, and he would do his best to get them to the hospital.

  *

  As Jack arrived at the Country Hospital, there were still German planes circling in the sky. The smell of cordite and smoke was strong, but it didn’t appear to be coming from here. The walk had been tough, more of a stumble, and he hadn’t known whether he would make it.

  He could already hear the hubbub of frantic noise coming from inside the hospital, and what sounded like someone shouting in pain. A pair of legs stuck out from under the engine of an ambulance and Jack could hear a hammering as the mechanic tried to get it going again. On a normal day Jack would have gone over to see if he could help, but he could be more use inside, even if he lacked much in the way of medical know-how. Johanna was far better qualified to help, but she wasn’t here. He clung on to the hope that she hadn’t been hurt in all this; she couldn’t have been.

  He crossed under the porch, walking as quickly as he could, his limbs exhausted. Unu
sually, there was no one other than the mechanic outside the building. It was as if the whole island had been abandoned, thrown into a silence of reflective mourning. Jack could hear the faint birdsong in the trees, enjoying the summer evening. It was strangely peaceful against the backdrop of such chaos. What care did the birds have that humanity was destroying itself?

  Jack pushed his way through the hospital’s double doors and was immediately hit with a wall of noise. He could hear people shouting down the corridors. A loud cry of pain was masked by the scream of an order or instruction. The hospital was almost as chaotic as the harbour had been.

  Jack headed for the nearest room, looking for a bed for the man on his back. The room was occupied by a man with a white bandage wrapped around his head, sitting up calmly in the bed as if reading a book. Jack moved on, struggling to keep the man on his back, as if being in the hospital had given his body enough reason to give up. Nurses moved through the corridors, going from one room to the next. None of them seemed to notice him. He thought he saw Johanna’s red-brown curls float past the end of the corridor, Johanna wearing a nurse’s uniform. She was a trained nurse, but it couldn’t be, because she didn’t have a job. His mind was playing tricks on him.

  There was a narrow bench in the corridor, which was typically used while waiting for an appointment. Jack leant over and laid the man down as gently as possible. The other man groaned as Jack moved him and his head rested on the cold metal. Jack wrenched off his Guernsey jumper, rolling it up, then placed it under the man’s head. It was covered in dirt and blood, but at least it would be more comfortable.

  He gently caught the arm of a passing nurse, but she fixed him with a scowl. He let go and apologised. ‘This man,’ he said. ‘He needs help.’

  Her scowl softened and then turned to a frown of concern. She reached out and checked the man’s pulse, then carefully checked his wounds, before placing the rudimentary dressings back in place. She turned to Jack, concern still in her bright blue eyes. His heart thumped in his chest.

  ‘He’ll be fine,’ she said. ‘For now. We’ll get to him as soon as we can. As you can imagine we are completely overwhelmed in here, and we currently have far more pressing problems with other patients. I will send a doctor to him as soon as I’m able.’

  She turned to leave. ‘I’m a policeman,’ Jack said, stopping her in her tracks. ‘What can I do to help?’

  ‘Help?’ she replied. ‘You can see if any of the doctors need anything holding. A lot of our jobs are fetching, holding, but if you’re willing to help …’

  ‘Right.’ Jack nodded.

  ‘This way,’ she said, turning and marching along the corridor.

  He followed, glancing into the other rooms as he passed. The medical staff were treating more patients than he had ever seen in once place. Most of the doors were shut. The hospital was packed now, but what would happen once the Germans actually came? Would they continue attacking until there was no one left? He tried to focus on more immediate concerns. The shock of the initial attack was wearing off and his mind was racing. He wanted to do something, anything, to help, to take his mind off what was happening. The nurse stopped and pointed in the direction of a room.

  ‘If the doctor needs any help,’ she said, ‘you’ll be best placed in there.’

  With that she was gone. Inside the room a middle-aged doctor in a white coat, its arms pushed up to his elbows, worked on a man who was lying on a metal gurney and bleeding heavily from a chest wound. The doctor was forcing gauze against the wound as a nurse handed him fresh materials, but the blood covered everything around it and it smelt strongly of iron. He said something to the nurse who rushed from the room. The doctor’s hands were covered in blood, and a bead of sweat worked its way down his brow. Jack took a tentative step inside, not wanting to disturb the doctor in the middle of his important work.

  ‘Who are you?’ the doctor asked without looking up. He tied two ends of the fabric together in a quick knot with practised ease, then reached out to check the patient’s pulse.

  ‘Police Constable Godwin,’ Jack replied, still in the doorway. ‘I’ve come to see if I can help.’

  ‘Well, don’t just bloody stand there.’ The doctor didn’t raise his voice. He was used to being obeyed. ‘Get over here.’

  Jack rushed to the gurney. He’d had basic health training in the police, but it hadn’t prepared him for something like this.

  ‘Apply pressure here,’ the doctor said as Jack stood over the patient. ‘And here.’

  The wound had been bleeding heavily and the bedsheets were brown with stains. The man groaned as he fought to stay conscious. Jack didn’t know how hard to push, unsure if he would do more harm than good, but he kept a steady pressure while the man moved under his hands.

  ‘Keep still, keep still,’ the doctor murmured as he checked the other wounds. ‘He may yet survive if we can stop the bleeding. But it’ll be a long night for him. We’ll have to be patient.’

  He reached out to shake Jack’s hand. ‘Doctor Abbott,’ he said, nodding as they shook hands. The man’s close-cut brown hair was turning silver around the temples, which made him look older than Jack had originally thought. Jack knew most of the people on the island, at least in passing, but he had never seen this doctor before. He spoke with a mainland accent, but many of those in the top professions did these days. He had heard mention of a doctor returning to the island after working on the mainland for a number of years. Abbott must have been that man.

  ‘Thank you, Constable,’ the doctor said, wiping his bloodied hands on a cloth then putting it in a bin. ‘I suspect our day isn’t over yet.’

  A crumble of dust fell from the ceiling as another explosion rocked the hospital, punctuating the doctor’s words. He gave Jack a knowing look. ‘Especially if they keep that up.’

  Chapter 5

  29 June 1940

  Jack opened the front door gently, wary of the creaking hinges. It felt like days since he had been home but it was only yesterday. He half expected the furniture to be gone, the house forgotten and abandoned, with a patina of dust everywhere. However, the front room was exactly as he had left it, the only difference being that his mother wasn’t sitting in her chair. A plate of forgotten breakfast food – a slice of bread and some jam – sat on the table, a pile of discarded papers next to it. He was still wearing his stained clothes, but before changing he wanted to check on his mother.

  Jack could hear noise in the kitchen, broken by the occasional chatter and cough of his grandparents coming from their room. So he picked up the plate and went to look. His stomach rumbled, reminding him how long it had been since he had eaten. He was tempted to eat what was left on the plate, but he thought he’d check with his mother first. She had her back to him as he opened the door, but she didn’t turn as he entered. She stood stock-still, as if waiting for something. He couldn’t tell if it was his exhaustion, or whether she shook slightly as she stood.

  ‘Mum?’ he asked softly, so as not to surprise her. She was like a statue, cold and immobile, if not for the faint shiver that racked her body. He moved around the kitchen table, coming alongside her so that he could get a better look, to try to see into her eyes, to see what she was thinking. Still she didn’t move. It was as if she was dead to the world. Her lips opened, silently whispering to herself. The repetition was like a mantra, as if she was reassuring herself of something. He couldn’t work out what she was saying. He placed the plate on the side and reached out a hand towards her, trying to make some form of connection between them. She drifted further away from him every day. As his hand neared her shoulder, she shook it away, this time more violently, as if it offended her.

  ‘I thought you weren’t coming back,’ she whispered.

  It was faint, but clear enough once he could register the words.

  ‘I heard the planes, the bombs.’ There was more power in her voice this time, but it was still as if she was recalling a painful memory. She hadn’t moved or stopped staring
in the same direction. He had seen shock like this before in his work as a policeman, when people had been told – or seen – uncomfortable things. They would switch off, distance themselves from the world to stop themselves from believing it was real. Like shell shock, the results were often crippling. After the events of last night, he was sure that there would be many more people across the island feeling the same effects. The main difference was that he had returned, when so many others hadn’t.

  ‘I thought you were gone, that you weren’t coming back,’ she said again, more confident this time. Jack wanted to reach out and pull her into a hug, but he knew somehow that she would stand there like a statue, immobile and unable to feel his love through the embrace.

  ‘I’m here,’ he replied, tilting his head to the side and trying to get her to look at him. ‘I’m here.’

  ‘Are you?’ she asked. ‘Are you really?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He touched her shoulder, finally, hoping the sensation would back up his claim.

  ‘Your father came to me too, through the darkness. I thought he was real at first, but then he went again. Like he always does. Like you always do.’

  Jack wasn’t sure what to say. His mother seldom talked about his father, least of all like this. Maybe it was because she didn’t feel he was real that she was doing so now. He had tried before to get her to talk about the father he had never known, but even on her good days she had refused, saying it was too difficult for her. Everything he knew about the man he had got from his grandfather.

  ‘Mum, look at me,’ he said. ‘I’m here, it’s really me. I’m safe, I’m alive.’

  She turned finally, and her eyes were glassy and distant.

  ‘Are any of us really safe, Jack?’

  So much had happened in the last few days that he no longer knew the answer to that question. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. Even in his mother’s fragile mental state, it wouldn’t do to lie to her. She would see right through him. He also hoped it would make him more real to her. Would a spectre tell the truth, or would it tell her what she wanted to hear? ‘I don’t know if we’re safe, and I don’t know what’s going to happen,’ he continued, fixing his gaze on hers and keeping his voice clear. ‘But as long as we stick together, we can come through this.’