‘Under air attack all that time?’
‘It was seeming so. But some of the noise was coming from the exploding mines.’
In a first-aid post on the beach the wound made by the bullet that had gone through his left leg and grazed his hip had been dressed. That was his only reported wound. After I bathed him I found twenty-three shrapnel splinters embedded fairly superficially in his flesh. We counted them together as I removed them with forceps. The deepest and largest was in his right thigh. It looked small until I began to take it out. It measured just under five inches and at its widest, half an inch. When all were out, I nearly had to use force to get him to swallow an ounce of stock brandy. ‘It is you that should be having this, nurse, not me.’
In the few scribbled notes I made that night, I added, ‘I didn’t dare tell him I had thrown up in the scullery before getting his brandy from Sister, or he would have poured it down me. God, he needed it. When I tugged out that big one he hung on to the bedhead so hard his knuckles were white, but he didn’t make a sound till I got it out and then he said, “I am thanking you very much, nurse.”’
We had a few French soldier-patients. When possible they were put in neighbouring beds; they were as exhausted and be-grimed as the British, and as they began to recover mainly talked in French amongst themselves. As only one or two spoke much English, nursing them enlarged my limited French vocabulary, and particularly with, ‘Les avions allemands … les bombardements … les dive-bombers – zut alors! Aieeeeeeeeeeeee!’
Once our own men had slept off the exhaustion and long before they had energy for reading or listening more than absently to the wireless intercom now installed throughout the block, they talked. They talked in a variety of voices and accents, of a variety of experiences of the massive retreat into the sea. Some of the voices were angry, some peevish, some incredulous, some almost amused, some expressionless, some deeply hurt. Not once did I hear, or expect to hear, one British soldier sound, or even hint, that he felt defeated.
For nights I was too tired to add even a couple of words to my notes, but on one night in the third week of June, fatigue was secondary to my need for the safety-valve.
I wrote: ‘This morning was horrible. M (another VAD) and I had to walk as both our bikes had two flats, but it was lovely and sunny and the walk rather fun. M was in terrific form as her fiancé rang last night from somewhere in Scotland saying the Navy had just landed him in one piece. We got to the hospital by twenty past (seven) and there was a queue of ambulances waiting outside the arch. When we got through the arch we just stood still. The square was covered in stretchers, rows and rows of stretchers, loaded with men lying so still that at first we thought they were all dead. They were all covered with grey blankets and their faces were dreadful – far worse than those other men’s faces. These men’s were greying-black and sort of slimy, but caked. Then we noticed some of the men had their eyes open and could move their lips, so we knew they weren’t dead but they didn’t look living. We stopped a stretcher-bearer to ask where the men had come from. Sweat was dripping off his face and he mopped it with his stained gown before he answered. He said, “Navy just fished this lot out the Channel. All wounded and the hospital ship they was on bought it. This lot was in luck as their stretchers was stacked on the decks. Rest of the lads gone down with her. Thousands, they say.” He didn’t know the ship’s name but thought it began with an L and was something like Lucasta. He said, “Gawd knows where we’ll put this lot. Be shoving the lads up on the roof next.”
‘To get to our blocks M and I had to step over some of the stretchers. Everytime we saw a man with his eyes open we sort of smiled and said "good morning" and it sounded ghastly as it wasn’t good, it was like walking through hell and I hated the sun for shining and hurting their eyes as, being nearer, I could see all the open eyes were hideously bloodshot. None of them spoke to us, but several gave us queer grimaces. I thought they were in pain and then realized they were trying to smile and the oil and salt burns on their faces made their smiles grimaces. But most didn’t try to smile and just stared at us with eyes that looked dead.’
There had been no mention on the BBC news or in the newspapers of the sinking of a hospital ship, either that day or in the following days. Owing, apparently to some governmental desire to spare the country more bad news, the event was only announced some weeks later. On 17th June 1940, the hospital ship Lancastria was torpedoed off St Nazaire. She was heavily laden with wounded from France. Over four thousand lives were lost when she went down.
I was handing round mugs of cocoa to the patients in N.D.K. when the news of the French capitulation came over the ward wireless, first in English, then in French. A British N.C.O. murmured ‘Lets hope as our lads still left behind can swim, nurse.’
Two of the three Frenchmen in that ward lay back and stared at the ceiling. The third, in a corner bed, began sobbing. To a man, the British patients buried themselves in Razzle, Blighty, the Daily Mirror and one young L/Cpl in Far From The Madding Crowd. I had never seen a man sob before and was appalled for him, the other men and myself. I did not know what to do, but only that I must do something. I put two screens round his bed and awkwardly patted his shaking shoulder. As he ignored me, I guessed he wanted to be alone, and I removed myself and his cooling cocoa. After a space I took him a fresh mug. He was drying his face with a red bandana. ‘Merci, mademoiselle. Merci bien.’
Our French patients were given the choice of repatriation, or staying in Britain. All ours chose to return to France. Once this was block knowledge, for the only time in my nursing career, the inter-patients atmosphere turned icily electric until the time of transfer. Then hands were shaken, thumbs jerked up, cries of ‘Bonne chance, Tommee!’ and ‘Good luck, mate!’ exchanged, and more cap badges, buttons, and the revolting bits of shrapnel so inexplicably – to me – treasured by fighting men, were heaped on the nursing staff.
One middle-aged French artilleryman who spoke English found me washing-up mugs alone in the tiny scullery. He closed and leant against the door. ‘I wished to speak with you,’ he said slowly. ‘I wished before returning to my country to say goodbye to the young English Miss who when I was very tired, washed and fed me as a baby with much gentleness. This I will not forget when I return to my country. This also I will not forget – that I return without honour and without hope. Possibly, with the help of the Good God, you English [sic] will win this war. But certainly it will be impossible for you to win without. But if you win – in France we will be happy – but also, I think we must be ashamed. If you do not win—’, he shrugged, ‘then you do not win.’ He was silent for some seconds. ‘I must tell you of my family. In France I have my wife, my two little children. One boy, one girl. My wife she is many years younger than I, myself – she is a very good wife, good mother. Now, my wife, my children, live under the Boche. If we had not surrendered to the Boche, it is possible that one day, I myself, would fire the gun to kill my wife, my children. To win a war one must forget humanity, one must think only of the victory. But I am not of such a nature. Always I must remember my family. You understand?’
‘I think so.’
‘No.’ He shook his bullet-shaped head. The very short brown hair was grey at the roots. ‘I do not think so. You are too young to have a family. You cannot understand. You wonder, I think, what of La Patrie? This also I tell you. I love my country – La France – La Belle France – yes – but as I would love a weak but amiable member of my family. I have no wish to die for this weak but amiable member. Possibly, life under the Boche will not be pleasant – but fighting the Boche was not pleasant. I am a baker. Men must eat bread – even the Boche. In France I return to be a baker. To remain always in England always I must be a Bombardier of the conquered French Army. I have some spirit, Miss. I prefer the contempt of an enemy I despise to the contempt of a friend I admire.’
Outside the scullery window one of the two engines used by the Ordnance Depot – the one called Molly – shunted to and
fro twice whilst he was speaking. Molly shunted back again as we shook hands. ‘Au revoir et bonne chance, M.—’
He shook his bullet head again. ‘Pas au’voir, mademoiselle. Je me suis fâché mais je suis bien sûr, c’est adieu.’ He had served in the Maginot Line and gave me his brooch.
That night I wrote all he had said in an exercise book, then copied in the words engraved on his brooch. Words once the slogan of Maginot Line Units: Ils ne passeront pas. And I added, ‘Not bloody likely.’
Once France fell, daily we expected the German invasion of Britain; on and off duty, the atmosphere changed again. Every British voice I heard said much the same: ‘Much better now we’re on our own. Now we know where we are. So Jerry’s coming over to have a bash, eh? Right! Let the bastard try it on!’
At that time, that general attitude seemed neither arrogant nor illogical in a Britain that had just faced a massive military defeat and left most of her heavy war equipment behind in France. When discussing the situation – and it was endlessly discussed – with patients, colleagues, friends, acquaintances, strangers, always we all agreed that it was only common sense to prefer to be shot of allies who had been knocked out one by one and were more trouble than they were worth. Not that anyone to whom I spoke, or myself, by then underestimated the mighty German war-machine. ‘So old Hitler missed the bus, eh, nurse? Gawd! Old Whatshisname with his umbrella should’ve pulled the other one! Its got the bells! Mind you, nurse, you got to hand it to Jerry – knows how to fight Jerry does, and he don’t mind taking his chances.’ A wounded R.A.M.C. stretcher-bearer locked his hands behind his head and smiled reluctantly. ‘That’s how I copped this packet in me leg. Our M.O.’d bought it, see, and we’d been told to shift the lads back to the next post as we got an ambulance and there was still the three of us on the job. We’d shifted all the lads’ stretchers into the ambulance and was just shutting the doors to scarper fast, when two lads in Froggie uniform with a stretcher between ’em comes running over the field towards us. They hollers so we waits. When they gets in range they dumps down the stretcher and the Jerry under the blanket lets us have it with a tommy (gun). But what he doesn’t know is that me mate’s got another tommy – which he didn’t ought to seeing as the three of us is Non-Coms. So me mate he finishes off the Jerry and his mates.’
‘Were they Frogs or Jerries?’
‘Not knowing, can’t say. Me mate hauls me in and the lad at the wheel didn’t hang about asking no questions. Reckon they was Jerries. Knows all the tricks, Jerry does, like I says, he knows how to fight.’
None of us wasted energy wondering how we would win the war. Simply, we knew we had to win and so believed we would. And if that belief was unreasoned – as it was – since it was shared by the overwhelming majority of the British then in Britain, it resulted in one of the most glorious triumphs of the human spirit over disaster in recorded history. It was also unconquerable.
* * *
On another blue unclouded day when our three hours off daily had been re-instated, Joan and I rode straight from duty to the shops as we had heard that a new stock of black, artificial silk stockings had arrived. We were in indoor uniform with our navy serge, scarlet-lined cloaks floating from our shoulders and cap-tails flying on downhill runs as neither of our bicycles had functioning brakes. Turning one downhill corner we had to run off the road, up a bank and leap off in motion to avoid running down an army.
For a few seconds, despite the vociferous cheers, I thought I was seeing a mirage. Ambling rather than marching by were contingent after contingent of soldiers carrying full packs, casually toting rifles, and wearing broad-brimmed khaki hats upturned at one side that stirred the forgotten memory of some old First War movie.
‘Are you Australians?’
A roar came back, ‘Too right, Sister! The Aussies are here! War’ll be over soon! Good to see ye, gals!’
They were part of the Australian Imperial Force that had reached England too late for service in France. ‘France, Sister? Bloody fair cow.’
For a short while before returning overseas the AIF was encamped on sites at opposite ends of our camp’s perimeter. One of these sites was in parkland roughly half a mile from our Mess. The AIF patients said thirty thousand men were camped at the bottom of our garden. Never, to my knowledge, was our Mess guarded by more than our Commandant, her deputy and the Home VAD. Every night after roll-call, generally our Commandant did a solitary round of our grounds by torchlight. I think the front porch door was locked at night, but neither our seniors, K.R.R.s, the daily threats of invasion, nor nightly anticipated arrival of German paratroopers disguised as nuns, succeeded in keeping shut all night the French windows whilst I was in the ballroom. However I never heard of any AIF or British soldier, drunk or sober, at any hour trying to trespass in our Mess, or attempting an assault on a VAD in or around the camp during the seven months of my posting there. Singly, in pairs, or small groups, we walked and bicycled amongst men by the thousand, and not improbably hundred thousand, in absolute safety. Our uniforms were an inviolate armour for reasons that went far deeper than military discipline and current conventions.
In the event I took this safety for granted and only much later realized how much of it we owed to the legacy of affection and respect we had inherited from the VADs in the First World War. A legacy that lingered on in barrack rooms, and went back beyond the First World War to the women who nursed our Army in the Boer War and had themselves inherited it from its original source, the woman who, single-handed, revolutionized military and civilian nursing throughout the world, Florence Nightingale. The sick and injured British soldiers in the gangrene, diarrhoea and lice-infested wards of Scutari Hospital in the Crimea may not have realized that Miss Nightingale, by her own efforts, reduced their death rate from forty to two per cent, but they appreciated her care, practical kindness and ruthless integrity. The soldiers remembered from old soldiers’ tales, the British Army remembered, and so in 1940, young nurses in their midst needed no guards. We were ‘their’ nurses; they were ‘our’ soldiers.
Within days of the AIF’s arrival, N.D.K. resounded with Australian voices. I wrote home: ‘I’ll bet before Agincourt, Crécy, Hastings, Waterloo, instead of rubbing up their long bows and muskets, the troops were flocking on sick parade with that splinter you can’t see but’s festering cruel, that scratch that’s turned real nasty, them horrible headaches that come on, so help me, like a clap of thunder, and that real queer feeling what you can’t put your finger on but leaves you all of a tremble.’
The AIF felt not ‘queer’ but ‘crook’. And instead of the spasmodic case of German Measles which some British soldier still produced in our wards, the AIF produced mumps. This was an aftermath of the mumps that had appeared during their voyage from Australia in the Queen Mary, which had been converted to a troop-carrier. ‘Oh my word, Sister, hit the bloody Mary like a bloody bushfire. Ain’t that Gawd’s truth, cobber?’
‘Too right, cobber!’
One of their own M.O.s, a slight, youngish man with a clipped voice and amused eyes, had qualified in London. ‘Bilingual yet, N. Andrews?’
‘Fairly, thank you, Major.’
‘I’ll give you a few translation tips: "bloody" is the Australian soldier’s term for endearment, "Sister" applies to any uniformed nurse, "cobber" is a mate, "a bloke" is a man, and a "dinkum Aussie" is a man who washes his fice in a bison. Have they taught you how to play two-up?’
‘Yes, Major.’ In view of his rank I did not add that this form of gambling on two coins flicked up simultaneously only stopped at the approach of medical or our QA’s rounds, since all gambling was strictly forbidden in military wards. I had the impression he knew this better than myself.
‘Have they offered to sell you Sydney Bridge and walking-stick farms?’
‘Constantly. Bonzer deals, I gather.’
He smiled quietly and the conversation there ended as our block Sister returned from lunch and, as he was an experienced M.O., in her presenc
e he behaved as if VADs were invisible. In that, and similar circumstances, experienced VADs behaved as if M.O.s were invisible.
I never knew, but suspected, that it was on his private advice to Sister that a new, temporary rule obtained for all our AIF bed-patients.
‘Miss Andrews, those P.U.O.s must stay in bed!’ (P.U.O. – Pyrexia of Unknown Origin – was, with N.Y.D. – Not Yet Diagnosed – a variation on N.D.K.) Sister handed me a list of names. ‘Collect from these men, bring them to me and I’ll lock them away’
In the ward: ‘You can’t do this to a bloke, Sister! You can’t pinch me bloody pants!’
‘Sorry, but the block Sister says I must. And she says please when you go out to ablutions will you wear your greatcoats as if you will wander about in pyjamas, you’ll have to hand in your pyjama trousers.’
‘You wouldn’t pinch a bloke’s pyjama pants, Sister! Not a bonzer gal like you!’
‘Sorry, but if I must – too right, I would, cobber!’
A chorus from the ward, ‘Good on ye, Sister! Dinkum Aussie!’
Snaps by the score. Snaps of the wife, the kids, mum, dad, the kid sister, the kid brother, the girl back home. Not sheilas then, nor, in my hearing, poms or pommy bastards. Snaps of neat little bungalows, of untidy bungalows, of shacks with corrugated-iron roofs and round water drums propping up what looked like peeling cardboard walls, of solid English houses that could have been in St Leonards, Tunbridge Wells, or Wimbledon. And so many of the names of the bungalows, shacks and houses were more immediately identifiable to me than to the men unstacking the much-fingered contents of wallets. ‘Crammond’, ‘Truro’, ‘Iden’, ‘Luckhurst’, ‘Gower’, ‘Jedburgh’, ‘Durham’.
All the AIF I nursed were the Australian-born sons of first and second generation British emigrants on their first visit to an England they uniformly called Home or the Old Country. They were uniformly cheerful patients and convinced, for a reason known only to themselves, that no English girl would accept a date unless she had first a proposal of marriage. At the end of their first week, the three other VADs on day-duty and myself compared notes and found between us we had collected twenty-six marriage proposals. We agreed this made a change from the usual opening gambit of a box of Naafi chocolates and was much better for the figure.
No Time For Romance Page 9