The War Nurses Read online

  Unfortunately, the biggest risk in Ghent appeared to be choking on a turnip.

  Elsie had told me that she slept badly, but she hadn’t warned me that she cried out in her sleep. At first, I found her fragmented calls disturbing, but then I became used to them: they reminded me that I was not alone. In the morning, despite the tossing and turning of the night, Elsie invariably appeared refreshed or, as she said, ‘like a daisy.’ I didn’t know how she did it.

  One evening, her cries were so feverish that I worried she would disturb the others so I woke her. She got up and we sat smoking cigarettes at the window, looking out at Orion and the Big Dipper. Elsie knew the names of all the stars. She seemed in a relaxed mood so I decided to ask her a question: ‘Why were you known as Gypsy?’

  She smiled. ‘Is it because of my blazing eyes, my wild hair and my independent spirit?’

  I didn’t know what to say. I felt quite awestruck. ‘Well, is it?’

  ‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘It’s more likely that since I was the only woman at the Gypsy Motorcycle Club I was the one who got stuck with it.’

  While the rest of us toiled in the kitchens, waiting for Dr Munro to find us a new base, Elsie found herself a more glamorous job: driving a major about on his rounds. The car was a four-cylindered shiny black Imperia and had us all gaping. I imagine she nagged the major about her need to be closer to the action because one day, she came back with the windscreen riddled with bullets. They had got caught in enemy lines. She was, typically, blasé about it. Horrified, Dr Munro insisted she stop. She did, but not until she had served three days ‘notice’ first.

  Elsie knew that I was a bit apprehensive about driving the Daimler, so she suggested that I practise. I did clumsy figures of eight around the hospital grounds. I enjoyed being back behind the wheel and the patterns the tyres made in the shingles. I was even daring enough to give the car a longer stretch to town and back – a twenty-minute joyride – but that evening , Dr Munro requested to speak to me. I’m not sure if he had been tipped off – by Arthur or Helen maybe – or if he had spied me speeding away.

  I was anxious at having been caught. At home, a transgression like that would have my father bellowing so loudly that the neighbours’ dogs would be howling.

  Dr Munro wasn’t angry with me, but disappointed at my waste of petrol. ‘Profligate,’ he repeated as I stood, head bowed, in front of him, trying to remember what exactly profligate meant.

  ‘What made you do it, Mairi?’ he asked, shaking his head. Then he narrowed his eyes. ‘Look here – was this Elsie’s idea?’

  ‘No!’ I responded quickly. In the same way I protected Uilleam from my father at home, my instinct here was to keep Elsie out of trouble. ‘The stupidity was all mine.’

  * * *

  Elsewhere, the poor Belgians were trying to defend themselves from the invaders. The newspapers were calling it ‘The Rape of Belgium’. Although I had started out on this adventure with very little opinion on Germans – apart from the fact that my German teacher Herr Hausmann had issued far too much homework and Frau Lehrner was pretty (she would have been the perfect match for Mr Saunders the unmarried art teacher) – I increasingly felt a loathing in my belly at the thought of them. Even the word ‘German’ made me cringe. They were the monsters who’d done what we’d seen at Nazareth and, in my head, they had done that because they were German.

  Two hundred and fifty thousand Belgian refugees had left for Britain. Over one million had journeyed to Holland. Everyone left was engaged in the war effort. Building rows of trenches and tunnels, front lines, lines further back, erecting communications and installing signals. Everywhere, barbed-wire walls were being erected and sandbag mountains built. But for us, during those few days in the kind October sunshine of 1914, all we had was turnips and all we could do was wait and peel. Wait and peel.

  5

  Everyone at the hospital noticed Elsie flying around in her long leather coat. When she told people that she was a widow (admittedly, she did so only when asked), they loved her all the more. A woman with a tragic past? Allow me to comfort you. The appeal of a woman who has suffered is universal. Sometimes, I longed for a more romantic past. All my stories involved school: sports days, egg-and-spoon races, French lessons. Or school holidays: Uilleam and me hiding in an oak tree or shrieking, ‘Geronimo!’ while jumping off cliffs into the sea. Most people weren’t interested in my childish tales so I was learning to keep my mouth shut about it. The range of subjects adults enjoyed talking about was surprisingly narrow.

  One evening, Elsie appeared in our shared kitchen in the green dress from the hotel in Harwich. Although she often wore it, it always looked fresh. As she grabbed my hand, the skirt made a swishing noise. I had grown used to her pawing me – I liked it.

  ‘Won’t you come dancing, Mairi? A handsome Gilbert is taking me out.’

  ‘Gilbert the Filbert’ was a song from back home that we had discovered we both loved. It reminded Elsie of being at nursing college in London, and it reminded me of secretly dancing with Uilleam (secretly because my father hated to see the way Uilleam moved).

  * * *

  I'm Gilbert the Filbert the Knut with a K

  The pride of Piccadilly the blasé roué

  Oh Hades, the ladies, who leave their wooden huts

  For Gilbert the Filbert the Colonel of the Knuts.

  * * *

  I am known round Town as a fearful blood

  For I come straight down from the dear old flood

  And I know who's who, and I know what's what

  And between the two I'm a trifle hot

  When a fella actually named Gilbert came calling for Elsie, the nickname stuck and after that all her beaus – and there were quite a few – became ‘Gilberts’.

  ‘Who is it this time?’

  ‘Johannes? Or was it Jonty? You never know, he might have an attractive friend…’

  ‘Where can they possibly take you?’ Arthur asked, grimly.

  Elsie grinned. ‘Locals have their ways.’ She looked at me. ‘Well, little sister? No point sitting in all night, pining for home.’

  I demurred. Peeling vegetables was exhausting and demoralising and left me in no mood for socialising, plus I didn’t want to get on the wrong side of Dr Munro again. Anyway, I didn’t know what to do with an attractive friend. I wondered if Elsie got up to the open-mouthed kissing that some couples were demonstrating at the Harwich hotel. I didn’t like to ask.

  * * *

  Not long after Elsie had departed for her date, Helen returned. She had been out with a turnip-gathering contingent when they heard that the Germans were advancing.

  This would once have been terrifying, but we had heard it so many times over the last few weeks that it went in one ear and out the other.

  Helen was looking more tired than ever. She was attached to her notebook and had tucked her pen behind her ear. She sat down heavily, then looked at us as though hoping we might entertain her. Lady D was immersed in her sewing – pyjamas now – and Dr Munro was out, trying to get petrol or doing his exercises, I wasn’t sure. I had noticed that Arthur wasn’t very attentive to Helen and decided I didn’t want a bookworm for a husband.

  Finally, Helen spoke up. ‘Where’s Elsie gone now?’

  Arthur didn’t mind talking about Elsie though. ‘Out with another Gilbert the Filbert.’

  ‘Another one? Goodness.’

  ‘I think the last one may have died.’

  ‘How long ’til Elsie notices?’

  I didn’t like the way they talked about Elsie. It reminded me of a woman in the village who shouted ‘Trollop!’ at the post-office mistress. I had tentatively said it once to Arthur but he had insisted they were joking and I was oversensitive. Maybe Americans were different? I tried to concentrate on passages from my Bible, but Helen seemed keener than usual to engage me in conversation.

  ‘I’ve decided to write a romance.’

  ‘Oh?’ I said. I wasn’t sure what reaction Helen wa
s looking for.

  ‘I’ll be sure to put you in it, you brave young thing.’

  ‘Me? No.’

  I found that hard to believe. It must have been clear to her, to all of them, that I hadn’t done anything special. Quite the reverse. I was a liability in an emergency. I was sure that if there was a way the flying ambulance corps could go on and leave me with the turnips, then they would. I sometimes wondered if they’d only taken me on for my motorcycle (although at that moment poor Douglas was covered in cobwebs at the back of the hospital grounds).

  ‘Yes, you!’

  ‘But I was rubbish.’

  ‘You were splendid in the end, Mairi,’ Helen said kindly.

  Lady D looked up from her sewing, nodding in agreement. ‘Don’t doubt yourself, girl.’

  No one had ever put me in a book before. This was something else I knew would make Uilleam jealous.

  ‘And Elsie?’ I considered. ‘Elsie will be in it?’ I had been aware of Elsie throughout that terrible day in Nazareth: the way she snipped the bloody clothes off agonised men, her attentiveness, her fearlessness, her warmth. It wouldn’t be too much to suggest that she came alive in the horror of it all.

  Arthur laid down his paper for once.

  ‘Of course Mrs Knocker will be in it. They say she brought a man back to life downstairs yesterday. A proper resurrection.’

  Helen sighed. ‘That was due to the volunteer nurse who called it wrong, Arthur, and not entirely down to our Elsie—’

  ‘If you were dying in a muddy ditch, who would you want to see leaning over you?’

  Not me, I thought glumly. You’d probably try to hide from me.

  But Arthur was asking a rhetorical question. ‘Elsie, that’s who! She’s your main character, right there.’

  Helen looked unconvinced. ‘How does the story end, though?’

  ‘How do all romances end? A marriage and a happy ever after.’

  For a while, I nursed a secret fancy that Elsie might marry my brother – that way we could be proper sisters. Uilleam had certainly found her attractive – well, who wouldn’t? I might once have thought it preposterous that Elsie would give him a second glance, but Uilleam was as handsome as any of her Gilberts – maybe it wasn’t as crazy an idea as I had first thought. So I indulged myself with fantasies of Uilleam and me showing Elsie our favourite places – climbing trees, prancing around the village, tinkering about in the garage or racing our bikes all the way to Saunton Sands. I might even win this time.

  I pictured the three of us in the drawing room after dinner, entertaining Mother’s circle of friends with our modern ways. Father would be standing at the fireplace, judging. Usually, Uilleam and I were found wanting, but Elsie would impress him. She had the war service that Uilleam would never have. She would be the child my father yearned for: the one who was both beautiful and brave; and he would be grateful that we – that I – had brought her to the family.

  But I knew deep down that the personalities of both Elsie and Uilleam meant it was unlikely. A marriage can’t be built on good looks or spiky witticisms, can it? Possibly without any real basis, I secretly doubted either had what my father would call staying power. And while perhaps you could have a marriage with one reckless character, I doubted that you could have one with two.

  Arthur got up, lit a cigarette, then handed it to me. That was one thing I was getting good at: smoking. I was certain it put years on me.

  * * *

  Elsie arrived back earlier and noisier than usual. I noticed Arthur and Helen look at each other with knowing glances. I think Elsie must have been drinking stronger rum than she was used to, for she virtually twirled into our quarters as though she were still listening to music.

  ‘Bonsoir, mes amis. For the benefit of our American companions, that means “Good evening friends”.’

  ‘Here she goes again,’ mumbled Arthur.

  ‘Was this Gilbert nice?’ I asked timidly.

  Helen laughed. ‘They’re all nice, aren’t they?’

  ‘To be frank, I’m not sure he was.’ Elsie smirked. ‘They look so handsome in their uniforms, but I fear my standards may be slipping due to lack of sleep.’

  ‘You have standards, Elsie?’ Arthur could never miss an opportunity to make a dig.

  ‘Touché,’ she snapped back. ‘That means—’

  He interrupted, ‘I know what it means.’

  I didn’t know what annoyed him so much about her. She was only joking – at least, I hoped that was all it was. But Arthur didn’t like Elsie’s jokes.

  The Germans were advancing day by day. The Belgians weren’t expecting this – who could have expected this? Compared to the organised grey military machine of the Hun the Belgian army was an altogether more ramshackle affair. I saw old men, ex-servicemen, crying in the streets, desperate to help, but how? Young men were scooped up into troops, but a week’s training counted for little against dastardly German soldiers with twenty years’ experience.

  We lost villages and villages as the Germans marched onwards.

  And still the flying ambulance corps waited and peeled turnips. If only a war were decided by who peeled the most turnips, we would have been victorious in a matter of days.

  * * *

  Finally in mid-October, Dr Munro found us a base of our own. It was in a town called Furnes, in an old school building that had been converted into a military hospital. A Belgian medical team was already established there, but a flying ambulance corps was needed.

  We were provided with three rooms in which to live, and the use of the school kitchen. These lodgings were less comfortable than those in more organised Ghent – but perfectly adequate for our motley crew. On the day we moved in, Lady D produced six old teacups, a tablecloth, a small vase and even a bunch of freshly cut tulips. She found a kettle and made us English tea. She apologised profusely for the lack of saucers and spoons as though it somehow reflected on her, but we thought it was lovely.

  The only thing we lacked now was action. ‘To our wonderful group,’ said Dr Munro, raising his teacup and looking proudly at each of us. In a low voice, he obliquely addressed, for the first time, the horrors of our time in Nazareth. ‘I hope we never again encounter what we experienced on our way here.’

  ‘Hear, hear…’

  ‘But if we do, I have faith in all of you, in all of us.’

  Was it my imagination or was he looking mostly at me? I blushed. Even my neck grew hot. Elsie put her cool, reassuring hand on mine.

  ‘We are a team. Consideration and respect for each other—’

  ‘Are a must!’ Elsie and I chorused, finishing Dr Munro’s sentence.

  He laughed, abashed. ‘By Jove, you have been listening!’ He raised his cup again. ‘Everyone – to new beginnings…’

  We clinked cups excitedly, until Lady D said, ‘Careful, they can’t withstand too much!’ and we laughed again.

  We were about twenty miles from the front line, where Belgian, French and British soldiers were facing off the German enemy. Sometimes, you could hear the rumbling of shells like distant thunder.

  At Furnes, from the outset, I was encouraged to observe the more experienced nurses and allowed to treat some patients. Even just a few days of this did my confidence the world of good.

  One overcast afternoon about ten days after our arrival, news came that there were wounded men in a field some thirty minutes’ drive away. Dr Munro and the others weren’t at the base; they were once again on the hunt for food and petrol, but even if they had been there, Elsie and I would have immediately volunteered to go. Me because I still wanted to make up for my previous performance, Elsie because she was Elsie. We grabbed our helmets and ran for the ambulance. My heart was racing. I was determined not to let anyone down.

  Elsie, behind the wheel, set off at a lunatic’s pace. We hadn’t gone far before we saw a soldier driving a horse and cart pulling wounded or dead men towards the hospital. Sobered, Elsie slowed to pass them, but once they were out of sight we
quickly picked up speed again.

  Twenty minutes later, we were parked under a copse of trees and moving smartly towards the field with our stretcher. It was an oat field, I think, and the stalks were tall and brownish, ready to harvest. It was hard to see anything through them.

  As we pushed on, I realised with a start that this was the most stupid idea. We could be fired at – fired on – like this. Anything could happen. And how would we find anyone in here?

  Elsie told me to wait with the stretcher as she waded out further into the oats.

  I stood still, shivering.

  ‘Get down!’ she hissed back at me and I dropped to my knees. I held my breath, waiting for someone to shoot me, and then I saw them ahead. First I thought they were scattered rocks, but they were sprawled grey-uniformed Germans, virtually indistinguishable from the sky, from heaven, where it appeared that most were on their sweet way.

  Elsie whispered my name. I crawled over. We were in a mud churn. Didn’t I used to love mud? It seemed inconceivable now.

  If I am to die, make it quick, make it decisive, none of this hanging-on-by-a-thread stuff, please.

  I said, ‘They’re all dead.’