The War Nurses Page 6

  But Elsie hissed back, pointing. ‘There’s one over there who isn’t!’

  The only way you could tell was by the twitching of his knee.

  ‘But he’s German anyway,’ I whispered.

  Our eyes met, and I felt like a fool.

  The not-dead soldier opened his eyes and raised his hand palm upwards almost as though he was asking, What can I do? Elsie crawled on her hands and knees over to him. Her bag scraped across the mud.

  ‘We are going to help you,’ she told him. She looked over her shoulder back at me. ‘What’s the German for “We’ll take care of you”?’

  ‘Wir kümmern uns um Sie…?’

  But just then, there was a terrific rain of bullets overhead.

  ‘They’re firing on us!’ I said incredulously. ‘The Germans are firing on us!’

  Elsie made up her mind quickly. ‘We’ll leave him for now… tell him we’ll come back.’

  But I didn’t say anything because I was too busy scrambling for dear life, focused on the trees in the distance, willing them closer, before finally taking shelter in the protective canopy of branches. Shells whizzed past, there was a humming sound, a pause, and then the brutal thud of explosion.

  I kept telling myself, Each grey lump out there is a German soldier. I wasn’t sure that even in their death throes they mightn’t try to kill me.

  * * *

  Eventually the shelling stopped. It was early evening. The sky had turned pink with red streaks, some orange, and now it was fading to a darker blue. How could the sky still have beauty? Hadn’t it seen what we had? Elsie wouldn’t even let me smoke because the light would draw the snipers’ attention.

  She nudged me. ‘I thought you were a non-smoking schoolgirl anyway?’ Despite myself, I smiled.

  We decided we – he – could wait no longer. Crouching low, we re-entered that terrible field. Fat wild pigs were snuffling among the bodies. They aren’t bodies, they’re rocks, I told myself. I retched and spat out bile. We stooped as low as possible, still exposed. We found him again, still twitching with life. We dragged him out of the field. It was agony to be stooped so low but it was not quite low enough if they wanted to kill us. Our tin hats would not protect us if anyone fired. As we struggled out of the field, I was thinking to myself, this is the first time I’ve come so near to death. My own death. And I accepted it. I was not frightened. I was faithful and open to all possibilities ahead. I caught sight of Elsie’s face, drained of colour; her eyes had never looked wider, but we nodded at each other. We were of the same mind: we would rather die trying. I had my faith, I don’t know what Elsie had. A death wish, maybe? No, I don’t think so. A lust for life, perhaps.

  * * *

  We somehow made it back to the Fiat. As we unceremoniously parcelled the soldier into the back, I thought of the Guy Fawkes procession through Chedington that Uilleam and I used to love. The effigy of the guy pulled around, then dumped on the wood ready to burn. Remember, remember. This poor boy was also falling apart at the seams.

  I drove so Elsie could work on the boy in the back. Of course, this didn’t inhibit her from barking out instructions at me.

  ‘Faster, Mairi!’

  ‘I’m going as fast as I—’

  ‘Watch out for craters!’

  Not only were Belgian roads more fit for horses than motor vehicles, they were also mostly shaped in a kind of hump: perfectly appropriate in a country liable to flood. Less appropriate for driving a breakneck mercy mission, possibly while under fire.

  As I slammed our way through that bleak countryside, I recited the prayer that came most easily to me. ‘Our Father who art in heaven. Hallowed be thy name—’

  ‘What was it again, Mairi? Wir kümmen un sid?’

  ‘No, it’s Wir kümmern uns um Sie.’

  ‘For goodness’ sake. Wie Kümmern—’

  ‘For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory—’

  ‘Try that in German.’

  I ignored her. ‘In Earth as it is in Heaven—’

  ‘If there is a God, then… what kind of monster is he?’

  I couldn’t understand how it wasn’t obvious. ‘It’s not God who does this, Elsie,’ I explained patiently, as I would explain many times to come. ‘It’s humans.’

  ‘How can you want any part of it? A God who would let this go on? And turn a blind eye?’

  Finally, we arrived at the hospital and dragged in our poor grey lamb.

  6

  Elsie was wrapped right around the German boy when I tiptoed back to the ward later that evening. For a few seconds, I watched her slumped over him. They fitted perfectly around each other, reminding me of Helen’s glasses locked away in their case. I patted Elsie’s shoulder. Her hair was like liquorice and I had a peculiar yearning to stroke it.

  ‘Elsie,’ I whispered. ‘Your Gilbert is waiting.’

  A uniformed man had arrived holding a wilting tulip and asking for ‘Miss Ilsa’. Elsie had told me it irked her when the Gilberts brought gifts that weren’t useful, so I decided not to mention the flower. Fish or soap might have swayed her tonight; a tulip would not. This Gilbert was handsome, dazzling even. Clean-shaven and smelling of spice, perhaps in another life he would have been on the stage.

  Elsie looked puzzled and then she seemed to come to. ‘I’m not leaving.’

  I didn’t know what to say. I had only known her a few weeks, but I had not seen Elsie become attached to anyone in particular. I suppose, given her gleeful chopping and changing of Gilberts, I’d doubted that she could. She reminded me of our old cat, Barney. Barney came for food and it was then that he allowed you to pet him. It was always Bessie the dog who seemed to have deeper feelings. I began to feel bad for Barney. Maybe I had underestimated him.

  ‘You’ve been looking forward to it—’

  The boy groaned and his eyelids fluttered. Elsie raised up slightly on one elbow.

  ‘He is “funfzehn”. That means fifteen, right?’

  ‘He can’t be.’

  ‘He must have lied about his age to the recruiters.’

  I didn’t know what to say.

  ‘He just wants his “mutter”. Imagine if it were Kenneth. Kenneth in nine years’ time.’ Her face was contorted with anguish. ‘Perhaps I should have left him with his friends…’

  ‘He’ll be fine, Elsie,’ I said, although what did I know?

  She turned back and laid her head gently by him.

  ‘Wir kümmern uns um Sie… shhh… wir kümmern uns um Sie…’

  * * *

  Back at the door of our lodgings, I explained to the gentleman caller, the handsome Gilbert, that Elsie was ‘unavoidably occupied’. I was as sympathetic as I felt the situation required. His smirk lost its sparkle for a moment before he gathered himself and then the charm was switched back on: ‘So, Miss, what is your name?’

  ‘Mairi Chisholm.’

  ‘Like marry?’ he asked, showing me his even teeth. I gave the dutiful smile that was expected. How many times had I heard that in the last two months? It was as though my name served as a kind of gentleman’s prompt.

  ‘And you, are you unavoidably occupied too?’

  Why would he think I would want to go out with him, just because Elsie couldn’t? Inviting me as his second choice: how could anyone think that was kind?

  * * *

  After politely declining the handsome Gilbert’s request, I joined the others playing cards in the kitchen. Helen dealt. She was the most efficient at it, so we had stopped taking turns and left it to her. I liked the noise the cards made in her hands as she shuffled. I usually favoured queens, had a mistrust of jacks and preferred clubs above all other suits: this set of playing cards was no different.

  While she dealt, I kept picturing that grey field of horror and thinking: I could have died today – and here I am about to play pontoon. I couldn’t find logic or meaning in it, no matter how much I repeated it in my head.

  Lady D had moved on from mending pyjamas and was knitting
gloves from a pattern she had found in a housekeeping magazine (she kept all manner of things in her room). She looked up with a smile. ‘The men will need these soon.’ Dr Munro was studying his crinkled map. He liked to predict where the Germans would advance next. Sometimes he put little coin armies out in a pattern on the table. Drawing closer I saw they were in the shape of an ‘S’. He was worried that the Germans would take the higher land and we would be stuck in the lowlands around the Ypres Salient.

  ‘Why does it matter?’ I asked tentatively. I wouldn’t make a great war general. ‘Because,’ Dr Munro explained patiently, ‘living conditions for our men will be far worse.’

  I was still vexed.

  He slid the coins across the table. As I watched, I realised that the coppers were the Allieds: the rest were the Germans. And there were a lot more Germans. He picked up a jug of water as if to pour it over the coins.

  ‘The rainwater will gather here, don’t you see? Their men will be high and dry while ours will not.’

  In that case, I doubted the practicality of Lady D’s gloves.

  Helen dealt me an eight of clubs and a six of spades.

  ‘Twist.’

  ‘You always twist, Mairi,’ Helen said with mock disapproval, before dealing me a three of hearts.

  A wind was up. Outside our quarters, the trees rattled as though they were trying to get in.

  ‘Is Elsie out with another Gilbert tonight?’ asked Arthur casually as he surveyed his hand.

  I was tempted to say, What’s it got to do with you? But I was glad of the chance to respond with something complimentary to Elsie for once. ‘She is with a patient.’

  Arthur raised his eyebrows. ‘Some… playboy?’ The word ‘playboy’ sluiced around his mouth.

  ‘No.’ My vehemence surprised me. ‘This one is very young,’ I added shyly. ‘A German.’

  I was glad they didn’t remark on that.

  ‘Not good to get attached.’ Arthur’s voice was gruff.

  Lady D smiled gently with her sympathetic eyes. ‘But unavoidable sometimes.’

  ‘Mairi?’ prompted Helen.

  ‘Twist again.’

  Tsking, she dealt me a jack. Diamond.

  ‘Bust.’

  Arthur excused himself. Helen watched him move across the room, her face unreadable.

  * * *

  In the early hours of the morning, Elsie came in, waking me up. In the candlelight, her eyes looked huge and wild.

  ‘Awful, awful…’

  I tried not to think of him with his palms raised so helplessly. He could have been my teacher Herr Hausmann’s son. Didn’t Herr Hausmann have a son, Stephan, in Hamburg?

  A person could go crazy thinking like this. God wouldn’t want us to think like this.

  ‘If we could have got to him sooner, if we could have treated him earlier—’

  ‘I know,’ I said soothingly. I hated to see Elsie distressed.

  ‘It’s not on,’ she said darkly as she pulled off her boots. And I knew she was cooking something up.

  The next day, I was doing a bit of routine car maintenance – a job that I was always happy to get stuck into – when I was sent on an important errand: petrol and meat supplies. Everywhere we went, we had to bring our passports to show that we were not infiltrators. How many times would I pat the pocket I had hidden mine in, checking it was still there?

  A young fella with dark, collar-length hair and a bright-blue school jumper filled one can of fuel for me. He had forgotten to ask to see my passport, which gave me hope that he wasn’t too much of a stickler for the rules. Tentatively, I asked for more petrol, but he said there were strict limits on how much he could give. I explained, ‘We are with the hospital,’ then, when he didn’t respond, I added quietly, ‘No one need know if you gave us extra.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Just a little…?’

  ‘No.’

  Two grubby children peeped out at us from behind a thin kitchen door. When I looked over at them, they shot back inside giggling but I wasn’t in the mood to play games.

  ‘Is there anyone else here?’ I asked him. Elsie always came back with loads of fuel. ‘Mum or Dad maybe?’

  ‘I’m almost fourteen,’ he said fiercely. Only four years younger than me, one year younger than the German boy. He made his fingers into the shape of a gun. Pow pow. ‘You can’t have more.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘I‘m going to tell someone you asked.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ I said, quickly filling up the car. This was awful. ‘Thank you.’

  * * *

  I continued into town. Near the station, I gave some money to a little girl begging. I probably shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t just walk past. The butcher’s was at the end of a parade of abandoned shops; I knew it from the queue of cooks, nurses and servicemen outside. I joined them, listening to their conversations about where everyone had gone or was going. Meat dangled from hooks. Blood-red, pink speckles, ribs and bones. I tried not to think of Nazareth. Or dead German schoolboys. Deep breaths. That distinctive smell of death.

  I was not going to be sick. I was over all that. Dr Munro had taken me aside to advise me that whenever I next felt nauseous, I should replace my bad thoughts with happy memories. I should block out the trigger, whether it was a nasty smell, sound or whatever, and think of happy things. So I did that now. I imagined racing my Douglas along open roads with Uilleam next to me on his Royal Enfield, the air on my face. See the daffodils grow in the hedgerows, Mairi. Let the sun warm our cheeks. Think of the apple crumble waiting for us at home…

  It was my turn at the counter. Don’t fail this task, Mairi, I told myself. We’ve got to eat.

  The butcher had an aggrieved face with a squashed nose like he’d recently taken a thumping. His neck was pale and spotty and the skin on his round cheeks was so stretched and scarlet it looked painful. He served me and we even managed some banter – in French! – which I felt was more like it. He told me that my red hair was unusual. It’s not that unusual, I thought, but I said ‘Thank you.’ Elsie had told me I needed to accept compliments gracefully.

  He asked where I was from, and I said, ‘England and Scotland,’ then added, ‘I’m here to help the war effort.’

  He was delighted. ‘Come back after the war and we will have a feast!’ I promised I would – ‘What’s more, I will bring my whole family too!’ How his face softened when he grinned. The nose was no longer a problem. I was aware the whole queue was listening approvingly to us.

  He said ‘I’m staying put. German advance or no.’

  ‘That’s the spirit!’

  ‘Too right!’

  ‘Here’s to plucky Belgium!’ I felt quite fired up with the fighting talk! A spontaneous burst of applause wouldn’t have been out of place.

  ‘We won’t let the filthy baby-eating Boche get the better of us. I’ll take them on with my bare hands. Rip them from ear to ear.’ He smiled at me as he mimed his plans.

  ‘Oh, absolutely,’ I agreed, feeling sick again.

  I explained that we were six adults after enough meat to last us the week. He packed some up. It was remiss of me, but it wasn’t until I had passed over the notes that Dr Munro had given me that I asked what kind of meat it was. The exuberant butcher told me.

  ‘Horse!?’ I echoed incredulously. This was clearly one of those ridiculous language issues. Could I be confusing horse with cheveux – hair? ‘Hare’ was like rabbit and I was partial to rabbit pie. ‘You don’t mean—’ I imitated riding a horse, with a weak ‘neigh’. As one, the queue looked at me mystified. It felt like charades at Christmas, and my futile attempts to get Father to guess ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’.

  ‘Neigh?’ said the butcher, now playing to the crowd. The crowd chortled.

  I thought, anxiously, maybe Belgian horses don’t neigh.

  ‘Ee-aw?’ I tried, feeling ludicrous.

  The butcher moved on to the next customer, a square-faced young woman I recogn
ised from the hospital. She too averted her eyes from me.

  ‘Excusez moi, Monsieur,’ I interrupted. ‘Is there… nothing else?’

  The butcher blinked. ‘Very fine horsemeat.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Thank you.’

  I walked out of that shop with a horse in my bag, a jagged tightness in my stomach and a sour mouth. Exchanging negative memories with positive ones didn’t work. I recited a prayer:

  Calm me, O Lord, as you stilled the storm

  Still me, O Lord, keep me from harm.

  Let all the tumult within me cease.

  Enfold me, Lord, in your peace. Amen.

  I was nervous at the thought of telling the others about my strange purchase. I decided I would take their lead: if they thought horsemeat was fine, then I would hold my nose and tuck in; if not – if they were as appalled as I was – I would throw the package in the canal and work out how to make up the lost money for Dr Munro. I wished there was just one thing that I could do without a hitch or complication. Elsie would have done it in five minutes flat and got the extra petrol and a date with some handsome Gilbert she would have won over in the queue.

  When I got back, Arthur, Helen and Elsie were arranged around the kitchen table. They looked as though they were gathered for an ordinary family supper and I was about to make my horse announcement when I realised that they were in the middle of a terrific row. It seemed, incredibly, to be over the way the table had been laid.

  Elsie was speaking passionately. ‘Poppycock, Arthur! I’m saying, look where the rules get us – this urge to have the cutlery in its place, it lands us in trenches. It lands us in No Man’s Land.’

  ‘It’s not about cutlery, Elsie,’ Arthur was saying through gritted teeth.

  ‘Yes, it is. The wrong knife for fish, the wrong spoon. Oh my! Why not just eat?’

  ‘Good manners are vital.’

  Helen was staring at her reflection in the spoon. ‘Consideration and kindness are vital. The rest is just artifice.’