by Annie Murray
‘I’ll tell you what the matter is.’ Aunt Hatt came stumping along the passage and into the back room, still wearing her coat and a fancy hat with a long, pointed feather. ‘Oh –’ she softened for a moment, coming to lean over Hester – ‘what a love she is. She’s a bit snuffly, Daisy. Is she all right? Now what you need to do, is . . .’ Long instructions followed. ‘And you’re not to worry about Clara. I know she can be—’
‘Aunt Hatt?’ Margaret interrupted.
‘The Derby Scheme!’ Aunt Hatt launched in. ‘Oh, yes, Mrs Flett, tea, please, strong as you like! You’ve heard, of course? Conscription!’
‘Well, yes, of course I’ve . . .’ Margaret began. ‘It’s been on the cards for ages . . .’ But Aunt Hatt was in full flow.
‘Clara’s in a terrible state – thinks Georgie’s going to join up any minute and leave us all, even though they’re saying—’
‘Ma!’ None of them had heard the second knock and Georgie appeared from next door as well, looking really worked up. ‘Will you please stop keeping on like this! I’m not joining up now – not this minute. They say it’s only for men with no family – but all I said was, it’s coming, I can feel it, and—’
‘But yours is a reserved occupation!’ Aunt Hatt cried, so wildly that she almost knocked the cup and saucer Mrs Flett was delivering to her across the room. ‘Surely it is?’
Daisy was amazed by the change in Harriet Watts. She looked older suddenly, and vulnerable, holding her tea and sinking on to a chair.
Georgie seemed caught between anxiety at the thought of the call-up and shame that he was still here, as if someone might hand him a white feather at any moment.
‘I can’t say it is necessarily reserved,’ he argued. ‘Not with Pa here running the place and all the other staff – and the women are taking over now . . .’ He too came over and smiled down at Hester, though with a certain embarrassment. ‘Looking fine, isn’t she?’ he said in a shy way which warmed Daisy’s heart.
‘But that’s no good at all!’ Aunt Hatt erupted. ‘Good God, the whole of Birmingham is tooling up for war and it’s no good thinking they can leave it to a scrappy lot of women to run! It’s bad enough them putting them out on the streets – in the police, I ask you! Whatever next?’
‘All I said was—’ Georgie tried to interrupt.
‘You’ve got a weak chest, Georgie!’ Aunt Hatt pronounced. ‘You always did have a weak chest!’
Georgie put his hands on his hips, a helpless expression on his face. ‘I haven’t, Mom. You know I haven’t had any problems with my chest since I was about nine years old. I don’t want to go, but all I’m saying is, in the end I might have to.’
‘Oh, heaven forbid!’ Aunt Hatt said. ‘I’ve got the most terrible feeling of dread. It’s crouching on my chest like a . . . a . . . Don’t let them take my only boy – oh, this wicked, terrible war.’
For a moment Daisy thought Aunt Hatt was going to burst into tears, but then she said, ‘Well, I’ve had my say,’ and subsided, helplessly, into sipping her tea.
But Georgie was right. Within two more months the government, desperate to fill their armies, extended the Military Service Act to married men.
The same scenes were enacted all over again the Sunday before he left, when the whole family was at the Wattses’ house in Handsworth.
‘I don’t know whether to be proud or upset,’ Clara said tearfully to Margaret.
Clara had been very cold to Daisy on the few times she had seen her through the pregnancy and Daisy knew that if had not been for Aunt Hatt, bossy Clara would have been the sort to turn against her. But today she had other things on her mind.
They all sat in the lavish sitting room, the glass doors open on to the spring garden. Clara looked out at her children, gambolling about with Georgie on the grass, and her face crumpled. ‘He’s got to go, I know. But he’s my man and I don’t know what I’m going to do without him.’
Twenty-Four
July 1916
Annie pulled on a cardigan over her summer frock, seized hold of her raincoat and hat, and tore out of the nurses’ quarters towards the university’s Great Hall. She pushed her straw hat on her head as she went, holding it on in the wind.
‘Running again, Nurse Hanson?’ one of the VADs who worked with her on the ward teased as Annie went dashing past. Running on the wards was forbidden but Annie always found it difficult to slow down and move in a measured way when under pressure.
Amid the line of ambulances and orderlies moving about them outside the main entrance, it took her a moment to identify Fergus, standing out of the way to one side of the door. He caught sight of her scurrying figure and came towards her smiling.
‘Where’s the fire?’ he grinned.
‘Oh, don’t you start!’ Annie said. She had been on duty non-stop for the last ten days. ‘I’m so glad to get out of here for a bit.’ She eyed the ambulances. ‘It might be the last time for a while – let’s make the most of it.’
‘Ah, yes,’ Fergus teased. ‘Wine, women and song?’
‘Oh, stop it!’ But she was so delighted to see him. More than she could ever have imagined feeling about any man.
Their times together had been few over the past six months. But ever since that first evening in the Queen’s Hotel – a man, a hotel bar and a sip of whisky all in one night, good heavens! – her barriers had been falling one by one until Annie had had to admit to herself that she was falling helplessly in love with this interesting, attractive, maddening man. A man who made her do all sorts of things she had vowed she never would, who would sit and talk to her for hours, whose face she had come to look out for in any crowd as the face she loved.
After their first evening together, it had felt an age until they managed to get time off at the same time again. In six months, there had been few occasions when they had been able to meet away from the hospital in the evening. Otherwise they managed a few snatched conversations in passing or out in the grounds. But this pressure, this scarcity, had lit their emotions all the faster.
On their outings they had been into Birmingham, wanting a change from Selly Oak, where they otherwise spent all their time. She had shown him the city – the Bull Ring and Town Hall, the streets of factories where the air rang with sounds of metal crashing on metal and filled the nostrils with grit. Fergus was interested in everything. And he was gentlemanly, kissing her on the cheek as they parted. But following their third time out together, after they had got back to the hospital and she was in her room, half undressed, there was a tap on her bedroom door. Startled, she picked up her dress and held it against her.
‘It’s all right – it’s only me.’ Hilda, one of the other nurses, put her head round the door. She was rather a prim girl and her expression seemed caught between solemnity and disapproval. ‘Dr Reid is outside. He seemed rather concerned and says he needs your assistance with something.’
For a second Annie felt horribly guilty and self-conscious. During her training one nurse had been expelled for going out with a man, thanks to another starchy and righteous nurse who had reported her. It even crossed Annie’s mind that, until she met Fergus, she might have been the sort of person who would have reported someone in that way herself . . .
But what had she done wrong? Nothing. And perhaps it was indeed a medical emergency.
‘Gracious,’ she said, frowning. ‘I wonder what’s happened? I’ll go straight away. Thank you, Hilda.’
Hilda backed out of the room still looking suspicious, and Annie, about to put the dress on, thought again and pulled her uniform on instead. It had sounded as if it might be serious, whatever it was. She took her cloak and crept outside.
In the darkness, she saw his tall figure, outlined by the light of the spring moon.
‘Dr Reid?’ she said cautiously.
‘Ah, Nurse Hanson.’ His voice was low, but formal, urgent. ‘I must apologize for disturbing you – could you come with me a moment, please?’
‘Of course.’
He didn’t take her arm or explain and hurried along, she trotting beside him to keep up.
‘Has a new convoy arrived?’ she asked, wondering if they were short-handed.
‘Come this way.’ Now he did steer her by the arm, but away from the main hospital.
‘Where on earth . . . ?’
‘Shh,’ he said abruptly, adding in a whisper, ‘We don’t know who’s listening.’
Soon they were crossing the green space of the grounds behind the university, heading for the trees fringing the edge.
‘Just stop!’ Annie halted abruptly, getting annoyed now. ‘What are we doing? I don’t like being pushed about like this.’
‘Annie.’ Fergus turned to her, glancing about him. All seemed quiet. ‘Don’t you trust me?’
‘Well, I did,’ she said crossly. ‘But I thought you needed help on the wards, and now you’re dragging me off into the bushes – what am I supposed to think?’
‘God, woman,’ he said. His voice was quiet, she heard the change in it. ‘Can’t you see? This is what I have to do to be alone with you for five minutes. I see you in the hospital – or these snatched meetings in town – and there’s never . . .’ He looked away for a second, as if steeling himself, then back at her face in the darkness. His face was completely in shadow, but even so, she could sense how intensely he was looking at her. ‘All I can think about is holding you in my arms.’
Annie gasped. ‘Oh, my goodness!’ She gave a shaky laugh. ‘So is that—?’
She never had a chance to finish because Fergus pulled her close. It was nothing like all the things she had dreaded. She was moved by him, loved him, even the strangeness of feeling a man’s lips on hers, the prickle of his moustache, the way he stroked the back of her neck, so softly, and held her. She was amazed at her own passion, her kissing him back as if she was born to it. They stood for she didn’t know how long, holding and kissing. By the time they walked back together, hand in hand and both in something like a dreamlike state, they had exchanged pledges of love, of the future.
‘Thank you for luring me out,’ she whispered, as they neared the nurses’ rooms. She gave a quiet giggle. ‘You’re so naughty.’
Fergus looked down at her. ‘Oh, Annie,’ was all he said, but his voice was full of tenderness. ‘My lovely Annie.’
It was such a relief to be away from the hospital, from the prying eyes and regulations. Another evening had become possible and they stood on the crowded tram, pressed close together, smiling at each other, quiet while there were so many other people to listen in.
As they stepped down in town, the heard, ‘Get yer Gazette!’
‘Oh, let’s get a paper,’ Annie said. ‘I haven’t seen one for days.’
Fergus handed over a halfpenny and they stood back out of the moving crowds and pored over the front page there in the street.
‘“An impenetrable wall of steel,”’ Fergus read. ‘“What was done at Loos in the way of breaking through almost on the first onslaught is not likely to be accomplished again during this year when the Germans have been taking most diligent advantage of months of immobility to strengthen their defences . . .”’
He stopped and looked at Annie. His eyes were troubled. For a moment, neither of them said anything. Then he smiled and took her arm.
‘Let’s enjoy the evening, while we’ve got the chance. Now – can I tempt you to a dram of our very best malt whisky this evening, Miss Hanson?’
‘No, you blasted well can’t,’ she said, grimacing at him. ‘What I really, desperately need, is a nice hot cup of tea!’
Fergus laughed wholeheartedly and Annie loved the sound of it. ‘You really know how to let your hair down, don’t you? Well, we’ll see what we can do.’
That evening in the Queen’s Hotel, talking, laughing, discreetly touching hands as often as possible, Fergus’s loving eyes looking into hers, was the most precious memory, something Annie had to cling to for the rest of that terrible month. Because following that night, the day’s pace of exhausting busyness in the hospital accelerated rapidly.
Gradually, everyone became aware of the calamity that had been the first day of the offensive on the Somme. The newspaper columns of the dead multiplied so shockingly that people stared at them in disbelief. Mourning bands and memorials and black crêpe appeared more and more across the city.
At the First Southern General, the casualties poured in through Selly Oak station, telephones ringing, station parties waiting with stretchers, blankets and pillows, the St John’s Ambulance Brigade and extra volunteers sorting the walking wounded into transports and carrying the stretchers to the waiting wagons bound for the hospital. Then came the process of settling them into beds on the wards, praying there would be enough space; the shock at some of the wounds, the poor lads so grateful to be out of it, to be looked after.
‘We’ll need even more beds,’ Annie said to Susannah as the trickle seemed to be growing into a flood.
Susannah whispered to her, eyes full of horror, ‘If these are the ones who came through – how many dead must there be?’
A great many – they were already beginning to know. On and on the battles went.
There was not much time for emotion. Annie sank into dreamless, exhausted sleep whenever she got the chance. They worked and worked. Sometimes she saw Fergus in passing in the corridors and the smiles they gave each other, the occasional snatched squeeze of a hand, gave energy to her exhausted limbs and often heavy heart.
There were young men from all over the place: Australians, Canadians, lads from Belgium and Serbia. And some local. On arrival, the first question they asked, in whatever language they could, was, ‘Where am I?’ And a lucky few were alight with happiness when they were from the area and found they had been brought to Birmingham.
One evening, once things had calmed down, Annie was doing a round of observations, taking temperatures and pulses, having a word or two with each patient. The beds were crammed so close together that she had bruises all down her shins from clambering about making beds and seeing to her patients.
In a row right in the middle of the Great Hall, she saw that another patient had arrived and was recovering from surgery. As she approached she glanced at him, then focused on him more closely. He seemed somehow familiar.
She looked down the list they were compiling of the new patients and a name jumped out at her. She looked back at him. Yes – it was!
His eyes were closed. His face looked sunken and the top half of his body was swathed in bandages, but he was breathing evenly. The cropped hair made his handsome, strong-boned face look thinner than she remembered.
‘Hello?’
She glanced down at the list again. She wasn’t mistaken? No, it definitely said Dennis Poole.
‘Den?’
His eyes opened then. For a moment utter terror flickered across his features, before he took in where he was. His licked his lips.
‘Who’re . . . ?’ He looked intently. ‘Are you . . . Miss Hanson?’
She smiled, suddenly overjoyed to see him.
‘Yes! And Den, you’re in Birmingham – did you know?’
‘Ar,’ he said vaguely. ‘Think so.’
‘What happened?’ she said.
‘Can’t remember, really.’ He frowned. ‘They said I’ve got a chest full of metal.’
‘Well – not any more, perhaps,’ Annie smiled. ‘You’ve been operated on. Are you comfortable?’
‘Could do with some water.’
She helped him raise his head and sip a little.
‘Will yer tell our Lizzie I’m ’ere?’
‘I’ll try,’ she said, thinking she would have to write – there seemed no time ever to go anywhere at the moment. ‘You carry on resting – that’s the best thing you can do.’
‘Nurse?’ He reached out a hand as she was about to walk away.
‘Yes, what is it?’
‘Will yer . . . I mean, I’d like Daisy to know I’m . . . to see her?’<
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‘Daisy?’ She stared down at him, trying to work out this surprising request. Even though Den and Daisy had known each other since they were thrown together as children, she had never thought of them as being close in any way. Of course, Den would have no idea what had happened to Daisy over the last months. Perhaps he just wanted to see another familiar face.
‘What about Lizzie and Ivy?’ she said.
‘Ar – them an’ all. But Daisy,’ he insisted. ‘Ask ’er, will yer?’
Twenty-Five
Daisy stepped down from the tram into the sunshine of the Bristol Road.
Setting out from home on this mysterious mission to the hospital, she had had to leave Hester with Margaret again. As she walked along towards the turning, she felt her spirits lift. Oh, it was nice to be out on her own, to be free again and go somewhere different! Her youthful days of being able to take off wherever she liked in her spare time – wandering through the Rag Market or the shops in New Street – had come abruptly to an end. Her only other reason for leaving Hester now was to teach her classes. They sometimes went out to the Wattses’ house with all the children at weekends, but otherwise she felt she had been chained to the same four walls for an eternity.
Walking up the road to the university, as trucks, motor cycles and ambulances came and went, she felt a surge of well-being. Her young body had healed from Hester’s birth and though she was still feeding her, those urgent, unpredictable rushes of milk had slowed to something steadier. Striding along in her blue-and-white frock, feeling the breeze through the straw of her hat, she began to feel almost young again.
But as she reached the entrance to the hospital, with its huge, imposing buildings, nerves began to take over. The note from Annie which had arrived yesterday was in her pocket. When it arrived she had been doing some work in the office for Pa, while Hester was asleep after a morning feed.
Aunt Hatt had drifted into the office, as she seemed to do more and more often these days. Georgie being called up had made her restless with worry all the time and she always wanted someone to talk with to take her mind off it.
