The War Nurses

by Lizzie Page

  ‘We will write,’ Elsie said, which of course meant I would write.

  Before he left, Cyril whispered into my ear, ‘A word of advice.’ He was so close that I could feel the bushiness of his protruding moustache.

  I was going to say: I don’t need your advice, thank you. What was it about men who didn’t know what we did telling us what we ought and oughtn’t do?

  But Cyril was just being silly – he pointed at the puzzle. ‘You should do the edges first. Don’t you know? You’re making it so much harder on yourself!’

  I laughed and kissed his cheek goodbye, the Continental way.

  Down in the trenches, the soldiers weren’t even ready for their tea.

  ‘They came such a long way,’ I said to Elsie.

  ‘We all come a long way.’

  ‘We could have given them another hour of our time, surely?’

  Elsie grinned at me, stirring sugar into cups as we waited for the water to boil. ‘Always leave them wanting more, Mairi.’

  Shortly after the doctors’ visit, I came back from the trenches to find Elsie deep in conversation with a broad Frenchman in a too-tight, grubby shirt. His sleeves were rolled up and his chest hairs were on display. She looked up at me but didn’t introduce us; she just carried on talking, earnestly. A new Gilbert? Surely not!

  ‘One hundred francs for each one you bring here or to the hospital… Cent francs.’

  ‘D’accord.’ He spat when he spoke. ‘It’s a deal.’ And then he stomped off without saying goodbye to either of us. This was rare. We might have been at war, but there was no need to drop the social niceties.

  ‘What is going on?’ I asked after he slammed the cracked door shut. ‘What deal?’

  ‘This way the bodies get returned. Since I put up the bounty they are bringing them in like a… good harvest.’

  ‘But…’ I couldn’t believe this, ‘we shouldn’t have to pay people to return lost men.’

  ‘Can you imagine the hell those families are going through? I only have to contemplate Kenneth going missing and I think: just bring them home.’

  ‘But they should give us the bodies without the bribery.’

  ‘Well they don’t, do they, darling?’ she said shortly. ‘It’s hard work fishing them out and not everyone does as they should. I thought even you’d have grasped that by now.’

  ‘Where’s the money coming from?’

  ‘Five thousand pounds from our Scottish jaunt – thanks to you, wee bonny lass.’ I pulled away from her embrace. ‘And the photos go out. The reports go out. The headlines sing our praises. The money pours in,’ she added in a faux-dramatic voice. ‘Mairi, publicity is a devil and my soul has been truly sold.’

  I stared at her.

  Something was changing. I couldn’t put my finger on it. I couldn’t express it because it was so silly, so small, but it seemed like I wasn’t the first to know our plans any more. In fact, I wasn’t even getting to know the plans at all.

  A few miles away, there was a town, Poperinghe – ‘Pop’ the British called it – that hadn’t been taken by the Germans. Harold said he had some officer friends in Poperinghe who wanted to meet us. The first time Elsie went was in the middle of November 1915. I remember it especially because it was our one-year anniversary of being in the cellar.

  Harold did ask if I wanted to join, but I was looking after another poor chap in the cellar – trench foot – and I was reluctant to leave him alone. At least, that was my excuse. I didn’t want to go. If it were just the two of them, maybe I would have, but what conversations could I possibly have with Harold’s officer friends? How is the war progressing? How much do you pay to have dead bodies brought in? Are we going to win? It made my head ache.

  Elsie dashed around the cellar getting things in order before she left. She was full of zingy enthusiasm. Even the sick man in the corner roused himself sufficiently to stare admiringly at her. Elsie tugged firmly at the belt on her big leather coat before giving me a hug.

  ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, Mairi.’

  I laughed bitterly, thinking there was no danger of that. She ran out after Harold, calling happily, ‘Just me today, Hal!’

  When did he become Hal? I wondered. Why did we have to diminish everything? We turned everything Belgian into something small and fluffy, something easy when it wasn’t. It really wasn’t.

  * * *

  The next morning, dipping biscuits into watery, cold chocolate, Elsie was still full of enthusiasm. ‘What a place!’ she said dreamily. ‘It was like being back in Britain. Tommies everywhere.’

  ‘Really?’

  This didn’t sound like the sort of thing that would appeal to Elsie. I knew there must have been something more to it.

  There was.

  ‘There is this one Belgian bar, La Poupée – fantastic atmosphere. A guy on the piano thumping out all the old tunes and there were three sisters; one of them is called Ginger,’ she said dreamily, ‘and she was wonderful. I don’t think I’ve met anyone like her.’

  I felt inexplicably jealous. It was one thing to spend hours with Harold – I noted she didn’t cut his time short or leave him wanting more – another to spend her time with another woman. Nevertheless, I tried to look as unconcerned as I could.

  ‘Why do they call her that?’

  ‘Her hair is the colour of yours,’ said Elsie, wiping the chocolate stain off her cheek. I couldn’t help feeling she meant, that’s where the resemblance ends!

  ‘And what does she do?’

  ‘She’s the daughter of the bar owner.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘She talks. She talks to the officers, gets them to buy drinks. She drinks too, she could drink us under the table. Hal’ – she looked at me meaningfully – ‘Harold likes her.’

  I didn’t say anything. What was I meant to say? I was thinking, Is she a prostitute, this ‘Ginger’ woman? Surely Harold wouldn’t be so daft as to get involved in that kind of thing. He once told me that his parents expected him to marry a titled woman ‘at the very least’. I doubted whether ‘she could drink us under the table’ constituted a title. Harold wasn’t a man to go against his parents’ wishes. He had a strong sense of familial duty. That was one of the reasons he and I got on well.

  ‘How good it was to have female company again!’

  ‘Do you lack female company?’ I asked pointedly.

  ‘Other than you, darling.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘No, you don’t see, silly.’ Elsie put down her cup and tickled me. I hated it when she did that. ‘It was fun. That’s all.’

  Fun, I thought grimly. More of the stuff I didn’t do.

  I didn’t see Harold again for several months. Elsie didn’t mention his absence, so I didn’t bring it up either. We had plenty to keep ourselves busy but I missed his visits and prayed that he was well. When he next came by the cellar in the spring of 1916, Elsie nudged me. ‘It’s your turn to go to Pop, Mairi.’ She got into the new ambulance and drove off without a single word or even a wave to Harold.

  I thought they may have had an argument, but I didn’t know when they might have done so. Harold didn’t seem to mind or notice Elsie’s behaviour though, which I found reassuring.

  ‘Shall we go then?’ he asked, smiling affectionately at me, or at Shot, who was nuzzled in my arms. I had been going to pretend I’d never heard of Pop, but he must have known Elsie would have told me all about it.

  I remembered Ginger and thought, Wow, he is keen.

  ‘I don’t feel like going anywhere far away today,’ I said hesitantly, ‘if you don’t mind?’ I was afraid Harold would shrug and head off without me, but instead, he said he understood my feelings – which was probably more than I did.

  ‘Do you want to be left alone?’ he asked uncertainly.

  I shook my head. ‘I’d like to go somewhere quiet.’

  ‘I know just the place.’ His voice was soft. He asked if he could have a cuddle with Shot before we left. Awkwardly,
I handed Shot to him and watched our dear fella cleave himself to Harold’s broad chest.

  ‘He does the spirit good,’ Harold said, stroking Shot’s head and around his ears. Shot was delighted. I couldn’t speak for a moment.

  ‘He does,’ I agreed.

  * * *

  It had been a while since I’d last ridden a horse and at first, I clung on to Harold’s back like a beginner. He smelled of cigarettes – Elsie’s probably – and leather and… man, I suppose. Within seconds, it came back to me and I relaxed, loosened my grip on Harold and just felt that wonderful ache of freedom. If only I could re-live all those times Uilleam and I used to take out the bikes… This time I would ride with the knowledge of how precious and precarious everything was.

  If Harold preferred gallivanting with Elsie to being with me he didn’t show it. And if Harold preferred to be with the party girl Ginger, instead of the quiet ginger nurse, he didn’t show that either. He was a gentleman. He made you feel like the most important person in the world. He was the opposite of Arthur. I had thought long and hard about Arthur’s nasty ‘cock-tease’ comment. Although I had never heard that phrase before, it was easy to work out what it meant. It meant he had tried yet hadn’t got anywhere with her: Arthur never worked out that nobody got anywhere with Elsie, not even Hal… not properly anyway. And for reasons not to his credit, Arthur was sore about that.

  We sat down amid a pretty copse of trees. Doris, the horse, stood nearby chewing grass. Sunlight dappled the leaves. The birds chirruped a welcome. I had to admit, Harold had chosen well. We passed a splendid hour or so making jokes and easy talk about politics, horses, families and cars. He let me blather on about my schooldays. He didn’t make me feel small for having little of consequence to talk about, but seemed genuinely engaged in Mrs Ford’s unfair uniform regulations and Miss Howard’s stutter.

  Harold produced a bar of chocolate, which we shared, and then he lay down, a blade of grass between his lips. He had turned melancholy, which wasn’t like him.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked and my heart started racing fervently. Was he going to make a declaration? Had he found his true ginger?

  Harold sighed, hesitated and then said, ‘I want my country back, Mairi.’

  ‘You’ll get it back,’ I said more confidently than I felt. I ran the chocolate from my teeth with my tongue.

  ‘So much suffering.’

  I quoted Psalm 28:7 to him. ‘The Lord is my strength and my shield: my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy.’

  Harold looked at me. I had forgotten how deep his eyes were. He sat up suddenly, and from his overcoat pulled out a New Testament. I realised with surprise it was one of the copies my mother’s group had sent. Goodness knows how he had got hold of it!

  ‘Read me something.’

  ‘What… what would you like?’

  He sighed deeply. ‘Something for one who is sick and tired of the pain his people go through.’

  I rifled through the pages and found my beloved Luke:

  Suppose one of you have a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbours together and says, ‘Rejoice with me: I have found my lost sheep.’

  Harold smiled at me. ‘Such a beautiful voice, Mairi. It is made for reading the Bible.’

  You said that about my singing voice when we first met, I thought. And more…

  ‘Thank you.’ I smiled, never more conscious of my poor teeth, my lopsided face, my unflattering hair.

  He lay back on the grass. I stayed seated until pins and needles forced a change in position, then I lowered myself on to my back beside him. Why was this so awkward for me? I stared up at the clouds moving insouciantly across the sky. I had planned at some stage to bounce up with a ‘It’s time to go Harold, the boys need their soup!’, but I couldn’t bring myself to cut short our time, whatever Elsie might advise.

  I didn’t realise he had fallen asleep at first, but when I caught on that his breath had changed pace, I let myself doze off too. If only our days were always this peaceful…

  Harold woke me up some time later. It was time to go; he had to get back. He pulled me up by the hand. I lost my balance and he steadied me. I couldn’t stop smiling. How soft his palm was against mine.

  ‘Do you ever pray with Elsie?’ I don’t know why I asked. I should have known the answer.

  ‘One day.’ He winked at me. ‘I’ll get her in the end.’

  Oh no, you won’t, I thought, but I said nothing.

  Back in Glasgow, I had planned to write to Jack only once or twice a year – a Christmas card perhaps or a cheery birthday message – but I found it difficult to hold back. We got into such a habit – he was like cigarettes! Each time I poured out my grief or anger in letters to him, I felt stronger. It was a curious thing. And he seemed to welcome hearing from me – even my darkest thoughts of barbarian invasions or my accounts of witnessing atrocities.

  All of his letters began: ‘It’s so marvellous of you to write!’ or ‘How wonderful to receive your letters.’ And they came two or three times a month! I looked forward to them even though he wasn’t the greatest wordsmith and his tone was invariably flatter than I’d have liked. But when he described his life at Stow Maries, his writing virtually flew off the page:

  They say planes will take over everything soon. Can you imagine, the sky teeming with great big mechanical birds?

  He didn’t make any rash declarations of love, which was a relief. I didn’t want to lose what we had with that nonsense. I enjoyed having a correspondent who seemed genuinely interested in what was happening. All the things I shielded from Mother and Uilleam I let out on the page to Jack:

  How much longer can we keep going? What choice do we have? If the boys are here, we have to be here too. It’s so strange but it feels as though we are linked to these soldiers by a fine invisible line, a line like the trench itself – zig-zaggy – so you can’t attack it so easily.

  * * *

  We can’t abandon them. We can’t give up. And even stranger, I feel this way about all the men: the Belgian, the British, the French, yes, but also the Germans and the Austrians. I have met them, I have nursed them, and they are good people, Jack, normal boys.

  By the summer of 1916, my letters were crammed with the heat, the insects and the oppressive wheeze of shells overhead. My constant fear was that the line would be broken and we would be forced to submit to the Hun. Yes, I knew they were good and normal men, but I also knew what good and normal men did in a war. I had no illusions any more. Would they kill us there and then or take us as prisoners of war? I don’t know how he must have felt reading all this.

  I described how Elsie didn’t fret about all that, how her only concern was that the authorities would send us away. I told him about the wounded boys, and the sicknesses we couldn’t treat, and the ones we could, the terrible vicious sniping. I wrote ‘the numbers are just overwhelming, Jack, I’ve lost count of how many I’ve seen die.’ I mentioned our nickname, ‘the Madonnas’, and explained how the fan mail made me feel like an imposter. I told him how we always joked that little Shot was our secret weapon: he disarmed all who met him. I even told him how I couldn’t stand ox tongue but, really, corned beef was no better. For some reason, I didn’t mention Harold once. Not my trip out to ride Doris that precious day back in March, or that Harold came by the cellar now at least once every month. We continued our silly plans for ‘when all this is over.’ He promised us Paris. We would drink absinthe – well, Elsie would – at the Moulin Rouge. We would climb to the top of Notre Dame – at least I would, and take a boat trip along the River Seine. Harold told us his life stories too: about growing up a ‘pampered child’ in a strict Catholic family, about his successes and losses. And when Elsie wasn’t about, he told me about his love for the Church and his hopes to be part
of a congregation again.

  There was no need to tell Jack all of this.

  I did however tell Jack that my scalped sister, Elsie, seemed more preoccupied than ever and I didn’t understand why.

  Jack understood.

  I felt better after each letter. There is something healthy in honesty, I decided. Nothing changed, but I was lighter and brighter each time I shared my struggles.

  In August 1916, we tried to organise recreation tents. Boxing and beer, and other things for the boys to do when they were on a break from the front line. All the loitering was tough. A football tournament was Harold’s idea, though because of his leg he couldn’t play; he was stuck being the referee. He seemed inordinately proud of the whistle he wore on a string around his neck.

  ‘To tell you the truth, Mairi,’ he told me before kick-off, ‘I was never good at the game even when my leg was not gammy. This suits me,’ he said, blowing his whistle, then winking at me. ‘Keeping everyone in line.’

  He had never winked at me before, and although it was delightful, I couldn’t help wondering where it had come from. It was distinctly un-Harold.

  I watched him stride out onto the mudflat: the outline of his T-shirt with its braces reminded me briefly of Tommy. Harold was even taller and broader than Tommy had been. His trousers fitted tighter at the back. The players were already racing around. It was Britain vs Belgium. Nine-a-side – although it looked as though there were more Belgians than British. For goals, there were jumpers or coats: it wasn’t cold but then no one ever seemed to get cold when they were playing sports.

  Gazing at the men as they passed the ball, I felt like I was watching a metronome – hypnotised by the back-and-forth. They played as though this was what they were born for. A football at their feet, not a gun in their hands. The ball gliding between them like a bird soaring up in the air, then swooping down like a diving fish. Then the whistle blew – Harold – a foul committed, a minor altercation, laughter, a free kick. An attempt at a goal: England 1, Belgium 0. Back to the centre, back to the beginning. If only life were always like this, if only there was no war. But there was – just one hundred yards away.