The War Nurses

by Lizzie Page

  I imagined a massive shell falling now. The squeal and the smash. I imagined Harold ricocheting into the air. Me finding him. Holding him; his head nestling in my lap, dust in his hair and on his lips, bending my head to kiss him. Our lips meeting. Not too dry – moist, smooth. His hand on the back of my neck, fingers on my throat. Time disappears…

  ‘Mairi, Mairi!’

  I looked up with a start.

  ‘BALL!’ The men were shouting and pointing and may have been for some time. I squelched my way over to the ball, and whacked it back with my left foot. Flashback of discovering a head without its body. Swallow down the sickness, think of good things.

  The ball arched up, landing at a Belgian boy’s feet. Unlike Harold, I used to be quite the talent at football. Uilleam would let me join in with the village matches if they were short of men. I was best in midfield. I set up goals, then the striker would come along, firmly placing the ball in the net as easily as putting a baby in its cradle, and get all the glory.

  Harold waved gratefully at me and, shyly, I raised a hand back. I wouldn’t mention the football to Jack. Honesty was one thing; this was another. I heard one of the boys, a buck-toothed lad from the Midlands who was very fond of Shot, say to his mate, ‘What the hell is the matter with old Mairi today?’

  * * *

  When I got back to the cellar that afternoon, Elsie was writing a letter for Bernard, a patient who was too weak to hold a pen. Elsie would be the first to confess she wasn’t great at writing the mens’ letters. She would always prefer to tweezer out bullets from a man’s chest, or saw off a gangrenous finger. Still, she liked Bernard, with his dark eyes and olive skin, and he liked her, so she had settled next to him with paper on her lap.

  ‘You’ve got five minutes,’ she announced. If I had said this, it would have seemed rude, but the men liked it when Elsie was bossy.

  ‘Dear Ma,’ he began. Smiling, Elsie dutifully wrote.

  ‘I hope you got the money I sent and that you and Pa are in good health. Don’t worry about me. Things are going fine.’

  Elsie raised her eyes, putting down her pen. ‘You want me to put “Things are going fine”?’ I looked at her. I’d never dream of telling the boys what they should write. This wasn’t our role.

  Bernard wasn’t annoyed. He laughed until he spluttered. ‘So you want me to tell them about my predicament?’

  Elsie considered coyly. ‘All right, go on then.’

  ‘The good news, Ma, is that I have met a wonderful girl—’

  ‘Ah,’ teased Elsie. ‘Wonderful, was she?’

  ‘And I am thinking of asking her to marry me.’

  Elsie’s eyes were raised to the heavens, yet she continued to write.

  ‘She’s a nurse from England and her name is Elsie Knocker!’ He laughed like a drain.

  Elsie slapped her thigh, bursting out, ‘You rotter, Bernard!’

  He spluttered again. I stood on alert in case he choked.

  Elsie continued tsking. ‘You had me there.’

  ‘Wish I did!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Have you.’

  I gazed at the two of them in amazement. The other men were smiling as they listened to the exchange.

  ‘Don’t you have a fella, Elsie?’

  ‘You are all my fellas.’ Elsie looked over at me. ‘Isn’t that right, Mairi?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ I said hesitantly. I wanted to join in but couldn’t capture the tone.

  ‘You don’t have a special one?’

  Is she going to say Harold? I held my breath.

  ‘I don’t want a special one,’ Elsie said with one eyebrow exquisitely arched. ‘Why should I select just one?’

  ‘Good point,’ Bernard said longingly.

  Elsie scrunched up the paper, muttering about wasted ink, while Bernard fell asleep, a smile still playing on his lips.

  20

  Autumn was fast rolling into winter when my father arrived in Pervyse. He strode around the Western Front like he owned the place and was considering the financial impact of improvements. I was afraid a sniper would take his head off, but part of me was also thinking, It would teach him a lesson.

  He greeted me by shoving a note from my mother in my face: once again, her correspondence was full of questions about Mrs Knocker. Last year’s meeting in London had not satisfied her lust for information but fed her desire instead. Even Uilleam barely got a mention.

  My father had brought nothing else with him: no food, no soap, no supplies for us or the boys. He must have known we were in dire need – even the most single-minded journalists who visited brought something!

  There wasn’t much to show him, I realised belatedly. I took him into the cellar and indicated the straw where we piggies slept. He couldn’t work up much interest in my puzzles. I introduced him to a disinterested Paul and, later, to Martin, who managed a ‘Hey’.

  Three young men were resting by the stove. My father nodded at the one who was awake. The boy was snuggled up under a blanket. You couldn’t see at first but Shot was cosied up there too, his damp nose on the boy’s chest.

  ‘How is it out there?’

  ‘Purgatory…’ the soldier squeaked. Shot let out a contented sigh.

  My father didn’t like that. ‘What’s the matter with him?’ he whispered to me.

  ‘Syphilis,’ I said, knowing he wouldn’t like the answer. ‘It’s rife. We are treating that and gonorrhoea every few days now.’

  Father looked away in disgust. They never put that in the papers, I thought scornfully.

  It wasn’t just my mother who was obsessed with Mrs Knocker. My father wanted to talk of nothing but Elsie too.

  ‘I hear this friend of yours is a madwoman.’

  ‘She is,’ I agreed. ‘A very wonderful madwoman.’

  Father lit a cigarette. It was foolishly pleasurable to take one and smoke with him. I was one of the grown-ups now.

  ‘We call it the golden hour. If we can get to them within that time, we have a chance of saving them… A few I mean, some are too far gone—’

  ‘She’s a Jewess?’ my father interrupted.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Elsie – a Jew?’

  ‘No. Gosh! She has no faith whatsoever.’ I laughed. ‘She actually prides herself on believing in nothing.’

  ‘In her photographs… she’s got that way about her,’ my father declared.

  ‘Umm.’ I didn’t know what to say. ‘I believe she’s from a long line of doctors.’ Surely this would win him over?

  ‘Like that Dr Freud fellow Munro goes on about?’

  No. ‘Dr Freud? Was he from Dorset?’ I asked.

  Elsie appeared, as if on cue. She had been clearing out the ambulance after last night’s tragedies. I could see my father looking her up and down. Taking in her short hair – he wouldn’t like that – and her good looks – he would like those, under normal circumstances.

  ‘You must be Roderick,’ she said coolly. ‘Come to observe the great war effort up close?’

  ‘Elsie.’

  She looked at me. ‘We have another flat tyre.’

  ‘I’ll do it.’

  She looked at my father. ‘Please tell everyone what we are doing here.’ Then she strode away. Little dust clouds rose from her feet. Well that was quick, I thought.

  My father‘s eyes were bulging. He could hardly bring himself to speak, he was so outraged at her bad manners.

  ‘I am astonished that the world is calling her an angel. I don’t know why they let her stay here. They’ll change their minds soon enough.’

  I couldn’t believe he would dismiss Elsie – and by implication, me – in that way. Despite being here, it seemed he still had no idea what we went through each day. He must have thought I agreed with him. ‘Her only genius is charming the Belgian authorities.’

  ‘And taking care of the wounded. And the dead,’ I said furiously.

  ‘And the wounded and the dead,’ my father admitted as though they didn’t count
.

  ‘Well, that’s the only genius we need out here.’

  We walked down to the trenches, squelched through the muddy water. Squeezed along the terrible zig-zags that were so murderous to get into or out of. Men greeted me with ‘Hello Mairi,’ ‘Morning Madonna’ or ‘Where’s Elsie?’ They were preparing for another offensive soon: you could feel the tension in the air. These soldiers were rattled and rightly so; soon they would be standing up and running towards their deaths.

  Rumour had it that there was a French troop further down the line who made sheep noises – ‘baa-baa-baa’ – as they rose out of their trenches to be slaughtered.

  My father saluted the soldiers. ‘Excellent work, men.’ They stared at him, blankly.

  * * *

  ‘And this Baron…’ Father said out of the blue, when we were back in the cellar later that afternoon. ‘Is he in love with Elsie then?’

  This made me uneasy. I had mentioned Harold in my letters to my mother, but we never bothered with his title here. And why was my father saying this about Harold anyway? Harold, who was a good friend to both of us?

  Harold? In love with Elsie?

  The possibility had, of course, occurred to me afer the Glasgow trip, but I had decided that Harold was no more in love with Elsie than he was with his horse Doris! (That said, Harold did adore Doris.) I wondered where my father was getting his information from.

  ‘Everyone who’s met Elsie is in love with her!’ I said.

  ‘I’m not,’ my father said defiantly. ‘Nor is Munro by all accounts.’

  ‘She has something…’ I said. ‘People are attracted to her.’ I was about to say, like moths to a flame, but he snorted, and I knew he was thinking, like flies to shit.

  Father wouldn’t let it drop. I took our poorly boys to Paul and they climbed into the ambulance. They were going to a recuperation centre further up the line. If they were lucky – or unlucky, I was never sure – we might see them again in six months. I waved them goodbye, then returned to my father, who was staring at my puzzle with his habitual sneer on his face.

  ‘So, is Elsie in love with the Baron then?’

  I laughed at the idea of Elsie in love. That was funny. ‘No! Elsie loves romancing all the men. It’s her hobby. Like those,’ I pointed to the jigsaw, ‘are mine. She says, “do whatever it takes to get you through.”’ My father scowled.

  I suppose I liked talking about Elsie too. I added conspiratorially something Lady D and I had discussed. ‘It sounds odd but I think Elsie may still be in love with her late husband. He died… prematurely.’

  ‘She’s a gadabout.’ Father’s voice was full of contempt. But I still thought I could get him to understand.

  ‘She calls the men she sees “Gilbert the Filberts”, after the song.’ I thought for a moment. ‘Do you know it?’

  I started to sing: ‘I'm Gilbert the Filbert the Knut with a K. The pride of Piccadilly the blasé roué—’

  I breathed in for the next part of the verse, but Father interrupted.

  ‘I know it,’ he said. ‘Your voice hasn’t improved much, has it? I’m surprised.’

  I fell silent.

  * * *

  I had told Elsie and Dr Munro that my father would sleep in the cellar with us – why not? – but they laughed. It was unthinkable. Arthur and Helen’s room at Furnes was still vacant, so he was given permission to stay there and I would go with him.

  I begged Elsie to come and spend the night with us at Furnes. It was painful being with my father. I shouldn’t have expected him to warm to me or to be impressed with what we did, but I had. Just an ounce of respect would have been enough but he couldn’t do it. Elsie said she would be fine in the cellar – ‘it’s only one night after all’ – but she hated being alone and I couldn’t help feeling anxious about her. Who would hold her hand when she shouted in her sleep?

  As I drove away from the cellar, the sense of impending doom that had arrived with my father increased. I wished I were driving in the opposite direction. I was tempted to turn the car around! Just as I was telling myself that I was being ridiculous – just concentrate on the road – Father cleared his throat importantly. He needed to tell me something about Uilleam. I felt ten times worse. Surely Uilleam can’t be dead? Wouldn’t Father have told me sooner?

  ‘What’s he done now?’

  Father stared out at the ravaged landscape. He didn’t speak.

  ‘Father? What is it?’

  ‘It’s complicated.’

  I wasn’t sure how to proceed so I thought, What would Elsie say now?

  ‘Mother told me about the complication with his engagement. He didn’t get some native girl in trouble, did he?’ I suggested brightly. I thought, My brother is definitely what we’d call a Gilbert. Or what my father would call a gadabout.

  The expression on my father’s face was twisted. ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Then what?’

  My darling brother. I always looked up to him. There is a photo of us with me as a baby in his arms; he is looking at the camera with a mixture of thrill and horror on his face. That’s Uilleam!

  ‘He’s disappeared.’

  Disappeared? My hands flew to my chest and the car slid on the road; my heart was beating fast. Despite my dark premonition, I hadn’t expected this.

  ‘What—’

  ‘He’s left the house, no one there has seen him.’

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘A few weeks.’

  ‘You’re only just telling me now?’

  My father scratched at the dashboard, moodily.

  ‘So… what are you saying?’

  ‘The police are looking for him… there’s an investigation.’

  ‘A police investigation? Why? What’s he done? Is Uilleam on the run?’

  When the men go AWOL here, they get shot, but Uilleam wasn’t in the services; he was the owner’s son on a sugar plantation. It didn’t add up.

  ‘It appears that way.’

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Put it this way – you know Major General Sir Hector Macdonald?’ Father asked scathingly. ‘At least he did the decent thing in the end.’

  I didn’t know what on earth he was talking about.

  ‘Um… is Uilleam hurt, do you think?’

  ‘Hurt?’ My father’s chuckle was bitter. ‘He managed to pack my car with all his things and make his getaway. Damn deserves to get hurt. Disgusting fool.’

  I still didn’t know what he was trying to say. I hadn’t heard from Uilleam for a few months, but unlike Jack, my brother had always been sporadic with his letters. I resolved to write to him as soon as I could. My father’s face had grown tight. He was lined and whiskered. You’re an old man, I realised and it didn’t make me feel compassionate; in fact, the more I looked at him, the crueller I felt. So many boys won’t get the chance to be an old man like you – and yet you don’t seem to understand your privilege.

  ‘Don’t send him any money, Mairi. Whatever he says.’

  ‘I don’t have any money,’ I replied as we took the tight turn at the iron gates of Furnes.

  ‘Good.’

  21

  The following morning, I had only just ferried us back to Pervyse when Harold rode up on Doris. I was, as always, delighted to see them. Doris neighed and my father, who loved a horse more than he loved most animals (and probably most humans), walked over and patted her long snowy nose affectionately.

  ‘Oh Harold! You haven’t met yet. This is my father… this is the Baron.’

  Harold and Father shook hands. Father complimented him on Doris, then commenced to educate Harold about all the wonderful horses he had ever owned and how he should look after her. Harold listened politely but I could tell his mind was elsewhere.

  ‘Coffee, Harold?’

  Usually, Harold would accept and come down straight away but he didn’t today. I wondered if Father’s equine tales were pu
tting him off. He fiddled with the leather straps of his bag, before asking, ‘Actually, Mairi, is Elsie here?’

  ‘She’s not in the cellar?’

  ‘No.’

  She might have stayed up with the engineers. She was probably gadding about with another Gilbert, but I couldn’t say that even if my glaring father was unlikely to hear.

  ‘Is it… important, Harold?’

  He looked over at my father and me, screwing up his face in the sunlight.

  ‘Rather. I have news.’

  * * *

  I found Elsie in the trenches, comforting a poor young lad with the most terrible nerves. She had already got in an argument with his commanding officer about him once before, but she daren’t push it too much.

  ‘Sixteen,’ she mouthed at me. I winced. The pain of the younger boys was most dreadful to bear. Over his jerking blond head, I whispered that Harold had been to see us. Cautiously, I added that he had news. She made a face that told me that she had not been expecting him.

  ‘Is it good or bad?’ she asked. I said I couldn’t tell. I didn’t think it was bad, but who knew?

  Had they finally ejected us out of the Western Front? A new rule or regulation they wouldn’t bend for us? Would we stop being the exceptions? It made me despair to imagine the boys without us. Sixteen. I couldn’t bear to think of Elsie and me without the cellar. It was all so unfair.

  That afternoon, Elsie and I had tea and stilted conversation with my father in the cellar. We were on tenterhooks until Harold eventually knocked and we both raced to be first to let him in. By contrast, Harold was ludicrously slow and ridiculously formal. Even I wanted to shout, Hurry up, for goodness’ sake, Harold! Then he rummaged into his bag as though he was performing a magic trick: was he going to pull out another rabbit? It had to be the dreaded papers telling us to leave. We were the only women left on the Western Front and perhaps we didn’t sit well on their consciences.