The War Nurses

by Lizzie Page

  One of the nurses gave me a new look of respect and whispered, ‘Nice one, Mairi.’

  I wondered if Elsie knew Harold had come to see me. There wasn’t a way I could find to ask.

  We stopped at the end of the corridor since, to my shame, I was already tired. Harold politely pretended that he was tired too. We looked out the window. There were a few flowers in the distant fields. They hadn’t been there, or at least I hadn’t noticed them, three years ago.

  Amazing how resilient nature can be. They were bright-red poppies – I had never really liked their bold, gaudy ways. I would have preferred a less pushy flower, a paler flower with a stronger scent perhaps. But still, it seemed to me at that moment that I was looking at something astonishingly beautiful. Something I might remember for a long time. Had they not each, in their own way, crawled out from darkness?

  ‘How is Elsie, Harold?’ I couldn’t say ‘your wife’.

  ‘Back on the front. She sends her love, naturally.’

  ‘Naturally,’ I repeated. She did know he was coming here then?

  ‘She is not at the cellar?’

  I wanted to check that this, at least, was true.

  ‘No, it’s completely destroyed. The war shows no sign of abating – so she carries on. You know Elsie.’

  Do I?

  ‘She always wanted to protect you, Mairi,’ he said. You don’t know the half of it, I thought.

  I imagined him introducing Elsie to his large family. ‘The Madonna of Pervyse.’ Did he tell them there were two of us? Tears came to my eyes. I couldn’t help myself. ‘I feel as though the war will never end.’

  Harold took hold of my hand. I thought of all the time I had spent thinking about him and felt as though I should die of shame.

  A couple of nurses clipped towards us, smart in freshly pressed uniforms, talking and smiling, trusting each other. Elsie and I probably used to look like that.

  Clearing his throat importantly, Harold said. ‘I was so sad to hear about your fiancé. What terrible luck. And in England too! He was flying?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Knowing you loved him would have been a great comfort.’

  Did he know I loved him? I didn’t even know if he received my answer to his proposal.

  ‘He was a Christian?’

  I nodded, although I wasn’t certain. That’s how little I knew Jack, really. That’s how little I knew anyone.

  ‘Then Mairi, he is with the good Lord now.’ Harold knew me though. ‘The Kingdom of Heaven awaits. Bless you.’

  * * *

  We had run out of things to say. After a while, Harold got ready to leave and as he put on his coat, I saw nurses looking at him again the way soldiers looked at Elsie. They must make such a handsome couple. At the door, he turned back, shyly. It’s silly, but for one stupid fleeting moment, I imagined he was going to declare that it was me he would love, forever.

  ‘Everyone says you were amazing with the disturbed boy here.’

  ‘I wasn’t amazing,’ I said truthfully. ‘He deserved so much more.’

  He nodded. ‘There is so much suffering.’

  It seemed to me that he wanted to say something else. I waited for it, whatever it was – biting my lower lip hard enough to draw blood, aching for him to continue.

  I thought of Jack’s letter: ‘Sometimes, it’s easier to think of myself not as an individual person, but just as one part of a great swathe of millions of people born and living around now. Just a segment, a cog in the wheel.’ Suddenly I understood what he meant.

  Harold stood, wringing his hands. And then, here it came: ‘You know, Elsie has such terrible dreams.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t believe in ghosts.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And yet—’

  ‘It is not ghosts,’ I said.

  Maybe Elsie wanted me to tell him?

  ‘But you have heard her terror, Mairi? Every night.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It may sound far-fetched but… it sounds, it sounds like her late husband is haunting her from the grave!’

  From that point, it couldn’t have been much easier. He walked into it. Lord – for once, I was going to save everyone.

  I had never felt so strongly about anything.

  ‘That couldn’t be further from the truth, Harold.’

  35

  The November morning I was discharged was cool and grey-skied with barely a breeze in the air. I was lucky that (barring a torpedo hit) my crossing of the Channel was, once again, likely to be smooth. Clara, who had been copiously sick on her tumultuous journey over, was relieved on my behalf. ‘Looks like you’ll have untroubled waters today. You’re so lucky, Mairi.’

  When Dr Munro came to the ward, he looked smarter than usual: he had brushed down his thinning hair. I thought back to his visit to our house in Dorset, all that time ago, when I had thought he was after my hand. That hadn’t been the only time I’d imagined innocent men were about to declare their love for me.

  I wondered what life would be like if I had never joined the flying ambulance corps. Never come to help the war effort in Belgium. Never seen the things I had seen. Not lost my innocence in this way.

  No, when all was said and done, I was glad I had made my contribution.

  ‘Still such a young thing,’ he said. I realised for the first time that Dr Munro had been like a father to me, and as soon as I realised this, I felt a pain that it had taken me so long to understand. Who had taught me, who had guided me, who had believed in me? It wasn’t only Elsie.

  ‘I’m twenty-one now,’ I responded wearily. ‘I certainly don’t feel young.’

  ‘Your whole life is ahead of you,’ he said. I noticed how much he had aged these past few years. His moustache was completely silver now and he walked with a limp more marked even than Harold’s.

  ‘Well done, Mairi Chisholm. Order of the Belgian Empire. You and Elsie have done much to be admired—’

  ‘No—’ I began.

  ‘You have taught me about teamwork! You two, living like that. So brave. So selfless. An inspiration. People must know what you achieved here. You saved thousands of lives.’

  I think we both had tears in our eyes.

  Clara looked between us, fascinated at such an emotional display from the reputedly unemotional doctor, then she gave me a cool kiss on the cheek. She had the address for poor Edward at his ‘special’ hospital.

  ‘I bet he’d love to see you,’ she said, pushing a folded piece of paper into my palm.

  I said goodbye to the bandaged boy. A faint voice whispered back, ‘Bye.’

  Clara looked up at me with shining eyes. She whispered. ‘That’s the first time he’s spoken since he was brought in.’

  Dr Munro walked me from the room, carrying my few bits of luggage. Outside, we stood before the gates, the gates that were so difficult to enter on that dark, rainy night with injured men in the back of the car. Dr Munro was lending us his Wolseley ambulance to drive to the coast. It was a beast of a machine, a new design that was long and heavy, with a large screen and fat twin headlamps. Ten people could fit in the back.

  ‘It drinks petrol like…’ he said, shaking his head.

  ‘Like Lady D drinks tea?’

  ‘More like how Arthur drank rum.’

  We laughed. He thanked me again and saluted me. His heels clicked together as he did.

  Elsie was waiting by the ambulance. I hobbled over to her. I hadn’t known how to use the walking stick at first. When to lean, when not to. Fancy having to be taught how to use a stick! It occurred to me that when I had sent off injured boys from the cellar, I had had absolutely no idea what struggles lay ahead of them.

  I would have loved to have got behind the wheel of this vehicle, but Elsie said, ‘Absolutely not!’

  I hesitated.

  ‘Come along, Mairi,’ Elsie said kindly. ‘Be a good patient.’

  ‘That front wheel will need checking.’

  ‘I know da
rling. Stop fretting.’

  ‘Is there a spare?’

  ‘Mairi. Everything is under control.’

  I had just climbed in when I remembered. ‘Oh, Shot!’

  ‘Do you want me to come?’ offered Elsie.

  I told her there was no need.

  * * *

  During this time, hundreds of men had slipped through my fingers yet, incredibly, Shot’s was the first proper grave with a headstone that I’d seen. They’d laid out a nice space marked with a small white-marble slab. Someone had laid a posy of flowers there. Dr Munro had said he’d try to get the stone engraved. I stared at it, thinking of my infinite list: Nazareth, the German boy, the falling house, hundreds of boys in the trenches, the post-boy, Dr Gus, Elsie’s brother Sam, my Jack… Sweet Madeleine.

  Our brave dog didn’t deserve this. We should have protected him.

  I never got to show Elsie how he could shake paws.

  I prayed to God. I prayed for Him to forgive us all for our sins and I reminded Him that I was ready – as ever – to do his work.

  I walked back to where Elsie was leaning against the car. She really was the picture of newly married health. One leg straight, one leg bent, she looked like she was posing for a photograph. I remembered one of the soldiers describing her as ‘radiant’. One man told me that she was a reminder that there was life in the world. Another said that when Elsie came into the trenches, he thought of his mother, his wife and his baby daughter all rolled into one and he would do anything to make her proud of him.

  ‘I’ll come back soon,’ I choked out. I felt overcome with emotion. Washed up and wrung out. I couldn’t leave now; there was so much to attend to, so much to finish.

  ‘You’re not in good enough condition to even think about it yet,’ Elsie countered.

  ‘I feel absolutely fi—’

  ‘You really have been in the wars.’ This was another of her sayings.

  ‘What times these are,’ I replied coolly and she stared at me uncertainly, as though she wasn’t sure I wasn’t laughing at her. We started up and Clara and Dr Munro waved us off and then went back into the hospital. That was the last I ever saw of them.

  * * *

  As she drove, Elsie told me she had salvaged some things from the cellar.

  ‘I didn’t think—’

  ‘It’s not everything,’ she cautioned, nodding to the drawstring bag by my toes. ‘But I did my best, Mairi.’ And it seemed to me that she was saying, I always did.

  Holding the bag on my knees, I dug through its contents. The first thing I found was a photo of us. You may have seen it – there we are, side by side, in the middle of one joke or another. I look young and determined – nothing like I did now. I could hardly reconcile that simple face with how I felt inside. Elsie looks fierce and proud. No photo that I know of has ever managed to capture Elsie’s exceptional beauty. It was like a secret only those who were there would ever know.

  There was a second photo, one of Kenneth and his classmates. There were about ten of them in the picture, but I could easily pick out Master Kenneth Knocker from the other children. It was his dark, alert, Elsie eyes and his shock of dark hair that gave him away. He was the kind of child who old ladies would stop in shops to pinch his cheeks and sigh, ‘This one will break a few hearts!’ or ‘Why does the boy always get the good looks?’ That’s what they always said to Uilleam.

  Here were my letters from Jack, wrapped in Madeleine’s red ribbon. At the sight of these, I wanted to sob. Jack’s love letters: not telling, not telling. Full of his promises to be a better man for me. Well, as it happens, Jack, you were the better one all along.

  ‘He loved you, Mairi.’ Elsie looked over, her face wreathed in compassion. I wondered if she’d read them. Probably not. She wasn’t the prying type.

  I doubted I would be able to read Jack’s letters for a long time.

  There was Madeleine’s bear – if it ever was her bear. There were Helen’s limericks. She never did write one for Dr Munro, did she?

  There were also a few articles from newspapers. I didn’t know anyone had been cutting them out. There was the one that read HANDBAGS FOR SANDBAGS!, and another that I didn’t recall ever seeing from March 1915: BEST FRIENDS ARE MORE LIKE SISTERS. There was an article with a photo that – God help me – made me look exactly like my father. There was also a scrap of paper, grimy and creased, which had the faded words ‘Votes for Women’ on it.

  I reached into the bottom of the bag, feeling that there was still something there. It felt like a book and for a moment I thought it might be Madeleine’s homework book and I won’t be able to bear that. Pulling it into the light, I realised it was just Helen’s silly old romance. How I wished I hadn’t read it. Truly.

  Some puzzles don’t need to be put together.

  * * *

  Along the road back to Ostend, there were burnt-out cottages, burnt-out villages, still more sandbags, barbed wire and troops coming in. We drove towards the coast, towards the arms factories, the chimney stacks and the man-made clouds. It has to be over soon, doesn’t it?

  I thought of those 250,000 Belgian refugees back in England. I hope you are safe. I hope we looked after you.

  Down more country lanes – if you listened closely, there was the repetitive hum of the war. And you could still hear the birds. Why didn’t the birds stop singing? I suppose they just carried on, like us.

  Elsie and I were mostly silent, although she would occasionally comment on how the car was a dream to drive. ‘Modern cars just keep getting better,’ she said, sounding like Dr Munro.

  As we drew nearer to our destination, I managed to find my voice. I said, ‘Please send my love to… your husband.’

  ‘You have no idea what pleasure it is to hear the word “husband”.’ Elsie smiled dreamily. Her hands moved on the wheel from nine to three to eleven to five. ‘I will. I know how fond you are of Harold, Mairi. As he is of you.’

  I stayed silent.

  ‘And Mairi,’ Elsie lowered her voice as though these modern cars had ears. ‘You know I will tell him eventually.’

  I just managed to get the words out. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Everything. About my… past.’ She paused, pushing the car up a gear. ‘Not now though. In my own time. When we are out of this hellhole. They sent him to northern France for two weeks. So, this is our honeymoon. Hal alone in Arras. Me here in Pervyse. Haven’t heard a peep from him for ten days now. Ah, the romance! Not quite what the New York Times reported!’

  She took her eyes off the road to aim a smile at me.

  He already knows. I already told him. And you were right when you said that he wouldn’t ever forgive you.

  Elsie patted my thigh. ‘I’ve been called a lot of things in my days, Mairi, but I have to say: Baroness t’Serclaes is my favourite.’

  Here was Ostend. Here was the SS Wandilla. The floating hospital originally from Australia, now commissioned to transport the dead and nearly dead of Europe. No hustle and bustle today. Just a few ambulances pulling up as close to the side as they could and ambulance men dispatching the wounded like cargo. Today I was one of the cargo.

  I knew Elsie would be itching to get back to the front to save more lives. I didn’t want her to go yet. I didn’t want it all to be over. I was still drawn to her like soldiers to our cellar. I doubted I could live without her by my side. What did I have back in Dorset? Just two bewildered parents who wanted me to mend everything that was broken. It would be a poor substitute.

  ‘I had better be off.’

  ‘Please,’ I said weakly, ‘a few more minutes.’

  Elsie looked surprised, as though it hadn’t occurred to her that I might want more time.

  ‘Oh, of course,’ she said, touching her throat. ‘I didn’t think—’

  Staring at the steering wheel, she admitted she was sorry that things between us weren’t like they used to be. She said the stress, the strain, the number and the manner of the deaths had finally got to her. H
er voice cracked as she said, ‘You know that I’ll always love you, Mairi.’

  * * *

  We sat on a bench overlooking some bathing machines. How had I not noticed them last time I was here? One day people would come back here and get changed again for family days out and picnics in the sand. I had a sudden memory of Uilleam and me running into the sea in stripy bathing suits, Uilleam insisting he didn’t want to get his hair wet and me splashing and splashing.

  A couple walked by. Him a soldier, her in civilian clothes, holding a baby. I couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl. They were a tidy family of three.

  ‘We’ll come back again,’ I heard the soldier tell the woman, ‘After all this is over.’

  I knew Elsie probably wanted to go but I clung on some more. Maybe it was a last chance for me to exert control. Anyway, Elsie looked relaxed and happy with the breeze caressing her face, but I would have bet anything that she was acting. Deep down she wanted to get away from me.

  ‘Elsie, why did you get divorced?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You did, didn’t you? Your first husband – you divorced him? Not the other way around?’

  ‘I divorced him, that’s true.’

  Another couple walked past us. These two were not bathers, nor holiday makers. They were both thin, painfully thin. They looked like bedraggled people from biblical times.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why do you think?’ Elsie turned to face me. It was hard to speak with her looking directly at me like that; it was like looking into sunlight.

  ‘What did Dr Munro used to say breaks a team – money? Hanky-panky? Or was it ego with you?’

  ‘Ego?’

  I was smiling as if it were a joke, but it wasn’t. All my hurt, all my fury was welling up. She was a liar. Always had been. ‘The great Elsie Knocker can’t bear to be second to anyone.’