by Maggie Hope
‘Tell me about it,’ he said to her, then, seeing her expression, ‘If you don’t mind, of course? I don’t want to pry.’
‘I don’t mind,’ she replied. She began to tidy away the enamel basin with the antiseptic solution, the rubber sheet which had protected the bed and the dressing towel which had covered it. As she worked, she told him about how her mother had died and she and her brother had gone into the Home; how her younger sisters had been fostered out and she hadn’t been able to get in touch with them for years. She spoke calmly as though it was all something which had happened to someone else. It was the only way she could keep control of herself; even after all this time the wounds were as fresh as ever.
‘That’s monstrous! They shouldn’t be allowed to separate families like that.’
Elizabeth paused, holding the basin ready to tip the contents into the bucket on the bottom of the dressing trolley.
‘The Home wasn’t so bad. Miss Rowland was there. And they said the bairns should start a new life with new parents. But I missed the little ’uns. Well, after all, in the old days we would just have gone into the workhouse proper, wouldn’t we?’
Elizabeth had had enough. She felt wrung out by telling him her story. It was ages since she had tried to explain to anyone, she didn’t know why she had now. She must get on with her work, she told herself.
‘Are you ready for Private Wilson, sir?’ she enquired, and Jack nodded. He swung around so that he was sitting on the edge of the bed and waited for the orderly.
That night Elizabeth had the dream again, for the first time in a long while. The one where her mother was dying in the field and the red, red blood was spreading all around. And her mother’s eyes as she gazed at Elizabeth were trying to tell her something, something important, but she couldn’t. And then the dreaded moment when all feeling and knowledge began fading away from the eyes until they were blank and staring and it was too late to find out what it was she’d been trying to say.
Elizabeth woke, sweating and panting, and her heart beat so fast she felt it coming up into her throat, the fear was so bad. For Mam had been trying to warn her of something and she couldn’t hear, couldn’t understand what it was. And now it was too late.
*
‘Proper little pet of Captain bloody Benson, aren’t you, you little workhouse whore?’
Elizabeth jumped. She was in the linen cupboard, tidying the clean linen in neat piles, sheets on one shelf, pillowcases and nightshirts on another, all ready for the pile which would come up from the laundry room to go on top. The linen room was oblong, barely wide enough for two people to pass, but quite long.
Private Wilson was standing in the doorway, watching her, that sneering look on his face. She walked towards him, keen to get out into the hall where at least there might be other people. The only way was to get past him.
‘Let me past, please,’ she said, and kept her eyes from his face, cringing from the expression she knew she would see in his eyes. Instead she stared stoically at a brass button on his tunic.
‘Let me past, please!’ he mimicked. ‘Butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth, would it? Oh, aye, I’ll let you past, once you answer my question. Aren’t you Captain Benson’s little pet whore?’
‘No, I’m not. I’m nobody’s.’
‘Too namby-pamby to say it, aren’t you? Go on, say it. Say you’re Captain Benson’s whore and I’ll let you through.’
Elizabeth’s mouth set. She continued staring at the button. Private Wilson laughed and leaned forward. Unexpectedly, he took hold of her breast, his fingers twisting cruelly so that she jumped back in pain and shock. But she had had enough, fury took hold of her. Suddenly she remembered something she had heard a girl boast of in the kitchen, how the girl had stopped a man from attacking her in the woods on her way to work. Elizabeth lifted her knee and rammed it into Private Wilson’s privates. He dropped like a stone.
She jumped over his body as he lay squirming on the floor and collided with the laundry basket which he had evidently brought up the stairs. Recovering herself, she ran for the back stairs and her haven, her own attic bedroom. She sank onto the bed, panting and dishevelled. Oh Lord, she had done it now, she had an’ all. He would never let her get away with that, no, he wouldn’t. She could tell she had hurt him, hurt him a lot.
‘And I’m not sorry!’ she said aloud as soon as she had got her breath back. She wasn’t. Maybe he would want his revenge … but maybe he would leave her alone after this. She began to laugh, softly rather than hysterically. By, it had felt good! He had got such a shock, fallen like a felled ox. Private Wilson’s privates, what a joke! She felt a sense of liberation, realising she could fight back.
Getting to her feet, Elizabeth went over to the looking glass on the wall by the washstand. Her collar was askew. She straightened it, took off her cap and brushed her hair smoothly. She replaced the cap, anchoring it firmly with kirby grips. Then she grinned at her own flushed face and sparkling eyes in the glass.
‘You stick up for yourself from now on, lass,’ she instructed her image. Then she marched to the door. Her hand on the doorhandle, she paused. Sticking up for herself was one thing, foolhardiness another. First she had to make sure that Private Wilson wasn’t waiting for her on the first-floor landing. She crept down the uncarpeted attic stairs and peeped round the corner, ready to fly if need be. But there was no sign of anyone. Everyone was outside, the only sounds the distant clatter of pots and pans from the kitchen where, no doubt, Joan and her fellow kitchen maids were washing up after the midday meal.
Elizabeth ran then, past the linen cupboard which had its door closed now and the laundry basket still standing beside it. Down the stairs and into the front hall.
‘Nurse!’
Miss Rowland’s call brought her up short. The door to Matron’s office stood open and she was sitting behind her desk with a full view of the hall and staircase.
‘Come in here, Elizabeth, please. And close the door behind you.’
She took a deep breath and went into the office, standing meekly before the desk.
‘Is there a fire, Nurse? Someone haemorrhaging? No? Then please explain to me what emergency made you run like that.’
‘There was nothing, Matron. I’m sorry.’
Miss Rowland shook her head. ‘How you expect ever to make a proper nurse, Elizabeth, I’ll never know,’ she said sorrowfully. ‘I get good reports from your superiors. I was thinking that as soon as you reached seventeen and a half I would write to Durham County or the Royal Victoria Infirmary at Newcastle and recommend you for training. Of course, that can’t happen when you suddenly revert to the ways of a harum-scarum little girl, showing no sense of responsibility. You realise you could have knocked down a patient on crutches or even one just unsteady on his feet?’
‘I’m sorry, Matron.’ Elizabeth was almost ready to burst into tears.
Miss Rowland’s voice changed, became concerned. ‘You weren’t running away from anything, were you? Or someone?’
What could she say? She couldn’t tell Miss Rowland the truth; the very thought of explaining made her squirm.
‘No, Matron.’
Miss Rowland sighed. ‘Well, then, more decorum after this, please, Nurse.’
Outside the sun was shining, though there was a distinct nip in the air. Brambling weather, thought Elizabeth, and felt a sharp longing to be out in the hedgerows filling a basket with ripe fruit. There was a place at the top of the hill by Morton Main, just a hole in the ground really, with fallen masonry all overgrown with brambles and a few wild raspberries. The memory of it came to her over the years – how she would take Jimmy with her and clamber about the sides, pulling the laden top branches down with a walking stick which had belonged to her granda.
Once it had been the engine house of the aerial flight which carried tubs of coal up the hill from the pit to the waiting coal carts. Now it was just a wilderness of brambles. Elizabeth stood on the steps of the Hall and looked over towards the
distant smoke, curling away lazily in the sky above the pit chimneys. It was too far to see where the old engine house had stood.
Elizabeth shook herself mentally. What was she doing, daydreaming about the old days? There was work to be done now; she was supposed to be asking the patients if they needed anything, did they want to come in now it was getting nippy, and anyway it would soon be their teatime. Besides, it was October, she told herself; the brambles wouldn’t be fit to eat if a heavy frost had got to them.
She walked down the path to where Captain Benson was sitting on the bench alongside Captain Bell who had the neighbouring room to his. Captain Bell had been blinded in the first chlorine gas attack at Ypres in 1915 and was awaiting a place in St Dunstan’s. He sat at the shady end, where the sun, weak though it was, would not irritate the shiny red tissue which had replaced the burnt skin on his face.
‘Here’s our Nurse Nelson,’ said Jack as she approached them. ‘Come to take us into tea, I suppose.’
Captain Bell smiled. He was a large, gentle man, with eyebrows which tufted oddly where they had been burned. ‘No Private Wilson today, old chap,’ he said. ‘I’ll push you in if you’ll be my eyes.’
Elizabeth could have done it but she was well aware that Captain Bell liked to prove he could still do some things. They stood to either side of Jack as he heaved himself to his feet, teetering for a moment so that she put out a hand and he grasped her arm.
‘The chair’s on your left, Captain Bell, sir,’ said Elizabeth, and he felt for it and manoeuvred himself so that he could hold it steady while Jack sat down. ‘We can manage now, Nurse,’ said Captain Bell. ‘Jack will be my eyes.’ They set off up the path to the temporary ramp which went up by the side of the steps of the Hall. Elizabeth watched them for a moment, the large man, head thrust forward as he pushed the wheelchair over the stony path, and the only slightly shorter one bumping along in the chair. Her arm tingled where Jack had held it. She went to bring in the other patients.
A cold wind had sprung up from somewhere. In the valley a white mist was rising. Elizabeth shivered. Soon it would be winter. She thought of Jenny in the lonely farmhouse. Oh, she hoped she would be able to go to see her often this winter, would not be cut off by snow. But she knew that was a forlorn hope. Bollihope Common was high and desolate and the wind must sweep across it without hindrance, especially in the wintertime, for there were few windbreaks. But she would go as often as she could, she vowed to herself as she walked beside the last patient, watching him carefully as he hopped up the steps on his crutches and into the hall. Joan was just setting a paraffin lamp in the bracket by the door.
‘“The north wind doth blow, and we will have snow”,’ she said as her friend closed the door against the few dead leaves now swirling in the wind.
‘Don’t say that, man!’ protested Elizabeth, knowing she was right.
Chapter Nine
THE DAY JIMMY was to make his first descent into the pit was supposed to be in January of 1917 but in the event, he went down in early December.
‘You’re a big strong lad,’ said Mr Dunne, the manager. He had come up to the coal-screening shed, which was on the first floor. The coal corves came up one end and the coal was tipped onto the slowly moving screen so that the dust fell through the holes. It went on to the other end to fall into the coal wagons, waiting to be filled and sent along the wagon way to the main railway line. To each side of the screens stood a line of boys and a few women, picking out the stone and cleaning the coal.
It was hard work, bending over the screen, and Jimmy’s fingers were sore for the first few weeks. They’d hardened after that and it was better.
‘You there – Jimmy Nelson, is it? An’ you an’ all, Tommy Gibson. Come here, I want a word with you,’ the manager shouted over the clanking of the machinery and crashing of the coal as it hit the wagon below.
Jimmy felt guilty immediately. He had been late for yesterday’s shift and it wasn’t the first time either. Though Mrs Wearmouth tried her best to get him off to work promptly, asleep, he was dead to the world. It was like struggling through a dense thicket of cotton wool for Jimmy to wake up. So he looked at Mr Dunne warily, expecting the manager to play war with him, maybe even dock his wages. But Mr Dunne had other things on his mind.
‘You’re a well-grown pair of lads for your age,’ he said to them. It was true. Neither of them had to look up to the manager, who was only about five foot eight himself. Most of the boys were smaller and thinner, having come up through the strikes and lockouts which preceded the war. At least the Home had fed the two of them as they grew up. Tommy slid a sideways glance at Jimmy. What was the gaffer on about?
‘Come over to the office, lads, will you? I won’t keep you a minute.’ This last for the benefit of the others working on the screen, all of whom had to work faster while the boys were gone.
Jimmy followed Mr Dunne across the pit yard, Tommy behind. Were they going to get their cards after all? he wondered.
‘How would you like to start underground? Straight away, I mean, back shift the morn?’
‘Down the pit?’ asked Tommy.
‘Aye, putting. The pay’ll be better, of course. You’ll get more than you do working on t’bank.’
Jimmy only just stopped himself from reminding the gaffer that they were not yet sixteen, the age when they could legitimately work on the tubs; not yet fifteen, in fact. He swelled with pride. He was going to do a man’s work. He couldn’t speak.
‘You’ll be putting the tubs from the face to where the road way’ll take ponies. Mind, you’ll have to keep up – the hewers won’t stand for it if they can’t keep up the output. The seam’s only two foot six there. You can do it, lads, can’t you? Only with the men deserting the pit in droves to go off to the flaming war, we’re short, see?’
For the gaffer actually to feel he should explain his reasons, he must be desperate, thought Jimmy. ‘What sort of pay, Gaffer?’ he asked.
But the manager had had enough. ‘What you damn’ well earn!’ he snapped, then modified the angry note in his voice. ‘No, it’s up to you, lad, not me. You know the hewers get paid once a fortnight and they’ll give you what they think you’ve been worth to them. They do a share out. So it’s up to you, isn’t it, son?’
‘Why, aye, Jimmy,’ said Tommy. ‘Did you not know that?’ Jimmy had forgotten. ‘Anyroad, I’m game if you are. What do you say?’
‘I’m on,’ he said.
‘Right, away back to your work then. You have today’s shift to finish,’ said Mr Dunne. ‘An’ don’t forget, Jimmy Nelson, if you’re late again and miss the cage that will mean a fine. So mend your ways, lad.’
Six o’clock next morning, Jimmy stepped nonchalantly into the cage with the rest of the men working his cavil, the working place allotted to them, his black tin helmet resting on his ears, the pit boots with their steel toecaps which had belonged to Mr Wearmouth, God rest him, padded out with two pairs of thick wool stockings and his Davy lamp in his hand. The boys had been solemnly searched for contraband, matches or cigarettes, and now stood in the midst of the men. The wheel high over the engine house started to turn and the cage plummeted into the depths of the earth, leaving his stomach somewhere at the top and his heart crying out for his big sister, Elizabeth.
Elizabeth addressed the letter she had got up early to write to Jenny, the one which had to take the place of a visit because once again she couldn’t get up Weardale the weekend coming. ‘Miss Jenny Nelson,’ she wrote, ‘Stand Alone Farm, Bollihope Common, Frosterley’. She tucked the envelope into the bib of her apron and prepared to go downstairs to begin the day’s work.
‘Do you think Jenny can read?’ Joan had asked when she had seen what her friend was doing. She’d looked doubtful and Elizabeth had stared at her in horror.
‘Read? Of course she can read,’ she had said. Surely Jenny went to school, didn’t she? No, she had gone to school was what she had said. She was absent a lot with Peart wanting her slaving after h
im all the time. ‘By heck, Joan, if she can’t, if she’s not going to school at all, I’ll have the kiddy-catchers on that foster father of hers, I will. I’ll raise such a stink—’
‘Aye, well,’ said Joan as she opened the door to go down to the kitchen to start the patients’ breakfasts, ‘I wouldn’t be surprised.’ Elizabeth had told her all about the conditions at Stand Alone Farm, agonising over her little sister’s unhappiness.
If Jenny was kept away from school, was that enough of a black mark against Peart to get her away from him? Elizabeth wondered as she sped downstairs to the linen cupboard to fill the trolley with clean sheets ready to change the beds. She brought hot water up from the kitchen, carrying it in huge enamel jugs, panting at the strain on her shoulders and arms. But the geyser in the bathroom was not lit until eight and was only sufficient then for the men’s baths, those who were ambulant. They all had to have a dish of hot water to wash and shave before breakfast. Of course, the orderly was supposed to be helping her in this task but Private Wilson was nowhere to be seen; no doubt he would turn up later with a plausible excuse, she thought. She never thought about him now, just got on with the job. At least she was no longer frightened of him, feeling she could look after herself after the episode in the linen cupboard. She smiled at the memory.
At last, all eight patients were washed and sitting up in bed, ready for breakfast. Nurse Turner was shaving Captain Bell and the VAD; Nurse Middleham was on her day off.
‘Private Wilson can help you bring up the breakfast trays,’ Nurse Turner called over her shoulder.
‘Yes, Nurse,’ said Elizabeth, thinking that if she waited for him the patients would be eating breakfast at lunchtime. She was on her fourth journey when he appeared, sketchily shaved, the top button of his uniform undone and with a glowering expression as he passed Elizabeth. She pulled away to one side, balancing the tray precariously as she did so, the distaste she felt showing in her expression.
