My Dear I Wanted to Tell You

by Louisa Young

  Undo his tunic? Dear God, Captain, what are you thinking? Standards!

  In his tunic pocket were seventeen beautiful letters and Ainsworth’s prayer.

  There were flies. I’m not for you yet, boyo. He wanted to shake them off but his head wouldn’t shake. He wanted to wipe his face but his hand wouldn’t go there. He wanted to swallow. He wasn’t sure who had bandaged him but, oh, the beautiful sky.

  Courage for the big things, patience for the small.

  Trudge on.

  Per ardua ad astra. By effort to the casualty station the station Victoria station Paddington station for Pewsey for the Downs, wild orchids tiny as bees, tiny purple leopardskin bees, lying among the eggs and bacon – no, they’re not called eggs and bacon really – and the brain-quenchingly clean air up there, and sheep-cropped grass, mossy and soft. Rabbit pellets. Tiny when you’re lying down. Bit damp still, isn’t it? Never mind, you can lie on my coat. Tiny little plants. Vetch. Her beautiful flesh and the glory of sliding in.

  ‘Steady on, sir …’

  ‘You need a hand there, sir?’

  Trudge on.

  Something very dreadful happened today – What, more dreadful than every day? He’d heard somewhere that self-mockery was a defining symptom of sanity – Ah, well, I’m still not mad then, something to be grateful for, but I am walking through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Don’t frighten the horses. Horses wallowing in sinkholes of mud. Half a horse up a tree, head desiccated, legs as it were rearing in empty air, a grisly fairground ride.

  And how does a rod and staff comfort me? Isn’t a rod a staff? Or will God’s butler, God’s Barnes, the Barnes of God, God’s Mrs Briggs, come and take my coat? Will his housemaids give me tea and say, ‘Never mind, Purefoy, sit down, it’s not so bad.’

  And the others, sweet Jesus, the others, sweet Jesus, the men, the boys, the lads.

  Yea, though I trudge.

  What had happened? He didn’t know. He hadn’t died. He might die yet.

  Ypres stood before him, craggy, empty, cavernous on its ramparts, shards of remnant masonry pointing to God, accusing fingers, one or two still left, shouting.

  *

  He stood for a while propped up against the breastworks by the canal, waiting his turn. There was a surprising little burst of clover, just by his nose, growing from between some hulks of indeterminate grey – concrete, solidified sandbag, baked mud, he didn’t know which. The metal doors to the dugouts opened and slammed shut again, opened and slammed shut again. A little further along, the gas gong went. The noise seeped into Purefoy’s mind and filled in any gaps. The doors slammed. He couldn’t turn his head but he could tip it a little. He could see the graveyard, and the ambulance. Graveyard or ambulance, ambulance or graveyard. He heard men shouting. He leant back and looked at the little burst of clover. Leant forward again.

  The doors clanged for him. He was propelled in, glanced at, labelled, sent out: ambulance.

  I was a soldier. Now I am the walking wounded. I am hardly in pain. You’d think I would be. You never know, do you?

  He was glad Nadine was in London. He wouldn’t want her nursing him.

  *

  The bouncing and jouncing of the ambulance made some of the men cry out in pain. Purefoy held on, trying to keep everything still. The driver was a girl. He stared at her. Her face was big and tight, with pink cheeks and pale eyebrows. There was pale down on her cheeks, and her mouth was small. She was smoking and talking to herself firmly under her breath, concentrating. He liked her.

  One of the men was saying: ‘So he told me he saw a hat, flat on the mud, an Australian one, cavalry, and he didn’t have an Australian one, so he reached out to get it, and he could reach it but he couldn’t get it, so his mate pulled at it too and they realised, blimey, it’s still attached – someone’s wearing it, so they got a bit of purchase and they pulled and got the fella’s face out, and they wipe his face and he’s alive and they say, “Hold on there, mate, we’ll get you out,” and he says, “It’s not just me, boys, I’m still on my horse.”’

  A young lad was crying.

  A dark tattooed man, with gangrene seeping through the mermaid on his forearm, said: ‘I heard that before.’

  The first man told the story again, exactly the same, word for word.

  Purefoy was unloaded and left to stare. There were women in big white hats like windmills. There was mud still but it was dried out and it was not winning. It was being dismissed. He waited. He was propelled into a tent. What a lovely great big canvas. He waited.

  *

  Somebody unwrapped the bit of field bandage round Purefoy’s face.

  He was still young. He still had his shorn black curls, handsome crooked nose, wide flat cheeks, the eyes that girls like. Below them, his tongue flopped out, huge, straight down, untrammelled, unhindered by chin or jaw, to his clavicles. His mouth gaped, cavernous as a house with its front wall bombed off, the interior smashed and open for all to see, his epiglottis dangling like a left-behind light-fitting in the suddenly revealed back room.

  Someone photographed him. Above, he looked mad and shocked, a gypsy bargee convict fighting over a dispute at a lock, a fairground man, a boxer, a foreigner. Below, there was this ragged blossoming crater, with its obscene spurting pistil.

  They washed it and dressed it and tied up what there was to tie. Someone made a hole in his tongue and threaded through it a wire, with a block of wood hanging on the end. A cardboard label was taken from a drawer and pinned to his uniform: date of wound, destination, and instructions that he be kept sitting up. They injected him with morphine and saline, marked an X on his forehead, and gave him a small card.

  He filled in the gaps with a short pencil.

  ‘Nadine’.

  ‘August 21’. He stared at that one. How could he possibly know? The nurse wrote it in for him.

  He crossed out ‘serious’.

  He left the next one blank.

  ‘You’re meant to put the truth,’ said the nurse, gently.

  He glanced up at her from under his hooded eyelids. I dare say, he didn’t say.

  He signed: Riley Purefoy

  Chapter Sixteen

  Sidcup, 23 August 1917

  Julia was glad that Rose was working at the Queen’s Hospital now, but disappointed that she was living in – though from Rose’s point of view it was probably lovely: Frognal was a fine house, with that pretty terrace and the little Italian garden. But she would have appreciated the company at Locke Hill. Mrs Bax, irritating though she was, had been company, but now she had retreated to her sister’s in York, and Julia was short of things to do. After failing to go through with the surgery, and failing even to ask for Tom’s return, she had visited the vicar and failed to persuade him of her need for spiritual guidance: whether or not she felt she was letting Tom down was of no interest to him as there were far more important things at stake. And every day she failed to write to Peter – how could she write to him, when she’d sent six letters asking him if he knew yet when he would be able to come home to see the baby (for that her mother would have to return him!), and had no reply? (He has his reasons. He must have his reasons.)

  She had hoped that Rose would return home to Locke Hill to live. She had hoped that Rose would encourage her in good works for the hospital. But, of course, Rose had no time.

  ‘You’re doing the vegetables, and that’s very valuable,’ Rose said. Julia ignored the patronising tone – because, really, how could she not? – and allowed herself a little glow of contribution, putting aside that Harker had done the actual work, digging up the east lawn. It was a wonderful inconvenience, providing a little blush of pride for Julia’s cheek as well as good fresh vegetables for Rose’s hospital (and for Peter, when at last he came, and he would be proud that Locke Hill parsnips were helping to nourish the poor wounded boys). She sent eggs, too. They have their own chickens, but they practically live on raw egg, Rose said. Because … well. You can imagine.

  Sh
e had seen a poor wounded boy, in the distance, sitting on one of the benches that the parish council had painted hospital blue, like their hospital uniforms. She, like many of the neighbours, had found the blue of the benches a useful sign. Knowing which benches to avoid – oh, that’s not what I mean – well, to be warned. Apparently they went to the pub too. Of course, some of them weren’t that bad after they’d been operated on. Harker, in an unusually chatty moment, had said they were good lads. Not that she doubted it. Of course they are. They’re British Tommies. But. Most of the local mothers called their children in from play when they heard ‘Tipperary’ whistled in the street.

  Julia preferred to picture fellows in deckchairs on the veranda up there, reading Proust – they’d always meant to but never had the time before. It was nice of the MarshamTownshends to give the house up for the duration, especially after poor Ferdinand’s … Such lovely parties there, before the war. Or had the hospital bought the house? She wasn’t sure. She did hope they were able to take advantage of the tennis courts. A tiny panic gripped her heart. Should she have given up Locke Hill? As a nursing home or something? Would that be what Peter wanted? Or was the kitchen garden enough?

  Oh, don’t be silly, Julia.

  Was it very selfish of her to wish that she had her husband with her? She was aware of the irony: she only needed him to help with the decisions she was only called upon to make because of what had called him away.

  She had meant to invite Major Gillies and the doctors, after she’d met the major at Mrs Bax’s, and some of the wounded officers too, if they were well enough. And perhaps do something for the men. Concert party or something. All those poor creatures still there from the battle of the Somme, and now Ypres again. And she had got as far as arranging to visit the wounded men, playing games with them and so on, when something had happened that had made it impossible.

  On a very hot afternoon, Julia had sought relief from her massed ranks of failure in the woods beyond the home meadow: a breeze, some shade, something other than her house and the damn furniture. She wanted leaves, preferably ones that would move. The walk had been unsatisfactory: no breeze, just big dark leaves limp with the weight that suggested long use, or slight sweatiness. Coming home, trailing the straw hat that had become oppressive to her, cursing the necessity of footwear, she glimpsed a figure through the narrow trunks of the beeches. Since the interlude in the pub Julia had become terribly, terribly aware of men: how beautiful they were, how hungry, how needful, how – possibly – available. It terrified her. She knew she wouldn’t, of course she wouldn’t, but what if those feelings were stirred up in her again? Even the thought of it was wrong, an insult to Peter.

  The sight of a man in the woods both alarmed and thrilled her.

  He was facing out towards the road across the sunlit field and hadn’t seen her. His shoulders were broad and his suit was blue. It gave her heart a pang, because there was no sign of injury to his limbs.

  The position of the brook and the tangled mounds of brambles made it impossible for her to avoid him.

  She told herself to be civil. To be kind. To prepare herself. It would be gruesome, but it would be unforgivable to give him pain by her reaction. She prepared herself, breathing carefully. Passing him, as she had to, she would say, ‘Good day,’ politely, as she had to.

  ‘Good day,’ she said.

  He turned, suddenly, unsmiling, unspeaking.

  His face was perfect. A handsome, healthy-coloured face, regular, unmoving – shocking, actually, in its immobility. Expressionless. A mask.

  Dear God, it is a mask – a real mask. Not a face at all.

  The surprise of it made her utter a tiny squawk. Her squawk filled her with shame.

  The face said nothing. Did nothing. Expressionless, emotionless, made of tin, painted, perfect. Only the eyes looking out. Ordinary blue eyes.

  Don’t make it worse.

  ‘Oh – I’m sorry,’ she said. Smile. She smiled. ‘I didn’t mean to disturb you.’ Can he talk? Am I making it worse?

  He leant forward a little, a sort of bow, a sort of nod. He didn’t seem able to speak.

  What in heaven’s name can I do for this creature? He’s not a creature! He’s a man. He’s just a man. He could be Peter, or Raymond Dell, or anyone.

  He lifted his hand, as if to gesture politely that she could pass.

  She smiled. She passed. As she passed, she was aware, as she had been with Dell, of his hunger.

  ‘Goodbye!’ she called.

  Dear God, she thought. It’s not just that I don’t know how to look at him without giving him pain – which I don’t. It’s that looking at me gives him pain. He’s seen me. Seen me seeing him. I have hurt him.

  She started crying.

  Perhaps he was handsome, before. Of course, beauty is a different thing for a man. But even so … to scare people … to know that you scare people …

  *

  Rose did not, in general, talk very much to Julia about her work. After the incident in the woods, Julia asked.

  ‘Really?’ said Rose. ‘Do you really want to know?’

  Julia did.

  Rose feared the morbid, sentimental response of a woman with not enough to do. She saw that by taking Tom away Mrs Orris had left Julia purposeless, leaping about like a flapping fish. But then … knowing might give Julia a better sense of connection with the world. It might make her feel better. So she told her – out of pity, really.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘this week we gave Vicarage a new face. He’s a sailor. He was in a massive cordite explosion at Jutland and his face was burnt off.’

  Julia was wearing the usual response: pity mixed with disgust and appalled fascination.

  ‘He looked like an overlicked lollipop,’ said Rose.

  Julia stared.

  ‘Well, he did,’ said Rose, brutally. ‘He looked melted. He was melted. His nose was a little twist, and his mouth was a hole …’ into which I have many times injected eggflip ‘… and no chin …’ a nothing of a chin: you have to hold a kidney basin underneath for when the eggflip slops out again, before you clean out the – well, buccal cavity is the phrase, because you really can’t call it a mouth ‘… and his poor eyes …’ a pair of bright, lidless eyes in distorted, dragged surrounds, expressing an exemplary and hideous patience ‘… and no eyelids – so Major Gillies designed him a masonic collar-flap on double pedicles. He measures and fits the flap first in paper and foil over a plaster cast of the face, done by one of the artists …’

  People did not usually ask. She knew she was getting carried away.

  ‘Pedicles?’ said Julia. She pictured something architectural. Masonic?

  Rose glanced at her. All right, then. ‘Flaps of skin,’ she said. She waited. ‘He cuts the skin for the new face from the patient’s chest.’

  Julia stared. She hadn’t thought for one moment, at all, about how a new face could be built. Or of what. Dear God.

  ‘They’re serious wounds, Julia,’ Rose said, and Julia snapped: ‘I know, I know – go on.’

  Rose was silent for a moment to punish Julia for snapping. Then she continued: ‘The principle is simple,’ she said. ‘The flap of skin, when it’s been lifted and put into place, mustn’t die or get infected. Major Gillies uses a technique invented in India two thousand years ago to replace noses. They used to cut a triangle of skin from the forehead, keeping the little section between the eyebrows attached, then twist it round and lay it over a twig or something to support it, and sew it into place.’

  Julia found that her finger had wandered to her face, to her uncut jaw and her uninjected nose. ‘You don’t use a twig,’ she said doubtfully.

  ‘Of course not,’ said Rose, dismissively, moving on. ‘The important thing is that we need to keep the flap of skin that we’re moving attached on one side, even by quite a little bit, so it still has blood supply.’

  Julia was looking blank.

  ‘You have to take the blood vessels with it. So it doesn’t die
. What Major Gillies does now is leave the flap attached by a long strip, or more than one, so he can move it quite a long way – from chest to face, for instance. Those strips of skin are the pedicles.’

  Rose thrilled a little with superior knowledge and the power to shock. ‘The Indian tribesmen who initiated the skin-flap technique,’ she went on, ‘replaced noses for people who’d had them cut off as a punishment for adultery. The method moved to Italy …’ Was she going to tell her this? Yes, she was. ‘… where people lost their noses to syphilis, or in duels. But they didn’t want scarred foreheads, so a new technique was invented where the flap would be taken from the inside of the patient’s forearm …’ Rose gestured to the area on herself ‘… but because this was before the advent of the long pedicle, the patient’s arm had to be strapped to his head in a kind of straitjacket, for as long as it took the flap to attach to the face.’ She held her own forearm up to her face, smooth internal skin against her nose. ‘Try it!’ Julia tentatively raised her arm. ‘It took months,’ said Rose. ‘They looked like children pretending to be elephants. Major Gillies has a picture of someone wearing one in the seventeenth century.’

  Julia held her arm to her nose. Already her shoulder creaked as she brought her wrist far enough over.

  Rose watched her. ‘Isn’t it clever? What they invent. Did you know Carrel learnt his vascular suture technique from the lacemakers of Valenciennes?’

  Julia had not known that. She wasn’t entirely sure what a suture was. Or how Rose had become cleverer than her, as well as more useful. How had that happened?

  ‘What happened next?’ she asked, lowering her arm. ‘To the sailor.’

  ‘All right – where were we? Major Gillies lifted the skin flap from the chest, and turned it, and applied it. It reaches up over his nose, like a bandit’s neckerchief in a cowboy picture. Then he split a gap for the mouth, and turned the skin round it out a little, so that the lips will be red and soft, as they should be.’ Rose indicated the process on her own face, watching Julia, who was white. ‘Enough?’ she asked, almost amused. The physical nightmare of it meant very little to her now. You proceed on the understanding that this is how things are, and you make them better. They were all exceptionally good at it, and a vital part of being good at it was never thinking about it. And always in the back of Rose’s mind was pervasive gratitude that she wasn’t in France, having to be a decent nurse in a tent in the rain under fire, with more casualties arriving and dead boys piling up.