by Hilary Green
‘I’m very concerned about Milan, the boy with the shattered foot. Gangrene has set in. If the foot is not amputated immediately he will probably die.’
Milan had been brought to them just before they left Pristina; his foot had been shattered by a shell blast. He was very young – sixteen or seventeen perhaps; he seemed unsure of his exact age.
Leo suspected that this was deliberate and he was actually younger still. He had endured the journey so far with the stoicism typical of these Serbian peasant soldiers and he seemed to her to exemplify the best and the worst of the war.
Leo ran her hand through her hair. The perpetual nagging headache and sore throat, to which she had become accustomed, were getting worse and she suspected that she was running a fever.
‘You can’t carry out an amputation in these conditions, can you?’
‘No. We must find a house, somewhere reasonably clean, with a decent light and a bit of warmth – and a water supply.’
‘But we have to keep moving,’ Leo said. ‘If we stay here we could be overrun by the Bulgarians.’
‘I can’t help that. It’s a risk we shall have to take. If I don’t amputate that boy will die.’
Leo hauled herself to her feet. ‘Very well. I’ll see if there is anyone in the village who will let us use their kitchen.’
She went straight to the home of the mayor, the largest house in the village, though even this consisted of just two rooms with floors of beaten earth. She found the mayor and his family loading their goods on to two mules. When she explained what she needed the response was rapid.
‘Use what you like. The house is yours. We are leaving at first light.’
She reported back to Stella. ‘There’s a table we can scrub clean and enough wood for a fire and a well in the yard for water. But the only light is from candles. We can use our hurricane lamps, but even then you won’t really be able to see well enough. Can it wait until morning?’
Reluctantly the doctor agreed that it would be best to wait until dawn. Leo passed a broken night and woke to a new sound. All night she had heard the noise of feet tramping past and the rattle of donkey carts as the refugees pressed doggedly on but this was different. A heavier tread, as of booted men, and the clank and rumble of heavier vehicles. Scrambling out of her tent she realized that the road was full of soldiers, not marching but plodding onwards, followed by horse-drawn limbers carrying guns. The retreating Serb army had overtaken them, which meant that the Bulgarians must be close behind.
The rest of the team were awake and gazing, dumbfounded, at the passing troops. Leo called them together. After a few dizzying seconds, during which she seemed unable to think at all, her mind had cleared and she was quite sure what she had to do.
‘I shall stay here with Dr Patterson to assist with the amputation, but the rest of you must go at once. We will follow as soon as Milan is able to travel.’
‘But we can’t go and leave you behind!’ one of the women exclaimed and the others agreed noisily.
‘Yes, you can,’ Leo insisted. ‘You have a duty to the other patients. It is up to you to get them safely across the mountains. I’m sure Dr Patterson and I will be able to join up with another medical team and we will join you at Durazzo.’
‘But suppose the Bulgarians get here first,’ someone said.
‘If that happens, I’m sure we shall be treated with perfect courtesy,’ Leo said. ‘I have worked with the Bulgarians and I have always found them extremely chivalrous. Now, we don’t have time to argue. The men must be given breakfast and dressings seen to and then you must inspan the oxen and be on your way, as soon as possible. Dr Patterson and I will do what needs to be done with Milan.’
They turned away, reluctantly, but training and discipline enforced her orders and within minutes the fire was alight, water was put on to boil and the nurses were bending over their patients. Watching them, Leo felt the confidence she had assumed ebbing away. It was true that the Bulgarian officers she had met had behaved impeccably, but that had been when Bulgaria and Serbia were allies. Now they were on opposite sides and there were old scores to settle. Besides which, it was likely that the first Bulgars they would encounter would be common soldiers, not high-ranking officers, and she had heard terrible stories of the way they had treated helpless civilians in the villages they had overrun.
She called two orderlies to carry Milan over to the mayor’s house and found Stella Patterson already there, boiling up water over the fire and scrubbing the wooden table in the centre of the main room. Milan was laid on the mayor’s bed and Leo went back to see off the rest of the convoy. The tents had been struck and the patients loaded into the ox-carts and the nurses gathered round Leo, some of them in tears. She hugged them all in turn.
‘Be brave! It’s going to be a long, hard journey but we will get through – all of us. You are with the army, so you’ll be safe enough. There will be plenty of men to help if you need it. Just keep going, that’s all you have to do.’
The drivers and orderlies kissed her hands as she wished them God speed. ‘Sbogom! Goodbye! We’ll meet again soon.’
The wagons creaked into motion but the road was so congested with men and vehicles that it was almost impossible to join it. It was not until an officer in charge of an artillery company saw their difficulty and halted his men that they were able to filter in. Leo watched them moving away until they disappeared into the curtain of rain that veiled the mountains. Then she turned and hurried back to the mayor’s house.
Dr Patterson looked up from arranging her instruments. ‘Good, you’re here. I’m ready to start. Help me to lift him on to the table.’
He was not a big man, fortunately, and short rations had reduced them all to skin and bone. Even so, Leo found it took all her strength to help the doctor heave him from the bed on to the table, which she had covered with a sheet from the small store of clean linen. Her head was pounding and her throat so sore that she had been unable to swallow the day-old bread which was all that was available for breakfast. Milan was semi-conscious, but when he saw the doctor advancing with the mask and the bottle of chloroform he began to struggle and tried to get up.
‘No, no! Not that, not that!’
Leo took him by the shoulders and pressed him back on to the table. Then she took hold of his hands and held them tightly. ‘Milan, listen to me! You are quite safe. The chloroform will send you to sleep for a while, that’s all. The doctor has explained to you, she has to remove your foot or you will die. But if you are asleep you will feel no pain. I promise you! And when you wake up it will be all over.’
He looked up into her eyes. ‘Maika, you will stay with me?’
Maika – it meant mother. Leo swallowed. ‘Yes, Milan, I will be here all the time. There’s nothing to worry about.’
His eyes swivelled from her to Patterson, standing ready with the anaesthetic, and he nodded. She put the mask over his nose and mouth and dripped on the chloroform. For a moment he struggled against it, then Leo felt the grip on her hands relax.
‘Now, we must be as quick as we can,’ Patterson said.
Leo had assisted at operations before, but never at an amputation and the sight, combined with the rotten/sweet smell of the gangrene, turned her stomach. Once or twice she was afraid that she was going to faint or vomit, but she managed to keep control and hand the necessary instruments when requested. Even her inexpert eyes could see that Patterson was good at her job and in a remarkably short time the wound was sutured and dressed and the gangrenous foot disposed of in the midden in the back yard. Leo leaned over Milan as he began to come round, stroking his face and murmuring reassuring words, ready with a bowl for the inevitable attack of vomiting.
‘Maika, when will it be over?’ he whispered, when he could speak.
‘It is over, Milan,’ she answered. ‘It is all done and now you will get well.’
When he had been put back to bed and the instruments cleaned and packed away Stella drew the big cauldron off the fir
e and poured water into two mugs.
‘You look as if you need a coffee,’ she commented. ‘It’s a pity there’s no milk or sugar but at least it’s hot.’
Leo became aware again of the endless tramp of feet past the door of the house. ‘When will he be able to travel?’
‘In an ideal world, not for several days. But as this is not an ideal world – tomorrow, at the earliest.’
There was nothing to do, then, but wait. Leo sat by the fire, lulled into a kind of stupor until another sound roused her. At first she thought it was a child crying. Then she realized it was the bleating of a goat. In the backyard she found a nanny goat tethered. It was a poor, thin creature but its udder was swollen with milk. Leo hurried back to the house and found a large bowl. She had never milked a goat, or a cow for that matter, and it took some time to master the technique but she was eventually rewarded with half a pint of milk. She had kept back a small amount of the dwindling supply of food which the convoy possessed, including a little bag of oats, and from those and the milk she concocted a thin gruel. They fed most of it to Milan when he woke, but she and Stella shared what was left and agreed that it was the best meal they had had in days.
By dawn the next morning the endless procession of soldiers and civilians had begun again. Leo stopped an officer and asked him how close the Bulgarian army was.
‘Not more than a day behind,’ he said. ‘If I were you I should get on the road as fast as you can.’
Leo reported the conversation to Stella Patterson and they agreed that Milan would have to travel, weak as he was. While Stella attended to her patient, Leo stood by the road watching for some form of transport. She stopped several wagons but the answer was always the same. They were full, either with wounded men or with essential supplies. Eventually, about midday, she waved down a wagon marked with red crosses and pleaded with the driver to find room for them.
‘We are a doctor and a nurse. Surely we could be useful on the road, if you have other injured men on board.’
The sergeant in charge scowled at her. ‘Where’s the doctor, then?’
‘There!’ Leo indicated Stella, who had come to the door of the house.
‘A woman!’ he snorted with derision.
‘Yes, a woman!’ Leo retorted. ‘And a fine doctor, who has just saved the life of one of your soldiers.’
He looked from her to Stella and grunted. ‘I’ll take the doctor. No room for anyone else.’
Stella came forward. ‘You’ll have to take all of us, or I don’t come.’
‘I’ve told you, no room. Now, I’m blocking the road. I’ve got to move on.’
‘Look!’ Leo said desperately. ‘Take the doctor and the patient. I’ll find someone else to take me.’
Stella was inclined to argue but Leo was insistent. ‘It will be easy for me to hitch a lift, on my own. You go, with Milan. Don’t worry about me.’
Milan was carried out and lifted into the wagon and Stella climbed up on to the tail board. The driver cracked his whip and called to the animals and the wagon forced its way back into the stream of traffic.
‘Look after yourself! See you in Durazzo!’ Stella called.
‘Yes, see you there!’ Leo shouted back.
She waited a while longer, trying unsuccessfully to hitch a ride. Then one of the drivers shouted at her, ‘What’s wrong with your legs, boy? Walk, like the rest!’ and she realized that her appearance was against her. Her skirt had gone with the convoy so, short of standing by the roadside shouting ‘I’m a woman, help me!’ there was nothing she could do. She reminded herself that the whole purpose behind the FANY and Mabel Stobart’s Sick and Wounded Convoy was to prove that women could be as brave and as resilient as men. Now was the time to prove it. She gathered up the few scraps of bread and a little twist of coffee – all that remained of her supplies, and joined the throng of people plodding along the road.
Very soon the road began to climb, following the course of a river, and the air grew colder. The rain turned to sleet and then to snow. Leo had bought a sheepskin coat from an old shepherd when the retreat began. It stank of badly cured leather but at least it was warm and reasonably weather proof and she was thankful for her good English boots. Even so, it was not long before the wet soaked into her breeches and crept up to her waist, while the snow managed to filter down inside her collar and dampened her tunic. Her head burned and throbbed, she shivered convulsively and her legs felt like lead.
The passing of so many heavy wagons had churned the unsurfaced road to mud and she passed several that had become stuck axle-deep while the drivers yelled and cursed at their beasts. Apart from that and the occasional thin wail of a child she was struck by the absence of human voices. None of the soldiers sang or joked. The whole vast army trudged on in silence. The mountains closed in around them as they climbed, so that the river ran in a narrow valley and the road, such as it was, clung to the side, sometimes a hundred or more feet above the river, at others dropping down to cross it on shaky bridges. At one of these Leo saw that a gun limber had overturned, throwing the gun into the water and dragging the whole equipage with it. The men in charge of it were struggling to cut the traces to free the horses, which were plunging and struggling in the rapid current.
As the early winter dusk drew in the various units began to pull off into the pine forest beside the road. Here, at least, there was wood for fires and soon the whole hillside was starred with twinkling lights. Seeing one company gathering around their fire Leo hesitated. She knew that, if she was to survive the night, she must find some warmth but she was afraid to ask if she could join them. As a boy, which they would take her to be, they might feel she should be able to fend for herself. But at the same time, there was a certain security in her disguise. Instinct told her that this was no time to present herself as a helpless female. In the end, she plucked up enough courage to creep to within a few yards of the group round the fire and huddled down on the pine needles that covered the ground. A cauldron had been set to boil over the flames and her nostrils caught a faint savoury smell that brought the saliva welling up in her mouth. She took out her scraps of bread and gnawed at them and became aware that one of the men from the other side of the fire was looking at her. When the cook came round to fill his tin mug he said something to him and when all the men had been served the cook came over and held out a mug half full of steaming liquid.
‘Make the most of it,’ he said. ‘It’s the last any of us will get this side of the mountains.’
The savoury smell had been deceptive. The liquid in the mug was mainly hot water with a few scraps of vegetable floating in it, but at least it was warm. Leo swallowed it thankfully and one of the men moved over and beckoned her closer to the fire. They did not ask her any questions. She got the impression that they, like her, were too tired to talk. Before long, they curled themselves up, three or four together for warmth, and fell asleep. Leo slept too but intermittently, disturbed by vivid dreams and repeated fits of shivering.
The next morning she was given a cup of bitter black coffee, which was all any of them had for breakfast, and then there was nothing for it but to drag herself to her feet and set off again. The men she had shared with that night, exhausted as they were, could still walk faster than she could and soon pulled ahead. She put her head down and plodded on, aware that from time to time she was overtaken by other groups or by carts or wagons. She paid no heed to them. She had almost passed beyond the capability of conscious thought, her brain instead filled with strange imaginings. If she looked up, the trees and the mountain crags seemed to whirl around her so that she almost fell. Only by keeping her eyes on the ground was she able to stay on her feet. As the hours passed the snow grew deeper and the road narrower, so that often it became so congested that the whole procession came to a halt. It only needed one wagon to stick in a rut, or one donkey to lie down and refuse to get up to keep them standing in the cold for what seemed like an hour.
As the day wore on Leo began to hear
voices. She heard her grandmother scolding her for going out in such inclement weather; once she was certain that Victoria was shouting to her, needing help, but she could not find her in the crowd. Again and again she fancied she heard Sasha’s voice, urging her on, telling her that she must keep walking. As the light began to fade again she heard him calling to her, as he had called that day at Chataldzha. ‘You, boy! Come here!’
‘You, boy! Wait!’ It was a real voice, though it was hard to distinguish it from the clamour in her head. A horse was urged alongside her, a grey horse, and she looked up.
Sasha stared down at her. ‘My God! It is you! I thought I was dreaming. What in the name of Christ are you doing here?’
She gazed back at him. Her head was swimming but she felt herself smiling from pure joy. ‘Trying to escape, like you,’ she croaked and grasped at his stirrup leather for support.
He was beside her, although she had not seen him dismount, his arm round her waist. Above her head she heard his voice raised to give an order.
‘Bring Shadow up, Michaelo. Quickly now.’
There was movement round her and she was lifted bodily into the black horse’s saddle. ‘Oh, Shadow!’ she murmured ecstatically. ‘Dear old Shadow!’ She slumped forward on to the horse’s neck and tangled her icy fingers in his mane. There was a jolt as he started forward and then the steady rocking movement of his walk. Leo closed her eyes and let herself drift.
She came to as they turned off the road again and saw that they were preparing to make camp. Sasha lifted her down and wrapped her in his cloak, then settled her between the roots of a great pine tree with her back against the trunk. Crouching in front of her he brushed the hair off her forehead with his fingertips.
‘I don’t understand. How did you get here?’
She struggled to make coherent sentences and gave up the effort. ‘Nursing . . . Kragujevac . . . Stobart . . . got separated.’
‘Where are the others?’
She made a vague movement indicating the road ahead. ‘Up there, somewhere.’
