The Lost Soldier

by Costeloe Diney

  “Sarah,” Sarah corrected her. “No, of course not, Molly. We’re in this together.” She looked round and said, “Nowhere much to put our things, just these drawers. I’ll take the top two, you have the bottom two.” She pulled off her coat and put it on the bed ready to hang on the door as she went out. Molly picked it up and put it on one of the hooks, and then hung her own beside it. She opened her case and took out the dark grey skirt and the white blouse Sarah had bought her in England and laid them on the bed. Sarah was looking out of the tiny window on her side of the bed.

  “Come and look here, Molly,” she said craning her neck to peer down at the ground below. “There are some huts out here below us. Do you think they’re part of the hospital, or some other camp?”

  Molly joined her at the window and Sarah moved aside so that the other girl could see. Molly stared down at the scene below. There were several wooden huts crammed into a sort of courtyard. They looked ramshackle affairs, each with a tin roof and a bent chimney threading smoke into the cold autumn air. The windows, symmetrically set into the wooden walls, seemed to be closed, but the door at the end of each hut stood open. Even as she looked a nun hurried out through one of these and disappeared from view, presumably into the main convent building.

  A high, stone wall, apparently the boundary wall of the convent garden, encircled the huts, and set in this Molly could see an old wooden door. Beyond the wall, and some way off, the tops of the big tents they’d seen earlier were visible.

  “There’s that camp we saw, set up beyond the wall,” she said to Sarah, and in her turn moved aside so that Sarah could look out again.

  “So there is. Well, I suppose it is all part of the hospital,” Sarah said. “It must be too big to fit into the convent grounds. We’ll ask Aunt Anne.” She turned back to the case on her bed and flinging it open, pulled everything out on to the bed.

  “Oh Lord,” she said ruefully, looking at her belongings. “I’m never going to get all that into two drawers!”

  Molly, who was carefully folding her own few clothes ready to put into her own two drawers, laughed. “Most of them will fit if you fold them properly,” she said. “The rest will have to stay in your case and go under the bed.”

  The beds were metal framed on high legs, and apart from one chamber pot tucked underneath, there was nothing using the space.

  “Oh, Molly, of course,” Sarah said, and began to fold her clothes. She made a poor fist of it and with another laugh Molly reached over and took a blouse from her.

  “Here, like this.” She laid the blouse on the bed and showed Sarah how to tuck its sleeves in neatly before folding it on itself and tweaking the collar into position. Sarah had another go, and though her folding was nothing like as quick and as careful as Molly’s, she managed to fold her clothes tidily enough to fit most of them into the drawers.

  “You see,” she remarked as she struggled with a particularly recalcitrant jacket, “I told you you’d be far better at this sort of thing than I am. You’ve been trained up to be useful, whereas I have no training for anything!” She stowed the last few bits and pieces, her bible, a book of poetry into the case and pushed it under her bed. A framed picture of Freddie and her father, taken when Freddie came home on leave, she stood on the top of the chest.

  Molly, her own unpacking finished quickly and efficiently was pouring water from the jug into the bowl. She sponged her face and hands, and ran the cooling flannel round the back of her neck. Then she looked in horror at Sarah.

  “Oh, Miss Sarah, I’m sorry. There’s nowhere to tip this dirty water so you can have clean.” Colour had flooded her face, and she stared down at the cold soapy water in the single bowl. “You should have gone first, and then I could have used the same water.”

  “Oh.” Sarah looked at the uninviting water for a moment too, and then giggled. “We could put it in the chamber,” she suggested, nodding at that receptacle, still showing from beneath the bed.

  “But we don’t know where to empty that either,” pointed out Molly, still flushed with embarrassment.

  “We’ll ask my aunt when she comes back,” Sarah said airily. “Now, just pour that into this,” she proffered the chamber pot from under the bed, “and we can get on.”

  By the time Sister St Bruno came back to fetch them, both women were neatly attired in their dark grey skirts and white blouses. Each had a large white apron tied over her clothes, and her hair confined under a white cap.

  Sister St Bruno looked at them critically. “You’ll do for now,” she said, “if you make sure those last wisps of hair are tucked securely under your cap, Sarah.” Her eyes took in their black boots and she said, “I hope those are comfortable. You’ll be on your feet for sixteen hours a day.”

  “We’ll be fine, Aunt Anne,” Sarah assured her, and then added, “Do I still call you Aunt Anne, or would Sister be better?”

  “Sister, I think, when you’re working, anyway,” replied her aunt. “Ready?”

  “Just one thing, Aunt… I mean, Sister,” Sarah said in response to urgent hand signals from Molly, “could you tell us, I mean…?” Molly’s embarrassment resurrected itself in Sarah and she too turned red.

  “Well?” Sister St Bruno said encouragingly.

  “Where do we empty that?” She pointed to the chamber pot now back under the bed, but full of dirty water.

  “I’ll show you on the way past,” said the nun with a faint smile. “There’s a lavatory at the end of the corridor.”

  They followed Sister St Bruno along the stone passage. She pointed to a door at the end and said, “There is a lavatory and a basin in there, where you can collect water for yourselves and empty your chamber. In the daytime it can be used in the normal way, but at night no one leaves her cell except to go to chapel to say office, or to go on duty on the wards.” She waited patiently for a moment or two while the girls made use of the facilities and then continued on along the passage and down another set of stairs, not the ones they had mounted to reach their room, to a different hallway.

  “I hope we can find our way back,” murmured Sarah to Molly, as they were led across this hall and along yet another corridor.

  Sister St Bruno heard her and said over her shoulder, “Don’t worry, Sarah, you’ll soon find your way about.” She stopped outside a heavy wooden door and knocked. A bell jingled from inside the room and Sister St Bruno turned the heavy handle to swing the door open into Reverend Mother’s office.

  Standing in the doorway, Aunt Anne spoke in French, “My niece, Sarah Hurst, Mother, and her friend, Molly Day.”

  “Come in, Sister, come in.”

  Sister St Bruno stepped inside and gestured to the two girls to follow her.

  The room was comfortably furnished with a sofa and some chairs, a desk behind which the Reverend Mother sat, and a prie-dieu in a corner. There was a crucifix above this and a picture of Christ displaying His bleeding heart on the wall behind the desk. A small fire burned in the grate, but it did little to dispel the chill of the room, which had stone walls and a stone floor.

  “Perhaps you would wait outside, Sister,” Reverend Mother said, rising to her feet as Sarah and Molly slipped into the room. Sister St Bruno inclined her head in acquiescence and stepped out of the room without another word, closing the door behind her.

  “Come in and sit down,” Reverend Mother said. She spoke in fluent but heavily accented English. She stood and came out from behind her desk holding out her hand. “How do you do, Miss Hurst? Miss Day?” They shook hands and Sarah said, “How do you do, Mother?” while Molly, rather unnerved by the picture that hung behind the desk, murmured something unintelligible. Sarah moved to the sofa that Reverend Mother indicated, and seeing that Molly was at a loss, took her arm, pulling her gently behind her. Reverend Mother seated herself on an upright chair opposite them. She looked them up and down as she might a horse she was considering buying.

  “Your aunt has convinced me that you will be able to help us in our work here, nurs
ing the wounded.” Reverend Mother did not sound very convinced. Sarah looked back at her with steady gaze, but Molly, feeling entirely out of her depth, kept her eyes fixed on the flagstones of the floor.

  “Your letter said you had Red Cross nursing experience.” Reverend Mother’s eyes bored into them. They were dark blue and deep set, penetrating, it seemed to Sarah, her very mind to read her thoughts. The nun was a tiny woman with small hands and feet; she would hardly have reached Sarah’s shoulder without her fly-away headdress, but she had a presence which made one forget her small stature and remember only her authority.

  “I have, Mother,” replied Sarah, “though no real nursing training. I took the Red Cross certificate.” She faced the nun across the room and added, “My friend Molly has no Red Cross training, but in most ways I am sure she will be more use to you than I am. Her training has been in household duties, and as I am under no illusions that we shall be doing any real nursing for the foreseeable future, I imagine she will have the skills you need more than I have.”

  Reverend Mother nodded at this and addressing herself to Molly said, “Miss Day, it will be up to you to instruct Miss Hurst in the most efficient,”—Mother drew out the word into four syllables—“way to do the tasks which you will be asked to do.” She fell silent for a moment, looking at them with unblinking eyes, then she went on, “You are now living in a convent. It is a sisterhood of God. All the sisters here have devoted themselves to Christ and his work. At present that work is looking after the wounded men who come to us from the front. All men—” She paused and then repeated, “All men, no matter which side of the battle. You understand?”

  “Soldiers, whether they are French, Canadian or English,” Sarah reiterated.

  Reverend Mother’s eyes never left their faces, “French, English, Canadian… or German. They are all God’s children.” Neither Molly nor Sarah offered any comment after this statement, and the nun went on. “We work for Our Lord Jesus Christ and we live as a sisterhood. There are rules by which we live. The religious ones do not affect you; you are not part of our sisterhood, but our house rules are yours whilst you are with us. You may not leave the convent without permission. You take orders from any sister who is set in authority over you. You keep your heads covered at all times.” She paused again, her eyes intent. “Is this understood?”

  Sarah nodded. “Understood, Reverend Mother.”

  The tiny nun allowed herself to smile at them, then and said, “Then I welcome you here, into our home, and thank you for your offers of help in our task. I must remind you that your life here will not be an easy one. You will see sights that no woman should have to see, perform tasks that should need no performance, but if you succeed in seeing and doing these things, you will ease the pain and suffering of many a poor man, the death of many another, and you will ease our work here in Christ Jesus.”

  Molly looked much more uncomfortable at these final words than at any time so far. She had been brought up low Church of England, and all this talk of “Our Lord” and “Christ Jesus”, unnerved and unsettled her. People she knew did not bring Jesus into their conversation, He stayed firmly in the church to be spoken of on Sunday, and then only by the vicar.

  “Now, I will call Sister St Bruno and she will take you to the kitchen for some food. Then someone will show you the wards and introduce you to the sisters with whom you will be working. I have news that we are to receive some more wounded this afternoon, so your work will start at once.” She got to her feet to indicate that the interview was over, reaching for the little bell that would summon Sister St Bruno back into the room, but paused as Molly took her courage into her hands and spoke.

  “Please, Mother—” Molly hesitated over this form of address, but Reverend Mother smiled encouragingly at her and she stumbled on. “I don’t know nothing about nursing, I’m better at cleaning and the like…” Her voice trailed away and the nun said, “We shall use whatever talents you have to the full, Miss Day, never fear. And as to the nursing, I have no doubt you will learn fast as we’ve all had to.”

  “Yes, Mother, I will try.” Molly paused again and then emboldened by nun’s kind manner, added, “And please could I just be called Molly? Miss Day doesn’t feel like me.”

  This brought a real smile to Reverend Mother’s face and she said, “Indeed you may, Molly,” and turning to Sarah she said, “And you shall be called Sarah, it is so much easier for all concerned.” She picked up the small brass bell from the desk and gave it a shake. Immediately Sister St Bruno came in and stood waiting by the door.

  “Please take Sarah and Molly to the kitchen and make sure Sister Marie-Marc gives them something hot to eat.” She smiled across at the two girls. “I’m sure you’re hungry after your journey. Then one of the novices will show you round, help you get your bearings. If the convoy comes this afternoon, I am sure you will be needed at once, if not you’ll start work on the wards tomorrow at six. Go with God.”

  Friday 8th October

  After our long journey we have at last reached the convent at St Croix. It is all very strange to me and I am not sure I like it at all. Miss Sarah and I share a tiny room, like a cell with stone walls and floor. It is very cold in it. We have a bed each and there is a chair and a chest of drawers, but no other furniture. It will be very strange to share a room with Miss Sarah. She says she doesn’t mind, but getting undressed and such… using the chamber in the night, I’m sure she won’t like it. We have met the Reverend Mother, who is very small but has eyes like a bird of prey. She is in charge of the convent, and all the nuns, who I must call “sister”, do what she tells them. Sister Marie-Paul is a novice. Miss Sarah says that means she is learning to be a nun. Her headdress is different to Miss Sarah’s auntie Anne, Sister St Bruno. Sister M-P showed us the chapel. It is covered in gold and smells of incense, and I don’t like it.

  We have to eat with the nuns in the refectory. The meal is taken in silence and one of the sisters reads while we eat. The reading is in French. I don’t understand, except that I know it is from the Bible. I would hate to be here on my own. I’m to call Miss Sarah “Sarah”. It will be most peculiar, though I tried it out a couple of times on the train. Even though she’d told me to, I think she was surprised when I did.

  9

  The silence in the refectory was only broken by the voice of Sister Lucie, reading from the gospel of St Matthew, and the sound of spoon on bowl as the sisters ate their evening meal of soup, bread and cheese. Sarah and Molly were seated at the end of a long table with Sister Marie-Paul and the other novices. By listening carefully, Sarah found she could follow the reading, but Molly had no idea what it was about, and she let her eyes rove over the austere room and its occupants as she ate her soup. The sisters fascinated her. She had never seen a nun at close quarters before today, and she was intrigued by everything about them; the way they moved everywhere without haste, coasting along smoothly in their flowing habits as if they ran on oiled castors; the way they tucked their hands, when not needed, into their wide sleeves; the way they held their heads high and steady to accommodate their fly-away headdresses.

  Had they, Molly wondered, donned this measured way of moving when they had donned their habits? Or did some of them, the younger ones anyway, still have to quell the urge to run or skip or dance, as Molly often found herself doing, simply for the joy of the sun on her face and being alive. She could not imagine turning away from the world with all its richness, and walling herself up to live such a tightly ordered, strictly disciplined life. Even as she watched them, Molly knew that boring and humdrum as her life had been so far, she could never turn away from it. Eternally the optimist, she was sure there was something better or more exciting just over the horizon; after all, only a month ago, she would never have thought to find herself in France, indeed she could hardly believe it now.

  The nuns had all filed silently into the refectory and waited, each standing behind a chair, until Reverend Mother came in. She said grace and they all sat d
own. The sister at the head of each table ladled soup from a tureen into bowls and when everyone was served, Mother picked up her spoon and at this signal, they all began to eat. Even the way they ate their food seemed alien to Molly as she watched them spoon soup into their mouths, and each breaking a piece from one of the long loaves, before passing it to the sister next to her. A dish of cheese was passed from hand to hand without a word and everyone had a glass of water at her place. Molly drinking from her own, discovered it immediately refilled by the novice on her right. No request was necessary, while eating her own food, each sister looked after the needs of those beside her.

  In the meantime, the voice of the nun who read droned on in French, and Molly decided she must at least learn the basics of the language. She caught Sarah’s eye and they exchanged smiles of encouragement. Sarah might be a Catholic, but the convent environment was as strange to her as it was to Molly and it was comforting to both to have the other one there.

  The only place where Sarah had felt instantly at home was in the chapel. During their tour of the convent that afternoon, Sister Marie-Paul had taken them into it. It was a lofty building, its high roof supported by elegantly arching beams. Most of the chapel was shadowed, but its east end glowed with candlelight. A statue of the Virgin, arms reaching out in supplication, stood to one side of the altar; and before this were rows of tiny votive candles, their flames, disturbed by the opening of the door, flickering and flaring. The altar, dressed in richly embroidered cloth gleamed and glinted as the flickering light danced across it and the heavily gilded reredos behind it reflected the moving flames in a golden glow. Above the altar hung a single red sanctuary light, and kneeling before it was a single nun, her hands clasped together, her head bowed in prayer.

  Molly drew back uncomfortably from the scene. She thought the gilding garish, so different was it from the simplicity of the parish church in Charlton Ambrose, and she found the smell of incense that hung in the air unpleasantly sickly and sweet. The kneeling nun seemed entirely unaware of their presence at the back of the chapel, but even so Molly felt like some sort of voyeur, watching as she prayed, so intimate seemed her prayer.