The Lost Soldier

by Costeloe Diney

  Sarah, on the other hand, had felt a jolt of recognition. As she entered the place, she was moved by the aura of sanctity that filled it, loving the richness of its decoration, and inhaling the fragrance of the incense as the fragrance of prayer itself. This was the sort of church she loved, the house of prayer made as beautiful for God as man knew how, and the peace of it reached out to her, soothing her and calming the fears so near the surface of her life. The scent of the incense and the dancing light of the candles carried her back to another church, the church of her early childhood, where she attended Mass with her mother. They had walked into church one day and Sarah had asked what the smell was. Her mother had smiled and answered that it was the scent of prayers rising in an endless stream to God in heaven. Sarah remembered little of her mother, but she had never forgotten this answer, and found the idea of prayers rising steadily like a column of smoke extremely comforting.

  Sister Marie-Paul indicated the sanctuary light and whispered, “The sacrament is always reserved and never left unattended. Some one is always with Our Lord.”

  This murmured confidence made Molly feel more uncomfortable still, and she backed out of the door to wait outside, leaving Sarah and the novice to kneel for a moment in prayer, before coming away and softly closing the door behind them.

  “Mother said to remind you that you are welcome to any of our offices, or to the daily Mass if you are not on duty in the wards. Father Jean comes twice a day most days as we cannot all attend Mass at the same time.”

  Sarah had thanked her, already deciding she would go when she could; but Molly said nothing, looking away so as to avoid the sister’s eye. She had no intention of going into the chapel again unless she absolutely had to, she did not believe in worshipping the Virgin Mary, and the idea of Mass, chanted in Latin, with smells and bells, made her Protestant soul shudder.

  As they moved away from the chapel and back towards the hospital area, Sarah squeezed Molly’s hand and murmured, “Don’t worry. You don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”

  Molly had given her a faint smile and whispered firmly, “No.”

  Sarah was surprised at the firmness with which Molly answered her; she would never have presumed to speak to Sarah that way even a day ago.

  In the refectory, they had only been seated for five minutes when a nun, swathed in a huge white apron, scurried into the room and made her way to Reverend Mother’s side, whispering hastily into her ear. Mother set down her spoon, and all the other nuns did so too.

  “Sisters,” said Mother, “the convoy of wounded has reached St Croix. They will be with us at once. Please finish your meal as quickly as possible. We will all be needed. Please go to your usual stations as soon as you are ready.”

  Sarah made a brief translation for Molly in the flurry of noise and activity as the meal was finished quickly and the nuns left the tables. Clearly everyone knew where she should be except the two English girls, and Sarah, caught hold of Sister Marie-Paul’s arm as she prepared to leave her place.

  “Where should we go?” she asked in French. “What should Molly and I do to help?”

  “You must ask Sister St Bruno,” the novice replied. “She will tell you.”

  At that moment Sister St Bruno appeared at their side. “It would be of most help today if you were to take the name and regiment of each man as he arrives. We have to keep detailed records of our patients, names are not really enough, but they are a start.” She spoke in English to be sure that Molly could understand her. “Come with me and I will give you the notebooks.”

  She took them through the cavernous entrance hall to a small room on the side where she produced the pads and pencils they would need for their task and then gave them their instructions.

  “Rule the pages into columns,” she instructed. “Name, number, regiment.” She looked at them seriously. “Some of these men will be in a bad way,” she said, “and you will have to rely on their friends to give you what information they can.” She led them to the great front door which now stood open, and said, “Wait outside here and as the ambulances unload, write everything down. The drivers should have the names of those who can’t answer for themselves, but they don’t always. Each man will be assessed by Sister Magdalene and then taken round to the wards. Note down which ward.”

  Sister St Bruno had taken them to meet Sister Magdalene before the evening meal.

  “She is the matron here,” Sister St Bruno told them, “with overall responsibility for the running of the hospital. Of course she refers to Mother, but in practice her word is law, like any other matron.”

  Sister Magdalene had welcomed them, promised them plenty of exhausting work, and handed them back to Sister St Bruno.

  Sister St Bruno bustled off round the side of the building, leaving Sarah and Molly standing by the door, looking down the hill towards the village. It felt perfectly normal to Molly to be wearing a cap, but as Sarah waited by the door for the men to arrive she kept fiddling with hers trying to settle it comfortably on her head.

  “This cap is very uncomfortable,” she murmured to Molly who smiled and replied, “You’ll get used to it!”

  Darkness was slipping across the cold autumn sky, but in the dusk they could make out some sort of vehicle lumbering up the hill, a lantern on its front, pulled by a huge cart horse. It bounced and jolted on its iron-rimmed wheels, jarring to further agony the injured men who were lying inside it. Behind it came several more, the sound of their wheels sharp and rattling against the stony track that led to the convent gate.

  Someone had switched on an outside light, and several lanterns were lit and hanging from wall hooks along the outside wall, but the eerie flickering of these made it difficult to see anything not in an immediate pool of light. As the first vehicle pulled up in front of the door, Sarah moved forwards to speak to the driver, but he sprang down from his seat and went round to the back of the wagon. She stared in horror as the door was dragged open and she saw the state of those inside it. Two other men had jumped down from the front and run round to the back to begin heaving out the stretchers and the soldiers who lay moaning upon them. As she approached, Sarah was assailed by a hideous stench that wafted in an almost tangible cloud from the ambulance. Her recoil was instinctive, and it took all her strength of will for Sarah not to cover her nose and turn away coughing, her revulsion clear to see. But this was her first day, and she was conscious of the nuns and felt they were watching her for signs of weakness, though in fact none had time for any such thing. Every one of them had her job to do, and no time to be checking on whether the English girls had the stomach for the work. Gripping her notepad and pencil tightly in her hand, Sarah stood by the emerging stretcher.

  “I must have his name,” Sarah said urgently to one of the men, “and his regiment.” The man shook his head, exhaustion showing in his own bloodshot eyes. “Don’t know, miss,” he said, wearily. “There’s a list somewhere, but I can’t tell you which is which.” He turned back to the task in hand, and he and his mate pulled the first casualty clear of the cart. The man was lying on his back, a makeshift bandage round his head, the blanket covering him, caked with blood. A sour smell hung about him that Sarah later came to recognise as a combination of urine, faeces, blood and putrid flesh. For now it was just an almost overpowering stench and once again she had to fight the urge to turn away, retching. His hands plucked at the blanket and his whole body seemed to be shaking. As the stretcher-bearers took a better grip on the stretcher to carry it round to the waiting wards at the back, Sarah reached out and touched the twisting hands. “Tell me your name,” she said gently. “Tell me who you are.”

  “Hodgson. Charlie Hodgson,” came the muttered reply, and the hand broke free to continue pulling at the blood-soaked blanket. “Charlie Hodgson. Charlie Hodgson.” The man continued to mumble his name as he was carried away.

  “Ward three.” A sharp voice called to the stretcher-bearers. After one look at Charlie Hodgson, in the light of the lantern that h
ung above her head, Sister Magdalene, had directed the men to the ward where few of the casualties were expected to live.

  As the stretchers were unloaded from the ambulances, Molly and Sarah wrote names and details as far as they could, always adding which ward as Sister Magdalene directed the bearers. But the ambulances were not the end of things. A column of men toiled up the hill from the village, following the ambulances in a seemingly never-ending line. Some struggled on makeshift crutches, leaned on sticks or were supported by their less seriously injured companions.

  Sarah stared at them as they plodded wearily in through the gate towards her, to wait patiently to be dealt with in turn.

  “Where have they come from?” she whispered in French to Sister Marie-Paul who was also helping with lists.

  The novice shrugged. “From Albert.” she replied. “The train brings them to Albert.” She hurried forward to help another sister with a man who had simply pitched forward on to the ground in front of them.

  “From Albert?” Sarah repeated incredulously, thinking of how long it had taken them that morning on the carrier’s cart. “These men have walked all the way from Albert?”

  “They have indeed,” agreed a sharp voice behind her. “And I’ve no doubt they’d be grateful if you would stop staring at them and get on with taking their names so that they can be looked after.”

  Sarah flushed with mortification as she turned to see a nun she did not yet know at her shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she muttered and went forward again to speak to the men who still toiled in through the gate.

  Despite their exhaustion, many of these walking wounded were resolutely cheerful and grinned back at her tiredly as she fixed a smile on her face to greet them. They gave their names and details and then sat down on the ground to wait to be told what to do. A novice appeared from somewhere carrying a huge tureen of soup that she set up on the step. Ladling soup into bowls, she gave them to Molly who carried them to the weary men sitting patiently on the ground. There were no spoons, but the men tilted the bowls to their mouths, drinking the warm soup greedily, the first hot food they had received in days.

  As the last of the men were accounted for, Sarah set aside her notebook and went to help with the distribution of the food, tearing long loaves into pieces and handing each man his share.

  Sister St Bruno appeared at Molly’s side and said, “We need you in the ward now. Sarah can stay and help Sister Marie-Marc with the food.”

  Surprised to be the one chosen as she had no pretence of nursing skills, Molly followed Sarah’s aunt round the building to the courtyard. She was led into one of the wards where wounded men lay, some still on stretchers, some on the floor.

  “We’re having to move some of the convalescent men out to make room,” Sister St Bruno said quickly. “There’re clean sheets on that table at the far end. Please strip and remake the beds as they empty. You can start with that one there.” The nun indicated a bed at the end of a row where a man, still in pyjamas, was standing, his few possessions already gathered into a bag. He had a stick beside him.

  “Where are they going to go?” asked Molly as she started to strip a bed.

  “They go to a ward in the main building,” replied Sister St Bruno. “We call it the restoration ward. It’s the sort of halfway house before they move on to the convalescent camp in the meadow.” She glanced round the ward and added, “As quick as you can now, Molly.”

  This was work Molly was used to. She stood at the end of the bed, stripping the soiled sheets towards her and tossing them aside, folding the thin blankets into a tidy pile. Then with practised ease she flipped the clean sheets on to the bed, letting them float upwards to billow out before they settled flat and straight on the bed ready to be tucked in neatly at the corners. The blankets followed with a shake and an arch. It took her less than two minutes to strip and remake each bed with the sheets from the table. The dirty linen she put in a heap at one end of the ward, and saw it being heaved away by one of the novices.

  Sister St Bruno watched her approvingly for a moment before leaving her to it, confident that the job was being done as quickly and efficiently as possible, and thinking that at least Molly would be of use to them; she wasn’t so sure about her niece, only time would tell.

  The patients vacating the beds disappeared into the main part of the building, led by Sister St Bruno, and men brought in and allocated a bed immediately took their places. Many of these collapsed fully dressed and exhausted on to the clean sheets Molly had prepared for them, only to be pulled up by Sister Eloise, who ran this particular ward.

  All modesty flew out of the door as the nuns under her guidance, helped the men strip and wash away, as far as possible, the filth that had coated them in the trenches and on the battlefield, and the lice which were their constant companions. Often the only way to remove the caked and stinking garments was to slice through them with a huge pair of scissors, and peel them away from the dank and grimy body underneath. Under instruction from Sister Eloise, Molly stood by bedside after bedside, holding a washing bowl of warm water, her eyes averted from the revealed bodies, trying to allow them some semblance of privacy and the dignity it might bring, but most of the men were beyond dignity. The fact that it was a young nun or any young woman who gave them a blanket bath and then eased them into clean pyjamas and lowered them on to the thin mattress of a clean bed, ceased to impinge upon them. Tattered and filthy bandages were left in place until the overworked doctors had had a chance to look at each man. Many then had to face the agony of having the blood-soaked field dressings removed, the bandages pulling viciously at early scabbing and revealing oozing pus and the putrid flesh that exuded it.

  For the next five hours Molly did nothing but fetch and carry bowls of hot water from the kitchen; tipping the foul water away into the outside drain before refilling the bowl from one of the cauldrons which stood on the kitchen range. The three nuns who were nursing in that ward moved methodically from bed to bed, until every man was washed, his filthy, lice ridden clothes taken away to be cleaned if possible, to be burned if not, along with the soiled bandages, none of which could ever be re-used.

  Sarah, left out in the driveway with the walking wounded, finished distributing the food and followed Sister Marie-Paul round with a large pitcher of water and a glass, giving each man a drink before moving on to the next. As each man was assigned to a ward, Sarah noted the number against his name. Gradually the line of men grew shorter. Despite the cold, some of the men had fallen asleep where they sat, finally overcome by their exhaustion.

  It was the early hours of the morning before the two girls crawled into bed with the promise from Sister St Bruno that she would wake them for their shift at six.

  “That’s only three hours,” groaned Sarah as she stripped off her now soiled apron and crumpled cap, threw her clothes over the chair and eased her aching body on to the bed.

  “Well, make the most of it,” Molly said and turned out the light. Each lay in the darkness, thinking about the day, but it was only moments before she slid into the deepest sleep, and only moments more before Sister St Bruno was shaking them awake again, to start another day.

  Saturday 9th October

  We hardly had any sleep last night as a convoy of wounded men came in and we didn’t get to bed until nearly three in the morning! When we went on duty soon after six I thought I wouldn’t be able to keep my eyes open. We have quite a lot of work to do before we are released to go to the kitchen for some breakfast. Miss Sarah and I are in different wards, so we had a lot to talk about. Don’t think she likes her ward much, she’s got that Sister Bernadette who shouted at her last night. I’m lucky, I’m so used to making beds and doing general cleaning I don’t find the work difficult, though we could do with a new scrubbing brush, and a broom too! Some of the men are very bad, but others are quite cheerful and chirpy. They have all been asking who I am and where I come from. One asked me if I was going to become a nun and I said not likely and he laughed and said
good, because they’d need lots of pretty girls to come home to at the end of the war. I didn’t know where to look when he said this, but he laughed and winked and said that I must know that I’m a pretty girl. I said go on with you, and we both laughed, but then Sister Eloise, who’s the sister in charge of my ward told me off for wasting time. Lucky she don’t speak much English!

  10

  Next morning the two girls were at work in the wards from just after six, in fresh aprons and caps, and continued there until they had a short break for some breakfast. For those working on the wards the breakfast was served in shifts in the kitchen, and by the time Sarah and Molly were called they were both very hungry and ready for the hot chocolate and fresh bread and jam that constituted the meal.

  They were not working in the same ward so they had experiences to exchange as they ate. The silence at meals rule did not appear to operate in the kitchen, for although the other nuns who were eating with them did not converse, it was more likely habit that kept them silent than a hard and fast rule. It seemed they had no objection to the girls chatting away in English

  Sarah was working in ward four which was run by Sister Bernadette. Her heart had sunk when she reported for duty that morning and discovered that Sister Bernadette was the sharp-voiced nun who had chided her the previous evening for wasting time.

  Sister Bernadette spoke no English, but greeted her briskly in French and set her to work sweeping out the ward and then scrubbing the floor with an elderly scrubbing brush, carbolic soap and a pail of cold water. The floor was covered in tough linoleum, but was constantly made dirty by tramping feet coming in from the courtyard. This morning there were also traces of mud and blood from the arrival of the new wounded the previous night, and these stains must be scrubbed away and the clean floor washed through with disinfectant. Sarah had thought she was prepared for such hard work, but it proved to be much harder than she expected and she was soon scolded for taking so long. Wiping down surfaces was easier, though Sister Bernadette kept an eagle eye on her to be sure she was thorough and missed nothing. She was then set to carrying heavy pails of hot water from the kitchen so that the round of washing could begin before the men were given their breakfast.