The Lost Soldier

by Costeloe Diney

  When at last she was sent to have her own, she met Molly in the kitchen and slumped on to a chair with a groan.

  “Oh Molly!” she cried pushing the hated cap from her head. “I’m exhausted and it isn’t even eight o’clock yet. How will I ever last all day?” She looked ruefully at her hands that were red from the cold water and the carbolic soap.

  Molly, who had had much the same to do, smiled at her and said cheerfully, “You’ll get used to it!”

  “I’m to make all the beds when I get back,” Sarah groaned. “I can make a bed of course,” she said, “but certainly not fast enough or neatly enough to please Sister Bernadette. She’s shown me what to do, but most of the time she thinks it would be quicker if she gave it to someone else.” She sighed. “Trouble is, Molly, that she’s right! I don’t think I’m an asset to ward four!”

  “Of course you are.” Molly was reassuring. “You may not be as fast at the work as other people are, but if you weren’t doing it, someone else would have to be taken off another job.”

  “I suppose so.” Sarah didn’t sound convinced, but as they washed up their plates and cups before going back to the wards she made an effort to cheer up. It was only the first morning of the first day, for heaven’s sake, she told herself fiercely, she couldn’t admit defeat yet, and Molly seemed to be coping. When Sarah had asked her what it was like in ward one, she had replied, “Not too bad. Sister Eloise speaks a little English, and with sign language we seem to communicate all right. Mostly it’s very clear what has to be done. Sister Marie-Paul is there too, so between them they make me understand.”

  They left the kitchen to return to their wards so that the next set of nuns could go for their breakfast, and as they parted in the yard outside, Molly grinned impishly at Sarah and said, “As for the bed-making, I can teach you to do that properly and you can practise in our room.” She giggled and added, “You can make my bed every morning until you can do it as quickly as I can!”

  Both girls laughed, and it was still with a smile on her lips that Sarah returned to ward four and the eagle eye of Sister Bernadette.

  She spent the rest of the morning helping with the beds, taking trolleys round, distributing food, collecting rubbish and emptying ashtrays that seemed to refill themselves as quickly as she emptied them.

  During the morning Sister Magdalene, the matron, made her rounds and Sarah and Molly soon learnt that this was an unvarying routine. She would sweep into the ward and immediately the nuns ceased whatever they were doing and stood silently ranged round the room while she completed her inspection. Occasionally she snapped out a question, which was answered by the sister in charge of the ward, occasionally she reprimanded someone for some error or neglect. Molly and Sarah soon learned to make sure there was not a thing out of place; one blanket untidily tucked in, one scrap on the floor, and the person responsible would get the rough side of Sister Magdalene’s tongue. She seldom spoke to any of the patients as she had no English and few of them spoke French, but they would pull wry faces behind her back and send sympathetic smiles to Sarah or Molly if her sharp comments were addressed to them. Doctors’ rounds were a far more relaxed affair, though the men greeted the doctor with a mixture of hope and fear. Dr Gergaud, the French surgeon or one of the medical officers from the convalescent camp, Major Jackson, or Captain Dale, were the men who attended to all the patients. It was they who decided when a man should be sent home to England for treatment; who was too ill to travel, who should remain to make his recovery here, ready to return to the lines. These men moved quietly from bed to bed, escorted by the sister in charge, inspecting wounds, ordering treatments and dressings, and the men watched them, hoping desperately to be marked for home. Sarah could see the hope die in their eyes as they were told it would be the restoration ward and then the convalescent camp, or relief burst on their faces when they heard theirs was a “Blighty one” and they were going home.

  Most of Sarah’s time was spent in the most menial tasks in the ward, but there were occasions she had to help feed men who were unable to feed themselves. One, a young Scots private, had lost his right arm completely, leaving only a stump at the shoulder; his left arm ended in a bandaged stump at the wrist, his hand shot away by a German machine gunner. Sarah could see he was in great pain, and exhausted from having the dressings changed. She sat beside his bed with a bowl of soup in her hand and spooned it into his mouth. She tried not to look at the bandaged stump and the empty pyjama sleeve, but Private Iain Macdonald was not one to accept pity, nor slip into self-pity either for that matter. He managed a grin and said to her, “Good thing I’m left handed, aye? When I get back to Blighty they’re going to fix me up with a new hand, right and tight.” He winked at her and added softly, “Pity in some ways. I shan’t get a pretty young lady like you to sit by my side once I don’t need the feeding!”

  Sarah was both touched and saddened by his courage, but over the following days and weeks she saw courage like it time and time again. Private Macdonald was typical of the men who came through the wards, brave and stoical about their wounds, and relieved to have them classed as “Blighty ones” and to know they were going home; thankful their war was over, even though their struggling civilian lives were only about to begin.

  Long years after Private Macdonald had been shipped home to England, Sarah could still hear his slightly mocking voice as he walked out to the wagon that was to take him to the train in Albert and home saying, “I’m off to found a dynasty. There must be some poor girl desperate enough to settle for a wreck of a man with no hands.” Still no self-pity in the tone, just statement of fact with a hint of mockery, a touch of bitterness, in the smile that accompanied it. She would have grasped his hands in hers, but he had none, so impulsively she reached up and kissed his cheek. He looked taken aback, but his smile was transformed into a genuine one, lighting his eyes and making him look even younger than his nineteen years.

  “If she can’t see past your hands she’s not worth having,” Sarah told him. “Good luck, Private Macdonald.”

  Her display of emotion cost her a huge dressing down from Sister Bernadette who had witnessed it through the window of the ward and come sailing out, habit flying behind her, head-dress flapping round her ears.

  “Mademoiselle Hurst! You must not become involved with the men in the ward!” she expostulated. “It is unkind to raise their hopes in this way and not at all comme il faut.”

  “Raise their hopes?” Sarah ventured to defend herself. “I was simply saying goodbye and wishing him luck. I could hardly shake him by the hand, could I?” she added imprudently.

  It was a mistake. Sister Bernadette bristled with indignation, her face mottling with anger.

  “You will not answer me back, young lady. In this place you will be obedient to your superiors and if they need to correct you in anything, you will listen in silence and learn from what they say. Do you understand?” She fixed Sarah with a steely glare and Sarah had the wit to say no more than, “Yes, Sister.”

  “I hope you do,” said the nun. “Now, there are a stack of bedpans in the ward scullery which need scouring. Please make sure they are all done before you go to have your lunch. We shall need them before afternoon rounds.”

  Sarah knew that there would be plenty of time to do this job, one she hated, and one that Sister Bernadette knew she hated, after the midday meal, but she did not argue. She had already discovered to her cost that arguing with Sister Bernadette got her precisely nowhere except into the realm of even more unpleasant work. Sister Bernadette, she was sure, did not approve of her being there at all, and never missed an opportunity to find fault. Sarah was quite prepared to carry out the most menial tasks in the ward, thus releasing the nuns with nursing experience to do the actual nursing, but she did resent the way in which such orders were issued. She turned her attention to the offending bedpans, but she never forgot Private Macdonald. He had been her first real patient, the first man she had actually helped, and he continued in her pray
ers long after he had left.

  Gradually she and Molly got into the routine of life at St Croix. Their few hours off did not always coincide, but when they did Reverend Mother allowed the girls to walk to the village, to the post office and the village shop, provided they always stayed together. Sometimes they went across to the tented village of the convalescent camp to see how any of their erstwhile patients were doing; and though it would not have been allowed had it been known, they occasionally had a piece of cake and a glass of wine in the estaminet run by Madame Juliette in the village.

  Madame Juliette’s was no more than the large front room of her tiny house, with extra tables standing outside when the weather allowed. The first time they went there was when they were looking for somewhere to buy some cake or biscuits to supplement their rather meagre fare at the convent. It wasn’t that they were ever really hungry, the food served in the refectory was plentiful enough, but it was dull and unimaginative in the extreme, consisting of thin stews or casseroles, with vegetables and small pieces of meat floating about in grey gravy and nondescript fish, also grey, on a Friday. Both Molly and Sarah found that they were craving for something sweet. Madame Juliette had a sign outside her establishment advertising beer, wine and “gateaux”.

  Eagerly the girls went in through the open door and found themselves in a café bar. There were a few people in there, but Madame Juliette bustled forward, looking vaguely disapproving, to ask what they were doing there.

  Sarah explained they wanted to eat some gateaux, and Madame Juliette, hearing the accent, relaxed a little.

  “You’re English,” she said in a voice that said that explained everything. “You are the young ladies working at the convent, yes?”

  Sarah agreed that they were and asked again if they could buy some gateaux.

  “Of course,” Madame said. “Please sit here at this table.” She indicated a small round table crammed into a corner by the window, where they could view the rest of the room and see into the “Place” outside. She had produced some flat-looking biscuits made with oatmeal and a jar of honey to spread on them. The girls were enchanted. This was exactly what they needed, something filling and sweet.

  “Have you any tea?” Sarah ventured to ask, though she thought it most unlikely, “And even if she has,” she murmured to Molly as it was being fetched, “it’ll probably be undrinkable!”

  Madame Juliette produced tea; it was much as Sarah had feared, though they managed to drink one cup each so as not to upset their hostess, but she also brought a carafe of wine.

  “You will be tired from working in the hospital,” she told them. “This will refresh you.”

  To please her they each drank a mouthful from the glasses she poured, and found that though it was not like any wine Sarah had tasted before, it was not unpleasant. Molly had never tasted wine, so to her the whole thing was a new experience. Afraid it would go straight to her head she only sipped from her glass, but she found she liked the taste once she got used to it.

  On fine afternoons they walked beside the river that wound its way through the village and out into the water meadows, where a few cattle still grazed and tenacious willows clung to the bank. They would sit for a while in the autumn sunshine, glad to be away from the wards and the smell of disinfectant, and watch the dark brown water slide by. Sometimes they took their gateaux with them as a picnic. They had found an old stone barn, and as the weather grew colder and the ground became hard and chill, they would sit in the barn, eating their picnic among the hay bales. Then November was upon them and on most days it was too cold to linger, and after a brisk walk along the bank they would return to the snug stuffiness of the estaminet for their oatcakes and honey.

  Neither of them thought it necessary to mention these visits to the sisters. They allowed the nuns to think that they walked for exercise in the strange way of “les Anglais” and as they had no wish to find they were banned from leaving the convent, they could only hope no word of their patronage of the estaminet would leak back from the village. Molly, particularly, found the convent buildings almost suffocating. When she was working she never gave the place a thought, but the minute she left the ward and went to the refectory, or up to their room, she felt the walls crowding in on her and she longed to run out through the front door and draw great gulps of fresh air into her lungs so that she didn’t suffocate.

  Occasionally Sarah went to Mass in the convent chapel. She found the remembered words and rituals soothing after the hard work and bitter reality of the ward. The soft, golden light in the chapel and the fragrance of the incense calmed her anger at so much wasted humanity and took the edge off her despair at her inability to do anything about it.

  However, despite gentle suggestions from Sister Marie-Paul that she, too, might like to attend, Molly steadfastly refused to go. She never went into the chapel, simply saying her prayers at her bedside as she had always done. Until that was, she started talking to Robert Kingston. He was the English padre, attached to the convalescent camp, who came almost every day to the convent hospital to visit the men. He was a cheerful young man who worked hard with the men in his care, doing his best to keep their spirits up, with a strong belief that, by bringing them spiritual strength, he could help to rebuild their physical strength.

  His approach was practical. He joked with them, helped them write letters, brought them cigarettes, papers and chocolate that he received regularly from his family in England. Sometimes he prayed with them, sometimes he sat quietly listening to them talk of their families and home, and all too often he was at their bedsides as they slipped away from their agony into eternal peace. It was then his care to see them carried to the ever-growing cemetery beyond the convalescent camp and bury them, under a new white wooden cross, beside their comrades already lying there.

  The nuns treated him with distant politeness, particularly Sister Marie-Paul, who felt, in the zeal of her noviciate, that he ran an extremely poor second to Father Gaston who visited the French wounded; but they could see that he was a comfort to many a dying man, and gave him a cautious welcome.

  Molly was always pleased to see him, and once she had overcome her initial shyness, chatted with him cheerfully whenever he came into her ward. One day he mentioned the chapel he had made at the camp, converting a tent into a small place of worship each Sunday. He suggested that she might like to come through to the camp one Sunday to attend a service.

  “There is one every Sunday, morning and evening,” he told her. “We should be delighted if you could come and join us.”

  Molly looked doubtful. “I’d have to ask Reverend Mother,” she said. “She might not let me come on my own.”

  “Well, do ask her,” the padre said, “and if there is a problem I will speak to her myself. I can’t see any reason why she should object. It’s not as if you were going down to the village alone, you’d simply have to walk out through the garden gate and into the camp. I will arrange to have someone escort you if necessary.”

  So Molly took her courage in her hands and sought out Reverend Mother. To her surprise, Reverend Mother agreed readily enough. She had seen how uncomfortable Molly was with the spiritual side of the convent, and, unlike Sister Marie-Paul, had not pressed her to join in.

  “You may go when you are not needed in the ward,” she said. “It would be best if you go in the evening, then you will able to work in the morning when the sisters want to go to Mass. It will suit everybody, hein? Father Robert will provide you with an escort from the gate, yes?”

  After that, each Sunday evening that she could be spared, Molly would slip away through the convent garden gate into the camp. She let the padre know when she was able to attend and a soldier would always be waiting to escort her through the camp to the makeshift church. There, she was made welcome, and though she was sometimes the only woman in the congregation, Molly never felt ill at ease or embarrassed among the men. They were only too pleased to see her and soon she knew many of them by name, not only those she ha
d seen in the wards, but others who had come from elsewhere. It was another escape from the confines of the convent, and Molly came to look forward to her Sunday evenings outside its walls.

  The letters came as a bolt from the blue. Sarah had been writing dutifully every week to her father as she had promised, and she had received occasional replies written in his scrawling hand. Mostly they contained brief news of the household and the people she knew, but Sir George was no great letter-writer and they tended to be short and matter of fact. This one, however, was angry and as she read it Sarah could almost feel his fury in the paper, and his handwriting, always an impatient scribble, was worse than ever as his anger outstripped his hand.

  My dear Sarah,

  What on earth have you done, persuading that silly girl Molly to go with you to France without her father’s permission? How could you do such a thing? I met him in town the other day and he told me she was to leave our employ at once and come back to live with him and her mother on the farm. He wants her to get a job in the munitions factory at Belmouth. He said he had told her to give in her notice weeks ago, and since then they had seen neither hide nor hair of her and when was she coming home? He had no idea she had gone to France and had certainly never given her leave to go. As you can imagine he is extremely angry, as I am myself. How could you allow such a thing to occur? Whatever made you take the girl without the knowledge and consent of her parents? They have been wondering why she had not been home and now they are worried out of their minds for her safety. He is even muttering something about kidnap, though that is surely a piece of fudge. I am in an extremely awkward position now and think that Molly should come home immediately. She is still under age and though she works for us she is still under the guardianship of her father.